Flowers

I love summer! I'm outside most of the time. I love sitting at my umbrella table on the back deck, both eating there and reading. I watch the birds from there - they seem to like the sanctuary I've created for them.

I'm posting a picture of flowers on my front porch. Monte built window boxes, but I gave up planting real plants in them years ago. The front porch gets only early morning sun for just a bit, and nothing seems to grow very well. There's also wind to contend with there too.

So I have boxes in the garage of seasonal flower changes. 

Happenings

As always, the 'Happenings' = Life around our Velveteen House.

It's summer. Dawson, 19, has some varied jobs: yard work and photography and catering (besides applying for the honors program a teacher submitted him for). But, we're paying him to work around here this summer. What does that mean? I'm just finding that out!

I came home last night to guys sitting around our little amphitheater having a campfire. They then watched a movie in Dawson's room. How they all sleep in there? ... Just let me say, it's a mess, and I don't see how they sleep - not without imprints of cracker boxes and bb-s, etc on their cheeks, etc!

They feel at home here. So I guess I need to have food stuffs at their disposal, cuz I'm not always going to cook for them. I saw that they made panini sandwiches of leftover grilled pork loins I had in the fridge for lunch, before they left today.

The other day, girls and guys were tie-dying cotton things they bought (T-shirts, socks, underwear, and sheets). Dawson knew I had this tie-dye kit from long ago around, and like his social-self so often does, "Lets have a tie-dye party!" And as they wait for things to get done? They eat. They play board games (which really IS cool). I am glad that Dawson is a do-it-yourselfer, and doesn't expect me to do it all and entertain them!

On the gardening end? Tho Monte's further tractor work will create more work, I'm finishing up the veggie garden and doing things better then ever (with Dawson's hard labor!). But we'll see if this season's weather co-operates. And I'm finishing up more beds created since we've extended the electric fence.

What's beautiful now? crabapple and cherry blossoms just ended, but WOW ... the lilacs are beautiful this year (it could be the electric fence and no elk!) ... and so fragrant. The first lilac picture is out my kitchen window and the second shows the east end of the house with that upper 'shaker'-deck off our bedroom.

My one daphne (which people say I can't grow, but it has for several years now) is blooming fragrance right now too.

Horticulturally A.D.D.!!

I was going to plant my tomatoes this morning, but it's rather cool and windy out there ... so I'm waiting some more!!! Been frustrating. I DO leave them in walls-of-water the whole growing season. I was told when we moved here I couldn't grow tomatoes, but I have for 20 years! It's a bit late, but it's been done this way before and still worked. With the water that's held in tubes surrounding the plants is heated, they take off.

I was listening to the radio's Garden Wise Guys this morning and heard a term that definitely defines me - horticulturally A.D.D.!!

But, they were saying this summer might not be a good one for tomatoes, peppers, and beans, since the days get hot and evenings and some days have been quite cool. But at my altitude I've always planted the warm loving plants with a black plastic or weed block AND keep the beds covered all summer with what's called 'floating row covers'. So we'll see.

Remember last summer I said I was reading The $64 Tomato? It's a very fun book. With food costs rising, I'm hearing more stories of people replacing their grass yards with vegetable beds and fruit bush/tree patches.

Ramblings

I'm supposed to be working on my piece in next week's church services, but first I'm writing some stuff I've thought of but not written. I'd have lots more written if there were such a device that could transfer thinking to paper or computer! Monte's finishing roto-tilling the next part of the garden I need to plant. Then all that's left is the borders. Dawson's digging a trench all around to put chicken wire. We're going to see if we can prevent the pocket gophers from burrowing in. I'm going to put week block around the edges and plant edible bushes like currants, jostaberry, cherry, serviceberry ...

We've past a few Saint Feast Days, just to mention -
27- There is another Augustine, Italian, and sent by Pope Gregory in 596 to England, and he ended up living in Canterbury, so he's Augustine of Canterbury. He was supposedly a tedious prig and did not get along with the Anglo-Saxon 'savages' - and even less so with the Celts. Gregory had told him to respect the local customs and not destroy pagan temples and give witness by their lives.

