Something sunny, something blue, something happy, something new!
What a lovely day! Warm enough to wear a tshirt, chill enough to be comfortable. I was out gardening this afternoon, removing the weeds and grasses that have snuck over the borders to the figure-8 garden, and filling 2 raised beds at the front of playhouse, and planting a Japanese dwarf cypress in the front corner, lining its little circle with round eggy rocks from Gotland. I am NOT a gardener. I dislike greatly having dirt under my fingernails. I can’t sit on my knees very long and it’s way too much up and down and up and down bending for me, but today it was nice out, and there were things to do, and I took breaks in between and got it all done.
Anders built 2 raised beds at either side of the playhouse porch and we planted stonecrop and leopard’s bane. I think I might put some lily-of-the-valley in there, too. While weeding the front garden I discovered that the 3 chinese physalis lantern plants that we put in last year had tunneled and popped up and multiplied to 25 little green fan-leafed shoots. At that rate, we’d have had 208 of them next year, and the year after that? 1729! So I pulled up all but 3 of the thick-rooted, burrowing little buggers.
Everything we planted in that front garden is a spreader, so we have to really keep an eye on them. The forget-me-nots have popped up all over it, and so have tiny little violets, blown apparently out of the pots in the center, since I never planted any intentionally; they’re like tiny bright and bobbing garden gifts.
The kids ran in and out all day long, with one friend and then another, and then a whole gang, zooming around the block on bicycles and kick-scooters and pedal-cars, playing in the playhouse, on the deck, in the yard.
The hot air balloons are back. Irma wrote about them recently, gliding around the lower atmosphere over Stockholm, but they’re down here, too, serenely floating over Skåne. They are a sure sign of spring, and you can see them every calm evening in the spring, summer and early fall. Sometimes when you’re out in the lowering turquoise dusk, you’ll hear this weird darth-vaderish-hissing-breathing noise that seems to be coming from all around you. Look up! It’s a hot air balloon going slowly by way down low.
Great Big Congratulations on the New Job to johann_metzger Who REALLY Ought to Write About it in His JOURNAL!!
More good things about today: chicken pasta with Simone’s home-made wild garlic pesto sauce for dinner, setting up an appointment next Saturday to meet with a flat-coated retriever breeder and her PUPPIES, looking forward this week to an eyeglass appointment (long, long overdue), our big spring concert, and sushi with galestorm!!