It's Good to be Back

Boy, once someone lights a fire under my butt, everything rights itself. Today was a beautiful day. Almost 70 degrees. I couldn't believe the kids were running around in shirt sleeves and flip flops and I couldn't even get mad about it.

After they built the deck for the pool this summer, I asked them to keep the extra lumber so I could fix some of my garden beds that were falling apart. Well....that never happened. The man came upstairs one day and said, "I'll buy you more lumber." I went downstairs to find this!

It looks better when cleaned up, but the thing is amazing. He needed a work bench in the basement and got frustrated enough with a project that he just threw the boards together to make a table. He laughed and said the years of box building helped him out.

So, I don't think I am going to build any new boxes, but see what I can do with the ones I have. I have a few like this one that are just getting eaten away from the underside.

There's one on the side yard that I'm just going to let go alltogether an another that I could replace, but I think will make it one more season and then I'll fiddle with it. I'm also thinking I may or may not go get a trailer load of compost this year and instead just amend with a bag here and a bag there. When I replace the boxes on the side next year I can go crazy with the loads of compost. This year we may just try to get by.

Today I moved the second square box from the other corner yard over to the main one. We had to take the dirt out of it this winter to burry the electric lines for the pool. The box never did well over there anyway, so this may work out for the better. I decided to plant potatoes in the box to the right, so as I was digging out dirt from there, I put the dirt in the 'new' box. Then, when the potatoes start to grow, I'll put the dirt that was in the box in this one to cover up the potatoes. It's the MASH version of gardening, but hopefully it will work out well.

I'm going to try to do my cherry tomatoes in gigantic pots this year which may or may not work. I'm also going to do the same for peppers. I've never, ever had pepper success. I just don't get enough sun, so I'm hopeful that if I put them in the front yard in pots I'll have success. We'll see.

Proof that the weather has been so fine is the herb garden. The oregano has never died off and the parsley...well...anyone need some? I've got enough to spare.

The morning comes early. Sweet gardening dreams.

Are You There, Blog? It's Me.....Ribbit.

Apathy is a powerful beast.

Peer pressure is its nemisis.

Granny emailed me a while back to remind me I haven't blogged in ages and gently nudged me with an electric cattle prod. It has been awhile, hasn't it.

Not much has been going on in the gardening world after the garlic went in during the fall. New Year's came around and I went outside on the deck just to take a gander at the garden and my breath was sucked out of me. Down in the corner were two of the most beautiful heads of broccoli I had ever seen. They made for a lovely dish for the occasion. I had no idea they were out there. That, my friends, was how long it had been since I was down to the garden.

Garden apathy set in so deeply that I didn't even remember to order seeds for this year until last week and I never started my lettuce seeds indoors. I may still do that, but the girl and I attempted to direct sow some today. Those never seem to work out for me, but we'll see. The onions also went in today and the potatoes are chitting on the counter.

Our new problem for this gardening year is going to be those feral cats from last year that the neighbor is continuing to feed and not fix and they are multiplying at the rate of rabbits. We've got one male that keeps coming around, howling at all hours on our front porch and spraying the house indeterminately like the bug man.

It comes around to the back porch and yowles for the kids to come play, which they do. He doesn't hesitate to spray them as well.

They're mine, you flee bitten son of a motherless cockroach. Mine I tell you.

Of course, the children are enamoured. The girl keeps calling him 'Lucky.' They boy is intent on calling him 'Puss-y.' We will not be hypenating the name.

Anyway, said rodent masquerading as a cat and its harem has no shame and they have taken to my boxes as their own, personal litter boxes and Ican see they've been chewing the leaves of my garlic. I firmly believe they're the ones that took down the cabbage and, I thought, all of the broccoli from last fall. This is one of the reasons I am trying to direct sow the lettuce. Anything new, big, and yummy looking will be snatched up by them directly. If they grow there slowly, they may get used to them and not eat them.

Such is the nature of my delusion.

Anyway, I know it's tedious to read a long blog post with no pictures that says nothing in particular except for spew vitriol regarding rogue, unsolicited, insufferable felines, but such it is with a gardener who is lacking the finess of regular blogging etiquette.

It's Saturday. The man and boy are off at another's house and the girl is watching Tangled....again. The laundry is done and the house is clean as long as I fall prey to a Jedi Mind Trick. Therefore, I'm thinking it's time for a nip and a good book.

Until next time...and I promise it won't be months.
Yours Truly,
Ribbit.

Has it Really Been a Month?

Missing a day when you blog is easy. Then one day turns into one week and then, before you know it, one month. It's shameful. However, not much is happening on the garden front. I finally cleaned out all of the dead peppers and tomatoes. The frost got them, that's for sure. The garlic went in and I harvested another huge basket of herbs, busted out the dehydrator, dessicated them and packed them away nicely.

