Pardon the Garden

Confessions of a lazy wannabe homesteader

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A little forest bathing

September 9, 2018 Marie Leave a Comment

This weekend we went away to a perfect little cabin nestled in the woods. I wish I could say it was 100% relaxing, but I have homework for college that I needed to do while there. But, we made the best of it. The Little Mr and I headed down Friday night and because we arrived so late and it was already dark we grabbed pizza from one of the local places, watched a movie, and had a really lovely evening.

Saturday morning I woke up and did a little knitting on the porch while listening to the rain in the trees. Then took advantage of the hot tub and did some more listening to the trees from the comfort of the hot water. Once the Mr arrived, we all headed to the caves to do some hiking. It has been far too long since I spent time out in nature, and I feel that void so very deeply lately. It was raining while we were there, and we didn’t let that get in our way until it started raining extra hard (which can make the hiking a bit dangerous with a little one), but I could have definitely used more time there before coming home. Oh well, I’ll take what I can get at least.

I’m way behind on homework now, because we were all exahusted and I couldn’t focus after we got back, so now I’m playing catch-up and trying to not stress about all the work that I need to do. But even if I bomb this homework and following exam, the self care alone from the weekend was worth it.

 

Featured, Posts nature, out & about, summer, travels

Winter solstice

December 21, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

Oh, my heart! ♥ Tonight, for Solstice, we strung up apples, oranges, and cranberries to hang on the tree out front. It was absolutely everything I hoped for, as far as a project to do with the Little Mr. I’ve never given him a needle and thread to just play with, so I wasn’t entirely sure if he would have the concept down or even be able to get the chunky needle through the cranberries, but he went to town. Well, as much as a 3 year old has the patience for it, anyway. But he seemed to love the project, and we trudged out to the cold, dark yard to hang them on the tree.

I think this might end up being a yearly Solstice tradition for us.

Featured, Posts family, holidays, Little Mr, nature, winter

The zoo, 2017 edition

May 20, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

The Little Mr is REALLY into the zoo these days. We went last week, over Mother’s Day weekend, and it was SO crowded that we didn’t really get to see much. We have a season membership, so no worries – we would just come back another day. Well, today was that day. He begged us to go back to the zoo, so off we went. This time to pet the goats, see the kangaroos (on the other side of the zoo, where we didn’t go the week prior), and pause for a quick little photo op. That sass with the hand on his hip is ALL ME, haha.

Featured, Posts family, Little Mr, nature, out & about, spring

Little bird

March 27, 2017 Marie Leave a Comment

Today was the first time I got to play with the larger lens on my new camera. I’ve taught Declan my “trick” to get the cardinals to come closer to our house, so now we sit on the back porch playing cardinal calls from the Audubon Birds app and then listen for the cardinals to reply and fly closer. I didn’t have my camera handy for when this little guy was on top of my garage, so my neighbors probably thought I was crazy shooting a photo of a tree across the street. But this little lens did a decent job considering the distance and how tiny my little model was in such a large lilac bush.

Now I need to work on getting those little goldfinches in the tree down the street to come nearer, which will most likely require a feeding spot.

Posts nature, spring

Spring-ish

May 10, 2015 Marie Leave a Comment

spring2015-2 spring2015-3 spring2015-1 garden-spring-cleanup chives rhubarbSpring has come and gone, it seems. We had lovely spring-like temps and rain and then suddenly the furnace was turned on around here and we’ve been hitting 85+ degrees. And, of course, our air conditioner broke. Trying to suffer through the heat with a baby is not fun at all.

I managed to capture the glory of our weeping crab apple tree at peak, which I rarely remember to do until it’s too late. The blooms lasted all of a few days before all the petals blew off in the wind, and now we’re back to just a plain ol’ tree. But for those few days it was the most beautiful thing in our yard. I need to remember to look for flowering things that will stagger our garden blooms. It’s sad to watch something fade and not have anything left to replace it.

The husband started cleaning up the garden in preparation for planting. We haven’t yet planted it – that was supposed to be today but it’s just too darn hot. Maybe tomorrow I’ll pop the tomatoes in the ground before it rains. The chives are blooming and going to waste – I didn’t realize they’d come back year to year until last year or so, and now that I know that I just haven’t really made the time to find out what to do with them to preserve and then use them. It doesn’t make sense to dry them or anything if we’re not going to use them. I might just have to rip them out and gift them to someone else. We certainly don’t need 4 patches of them. Or I suppose I could just move them and mix them into the landscape elsewhere. Kind of mix and match edibles with non-edibles. My rhubarb apparently hung on from last year. I’m not sure how, and it’s severely behind on growth – it shouldn’t be that tiny in May. But it’s there. I need to make a better effort to keep those stupid morning glory vines from choking it out.

I think my clematis is dead-dead. There’s no growth on it, either. I’m not sure if it’s the harsh winter that did it or the fact that I kept forgetting to water it. So it looks like I’ll be buying more of that to re-plant this year. I really do want this lovely trellis of vines growing up the side of the patio, that way I don’t have to look at the neighbor’s house when I hang out back there. I don’t mind living in the city, but I’m not the biggest fan of how close we are to the neighbors. Nor am I thrilled by the fact that our yard is impossible to fence in. It is what it is, though, and I still love my house despite the faults. I just have to be a bit more creative with the landscaping to make it the cozy back yard I want it to be.

 

Featured, Posts garden, nature, spring

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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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