Temperatures are sliding up into the 60’s—still a frost a night, but we’re getting there.
The star magnolia is in full flower, as are the pasque flowers.
The lilies in the pond are sending up shoots, but have another half foot to go before breaking the surface.
We went out and brought a little order to the garden. Got the canopy back on the patio, and I swept and scrubbed down two of the four chairs: two to go. Jane did the lion’s share, getting the lotus pond back in operation, and transplanting some of our border plants that seem to want to grow on the gravel paths instead of the perfectly good flowerbeds.
Temperatures here are sliding down into the 60’s—at night anyway. Winter is coming. 🙁
It was a gorgeous day today — 84F, clear skies with just the tiniest wisps of clouds, sunny and bright. The roses are going nuts. So is the crabgrass in the flowerbed beside them. One of the weeds in the lawn is blooming these tiny little yellow flowers, quite pretty actually. Last night when I went in to the bedroom to get ready for bed, my night stand was covered with hundreds of little wings. dun-dun-DUN! A bit surreal actually, just all these little discarded wings. As I was cleaning them up, I did find one dead insect with wings still attached — the smoking gun, carefully put into a container to positively identify the perps, but termites is at the top of the list of usual suspects. Got to email the landlady and find out who I need to call.
Yeah, that sounds like you have a termite swarm somewhere. We sometimes find discarded wings in the bathtub for a week, but very few of the bugs themselves. If it looks like a flying grub, probably a termite.
Contemplating this year’s projects: making a box to put my stacking washer in and my dryer on, so if one of them dies, I don’t have to replace both “because stacking incompatible machines can be dangerous”; bah. Also looking at building a small storage shed out of all the leftovers from the rest of my home improvement projects.
My 3 y.o. brown Turkey fig is starting to bear. In the past month, I got 2 tennis ball sized figs from it, with a dozen more in various stages of growth. OTOH, one of the 2 plumerias I trimmed back looks to be moribund. It started auspiciously, with several sprouts growing out of the stumps, but all the shoots eventually dropped their leaves, and I am seeing signs of boring insects in the remaining wood.
oh, dear. The minute you said tiny discarded wings…I said—yep. Termites. There ain’t no such thing as ‘flying ants’, as some will try to say: them is termites…
Actually, ants do fly – when they mate. Then they lose the wings. (I’ve seen them – they don’t look like termites.)
There was a hummingbird nesting in the entryway to my apt, on the inside (the outside end is glass with a glass door). Last Thursday the birdlet was perched on the edge of the nest, watching the world. Friday the nest was empty. It was no more than three weeks from egg to flown.
Happy holiday for anyone who has and/or celebrates one.
I read somewhere that not every country has a second Easter day, second Pentecost day and second Christmas day? Here those three mondays count as sundays and most people have the day off, so I’ve got one more day of Easter to be with my parents.
Spring is flowering madly (Prunus trees, flowerbulbs, forsythia, magnolia, early azaleas, the sour morello cherry tree; the rhubarb’s first leaves are already dinner-plate sized), and the trees are starting to leaf out.
Alas, the very fine spring weather we’ve had for most of a few weeks now decided to turn to drizzle for Easter. Still it’s clearly spring, and everybody suddenly has new energy and more smiles.
Monday I think will be a postal and state holiday, meaning a day off. Maybe not. It gets confusing. One thing it did was postpone due date for taxes til the 17th, because the 15th of April, the normal deadline, fell on a Saturday.
18th, I thought.
18th because the 17th is a holiday in Massachusetts, or at least parts of it. (Lexington and Concord, AKA patriots’ day.)
Monday the 17th is Patriots Day here in Massachusetts, celebrating the “shot heard ’round the world,” when the British Regulars (aka “Redcoats”) fired on the motley militia men of Lexington, Mass. and initiated the American Revolution. It’s also when the Boston Marathon is run. State Government and many companies give workers the day off… Taxes are therefore not due until Tuesday the 18th here.
There is also a holiday in Washington DC on Monday the 17th, which is why the entire country has an extra day to file their taxes (or their extensions), and it seems that most of the states went along with that this time. In prior years, we’ve had to figure out which states would recognize the delayed filing date and which didn’t, or if you got an extra day because your return was mailed to an IRS service center in Massachusetts.
There is nothing simple about the U.S. income tax system, even though the 1986 act was dubbed “simplification” because it reduced the number of tax brackets. It complicated preparation of individual returns immensely, and put me in a higher tax bracket than I’d been in before. So when I hear the current administration talking about “simplifying the tax system” I shudder. (End of rant)
In addition to Patriots Day, it’s Emancipation Day which is celebrated in Washington D.C., so Tax Day is on the eighteenth this year. (Oh the odd bits of information you pick up while listening to NPR)
Spring finally seems to have arrived. We had a few showers sat night, which smelled like spring instead of dank winter.
The petunias I wintered over are blooming in a south window, and an amyrillis I have no memory of ever buying has bloomed. Now to remember what I did to my bulbs last summer to get so many blooms this year!
So what do we do now? How about measuring the speed of light with the old “Peeps”?
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAcgY29Ow-ggJSldNTTBdZA