While today is not the anniversary of the day we found a certain little wet, dirty ginger kitten in a parking lot… it is our best guess of what his birthday could be.
It’s hard to believe that sleek beast on the right was ever as round and puffy as the little thing on the left!
His is, however, just as loud and demanding.
It’s a theme that’s only gotten worse as he’s grown. Seriously, he is the yelling-est cat I’ve ever had! And Burton is quite the talker. Even Rupert is quite vocal. But neither of them have anything on Lemmy!
But… he’s also very sweet.
He purrs at the drop of a hat, and loves a good lap session. More often than not, we find him in the bed with us in the morning.
He hasn’t lost his curiosity…
And he continues to make me laugh with his antics.
His coat had darkened with age, and he’s now very close in colour to Rupert – although he’s double the size of his diminutive doppelganger.
He loves to be out in the catio, chasing bugs, murdering monarchs, and yelling at birds.
Or just chilling on his toadstool.
But he also loves just hanging out with us. On workdays, I can pretty much count on him showing up in my office around 2 pm.
He gets a little loving, then retires to the cat tree, where he naps until it’s quitting time.
He’s fit in so well with our motley crew…
and we couldn’t be happier our paths brought us together that fateful October day.
We don’t often get to the ReStore in Sarnia often. Sarnia is a 40 minute drive from the house, and the Re-Store closes at 5 during the week, making it near impossible with my job. I avoid any large city like the plague on the weekends because I don’t like dealing with the crowds (I don’t even like Strathroy on the weekend, and it’s population is only 20,000).
So when we found ourselves in Sarnia on weekday for a health appointment, Dave insisted we stop. I didn’t want to, but recalled that I almost always find cool stuff when I don’t want to go.
And this time was no different.
Yes. It’s a cauldron. And it’s cast iron! It’s not super huge… maybe 20″ across. It wasn’t in great shape – the inside was quite rusted.
But it was only $20. And if you’re looking for these types of things, you know even the small ones go for hundreds of dollars. And I knew Dave could clean it up enough to use it in the garden. It had four holes in the bottom already, so that’s probably what the last owner was using it for.
When we got home, Dave put a wire brush on his drill and got to work. Once the rust was cleaned out, coated the inside with liquid rubber and gave the whole thing a good thick coat of paint.
After that it was up to me.
On our last trip to Rona, I got some fire pit bricks. Then I cleared a little corner just outside Edible Alley. I pulled up the celosia I had planted in the catio, and the calibrochoa from the white boxes out front and…
My little cauldron is brewing up something wonderful!!!
Isn’t it so cute?
Next spring, I’ll figure out some perennials that give the same effect, but for now I’ll just enjoy my little witches brew as is.
After several weeks of neglect, I finally got back to stitching on my chicken
When I started stitching the chicken, I didn’t quite get her exactly centred. I wasn’t in the mood to rip it out, so I designed some flowers to help balance her out.
Burton gave it a full inspection, and declared it a success.
There’s still some more work to be done in the top, but with any luck I can finish that up next weekend!
It was another perfect weekend weatherwise. And while I wanted to sew all weekend, I just couldn’t pass up the opportunity to be out in the fresh air.
And as always, there’s always something to be done in the garden. Mostly because I just can’t stop collecting plants. It seems like every time we’ve gone out the last couple of weeks, I’ve picked up another plant or two for the garden.
And I really needed to get them in the ground.
Over the last couple of weeks, I’ve been tracking the sun exposure where the old fence used to be. And it actutally gets quite a bit of sun… and it extends much further into the woodland garden now that the fence isn’t there.
So I decided to take all the new plants, and build some “walls”, giving the woodland garden more of a sense of enclosure. I got out my tools and started stripping turf. The area wasn’t too hard to clear, but I soon learned that digging for planting was going to be a little more challening than I first thought. I came across some large areas of concrete (probably footings from another, long-ago fence) too big for little ‘ol me to dig out. There was also the stump of a walnut Dave had cut down not long after we moved. It was a tree that obviously wasn’t planted on purpose and was way too close to the house.
But, I persevered, worked around the obstructions, and soon I had two new garden areas.
