Gardens and Baseball and Church

Today, we put the vegetable garden in. There are radishes and spinach and kale and all manner of other good things, actually planted in the ground of a whole new plot, in a whole new yard, in a whole new state. I feel like I live here.  Sort of.

Its amazing how long it takes to really feel like you "belong" somewhere. We continue to hunt and search for a church that will be just right for us. We like to take weekend adventures and sometimes we have normal conflicts like baseball tryouts and illness which slows down that process of church shopping immensely. We've been here for six months already and we had a top pick that we thought we'd decided on but its a lot harder to get over there than we thought (its a couple of towns over) and then we also have been unsure if the vibe is exactly right for us. Picking a church, as a non-Catholic is so much tricky, factor weighing!! Sheesh. Lucky Catholics.

This week the weather is hitting the 70's, the hills are unbelievably green and we are really revving up into true baseball season. I am the team mom this year, an exciting responsibility which I am determined to work hard on and make fun and not scary. I am a little worried everyone will discover that I am a weird homeschool mom, not a Californian and also not sporty....don't tell. I plan to give a great charade as "normal."

Tomorrow I begin in earnest to clean out the garage. I must, must unearth it and pare down the number of objects we own...especially the number of pieces of furniture (here's looking at you, old bedroom set!). Smaller and simpler. Cleaner and more open. There is enough. We have enough. Time to cull. I am dreaming about what I will do with the space in there. Pinterest board brewing with ideas for artist studio/guest space. Buy your tickets to California now....our little garden guest cottage will be a hot item! Plus, we want to see YOU!

Camellia Advertising

I never really got camellias until I moved here. They are amazing. Here we are in winter (which okay, isn't exactly unpleasant) with the rainy and gray season leaning on us and the deciduous trees drop their leaves and most things stop blooming. And here come the camellias! All over town they are unfolding for months....giant teacup sized blooms that look like roses and fall luxuriantly onto sidewalks everywhere you walk. They last for at least a week in a bowl on the dining room table and are so incredible beautiful. No scent, all visual glamour. I see camellias in my future yard.

Spring Apex

I am in major garden mode. The plants are in, all but the second sowings of certain things that wither with the heat and harvest fast. On to the mulching! The budget is tight but it is mulch season and plants wait for no man. I have been covertly hauling home the dumped grass clippings of my neighbors and I discovered that the stump that the city ground in the fall, in front of our house has become a giant pile of chips that aren't doing anyone any good, spilling off the curb into the road....so I've been shoveling them up and spreading them on the flower bed I am slowly making in the front of the house out of plant divisions and a few precious annuals. Feeling frugal and mighty and only occasionally a bit mopey and pinched. I can do this! Beauty no matter what!

The weather is warming slowly and the boys are having baths every night, the bath water turning a healthy shade of beige before the plug is pulled. There is no end to the laundry but the upside is that the line is always full of beautiful buntings waving in the wind. Love pulling into the driveway and seeing all the clothes snapping on the line.

I am having a mini-hibernation time, feeling overwhelmed by the end of all the school year stuff (programs and family nights and presentations galore!) and nervously teetering on the edge of swept under when I look at the lists of things we will be doing this summer. June approacheth. Whew! I want to be inspired and I know I will be, but sometimes the enormity of it all makes me catch my breath. In true introvert fashion I am hiding to get over it. If I don't answer your call, don't respond to your email or am a strange no-show for your event, please try to understand that sometimes a girl just pulls inward and know that I will get my feet under me again very soon.

Just in case any of this has to do with the ten pounds that crept onto my body or the lax hand I have been using with myself and sugar lately, I've battened down the hatches and am trying make a green juice a day this whole week. Equilibrium is nigh. I am also going to try to make extra effort to be outside, get sunshine, be active and get enough sleep. Amazing how much more possible the world looks when we have nurtured our bodies!

Bitter Pre-Spring

The wind is bitter today. I just went and got a sweatshirt out and am downing cups of tea end to end  to keep warm. Lockbox and I are spending lots of time huddled together, building mood boards for home decor to the tinkling accompaniment of Pandora. The boys keep holing up in their bedroom listening to endless stories on cd under fuzzy blanket tents strung from the bunk bed to the radiator. Indoor weather.

