Gardening Day and In My Mind

My SO is home. What a relief! I felt like I didn't have a minute last week, didn't realize how much he does around here until he was gone. Yesterday I was able to spend three whole hours tinkering in the greenhouse and around the yard. It was glorious.

There are little seedlings in abundance out there. At this rate, I'm going to have to give away plants. We weeded and tilled the garden space, and put up the new composter. Previously, we had only a ring of wire he had banded together, but amazingly there was compost at the bottom, even being so neglected as that little pile has been. We spread the bit of compost out on the garden before he ran the tiller. Then he went in to shower and I continued to tinker. I think I need a shredder. I had to snip up the yard cuttings with my pruning shears. But it would all compost better if it were shredded. Plus, we're about to be awash in live oak leaves again. Oak leaves just don't break down quickly, so if I want to use any at all as compost, I'll need a shredder.

I guess it's a leftover from the nursery days in San Marcos, but I find piddling with plants calming, and just a really good way for me to relax my mind. There's such pleasure in watching inert seeds you've planted sprout into a living thing. Every Early Girl tomato seeds have come up. The scalloped squash seeds saved from last year's crop are stout and healthy. The new Burpee green and yellow squash seeds are beginning to break ground. So are Daddy's seedless tomatoes, planted just last Sunday! Pepper seed won't germinate until the soil warms up, or so I've been told. I don't like the seed mix I planted them in, though, and wish I could begin again with my latest discovery -- that African Violet Mix is an excellent seed starting mix. I sprinkled a teensy bit of the organic fertilizer for seedlings that Burpee sent along with my order. But I sure do wish I had been saving empty 6-pack planters all this time. I must've thrown away dozens since we've been here. I've been using egg cartons with the tops removed and a drain hole poked through the bottom with an ice pick. They seem to be working quite well. We'll see how they do once it's time to transplant into the garden.

My SO also dug a little circular garden around a dead peach tree stump. He wants a Four O'Clock bed because he's always had one in places he has lived. I understand. I am trying to recreate, in spirit, the daylily bed I had at my last house -- the transition, live-alone house. I planted daylillies right after I moved in there, and two and half years later, the bed was spectacular. I have a larger space for them here, and I keep adding more varieties. I think the lily is my favorite flower. Must've inherited that from my mother. She loved Easter Lillies, and every year when garden centers and grocery stores put them on sale after the holiday, she would buy them up by the dozen. The year she died was probably the most amazing bloom year she'd had with those Easter lilies. Sad that she wasn't alive to witness the fruits of her labor.

Got my Texas gardening magazine a few days ago. It struck me as I was reading it, that here is another venue for me to submit a freelance piece. I could write about having a backyard greenhouse. This is the second small greenhouse I've had, so I do have tips and experiences I could share. As I was reading the articles and checking the various writers' credentials, I realized I probably have enough, by accident, to qualify myself as a valid contributor, having co-owned a growing nursery, having worked as a salesman for a two wholesale nurseries, having managed a foilage greenhouse for a garden center. Don't have the fancy horticultural degree but do have the hands-on experience. I'm going to pursue this. I'll get their writing guidelines for a start.

Wish I could get as much writing done in reality as I do in my mind.

Onward ....

Winter Sparrows, Cats and Dogs, and a Greenhouse

Chipping sparrows have taken over the yard feeders. When I walk outside in the morning, they rise in a great flock from amidst the rye grass. We have four seed feeders hanging from trees. They're emptied every other day -- except for the big green one I bought years ago because it was a so-called "squirrel-proof" feeder. When a squirrel steps on the perch, its weight closes the hopper, although I've seen them turn it upside down to get at the sunflower seeds in the mix. It holds 4 pounds of seed and takes about a week to empty. But the point is, the sparrows are here and they're ravenous.

A super cold spell is on the way down from Canada. The weather reporters have been gushing about it for days now. Supposed to bring temperatures in the teens and come in howling with 40 mph wind. Yesterday, I ran down to the feed store and bought two large bags of mulch and four of those new plant tarps made out of mesh cotton meant for covering entire flower beds. It got down to 31 degrees last night, ahead of the front, and I'm wishing I had laid the tarps out yesterday. I did get the most venerable plants mulched. I'd mulched them before the last big storm that came in at the beginning of December, but we've had so much rain most of the mulch had washed away or decomposed. Anyway, never can mulch too much, so I piled on more. I sure hope some of these plants make it through the winter. I'm still not certain about that but I keep treating them as if they're alive, and hopefully I'll be rewarded in the spring. The 8 bluebonnet seedlings are still alive down by the cattle guard. I even threw a little mulch out there, as well.

