it's about time

Hello! I can't believe it's been two months since I've posted. Not sure what the future holds for my blog. I haven't had much of a desire to keep up with it. It's so much easier to post on IG. If you don't already follow me there, please send me a follow request (my page is on private) at melaniescomfyhouse. 

I think May is my favorite month of the year. Spring finally and truly makes an appearance here. Planting begins, weddings, graduations and barbeques are in full swing, shorts and t-shirts come out of storage, dining al fresco becomes a thing again, windows are open for the beautiful cool breezes, and there's usually a nice mixture of sunshine and rain in May ~ without the extreme humidity that we get in the summer. Though this year, we've had more than enough rain this month. Lots of thunderstorms and even a tornado warning the other night.

I've made my annual trek to my two favorite garden centers and got my big pots planted. Of course, they'll look much better when they fill out. I did this same planting last year: begonias, rosemary and a trailing vine. By August, this should be huge and lush, with vines trailing down the sides of the planter.

This is my first time planting the colorful annual, mimulus ~ also known as monkey flower. The licorine plant vine is also new to me.

Another new-to-me annual that I fell in love with with I saw it: Iresine, or Blood Leaf. It's native to Brazil. Love the bold color and shape of the leaves. 

We don't have enough sun on our small piece of property to plant a veggie garden, so we plant a few things in pots: tomatoes, red onion, purple bell pepper.

My butterfly garden is mostly green right now; just the Columbine is in bloom.

If you're in the US, I hope you enjoyed your long holiday weekend. (Thank you to those who served and sacrificed their lives for our country.) We attended a retirement party; I spent time with friends; and another day we spent the day in Wisconsin. We discovered an amazing garden center (Bluemel's) with an attached coffee shop. I was in heaven! The dome is from an old high school.

Inside of the dome still has the high school kid's signatures.

The inside of the coffee shop is welcoming and charming, but best of all was the coffee. They serve Colectivo ~ one of my favorites. (I admit: I'm a coffee snob.) Colectivo is Milwaukee based, but they now have locations in the Chicago area. 

There's a huge, covered patio between the coffee shop and garden center, so we took our drinks and sat out on the patio for awhile. 

Then we took a walk around the garden center. These are some of the annuals and hanging baskets I admired...

I came home with this gorgeous hanging plant ~ Thunbergia. Love the vines and the delicate pink flowers.

After we were done at the garden center, we headed to the charming town of Cedarburg. Spent the rest of the day walking around and popping into various shops, having lunch at one of our favorite spots in this town, and basically just enjoying the perfectly beautiful day. 

Lastly, on a totally different subject: a kitty update! Remember Blanco, the feral? He's still around and comes most every day for food. Poor thing currently has beat-up ears. I have tried several times in the past couple of years to trap him for TNR (Trap, Neuter, Release), to no avail. And now the trap I have borrowed from a friend is defective. A cat can squeeze through an opening in the front of the cage. Not sure where I can buy a trap; perhaps a farm supply store. It's on my to-do list. By the way, I am not this close to Blanco in this photo. This is taken through the glass of my screen door. He still won't let me within at least six feet of him.

And my sweet Clementine...she is still unbelievably very much with us! She's around 15 years old now and in stage 4 kidney disease. She also has hyperthyroidism. When she was nine years old and first diagnosed with kidney disease, the vet told me she'd probably only live about another 1-1/2 years. And then in 2022 when she lost an upper fang, the vet dentist said that without surgery (all her other teeth are bad, too - very common in cats, especially as they age), she'd get a massive infection where the fang used to be and that she'd only live another few weeks to a few months. But the thing was, it'd be extremely risky for her to have the surgery, because her heart might've not been strong enough. Not to mention, they estimated the dental surgery would be about $3000. Welp...over two years later with no dental surgery, she's doing just fine.

For those of you still following me here and leaving comments and sending me emails, thank you for hanging in there with me. 💖

hello june ~ peonies, yard project, patio and good book

Even though it's technically still spring, I always think of June, July and August as the summer months. It sure feels like summer is here already. Last week it was 90F. And dry. We haven't had rain in weeks. Our grass is brown and brittle like it usually looks in August. My peonies bloomed a couple of weeks ago and the bush is so laden with blooms, that the top half is falling over despite having a peony cage.

