Weekly Chat (Non-Osprey), 24 February 2019

LINDA - how pleasant your Sunday sounds - pleased you could all sit out in the garden.

E-E needs supervision to cut back geraniums and fuchsias which went on blooming in the greenhouse - should have been done weeks ago! So I did say I would sit outside this morning, but a bit too chilly so far - sunshine has only just broken through. Off to garden centre later for lunch and to buy scones in their food hall, Then home vis M&S Food. Noticed yesterday that the Alliums are up - spring really is on the way!

Welcome home, ANNETTE!
BJANE - That fall sounds very unpleasant, what a shock for you. Good that you are on the mend, now.
LINDY - Roast lamb - yum! I like the bit about comparing health notes :-)
DIANE - thank you for stating us off once again. I hope that your project is going well - I think that you didn't have a great deal of time to do it?
OG - I hope that the weather perks up enough for you to be outside - it is very grey here today. I keep looking at garden jobs and then averting my eyes!

Yesterday was a busy day here, OH's grandson arrived to paint the front fence (I'm quite capable of doing it but he insisted). Then Callum arrived to wash his car. After that, eldest daughter and family came past on their way out for a walk up Tomnahurich hill. When they returned, we went shopping.
Today, I'm waiting for a call from the plumber. he will measure up for a replacement radiator in the shower room. Paint has come off the existing one and it is corroding in that one place, quite badly. No more white rads/towel rails here!

Heather: As we are all over 65, there is always something to say! - plus, two of the party are ex nurses and so sometimes have interesting input. (They both worked in Doctors practices as resident Nurse, before retiring)

Glad you had a busy day and some things got done. I expect that members of your family are only too happy to pop in and help with jobs so that you don't have too much to do.

Its glorious here, just like Easter! I just took some pics in the garden of what's coming out, which includes a white magnolia which I have in a big pot. We just got the suitcases out of the loft as we are off on our annual trip to the Canaries a week on Wednesday. Trouble is, that's now distracted me from doing the ironing and making some phone calls which are needed today.... And the ironing has to be done, to get it out of the way.

Diane: Love those photos from Outdoor Indiana. That Whooping Crane looks like it's banded... Didn't realize that snow geese flew in such an elaborate and unique? formation; wonder why that evolved - interesting! Thanks for starting the week with such nice images. :-)

AQ: Always surprised to see the Corellas just hanging out down there. Good luck with the heatwave; hope it's short-lived.

bjane: Sounds llike a really rough month for you. How did you manage to care for your daughter being so sore?

Lindybird: Got a WhatsApp text from UK niece thrilled with such warm February temps. Nice it was on a weekend so lots of people could it (and that it's apparently continuing.)

OG: Good to hear that you're back to supervising the garden. I do wish we had the equivalent of garden centers here.

Heather: Had to smile at Callum and his car washing routine. Is it just that you have the space or do you feed him too? :-)

Trip north was not altogether easy. There's quite a bit of friction at the best of times between my friend and her niece (who's been the designated family "carer" for much of her life) so my LA friend and I were trying to run interference between them while the niece and nephew were starting to clear out their mother's home. Niece and her bro are having to make the mortgage payments until it's ready to put on the market, which they hope to do ASAP as neither have money to spare and the niece has spent most of her savings on her Mom's care.  Unfortunately, my friend can't understand their need to move the process along and is being rather difficult. We'll be back up there in another month when they hold a memorial/wake/celebration of life or whatever people call them these days at the home (another reason for the clean out as the house is jammed with stuff). All a bit fraught...

Meanwhile, my friend from Kansas City is coming up tomorrow for a night after visiting her LA-area daughter and family. Then my daughter is arriving Sunday for a week and a week after that I'm off to Arizona for Ms D's 8th birthday! Then it's back to Fresno for the memorial.....  Roll on April.

ANNETTE: Less than 600 Whooping Cranes remain, and they are all banded (ringed) and wear radio transmitters. Efforts to reintroduce them in various areas have only had limited success. Indiana has a few of them that hang around a couple of counties south of me. I've never seen one in the wild, although I've seen Sandhill Cranes. The Whoopers can be 5-feet tall and are beautiful! I'm not certain, but I think the Snow Geese have that strange flying formation because they draft off of each other. One group flies ahead for a while, and when they get tired, they drop back and others fly ahead. That's why the lines of geese undulate like that.

I'm glad you arrived home safely, although I know you're tired. Care-giving fell to me in my family, and I can empathize with your friend's niece. Nobody in my family seemed to care how emotionally and financially draining it was. Have a good time with your friend from Kansas City. I think she's the one who was a freelance editor and gave it up.

Hello all and thanks Diane for starting us off. Great pics from Indiana Outdoors.

Annette - nice to see you are safely home. It must be difficult when family members need to clear a parents home for sale and there are objections. Let's hope your friend can realise the sacrifice her niece made in acting as carer for her mom and the need now to move on. What a busy month you have ahead of you hope all goes well.

OG - hope you enjoyed your lunch out and that the geraniums and fuschia will get cut back eventually.

Lindybird - looks like you had a lovely family day out and lots of things to talk about.

HeatherB - nice to have the help re painting the fence. Hope you get sorted out with your plumber.

Last two days have been glorious sunshine with a frosty start today. It looks as though we are heading for a dip in the temperature by Wednesday, back to normal. Its so unseasonal at present.
Son and dau-in-law flew off to Barbados today where the weather is rather hot.

OG – My OH needs supervision anywhere near my veggie patch. He recently asked if “that patch of green stuff” was kikuyu. He asked the same last year! It is my precious garlic chives, the broad leaf variety that I have not seen in garden centres for quite a while. Kikuyu is a type of lawn that invaded us from further down the street. It produces long runners that sneak underground and pop up in midst of plants, shrubs. Only the tiniest piece will grow again, so a never-ending battle to control. And it does not look like my chives!

HEATHER: My freelance project has been delayed, and I probably won't get it for a little while. That's why I've been posting here and on Facebook. I'm due to receive a cheque/check immediately (the fee for signing the contract), but I'm starting to worry about that. Sigh...

ANNETTE - Kikuyu comes from East Africa, home of the Kikuyu people. South African plants were brought here as the early ships called into the Cape for supplies.