I'm still here.

I'm just submerged for a little while, that's all. Or, Not Enough Thyme On My Hands! Craft show season caught me, then Christmas... hopefully I can start updating more frequently after the first of the year, if not before!

Happy Birthday to me.

Believe it or not, I love a rainy November day - and that's just what I have for my birthday today! I was poking around for fun on the web, and dropped by a biorhythm/fortunetelling site that I visit once every couple of years or so. There was a phrase describing a tarot card (the sun, reversed) that really describes my kind of day/time/feeling: "Poignance of dusk. Twilight shadows. Nostalgia. Haunting memories." Surprised?

That seems to be when & where I feel most at home. Poignance of dusk - the time when we're coming home, when the house is warm and glowing with the "twilight shadows" gathering outside. Supper on the stove. A time of comfort, winding down, preparing to just be home.

I'll probably add more to this post later, since my sweet sister is picking me up for lunch. But it remains a cool, cloudy day and I remain quietly smiling. It's a good day to be snug, a good day to celebrate, and a good day for a birthday. Even when the birthday has a "zero".

Autumn on the Way

...and here it is! The first Sweatshirt Morning of the season! I was puttering around in the kitchen, making fresh hummingbird nectar and a crockpot of bean soup, and the breeze through the open back door raised a few goosebumps on my arms. Sixty-seven degrees, with last night's downpour picking back up again.

I love cool, rainy mornings. Somehow it's a relief to have the sun covered up for a little bit, and to be just a little more grateful for that hot cup of tea. Bonus - I don't have to go anywhere today. I can just be home home home. Snug. Kettle on the stove. Fresh box of Earl Grey tea and some of Mr. Harry the Bee-Man's honey from the greenhouses, Woody crunching through her breakfast and giving me an occasional "weep!". Home.

There's a book with an idea that I just love - The Deliberate Home by Susan Miller Cavitch. The introduction starts out, "The purpose of this book is to remind people that we have enormous freedom to creatively design our lives at home...Home is a haven, a private world where we have infinite possibilities - choices we can make about how we want to live." It then goes through different things that make up Home - from "clearing the land" (metaphorically speaking) to gardening to crafting to feeding the family, promoting emotional health, raising children, welcoming others, and keeping the Sabbath. I have read chunks of the book, but not all the way through yet - I just love the idea of it. And mornings like this make me want to dive back into it, grab all the ideas, and make my own home a snug, candle-light-glowing, dust-and-clutter-free refuge filled with the sound of Celtic music and the smell of freshly baked bread. (And a totally weeded garden, going to sleep for the winter.)(And a hand-knitted afghan or two.)

Whoops. Reality Check Time!

I get this way every Fall, just when Sweatshirt Days start happening. This year, I'm finally consciously realizing a few things: firstly, all this does not happen at once! It happens fifteen minutes at a time, in between real life stuff. Secondly, it especially does not happen with me seated in front of the computer. Thirdly, having part of it happen is better than going into Fully Frozen Procrastination Mode and winding up with none of it.

So, I've got a crock of bean soup going, and will be making cornbread to go with it (that counts as freshly baked bread, I guess). I can put the Celtic music on any time I'd like - scuse me, be right back... Okay. Music is a "go". We can eat with candles on the table tonight. And the garden, while far from perfect, is better than it's been in years. Cool, so far.

The rest of it? Well, ask me six months from now.

...the afghan, however, might take a bit longer. I really ought to finish the one I'm on first - and I started it somewhere in the early 1980's, for two friends' wedding.

(Yes, Nancy and Dale, I still have "that dog I'm knitting for you". Somewhere.)
(Um, does your living room still have rust and cream colors in it anywhere?)

Not the usual 9 to 5.

Ah. Labor Day Weekend, and I'm officially off "work" until next Thursday. I'm still working, mind, just not at the greenhouses! I did do the busman's holiday thing today - I was supposed to be off, but we started a huge sale this morning, and no one had made signs with the prices. "If it's to be, it's up to me". So, I got out all my lovely rainbow of Sharpie markers and stayed up till about 1am last night, making the signs. Went in today to drop them off, and wound up helping customers and watering a greenhouse. Off the clock. Am I nuts? You tell me!

But it was a lovely morning. I like talking to people about plants. I like watering the herb greenhouse. I even like playing with markers after midnight. It wasn't too hot (yet), and I felt needed. When I was heading out the driveway for home, though, I got stuck in a reeaallly slow-moving traffic jam. HONK HONK HONK - Canada geese. Walking. Slowly. Single file. I counted twenty-two of them. And then, in one slow, gradual, graceful wave, they just lifted up over the front field and over Mrs. Margaret's house - back toward the lake, more than likely.

