Out of communication and Harrowsmith’s Truly Canadian Almanac

I feel like I’ve had my life handed back to me: I can phone (though it was out for 24 hours so Rogers isn’t perfect and apologies to the young woman who was supposed to interview me on Thursday a.m. about Doris Anderson—-not a sound at this end); I’m still looking for a DVD with years and years of e-mails and info on it. Gonno in all this mess. I’m still e-mailing people with my change of address and a gazillion of them have come back so I don’t know what I’ve done wrong. Some I sent out with a cap M on marjorie which it shouldn’t be. You can see that confusion reigns still.

And this weird weather continues. Who’d have thought we’d be wearing sweaters in the middle of October. So I turned to the Almanac to see what they had to say (Harrowsmith’s Truly Canadian Almanac). It’s a terrific read for $5.95. The weather chapter is what I wanted: In Ontario and Quebec they are predicting a mild winter 1 to 2 deg above normal with precipitation close to normal plus a few heavier dumps of snow. Harrowsmith says they are going to to be 80 per cent accurate with their forecasts. We’ll see.

But another mild winter doesn’t mean you can forego mulching. The idea is to keep temps even, even if they aren’t that cold.

In the Atlantic provinces: within 1 deg of average; the Prairies—normal in Alberta and 1 or 2 above normal in Sask and Man; and on the wet coast it will be close to normal.

Well I intend to put this beside my daily garden journal and check out how accurate they really are. I like the old days when you could count on the squirrels and it they had big fluffy tails you just knew it would be a bad winter. Well the squirrels wreaking havoc on my Heptacodium miconoides (they use it to slide down into the front garden) have very large tails.

I still haven’t planted bulbs because it’s just too warm. If you plant in warm weather the poor bulbs will break dormancy and who knows what you’ll get in spring.

Right now I’m getting panicky and nervous because I’m speaking in Ottawa on Monday. I’ll be on Radio Noon sometime between 12:15 and 12:45 on Monday. Maybe I’ll see Ed Laurence. I sure hope so. Then on the afternoon show. And then if I survive all this I’ll be talking at 7 Monday evening (check out my web page for the location and contact number). The people working on this: the Ottawa Hort and the Botanical Garden are amazing. I’ve never had this much media for a talk.

To go back to computer woes: would the people I’ve been working with for the talks in Collingwood and Winnipeg please get in touch with me. All records are gone.
This teaches me: put it in a book and write everything down. But the learning curve continues. Though surely some day soon I’ll be able to put pix on this blog. The garden is so amazing and yet strange.?I usually have extraordinary colour by this time but it looks like September out there. I’m not complaining.

I’ll write from Ottawa. I have a nice leisurely ride on Via ! (they know how to treat a woman right) and some time to read and be quiet unless the idiot brigade are all talking on their cell phones. Why aren’t their cell phone free areas on all transportation?