Random Thoughts

Been a while. Trying to catch up after the week missed following the storms, and realizing that I probably won't catch up. Just have to pick the most important items on the to-do lists and hit those hard.

A random list of comments and observations, to match the scatteredness of my thoughts today:

1. At home in Canada we called peonies "PEE-uh-nies". In the South, people say "pee-OH-nies".

2. Yesterday I planted 4 varieties of tomatoes (Romas, an heirloom variety similar to Romas, an heirloom yellow pear tomato, and a bigger red and yellow heirloom called "Mr. Stripey" because I wanted heirloom tomatoes and liked the way they looked on the package). I also put in 4 varieties of peppers (sweet green bells, cute little red mini-bells, hot banana peppers, and jalapenoes), and some yellow crookneck squash. Also added Thai basil and boxwood basil to my already-planted sweet basil and can't stop thinking about it. I replaced the rosemary plant that I killed by putting it outside too early and freezing it to death. I'm very excited about getting the garden in two months earlier than last year, which means that we will have loads of fresh yummy stuff to eat this summer.

3. I got bit by a spider while planting everything, which raised much alarm amongst Southern family members on facebook, who were convinced I was going to swell up and die if I didn't immediately post a photo for their scrutiny, but it was not a poisonous spider and I'm still here to tell about it.

4. I really just wanted to talk about the garden getting planted, not go down a rabbit trail about spider bite deaths and dismemberments. One good friend was kind enough to just "like" the status update the way I intended it, and spare me the lecture. Hi Charity!

5. I got a piano. Now I have to practice so I can have skype piano concerts for my dad. He used to sit and listen to me play for hours when I was growing up. I think we both miss it.

6. I think I'm going to raid the school library over the summer and read all the great kids' books that have come out since I was 10 and reading fiendishly, staying up all night with a towel shoved under my door so my parents couldn't see the light coming through the crack and make me go to sleep. When they did make me turn the light off, I used to use the glowing red digits of my alarm clock as a reading light. No wonder I need corrective lenses.

7. Had a visit from an old friend last week on her way down to Texas, and may get to see her again this week on her way back up. We were friends in Minneapolis, but she's living and working in eastern Kentucky now. She's the first friend from the Minneapolis era who's been down here since we moved, so that was really exciting. I love the kind of friendships that pick up right where they left off and though you've been in different places doing different things, you've followed a similar enough trajectory that you have more than enough to talk about. It's kind of therapeutic.

8. I'm feeling compelled to make this list into an even 10, for reasons unbeknownst to me, so here's hoping this helps.

9. The neighbor is mowing his lawn and running over rocks or roots or something loud and chunky. It can't be good for the mower blades. Remind me to tell you some neighbor stories sometime.

10. Think I might go for a run before it gets too dark and before I get too hungry. It won't be dark for a while yet, but if I eat first, I'll have to wait for it to settle, and before I know it, it's time to set the alarm clock for work in the morning. Sigh. "I've got the Sunday afternoon bluuuuuuuuues, baby, take it away..."

I think this week will be busy but fun. Hope you have a great week too!

Easter Afternoon Stroll in the Botanical Gardens

This is a bit belated. I started on it Easter Sunday, then had issues uploading photos, then this happened, so here it finally is.

Anyway, it seemed like an Easter thing to do, don a flowery sundress and meander through the myriad outdoor "rooms" of the local botanical gardens.

My first and favorite destination is the Aquatic Garden, with its koi pond and giant amazon lily pads. At first glance, I thought there was some construction underway, as they had the entrance taped off to the little round patio overlooking the water:

I almost moved on to the next display, but something caught my eye and I took a closer look at that planter on the right:

And a little closer:

See all the fluffy feathers underneath her? She's about to have a bunch of lil' fuzzy buddies waddling around behind her.
Awww.

Let's Get this Garden Started!

When we lived up north and traveled a lot, we used to have lots of little get-togethers with friends, sometimes planned, other times spontaneous. They usually involved some good food, crazy dancing, and some sort of rallying chant, like "Party! Pizza Party!" or "Bar-B-Q! BBQ!" or "USA! USA!" or the one that prompted the title of this post, "Let's Get this Party Started!"

After a few deeply philosophical and political posts (sorry, it's all that's on the news these days!), I got a hankerin' to lighten up a bit and write about the garden. It's March. The tulip trees have already bloomed and released their intoxicating scent and then spontaneously combusted in a mess of petals all over everyone's lawns. Daffodils have poked up at random intervals along the monkey grass border, beaming sunny smiles to all who look their way. Irises and daylilies won't bloom for a bit yet, but their brand new green foliage is coming in thick and lush and tall. Garden stores have put out their flowers, herbs and vegetables for the general public to peruse and take our chances with.

I've been pruning old dead stuff here and there. First it was the brown, straw-like fronds from last year's daylily foliage. I cut those off and pulled them out of the lily bed, where they were acting as a sort of mulch over the winter, and tilled them into the vegetable bed, along with some fresh garden soil to help boost this year's crop of tomatoes and peppers and such.

Next, I got rid of the spent, dried stalks of kitchen herbs in the concrete planters on the patio to make room for the young green shoots that have started to peek out. I'll probably need a new rosemary plant. I had one in the kitchen over the winter, but I got a little overeager and put it out a little too early one warm sunny day a month or so ago and forgot it out there overnight to freeze.

