Well, it's been a *week*
May. 25th, 2020 08:58 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thanateBracketed on both ends by mental health meltdowns of the usual sort, plus the Megatherium running through another round of being dead set against her schoolwork in the middle, and the cat has a toothache, but of course we got to the point of wanting to take him to a vet on Saturday night and even the emergency vets don't appear to be answering their phones on a holiday weekend in the middle of a pandemic. Fortunately, when plied with wet food & tuna, Loki is back to eating things & being active when appropriate, but he's still curling up under the bed as his default.
A week ago the neighbor across the street and 3 houses down took out his large beech tree, and as grauwulf had just flipped over to feeling more or less human again, I sent him over to ask the tree people if we could have the mulch, since I always mean to do that and am always too shy and/or time things wrong. This was not the best workaround, as it took 3 tries to explain that what I wanted was for him to talk to the workers, not the property owner, and then they dumped the mulch in the middle of the communal alleyway behind our house instead of actually on our back parking area.
Normally, this would have been a non-issue, but two of the other four neighbors who back onto the alleyway actually wanted to get vehicles back there this week, so it's probably a good thing that we moved half the pile onto a tarp in our parking area on Monday evening. Unfortunately, grauwulf hadn't eaten all day, and I began insufficiently hydrated, so it knocked us both for a loop. I do not actually remember previously having so much water in my stomach that I was nauseated while at the same time feeling all my muscles stiffen through a dehydration headache. (And it went on for hours, keeping me awake, and when I finally felt a little better and took a single sip of water because I knew I was still dehydrated, the nausea came right back. Do not recommend.)
Anyway, my hydration had mostly sorted itself out by morning, but it was just the wrong time in my hormonal cycle, so that was another two days in and out of headache before that sorted itself out. And meanwhile there was this giant mulch pile in two places, half-blocking the alleyway, and the next neighbor in from us had people out to replace the old fence and re-gravel the mucky back of his backyard... and cut down the black willow which was the only native plant on the property. (He's since included some fun Baptisia cultivars in the new plantings, so I feel a tiny bit better.)
The landscaping and construction people's truck said their company was called "Guerra" (which I assume is someone's name?) and thus became the Landscapers of War, and many mulch-shoveling minutes were passed contemplating whether they're the ones that get sent in after the Dogs of War have been re-leashed to clean up people's lawns and sidewalks. I did not remember enough Spanish & they didn't have enough English to communicate that I wanted some small twigs from the willow, but since they just dropped it in pieces in the woods, I was able to brave the poison ivy to go fetch some bits after they had gone and poke them into the muddy muddy muck on my side of the fence.
I also wonder whether the neighbor knows what willow roots do when you cut their tree down. (Oh well; he'll find out...)
Furthermore, the unexpected wander of the polar vortex earlier this month has set the mosquitoes back a week and a half, and so they are only just becoming obvious, which has been lovely for mucking about and redistributing mulch without being wreathed in bugspray fumes. I mulched the entire corner under the maple trees that has been theoretically a play area for the Megatherium since I got the last of the oak limbs out of it two years ago, and now we have moved her playhouse there, and she spent much of today happily mucking about collecting leaves for her new club (1 leaf and 2 rocks dues to join; re-up with 3 pieces of mulch every 2 years) which sends sap samples to a far away lab for identification. I agreed to join on the condition that my job was to upload pictures of mysterious plants to iNaturalist (which I would be doing anyway.) We had a picnic under the maple trees & then a club meeting which apparently involved making imaginary phone calls to various scientific contacts until I sat up from contemplating the maple leaves overhead to discover that she was licking dirt off her palm, so we went inside. (Grauwulf being out of commission over SCA nonsense & evil hicups by then.)
So I have missed Virtual Balticon, and any virtual thing my college did instead of a 20 year reunion, and having run out of Murderbot books to reread I mostly want to play Animal Crossing and putter in the yard, but our library is reopening in mid-June, so I really need to finish up with any library books I want to get through.
A week ago the neighbor across the street and 3 houses down took out his large beech tree, and as grauwulf had just flipped over to feeling more or less human again, I sent him over to ask the tree people if we could have the mulch, since I always mean to do that and am always too shy and/or time things wrong. This was not the best workaround, as it took 3 tries to explain that what I wanted was for him to talk to the workers, not the property owner, and then they dumped the mulch in the middle of the communal alleyway behind our house instead of actually on our back parking area.
Normally, this would have been a non-issue, but two of the other four neighbors who back onto the alleyway actually wanted to get vehicles back there this week, so it's probably a good thing that we moved half the pile onto a tarp in our parking area on Monday evening. Unfortunately, grauwulf hadn't eaten all day, and I began insufficiently hydrated, so it knocked us both for a loop. I do not actually remember previously having so much water in my stomach that I was nauseated while at the same time feeling all my muscles stiffen through a dehydration headache. (And it went on for hours, keeping me awake, and when I finally felt a little better and took a single sip of water because I knew I was still dehydrated, the nausea came right back. Do not recommend.)
Anyway, my hydration had mostly sorted itself out by morning, but it was just the wrong time in my hormonal cycle, so that was another two days in and out of headache before that sorted itself out. And meanwhile there was this giant mulch pile in two places, half-blocking the alleyway, and the next neighbor in from us had people out to replace the old fence and re-gravel the mucky back of his backyard... and cut down the black willow which was the only native plant on the property. (He's since included some fun Baptisia cultivars in the new plantings, so I feel a tiny bit better.)
The landscaping and construction people's truck said their company was called "Guerra" (which I assume is someone's name?) and thus became the Landscapers of War, and many mulch-shoveling minutes were passed contemplating whether they're the ones that get sent in after the Dogs of War have been re-leashed to clean up people's lawns and sidewalks. I did not remember enough Spanish & they didn't have enough English to communicate that I wanted some small twigs from the willow, but since they just dropped it in pieces in the woods, I was able to brave the poison ivy to go fetch some bits after they had gone and poke them into the muddy muddy muck on my side of the fence.
I also wonder whether the neighbor knows what willow roots do when you cut their tree down. (Oh well; he'll find out...)
Furthermore, the unexpected wander of the polar vortex earlier this month has set the mosquitoes back a week and a half, and so they are only just becoming obvious, which has been lovely for mucking about and redistributing mulch without being wreathed in bugspray fumes. I mulched the entire corner under the maple trees that has been theoretically a play area for the Megatherium since I got the last of the oak limbs out of it two years ago, and now we have moved her playhouse there, and she spent much of today happily mucking about collecting leaves for her new club (1 leaf and 2 rocks dues to join; re-up with 3 pieces of mulch every 2 years) which sends sap samples to a far away lab for identification. I agreed to join on the condition that my job was to upload pictures of mysterious plants to iNaturalist (which I would be doing anyway.) We had a picnic under the maple trees & then a club meeting which apparently involved making imaginary phone calls to various scientific contacts until I sat up from contemplating the maple leaves overhead to discover that she was licking dirt off her palm, so we went inside. (Grauwulf being out of commission over SCA nonsense & evil hicups by then.)
So I have missed Virtual Balticon, and any virtual thing my college did instead of a 20 year reunion, and having run out of Murderbot books to reread I mostly want to play Animal Crossing and putter in the yard, but our library is reopening in mid-June, so I really need to finish up with any library books I want to get through.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 04:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 04:48 pm (UTC)They tend to grow in wet areas, and one of their reproductive strategies is to drop branches periodically, which will then root where they are if they land someplace wet enough.
no subject
Date: 2020-05-26 05:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2020-05-29 01:46 am (UTC)