Simple Joys...

I’ve decided that the only way to break out of the depths of depression is to take back the simple joys of my life. There seem to have been so many things that have ganged up on me in my head that I’ve just been overwhelmed and unable to fight my way out of the shadows.

In looking through my photos trying to inspire some form of emotion I ran across the following photos…









I took this photo when my girls and I were out one beautiful fall day. I don't remember what I was doing, probably putting away garden tools for the winter, but the girls were hunting grasshoppers.














"Aha! I've got one!" says my Chloe... Whereupon she promptly starts trying to rub it out... with her body.












"Got'cha now you ornery little jumping, flying thing!"















"See mom! Right there! I'm a GREAT hunter!"













"You were right, SueSue. This is a great hunting place. Now let's do our break dance to thank the happy grasshopper hunting God..."









"We've got to teach these moves to mom. When she is blue it will make her feel so much better!"















Okay, mom, get down in the grass on your back and WIGGLE!!!"




Meanwhile... in another area of the ponderosa...













Life goes on...













Keep it simple, stupid!

Everywhere…

You’ve seen a lot of here through my posts of the past and I’ve shown you quite a bit of there through the last few posts. I’m having trouble finding the rest of the photos I wanted to wind up there with so now we are going to everywhere so you can see the blank slate that I am starting with… This is a rental home so I won’t be able to be as comfortable in doing any radical creativity but I can certainly make the place feel more like a home.

Here we go…

The house is on a corner and has this fourteen foot wall in the front yard. I’m already planning on what I’m going to do out here.

There are a few neglected and older shrubs along the about 3 foot wide bed that goes along the walk heading up to the front door.

then the walk is right along the house to the nook where you find the front door. This is looking north to the stockade fence. The shrub on the right is a rose of sharon that was there when we rented. Our rose of sharon that I’ll be bringing is younger and shorter and I will plant it closer to the brick pillar.

This is a crepe myrtle and there is one planted on either side of the drive way and you know that something else is going to be planted in there so it doesn’t look so plain.

This is looking up the side yard from another gate in the stockade fencing. I love the fence, SueSue doesn’t. She can’t see what’s going on in her world except for the occasional squirrel that drops into the yard, the she is on a mission to get that critter. Being the ornery and lazy woman that I am, I’m going to start feeding the birds AND the squirrels. After I need some entertainment to lighten my day occasionally, too. And if she catches one and kills it, I know how to skin them and fry them. I’m not too worried about that happening, because while Suess is fast she is not quite bright. She runs straight at them and you know squirrels can twist and turn on a dime…

This is the back yard. It is pretty large which the girls love, except with the stockade fence they can’t keep track of what all might be going on in their corner of the world.

This is the side of the house that the front is on, just the other side of the fence.

As I do my planting thing, I will take pictures along but I must tell you that Carol’s sister has her ideas about how we should plant the place. She, besides being rapid cycling bi-polar, has got to be ocd as much as she likes and needs order in her life.

She likes things in a row, I like things the flow. When I got to the house I took my babies out and looked around. When I saw a number of plants all along the back fence all in a row and almost exact distance apart. I just got my shovel out of the truck and started working on them… even as boring as she like it. Carol and I have lived together for so long that she know that there is method to my madness and whatever I do usually comes out somewhat unusual. And usually she loves what I do even if I do things somewhat with odd combinations that I enjoy trying odd colors and/or textures. So I know that while I will keep as many plants alive as I can, this will be essentially a plain, basic garden because the riots of color and shapes of a garden that Carol and I both enjoy is like raucous noise to her sister.

So as I get things planted and growing I’ll keep you posted but for right now, besides my life being bland, I’m so exhausted from the moving that I probably won’t be a very interesting blogger. And if I don’t live through this move I just want to say thanks to all of you who have become my friends through this wonderful blogging medium.

A Farmer I’m Not…

I have been experimenting with garden stuff that likes the red dirt.  I’m finding out that potatoes like our dirt, squash seem to love it, bush beans, not so much, pole beans, yep, and black eyed peas love it.  Okra does good and tomatoes, well, the jury is still out on them.

Cucumbers, I know if we find the right breed they’ll grow and I need to plant another batch of radishes because the first ones are all gone and they were good.  I should have planted them two weeks ago, but see the title of this post. At least I’m learning a thing or two…

I tried cabbage and broccoli.  Here’s those results:

Gorgeous head  

not so much so. almost broccoli but not quite.

I thought at first I was feeding the rabbits with my broccoli, but then saw Colorado potato bugs on my potatoes and realized they were getting my cabbage and broccoli and the squash besides the potatoes.

Then came the squash bugs.  So now I’ll have to say I’m not an organic farmer or even an organic gardener because I went to the farm store and got the baddest chemicals I could to combat them.  I became the g.i. Jane of gardening.  I will fight for my few morsels of food.  I figure I can wash my food pretty good and I don’t like sharing with bugs. 

The rabbits… well, they provide exercise for the girls.  They have fun chasing them and the rabbits think it’s fun, too, since they know the girls can’t catch them.  They will tease them and then take off, schnauzers hot on the trail and low to the ground.  Then when they get too far ahead the rabbits will stop… hop a hop or two back towards the girls to make sure they don’t lose interest and, once again the chase is on.

It takes so little to entertain this Gardner that is not a farmer but working on being a gardener and a better Gardner.