a week of weeding

It's the week for weeding.

It's not raining, and the last few weeks of days with rain and intermittent sunshine have produced growth - in good and bad ways. My garden is thriving, but so are the weeds. So every day I've been attempting to spend at least an hour in the garden weeding and doing maintenance stuff. So far I have the corn and half a row of peas left to weed, then I have a row of beans and half a row of green beans to replant. And the cabbage, which I've never successfully grown (except the year the geese ate the one head I had) is being eaten up by bugs and maybe a rabbit. So some research is needed in that area.

I've also weeded through some of  my projects and sorted/put away quite a bit in my sewing room. Last night was the last meeting for quilt guild (they meet on a school calendar), and the outgoing president was laughing that her challenge for people to finish unfinished projects (called UFOs in the quilt world) didn't end quite the way she expected. I don't know how many people signed up for her challenge, but they registered 100 unfinished quilt projects that they wanted to complete. The total number completed?  19.  I refuse to count how many I have, but am simply trying to keep plugging away at what is in front of me or on my mind/due at the current time.

And it's been a week of weeding through some thoughts and feelings, which is never fun, but often necessary. I'm reminded of God's grace, and how it is truly undeserving. The older I get and the more I fail the more I realize just how much I am in need of it.

a week of losses

On the same day my Facebook feed is full of pictures from the funerals of the two seniors who died at UNC-CH, I'm also getting news feeds from people outside NC about a shooting in Colorado. Has our nation gone mad?  My heart just hurts - for our children who live in fear and have shooting drills, for my niece who came home from school extremely upset because they had a "false alarm" lockdown at school and a classmate was trapped in the hallway and the teacher wouldn't open the door, despite his tears and begging. I know procedure says not to do that, and the student is to leave the building or hide in the bathroom, but who wants to be exposed in an open hallway when there's a shooter on the loose?  I hurt for the parents, especially the parents whose children were hurt or killed, and yes, even for the parents who are living with the nightmare that their child committed the atrocities. How in the span of 30 years did we go from students having their hunting rifles in their pickups while on school property and no school shootings to guns being banned and shootings becoming so commonplace that every school has planned and unplanned shooting drills?


And totally trivial and meaningless compared to the other events of the week, the six small buds that we thought were going to be kiwi have simple disappeared off the plant. I don't know if last weekend's rains and wind blew them off, or if a bird ate them, or what. We just know they are no longer there.

And we are missing a goldfish. I have no clue how a goldfish in a covered tank simply disappears, but it is not there. I cleaned the tank today, and could not find our orange goldfish anywhere.

And we've lost a goose. We were hoping she was on a nest somewhere, but I think we've both realized either a fox or coyote got her.

Praying next week brings some peace and solace to our nation, as well as some very deep self-examination.

learning as I go

Growing up, there were times I helped drop seeds in the ground during planting time, we helped pick peas, tomatoes, cucumbers and squash and we definitely shelled peas, beans, and shucked corn. I had to help in the kitchen bagging things as they cooled, and then in my high school years we helped with the blanching.

But planting a garden and putting up produce are two very different things. This was the first year that I really got my garden rows right.  Bobby's laughed that I've done it backwards the last few years (planting seeds in the furrows instead of the mounds), and I like the difference it has made so far.

Since we have an underground fence line, I use straw bales for part of my garden so I don't risk cutting the cord to the dog's electrical current.  We tried this a few years ago (and learned that small plants truly work best), and last year I had moderate success with it. I didn't "season" the bales long enough before planting, so it took a little longer for my plants to really get going. This year we started earlier. Today when planting beans, peas, and replanting my squash, I encountered ants. Ever since Hurricane Matthew last fall we have been swamped with mounds of ants like I've never seen here. And they've made their home in two of the straw bales. So today I guess I'll be researching gardens and ants and poisons to see what my options are.

I try not to be shocked when people call and ask me for advice on their chickens or their garden. I know very little!  I've had more failures than successes. But I suppose each failure is a lesson learned, though there are many days I wish my grandparents were still around so I could ask them questions. My Dad and his brothers all do things very differently in their gardens, and I'm curious what my grandparents would say about it.