Tag Archives: gardening

LIKE A SHINY PENNY

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Some habits are good to keep. Though the Ultimate Blog Challenge is over, the commitments of the month are sticking. I do my 4-7-8 breathing exercise in the morning waiting for the kettle to boil. It is relaxing. I have my one fried egg for breakfast. I’m not ready to add the toast back. After breakfast, I had this urge to have another cup of tea and just while away the morning.

I didn’t. I could but I know that whiling away is not all that satisfactory at the end of the day. It is not when you end up with a messy house, untended business nagging at you and a stiff achy body begging to be moved. So I unplug the kettle, got out the vacuum stick and did the places full of Sheba’s hair. The furnace filter and motor will be happier as well as my pocket book.

Funny how dog hair and garbage odour can mar my days. Nothing glorious about dealing such things but it is necessary. They don’t do themselves. There is some pleasure when you see the dog hair get sucked up by the Dyson stick. Not so much washing the garbage bin. It comes later after the muck is washed away. It’s looking so clean drying in the sun. I hope it will kill the odour.

I am so glad that I keep showing up here like a bad shiny penny. It’s a springboard into the day for me if I can show up early. Now it is almost 8 pm. The afternoon and the evening is hot – still 31 degrees Celsius. Sheba and I are just back from our walk. I am soaked with perspiration. So happy I did some weeding in the morning. The weeds looked formidable at first but just pulling them one by one, it was not bad at all. I harvested some rhubarb and put down the leaves as a mulch helps to keep them down. Everything looks pretty good despite our strange summer. I am happy.

LESSONS LEARNED

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My two pairs of pants are shortened and hemmed. Hallelujah! Miracles do happen. It was not so difficult after all. I need not have waited 20 years to do it. Lesson learned. Nothing happens when I am frozen with overwhelmed and indecision. They hung in the closet, gathering dust. So any action, even if it is not the best or perfect, is better than none. Now that I’ve tried them on, I think they’re a tad too short. They’re tighter than when I tried them on last week. Ah, the waxing and waning of the waist line! They might have to go into the donation bag after all. But I will see. I can still let the hem down a bit on each. Maybe I can suck in my tummy.  More work but that’s what I get for not trying them on after pinning. Another lesson learned. So many damn lessons!

That was a few days ago. I ran out of steam and words after that short conversation. That’s how it is. Now I’m back to continue. That is the secret – to keep coming back. Life is not smooth sailing. It’s full of starts, delays, holdups, detours, rerouting, restarting, etc. My garden is the same this year. We had hardly any rain till these last weeks in June. Even the weeds were not growing. There was the cool temperatures. Everything was slow. Then there were the birds and bugs that ate what did come up. I lost half a bed of broccoli and 2 rows of beans never showed. Peas and carrots are seeded in the empty spaces. But my bed of greens is excellent. We had plenty of spinach and lettuce. The spinach is done and new seeds put in for a second crop. The onions are standing straight and tall. The kale is coming up.

So that’s how things are. Some things thrive. Some don’t. There’s evil in the world but there’s also alot of good. Just when I’m really down and despondent about our humanity, I learn of people with huge loving hearts and great courage. Trevor Green’s story moved me to tears. Then there’s Melissa Fung’s speaking On What We Owe. That made me put away my small troubles, for a little while at least, and think about the larger world. And I think again about what can I do to help.

 

FEASTING

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It’s the day after the fast. I had to do a little adjusting in the morning. I listened to my body. I did not go to my aerobics class. I knew that when I went to bed last night. My head and body felt a little strange. Maybe it’s the first time I was devoid of thoughts and worries. My body and mind emptied and cleansed, I had a good night’s sleep. I woke up feeling lighter.

After the fast comes the feast. It’s not about the food. Believe me, after fasting even for 12 hours, I do not want to stuff myself with food. Strange but true. The thought of a big heavy meal sounds nauseous. It’s about food for the soul. What do I need to become whole? I’ve been working at it forever and a day. Maybe I haven’t been conscious about it. I am now. I have been feeling fractured and broken. I have been sick for a month recently. Maybe all of it led me to this retreat of examining life. It’s all a part of the journey. I am sure I will have to travel it again and again. No free rides for anyone. There’s a keeper at the toll booth.

