Monday, June 29, 2009

Sunny Beaches!

Well, no beaches here, but lots of sunshine and the grasses (which I have not been able to QUITE control) are blooming with a surfiet and copious amount of pollen. I awaken each morning ready for Zyrtac! MMMMMMM Zyrtak. Friend to Allergic Gardeners Everywhere.

Seems we have 2 new ferals since the coyotes took my wee friend Dinkum /sadness.. I miss Dinkum with his whinings at the door for MEAT, MOM, MEAT! He would devour an entire chicken quarter in minutes flat. He demanded his due attention. These 2 new ones are just your basic skittish ferals moving in to fill the vacuum left by Wee Dinkum's demise. *sigh*

I must make a new appointment for the Hobbits and Mimi to join the Clip of the Month Club. The coupon expired. *bah*

I deep watered the (soft evergreen big tree person whose name I can never remember, good thing I kept the tag!) and my two baby apple trees.. BOY were they dry! BAD Mommy. Gave everything up there a soaking to.

The Salad Bar Garden is looking lush, or wait a minute, am I the Juicy Lush, and the Garden is just growing? Lushfull thinking.

The tomatoes are looking quite nice. I have a few SunGolds already ripening, and a few Stupice, Glaciers, and Celebrities getting sizeable. I have a few eggplants ready for harvest and a yummy new recipe to try with them!

Nihki is growing like a weed, no new photos yet, since I STILL don't have a digital camera. Spoiled, I be, with this film developing thing! HA!

My Work Horse Computer --upon which my entire website resided, and my full version of Office 2003, Windows XP, Cute FTP< and Cute Map not to mention Paint Shop Pro (whose disk I have no nso worries there) finally gave up the ghost. I am attempting to have the data retrieved. I only pray it's NOT a SATA system, as those are more difficult to fetch information from. If you're out there, with a spare moment between hoeings, I would appreciate a pray or three for the successful retrieval of said files and folders. 12 years worth of work in there.

Off to shower my self in preparation for a long, warm day at work.

>^,,^<

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Happy Fairy Day!

My friend Twig the Fairy reminded me that today is Fairy Day.


Happy Fairy Day!

So how did you spend YOUR Fairy Day? I spent mine with the Garden Faes. Now I know Carol will understand this, and I hope she spent a lovely day with her friends, the garden faes. Mine helped me tend to the garlics today. With their help, I discovered an underground shrew factory. These evil minions had been attacking the roots of my wee plants. We exposed their evil plan.

I left a Gift of a dish of cream, several small baby beets, and some tender baby lettuces to grace their dining.

Here's a place to puruse Fairy Garden furnishings : The Fairy's Garden
and places where Faerie gather, and you can invite the Fae Folk into your gardens
eFairies
Fairy Divas

I puttered about, pulling weeds, and watering the Salad Bar, playing with Nihki, and taking her for a nice long walk. Drinking from the hose like a child on a hot summer's day. I found myself altogether delighted with the world I live in, and my friends the Garden Faes all nodded in unison, as they gamboled and danced amongst the flower petals.

May your Fairy Day be Blessed!

>^,,^<

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

On Becoming A Juicy Goddess!

Lately I have been feeling my age. I took a spill on the work tractor after someone left the tractor out in the rain overnight. The bucket was slick as cat spit, and I did the splits backwards and dislocated my left hip out of socket. So now, month plus later, I walk like a crippled up old woman, and look longingly at fancy walking sticks.

Leaves a serious dent in my self-esteem! So I look in my Roomie's reading library, and what should I see? "On Becoming an Older Goddess". YIPPEE!!! THAT'S what I shall do, I shall focus on my Goddess hood, and remember how to be juicy! Living Juicy! Starting right now, starting with this next breath. I turn the radio up HIGH, and I dance, (pirouetting on my one good leg) with my arms upraised... I step outside and just take a moment to glory in the breeze, in the sun, in the splendor of the day. I raise up my head, and open my throat with a good long howl to the heavens, which, of course, instigates a Howleluja Choir sing-along with the Kidz.

And do you know what? It WORKS! A lovely day. A friend stopped by and we measured out what will soon be my new house extension, The Kat Kondo, for the kitties... It will be attached to the house, and will include the third bedroom window, so that the kitties will have an inside access, where we can feed and pet them, and an outside environment where they can feel the breezes in their fur, play with butterflies, hunt bugs, eat grass, and throw it back up again. We're using some old framed in windows on the east side, to protect against the rain, it'll be roofed by either aluminum, or Lexan, (a see-through polycarbonate roofing material rated for 20+ years) depending on what I can afford... and then we are using chainlink for the rest of the walls, sunk into a concrete ditch, so that no predators can push their way in. There'll be a double-entry door, glass on the outside, and a small framed-in wire door on the inside, so that when I go inside to clean litter boxes (as this will be where all the litter boxes will go -- OUTSIDE! *yay*) and to play with the kitties, there will be no dashing between my legs out into the wilds.

I'm quite excited about this project, as it will mean I will be able to have my bedroom back. WEEEEEE! To sleep in my own bedroom with my own bathroom and no kitties dancing on my head at night! *happy dance*

A serious step towards Goddess-ness. /nod. We all achieve our Goddesshood in a different dance!

>^,,^<

Monday, June 15, 2009

On Yer Knees, Grrrrl!