Meanwhile, I began building the greenhouse this past weekend. I got tired of waiting on the SO, and he obviously had no inclination to pitch in, so I just charged up the electric screwdriver, dug out the instruction manual, and dove in with both feet (to mix a metaphoric cliche). So far it's turned out to be a mostly painless venture. I have needed help from the SO twice, and only to brace something or give me a third hand. I've got the front and back completed, and the frame up on the sides and the roof gables. Today I'll tackle the roof vent. It's making me feel energetic and efficient but the truth is the instructions are detailed and clear so I am really just taking my time and reading each step thoroughly before I begin. Can't wait to get it finished and out of the garage. When my SO comes home on Thursday, I intend to have it done enough for us to carry the whole greenhouse out to the spot we've prepared for it beside the old dog pens. That's on the north side but we will place it so the shed housing the lawn mower will block the brunt of the wind.

I really hate it when he's gone, as he is this week on business. Not only do I miss our little routines -- reading the paper together and drinking our morning coffee, watching our silly game shows and then the nightly news in the evening, talking through supper -- I find both the cat and the dog get especially needy when it's just me here. They follow me around and vie for my attention. The cat will hardly move from beside my chair because he knows he can intimidate the dog into keeping her distance. I've got to go to town today, so they'll have to fend for themselves for a few hours and, hopefully, get along. It's like having two bratty kids!

Last night I ended up sitting in front of the television instead of working on my kid's book. There was a program on PBS about relationships and intimacy, and it hit a nerve with me so I stuck with it through two whole hours. I was probably procrastinating a little, too. I tend to do that when I'm not ready to fix something I've written. I still have it on my list to get the kid's book out in the world by the end of this week. I need to write a cover letter and that's always a difficult proposition for me.

Do I tell how I got the idea for the story, or do I just state my credentials and go with that? Not sure. Especially since I'll be sending the story along with the letter, rather than just querying. It seems kind of ridiculous to query a publisher when it doesn't take 5 minutes to read the entire manuscript, if that. I have been researching publishers and know enough not to send it to a house that clearly states they do not accept unsolicited stuff, or that they don't publish picture books. Which is what Workman says in their online submission guidelines. Too bad, since an imprint of theirs published my four novels, and since I know some of the editors there. In fact, on a trip to New York several years ago, they rolled out the red carpet for me when I called to say I was in town and staying down the street. They gave me a guided tour of the building and I even met Peter Workman himself. Of course, a history with a publisher doesn't guarantee acceptance anyway.

Frost has finally melted. I had better let the dog out before she pops. She's been patiently crossing her legs for over an hour.

Onward ....

The Gamble of Life

Life is unpredictable. And at my age, it's also a gamble. I find myself at a stage where I'm having to make decisions now about my future security. It can be something as simple as deciding whether to take a weekend trip. Or whether to stick away the money a trip would cost for later years. I have one decade to save for retirement, and I haven't done much in that direction so far. I waffle back and forth between having it all now, taking trips while I'm still young enough to enjoy them, or pinching my pennies and socking it away for my elderly years.

Here's the rub: What if my elderly years don't come? Who knows what will happen between now and then? My mother socked it away, she took trips, too, but she invested her money and had all the retirement programs that came with her job. She did all the essentials financial advisers tell you to do, and what happened? She died at 64. I think about Mother a lot when I start thinking about financial security. She was disappointed that she had worked so many years and would never even collect on her Social Security. She mentioned it to me, in her last weeks before lung cancer finally took her. She said it was the thing that made her the angriest about dying, all that careful planning, basically for nothing.

My SO also has a sort of laissez-faire philosophy about retirement, and he's closer to it than I am. But he has also had his cancer-death scare, and feels reluctant to deny himself anything because of it. He says when you're lying there, the radiation mask over your face, you make all sorts of resolutions about things you're going to do, if you can just make it through one more week of treatment, if you can just beat the disease. And I do see the senselessness of saving for the future if that future never comes.

We had friends over last night. This is the friend who went into a coma after knee surgery. He's so much improved, but his ordeal is clearly marked on his face. And he still has moments of confusion. He's not ready to resume life as it was, not quite yet. He, to me, is the poster child for the slender thread we walk in life.

I bought a greenhouse kit. It's supposed to arrived via FedEx the middle of next week. My sweetheart is dreading the prospect, but he's so patient with me and my tangents. He seems to always want to make me happy. I can't believe how I lucked out finding such an affectionate and caring man. The gamble of life again, I guess. Anyway, I need someplace to put all my established foliage plants, and it will be fun to start seeds there, maybe take cuttings again. I enjoy growing things from cuttings, and you need a greenhouse to do it properly. Daddy's excited about it. I think the greenhouse will give him an excuse to come over more, and that will be a good thing, too.

Think I've finished the children's book. A friend whose an elementary school teacher read it and really bragged on how much she loved the character, said she would definitely read it to her class when it's published. She seemed so certain it would be. She made a suggestion for the ending, said it was a little too abrupt, and so I have worked on it and think I've made it better. I might be ready to submit it to a publisher now. Don't know why that's scaring me a little. Got to man up, as they say. Be brave. I've been down this road before, after all. It's just been awhile.

Onward ....