First Rhododendrons of the year!

The first rhododendron blooms appeared yesterday. What a glorious color! It should be spectacular when all the buds open.

Yesterday was an example of a total waste of planning, since the day unfolded itself, totally oblivious to the fact that I had a plan! It started with several trips to the bathroom with some intestinal bug. Fortunately that didn't last more than an hour or so, which was encouraging. Maybe the day would proceed as planned (silly me!).

The new Dell laptop had arrived late Monday (2nd one they sent). I spent that evening unpacking it and doing a check list of the order, compared to the first, original laptop order. Even though the re-order tech assured me the order would be exactly the same as the first one, it wasn't. So after comparing the order sheets of both shipments,yesterday morning, I wrote the tech, listing all the missing items by number. They also sent a backup battery which I hadn't ordered. Do they really think I would use a 9 pound laptop as a portable computer! As of this morning I have not heard back from them so a phone call may be in order later.

Breakfast was uneventful(it's hard to screw up rye toast!).Afterwards I managed to get some software uploaded to the new laptop - just a few minor glitches there. My plan to go to the studio for a full work day by later morning, was thwarted by thunder and heavy showers, which freak out Bodhi, our little rescue terrier. Since my husband was off to the dentist, I didn't want to leave this 12 lb trembling, frightened out of his mind, dog, alone. Rain alone freaks him out so you can imagine how he is with thunder added to the mix! I could probably run a major appliance on the shaking energy he generates during one of these storms.

Finally, the rain and thunder stopped and I took him for a much needed walk through the now, overly saturated yard which strongly resembled a mud hole. I noticed that the heavy rain was drowning a planter of begonia bulbs, so I tilted it with my free hand (the other one was holding Bodhi's leash)to let out the water. The tilt turned into a mud slide, taking with it the entire contents of the planter and breaking off one of the plants.

Now you might be asking, why this timid, frightened by his own shadow, little dog would have to be on a leash. I guess I forgot to mention that he is a canine Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. This little Jack Russell terrier, who is frighted of remote controls, fly swatters, rain, anything new, and just about everything in between, if he's not on a leash, spots a bunny or any other little animal, that looks like prey, even in the dead of night, will take off deep into the woods and be unretrievable until he is good an ready, thereby generating panic in the rest of the household over his safety.

While I was struggling with the over saturated, now damaged, begonia bulbs, Jim pulled into the driveway. So I handed him the leash, while I tried to retrieve and re-pot the bulbs. Now my hands were as muddy as my feet.

At this point it was already mid afternoon, seemingly too late to get started in the studio, so I decided to clean and chop the veggies for the pizza, keeping my fingers crossed that at least dinner would go as planned. Pizza was prettier than the last one but I could have gotten it a bit thinner or cooked it a bit longer; but we've definitely made progress on the pizza front using Ron Slagle's recipe and technique.

Fortunately the second half of the day was pretty uneventful and I was able to get a lot more computer work done after dinner, feed my 4 sourdough starters watch a nice meditation tape and get to bed early.

I was up before 6, and after taking Bodhi for his morning walk, I started on my first attempt at making sourdough bread. The first stage is now resting for 90 minutes (called autolysis) before the next step - adding the rest of the flour and kneading. Now I have to figure out what I want to make to go with it for dinner - probably a soup.

My garden helper should be here at ten but everything is so saturated I'm not sure what she can do other than pull some weeds. Since I lost a full day of studio work yesterday, I need to get in there today and continue slipping and decorating.

Till later,
June