Then B. sharpened the shears for me (the ones I should have been using instead of a knife the summer I cut myself pruning holly, but couldn't 'cause they were too dull...but that's old news) and I gave the crape myrtles a haircut. Before we moved here, they'd been chopped off low, at a height of a couple of feet, even though the trunks were already about 4 inches across, and lots of little strappy suckers were growing all over them in every direction. I did some research on pruning them and repairing the damage to get them looking more like their natural shape, and we cut them "properly" last spring. Though there are places that may never look normal, I'm happy to report that the places we cut have mostly forked like real crape myrtles and healed themselves by growing bark over the wound so that many of the new forks look like they naturally grew that way. Hooray!

[This is another place in this blog where photos would be really timely and helpful. One of these days, I promise, I'll go back and insert some good ones. When I have some free time. And a good camera. And some motivation. I was motivated tonight, but for other things. Shoe shopping, grocery shopping, filling up the car. It was at 1/4 tank when I started. I stopped at $30, thinking surely that's about full. I started up the car to drive away and the needle jumped up and stopped at 3/4. But I digress.]

Yes, the garden. Tomatoes, a variety of peppers, lettuces, cilantro - basically a salad/salsa garden. I'm also thinking I may need a zucchini plant this year. Just one. I know they come in little pots of about 10 plants at once, and I always have such a hard time throwing a plant away. But I also know how zucchini can take over your life and I'm trying not to overcommit to too many relationships right now. My mom grows so much zucchini that she's always trying to find people to give it to. She picked 10 squash one weekend, so she brought one to church and stuck it in the offering basket. She sneaks it into the most unexpected recipes (my dad is so onto her) and gives it away to everyone. Which would be great if she wasn't the only one doing it. In their small Canadian town, the only time people lock their cars or houses is during zucchini season, to keep it out.

Chant with me, "Let's Get this Garden Started! Let's Get this Garden Started! Let's Get..."

March Showers

What happens when a Japanese cargo plane blows up mid-flight?
It rains Datsun cogs.

Thank you, thank you very much. Actually, you can thank my dad. Don't worry, there's plenty more where that came from.

It's raining Datsun cogs today. The grass is turning bright green, the tulip trees are blooming profusely, and everything else is starting to bud. February showers have brought us March flowers and the March showers bring that brilliant greenness that lifts the clouds from your soul and puts a sparkle in your eyes.

April showers, however, will bring suffocating humidity, so we're quite happy right where we are.

It's finally time for my favorite sky-blue rubber boots! Or bubber boots, as I'm more prone to call them. Hooray! I remember as kids walking to and from school in the spring, my brother and I used to pass an empty sunken lot with a foot-deep standing puddle in it. We'd walk out on the edge of the melting ice until our weight broke us through it, then slowly, carefully wade out toward the middle, watching as the water crept higher and higher up our rubber boots. Finally one or the other of us would venture just a millimeter too far and get the inevitable "booter" - the sudden, shocking sensation of your whole boot instantly filling with bone-chilling ice water - followed by screams of shock and laughter. Then, of course, the comedy of trying to balance on one foot while emptying said boot, without tipping so far over that the other boot became inundated. This generally worked better on the way home from school, rather than to it. Good times.



P.S.

Made the local paper. Second time in 2 years of living here (vs. once in my whole lifetime before that, if I'm counting right, and that was for a "Keep Christ in Christmas" art project a friend and I made for an elementary school contest. Way back in the day when one could still utter the words "Christ" and "Christmas" in a school). Anyway, back to the present day - if you scroll through the gallery for this event, you might find someone that looks a little like me.

Dirt Under My Fingernails

November - June = 7 months since I've written. That's a sign that I've been busy and certainly not bored!

This year has been a very different year from last year. Last year I chomped at the bit, hating having been uprooted from the cool, comfortable black dirt soil of my lifelong home and transplanted into the foreign, hot, humid, red clay soil of the south. My roots couldn't move, couldn't find water, couldn't breathe. The harder I struggled, the harder it became. When I finally stopped fighting and relaxed, I started to understand how to operate in this new environment.

Now I've come up for my second season in this garden and I'm seeing all kinds of beauty that was lost on me the first time around. It's been good for me, I just didn't know it at the time.

I've made friends. I've grown. I've laughed. I've loved. My roots have found water.

Chillin' Like a Huntsvillian

Well, we've moved again. Seventy miles north to Huntsville to do some repairs and maintenance on B.'s granddad's house and yard while he's away for the summer. It's a great property, and has been in the family for over 50 years. We've been here just over a week now and have found it to be a place of peace and rest and one that fosters a lot of creative productivity.

The first thing we tackled when we got here was the birdbath and feeders. They were all moldy and the birds had long since stopped coming around them. I dumped the birdbath and scoured it out with a scrub brush, then refilled it with fresh water. Then I took the feeders apart and cleaned them out. Discovered one was broken and letting water in, so we trashed it, but the other, bigger one cleaned up nicely and B. refilled it with fresh seeds and hung it next to the bath.

Now there's rarely a minute that passes without birds right outside the window at eye level. All kinds too - we've had blue jays, cardinals, sparrows, robins, doves, chickadees, and some other ones I didn't recognize. They're eating, singing, splashing, squabbling. Need to get another hummingbird feeder going, back by the breakfast nook, so those lil' guys come back too. They're so much fun to watch!

We've noticed another visitor too - a woodchuck, nosing around underneath the birdbath. He's a big one, I'm guessing a 30-pounder. Not sure what he was looking for, but we think he lives in the monkey grass around the tool shed. We fondly refer to him as "the dog."

Right now I'm curled up on the couch (hey, it's Saturday!) with a heating pad and afghan, watching B. go around and around, up and down the acre lot on a riding mower, wearing a straw hat. I think we're going to love being old people someday. We pretty much already are.