Weekly Wrap-Up: Gardening!

The good news is, my children do NOT hate gardening.

I decided that we were going to take an extra week of spring break to get some gardening done. I envisioned this time as a happy, wholesome, family bonding time. In the middle of Monday morning, after an hour or so cleaning up the dead material left through the winter, I realized the only thing I was accomplishing was to instill a lifelong dread of gardening in my children.

So, I broke the tasks up into smaller chunks, and made sure the kids got lots of breaks to play on the swingset. Everyone's mood was much improved. We got the garden cleaned up, weeded, and some of the soil turned over before lunch. After an afternoon of some housework and some free time, I made hearty hamburgers, fries, and zucchini chips for dinner. (If anyone has a great recipe for zucchini, I'd love to have it. Toa of Boy and I love zucchini, but I'm still looking for the perfect way to prepare it.)

Tuesday, we took a break from gardening and went to my women's small group. We also spent a couple hours working in our church's food pantry. We followed that up with a treat of lunch from Wendy's before hitting the library. That afternoon, a box of plants, which had been ordered back in February arrived. This spurred on my garden fever. (That evening, I smashed out the taillights in the van backing into a pole in the walmart parking lot. I also denting the bumper. The Jedi fixed the big smash in the bumper as soon as I got home. The next day he bought a new housing for the tail lights and replace that in less than ten minutes before our Wednesday night church activities. Today he's going to buy touch up paint to coverup the scratches I made all over the corner of the rear bumper.)

Wednesday it was back to the garden. But, as I told the kids, today was going to be much more fun. We did the hard work on Monday, so now we were ready to put the plants in. The kids had each picked out the plants they wanted when we placed our orders, so that helped them care more about the process. Toa of Boy is especially excited about his blueberry bush. (He was less thrilled to learn that it would be a couple  before the 8 inch twig actually produced any blueberries.) Again, lots of swingset breaks happened.

The access path through the strawberry patch had been covered with weeds. So, after having the kids help me pull off the stepping stones to be piled on the side, I covered the path with cardboard, since I had a stack of boxes ready to be broken down in the garage. I put a layer of pine bark nuggets over the cardboard, and then placed my stepping stones back along the path. It looks really great and it should be a weed free solution for this year. The area on the right is where the strawberries are going, the wall along the garage has some tomato cages, and the corner on the left has some perennials (sedum autumn joy, purple coneflower, and hibiscus). In that corner I also planted five asparagus plants, and filled the front of that area in with a few more spinach plants.

I did the same thing for the corner that cuts from the patio to the mulched swingset area. (My daffodils are past their bloom already, boo hoo.)

After a lunch of noodles and stirfry veggies, Sweetling and I went back out to plant our square-foot vegetable garden. We don't have a lot of sun in our yard, so our veggie garden is a two foot deep strip underneath my bedroom window. In that tiny space, we have three zucchini bush plants, two cucumber vines, 16 carrots, 9 spinach plants, and 12 or 16 lettuce plants. We've used logs to edge the raised bed, and straight sticks to mark off our grid, cause both those materials were free from windfall from all the tress we have on our wooded slope. I did move the tomato cages to the side of the garage wall, cause they were too tall to fit nicely under my bedroom window, and last year I got tired of the view out my bedroom window being the top of ugly tomato cages. Before we put the seeds in, I dug in some leaf mulch, some peat moss, some compost, and a couple handfuls of bonemeal. Sweetling did a great job of measuring out how many seeds should go in each square and planting them to the correct depth. We left a little space near the edge of the vegetable garden for some marigolds in every square. I'm hoping the marigolds deter the snacking critters who were the primary beneficiaries of our vegetable garden last year.


Thursday, Tia smurf was over. We made a delicious lunch of rice, son-in-law eggs, and stirfry chicken and asparagus in a brown shallot sauce. And when I say "we", I mostly mean the smurf. I did the complicated tasks of chopping asparagus, defrosting chicken, and peeling the hardboiled eggs (with help from Toa of Boy.)

After our wonderful meal, we had an art day. We all painted paver stones, which will be used in our sundial we'll be making in the front yard in June. I'll post about that when we do it, so that I can include pictures of the process. We need 12 pavers all together, to mark the 12 hours of the day. We decided to paint each paver with something that would correspond with the 12 months of the year as well....even though our sundial will only roughly mark the time through the day, and has nothing to do with the calendar year. But it looks cool, and that's what's important.

