A Moveable Garden

Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)

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• Weather

Weather was warm, not too hot or too cool, although on Sunday when we walked around the lake it was breezy and 70°F-ish and that was a bit chilly! The high temperatures ranged from 84.6°F to 71.6°F, averaging 78.2°F. Lows ranged from 51.4°F to 66.0°F, averaging 57.5°F. We had the A/Cs on on Tuesday and part of Wednesday and again on Sat. night (the latter due to high humidity). On Tuesday we were threatened with strong storms, possibly tornadoes, most of the day but not a drop fell and the winds never picked up. It did rain on three other days, most of it falling on Saturday, totalling .78 inches. We got only .09 inches on Thursday but it was enough, with more alerts for strong T-storms (which did not materialise), to abort our walk in the bog. Fortunately, Monday was a lovely warm sunny day for our friends and my husband to paddle and swim in a nearby lake.

• Beginnings/Firsts

First sour cherry of the year from one of the scions (in the general sense of an offspring, not in the agricultural sense of a graft) of our original Prunus x kerrasis ‘Crimson Passion’ dwarf sour cherry tree, which never flowers nor fruits, though all its offspring seem to.

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the first echinaceas bloomed this week

• Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi) in addition to others elsewhere in this post

beetles & grasshopper

wasps/yellow jackets & flies

dragonflies

butterflies & moths

birds

• Wandering 

I walked every day this week, in town on Monday, Tues., Wed., Fri., and Sat., at the bog (until rain hit) on Thursday, and around the lake on Sunday. We also walked with our visiting friends at some nearby lavender fields on Tuesday.

lavender fields

bog

lake

• Curiosity & Discoveries

This was a fun discovery of great golden digger wasp nests, found in the parking lot of a local church that was hosting a yard sale on the weekend. These wasps are solitary (don’t live in hives) and though they are large, they are non-aggressive. I see them on Asclepias (butterfly weed and swamp milkweed in particular) and mountain mint. I was glad to have the time to watch one digging out their nest!

I took a 17-sec video of the action (the three clicking sounds are me zooming in a bit)

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The cat discovered that raw bucatini pasta is fun to play with.

• Creating

My friends are creating something from almost nothing. They picked up the remnant of a bookcase (no shelves) that was offered for free at the end of a driveway on Tues. and my husband and friend RVN dismantled it to fit it into their small car to drive home to Maryland. Once there, she and her son are building it back into a bookcase!

• Repairing and Maintaining the human(s), the cat, and the cars

Human: I worked out three times (3 hours) this week, with weights/stretching/dancing (using Body Electric streaming), as well as doing my “Chinese grandmother” routine most days. I walked more than 12,000 steps every day, more than 14,000 steps on four days, and had a high step count day on Tuesday of 22,646 steps. I missed meditating on Mon. and Tues. but did meditate the rest of the week, for 2.5 hours total. Our friends left around 11 on Wednesday morning, and I enjoyed having them here so much!

Cars: My husband took the BMW into the shop on Tuesday morning, for the redo of the previous repair, (he got a loaner) and picked it up later that day.

Cat: Nothing to report but here’s some cat tax.

• Nesting

Cleaning/Maintenance: My husband installed the A/C in the small casement window in the upstairs guest room on Monday, in preparation for our visitors staying there Tues. I vacuumed the kitchen and hallways on Monday and readied the guest room for an hour that day too. I did a load of clothes laundry and watered houseplants on Thursday. Friday we did the towel laundry.

I don’t show much of the houseplants (it’s a jungle in there), but both aloes have flowers in bud.

Financial/Admin: I backed up the laptop on Saturday.

Food: We had a late lunch with our visiting friends outside at a lovely localish waterside restaurant on Monday (including a peach salad and my pan-seared halibut) so just had a tapas meal at home that night for dinner. On Tuesday I made a vegan coconut curry and jasmine rice and my husband grilled chicken tikka skewers, which we had for dinner outside on the patio along with naan bread he had made earlier. And one of my visiting friends and I had picked up a lush raspberry oat bar at a local confectioners during our walk that afternoon, which we split for dessert. Wednesday night my husband had leftover salmon from his Monday lunch and I had vegan curry and rice, and we both had corn on the cob and cukes/tomatoes. I finished the vegan curry and rice on Thursday night and he finished the grilled chicken tikka and we both had corn on the cob. Friday was veggie burgers with local arugula, corn on the cob, mac & cheese, and cukes. I made cacio e pepe with artichoke hearts and Old Bay shrimp on Saturday, and we ate that with steamed broccoli plus raw cukes, and the same on Sunday evening except with corn on the cob instead of broccoli. The corn is from Hadley, Mass. (sold at the farmstand here), but local corn is almost ready!

