Bottlebrush

I thought I'd go ahead a get a short post in this evening because I discovered a new plant flowering in my back yard.  It's a red bottlebrush.  Isn't it pretty?  I didn't notice it before because it's almost the same color as the fence.


The people who owned this house before me spent a lot of time planting random plants, shrubs and flowers around the place, but so far I have no cause for complaint.  Everything that's coming up has been flowering.  It's an amazing thing.  And kind of fun because I never know what's going to flower next or what it may look like.  So far I'm proud to admit I've been able to figure out what the plants are from the flowers.   Of course there are lots of plants around the place that don't flower, and those I don't really know what they are.   

I did end up re-potting things yesterday.  I even made up my mind and re-potted the two little pine trees into a deeper pot.  We'll see if they grow taller now.  I just couldn't bring myself to purposely stunt them.  Guess I'll never make a bonsai gardener.  Anyway, they survived the re-potting and seem happy so far in their new pot.  I moved the moss with them - just essentially picked the whole thing up out of the shallow silver box and put it on top of soil in a deeper pot.  Hopefully it will all thrive there.

I also re-potted the Wandering Jew and the spider plant (airplane plant?).  All the re-potted things seem to have survived the process with no ill effects.  I also pulled my aloe vera out of the patio corner where I had them huddled against the winter freezes.  I pulled out the limbs that were dead and/or dying from freeze damage.  The plants are actually making a good comeback and look better now that they are cleaned out somewhat.


So I ended up pottering around the house yesterday as well as puttering.  It was a perfect day for it, and kind of a nice relaxing way to spend a Sunday.

That's it.  Just wanted to post my newest backyard flower.   

Sunny Sunday

I do so like this house early in the morning, and especially on a sunny morning.  There's so much natural light.  And of course, sunshine never fails to lift my spirits.

Not that I'm particularly in need of having my spirits lifted.  It just makes me happy to see the sun. And the cat kids like to lay in the sun when it's not hot early in the morning.

I'm home for a full weekend this weekend, which is a little unusual here lately.  So I'm doing all the puttering around the house chores - laundry, mopping and vacuuming, dusting, cleaning up cat areas, cleaning up kitchen, etc, etc.  It's just a nice, quiet, puttering Sunday, which is really my favorite kind.  I may do some plant potting later.  I should plant those two cuttings that I picked up from the ground at the garden place and put in dirt, the Wandering Jew and the airplane plant.  They're both doing well, and should probably be put in bigger pots.  And I'm still fighting with myself about whether to put the two little pine trees in a bigger pot.   Whether I pot things today or not will probably depend on how much energy I have left after the house chores. 

I finally got a relatively decent picture of the female red-wing blackbird.  She's very schitzy, so the picture is through the door and not excellent, but you can see her.  The picture of her facing me is even worse, but you can see how dark the markings are on her breast.  That's what finally helped me decide what she was.  I haven't seen the blackbirds or cowbirds around lately, so I'm assuming they can find plenty to eat without the feeder.  I still have plenty of sparrows and house finches and mourning doves though.

The cat kids survived my being away just fine.  They're finally warming up to my pet sitter, which is good since I'm going to be away on trips a fair amount this year.  I really appreciate my pet sitter.  It's just nice to know that someone is going to be at the house at least once a day and that the old lady cats are getting some attention.     

My baby peach trees are struggling this year.  That's another thing I need to do, plant them out in the yard.  I don't think they like the pots, and of course, the weather has been pretty up and down, temperature-wise.  In fact this week the temps are supposed to bounce up and down every day from 50s to 80s.  Even my grass is just starting to come in strongly, which is way late.  And of course we had those two days that dropped down into the upper 30s-low 40s.  Temps like that this late in Texas really seems to throw off growing things.  And add to that a decided lack of rain, it's no wonder things are struggling a little.  My roses are going gangbusters though.  I have roses ranging in color from pale pink to deep red.  No yellows though.  The people before me don't seem to have been much into yellow.  

I've turned my sprinkler system on this year.  I don't know if it's early to be turning it on or late since I moved in here last July.   It feels like it's been a dry year so far.  Lately anyway.  I think the only reason we're not farther behind compared to normal rainfall amounts is that we had decent rain in January.   Hmmmmmm.  While I'm puttering, I should also move the aloe vera out away from the house where they can catch rain when we do get it.  They're still all huddled up near the house for protection from freezing - which didn't work too well, but mostly they survived.