How did I feast? I read more from the Bible – passages from Joshua and Psalms. The books are long. So many battles in Joshua. I haven’t reached the end yet. Psalms 23, The Lord is My Shepherd is so soothing to read and recite. I delved a little into The I Ching.  I don’t understand at all about the hexagram, throwing sticks or tossing coins. It is enough to read the truths the book contains. It is part of my heritage and I have the book. I bought it in 2013. It cost me only $2. It’s beautifully made using traditional Chinese bookbinding. What a bargain, eh?

I miss not going out in the garden today. I know now that time is of value to me. Time tending – weeding, watering, trimming, harvesting and conversing with all that is living. The living breathing green earth matters to me. It was eery walking Sheba down the back alley this evening. It was very, very warm. Still  30 degrees Celsius when we started out. The earth was so dry, fine and powdery – like icing sugar. All the houses were shuttered or curtained. It was quiet as the desert.

I think we get it now, that our planet is in danger. Some people are trying to grow their own food wherever and on every inch they could. It’s a wonder to me every time I see this row of zucchini outside the fence in the back alley. They look limp and forlorn in the heat. But they are producing. Then there’s this house on the corner. The whole small backyard is given over to a vegetable garden and full of pots growing peppers and herbs.  The tomatoes overflow outside the fence into the back alley.  It’s all a feast for my eyes and soul. I am fed by others’ efforts as well as my own. I hope I do the same in return.

I am happy to be eating again. Sustenance is necessary for body and soul. The fast changed my relationship with food. It is as if I’ve developed more taste buds. I am savouring more, eating less. I hope it lasts. Nourishment and becoming whole is a deep subject. It will be an ongoing process in being a congruent person. I think it is what is known as life.

LANGUISHING

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It is Tuesday morning, a day off. Funny how I still think of days off when I’m retired. Those words have been a part of my vocabulary for so many years. You get two nurses together, the conversation mostly sounds like this: Are you on days off? Did you sleep? Of course that was in my days. I’m not sure about the young nurses talk nowadays.

So, I’m on a day off. I don’t have to head off to aerobics or swimming. I have no MUSTS to do, except….I have been saying for days I MUST get my shit together, tidy up, dust up and file up. Now that the day is here that I could do all these things, I just want to sit here, in my beautiful room and languish. Both big windows are opened. The sun is streaming in. It’s early enough for a cool breeze. A bird is chirping. I wonder if it’s the one nesting in the grape vines.

It’s been awhile since I’ve just sat in peace, not wanting to do. I relax the furrows between my eyes. How wonderful to feel the release of tension. I do not mind the clutter and bit of dust on my desk. I sip my tumeric tea as I gaze at the sun dancing on the magnolia and amaryllis. They need some water soon. Out the window, I can see Sheba laying in her hollowed out dirt bed beside the potted avocado. She is happy and cool, watching and listening to the birds in the yard. I will finish my tea and head out to weed a little. I’m getting back to the rhythm of ‘doing little blocks’. They add up like drops filling a bucket.

It is now 3 o’clock in the afternoon. I spent 2 hours in the yard and garden, weeding and harvesting. Perhaps I overdid. Now I am not only languishing but wilting a bit.  It is warm but I’m still getting a breeze through the windows. The birds are still chirping back and forth to each other. Sheba is languishing in the diningroom. She threw up twice today so maybe a light supper.

Can’t say I have climbed any mountains or vanquished any villains today. Haven’t even had time for any crime reading. Nothing much to show except some rhubarb stalks on the kitchen island and fewer weeds in the garden. Oh, yes, I’ve filled the raised beds in the back with rainwater. A good day. Now back to languish with my cup of tea.

MESSAGE TO LILY

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How intrusive the world! So many phone calls on things I do not need nor asked for. Those poor Call Center employees. I am not much of a consumer. They will not get much business from me. They do not listen. They keep calling back. I hang up. I am not in a ‘good mood’ or a peaceful frame of mind. My head is in a dither. The conversation within is like a ticker tape going on endlessly.

