Pardon the Garden

Confessions of a lazy wannabe homesteader

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A day for roses

February 14, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Posts garden

Morning Frost

February 3, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

I remembered to grab my camera on the way out the door, but only had enough battery power to do a few quick shots. If I didn’t have to rush off to work I would have recharged and played with more photos – it’s not very often that we get nice frosts where you can see the ice crystal formations so nicely.

 

Posts garden, nature, winter

An unusual start to February

February 2, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

It’s a melancholy kind of day. I think it’s just that time of year. The weather has been unusually nice lately – not at all like February should be. I have clear recollection of the first day of March, one year much longer ago than I like to think, where the weather was warm and spring-like and I was driving with my windows down and the music blaring. Now, it seems, the weather has shifted and it’s the first days of February that we’re getting our first taste of spring. Which is cruel of Mother Nature to do to those of us whose souls ache and long for the day that we get our hands muddy in the soil.

I decided to order myself a new book today and take on a new skill: cheese making. I let myself sink into a black hole of farm envy these last few days, so in my attempt to drag my ass out of it and back to reality I decided that I needed to just keep doing what I can to pursue the dream and keep moving forward. I’ve already tried my hand at yogurt, which I’m more or less comfortable with, so why not take the next step? And, as I like to reason with myself, some day I hope to have a dairy goat on our someday farm and I’m going to need to do something with all of that fresh milk. So I might as well learn to make cheese.

Saturday I attend a community gardening workshop. Our garden is our backyard, rather than a community garden, but I thought it would be interesting to go anyway and see what I learn. I’m far from a gardening expert, mostly doing this whole thing half-assed and flying by the seat of my pants, so I’m really looking forward to it. And, if nothing else, it gets me out of the house and out there meeting other people who might have some similar interests.

Posts food, garden, home, literary

Reminders

January 31, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Today this post really hit home. I’ve saved it in my RSS feed so I can go back and read it often and plenty. Sometimes I feel like the dream of a farm is impossible. Not only is it impossibly expensive right now (unless you want a fixer-upper, and by that I mean “might-as-well-tear-down-and-start-from-scratch”), it’s also incredibly scary to even think about selling our current place and try to play the home sales game and hope that you can sell one to move to another without putting yourself into the two mortgage situation. And I love my garden and flowers to give up green space for a temporary apartment.

I tend to dwell on the negatives rather than the positives. I dwell on the fact that I can’t have chickens or goats or pigs, instead of focusing my energies on what I do have – a nice chunk of land for veggie growing, access to locally grown items I can’t grow myself, and the will and determination to do what I can with what I have until that fateful day when the perfect property comes up for sale and everything falls in place.

Sometimes it just feels like I’m playing house. Like all my ideas and desires to grow my own food, make my own bread, etc are just a whimsicle fantasy. Especially in these winter months when nothing grows outdoors. Perhaps I’m just restless and antsy for spring.

Regardless, it’s good to have reminders like Jenna’s post to keep me going, keep me growing, and keep me working towards that farm.

Posts garden, link love

Winter Petals

January 26, 2012 Marie Leave a Comment

Just a few short days since my last post this little hyacinth has really started to bloom. There is a small hint of its sweet scent if you’re close enough to it – I could smell it while I took pictures – but not enough to perfume the entire room. I think I have a love of photographing flowers because they fade so quickly. Too quickly, if you ask me. Sometimes I wish I lived in a warmer climate where I could have blooming flowers year-round, but I try to remind myself that the bitter, barren winter makes me appreciate little things such as this so much more.

Though the winter equinox is over a month behind us, the days still darken early. A dismal gray fog settled among the trees and fields today, contrasted by amber-shaded grass in the ditches. It was beautiful and eerie all at once. The image brought Sleepy Hollow to mind.

Candles glow on the dining room table, the kitchen, the bathroom, etc for extra light indoors. I still have my holiday tree up simply because I love the soft glow the lights give off despite the holidays being well over. My oil lanterns are nearly out of fuel. I spend my evenings trying to make up where Mother Nature left off.

Posts garden, home, nature, winter

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Pardon the garden. A phrase I’m most likely to utter anytime anyone visits the house during the growing seasons of spring through fall. Sure, there are pretty flowers and delicious veggies in there somewhere, but they might be a little hard to find amidst the mess of overgrown grass, dandelions, and weeds that have found their way in there and haven’t been pulled. Read On

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