Wrong clothes, it was cloudy, but of course now that I am OUT in the garden, and on my knees in the Prayerful Position with sweat running down my neck into my t-shirt, the sun comes out and I am DRENCHED, can hardly see for the sweat in my eyes.. Pulling weeds, skittering about on my hands and knees in the soil... The knees of my sweats are dark rich chocolate with the soil of my garden.

Think I waited a tad too long for the lettuces... They look a bit beaten, but they are not bolted... SO! Maybe I shall have some lovely salad greens available to me for dinner... I planted another set of Walla Wallas, because oh my goodness, one can never have too many sweet onions! And I planted 6 more broccoli starts, since the slugs hit the ones I planted by seed.. ALTHOUGH! Once on my knees, I realized that I have more broccolis than I figured.. I should have some lovely steamed broccoli florets this summer...Yesh ....

The slugs did, however, take out the majority of my organic spinach, may the Goddess take their slimey souls before I can salt them. The ones who lived look like they bolted before they even had leaves. /sadness. *sigh*

I think I may have pulled up some of my parsnips, not knowing the plants look like carrots. So, why aren't there pictures of what the plants look like? I know what the ROOT looks like, but goodness me! And dagnabbit, but marigolds look just like weeds until you pull them up, and smell them. *bah* And the SMELL is what I wanted them for!

Nary a single Diva cucumber came up, so now I know that Diva cuc seeds are not viable past 4 years even if well-kept in the fridge with dessicant and ziplok baggies. Only TWO of my organic cuc seeds came up, and I am nursing those two wee plantlets, but the organic Muncher cuc starts I bought are doing very well.

I planted 2 starts of Early Butternut squash, and skipped all the rest of the squash, hoping to get some nice sweet butternuts for winter soups.

That derned puppy Nihki moved my garden stakes, or else I was sleep walking, because there's SOMETHING in there that doesn't look like a weed, but sure as heck doesn't look like anything I'M familiar with.. I'll let it grow, and see what happens. The Mystery Plant.

and I realized as I was pulling weeds that there is a BUNCH of volunteer tomato plants in this garden from downed fruits from last year. I wonder what kind?

wash off the sweat, git off yer kneees, Grrrrl! Off to place the 54" tomato cages about the perimeter sectors of tomatoes. I still have 6 more Bonnie Best tomatoes to find homes for... My friend Doc Lloyd passed away before I could plant the tomatoes I grew for him. I don't think I'll ever taste a Bonnie Best without thinking of him. What a delight my friend Doc was.

Gardening is when I am closest to the Angels.

>^,,^<

Poems for a Cloudy Day

I just found this Alberta poetry website. and ran across this poem. I loved Hunter S. Thompson. I met him once, and gave him a sketch I did of him. He touched in a very deep manner, and although to my regret I can't say I knew him, I FELT him move in my own writings. There were many like me, Hunter was a very charismatic person. I wonder if he liked the drawing I did of him? I wonder what he did with it? I wonder if he was touched by my Gift.

So when I found this poem, I laughed, and felt a little melancholy a little restless, as I always do when I remember my life on the Bus. (Cuz you are either On the Bus, or you are Off the Bus)

Sunset w/ Hunter & his Hell’s Angels

Sitting in a worn out
Fold out camp seat
Reading H.S.T.’s Hell’s Angels
Sipping on brandy-orange
Last of the day’s sun withering on my face
& on my cucumbers
They have spots & many of the leafs have wilted
Perhaps diseased & dying
I chew on this a while,
Drink to the bounty they’ve given me
Nod my head back into the book
Where I find this phrase
“I knew all the outlaws
Lived in cities,
Where the price of a six-pack ranges
From $0.79 to $1.25”
I’m comfortable w/ the carriage of time
Say as seen whipping by
On a diseased & dying vine
But 79 cents for a six-pack
Back in California, 1965
Conjures up all kinds of romantic thinking in me
& I rehash some old folk wisdom
Can while you can
& pickle in the prime of the vine

~ Piotr Pawlowski

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Storms of Living

I am out there with my hose watering and weeding my vegetable gardens. My new garden has been layered upon the old indigenous thistles and blackberries, rehabilitated by tilling, by soil amendments, by love and care... but the thistles, they are tenacious, and will not give up so easily, nay! So I am pulling this new crop out before they have a chance to establish their prickly selves.

The sky is growing leaden, heavy as quicksilver, leaves skittering before the breezes. I have finished watering everything in front, moved some pots around, pulled weeds, given hair cuts... And am aiming for the back portion to water in my wee baby trees and shrubs, and put in the 54" tomato cages in the garden.

It's muggy, and of a sudden I smell that ozone smell, and the sky begins grumbling, and lightening begins to strike around hither and yon... FLASH! BOOM! and the skies open up and pour upon my head like a bucket. Even my muckboots got water in 'em. I was soaked within minutes, well before I was able to exit the garden and attach the gate, well before I could grab my tools, well before I had a chance to register that MAN! This was a SOAKER!

Scampering inside, I realized that I should probably bring Nihki in too... There are sheets of silver pouring from the sky, my rain gutters above the front porch are completely overwhelmed by now, and it's a cascade, a waterfall. Nihki is a very wet puppy! I bring her inside, towel her off (to her delight, she thinks that is FUN!) and we settle in to watch a movie.. Well, I settle in to watch a movie, "Song Catcher" Nihki settles in to give a good chew to the pork neck bone I've brought her.

Stormy weather. Hey, the watering's done...

>^,,^<