Blue-eyed Grass

Can't use the driveway yet, so our black car is parked in a neighbour's driveway until Friday when the protective coating will be dry. We've nowhere in mind to drive to in the next few days, and our neighbour welcomed our use of his driveway for a few days. We went out for our ravine walk after breakfast, and this time I remembered to take a camera with, wanting to get a photo of that elusive blue-eyed grass. And I discovered another patch, right close to the first we'd seen yesterday.

The muck in the ravine is finally beginning to dry up. We've had another glorious, sunny day, with mild temperatures. Saw dragonflies again, and perhaps that too is why the mosquito population that has so plagued us the last week is down. We put the new harness on Button, and feel satisfied that it's far more gentle for her, and we're glad we bought them. Riley's need for a harness will be expressed on other hikes, not those in the ravine. He's small enough for us to just reach down and pluck him up. And he tends to lag behind, nor surge forward as Button does after the first-half of our hike.

Viewed myself in the mirror this morning with a bit of dismay. I've done it again; cut my hair too short. I get fed up when my hair grows too long, take the scissors and a mirror, and begin snipping away. Once I start it's hard to stop. Since my hair has a natural curl any damage I do is more or less compensated for, with that curl that comes into play. It'll grow in quickly enough, another week or so and it won't seem quite as short. At my age, however, long hair just seems to drag my face down so my hair needs to be short.

Scrutinizing the garden after our walk was a joy, as always, to see what's coming up, what's in bloom, what's promising for the near future, and there's plenty. The blue flax is now in bloom, the bergenia still blooming, the azalea with its apricot floral clusters makes quite the show. And the lilac bush is getting ready to bloom. Ours always seems to be later than others, but then we always attribute that to the fact that it's a French lilac, unlike the more common variety; who knows?

I found a cache of old short-fiction I'd written 20 - 30 years ago, and reviewing them surprises me. I can dimly recall writing some of them, and have taken to editing them, but not revising them. Some I cannot recall at all having written and they quite surprise me. I'll do something with them, have already begun, since I've been posting them on a web site that likely no one will ever read. I gave one that I hardly recall having created, to my husband to read because it seemed down his alley, and he confirmed my impression.

Later, he busied himself brushing wood preservative on the new deck he built a month or so earlier. There's a bit of colour in it. He had chosen a soft, very light blush of brown to complement the pine, and it looks excellent. He'll do the floor of the deck at some other time, but that's a start to the finish of the deck, and he's more than pleased. He had just enough time when he finished the painting to put the barbecue on to do the slab of salmon we had for dinner, along with baked potatoes. As well as corn on the cob, cucumbers and tomatoes.

And then, while I cleaned up from dinner he set about baking a rye bread with a hefty mixture of seeds included, making it dense and flavourful, just the way I like it. His bread-making machine has been put to full use since he acquired it. It's his thing, not mine, and he enjoys baking all kinds of breads, something I used to do, sans bread-making machine. I still make bread dough, but mostly for pizza.

What a world, what a life...