FedEx v Locust Tree

From over on the fb:


Late-breaking neighborhood excitement: FedEx guy backed into one of my trees (twice), while doing a terrible 3-point turn. I went outside, took photos, smacked his truck with one of my lady hands as he drove away, and made him stop. He was literally dragging a small tree branch on his bumper. Despite his adorable face melting my heart I pointed at him and yelled “I want you to APOLOGIZE for hurting my tree”. He did, and was very nice and I was appeased.


I did not use any bad words.

PS Sorry about the formatting. I do not consistently hit preview before I post to see if it looks like dooky.

Fire Water -- Umeshu 2026

A few years ago a friend saw my post about making umeshu and let me know that he had an ume tree and he and his wife do not use the fruit. Last year I hit him up, and this year I returned with some of the finished product and some bags for bringing home this year's crop.

I was a bad girl and didn't get around to cleaning the fruit. In the laundry room they were ripening and more than ripening and smelling delicious and today I finally prepared what was left. Because there is so little fruit I thought about what else I could use to make this year's potion. I considered aquavit, the tipple of my ancestors, and its tasty mix of aromatic seeds and sprigs.  Which led me to thinking about allspice, and my tiny tree from Fastgrowingtrees.com, which I mention a lot, here. I laugh every time I see their commercials, as in "Fast growing? You are kidding". But I love my tree and thanks for the leaves.

I emptied the green waste and looked around the garden, taking some allspice. Then I noticed my Cecile Brunner. Then I remembered my big Cecile Brunner in the back. I wandered. In the back yard I saw very few roses -- it's been windy -- but I gathered a bud and some spent blossoms. Then I plucked some lime leaves from that tree. Back in the front I remembered the tiny strawberries. There were precisely three, but that's fine. And some pineapple sage. Then I took some violets. Invasive. Do not smell. But they're pretty. And a tiny sprig of lavender. 

Here's my little haul.

Finally I remembered our kahili ginger! I've never known whether it is edible, but I looked it up. Turns out it is. I went back outside, cut a stalk down near the root and added it to the mix. Photo from last year's ginger.

And here's the finished umeshu product.

Now we wait.

My hands smell like roses.

10 Photos

The prompt was to share ten photos I didn't have ten worthy photos in this past week to share, however:

A highlight of the week was a garden swap / earth day / SWANA collaboration at work. SWANA stands for Southwest Asia and North Africa. I decided to do my own collab with the Meow slack channel and I brought cat grass seeds for people to use in delighting their cats.

I came home with some fig cuttings.

And at the end of the day, as I was getting into my car, I found a message from the Coca Cola company: a discarded Coke can next to the parking spot where I always park, that says "Sis".

We Left The Home

We actually got out of the house yesterday. I don't think that mrguy enjoyed it as much as I did, but I needed it. The morning started with the big inky boy purring and clawing into my bare shoulders and neck while quacking like a duck and drooling on me. The fact that he's discovered me over the last few months is both a joy and a pain in the neck. How, after 14 years, is he somehow obsessed with me?

Then it was a delightful 2 hours with the local Irish genealogy club. The topic was cemeteries, gravestones, traditions, cemetery records.

Then we had a nosh and went out to a favorite spot. It was completely foggy, which was lovely. It smelled like low tide, and there was a lovely garden in the parking lot that had so many gorgeous things that attracted happy, supping hummingbirds. There were also children chasing each other and screaming about nuclear waste.

We sat on a bench beyond the parking lot. A little walk was good for mrguy.

It felt cold quickly, so we went home after a little bit. Mrguy took a nap and started feeling the effects of our Covid and flu shot the day before. Fed him some chicken soup and we turned in early.

Garden News

Who knew that a new garden hose nozzle could offer so much joy? I bought a new nozzle that was dead cheap and has a whole bunch of settings. I can make it rain. I can blast the leaf litter out of the cordelyne. It is so satisfying. In general, I am making myself go out into the garden and water because it is good for me. And I've been rewarded with news of the plant world.

A few weeks ago I swapped some geraniums from the aku room, these flaming pink guys that I've propagated from cuttings, into the prime position on the porch. You will notice one lemon on the blue chair. This is the basket for the neighborhood, for whom we are the lemon dispensary.

The allspice "tree" that I've been growing for several years is still making leaves, which is all I need. It's in the center of this photo. All I need in order to make the best applesauce ever is two of those leaves, so I am golden!

I keep harvesting lemons for the neighbors, but if you enlarge this photo you can see that the lemon tree is pumping out fruit that will be ready in January. Wooo!!

I *just* noticed the other day that the ginger / awapuhi is starting to put out some flowers. I am soooo excited!!

And over here you can see the forest that has become our green hedge with our next door neighbor. The the middleground are the cordelyne, which are insanely tall now. Right behind it is one of our many Japanese maples that line the street, and the oak tree behind it.

It is a happy day in the garden.

Orchids

Hats off to the previous owner of this house. 

The front yard orchids make me happy.

Welcome Back

 Yesterday I did all of the things.

1) Went to the park with mom and her caregiver

2) Took a long walk with a friend

3) Cooked dinner for a friend who we thought would leave by 3 or 4pm but who stayed until 10:30

and I am exhausted.

Mom was funny. Lately I need to multitask when I see her because her caregiver needs some love, too. So I am literally negotiating two conversations simultaneously. The caregiver gives me the dirt on the mama and tells me things that she sees as potential problems or injustices. And the mama wants to do the usual: vaguely or outright complaining about the current moment, which she will then praise to others later.

The park was gorgeous and it was a beautiful day. A squirrel came to say hello. Mom tried to convince me to move to where my sister lives. She wants to start a board and care home in the midwest, in order to make enough money to buy a house. She has plenty of money. 

The caregiver says that mom got in trouble in the dining room at her community. She wants to sit in a particular seat, and that's not allowed. Also she called the dining room manager over and chewed him out because the tablecloths in the dining room are not ironed. Holy cow, woman! I'm mortified. She has no idea how good she has it. No idea.

Then I went to see my friend from college, hugged her for the first time in about 20 years. She was the first non-relative I have hugged in 15 months. We walked a few miles to a rose garden and took photos of all of the unconventionally colored roses, like one called Ketchup and Mustard, that has petals that are yellow on the outside and red on the inside. And vaguely green-pink ones and brownish ones. Our 18-year-old selves would never believe that our 58-year-old selves would be doing this in the future.

When I got home I was beat. And our friend never left the house so I got up the energy to cook and we invited him to stay. He was our first dinner guest in at least 2 years. I can barely keep my eyes open and am unable to leave the sofa today. The boy kitten had too much excitement yesterday, himself, and he's sacked out like a real cat in the crook of my leg. 

Flowers For Mom

Tomorrow I'm going to see my mom for the first time in several weeks -- since her trip to the Midwest and back, constipation, quarantine, negative COVID test, move from Zyprexa to Haldol, and all that that entails for her and for my sister who is in charge.

I hear she's eager to see me, but I also hear from my sister that my idea of a sidewalk visit (which is what I feel safe doing) "simply *does not* satisfy and never will." To her credit, my grumpy sister has been taking care of mom for weeks, now, and it's been awful for her, I'm sure. Not to her credit, I think this was all her idea, but she thinks it all had to happen because I wouldn't take my mom for drives.

Neat!!

So tomorrow I will walk into the lion's den, where I never satisfy and hand over some flowers that I think are pretty that my family will turn their nose up at and rearrange.

Meantime, I think the flowers are pretty. The blue berries are Dianella tasmanica (Tasman Flax Lily), which really pops with the orange succulent flowers.