The Fruits of My Labor Are All Flowers

Almost a month ago, I started planting my flowers. The front garden will look a lot better when the phlox and bee balm start blooming. It will take a while for the ornamental peppers to start putting out their colors, but it will be worth it come autumn. The marigolds add a lot of color. Unfortunately, the azalea was damaged by last winter’s never-ending snow. Half of it was broken and dead once the snow melted. However, what was left was pretty spectacular when it bloomed. Next spring, after it blooms, I will dig it up and turn it so the broken side is in the back. That should make it look prettier.

One part of the back gardens is coming along nicely. Along the fence I have bee balm; in front of that is white phlox; and in front of that is blue delphinium. Part of my patriotic garden. Then around the outside I have alternating upright fuchsia and tuberous begonia. That gives me the red and white, with the blue delphinium in the back…double patriotic.

The other side of the back garden is very interesting but not quite pretty right now.

The bleeding heart I transplanted from the front is not happy where it is. I think the soil is too wet and dense. I’ll see what they do next spring. Perhaps I will need to transplant them again.

I have added a couple of phlox (two different shades of pink). The sedum is going crazy and will have to be divided next year.

Now for all that weedy looking stuff that’s growing. I think it is safflower from the winter bird feeder. When I would clean out the bottom of the feeder and cast off what was mostly seed hulls…that is where I would throw them. Must have been a lot of willing seeds, too. I’m letting the “weeds” grow just to see if they are really safflower.

The hot pink watering can planter is just plain cute! However the flowers in that pot need to be transplanted to the ground. The pot is too small and the flowers need room. I hope to do that tomorrow morning. Then I will find something else to put in that planter!

Keeping one step ahead of the landscapers is an adventure! When I see their trucks coming on-site (which is usually before 8 a.m.) I dash to get dressed and get out there with my stakes and yellow caution tape. I stake off my gardens and, lately, my neighbors back garden too, so the workers don’t dare get anywhere near our plants. Last year they left a tall weed I was letting grow just for the fun of it, and they took out three ornamental pepper plants. They are not paid to think. How do you say in Spanish: Stay away from the crazy lady’s gardens!

Up on the deck I have the large pot in the corner with a spiky grass, New Guinea Impatiens and mini- licorice. The railing boxes have beautiful white and purple petunias and vinca vine. I decided not to grow tomatoes this year. I plan to raid my son Paul’s garden instead.

Enjoy the pictures. I love sharing my gardens with you. 

The front garden

Planter on the deck

The deck boxes

Garden on the left

Cute hot pink watering can planter

Garden on the left...I think this is where I'll put the plants from the watering can

No Coyotes; Eating Like a Bird; Summer Exercise; Computers

Where did all the coyotes go?

A couple winters ago, I was awaken one night by the sound of a pack of coyotes chasing something…probably a deer. There hasn’t been much in the way of wild life around here until this spring.

We now have a family of rabbits, and the other day I saw a young deer down by the river.

Is it safe to assume something happened to the coyotes?

If you’re eating like a bird you need to go on a diet!

This is a story told in dollars and pounds of birdseed. This winter I bought more birdseed than, probably, the two previous winters combined to the tune of almost $500. Here’s the tally:

120 lbs sunflower hearts

64 lbs safflower seed

198 lbs mixed econo-seed (for the ground feeders)

80 lbs thistle

20 trays of suet

Can’t wait for next winter. Maybe I should start saving up…or take out a loan. Watching the birds gives me a lot of pleasure, so I don’t mind the expense.

Staying out of the gym.

During the growing season, I spend my time out in my little gardens. In the morning I work in the back gardens before the sun comes around. There’s always weeding and I like to keep the ground loose with my garden weasel. And, of course, watering.

Speaking of watering…last summer I went through 5 of those green expanding garden hoses. Every one of them sprung a leak either at the nozzle end or in the hose itself. I was really tired of taking showers in full view of the neighbors. I only bought one hose…I kept bringing them back in exchange for a new one.

So this year, on the suggestion of my neighbor, Mike, I took the last green, leaky hose back to the store and exchanged it for a new, improved, black hose with brass fittings. Guaranteed!

