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Baird Brightman's avatar

“Mostly, I do not know what day of the week it is.”

The standard ‘mental status exam’ of cognitive functioning includes the question “What day of the week is it?” (along with who is the POTUS etc.). At my post-career stage’o’life, I notice the latency to naming the day is getting … longer (along with finding certain words). Oops! 😵‍💫 But that is NORMAL aging, not predictive of, well, you know …

Stacy Boone's avatar

Finding words … often a challenge. Days of the week … I might need to not be so routine - get up work outside with whatever project needs to be done, think about dinner, maybe read or write. It is not like I take Sunday as a rest day to reset …

Stephen Bondar's avatar

I just said a little prayer to whoever’s listening that you get some rain. I might’ve mentioned this before, but I got taken off security at the place. I live in work and I’m now responsible for the outdoor plants. Unfortunately, this didn’t include them being chosen by me to begin with, they bought premade baskets or pots. But they actually made some pretty good choices. So some of my flowers are doing really well, but a few not so much and I am trying to bring them back to life. But anyway, I really just had a question. What is “successional growth”?.

Stacy Boone's avatar

Well, there might be a way for you to wiggle into more work with making a plan and suggestions for new landscaping next year???? I find a stupid amount of joy in growing food but also flowers - and I do not work at the flowers - I deadhead them and cut them down in the fall - that is the ease of perennials.

Successional growth is planting two or three weeks following the first planting, sometimes a third planting is possible, so that all of the vegetables do not arrive at the same time. So, for instance, salad greens can be picked off for a couple of months but to continue through the entire season I will plant a new row so it will be ready to pick from when the first row tires out. I plant beets that way - some to eat for the summer and the rest to can.

Stephen Bondar's avatar

OK, I get it. That was always a problem with all the tomatoes arriving at once. But I used to do that with corn. I had a target in my gardening too. I always garden for beauty in the fall, besides vegetables. Corn, pumpkins, and especially sunflowers.

Put where we put a swimming pool in our backyard at our house in the city, the garden there I pivoted away from vegetables, and went for beauty with flowers. And yes, perennials for the most part that would come back and get bigger every year. Yellow daylilies were favourites for my wife. I also did plant some annuals. And I still had a couple of planters that I used for herbs, greens, and then finally just flowers. But the garden at the cottage always ended up being the pumpkin and squash patch.

Stacy Boone's avatar

There is nothing wrong with beauty and flowers. Yellow daylilies are beautiful and it means a lot that you acknowledge the daylilies your wife adored. Gardens will look plentiful even with just a few plants of pumpkin and squash!!

Stephen Bondar's avatar

And sunflowers! Always sunflowers.

Stacy Boone's avatar

Definitely sunflowers!

Stephen Bondar's avatar

Oh yeah, and in the city, of course, planters on the deck with different varieties of cherry tomatoes for the kitchen.

Reverse at the cottage, where the deck had pots filled with wave, petunias, mostly in the white and yellows that my wife loved best.

Dawn Smith's avatar

As I read this, our raven family (3 juvenile delinquents and one parent) was raiding the scratch I spread for our quail neighbors (30 juvies yesterday just before the t-storms). Decided not to be frustrated. The juvie ravens are pretty funny, gawky souls.

Stacy Boone's avatar

We have a motley crew up there taking over the entire maple ridge treetops … they are loud and bossy and fussy. Ahhh, quails - what we do to try to help a bit of survival possibility for the littles.

Stacy Boone's avatar

I had to change the title after posting ...

Baird Brightman's avatar

Yeah, never “not enough crows” (sadly)! Good catch on sentence structure there, author! 👏

Stacy Boone's avatar

It is a rare day when I do not go in to “edit” something I wrote after publishing. That one made me laugh though.