The Goldenrod Chronicles, Tick Talk
Bite Dance
Vacation Fridays (aka use-it-so-I-don’t-lose-it-vacation-day). (Double entendre on the lose it, ha!) Also, no proofies. Duh.
Peony season is long this year. No complaints. Less climactic, more that I’ve added peonies from the earliest in the season to the latest. So many peonies. So many colors. So many petals dropping on the floor in the house.
The little monster (aka, the trojan horse) will request to be outside most hours of the day. She gets into less trouble these days, but she still finds trouble.
Yesterday afternoon I could not find my clippers to save my life. COULD. NOT. FIND. THEM. ANYWHERE.
Turns out they were exactly where they were supposed to be, I just didn’t look hard enough. Deadheading is a meditative pleasure. I save it as a treat for after I finish everything else (less pleasant) to do.
Dahlias are stupid. Dahlias are a stupid hobby. I do not understand why anyone has this hobby. Yay, flowers! But that’s like three or four months of flowers and the rest of the year is sorting and storing and clipping and checking and dividing. Why? WHY? I ask myself.
It starts simple enough. I have garden space. Dahlias are all the rage. I’ll get a few tubers.
I plant the tubers. They grow these neat plants with lovely flowers. They get huge! They are so big and productive. Then the first frost hits.
The whole plant turns black and dead as soon as the frost melts. The plants die back. Welp, cool. Time to dig them up.
Because dahlias are an investment. Should we call it that? It’s more like a ________________. (Maybe you can think of a term). Yes, they are an investment because they are expensive (tubers for some fancy varieties tubers cost $25). So it’s expensive up front, but it’s more like an exponentially growing family that you then have to take care of.
When the plants get hit by frost, and die a wrinkly black death, it’s time to dig up the tubers. I planted one tuber and then voila - I dig up a huge clump of dahlias.
For each tuber I plant in the spring I get 3-10 in the fall. So, an investment with big returns?!
But there are fees attached. Because you have to store the tuber for the winter. And not just like 'stuff it in the garage’ because these little mofos are very particular. Not only can they not freeze (ie, I have to bring them into the house) but they need just the right temperature and humidity to avoid rotting and also drying out and shriveling up and dying. (This looks like plastic bins with pine shavings in the basement.)
And why stop there with the time consuming needs of these glorious plants!? Because not only do you have to store them, but you also have to wash all the soil off the tubers (which can be done in the fall (cold hands) or in the spring (is there enough time? and also cold hands). I have heavy clay soil so not washing my tubers before storage means I am trudging three times as much weight in each bin - into the house and down the stairs to the basement.
So…each clump has to be washed. But why stop there?! Because clump has to be separated back into viable tubers which means an elaborate medical inspection and surgery to sanitarily divide out each viable tuber.
It’s just fucking stupid.
It also involves spreadsheets! And sorting things! And alphabetizing! So somehow between the lovely flowers and the fact I get to create a google sheet about all of this…the stupid little hobby continues.
And it’s not really a little hobby anymore. It takes up a shit ton of space. Imagine 10 huge bins in the basement, and then needing all the space to clean and sort.
But then we end up with a table of all my viable tubers in alphabetical order. Swoon. What could be better?
Yes, it’s an absolutely stupid and time consuming hobby - but each spring it means I can give away a bunch of tubers to friends. I even have enough now that I can ask people what color or style they want! And I even took a whole bunch to the big plant swap a few weeks back.
And now instead of focusing on growing my collection - I’m trying to refine my collection. Do I really like the flowers each variety puts off? Mostly yes! But I’m learning that in the abundance of all there is here - I can start to let go of some varieties I don’t live. Hopefully all of these will go into the ground this weekend. (We finally had some rain here, much needed, but now the soil needs some extra time to dry out before I make the beds and do a final weeding.)
Here are the current varieties:
boom boom, bright eyes, bumble rumble, buttercup, cafe au lait, chewy, clearview peachy, coralie, cornel bronze, dandie john k, diva, double jill, edge of joy, eefje, jowey winey, kelsey annie joy, kelsey sunshine, labrynth, lark’s ebbe, lee’s ginger fleck, maltby pearl, mambo, milena fleur, might butterfly, peaches, penhill watermelon, pipsqueak, platinum blond, rock run ashley, rose toscano, rosy wings, sandia brocade, shaggy chic, sherwood’s peach, skyfall, sweet nathalie, sweet suzanne, sylvia, tahoma kelly, take off, teasbrook audrey, terracotta, tiny treasure, tyrell, valley tawney, wine eyed jill
Tick Talk:
Our little (adorable) trojan horse is well equipped to bring these little fuckers into the house. I found these two on the bed (we keep a top sheet over the comforter as a way to trick ourselves into believing we can keep the bed clean. It’s a lie we tell ourselves regularly) yesterday morning after Roux vigorously scratched her armpit for 30 seconds.
I’ve removed a few ticks from the dog. I felt (and then found) one tick crawling in my armpit under two layers of clothing. We do regular tick checks on the humans. I hate this time of year.
I felt comforted last year when I learned a tick has to be attached to you for over 24 hours before it can start to spread disease. Ticks are one of the few reasons I shower regularly in the summer.
I’m still stymied (I mean, not really) by the fact there is a Lyme disease vaccine for dogs, but not yet for humans. I would pay $1000 out of pocket if I knew I had some protections from these tiny little monsters.
Photo above: Trojan Horse at the gates of Troy.
That’s all from summer* Fridays,
💖vanessa
*I know it’s not technically summer yet.
Wait! In seeing the house like this - so lived in and full. It made me wonder if I had any other photos. So…days off are for combing the archives I guess.
My peonies haven't even bloomed yet. But, maybe I have a late-blooming variety. Or they bloom later because they don't get full sun.
Dahlias - I inherited a "mystic illusion" variety of dahlia from the previous owner of my rental house as a big, fused mass of tubers, about as big as two footballs massed together. I split it last year and gave half the ball to my landlord. This year, I split it in half (which took some serious force with a shovel) and planted it in two spots. I did not wash off the dirt last year. I do not split up the tubers. I store the tuber-ball in the cool, dry-ish basement in a box full of newspapers. It goes gangbusters.
I am obsessed with peonies. I want to plant them everywhere! Love your gorgeous bright pink blossoms.