How Does Your Garden Grow?

I felt like blogging today. Yay me.
This spring and summer has been an upheaval of sorts as I re-prioritize my busy life.

I continue to work forced overtime but there seems to be a break coming up.

Those beautiful red flowers are called Monarda aka BeeBalm. I try to make my yard bee friendly by using very little chemicals. My auto-immune (SIBO) seems to do better if I limit my chemical exposure too.

I had a couple of family crisis's that made me very sad for the choices those members are making. The bright side is they are able to make those choices. They are not my choices and it's difficult to separate out the feelings they invoke. Sadness  seemed to be the June feeling of the month.


While I'm happy at last to have a name and diagnosis for my auto-immune, it's long-term and chronic and progressing. I have a drive to do everything before I am unable to. And I want to do it all. I have no interest in giving up yet.

Like biking to work. I don't have to, but utilizing different muscle groups is not only healthy for my heart, but those muscles help support my joints as the chronic inflammation takes over.

This year has been super duper on the berries with several batches of jam/jelly made and berries in the freezer for the winter.

By letting blogging go by the wayside, I have that little bit more time to spend in my garden. Allowing my bare feet to connect with the earth really helps my stress levels.

I biked into town to see the 4th of july parade.Lots of live music, kids running amuck, and a Volkswagen Van for my friend's DIL - pink!

I had the pleasure of standing next to some seriously awesome kidlets. One in particular was the youngest (3 years old) of several boys. His mama softly urged him to share some of the candy he collected from the floats with other nearby kids  and it was such a joy to see this boy willingly picking up a life lesson in sharing. So easily done by an amazing mom.

Do you recall those potatoes I planted in April? We had a very cold and wet spring so planting was delayed. Now look at them. They are flowering and will soon set those teeny, tiny potatoes for summer salads.

 And, then, of course, the funeral and the wedding.

This is the most beautiful cemetery I've ever seen. I've always wanted to be cremated, but this cemetery on the steep hillside, looking out on the southern Oregon hills might change my mind.

This was a beautiful ceremony for a family member. Definitely filled with family choices that make me sad. It took a few weeks to acknowledge that sadness for the choices people make and allow the feeling to be. What it is. Learn from those choices. I can always be a better person.

The wedding was the direct opposite in the joyful feelings for this beautiful neighbor girl. All grown up now, she played with my kids. Her family actually lived quite close to my older sister for a while until the airplane her dad was building in the garage outgrew it's space.

My nephew. And Mt. Jefferson. Photo credit: my son.

This spring, feeling quite overwhelmed and not knowing how to find time, I stopped blogging. I stopped sewing. I need these things as they are positive creating that helps counter-balance the enormous load of stress at work.

I was also sad not doing these things to make time for those aforementioned family crisis's.
But time has a way of moving quite fast and you get through those things.

I have actually thought about sewing twice this week, so I am going to see if I can putter around in my sewing room tomorrow. Touch some fabric, maybe sew. Or, maybe just dust.

Tomorrow is the first Sunday (laundry day) that I have had free in what seems months. No obligations. No expectations. No helping others.

Mindfulness is something of a trend in a fast-paced world helping to slow you down with meditation and being present in now as opposed to worrying about the future or continuing family feuds from the past. My current job, while stressful and with too many hours, is an excellent tool to learn Mindfulness. Live in the moment - no use worrying about tomorrows schedule.

I'll quit rambling and leave you with my first blooming dahlia.

Potato Planting

This spring has been soggy and cold. I planted my potatoes today - a bit late, but the soil finally dried out enough to till.

And my snap peas did not rot in the ground - they are all of 4 inches high.
Also a late plant in mid-April.

 Anyhow - I thought as I was digging holes that I would share some potato tips.
These are Norland Reds.

The first thing to do is cut them up. Two eyes per piece. See those growths that look like warts? Those are called eyes. Some of the eyes are really growing, others are teeny with just a pink/red spot on the potato skin.

On these smaller reds, you can cut them up into two or three pieces. Let them 'dry' for a few hours. This seals the wet part so it grows instead of rotting.