I love when the peony and clematis are in bloom at the same time. Gives me a pretty view out my bedroom window instead of the neighbor's ugly brown fence.

I know peonies should be cut when they're budding, not when the blooms are full, but I cut both. I like to leave most of the blooms on the bush though, since they're so pretty. This year there were plenty for the bush and a couple of vases in the house.

We had a big, messy yard project that got done a couple of weeks ago. Our back yard had been flooding when it rained heavily. We have clay soil and over the years, it absorbed less and less water. We needed to have french drains installed in the back yard. 

Looking the other way towards the south side of the house. The underground pipes wrap around to the side of the house by the patio.

In hindsight, we should've moved our patio furniture to the back of the yard by the arborvitae! We had no idea it would be this messy. They had to dig out all the lilies and hostas alongside the patio.

The pipes came down the entire length of the house, along the front yard and ended up in the drainage ditch in front of our house. You can see in this photo how they had to dig down the middle of the lilies and pachysandra. We didn't have them replant any of those, as both spread quickly. It doesn't look pretty this year, but hopefully by next summer, that area will start filling in.

Seeding and blanketing was done where they dug out the grass.

We've been watering every day but with this intense heat, no rain and being late in the season, I don't think much grass is going to germinate.

Hostas that were dug up were replanted alongside the patio. (Though they dug out my Joe Pye Weed too, and must've thrown it away, grr.) Brian got the patio cleaned off and bought a new umbrella, which we desperately needed for the late afternoon sun.

So my yard might not look too pretty this year, but at least there's the patio. For now. Those of you who have been reading my blog over the years know that the neighbor's dreaded mulberry tree is going to wreak havoc on my patio probably within a week or two. We have a new neighbor in this house and he told us he was going to have the mulberry tree cut down, but so far, nothing. We even offered to help him pay for it, explaining how it's been our nemesis over the years and nothing would make us happier than getting rid of that tree!

In the meantime, nothing more relaxing than an evening on the patio with chips and salsa, an icy cocktail, and a good book. This one - The Covenant of Water - is 715 pages long. I'm only on page 100-something. Hope I can renew it because there's no way I'll be able to finish this before it's due! 

From Amazon:

"Spanning the years 1900 to 1977, The Covenant of Water is set in Kerala, on South India’s Malabar Coast, and follows three generations of a family that suffers a peculiar affliction: in every generation, at least one person dies by drowning—and in Kerala, water is everywhere. At the turn of the century, a twelve-year-old girl from Kerala’s long-existing Christian community, grieving the death of her father, is sent by boat to her wedding, where she will meet her forty-year-old husband for the first time. From this unforgettable new beginning, the young girl—and future matriarch, known as Big Ammachi—will witness unthinkable changes over the span of her extraordinary life, full of joy and triumph as well as hardship and loss, her faith and love the only constants.

A shimmering evocation of a bygone India and of the passage of time itself, The Covenant of Water is a hymn to progress in medicine and to human understanding, and a humbling testament to the difficulties undergone by past generations for the sake of those alive today. It is one of the most masterful literary novels published in recent years."

💖💖💖

this is june ~ flowers and cats

June started out beautifully; we had so many perfect late spring days with plenty of sunshine and occasional rain. My peony bush exploded into bloom seemingly overnight and provided the most gorgeous, fragrant blooms. I think they're prettier and smell better than roses! Too bad the blooms are so short-lived.

I kept the house filled with the blooms while I could, even though the fragrance set off my allergies.

At the same time, the clematis also showed off its splendid purple blooms, almost glowing at dusk. 

Our neighbor down the street who graces us with fresh peaches every summer from their peach trees, stopped us one evening on our way home from a walk. He asked if we'd like one of his potted fig trees. In limited English, he told us how to care for it. Kindness is spoken in every language!

The past few days here have been hot. A couple of days ago, the temp with the heat index was 108. Yesterday was 100. Today we're at 90, but it's breezy and the humidity is low (which is rare here) so it actually feels wonderful. The heat is much more tolerable with low humidity, that's for sure. 

