casual sundays

Do not let the sunshine fool you! It did me today. It is cold and blustery. They're calling for a wintry mix, but it is now almost 7 p.m. and that hasn't started, although the air, if possible, just keeps getting colder and colder. It's crazy windy and it chills you to the bone if you go outside.

So pretty. The first of many new and exciting flowers that will be added to the gardens for 2008. I'm predicting an abundant, productive, and healthy 2008 for the people and the gardens here on our little plot.

I like the smaller print and I like the background. Is it hard to read? I don't think it is, but you know how everything changes from one monitor to the next...

What's for dinner? A delicious combo from the crockpot rounded out the day very well.

The Menu:
Pork Tenderloin, Onions, Green and Orange Peppers in a garlicky beef and tomato sauce
Sauteed Green Beans & Shallots
Mixed Green Salad

This morning I threw the pork loin into the crock pot, opened the cupboard and found a can of organic-low-sodium-99%-fat-free beef broth (I believe I might have needed two of those, and yes, I would write a cookbook if I could figure out how to keep track of ingredients while I cooked!), two cans of lower-sodium-organic tomato sauce, chopped garlic, red onion (although any onion would be just fine), green peppers and orange peppers. Turn the crock pot on low and let it simmer and smell good until dinnertime. Tomatoes, roasted or fresh juicy ones in place of tomato sauce, make this dish even better. In the winter, I use what I have in the cupboard and my family seems to gobble it up in no time no matter how I prepare it.

so, what does hope look like?

Well, it takes on many shapes and forms, and sometimes you can't see it at all, but I believe I spotted a big ole chunka hope right outside my back door...

Before I get ahead of myself, here's how it began:
I'm trudging along this morning, wondering if it will be anything but grey outside, and cold, like it has been, for like ever now, and I'm all about getting to the coffeemaker asap, then off to the basement, and to get to the basement, I must now go out the back door, down the hill, around the herb garden, around the milkweed garden, through some mud, and then as I whack the cobwebs away, I bang loudly on the door in the event there might be something lurking inside and I'm kind enough to give it time to scurry away... I've never spotted anything in the basement, BUT (see how big that but was?!), it's a 200-year-old-partially-unfinished-farmhouse basement. I just know something creepy and crawly must be making a home down there.
But I digress... so I'm all blah, blah feeling and not appreciating the day I was gifted with, when all of a sudden I was like, "OOOO OOOOOO OOOOO." Except there was no one to tell but the dog and he really doesn't care what's popping out of the ground unless it were a steak bone and steak bones popping out of the ground hardly ever happens around these parts.

It was a total attitude adjustment! I got over myself real quick and erased the shame from my head so that I could enjoy my little discovery.

My husband stopped in around lunchtime and I showed him and told him the great news, and he's all like, "You're too easy. " He tells me that a lot and thinks he's a very lucky man. And I'm just saying that he'll be a lucky man if I let him be my date tonight because right before he left at lunch, he informed me that the daffodils come up quicker there because it's right beside the dryer vent. I told him to get out. He tried to hug and kiss me but I told him that him and his little fund raiser could just go back to work now. They weren't appreciated here in Sunnyville.

I'm sorry, but I was a parade and he the rain. What else can I say? He had to go.

butterfly garden plans

Okay, so it's the beginning of January, but now is a great time to start planning some new gardens and thinking about any changes that might be needed in any established gardens. I still have a ton of cleaning up to do in most of my gardens and much clearing in the monarch butterfly garden. The weather here was so nice all the way through Fall that the plants (although leggy and not looking good any longer) didn't die until well into late November/early December. Since it isn't good to cut back flowers until they are dead, I'll have that much more work in the Spring.

