Lace Cap Hydrangea

 This beauty blooms underneath the deep shadow of a saucer magnolia. It always reminds me to slow down and not miss the hidden beauties in life.

A Garden is My Happy Place

Recently, my husband and I visited the Getty Villa in Malibu. It's a copy of a Roman villa, and it's filled with beautiful Etruscan, Greek, and Roman art. The villa also has four separate gardens. Since gardens are my happy place, I want to share these photos with you. The gardens were immaculate as if weeds had been refused entrance to the villa. Speaking of an entrance, the Getty Villa is free! The only cost is parking, which is $20. (I will post photos of the incredible art another day.) Enjoy the gardens today.

          

I wanted to take my shoes off and run through the water. 

But I behaved myself.

Our ideal dates are museum visits.

Yes, my eyes are closed, but the pond was too pretty to skip.

 

Late Summer Flowers and a Book

 In space between mid and late summer, few plants bloom. But I found some in our gardens to share. I've included a book snapshot at the end because I love nothing better than to get caught up in a good book in the languid days of summer (or the orange light of autumn or the snows of winter or the fragrance of spring). Okay, every season is a great time to read.

Crepe myrtles.

Cyclamen. I'm babysitting this for my dad. 

I love this stump. The rich browns, the character lines,
and the ivy trying to subdue it. 

Phlox in my wildflower garden.

More wildflowers.

Tiger lilies.

My figs will ripen soon. Hopefully, I can pick them before the deer and squirrels feast. Last year, the night before I was going to harvest, the critters stripped both trees of every single fig.

Simon and Schuster sent me an ARC (advanced reader copy) of this novel. I'll post a review soon--I love shouting-out for debut authors. And if psychological thrillers with unreliable narrators are your thing--they are mine--then this is a book for you. It goes on sale January 4, 2022. 

Backyard Wildflowers

 Writing is my true love. But a close second is gardening. When my characters are misbehaving or I feel blocked, pulling weeds, pruning shrubs, or cutting flowers (by far my favorite garden activity) is the tonic I need.

Two years ago, I experimented with wildflowers. I started small with a mix, which promised year-round perennial wildflowers. 

I should've gotten a photo with a bathing bird, but they can be shy.

When I saw how much the bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds (and I) enjoyed the flowers, I decided to plant a bank of wildflowers.

 When I cut flowers to bring inside the house, the bumblebees grumble.

In the fall, when the flower seeds ripen on the stalks, goldfinches descend in clouds of golden glory to gorge their bellies.

News!

 It’s been a while since I’ve updated. Instead of trying to share everything at once, I’ll share what’s been going on in different posts. Here's one of the big changes--my husband and I moved to North Carolina. We found a lovely house with beautiful gardens and a lake in our back yard.

Here are some photos:

My parents came to visit, and I took my dad kayaking on the lake.

An ocean of hellebores.

A view of the lake from the side of the house.

Same view, different flowers.

Our lanai.

Veggies, DIY Doors, and Sunsets.

I'm almost halfway through the read-aloud edit of my latest novel. My goal is to have it finished and sent to beta readers before my daughter's surgery. (If you remember last May, my son had cardiothoracic reconstruction. My daughter also needs the procedure. Only hers will be a more invasive reconstruction. I know, it's hard to imagine anything more invasive.)

Besides editing, I've been doing some other things. Do you remember my Postage Stamp Garden? Well, it's mid-November and I'm still harvesting! (Though not in the quantities I was earlier in the season.) Here's some fruits of garden.

Bell peppers, jalapenos, ghost peppers, basil, and burgundy cherry tomatoes. Yum!

And since I'm never without a DIY project. Here are some photos.

I was going to paint the door on the left. But during some preliminary sanding, the paint began coming off in hunks and I had to start scraping. FYI to the previous owners of the house, you can't throw some latex paint on a solid mahogany door and think everything's going to be okay, i.e., latex on top of of oil isn't going to work. Ever.

