James Edward thought it was great to play in the “wain” yesterday, setting up a “secret clubhouse” in the back of the truck with his dolphin umbrella and recruiting Emme and me to make little aluminum boats (a rowboat, a Viking ship) to float in the wheelbarrow (“I sail the seven seas, har, har”).
Guess that shows having fun is all in your point of view, and when he’s in a good mood, James is a cheerful and entertaining sort.
The rain has made a mess of the pansies, but it certainly been good to the hydrangeas, nasturtiums and the hostas. I tied up two ornamentals with gardening twine yesterday, dodging the bees that were out working in spite of the weather.
Got to visit with the kids all day, our schedules having been thrown off by the postponement of a neighborhood cookout. At times, it rained in sheets, unbelievable that there could be so much water, and the roads were flooded in many places.
I mentioned the nasturtiums, they are starting to bud as well as the asters. Growing from seed worked pretty well, especially since the kids and I got most of the seed packets for free at the annual garden show in March. It worked to trim the Montauks at the end of May.
The tiny pinks are back, and somehow or other, I have a little foxglove, and I’m pretty sure a delphinium growing out of a dead-looking stump – at least, the leaf looks familiar.
It looks like we’ll have the overdue tree work done at #11, which should help to expand the useable space in the back yard and reduce leaf and gypsy moth litter. I was pleased when the arborist told me “that’s a good-looking holly tree”, the care and feeding of which has been one of my front yard projects.
The porch lights got replaced at #11 this week. I didn’t notice how horrible the falling-apart and unrepairable old ones were until I happened to look at a picture of the house from the early spring. My handyman buddy, who recently moved to Mashpee, replaced them with inexpensive but very presentable bronze-fixtured onion lights on Friday afternoon, before the rain started.
The weather predictions are uncertain for the rest of the week, but even with the damp, this has been a better June than last year, when we had record heat.