Hello, everyone! Spring has arrived here in north Florida, a real feast for the eyes this year. We credit a few long, soaking rains for the abundance of color.
Magenta blooms from an azalea bush.
Close-up of a variegated pink azalea bloom.
Fat carpenter bee sucking nectar from a dark pink azalea flower.
White azalea flowers.
All together: magenta, pink, red, and white azalea flowers along our front yard.
Elsewhere in our gardens …
Bulbine with small yellow flowers and a bunch of buds.
Woodland pholx: a bushy plant with purple violet-like flowers.
Blue-eyed grass (grass with delicate blue flowers).
Pink sorrel, a type of groundcover with pink, violet-like flowers. Grows wild.
Columbine, a delicate plant with red flowers that hang like upside down tulips with yellow fronds.
Close-up of a native pink azalea, petals not yet fully open.
A bromeliad plant with several red and yellow buds poking upward.
A red buckeye bush (or tree, I hope) with small red flowers on top.
While color is bursting out all over in my little corner of the world, I’ve been busying myself with writing (more or less) and various handcrafts. I’ve knitted two pair of socks. One pair (not shown) is mostly purple. The pair below was not intended to be “mismatched.” I apparently drew from the wrong end of the yarn for one, but I really like how these turned out. I might do this kind of mistake on purpose next time.
A pair of feet clad in striped socks, colors ranging from yellow to green to red to purple.
I also sewed the bag in this photo, finally finding something to do with the fabric remnant I bought years ago. It’s called a 4-corner bag (designed by Cocoknits) and was super easy to make. I have a fetish for bags and am enjoying this one so much I might make more.
A bag made of light denim fabric with a muted flower pattern and leather straps.
Finally, we’ve done a grownup thing and bought new living room furniture. The cushions and springs of our old furniture were fairly shot after 15 years of wear and the upholstery fairly destroyed after 15 years of tear by our cats. Note: Do not buy tapestry-like upholstered furniture if you have cats.
View of a brown leather loveseat and a brown leather sofa in our living room.
Raji and Wendy were quite put out by the loss of their beloved oversized scratching posts. We eased their adjustment by installing window perches behind the loveseat. We also covered the loveseat with a little-used comforter to protect it from the sun and make it more comfortable for our cats should they desire to stretch out.
Raji (ginger cat) and Wendy (Tortieco) on their windowsill perches.
No one can say that we don’t try to do right by our kitties.
I hope all is well out there among my far-flung online community. My writing is going well enough for me. My writing course is taking a break (as scheduled) until April 1 when we’ll start Session Two with new prompts among other goodies. Life is going well for us.
We did the other grown-up thing with updating our Wills, Living Wills, and Durable Powers of Attorney for Health Care. If I learned anything in the last couple of years, it’s that you don’t want to leave your loved ones guessing.
I cannot pretend to be upbeat and positive. I want to be. I was at the beginning of the month but events–both national and local–have left me feeling sad and often scared. While I’m writing this post, I’m listening to a podcast that a relative (by marriage) publicly shared on Facebook.
Yes, I should know better. For months now I’ve read this relative’s public posts with the sinking feeling that it wouldn’t be long before this relative embraced all the most ludicrous and bizarre conspiracy theories shared by the mob that stormed the Capitol. Well, this relative’s slide into the abyss of disinformation is complete. And that makes me sad … and a bit scared because there are obviously plenty of other people who believe as this relative does and a lot of them are willing, perhaps even eager, to use violence.
So … kind of hard to feel upbeat and positive, but I need to get up every morning. My cats and my husband depend on me to do so. They are my welcomed distractions.
Here’s one distraction who probably doesn’t need an introduction. Things are going well with Raji albeit slow. My goal is still to get him into a pet carrier, but he’s fast and has great reflexes. We’ve tried feeding him inside a carrier, in the hope that he’ll relax and not notice us slowly coming up behind him. Eh, he doesn’t relax. Usually he keeps a back foot or two outside the carrier so he can quickly back out and get away. The least sense of movement from either of us and he’s off! So we recently purchased a pet carrier built for two.
The trick with this carrier is not in getting him all the way into it–he will do that when he’s eating–but in getting the “door” zipped up before he can escape.
Meanwhile, we continue with our before-meal-petting routines.
Can you see his sharp little claws in the last photo? Right now that’s the main reason I want to get him back to the vet: nail trim! Besides being such a cutie-patootie, he is still allowing me to pick him up, but only when I’m sitting on the floor and I follow this procedure:
put gentle pressure on his back until he’s prone
firmly place my hands on either side of his rib cage and under his shoulders
slowly lift up, making sure his back is to me at all times
hold for one, two, maybe three seconds
slowly lower down to the floor
loosen “grip” on his sides so that my hands caress him as he launches away from me.
It’s fun, and it gives me hope. For the most part, we do have fun with Raji. Recently we’ve allowed our other kitties to be around during his supervised visits to the house interior. No fights so far. Nothing worse than Junior hissing and Raji running back for the garage. He’s curious about the other cats, but leaves them alone if they get hissy (thank goodness!).
It’s been cold here and we’ve been too busy for Greg and me to go on a nature walk. So, here’s a few of the plants I’ve been tending the last several months. I am quite impressed by these lovelies. I do shelter them on nights when the temps are below or near freezing, but it still impresses me how resilient they are.
This bromeliad was gift from a coworker. I’ve had it for over a year now, and it’s already bloomed once. I’m thrilled to see that it plans to bloom again.
I purchased this Red Penta a couple of months ago, shortly before our temps turned wintry. Butterflies and perhaps hummingbirds are attracted to the red flowers.
This here is a white-flowered butterfly bush. What you are seeing are new leaves interspersed with old. I find it so fascinating that this bush is continually pushing out new leaves. The white blossoms won’t appear until spring.
I feel a lot pride in this Scarlet Salvia. My husband bought it a couple of years ago and then complained that “it never bloomed.” I guess it’s one thing to tend to trees and large bushes, but a potted plant is something else. By the time I took an interest, it was already quite “leggy.” The soil was bone-dry. I started to water it. It is a water hog. It requires twice as much water as all the other plants. After a month or two, red shoots started to appear and before too long we had blossoms. And it has not stopped blooming since! It’s a miracle! In spring, I plan to prune it back, once it has access to plenty of warmth and sunshine to spur new growth.
I am grateful for these distractions: my cats, my husbands, and my plants. I’m also grateful for all of you who bring light and love into my life.
Marie at 1 Write Way 