Irises!

[sophiap]

I went to my town's annual festival today before meeting my dad for lunch at the our favorite Mexican restaurant. Much fun, if rather full of craft booths that started to look distressingly the same after a while (lots of lots of country cute, and many scented candles). I did, however, pick up a Nightmare Before Christmas-themed Scrabble tile bracelet. I also visited the folklife part of the festival--spinners, weavers, blacksmiths, and a number of Civil War re-enactors (which included, for some reason, a Napoleonic-era Scots regiment--all righty, then). I was rather excited to find a booth that had fried pies. I got an apple one, but after a few bites, I found a trash bin and discreetly tipped it in. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't worth the uncomfortableness eating the whole thing would cause later, either.

The big haul--and the main reason I walked over to the festival--was the Iris Society sale. I picked up a few more to go with the others I planted a few weeks back. I got:

Country Dance - rosy pink that goes to lilac towards the center and golden yellow at the edges.

Mistress of Camelot - pale, pale lavender with gold edges.

Rio - Peach top petals, pinkish purple lower petals

Rock Star - Kinda like Rio, but inverted, and with purple edges on the lower petals.

Mystery rhizome. No idea what that will come up as.

Clearly, I like iris that shade to the pinker kinds of purple and mix in some golds. They'll go into the ground tomorrow. Right now, I've got sprinklers going like mad as the yard was aerated and seeded yesterday. Also, planting means cutting away the #)%&#$* weed mat the previous owners put in and amending the soil with some compost and sphagnum (for drainage). I will also need to extract the azalea that perished in this summer's heat. I don't know what I'll put in its place, but it won't be another azalea (not sure what Former Owner was thinking, putting azaleas in full sun that is bordered by pavement).

Today is Clean All the Things (Edit - revised to Take an Unexpected Two Hour Nap followed by deciding that Things Are Clean Enough, Damn It) and maybe make a big pot of split pea and ham soup to portion out into freezer containers. Right now, there are soup bones a-plenty at Honeybaked Ham, so I have three meaty hambones in my freezer. Once the weather turns cold and people start thinking of soup, they're harder to come by, and they'll start limiting to one to a customer. Three bones should get me through the winter. Writing and/or knitting will also happen.

Tomorrow will be a few hours of yardwork followed by resting and writing.

Comments

[fatoudust]

YAY! That all sounds wonderful. We just kinda discovered irises this year. I planted them when we moved in, but they didn`t come up the first year and I overplanted them But they did this year and were lovely! And the rabbits didn`t eat them. My tastes run to the other side of the spectrum, I love all the blues. But regardless, yay irises!

[sophiap]

The ones I planted earlier seem to be establishing themselves nicely. I did space them out a bit, to give them room to fill in, but we'll see what happens in the spring.

One of the many reasons I wish I lived closer to more 'ffistas is that I would love to have a cutting/seed/bulb exchange when the time comes to thin some things out.

[fatoudust]

That's true! That would be awesome.