16 May: before work: CATS!

Tuesday, 16 May 2023

I found out that not all the planters in downtown Long Beach had their water turned on. Would this be a disaster after the heat? I did my best not to worry about it, and we packed annuals for Diane and The Red Barn instead. I had gotten up early with big plans, delayed while I waited to hear about Long Beach and further delayed by CATS.

As I was just about to leave my living room desk, I heard a thump. Zinc had been on top of a bookcase and now she wasn’t. The bookcase was at an angle in a corner of a room…and she was behind it with just a triangle of space, one fallen book, and old cable tv hookup, and ten years worth of dust.

Work got delayed while I took every book off the shelf. All garden books, mostly big heavy ones, which I stacked on my desk and the floor.

As soon as every book was removed, up popped Zinc, easy as could be.

The cats thought I had done a wonderful thing for them.

I didn’t have time to put the books back so left them to it.

Basket Case Greenhouse

Needing some potting soil for work, we went to the Basket Case Greenhouse first. (It’s further along Sandridge Road past Diane and the Red Barn.)

I found some beautiful Black Cherry and Sungold tomatoes, my top favourites, to buy for me. (I had grown Rosella, beloved of Jim McColl on The Beechgrove Garden, and Gardener’s Delight, recommended by Monty Don.)

The Basket Case, a family business, had done an amazing job of keeping the plants happy during heat that rose to over 100 degrees in the greenhouses.

We had a pleasant visit with Roxanne and with the cats, little Izzy and bigger Pumpkin.

And then finally we went to work, a couple of hours later than originally planned.