(Mostly) About the Gardening

A three-day holiday weekend with warm weather - so definitely what you might call a busman's holiday for me, naturally. I've been out in the garden all three days, besides one trip to buy plants, and one to a friend's to do a little help with her garden weeding and clean-up. But really, how can you resist being out in such nice weather?

I got all my plants in the ground and the planters, except the still tiny things from seed. Man, I've been adding a lot this year. It didn't really hit me until I saw the pile of plant tags.

The biggest garden splurge this year, however, was good old-fashioned manure. And a serious shout-out to Manotick Gardens, who delivered the stuff on the Sunday of a holiday weekend. I finally had a chance to call on Saturday to order, and the woman on the phone said, 'You're not getting it today.' I said, no, that was fine, if I had wanted it for today I would have called earlier in the week. Frankly, I was just glad the office was open so I could order. Then she said, 'How's Sunday?' What, like tomorrow? Hell, yeah. Deal. And sure enough, yesterday evening I came home to a cubic yard of 5-year-old local manure. Which proved to be enough to top-dress everything in the place, down to my planters, so I am thrilled. And all the plants look great against the dark-brown background, laid on like a mulch.

Even pre-manuring, though, things were looking nice, and I spend half the time outside admiring flowers. Pure white apple blossom:

The lilacs and the ground phlox end up nearly the same color:

Veronica whitleyi is in full bloom. It's a ground cover, low and grey-green most of the season but a carpet of blue-purple right now:

The bleeding heart, I think, will look good behind the euonymus, once it's established itself and gotten bigger:

With all this, of course, the knitting is going slowly, but I have hopes of getting some good work done today on the diamond-patterned gloves on the needles - the afternoon is supposed to be pretty hot, so indoor pursuits sound like a good idea.

Sad news from home, though. Turns out we were overly optimistic about the prognosis for the dog's Lyme disease. She did perk up for a while, but then started going downhill again, and the vet said the Lyme had damaged her bone marrow and she wasn't producing red blood cells anymore. No cure for that, poor Vicky, and I don't think she'll be around when I get to the country for Jo's alpaca shearing bee next week.

AKC and PSA

The chiengora scarf I was working on is done, shipped and received.

Now I'm trying to get my quilt square done this weekend, and working on my Hypnosis socks, which are coming along slowly (I'm still on the first sock).

And since it's supposed to be a gorgeous weekend weather-wise, there will be garden time. I want to re-arrange the back garden here, maybe turn the compost (if it's thawed), plus all the plants I was holding over the winter for a friend get dug up and go back to her this weekend.

It's kind of a warm-up and finish-everything-else idea for the weekend, because work starts Monday. Well, I suppose it's about time. It will be nice to get back to work, once I get used to the waking-up-early part again.

I tell you though, one thing I'm going to be doing more of this year is checking for ticks. I've been lucky so far, and never had one. Not sure how prevalent they are in the Ottawa area, even. But my parents aren't that far away, in southern Quebec, about two hours from here, and the tick situation seems to be getting bad there. Several people in their area have been diagnosed with Lyme in the past few years, one probably from a bite months, if not a year, earlier. Both parents and almost all the pets have had ticks, and get checked almost daily. This was a warm winter, with lots of mice around (which are carriers), and the first ticks on the pets showed up before the snow was off the ground. And one of those ticks gave the dog Lyme disease. She was all lethargic and not eating, and seemed in pain, so Mom took her to the vet. And this one vet said she's seen 13 cases of dogs with Lyme so far this spring.

It's treatable, especially if caught early - the poor dog is on antibiotics and vitamins, and is starting to feel better. But obviously the ticks are out there already, hungry, and infectious. So please, keep your eyes open. Check yourself and your pets. Save your ticks if you get them, so they can be tested if necessary. Watch for symptoms in yourself and your pets. Untreated Lyme can cause permanent damage, and it's not pleasant. The Canadian Lyme Foundation is a good place to start for info on prevention, symptoms, and treatment.