Corn

Corn has been my passion ever since the first Field of Dreams on Arroyo.  Eating corn out of the yard is the best, and I mean the very best.  I was very excited about how much room I would have for corn and where the sunniest parts of the yard were.  Digging up all the planter beds was a lot of work and I was quite ambitious, but really only planted half the yard. The corn was the last to go in, and I did 2 good sized beds, planting one a few weeks earlier than the other.  I began to refer to them as Corn 1 and Corn 2, so for the purpose of this blog that will continue. I did not take as many pictures of early Corn 1and this was the earliest I could find..  By the time the garden was in full swing the weeding took as much time as anything....the weeds in this yard are out of control, and it would realistically probably take a few years to really get them in a manageable state front and back.  The veggie part of the yard is very well tended and will be very easy to manage in the future should we live her for another planting season.

 

Corn 1 about half way to harvest.

Corn 2 as little sprouts. This is when it gets really exciting for me.  I talk to my baby corn and can't wait to get up and see it everyday.

Corn 1 and Corn 2 together, Corn 1 at this point has corn on the stalks.

A closer shot of Corn 1

This is corn 2 at the end, everything has been picked and eaten.  Oddly enough it was a weird year for corn.  While in previous years I harvested one or two ears per stalk, this special organic corn did not perform nearly that well.  Some of the ears were large and perfect, but most were small and many were down right deformed.  But no matter the size or shape, it was all delicious.

This is the end of Corn 1 just before I chopped all the stalks down.

I will further chop and dig the remains into the soil, but this was enough for one day.

 These were the 2 best ears of the season.  I am so pleased that I took a picture of them!

Love, love, love growing corn.  It will remain a staple in my garden as long as I grow.

 

Have a spectacular day!

 

Heaven on Hillcrest

Among the many reasons, aka, excuses I have not blogged for about 2 years is that I have had camera issues, lost, stolen, broken, whatever.  Then I upgraded to a smart phone and could not figure to how to transfer the pics to my computer which prior to a year ago was on it's very last leg. For awhile I emailed them to myself till the computer became too annoying to even use. During this time, Josh was living with us, so if I really needed the computer I could use his.  Before Josh started his new life in Portland, he did a stint at the Amazon shipping warehouse in Fernley.  He stashed away enough money for his Portland Adventure and he bought me a laptop and and iPhone for Christmas last year, was I beyond thrilled, uh, yeah.  Once we began taking and downloading pictures, the digital sorting of the files became daunting. Whatever, right? I could come up with excuses for procrastinating all day long, and the plain truth is that I feel safe when I am invisible, and if things get challenging in my life, I vanish, keeping my own company and clinging to every positive thing I can, wrapping myself in gratitude, so that this too shall pass. It has been both a wonderful 2 years and a challenging two years.  We flew from 353 Arroyo under less than ideal circumstances, however, we landed in Heaven on Hillcrest, which has been such a blessing, a simply glorious space to live in, to grow in. Basically, I'm coming out...out of the shadow of shame and into the light of all that I love in this life. Here's where I reside at the moment....

 

This is the front of the house from the left side of the circular driveway. 

 

This is the left side of the backyard, behind the garage, the two trees are pear trees.  The house was once the main house for a local orchard.  It was family owned and run, growing peaches, pears, and apples. They canned their own goods and sold everything out the Dutch kitchen door. We have 3 pear and 2 apple trees. Our neighbor, also named Lori, has the peach trees and she shares. Broccoli is planted in the triangle and that's leeks over on the corner of the brick planter. I had planted them the week before and then it snowed, (fucking Reno, one of the things I won't miss when I leave here, snow in the middle of Spring), so in an attempt to save them from the frost, I covered them with glass bowls. The leeks survived, and one out of four broccoli plants lived.



As you can see I have not bothered to put these photos in any particular order.  This is the other side of the front, where you can see the creek that runs along the side of the house, actually marking the property line and belonging to this house.  In the far corner of the backyard, we have a bridge that crosses over to a triangle of property, also included in the deed. That will be a blog of it's own, lol.  I crack up that we have a creek on the property in the middle of the city.  The fence on the other side of the creek is Lori's back yard. The creek is mostly dry to be honest, but we've had a few storms that filled it up pretty good and gave us the rushing river effect, and afterward, it takes a bit for the creek to totally drain and go completely dry. This picture was probably taken last fall or very early spring based on the condition of the yard. Those are very old rose bushes along the white fence and the tree is apple.

 

 

This shot is standing in the street, the door next to the garage is a sort of mud room, and leads to the kitchen and also into the garage.  The windows left to right are: kitchen, dining room, front door and living room.  The house is old, but the owner replaced all the windows last year, and they are really nice.  I've always lived with old wooden windows that had been over-painted and leak, were quirky to open and close.  I loved all those places and all those windows, but man, it's nice to slide it open or closed with one finger.

 

 

 This shot is the middle of the backyard as I was starting to plant, probably around the end of March, beginning of April, it snowed the first or second week of April. The tented things you see in the middle of the trees are the first round of tomatoes.  They were just too fragile to survive the frost, but I tried.  The pictures from when we first moved in last August are still on my old camera.  The entire flat ground in the back yard was dead dry sand colored, except for a small patch of squash and zucchini the previous owners planted and we harvested. There was a pile of wood chips several feet high at the center of the trees, half of that space is where the tomatoes are growing. Once I started turning over the dirt, I realized the whole place was black gold soil, it just needed water and tending.  It was a great year in the garden for me. The best one yet. There will be many blogs to follow that show the garden, all the pictures are sorted into species of plant, so that's how they will come. The structure on the left in the foreground is a work shed, all the tools are in there.  Next to it is the covered patio with a huge brick oven BBQ set up, and beyond it the back side of the house. The windows you can see left to right are the bathroom and the double set is the master bedroom, (lol, it's the master bedroom because it has two walk in closets, very fancy for a house this age.) The window to the second bedroom is barely visible behind the brick oven fireplace.  Next to the master bedroom is the door to the garage, and the windows on the far right are into the garage.  It is a bright sunny garage as those windows wrap all the way around the side of the garage.

    

This is the right side of the back yard you can't see in the picture above between the patio and the back of the house.  There is a gate at the end of the house. There are several dead trees on the property and stumps of all sizes all over the place. They have all been Willified for both beauty and safety. Along the edge of the patio I planted morning glories, and on the far side, growing up the post and along a wire to the middle is a 75 year old grape vine, that I cleaned pounds of dead off before winter. It came back beautifully this year.

 

So that's the basic layout and when you see all the veggie blogs, they will be at various spots in the yard. Will I talk about my shame? We shall see.  But, most important, I am letting shame go. I recognize it for what it is, I know how it feels, and I refuse to engage any longer. No shame, no blame. I deserve better. This is Heaven on Hillcrest, where I live, laugh, love.

 

I hope you have a beauty filled day.