Seems my worrying was for naught. This looks like a happy and healthy azalea.
I still don’t have a vision for the shape of the bonsai to come, but there is plenty of time for that. This is the growing phase. The development phase will be in a year or two.
I have a group chat with some friends where we share phone game scores and results. They’re technically Youngs, and they give me juuuuust the right amount of ribbing for my advanced age.
Long-time readers may remember when I was an enthusiastic strength sport athlete. I’ve taken a turn to playing more tennis over the last 18 months and my time at the gym has been sporadic, at best.
Over the last month or so, I’ve started dabbling back with the Iron Arts, in an early a.m. window. I don’t love getting up early, but I really love lifting weights.
Waaaay back in 2007, or so, I grew my first big beard. It was a fun exercise and I took advantage of a sticker sale to have these printed up.
They come as 3” squares, but I try to trim them up before I give them to people. And I’ve given a lot of them away.
Man, it really used to be a dark beard.
I am not in this photo, but I took it. There wasn’t any way in hell I was getting at all involved in this damn thing.
We had a park day through work and my youngest is in this photo. She’s nuts.
I did ride a couple of coasters. I hadn’t been on one in probably 15 years, but I was feeling spry and got bullied into it by my kid. It was a mistake.
I didn’t barf, but I was definitely wobbly after a couple of them. I am going back into Roller Coaster Retirement.
I’m relieved to see some signs of life after chopping this azalea down a couple of weeks ago. I was worried I waited too long after the spring bloom and it wouldn’t react well in the heat of the summer.
This smells suspiciously like a lesson in patience. Hmmmm.
Lucked my way into a work-related golf outing last week during the previously-mentioned heat wave. It was foolishly hot outside, which is what I’m blaming my back 9 struggles on.
I couldn’t make a putt. It was awful.
And, as always, I hit enough good shots to go again. Hopefully soon, but not so soon that it’s still summer-hot out.
The heat’s been oppressive over the last week. This weird sky was the front that came in to break the weather into something more habitable.
I did some digging at the local nursery and found an azalea that had a decent single-stem structure. I forgot to take a photo before I hacked it down, but trust me when I say it was a good-looking little azalea with plenty of branches and leaves.
I may have waited too long post-bloom to work on it, but we’ll see. I got to use bonsai cut paste for the first time. It’s a lot like glue, and I got to use a good amount because I was a little loosey-goosey with the pruning saw. I’m sure it will be fine.
I moved the little maple sprout out of this pot and replaced it with a, what the nursery calls, “pre-bonsai”. It’s a plant that’s been through the first couple of bonsai prunings and is set up for success.
I’ve got both of these plants in a moderately shady spot on the back porch. We’ve had plenty of rain and hot sun, so I’m hoping they get through to the fall. We’ll see.
We normally get a pitcher when we have sandwiches at Chiocca’s, but the keg had blown and we weren’t interested in waiting for the changeover. A couple of cans of PBR did the trick.
Bottle shop here got a bunch of cases of these deGarde Brewing Kriek BuVeaux bottles. This was spontaneously fermented, with cherries, and aged in oak barrels for two years. It’s not my normal style preference, but they never show up around here so I splurged.