The area on the left was an extension of the border garden that runs the length of the fence. Then I mirroed it on the house said. I only had enough black mulch to cover the left garden, so the right side got plain, undyed mulch – which was free courtesy of the town council.
After the big storm, they asked every one who could to bring their broken trees and branches to an empty lot on the edge of town. They brought in some industrial wood chippers, and turned it all into a big pile of mulch, and we’re all welcome to take as much mulch as we want for free until the end of the month.
Next spring, I’ll get more black mulch because I prefer the look of it, but this will do for now.
And I know you’re dying to see all the new pretties I planted.
I’ve been thrilled to discover that my beloved Tickseed doesn’t just come in shade of yellow and red, but also pinks!!!
So I have FOUR new ones!
Despite my trouble with beetles and sawflies, I don’t have near enough roses…
So a trip to Rona saw this buttery beauty come home with me. Her name is Mellow Yellow, and long time readers will recognize her from the townhouse garden. She didn’t survive a revamp I did there, and I’ve missed her ever since.
I added several new sages. The first is a pretty pale blue. The last two are “Baby Sage: and while they are perennials, they will require some extra love to get them through the winter.
The big greenhouse on the way to Sarnia posted about Butterfly bushes on their Facebook page
And I couldn’t wait to run there and got get one! I picked out this lovely pale lavender. This is my fifth butterfly bush and it won’t be my last.
While there, Dave took a shine to this pretty thing.
It’s called Bluebeard and will become quite shrubby as it ages. Dave liked that it had several bumblebees on it in the nursery, so it was definitely a good candidate for our garden.
I also relocated a few of the Cherry Brandy Susans that were taking over the catio yard..
and planted several of the foxglove seedlings, since I still had so many!
Eventually, these two gardens will grow tall and full and help the woodland garden feel like a separate space. And I plan to get another arbour for the space between the two gardens.
But that can wait until next year. I’m done digging for this year!
Although the days are still quite warm, there’s a cool breeze in the evenings that just hints of autumn on the horizon.
And there are other signs in the garden.
All my Susans are in their full glory. And I have to move some of them around before the weather turns – like the foxglove, they’ve re-seeded themselves all over and are in places I never intended.
My catio Chrysanthemums are all starting to bloom. There’s a fourth one in Willow Grove, but I need to move it. It’s in too much shade and is not doing well.
The native Helenium (Sneezeweed) is just starting to bloom too – and it’s just so darn cute with those button tops!
And the pink Physostegia is standing tall and proud.
The more common Sedum (Autumn Joy) is just starting to pink up, but my new dark one (Jose Aubergine) is blooming beautifully against those purple leaves!
And there’s still more to come – the asters have yet to bloom, and the toad lilies are still a few weeks out.
In the mean time, several of the plants are having a second go…
Clockwise from top left: pink Foxglove, white Foxglove, pale yellow Columbine, pink Lupin, purple Clematis, and blue Delphiniums.
And as long-time readers know… we get flowers right to the first hard frost…. which is usually mid-October, but sometimes can be all the way to early November!
You know from my posts that I’m fascinated by insects of all kinds. I love my butterflies and moths, but I equally love spiders (and always have).
So you won’t be surprised that I have allowed a spider to take up residence on our side porch (and main entrance). She’s a Furrow spider (a type of Orb weaver). I’ve named her Ophelia and she’s about the size of a nickel
She only comes out at night, by day her web is empty, except for whatever bits of her meals from the night before are left hanging about.
So I was surprised when I came out one afternoon, and there was something rather large and brown hanging in the web. It didn’t take long to realize it was a hummingbird moth! And it was still alive!!!
As much as I like Ophelia, I just couldn’t let her munch on the fluffy guy!
I gently freed him from the sticky strings. He must have been pretty tired from struggling, because he hung out on my hand for several minutes… just vibrating his little wings, but not flying off.
But eventually… gathered enough strength and flew off into the sunset.
And don’t worry about Ophelia. She’s not starving by any means…
Isn’t she a pretty girl??? (Long lens is great for taking spider pictures too!!!)
Finally – here we are to the story of my not-as-planned weekend.
