Deep into Spring, and telecommuting May 15

I took these pictures Thursday evening because we were forecast to get rain on Friday and my peony flowers often get beaten to bits by heavy rain so i wanted to catch them before that happened. This is the red peony that was in bud last week. It's always my earliest peony to bloom. I found my notes...it's called Jean Bockstoce, an oldish hybrid from 1933 (i got it in 1992 from White Flower Farms in Connecticut as part of a 3-peony special).

This is one of my new babies that i bought last year from Country Flower Garden. This is the first single flower peony that i've planted. Her name is Scarlet O'Hara!

Not quite open yet, this is Pink Hawaiian Coral, also bought last year from Country Flower Garden.

This plant is the reason why i started planting peonies in the first place. It's Festiva Maxima, an old old cultivar, with huge frilly white blooms that open with a fleck or two of red in the innermost petals, and the delicious peony fragrance. The three-peony selection that i bought from White Flower Farm was just supposed to be "one red, one white, and one pink" but i really wanted the white to be a Festiva Maxima, which i had seen in a garden in upstate NY and fallen in love with (but felt i couldn't afford to buy an individual plant). They said they couldn't guarantee which plants would be in the collection, but they were pretty sure the white would be a Festiva Maxima, and sure enough, it was! It has done wonderfully year in and year out, although sometimes the bloom time is cut short by a downpour that knocks the stems down or knocks the petals off. This one will be blooming in a week or so, depending on the weather.

I'm pretty sure these are Siberian irises that i bought from my friend Sally Mello a couple of years ago. Last year they did nothing and i thought they'd perished; this year's bountiful spring rains brought them up tall and blooming!

I think this is Iris Black Knight from Country Flower Garden. Irises have trouble in my garden because the beds get too overgrown with groundcover and honeysuckle for their rhizomes to have the nice clean surroundings they thrive in. I hope i'll be able to keep this one happy!

After unloading all of my father's household goods on Tuesday, the small moving truck followed me to my town (i could see the driver thinking "where the heck are we going??"). On board they had the student desk and bookcase that my father made me many years ago, a box of books, and two boxes of small tools, nuts, and bolts, that my father set aside for me.

I didn't really have a good place to put the desk since my study is cluttered with boxes in the center and two desks already against the wall, but i really really wanted to keep that desk that he so lovingly made for me and which i sat at to do my homework all through junior high and high school. So i moved some boxes of "stuff" to the basement and had the movers put the desk in the middle of the room. Gingy immediately explored and declared it was a wonderful perch just for her.

This is my telecommuting Friday, with Fuzzy snuggling (after thoroughly washing my face with his raspy tongue).

Then he turned himself around and lay with his head on the keyboard. This is always challenging especially when i'm telecommuting :).

Another picture of Gingy enjoying "her" new desk.

And of course Louie had to snuggle, too, during an hour-long teleconference.

Here's the bookcase (i should have moved that flooring remnant out of the way before i took the picture!). When this was in my bedroom in my parents' house, it used to hold my collection of National Geographic magazines as well as a bunch of books, including some favorites that i brought back with me, like Margaret Mead's People and Places.