curious

Hillary reaches out to touch a wet rhododendron blossom.

a quiet moment

thrilled to find a wild pansy next to me in the moss

fern frond before

…and after

red flowering currant (I love it)

A few shots from a brief outing with Todd last weekend to find alder saplings for our tepee. It was brief, but the 20 minutes of silence of the woods (aside from my camera shutter) was therapy to my soul. And I was amazed and reminded of the natural beauty that is so easy to find all around us when we take a moment to look. Must do that more.

(excuse my fiddling with the templates. trying to find something I like without having to tinker much. not sure about the black. not really my thing but it could grow on me.)

herb love

Every year, I look forward to adding to my herb collection with herbs from Hazelwood. The only problem is deciding from the hundreds of gorgeous varieties.. There is nothing more therapeutic and pleasing to every sense than an abundant herb garden. I want them all!

The herbs I brought home last year have been prolific.

Like this borage. I discovered that it had volunteered itself all over the pea patch this spring, and I love it so much that I had to pot up as many as I could. It pained me greatly to yank the rest. Borage gets BIG (how can you say no to hundreds of little edible blue stars?), but my peas are precious too, and don’t need the competition. Any takers?

The Creeping Golden Marjoram (also from last year) is looking beautiful.

And this year’s picks…

Black hollyhocks (which are actually such a deep, dark maroon that they look “black” from a distance), common chives (x2), wooly lambs ear (a spreader and so lovely for the kids to touch), echinacea purpurea (for the bees and the birds), comfrey (another great spreader plus so many other benefits). Usually I get so excited that I take home at least a few more plants than I have places to put. I get home and end up finding a little place here, a little spot there, or I just put them in pots.

I’m thinking there’s an “official” herb garden calling out to be dug in the backyard very soon. But first, the rain needs to stop and there are hot banana muffins and hungry small children calling my name!

an un-poetic take on Mother’s Day

Mother’s Day Highlights:

Tea and herb-picking together at one of my favorite places.

Nursery stops for basket stuffers and other bits and pieces.

Followed by an afternoon By Myself, shopping for new bras and a bathing suit *which I was able to select thoughtfully, carefully, blissfully, slowly*. Ahhh. Tell me, have you ever managed that kind of shopping with children in tow? If so, I salute you! (I haven’t purchased a new bathing suit or bras in more than 10 years, so that was a real treat!)

Sam spent the entire weekend… diaper free! He is officially out of them. Only one babe to go!

Later… Dinner out, just Aden (my teenage son) and I - fish tacos, fruit punch and lemon meringue pie. We don’t get out on dates alone together too often these days. It was really, really nice.

Last of all - Survivor finale and a foot massage… and then Hillary slept all night with only ONE nurse.
I woke up this morning from such a deep, dream-filled sleep for the first time is so long that it took me a few moments to figure out where I was!

It’s nice to put that all out here for perspective because those brilliant highlights can sure get buried by the lows if you’re not careful:

Kale and Todd fought all weekend. I mean FOUGHT.

We’re learning how to raise our children compassionately and have been spending time every night reading and talking about it, but it’s not without its massive learning curves. It’s hard. And the kids are throwing us some pretty wicked curve balls at the moment. Hence, I did not feel guilt when enjoying the remainder of Mother’s Day sans small children.

Hope your day with filled with beautiful highlights to help with those tricky parts, too.

what’s growing at our place — part I

The last people that owned this house had some interesting ideas about gardening. I’ve been filled in with the details by neighbors over the last couple of years here and there. But mostly, I’ve just had to spend countless hours undoing a lot of the damage. I’ve pulled out dozens (dozens!) of intentionally planted invasive plant species from every corner and edge of the property; English Ivy, Scotch broom, daisies, etc. They had this idea that they would “green up” the place a bit!

So they had a machine come in over the fence and pull out large patches of sod; taking with it the few precious inches of topsoil that exist in this badly stripped part of town. They then mass-planted one or two every type of ground cover known to man (plus a few sadly sprawling, soil-starved veggies) on top of the tiny sprinkling of topsoil they had delivered. Then they got bored, apparently, and left it to be overgrown with weeds. Not much survives on an inch of soil but it’s amazing how the weeds simply THRIVE. (I must not fail to mention - these areas are dominated by dense shade, fencing, and tree roots as well, which means their ‘plans’ were doomed right from the start. Arrrgh.)

And so, ever since we moved in almost two years ago, I’ve been reading and learning about strategies to deal with this mess. I’ve been working hard, digging, hoeing, hauling, pulling, and building a way back to something that’s hopefully a lot nicer and makes more sense.

