I feel like I need to write

But I truly am at a loss for words.  I just can't deal with all that's going on here. 

So I'm out looking for roses.  Yeah, escapism.  Maybe marginally better than hiding in my house, drinking, or something.  I'm not a big drinker to begin with, I don't think that's going to change much.  It makes me feel worse, not better.  So I'm not going to do it.

Today the little roses, the drift roses, have begun to open.  Little because the bushes are small, and because the flowers are small, too.

I found this, one of my apricot ones, opened, but it's hiding, along the steps up to the front door.  Can't say I blame it.

I know, it's got reddish spots on it.  This is a new feature?  Last year they were more pinkish, with sort of a yellowish center.  Maybe it's something in the soil, or the weird weather we've been having. 

Now this one is on the next block.  This particular house has a bunch of bushes, similar to mine, on the sloped part of the front yard.  The flowers are white.  Except this one also is showing reddish spots.  I don't know why that is happening.

The white bushes have more flowers ready to open, and those also have reddish tinges on them.  It's odd. 

My red bushes (I have red and apricot mixed together) are not quite there yet.  Should start opening any day now.

Maybe the roses are reflecting all the wrong that is happening, and showing blood stains.  Scary thought.  I just don't know, anymore.

 

Yes, yes, yes, I'm obsessed

With roses, of course.  What did you think I was going to say?

More roses from our morning walk:

And yes, I am noticing that most of the roses around here are either pink or red.  I'm dying to find some yellow, but no luck so far.

Noticing that the pinks photograph better than the reds.  You get more detail in the pinks.  Much more shading of the petals.  

My little roses are just about to open, I can see touches of colour showing in the buds.  I actually hope they won't unfurl until the next couple of days of bad weather pass, because the heavy rain and wind could wreck them before I get a chance to adore them.  We'll see how it goes.

Mine are apricot and red.  And a house on the next block from here has white!  Which are also not open quite yet.  These are what they call drift roses.  Smaller blooms, and they bloom all summer, and the plants spread sort of like a groundcover, rather than growing into tall bushes. 

Still, I need to find a nice space to put a couple of yellow rose bushes.  Because I want yellow.  This may be my next project.  Adding it to my list.  Fingers crossed.

A rose by any other name

...still has no scent, because it's another hybrid.  Oh well.  Pretty, nevertheless. 

From yesterday's morning walk, between the rains. 

I had thought this one might have a scent, as it's an older bush in a front yard that is overgrown with older all sorts of bushes, but alas, no. 

And my own roses, which also have no scent, are still all in bud but not bloom.  The wait continues.

I wonder what people might think, when they see me sniffing various plants on my walks with doggo.  Maybe they think I caught the sniffing habit from the dog?  We've found some nice scents, lately.  There are a pair of small lilac bushes in one yard that you can smell from quite a distance.  But so far, no smelly roses. 

We'll keep looking.

This does remind me of a time, when I was in high school, when I used to walk there and back, since I don't do so well on buses.  I always loved the spring, because there were a lot of roses on my route.  Every once in a while, when noone was looking, I'd snatch a flower and bring it with me to school.

The walk was just under 3 miles, one way, from my house.  I'd "pick up" a couple of classmates on my way, so by the time we arrived at school, there would be a small group of us.  Maybe that's where my enjoyment of longish walks started.

The roses are coming

The weather is still being crazy, last week we had a thunderhail storm on Monday, and 85 degrees on Tuesday, and then up and down the rest of the week, with high winds.  The weekend was nice, on the cool side, which is how I like it.

Today is cool also, but the wind is horrible, cuts through you like a knife that's been kept in the freezer, while you're sweating in your windbreaker because it's in the upper 60s temp-wise. 

All the fluctuations give me a headache, among other issues.  Like my eyes and nose running like faucets any time I step outdoors.

BUT...even tho it's still May, the roses are coming!

Mine are just starting to bud, but I found a bush on our walk the other afternoon that is in full bloom.

Pretty in pink, but like Mimi's embroidered flowers, there is no scent. 

I really prefer the scented ones over the hybrids.  I remember having a Mr Lincoln, which was growing tall next to a window on our porch.  So when I opened the window, the scent would waft inside.  One of the very few things I miss about the big house. 

And here, in the neighborhood, people are even more acting as if there is no Corona virus, and they are spending their money on tearing out old trees and bushes, with no thought to replacing them.  It makes me very sad to see this wanton destruction going on around me.

But yesterday in the morning we saw the fox again.  He or she was just sitting in the street, a very quiet street with very little traffic, and watching us.  When Bandit finally showed signs of wanting to go greet the fox, it ran off, stopping a few times to make sure the running off was really necessary.  It wasn't, but the fox wasn't listening to me.