Well, I’m done. No more expanding hoses for me. This one gave me a super shower. It blew like old faithful. I still have one down in the utility room that I use in the back gardens. You can bet I’ll be examining that sucker very closely. If it blows in the finished basement it will be a disaster.

Wish me luck!

OK. So gardening is one way to exercise. I also go bike riding and hiking on wooded trails. That’s it. Nowhere near as exciting as blown garden hoses.

Computers

The computer upon which I type these stories (plus emails and web browsing) was purchased in 2005. It has been upgraded a couple of times. Also has a new battery (that wasn’t cheap!). I love my MacBook, but it’s getting old.

I am at the point where I would need to upgrade my OS in order to upgrade my browser (Safari) in order to look at the latest upgrade of Google Maps. I can’t see some things on YouTube, and other sites tell me I need to upgrade my browser if I want to look at them. Grrrrrr!

There is a new MacBook in my future. It has to have a disc drive slot and I need a new version of Microsoft Office. The MacBook comes with Apple software, but I want Microsoft in addition. Depending on the price, maybe I’ll add a new printer. I would like to have my computer and iPad talk to the printer wirelessly. I want the whole enchilada! I’m putting it out to the Universe and going for it.

Don’t wish me luck…wish me a new computer. 

Letting Go

Last month I wrote about change bringing on chaos. And, here I am, making another change with its own form of chaos. This time I needed to let go of stuff. I like stuff. It gives me comfort to look at it…to know I have it…and have had it for ever so long.

In the 1980s, my kids and I were living in an old farmhouse when I started getting the “message” that I was going to be traveling light. It was this feeling, over and over again, that I had to get rid of a lot of my stuff, because I would be traveling light. At that point I didn’t know if it was Light (Illumination) or light (unburdened).

I had a tag sale. Put lots of stuff out on the lawn and traumatized my kids. They thought I was terminally ill, and was not telling them. I mean, I never got rid of stuff, so if that’s what I was doing, I must have been sick. Once I reassured them I was fine, but following a feeling I had, we all had a good laugh. This just illustrates the fact that I don’t get rid of stuff easily or readily.

The laughing stopped when I got the notice that my lease would not be renewed. The owner figured he could get my amount of rent (for the whole house) per room if he made it into a rooming house. Of the four kids only one was still living at home.

Twenty some odd years later, when I was getting ready to move from a house into a condo, I was having anxiety attacks (really) over what to keep and what to get rid of…in just one storage closet. My oldest daughter had to help me sort things out. She had no attachment to any of the stuff and was able to help me decide: keep, donate, toss.

And, now we come to yesterday. I do know what came over me. I’ve been doing a lot of internal work on anger I didn’t realize I was holding on to, so I’ve been getting rid of a lot of emotional issues. I guess the next step was to rid myself of material stuff.

When the inner starts feeling cluttered, look to the outer.

I went through my bedroom closets, where I had already stacked a lot of things destined to be donated…like they had been stacked there for a couple years. One shelf of one closet was piled high with bedding items I no longer needed/wanted. Then I went through the bureau drawers in the spare room. There were tons of old sheets and pillow cases. I filled one plastic bag with clothing and another with bedding. There was also a comforter set (stuffed back into its original plastic carrying bag) I had bought and decided I didn’t like after one season.

Just look at my closets now! And the bureau drawers!

While I was in the midst of doing this, my hips started to ache, especially my right hip, which really hurt. I figured out what was going on, so I talked to my right hip. I explained that the clothes no longer fit or were out of style, and the bedding was no longer needed and that all this stuff would go to people who really needed it. The hips stopped aching.

This morning I took everything to a charity in town that hires developmentally handicapped people (not that I could tell). They helped me unload my car and gave me a receipt.

I feel so much Lighter and lighter.

Change Brings On Chaos

Any change will create chaos...the degree of chaos is commensurate with the degree of change. Think about what happens when you change your name, phone number, address or, good grief, you change your lifestyle! Its one thing if this change is self-activated. But...what if it's someone else's idea?

This past December I started going to a Naturopath because I needed professional help with probiotics...what to take and how much. Of course, it hasn't stopped there, and that's OK. I want the best healthcare I can get. My regular doctor isn't into "natural" so much, but he understands I try to be. So, the  Naturopath takes over where my MD leaves off.

