kareid

I made blueberry jam last night.  First time I've made blueberry, and it came out sweeter than I'd hoped, but the honey flavor came through stronger than on other flavors, which was interesting.  I also was able to make it myself, on a weeknight, in an hour or two.  I like knowing enough about doing this to be able to do it as an evening project.

Unrelatedly, there is a watermelon in my yard.  It is the tiniest watermelon I have ever seen, smaller than a grape.  I want to see if it will turn into a big one!

I went looking at backpacks monday, to replace one that I love but has zippers that are dying.  I found two that I am not sure of.  This one which is an update of my current pack. The front pocket now opens sideways instead of from the top which seems random and less useful.  And this one, which was wonderfully lightweight and easy to carry things in, but had fewer pockets and seemed like it may be smaller in general.  The metal frame also made me worry I wouldn't be able to wash it, but the mesh back would make it much nicer in hot weather like we're having now. 

Today NSTAR came to check our meter and pipes and told us we had two gas leaks. Small ones, no need for panic. Still, not something I expected. They put wax over them and will schedule an appointment later to replace the pipes and part of line to the street, which is also not up to spec.

Afterwards, I got to sit outside and eat the first ripe strawberries while smelling the peonies. Much more fun.

I went out to a garden store today with one of J's aunts to look for a plant in the rain (slightly long story) and got a dwarf lilac for the stepped raised bed in the back of the yard. I'm not quite crazy enough to plant it in the middle of thunderstorms. Hopefully I can do that tomorrow.

Spring is suddenly here.  There are crocuses and snowdrops up in my yard, with buds.  The daffodils are just starting to break the surface.  I started my first seedlings last weekend (foxgloves and leeks), with more planned to start in another two weeks.  It might be time to start fixing some of the winter storm damage soon.

frolain and I are trying to remodel the downstairs bathroom and replace the floor in the downstairs kitchen.  If any of you remember it, the downstairs bathroom is the one with the square pink standing shower stall that doesn't fit the space, so that water hits the floor when it's running without a carefully rigged shower curtain, the rough 2x4s that were used as a frame for the door, the stained floor, and other general not-right.  The downstairs kitchen floor is pink and "white" linoleum from a decade I'm not sure of.  We thought it was black and white when we first bought the house until two moppings with bleach water revealed it was pink and white (matching the then-pink walls.)

We've had a contractor in to give us a quote on labor for replacing the kitchen floor with tile and doing the bathroom work, and have another one scheduled.  We also went to start looking at tile.  This is where the real problem comes in.  The tile places we've seen so far seem to want to exclusively sell natural-ish colors, things I sort of think of as mediterranean tones, in large, 12" tiles for floor tile.  They'll branch out a bit into 12" marble for baths.  Or into tiny hexagonal tile if you're going for the antique style (we're not.)  12" marble would look ridiculous in this closet-sized bathroom.  We'll probably manage to find something reasonable in this color palate for the kitchen, but I think we're going to have to compromise a lot more than I'd hoped for the bathroom.  This is really frustrating me, as I feel like we can't be the only people who don't want to do our bathroom in marble or antique tile.

On a different note, I called my dad last night, to find that he and my sister were feeding a baby goat in the house.  They'd brought it in because they were worried about it making it through its first few days in the cold.  Apparently one of the goats had triplets but lost them due to the cold in the barn.  My sister describes baby goats as being a lot like puppies.

It is a very strange fall. On wed, I had raspberries straight from the bush. They were good too. The blue bearded iris is trying to bloom again. SJ and I cut all the other irises back for iris borer control, but let this one keep its leaves so that it doesn't use all its energy on the flower. I felt strange cutting so many strong leaves but, it's Thanksgiving, and we've already had at least one hard frost.

Today, the wind actually ripped my butterfly bush out of the ground. It's lying in the driveway. This is a 7-8 ft tall bush which has been in that spot a few years. If the wind is down tomorrow, I'll try to put it back in the ground, stake it down, and cut it back a lot. I didn't want to try today, as it seemed the wind would just tear it out again. No idea if it will handle this okay, or if it's pretty much dead now. Luckily, these bushes grow fast and are easy to find, so it's not a huge loss if it doesn't make it.

Things I did not want, but got anyway (a partial list): Iris borers.  I feel like the yard is a losing battle this week, with the squirrels (I don't know what it is, but I'm blaming squirrels) digging up both established plants and vegetable seedlings, the return of fungus infections, everything stressed from the heat and dry, and now nasty insects.  And I get to deal with it all in hot, sweaty weather with plenty of mosquitoes.

I found something in my yard that seems to like the current weather: the bamboo.  It's finally hit its growth stage.  (It does all its growth for the year as one spurt over a few days.)  The new canes are at least a foot taller than the old ones on most of the plants.   Yay for it finally settling in, I'd been worried that it wasn't doing well, and this is better.  It makes sense that it would like this weather too, as it's supposed to like a lot of watering.

Zoe-cat is doing better, yay. She's been eating food for almost a week now, and we've been letting her outside again. She lost about a pound, which, when you're a 9lb cat, is quite a bit. I don't know if/when she'll get the weight back. She looks kind of sadly skinny right before her back legs now. We don't really know what was wrong, some people have been guessing food poisoning from something she ate outside.