Thought Patterns

I have a cool flower bed or two here at the house. I have raspberry lilies, daylilies, iris, daffodils, tulips, and a ton of hosta. I also have a bridal wreath shrub and a blue mist shrub. Lorna also has two ferns.

All was fine until this year.

First we got unusually warm weather in the early spring. All the flora was out and oh so happy, despite my warnings. Then came some frosts. Then came a late heavy wet snow.

Some of the plants looked like they would recover although would not be near their usual beauty.

Then came the hail storm. And the next. And the next.

Oh, and then the drought.

The hosta suffered the most since it has such big broad leaves.

This year I had less than five hosta bloom, only one or two daylilies, one raspberry lily, a lot, but not as much as usual, of the daffodil bloomed.

With such a hot summer, I didn't venture out much. I try to go out at least once a day but not this summer. I may be insane but I'm not stupid. But today is such a pretty day, nice temp, cool breeze. So I went outside and took the camera.

The main bed up front.

The hosta

Despite the damage, there are still younger hosta that started growing after the frost, snow, and hail. They have nice leaves.

The raspberry lilies

The blue mist shrub, which was sheltered during the hail storms, did good although it needed daily watering. It is even having some new growth.

Lorna's mom gave me a rabbit statue to go with my other one. They are out among the day lilies although they weren't as well hidden as usual.

Hey hey! The temp is finally above freezing!

One of these days, I will invest in a weather station. Our temps are colder than what "they" say. For example, when I let the dogs out for the last time each night, I check the temp from our gauge on the front porch. For the past several nights, it has been below 10F at around 2am. But "they" say we've not gone below 15.

Either way, our old old house with its old windows and doors has been a big chilly lately. If the wind isn't blowing, it's not too bad. But the wind just sucks the heat right out all the cracks.

OH, and the apple I had this morning had a sticker but no advertising on it.

We didn't get to work on it again today. It rained a little this morning, turning the back into mush again. Arrgh!

This is the ramp a year or so after it was built. That is Maggie on the ground and Holly (a Great Dane we were babysitting) on the ramp. The problem is the last section, only a few feet long, is completely gone. The last set of posts on that end is gone too. That means the section along the house is at a sharp angle. The other part has rotted due the stop we put up to keep the dogs from going off that end (the lattice part). Dirt and water sat there, slowly rotting it away. We didn't realize it until last year when grass started growing on the ramp!

We will keep the basic "L" shape, only the section that runs alongside the house will be longer and not at such an angle. The top part won't be at any angle at all. We will build the understructure then cover it with plywood again. The hope is to replace my front ramp boards with composite wood, take the boards there now, and use it on the dog ramp. If we do that, then it will be a nice people ramp, too.

By the way, in the image on the left, you can see the three ash trees I mentioned in an earlier post. Beyond them, along the road that goes in front of our house, you can see a red-ish shrub. That is the mock orange. To the right, you can just see what I think is the first of the bamboo. That entire strip there is now covered with the bamboo. I am making Lorna trim it so that the mock orange can be seen again.

Anyway, I digress.

I'm cold. I hate to be cold.

I'm spending all day in my chair and I wonder if that is why my legs are so cold. I have the footrest up and there's no pressure on my thighs. This house is cold. It is a good thing in the summer but a pain in the patootie during the fall and spring.

Our front yard has lots of trees. 3 ash, a huge old walnut, a young tulip poplar, and a shaggy bark maple. Then there's the huge pecan, another ash, walnut, and poplar (much older) around the back and side. Problem with these trees? Last to get leaves, first to drop them. The ash on the end out front is already bald. The middle one (a huge old tree) will be last. The walnuts have been falling for a while now and most of the leaves are gone.

Luckily we have the bamboo out front so there will be some greenery left.

We didn't get started on the dog ramp out back. The ground was soggy and slippery. The sun managed to peek through the clouds late in the day so hopefully it dried out some. Years ago, we hired a kid to do some work for us, including working with me on extending the dog fence to include part of the back porch. We were running out of material (and money) when we built the ramp so it's only some posts in the ground (w/out cement) and plywood. The plywood is long dead. We don't know what has kept it intact. Maybe the dirt. Anyway, we are going to fix it tomorrow or Monday.

A while back we were taking down drywall (and 3 - 4 layers of wallpaper) to expose the wonderful wood underneath. We had to move things around in order to get to the wall. We're only doing a small section at a time since the living room is so wonderfully divided anyway.

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Luckily the first winter storm of the season packed more wind than snow.

Unluckily it packed a lot of wind. Our screenhouse went flying. I went out, thought i had it latched down again. Nope. I went out and took it apart and the cold air set off an asthma attack. The two doses from the whoofer made the breathing easier and the cough subside but it also raised my heartrate. And, much to the delight of friends everywhere, I lost my voice for a few hours.

Anyway, the wind. Check this out:

These are images from the WeatherUnderground page for a weather station in Weaverville, a town just north of us. The top image is yesterday (11/22) and the bottom one is today.

Lorna and I were faced today with the reality that we dropped the ball.

We don't have all of our winter gear set aside. We aren't ready for a winter storm. However, we are going to get one tonight and tomorrow. It could stay up higher, it could stay along the state line. And it could hit us hard with wet heavy snow. That means down trees and no power.

Our 4×4 truck is still waiting to be repaired from the accident a freakin' month ago.

Lorna's 'new' Suburu is not AWD.

We are low on dog and cat food.

We are low on groceries.

And we have no pellets.

Our heat source is a pellet stove, meaning it burns little pieces of wood fed into the pot by an auger. This auger is electric powered but it is easy enough to open the door and toss a handful in. Seems as though the nation decided that propane and natural gas was going to be too costly and the sale of pellet stoves, and therefore pellets, exceeded the supply. We may get some Wednesday.

Pellet stove information
Hamer, a brand of pellets
Stove company
Another pellet stove information link
The furnace we'd hoped to have by now

In the meantime, we are financially strapped and I do NOT want to see the electric bill for this month. We are running two little heaters to keep the house warm. Ha. Our house is rather drafty, to say the least.

Lorna had to have an emergency alternator-ectomy today out on the mail route to the tune of just over $200.