Border Beauty, Bullies, and Self Design

According to Sara, our Clamatus is called “Polish Ivy,” the rich colored Daylilly is Hemerocallis “Velveteen,” the purple flower is from the Malva family, while the Butterfly Bush is called “Border Beauty.” The daisies are just ordinary, long stemmed daisies, or “Margaretas,” as we used to call them in Europe, and I forgot to ask Sara what the small flowers in the picture are called.

Oh, the flaming orange blossom is a Calendula. We’re waiting for some Windflower buds to open, Anemone Hybride “Krienhilde,” to be more specific. It grows very tall (over four feet) and blooms August to October, if we’re lucky. It takes full or part sun and can be grown in USDA Zone 4, able to take temperatures down to -30 degrees F.

We had some rain, thank goodness, but the weekend promises to be sunny again, so I’m sure the temperature will rise accordingly. Speaking of temperatures rising, Jim (our eight-year-old) lost it the other day, when Hedgehog (our ten-year-old daughter, June) got to go to the mainland with her mother, but he wasn’t allowed to tag along.

They took the ferry to a department store in the city, to look for reasonably priced feminine apparel for Hedgehog. She said that she would be embarrassed if her brother saw her trying things on. So I had to smother the flames by taking Jim to our local steak house for lunch—we had sizzling steak sandwiches.

I generally don’t barbecue meat anymore, since the females of our clan are vegetarians. So it turned out to be boys day out, and we even got to go for a long walk in a forested park after we ate. Jim opened up about the bullies at school and asked to be home-schooled again, just like his sister. We started off teaching them both at home, until Jim asked to be enrolled in the local elementary school.

I told him that I would have to discuss it with his mother, since she’s in charge of their academic progress. June is enrolled in a self-design program that has established a virtual community throughout BC, so I’m sure that Sara will agree to sign Jim up for it starting September. They learn things that interest them at their own pace, which is much better than regimented education, IMO.

We’ve treated the roots of all our plants with Piranha and Tarantula, in order to colonize them with beneficial fungi and bacteria. It makes a major difference in the size of my vegetables and the number of buds on Sara’s flowers. These two magic ingredients are made by Advanced Nutrients, the same company that manufactures the 100% organic nutrients that we feed our plants.

Hoppy the bunny loves to hop out to the courtyard and lounge around in some of the pots we have out there. We don’t mind, as long as he doesn’t dig up the soil or harvests the plant with his teeth. Once he’s taken a big bite out of Hedgehog’s rubber boots, so now we keep our footwear safely off the floor.

We keep the courtyard gate firmly latched to keep him from my vegetable garden. I don’t want to wake up one day to find that he has munched on my lettuce or carrots. We feed him store bought vegetables and keep the good stuff for ourselves. Hey, I know it’s selfish, but the pet food bill in our house is quite hefty each week, as you can well imagine.