Changes and Stuff

So, as you can see, I have changed the name of the blog back to it's original.  We are every so slowly adjusting to our new normal, but I believe there isn't a day that goes by that we aren't laughing or crying (or sometimes both) over something that reminds us of Janet.

This week everyone and their brother appears to have their plant sales.  I went to Chadwick Arboretum's's plant sale/fundraiser on Friday at 8am, meeting my friend, Misty, and her adorable son, Liam.  We went to Tee-Jaye's afterward.  Then I got up early this morning and met another friend, Beth, at Creekside Cafe in Gahanna, and went to the Gahanna Herb Day after that.  Want to see a list of what I bought?

There's a plethora of stuff on there...herbs, flowers, heirloom veggies. I went without a list, and still really didn't either forget anything OR get any extra stuff I didn't intend to get.

(As an aside, I am totally going to hire Misty and Beth to be my gardeners when I win the Powerball!)

The book that's in is a "gardening journal" I bought in 2010.  It's a blank book, that isn't actually completely blank.  But  I think that's like page two.  As you can see, I am also jotting down where things go, and not everything has a home yet.  So, I sketched out the backyard so we can start thinking about it, thusly...

Good thing we didn't waste money on art school!
Totally not to any kind of logical scale.

That is as you stand on the deck looking out towards the back.  I have a good sense of where the annual herbs should go, in pots on the deck.  Everything else is up in the air, as I'm thinking of moving perennial herbs to the flower bed around the deck...my HOPE is they can be sort of shaded by the flowers that are there while they get established, and over the winter, and then been fairly self-sufficient after that.  The perennials don't seem to do really well over the winter in the containers.

It was threatening rain, so I didn't do much more before work.  I pulled some thyme that overwintered to start drying some more.  I love the way my hands smell after I do that!  Tomorrow morning I will  be all about the weeding and getting of the things ready.  Monday, Jim doesn't work, so that will likely be when the heavier work is getting done.  He's going to make me at least one new bed, maybe two to replace the pallets (to the right of the oak, and then above that one).

I have filled the hummingbird feeders, and one of the plants is a hummingbird attractant, so we shall wait.  I also have a way longer tale to tell you about our epic battle between a hawk and some squirrels, but that will have to wait for another time.

I Did One Thing Right This Summer...

... But I will get to that in the minute.

We had three mornings in a row of me having to scrape my windows, and one was right after a hard frost.  And thus, summer has come to an end.  The Celts called it Samhain (SOW-ayn, roughly, translates to "summer's end") and as many know it's calendered on November 1.  Mother Nature, however, has her own calendar, so Samhain came to my back 40 feet this past weekend.  So Sunday, after yoga, I set about the task of closing the garden for the season.

On Saturday, with foreknowledge of the coming hard frost, I gathered the last of the late tomatoes, green or not, from their vines.  Sunday was cool, in the upper 40s but with a coat, earmuffs and the occasional hot flash I was perfectly fine.  I pulled the broccoli I had allowed to bolt, the leftover vines of the tomatoes and peppers, the Brussel sprouts that got worms so never sprouted, and put those all into the yard waste bin.  I decided at first to leave the weeds and such in the beds over the winter, to at least hold the soil in case of high winds. I turned my attention then to my compost bin.

Now, I had started to turn it at one point but was thwarted by bees... I just noticed I didn't blog about that!  Long story short:

Dry compost leads to bumble bees. They are cute, fuzzy, slow, and not aggressive...they were annoyed and buzzing, but I decided to leave them alone.  Rain was coming, so I left the last layer open in hopes they'd move out.

Rain happened and the bumblebees did indeed move out.  Sadly, they had sublet their space to some yellow jackets I think.  I don't know they were smaller, faster, definitely not as cute, and were way more aggressive.  I only got stung once, but that was quite enough of dealing with compost for the season.  (Other than occasionally putting stuff in it, but it had gotten full so even that had stopped).


