Feeble wave . . . hey, is that a yard sale? . . . Sunday, bloody Sunday . . .

Sometimes, Bessie just takes a bite--or two--out of my leg

 One way or another, it's been a tired time chez Aurora. I really don't care for heat, and I especially don't care for ninety degrees in mid-May. I don't like my chances as the effects of climate change become more dramatic. But I also recognize that my lot is pretty damned plush, and I've got the photos to prove it. 

 Last Saturday was the 2023 edition of West Seattle Garage Sale Day and we actually got up early(ish) to head out before it got too hot. As it happened, we never made it out of our immediate neighborhood, so plentiful were the sales (and, okay, so weak were we in the face of the wretched heat). It was nice, however, to talk with some people one block up who shared that they had collected some of the free tomato starts I set out a year or two back. (I'm not entirely clear on how they knew where we lived, but I try not to worry about such things.) Oh, sure, they didn't give me a deal on the absurd buttons I bought (not shown in photo because I forgot they were in my bag until some days later), but it was still nice. Scott was pleased because he didn't buy anything all day, while I was pleased to find something to buy most places. 

Garage Sale Day haul: that's window screen material in the lower right corner.

 The injury depicted in the photo that opens this fascinating post resulted from Bessie falling over, with a full basket, outside the grocery store on Sunday as I was fussing with my bag/helmet/gloves/god-knows-what. Her fall was slowed by a few of the teeth on her gear cluster sinking into my shin. It hurt, rather, but did not bleed immediately; the artistic single line of red developed on the ride home. No groceries were damaged, but I was rather cranky.

 

As a result, perhaps, I chose to spend some hours that afternoon in the Folly, appreciating the clematis and reading the trashy mystery (Death in a Deck Chair) I'd picked up at a sale the day before; it was ever so restorative.

The clematis is spreading across the top of the arch as we hoped.

It's not all lounging beneath arbors around here, however. The greens in the planter on the patio don't like the heat any more than I do so I've taken to shading them (with, as it happens, an umbrella purchased on a West Seattle yard sale day a few years back). It seems to be working:

There's just no photo of the re-transplanted tomato starts that I decided had to be moved to 4" pots this morning before I left for work. Somehow the life of the gentleman farmer looks a lot easier on "Downton Abbey." 

An ant's view of the Folly.