Saturday in the Garden on Sunday | Stop the (Chemical) Madness!

Good Morning!  It's beautiful and sunny here in Iowa.  I've had trouble keeping up with blogging this week because a) I had an intense work conference the last couple days and b) K Drama sickness. If you're wondering what KDrama sickness is, it is when I become so addicted to watching a K Drama that all other responsibilities and hobbies are rendered impossible for a time.  If you are a book nerd you probably recognize this phenomenon, lol!

OUTSIDE

I want to start with a bit of a P.S.A. (public service announcement).  For the love of Pete, folks, try your darndest not to use chemicals in your yard and garden!  One of the talks at the conference I attended was about pollinators and pesticides and it was terrifying in the extreme.  Why terrifying?  25% of bumblebees in the U.S. are facing extinction.  We can't quantify the number for other native bee species because there are not enough resources to properly evaluate but overall numbers are declining.  And if you aren't sure why this matters...

Don't like vegetables and fruits?

This group of insects is incredibly important to our survival. They help the world function! And I'm not just referring to the use of insecticides, recent research has showed lethal and sub-lethal affects to bees from herbicides and from interactions between fungicides and other chemicals.  Please don't take this as me berating you - this is directed at myself as well.  I avoid chemical usage for the most part in the garden but I frequently am lazy and buy pre-mixed potting soil from companies like Miracle-Gro and lord knows what is in these mixes, that gets incorporated into the plants that grown in it or may be alternatively toxic to ground-nesting bees.  I vow to do better!  Please join me because bees (and butterflies and moths and...) are cool y'all! PSA OUT.

Christy Stewart 2012 - Rusty-Patched Bumble Bee that was just the first bee to be listed on the U.S. Endangered Species List in the last couple weeks. p.s. The flower here is Dalea purpurea - a gorgeous native prairie plant here in the U.S. and a great garden plant too! 

In less depressing news, here's an update on the indoor bulb forcing for grape hyacinth.  So far so good!

Last week

This Week

 Also my goldfish plant has started blooming.  I'm taking this as a sign that we're on the backside of winter! A side of winter I always like to see!

WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

Watching 

As alluded to above, the K Drama I started last week has worked its black magic and gotten me completely addicted to it.  It's called City Hunter and is a somewhat ridiculous revenge/spy/vigilante thriller/romantic comedy.  I love it. It will definitely be going into my growing stack of K Dramas I'd recommend and I hope to write a review to post. Only 3 more episodes of the 20 episode run to go so I expect I'll finish it tonight.

Reading 

Finished Since the Last Time I Posted

• The Dark Days Club (Lady Helen #1) by Alison Goodman:  As I suspected I would, I loved this book which the author describes as Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Regency England.  I sucked it down in record time!

Currently Reading:

• Memories of Ash (Sunbolt #2) by Intisar Khanani: I loved book 1 so much, I immediately had to jump into book 2!  It's going quite a bit slower than Sunbolt partially because of the Kdrama effect but partially because it isn't quite as engaging for me as book 1.  But still good!
• Intuitive Eating by Evelyn Tribole and Elyse Resch: A book about how to improve your relationship with food.
• Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee:  As I suspected from everything I read about this book, It is not an easy read but I am also really into it.  It's going to be a bitch to review/rate!

Added to the TBR:

This is a list of books that I have added to my Goodreads TBR list this week.  It helps to burn the books I want to read a little more firmly into my mind, maybe get them on some other folks TBRs and gives me a chance to recognize a lot of the awesome bloggers that add stuff to my TBR!

I added a whole slew of Graphic Novels to my list this week after the TTT topic (see below)...

• Seconds by Bryan Lee McNally: From a great list by Emma Likes Books!
• Scott Pilgrim by Bryan Lee McNally: From a great list by Emma Likes Books!
• The World of Edena by Moebius: Recommended by Greg over a Book Haven.
• Runaways by Brian K. Vaughn: Recommended by Greg over a Book Haven.
• Monstress by Marjorie Liu: Recommended on the Reading The End Podcast (by Gin Jenny).  This and Get Booked are my two fave book podcasts by the way...
• Letter 44 by Charles Soule: Recommended on Turning the Pages.  Great list this week!
• Revival by Tim Seeley: Recommended on Turning the Pages.
• Rat Queens by Kurtis J. Wiebe: Recommended on Turning the Pages though this series has been on my radar for a while and just hadn't made it onto my TBR.

And just a couple non-graphic novels:

• Wolf Totem by Jiang Rong and Howard Goldblatt (translator):  This book was on the list of Man Asian Literary Prize winners.  
• Truth or Beard by Penny Reid:   A romance recommend by Sam on Booked on a Feeling.  With the number of romance novels that are appealing to me right now I suspect that is what I am in the mood for and neither of my two current reads has a drop of romance in them which is potentially part of why they are going a little slowly.
• Bookburners by Max Gladstone et al.: An interesting looking compilation of a serial novel recommended on The Bibliosanctum. 

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:

TUESDAY: TOP TEN TUESDAY | Graphic Novels

WEDNESDAY: REVIEW | Ordinary Grace by William Kent Krueger 4 out of 5 star  mystery novel!

This is also why I can't get anything done. This is Rudy taking up 2/3rds of the sofa and then reaching out with his paw to grab my arm while I was trying to type on the computer, because he needed tummy scratches.

Have a Great Week!