Squirrel work

mad dahlia 1Praise be, I’ve found the nutella jar.  You know how it is when you remove the contents from your kitchen and pantry shelves. It’s all in a good cause for building work.  But that pales into insignificance when you realise you have packed away the treats.

And boy did I fancy fresh rye bread and nutella with my morning cup of tea. I was up super early ready for the off.

House clean. Cleared, echoing and cavernous. And Bebere and Etienne are hard at work with complicated measurements and unloading of the van.  These old houses (17th century and counting) have very few straight walls or rooms.

I’m hiding well away unless it comes to artistic decisions, pots of coffee and cheque writing. allium nectar

And hiding means planting. Another few hundred this morning; allium purple sensations in the barn garden and down the walnut path. And allium nectaroscordum siculum (cute nodding headed pink things) in the pots that line the rickety steps beside the guest house.

The pots need their compost topping up anyway – thank goodness sedums thrive on neglect – so I thought three bulbs per pot could be fun.

I will have to move the pots to the safety of the potting shed for the winter.  The terracotta isn’t frost hardy. And they are the generous loan of Lynn and Jeff around the mountain, so I’d hate to kill them with a brisk minus 18C blast of cold air.

The funny thing was I felt just like a squirrel burying nuts as I worked my way up the barn garden beds planting the allium bulbs. I kept running into just planted crocus bulbs from the day before.  Obviously I’m thinking artistically in exactly the same places.  I think they can share the space.  The crocus will be up and over well before the huge alliums emerge.