On those unbearably hot days, I start my day with a big glass of water, then move on to iced tea or coffee on the porch. I sit in the shade and listen to the birdsong and try not to let the noise of nearby traffic, the screaming children that live in back of us, or the incessant yappy barking of the dog in back of us, get to me. Better yet, we also have a neighbor across the street that loves to sit in his truck on the driveway blasting music early in the morning. Welcome to life in the suburbs, I guess.

I wish we could live in a small house with lots of land, and the closest neighbor maybe half mile away. I would love to have a big garden, roaming cats (all neutered, of course), a horse, and a goat or sheep. When Brian retires, this might be a possibility in another state. We'll see. There's many factors that come into play.

Speaking of roaming cats, my house has attracted several of them this month. I swear we must have a vacancy sign hung out on the house. This beautiful tortoiseshell started showing up in my backyard a few weeks ago. She was timid, but not feral. I started feeding her and one time I saw a few kittens in the bushes, too. 

The only kitten I saw after the initial sighting was this beautiful baby, who looks part-Siamese. Or maybe Ragdoll.

The baby was terrified of me ~ obviously not used to humans.

Look at those blue eyes! I was smitten.

With the guidance of a friend who used to volunteer with our local humane society, I continued leaving food and fresh water out to not only help these kitties, but to get them comfortable and acclimated with my property. I started spending time every day sitting on the ground in the backyard, talking to the kitties, so they'd get used to my voice. One day, instead of leaving a bowl of food under the bushes, I took the can of food outside with me, and held a spoon of the food out to the mama cat. She started to slowly approach me and finally got brave enough to eat the food off the spoon as I was holding it. I then took my other hand and brought it by her body, and she was fine with that. Next step was petting her back and she loved it! Next thing I knew, I had her following me all over the place and meowing at me through my windows. 

I named her Goldie. She made herself right at home.

My friend said that because Goldie was so friendly, that she'd be easily adoptable. Our next plan was to try and humanely trap her and the kitten.

I set up the two humane traps that my friend gave to me and long story short, was able to successfully trap both Goldie and her baby.

Goldie and her baby are now living at my friend's house; she's fostering them until we have them spayed and get them up-to-date on vaccinations through the humane society's vet. My friend has named the kitten, Sparkle. They're both doing great and my friend sends me photos and updates. My heart lurches when I see them, especially Goldie. I became particularly attached to her. But we can't take in any cats with Clementine living here, as it wouldn't be fair to her. She's too old and sick (she has Chronic Kidney Disease, anxiety to where she barbers her fur and skin, and dental disease) to have the stress of strange cats in the house.

There's also this guy (at least he looks like a male cat to us) that is feral and sometimes hangs around our house. Brian's named him Blanco. We only see him a couple of times a week. I haven't seen him in a few days and I'm worried. Not only because of the excessive heat, but when I saw him last, I noticed that he is injured. His right front leg in the back of it, has a huge gaping wound. I'll pass on posting the photo of him where you can see the wound, as it's rather gross and heart wrenching.

But wait, there's more!

I stepped outside yesterday evening to see this thin gray kitty that I've never seen before. As it was running away right after I got this photo, I saw that the area behind its right ear was torn up and bloody.

All I can do now is to keep looking for Blanco as I walk around my yard, sometimes leaving a bowl of dry food in the bushes to entice him. Otherwise, I just have to concentrate my attention on Miss Clementine. She is hanging in there much longer than we expected. When she broke off an upper fang just a week after Monkey died in February, the vet dentist said without major dental work, that she'd only live another few weeks to a few months. It's now four months later and still no signs of infection in her gums from the broken fang. There's some swelling, which our regular vet said is inflammation, but at least it's not infected. She eats all her food, is still very active (to the point of being rather spastic sometimes), and doesn't paw at her face. We also continue to give her subcutaneous fluids every other day for her kidney disease. She's been beating those odds, too. Over 4-1/2 years ago when she was diagnosed, the internal medicine vet said she'd probably only live another couple of years.

We'll see how the rest of the month goes...maybe it won't be all about flowers and cats? Though if it is, I certainly won't mind.