The original plan was to spend Saturday, which was supposed to be nice and comfortable weatherwise in the garden – mostly just weeding. And then Sunday, which was supposed to be hot, sticky, and disgusting, inside sewing – finishing Burton’s quilt, making a couple more blocks for my red quilt, and maybe starting on something new.
Saturday got started off as planned more or less. Dave and I were up fairly early, taking some yard waste to the transfer station (branches and stuff that’s too big for my yard composter). We ran a few errands while we were out, so I got into the gardens a little later than planned.
I’m not obsessive about weeding. I don’t worry about getting every little last sprout that shouldn’t be there -but I do like the garden to look tended to, and it was to far past that point for my liking. I started out front because that’s where most of the shade was. Eventually, I worked my way across, almost to the holly bushes, and decided there was an issue I could no longer ignore.
I believe I mentioned earlier this year, that the foxgloves had reseeded. I decided to let the seedlings do their thing in situ, and then move them about later when the time came.
Well dear readers… the time had come….
ALLLLLL of those are foxglove seedlings. And that’s not even all of them. There was probably double that amount spread out around the left side of the front garden.
So weeding got set aside, I got out some garden pots and started potting the little guys up so I could decided where to put them later.
I dug and potted and dug and potted and then I ran out of pots!
And I still had a pile left in the garden! (There’s some pink sage mixed in there too because it re-seeded as well!)
I needed somewhere to put them, ASAP.
There was one place in the garden left that was still “wild” and needed to be developed.
It was the space behind the holly, but in front of the new gate… basically, just a weed patch. It gets some morning sun, but overall is mostly shade. But… foxgloves are forest edge plants… it could be the ideal plant for the space. It’s very similar to under the willows by the shed… and the fox glove there went crazy this year.
So I got weeding and repotting got set aside while I went to work clearing out all that… mess. It included quite a few maple and mulberry seedlings that were established enough that they needed to be dug out. Eventually though I did get it down to bare ground. But by then it was dinner time.
I was in no shape to cook, so I took Dave out for a burger, and we ended up at Home Depot. While there I grabbed a couple more Hostas, another Astilbe and a big Sedum that were all on clearance, as well as some stones for another project (more on that another day). And by then, the day was shot.
I knew I was going to have to do more work on Sunday, cutting into sewing time. I got up bright and early to tackle it, before things got to hot. And as I prepared the ground for the new plants, I noticed that the downspout, which had previosuly been hidden by holly and weeds, was broken and needed to be fixed and directed away from the foundation.
Off to the local hardware store we went! We also picked up some mulch (which Home Depot didn’t have the night before.) By the time we got back it was past noon – and far too hot work outside.
I retreated to the sewing studio to finish Burton’s quilt. And after dinner, though it was still hot, I headed back outside to finally finish the area up.
I planted the Hostas, the Astilbe and the Sedum, and all those little green sprouts…
Those are all little wee foxgloves. I probably planted about 40 of them in that space. If this experiment works, this areas is going to be amazing when they bloom next year!
You can see, all I could get was red mulch… I’m not thrilled with that, but I can cover it with black mulch next year. It looks tidy and will help keep the weeds down while the foxglove get rooted.
And you might have spied something else in that corner…
I’ve named him Todd. He was at Home Depot and I couldn’t resist. Luckily, Dave didn’t have any problem with him following us home. He likes tortoises just as much as I do!
And so… while the weekend didn’t go as planned, I’m still pretty pleased with what I managed to accomplish. And I can always finish that weeding this weekend!
The only thing that went as planned on the weekend was the finshing of Burton’s August Sunflower quilt.
Sunday afternoon, I got it sandwiched and quilted (just stitching in the ditch to outline the flowers, then some straight lines around the blocks). And bound it up Sunday night.
By Monday morning, Burton was sitting pretty. I think those sunflowers add a nice bit of cheer to that corner of the livingroom.
And Burton seems pleased. Though I know he wants me to get started on one for September! It’s just over a week away! Yikes!
It was another one of those weekends that got away from. I made some good accomplishments, but very little of it were the ones I planned.
For instance, the only tiny needle that got plied this weekend was a teeny tiny quilting needle…
… as I worked under the snoopervision of these two, finishing the binding on the sunflower quilt. But more on that tomorrow – and the rest of my weekend adventure the day after.
Wandering Cat Studio 