We took Tia Smurf home, doing some measurements in her front yard for a planting design I promised her at Christmas. We had dinner, and then while Sweetling was at Tae Kwon Do, Toa and I engaged in another art project. We each got our sketchbooks, and I got my oil pastels and Toa got his crayons. Then we set a timer (we buy our timers at the dollar store). For 6 minutes, we each drew in our own sketchbook. At the end of 6 minutes, when the timer went off, we traded sketchbooks and each of us worked on the drawing the other person had started. Toa decided ahead of time that we would each be drawing gardens. So, after many many trades, we each had a bright colorful, fantastical garden in our sketchbooks. Each garden drawing was a combination of mediums and artists, so they each turned out really cool and unique.

On Friday, we had our friends the Incredibles over, so that Mrs. Incredible could go to the Cincinnati Home School Convention. Sweetling was an AWESOME babysitter for the boys. I sat at my computer downstairs and got us caught up on logging OHVA attendance, which hadn't been done since February. (Sweetling said, "that has nothing to do with you being you or anything.") Sweetling was the Queen of the Wii, and kept the boys entertained and monitored and under control. At one point, while the Equestrian was trying to get Sweetling past some big boss in a Mario game, I heard Sweetling tell the audience of little boys, "Ok, we're going to play the quiet game now....and whoever wins gets a Hershey kiss!"

The one instruction Mrs Incredible (aka Mango) gave me before leaving was to make sure Jack-Jack, who was not in a pull-up, stayed dry. I failed at that three times. But, I have access to a washer and dryer, so Mango never need know. No one tell her. It will be our little secret. (Really, I only failed once...the second time he just had trouble wiping himself and the underwear needed changed as a result. I also, cleaning him up, realized that friendship often means wiping the poopy bottom of your friend's child while he tells you all about the two lazers he has in his garage, one on each side of his garage, in fact. The third accident was just an aiming accident while he was at or on the toilett. See, I'm not completely irresponsible.)

That afternoon, we loaded the car seats into the van and went to Blockbuster. Before we left I gave a nice talk about how the democratic process and majority rule was going to come into play when it came time to select a movie. This talk proved usless, because there, bold as life, in the Blockbuster window, was a poster for the second Chipmunks movie. Consequently, we burst into Blockbuster with a whirlwind of five excited children who were all squealing "The Squeakquel!!!" Mercifully, the Squeakquel was close to the front door, so we were in and out of there before the employees could truly hate me.

Friday night, the Jedi decided we needed a family activity. It turns out that the family activity was taking the last of the gift cards the Jedi had received for Christmas and making the half hour drive to the nearest Cold Stone for ice cream. If we ever were in a position to buy a franchise, I'd want a Cold Stone Creamery. We tried to get Vaya to get a job at ColdStone, back when they were in a nearby mall, but Vaya knew we were just trying to take advantage of her for free ice cream, and she wasn't having any of it. I'm still scarred by her refusal.

After we got home, I finished up my awesome, awesome week by getting a school schedule together that I hope will be a decent hybrid of the k-12 curriculum we need to finish up this year and the new approach to schooling I want to initiate next year.  I am as happy as I can be with the hybrid. (Thursdays are our co-op days, so they didn't need to go on the schedule. Tuesday morning we're at church for my women's group. Toa watches a movie and plays, and Sweetling can use the time as a study hall to do co-op work, or she can take her netbook and be online, or she can watch a movie with the other kids.)

Check out what others have done this week on Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Saturday in the Park

It isn't, of course, Saturday right now. Right now its a Monday afternoon and I'm testing the battery life of my laptop. I estimate I have maybe ten minutes before it goes down. I'm also on some unnamed, unsecure wireless network. I'm sitting in the back of the van, with the seats flipped out in their "tailgate" position. It's warm, its sunny. Its wonderful. I'm outside. Toa of Boy is with me. He's hiding in the back of the van, where it is not warm, sunny, or wonderful. Its hot, stuffy, and boring back there. Why is he back there instead of on the playground or playing frisbee with other boys? I don't know. He's pouting about something. I think it might be because I wanted to sit and eat my lunch rather than play frisbee right away. The unparalleled nerve of me. Sweetling is inside. Again, no warm wonderfulness for her. She's inside the school building (whose parking lot I'm in and whose playground I'm parked beside.) She's inside taking the last of her four state mandated standardized tests.