In any case, on the right is the finished door to my office. And yes, you do see double-shelved stacks of books. (But no judging.)



And coolest thing of all, my dad found a strange, huge cocoon on a river birch tree in his yard. After a Facebook plea, we discovered that it's the cocoon for a Polyphemus moth, which has a six inch wing span. So we're going to put it in an empty aquarium and we can't wait to see it break free.

One last picture to share. Sunday evening on the way to church, we came over the ridge and were treated to this amazing sunset. And, of course, all I had was my cellphone and the photo quality doesn't do the sunset justice. (Sorry the photo is blurry. Traffic was whizzing past.)

The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden, Book Review

The Postage Stamp Vegetable Garden 

by Karen Newcomb

N.B. I received this book from Blogging for Books in exchange for an honest review.

From the moment I saw this book, I knew I had to have it. I love vegetable gardens, and I only have a very tiny space, a flowerbed actually. While this book doesn’t specifically address flowerbed vegetable gardens, everything in it applies to what I’m doing and shows me how to have a more productive garden.

The book begins with a wonderful historical overview of postage stamp gardening before getting down to the nitty-gritty of the process. Perhaps some gardeners aren’t as interested in the history of gardening, but I love knowing that these techniques have proved tried and true since the 1890s.

After introducing small space gardening, the author lays out raised bed options and vegetable arrangements for everything from 4’ x 4’ bed to a 8’ x 10’ bed (promising a minimum of 200 lbs. of fresh vegies and herbs from a 5’ x 5’ bed.) The layouts are not only well thought-out but also aesthetically appealing. 

Having discussed the physical arrangements of the garden, the book details soil amendments, watering, disease/pest control*, and how you can possibly grow vining vegetables (even melons) in such a small space. Finally, the author explains which plants are best planted next to each other in order to encourage healthy growth and productivity.

I’m very excited about this book! It has shown me how to alter my gardening techniques to radically increase the amount of food I can raise in an extremely limited area.

As for buying the book, don’t think twice. Buy it! You’ll be glad you did.

*The methods in this book are organic. Even if you don’t do organic gardening, this is still a great book that will cut down on the use of fertilizers and pesticides using simple techniques.

Eden to Amazon

For as long as I can remember, I’ve made up stories. I’d sit in an airport and make up stories about the people that walked by. As I drove past houses, particularly interesting ones, I’d make up stories about the people who live inside. The most poignant stories were always about the people with neglected gardens.

As I’d drive or walk by a house with a neglected garden, I looked to see whether the bones of an excellent garden where underneath the weeds. I’d look for specimen plants—exotic creatures that take special nurture. I’d spy out meandering foot paths or artfully planted foundation plants. And, of course, if I spied out the bones beneath the neglect, the story I told myself would become tragic. Often, it would run like this. A dear woman (all woman who garden are wise, aesthetic souls) planted and cared for a lovely garden. One day, disease or death struck. And now her husband can’t bear to be out weeding and mulching because it reminds him of her. And now the garden lies in disarray—a physical reminder of love lost. (Yes, my younger daydreams were melodramatic.)

Now that I am older and wiser, I know the truth because my garden has gone from Edenic to Amazonian. (Okay, it was never Edenic, but this is my blog post so I’m allowed a little creative license.) And the cause of the neglect isn’t debilitating disease or death or even a bad case of the flu…it’s writing deadlines. When you’re looking for passive voice, mixed metaphors, etc., there isn’t time to trim the roses or weed the Bermuda. (I tried Roundup, but it must’ve rained before the poison dried. Grumble, grumble.)

In any case, Screwing Up Alexandria is now pubbed, and I’m out in the garden with shears and shovels (yes, some of the weeds are that big). And soon I’ll banish the Amazonian takeover. But, I am a little wistful because I’m wondering how many other writers who drive by my house are going to have their tragic stories ruined. Sorry.

(Okay, so please tell me that I’m not the only one who makes up stories about gardens.)

Yeah, okay, so this isn't my garden. It's one of the gardens at Versailles.
But a girl can dream, right?

