Fruits and Veggies

The strawberry plant that returned from last year is starting to produce tiny strawberries already!

They are so cute and they taste really good.

Oh, yeah, we have corn!

The basil and oregano have not popped up yet, but the red peppers are doing great. The blackberry bush in the foreground is struggling, but I am hoping it is just the adjustment of replanting in the ground. This bush will take a couple of seasons to produce edible fruit, so I remain hopefull that it will get strong and healthy before winter and come back nicely next year.

This is zucchini, no flowers yet, but they are coming..

This is English Cucumber peeking out.

The parsley, mint and spinach might be a wee bit crowded in this corner, but everything seems to be growing and happy, so maybe they like it that way. I keep trimming the parsley and the spinach. I am told clipping the flowers increases the leaf production in spinach, although I will have no shortage of spinach to eat this year.

Those are cabbage plants on either side of the green onions.

Bill gave me the green onions to plant and they were already rooted. Now they are doing the most interesting things.

That's it for now....

Have a great day!

June 21, 2010

Today is the Summer Solstice, the first day of summer, and my first anniversary of living in this house. This is where I first drove in snow. This is my first true growing season in the yard and the garden. I am almost fifty years old and the world feels new again. It's wonderfully bizarre to me. I still wake up sometimes and marvel at the fact that I live in Reno, and even more, that I am so ridiculously happy here. Not that I don't face my dilemmas, sometimes struggling to keep the negative noise at bay, I do. But fear doesn't live here with me, and when he stops by to chat, I just tell him I am busy. I read books, breathe and find connection. I mostly just breathe, trusting that all is well. Life is good.

Happy First Anniversary to me!

Love after Love

Love after Love
by Derek Walcott

The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other's welcome

and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was yourself.
Give wine.Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you

all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,

the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.

This is one of my favorite poems of all time, and Derek Walcott is right up there in my top five favorite poets. It came up in my thoughts today and I simply had to pull the book from the top of my desk, open to the page I have had marked for many years now and share this with all of you. Look in the mirror today and remind yourself how truly worthy you are of your own love, it feels really good.

Whew!

Nothing like a game that keeps you on the edge of your seat till the very last second. Good job Lakers! Let the celebration begin!

Bluebirds

A pair of bluebirds hang out in the yard quite a bit. These birds seem to be courting attention, they fly right up to the porch and along the side fence particularly when the windows and doors are open. It is so hard to run for the camera fast enough to catch them so close. Today while I was in the front yard taking pictures of Willie and the Laker Shirt, he told me to turn around, the bluebird was right on the fence in perfect photo range. I did not even move my feet at first, I just twisted around and started clicking the shutter, when balance and discomfort forced me to actually turn around, of course, he flew off the fence into the next yard. Then Willie said, wait, he's gonna come right back up for you. And he did. Jumping right back on the fence, turning and posing, the little ham! I kept taking pictures till he flew across the street to the spot we suspect they are nesting. I ended up with 15 shots, these are the best ones:

What a treat. So far this has been a really great day!

Game 7

Today at 6pm millions of people will be watching the last game of the NBA Finals, by 9 or 10pm PST there will be jubilant celebration of success on one coast and deep reflection concerning the meaning of loss on the other. I have no emotional investment on the outcome of tonight's event. I can appreciate a good game when I watch one, marvel at the strength and talent of the players, but the eventual victor means nothing to me. I have not a competitive cell in my body. Personally, I find professional sports an unbelievable phenomenon. The amount of money spent to play games, whoa! But, I digress. Willie informed me first thing this morning that it was Laker Thursday.

Reno is not exactly Laker territory, although I did see a Laker flag on a car window last week and yesterday, I was behind a car getting off the freeway that had a home made Go Lakers sign in the back window next to a Laker hat. At work, the customers are overwhelmingly Celtics fans. I have been keeping my eyes open for any Laker stuff without actually seeking it out at a sports store. Willie loves his Lakers and it is a new experience for him to watch them play in the finals and not be in LA, where he would surely be sporting the coolest new Laker shirt.

Last night he told me his plan for a new shirt for Laker Thursday to honor and support them for Game 7. OK, I'm up for it, what ever you need. Willie had a very clear vision of what he wanted and I was taking specific instruction during the creative process. Needless to say we shared some lively discussion as we worked, lucky for us it included a lot of laughing. I had to take some photos of the result, he's so cute.

I added my own touch on the back, with close supervision from the art director. The hearts represent the key Lakers, can you guess who they stand for?

Lots of people I love dearly will be enthusiastically routing for the Lakers, and since I prefer the celebration verses the reflection, Go Lakers!

Off Days

Oh, I just love Thursday. It's the first of my three off days. There are 168 hours in a week and I only have to work 34 of them. How cool is that? I love my life!

Have a spectacular day!

Sunflowers

I just realized I probably should have written this blog before Field of Dreams because I am going to repeat myself, but too late now. I promised myself I would get this stuff up this morning, no yard work today, and the sprinklers are up and running watering three days a week, nice. Thank goodness for Bill, who has the patience of a saint and worked out all the kinks with very little assistance from me, OK, I only helped turn the water on and off on one occasion.

Most of what is pictured here is the sunflowers I moved to make room for my corn field.

I dug out the grass in circles along the fence and moved the grass chunks to a bare spot by the sidewalk to the backyard. This took a couple of hours and really gave my shoveling muscles a good work out. That grass is thick and healthy, I tell you. When I finished transplanting the flowers and grass plus giving everything some water, I took this shot. The poor traumatized sunflowers were a little droopy, but I had high hopes they would bounce right back and take hold just fine. Two weeks later I am not disappointed, as you will see in the final photo here.

