On Tuesday I drove up to…

On Tuesday I drove up to Evanston to have lunch with Lori; on the way, I did a few errands, including stopping at Gethsemane to pick up some spring bulbs for the new house. I know we're not going to be in there by spring, but I'll be going by regularly to supervise the construction work, and I want to at least get started on the yard. Hopefully quite a few of the bulbs will naturalize too, and come back the following year; unlikely for the tulips and I'm not sure about the irises or hyacinths, but the grape hyacinths, fritillaria, and camassia have a good shot, I think. (I didn't put in any daffodils because I'm going for a blue/pink/purple/white color scheme in front of the house.)

I'll plant the bulbs this afternoon, while I'm waiting for the gas guy (coming sometime between 12-4). There's no heat at the house yet, so I figure I can keep warm by gardening. :-) Although I may also hunt a bit for my space heater this morning; we do have electricity turned on now, and if it's warm enough, I could actually practice a bit on the piano there. Did I mention that the previous owners left a somewhat functional baby grand piano? I'm not sure if we'll keep it; it takes up a lot of space. But I can at least practice on it some now...

While at Gethsemane, I also couldn't resist two indoor plants. I've been wanting to try more fruiting plants in general -- Kevin and Kavi go through fruit at a prodigious rate, and it'd be lovely to actually grow some of it ourselves. Plus, lemons and limes to cook with would be nice. We should have some decent southern sun in my study, the dining room, and family room, so I think it's worth a shot. (There are also dreams of someday adding a proper conservatory to the house, or at least a little greenhouse, maybe off the garage; we'll see.) So I got a little meyer lemon; it has a bunch of flower buds now, so I'm hoping they'll actually flower and then fruit. And they also had tall fig trees (about 5 feet), which I hadn't seen before. I fell in love with this one -- the shapes of the leaves are just gorgeous. It has seven figs on it right now -- hopefully they'll ripen well, and then will continue to bear fruit through the year.