All You Need Is A Can Of Spray Paint

First of all, I want to say thank you to everyone who picked up a free copy of Screwing Up Babylon. The giveaway blew my socks off. I nearly tripled my expectations. Thanks! Also note, I've now got a Mail Chimp sign up, so if you want to know when Screwing Up Alexandria is available or when I'm having another giveaway, sign up.

As you may know when I'm burned out on writing, I garden. (I also clean house, but that's not nearly as fun.) Saturday I did some "new porch gardening."

Before the new porch, we had some really ugly flowerpots (dead pink colored) that I filled with flowers during the summer. But I couldn't bear the thought of putting the flowerpots back on the porch. I thought about throwing the old ones out and buying new ones, but pots are expensive. So I bought a can of spray paint.

Here is the before. (Okay, not exactly before. It's in process. But you can see they were a dead pink color.)

Here is the after. (WalMart had geraniums on sale cheap. And I read how to over-winter geraniums by making them go dormant, so these hopefully should be the last geraniums I'll ever buy. Squee!)

The color of these photos isn't quite spot on, but you get the idea.

(Yeah, the porch still needs to be painted.)

So much better than dead pink!

Disappearing Garden

Just so I’m clear I do not grow a garden for the neighborhood. Wait, that’s not quite true. Across from our home is a retirement facility and I do grow lots of flowers partly for them. There’s nothing more wonderful than having an elderly man or woman stop by the house and thank me for the flowers they see when they drive home or look out the window.

But I don’t grow veggies and fruit for the neighborhood. First, it was strawberries that went missing. And I blamed it on the squirrels and our dog—Jez is partial to strawberries. Then, when the raspberries came into season, I wrapped them with netting and securely fastened it. But when I went to pick the raspberries, there wasn’t a single berry left. Now it’s the tomatoes. When I went out to pick the first tomatoes of the season, nothing was there. And they weren’t any signs of animal picking and eating, no broken branches, no claw marks, etc.

So I’m beginning to wonder if it’s not the squirrels. I’m wondering if the thief has two legs instead of four. And I’m compiling a list of how to stop the thief.

1. I could leave our black Lab outside at night. Nothing scarier than seeing a pair of caramel colored eyes bearing down on you in the darkness. But Jezebel would be very sad if she couldn’t cuddle up on her blanket and sleep.

2. We bought a lock for the gate, but we actually would have to remember to lock it at night. And the tomatoes aren’t in the locked area anyway.

3. I could put up a sign saying “This garden is protected by tarantulas.” (It works for a jewelry store in NYC.) Of course, I’d actually have to have tarantulas. Not that I’d mind, but Ariel would have a fit.

4. Or maybe just a sign that says “Please don’t steal our food”… Nope. I think the tarantula thing is way more exciting--I’ve heard they hiss.

Photo by Rafael Cerpa, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Romance Does Not Have a Place in Gardening

The other day while I was weeding, I turned and saw my daughter Ariel blowing on a dandelion puff ball. My vision clouded with red.

I stared, trying to find words.

Daughter, noticing the stare, said: “I guess I shouldn’t be doing this.”

Me, trying to be patient with said child whose mind has been addled by finals: “No.”

Daughter, with a shrug: “It’s not so bad though. Look at all the other weeds—what’s a few more?”

Me, considering whether daughter is intentionally provoking me: “Not funny.”

Daughter: “It’s stress-relieving.”

Me, wondering whether provoking your mother or blowing weed seeds everywhere is stress-relieving: “Go blow the dandelion puff ball into the trash can.”

Daughter, laughs and flounces away with the puff ball: “That’s not very romantic.”

I watch my daughter suspiciously all the way back into the house. And I plot that if I see that child blow a puff ball into my lawn ever again, I will teach her eventual children how romantic it is to blow puff balls into her lawn. Turnabout is fair play.


Okay, dandelion seedheads are gorgeous. But still, one does not simply blow the seeds across the lawn.