Anyway, I suppose I should get back to the chores.

Coast to Coast

I'm seriously ready to go home. I've been traveling for business this week.  I flew to San Diego last Saturday for a five day meeting.  That's where this lovely flower came from.  I believe it's called a Bird of Paradise flower and they were blooming in front of my hotel.  I took this picture with my phone.

Then early Thursday morning I left San Diego and flew to Savannah, Georgia, where I am now, for a three day meeting.  We have a little break this afternoon, and then will get back together.  We are going to try to do some sightseeing in Savannah today, although the weather has not been cooperating.  It's extremely windy and wet out there, so we'll see how the tourist stuff goes.

Then early tomorrow morning I fly home - which I'm seriously ready for.  It'll be nice to be home and see if I can get my cats to forgive me for being gone for so long.

The interesting thing is that I left my air conditioning on in my house when I left since it was forecasting 80 degree days.  Yesterday morning they had a record low temperature, in the high 30s!  Luckily, on Thursday I flew though Dallas on my way between San Diego and Savannah and realized that it was COLD in Texas.  I asked my pet sitter to turn on the heat for Addy and Zoe.  So they shouldn't be both cold AND pissed off at me.  

The weather has been crazy.  It was cold and rainy in San Diego, it's 70s and wet and windy here, and Dallas has had record lows.  One of the woman at this meeting says they just got 16 inches of snow where she's from in Minnesota, and I think the guy from St. Louis said they have snow too.   Texas temp have been swinging back and forth from 80s to 50s.   It's just been weird-assed frigging weather.

The meetings I've been attending have been going really well.  I'm happy to have them winding down, especially the first one, as I was responsible for a lot of that one.  It's nice that it's over after more than a year of planning.   This second one has felt like something of a free ride since I'm not so responsible for it.  I'm glad their both nearly over though and I can now look forward to vacation time at the end of May. 

Oh yeah, it is May now isn't it?  That happened when I wasn't looking.  Or rather it seems like most of this year so far has happened when I wasn't looking.  Time's moving by way too fast.

Anyway, time to finish up  this post.  I just realized I was past due for one.  Later.   

Blooming time of year

I owe a big thank you to the previous owners of this house for planting flowering perennials that I can enjoy as I try to identify them.  I'd say they had a penchant for pink though, because the majority of blooming things so far have been pink.  Still, I love growing and blooming things, and so far I've got that in spades at this new house.  

Here's another picture of the swallowtail from last week.   He was so nicely cooperative.

Besides the pot of blooming pink azaleas out there, one of my rose bushes is blooming with the biggest pink blossoms I've ever seen on a rose.  These flowers are huge, probably larger than my outspread hand, and really gorgeous.  My rose bush in the front of the house is blooming deep red.  Those roses are gorgeous also, but not as huge as the pink roses in the back.  They're all long stem roses though.

I also have a plant that's blooming with big orange blossoms that I think is an amaryllis.  It's so great to see them all.  I can't wait to see what comes up next.  I also have a lot of mint growing out there, which I'm told I need to start thinning out because it will take over everything. 

I have two big trips coming up in the not too distant future.  One starts next Saturday and is back to back business trips - one in San Diego and the next in Savannah.  I'll be spending 5 days in San Diego then crossing the country to spend 3 days in Savannah.  It's a longer stretch than I like to be out on business trips, but it just worked out that way.

The second trip is at the end of May and it's a vacation trip to Japan.  My friend and I have been talking about doing it for 10 years, and suddenly realized that our timing might not ever again coincide as well as it does at the end of May.  So we're going.  It should be a blast.  

Luckily I have a good pet sitter who will watch the girls while I'm traveling.  Today I'm trying to plan wardrobe for the business trips.  It's so much easier packing for a vacation trip then planning and packing for business trips where I have to be professional. 

Actually, I might want to get used to an increased amount of travel.  I'm running for President-elect of the national organization I'm involved with, and if I win the election, I'd be President in 2015.  That year the organization would ask me to commit 30-40% of my time to them, mostly as travel, to represent the organization nationally and internationally.  That will be a LOT of travel.  The election's not until September, so I won't know until early October if I won or not.   So I'm not going to think about it until then.