Okay, back to this past weekend.  I figured the frost had taken care of any stinging things, so decided to at least move things so the bin was together.  I got to the middle of the larger part and things were starting to look good.  Like dirt, rather than paper, eggshells, miscellaneous vegetables. Slightly encouraged I kept going until I got to the last level and lo and behold there it was.  Brown, crumbly, ...COMPOST!  I had done it!  SOMETHING this summer had gone right.

Immediately, I decided to pull weeds and rake straw out of beds and start spreading.  I got two of the three beds done that way before I ran out, so it wasn't MUCH, but it was there.  I got done with that and put the bin back together, feeling fairly pleased with myself.  My plan now is to put raked leaves over those beds to protect them (the rest into the compost bin) and when I turn compost in the spring, see what I can add, especially to bed number three.

Also, our apple tree continues to give us proper size apples.  We now need to learn how to manage them so they don't get diseased.

Harvest time is a time of reflection, and there's certainly been a lot of that in a lot of areas.  As far as the back 40 goes, "Hands off gardening" has to come to an end.  If I had noticed the parasites on the Brussel sprouts, if I had done a few other things, the yield may have been less frustrating.  So next year, my hope is to be a bit more involved rather than JUST letting nature take its course.

I'm considering renaming the blog, too.  I named it thusly because it was my hope that getting Janet involved would help, but Alzheimer's has it's own idea, and it's own timeline, and there's nothing that one can do to change that.  But we'll see...I will let that incubate over the winter.

Happy Samhain!

And there we have it.

On June 11, I had started a new post entitled "Managing the Inevitable."  In it, I updated Janet's recent and abrupt change and decline in Alzheimer's symptoms. She had become combative, would refuse food and medicine (but could usually be cajoled into them).  She was packing her stuff in a very haphazard disorganized fashion because her nephew (she believed) was coming to take her to her sister's.

We got emergency nursing home placement.  She got sick.  She went to the ER, then ICU.  She recovered some.  We placed her in our first choice nursing home.  The first night she fell trying to get out of bed.  That afternoon she was gone.  June 29, 2015.  I hadn't yet adjusted to her being across town, but at least then I could check in and see her.  Now I can't even do that.

And that's nothing compared to my husband and his sister's pain.

I mentioned before, Alzheimer's is more than just memory loss.  It attacks all parts of the brain; even those parts that are responsible for things like being hungry and breathing and the like.

But...if I am at least grateful for two things.

1.She had a good visit with her son and daughter and granddaughter the day before.  She knew who they were.

2.  She did not decline further.  She will not be in that line of people at the nursing home, staring off into space, not knowing where they are, who they are.  Alzheimer's didn't beat her after all.

The last few weeks...months, really... have been a blur.  But life requires we move on, as it keeps happening regardless.  I see events happening that I may have once been invited to, but care-giving-related invitation declines have seen me fall off many 'must invite' lists.  I need to get back to social life.

AND, back to my garden, which actually has been happening in the midst of all the other.  I could read back to see what I've already talked about, but instead I'll just state where we are.  Today Jim and I staked the tomatoes and peppers.  The tomatoes had outgrown the little thingies I had, so we got proper stakes for them.  The rain has left them loaded with green fruit, so hopefully the dry and heat of this coming week will start the ripening process.  there are blossoms on the peppers, too.  I normally don't stake them, but rain keeps beating them down.

The zucchini and squash are doing .... so-so.  I've gotten two zucchinis and one squash off two plants of each.  It looks the rain just smashed the plants completely, so we'll see what the dry spell does.

I think I am going to have to give up on broccoli.  I never get the big bunches I see in stores, and it bolts really quickly.  The Brussel sprouts are starting to form though.  They seem to take forever, though, so I may want to rethink them both in favor of something that produces well and doesn't take so long.

I did finally plant beans and they have sprouted up nicely.  Allegedly there is no trellising required for these (but we shall keep an eye on that).

