Tag: spring (Page 4 of 13)

Bits of Spring

February 23, 2013 / Lindsey / 2 Comments

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The Christmas decorations have been slowly disappearing back into their boxes, and the birdsong around our place sounds distinctly spring-like. The near-60° weather lures us outside while the sun keeps us warm as we play Scrabble on the porch in shorts, t-shirts, and bare feet. While there’s undoubtedly plenty of cold still ahead, there are certainly whiffs of spring.

On a sunny afternoon just the other day, I clipped some aspen branches for the table and made a few wreaths from virginia creeper vine.

My favorite home decor is that which is taken straight from nature. Simple and classy.

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Are you feeling spring getting nearer?

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In My Garden – Early June

June 8, 2012 / Lindsey / 1 Comment

A new dressing of black gold (compost)

This isn’t what early June normally looks like for us — as I’ve mentioned before, we’re at least 3 weeks ahead with everything this year because of the unusual warmth. I’ve already harvested all our delicious lettuce, and everything is growing beautifully! Well, except for the things that aren’t. We have a population explosion of roly polies this year. I thought slugs were my nemesis — well they’re nothing compared to the destructive capabilities of these flippin’ bugs… and they move a helluva lot faster than a slug ever could. They’re machines. You plant – they destroy. Every year there’s always “a thing” — no matter what. Your tomatoes don’t grow, or the zucchini plants are stunted, or it’s too cold for the peppers, or the spinach isn’t happy. Or whatever. It’s just part of gardening. You expect it, but it’s a surprise each year what the failures will be, but also what the successes will be. Nature is mysterious, and I think she likes to keep folks guessing. Anyway, hopefully this year’s only “thing” will be the roly polies. They have ravaged the zucchini and cucumber seedlings; one day there’s a zucchini sprout, next day there’s a stump. Frustrating!

Zucchini stump

I don’t like buying starts from the nursery because they’re expensive, and don’t usually perform very well, but mostly because they often bring disease into my garden which ticks me off. It’s like kids at a daycare — they’re all sneezing and snotty nosed. So I picked out the least-mildewy of the cucumber starts at the nursery (below) and planted them with fingers crossed that they’ll really take off and flourish!

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But all that aside, the rest of the garden is doing beautifully!! I love just looking at it and puttering around in it. What joy it brings me!

Broad beans

Peas & garbanzo beans

What’s your garden doing?

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Baby Squirrel Pictures!

May 30, 2012 / Lindsey / 4 Comments

Finally, some of the pictures of our neighbor squirrels’ litter of springtime babies! They were so cute. They’re nearly grown now, and very busy of course as all squirrels seem to be.

Apologies in advance for the underwhelming quality of the photos. F’s camera (with that requisite telephoto lens) and I still don’t get along. It thinks I don’t know what I’m doing. And while I won’t dispute that… I say, what kind of camera refuses to take a picture when I press the shutter release. If the light situation is sucky, that’s my business! (And your eyes are fine — it’s the photos that are a bit blurry, maybe because they were all taken through the window screen.)

Anyway — on to the cuteness!

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A Walk Through the Garden – May 24th

May 24, 2012 / Lindsey / 3 Comments

Wow, it’s been another full-on week here. I like how Trish says it — “life has been a bit real lately“!

When life gets extra real, it feels extra nice to be in my garden. My garden grounds me back to Earth!

And here’s an interesting phenomenon that I’ve noticed — if I need to take a nap in the middle of the day (usually I don’t like to), I wake up feeling mentally yucky and depressed if I’ve slept inside. But if I take my nap outside, that doesn’t happen — I wake up feeling balanced and happy and content. Nature seems to be magical that way…

So how about a walk through the magical garden? It’s growing really well! My tomato plants are exactly three months old from when I started them from seed, and some of them are blooming! That’s exciting because the past few years have not been good tomato years due to unusually long, wet, chilly springs.

Here’s the garden in the glow of the evening sun. Gardens look best in either morning or evening sunshine, don’t they.