Middle of June already?

Though they seemed to drag on interminably and inexorably, the past 3 weeks are suddenly done!

It's all a blur really.

Going back to the nursery meant moving every single plant at Bowood and even though sales have been continuing briskly, that was still lots of plants to move. Plus all the signage to put up. Not all of the signs are up yet, but at least the plants are in their places for the summer.

All the plants were over in the courtyard because that's where they were staging the curbside and delivery when the owners were doing everything. Now that we're all (3 of us) back, it's all spread out in the nursery and shrub lot as well, which is better for the plants (and simultaneous waterings) but harder when you are putting together online orders. I don't have to do that anymore, or not often, but Ande sure gets a workout.

We lost 2 employees at the end of last summer and another during the shutdown and none of them have been (or will be) replaced and with Ande doing all the orders, there's only 2 of us to water, plus every day I have 2-5 appointments with people who simply can't do their shopping online and come in to drop $200-600 in an hour. Caitlin took this picture for Instagram to advertise my services. Would you want to shop with this creature?

Lucie rolls her eyes when I tell her about my experiences as a 'personal shopping assistant' and calls my sales techniques "sucking up to the customer," but it's really so boring, I just like talking with them about this and that while I fill up the wagon. It works - $2-3,000 in sales each week that wouldn't have happened otherwise. And I've learned how to talk without the mask pulling off my nose.

Maybe the orders and appointments will die down soon, maybe we'll open up to the public. Maybe we'll go back to stay-at-home orders due to a second wave when actually we never finished the first wave. Nah, not that last, in Missouri we have a knee-jerk copycat Republican governor. Sigh. Anxiety.

Meanwhile I finished my Well-Being class from Yale and my What Do Plants Know? class from Tel Aviv University and I'm 2 weeks into the Plants II course with the same professor.

I gave Rubén a couple of art courses for his birthday that are on drawing geometric Islamic patterns. He whizzed through them and now is doing one on calligraphy that is meant to get helpers for digitizing Spanish medieval documents (I think). Lucie is NOT interested in taking any classes - she already has a degree after all.

Hope some of you can come visit soon - Mama would love that,

love 

Agelaius