I didn't plant any peas for St. Patty's Day. It wasn't the year. And by the time I thought of it it was dark and I was in my pajamas standing at the kitchen sink, staring out past the porch light at the bitter, brown garden with a snug decaf latte in my hand. Somehow there wasn't a lot of appeal. The snowdrops and the witch hazel are going to have to suffice for now. We're thumbing through the garden books, holding on for warmer temps and planting more things in little mini-greenhouses made from old produce boxes and plotting what we'll do later when spring pops by again. (Because it will!)

Instead of Spring I am thinking to spend some time thinking about painting again. Maybe it is time to attack marketing again? Am  finding it hard to be motivated about these things. I believe lots of lies: "I am not able to handle numbers and promotion and other such technicalities. This will all be very boring. It is all too much work. I will die!!!!" Lies can't win though. Time to grease up my elbow and order some business cards and scope out some local art shows to join for the spring.

Also on the agenda: Curing Pom's eczema, which gets worse by the hour. I harvested some leaves from my houseplants this morning and made some diy aloe vera gel for ointment. Am also eliminating dairy in his diet and going to feeding him some evening primrose oil, fish oil and a little powdered probiotic. Zam! Eczema doesn't know who its messin' with. Mama means business! I'm sick of this scabby, rashy, painful, itchy mess. Poor little babe has enough goin' on with six teeth in his head already at the age of 10 months.

Flower Cache

I think it is safe to say that we have survived. I drove, over a thousand miles by myself with four wild kids in a mini-van and made it back alive. The weather here at home is mild, all the mini-snowfall we had this past weekend has melted away to mud and the yard is filled with migrating juncos and robins. There is a pair of fawn colored wrens investigating the tree hydrangea outside the kitchen window for nesting. Yesterday when the boys and I settled back into our normal groove and went out for a pre-nap neighborhood promenade.

We wandered into a little forgotten section of our nieghborhood where a  scrub woods and a scruffy trail runs behind some of the houses, a favorite secret ramble of ours and we found Spring. How have I lived here two years still never seen this carpet of early spring crocus and snowdrops?????

WOW! I was open-mouthed and the boys were positively giddy. It was pretty tough to tear ourselves away and head back up the hill to our house for naps but I can guarantee that there were sweet dreams.We're gonna make it, y'all. I'm off to unpack the pea seeds in honor of St. Patty's Day approaching.

Garden Soak

Feeling a little low today so I started the day with a little meditation in my sunroom Mama-Space and then strapped a warm mug of tea to my side to keep my company while I dressed various short people and made breakfast.

But the real pick-me-up was some garden time. God, I miss being out in the garden. Right about the time February is arriving, I am starting to go crazy for a touch of something, anything that's green. The weather was incredibly warm and inviting this morning, a light, misty fog rolling down our hill and an inviting giant mud puddle by the back door waiting for the boys. I took the pruners and some stray yarn (for tying up raspberries), a trowel, some scissors, and a trowel out and I just did...ceaselessly for a little over three hours. Pom rode along on my back, sleeping peacefully through most of my work.

The smell of leaf mold, the damp earth on my knees, mud on my hands, and the sight of all those tiny green tips working their way out of the soil, promised me that this isn't forever...soon we'll be well again, soon there will be spring and soon we can cure our grumpy days with picnics.

Boy, does that sound good!

I feel a lot better.

Green Brain

I have Green-Brain. Its that time of year. There are any number of things sprouting and greening and budding in our sunroom which is very cheerful. This is a good time of year to be one of my houseplants. I'm dreaming of gardens and gardening and yet feeling so cold averse that I want to spend all my time snuggled up indoors. All of that amounts to much more attentive, loving care for the plant members of the household right about now. I am clinging to each little chartreuse leaf and unfolding blossom to tide me over until the warm comes back and until the baby is willing to me wander farther than a foot from him with my pruning shears and my trowel.

Almost every night I am carting the clanging metal compost can outside to our backyard pile and dumping more veggie trimmings and fruit cores. I feel very motivated to grow the heap, thinking about all the earthworms that I hope are churning away in the core of the pile, making me sweet fertilizer for filling up anemic raised beds, and tucking around my sad strawberry plants. Its a good time of year to be anything gardeny that wants my attention. Green leaves, and curling tendrils and produce of all kinds from my own land are what I am dreaming about at night, craving at the library, and turning my camera on whenever I look around for subjects.

