Things I Actually Did During The Lockdown: Vol. 1

Yes, another list. It's what I do. Expect more in the future. This is an incomplete list of some of the things that I actually managed to accomplish during The Lockdown.  Alternate title: A Less Than Enchanted April in Rooms Without Much in the Way of a View is Cold Comfort Indeed!*

• Re-read all the library books I’d picked up before this mess began. Those things are seriously overdue, but I’m pretty sure it’s okay. If I'd realized what we were in for, I would have checked out a bunch more.   
• Gave Hubby an awesome haircut. Full disclosure: I give him haircuts even when we’re not in lockdown. This one though, really looked good! Pity nobody saw it! I also gave myself a major trim. I figured that even when I have to go out, my hair is up or in a baseball cap (so the mask ties don’t get caught in it)… nobody will see a bad trim!
• Finished a crochet hat with a challenging pattern that I’d started over a year ago and misplaced. The bigger challenge was figuring out where I'd left off. Gotta remember not to stop mid-project like that.
• Tested some Christmas gift ideas. In April! What is the world coming to? I'd say more but that would be telling.
• Weeded the garden. Yes, I weeded. Totally not joking, I really did. And then, after getting up close and personal with the little darlings, had to find out what they’re actually called and other non-pertinent information about them. Because I could. And it was the least I could do after unceremoniously ripping them up by their invasive %$#@!& roots.  My favorite weed? The Redstem Storksbill!
• Did some reading up on the habits and habitats of our local feathered friends. We had an Oak Titmouse family in our front yard birdhouse. I could watch their comings and goings as they “feathered their nest” and fledged their young. Forget the Lion King, we've got the circle of life right here in our front yard. And it's awesome.  
• A bit of clutter clearing happened. Then the sun came out! After a cold grey winter, I've pretty much planted myself on the porch to soak up as much heat as possible. Not sun, heat. There is a difference. Might do some more de-cluttering now that the fickle weather has turned on us once again.
• With the libraries still closed, and you know, a swirling vortex of stress, I turned to my favorite novels for comfort and escape. They’re the ones in green print cotton covers in the photo above. Re-reading them is like therapy. No, it's more like a special treat; a visit with an old friend. I don’t like the look of paperbacks, so to cover up the sometimes damaged (sometimes ugly) covers, I glue fabric over them. It’s pretty and it reinforces the cheap paper covers.

So that was April. This is May. May is thus far just like April. But if I look closely, there are some positive changes happening….

Cheer up, Buttercups!
—Steph

*Three of the top favs: Enchanted April by Elizabeth Von Arnim, A Room With a View by EM Forster, and Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons. These also have the distinction of having had excellent movies made from them with stellar casts. The same can not be said of all my favorite novels.

Blueberries: All's Fair In Love And War

Early June 2016

My Backyard    

Dear Jay, 

I know that no amount of sunflower seeds can take the place of a warm and juicy ripe blueberry bursting in your beak. On this we can agree. But while I respect your above-average avian intelligence, you are, for a few weeks out of every year, my adversary.

Sincerely yours,

Stephanie     

P.S. This is war.

Refresh With Lemon Cucumbers

Thanks to a gift from a gardening friend last spring, our garden has been giving us lovely Lemon Cucumbers this summer and fall. I for one, couldn't be happier. Cucumbers have to be one of the most refreshing snacks ever. With their slight hint of citrus-ness, Lemon Cucumbers are even more so. 

They've been really easy to grow; we have them in a pot with a bit of trellis propped in it. Keep them watered regularly, don't let the leaves get wet, guide their vines where you want them, and clip the cukes off as soon as they look ready. I've noticed that once cut from the vine, they start to lose their plump firmness, so plan on eating them within a day of picking.

I usually just scrub them, slice off the ends, then cut them into quarters or slice them across like any other cucumber. We leave the skins on and eat them by themselves, or include them in a salad. Sometimes I'll drop a slice into my glass of ice water... super refreshing!

Next year we're definitely getting another one of these vines... we might even have to get two of them!

• Make a Fresh Cucumber & Spirulina Mask for your pretty face with LisaLise
• Or maybe a Soothing Cucumber Splash from Herb Companion  
• Get some tips for Growing Cucumbers at Bonnie Plants

Happy growing!

Vertically Challenged: A Love Story

This is a story about a girl who loved strawberries. This girl grew strawberries in a pot on her patio one summer and having had such a lovely time of it, decided she wanted to grow eighty-seven times as many strawberry plants the following year. 