Photo by Magnus Manske, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

Pods for Turkey

It’s spring again. It means the sun is shining, the wind is cool, and the temperatures are in the 50s. Perfect gardening weather.

So I’ve been assessing. And come to some decisions.

 First, an enemy who feels great hatred towards me has obviously spread seeds of unknown origin everywhere. My “lawn” is now a weed patch. I’m not even sure it’s salvageable. But this is March, so I’m feeling positive and taking dominion over my gardening kingdom. I’ve proclaimed “Death to Weeds.” No doubt,this will last until the end of May. Then, I’ll wave the white flag and have a glass of iced tea.

Second, all my roses have to go. This breaks my heart. Our house is a 1920s cottage, so I planted a hedge of knockout roses around it. It was bliss for six years. On the seven year, stealth mites infected my roses with rose rosette virus. And there is no cure. My husband Cal removed one side of the rose bushes and we planted grape vines. Cal has another 12 or 13 bushes to dig out and then we’ll plant reblooming weigela. I’ve warned the weigela that it better bloom beautifully and resist all manner of pests.

Third, I really hate our massive magnolia tree. It’s huge and ancient. Two things that should make me like it. But it’s also a Southern magnolia, which means I spend a large portion of my gardening time cleaning up after it. In the spring, I have to clean up all the dead leaves—they’re thick and leathery, so they don’t mulch. In fact, I have no doubt they’d survive the Apocalypse (along with cockroaches). In summer, the tree drops its flowers—also huge, gooey, and non-mulchable. And in the fall, it drops massive prickly pods that have to be picked up by hand. When Luke and Ariel move to grad school this summer, I suspect that they’ll do the happy dance because they’ll  no longer have to hear me say, “Slave labor time—we’re picking up pods.”

On the other hand, I sure there will be a lot of pods that need picking up over Thanksgiving holidays. It’ll be a pods-for-turkey kind of thing.

Magnolia pod courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Isn't It March?

February is the coldest month of the year. Normally, March and April are spring months with temperatures beginning in the 40s and as the months progress, ending in the 70s. But this year, we’ve jumped with both feet into summer. Yesterday, it was 91 degrees F. The kids wanted the air conditioner turned on. I resisted. But if today’s as hot as yesterday, I’ll cave.

And the heat, which has been unseasonable for a couple of weeks, has my gardens completely confused. Daffodils bloomed before crocuses. I have a bearded iris blooming—the tulips haven’t even started blooming yet. None of the seedlings I ordered have even arrived yet. They’re due tomorrow. But when I put them in the ground, they’re likely to get scorched.  Best case scenario, they’ll go into shock.

And, of course, the chance of frost doesn’t pass until April 18. So most likely, all the tender plants will come up and be frozen. And the weeds are having the most amazing celebration of spring. Normally, I can get them under control before they go crazy, but not this year. But I’ve been out every morning with my trowel in the cool morning wreaking my vengeance on them. I won’t let them mock me for much longer. Unless you consider the lawn (a weed patch that I call a lawn simply because I want to pretend it’s a verdant meadow instead of a rocky, clay slope that destroys everything but clover, chickweed, and dandelions). The lawn will mock me all summer. But I’ve decided to rise above it—that and send the boys out to mow. When the weeds are freshly mown and I squint my eyes, I can pretend it’s grass.

In spite of the weeds and heat, there’s one thing I’m loving. Open windows. (I am thankful that I don’t have pollen allergies. Most people in Chattanooga are bleary eyed and congested. I’ve heard all the Germans who moved here to manage the new VW plant are flooding allergists’ offices.) Last night, I slept with the windows, and the birds woke me this morning. Birds are soooo much better than alarm clocks.  If you aren’t in the frozen tundra of New England (sorry, Kirsten et al.), let the birds wake you tomorrow. It’s bliss.

A Winter Without Snow

The end of January is quickly approaching. And I’ve come to the realization that we’re going to have a winter without snow. What’s the point of cold, gray days if you don’t have snow? I realize that the city of Chattanooga has only one snow plow and two sanders, but still...

