I have rejoined the land of the living, and am grateful for that. As some of you know, I spent six days acutely ill with the flu, actually more ill that I have been in about 35 years. High fever kept me from doing anything for days, other than to lay in bed, completely oblivious to the passage of time. I could do a little bit of something for maybe 15 minutes, then it would be back to bed for hours. Luckily, I had many days of blog posts already written and scheduled, up to the row along. At about the midpoint, I put an auto-reply on my email, gave up trying to keep up with it and went back to bed. The most annoying thing about this was I had planned to get my flu shot the day after I contracted this disease. Instead I had a miserable time, in a febrile stupor for days, with severe back pain, and muscle aches leading into a horrible cough and a lack of sleep that has left me needing more days to rebuild my strength. And I won’t even begin to talk about the number of hours of work I couldn’t do on Autumn Jubilee, so I am doubly grateful I got a head start on that. But at least I am on the mend. My Sweet Babboo took great care of me, getting me special foods and ice cream to tempt my lack of appetite while we maintained as much distance as we could to keep him from catching it. He cooked and cleaned, ran errands and did the shopping I usually do, working pretty hard to do all his chores and mine. Thank you to those who sent get-well wishes, I really appreciated them. It was lovely to get out for a few hours yesterday to sew with friends, even if I couldn’t stay for the entire day. I took all the pics on today’s post prior to being ill, so let’s see what’s been happening in the garden. The first of my new dahlias bloomed, a lovely apricot.
Birdwatching has seen a variety of little birds enjoying the seed. Titmice, a chickadee and a goldfinch share the bounty on this day.
The red bellied woodpecker stops by regularly.
A bright goldfinch calmly enjoys a meal while a titmouse shares the space, and another blur of feathers is seen leaving the perch.
The black bear visited again one early morning.
He sat at the edge of the meadow where it meets the beginning of the forest to the west side, pulled down a branch and began stripping it of whatever it offered. I think this is a little nut tree of some kind, but I have not been down to that part of the meadow so I can’t be sure.
A white dahlia made an appearance, and I almost missed it.
The asters bloomed beautifully, and were past peak by the time we returned from our trip to the national parks out west.
The yellow torenias are still doing well, but the purple ones in the hanging baskets are winding down. Everything got a bit drought stressed while we were on our vacation. I had placed all the plants where they would get rain while we were gone, but then it didn’t rain.
Begonias gave one last brilliant show, coming back nicely from the stress of lack of water.
The impatiens just kept going as usual, and are still full and lush.
Dusty miller and white petunias share a pot.
In the flowerbed, this dianthus bloomed. I like this variegated pattern.
A nice surprise, this gorgeous blueish lavender hydrangea bloomed right after we got back.
Most of the hydrangea blooms now have moved into the muddy pink of autumn.
The last of the tomato crop should ripen within the next couple of weeks and it will be the end of harvest time for this year.
The daisy put out beautiful clear white blooms, and loads of buds that promise to be a profusion of blooms soon.
So, here we are. I have to get a pattern done for our stitch along coming up, and few other things completed before Autumn Jubilee begins, but I think I’ll make it. I’ll still be taking it easy for a few more days, but things are definitely looking up. How are things going in your garden now?