The 30th was Joan of Arc Day. Her hearing of voices from Catherine of Alexandria, Margaret of Antioch, and Michael the Archangel, led her into the Hundred Year's War in its 87th year as a teenager, and led her to her death, because she would not deny them. Though somewhat of a French victory for a doubtful French Prince, she was sold to the English, who found her guilty of heresy and burned her at the stake in 1431, as a 'witch', at nineteen. Authors Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw were madly in love with her. Many plays and movies have been done on her story.

The 30th in 1483 is the day Le Morte d'Arthur, by Sir Thomas Malory, was published. King Arthur tales have captured imaginations of every generation and spawned other literary classics and movies. Malory claims he was a hapless medieval soldier who identified himself as "a servant of Jesu, both day and night." He didn't invent the tales but collated them from documentary histories, ballads, and minstrel songs, turning them into a coherent narrative structure. When did King Arthur live? Legend has it, he died on May 30th in 542 from wounds in a battle.

31- Visitation of Mary to Elisabeth

And oh ... In reading the news, today is Celebrate the Child day in China, but most aren't celebrating. It's interesting that most recent news, other than the lakes, is why schools seemed to be the buildings that didn't hold up. I don't hear anyone holding rallies against the One Child rule. Does China still only allow one child per couple? So you have a child die in the earthquake - it's your only child!

A week ago I was going to write and say you can go to the World Vision website and donate money. Monte and me have done work with World Vision. It's more than just adopt a child for $30 a month. They have storage facilities all over the world, ready in an instant to mobilize to disasters. The NGO's (Non Government Organizations) that work around the world know each others strengths and call upon one another for help. The Red Cross and World Vision are allowed into most countries right away - World Vision with their kits for families for tents, clean water, etc. Some of the Child Adopt organizations work through churches so are not allowed into a lot of countries. World Vision was allowed into the Muslim countries following earthquakes and tsunamis. Little Christ's walk the world!

Happenings

I have been blogging in my head for a week. Does that make sense? I talk in my head - forever! Sometimes I wish it would just shut up! It's what causes me to not sleep; been a curse since I was a teen - the talk, or reliving everything, or composing stuff I'd write, and thus, the lack of sleep. I sure don't want to get into it all now, or I'll not go to sleep.

Monte is watching some scene selections from a movie we just watched while I sit reading emails, writing this, and having my nightcap. It's had him saying he's returned to his ancestral roots. It was a Scandinavian kinda Viking era, tho not the warring stuff, movie. With his geology, he's been to Norway and Norwegians have visited us several times. He's pure Swedish, I'm part, and then Dutch and English - the English that came over on the Mayflower - Governor Bradford,  to be exact. But I look at all those Northerners so interwoven that we're all really One.

All I want to say for now is that I'm heavily gardening from morning till night, thoroughly enjoying the out-of-doors. And like I said earlier, my looking-forward-to, my bare feet have been in the dirt - they are stained! I was thinking of this when showering tonight - I still will wear sandals - in spite! 

But then genetically, I don't have feet or hands that can ever by 'pretty'. My nails grow upward, never curving downward. And my fingers and toes are stubby. AND I use my hands too much (and enjoy digging my feet in the dirt) to ever hold a mani/pedicure. If my nails don't get shortened from all my varieties of labors, I slice my nails often in my cooking from scratch (so we get some calcium from my nails! That's weird, I know, and gross, and not so prevalent - but Jesus used hyperbole to make a point!)

If I keep reading Annie Dillard ... but listening to murder mysteries counter-balances that ... 

Weather report

It's almost the end of May! It's been so cold and rainy for days. I've got bare-root strawberries and daylilies in the garage. I'm wanting to harden off some plants but not in this cold! And I don't want to plant my beans and squash until the soil is warm and not so wet.

I always wrestle with what to do with the old plants. I need a place just to put the early onions and spinach and kale and whatever that comes up from last year. I don't like to get rid of them. I've been eating them. But the old strawberries?

I'm creating a new bed with weed barrier cloth for the 3 new varieties I ordered. I was thinking I could put little pots under the runners later each summer for the babies to root in and plant in a permanent spot elsewhere.

I've heard it's best to have a three year cycle of strawberry beds - meaning, not letting them live beyond three years. Do people never let the runners root in these beds? Cuz then you end up with a new generation. Could you spray paint the oldest plants and use a new color for each year and then you know which are the aged to get rid of? Hmmm ...