First, I was having a problem with UTIs ever since I was hospitalized for c. diff back in October. Dr. Marie had me go off sugar to see if that was contributing to my problem. No sugar made no difference thank goodness. Back to my sweet snacks.

Second, I've had this post nasal drip since my sinus infection back in October. Dr. Marie thought it might be an allergic reaction to a mold that is on peanuts and in peanut butter. I went off peanut butter for a whole month. PEANUT BUTTER IS A MAJOR FOOD IN MY LIFE! Change. Chaos. It wasn't the peanut butter. I still have PND. Phew! That was a close one.

Now...here's the big one...go gluten free to see if it's gluten that is messing up my thyroid. This is the first time I've had my entire thyroid function checked and some of its function is low. I was diagnosed with low thyroid back in 1996. Go online and read what it says about gluten affecting thyroid function.

I don't eat much bread, but I do love my cakes and brownies and cookies and pasta. Doing without these has created CHAOS in my life!!!

I won't have to go without...I'll just have to substitute. That's the problem. That's the chaos!

Gluten free sweets and snacks aren't all that bad. Bread is so so. But it's the pasta that creates the most chaos in my life...or at least it has the greatest potential. It has been my limited previous experience thus far that leftover pasta tastes pretty bad.

Warm weather is coming (honest...it is). It is my culinary habit to alternate potato salad and pasta salad all during the warm weather months. Do you see where this is going?

I recently went GF pasta shopping with my friend Elizabeth. She has no problem with GF. Elizabeth assured me that the chances are good that the pasta I bought will still be good on day two and three. I have yet to cook up the GF spaghetti or elbow macaroni. When I do, it had better taste good the next day and beyond.

Oh, and the most chaotic part...this will go on until I have my thyroid checked again IN AUGUST! And I so hope this goes the way of the sugar and peanut butter.

This a sampling of what gluten free foods I have in my pantry now.
 I also have Udi gluten free bread, but forgot to bring it out for its photo op.

 I don't do change very well.

Spring and Childhood Memories

When I was a kid growing up in rural South Windsor, CT, I would hop on my bike and ride down the street, usually with no destination in mind. Freedom was the only thing on my mind. During the spring and summer, I would pass a marshy area just past my house and the red-winged blackbird that nested there would chase me. It became a game that I always won…of course. Even today, if I should drive down that street just for old times sake, I slow down, as I go past the marsh, just to remember that small piece of my childhood. If I am on my bike (yes, I still ride a bike), I speed up because there is a new generation of red-wing in that marsh and I still get chased, and I still win!

Today is the first day of spring…even though I still have a foot of snow on the ground and it’s cold and windy…and we are expecting more snow this afternoon into tomorrow morning. However, there was a bright spot for me this morning.

As I cradled my cup of hot coffee and gazed out on the area where I feed the birds, there was a red-winged blackbird! And before I knew it, the rest of the flock joined him. It didn’t take long before their aggressive behavior expressed itself. They were jockeying for space even as they gobbled up as much seed as they could. They continued to fly in, argue with each other, then fly off as a flock…only to come back again and again. I guess they liked what I was serving.

This is why I feed the birds. The benefits are mutual. But, bringing back a childhood memory is a bonus.

Memories of Record Low Temperatures

During the coldest part of any winter, I think back to one winter when I was a very little girl…I’m guessing 7 years old.

My family, (father, mother, brother and me) lived in a house that was built in the early 1900s to house farm hands. This is in the Wapping section of South Windsor. The house had no insulation, single floors, garage/cellar under the house, no central heat and it stood on a little knoll with nothing to protect it from the wind. In the winter it could get quite cold. My brother and I would come downstairs in the morning and stand on chairs next to the big black stove to get dressed. Every fall, my father would buy a crate of Macintosh apples and we would store them in the upstairs closet that was open to both my bedroom and my brother’s.

