Wee little thing

This wee little thing is my entry for Silly Saturday, Silly Saturday being a lovely gift Admirer left us with and a wonderful activity with which to remember her. 

The wee little thing is a Chamaecyparis obtusa 'Chirimen.' It is a dwarf and cute and I put it in a very big, formal pot which both looks silly and makes it look like a piece of art. As you can see, I've deliberately done a bonsai to make it look like the Hollywood Juniper behind it (kidding). 


I spent the day gardening, without getting bitten, which is a joy, and worth that horrible apple cider vinegar. 


I began trying to implement a really clever idea. The azalea in front of my house should never have been planted there. The developers planted two in front of each house on this row, but my house has a front planting area 14 inches deep. The azaleas next door look great. They are twice as tall. One of mine died early on. The remaining one grows over the sidewalk and blocks access so I pruned it hard earlier and it responded with vigorous growth. My clever idea was to move it to be closer to the happy big azaleas where it could have more space, and replace it with a white dwarf azalea. 


Well, I couldn't dig it up. The spacing was awkward with all the concrete and the desire to not break it to pieces while digging it up. The liriope on top was a great, tough, protective layer. 


The wonderful man who sent someone over IMMEDIATELY to fix the holes in my garage came over this morning to look at the attic so he can give us a quote for the insulation. While he was here I asked if a man could dig it up and he thinks part of the roots are growing under the concrete sidewalk. Getting it up could well kill it. Well. And that is how I got a dwarf azalea in a container on my deck. 


Did you know there are dwarf azaleas? Evergreen azaleas? Reblooming azaleas?


I went to the nursery and got a new pet. Maybe 100-200 new pets. See extra. I'm going to let them hatch in the container because the squirrel or birds would completely run off with and eat this. 


I think it was Yale that developed the list of all the companies that did and did not leave Russia. Some of the companies took massive multi-billion dollar hits. Yale says the stock market is rewarding businesses and organizations that have withdrawn or curtailed operations in Russia. “Despite disproportionate focus on asset write-downs and lost revenue from Russia, we demonstrate that the shareholder wealth created through equity gains have already far surpassed the cost of one-time impairments for companies that have written down the value of their Russian assets,” the researchers wrote in their abstract.


The Ukrainian national soccer team defeated Scotland, 3-1, bringing Ukraine within reach of its second World Cup.



Remember how people in Lithuania crowdfunded a drone for Ukraine? The Turkish company that makes them just gave the crowdfunders one for free. Thousands of Lithuanians contributed. Kids donated their birthday money. They raised 5.9 million euros ($6.32 million) in just three days. 


Putin thinks time is on his side as countries grow tired of helping Ukraine. Time is also against Russia. The scarcity of advanced imports due to sanctions is destroying productive jobs. This will  accelerate as inventories draw down and irreplaceable components start to break. Russia’s car industry, the most dependent on foreign inputs, has already ground to a halt, with plants shutting down for lack of parts. 


The EU and Egypt are set to sign a deal this month on supplying gas as the bloc seeks to slash its dependence on Russian supplies. By the way, Egypt is one of the countries going into green hydrogen in a big way and they are determined to have an electrolyzer up and running in time for the next COP, or giant climate change conference, which will be in October? November? and held in Egypt.