Garden Archeology

Hello Spring! Welcome! ...please... please stay. We're begging you!

Especially since the gardening has begun!

Since we have a lot on our plate this year, we won't be tilling and putting in a vegetable garden until next year. This year we'll be more focused on learning what's already coming up here, what is dead and needs to be removed and replaced, and weeding and remulching the landscaping we have. It's very exciting but I do admit, I'll miss my garden this year. Yeah, I'll probably be too busy to give it the attention it would need to survive even if I DID have the garden, but still. I'm plant greedy. DO WANT ALL THE GREEN AND GROWING THINGS.

Moving on!

I do have some planters so there's that. I've already gone ahead and planted 2 with mixed color bell pepper seeds! Fingers crossed on those. Having fresh bell peppers for Tony that we can pick ourselves would be so amazing. Small container gardening will also be the smaller amount of work we're looking for this year.

I must also pause here to tell you the pure joy reawoken in me while planting them. The weather has been just absolutely fantastic and my leafy little heart has been all aflutter. I chose to plant on one of these beautiful days because I had a glorious open window of time. Tony and I had been out and about adventuring (windows down, baby! woooo!) and Tony needed to stop back in to the house for something.. (wallet? sweatshirt? Hell, I don't remember, it fell out of my head as soon as I thought of planting.) When he walked out the patio door to have me turn to him with dirt up to my elbows and most likely some up to my eyebrows, and both hands full of dirt, I got hit with that look he gives me that makes me stop and go "uh... what?". It's made up of 75% amusement.

The missing 25% is a matter for a different kind of blog.

Anyway, the "uh... what?" moment was just right, because it made me realize how blissfully and stupidly happy I was in that moment of dirt covered activity. It made me hungry for more planting, for more things to grow green and beautiful for me that I can share with other people.

.......

Alright that was a long pause. But I enjoyed it so it couldn't have been too bad. But here we are and we've found our way to the meat and potatoes of this post.
I had the spring (pun intended) in my step to get some yardwork done. There is a back strip in the yard that isn't accounted for in the landscaping layout we received with the house. A rogue garden! Dun dun dun! Rogue enough that I asked the previous owner what in the heck she even planted back there. Her response? No idea, it was there and it had been allowed to do its own thing.
A mystery! DUN DUN DUN!

And a buried one at that. This very small section of the yard isn't ideal, as it's in the shadow of a very large pine. Well, a bit smaller since it snapped its top off in the recent windstorm. So I became a garden archaeologist for the day.
It didn't look so bad to start, but oh. my. glob. there was a lot more leaves and needles than I thought.

Luckily for my procrastinating butt, the shoots of the plants coming up were still low and sturdy enough that raking won't damage them too bad and in most cases, not at all. Here's a tip: I used a wide plastic rake for this job. I have an adjustable metal tined rake that's very good for multiple jobs but I chose the plastic one for a few reasons. 1: The metal tined rake has very thin tines, as I'm moving pine needles, a wider tine is more desirable. 2: The plastic tines have a more forgiving flex to them which means less damage to plants.

I can't believe how big this pile is from this area.

Now I got to study the things I uncovered. I'm 90% certain that we have a large section of irises and a CRAP TON of PEONIES! *SQUEE!* My heart! Oh madre mia! Such joy! I counted no less than the sprouting of 5 peony groups. There are some plants as of yet unidentified, but once they get bigger, identification should be a snap.

Friends, I can't tell you the love I have for peonies. Had we not had them, I would have added them myself. The existing flowers are so exciting! We'll have irises, lilacs, and peonies. If they come back (they look dead) we'll have roses too. In the fall I'll be adding the tulip bulbs from the potted orange tulips we're currently enjoying. Yay Easter flowers!
Speaking of readily available Easter flowers, Tony asked about adding Asiatic lilies, and sadly I had to decline the addition suggestion. He loves them, I love them. Why not? The same reason I will never grow lavender. There are some smells I love that stab me right behind the eyes immediately. Asiatic lilies have that lingering and long wafting smell that would fill the yard and set my migraine demons on a frenzy. So only when we find one that has a smell my head can stand, will we have them.
But Amanda, lilacs and peonies are lingering and long wafting in scent, why the distinction?
I don't make the distinction. I have no idea how it works. I just know that it hurts my brain or it doesn't hurt my brain.