One winter in particular I remember, for a few nights, we couldn’t sleep upstairs. My father closed off the dining room so the heat from the big black stove in the kitchen would, hopefully, warm the living room, too. My brother, who was 11, and I slept on the couch, layered with blankets.  We slept feet-to-face, and because he was longer than I, his feet came closer to my face than mine to his. My mother and father slept on the floor on a mattress my father brought down from upstairs.

There were many cold winters before we had central heat, but this one is the one I remember most. Maybe that is the reason, to this day, I like a cold bedroom. I sleep with an open window all year round (except heat waves)…the degree of open depending on the outside temperature.

On last night’s weather, it was pointed out that February 16, 1943, had the record low temperature of -24°. That had to be the winter I remember.

Keep in mind, I would have been in the third grade by this time and we walked to school…one mile away. And, no, it was not up hill both ways! The older kids were instructed to keep an eye on themselves and the younger kids in case of frostbite.

I don’t know if this was the same winter or not, but one winter we had so much snow the Army tanks went down Clark Street side by side clearing the drifts. That was quite a sight! The Army was bivouacked in a field not far from our house. That would make it during WWII, so 1943 would also make sense.

Ah, those were the days. 

New England Snow Storms — Carry On!

My location is in north central Connecticut…2 hours southwest of Boston. It will be weeks before we see Boston again. Why? Good old fashioned New England snowstorms…one on top of another!

In three weeks time, we had a blizzard, then a snowstorm, and now another blizzard (for Boston) and lots of blowing and drifting snow for the rest of us. Right now it’s 13° F. with a wind chill of -5° F. That’s quite a bit warmer than when I got up. The wind is a steady 20 mph from the WNW. Translation: it feels damned cold.

So, what does one do while these storms are in progress? Here’s a sample.

There is the usual getting up routine. I’ll spare you the details. Once the coffee is made, I sit in front of the TV while I doze and sip. Once I’m really awake, I grab my iPad and catch up on what’s been going on since last night. Usually not too much. Although this morning I was greeted with a photo of my great granddaughter (just turned 1 year old) munching on a waffle. She’s so darned cute even without the waffle!

Once that’s done, it’s time to get dressed. Yup. Haven’t done that yet. And, because I know I will be shoveling and sweating later, no sense taking my shower now. Once the proper ablutions have been completed and the sufficient clothing for today’s temps, I head down to the kitchen for breakfast.

Of course no one is making it for me, but it’s the same breakfast every Sunday morning so I don’t even have to think about it. Sausage patty sizzling in the pan. A small red potato pealed and diced. Toss that in with the patty. Take patty out and put in toaster oven to keep hot. Once the potatoes are done, they join the sausage patty on a plate in the oven. I have already cut some asparagus into small pieces and they are now being sautéed in that same frying pan. Last, the egg mixture is added to the pan and scrambled away. Breakfast is ready and I sit down at the table with the Sunday morning Hartford Courant and enjoy.

Now, here comes the shoveling/sweaty part. Although the landscaper’s crew has been through with shovels and snow blowers, I still have to wade out to my car and start it. I had a dead battery last week and needed AAA to jump-start my car. The battery checked out OK at the dealer’s by the way. But I’m not taking any chances.

While the car is running, I go out back to clear the space for the birds. It’s a large space. It faces north-north-west and the wind was howling like I haven’t heard in a long time. The snow was only about 3-4 inches deep so it didn’t take long to shovel. All the while the birds were cheering me on. Or…was that their way of complaining I wasn’t moving fast enough?

Once the shoveling/sweating is done, the feeders need to be tended to and seed scattered for the ground feeders. Even with all the work it takes to keep up with the feeders, it’s worth it. The birds give me such joy just watching them come in to feed.

Even though these pictures were taken earlier this month, everything looks the same Snow, snow and more snow!

Now all of that is done! What’s next? Sitting in front of the TV with the rest of this morning’s paper and as many basketball games of interest I can find.

So, that’s just me. There are plenty of hardy folks around here who will hit the ski slopes or the hills to toboggan or sled. I might enjoy that, sledding that is, if it was not so cold and windy. I just wish I could get out there and walk! And for those of you who know me, you know I can’t wait to get my bike out and start riding. Come on, Mother Nature! Have Mercy!!!!

PS: Yes, I remembered to turn the car off.