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Weekend Snapshots
The weekend still has half a day to go, but it’s currently raining and I’m watching the boys carry around blanket rolls like they are babies, and I’m eyeing the growing pile of laundry in front of the stairs. Matthew and I sat out in front of the bee and butterfly corner of the garden as the storm clouds rolled in. I get antsy in the rain, because most of my summer days are spent outside in the garden or…
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Garden Glimpses
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Kitchen Window Birding
This past week there was no school from Tuesday – Friday. This wasn’t part of my plan. I had work to do – a lot of it. I’m teaching four distance classes currently, and letting a couple days go by without continuous input of effort means a massive brain pile-up on the freeway keeping materials and students and discussion posts sorted out. Three inches of snow somehow brought the county to a grinding halt, so we were home a lot. Since…
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Is it time already?
Today it was a balmy 63 degrees outside, and never mind that schools have been cancelled due to some coming snow tomorrow, it’s the time of year to start planning the spring garden. Some seeds can be started 12 weeks ahead of the last frost date, so although it feels ridiculous to be getting ready now, Piedmont NC’s traditional planting date is Good Friday, at least according to my neighbor who’s garden teams with growth every year. In the past, I’ve created…
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Rainwater Cistern Update
With the temperature plummeting to 9 degrees Fahrenheit this morning, I was a little concerned about the submersible pump in the bottom of our cistern. Thanks to recent rains, the cistern was full, and thanks to it being black and located on the east side of the house, there was no ice buildup at all. So to refresh, we have a 500 gallon rainwater cistern that collects runoff from about 440 square feet of roof surface and a submersible pump,…
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Gardens and Friendships and Really Long Metaphors
I used to really have fun with analogies and expounding on a metaphor. Due to my high level of enjoyment of nature, and using nature for examples, and due to the fact that nature can be icky, for awhile some friends called me “slightly gross analogy girl.” I was okay with it. So I’m going to metaphorize here in this little web space that rarely gets tended to anymore. Lately I’ve been thinking on friendship. It seems that even when…
