I have almost all day to myself because of summer student drop-off. If only it weren't 20 miles to buy a big bag of potting soil!
A mom waiting for her daughter to come out of her voice lesson chatted with me in the hallway about Spring. We were inpecting the birch tree that grows outside the window. She told me her grandma used to say that after the birch and aspen leaves were the size of squirrel ears it was safe to put plants outside overnight or plant things in the ground. The leaves are now bigger than that, about the size of teddy bear ears. I figure it's safe to go nuts planting things.
I've already started. Last weekend Scott and I liberated a whole bunch of his sad, root-bound houseplants from their too-small pots, and did the old muscial pots deal where everyone switches into a bigger pot. The ficus tree got its own, brand-new pot since it was the Big Brother. All the little brother and sister plants had to use the hand-me-down pots. Good thing we can't hear them talking. They'd have been saying "I don't wwwaaaaaannnnnnaaaa be in thaaat pot!"
He tells me that none of them got transplant shock and that the only one that looks weird is a spider plant that had root-rot anyway. Feh. There are a zillion more spider plants where that one came from. I'm satisfied we did well by the ones we transplanted.
My windbreaker pocket is full of seeds from last year's flowers. While checking out what the old flower gardens at his place looked like after the snow melted off, I discovered an amazing thing: the dianthus survived and is even now growing back! You wouldn't expect a plant that I grew in Albuquerque and Oregon to thrive in the arctic, but there you go, life is full of surprises! Every bed has dianthus with green and growing leaves! You understand folks, it was fifty below last winter, right?
I'm an inveterate seed picker, and will stake out public flower beds in the summer, finding the flowers I like the best and then trying to snag some seeds from them in the fall before the maintenance guys pull them out and throw them away.
I'll be filling up window boxes and starting some flowers from seed very soon. Darn, I'd do it today but for the fact that last weekend I gave all my potting soil to Scott! Oh well.
The raspberry vines are coming out and getting some leaves on them. There's a patch right by my front door and it's one of the main perks of living here. I get to eat a handful of raspberries every day during the summer.
Here in the rural areas there isn't any garbage pickup, rather, you go drop your garbage off at the transfer station. From there, the big trucks come and take it to the dump. Everything goes to the transfer station, whether it's functioning or not. People throw away the darndest things! At some transfer stations they've installed a carport roof as a shelter from the elements so folks can leave usable items under it for others to pick up. So far at the transfer station (often called The Mall by some of us, since it's almost like going shopping) I have picked up a couple brand new, very nice wool sweaters, two Macintosh computers (two Classics, one had a music composition program on it, very serendipitous for me), a beautiful, small bookcase of solid cherry, various kitchen utensils, and dishes, a blender (the kind that has twenty buttons, going from "stir" to "mutilate"), a toaster, plant pots and more.
Folks building things like storage sheds or tree houses can often find the bulk of their building materials at The Mall. Industrial stuff ends up there just as much as other stuff, and there is a toxic disposal box where people put the remainders of their unused house and wall paint, which can be handy if you need to paint a fence or something.
One thing you won't find at The Mall is a new bag of potting soil. SIGH. I guess getting my seeds in the soil will just have to wait for tomorrow.
