Garden Painting

 I got the paint out this past month and let the boys do some rock painting.

While I did let them just paint some rocks, I also made a few mementos.

Both of them did handprints with their names and the date on the rock.  Rock painting is one of our favorite things to do and we never run out of canvas.

And I painted my garden door purple.

Life...And Everything

When we first bought our place in the country, we knew we wanted to eventually get to a place of self-sufficiency and sustainability.  It's about being healthy, conserving resources, and relying on the things God's given us (i.e. land for food, sun and wind for energy). We haven't yet gotten one step closer on the energy part of things, but we are slowly dipping our toe into relying on ourselves for food.  

Hand-in-hand with self-sufficiency is the fact that I know myself.  I'm not the kind of person that jumps into something both feet forward.  I'm not going to go overboard.  For example, when first learning to garden, I didn't go out and buy 8000 books on how to create the best dirt, then dig a huge 1-acre garden and fill it with vegetables.  I know myself.  If it failed, I would probably never get back into it.  I start small, then slowly work my way up.  I won't ever win big, as the saying goes, because I would rather not lose big.  We aren't risk-takers or gamblers in life.  Time also has a lot to do with how much I bite off.  How much time everyday am I going to have to devote to these things?  Our children are young and we homeschool.  Time is a precious commodity to us.  We've also learned to accept failure.  Lots of times, things don't work right the first time.  Whether it's what can or can't keep a goat fenced in or to what extent those worms are going to eat my broccoli, we aren't too disappointed when things don't work out.  We learn from it and eventually get it right.

So we bite off little bits, and I'm proud of where we've gotten.  Every year our garden expands a little bit, and we learn what works (carrots!) and what doesn't (handpicking worms off your cabbage).  Last year we bought a few goats to help keep the brush down.  Hopefully, our fences will expand every year and we won't have to rely on lawnmowers and chainsaws to keep the brush back.  This year, we've started milking one of our goats.  I was worried about the time commitment of having to milk everyday, but we've managed to get a good routine going.  And the kids love handling the animals.  We've got four chickens (one rooster and three hens).  It's a small operation, but it works well for us.  In the next couple of years we might expand it and start raising chickens from eggs.  I make my own bread.  I have a very versatile recipe that can be turned into french bread, sandwich bread, pizza dough, dinner rolls, etc.  It's quick and easy, and full of good stuff for the family.

So here is a picture that I'm really proud of.  Home-grown spinach in the back, homemade bread, strawberries (in the picture because I found them for a $1 a pound), hand-picked blueberries, farm fresh eggs, raw goat's milk, wild blackberries, carrots from our garden, and a smoothie on the right with a lot of those ingredients in it.  Because we do things slowly, success often sneaks up on us while we're not looking. I was washing blackberries this morning and making the kids and I that smoothie when I realized it was there.  Small gains, every day, every year.  

Irises in the Garden

I love irises.  They surprise me with their color every year.  

This one was yellow and white last year, but this year it was this pretty peach/pink color.  

Okay, this isn't an iris but my mom bought me this beautiful fuchsia and I love the colors of it.  And it reminds me of my mother-in-law.  Her favorite color is the pink in this flower, whereas my favorite color is the purple.  They go well together.

  

The irises behind my house tripled in blooms this year.

I love their two-tone purple.

And I really love the uniqueness of this blue/purple.

This one is my favorite, though.  

It had never bloomed before this year.  It was a delight to see this very delicate pink/purple in the garden.

This is my garden next to the house.  I'm in this garden almost everyday.  My friend said it reminded her of 'The Secret Garden.'  Probably because it is kind of hidden amongst the wildness of the woods around my house.  And I still love my blue fence.

My broccoli and sugar snap peas.  This was actually a couple of weeks ago.  The peas are all the way up the trellis now, blooming away and the broccoli now have heads on them.  They also have caterpillars on them, but I've been trying to squash those.

Hyacinths and the Blue Fence

The Garden 2012

Every year we do a little bit more to our garden/yard. 

Last year we built some vegetable beds. 

This is what we've done so far this year:

Started seeds indoors.  Broccoli, cabbage, and brussel sprouts.  I'm not sure if I started them in time considering the warm weather we're having, but we shall see.

I painted the fence.  It used to be a 6-foot wooden fence, but over time it became a sort of retaining wall for the path behind it.  We cut down the upper part to let in some sunshine, but had to keep the part that held back the rocks and dirt. It's not the prettiest thing ever.  We don't have the time to replace it entirely, so I just painted it to add some color to the garden.

