What a beautiful place

I hadn't watched this in my subscriptions until YKWIA pointed it out to me. It would be a lovely place to visit in spring.

Dragonflies, thistledown, hummingbirds, and bats

One of the nice things about having to schlepp around without a car is that I notice more along the roadside to do with nature. Yesterday there was the green hummingbird buzzing about a crabapple looking for nectar before deciding that it was going to come up empty (the trees having bloomed in the spring and now are forming fruit). Today there was a blue dragonfly on the way down to the bus stop, plus thistledown everywhere, both blowing from across the road and on the ground. When I was a child, we pretended these were fairies, and if you caught one before it hit the ground you could make a wish and release it to let it fly. Tonight on my way home from the gas station I saw a bat flying purposefully across the sky above the car lot. If I'd been in a car, I'd have missed all these things.

There's a downside, though. My knees and ankles are unused to doing the amount of walking that I'm doing, and so at the end of the night I'm hobbling about, especially after standing at work. But that's okay; it'll get better with some conditioning.

Speaking of being uncomfortable, I've been nauseous a good bit of the day. I thought I was getting motion sick from the bus the last few days; today I felt that way before riding, and I realised that I was having issues on an empty stomach. About every 3-5 years I have a flareup of gastritis where I come close to getting an ulcer. That may be happening here. I'll discuss it with my doctor when I see him at the beginning of September. So far it's been pretty mild. But there have been times I've had to go on medication to get it under control. This has been a chronic issue since I was in my early 20s. Still, it's annoying. I'm trying to eat a little fairly often to keep something on my stomach and avoid greasy foods. Fortunately lunch at work was penne pasta with marinara sauce and a vegetable medley, so that wasn't too bad.

Well, that's all for now. Hope your week went well. Good night.

A decent day

Today's radioplay: 'Girl with Gazelle'

I finished cleaning my desk out today. There's just taking my extra stuff home and that's it. The furniture is being moved tomorrow. My desk has one pen and a sticky pad on it. Even my bulletin board is bare. Sometime next week they'll put the cubicles together. The overhead bins will come a little later, though, so for now my plants are in the windows by the computers.

Interesting factoid I learnt today: Vanilla bean is from an orchid. They are naturally pollinated only by a specific bee native to Mexico which has not been successfully raised in other vanilla-producing countries. For those plantations, workers must inspect the plantation for open flowers (they only last a day) and peel back a membrane separating the male and female parts of this hermaphroditic plant. I'm brushing up on orchid basics (I bought a book on them the other day) so I can get mine to rebloom. I have a Dendrobium and a Phalaenopsis. I've never seen the Dendrobium flower--I bought it for $5 after the blooms were spent--but I think I found the same type of plant later and the blooms are pink. So are the Phalaenopsis', but lighter ranging to a mild pink. They are both epiphytic (growing on trees), so they're in a special potting medium. The Dendrobium has pseudobulbs, the Phalaenopsis does not, but rather has three thick leaves that spread out from the centre. I am having some trouble with brown on the Dendrobium's newest growth, but I don't think it's a fungus. I'm still getting the whole watering schedule down, so it may be too much water or perhaps the artificial light of the library is too strong for the new growth. I'm digging to find a cure, and in the meantime snipping off the areas affected in case they are fungal and being careful with it around other plants.

I was out running errands today and was sitting in the car when I heard the most exquisite, clear birdsong. I think it may have been a mockingbird. Last night I sat in the quiet with just the hum of the computer and the chirping of a cricket outside. It's those little things you appreciate, or at least I do.

My foot's still giving me trouble, but nothing I can't live with. I did try the hand-towel-in-the-boot thing and am happy to report that there was no new acerbation of the abrasions that had been forming on my legs.

Well, I need to go, Cerys needs to go out and I need to get ready for the carpet cleaners who are coming tomorrow.