Basically, I'm having a great day, and Toa of Boy and Sweetling are both being tortured, mistreated, and neglected.

I also had a great weekend, which brings us back around to the title of this post. The Jedi, awesomest man that he is, has decided Saturdays are for making me feel wonderful. He has excelled in this pursuit for the last few weekends in a row. This Saturday was no exception. (ahhh...Toa of Boy finally decided that going to play on the playground was much more fun than sitting in the van and pouting. Good for him.) So, we slept in a little in the morning and got up around nine. We had breakfast and got some gardening clothes on. (See, I told you Saturdays were all about me.) The Jedi mowed our yard and our neighbors yard and ran the tiller to break up the weeds growing it what remained of the strawberry patch from two years ago. While he did that, I mixed more soil for the square foot garden and had the kids pick out large sticks (4'-5' long) for supports for their cucumber vines. We put the sticks in pots and filled the pots with Mel's mix. Then we got out the tape measure and made our grid for the garden. We used large, straight sticks to divide the little plot in two down its long axis and then the kids laid white marble rocks perpendicular to the sticks to divide the garden into square feet. My seedlings have been "hardening off" since Friday. Nothing fancy, I just put the plastic container of seedlings under the kids picnic table on the patio. The carrots look a little frail, I'm not sure that they'll make it, but I have confidence in the rest of them.

We went inside and got a shower around noon. Then we all grabbed some healthy snacks and headed to the park with water bottles, a camera, and the kites. We have the perfect park for kite flying. At Parky's farm, there's a large, open, grass field that's kept mown and used as overflow parking during special events. There is almost always a good breeze there, maybe because the large open fields of the farm are surrounded by Winton Woods. I don't know. What I do know is that it is perfect for kite flying. Both the kids have cool, fancy kites that Vaya got for their birthdays a couple of years ago. No cheap, light, plastic drugstore kites. These kits are large and heavier than the dollar variety. Nevertheless, they took to the air without any effort. Literally, an adult would hold the kite up. The child would stand some distance away with a length of string already played out. The adult would toss the kite in the air, and up it would fly. No running, no struggling, no fuss. Of course, Toa's kite tried to dive bomb me a couple of times, but it wouldn't be Toa's kite if it didn't strive to be an agent of terror. After half an hour or more of kite flying, the kids played on the playground for a little while. Then we headed to Olive Garden.

We arrived at the restaurant at the perfect time. At three thirty or so in the afternoon, we were well past the lunch rush and well ahead of the dinner crowd. In we went with windblown hair and all. Lunch was *delicious*. We laughed, we chatted, we enjoyed our meal, it was wonderful. The Jedi asked for a dessert menu at the end of the meal, and Sweetling and I each ordered a dessert to go (Toa of Boy was going to share with Mommy.) We left the restaurant with a big bag of food...my leftovers, the leftover salad, Sweetling's leftovers, the two desserts, and the remaining breadstick.

From there, we headed to Lowe's, where the Jedi dropped me off with Toa of Boy in the garden center. He and Sweetling headed to Walmart, where the Jedi was going to use a gift card towards the purchase of Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games. Toa of Boy and I had an employee help us find grass for the ex-strawberry patch and the bare patch around the new sundial in front. (Did I write about the sundial yet? Hmmm...I'll have to come back to that.) I had already decided I was never trying to grow a large area of grass from seed again, and told the employee that I was looking for a seed mat. He led me to this fluffy stuff, it look's like Billy's gerbil bedding. It has seeds and fertilizer built in to the fluff. So we bought two bags of grass fluff. I spread it in the ex-strawberry patch this morning and wetted it down, so we shall see. Toa of Boy and I were finished first, so we browsed through the outdoor plant section.

Back home long enough to put leftovers in the fridge and call Pinkie. To Pinkie's house next to pick her up for a sleepover. then to another park, where we met a famiy from church met us. We hung out and talked while Toa played with their little boys and Sweetlng and Pinkie walked around holding hands and chatting. We left the park at 7:30 when Sweetling got a splinter in the palm of her hand.