Pom is not a fan of plants, unless he can eat them. He puts everything in his mouth and is scooting around backwards making himself angry at the way everything gets father and farther away every time he moves. And he is starting to make stabs at standing and stepping a little with hands to hold. The doctor tells me he is 5th percentile for weight and height but I find it hard to be too concerned, when he's so impossibly round and happy.  He's just a small, plump, happy man.

In Which I Join The Neighborhood Association

There is a tiny garden down the street from us, tucked between a couple of houses, surrounded by a metal fence and a rusted gate with curling decorations, not obviously belonging to anyone.... with a plaque in it reading "In Memorium." I have wandered by many times with the boys and wondered about it, trying to place which house it belonged to and thinking curiously about the woman whose name was inscribed there.

Just tonight, looking up our neighborhood organization (which I am always meaning to join and never getting around to) I noticed her name "Beverly Eckert" in past events from 2009. Turns out she was my neighbor, she lived in the house behind us, our backyards kiss, there is a family living there now who have big happy dogs who play catch with their balls back there. This lady who has now become a name on a plaque to me, in an overgrown garden behind a rusted gate had quite an interesting story. Her husband died in the 9/11 attacks in the towers while she talked to him on the phone. Beverly then devoted herself to community life, to activism, to tutoring children and volunteering for Habitat for Humanity and planting gardens and painting murals in my neighborhood. Small things...ways to make good in her world. And then in 2009 she was killed in a plane crash, and the neighbors with the big dogs moved in.

And that's how she became a name on a plaque in an overgrown garden down the street. 

I think I'll go join my neighborhood association now.

December Rose

The boys and I headed out to have a picnic lunch on the playground next door late this morning and this was blooming by the back door. :) Fun to have Botany play little jokes on us from time to time. No reason why we can't have the occasional rose in December. The norm is only what most often happens...not what must be.

Caulk, Baby and A Garden Boom

I have a new addiction. Caulking. This morning I was doing a little more work on the bathroom trim and I discovered a tube of white bathroom sealing caulk I'd stocked under the sink. It was all downhill from there! Love squeezing it out like glossy frosting and the tactile precision of smoothing it with my rubber gloved finger. I caulked everything in the room and am now on the prowl for more places in my life that need caulking! Caulk! Its fun!

The baby, Pom is growing wildly. He's trying busily to roll over although I expect he won't be successful for quite a while yet. He is completely intolerant of dirty diapers and will fuss until changed and then bloom in smiles. He loves to be held at my shoulder, surveying the world behind me and watching whatever brother is bobbing behind saying, "Hi Baby! Hi!" Pom also has the most incredibly blue eyes. I think he got my Papa's peepers. I've admired his eyes for as long as I can remember so I'm beyond thrilled to have this tiny sapphire eyed creature mirroring him. So fun! A has given up insisting that they're going to fade to brown every time I mention them. I think we may have three brown eyed boys and blue eyed caboose.

The garden is churning out so many vegetables that I am hard pressed to keep up: zucchini, eggplant, tomatoes, cucumbers, kale, swiss chard..etc. etc. With all the new garden space we have this year I might finally be able to let go of having a CSA in the future. We really have so much available using both that its a bit manic. I need to remember the freezer and stock things away for winter. I have been freezing herbs in ziplocs which I also remembered to do last year and love, love, loved. Small victories! All our sweet corn is in now and sitting in a bag on the counter waiting to be shucked so that ought to be my first big project.

I am feeling excited about working on the house and a bit disenchanted with the outdoors (bugs, heat..etc.) and am starting to think fondly of our autumn hikes we start taking on Sunday afternoons once it is cool enough to deter ticks. Other things on the mind: curriculum arranging for this fall (1st grade approaches!!!), plans for roasting haunches of meat in the oven on cool evenings, prepping for Christmas (I will not be blindsided!) and our newly annual Thanksgiving dinner with friends. Summer is still with us right now though as the endless tomato salads do testify. Am hoping to have a dip in the community pool before we're through and this weekend we're headed to the county fair!

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