I've spent the last three hours with a live news stream, listening to the reports out of a state I've only visited once, over ten years ago. Another day in America, another unbelievable tragedy. My heart hurts, and nothing stops it.
This day didn't go as planned. We expected people over tonight, but Mr S-P's hacking cough scared them away. I felt fine all day. Him less so. He has had enough NyQuil to fall asleep sitting up now. I should chase him to bed.
In lieu of our plans, I focused on plants. The first hard freezes are now about 48 hours out, and they swear there will be snow and bitter cold over the weekend. I brought three pots of amaryllis inside, and finally got around to repotting my ficus tree. The ficus benjamina was in an enormous pot, way bigger than its root ball, and it was difficult to find a place inside the house to overwinter it. I had to remove about 50 pounds of rocks that some short-sighted woman put on top of the soil in an attempt to prevent it from being a cat's toilet (that didn't work). I cursed at myself with every handful of white gravel I picked out of it. I could smell something pungent, like maybe there was a hint of root rot, caused by excessive moisture retention under those rocks. I roughed up the root ball, and Mr S-P picked it up and plopped it in a smaller pot (I couldn't lift it). I even pruned it a little bit, to allow it to fit in the corner of the dining room, sort of. More pruning may come.
Before the snow, I should pull in the big coleus out front, and maybe the last surviving Martha Washington geranium. I could get another few weeks out of them, if the weather goes back to mild.
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