(And I moved out from the van to the sun, but can't see my screen. So nyah. Typing blind so too bad on the typos. The battery has held for nealy forty meinutes now. Go it. Now you are all wishing for the return of the daybook format. See what happens when I let myself ramble?)

At home, milkshakes were consumed by children while they watched Gilligan's Isle and Sweetling soaked her hand in an epson salt solution. Mango called and wanted me to head out to eastgate with her so she could buy a new wireless router. The Jedi came up with an alternate plan that didn't involve the two ENFPs heading out at 10pm on a road trip.

All in all, an absolutely perfect day.

Numbers

253 blog posts that I have finished applying labels to. That's all of them, in fact.

11:22 in the morning and zero school lessons done.

9 Webkinz that Sweetling has dumped into my lap, cause they're cute.

2 Facebook encouraging facebook notes that I should reply to and thank the writers for their thoughtfulness.

1 Wii that has kept Toa busy for over an hour now

117.6 pounds on the scale means only 2 cups of hot chocolate a day and 6 glasses of water.

? lbs of chicken in the freezer....and I'm totally chickened out for dinner recipes

2 days till co-op again, and 2 short stories to write (one by me and one by Sweetling)

60 degrees which is good, but rainy and wet, so still no gardening.

2 days of sunny warm weather later this week, both of which are already booked up, so still no gardening.

15 peat pellets in a plastic container on the living room window sill. 3 with seeds that have started to sprout, 2 of which look like something fuzzy is starting to grow at the base of the sprout. What do I do?

3 unmotivated persons home on a Tuesday with too many lessons that need done and not enough fun creativity to get the gears cranking.

Labels, love em or leave em?

Why label my posts? Cause then I could categorize them for gardening, homeschooling, scripture, etc. And you all know I'm such an organized person. Why not label my posts? Cause I got three years worth of unlabeled posts. The likely hood of me going back and labeling all those posts are slim and none.

But that's not why I'm writing. I'm writing cause it's 4:36 am, and I've been awake since 2:45 am. Joy. The thing about Sudafed is, I can't sleep when I take it. On the other hand, if I don't take it, I'm too congested to sleep anyway. Yay.

Joy and Yay are working their way into being labels for this post.

The clarity of my thought processes must provide simply riveting reading matter for a blog.

Gardens. I lay in bed for an hour and a half and thought about a compost system and a way to make a grid for our square foot garden. Yes. yes I did. And then I thought, I should get up and share this fascinating subject matter with the world. So here I am. Behold the power of the internet.

I was online a few days ago, looking for info on composting for beginners. And I saw an add for a commercially marketed compost bin that looked essentially like a large plastic garbage can with holes drilled in its side and cover. And I thought, I have large plastic garbage cans which are currently holding leaves and other yard waste. And I thought, the Jedi has a power drill. I too can have a compost bin system.

What I need are three large, predrilled garbage cans. I fill one up with leaves and layers of grass clippings (I bet the Jedi will need to mow the yard soon. While I hate to wish that chore on the Jedi, I need layers of green matter for my compost.) After we rototill the former strawberry patch, I can save a couple bucket fulls of dirt from there to throw into the compost layers as well. I soak it down with the hose. I pick up a dozen earthworms from the local pet store (they sell them as food for other critters) and toss those on to the top of the compost.I put a predrilled cover on it. And I do nothing to it for two weeks. This will be Pile A.

Meanwhile (back in the batcave), I use some of the roll of chicken wire still in the garage from Vaya's rabbit, Moofi. I make it into a nice wide cylinder, and I fill it up with leaves still left over from autumn. (Yes, we still have leaves kicking around our yard. I lift Toa of Boy up and put him in it and tell him to stamp around and crush the dry crumbling leaves up as much as he can. No, I'm not kidding. Now I have a "leaf hopper" which will contain just brown materials.

I put one layer of brown material in the second garbage can "bin". As we generate green matter, from fruits and vegetable kitchen scraps or other grass clippings, I through those into this "in progress" bin. Sweetling can have the job of taking kitchen waste out to the compost (no meat or dairy, of course.) She adds a handful of crushed leaves on top of each little addition of kitchen waste to keep flies and such from being attracked to the bins. We add layers of grass clippings, followed by layers of brown leaves, as the spring goes on. This will be Pile B.