And look at this beautiful avocado toast with pickled eggs that my friend ordered for breakfast at a local café on Wednesday morning!

• Garden

The arborist we contracted with last week came at 8 on Monday morning with his team and in an hour took down not only our blue spruce tree (and chipped it) but a couple of our neighbours’ (diseased) trees and a few others. Yay! We also had him look at two other trees, one a tall long-dead pine snag and another a beech that’s crowding out the concolour fir. He sent an estimate later in the week.

I worked for 4-5 hours in the garden this week, watering, weeding, pulling invasives (the never-ending chore), and harvesting raspberries, cilantro (for the curry), cucumbers, a Sungold tomato, parsley, and lavender (to put in a vase in the guest room).

some garden pics this week

• Sleeping & Dreaming

A variable sleep week, with scores form 78 to 95, averaging 85.9. Overall I had 7 hours 16 mins of sleep per night — ranging widely from 5 hours 53 mins to 8 hours 24 mins — with 13 hours 7 mins of REM and 8 hours 26 mins of deep sleep.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching  

Reading

BOOKS

This week I finished Yesteryear (2026) by Caro Claire Burke. It’s a popular novel about tradwife Natalie Mills, raised in the evangelical Christian church and soon living on a 500-acre farm in Idaho with her hapless husband Caleb (heir to a financial and political dynasty). Natalie becomes wildly successful as an Instagram influencer after a Manosphere livestreamer hails her struggling Instagram account as that of the perfect Aryan wife and their family one that every American should emulate, but what goes on behind closed doors — hidden modern appliances, two nannies raising the five children, a rogue young video producer, the couple’s sad relationship, and Natalie’s intense envy, anger, venom, contempt, and overriding need to be seen as likeable — never stays there when you have an audience of 8 million. When she one day finds herself and Caleb (or is he Caleb?) in an 1855 version of their life with a new set of children who look familiar, how will she fare? There’s no adult to root for in this novel, though it’s easy to see that the villains are also victims of their upbringing and of the alpha-male patriarchal culture they live in. Someone on Reddit wrote: “[T]his book is a very deep and horrifically dark examination of post-feminism patriarchy” that contrasts “what the creator wants the masses to see versus what the actual lived reality is.” This is not, contrary to the marketing, a funny book, not even a “darkly funny” book.

OTHERS: Nothing this week!

Listening

Some Shazam’d songs this week.

Watching

We watched the last few World Cup games this week, on Tues., Sat., and Sun. Not sure what else, maybe a couple of House Hunter episodes?

• Connections &  Community

Local Support: Our visiting friends and we had lunch outside at a localish waterside restaurant on Monday and I think they bought something from a nearby cheese & wine store. Our friends bought lots of children’s books for their young grandkids at a local bookstore in a nearby town on Tuesday and a couple of us had lavender jasmine bubble tea at the lavender fields that day as well. Later that day we bought dessert bars from a local confectioner and a few items at the locally owned pharmacy while on a walk around town. Before they left we all ate outside at a local bakery/café on Wednesday morning. I bought corn on the cob, green beans, and cucumber at the local farmstand on Friday. We bought a few items at two church yard sales on Saturday — hand truck, multi-outlet, cookies, and a yogurt making set. My husband volunteered at the local museum for 5 hours on Thursday.

Relationships: Great to spend another few days with our friends here! They left around mid-day on Wednesday. We returned the kayaks they borrowed from a neighbour (KS) on Tuesday. A friend (JS) dropped off some of his poppy pods for me on Wed. morning. I chatted with two of our neighbours (SF and WD) on Monday during the tree removal for about 10 mins. Salon met on Friday for 2.25 hours with eight of us, one (ML) a visitor of another member, which was fun. I also walked with a friend (ED) to the farmstand afterward. My husband and I were invited to have tea and homemade raspberry scones at a friend’s (ND) on Saturday for an hour. My sister left a voicemail (replying to my emails 😄) on Saturday. Ran into friends (B&KB) at one of the church sales on Sat. morning.

• Endings/Harvests 

Boo, our friends left for home on Wed. 🥹

I also found a dead young bird on the pavement at the elementary school but I’ll spare you the photo.

I harvested cilantro, parsley, raspberries, a couple of cucumbers, and the first Sungold tomato this week. (Basil desperately needs harvesting.)

• All This Useless Beauty

Love this in the backyard …