Garden Delight

I've worked in a garden since I was a little kid. It's definitely in my blood because my maternal grandfather ("Granddaddy") owned his own plant nursery and my mom is a gardener extraordanaire. Many a summer day was spent weeding, picking beans and chopping up turnip and collard greens to blanch and freeze for the winter. When you're a teenager, it's the last thing you want to be doing....standing at the sink rinsing icky bugs off of big, pokey leaves that you don't like to eat anyway. Doing that certainly wasn't the reason I love gardening today. I doubt that my mom had me help with the garden harvest because she hoped to instill in me a love for plants or an appreciation for the work and care it takes to feed a family. I think she wanted us to spend time together and she needed the help! (Thanks mom for convincing me that leafy greens are good for your skin, though!)

It wasn't until I was a college senior at Utah State University that I thought to grow a garden on my own. I dug out a tiny little patch in an empty lot next to the house where my basement apartment was. I don't even remember what I grew....probably the usual: beans, tomatoes, maybe corn. What I do remember was trying to figure out the City of Logan's irrigation system so that my baby plants would get water and not shrivel up in the dry Utah summer. That was truly a learning experience! The city had set up the system probably in the 19th century and had established a schedule for when water could be diverted from the main canal to your plot by turning the sluice gate (a feat in itself!) Not knowing about the schedule of odd days north/south streets, even days east/west streets, I was reprimanded one day by a somewhat prickly farmer in a classic pick-up. "Today's not your day, young lady." I wasn't sure what he meant and said "Excuse me?" "The water. It's not your day." He then explained the system and the schedule for me. You can be sure I never made the mistake again!

This is our third full summer in this house and third summer of vegetable and flower gardening. It is by far the most satisfying activity for me outside of interacting with people. Here's what's growing this year: to our regulars of radishes, carrots, spinach, tomatoes, peppers, green beans, and sugar peas, we added strawberries, kale, cucumbers, yellow squash, hot peppers, pumpkin, and 5 types of herbs (peppermint, thyme, basil, fennel, and cilantro). My smart, willing DH made the taller garden box out of cedar for our first year of veggie gardening. Last year I thought it would be a good idea to have a compost bin after reading in the Sierra Club magazine how much energy it takes to clarify water from our use of garbage disposals. He made a wonderful bin but we decided it was too big and not efficient enough. So this year we created a plan together for an additional garden box with a built-in compost bin (which you can see on the right side of the picture above) and herb plot. We got some amazing mushroom compost from the near-by nursery and paired with a number of good, solid rains, you can see how the growth exploded! Of course, squash and cucumbers were the original prototypes for the Invasion of the Body Snatchers, so there's no surprise there.

Happy Summer!

Bliss.....Pure Bliss

So yesterday DH calls me at 6:45 am. Yes, I was already up and busy, as anyone with toddlers will know and understand. He says, "I'm about 5 minutes from work, but I really want to come home. Is that ok?"

I didn't have any clients scheduled for that day and had already decided to take Brennan and Logan to the babysitter's house and have a REAL day off. I probably don't have to explain how a day off from work when you have kids really isn't a day off. Sometimes being at work is more relaxing than being at home. Sometimes? Who am I kidding?!?! Most of the time!!

Anyway, I had been really looking forward to this time alone (truly alone) for about a week and had already started to formulate a plan for the precious 6 hours that I would have to myself (run, definitely, run, then read? paint? blog? sew? sleep? clean? wait--how did that get in there?!) Usually it's extremely hard for me to shift gears in mid-expectation, but this was a very special opportunity for us -- to be together in our own house, during the day, without any kids to manage or try to talk over, or rescue from near death. Besides that, I hadn't even made my morning coffee yet so I said "Of COURSE it's OK! I'll see you when you get here."

Since his commute is about an hour one way, DH got home around 7:45. We went through the rest of the morning get-ready-for-the-babysitter routine and took the kids across the street at 8:30. Once we were back in the house, we didn't have any trouble filling the 6 hours, and we didn't even have a plan. Moral of the story: be open and flexible -- the best stuff might just be outside of the box.

Running into the Sun

Ran 5.2 miles yesterday -- the farthest I've gone since starting in March. I love my Sunday long runs. I know that for hard-core runners 5 miles is nothing, but for me it's definitely something. Yesterday's run was one of my best so far. The weather was perfect (sunny, low humidity, hardly any wind), I started early, and there were lots of parts that were east-to-west.

For some weird reason, I feel strongest and fastest when I'm running eastward, into the sun. Maybe the sun feels like a new beginning, the start of something. All I know is that I like the feeling of the new-day sun on my face and the hope it brings for all the things that can be accomplished and enjoyed.

First Try

I've been thinking about doing this for a long time. DH has suggested, encouraged, prodded, etc. for months. Up until recently I didn't think I had anything to write about. But lately the idea has become more appealing and do-able, especially when I realized it could help me keep track of things and think through things, like you would in a journal. I used to keep a hand-written journal for years, until my first husband read it WITHOUT MY PERMISSION. (We've been divorced for 10 years now.) So of course the most logical thing to do when your privacy and trust have been violated is to post your thoughts and musings on-line where anyone with an internet connection can have access to them.

Alright. Here we go.