By now, two weeks should be up, and I can return to my first bin, Pile A. I shovel, scoop, and then pour the contents of this bin into the empty third bin. I wet it down again if it needs it, and put the cover back on. I repeat this proceedure every week or every two weeks, cause I'm in a hurry to make some compost for my garden. If I weren't in a hurry, I'd only turn it every month. But I'm hoping to have some nice compost by midsummer, to side dress the vegetable garden. Nothing new gets added to this pile that I'm turning every other week or so. All the new material goes in the "in progress" pile B that I've started in another bin.

Last, I need a large plastic storage container with a lid that seals it closed. (A big rubbermaid tub will work nicely.) When I have a finished batch of compost, I empty it from the bin into the tub. I can take what I need from the tub to add to the vegetable garden. Now, Pile B gets wetted down, some finished compost and some earthworms added, and a cover put on. It now becomes the pile that I will turn every other week through the summer. I'll start a new pile going in place of Pile A. Same routine, layer of brown stuff...hope I have some left... and layers of green stuff, and a few scoops of the finished compost.

And in the fall, will refill our leaf hopper. And through the fall and winter, I'll switch to only turning a pile from one bin to another every month or so.

So, I'll have
--a leaf hopper made of chicken wire to hold my brown materials
--a pile that I don't add anything to that I turn back and forth between two bins
--a pile that I'm slowly building as we generate green materials
--a tub for holding finished compost until its needed in the garden

That should work, right? And even if it doesn't, what's the worst that can happen? I won't have any compost? I don't have any now. It's not going to cost me any money to try, cause I've got all the equipment I need on hand already. And if I get lazy (really, sometimes it happens) and I don't turn it regularly, so what? It should break down eventually.

And that was my grand, cold-meds induced plan for composting. Now I just need to convince the Jedi that I can be trusted with his power drill.

The other idea I lay in bed kicking around was how to mark off a grid for our square-foot garden. The garden itself is up against a wall of the house. It's two feet wide and seven feet long. Mel says to make a nice, semi-permament grid, and I think he's right. Without a grid, it will be more difficult for me and the kids to make sense of what's growing where and to weed and tend to the garden properly. Mel suggests making a grid with the slats of a old venetian blind or such. BUT, the outer raised edge of the garden is formed by wooden logs salvaged from some of the large branches that came down in last fall's windstorm. And I don't want white plastic strips next to the cool, natural looking logs. If dowel rods aren't to expensive, I could pick some up and stain them green. Though, I don't know how I'd fasten round dowel rods together to make a grid. Cause they're rolly and all. Really, I need one long, seven foot strip and then six shorter cross strips to form my grid.

I also thought of using white landscaping rocks (you know, the kind you can buy in big backs) to lay out on the dirt in neat little rows to make my grid. But then I'd have to carefully take them off and then lay them back down anytime I needed to dig in more compost. And I'd have to police Toa of Boy's friends when they come over to play so that they wouldn't mess with the rocks. Cause cool rocks are just irresitable to young boys. So, white rocks, pretty and natural looking. Not quite so practical.

I could beg for free paint stirs from the hardware store. I could let the kids paint them with cool patterns and designs and then we could seal them with polyurithane and fasten them together, somehow, perpendicularly in groups of four. but I'd need 24 paint stirs, I don't know how I'd fasten them, and painting and sealing them would be a pretty involved process.

And now I'm feeling really sleepy, so I think I'll try to head back to bed for an hour or so.

Can this week just be over yet?

Be warned. A truckload of whining is about to commence. A huge pity party. With snacks even.

Ok. I'm skipping the whine session. I'll just sum up. Mom was sick, Toa of Boy has been really sick for three days, the Jedi's car is in the shop, and Sweetling is being referred to a hematologist for vascular issues with her feet. Her toes are purple. Sadly, the hematologist office needs a referal form faxed to them from our dr. Then they send the referral to an office coordinator. The office coordinator makes arrangements for medical records to be sent to their office. THEN, after they receive those records, they call me back to begin scheduling an appointment. Its two weeks of paper work before we're even looking at scheduling an appointment. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

I was going to use this as an escape to write about my plans to build a fairy house for the garden. But I don't feel like writing. I don't feel like reading. I don't feel like watching tv. I don't feel like gaming. I can't go anywhere or start a huge project with the kids, cause neither of them are up for anything. But I'm nervous and restless and need to focus my energy on something.