I was not happy with how the flowers got lost in the grass, so out came the rocks and the design work began.

The big rock border along the fence will be an evolving project.

I laughed at these pictures this morning and how fast time passes. These sad weepy plants are back with a vengeance, the birds should have plenty of seeds to bury this year. Last year there was one huge sunflower in the garden, this year there are 10 or 12 in the yard.

Linda, as you might be gathering by now is my garden guru, and told me that sunflowers in the garden keep the birds and other bugs away from the vegetables. Who knew?

Watching life grow is just splendid for me, hoping your day is full of growth and beauty.

Field of Dreams

"Oh, what to plant in the back garden" has been a major question as I worked closer to it. Ever since planning what veggies to grow began, corn has been looming in my thoughts. Corn needs to cross pollinate so it is recommended to plant a minimum of four rows square, 12-18" apart for good corn production. Linda, who has grown corn for several years, told me she had planted corn as late as the end of June and had a good harvest late September, early October. Time was flying past. Hey, I want good corn, but would I have enough room remained the question. As the veggie plan evolved, I realized I had plenty of room to plant other vegetables in the planter beds along the side of the yard, It was settled, the back garden would become my very own field of dreams..oh, come on, how can you think of a corn field without the reference coming to mind. And such a pleasant reference at that, I love that movie.

I took this shot a couple of weeks ago. Most of what you see here is wild sunflowers that came back from last year. Apparently the birds bury seeds all over the place to insure next year's food. The birds are a whole different blog...moving on. Besides the sunflowers, there is a potato plant that came back from last year, as well as a Thompson seedless grape vine growing against the garage wall on the right. I moved the sunflowers to make space for the corn. I put 5 of them along the fence in the front yard (separate blog to come) and the rest along the fence of this space. There is one sunflower right in the middle of the potato plant that I just left alone, figuring I could not move it without the risk of damaging the potato. Hey, I want good potatoes too, hehehe. In the very bottom of the right hand corner is a strawberry plant which is actually planted in the farthest corner of the brick planter bed. This strawberry also came back from last year and it already starting to flower and show signs of fruit.

Last Saturday I was ready to turn the soil and plant the corn.

I used the 12"apart plan and managed to squeeze in 7 x4 rows. The potato plant kind of encroaches on the last corn row, but I figured what the heck, we'll see how it goes. I had exactly enough seeds for 2 in a hole, which Linda said helps to insure no gaps in your rows and if both stalks grow, it does not hurt anything, you just get more ears. Cool, right? I put a rock next to the places seeds are planted, so I can easily see where to look for new growth. Plus, the addition of river rock to the yard as artistic expression is becoming part of the process. I do have a lot of rocks in the yard to work with, plus I've started picking up a few rocks every where I go, I just can't help myself. Uh, rock collecting, no big surprise for anyone who knows me. I call them Reno Rocks and think of them as a symbolic reminder of my resonance with this place and time.

I am so excited about my corn! Stay tuned for updates.

Enjoy your beauty filled day

The Front Corner Revisited

I've spent a lot of time walking in the yard and feeling into what shape we wanted to create together, becoming one with the earth supporting my cute little house. This corner was my least favorite part of the yard. I was really at odds with that tree, and this was the last part of the front and side yards I did.

Cutting off all the really dead parts and creating some sort of shape really improved our relationship. My vision has always been to plant some sort of bowl of flowers in the center. Then we will see how the outer branches return to life. There is a chance this tree is destined to be fire wood at the end of the summer. Bill told me there was a sister tree on the opposite corner of the front yard that he removed a couple of years ago.

About a week ago I stopped at the local SaveMart to pick up milk or something and saw this hanging plant outside the front door. It was a large coconut fiber basket held in a black metal frame and the flowers were lovely...of course there was no flower name on the basket, but oh well. I was not ready to commit $25 bucks to the project and decided to wait, they had plenty of them and I still had days to work that week, we would see. The next day I made close to $400 and I had decided when I hit $300 that I would stop at SaveMart on the way home and get some flowers. Lucky for me they are open 24 hours and it's not a problem to stop after 1a. hung it on the railing over night then installed it it the morning. Of course, it fit like it was born to be there.

I could not be more pleased with the completion of my vision.

Have a great day!

Peonies a Plenty

The small green stalks in the lower right hand corner below are called Peonies. I did not know the name of this plant when I cleaned up the front yard mid April. I remembered not caring for it last year, then thinking I would see what I could do with it this year and if I didn't like it I could always take it out.

This photo was taken about 10-12 days ago when this huge flower opened practically overnight. I was telling Linda, my co-worker, about these flowers and wished I knew the name of them. She told me about her peonies and how they were ready to clip and she brought some in the next day...same flower as mine. I am so thrilled. But this thing has grown like crazy the last two months.

This is a couple of weeks ago. I walked out and it just looked so pretty I had to run back in and grab the camera.

This is my favorite close up.

I took these next two photos last weekend. The stalks are tied to the railing, and I remember how out of control it was last year. I am curious if the flowering will be over by the end of the month. Last year I moved in June 21, and perhaps I just missed all the fun of witnessing the spring evolution. I also now know it does need more room than I am willing to give it in the current location next the the stairs and in front of the water access. I will be moving it next year. I am sure it will thrive anywhere in the yard, I have new stalks of peonies growing in the back yard planter bed where I cleaned it out for vegetables. Worst case scenario it dies, I mulch it back into the soil and I plant something new. It's all good, much to my delight.

The whole side is growing well and very soon I am going to have several dozen daisies to clip.