There’s no stopping it so I just watch it in my mind’s eye. I’m tapping here to slow down the ticking in my head and the fluttering in my heart. It’s working. My mind and hands are engaged in another activity. I’ve done my qigong routine. A batch of yogurt is under the yogurt machine’s hood. I’m finishing the last of the strawberries before they go bad. The bills are paid except for my property tax. I still have till the end of June to deal with it. I’ve gathered my papers to meet with my banker this afternoon. Even retired, there’s stuff to deal with. It’s not a vacation. I’m not in a hammock by the beach. Some days I want to run away from home.

My garden is a bit half assed this year. I’ve started a few bedding plants, enough petunias and snapdragons for my mother’s flower beds. She doesn’t ask for much. In fact she doesn’t ask for anything. But it is nice that I could do this much for her. I hope she will let me plant them for her. Her strength has declined but she is fiercely independent. She is very good at compensating and finding alternative ways of doing everything. My mother is awe-inspiring.

I have seeded one raised bed with lettuce, spinach and kale. They are all rising above the earth. The other 4 beds sit empty, waiting for me to get my shit together. I have cleared and worked the garden area. The strawberries I transplanted last fall have survived. The rhubarb is looking good. The peas and a few beans are planted. I am a bit lost but not idle.

It is late afternoon. I am hot and tired. I have met with my banker. We did some planning. All is well but I have not kept up with records and paperwork. It is not anything new but it is quite distressing to me. There is no point in tackling the problem now, though I did try. It resulted in more hair-on-end kind of frustration. I have to sort it out as I had with the basement, a little at a time.

I am learning a lesson here. No matter how we I try to ignore or hide a problem, whatever it is, it never goes away. It will surface sooner or later. You I will have to face it or maybe trip over it. There’s no where to hide. It demands resolution. I think I’ve finally got the message now. Really I have.

HOW I SPEND MY DAYS

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How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. – Annie Dillard

I wish I could write such insights as Annie Dillard. But then I’m not a Pulitizer winning authour. She has written many books. I wonder why I haven’t read any of them, especially since so many of them are in the library. I’ve just fixed that, reserving The Writing Life. I thought I should start with just one book. I’m still working on James Mitchener’s The Source. It’s an ambitious read of 1000 pages. I’m only on  page 207. I have a ways to go.

How do you spend your days? I’ve wondered what other people do with their time. I’m always busy it seems. I’m a doddler, poking away at life. Maybe if I speed up a little, I wouldn’t feel so busy. But it’s who and how I am. I need that slow pace to digest and process. So I can’t get up in the morning and hop to it. I have to ease my way with a cuppa tea and a few pages of fiction. Then it’s breakfast. If it is Monday, Wednesday,or Friday I’ll be heading out the door to aerobics. Saturday mornings I used to swim. Then somehow I got tired of always heading out of the door and I stopped. But I kept it up most of the winter.

I’m a homebody so I was glad to read that Annie Dillard is a recluse, albeit a gregarious one. I wish I’m like that but alas, I have no gregariousness in me. It should be no surprise that I don’t do a lot of frollicking with my days. I’m a rather quiet, somber person. I live within rather than without. That is, I contemplate alot. I like to read and muse. I wonder about the universe, why people do what they do. I wonder about the speed of the changes we are experiencing. How long life as we know will last? I wonder what gives meaning to the things we do. What does it matter anyways? I could have more time if I could just cut down all this musing.

You see, I am no fun. I do have fun though. I have numerous, maybe too many hobbies. I like to read and write. That gobbles up tons of minutes and hours in a day if I let it. Even painting my little index cards takes up at least half an hour. More if I’m ambitious. I’ve picked up sewing again. I went out and bought a fancy dancy new machine. It’s no small endeavour. It took time to learn all the ins and outs. Then there’s the organizing – fabric, patterns, projects. I’ve taken a fancy to free motion sewing, creating a picture with stitching. I haven’t thought about quilting yet. I have all the notions – collected through the years. At least I don’t have to go out and shop for material. I have a fabric shop right in my own basement.