This weekend I pulled the horseradish. I got a lot of little roots and not much in the way of large roots, but the box was in a bad location and under surely not the best growing conditions. I cleaned up the roots with all intents on processing them, but I didn't have rice wine vinegar. The roots are now hanging out in the refrigerator until I can get to the store.

The seed catalogs are coming in and those always make me happy. I now just need to go back through my seeds to see what I still have and what I need.

My time now has been pretty much taken up by grading essays and cranking out keychains. Good thing Christmas time comes AFTER the garden has finished for the year. I'm getting some good orders in every other day or so and have been doing a lot of custom work which is nice. The business has really done far better than I ever hoped it would do. We've already exceeded last year's proceeds and we've still got 5 more months of fundraising to go before Relay for Life.

Shameless plug, but if you're looking for stocking stuffers, teacher gifts or just a gift for someone whom you just need a little something, check us out at Keychains for a Cause.
I'm hoping to get that horseradish made up tomorrow when I get home from school. I'll try to remember to take pictures along the way!

The morning comes early. Sweet winter gardening dreams.

Ahhh...The Beauty of Winder, GA

You know you live in Winder, GA when a soldier is welcomed home by red, white and blue Solo cups pushed through a chain link fence in the pattern of the American flag.

You know....when the sun hits it just right...it's rather beautiful, indeed.

This isn't the flag/fence I'm talking about, but it gives you the idea.

Welcome home, my friend.

What? It's November!?

I have no idea when the days started churning by, but I'm completely caught off guard by it being November already. I know it's frosted each night for the last week, but I still haven't gone out there and done my final clean up. I've neglected that garden far too long.

Last week I did manage to get out there and plant my garlic. I wonder if I can find some onions at the stores yet. I may just have to give that a try tomorrow.

Tonight, I decided it was bean soup night. It's not often we have bean soup, maybe only twice a year, but it's ggod when we do have it. Sometimes it's more like mortar and sometimes it's more soupy as it was tonight. I think it's the inconsistancy of it that keeps me from making it more often. I did manage to throw in a handfull of the dried tomatoes from this summer which is why I snapped this picture. You could completely tell when you bit into a canned tomato and when you got a dried one that had been reconsituted. They were still so flavorful! I can't wait to make more next summer.
Last night was senior night for our football players. I sponsored a player this year which meant I got him snacks and goodies for his games and wore his jersey to school on game days. I wish I had a snapshot of me in the uniform. It was rather insane. I suppose I could count myself lucky as some poor teachers couldn't fit in their player's jerseys, but I, on the other hand, wollowed in mine. My player is an offensive lineman and although he's not a big kid by any means, he's tall and broad. The jersey reached mid knee on me and was too long to bunch up and tie back. The joke was always that I could throw on some stockings and a belt and STILL meet dress code. ;)

Anyway, we had to walk our players onto the field last night and I had the kids with me. I did the best I could and broke out the masking tape and let them cheer him on as well.

They had fun on the sidelines cheering while we did our business. We got to stay for a little less than a quarter. The girl had a meltdown and it was best to remove her from the situation.

Tomorrow, I'm doing another 5K charity run with Keychains for a Cause. Christmas orders have been starting to come in already which is nice. I just cut the school a $400 check for Relay for Life in September and I'm ready to cut them another $350 check already. It makes me happy. Here's an order that went out today. The music ribbon was custom ordered for the woman. I like it!

The morning comes early - actually, it should come later, but the kids surely won't understand. Sweet gardening dreams.

Happy Halloween!!

Cats and Mice

This weekend, the boy and the man had their first Boy Scout campout ever. I was nervous for them. It rained Friday night and they had frost warnings both Friday and Saturday night, but when they called last night, it seemed everything was going well. The boy couldn't stop playing to talk and the man seemed like he had teamed up with some of the other dads and caught the Georgia/Florida game on the radio. GO Dawgs!

I asked the girl what she wanted to do when the boys were gone:
G: You could paint my nails.
R: Yes, I could do that.
G: Then we could vacuum.
R: I suppose we could.
G: OOH! Can we do laundry?!

That's when I decided an intervention was necessary. Instead of domesticated chores (which we completed when we got home regardlessly) we picked up her grandmother and went to the Center for Puppetry Arts in Atlanta. They have a whole Jim Henson museum with an entire Big Bird, Ernie and several other puppets. My favorite was Dr. Teeth, oh yes it was. We went to see a production of "Silly Hollow." It was cute, but I think she got rather bored in parts. They wouldn't allow pictures there at all, so all of our pictures came later when we met her grandfather for lunch at a local 50's style diner.

She loved the juke boxes at each booth.


Here's her best Popeye imitation.
No lunch is complete without trying on Grandma's earings.
We got home and found the man had sent a picture of the boy camping. It looks cold, but he also looks like he was having a great time.
Such it is. We're on our last hour or so of manlessness as the boys will be home soon. Guess I better finish that housework I ignored yesterday.

The morning comes early. Stay warm, my friends.