Singing rain songs
Bright Daffodils
I've been walking in the rain in my gumboots. And singing rain songs (including that obvious one, hee hee), while collecting floppy wet daffodils for the house. Aargh! My legs get wetter and wetter.
And I don't like how the weather can rule my mental energy. Extreme usually goes with sunny, non-existent means it's raining hard, with a cold, biting wind. The latter is today's ration, I'm afraid.
What's the alternative?
So the alternative is house-work - well, that's the threat I use to motivate myself. What's a gardener supposed to do? Sulk in the glass-house, shivering, hands muddy with potting mix? Too right! But first, sing and dance and walk the dogs. Take photographs, keep moving, keep warm...
Later, Mid-Afternoon...
OK. So I haven't been into the glass-house. But I've finally painted the gnomes who've been sitting patiently in my kitchen for weeks. This is garden-related indoors work, after all. Have almost run out of red for their hats. Bright red hats are really important for a gnome's status.
More Gnomes Painted
Next Day, Still Raining...
All I did today was to finish painting the gnomes, and give them their shiny coating (which they object to). Gnomes are oddly vain about their complexions, too. They've objected to rouged cheeks and noses - people might think that they've been drinking! I've explained to them that it makes them look 'more alive'...
I did put in a couple of shivery hours in the glass-house sowing more seeds. I found various seed packets from - oops - last year which hadn't even been opened. Cross fingers that I will be a responsible nursery-person this spring and actually follow through.
I've repotted most of the Cannas. I don't understand how Canna tubers work. Do ones that have flowered stay alive? Lots of pieces of mine have gone black. Rotted? Too cold? Ask Mister Google. Yes, I should have packed them into boxes and stored them on a shelf in my basement. Oops. No basement. But I'm still puzzled. Driving in the country I see clumps of them growing out in the open, often by rural gateposts. They must get frosted.
Pink Blossom
Wednesday 5th September
Aha! A day without drizzle, and a kitchen full of shiny gnomes ready for repatriation to the pond. But the garden is extremely drippy and wet, and a cold wind is sneaking around. I am reminded that the notion of spring arriving on the first day of September is rather arbitrary, a southern hemisphere, person-made theory.
To stay warm outside I could trying my hand at some manual (oxymoron?) wood splitting. Yet more gnomes need to come inside to be scrubbed clean and painted. Then there's always weeding. Hmm. There's always weeding.
Middle Path