Good news (garden wise). Mango says I can go up with her to her mom's farm and raid the stream there for flat stepping stones for the butterfly patch. And we can steal compost from her mom too. And we found bags of cheap vermiculite for a square foot garden. But, the site where I was going to put my square foot garden is pretty small, even for a square foot garden. I'd love for the kids to each have their own small garden plots for veggies, but don't have any other sun in the back yard. I don't want the kids' gardens in front, necessarily, because then they can't go and tend them on their own. I could put my veggies in front, and the kids in back I suppose. Hmmmm. Or I could build two small boxes right beside the walk way that goes from the patio to behind the garage. That shouldn't cut too much into what little lawn space we have. hmmm again. Sadly, the area behind the swingset is far too shady for veggies.

I need to price either sod or seed mats for redoing where the strawberries where and fixing the sorry, unwelcoming weedpatch behind the swingset. That's what I'll do. I'll order plants, and see if I can price sod or seed mats. I'm not planting grass from seed ever again.

I'll order plants, and then make a chandelier for the fairy house with a little light bulb (burned out of the hall night light) and some decorative wire and some beads. Then I'll feel happy.

Getting Dirty

I knew that would grab your attention.

I wasn't going to do today's reset material just because I wanted to do something else. I didn't know what else. Just something else. Blogsurf maybe. Or look through plant catalogs. I had a short story idea on my mind, things that I wanted to wrap up in my writing project, and garden visions. By the time I had made my hot chocolate, I had settled on the garden ideas. I really need some more stepping stones and some rocks to help retain soil on the far side of the sandbox. The Jedi has said many times that we are not buying rocks, so where can I get them? Oh sure, if I wanted to be really rude I could drive to Winton Wood, park my car by one of the streams, and help myself. But there's something wrong, and probably illegal, about pilfering landscape materials from a county park. What other streams can I help myself to?

But definitely gardening was the topic du jour, at least in the instant I, more out of obligation than anything else, opened up my reset journal. Don't get me wrong, I've been really digging the reset material. But I was grumpy and feeling selfish. I used to get exasperated with Toa of Boy when he would refuse to do something just for the sake of saying no, but really I'm the same way. I wasn't going to do it simply to be contrary. I was going to sit down and flood the blog world with inquiries about rocks. See, the area on the other side of the sandbox could be a lovely shade garden, but I can't plant anything right now because there isn't any topsoil there. Its just hard packed clay. Even the weeds can't grow. But if I had some rocks, I could build a couple of raised beds to fill with peat moss and compost and make good topsoil for hostas and ferns and other shade lovers.

And that is exactly what I was thinking about when I opened my journal and read...

"Ever try to grow a garden? Its all about the soil."

The scripture verses are, of course, the parable of the sower. Luke 8:4-8 and 11-15. And the journaling prompt is...

"What in your own life right now is enhancing or preventing you from receiving God more fully? Consider this for a moment then describe the condition of your own soil, or draw a picture."

Which I wrote about in my journal. I might come back and type it out here, but right now I'm going to hop in the shower.

Five Minutes to Post and SPRING IS HERE

There are cups clunking and the sound of the fridge door opening upstairs, but I'm ignoring that. There are more fish sticks in the toaster oven and an empty saucer beside me, but I'm ignoring that. The lunch timer is set to go off soon. And so help me, I'm posting today.

Hooray spring. Blessed spring. Wonderful spring. Happy spring.

This morning we went outside, me joyfully, my children happily as well. We got the garden beds cleaned up, the sandbox raked, and the the patio swept. Again, I was joyful, now the children were not as joyful. Spring, apparently, is meant only for free time on the swingset. And they had five minutes of that during a water break. It only took us an hour or so, and I'm so thrilled we got it done.

All my windows are open. My patio door too. There is a wonderful, glorious, spring breeze blowing.

We are going to fly through the rest of school (phonics for Toa of Boy and composition for Sweetling.) Then we are going bike riding.

Yesterday we went to the park by Winton Lake.

Hooray for spring. Wonderful spring. Fabulous spring.

I can not type that enough.

The Jedi has approved the plan to cut the grocery budget to $400 a month so that we can have $50 a month for gardening. And by "we", I mean "me".

Spring is here. Daffodils are pushing up through the soil and the dry, brown leaves of autumn. The ground is cool and moist. My sedum autumn joy and my daylilies are making an appearance as well.