It's been ten years at the greenhouses, but I still see a little happening like that as a gift for the day. Wild geese. Hawks. Herons. Deer and skunks and coyote and a little groundhog now and then. Big orb weaver spiders in unexpected places, barn swallows in the rafters overhead, and the mockingbird that sings himself silly from the highest points he can find. The flock of goldfinches on the echinacea in the herb garden. Praying mantis everywhere right now. All of these creatures make the day for me, and I hope I never lose my wonder at encountering (and sometimes working right alongside) them.

Nine to five, indeed. Do I really want to be off till next Thursday?

You want some WHINE to go with that?

Whew. Wait a minute - it was just July! Where did it go??? And August????

Seems I was schlepping along, doing all my usual stuff, and then a few things started hitting the calendar - and a few more - and all of a sudden I'm in Fully Frozen Procrastination Mode! I have so much to do that I’m overwhelmed. I don't want to work on anything, I don't want to talk to anyone, I just want to disappear and be quiet. I don’t feel like I have “permission” to work on things like housework or garden, since there’s so much else hanging fire. So, I freeze and do nothing. There's probably some sort of official Syndrome for that, but I'm just going to label it FFPM and let it go.

Since onset, I've gotten a couple of major tasks done - teaching a class at Campbell's Gourmet Cottage and updating the greenhouses' e-mail list for this week's big annual sale. These things had deadlines. That helps.

But there's a whole lot left to go. Two more Campbell's classes between here and November 1st, several working weekends at the greenhouses, the annual art show at the studio where I take lessons, and - oh, yes - craft show season. Stresstresstresstresstress. Plus, there's vacation - a long weekend in Gatlinburg, PLUS a week in October at Lake Barkley. aaaaaaaaaaaaggghhh. (I know vacations are supposed to be relaxing, but it's getting there. And it's craft show season.) Plus keeping the Finch House running. Plus the house. Plus the garden.

Hm. Now that I'm whining in print, maybe it really doesn't look that bad. IF I'll get busy. IF I get on it. And that's where FFPM comes in. I think it's related to writer's block (which I encountered in serious form in college)... the more there is to jump on, the more I want to just sit and contemplate the universe. Play solitaire. Dust under the piano. Count the pages of paper in the printer cassette. You know - really useful stuff.

Which reminds me - I'm supposed to be at the grocery right now, NOT blogging. Even if I am a month behind on it. SO, how bout we label this one a "WHINE" and leave it at that! Hopefully I'll have something a little more interesting to add later...

Renovation, Phase #394.75 - COMPLETE!

Woo hoo! In the midst of all the cockatiel-egg-laying distraction, we were (not so) quietly getting carpet!

That would be "carpet" as in: "our formerly-gutted upstairs now has walls, insulation, plumbing, electricity, hardwood flooring around the stairwell, and ditto handrails, and that all of that has been scraped, sanded, primed painted, polyurethaned, and completed to the point that carpeting is possible"! And, may I point out, a whole lot of the aforementioned stuff has been single-handedly completed by none other than Tom.

Another Woo HOO from me, for my dear spouse and his incredibly tenacious work ethic. (He hasn't had much fun for a long, long time.)

But tonight it was champagne on the second floor (honest, Mom, we really don't drink that much!), while we wiggled bare toes and watched the sun set over the back yard. From way up high. And Cousin Pat popped by to bring us a carpet-warming-gift which was (guess what?) - a couple dried arrangements of, um, eggs in nests. How appropriate is that?!? Love it LOVE it!


Okay, the pictures... (some of them not quite so good.)

Gotta love guys that work with a sense of humor.

"Hey, how do you install carpet?"

Um, the fuzzy side goes UP.

(Seriously, they were just great! Would recommend them & Sam Kinnaird's to anyone.)



Didn't take any pics in progress, because I don't like to disturb contractors while they're working. Even when they're really nice (these guys were) and can speak the same language I do (these guys did).

Here's a somewhat-dark shot of the hardwood landing at the top of the steps, with new handrail and (of course) carpet! These windows look out over the back yard, and this will be a prime sitting-TV-reading area. (The dark shapes on the floor to the left are our shoes...)




Not-so-great shot of carpet
in the bedroom.







Little bit better shot
of Tom enjoying the
carpet in the bedroom.
(Had to make him go
downstairs to get
ready for bedtime.)




And there you have it. We have had a busy, busy little day here!

Woodstock Lucille - Surprise (again)!

Well. One minute the little darling was flying around the room while I was getting ready to change her cage, landing for a snuggle and a head-scritch, and not five minutes later...

