yesterday’s rain

I walked home in the rain, yesterday.

It wasn’t a deluge. I didn’t try to catch it in a paper cup. It was necessary.

I keep a huge Kohl’s plastic bag in my work tote for occasions like this. When the weatherman gets it wrong. I carry a ball cap, too, even with the lack of thick hair to keep it on when the wind picks up. I really don’t care if my head gets wet, but I’ve noticed that hair actually does a pretty good job of keeping the water from running down your face. So, capping it is.  

I’m sure I look a looney in my get up. I wear my go-to bonnet underneath my raincoat hood. My pea-head doesn’t hold up to the assumption that if you wear a larger size, your head must be larger-than-normal, too. Here’s the descript: Without the head help, looking straight ahead, I can only see from my nose down.

The sleeves are also about 2 inches too long. Helpfully, they keep at least one hand from cold-water pruning. The other one hoists my baggage. I likely drag along too much stuff for my two-days-per-week journey.

In my defense, I might want or need: phone charger, ear phones, sanitizer, chap stick, face powder that I could probably leave home since I have not used it in over a year. Also, coupons, reference paperwork, tissues, plastic bags, ball cap and a handkerchief. Paperclips, two pens, in case one does not work. Plus, the regular house keys, office keys, lunch box, water bottle, phone and masks. Yes, plural.

Anyway, yesterday. On my way out of my windowless work space, I hadn’t assessed the situation. Which led to having to assemble myself in the see-through vestibule. Bright pink, nylon-raincoat flap engaged, faded bluish bill sticking out, primed me for the silly-looking 5-minute trek home began.

That’s when I started thinking.

When was the last time I walked in the rain on-purpose? I knew it might rain today. Walking was a risk; a logic-balanced choice, though. Michigan Construction Season is in full-swing. It would take me 15-20 minutes to drive the alternate ‘detour’ route.

Two years ago, I regularly walked in the evening and on weekends. Walked the long way to work, 4-5 times a week. Checking my photos, it looks like my last deliberate rain-tread was a weekend morning. May 2019. Based on my shots, I’m sure it wasn’t a hard rain. Not likely was a drizzle, either. I remember making the choice to go.

I took a lot of rain-brightened pictures of flowers and leaves. Overcast skies and water make nature’s colors pop. I enjoyed the way the misty air kissed my skin.

Maybe it’s time to stop the basement cycle. I don’t take any photos down there on my perpetually-circular treadmill trips.

I’m kinda wishing for a wet morning this weekend. Just so I can conquer the walk, for the first time this year.

And ramble some. And take some cheery rain-soaked photos.

Question for the Week:

The Jesus and Mary Chain Happy When it Rains

Aaron Neville Can’t Stop My Heart From Loving You (The Rain Song)

Rihanna Umbrella

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Free-Unscaped, Yet

Password? I need a password?

Do I have a password? If I was me, what would my password be?

Dagnabit. One try and I bailed on my brain. Just went straight to re-set.

It’s now a minute or so after midnight, and I’m refreshing every 2 seconds waiting for email prompt.

New password secured. Log back in? For the Love of Pete, just let me into the club!

In. Finally. Fully expecting to be ‘sorry’d’ as in, “You’re too late. Supply is gone.”

Data-entry detailed entered. To my surprise, I when I hit the sign-me-up, it actually went through.

My reservation was confirmed at 12:06 AM. Seemed like a long six minutes, to me.

Here are your reservation details: MYSTERY GARDEN PIÑATA KIT, filled with mystery seed bombs and growfetti.
Date: April 15, 2021, Time: 5:00pm to 7:00pm with curbside pickup.

What kinds of gardenly delights did I get? I have no idea, yet.

Here’s why.

Super cute flower box to be smashed. Neighbors. And super iffy Michigan weather.

Mystery had me stymied as to where I should, when I should. My first thought was to whack at it in the empty bed that gets late afternoon/early evening sun at the height of summer. I wondered what kind of disorderly garden would result from a random seed drop. I envisioned the beating, and realized, I couldn’t.

Too many complications. Could I hold the piñata in one hand and whack with the other? That’d required some extra coordination on my part. How much strength is needed to break it? Suppose I missed and thumped the arm holding it? Supposed they’d get a laugh down at urgent-care about that considering my first two closely occurring visits likely put me on the Jeff-kinda-accidents you’re-never-gonna-believe-this list of odd injuries.

Could I put it on the ground and pummel it there? Standing and leaning down or kneeling next to it? Also, not optimal. Dirty knees or butt in the air? And that’s when it occurred to me. “Oh! Neighbors!” Yeah, they’d get an interesting show for sure. So, nixed.