Well, as these types of stories go, the girl, who spent way too much time on Pinterest, had a very handsome and handy husband. This husband built the girl a strawberry planter like the one she had Pinned on her gardening ideas board, but better.*

He then bought her bags of strawberry rhizomes. It was late winter.

They waited, the hubby and the girl, until fairer weather in which to plant those dormant roots. But the busy-ness of their life interrupted their plans and possibly they also forgot where they put the bags of rhizomes for a while. 

Suddenly they realized that it was past planting time! They found themselves behind schedule! Because of their negligence, sadly, a few of the plant-lets didn't make it. But the rest of them (Praise be!), grew up and seemed very very happy...

Stay tuned for the exciting next installment of As The Strawberry Turns!

The Strawberries Of Our Lives?... 

All My Strawberries?...

General Strawberry?

Oh, now that's just plain silly.

*This is a completely subjective statement and in no way is intended to diminish the total awesomeness of the source idea. The "improvements" he made included adding wood scraps to the sides and bottom of the pallet and a scrap piece of plywood to the back of it. It's way stronger and more durable than the original design... but also much heavier too. If you go that route, you'll need to have a couple of strong and obliging guys around (never a bad idea anyway) when it's time to raise the planter into place. He also painted it dark brown because he's totally not into pallet-crafts, and all things considered, I didn't object. After all, it can't help but draw the eye when we're on the patio, and it might as well not look like something we found in an alley and nailed wood scraps onto... not at first glance anyhow!

Mea Culpa, Pituophis Catenifer

I was going to write about basil yesterday... or cilantro... or maybe strawberries. I hadn't decided, but as you can see, fate intervened...

After breakfast, I'd wanted to putter a bit amongst the herbs on the back patio before it got too hot. As soon as I stepped outside though, I saw a distinctive shape behind the lounge chair. Retreating behind the the safety of the sliding-glass door I saw that it was indeed a snake. I ran for Hubs who came over and assured me it was a gopher snake, "They're good snakes—they eat gophers."

There was one hitch... the poor little dear was caught in the plastic netting we'd had over the blueberry shrubs all summer. The plastic netting I took off of the blueberries two weeks ago and hadn't put away yet. My bad. My really bad.

Budget Pets & Sensory Gardens

Pets are a big responsibility... and one I can't in good conscience commit to right now. They require stability, time, space, and money. We're a little thin in some of those spots at the moment, but we still feel the emptiness that only pets can fill. We have a pet-sized hole in our lives.* So in the meantime, we have birds. Or more specifically, we feed birds. Wild birds to be exact... lots and lots of them.

Raise your hand if you get teary during the "Feed The Birds" montage in Mary Poppins...

While our fine feathered friends seem to eat their weight in food every day, a big sack of seed every couple of months is still cheaper than vet bills and designer doggy duds. Plus, they're the easiest pets ever (not even goldfish are this easy). Admittedly, as far as pets go, wild birds score pretty low on the snuggle-factor, but they rate very high on the amusement scale.

A Sound Garden

All of our bird visitors, large and small, have made our garden come alive with movement and activity... the kind you just can't get with whirligigs and weather-vanes. I tend to think that good landscaping should incorporate movement and sound, and indeed engage all our other basic senses as well. Like movement, sound is an element that often gets forgotten, but a yard that's atwitter with birdies, is a garden complete. Just hearing them out there chirping and chattering away makes me happy. I call that "cheep" therapy. Want to get in on all the action? Here are some tips that have worked for us...

Hello! My Name Is... Herb

The great thing about chalkboards is that you can wipe them clean and start over whenever you want… I love that. I have two chalkboards in my kitchen that I use all the time. The one my Hubby and I made when we moved in here is one of my very favorite things. Both boards sport to-do lists, groceries needed, etc. on any given day of the year. Super handy.

Here today, gone before you know it
Needless to say, I love the look of chalkboard-craftiness as much as the next person, but practicality prevents me from using it for labeling my mason jars or identifying my herbs in the garden or any other alternative use where it's particular type of temporality (temporariness?) is not really a benefit. In other words, anywhere the writing is likely to get smudged off prematurely.

I need some cilantro... stat!
However, spring has finally sprung and I need to know my cilantro from my parsley at a glance (and Hubs needs to know too, as I often find myself in the middle of cooking and need him to snip some herbs for me). Mind you, we normally can tell the difference between our plants, but we've added a lot of new herbs this year… and well... plant markers are cute. There. I've said it.