Your holes should be about 2 feet apart and about 10 inches deep. Or so. By the 20th hole, whatever floats your boat. You can add fertilizer or compost if you desire but my soil is pretty awesome for potatoes.

Place two pieces of potatoes at the bottom of each hole with eyes up to the sky.
Cover the hole halfway with dirt. We'll be infilling later as the green shoots emerge.

 That's it.

 Onto the patio. Most of the hanging baskets and pots have been pruned, churned up, and planted. Lots of time-release fertilizer and slug bait. These hanging baskets are heavy feeders and need extra food to grow.

If you look closely, I have hung my airplane decorations.  My kids painted these over twenty years ago from wood kits. They have held up remarkably good hanging outside all summer.

September is GONE!

September sure zipped on by.
Thanks to the Rural Mail Carrier Mail Count, begging people to mail stuff to me, I received two packages as well as several letters.
I received other packages but they were the boring vitamins & fabric purchases that I made.
These were from friends.

The first one, I did not expect at all. All I did was comment how lovely the table topper turned out and the following week, it was in my hands!
My Japanese/Oregon friend, Crafty Tokyo Mama, loves to sew too and is constantly making the most amazing creations. I love the blues in this. She was fiddling around with matching fabric on the center motif as she could only make it whole by sewing the half motifs together. Her seams are perfect and one would never know about the seam if she hadn't of said something.

My before photo was boring cream - lamp and knitted doily.
One rarely sees a knitted doily but the sister of a neighbor makes them.
It can find another home because I am loving the blue fabrics that Crafty Tokyo Mama chose.

My second package arrived from a finnish friend when I confessed to withdrawal symptoms of Salmiakki. Salmiakki is a particular finnish taste for salted licorice. The Fazer Salmiakki bar is salted licorice encased in chocolate. Rather addicting. And if you can't read finnish then there are probably no calories or anything that I am terribly allergic to. lol.

I did not buy enough to bring home while traveling there this summer. Most of my haul went to neighbors who watched the dog, the kids, and other deserving people.
The Fazerina bar is truffle filled chocolate. The geisha bar which contains hazelnuts also contains wheat.

I have a stash to keep me happy for a few months.



My work situation grew another mile in the good & bad categories. I am now in charge of my office which, unfortunately,  curtails my other life. Big grumble there. However, it will be good for me as I will be learning lots of new government rules to confound you with. The other flip side is that 60 man-hours per week is being pushed onto me at 45 hours per week. The pressure of being hung out to dry is pretty fun too.

I do have a much better boss now. She's going into Portland on a detail assignment that is perfect for her but that leaves me with no help.

This is my Saturday haul from the garden. All of my potatoes are now dug and more tomatoes picked. Hubby is going to try making V-8 juice.

I can't eat Tomatoes (nightshade veggie), although I can usually tolerate the occasional one. I suspect it is because my garden tomatoes are not genetically altered. In any case, we still have stewed tomatoes from last year and because of my new-found workload, I had decided to let the tomatoes go.

But "Waste not, Want not" hubby decided to make the V-8 juice.
Tomatoes were picked over a week ago.

Which sat there.

Probably moldering - hence the newly picked tomatoes which were next to the potatoes.

This project is threatening to suck me in big time but I am holding firm.
Hubby has watched me can but never participated. He is already knee-deep into his amazing whining act of, "I need help." (double whine).

Part of my marriage behavior is to help my husband but he returns the favor rarely and seems not to value my help enough to respect my available time. To keep me sane while I am trying to learn new jobs at the paying job and retain some time for me, I need to get better at saying, "NO".


I have a work sewing friend who is also trying to understand the mid-life depression her hubby has sunk under so I made a card for her this morning.
Basically it was a red fabric heart sewn  onto my stationary with a note written, "Sewing is necessary to keep the insanity at bay. Knitting & Crochet count."

I mailed it today as a little pick me up note while she is going through a rough patch. She's working 12 hr. days whilst hubby is unemployed. Working long hours leaves practically no time for her creativity to help keep her on an even keel.

Sewing certainly keeps me sane.




*** As far as the Rural Mail Carrier Mail count goes, it ended today. Results should be in next week. My carrier, who is a total jewel, did great with only his letter count decreased. Everything else is up.