Instead, we’ve had day after night after day of rain. And the high today is 65. It’s like we hit the fast forward button to spring. Now don’t get me wrong, spring is my favorite time of year in the South. So that’s good. But there’s a problem. A big problem.

Without a heavy ground freeze, none of my late summer weeds died. I blew off weeding in the fall (while I worked on my novel) and cursed the weeds, “Die in the winter freeze.” Only it didn’t happen. And now those weeds are mocking me—they’re huge. They’re dropping seeds. If they had faces, they’d be laughing.

I try not to take stock of my yard and garden when I go outside. But wearing sunglasses doesn’t help much. The massive green patch of clover in the midst of dormant lawn is hard to miss. Strands of Bermuda grass poking out of my liriope borders mean hours of work. And those areas that I didn’t get around to mulching...well, at least there’s Round-up.

What I needed was a good dose of snow—nothing like a clean white blanket to make everything look tidy. Then, I could pretend that my only chore for the spring is enjoying the daffodils, tulips, and hellebores. But it’s not. I guess it’s time to buy a new pair of gardening gloves... Besides a new gardening catalogue came and there’s a gorgeous hardy orchid. And the daffs have buds. And the hyacinths are up. I love spring.

Give Me Your Cup and No One Gets Hurt

My name is Connie, and I’m a gardener. I bought my first plant 25 years ago, and I can’t stop. Seriously. Only this year, I’m doing seeds instead of plants. Cheaper. Definitely not easier. I’ve done seeds before so I know what I’m talking about.

Here’s the thing. The only way it’s cheaper is if you don’t spend money on fancy seed starters like peat pots, etc. Yeah, I covet them, and they’re easier. But we’re doing cheaper. That means I need cups to plant the seeds in. And since I’m not buying them, it means I need to mooch them. Providentially, our church had a luncheon yesterday. After the luncheon, I went dumpster diving. Okay, not too literally, I only picked a few cups out of the trashcans. Most cups I grabbed just as people were throwing them into the trashcan. It went something like this.

Me: Can I have that cup, please?

Person 1: Uh, sure...

Me: I want to reuse the cup (scoring points for environmental consciousness) to plant my garden seeds.

Person 1 (realizing that I’m not a lunatic): Right, okay.

But not all my experiences were quite so straightforward.

Me: Can I have that cup, please? I want to reuse it. (I was trying to cut down on odd facial responses.)

Person 2: Oh. (He looks at the Styrofoam cup oddly.)

Me (wondering why I’m still getting odd looks): I’m going to plant seeds in it for my flower garden.

Person 2 (laughing): I thought you wanted to wash it in order to use it again for the next luncheon.  I thought it was your Dutchness coming out.

Me (smiling, not offended at the reference to pecuniary Dutchness because said person’s wife is also Dutch): No, no. I don’t think I’d do that. (Maybe I would at home with my kids. But not with other people—they’d have non-family germs.)

So I brought my used Styrofoam cups home. And proceeded to say, “Ariel, let’s soak the seeds!” She gives me a languid look and says, “I don’t know why you think that I’m excited about this.” My shoulders droop. Ariel then remembers all the times that I’ve pretended to be interested in some obscure matrix theory and says, “Okay, fine.”

She watches while I label the cups, pour in the seeds, and add water. Her contribution to the process beyond watching is to say, “Euw! Those hollyhock seeds look like fleas!” Indignant, I say, “They do NOT look like fleas. Fleas are much smaller.” At that, Ariel gives me her triumphant look. I grumble. Then she announces that when she gets a home of her own, she’s going to hire me to do her gardening. I think that I’m going to be way too expensive for her to hire. She can pull her own weeds. 

Why Didn’t the Weeds Die?

Spring has peeked around the corner in Chattanooga. It was in the mid 70s today. Which means that I was running the air conditioner in the car. Normally, I’d just open my windows, but I was going to a meeting and my hair does not hold up to the windblown look. Instead of looking pleasantly tousled, my hair sticks out at odd angles and I look like a refugee from a disaster movie.