I’m tapping here in my space. I’ve just turned the oven on for the roast. There’s a lot to do every day. Roasts to put in the oven, bread to make, lunches and dishes to do. The guy does supper and getting groceries. I start my own bedding plants for the garden. Been doing that for years now. Sometimes I enjoy. Sometimes it’s work. Well, isn’t everything? It’s worth it. It’s nourishing my body and soul. Even the cleaning and washing. It’s taking care of this business of living. What meaning or satisfaction would I get not doing any of this? Sure, I complain sometimes and wish that everything was taken care of for me. That sounds like being in a nursing home, doesn’t it?

It’s time to shut up and do something else now. There’s the dog to walk yet.

 

 

 

GLORY DAYS – Day 13 in a year of…

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Day 13, August 4, 2016 @4:05

IMG_4303These are truly the glory days of August.  My garden is flushed with delicious vegetables.  Let me not squander the days away with stinking thinking, bad attitude, foul mood or low blood sugar.  Afternoons can be treacherous.  A cup of tea and a couple of chocolates to make me more agreeable.  It does not help that Sheba is dogging in my footsteps wherever I go.  Possibly she is also seeking sugar replacement.

IMG_6920Mornings are the best for setting intentions.  And so I sat with Melli O’Brien and Tami Simon of Sounds True and learned about total body breathing.  It is an episode from the Mindfulness Summit, October 2015.  Today I am focused on learning to enjoy the process of sewing a blouse – being patient and deliberate with each step.  In the past, I have rushed through to the end product, missing the beginning and the middle – missing the joy, missing a lot.

IMG_6936Now I see it is really not my stinking thinking or low blood sugar.  It is really a storm brewing in my head.  It has just burst open.  I’m tap, tapping to the rhythm of pounding rain on the aluminum roof of the deck.  It is very strange and beautiful.  The rain came raging out of nowhere.  I am very fortunate to have this wonderful space to sit and watch, surrounded by it all.

The rain have passed.  I can show you the glory in the garden.  Come, let me show you. It is my rainbow after the rain.

 

 

 

Day 6 in a year of…

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Day 6, July 28, 2016 @3:43.

IMG_6738Summer afternoons are delicious for drinking beer and taking naps.  I’ve had my little nap but I better wait till I’ve tapped out some words before I crack a can.  Otherwise, I might fall over my keyboard.  Asian women cannot hold their liquor.  At least not this one.  It isn’t fair.  So many things in life aren’t.  But at least, I’m getting better at doing selfies.  Oh, no, not another! You say.  Sorry but yes, another.  It’s never too much to say, I love you to myself.  I’ve waited all these years to start.  I’m not stopping now – or ever.  I will stop the selfie one day when I really feel love and acceptance residing in my core.

These days of getting up, making up and showing up have given me structure.  When I am not feeling my best, I’m looking my best.  I take note, sit/stand a little taller.  I don’t feel as if I had fallen off a vegetable truck – even if I feel it. When I look in the mirror, I’m surprised and delighted.  I can push on to another day in the year of choosing something different.

I’m glad I took up this project.  There’s really no right or wrong time to do anything. When an idea captures your imagination, you have to act on it.  Otherwise, nothing will happen. Nothing.  There is so much dead air in that word.  Nothing.  Say it again.  It has the sound of a heavy metal door closing.  Nobody has the key.  You are trapped in that nothingness.IMG_6736

That is not where I want to be.  I want to move ahead.  I’ve crossed off two items on my list today.  Working on another and maybe another.  I will add to it each day, too.  There’s movement.  There’s trying and doing.  There’s life.  

Now I will crack open that beer and grab a plate of snacks. Want to tour my front yard and see what is new?  My petunias are still in full bloom.  I have planted a honey suckle and clematis by the water tank.  I hope they will thrive and grow and climb up its sides to add aesthetics to it.  In the raised beds, the hot chilli peppers are numerous, carrots  in various stage of growth, green and bulb onions, Romaine lettuce, kale, and cucumber.  Not a bad yield at all.  How is your garden doing

RAINY MORNING MUSINGS

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It’s raining – the first of the year.  I’m grateful.  My garden is grateful – for this drink of life. It is cool – 4 degrees Celsius after last week’s blistering 32.  Tomorrow and the next night, the forecast for -1 and -2 respectively.  Nothing is predictable anymore.  Was anything ever? Have a look at what is happening in Fort McMurray, Alberta.  It is like a dream.  I am sure it is a nightmare for the residents fleeing their city as the fires rages.