I added this trellis to the vegetable bed my sister and I built last year. 

This is what it looked like before:

Much better, I think.

Our garden could definitely be categorized as the "Reuse" in the reduce, reuse, recycle slogan.  We use old fencing, old siding, old pallets, rocks, and even old tires (will be a potato tower eventually and I think I'm going to paint them blue, too).  But it's all actually done very orderly and ends up looking nice, even if the photo above doesn't really show it. 

So far this year we've cut back some of the unwanted bushes, built a fence around the entire garden, put in some rock steps (photo above, to the right) to walk on, raked the leaves out of the entire garden, started building a new vegetable bed, re-vamped the wooden borders to some of the flower beds, and made a new compost bin (photo below).

Here's my new compost bin.  We've got several around the place, but I don't have one close by the house that's convenient for me to use.  This one is.

My daffodils against the blue fence with the morning sunshine on them.

And again.  I love my blue fence.  It makes me feel quirky.  Only quirky people paint their raggedy old half-fence blue, right?

My Bradford pear tree blooming. 

The Asiatic Day Flower

These little flowers grow in the wild, but I love them and let them reign free in my flower bed.

Next to these little petunia-type flowers.  I can't remember their name.

Can you see the blue flowers?  They're also called Mouse Flowers because they look like Mickey Mouse on closer inspection. 

And here's Eli eating a cupcake.  What a mess!

Therapy

There are a lot of weird people out there who find pleasure in exercise, something about releasing the endorphins or something or other. When I lived in town, I would walk around the local school's track or endure the agony of walking on a treadmill at the gym to keep in shape.  The only time I enjoyed this was when I walked with my mom, and that was because of the company, not because of the walking. Yes I felt better afterwards, but I hated doing it. I hated needing to do it, because it meant that my life was rather stationary. The only time I ever liked exercise was when I played racquetball, which I enjoyed even though I got stomped by my friend every single time we played. But again, I enjoyed the company just as much as the game.

I hear some people enjoy shopping and that it's a stress reliever for them.  I enjoy shopping, but mostly just with my sister and again that's more for the company than the shopping.  It's more fun for me when my sister's got money to spend than when I've got money to spend.  

Some women eat chocolate and it can instantly erase a day's frustration. I've never found such pleasure in it.  

Some people like to drink alcohol to "take the edge off."  While I do enjoy a glass of wine now and then, I don't drink to calm me down.

At 31 years old, I've figured out what I enjoy doing.  Really, really enjoy doing.

I like to garden.  

I like to grow pretty flowers and yummy vegetables.  I like watching the plants grow into maturity.

I like weeding, I like watering, I like trimming.  I like it all.

I get the whole endorphin release of the runner now.  I enjoy the feeling that comes from working in the garden and I enjoy the thrill of it all coming together.

And I like taking care of our animals. Aside from the fact that the goats are such fun, interesting creatures, I like the hard work of fixing fences, mucking the pen, and herding them up.  I get a lot of satisfaction out of taking care of them and the chickens.

There's more to it than just enjoyment and satisfaction, though. 

 For one, the hard work that comes from farming helps ease my mind when I have to deal with the harsh reality of being disliked or the tension that comes from assumptions and miscommunication.

The other thing, though, is even better.  

The other thing is confidence.  Because now I know I can do it.

I can grow vegetables successfully. I can make my garden look nice, in an orderly fashion, and keep it well maintained.  Not only can I keep plants alive, but they'll grow gorgeous flowers that make me happy.  I can get a coop set up for chickens and take care of them successfully.  I can de-worm a goat.  I can keep them fenced in (when I want). I'm a good goat-herder or whatever it's called. 

The confidence I've found from knowing that I can do these things my way and do them well, is like flood waters rushing in and sweeping away the feelings of inadequacy and inability I've allowed to creep in over the last few years. 

Irises

There are several different color irises around this place, I thought I would share: 

Down by the cabin.

A gorgeous new one, from my friend Cherryl.

This is also from my friend, and I love the blue in it.

Behind the house.

In front of the house.

In front of the house, and our most popular color.

Hey, that's not an iris! My lovely scented peonies in bloom.

My boy picking me a flower.

White and purple by the swing set.

Yellow behind the house.

Blackberries in bloom!

Which ones are your favorite?