the air of spring smelling of never and forever

[freckles_and_doubt]

It is surprisingly unsurprising to have turned up at Andrew S's "I'm in CT and it's my birthday!" braai yesterday to discover that approximately half the guests, self included, were wearing some iteration of a Star Wars t-shirt. Because old CLAW crowd, and we're all unabashedly geeky and clearly feel enabled in the expression of same by contact with the old tribe. Either that, or it's some sort of territorial display. But I have been reading an awful lot of Teen Wolf fanfic and my view may be unduly coloured by over-exposure to dodgy unscientific pack dynamics. At any rate, very pleasant gathering, and lovely to catch up with people I haven't seen in way too long owing to ingrowing hermitage.

It appears to be spring, which was useful for braai purposes, the weather has been lovely, clear and crisp. CT dams are at 70%, and there's more rain predicted for this week. I am, as usual, consoling myself for the inexorable approach of January heat-waves by wandering around my spring-loaded garden, patting odd exemplars of the burgeoning foliage on the head and exhorting it to further efforts with an insouciant verbosity which I suspect has led my neighbours to mentally categorise me as "crazy cat lady", an appellation which which I am down.

One of the mad floral activists is below, half a tray of violas which I grew from seed. This was the result of a slightly odd supermarket promotion at our local Checkers, where for a couple of months they handed out at the check-out a pile of little seed-growing packs, three or four depending on how much money you spent. These comprised a small cardboard box/pot thingy, a square of paper with embedded seeds, a few labels identifying the particular seed type, and the bit I really loved, a miniature hockey puck of compressed and dehydrated potting soil. When you stuck this in a saucer and added water, it madly expanded and crumbled to make actual soil in a fascinating and semi-magical fashion. In a spirit of experimentation I actually planted one batch of these, despite the fact that I can't grow things from seed worth a damn, and they all sprouted, possibly because Science. The cauliflower and parsley went spindly and leggy and didn't last long, but the violas produced the below, and there's something else quietly growing small, sturdy leaves in the other half of the box, it would be lovely if I could remember what the hell it was. Something floral rather than vegetable. I hope it survives long enough to identify it.

I cannot help but think that it was a slightly misguided promotional concept, to hand out plant-growing kits (a) in the middle of winter, and (b) in the middle of a drought, but the compressed soil was Cool Science, and on the upside, violas! I love their little velvety faces, especially this strain, which have goatees. When I went out into the courtyard this morning they all had their faces turned to the sun, except one, who had it turned backwards in a bit of a sulk. I think the others were mean to him overnight.



My subject line is e e cummings, which is inevitable given spring.

Comments

[woollythinker]

Migros over here did a similar promotion last year! A great improvement on their usual tiny plastic toy overload, we felt, and no drought to consider, but despite our general feelings of approval we haven't had much success with the actual growing. Mostly because black thumbs. We did succeed in growing a few heads of lettuce, of which we ate about half of one, and the caterpillars ate the rest. Right now we have four more things from those packets (parsley and such) sprouting in yoghurt cups, and I do agree, the best part is the gently exploding dirt pucks.

[freckles_and_doubt]

They're really a ridiculous cool application of science and packaging, it made me feel all futuristic. And I think they must treat the soil with mega quantities of nutrients and stuff, the seeds sprouted far more madly than I'm used to for anything other than Jo's absurdly vociferous rocket seeds. But I do think the plants would have fared better if it hadn't been flatly the wrong season for most of them, my cauliflower and parsley went all leggy and pale from insufficient sun, and didn't have enough vigour to survive. I wish I'd kept some samples for future experimentation, but of course now that it's spring the promotion has ended. Sigh. Human race, not much for logic.