I heard little hisses like a slow air leak from somewhere - I turned around to look at the bird, and she's busy laying an EGG! And now we have a hissing, foot-shifting, tail-spreading MESS of maternal defensiveness! Psycho Mommie-Bird. To her credit, though, she only mock-bites at my hand if I put it in the cage, and she will come out and sit on my shoulder (acting like her usual self). The vet says there could be another one in 48 hours, although we'll be trying to prevent it by keeping her cage covered for all but 8 hours a day. We're to leave the egg in the cage, and call the vet Thursday to report.

Meantime, Woody has a new center to her universe. (It's no longer Yours Truly, *sigh*.)

Would you look at this Mess of Mom-ness... she's actually crouching & shifting from foot to foot, tail all spread out, wings a little open, fluffed up, top-knot slicked back, and hissing.




I'm Big, Bad, and Dangerous. Don't even THINK about messing with me. (says the Ninety-Gram Wonder...)

(This pic was taken without a flash, BTW, so as to agitate her as little as possible!)

Okra!!!!!

5:12pm


So here's one of the reasons I'm loving Okra...

(veggie soup is a close second)

Valor

“Weep!” says Lucille,
the brave cockatiel,
Watching the world from her swing.
But just let her out –
there’s danger about!
And she can’t wait to hurry back in(g). ;-)

Then “weep!” sounds again
From our valorous friend;
She’s up for another encounter.
She ventures outside –
Oh, no! Run and hide!
Sometimes it’s all such a downer.

But it’s hard to stand tall
Ninety grams - that’s just small.
And the wide world is all so much bigger!
She’s “hard-wired” to fly
When danger comes by –
God's given those wings a hair trigger.

(With apologies to Woody, who really is quite brave for a cockatiel, and to anyone who chances to read this. Sometimes you just gotta get silly.........)

The Zen of Watering

10:38am
Yesterday was a "work" day (as in "work at the greenhouses rather than at home"), and I'll have to admit that I was less than enthused when I left the house in the morning. Without going into any specific detail, let's just say there has been a little (totally senseless) workplace drama going on lately that has been upsetting my tummy. Happens everywhere. Eventually blows over. 'Nuff said.

Anyway. I was actually dreading going in. By the time I got there, I was almost in an anxious fit. Why can't people just show a little respect for one another? Why do two or three people always manage to spoil things for the rest of us? Why can't they just GO AWAY?

Well. For this one day, they did. They stayed away. Didn't see a whisker of any of them. And it was another gorgeous day - cool-ish, low humidity, sunshine. Hummingbird watching as I watered the hydrangeas. Mockingbird singing himself silly on the light post. Pumpkin the orange kitty wandering through, crying and heart breaking because no one was petting her right now. A few customers, each of them relaxed and "just looking" and enjoying the day, buying enough to pay for our being there today. Topped off with a good, productive meeting with Peggy (my boss) and co-worker Lynda. New classes scheduled for the summer.

But for most of the day, it was watering. There can be a certain "zen" experience in hand-watering, whether at the nursery or at home. Within the reach of each hose there's a pattern, a path to follow so that every plant is covered with the least amount of time and effort. Over the seasons, you get to know the needs of each type of plant: this one roots out and dries out quicker, this type only needs every-other-day water. This one needs a gentler spray so you don't "car wash" the dirt out of the pot. But as you move from plant to plant, your own little zen water-world kicks in and you're a million miles away with your thoughts. At work, we learn to speak to each other from a distance as we're walking up - I've been startled out of my skin more than once by a customer suddenly speaking at my elbow!

Lovely day. Finished it out by pulling some weeds out of "my" bed in our display herb garden (if you go, it's the first one on the left, with the lavender & chamomile). Peggy had been doing some champion work with the weedeater, and it's all starting to look really spiffy again. It's a shame that the only time we have the time to get the place looking this good is when there aren't many customers around to see it! (Did that make any grammatical sense at all?)

Anyway. Presently I'm looking out the widow at another crystal-blue, not-July sky and wondering why in the world I'm still inside! I think I'll grab the camera and take some flower pictures... I've been taking an oil painting class with Laura (my dear sweet sister!) for the past year-and-a-half, and it's about time I start painting from my own photos. (Unless you take your own photograph, your painting is considered a "copy" and not an "original"!) If I wind up with anything good, maybe I'll try posting a photo here.

And then its got to be bookkeeping time. And press-release-for-new-classes time. And mailing-list-maintenance-that-you've-been-procrastinating-over time. *sigh*.

VINE PATROL!

