Day 2 of the walking program. A front came through last night and thank goodness…

Jane got up and folded the patio umbrella, which was making a racket.
At 1:30 AM a front barreled through of the strength we used to get in Oklahoma, the sort that as it hits you can almost feel the walls balloon for an instant: it thumps. Then wind. And if that umbrella had still been up, we’d have been sorry.

Beautiful day, after that. Temperatures in the high sixties, sun, breeze. WE had our walk, and then the opportunity was just too rare: I got out the weedeater and cleared the diagonal pavers, the garage walk, which had gotten nasty, blew that off with my wonderful new blower-vac, and planted some of our new plants—remember the resolve that we weren’t going to buy any this year? —Gone with the wind. I set in some elfin thyme plugs, something blue called lithodora (rock-gift) and a dwarf double pale yellow hollyhock that has to be seen to be believed, while Jane attacked the front weeds.

Beyond that, we’ve got the pond in fair shape. Ari dinged her nose going after a kibble among the rocks and I’m watching that carefully: the treatment is to haul her out of the water and pour hydrogen peroxide on it, and that’s her nose, and near her mouth and eye. Barring any worsening and any change in her voracious appetite, I’m just going to keep the water quality up and let her try to heal on her own.
She’s about 15 inches long and fat, and just removing her from the water would stress her, not to mention the damage she could do fighting the net. So meanwhile we just cross our fingers.

Met our across-the-street new neighbors: they seem very nice. Ex-military. And they’re on a program of fix-up of the things that got out of hand when our former neighbor was ill so long. That’s a massive house, and important to this whole street, so we’re very happy with that.