I need to get going. I'm meeting my mom and Jim to go out and eat and then go plan a summer family reunion since we're the only ones living here. This actually is going to be a meeting of totally unknown Kansas contingency from my mom's dad's side. Monte's not going - he's running at the nose. He keeps saying, "My nose has never run like this, and I've not had a cold for years!" which he hasn't. I guess it's good for his immune system. He got it from Dawson last week when they were in the extreme AZ heat. I don't want to get it, so I'm not sleeping with him ;^)

Happenings

Getting ready for a weekend of company. My newly married Heather, with Bill, are flying in tomorrow morning. They'll be getting a rental truck to pack their stored stuff here, and drive to their new home at Fort Hood, outside Austin Texas.

Monte and Dawson have been in the SW Arizona desert this week doing geology. Dawson's been posting pictures on his photo site. I like the one of Monte's silhouette with pick in the rising sun. Normally you'd think 'sunset', but with afternoon temps over 100 degrees, they are going out at dusk and working till just after noon, or till they can't stand it! And Dawson captured a picture of a jackrabbit jumping. They fly home Saturday.

Saturday afternoon the whole family - with Travis and Sarah, and my mom and Jim - will be here and share supper together.

Tonight is my second needlefelt class in this 4 week course. We do wool-sculpted heads tonight.

So I'm off to ready the house and get ready for tonight's class.

And since I so often give a weather report for our 8000' Colorado Mtn area: supposed to be cooler today and rain, but it's been beautiful! Got some garden seeds planted, but need Monte home to ready the rest of the garden. The greenhouse is full and I'm starting to harden off the broccoli ('cole') family plants and some flowers for planting outside next week. Apple and Nanking Cherry trees/bushes are in bloom. Lilacs are soon to bloom. Hummingbirds are humming, and pine siskins are in abundance at the thistle feeder, and I'm keeping my eyes open for the occasional goldfinch. Someone has said we shouldn't get any more snow this season. Hoping.

Happenings

We almost always sleep with the sliding glass door open. Yesterday, awakening in the early morning I whispered, "shh". Monte and me lay listening ... birds singing (I like to recognize them - name them) ... and then, a hummingbird! The hummingbirds always come around mid-May and I anxiously await them, as I do the blue birds.

Growing up in the southern Arizona desert, I never heard hummingbirds 'hum' - so why are they called 'hummingbirds'? In the Colorado Mountains they are NOISY! all summer long. The Rufous shows up early July and then things really get feisty! He, with his bright copper color in the sunlight, doesn't want to share the feeder.

So yesterday morning before leaving for MOPS I cleaned the feeder and made the syrup mixture and hung it on its hook on the back deck. It's snowing again now, but I know summer is around the corner because the hummingbirds are back!

Sat with friends Jeanie and Marty after MOPS at Starbucks for over an hour talking. Marty wanted to talk about books since she just finished reading The Shack (a good read), and we go off on many bunny trails. But as my sister-in-law Linda always says, "Bunny trails come home".

I came home to Dawson and four friends playing Twister in the parlor! What's so unusual about that you may ask? First off, kids rarely play real games together any more, AND they are college kids! School is done (can I brag? he thinks he's got another 4.0 grade average again this semester). Later, after I put groceries away and wanted to check my emails, they were on their stomachs on my 'office' floor playing cards. Then later they were playing a game at the kitchen table. After finding out they weren't staying for supper, I teased them that they were trying out every room in the house playing games! (Remember my post about our Velveteen House?)

So, after Dawson's piano recital tomorrow night, him and Monte are leaving for southern Arizona to spend a week in the 100 degree desert doing geology. In getting ready, Monte and me are going to combine errands this afternoon down in Denver, and I start another needlefelting class tonight (we're saving gas).

So I'll be Home Alone again for a week. Yuck, looking out earlier I saw some elk go by and now it's snowing hard! I want to get my garden planted. The greenhouse plants are getting big and are ready to go out! I'm ready to go out! I want to get my hands and bare feet in the dirt!

Compost and Mother's Day

I get interesting gifts for Mother's Day - but they are what I ask for! There's been many years that I ask for compost bins. We've finally learned how to get great compost, so this year Monte made me a supper-nice 3-compartment compost bin. I've asked for rototillers and other gardening stuff.

I came down Mother's Day morning to a wrapped gift for me from Dawson. He's a gift giver and a creative wrapper. Lately his gifts have been wrapped in the many pages we helped edit for his college classes. He gave me a rock water-fountain. So now I can sit here in my recliner, surrounded by my many house plants and have the soothing sound of tumbling water.

