Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

When someone says they “love freedom”, rest assured they don’t mean yours.

Sitting here in limbo waiting for the dice to roll

Why did Dr. Oz lose? well, according to the exit polls, it’s because Fetterman won.

Pessimism assures that nothing of any importance will change.

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

You don’t get to peddle hatred on saturday and offer condolences on sunday.

… pundit janitors mopping up after the GOP

The republican caucus is already covering themselves with something, and it’s not glory.

Presidents are not kings, and Plaintiff is not President.

This fight is for everything.

Damn right I heard that as a threat.

Eh, that’s media spin. biden’s health is fine and he’s doing a good job.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Why is it so hard for them to condemn hate?

Not all heroes wear capes.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

Since when do we limit our critiques to things we could do better ourselves?

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

The worst democrat is better than the best republican.

And now I have baud making fun of me. this day can’t get worse.

Second rate reporter says what?

rich, arrogant assholes who equate luck with genius

The cruelty is the point; the law be damned.

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / Sunday Morning Garden Chat: Respite

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69Comments

  3. 3.

    raven

    The rain has pounded the last couple of days and the garden is jammin. The lily’s are busting out all over the yard and look spectacular. Meanwhile my lazy ass manages to mow once a week and otherwise it’s all been garden girl working every morning until it gets too hot.

  4. 4.

    satby

    Gorgeous! I want to sit in your garden and drink an iced tea, Gelfling; it just looks so peaceful and pretty.

    Edit to add: right now the only thing my garden inspires me to drink would be vodka. Between the 90+ days and the rainy ones when it’s not hot it’s a weed zone.

  7. 7.

    danielx

    90+ degree days followed by inches of rain have produced insane growth of the Chinese wisteria growing around the back porch and turned the porch into what I am referring to as the green cave. Wisteria puts out shoots at the rate of a foot a day under the right (wrong) conditions, and I haven’t had a chance to cut it back. Oh well….spousal unit is taking the daughter unit and and a friend to the zoo today and it’s going to be a beautiful cool day, or cool at least by comparison to the season so far. Lot of pruning in the offing.

  8. 8.

    JPL

    Gelfling, Lovely pictures.
    Today I’m going to finish cleaning up from the latest branches that came down during a storm. No real damage just a pain to keep up with.

  11. 11.

    otmar

    Folks, I just uploaded three batches of on-the-road pictures from a recent trip.

    Those are a treat.

  12. 12.

    Immanentize

    Beautiful, Gelfling! And a water feature. I love the sound of water over rocks, but I’ve never had the space for making one.

  13. 13.

    Immanentize

    This week, besides the mowing, I started weeding and mulching a part of the yard that has been an historic out-of-sight weed factory vacant lot sort of space. It’s only maybe 120 sq. Feet? But what a miserable job in our little heat wave here. We are getting more normal temps (back to the low 80s) this week. Only thing blooming right now are clematis. And my Kousa Dogwood is gorgeous!

  14. 14.

    satby

    @danielx: we had the same weather, hot and miserably humid followed by days of rain. Today and tomorrow will be cool enough to try to get the neglected yard back under control. But the mosquitoes should be epic even with repellant on. Now just waiting for a decent hour on a Sunday to start mowing. Thinking about 9 am, so thinking about making breakfast instead.

  15. 15.

    Immanentize

    @satby: hi Satby! You are near Ann Arbor, right? The Immp and I will be heading there sometime in late July or August….

  16. 16.

    MomSense

    Such a lovely garden!

    Mine is just ugh. I wasn’t able to do the weeding early in the season so it looks terrible. Also had to have some repairs to the house and they trampled on some of my plants. Double ugh.

    Pots are empty so it’s just a garden fail all around this year.

    I’m designing a little sweater for a baby at the moment and enjoying the rain.

  17. 17.

    satby

    @Immanentize: South Bend. Didn’t you also mention coming this way or to Chicago on college visits? We’re going to need to do a meet-up. If it’s Chicago adjacent there are a lot of jackals around.

  18. 18.

    OzarkHillbilly

    My gardening is in a lull, nothing much to do except watch things grow (and tie up the parts of my tomato plants that I don’t prune), ripping off the leaf patches that the squash bugs have laid eggs on (still a reasonably easy and not too time consuming job to do) and pulling the odd weed that is in the wrong place. All my pollinator gardens (with one disastrous exception) are doing well and progressing just fine. The shade gardens are too. It has been nice enjoying the low to mid 80s weather the past few days but the 95 degree heat returns Wednesday.