But my hair woes are not the subject of this post. And neither are the daffodils whose lovely flower buds are starting to swell. And neither is my hellebore, which has clearly forgotten to bloom. I plan to gnash my teeth about that soon enough. No, the subject of this post is why my weeds aren’t dead.

When we lived in New England, come late October I’d begin to grin at the weeds. I’d taunt them. “Grow, you vile mutant plants, because winter is around the corner and your evil roots and prickly stems are going to freeze solid. Bwahaha.” Since we had a nasty winter in Chattanooga this year, I was rubbing my hands in anticipation of a weedless lawn and flower beds. I was disappointed. My grass isn’t green, but Luke’s going to have to mow on Saturday because the weeds are growing like...well, weeds.  

I know a ton of weed seeds blow in from our neighbor’s yard. She doesn’t have grass, she has a weed patch. I’d love to hex her yard, but I don’t believe in hexes so that doesn’t work. But regardless of the contributions of her weed turf, I have weeds that have overwintered. They were tiny shoots of weediness in the fall that I felt certain would die, die, die. Instead, they spread their loathsomeness and grew virile.

I refuse to take this weed offensive lying down. Every time I venture outside, I pull handfuls of weeds (the family wonders why it takes me so long to get the mail), though the piles of dead weeds everywhere will soon answer their questions.

But here’s my question. Why did the weeds overwinter? I’m sure there’s an explanation, a good scientific one.  But I’m leaning towards a more diabolical answer—world domination by genetically-engineered vetch, dandelions, and nut grass. What do you think?

Chemical Dependency

It’s the time of year where I have to admit that I am chemically dependent on...Round up. Any other time of year, I’m willing to put on my hat and gloves, grab my gardening bag, and hit the flower beds. But once the heat shatters the 90 degree, massive humidity mark, I break out the Round up. (Maybe it’s the evil dictator intent on world domination in me, I tested out as Sauron in the LOTR personality test, but I love killing weeds.) Nothing’s more fulfilling than spraying unsuspecting healthy green weeds with Round-up and knowing they’ll be toast within a few days. Bwa-ha-ha!

I sprayed weeds on Saturday, and when I went running this morning I had satisfaction of seeing the weeds had already started to turn brown. Of course, if my neighbors actually cut their “grass” (read weed patches) on a regular basis I might not have such weed problems, but that’s another story.

In the meantime, die, weeds, die!

Drip, drip

Four years ago Cal and I put in drip irrigation. The idea was to save water, money, and time. It has saved time. I don’t have to lug around a too heavy watering can and water each plant—I like to garden so I have a lot of plants. It may also be saving water and money. However, that is offset by the days that I forget that I’ve turned on the drip irrigation and it drips and drips and drips and drips.

Cal and I got up this morning to go running and noticed water spilling out of the birdbath (it’s hooked into the irrigation line). Two out of the four irrigation lines were on all night. We turned them off. Later I went to turn on irrigation line three, which I forgot to turn on last night, I discovered that line two was still on—neither Cal nor I can figure out how that happened. So one irrigation lines was on for 15 hours. Yep. I’m guessing I didn’t save a lot of money this month. On a positive note, my strawberry plants are very perky.

How Do You Know It's Spring?

How does our family know that it’s spring? It could be that the cars are covered with green-yellow pollen. Or, it could be that Matt and Jake are sneezing all day long. Or, it could be the daffodils or the tulips or the irises that are blooming. Or, it could be that that I now run outside twice a day to water seedlings and check to see which new plant has erupted from the ground.

