Tag Archives: Bulb

It’s November?! No, No, No!

I panicked when an entire summer passed, and I hadn’t fulfilled my dream of eating 100 sundaes at Ivanhoe’s, a local den of temptation. When I realized I hadn’t gotten up close and personal with every mosquito in Indiana. Just 97 percent of them.

But now, October is history?

A growing list of non-accomplishments assail me at 2 a.m. Having dreamed that Mr. Clean^®, the Ty·D·Bol Man and my mother banished me to the Grungy Galaxy, I realize I haven’t completed even last spring’s gotta-do household list. I haven’t washed windows, whereas Mom never permitted one streak on hers. I haven’t eliminated chaos from closets or grime from the garage.

Nor have I winterized yard and garden. Hubby has mulched our leaves so far, but I haven’t shoveled compost, trimmed blackberry bushes or planted more daffodils. My bulbs and bushes still crave smelly fertilizers.

I’ve failed to keep my mums alive until Thanksgiving. Who designated them the official fall flower, anyway? Mums are scientifically timed to expire when they touch my porch, a ruse to force me to buy more.

We haven’t yet stored our lawn furniture, but rust and the distressed look are in. That works. My furniture is distressed because it belongs to me.

By now, greedy chocolate-peanut butter addicts have gobbled up 50-percent-off Reese’s pumpkins which, by divine right, should be all mine! Mine, I tell you!

Despite that sad situation, I haven’t accomplished the preholiday weight loss that I, in a fit of insanity induced by doctor’s scales, pledged months ago.

As if all that woulda-coulda-shoulda trauma isn’t sufficient, November 1 triggers nationwide panic.

In women, I mean. Men generally suffer panic attacks only if dinner’s late.

I refer to pre-Christmas angst. Rumblings begin with family councils pondering who can celebrate when and where if Andy’s team doesn’t make finals, gas prices drop and nobody dies. Maybe our family can combine Christmas and Super Bowl Sunday.

In November, catalogs pile up in mailboxes. Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Tacky Tuesday ads stuff email and ping like popcorn on computer screens.

I begin the annual search for on-sale presents I bought in January 2023 and hid in safe places.

I won’t rediscover them until hiding sales gifts from January 2024 in safe places.

It’s November.

No, no, no amount of denial will change that.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: How does November affect you?

The Catch-Up-to-Fall Challenge

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Many homeowners in my small town not only have caught up with fall, they can rock on porches or by fireplaces — depending on temperatures — until Thanksgiving.

Their scraggly flowers now nourish compost piles. These Fall Go-Getters ordered bulbs in July and have planted them in well-fertilized beds.

Why hurry them to the compost pile? They’re still blooming, aren’t they?

On a scale of one to five, they’ve earned a six.

My flowerbeds? Half-dead blooms huddle around my house — though the fake, sunflower-laden hat on our front door earns two points.

Super-organized souls not only keep up with the seasons, they forge ahead. By August, autumn wreaths adorned their doors. “Welcome, Fall!” signs, pumpkins and jewel-colored chrysanthemums decorated their porches by September 1. Six points.

One house boasted acres of inflatable skeletons and chain saw murderers. Must I give credit to these scary overachievers?

Sigh. They must have worked day and night. Six points.

However, I itched to inform those Halloween enthusiasts about my porch’s genuine spider webs, which stick to visitors when they enter. Now, that’s fall authenticity. Three points for me.

Especially since cobwebs abound not only outside, but inside. Cleaning disturbs autumn’s ambience, so I avoid it. Two points for me.

I do envy self-starters their autumn interior décor (six points again). Fireplace mantels boast Hobby Lobby’s colorful leaves and fall flower arrangements, 50 percent off. Mine still features tulips — but peach-colored, like some fall leaves. Don’t they count for a half-point?

So far, Go-Getters have scored 24 points. Me? Seven-and-a-half.

But, wait. There’s more!

Go-Getters’ freezers, defrosted last spring, abound with perfectly stacked storage containers of homegrown, self-picked produce labeled with contents, date and time processed.

Six points again.

However, homegrown and self-picked produce also abounds in my freezer. So, there!

But I must remove 10 sort-of-labeled, amoeba-shaped packages to find something unexpired for supper. Three points.

Fall Go-Getters: 30. Me: 10-and-a-half.

It’s only October. I’ll make a run between now and Thanksgiving.

Then Hubby peers outside. “Beautiful day. Want to go for a hike?”

If I do, I’ll never catch up …

“Sure.”

Light shimmers through oaks’ and maples’ leaves embroidered with scarlet, gold and russet. Crickets and cicadas sing an end-of-summer concert. Cornfields rustle a welcome: “Our Creator throws a great harvest party, doesn’t He!”

I’ve caught up with fall.

This Go-Slower earns nothing, but she’s just been given 100 points.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Have you caught up with fall?

Not Tiptoeing through the Tulips

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Whether wide open, singing to a glorious, sunny sky or pursing lip-petals in a demure pout, tulips are delightful harbingers of spring.

Only in others’ yards.

My tulips, the teenagers of the flower world, refuse to get out of bed. I sacrificed knees and back to lavish exotic foods on them. Yet, they only lift a limp leaf or two.

Bloom? Too much trouble. Besides, why should they be bound by my expectations?

Each spring, I waited again. Again.

“Hey,” I yelled, “you’re supposed to be perennials!”

I stumbled over a “Do Not Disturb” sign erected by the tulip that had drawn the short straw.

One greenhouse declared tulips will faithfully bloom every spring … if I relocate to the Turkish Himalayas foothills. The fussy lovelies crave their native habitat’s hot, dry summers and extreme winters. Dutch growers have devoted 400 years to discovering ways to imitate these conditions. They have learned, as Mary Beth Breckenridge in the Chicago Tribune once suggested, to “think like a bulb.”

With all due respect to the Netherlands, I’d rather retain IQ points, thank you very much.

Only once have my tulips bloomed more than one season. Even then, contrary red ones, planted to border pink tulips, bloomed two weeks early. They formed a lovely circle … around dirt.

At least, the tardy pink tulips created a clump of color. For two days. Then, strong winds blew them flat.

Image by Carina Hofmeister from Pixabay.

Still, hopelessly in love with gardeners’ photos, I again fertilized and hoed. On my knees, I planted more bulbs.

The next morning, I peered outside at my perfect flower bed … only to meet squirrels’ chittery scorn. My efforts had supplied a Golden Corral buffet for little thieves.

Something inside me snapped. I dashed outside, yelling and swinging a hoe like a Mr. McGregor samurai. “Hi-yah!”

The squirrels escaped unhurt, laughing.

Rush hour drivers zooming past also enjoyed the show.

Why did they laugh? Just because I still wore my nightgown …

Once, though, I outwitted the squirrels, planting bulbs in a different bed. The following spring, these bloomed in glorious display.

For two days. Then deer devoured every last one.

Will I ever tiptoe through my own tulips?

Sure.

When I talk Hubby into moving to the Himalayas.

Your Extraordinary Ordinary: Do your tulips bloom every year?