Rome Wasn't Built in a Day...Or Even a Few!

As profound as you think this journal entry might end up being, it really has all to do with my garden and yard.  As those of you who have been following my blog know, I moved into what I lovingly call "The Family House".  It's property that has been in the family since the house was built by my great-grandmother in 1938.  The back house, which I live in, was built some time in the '60s.  It's a great parcel located in a very old part of town just outside downtown.  I've lived here before and also in the front house as well, so I know this yard fairly well.

Over the years tenants have basically destroyed and/or degraded the land, breaking sprinkler heads, letting plants die, that sort of thing.  A long time ago there was a fish pond in the back that had fish in it when I was a kid.  One day that will be restored as well.  Needless to say that the yard needs some serious work, and my dad and I have been working tirelessly to bring it back into splendor.

I came home last week to find that Dad was having some trees felled.  One was right against the front house which was wreaking havoc on the sewage system which is older than the hills.  Tree roots get into things and well, it's just a pain and very expensive to replace, sooo... away it went.  He also had the peach tree cut down.  Most of the branches were dead and not producing anything anyway.  Dad had some second thoughts AFTER it was cut down, but that's okay.  The new trees going in will be a large improvement over the old ones.  And healthier, too!

I've been out to dig holes for the trees, and so far we've gotten the cherry tree planted.  For those who are thinking that I need TWO cherry trees in order to produce cherries, fear not, we got a self-pollinating tree which will produce cherries on its own. The other three trees are a peach, a Gala apple and a Honeycrisp apple.  I tasted a Honeycrisp apple the other day and wow! they taste like sweet tarts.  Yum!  Galas are excellent, too.

So, I was out digging the second hole, for possibly the Gala tree and I hit a huge rock.  The trouble with this yard, and all of the surrounding areas was that they were under the river hundreds of years ago, so there are hundreds of rocks around the yard. Some of them are HUGE and some of them are microscopic. Such examples of the larger rocks are the ones around the fish pond and bamboo. Other examples include the others that line the yard, but suffice it to say that not one single rock was brought in from an outside source. So, the rock that I hit while digging the hole for the tree is probably one of the medium sized ones that we use to line things with. Hopefully I can get it out of the hole.

I got tired of trying to dig the rock out, so I went on to other things.  Like staining the tea house.  Dad built it several years ago after the one that was there previously had degraded to the point of needing replacement. That's the way things go though.  The tea house has certainly seen better days, and it wobbly in some parts, but the nice coat of stain that I have been applying for the last few days is looking really nice.  It won't solve the wobble, but as long as people don't try to sit on the sides, then there's nothing to worry about.  It will look really nice, though.

In addition to trees and staining the tea house, I have set about planting seeds in the seed greenhouse starter kit. Most of the seeds have sprouted and I am looking forward to planting them in various parts of the yard.  This year's list of seeds includes pansies, orange and yellow marigolds, balloon flowers, strawberries, canteloupe, green onions, petunias and a few others that escapes my mind right about now.  They won't be ready to transplant for a few more weeks at least, but when I do, the yard will look a lot better.

My dad likes to cheat a little when it comes to some plants. He bought a flat of strawberries and rototilled a patch to plant them in.  I planted them and the strawberry patch looks good.  The strawberry seeds that I have planted will go elsewhere in the yard.  He also purchased three blackberry plants that I haven't gotten around to planting yet.  The area where they are going needs to be worked over and the plastic under the dirt needs to be moved. Anyway, that area is going to be known as the Berry Patch.  Definitely into berries, my dad.

I have designated an area to be designed as a more "romantic" spot. I have planted beautiful bulbs in a nice pattern.  They are not slated to pop up and bloom until the summer, so hopefully they do. I also have plans to put in a nice wrought iron bench and a lamp of some sort. It will be really pretty once it's done.

Oh, and let's not forget about the grapes.  I planted them a while ago and so far, nothing, but I have faith and they will do something soon.  I have been staining the tea house so that they will have a beautiful place to trellis.  Yeah.. that will be nice!

So, that is just some of the updates as to the goingson  regarding my garden of 2014.  More updates as more things pop up.  Hopefully the yard will get more beautiful as time goes on and all the hard work will pay off.

Depression and Black Roses

It's near the end of my second class in my return to college.  Though I'm finding the class challenging enough, I do wonder sometimes if I am worthy of the high grades that I am getting.  I read back on some of my papers, and even though there are no errors, I wonder.  I am the most critical of my work, as I believe we all are.  I don't even really like for people to read what I write here, but it is a great outlet, and if the truth be told, I want to be heard, even by the anonymous masses.

I've been super depressed as of late.  I don't know if it is the lack of human companionship in my life, stress of school, lack of personal path, spiritual path, or just life in general that is causing it.  I'm willing to bet that it is all of the above.  I haven't really dated much since I got to Idaho.  There were a few attempts that failed miserably and I attribute that to not being ready to be in the dating pool again.

I think I'm ready now, though.  Well, are any of us ever really ready for something like that? hahaha..  We put ourselves out there for others' scrutiny.  We take the chance on being rejected. No one likes to be rejected for whatever reason.  An ex's roommate once told me that the reason the ex left me was because I wasn't pretty enough to be with.  Damage to the ego much?  I may not be pretty, but what I lack in looks, I make up for in other areas. Like personality. I have plenty of that.

