clostrophobic and surrounded by construction

[thanate]

Rain has stopped (at least for now), and they're digging the hole in the back yard (and the back steps are gone already! eep!) We haven't replaced the sump yet, but since it hasn't yet re-filled enough that the pump would turn on if it were working, I'm not too worried. Also, it turns out that the dehumidifier has an air filter on the intake (um, who'd have thought?) and when you fail to clean said filter for, um, a year and a half of use, the accumulated gunk collects on the condenser plate and blocks up the drip into the bucket. So that's fixed now...

Of course, one of the morons next door who's in the process of removing all the bushes from the lot just tried to explain to me that trees don't grow under other trees (apparently he hasn't bothered to look up and notice my oaks) which is why he's clear cutting the bushes. Oh, and he's only responsible to the bank, so what anyone might think increases property value doesn't matter to him. I hate people. Fortunately, that's mostly north of us, so any increase in light should help *my* bushes take off rather than burning out my understory/shrubs.

Here, have some pokeweed. (The robins have been eating it as it ripens, much to the amusement of their viewers as they bob about)





One of the robins in question. (of course one can never photograph them actually bobbing...)


I also have some lovely NY ironweed flowering, which fell over in the rain before I got a picture of it. It's starting to perk back up now.


And insect life: a profusion of milkweed bugs, sucking the sap out of the butterfly weed pods,


and a late July mantis (though I've seen at least one new hatchling recently, too!)


And for something a little different, the pretty basement window: (dust and all...)

Lump glass from the woman who sold the place, a nuanced collection of brick (some archaeological backfill in various states of destruction/preservation, one looted from a shipwreck), modern surface collection bottles, & our Maryland state flower on the other side of the glass. Also the sun, which appears to exist after all.

Comments

[tam_nonlinear]

I may take this as an excuse to continue to put off weeding the back yard, so I can leave the poke weed for the robins (I was greatly impressed with how happy the milkweed in the woods made the local insect life when it was flowering, but I haven't any of it in my yard yet).

[thanate]

Would you like me to save you some seeds? I've got butterfly weed & swamp milkweed.

[belfebe.livejournal.com]

Pretty pics!

[heuchera.livejournal.com]

Glad the dehumidifier is better and the addition progressing. May the rest all resolve positively as well. My sympathies on your next door chopping moron. At least he isn't a permanent fixture; maybe the house will sell and some new person will arrive who will want to maintain nice native plantings. One can dream... Our very nice neighbor insists on giving us bad advice on what we should do to maintain our garden. No, I do not want to prune all my shrubs into balls. Thank you. No, I don't want my trees to be balls either. Really.

We did have an ecstatic (otherwise unidentified gray) bird eating the fruit of our sweet bay magnolia this morning though, so that's a plus.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

Weirdly, I went out and yelled at the next door people again, and the guy who was taking the chain saw to their magnolia finally said, "would it make you feel better if I left it like this?" and then did. I was kind of astonished. Apparently he'd already been trying to convince "the bank" not to clear cut and plant all new, so he wasn't quite up to pushing the argument all the way through. We'll see how long that lasts, I guess.

Are you sure you don't want a giant melon ball yard? You too could live in a silly computer game!

[amubleu.livejournal.com]

We have pokeberries in the back of the shop I work at as well. Supposedly they make a fantastic dye and ink. They just came in but ours isn't as purples as yours just yet. When they are ready I'm going to collect some and try dying some yarn with it.

Your back yarn looks great. Good luck with your neighbors, though. What a pain to have to deal with.

[thanate.livejournal.com]

I've done a little with pokeweed dye; they can produce a reddish-purple or a fairly bright pink in a cold dye bath depending on your mordant, but the color is not at all light fast. You can practically watch it fade to a kind of dull yellow-green that almost looks like bloodstains. So, fun experiment, but don't expect long-lasting results.

Thanks! I'm definitely looking forward to getting to plant things in the places I've been avoiding because I knew there was going to be construction.

(the problem with next door is that it isn't neighbors; the house has been abandoned for close to two years now, and the bank has finally realized they have to put some work into it to get it off their hands. So, nobody working on it actually cares about the neighborhood, or whether it looks good long-term. Ugh.)