Phase one was completed last year by putting in a very large veggie garden and getting a start on pulling out a lot of weeds from the biggest problem areas (mainly the border of the property). Now I’m learning about how to sheet mulch these areas to suffocate the weeds and build soil where there isn’t any. We’ve had a lot of success with building compost and creating beautiful, rich, black loam to use in our beds. I’m hoping the sheet mulching will work as well as I’ve read.

Now I’ve begun phase two: creating a children’s garden (including bird and bee-attractive herbs and flowers) on the sunny side of the property, in place of the lawn there (we have a SURPLUS of lawn). So over the last two weeks, Kale and I have been digging up sod and using it to fill in the big weed beds. Lots of sweaty brows and sore backs with all that digging, turning and hauling, but so far, so good.

Now we’ve got a few new beds in which to plant our Garden of Giants (the kids’ seeds arrived this week!) and some herbs.

(I ordered my gourd seeds here, where I discovered it was impossible to stop at just one birdhouse type I had to try two (Chinese bottle and Martin/Birdhouse), plus I had to buy some short handled ones to try making dippers.)

And thanks to the sod we’ve dug up, we’ve got a new area of lawn where there once was solid weeds. Bonus!
It’s looking pretty rough right now, but I have a vision — and it’s going to be beautiful.

This weekend I also incorporated a crescent-shaped bed beside the new kids’ garden area, and in it I planted Bluecrop blueberry bushes,

Drumstick Primrose,

Crimson Yarrow, Catmint, Violas, Pansies and Columbine. I am really hoping to draw more pollinators and feathered friends to our garden!

I mentioned a book earlier called Roots, Shoots, Buckets and Boots. This book along with several others (The Permaculture Garden, The Basics of Permaculture Design, and Food Not Lawn are a just a few of many) have helped inspire me to create more planting space, and to become more acquainted with the creative and natural side of gardening (is there an “unnatural” way to garden? I suppose it’s possible). Until now, I’ve always leaned toward the technical, practical aspects of gardening. It’s exciting to branch out a bit I’m looking forward to learning more about how to garden the permaculture way, incorporating plants that serve several functions at once — aesthetic (creating a sense of peace and beauty), practical (providing us with good eats) and bringing healing back to this urban setting (creating a sustainable, prolific green space in the core of town).

It’s a long, long road to these goals when you’re starting from not much more than a gigantic plot of grass and weeds, a few sick trees and a whole lot of rocky ground…. But I’m having fun getting it started. This weekend, if we don’t go crazy and decide to dig up MORE sod to cover the remainder of the weed beds , I think time will be spent digging out the weeds and putting down grass seed in hopes it will take. One can hope, right?

Phew! That was a big one. I think I’ll be taking the weekend off the blog. See you Monday!

hi-jacked

If I’m not mistaken, I’d say this blog of mine has been hi-jacked by May flowers and small children…

I’m constructing several gardens right now, meanwhile, constructing posts about them in my mind, and taking lots of pictures… But I’m finding simple enjoyment in just posting up pretty things to look at and keeping my mumbled up jumbled up thoughts to myself for another day.

Tomorrow. Tomorrow I’ll talk about the garden. And all that other stuff. If I get a chance.

munch

I had to use lettuce on my sandwich today because I slacked on the spout production for the first time in ages. I’ve got a new mix started, so just a few days and we’ll be back to normal. The tomato is organic, not in season, but at least grown with sustainable methods, here in BC. Doesn’t mean it tasted like much though. Can’t wait for summer….

books are for biting

She likes a book she can really sink her teeth into…

pink perspective

There are some colors that just make you stop and think a bit.

(status on the pigeon eggs, because there have been askers: I managed to find a place a little more manageable than my bra They’re nestled on a wool sock and situated under a 60 watt light bulb. When I look at them with the bulb directly behind, I see the silhouettes of little baby birds. But they’re not moving. I turn the eggs a few times a day, but haven’t offered anything in the form of humidity. I understand this is an important factor but haven’t managed a way; and I’m sure it’s too late now anyway. We’ll wait out the incubation period, just because. And then we’ll chalk it up to a good attempt. And just in case of a miracle, I suppose I’d better look into what baby pigeons like to snack on?)

my nature haiku

blossoms drop thickly
in layers along the curb
like new fallen snow

I really, really enjoy Katrina’s Haiku Friday over at Kale for Sale. Ever since I began reading them, I find myself fitting my thoughts tidily into a 5-7-5 syllable formation. Strange, but very meditative and fun, so I don’t think I’ll stop.

(I don’t know if they’re always going to be on Sunday, or always nature related, but I think that’s what I’ll swing for here.)