  19. 19.

    satby

    @MomSense: I haven’t sent any pictures this year because mine is in about the same shape. Slowly working toward perennial only plants with lots of mulch, and only a couple of tomatoes because I like heirloom odd colored ones. My zeal for gardening is in inverse relationship with temperatures so I’m most enthusiastic about the imaginary garden in my head in January.

  20. 20.

    debbie

    Where is this garden? It’s lovely, as are the peeks at the surrounding views.

    Here, hydrangeas are blooming like crazy. Must be the absurd amount of rain.

  21. 21.

    MelissaM

    It should be a good day here, and I need to get out and mow after all the rain we’ve had. Also a run to the plant store for some more veggies.

    The bird’s nest I Anne Laurie posted for me a couple weeks ago is kaput. I kept checking, and only saw one hatchling, but now the nest has been abandoned and there are two stale eggs in it, one being the cowbird’s. No other remains to be found, so the nest must have been raided? She was nesting during our horrible heat wave, so I also wonder, are those remaining eggs sorta hard boiled?

  23. 23.

    Immanentize

    @satby: Yep! The Ann Arbor trip will be the Chicago trip as well. I will definitely let you know when plans get made.

  24. 24.

    OzarkHillbilly

    @MelissaM: Possibly a snake got to it, tho normally it would have eaten the eggs too. Also possible one of the parents was killed in which case the surviving partner would abandon the nest as s/he would not be able to handle the job on his/her own. Whatever you do, don’t crack the eggs. The gagging might kill you.

  29. 29.

    debbie

    @rikyrah:

    Has anyone seen this “fact sheet” detailing the administration’s plan to reunite the families?

    This just gets worse and worse.

  32. 32.

    NotMax

    Something’s going on outside. Sinuses wide, wide awake. The rest of the bod, not so much.

  34. 34.

    oldgold

    My Garden, West of Eden, sitting in the No Man’s Land resulting from the hellacious free range chicken war being waged between my neighbors Generalissimo DeeDee Plorable and the stone cold militant matriarch of the Tall Clan, Nandra Tall, has seen bettter days. For the first time in a half century the weeds won’t be ankle high by the Fourth of July. Sad.

    I figure, if Trump can meet with Kim Jong-un, the two warrior princesses can meet on my lakeside patio, now festooned in feathers and guano, over a cold Singapore Sling and make a great deal resolving this. We’ll see.

  37. 37.

    Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism

    @debbie: Saw something about a claim that they’ve reunited aver 500 children with their parents. We’re at the stage where I want outside confirmation of any claim like that.

  38. 38.

    StringOnAStick

    My mom died unexpectedly Thursday, just before we arrived, memorial service Tuesday so we’ll drive the 4 hours back that day. We came home late last night because we have teenager kittens. She was utterly depressed and dementia was stealing in quickly. My dad is a wreck and had been doing all the care and cooking since her hands were so arthritic. He’s being nice now but I’m sure his FOX driven rage will be back soon. He’s begging for as much time as any of us can spend; it’s a 5 hour drive.

  41. 41.

    Platonailedit

    A federal judge in Detroit has issued an order to stop federal immigration agents from pressuring Iraqi immigrants into agreeing to be deported, thereby giving up their legal rights to remain in the United States.

    https://t.co/gpeOCXq9Uj— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) June 24, 2018

    You fuck up their country and then kick them out of yours?

  44. 44.

    opiejeanne

    @Immanentize: There’s a “dry creek” in front of the shed we’re reworking and I keep thinking that we should turn it into a water feature. I have a somewhat failed pottery vessel that would make a source for the water flowing into it. It failed because the bottom cracked when I fired it, but that left a hole that could accommodate the submersible pump’s cord.

    I keep saying this so maybe someday we’ll do it.

  45. 45.

    kattails

    @satby: thanks for that link, never would have found it for myself but am passing it on. Hope enough of the media can wise up fast enough.