Spring. Spring. Spring.

Timer has just gone off. I'm leaving to go do more spring things.

Garden for my Dreaming

All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey....

I'm making an executive decision. This is my blog, and if I can't dream big on my own blog, where can I dream? There shall be no raining on my blog parade. I already know most of what I'm about to write is unrealistic. So hush already. I'm writing about it anyway.

This is what I would like. I would like to be able to step out of my patio door onto a brick patio. On the brick patio is a comfy yellow and white chaise lounge with a small white wood table beside it. Two child sized chaise lounges are across from it. They are both white and green and there is a child sized table between them.

To the left of the patio is a butterfly garden. It is full of pink and purple blooms. A little stepping stone path creeps through it and strawberry plants fill in the spaces around the round stepping stones and to their sides. The white wall of the garage behind the butterfly garden is hung with a trellis up which a trumpet vine grows and blooms. A brick walk departs from the fall left corner of the patio and passes under an arched trellis hung with wisteria.

Another stepping stone path departs the far right hand corner of the patio. It crosses a few feet of lawn and leads to the large mulched circle that holds the swingset. A narrow garden of lilies and black-eyed susans grows to the right of the patio, between the patio and the large sandbox. Above the blooms of the little flower garden, colorful wooden letters float on narrow garden stakes and spell out Sweetlings name. Nearer the house is a hopscotch path that runs the length of the large sandbox. Each square of the path is gaily painted and the spaces between the squares are filled in with colored aquarium gravel. Right against the wall of the house is a square-foot garden which is lovingly tended and yield a rotating crop of fresh vegetables.

The far side of the sandbox has another small garden. This one is in shade and is planted with black magic caladiums, Japanese toad lilies, and other unusual plants. Here, large painted letters rest against the ground, framed by the exotic leaves and spell out Toa of Boy's name. Meanwhile, the hopscotch path terminates in a corner of the yard carpeted with a green indoor/outdoor mat. The play corner contains a plastic battle mountain and a big castle. Waterproof storage containers hold dinosaurs, plastic army men, or knights and horses. Lava rocks frame off this corner.

A blue indoor out door carpet simulates a little stream and runs between Toa's shade garden and a few hosta plants growing at the edge of the yard. Beside the little stream is a little island of white gravel. A gaily painted bench rests there in the shade and two kitchy pink flamigos frame either side of the bench. A hanging pot of hot pink begonias is suspended above one of the flamingos. The little stream terminates at mulched swing set circle.

A club house wants to be part of this design. Originally, it wanted to be a cute little playhouse on the space of lawn on the far side of the swing set, but I think Sweetling and Toa are beyond that. Now I think they need a club house built at the base of the hill that has a "Keep Out" sign proudly nailed to its front door.

Oh, and the horrible hill? A wooden deck is built out over the worse of the unmanageable slope. It has a grill and a table for outdoor eating (and school). It has a flight of steps down to a small subdeck that holds a hammock.

The brick path that left my patio goes along the back of the garage. The obnoxious foot between the walk and the garage wall is planted with caladiums in a variety of colors and types. The narrow side yard holds a two bin rotating compost tumbler. The ground is covered in the chartreuse leaves of sweet potato vines. Going through the gate, which is painted in shades of teal and aqua, the sunnier strip of yard near the driveway is planted in butterfly weed and daisies. There is another narrow brick walk along the edge of the driveway (replacing the mud that is currently lurking along the driver's side of the van.)

The lamppost at the end of the driveway is painted a teal that matches the side gate with the actual lantern painted a bright reddish orange. Honeysuckle climbs the lamppost and daises, black-eyed susan's and tiger lilies sway at its base. A sundial decorates the center of the front yard and a bird bath occupies a nest of ferns and hostas growing around the base of the maple tree. Tall sunflowers cheer the front of the house and screen the air conditioning unit. Miniture pumpkins grow near the front porch and iris, daisies, and mums bloom in season. Herbs grow in large terra cotta pots and a stone angel holds a dish of bird seed in her hands.