I was planting flowers in my garden the other day and someone asked me what my favorite flower is.  Wild black roses, I told him.  Needless to say that I won't be planting any of those in my garden anytime soon, but I looked back at that and realized that they are rare, just like me.  There is only one of me on the planet.  Just like there is only one of you.  We are each our own rare flower which cannot be replaced.  How we are cultivated, raised, and accepted is a huge part of how we turn out.  Do we wither away? Or do we thrive and bloom?

I feel as though I have been withering away slowly over the last eight months. Probably longer than that, but it is really the last several months that I have had to take a look at and ponder about. What I do know is that I am on the right goal path as far as school goes.  I have a goal for after graduation, and it will probably end me up somewhere other than Idaho, which is fine with me. I don't really have any ties here anyway.  At least, they are not strong enough to keep me here. My mother called me a gypsy for a reason.

There really isn't much else going on in my life right now. I go singing as often as I can.  I think I've gotten better, although I would really like to take lessons so that I can get better.  Too bad they are so expensive.  I knew I should have taken choir in high school instead of band! hahaha...

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Death by Steak Knife/Drowning by Water

Sadly, I have to report another "death" in the family.  Death by steak knife probably isn't the best way anything can go, but that is what happened.  On Saturday evening I decided, against my better intuition (ugh!), that I was going to try to install the software for the printer that my friend gave me.  It got through about three or four of the installation items, then stalled.  I tried to get the disk out.  I called a friend who knows a lot about mac minis.  We couldn't together get the disk out.  I finally decided that I would need to take drastic measures to get the darn thing out and grabbed a steak knife from my kitchen and after an hour of prodding, trying begging and frustrating, I finally got the disk out.  It was scratched up beyond recognition and will probably not be readable in any future disk drive.  I tried to turn the mini back on, and the light went on, then immediately went out for the last time.  Goodbye, dear mini, you served your purpose well.  I will miss you.

On the bright side, the computer that needed the new power supply is in the hands of a friend who is a computer programmer.  Don't know why I didn't think to ask him in the first place, but he has it, and he said he could fix it good as new, OS and all.  Sweet.  He said he might be able to get it back to me today.  I really hope so because the names for LWT are starting to pile up because I can't get to that site at work.  It's been blocked for some reason.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed that he will get the computer back if not today, by the end of the week.  I hope he didn't have any issues.

Yesterday I did nothing.  I didn't even get out of my jammies.  I didn't go out to my garden to do any weeding.  I couldn't bear to look at all the marigold that are now dead due to the morning frost we had a few days ago.  I couldn't bear to look at the corn stalk that withered to a nice lush brown due to that same frost.  I couldn't look at the swimming pool that formed even though I leveled the garden out AND put up a wall to prevent the drain off water from flowing into the garden.  All of the flowers that were on that side of the garden ended up completely underwater except for the watermelon, and that only because it is in a high hill.  Oh well, I can always replant the marigolds in May when I should have, and I can replant the corn.

On the bright side, the bearded iris is doing really good.  I mean REALLY good.  It hasn't sprouted any flowers yet, which is nice because they probably would have  withered and died, too.  The lettuce and broccoli are doing good so far as well.  The morning glories that I planted haven't sprouted yet.  The package said about 7 days.  I think it's been two weeks.  Oh well, they probably drowned.  Gah!

It's another day at work today, in case you were going to try to put a huge hold in my dead computer theory.  Tuesdays are just about the worst work day that there could be.  Except for Saturdays.    I won't even get into it.

I hope that you are all having a great day.  Spread some of the love, would you?

Garden and more Garden!!

We ended up not going to the greenbelt like I had planned.  It was such a beautiful day that I thought I would spend some time in the garden.  I transplanted one of the watermelon seedlings onto a hill as per the instructions.  I hope I did it right. I also transplanted some of the lettuce seedlings. 

Then......

I decided it would be a good idea to visit the local nurseries, i.e. Home Depot/Walmart and see what I could see.  I hit the HD first.  We were there a few weeks ago and they had next to nothing.  Now they have tons of stuff.  I asked one of the clerks if they had marigolds and she said no. She totally lied to me. hehehe...  I found some yellow ones in the middle of a bunch of other plants.  African daisies I think they were.  I can't be sure.  I left HD with 8 yellow marigolds, a blue viola, a purple and white columbine, 4 purple pansies and 4 white pansies...oh, and a pair of pink/grey gardening gloves for Raven.  She is very proud of them.

What I really wanted, though, was an alternating yellow/orange marigold front line to my garden.  I proceeded to Walmart and sure enough, they had them.  They were MORE expensive than HD, which I thought odd, but nevertheless, I bought them.  I also found a bleeding hearts plant that is so totally perfect for me.  The columbine and bleeding hearts will take the place of the butterfly bush that I thought I wanted.  Apparently, it is common.  I don't like to be too common.  I also picked up some blue morning glory seeds that I planted at the base of the right side of the garden arch.  The left side is reserved for my tomatoes. 

Raven and I spent a few hours planting what we could.  I ended up with a few pansies and yellow marigolds left over.  I will ask one of my friends in the complex if she wants them.  As we were planting the marigolds, I noticed that one of the sunflowers from the bird feeder had fallen out and actually started to grow!  I ended up leaving it there and it will grow between two marigolds. It was really neat. 


While I was at Walmart I picked up 4 solar lights.  They actually work!  Yes, I am surprised when anything from that dreaded place actually works as it is supposed to.  I have a nice large spot in front of Faery Town that needs something, but I haven't decided what I will plant there yet, if anything. 

Below are my best pics from today. Enjoy!

As you can see, there is a lot of what looks like empty space, but believe me that it will grow soon enough.  Now, if we can just keep the weather from turning crappy again......

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