I'm excited to find out if the few plants I couldn't identify will be brain-busters or some joyfully colored but non-offensive garden lovelies! Make sure to check back with us for future garden updates!

Return of the Blog

Welcome back! 

So, Amanda, why so long? What have you been doing?

My loves, we've been busy.

Well that's rather vague. Please elaborate.

Righty-O
Well I've been food-sperimenting.

Hibachi soup and steak bites

A one pan Fajitas meal

A visually underwhelming but good meal

Doting on the cats

Oh and we bought a house and moved. A big adventure in itself!

And the adventure didn't end.

We had a pretty terrible windstorm in WI early March. Loud but everything seemed okay. I finally started to relax, so you can imagine when I was crawling into bed and reaching for the light switch I was a little more than startled to hear a horrid tearing sound, thud, and the house going dark.
Magic light switch! It knows when I want the lights off!
Or possibly I just heard something rather awful.
So I walk outside (like someone with a death wish) and take a look in our backyard. I can't see anything wrong.

Do you ever get one of those feelings? One of those gut wrenching, spine tingling, hair on your neck raising feelings?

Because I did. I have never felt that feeling as strongly as I did then. So I booked it. I bee-lined. I ran like a little girl with a swarm of bees after her.
Then my adult senses started tingling and I did what I should have immediately done. I lit a candle, went into Tony's brand spanking newly moved into office, and called the electrical services. Then I waited until 6:30 in the morning for the guys to show up.

And boys and girls, it was a doozey.

We have an electric pole in our back corner of our backyard. That terrible tearing noise I still can't get out of my head? That was the sound of our neighbor's very large tree having its top violently ripped off. Surprisingly, the thud wasn't the sound of tree hitting ground. It was the sound of tree hitting taught wires, ripping off the top of one pole and cracking the pole a few houses down.

Folks, appreciate those that go out at all hours and do electrical work. This poor young man that knocked on our front door and apologized that it would be quite a while before the power came back on looked like he was ready for me to verbally berate him. Why dear God, have people preconditioned this young man to cringe away when delivering news he can't help?
I told him not to worry about it, I know it's a crap-ton of work. It feels good to watch the stress and worry drain out of a person when you're understanding.
And why wouldn't I be understanding? He didn't cause my problem. He'll have to (with as it turns out, about 3 crews of people) crawl up and work with live electricity, in frigid temperatures and snow stinging him in the face, while he tries to yell to his crew through a still-nasty wind. Further, they had to cut and remove the widowmaker that caused the problems, and replace 2 poles.
So 7 hours later when the power came back on and all 4? 5? crew trucks left and the power popped on, I was glad noone was hurt.

I'm not thrilled about the tire ruts in the backyard or the branch broken off the lilac, but all things considered, we're more than okay.
Oh no, I have to wear a sweatshirt because it's getting cold! Whatever shall I do?! Are people really that mad about these things? Look, unless you do dialysis or something like that at home, you'll be fine. I promise.

Ah, the first taste of home ownership. A tiny inconvenience but a reminder nonetheless that it's us now, no landlord to call.

Oh, we've also ordered pizza a few times and OH MY GOD THIS IS LIVING. What can I say any better than my father did? I'm a country bumpkin moving into the city.

This country bumpkin has more about those previous mentioned meals and an ongoing project to restore Tony's grandmother's china cabinet. We'll be coming into spring so I get to see what's popping up in our new backyard and adding some more to the landscaping that our FABULOUS previous home owners started.
But for now, I still have so many things to unpack, clothes and dishes to wash, floors to sweep, and most importantly cats to chill with.