  49. 49.

    kattails

    @Gelfling 545: Gorgeous! So neat and tidy. Mine’s overgrown but being slowly reclaimed from the combination of weeds and very hardy stuff that self-sows and muscles out other, shyer things. So it’s lost variety and the kind of nice pairings I see in yours. But it still makes me happy to get out there, and I have phoebes, robins, hummers, and a thrush.

    My lettuce is phenomenal this year. I also have a nice old Apothecary rose, semi-double pink, that’s extremely hardy and has spread itself around the yard and blooming its head off right now. Very fragrant. Kind of a damp day here, (New England), hoping for more real rain tonight. The yard was getting crunchy. Nice day to make some jam/jelly from the juice & pulp–crabapple, red currant, raspberry– I managed to freeze last frickin fall, sigh. But I sold a painting on Friday and so my bills are caught up and I can buy supplies, whoopee.

  51. 51.

    StringOnAStick

    Thanks everyone. My relationship with both of them isn’t ideal since I’m liberal and they’re aggressive FOX addicts with alcohol and rage issues. This is going to be a tough period for the foreseeable future.

  52. 52.

    germy

    @debbie:
    James H. Kunstler has reached peek shithead:

    You’d think that ICE officers were taking these kids out behind the dumpster and shooting them in the head. No, actually, the kids are watching Marvel Comics movies, playing video games, or soccer, and getting three square meals a day while the immigration officials try to figure out who their parents are, or how to repatriate them to their countries-of-origin if they came here without any parents – say, with the assistance of the Sinaloa Drug Cartel. By the way, these make up the majority of kids detained in the latest wave of mass border crossings.

  55. 55.

    JPL

    @StringOnAStick: I’m so sorry. I have a friend whose mother is ailing and a rabid fox watcher and she’s taking care of her a week a month. The other siblings are doing the same. It’s a difficult situation normally, and the added pressures just adds to it.

  56. 56.

    germy

    @zhena gogolia: He was better at keeping it hidden in 1968.

    Funny that nowadays he’s persona non grata at colleges. He used to make the majority of his income giving his profanity-laced powerpoint presentations. Lucrative. But he couldn’t keep his mouth shut about “the blacks” and so now he’s on patreon, begging for sustenance. Nobody wants to hire him to speak.

    His dream, of course, is that Spielberg or someone options one of his Post Oil novels. I doubt that’ll happen, as that particular trend seems to have played out.

  58. 58.

    germy

    The tearful call-in has been made public:

    Podcast of my interview w/ @therealroseanne. Moving, powerful. On repentance, Jewish values https://t.co/uC4bFPblPf https://t.co/as8N37vdKW— Rabbi Shmuley (@RabbiShmuley) June 24, 2018

    I’m reminded of Tiffany Haddish’s anecdote, where Roseanne made a face and ran inside when she said hello. But greeted her white-looking friend warmly the next week. “She’s always been a racist,” Tiffany concluded correctly.

  59. 59.

    Miss Bianca

    Who are all you people getting rain?? We are looking forward to another week of 80+ degree temperatures and sunny, sunny, sunny, BONE DRY here in Colorado. Everything is gasping-parched here, quite a contrast to last summer, when we got so much rain it actually threatened the hay crop! Distant memories now, with a Stage II fire ban in progress. Probably no fireworks over the lake this year for 4th of July. : (

    @StringOnAStick: Condolences on your mother’s passing.

  63. 63.

    zhena gogolia

    I hate the Fourth of July under the best of circumstances (which were back for a few years when loud explosives were banned in our state). This year it’s going to be utter torture. I feel about as patriotic as a wet rag.

  64. 64.

    debbie

    @germy:

    Yeah, just try and find a minyan who calls him that. I’ll show you a hundred minyans who call him something quite different.

    Schmuley is Rabbi to the Evangelicals.

  66. 66.

    J R in WV

    @M4:

    New Yawk, New Yawk!!! Wife and I were up there once while the Macy’s Day parade was held, and although our hotel wasn’t far from the parade route, we managed to spend most of the night before out for music, and slept through the crowd.

    But the Pride Parade, that’s a whole different [email protected]

    Congrats on getting the interview, I hope it’s an interesting job with good chances to learn new skills from mad cutting edge genius folks. Good luck tomorrow!!!

    Don’t let them know you write crazy SF and graphic novels… they want you to be OCD coding wild man. ;-)

    I’m kidding, they probably appreciate creativity, I know I always did.

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