You know, if you inspect packages, you can find directions and suggestions and stuff. The tag touted a web address that would tell you what you were getting. Ok, then, here we go.

Except, nope. Nowhere could I find a description of what would be random-planted when breakage was achieved.

There were very helpful, detailed instructions. But, wouldn’t have been if you just went along with the vague suggestion of destruction. Never would I have conjured any of them on my own. Maybe, it’s the not-a-gardener thing. Maybe, it’s intuitive to folks who don’t need to intuition because they already know what they’re doing.

Anyway, to summarize:

1. Plant outside in early spring. Or start the seeds inside and transplant later. (head tilt)

2. Soak the seed balls and seed paper in water. Overnight. (head tilt the other way)

3. Place the wet seed paper in a planter. (not the ground? what about the seed balls? shoulder hunch)

4. Water well, especially during the first 4 – 6 weeks. (oh, dear. inside, with two cats… head drop)

All right, time to switch gears.

I supposed I could successfully start ’em in the waterless aquarium where I currently grow cat grass. The set-up keeps it safely out of greenery over-eating, paw-sweeping, this would look better on the floor, kitty fur ball reach.

Curiosity was still with me. As I recalled, piñatas have to be filled, right? So, somewhere on the exactly-as-advertised lovely looking novelty, by reason, there’s gotta be a secret latch or patch or something.

Turns out, it was two pieces, easy to press apart. As promised, there were colorful seed balls and fun growfetti. The 4 round orbs were good-sized, and the pile of fluttery stuff was shredded well.

I haven’t soaked or planted, yet. It was 70 degrees on Saturday, and it snowing on Tuesday. Michigan’s sneaky like that. They call it, ‘false spring’ or ‘second winter.’ I don’t fall for that, anymore.

May Day is coming up. I’ll celebrate appropriately.

I’ll let you know what comes up in 6 weeks, if I can figure that out.

Quote for the Week:

ps. Thank you, Lowe’s!

Free-scape

So, here’s what happened.

I got a email. About gardening. In my very unknown, incoming-only, address.

It’s another account I keep to keep clutter from my real email.

You know, the one that people I actually know have and where the important stuff goes.

Anyway, the beauty of this junk box is that it fills up nicely with coupons and offers and a lotta ‘free.’ I love freebies. Even if I don’t need it, or won’t use it, if it’s free – I snag it and pass it along.

Samples are a great way to experiment, especially for less money. It’s a win-win. For me, experimenting for less is a happy mind expansion thing. Plus, deals and coupons save me money on stuff I know I’m going to buy, anyway. Same sort of mindset as Fetch and Ibotta. I just love layering.

I get a few newsy-type dailies that let me know when and where to find good stuff. I was particularly excited to learn Lowe’s was having a series of garden give-aways. Hypocritical, I know considering how hard I take the ‘annual that which I despise’ obligation.

I shared this with my gardening friend who had already heard about and tried to get into it.

Registration for the first event opened at midnight and her experience was that the site was overloaded and she didn’t get anywhere.

That was a bummer to hear. I’m not that driven to stay up until midnight battling it out with other batty internet users. Strangely, enough, though…

By the time I’d finished my weekly blog, sent it out into the social-universes of FB me, FB Knabble, WordPress, IG and Twitter it was 11:20 PM. I still thought it might be a little over the top to be hovering over my keyboard for 40 more minutes.

I puttered around prepping for the next-day work-day by re-filing blog fodder, and just generally straightening and restoring my desk back to the ‘real job’ configuration. At 11:47 the idea was still free-floating around in my head. I still had a bit of time on my non-gardening, don’t-like-to-get-too-dirty hands.

I turned up Spotify and tuned into Grandson. It’s not the kind of music you can tune-out to. Hence, the love. The first time I heard Grandson was through an IG video reaction site; totally recommend a follow. Besides the music/reaction, dude’s got an oddly sense of humor. (Links’ll be below.)

11:58, I thought I’d just try and slip into the site. Get queued up. No dice. Just a bit of a reprimand that it wasn’t time, yet.

So, I outed. Then, I inned. And outed and inned. Mmm hmm. Turned into an online version of the day after Christmas at Wal*mart at 4:00 AM in Tennessee. That’s a story by itself. Never again, folks. Never, again. Although, I did end up at a Michigan Kohl’s one black Friday. 5:00 AM. Easy in, easy find. Horrible two and a half hours of standing in line to check out. Never, again, to that, too. At least Kohl’s, handed out candy canes.

