DH's Hospital Stay and Our Roses

DH and I had planned to spend several days in Colorado after the Crazy Quilting International retreat last week. He flew in to Denver on Sunday the 14th, but had some slight symptoms of a bug - headache, rash. It had been going on for a few days, but he thought it was just about ready to go away...... However, by Monday morning he was sick enough that we just drove straight home (7 hrs) and headed to a doctor.

This week has been a roller coaster of doctor visits, ER visits, blood tests (27 vials in the last week), cat scans, ultrasounds, spinal taps, etc. First they thought it was the West Nile Virus, but later ruled that out. After all tests have come back normal, they've finally decided it must just be a nasty virus. Poor Bruce has been so sick that he was admitted to the hospital yesterday, where they're keeping him on pain and nausea meds so that he can keep his water and pills down and hopefully eat something. They're keeping him monitored, hydrated and fed, treating the symptoms until it passes. Needless to say, I've spent a lot of time with him, keeping him company and stitching in his hospital room as he dozes. It sure is depressing when a Loved One is sick and there's nothing you can do to make them feel better. I miss him so much; not only his presence, but his healthy self - silly, witty, happy.

But I will say that he's in the best place he could be. The care at Intermountain Medical Center, which opened not quite a year ago, has been excellent. It's a state-of-the-art facility, the largest in the Intermountain West, if not west of the Rockies. The patient charts are all on computer (paperless), so every time anyone (nurse, technician, physician) visits, they type their notes into the terminal located in his room. A dietary technician came to visit him, looked up the menus online for the next couple days, and together they worked out what they would order him that sounded good and fit the doctor's dietary orders. She just keyed it all in. The hospital doctors are all linked on the same computer system, so they were able to access all DH's patient records and test results from his regular doctor at the clinic. AND - there are as many male nurses as there are women nurses. In fact, MOST of the ER nurses were male! With more women becoming doctors, it got me to wondering if in a couple decades it might become the norm to have female doctors and male nurses! Wouldn't our great grandmothers be surprised at THAT!

Enough gabbing........... how about some pictures? I snapped this amazing rose bush in our yard. This is its second bloom of the year. The first time it bloomed deep orangey-peach, fading to a light peach. This second bloom is pink and peach, fading to lighter peach. Take a look.

Must go stitch!

Just Some Garden Flowers

It's August and it's hot in the Salt Lake Valley. Thankfully, unlike week before last, it is NOT humid. I hate humidity! It's so much easier to deal with 100 degrees and 15% humidity than it is to deal with 80 degrees and 50% humidity. But enough of that........... The garden is perpetually thirsty, but our grass, trees and lovely flowers must stick to a strict watering schedule; we are, after all, a mountain desert. We always make our lawn go quite thirsty at the beginning of the season in order to develop its deep roots. That way, we can go longer between waterings the rest of the season. So this morning, before it got too hot, I took a stroll around the front yard and snapped a few pictures.It's the time of year for the daylilies and coneflowers to be blooming. The dwarf Japanese maple turns from red to green. The Asiatic lily beyond the coneflowers has already bloomed.

Another daylily

The delphiniums are spent (must trim!), but the goldenrod is going nuts. These are the lazy days - the dog days of August, I guess - when it's hard to motivate myself to get out in the yard because of the heat. But I did spend a half hour out in the front weeding yesterday, and another half hour in the back today, so I'm not totally hopeless!

Garden Pictures

I have been so crazily busy this last week that I've barely had time to think of blogging. And I haven't had enough time to be out in the garden to really enjoy it (does deadheading roses for an hour on Saturday count?). Bruce and I do spend an hour or two on the patio in the evening reading, but we have to come in by 8:30 when it gets dark, because I've never strung the fairy lights this year..... Here is part of our patio, with the backdrop of the grape arbor. In the evening (this picture was taken late morning) they are a great shield from the setting west sun.
And our climbing roses are blooming, and they're so beautiful to look at. We'll be adding some wirework to the walls in order to give the climbers more room to spread out horizontally. Sort of an espalier treatment. This is the clematis along the same wall. It's still pretty young, but I love it even if it is a modest show...... On the east side yard, our dragon is nearly engulfed with growth ...... a bit more lush than it was here I love this corner of the house; that's a dwarf Japanese maple, an Asiatic lily and various other flowers in the bed and ledge planter. Don't you love that cute sun ornament?? And the next two pictures are our front rose trees with their surrounding floral friends. The first rose tree is a Double Delight; the second one (red) is Mr. Lincoln. I'll have some stitching pictures before the end of the week; I'm almost done with a round robin block for my friend Cobi. We're in a fan-themed round robin..... and I'm behind. Sorry, Cobi! It'll be on its way soon!

Walk in the Garden

It hasn't rained here since Tuesday or Wednesday of last week, and no rain is in the extended forecast. I'm sure that I'll be wishing for rain before long, but right now after a looooong wet spring that seemed to never end, the warm sunshine is a refreshing change for people and gardens alike. So, I took the opportunity to snap some photos yesterday of some of our happy flowers....
Starting in the backyard along the back garden wall, we have a rose bush of an unusual lavender color. Don't remember the name and right now I'm too tired (from my extended morning walk and the heat) to go out an check the tag... My daughter loves this color and I promised I'd give her this bush next year for their new home. It's very lovely and fragrant........

