Hollyhocks

All the hollyhocks are blooming, even some of the potted ones waiting for transplanting.

Looks like I have a good morning to get out in the garden for an hour or two. I want to plant some more bush beans and broccoli and maybe a couple of more plum tomatoes to harvest, and of course there's always more weeding to go. I have a doctors appointment in the afternoon and other household chores to keep me busy before I leave, so I won't be able to get much if any studio time today.

Yesterday I checked the cost of replacement motors for my clay mixer - yikes - over $500 just for the motor, not counting the cost of having the old one removed and new one installed. I still don't know yet if it's the motor. I can't find my documentation and the Soldner web site doesn't have any documentation either, so I'm going to have to go digging through my file cabinet and every place else in my studio. It's not in the folder with all the other machinery and tool documentation, so this may be a long search.

I ordered some black and timber bamboo yesterday after doing a bit of research. There's a large bamboo that can take temperatures to 15 below, and I'll plant that down in our lower meadow and let it do its thing. I'm not sure where I'll plant the black bamboo. It will depend on how big it is when it arrives. If it's not too big it will go in a large pot for a while. Later I have to go back to the Lewis bamboo web site and read all their instructions on bamboo planting and care.

The squash casserole I made yesterday was OK,not great. Jim liked it better than simple sauteed squash with onion, which is my preference, so, I'll have to try some other recipes and soon, since I have a lot of summer squash! I'm probably going to have to freeze some of it today since Jim didn't sound at all enthusiastic when I mentioned squash soup. I'll use the zucchini to make zucchini bread which we both enjoy a lot. Next year I'm going to skip the yellow summer squash and use that space for something else.