More Grievous Injury!

Background:  I am walking with a cane because I jumped when I stabbed my hand last week (point of knife came out my elbow....really!) and I pulled a muscle at the top of my left thigh.  [Thigh bone connected to the hand bone.....now hear the word of the Lord.]

New developments:  I woke up last night with leg cramps, a common occurrence with me, leaped out of bed, walking fixes the cramps, made my mad dash to the loo, I have a tiny bladder, and stubbed my toe on my cane.  I broke it....the toe that is!

I am hobbling around the office with pained look on my face.  When anyone asks what my trouble is I tell them.   But do I get any sympathy???  Nooooo I get giggles.....now is that nice?

I don't have a life I have a cartoon!

Whingingly,

Dianne
P.S.:  Silver lining:  I now have six cucumbers, five zucchini and one tomato in my planters.  You will have to take my word for it, Blogger won't let me upload pictures....See I told you, I live a cartoon.

One Third Done

I have completed the CQ side of the hand bag.  It has been slow going as I don't CQ!  All those seams, so many new treatments to think up!  Goodness how I admire the CQ ladies. I have one tiny seam at the bottom to do after the bag is put together.

 This has been cropped to what will show when the bag is constructed.  The other side will have a semi 3 dimensional dragon wallowing in his hoard.  I have not designed the handles yet, the bag has to hang flat.  Hmmm, a mechanics dilemma....

Another delicate beauty has unveiled herself.  This one bloomed last year for the first time.  Some kids were climbing around the air conditioner trying to get to the roof and broke off two stalks of blooms....so sad.  There are drawbacks to living right downtown!

Spent a boring Saturday evening with DH.   We were in the emergency room at the local hospital!  I did a dumb thing....as I was handling the knife I said to myself:  "This is how you cut yourself Dummy."  Well Dummy cut herself!  I have a deep stab wound in the web of my left hand, near the thumb.  (Truly odd to look under your skin and see meat!)  We went in to see if it needed stitching.  NOT!  They glued it shut!  The marvels of modern medical science!  I am now learning how dependant we are on working opposable thumbs!  Imagine that!  I have had to take two Tylenol 3 with codine so I can continue typing.  I have a short pointer finger on my left hand and the reach for the t is painful. 

I am such a wuss!  We bought a dozen consolation donuts on the way home from the hospital! We stayed up until 2:30 a.m. watching old Frazier episodes on You Tube.  I am well and truly consoled.  Haven't had a late date like that with DH since we were young!

Nap time....see y'all.....

A weekend in the garden.

Almost all done.  Planted the last of the perennials and some Wave Petunias that should fill large spaces of not-quite-prepared-yet beds.  We need to get soil on top of the grass clipping mulch.  This will have to come next year, as the budget is spent.  We are trying to convert awfull lawn into perennial beds.  It is working!
The bed below was all weeds and grass two years ago.  What looks brown in the picture is actually Viola that self-seeded.  I will thin them and isolate the beautiful 'sports' and hope that they will seed true next year.

I want to put in a sensuous curved line of beets and carrots with some lettuce accents into one of the long sidewalk beds.  I even garden like an artist, lol.  I did this last year and it was lovely.  The photo is taken from the edge of our second floor deck.

Upon which we have self watering planters:

These hold about nine gallons of water and it should last a week of sunny weather.  We fill them with the hose connected to the kitchen sink.  DH has always wanted a deck.....now we have the biggest and highest deck in town. 16 by 60 feet on the second floor.  No children or pets allowed out on it ever.

 

It is a delight to work in the garden beside such lovely ladies as these.

I am armed with a trowel and my seeds and I am off  before it rains again!

Fun in the Garden

We have harvested a night crawler for one of the upstairs garden planters....at this size I shall only need one per planter!  After all it is too big for bait, it would scare the fish.

One of DH's friends found it as he was coming in last night.  He hid it as he handed it to me, expecting me to shriek and drop it.  You should have seen his face when I said "How wonderful, let's put it in one of my planters on the deck."  I am no fun at all! 

 

This was the first sunny rain free day in over a week.  I spent all afternoon in the garden today weeding, planting a Coleus, weeding, planting a gorgeous blue Columbine, weeding, choosing spots for two pot Mums {not planting them, just choosing spots}, weeding......it must be time to get more mulch but the Viola have self seeded and I want to move some of them around yet.

 

Went to Canadian Tire for aphid spray for our apple tree...it is infested again this year. I wonder if we will ever get fruit.  I bought Roundup for the parking lot next door....that man never cuts his weeds so I just kill 'em.  I don't know what I will do when they ban the stuff.  Normally I don't like chemicals, but that seems to be the only solution here.  When we moved in it was a three to four foot swath of almost waist high weeds, all blowing seed into our side.  Sheesh.

We are in the second floor of a commercial building right in the middle of downtown.  There was a tiny patch, about 20 by 40 feet, of weeds and quack grass nestled between two parts of the single storey back of this building.  The landlord said if we would mow it we could garden in it.  We are making a little pocket park. 

This gorgeous Hollyhock froze out last winter....darn!  I have purchased a wonderful dark purple plant to replace it, and we are doubling the depth of this bed this year.  The small lawn is getting smaller.  It takes DH longer to set up the electric mower than it takes to actually mow the grass.  We have to scrounge for grass clippings.

 

 

This stuff is Round Leaf Mallow.  I think it is the Canadian version of Kudzu Vine.  I cut it back to the edge of the concrete and it grew half way across again in 18 days!  I let it grow last year just to see how it would look. It was lush and lovely till the middle of July, then went to seed and looked awful.  It is going to be all gone this year and other ground cover put in to replace it.  I would let it grow on the parking lot side, but it is just too invasive and would hop over the fence in a minute!

 

I have had to explain to DH that you cannot use Roundup in a sprayer to kill dandelions in the lawn.  It now looks like a dog park!

 

I bought some fertilizer for the garden planters, and I found Scarlet Runner Bean seeds.  I have been looking for those for two years.  While in CT I chatted with an elderly fellow about gardens and invited him to the parking lot to see ours.  He told me that that spot used to be his wife's back yard many many years ago when there were houses here!  Neat coincidence!

This was last year in early July.  We mulch with grass clippings from a local church.  Left over stone from the lot was pushed on to our side.  Too big a job to move it so we are just working with it.  It is not a problem, it is an opportunity, right?  Now if we can just stop the kids, who use our yard and the passage between the buildings as a short cut, from knocking the stone towers over as they go by......

I will post some 2011 pictures when we get it a little further along this year.

Now I will go sit down and work some more on my handbag.......I am too sore and tired to do anything else!