I am philosophical, uncertain but happy and grateful this rainy, cool 10th of May.  I took a tour of my garden, securing the covers over the tender young tomatoes I planted 2 days ago.  I might have been too optimistic and foolish thinking that the temperature could not possibly dip below 0 anymore.  But what the hey?  Nothing ventured, nothing gained/learned.  I have a good feeling about my green thumb.  I feel like a winner at the moment.  I’m going with it.

IMG_5382I’ve doubted my feelings and myself for too long.  I’m making up by taking taking a giant big step forward. I’m being confident.  I’m being happy with myself as I am, no apologies.  It feels good.  There’s no time for putting myself on the back burner for others.  I’m moving closer and closer towards my own mortality every day.  If I don’t live for me now, when then?

Life is messy and wonderful.  That is what I take away from Anne Lamott.  In Bird by Bird she wrote,

“Clutter and mess show us that life is being lived …Tidiness makes me think of held breath, of suspended animation… Perfectionism is a mean, frozen form of idealism, while messes are the artist’s true friend. What people somehow forgot to mention when we were children was that we need to make messes in order to find out who we are and why we are here.”

IMG_5373I am now wondering why I have been so taken with Marie Kondo and her The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up.  I have been a clutter bug all my life.  I could learn to be a little neater but more would be trying to get a leopard to rid its spots or a zebra its stripes. What was I thinking?  There’s beauty and artistry in our clutter and messes.  After all, it is what our lives are made of.

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I am tired of holding my breath, suspending my animation.  I am letting me out of the bag. So happy to have this rainy interlude to muse much about it all and savour life.

WHY WAIT FOR SPRING

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It would do me well to heed some of these wise age-old sayings:

Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite. Or waiting around for Friday night or waiting perhaps for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil or a better break or a string of pearls or a pair of pants or a wig with curls or another chance. Everyone is just waiting. ~Dr. Seuss

Don’t be fooled by the calendar. There are only as many days in the year as you make use of. ~Charles Richards

Enjoy yourself. It’s later than you think. ~Chinese Proverb

IMG_3376Simply put, why wait for spring.  Do it NOW.  My now should have been in the fall, after harvesting and putting the garden to sleep.  I should have/could have made notes about what worked, what didn’t.  But I DIDN’T.  I’m relying on my faulty memory now to recall.  How did my garden grow?  No use crying over spilt milk.  Let me move on as best as I.  I am going to make my seed list today.

What worked for sure were the potatoes.  They were big and plentiful, lasting us into January.  The carrots did well, too.  We still have quite a few and storing fairly well in a cooler in our insulated garage.  They might do better in a cold storage area in the house next year.  My tomatoes have always done well.  No need to change anything except plant fewer and less dense in the beds.  They started out small and far apart. They grew and grew and became an almost Little Shop of Horrors.

IMG_2956The beans and broccoli did astoundingly well.  They produced well into the frost season.  However the cabbage was not as successful as I had hoped but I will try again.  You win some.  You lose sum.  I’ve never had much luck with peas, getting a few pods at a picking.  I might plant more snow peas this year for the pods and leaves – double the return.  They’re both easy to stir fry. Snow pea tips are very flavourful and a pricey dish in a restaurant.

What else did well?  Let me see now.  The kohlrabi, chilli peppers, lettuce, kale, onions, cucumbers, squash…

What didn’t do well?  Beets were small.  Spinach too small and bolted.  Maybe too crowded and needed to be thinned aggressively.  Radishes were not as good as the year before.  We forgot to harvest frequently.  They got old and wooden.

This recalling from memory is labour intensive!  I will have to give it a rest and dig out my seed order from last year.  It would be best if I can learn from this exercise to keep notes of things as they progress – like a garden journal.  You know what they say about a stitch in time.  I know how I am – slow to learn. Ah, but I am doing the best I can.