Sweet box

Here we are at the mid-week. Today is supposed to be the first of our two exceptionally warm days. 76 is the predicted high here in Lynden, 25 for you metric types. I'll be in my office with a fan on. My co-workers often feel cold, whether because of cold weather or the air conditioning in hot weather. They even will run little space heaters at their work stations. Meanwhile, I tend to feel too warm at work, so I have a fan to run.

Yesterday I planted some baby bushes called sarcococca ruscifolia, also known as "sweet box." I planted them near the property line between my neighbors and me. One mature bush of this variety is already there, and I added the others to make a line of them. The new ones are quite small. There used to be a fence right there, but over the years it deteriorated, and a while back the current residents and I pulled it down. But it's a place that calls for some kind of partition, so I got these.

They are nice bushes with shiny dark green leaves that don't fall off in the winter, and they get tiny white flowers that smell very sweet. When I first moved up here from California, I thought the bushes were a variety of jasmine.