I have a new Internet provider!  I finally got tired of fighting with the Internet connection provided by Time Warner.  It was so unstable, it dropped the connection randomly, including during transactions, and sometimes it wouldn't connect at all.  They came out the the house multiple times, and two different service reps told me the signal to my house was just barely good enough to carry the Internet connection, etc.  So when AT&T came to my door, I jumped at the chance to change.  So far I haven't regretted it.  Connection works every time and hasn't yet dropped anything I've been working on.  That makes me really happy.   I don't do well when I don't have an Internet connection.

Guess I'd better get back to wardrobe planning.  Later.  

Blackbirds and Butterflies

I really like Spring.  I love it when things turn green again and leaf out, instead of the dull, dead tree and shrub look. And I love blooming things, even if I don't always know what they are.

This lovely fellow flitted around my Indian Hawthorne in my back yard and was cooperative enough to let me take several shots with my new camera before he flew away.  Isn't he gorgeous?  

I just got back this morning from another trip, this one to Washington DC.  It was a nice, uneventful trip, and since I'm back to full health, it wasn't a bad trip.  I got to see the cherry blossoms along the Potomac, although not close up.  They're in full bloom right now, but due to the meetings, I only got to see them from something of a distance on the cab ride in.  Still, I did get a feel for how beautiful they are, and how many there are!  Amazing!  

I laid down in the recliner about 12:30 this afternoon and woke up at 3:30 with both cats napping on me.  I guess I was tired from the trip.  

My bird feeder continues to be a big hit with the birds in the area. Here's my red-wing blackbird friend.  I've seen the female too but haven't gotten a good shot of her yet.  When I got home this morning the feeder was completely empty, which is amazing considering I filled it Wednesday.  I have a small flock of sparrows and a small flock of cowbirds, besides the other random species, so it's being decimated pretty quickly.  

I'm really happy to have a lawn growing again and things blooming, but once again I have blooming things that I'm trying to figure out what they are.   I have the Indian Hawthorne of course, mostly pink ones, but I have at least one small white one.  I also have a tall plant of Queen Anne's Lace growing out there and beginning to bloom and a pot of what I think are pink azaleas.  That's this lower picture.   I'm really glad to have the new camera too, so I can take pictures of all these plants and birds and butterflies.  And of course pictures of the cat-kids, but I'm giving you a break today from cat-kid pictures.  


So that's about all that's going on.  I'm in a great mood because it's warm, pretty and gorgeous outside ad I can have the house opened up while I do chores.  It's supposed to be in the 80s the next several days so again I'll be switching between heat and AC.  What can you do?  I try not to use AC, but I hate being hot.  Maybe the ceiling fans will be enough.

Later.

   

Down and out

Man.  Little did I realize when I posted last week, how right I was about viruses having it in for me.  I’m STILL trying to get rid of this one.  Eleven days and counting.  My voice was completely gone from Saturday through Wednesday.  Then Wednesday afternoon I started running a temperature above 100 and the virus moved from my throat and chest into my head and took up residence in my ears and nose and sinuses.   I gave up and called in sick Thursday and made a doctor's appointment.  She prescribed antibiotics and Mucinex to get me to cough the stuff out of my lungs.  Unfortunately, I gave them the number for the closest pharmacy to my new house, and when I got there, their computer and fax were down and they weren't getting any prescriptions in.   I was too sick to care and just went home.  

Friday morning I felt marginally better and went and got the meds and started talking them.   This morning I feel like hell again, but then I coughed so much last night I ended up sleeping in the recliner, partially upright.  I hope these drugs work because I'm really tired of being sick, tired of trying to cough up a lung, and tired of being tired.  Can you tell I don't do ill very well.  

I am a little concerned about the fact that I've had two colds in such a short period of time and that it's been eleven days and I still haven't cleared this current cold.  I usually don't have this much trouble.  Plus I have a three day weekend this weekend, and instead of doing a multitude of chores or anything fun, I'm home being miserable.  I really hate that.

Anyway, enough of the viral drama. Yesterday when I went to get my drugs I also went and got a new camera. My one concession to something fun for the weekend.  So you have new pictures today. 

Yesterday I had a pair of brown-headed cowbirds on the feeder.   The male is really distinctive, glossy black all over but with a brown head, like he's wearing a hood.  The female is just a pale even brown.  That may be the female I've been seeing out there and trying to determine what she was.  I try to take pictures of them through the back door, which isn't very successful.   In this picture you can kind of see the red male house finch with this head turned to the left on the left side of the feeder.  A male house sparrow has his back to us.  The picture I attempted of the brown-headed cowbird didn't turn out at all.  I may have to think about getting a motion activated wildlife camera and mounting it back there if so many interesting birds are going to be stopping by.

