My Giant Strawberry

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Joy in the ordinary

That could be the title for my blog. It's certainly what I strive for my life to be. I don't need anything flashy. Just simple things. Sighting a robin on the way to its nest, worms in its mouth.

Spotting a flash of color and then watching a bird I've never seen before enjoying my garden.

Noticing one of my newly planted tomatoes glowing in the sun.

Seeing the first open blooms on my rhododendrons.

Right now my Joys all seem to be linked to spring and my growing garden. I really cannot get enough. But I find Joy in other things as well. A freshly scrubbed bathtub. Clean, folded towels. A pot of beans cooked with herbs from my windowsill and my garden. Dancing greyhounds. Thunderstorms.

I hope to get some good garden context shots soon. I've been changing everything up. Digging and digging and moving everything around. Most of what I've moved is settling in happily.

A few things are taking a little longer to get over the shock of being moved, but I expected as much. Some things take time. Like my foot. Thanks for the sympathetic comments. I wish I could say that I injured myself in some exciting way, but alas, it was simple clumsiness (something I'm very good at). Walking from the kitchen to the dining room I caught my pinky toe on the wall separating the two rooms. I'm impatient for it to be back to normal, but I'm trying to ignore it as much as possible, though I have slowed down on the serious digging this week.

I hope your days have been sunny and filled with Joy.

Monday, May 13, 2013

in and out

Our string of good weather ended abruptly with storms and dropped temperatures. At the same time my clumsiness confined me to the sofa.

Good timing, I guess, but neither situation made me very happy. It seems that all I want to do right now is dig in the dirt. And watch these:

to make sure I don't miss anything.

Right now it's impossible to miss the azaleas out front.

Inside they make the walls glow pink!

I have plenty of flowers blooming inside, too.

Here's to a wonderful week!

Friday, May 10, 2013

companion planting

I love having dogs with me in the garden. Holden always hung out with me when I was gardening. And now the greyhounds are out there, too. Unlike Holden, these guys will bark at passing dogs and sometimes people. And they go crazy chasing after the squirrels. But other than that, they mostly lounge.

Sometimes, right where you're trying to work.

Which always makes me laugh.

Sometimes they try to help me when I'm working.

But that never lasts very long.

My other constant companions have been the robins.

This robin has a nest in the tree by our garage. All my digging has made worm searches just a little bit easier.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

being outside

We've had the most perfect weather recently. Which means that I've been working out in the garden constantly. Last summer we spent almost all of our free time hiking with the dogs and neglected the garden a bit. Weeds. Overcrowded beds. And of course, there was the racedog damage to the grass and our paths. They created a "track" in our yard. I've been doing lots of digging and weeding and dividing and moving of plants. We're extending gardens. We'll be creating new paths and a patio. We're adding a second raised bed for veggies. Things look a bit of a mess right now. But they also look wonderful.