Stroke of midnight at Lowe’s online, I got it right! I got right in.

But, of course, it wasn’t going to be that easy.

Quote for the Week:

Grandson: (do you have enough love in your heart to go and get your hands) Dirty

Recommended reactionary: @fablefil

Annual Despise

I didn’t get the windows done.

Instead, I conquered the annual “That Which I Despise.”

In record time due to:

1. It actually being a bi-annual event.
2. A lovely friend willing to haul me out some mulch.

I skipped 2020 with absolutely zero guilt. COVID, and none of the box stores who were just beginning delivery were willing to ship soil or mulch. I’m generally not a fan of gardening, unless it bears salsa.

Last fall, I determinedly dug up the interlocking brick border and moved each about 2 inches further in, toward the building, so there’s be future less to tend.  I also took a good number of bulbs from my oft-trampled only true floral bed. The damage really irked me at first. But, what else is a child supposed to do without siblings or much outdoor supervision? Permitting use of the imagination is a much more important investment, anyway. It’s also a convenient  reason not to attempt to weed amongst wreckage.

The other south-side bed has been mulch, weeds and two obnoxious prickerly bushes.  I’ve tried to kill them three times. Seriously. Chopping as mercilessly as the greenery would gladly prick me, I poured multiple helpings of all-natural, safe for pets, liquid weed killer down the stumpy gullets.

The stubborn regrowth hadn’t gotten very far, when the mulch angel stopped by. A little side comment about how much I really dislike those maroon-ish meanies, prompted an immediate, “I’ll take them.”

To which I promptly replied, “Let me go grab you a shovel.”

I also pulled up two white grocery sacks, a pruner, hand rake and gloves. Happy-to see-holes devoid of dangerous thorns inspired a fiendish grin. Then, What I thought were wild-spreading, brightly beautiful purple-flowered weeds were actually flowering bulbs of some sort. A hefty number of those departed, too.

After that, the only thing left to do, was to thickly cover the rest of the space with dark brown clumps of moist wood chips. My precise method?  Dump a bag, smooth it out. Move on.

I did. I dumped a bag and a half into the two split beds leading up to my real front porch. I did take care to kind of paw some away from plants that I know are plants. Yellow daffodils, orange lilies. I also invested a few moments trimming that something-piney half-bare tree-like thing that lives to the right of a living room window. Probably not the right season to prune it, but every time the wind blows, it stretches an awkward, arm-like branch into my couch-view. It’s especially alarming at night.

From there, I rounded the corner to my new-two-years-ago railroad tie garden space that has yet to become one. I did mostly succeed in deceasing an odd, low-low-to-the-ground viny, yellow and green thing. My friend asked what the lone clump of greenery was. I don’t know, but it sort of resembles daffodil sprouts. Only thinner. I mercifully gave them breathing room, and dumped the rest of half bag I was holding.

Hostas are hardy enough that even I can’t accidentally kill them. Even when, say I didn’t forget to clip the tendrils and cut them back before the first Michigan frost. In my defense, the frost came early and I hadn’t been engaged in caring.

“Do you think I need to clear out all the dead stuff?” It was a hopefully inquiry. The hope was that the answer would be, “No.” Unfortunately, I was, as expected, informed that it would be a good idea.  

That was a quick go, too. A couple of handfuls of dry, brittle, bud branches and leftover fall foliage was all it took. Again, I considerately brushed away bits from just sprouting buried shoots. I’m particularly fond of hardly-ever-need-water and ever-expanding Hostas.

So, maybe I do have a little landscaping desire buried deep within. Maybe, I’ll indoor-pot some poblanos next to the already potted cat grass.

Quote for the Week:

Night Sweep

Unintentional delay.

Click-stream rip tide.

Well by feline feeding time.

Sunless cold, cradled in the dark.

Really should have.

How about just not?

Morning would be meaner.

Not the way to start a day, unless it can’t be helped.

Brain-freeze and should-have bantering,

brooming sets and drifts.

Airborne, played by wind, curtain-carried white.

Slippery banister, lights just right.

Gusted hostas, sculpted ice.

A pocket phone for fear of falling.

Over-ridden, night-cast calling:

melodic whistling, otherwise quiet,

sharpened sculptures by layers and last,

hint back to warmth, pretty in the past.

So gorgeous in present.

Advantages exist for shoveling at night.

A fashion-less show, weather demanded:

bull’s eye red coat, Michigan-Michelin style.

Plus puffed purple gloves, hounds-tooth & hemmed hat.

Photo-ops. No qualms, anymore.

Can’t order pizza, if there’s no path to the door.