Is It Becoming an Obsession?

"Spring has returned. The earth is like a child that knows poems." -- Rainer Maria Rilke

In my last post I wrote about the work that was done on the chicken coop, shed, and mini-woodland landscape. But the other thing I did over Memorial weekend was to buy plants and seeds for my raised beds at Nelson Nursery in Zimmerman.

I like Nelson's selection and they aren't as expensive as some of the other local nurseries. You can pay less at stores like Walmart, Home Depot, and the like, but their selection is limited and the plants are often root bound and half-dead.

So my once empty beds now look like this, with seeds and seedlings in place. Gotta love the red tomato  plant supports... Latte has already jumped the quickly-thrown-together fence, but after I chased her out of there, she hasn't jumped it again. I must have looked pretty menacing.

I have two more additional raised beds that you can see in the background. They were the only beds I had last year. The new beds are deeper and get more sun, which I hope means a bigger, better crop.

One of the old beds will be used to plant herbs. I bought the herbs Tuesday at the 101 Market in Otsego. I like the 101 Market also as it is jam packed with gardener eye candy and has the largest variety of healthy looking herbs I've run into, but it seems a bit pricey.

I would have liked to have shopped at the Minneapolis  Farmers Market or at Shady Acres Herb Farm, but knew I wouldn't have time to get to either place in June as my weekends are pretty booked up. I still plan to take a field trip to Shady Acres sometime this summer.

Since it seems like I keep repeating the same mistakes in my garden every year because I can't remember what worked well and what didn't in the previous years, I'm trying something new this year. I'm using an application called Evernote to create notes for each of my plantings.

I use Evernote for a lot of things I keep brief notes on (like story ideas) because they are easy to organize and tag and are stored on a cloud so I can access them on my phone or any computer that connects to the internet. The notes are also stored on my computer hard drive so I can access them offline also.

I'm sure my gardening notes will evolve as I discover what information is important and what isn't, but for the time being I have three templates: one for flowers, one for herbs, and one for vegetables where I'm recording things like where I bought the plant or seeds, when did I plant, when is the expected harvest, and any special plant requirements. The notes end up looking something like this:

I create the note in Evernote where there is a camera button that I can press to take photos with my iPad or my phone of a plant or seed packet. I plan to take subsequent photos for comparison or if I have any problems with mildew, bugs, etc.

I'm also adding tags to the notes, like "dry sandy soil" and "full sun", so I can sort through plants with similar soil, sun, and other requirements. I screwed up last year with my herbs -- planting them all in the same kind of soil, with the same amount of sun, and the same amount of water.

I hope to correct that error this year, which is why the herbs aren't in yet -- I'm still researching all their "preferences".  Plus, I was reading that it's too cold yet for some of the Mediterranean herbs, and I should wait until temperatures aren't dropping below 50 degrees F.

I'm using Gayla Trail's book "Easy Growing" for my herb information. She has the clearest explanations on planting and caring for herbs that I've ever run across. She also has a blog called "You Grow Girl" that I enjoy.

Hopefully, all this time consuming research and recording will result in a better harvest this year, but success still heavily depends on the weather no matter what I do. Still, my second reason for doing all this is because writing things down and categorizing information helps my brain understand and remember the information. Visual references help a lot too.

So, kind of a long, texty post, but I hope you can gleen some useful tidbit from it. Or if nothing else just shake your head and utter, "there but for the grace of God go I".

This is the Life!

I am sitting in my potting shed typing on my wireless keypad, which is synced up to my iPad, which is managing to pick up Wifi from the house. Isn't that cool?!

Did I mention that I'm sipping iced coffee and looking out at my chickens who have finally made it outside?! I am loving this.

Visualize silly, big grinning Maery. This is so cool! 

At least it is until I have to try get the chickens to walk up the somewhat scary looking ramp to go into their "big girls" coop. Not looking forward to that. But they've settled in so nicely into the outdoors that I'm sure they'll get the rest of it down to a routine in no time. This is the point where I wish I had a hen that's been around the block to show them the ropes.

There was a whole lot of work that went on this weekend that led up to this point. Yesterday, Steve did the work of burying the wire mesh into the ground to help prevent predators from digging their way into the coop. First a trench was dug and part of the wire attached to the coop went into the trench.

Then that wire had to be buried.

Next the mesh sticking up above ground was bent to lie flat to the ground.

Then that part of the mesh was buried.

While the mesh was going in, I painted what remained to be painted on the coop trim. I also moved some more plants to clear a path to the coop. I'm hoping to add some spaced out stones to mark the way. 

 Here are the plants I moved off to the side of the shed. 

As I was looking into the shed a light bulb strobed on and told me that the potting shed shelf would make an awesome bar for entertaining. 

But really, what I see is my own private little porch surrounded by a mini, magical woodlands, which is going to be such a wonderful place for me to escape, write, read, and dream. 

Blog Inspiration and Fun

These are just a few of the blog posts I read this week that inspired me with ideas or said just the thing I needed to hear in a moment gone badly.

There are two posts I read on The Drawing Board by Terri Windling that I want to mention. The first is called "Rituals of beginning" and was written back on May 11th. (I'm playing catchup as usual.) The post is on rituals to get into your creative work. Terri's ritual starts with a walk in the woods with her dog Tilly. There are certainly no keys to the kingdom that work for everyone. The most important step is simply to begin.

