Saturday in the Garden | Special Disappointing Eclipse Edition

Cloudy, Rainy Eclipse Day

I like to garden and generally putter around in my yard and my Saturday in the Garden posts serve as my pseudo- garden journal, plus round-up of my week in reading, watching and blogging.  Occasionally, I'll whine, rant or gush about something in a GAK section. 

OUTSIDE

I'd like to say this post is two days late because I wanted to do a special eclipse focused essay but alas, it is socked in cloudy and rainy in Iowa today. And really I'm late because I was traveling this weekend.  I hope you are having more eclipse related luck where you are!  I plan on watching NASA's livestreaming.  Yay for days off!

Recently, I've been revamping and reinvigorating my composting system.  I want to try and compost as much as possible and I really needed to start thinking about it with the addition of Ella to the household.  (Y'all may have heard I have a rabbit named Ella? Ha, Ha, Ha! I mean I never talk about her or anything....) Anyhoo, part of my excitement about having a rabbit is that they produce manure to die for from a gardening point of view.  They also produce SO MUCH of it.  I'm drowning in rabbit poop, ya'll (um...ewww - sorry for that imagery). I also have her litter, the kitchen scraps and leaves and grass clippings. All in all, it's quite a lot that can be composted and handling it all poses a challenge in a small yard like mine. There is the additional issue, that I have dogs and don't want them (or any other critters) to get into the food scraps.  

I already have a wooden box compost bin for yard waste, a large tumbler composter which is currently taking kitchen scraps but which I'm going to switch over to rabbit waste, and a pretty pathetic homemade trash can which will take a mix.  I bought another small tumbler to help with rabbit waste and most exciting, decided to revitalize my vermicomposter for kitchen waste!  A vermicomposter, if you don't know, is a worm composter and it's pretty cool.  I may need to get a second and even third one to handle the amount of fruit and vegetable waste I produce but for now the worms are going to town!

In other news, the city is going to take down one of my street trees.  I had contacted them about it a couple of months ago because a pretty big, dead limb came down during a storm and several other big dead limbs hang over the sidewalk.  I am afraid they are going to come down and seriously injure someone and I wasn't sure if it was my or the City's responsibility to prune the tree.  Apparently, it is theirs if the tree has to come down but I am responsible for trimming.  Anyway, they came and checked it out and indicated that they thought the tree was mostly in good shape (which I was a little skeptical about) and that I should get it pruned.  Fast forward a couple months and I get a hang tag on my door saying they'll be taking the tree down.  Not sure what changed, if it was a staff change or the original fellow had second thoughts.  I have mixed feelings because I do like trees and it's an oak BUT it will open up a patch of sun in my front yard!  North facing sun but still.  

Also, I picked another round of beets that I am super excited about!

GAK

This weekend, I took a quick trip to Baltimore, MD to meet up with family and friends, catch a ball game and snarf down some steamed crabs.  

It was a very short trip but I had some time to kill on Sunday and decided to take a tour through the National Aquarium - I hadn't been there in years and years.  If you ever want to be astounded and impressed by the beauty and diversity of life on Earth, this is a good pit stop.

WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

Watching 

Caught up on a few episodes of Shetland while traveling.  

Reading 

FINISHED SINCE THE LAST TIME I POSTED

Nada

CURRENTLY READING

• The Exiled Queen (Seven Realms #2) by Cinda Chima Williams: The continuation of the story started in The Demon King!  
• The Likeness by Tana French: The second in the Dublin Murder Squad mystery series. This one features Cassie from In the Woods in the lead role.
• Spirit Animals: Hunted by Maggie Stiefvater: The second in this middle-grade series, each written by a different author.  
• The Fatal Flame (Timothy Wilde #2) by Lyndsay Faye:  The last in a trilogy of historical mysteries set in mid-19th century New York.  
• The Whispering Skull (Lockwood and Co. #2) by Jonathan Stroud: This is an awesome YA/middle-grade series about ghost hunters in Britain. 
• Intuitive Eating by Tribole and Resch:  Non-fiction about eating psychology and biology.  I've been dipping in and out of it for the last few months!

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!

• Jane of Austin: A Novel of Sweet Tea and Sensibility by Hillary Manton Lodge: Selah at A Bibliophile's Style liked this and I love a good Austen re-telling!
• Troubled Waters (Elemental Blessings #1) by Sharon Shinn: I've wanted to read a fantasy by Shinn for years and Danya at Fine Print had good things to say about this one!
• The Court of Broken Knives by Anna Smith Spark:  A debut Grimdark novel that Mogsy at The Bibliosanctum really liked.
• Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood:  Jeff and Rebecca of Book Riot were singing the praises of this unique memoir, especially the audio read by the author, on the main Book Riot podcast.
• The Distant Echo by Val McDermid:  A cold case mystery series my friend Liz recommended!
• An Army at Dawn by Rick Atkinson:  A non-fiction World War II book. Recommended by my brother.
• Lorien Legacies by Pitticus Lore:  Recommended by my sister and nephews:). 
• The Alchemyst by Michael Scott:  Ditto the above.  

I also got to visit a HUGE Barnes and Noble in the harbor area of Baltimore and I couldn't help but pick up a few books...

An Oath of Dogs is one I have no idea about but the blurb mentioned eco-terrorism and sentient dogs so I said, WTH.  Wild card pick!

On the BLOG since I last Posted:

WEDNESDAY: REVIEW | The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud 

HAVE A GREAT WEEK!