The past two weeks have been interesting ones at Karthi. At first we had a couple of unwelcome guests. A very nasty couple I must say they were and it must have been a hasty marriage of convenience. We were taking cold precautions and so a cold virus and influenza virus got together and attacked our home. First DH went down. When he showed signs of getting up after three days, I went down, then Nikhil got the fever. The symptoms were interesting - we had all the usual cold symptoms, high fever that in my case peaked four hours after I took fever medication, body aches, heavy head - rather, you might ask what symptoms we did not have, that would be easier to enumerate.
Suffice to say, I had barely scraped my head off my pillow for the first time in four days this Tuesday when my driving instructor came along. He had, after innumerable delays in getting my learner's license processed, managed to get me a driving test slot for the fourth of July (yesterday). There I was, barely able to stand straight, having practised the Eight at the end of May for a couple of days and not having touched my scooter for almost a month! He consoled me saying that even if I failed, I could get another appointment soon enough, but it was difficult to get a fresh date if I did not attend at all. So I said I would meet him at 7:30 am at the testing ground on the fourth.
I got to the place, practised hard for an hour doing the Eight and duly presented myself for the test and PASSED! No one was more surprised than I!!! DH who came to provide moral support at the time of the test was watching and saw that about 50% of the lot that tested yesterday flunked their Eights. I was in the middle of a long queue and I didn't want to watch any negative things, so I didn't watch any of the tests before mine and kept my head turned away and visualized myself completing the Eight successfully. I heard others in the queue going, "Oh no, she put down her foot" and all the gasps and sighs, but determinedly hummed a tune and kept my eyes averted. Well, that strategy worked! It's like a huge weight off my chest now! Now if I could only chase away the residual muscle fatigue and lethargy of the flu too, I'll be in clover.
Today, for the first time in a week, I went outside to check my garden:
Ahh, the long beans have started climbing the trellis my helper made for me last Monday. My other veggies too are coming along:
The okra are looking good, although the weeds nearby are taking advantage of my week's inactivity.
The tomato seedlings are big enough to be transplanted.
My garden area has benefited from the post first shower weeding. I can see what plants I have!
My favorite rose. People keep asking me for cuttings each year. Few have reported success. This is one plant I have not allowed to die in my garden!
My vadamulla aka globe amaranth was a puny plant until last October we dumped a load of manure near it to be distributed in the garden. It took off!
This I brought home from our 2010 trip to Munnar. Slowly but surely it has been making its way up our garden wall, gets almost burnt up each summer (it's on our southern wall, so you can guess how hot it gets!), but still survives.
Most of that bare area you can see there is uncultivable because there is just four inches of soil above two septic tanks and the soil quality is very poor. I will be putting some pots and grow-bags there in the near future. Lots still to be done!
So how does your garden grow this year?
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