Below is a scrub jay who's been hanging around lately. The scrub jay is native to this area and is related to the blue jay. The males always have a blue chest, but their heads are more brown. As they age, their heads get more blue, so you can see this is a more mature bird. And let me tell you, he is defintely the alpha male jay around here - he even squawks at my cats when they're IN the house looking out the window at him (watching "cat TV", LOL)

Here are some of my irises along the garden wall bed:
We bought the rhizomes about 3-4 years ago at the Iris Society's annual sale (can't wait to get more in August!). We got a lot of unusual hybrids and they seem to bloom at different times (which is partly due to their location in the garden). At any rate, several are already done blooming, some are blooming now, and a couple more are almost ready. Still more won't bloom this year because I divided them last year and passed them out to my neighbors.

This rose loves the south-facing perennial bed anchored by the apricot tree in our backyard. The buds are actually BLACK, and then they open to this deep crimson, velvety rose. I've never seen a rose as thick and plush as this tea rose. They dry black, too. Naturally, the picture does not do it justice.

Finally, we have another rose - a grandiflora, called Melody Parfume on the sideyard (not the only one there, but the only one I photographed this time around). Again, it's an unusual purple-pink (lacking more technical terms) and fragrant.
The old saying for perennials (and, I believe it holds for roses, too) is that the first year they Sleep, the second year they Creep, and the third year they Leap. This rose is 3 years old!

Poppies & Roses

Things are finally sprouting here in the garden. Everything is so much later than usual due to our long, cold winter and long, wet spring. But finally the poppies have popped! They're usually ahead of the irises, but not this year. This plant is in our east sideyard bed. To the left of the poppies you can see some spent irises, and to the right of it, some red roses just beginning their show. The blooming groundcover is creeping Jenny.




The roses to the left are in the backyard. I believe they are floribundas - we inherited them when we bought the house 5 years ago, so I'm not sure what their names are. I personally prefer grandifloras or tea roses, but I also have rose trees and mini (dwarf) roses. Any rose is a good rose! At any rate, they'll go mad with blossoms! They line the walkway down to the
basement's exterior door.







And finally, to the left, we have the grape arbor. As of two weeks ago, it was pretty "nakey", but the warmer weather has really helped it take off. In another month or two, you'll hardly be able to see the trellis. It provides us with shade on the patio (the other side of the trellis) in the afternoons. These get so laden with fruit that we have to support some of the lattice and branches. Last year one of the trellises broke so we had to replace it this spring. I'll probably plant some annuals in the front of the grapes for color.

Weekend Working in the Yard

Hubby and I spent the better part of this weekend working outside in the garden. Whew! First we visited the nursery to get some flowers and tomato plants - things we hadn't started from seed already. Then I weeded while he mowed. And then I snapped some pictures of what's blooming at the moment, so let's take a bit of a tour.



The snowball bush at the right sits on the east side of our house. It's getting the morning sun in this picture. To the left of it is lavender, which is just beginning to reawaken. In front are the tulips, which are mostly spent. I've got to wait until the green leaves turn brown before twisting them off the bulb. That gives the bulb time to store nutrients for next year. Once the tulips are out of the way, there will be some blue lobelia at the front of the bed along the border edging.


And speaking of blue lobelia and this same bed, look at one of my very favorite garden whimsies. It's a sea serpent (in three pieces, but you can almost imagine her "swimming" in the ground!)
That's a rose bush to the left, but in back of her is blue chip campanula and in front of her are the lobelia starts. When they grow in and bloom, the serpent will hopefully be swimming in a sea of blue!!

Now to the front yard. This is our Golden Chain tree. It's a bit hard in this picture to see the golden flower chains hanging down, but they are there. Maybe I can get a better picture in a few days.

Does anybody else name their trees???? I have a Flowering Pear that I named Perry (real original - not! pear - peary - perry). We also have an apricot tree that is of a variety adapted to the Utah climate, and it's called a Mormon Chinese Apricot tree. I've named it DeWong. And finally, there's my Golden Chain Tree. Her name is....... Aretha. (Chay-chay-Chaaaaaiiiin.... Chain of Fools......)

Next we move to a little shady area to the side of the front porch (in my blog header picture it's between the urn and the rose tree, toward the back)

In the forefront is that daylily. Behind it are bleeding heart, a stepping stone, a hosta and columbine........ all of them just waking up for the season.

Bruce got the brunt of the hard work this weekend. He had to get the sprinklers going, put soaker hoses in his newly-arranged vegetable garden, then he planted the veggies and mowed the grass.


And still left to do.......... These are the flowers I still have to plant. Usually we use up all the wood before spring hits, but this year we didn't (because this was the SECOND load!), so it'll probably stay there. The tortoise metal sculpture needs to be hung - we got it in Arizona earlier this year. The lattice work will go up along the grape arbor to replace the panel that broke last year (the grapes were sooooooooo prolific and heavy!). When the grape vines begin filling in and all the plants and flowers are IN, I'll snap some patio pictures. But for now, I'm off to go grab a wine cooler and sit out in my wicker rocker to relax!!

Spring Has Sprung

Here I go..... blogging. Who'da thunk??? Right now I have no specific direction except that I want to include my passions, which are family, needlework (specifically crazy quilting), gardening and reading. So, we'll see what develops. I have a lot to learn about blogging, but hopefully I'll learn along the way, so I'd love it if you join me on my little journey!

Winter this year has been longer, colder and wetter than most here in Utah. So, signs of spring are particularly welcome this year, even though they're a bit later than usual. Here are some of my first daffodils. This picture was taken a few days ago and we have a lot more now. In a couple days I'll have some tulips.