6:25pm
I was sitting at the computer this morning, starting to work on a plan for a class that I'm going to be giving at Campbell's Gourmet Cottage in August... and after that, I was going to get into some bookkeeping and filling out Finch House's state sales tax for second quarter. Went to get a glass of water, opened the back door, sniffed the breeze, and that was it. So much for "desk day".

What an absolutely terrific day to be outside!! Sunshine, not too hot, low humidity, nice breeze! Nothing even remotely like July - time to fix a lemonade, sit on the porch, and enjoy.

Heh. Yehright. From our back porch, all looked lush and green. But I knew differently. The lushest, greenest, most lovely plant in my garden is called Bindweed. Gardeners know it - it's a vine related to morning glories, has heart-shaped leaves and pretty, trumpet-shaped white blooms. The blooms form long, milkweed-like pods that turn silvery-gray and split, releasing downy little fluffy things that we kids used to call "fairies". Each one carries a little brown seed. Each seed turns into a vine whose roots travel for yards and whose stem will reach out, grab onto, and wrap around anything it can find. Tight. It is without a doubt the nastiest, most pernicious, hardest to get rid of ... (Stop the description there. Mom might be reading this post.) Kudzu has nothing on this nasty little beast - our yard is one big bindweed topiary.

So, there is a tradition in our house that we call "Vine Patrol". Involves a large trash can, clippers, garden gloves, and more patience than I can usually summon up since bindweed needs to be carefully unwound from any plant worth keeping. If you "grip and rip", all the good stuff comes with it. I keep telling myself that if I can just do a little bit, a couple of times a week, it'll stay under control - but I don't. So it doesn't.

Six hours in the garden today. Six. Hours. Two trash cans full. And it was all over the chain link fence (ych) and into every rosebush it could find (can you say "blood donation").

But boy, does it feel great - everything looks so light and spacious now - and what a nice day to do it!

So now, it's a nice evening. Tom, who's been upstairs sanding hardwood floor before the final coat of poly, is out on the front porch - and not with lemonade. He said he'd meet me out there, and oh by the way, there's a frozen margarita waiting on the counter for me. woo hooo. Love love love that man.

(And my sweet Mother, should you be reading this: Don't worry. We really don't drink every night. Just now and then, when we've really earned it!)
;-)

More harvesting...

9:35pm
...and a great big bunch of about two dozen 'Becky' daisies! This has got to be one of the nicest plants ever. I planted three plants last year, and now they've all quadrupled in size and are covered with waist-high (or taller) daisies. I can't even see my bird bath any more! Need to move the front clump back to the fence, or something.

These and the OKRA are my New Favorite Things this year.

And dinner was a little ratatouille - sauteed some mushrooms with garlic & onion, added sliced eggplant & let it go for awhile, then added a can of diced tomatoes. Oh, and thyme/oregano/basil and a couple of splashes of red wine. Let it simmer till the eggplant was soft; put on a pot of spaghetti. Dredged a couple of flattened chicken breasts in plain breadcrumbs, sauteed those in olive oil/margarine till browned on both sides. Added a splash of chicken broth, covered, simmered for about 10 min.

Sketti on plate, ratatouille on sketti, parmesan on top, chicken beside. Cold Franziskaner beer. Simple, pretty quick, reasonably healthy. (And Tom approved!)

Happy Saturday night!

The Harvest Begins!

4:47pm

First of all, the time stamp on this site looks to be waaaay off... It says that I entered yesterday's post at 6:37am or some such - as if night-owl here would even be conscious at such an hour! (It was more like 9:45am.) So, I'm going to start each post with the real time.

Second of all, I had originally typed a huge novel of a post about veggies I'm growing, how they're doing, and what I picked today. I'm thinking twice about posting all that, because what it all really comes down to is this: I love growing things that I can harvest. Whether vegetable or herb or flower, it's so immensely satisfying to walk out the back door, pick something, and either eat it for supper, dry it to use over the winter, throw it in the bath, or enjoy looking at it in a vase.

I picked just a handful of veggies today: one really nice purple eggplant, some sweet frying peppers, jalapenos, a little bit of okra. Oh, and two cherry tomatoes, two strawberries. Not yet a feast, but enough for a little ratatouille stir-fry for supper... and maybe something on the grill.

Farmer Jules is a happy happy girl tonight! Best get cooking.

Starting out...

To anyone who comes to read, Hi hi and welcome! I've been wanting to start a blog for a long time, and when I found out that this service is free... magic word! No more excuses! It'll probably take awhile to learn all the ins & outs of doing this, so please bear with. I'm hoping that this blog will be full of sunshine, new plants, and random thoughts on getting along in the world. But, we'll see...