It's Always nice in Seattle

This is the middle of Seattle's summer drought, and it's just lovely, as usual. There's a concert stemming from a baroque opera workshop, tomorrow night, and I'm hoping for a ride over. It's not so far, I could grab a cab if necessary?

Today I was at the Mystery Bookshop, and I'm happily in the beginning of Metzger's Dog by Thomas Perry. Yes, I read it before, but I seized it with pleasure, a reprint, and I no longer remember anything much about it except that it's wonderful to read.

Poppy Theory

My neighbor says he's never been able to keep his poppies. The tiny starters I got from Bluestone reliably come up year after year, forming nice little crowns about this time of year. They're a kind of junior-size poppy, they bloom and bloom, but they're not as tall as full-size ones. Even in this year of draught here, they look fine. He's the nice neighbor who waters and cares for his things so well -- maybe poppies actually prefer to be dry in the summer. Dry heat and neglect, my theory for thriving poppies.

This seems to be working for those horned poppies too. You know, they're still blooming. My theory that's forming on these is that they're actually a weed from California. How else to explain their vigor?

Orchids have bravery

Being marooned on the back porch window sill for two weeks all alone didn't faze the orchid. This is the set of potted leaves that I picked up for a couple dollars a year or two ago, when it had apparently finished blooming and was ready to be dumped or carried home; I carried it home. This is the same pot that produced the stumpy growths that Bill told me were probably roots, all green and lustrous, last spring. He said, "watch for it to develop a leaf, that'll tell you; and fertilize it a lot more." and I did.

It had leaves and two four or five inch stems shooting toward the window, last month. Now, glory be! the stems have actual buds, glossy and shaped like a mallow's seed pod, pointed toward the end, chubby and green. Last month, I latched one of the stems to a stick with a fake bird on its end that I stuck in the pot, but the other stem is still leaning to the window. The fastened one has the bigger bud, though. And there are multiple buds on each stem, smaller than the top ones.

Those chubby root sprouts never touched soil, they're still there. I don't think orchids care if they have soil? Because of the way I found it on offer, I have no idea what kind of bloom it may produce, or how it would like to be handled, but I'll just leave it again next week and say prayers for its fortitude, I guess.

Outside, one of the daylilies has persisted in blooming, drought and all; that lovely Esther's Treasure, with the frilly brilliant gold flower. Not all the mallow went to seed, some blooms persist. The bluebells bloomed and quit for the year but the drought may not have hurt their roots. Curiously, the peony leaves, which are often attacked by a blackening by now, have thrived in the drought. The bushes are a lot bigger than the cimifuga this year. My neighbor's lawn and garden beds are just lovely, and because the bushes between us are gone now, maybe in their watering of their stuff, the lilies and peonies have benefited too. God bless diligent neighbors.

Getting Hot All Over

I felt so bad, in Massachusetts, when I realized that I hadn't put my fleece and rainjacket in the car to go to the Cape. After all, I lugged them from Illinois.

Never feel bad too soon. Never needed fleece or rainjacket. Balmy, sunny -- almost too hot except that wind blows constantly over the Bay at Wellfleet and so people keep splashing and smiling. Ian and Alexandra dug up so many clams with Jude and Lori that Lori steamed them and fed them to adults. Initially, just to uncles, in case the clams weren't healthy. How great it is to be a McJohn.

There's a resident blue heron living in the marshy stretches where the bay flows in at night along the south side of the road. Jude spots it first, every time. It isn't very blue (we never saw the underside of its wings) and it wasn't very plump, either, though it could do remarkable moves with its long neck.