If you don't get catalogs, start ordering them now. You can also browse their sites for inspiration and some pre-ordering. It won't be long before it's time to sow seeds. I'm going to be busy planning my drying garden. I need more dried flowers for my wreaths than I grow now and I end up chopping down flowers for drying that are in gardens around the house and driveway. The soil needs one more tilling in Spring, but the plot is ready to go. There will also be more room for veggies and herbs! YAY!!

Good Bye Summer

Well, I guess it's official (not according to the calendar mind you), summer is over. It was successful where the butterflies were concerned, and I've seen some I never did before, but I also did not get to plant a single thing. No veggies, herbs, perennials, annuals, bushes, trees... nothing. :( One could say that I have enough to take care of as it stands with the gardens now, BUT, there are some very massive bare spots where the moles ate whole sections of lavender, some yarrow, all the asters, and now all I do is weed them, so planting something in their place wouldn't create any extra work.

The inability to get anything planted is of very little importance when compared to all the other issues and circumstances we're trying to stay ahead of at the moment. Two weeks ago we got the best news we could have received, but it looks like that may have been premature, or quite possibly completely inaccurate and now we play a waiting game again to find out the truth. It really is true that when it rains, it pours. Not knowing how personal I want this blog to become, I'll not go into all the nasty little details and spare you the whining, however, so as not to be too cryptic... the unresolved, and what-the-hell-are-we-gonna-do issues are as follows:

• a wayward teen who is on the fence and it's getting harder for just two parents pulling him over to our side, when you have a whole world out there wanting to pull him the other way.
• a heart condition brought on last winter by some crazy virus and one setback after another ever since... all in a young man in otherwise excellent health... which is the only reason he's still surviving they tell me.
• an insurance company that has depleted all we've worked for over the last 15 years... i don't even want to go further into insurance companies at this point.
• a barn that decided it wasn't in nearly as good shape as we thought (old termite damage from way back). but only on one end, which doesn't seem so bad, except that it's pulling the rest with it.

and that's all the negative/whiny things i have to say for today. I'll be certain to find something wonderful to post about next time. I spent all day yesterday cleaning up "my room", which is where the magic happens... not that kind of magic for those dirty minds out there. ;) I'm talking my room that houses all the stuff that may or may not be used in future projects. Making collage art is very therapeutic for me, so I'm getting ready to start on some Christmas cards. A jump start on inexpensive, yet meaningful gifts while we await news this week will keep my mind occupied.

Monarch Butterfly Days

The Monarchs are emerging successfully. Each day there are new ones to release. The count so far is 18 released, at least 35-40 to go. I'm sad to say that I did lose count over the weekend and since then, when I find more, I haven't bothered to add them up. There are just too many little critters in there to count now.

Two lost chrysalis so far. One due to human error (yes, me, I'm very sad to say) and one just didn't form his chrysalis correctly. After j-hooking and shedding, the color was wrong, he/she was small and then it did continue to form as far as getting the gold spots and the shape, but still, the color and size just aren't right.

I have to research this fuzzy little bug thing that has started hanging around the milkweed. This will be the first year for them, so I have no idea what they are. Last week, they were all lined up on a couple leaves looking like little soldiers. Now they've begun to spread around and it looks like they're eating the milkweed??? although the milkweed doesn't look like it's disappearing enough to be eaten by other bugs. I should get pics of them and find out exactly what they are.

Sadly, there are just soooo many bugs hanging around all my gardens since the beginning of 2006 season when I tried to go organic. Now that I've gone organic so the butterflies can live, I have to save the caterpillars so other bugs don't kill them. I can't go barefoot anymore... too many bugs... they're EVERYWHERE. All kinds of weird things I've never seen before. There are black, empty caterpillar carcasses hanging all over the fennel and milkweed. What I don't save seems to be dying an untimely death.

AND... I have an overpopulation of praying mantis. I thought they were supposed to be extinct or something. There is just too much critter craziness going on around here. I used to love gardening and planting... now it's just one battle after another. From the veggies, to the caterpillars, the bushes and trees... ugh... must be getting to the end of summer!