But the greatest clue, is that the Battle of the Bugs has begun. Yesterday I was outside in the chill of the morning with my tank sprayer of Neem Oil (a safe “natural” oil that treats all kinds of nasty vermin plus black spot and powdery mildew). If I’d been smart, I would have cleaned each part of the tank sprayer before mixing up the Neem Oil. When a tank sprayer sits all winter, salts form in different parts of the sprayer and clog the lines. Needless to say, I wasn’t smart. Instead, I filled the tank, pumped, and tried to spray. Nothing. I decided to open the tank without considering the pressure that the tank was under. With an explosive woosh, I got a face full of Neem Oil—for the next week I can be sure my face will not get aphids, powdery mildew, Japanese beetles or black spot. What a relief!?

After I finished spraying the plants, (Death to the aphids sucking the juices from my irises and rose buds!), I washed my face right away. But at dinner I was still flaking off bits of dried Neem Oil.

Today when I was outside, I noticed snails and slugs. And they’d attacked one of my new lilies of the valley. I’m currently out of Deadline, but Ace Hardware is just down the street. And I don’t think my neighbors will care if I use it. When we lived in Santa Cruz I had to put out Deadline under cover of darkness. Our neighbor “raised” snails. Not the kind that would become escargot. She raised garden snails to feed to road-kill possums that people brought to the SPCA where she worked as a puppy counselor. (Don’t even get me started on her theories of puppy training, which included, “teach a dog not to bark by teaching him to bark on command and then never give him the command. ?!? Like that would work—of course, she’d never owned a dog...) Back to the snails. My neighbor didn’t actually feed the snails. They came over to our yard during the night and stripped our plants bare. Fed-up, I bought Deadline and drew my snail-killing-line-of-death around each plant. The next day, I had over fifty dead snails. She saw me cleaning them up and had a hissy fit. Personally, I believe that possums ought to be road-kill. But I didn’t exactly tell her that as foam was spewing from the corners of her mouth.

Some people begin spring by sneezing, some people by cutting the flowers, I start spring by gearing up with my Deadline and tank sprayer. Lock and load, baby!

A Perfect Spring Day

Yes, I realize that this post was supposed to go up yesterday. For those of you who never realized it, I post on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. And today is Tuesday.

Are you looking for a good reason I didn’t post yesterday like I broke my leg, the water heater exploded, or we went out of town. Sorry. It’s nothing like that. I was just one of those few days that morph from bad into perfect.

The bad started early. For months now Ariel’s had problems with her computer. It shuts down randomly, not from virus software but from overheating. I suspected that her fan must not be working properly. Anyway, I did the mother-nagging thing. “Ar, take your computer in to the UTC tech people. They fix student computers for free.” Ar did her nagged-child thing. “Yeah, yeah, I will I’m just really busy right now. Exams, classes, hanging out with friends.”

So it went until yesterday. Yesterday the computer wouldn’t boot up—it had damaged OS (operating system) files. Apparently, the last time the computer shut down it tweaked the files. Ar called Dell tech support (it’s spring break so the UT computer experts are on vacation). Yeah, they could fix it to the tune of $120. gulp.

Ar decided to wait until the computer geeks are back on Monday. But she has a paper due on Wednesday, this Wednesday. And she didn’t have a backup file. In fact, none of her files are backed up. (A bad thing since it looks like she may end up with a factory wipe of her computer.) So Ariel spent the morning retyping her paper—thank goodness she had a hard copy. BTW, for all you writers and students—back up your documents. You can use a data stick. Or you can email your documents to yourself and stick them in an e-file. That way if your house burns down or you lose you data stick, you still have your book, story, or paper.

If Ariel’s computer woes were the only part of the day, I’d have blogged on it yesterday. But the day transformed. I bought some hosta and bleeding heart roots and planted all 17 of them. I had to dig out rocks and hack away roots, but nothing compares to a spring day spent outside before the mosquitoes wake up or the humidity rises. And besides my hands were utterly filthy, I was sweaty, and had a bleeding knuckle. Yep, it doesn’t get much better for a gardener.

After the plants were planted, I lay back in the porch swing, smelled the sweet air, listened to the birds, and felt the sun warm my winter-chilled bones. It was perfect, except for the niggling thoughts about Ariel’s computer. But in the spring air, you can forget anything.