05/21/2021 – Around Colehaus

Flowers have burst out all over the place. Tulips, azaleas, rhododendrons, even the blueberries are all in bloom. Mom was struck by how few flowers are on her three sad blueberry bushes this year, all of them about fifteen years old and pretty ratty looking, and she was sad thinking it just might be time to pull them out.

Then she looked up their life span and learned they can live up to fifty years! She thinks she’s not been cutting out the really old canes which would allow for new ones to sprout and produce flowers and fruit. She’s too late to do that this year but she vows to give it a try next year.

Mom’s cyclamen, on the other hand, survived the winter spectacularly! She put out animal-safe slug bait throughout the last part of winter and then, a neighbor gave her a bag of hazelnut shells, saying she was told they work better against slugs than bait does. Boy, did it ever! Disclaimer: We had our driest month of April ever and that also kept slugs from munching on everything in sight. Still, she’ll keep using the shells and thinks they look kind of cool.

Leaves are coming back on all the bushes and trees and Mom’s made great strides in getting the backyard in shape for all those half hour time slots she hopes to enjoy out there each day after work. There’s nothing quite like just sitting and enjoying the view instead of constantly working on cleaning up this area and that. She always gives herself until May 1st every year to have everything done (or near done depending on the weather), and this year, she succeeded.

Another long lasting plant is the western trillium, which lives up to twenty five years. Ours are only half that old. No worries about those.

The last star magnolia flower was a big, fragrant one at just the right height for sniffing.

Inside, Viola doesn’t give one hoot about what’s growing outside. She simply wants everyone to know that she’ll be adding the role of official New Box Inspector to her Patrol Sergeant in Training title. Because someone has to do it and Dad’s too big to fit.

We have two regularly visiting raccoons currently. One has a shortened tail that we’re calling Tippy and one has longer-than-usual fur on its front legs. We’re calling that one Shaggy at the moment. We suspect Shaggy won’t be shaggy-looking forever, but nothing’s growing back that shortened tail on Tippy. Once Mom remembers to have camera in hand when she opens the garage door in the evening, we might even have photos of each to share in the coming weeks. Remember, visiting raccoon baby season is in late June/mid July when mama raccoon brings them up to teach them about our water fountain.

No outside visiting cat photos this month, oddly enough. Rusty still visits the feeding station around 4 a.m. each morning, JoJo, a black medium fur cat runs though our backyard once or twice a week, and a new, tipped-ear short fur black cat was seen under the bird feeder once. Mom got within five feet of it before it sauntered away through a neighbor’s yard. He’s the first tipped-ear cat we’ve ever seen around here and he’s very handsome. Hopefully, we’ll get photos of him to share soon!

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We’re taking the next two Mondays off to catch up on some work/home network repairs. Mom admits she might sneak in an extra five minutes of sleep one of those Mondays. Or maybe not. Anything could happen to thwart that! We’ll see you here again next Wednesday, May 26th.

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A Colehaus Cats flashback:

2020 – No post
2019 – No post
2018 – Poetry by Cats? Yes!
2017 – No post
2016 – No post
2015 – No post
2014 – Almost Wordless Wednesday
2013 – Ruby Tuesday
2012 – So Many Boxes to Choose From