Vinca and Bishop's Weed and Milk Weed, Oh My!

Just a couple of weeks ago it looked like the vinca jungle had been tamed.

Now the truth can be seen. Even some bishop's weed is coming back - I thought the vinca had eaten all of that.

Guess I just have to keep hoeing. I'll hoe around the resurgent dayliles and the milkweed, though, I like them.

Art?!!???

The showcase for the work of Royal College of Art graduate sculptors will be open to the public from 28 May to 7 June in Battersea, London. Pictured above is Gareth Williams' sculpture "I Say, I Say, I Say", a dog made from chewing gum and the artist's own hair

Looks more like something my cat horked up than art to me.
(I'd use a triple layer of paper towels to pick it up.)

May Meanderings

The Merry Month of May seems not to be a good one for blogging. Fist off, I have to head to Houston (shudder) for the Engineer's annual conference, then my folks usually come for their annual visit. This is a good thing. Mom spends every possible moment at the LDS Family History Center - she's big into genealogy - and Dad and I hang out. Four years ago, I had to do some important Master Gardener stuff on the Saturday of their visit, so the Engineer and Dad did some in-law bonding of the manly sort. They went to Home Depot, bought lumber and hardware and built a picnic table. Then, of course, a virtuous human would be getting the garden into shape... I finally had the vinca jungle pruned, but the vinca, being vinca, is making a comeback. I really should be out there hoeing, but I'm avoiding right now by writing this blog entry. Also avoiding divvying up the daylilies that were dug up along with the vinca. Must do that today as dinner with Kate & KC is planned for tonight, and they are to be the main recipients of the plants. Plain ol' non-hybridized, takes a hammer to kill 'em, ditch lilies. My favorites. I'm avoiding another plant task as well. Iron Needles sent me some iris last fall and I said I would send her some feverfew in exchange. I potted up some small plants and set them aside for the roots to take hold. They got covered with snow. No biggie, I figured, she couldn't plant them until spring anyway.

Unfortunately, I was too slow this spring. When I went looking for them after the last drifts melted, I couldn't find them.

Huh?

So I asked the Engineer...

He had "cleaned up," all the pots he considered to be junk. Sigh. My own fault for not being quicker. Now I need to pot up some more and let them settle in for shipping to Colorado. First I need to find some more smallish plastic pots to put them in; not an easy task after an Engineer sweep. So, Iron, they are coming, eventually, really, I promise.

Speedy Little Lady

They're not great photos, but here's the reason I was able to get them at all...

This LOL's For Me

Though some of us are witless...

What can I say, I'm an I Can Has Cheezburger addict.

Forgiveness

Home from the annual trip to Houston, and what's the first thing I do? Take Kitsu to the vet for her yearly physical.

Tune the tail, rotate the legs, check the tuna levels. And, of course, indignity of indignities, take the temperature. After that the rabies shot was trivial.

Poor cat was terrified. Nobody will ever be able to convince me that cats don't remember things. Kitsu's never liked going to the vet, but it was more of a pain in the dainty derriere than anything else until last winter when she was so sick and had to be incarcerated for I.V. fluids and antibiotics for several days. She was shaking and wailing for most of the visit this time.

At least the vet, at long last, has a diagnoses as to what happened to both of the girls (Sachi had it too, though not as badly.)

Revenge-of-the-birditis.

Yep, that's the name for the syndrome. The vet had several more cases last winter after she'd treated the girls, some almost as bad. After extensive research and careful examination of common factors, it came down to getting hold of toxic birdies.

Kitsu was pronounced completely healthy today. She's even gained back all of the weight she'd lost last winter.

When the vet was done with her, Kitsu sat on the chair in the examination room and glared at us. No doubt at all in either the Doctor's mind or mine exactly what comments the cat was making about our ancestry and personal habits.

When I opened the door to her carrier, she slunk in, curling her tail protectively around her hindquarters. She moaned and cried all the way home.

One would expect that Kitsu would be angry at me for a long time after such a betrayal. How could a loving human subject her beloved cat to such torture? A grudge would be darn reasonable thing to carry.

I got home, opened the cat carrier and unlocked the cat door. Kitsu ran in and out a few times to make sure it was real, then attached herself to me.

For the last few hours, she's been VelcroKitty, snuggled as close to me as she can get, purring and nudging me if I stop patting her. (Making me feel all the more guilty for tormenting my furry friend.)

Forgiveness.

Humans could learn a lesson from this little cat.

Exposed

I grew up back East where it was green and rained a lot. Sometimes I could see the horizon, mostly I saw trees. I was a Girl Scout and camped every summer. Tent camping, not cabin camping.

After my first go through college, I moved to North Carolina, which is wetter and greener than Michigan. I cut my photographic teeth on the Blue Ridge Parkway and tent camped in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Now I live in Utah, on the foothills of the Wasatch Mountains. It was quite a shock moving from where rain didn't count unless it was an inch or more to a place where a tenth of an inch of precipitation is an event. But still, not five minutes from my house, I can drive up a tree covered canyon with a stream bubbling near the road. Several of the finest ski resorts in the world are within an hour's drive. Albion Basin is an easy morning trip for flower photography. Last week I went on a photo expedition to southern Utah, to red rock country. To get to the red rocks, one has to drive through a whole lot of nothing. There are many abandoned farmsteads standing desolate in the middle of the desert and the remains of soddies crumbling into hillsides.

I looked at the parched, windswept abodes and wondered how anyone could choose to live in such places, exposed, solitary, naked to the sky.I need the comfort and security of trees. I need green.