Scaredy dog

We are having thunder and lightening tonight, and quite the downpour.  Not to the dog's liking at all.  She is better about fireworks, but nature's light show?  Still a problem.  It is the noise she that bothers her, but she is smart enough to associate the lightening with the thunder and responds to both with drooling, panting, and trembling.  Poor critter.

What have I been up to?  Well, indoors I attached the hutch to the cabinet, and filled the cabinet with the lesser-used small kitchen appliances and dodads.  The hutch holds all my cookbooks on one shelf; still debating what to put on the other shelf.  And there is room on top as well!  One drawer has become a tape-and-tool drawer, thereby relieving some of the burden of the junk drawer.  The other drawer holds two flat plastic storage thingies I bought from Lee Valley, one with restaurant take-out menus, the other with all those loose recipes clipped from newspapers or printed from online.

I can't quite commit to doing anything substantial to reduce the amount of sunlight that pours in through the patio door in the afternoon, so I hung some sheers to at least soften all that light.  It makes a surprising difference, not only in the light level but also in the amount of heat generated by that solar infusion.

Outdoors, I have been playing in the compost.  One side of the double bin has been dug out and scattered around all the shrubs and flower beds, except for the "meadow".  I also fertilized the garlic.  And much as I hated to, I got out the RoundUp and squirted Canada thistle until I ran out of juice.  Then I bought more RoundUp.  Canada thistle is the only weed that drives me off the organic bandwagon.  I had plans to experiment with injecting vinegar into the hallow stalks, but I just don't have time to screw around.  It is not even mid-April and my yard and garden have a serious weed problem.

When I bought the RoundUp, I also purchased some marigold seeds, which were promptly planted using the Burpee seed starting kit I bought at Target a while back.  The kit came with compressed peat nuggets that, when water is added, expand into peat turds.

And the nuggets stink.  I'm glad I am not planting something I eat in them.

Our weather lately has been great - warm and sunny - which has caused anything that flowers early to simply POP.  Colder temps are on the way, though.  I hope everything survives.  Sorry about the quality of these pics - my camera seems to be dying.

Naturalized daffodils in the "meadow".  I may lift and divide them this fall, as they are becoming quite thick.

The rhododendron, which I nurture with coffee grounds.

The smoke bush survived the winter!  Also, newbie pink hyacinth.  There are pink grape hyacinth here as well, but too small to see.  Also, note the forsythia behind the fence.  Gorgeous this year!

Close up of the pink hyacinth.  You can almost smell them!

Grape hyacinth are like weeds.  Not only do the bulbs multiply, but the flowers produce seed.