So, mixed bag all around.  This week I do feel better than I did last week, so there's a good thing.  But still not great, I wish someone could shut off the wind, or at least turn it down from the 30-40 mph we're having, to something gentle.  But that's unlikely, as there is a pair of storms approaching from different directions, and they are probably going to merge right here, and make a mess, if not a disaster. 

C'est la vie? 

When we walk

I like to find pretty or unusual things when we walk.  While I don't often take a camera with me (my hands are full with the dog and the poopie bag and all that jazz), I always have the mobile with me.  The camera in it is not too shabby, as long as you don't want zoomed in pics or something too up close.

I've been posting a lot of pics to Facebook, with the thought that seeing something pretty might help someone feel better about their day.  I'm also trying to do that here, maybe a bit less, because here I feel like I need to actually say something to go with the pics, and some days I don't feel like saying anything to anyone.

But we are walking something between 7 and 9 miles a day.  Mostly local, because the parks have been closed due to the virus and the probability that if they were open, too many people would go there.  If and when anything normalizes around here, we'll go back to parks and hiking.  We're off the beaches for the duration, because generally dogs aren't allowed on the beaches in the summer, which seems counter-intuitive.

That being said, I've been trying for a couple of weeks to get a good angle on this one yard we pass every day, because the plantings are just so beautiful, but they're spread over a rather large area, so it's not easy to find the perfect view.  And I generally try not to include anyone's house in my pics, because I feel kind of icky when people take pics of my house, which they sometimes do, and I see them doing it, because of the daffys and the roses in the front yard.

Anyway.  Here's the pic.  I kind of like it, and a friend thought it might make a good jigsaw puzzle, so if I find a place to get jigsaw puzzles made, I might do that for her.  I don't do puzzles of that sort, I haven't got the patience for it.  This is just one corner of the yard at this particular place, but it holds all of the elements that make it look beautiful to my eye.

Then the other thing, which is just up the block from where I live, and I'm jealous, in a way, because my irises in the back yard didn't do much of anything this year.  These are in the front yard of a house on a hill, so even if I took a pic straight on, you'd never see the house, it's way up above where the irises live.  At first there were just the deep purple ones, then one day, a batch of white ones popped up in the middle.  If only they could stay all summer; but they've already faded.  Glad I got the pic when I did.

Today it's cold and windy, so I'm trying to stay inside more than out.  But we'll still fit in our walking, only with my winter coat and hat on again, after we've had some really lovely warm weather.  I hope the weather is ok wherever you are.  We've had so much bad everything lately, we really need something nice.

I need to stop being amazed

when I see how stupid people really are.  The busy street is being repaved, yes, even in the rain, it seems.  It's a good time to do it, since traffic is somewhat less now than it normally is, because of the Covid-19 mess.  So yesterday sometime, orange barrels appeared along the side of the street, in sets of two, waiting to be deployed.

This morning, the barrels were out in the street, two by two, at about half-block intervals, indicating (to me, anyway) that one lane of the two lane street is closed to traffic.  At the starting point of the closure, on the end we walk by on our first walk of the day, there's a barricade with a large sign that says "Road Closed."  Ahead of that, at the side of the street, is a "Detour" sign.

Ok, so I get that, the road is closed, and I, if I'm driving a vehicle, need to turn off and go another way.  Seems pretty self-evident and obvious.

Not to some people. 

While we were walking, a car drove around the barrier, and played dodge-em with the pairs of orange barrels, diving in behind them when something was coming in the opposite direction, on the side of the road that is still open.  By the time we made it home, a few more vehicles were doing the same thing.  I saw several service vehicles - lawn care, plumbers, that sort of thing - coming down the street on the closed side, bopping in and out to get around the barrels and duck when opposing traffic appeared.

Someone misjudged, and booted one of the barrels to the sidewalk.  Hope they made a good dent in their car.

How fucking stupid are people?  Or do they just think they are SO important, no rules apply to them?  Probably both, I know. 

I'd love to have a franchise from the local po-lice dept to hand out tickets to stupid people.  I'll keep 10% of the fines as my commission, thank you. 

They should just close the whole street completely, in both directions.  It would be easier and faster.  But no, can't do that.

And god forbid they should put signs up after the first detour signs, to tell people where to go next. You never get told when it's ok to go back to where you thought you should be going.  But no, that seems to cost too much, or they don't own enough signs, or pick your poor excuse of the day.  The people doing the paving are idiots, too.  But we knew that.