We got a rain storm last night finally.  They've been calling for rain for days, and we've gotten nothing.  It looks like they are calling for rain most of this week also, so I hope it does rain, at least some.  I heard the storm come through sometime early this morning.  The birdbath is full this morning and it was close to empty yesterday afternoon, so we got a decent amount of rain. The little birds are so happy.  I have several blue jays that use that birdbath.  They don't come in to the feeder, but they use the birdbath. The rest of the birds use both. 

Anyway, that's it for today.  I'm going to go be puny and maybe play with my new camera.  Later.

Viruses have it in for me

Since I haven't replaced my camera yet, I'm putting another old picture in this post.  This one was from last summer at Monica's.  It looks like the mother deer is sticking her tongue out at us.

It’s another rainy and cold Saturday, but that’s fine with me today.  I have another cold, so I’m staying in and being puny.  Yes, I have ANOTHER one.  I had a bad cold which had me out sick for 2 days back in late January and now I have another one.  I’m beginning to worry about my immune system.  Or maybe I'm just particularly susceptible to Florida viruses.  I caught the January cold while at a meeting in Florida.  And this one was given to me by a friend who was sick while she was visiting from Florida.  

This one is particularly untimely because it began coming on on Tuesday afternoon.  Wednesday I was dosing myself with every home remedy known to man plus every over-the-counter cold medication I could buy.   And the reason for that was that I went to Philadelphia on Thursday and Friday to give two talks.  See why the timing was so bad, besides the fact that I shouldn’t be catching colds so easily.

Anyway, I wasn’t too miserable in Philadelphia, and my head wasn’t so stopped up that flying to and from Philadelphia was torture.  And most importantly, my voice lasted through my talks yesterday.  By the time the plane landed last night though, I didn't have much of a voice left, and today it's completely gone.  Nothing.   

Having no voice is kind of a pain, even staying home and being puny.   Addy’s doing her you-left-me-for-two-days-so-I-must-follow-you-everywhere-and-sit-in-your-lap-if-you’re-still-long-enough act.  If she loses track of me she starts yelling loudly until I call her name and she can locate me again.  Except when I try calling her, nothing happens.   So she just keeps yelling until she finds me. 

The talks in Philadelphia were very well received.  I gave a talk for the residents Friday morning and then gave Grand Rounds in the afternoon.  It was fun. 

I have a LOT of birds fighting over the bird feeder today.  Mostly house sparrows, juncos and mourning doves, but I also have a pair of house finches (he’s very red right now) and a pair of cardinals.   Plus this morning I saw a solid brown bird on the feeder with this pale streak behind her eyes.  I’m thinking it may be the female of that red-wing blackbird I saw a while back.  Or some sort of female blackbird, since they tend to be brown.  It’s fun to watch them and try to figure out what birds are out there.   Zoe likes to watch them too, which she’s doing from inside today since it’s cold and rainy and I’m not opening the door. 

I had to re-figure out how to program my sprinkler system.  The lawn service I use treated my lawn with a pre-emergent last week and said to water it in within 48 hours.  Since no rain was due, I figured out how to get my sprinkler system going again.  It’s working fine and I decided to leave it on, watering every 4th day for now.  I will have to make sure it’s not set to water on any day that might drop below freezing.  It’s not supposed to be very warm here this week. 

It was COLD in Philly and windy as hell, which I'm sure didn't help my cold.  Here's a funny thing.  One of the home remedies I use is gargling with diluted apple cider vinegar.  I really don't know where I picked that one up, but it does seem to help when I have a sore throat.  Anyway, I found a small travel-size bottle and put apple cider vinegar in it to take with me.  Only apparently I had used the bottle for shampoo or something soapy in the past and not successfully cleaned it out. The first time I diluted some of it in Philly and tried to gargle with it, I had foam coming from my mouth and it tasted soapy.  Yuck!  I'm sure it looked hysterical though.  I threw the rest of it out.

I guess that's about all.  I'm going to hang out today babying myself and resting and trying to get this cold to run it's course and move on, and feeling somewhat guilty about probably spreading it to two planeloads of people.  Although luckily I'm not, and haven't been, coughing much . . . yet.

Later.