Sick

Well, I spent the last week pretty sick with a sinus infection and actually took two and half days off work. That is the most I have ever taken off for sickness in a row, and it left me with a lot of time laying around with no energy.  That wasn't too bad for the first 4 days, as I had no brain cells to focus on things I might be doing. This weekend however, I had the brain and no brawn to go with it.  As result, I had lots of time to think about what I wanted to do in yard and no energy to do much of anything.  I got a bit of weeding and transplanting done and mostly sat around thinking about what I wished I could do.

Mike never got as sick as I did and he has spent the last two weeks being Amazing Dad. Last weekend he worked on the girls' fort with them, and today he hung Leora's hammock and helped her bake a cake complete with elaborate fondant. He did a 5 km race with Anwyn and just picked them both up from the pool and took them to a BBQ. He even helped me hang a net on the garage and stake all the tomatoes. You'd think all this would make him popular with me - but it has not.

You see, this time of year my large clematis grows very rapidly. Every week or two I gently trim it back over the path no one is surprised by trailing laves.  While I have been sick, the clematis has been growing, and the weather has been nice enough this weekend that Mike has his practice swords out (my cousin Douglas would be so pleased).  Anyway, I am sure you can see where this is going.

To give you an ideas of how sick I have been, I tell you what happened last night when we went to Anna and Ian's. Anna is a great cook, I got to see her garden and we got to play a fun dance game at their house. We also went home at 8:30 so I could go to sleep. Anyway, you can imagine how happy I was when I woke up well enough to hang sheets and blankets on the clothesline this morning. My voice is too croak-like to hum, but I was mentally humming and hanging sheets when Mike dashed out and assaulted my clematis with his sword.

He slashed at it a couple of times before I croaked "Stop!" and fixed him with a baleful glare my students have always called "the look." He was unfazed and made specious claims that he was pruning my clematis since I was too sick to do so. Mike even slashed it more times to demonstrate how well it worked. I actually had to step slowly and threateningly off the clothesline perch to get him to stop. 

I had to spend the rest of the day hovering protectively in my hammock to prevent further damage, but it gave me a great chance to look at the yard, so I can give you a very accurate list of what's blooming:

• chives
• tomatoes
• all my squashes, cucumbers and pumpkins
• 6 types of iris
• white and pink "daisies"
• lavender
• pink lilac
• 3 types of columbine
• tulips
• clematis
• strawberries
• poppies
• anemone
• 3 ground covers
• crainsbill germanium
• comfrey
• peppers

I am worried my carrots aren't up well and I am not sure how well my kohlrabi transplants are doing. I have stopped harvesting asparagus since it was about the right time and I was too sick to, but I picked a lot or rhubarb which Mike made into BBQ sauce and stewed rhubarb. I had some with homemade yogurt (also made by Mike), but it hasn't made me less concerned about my poor clematis in the light of his unprovoked attack.  I may forgive him if he saves my red currents from bugs.