The second post on The Drawing Board I'd like to call attention to is called "Food Revolutionaries" and is about an annual event called Food Revolution Day, which celebrates the beginning of the growing season. Windling took photos at Chagfood, her local Community Market Garden in England. If you're a gardener and/or horse person (they use a Welsh-cob/Dartmoor-pony cross to help plough), you'll enjoy the photos and what's written about the importance of eating healthy food.

For poetry and beautiful photos, I like to read the blog called that's mrs. mediocrity to you by Kelly Jo. This week, I especially liked "soul food: a list" Okay, Kelly posted it back on May 10th, but I read it this week. I needed Kelly's beautiful poem that reminded me of so many things that make me feel happy. I'm going to see how many I can fit in today and this weekend.

For chicken and gardening information and inspiration, I like to read Deborah Jean's Dandelion House. Her post "Something Old Something New" reminded me of the morning glories my Mom used to have on a trellis on the side of her house, and I'm now wondering if there's enough sun to have those flowers vining up and decorating my shed and/or chicken coop.

I hope the weather cooperates so I can get the coop finished and get those overgrown chickens outside!

Lastly, I always enjoy the photos and verse I find on Lady Fi. I am taking the words from "Looking for rainbows" with me today: "Don’t get too caught up in looking for life’s rainbows or you might miss out on the beauty of its storms."

The Shadow Self

Everything I start to write sounds so depressing. I'm happy on weekends, but weekdays I'm exhausted, burned out, and discouraged. I don't want to drone on about that -- something I need to figure out on my own.

I'm just going to post a few photos that have been sitting around on my hard drive with nowhere to go. Though they were taken with my iPhone, which doesn't take very good photos, I think I'm pretty good at making the best of blur. And maybe I can do the same with the blur in my life. 

Pleasant Progress

Dwell as near as possible to the channel in which your life flows. -- Henry David Thoreau

What I love to do is grow and nurture -- see living things go through all those mysterious stages of development. It's where I feel most alive and close to something big and mysterious.

When people ask me why I do all this stuff that is really hard for me to keep up with while having a full time job, I don't tell them what I just said above. They already think I'm nuts, but I recently read that what makes us seem crazy to others is actually what makes us interesting and special. I like that.

The chickens are getting too big for their britches or at least for their indoor home. They need to be outside.

However... the weather turned stormy and cold and the coop isn't quite done, so the chickens will need to deal for a bit longer.  But I feel so good because the coop got moved into it's home base this weekend. 

The trim still needs some almond paint slapped on. The doors are sitting in the garage where I painted them avocado green. All of the non-assembled parts need to be put on the coop, along with the run fencing, and shingles for the roof. This perhaps sounds like a lot, but will go pretty quickly. Just getting the coop set in place was a huge accomplishment!

And that feat extraordinaire was all thanks to three men who worked their asses off getting the coop up my lovely hill to the backyard.

They also pushed many wheelbarrows full of dirt up said hill to fill my new raised beds. The beds have since been enclosed in wire fence with t-posts -- not so pleasing to the eye but a quick method of keeping the dogs out of the dirt. The next "To Do" is to buy plants and seeds and get them all in. Not too hard to guess what I'll be doing over Memorial Day weekend.

The chickens haven't been using a heat lamp for quite awhile but the bathroom lights have been on. I probably should have done it sooner but for the past week I've been shutting off the lights at night to get them used to the dark. They raise quite a ruckus when I turn off the light but settle down after a bit.

And I've started introducing them to grit and a few treats.

Oh, and a surprise for me, mushrooms starting popping out on both sides of my box when I wasn't really expected to get anymore. Sweet!

This week, my new potting shed will be delivered. I am so excited! Note that the coop will be all painted and shingled to match the shed.

Did you notice the skylights?! I can't wait to fill the window boxes with flowers and stand at my built in potting ledge filling pots with fragrant basil, rosemary, and lemon balm while gazing out at my chickens...

It's All in How You See It

Day 4 in New York

It was my last full day to sight see. Lain and I went to  the New Museum. Most of the exhibits there I didn't get. But I did love the unbelievably colorful bird sculptures there that were created by Nathalie Djurberg. There were eighty sculptures total. I didn't take any photos because I never know how museums feel about that sort of thing and there were no rules posted to guide me. I know... way too cautious.

But the real art was found when I visited my sons world, his home world. Not a place I exactly fit in. No, more of a place where a mother could worry, and yet I saw...

Line and angles

Shadow and light

Close up, blurred through a window

And far away, viewed through a crack

Color and monotone

An illusion of modern and aged

A view that you can see as ugly
Or colorful

You can see a blessing

Or a blight

It's up to you

A Walk in THE Park

Day 3 in New York

My third day in New York was supposed to be sunny. Yes, that was a big deal considering it was cloudy and rainy most of the time I was there. So Lain and I made plans to visit Central Park.

The photos I took in Central Park are similar to what I take at home. My eye is drawn to nature, especially new life.

And horses

And dogs

Bike riders too. This one was shooting video.

This one, was deeply contemplating an earth shattering decision.

She wasn't the only one deep in thought.

The pond is the home of several geese and turtles.

 Everyone seemed to enjoy hanging out at Central Park.

Of course there were many photographers, some even with models.

Oh wait. I had one of those too.

I enjoyed taking shots of the interesting buildings surrounding the park, with their curly cues and lip smacking colors.

These shots were taken as I walked back to my hotel, exhausted from all the walking we did during the day. They are of the same building, just a bit of Photoshop effect and angle play difference.

Once again, there's those amazing color combinations.

Only one more day's worth of photos from New York and those are definitely not of your typical tourist site.