When the rest of the world is waiting to be seated at restaurants, I prefer not to join the masses. But I get taken out quite a bit, so eating out on Mother's Day isn't so special. Just like when the rest of the world is vacationing, I'd rather stay home. But then we often go on mini vacations, so there isn't that need.

So is it that we enjoy treats, like dates, on a regular basis so there isn't this huge need for needing a holiday to make things happen ... or is it that we don't like crowds ... or are we just rebellious? (I do have a rebellious streak in me.)

Actually yesterday, after church, we went with friends to eat at Pannera Bread and sat talking quite awhile before Monte and me went to the REI outdoor store to get a new GPS he needs for his geology field trip he's going on next week. But like gardening paraphernalia, I like looking at all the camping, backpacking, and outdoor activity paraphernalia too. So maybe it wasn't a thing most would do for Mother's Day, but I enjoyed what I did with Monte. 

Can you believe it? - today, late this afternoon, the weather instantly changed from sunny upper 60's to freezing wind and rain. Denver is supposed to get 3" of snow overnight, so we'll get more! I finished planting my summer flower pots, but of course they'll stay inside awhile more. I filled all the bird feeders. I trimmed the grapevine in the greenhouse (so many grapes coming this year!) and emptied all the garden and kitchen scrap buckets in the compost bin.

Gardening at T&S's

We went to Ft Collins Sunday through Monday to help Travis and Sarah get this year's garden ready. Since they have a new dog, they felt the need for garden boundaries. So after spreading the well decomposed manure over their back yard and tilling it in, Monte and Travis screwed together boards for raised beds.

Sarah and me carried on spreading the manure on front beds after aerating them and made a new narrow bed in the front patio and planted flowers and scarlet runner bean seeds with some sweet pea seeds.

We're all excited about home-grown produce! We did Mexican last night, fitting with Cinco de Mayo, with typical burritos we make and the stuffed grilled poblanos (see my recipes). Poblanos did so good in their garden last year (I'm jealous) that they were having grilled chilies several times a week and are missing that. 

It looked like it might rain today, so I scattered old wildflower seeds along with grass seed and threw manure to cover in one of the done areas Monte had made last fall next to our campfire area. Got to get our garden ready to plant now. I've got my greenhouse full of sprouting and growing seed flats, and more to do.

May Day

April showers

Bring May flowers.

A friend who used to live here always left little nursery flower starts in my mailbox for May Day. Tradition is to leave flowers at people's front door. Some years I think ahead and do that. 

I did mail some pots with herb seeds to Monte's Mom and my daughter Heather. And planting the herb seed pots for my Mom and my daughter-in-love (now you won't be surprised Sarah). 

Beautiful last day of April yesterday. Monte and Dawson went twice to have a horse ranch load both the back of the truck and trailer with well composted horse manure. Now we'll get some buffalo manure from our friend nearby who has buffalo, then we'll be ready to get our gardens ready for another year of growing.

But alas, not yet. It's been snowing since we awoke.

I'm posting some needlefelted flower pictures from some of my students.

1sts of Spring Chart

When my kids were young I always put up a Firsts of Spring chart, making a new one every year. It's become so much a part of all of us, that even now, without the chart, someone will tell me "I saw a crocus" or "I saw a bluebird... or robin ..." or "I smelled a stink bug".

I'd mark the chart with the dates - like when we see the Aspens with the catkins that come before the leaves. I always mark my calendar when I see (actually hear!) the first hummingbird. We've already mentioned amongst ourselves that we heard the flickers and their mating calls, which seems to first begin on our metal stove pipe! We saw the first grass snake when Trav's friends were here last weekend.

I tend to mark my calendar too when we see a bear (like my posts last August!) and when the hummingbirds, bluebirds and robins leave in the fall ... when we get the first frost and snow. One year we had the oddest event of a tornado touch down in the garden and totally take away all my floating row covers and some black plastic and some plants! We never did find evidence, even though I looked as we drove places.

It's made us more aware. I used to love the smell of the rain when we lived in the desert - it's very unique. Here in the mountains there's an obvious smell of Spring with the early rains and the sun angle in the sky. We see lots of rainbows, many of them double.

