Saturday Morning Garden Blogging Vol. 4.19

Good morning, and my, how time flies!  Welcome to Saturday Morning Garden Blogging.

Our "normal" June weather has continued this week — a little warm on a few days as we inched into the 90s, but all in all, pretty damned nice.  And, well, at least it hasn't been over 100°!

Well, except for those afternoon thunderstorms.  None of them have hit my house, so I've had to water (ooops... need to run out and start the soaker hose running on one area or another of the flower beds).

What's even better, though, is that just in time for the weekened we're getting a little bit of a cool off — today will be in the low 80s, perfect for going out and doing a few chores, then sitting on the front porch and reading.

It has been a busy, interesting week here at Casa de Frankenoid — so much so that my sleeping cycles are off and I've been pretty much trying to catch up ever since.  We had a lovely time Saturday at the Garden Blogging Garden Party and Meeting of the Colorado Chocolate Fountain Caucus— great amounts of food (and chocolate) were consumed... and dripped on the counter... and the floor... and all over children.  Parents were responsible for cleaning up their own children (and mine — thank gawd — are now old enough to clean themselves).  After the last guest left, Arwen the Terrible told how goddamned inconsiderate we were to have hosted a party in her house and wanted to know why in hell we were going to bed so late?

Sunday morning was spent dealing with the aftermath: a good floor mopping and wipe-down of all chocolate-smeared surfaces — and then I took a nap.  And, because I took a nap I didn't get all the discarded cups picked up in the back yard and made a most useful discovery: earwigs will kill themselves to get wine.  Yes, on Tuesday I found a half-empty cup of wine in which a dozen earwigs had committed suicide.  It's a good thing to know, as I've got a huge number of earwigs this year.  There's still a half bottle of wine left from the party, so this evening I'll set up a earwig wine-tasting bar in the front yard to get ride of more of the damned things.

How many earwigs do we have?  Well, I found this one snuggled up and covered with pollen inside a lily.  I didn't know that they would climb up so high; I've only ever seen them scuttling around on the ground — and, well, drowned inside a cup of wine.

I would have loved to have spent Wednesday puttering around a bit outside, and then lazing about but, instead, I took Da Boys to the annual trip to Elitch Gardens, the local amusement park.  Let me tell you, I'm getting far too old for that shit.  Fortunately this was likely the last year I'll need to spend a day at Adult Hell, as next year Younger Son reaches the magic milestone of Too Old For Day Camp, Old Enough For Cell-Phone and Season Pass to Elitch's.  This year, however, I was forced to endure: slathered myself (and Da Boys!) with sunscreen, stuffed my pocket with cash, and spent 5 hours traipsing about and doling out money.  And ended the day exhausted.

I was dragging ass all day Thursday, just looking forward to getting home, collapsing on the couch, and zoning out with bad teevee or a mind-chocolate novel.  Instead, we had further adventures — just as I was getting ready to go pick up Younger Son from daycamp, the phone rang.  It was Elder Son, and which led to a series of weird conversations:

"Mom, can you come and pick me up?  I crashed my bike and hurt my arm so I can't ride home."

"Hurt your arm?  How bad"

"I dunno.  I think I sprained it.  I'm at the library"

Get in car.  Go to library.  Load bike in back of car, son in front of car.  His arm looks... weird.  Could it be broken?  He says it doesn't hurt much.  But man, it looks strange — not obviously broken, but... off.

Get the story: he'd been riding with his buddy up near 90th and Pecos! when he hit a crack in the sidewalk.  He didn't think his arm was that bad, so he caught an RTD bus — the driver nicely helped him put his bike on the bus bike rack.  But the driver on the 0 wouldn't help him, so he couldn't make the last lap home.  Yeah — possible broken arm and he rode the bus home.

Drop Elder Son off at home, then go pick up Younger Son at daycamp (because I can't fit 2 kids and the bike in the car).  It's now 4:40.  Call Kaiser — the Skyline Clinic closes at 5:00.

"Hi, yeah, my son fell off his bike and hurt his arm.  We need to find out if it's broken".

"OK, what does it look like".

"It looks weird.  Not really crooked, but not right.  He says it only hurts when he moves it wrong, but otherwise isn't too painful."

"How soon can you get here"

"Well, let's see — cross-town, rush-hour traffic — 1/2 hour with luck".

"We'll sneak you in at 5:10.  But you'll probably have to go over to St. Joe's if he needs an X-ray"

Jump in car.  Get gas (of course I needed to get gas... and hit the milestone of the first over-$50 tank of fuel).  Hit the lights just right.  Don't get behind any doofuses.  Check into Kaiser at 5:03.  Go up to an empty, lights-out trauma center on the 4th floor.  A nurse comes out.

"Hmmm.  That looks weird.  Hold out your other arm".

Confers with co-worker.  They agree — it looks weird.  It could be broken.

"We're calling down to radiology.  Scoot down fast before they leave".

Go to radiology.  Son is in and out in 5 minutes.

Go back upstairs.

Yes, his arm is broken.  "Doesn't it hurt — you should be screaming like mad!"  Nope — he even turned down a script for Vicodin.

So they put a splint on it to immobilize it for a few days to see if it will need to be set — probably not, the x-ray didn't show displacement.

We were out of Kaiser by 6:00.

Well, I guess it was fortunate that we had done the Annual Mom Spends Money Like a Drunken Sailor At Elitch's trip the day before.  And for the visit to the Kaiser clinic, our timing couldn't have been better: ten minutes later and we would have spent 4 or 5 hours either at the hospital emergency room, or on a traffic-clogged trip down to the "after hours" clinic in the south metro-area.

The break isn't bad; he'll get a cast on Wednesday.  And the next six weeks are going to be hot, itchy and uncomfortable for him (especially as it's his right arm so it interferes with his ability to use his computer and play video games).

But it has been a long week of lazy-time deferred.  I am looking forward to going out and puttering in the garden, though.  The snap peas have now stopped producing, so I'll pull the vines out and set them aside to dry.  Some of the perennials need clipping back as they've become over-grown and raggy looking (and are providing shelter for more damned earwigs!).  Because I was busy on Wednesday I didn't get my normal day-off stuff — laundry, picking up the house, grocery shopping — done, so that needs to be fit in.  And I'll likely take Da Boys to see a movie tomorrow, to help Elder Son keep his mind off the discomfort of his arm.

Oh, and we're making plans for Garden Blogging and the Democratic National Convention, planning an open house for Sunday, August 24.

That's what's happening here.  What's going on in your gardens?