Back in Business – part one

I really don’t know how to begin this post, I have so much things to say (silly things, mostly, as usual…) and I guess I owe you some kind of excuse for cutting everyone and everything off for almost two months… My revelation is going to shock some of you but the thing is… I’ve been kidnapped by aliens. Yep.

Guess you don’t believe me, uh? Ok, the truth is I spent the hottest and busiest august ever and I had to leave something behind to survive it. We had almost 40°C every day with no rain at all, Mina had serious health issues, friends and parents and relatives invaded the house for weeks, I discover my garden is not as water wise as I used to think and I had workers around the house, again. Oh yes, and on top of that, I’ve lost my job. But let me explain everything…

The Mina’s thing

This has definitely been the worst moment. I left you in july with a cheerful pregnant carefree dog picture. Some day before the delivery was due she had her womb twisted (I guess there are better medical terms for it but please understand me) without us (and her!) noticing anything, apparently the puppies (they were 3 for instance) missed blood, food and oxygen because of this torsion and they died. I went to the vet as soon as the dog started having dark blood losses. He had to remove her womb and the dead litter. Mina recovery was kind of fast but she risked her life and had surgery for the second time in only 6 months this year. I guess this is a bad year for her.

She is now fine, thanking God, I hope she won’t have any other issues forever now. She told me she doesn’t want to read any ‘poor Minas‘ on your comments though. She’s kind of a tough lady.

The Whoo-hoo thing

We finally had the pergola made. I am so happy with it, it looks as I’ve been figuring it for years: a rusty metal cube with timber beams. We still need to have the floor tiled and I guess we’ll have to wait a little longer for that. I bought a nice table and four chairs though and we finally started having dinner out in the evening. I guess I’m going to enjoy more that eating out thing next year as now it started to be kind of chilly in the evening (and I’m so happy with it!). Oh, the reason why my neighbor was driving like mad around her field, that evening, still remains a mystery to everyone… (see above pic on the right).

Structure was made but you need to cover it for some shadow, right? Ready, steady, we call Cinda (read chin-duh, aka Cindy), my mother-in-law. She’s the best in cutting and sewing, she also stayed at ours for a few days, because you know: when the working day’s done, girls, they just wanna have fun…

She made 7 stream curtains that I weaved amongst the timber beams. They looked very cool that way until the first rain, now they lie straight or they won’t resist the weigh of the rain, shame. Anyway I think this pergola add a very fresh look to the house and links the design of the garden with the house, as well as providing a cool refreshing area that was missing before.

Clockwise from top left: cooking tomato sauce, bothering about aubergines and drying chili

The Desperate Housewife’s thing

I didn’t really lost my job… I quit it. To be quick I was fed up with my previous job (not the job, I guess it was the boss actually) and I received a good job offer in another place. I quit my job and change without thinking too much. Meanwhile the new boss changed working conditions, venue and wage. I’d say tricky, or ironic, or dumbass, anyway I’m still looking for a new job but I’m pretty confident I’m going to find something soon.

When you are used to work mondays to saturdays there are loads of things you’d like to have the time to do. I guess I tried all those things now, and much more, and now I’m a little fed up with this housewife thing! August was the month of tomatoes, aubergines and chili peppers. ‘What would a good housewife do with all that stuff?’ – I wondered. Then I started cooking tomato sauce, sewing peppers to hang dry and I canned aubergines with olive oil. I need to say my sauce and my aubergines taste delightful. I also flavored extra virgin olive oil with chili, garlic and rosemary and another batch with basil and lemon peel. This latter tastes particularly nice, I suggest you try making some.

As we live close to the seaside, some friends crushed here for a while after a birthday party we gave the 15th for a friend of ours. You can’t have people coming over with a messy house, can you? So before they came I polished the house and boosted some jobs left apart for a while now, like painting the spare room and tidying up the guest room. After friends went away I had to clean up everything again because my family was coming over for a while too… That was a nightmare. I guess you happened to watch the Sopranos, so you have a rough idea of an italian family. Well ok, daddy doesn’t kill people and mama doesn’t date the plumber, my sister is not as fat and grannies don’t work in the drug market but I think you get it. Daddy made some other jobs in the house, like door frames and some more shutters outside, which is rather good but I had to clean up after the mess he left…

The Summer-is-over thing

At the end of august we finally had rain. And what a weather we had! The evening sky covered itself with the strangest clouds I’ve ever seen. You should have seen the colours and the shapes they had! It was as if somebody was trying to vacuum the clouds from above… I knew angels don’t have sex, I didn’t know they hoover instead.

Anyway we had a lot of water for the garden, together with chilly winds, they harvested corn, days had shortened a lot now: Summer is over. Long life to Fall!

Garden Updates:

September brought some grey days and some sunny days, some more rain and still some warm afternoons. I feel reborn and the garden does too:

From top left, clockwise: the dahlia project still bothers me. All the dahlias I’ve planted earlier this year have been producing flowers since july, I can’t say they’ve been thriving though but this was a very very drought and hot summer as I said, so I guess they deserve another try. The one pictured here is Café Latte or maybe Cappuccino or something with coffee and milk anyway. I like the colour and the flower shape. I will talk later about the aster that come along. I never owned anything prickly, if you don’t take account of the dogs, but mama came with this opuntia she stole a cutting of (a leaf actually) during a trip in the South, she said I should recover it in winter and that is a very easy going plant. In fact I put it in a bigger terra-cotta pot and it started producing new leaves like mad. I’ve just moved it twice because it tends to slaps my bum when I pass by, and I can assure you it’s not nice. I should keep my pepper spray with me when I’m around the opuntia… The garden looks like it was May again, some roses went back to flower again and I enjoy them more now than in Spring! The one in the foreground is Irene Watts.

Since I planted them bare root last Winter I didn’t see many roses in Spring. The scent seems to be stronger now too. Clockwise from top left: rosa rugosa Scabrosa, Austin’s rose Grace and Etoile de Lyon, a Tea rose.

One of my first choice rose, anyway, continues to be rosa chinensis Odorata. I like the smell, the leaves, the new shoots colour, the bushy habit and the steady reblooming. Mine is planted next to mischantus sinensis Gnome which is a good counterpoint to her daintiness:

I can stop here for now, part two will come soon, sooner than two months at least… 😉

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Tags: dogs, grass garden, gravel garden, Mina, open border, rosa chinensis Odorata, rose garden, Roses

• 19 September 2012
• Cà Rossa
• 36 Comments