I see these as God Winks. Oh how many winks I bet we miss!

Spring Signs

I saw my first flowers yesterday. It's on-and-off sunny and yet snow sprinkles - it really doesn't know whether to rain or snow. Remember ... I live at 8000 feet! But I took some pictures.

I take pictures every year but I'm going to try and date them and keep a scrapbook this year. I did buy a really fun book from an Amazon seller that's given me ideas for carrying on a scrapbook in a fun way. I do have pages of garden diagrams and notes and dreams from years back all on one clipboard. I change ink color for differing years notes on the same pages. I have notes of what's dead - via underground voles or gophers, elk or dear, or digging dog! - or too, just needing some winter mulching or watering.


With an electric fence, we're excavating more (once it's done snowing and dries out more - it is mostly melted now) and eliminating most of the grass area. We're dreaming of a pond too. We do have an old pond my oldest son made years ago of concrete. We did the sump-pump thing and a series of small ponds cascading into the larger. First off, unless sealed properly, concrete absorbs the water. Secondly, elk like stepping in and messing up things let alone wrecking all the surrounding plantings. And then ... one year, Travis brought home trout he'd caught in a pond down the road. That was nice, until in one night raccoon had eaten them!

This week begins my beginning of starting seeds in my greenhouse. I posted earlier pictures about heat coils and grow lights set up and ready to go. For now I've got a few warm weather herbs I bought there and four flats of stages of wheatgrass - which we've been juicing now. Can't tell you if we feel any miracle change yet! But it's fun.

locavore

Locavore is the new 2007 Oxford American Dictionary word of the year. I'm just reading about it.

It's all about the popular trend in using locally grown ingredients. It encourages people to buy from Farmer's Markets or even grow or pick their own food. As local and fresh as possible has got to be the best tasting and most nutritious!

Some groups are spelling it 'localvores'. (For further interesting comments along this vein and another dictionary word, check out my blog called Orthorexia.)

Indoor Gardening

I had an opportunity to purchase some Aerogardens cheap, so I got three. The third one had some minor difficulties which are now solved, so my Italian herbs are just sprouting. But the Garden Salad mix and Tomatoes are off to a great start. Tomorrow I'm going to raise the lights to the next level.

For years I've dreamed of sprouting and growing plants better, and possibly keep us in salad makings through winter. We did keep a cold frame outside that gave us salad makings most of the winter - until voles found it! But it's so labor intensive with putting insulation back on every night and removing in the morning, and sometimes needing to crack the glass open so the plants don't cook! And then last winter with the 3 foot snow dumped just before Christmas that never melted ...

The key for seed and plant growth in low sun angle cool weather is heat for the soil and grow lights. Now I've set that up in the greenhouse! With all the excavating and landscaping we are doing this year, the cheapest route is to start from seed.

Every year, I do start my veggie garden seeds in the house, on the rug in the dining room, just for a bit of warmth, and then move the sprouted seeds to the cooler greenhouse attached to the south side of our house. My growing season averages about ninety days, so I need to get a head start on some things. And too, I've learned what things start best in the garden.

But there's some things I know I can start from seed but have not had a lot of luck with and think it's the soil temperature. So this year will be a year of experiment. I'm going to start my garden seedlings in the greenhouse soon, and the grow lights that I can raise as plants grow, will keep the plants from getting leggy. After the garden starts, I'll start the perennial seeds I got for landscaping and can be planting them out through fall. Then I'll experiment through winter. If the winter gardening is successful in the greenhouse, then I'll be passing on the Aerogardens to my kids.

So far, what I've got growing in the greenhouse is wheatgrass. It's about ready to start harvesting. It's supposed to be very nutritious for you. We had bought some and Monte tried just eating it. His comment was, "It tastes like grass ... not objectionable though". I tried blending it with some juice, and it doesn't 'chew up' very well. So we'll 'juice' it through an extractor like a meat-grinder. I'll give you an update on that.

Life dreaming

This morning I thought I'd journal about paint-by-number vs life as a drama ...

But I went down to eat something and make a pot of English Breakfast Tea ...

And got distracted ...

Other than going to church and eating lunch out with friends, I'm dreaming and planning my garden for this year. I got caught up in my gardening seed catalogs ...

Travis and Sarah ... we helped you get your garden set up and planted last year. Are you dreaming about your garden for this year?