Day 9 of I Can't Grow Grass

Last Tuesday it was beautiful. I drafted my child labor force and went out to the back yard, which had literally received no attention at all last year. We cleaned out last years dead stalks, raked up fallen leaves, collected sand box toys and threw out broken sand box toys. I dug under the corner of the butterfly garden that had gone to weeds. I transplanted the purple coneflowers and and the sedum autumn joy and some of the daylilies into the corner and around the border of the garden. The island bed that they had occupied became the new strawberry patch, and we dug up the strawberry plants and moved them there. We made a neat stepping stone path between the two. Where the strawberry patch was, we pulled out the sundial markers and turned over the soil. We scattered grass seed and laid some of the dead stalks and grasses over the seed to keep the birds away. It rained nicely on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. By yesterday, it hadn't rained in a couple of days, and I wanted the seeds to do well, so I dragged the hose out of the garage, hooked it up, soaked my feet, and gently watered the area. This is day 9. Still no signs of new grass. Now, in my defense, I have no idea how old the grass seed was, but still, I'd think *some* of it would sprout.

Why do plants hate me, when I love them so much? well, ok, I neglect them pitifully in August, but I love them in the spring time. By August I'm jaded. And yet every spring, I'm full of hope.

Monday night at dinner, I put three green beans on Sweetling's plate. She asked why I did that when I know she doesn't like green beans. I told her I was an eternal optimist. We had a brief discussion about what that phrase meant. The Jedi piped in with that I expect the best possible, regardless of whether or not it lined up at all with reality. Under his breath he muttered that it was a wonder I didn't vote as a liberal.

Why I hate gardening

Yes. You heard me right. I love gardens. I love flowers. I love designing and planning gardens. I hate the actually gardening. Why?

How do I hate thee? Let me count the ways.
I hate thee to the depth and breadth and height
The weeds do reach while seedlings hide out of sight
For the ends of Hopes and idelic dreams.
I hate thee to the level of pointless days
Most uselessly spent in hot sun and mosquito filled night.
I hate thee truly, for you look a fright.
I hate thee purely, you mire of a plight.
I hate thee with a passion poured at first
In my visions of what you could be, and with all my broken hearted faith.
I hate thee for what I tried to bless, you cursed
Through bitter betrayal, --- I hate thee for the worst
Repayment of all my love and labor! --- and, if my plans be ever shattered ,
I shall but hate thee as the Round-Up I sprayeth.

I lied

I'm not answering my questions from the last blog. Not today at any rate. Those of you who know me aren't surprised.

Another big non-surprise... All spring I've told myself, "I'm not gardening this year. I don't have time for any gardening this year. I am not going to be sucked into starting a gardening project that will fail miserably in August anyway."

I caved.

It was mother's day. The Jedi has been mowing the yard all spring. But the grass by the edge of the lamppost had mingled with the daffodils around the lamppost and was looking really gnarley. So, it was mothers day. I was only going take care of the tiny tiny area around the base of the lamp post. Its at the end of the driveway, near the street and the sidewalk, and one of the first things people see when they pull up to our house, and it looked terrible. One quick weeding project. That's it.

But it turned into, while I'm out here and I'm wearing old jeans and have my gloves on...

Theres a strip of ground on my side yard where I had smothered weeds and scraggly grass last fall and planted daffodil bulbs. But the daffodil flowers are gone now, and here's this bare piece of earth that is threatening to turn back into a weed patch. And there were packets of flower seeds in the butter door of my fridge from last year. So, I figured I should put those two things together. I had a bag of humus in the garage. I made need little rows of rich humus for my seeds and I edged each little row with white rocks that I had dug up from the path in the butterfly garden in April (remember...the strawberry patch was supposed to be relocating to the butterfly garden). I trimmed the little bed with these logs/branches that were blown down last winter but were too big to fit in the shredder. The Jedi had already stacked them and trimmed off all the side branches. So, now I have a little bed of seeds in neat, cute, little rows all tucked in. Will they grow?

And of course, while I was going through the leftover seed packets, I came across a packet of pumpkin seeds that Sweetling had picked out last spring that we had never planted. I had another bare patch of earth that has been waiting for three years for me to start a container herb garden. I sent Sweetling to the back yard with a spade and a bucket and told her to dig up some of the nice earth from the strawberry patch. She did and then made little mounds of it to plant her pumpkin seeds in.

Everything got watered yesterday and again this morning. We shall see. We shall water and wait and see.

It turned cold again before we could get the strawberries moved. Now they've already flowered and started to form berries....so its much too late to relocate them. Maybe in July after we've harvested their June berries.