The spring bloom has happened, and in our rock garden, they are alien invaders. I was feeling better today—still not real great with leaning over, but we have to get them. I think I contributed a bushel basket to the Green can and they will become city compost.
Without shedding seed.
It’s continuing to warm. I’m trying a new allergy pill and it’s solved the ear problem, mostly, but contributes its own over-medicated fog. It’s xyzal, and it’s potent. I took a full pill the first time at 3pm, and didn’t recover for 24 hours. But the ear was better. I took a half pill last night, it’s 4pm and I’m just about to come out from under the fog.
I’m going to try no-pill tonight and see if I can get both the ear and the fuzziness solved at once, eh?
They are an early source of nectar for honey bees, especially if the trees haven’t blossomed yet. I leave mine in the ground, my neighbors have all green lawns, mine is filled with yellow flowers, and then in summer, with white clover.
I have a creeping weed in my front yard that has thumbtip sized white and purple clusters of blooms (but it’s not thyme!) I would be happy as a clam if it would grow rampant all over, but it has to contend with other annoying weeds. The two annoying ones right now are red spiderling with a gross of sticky little seeds and some grass that has very pointy burrs. I dig them up and pull them, but they keep coming back; Preen, as expensive as it is, might be my friend.
I use Preen. One year I tried Casoron, but that was a mistake–it killed the tulip bulbs!
Were I there, I would scoop up the dandelion stems, flowers and leaves for my two bunny rabbits, who love these as a gift of spring. They are just blossoming against a few south-facing walls here on the north side of Boston and I have been selectively picking them on my walk home from the subway (the “T” in local parlance) for the buns’ bedtime treat.
For the past 15 or so years of having pet rabbits, I have been their “bunny farmer”: picking green weeds and herbs daily for a bit over half each year from around the yard and on my walk home for their dining pleasure. It’s a great way to get to know the plant life of one’s local environment and leads to happy, healthy (indoor) buns.
When I walking in Kildare 6 or so summers ago, I kept wanting to pick the green, luscious dandelions and weeds along the side of the road, but my then bunnies were far across the Atlantic from Ireland—I felt like I was passing up such riches!
Salads: A recurring theme! Lucky little bunny rabbits, a salad is a fine thing. Hmm, but do they prefer Ranch or Caesar? 😉
I had an alien invader in my home. A quadruped. A little brown lizard utterly convinced that if he didn’t move he was invisible. Not so much on a decidedly not-brown surface.
I puzzled how to not walk away from him, maybe encouraging him to move, while finding something to capture him. My vacuum was just within reach, so I snagged a black extension tube, figuring it would look like an inviting black cave with my palm over one end.
Sure enough, he ran right in and I deposited him outside, no worse for wear, I hope. Where he froze on another decidedly not-brown surface. Fortunately under my porch, so not bird food, yet.
Dandelions are almost impossible to get rid of in my experience. Even if you pull them before they flower, unless you get every singly piece of a long and fragile root, they’ll just come right back up. I try to dig them out of the lawn, and let them be in the corners.
My yard has lots of wood sorrel in amongst the grass, which is blooming with tiny little five-petaled yellow flowers. I like it better than I like the Bermuda grass. Also dandelions. From the French, BTW, meaning lion’s tooth. “dent de lion.” The only thing toothy about it to my mind is that long taproot which does resemble a lion’s long fang.
I was told, by my mum who studied in France, that the lion’s tooth name was because the very jagged edges of the leaves look like a mouth full of fangs. But the single long pointy root seems at least as good an explanation to me.
In Dutch its name is Paardebloem = Horseflower (bloem is pronounced bloom, clearly related words), because it grows abundantly in meadows where horses graze and the horses love to eat it.
I’d never looked up the etymology. “Dent de lion,” that’s terrific!
My appt. for consult from the oral surgeon went OK. Results: Yes, one tooth needs to be pulled ASAP. But the other can wait until after cataract surgery and after (I hope) I get insurance, around 6 months, is the current plan. I have a follow-up with my dentist next Thursday, and then the tooth gets extracted, likely the week after that.
So the next step is to ensure I get an appt. with the retinal specialist, and if OK’d, on to the first cataract surgery and then, if that does well, my master eye the month following.
If I understand right, then the eye care costs will be less than 1/6th the dental costs. Not cheap, but more affordable — and much more immediately necessary after the one tooth extraction.
All in all, pretty good news; making some progress.
In Norwegian it’s called exactly that. Løvetann, Lion’s Tooth. Apparently it’s not called that in modern French but something rather … less heroic. 🙂
Junior feline, Mister Assertive, has convinced me to change their feeding habits. He wanted to pig out on his and senior feline / Mr. Non-Assertive’s portions. He (Assertive) will do this to the point of making himself sick. Mr. Non-Assertive only got a snack. He may go back for more, later. But no more of this. From now on, they get 1/4 can each in the morning and a 1/4 can in the evening. Less waste and less chance that. Mr. Non-Assertive gets booted out of his fair share. I wish he’d stick up for himself more, but he usually doesn’t. Only occasionally does he get so annoyed he objects and swats Mr. Assertive. So, I’m trying (yet another) way to make things fair, not wasteful, and do portion control for both cats. And…yes, Mr. Assertive did have too much for his tummy…so now I get to clean up. Little rotter. Sigh. I love both of ’em. Just wish things could even out. This is about the only trick I haven’t tried yet.
Ours do the same thing. If Junior doesn’t polish off most of his serving, Zorro is only too happy to assist. And, of course, this leads to the upset kitty tummy (such fun with bare feet!) The only saving grace is that Junior likes dry food and only gets enough wet to mix in his supplements, whereas Zorro prefers the wet and will often snub the dry.
Well, I got them. Re bees, Joe, we supply them many other nice things—it’s a little too chill for them to be out and about; but we’ll have blankets of red thyme and alyssum, and some unidentified white-flowering ground cover they seem to like; the trees are coming into bloom; but we do consider the bees when we plant: we like having them about, even if one misguided soldier stung me last year—I was wearing some herbal handlotion, and there was a tragic misunderstanding.
Dunno if they like water lilies: I’ve never observed them. But we hope to have wisteria soon. I think the red thyme and alyssum get the most bee interest.
Things are beginning to bloom in our very up and down spring. Crocuses and early daffodilas are almost finished. Late daffs, vinca, violets both purple and white are starting to bloom. We have a weed with a tiny white flower that the bumblebees are enjoying. Haven’t seen many other bees yet; it’s still early for them.
Even on gray chilly-ish days like today it’s encouraging to see things flowering and smelling like spring.
Supposed to be cool, in the 70’s this weekend and down in the 50’s at night, somewhat unusual here but not unheard of for late April and early May.
dandelion flowers are delicious cooked in tempura batter, I gather. they also look very pretty (cooked like that). I used salt to get them out of a small patch of lawn once – but here, yes they are very important for early insects like bumbles, wild bees in general and the honey bees that come out on warm days. now we are back to almost frosts at night the bees seem to have stayed at home.