Strawberries and raspberries are sort of mediocre this year, but the apple tree is LOADED.  We don't spray so they aren't "pretty" but they are definitely bigger this year than last, and more plentiful.  One of these years we will look at the 'organic apple growing' sites and figure out what we're doing.  Jim also finally planted our grape vine, so hopefully it's not too late for the plant to survive, even if we don't get grapes this year.

Right now the bumper crop is cucumbers, which are following the 'three years to success' model that almost everything else has.  Of course, I was growing them for Janet, who LOVED them.  I see relish in my future.

Also in addition to the tomato stakes on our trip to Lowe's, we got birdseed.  I need to fill the birdfeeder (edit: done) and refill the hummingbird feeders.  Janet was insistent about those.

Herbs are drying in the window, but I need to get those taken down and stored so I can hang more.

The cicadas are singing, signifying for me the beginning of Lughnasadh, and now the hope for having things to can and preserve.  While my hope is only for hobby's sake, it's a small snippet of how people must have felt this time of year.  I know my garden this year isn't going to do much (survival on apples, tomatoes, and cucumbers would not be pleasant!) so already we are planning for next year.  The last remaining pallets will be replaced with actual raised beds, and maybe one more.  I'm also not using straw as a mulch again.  It may keep weeds down, but those that do land get hopelessly tangled with the straw.  But, those are all things for future posts.

Spring Sprang

A while back actually, and I'm woefully behind.

Alzheimer's a terrible, terrible disease.  I know all lingering lengthy diseases are, and most people know that.  Although they'll say "yeah, my mom forgets a lot too."  Or worse, make a joke about how their forgetfulness is early-onset.  Um...no.  No, it's not.  And it isn't funny.  It's more than just forgetfulness.  It's the complete personality transference that takes place from, let's say, a sweet, funny, kind woman to ... well, someone who isn't that.  And who realizes that it's happening, and can't do anything about it.

The latest memory that keeps recirculating is about her father and hummingbird feeders.  She said he would string them along a line from the back of their house out to "that tree."  They have to have multiple feeders because they are "mean little things."  She's not wrong.  They are very territorial.  In February then, I took her to Anderson's and she picked out two more hummingbird feeders.  We put them up this weekend...well, I did.  I showed her a few times where they are and heard the story again and again.  Two are in the flower garden around the deck, and one is hanging in the birch tree.

Planting progresses as we try and time things with the weather.  I bought a grapevine, dill, and parsley from the botany class at school.  We got broccoli and brussel sprouts and onions, and then...well, you know, kinda waited.  Meanwhile life continued.  Then this past weekend "Holy crap, we have to plant that stuff!"

I did try the whole "use water jugs as mini greenhouses" as went around Facebook a while back. While I did get a late start I can now definitively say that it did not work.  Or maybe it did. I'll just keep them together until I don't I guess, just to see if they ever take root.  It could have just been old seeds, I suppose.  I planted broccoli, onions, and tomatoes.  I wrote on the jug, but then rain, snow, and sun have successfully removed the labels so I have no idea what is in what.

We now have the onions in one of the whiskey half-barrels. Dill and parsley are in one pot and going to be transferred to the pollinator garden once we have that earth turned.  Lettuce and spinach seeds are in and hopefully growing under ground because they aren't sprouting yet.  (I planted them a couple of weeks ago).  The strawberries are full of pink blooms and already some little berries are visible.  The apple tree has teeny little apples on it even!  I planted the Brussel sprouts and broccoli yesterday.  This year I got straw (from mom and dad's Thanksgiving yard decorations), and have used that for mulch.  I will add that to the other beds too, and then the rest goes in the compost.

Last Harvest

I always think to myself, "Self, you should blog."  But there's just not much to blog about with the ol' back 40 feet.

(I should really measure that out some day.)

Today, though I did things.  The nights are getting cooler, and we've come perilously close to our first frost, but not quite yet.  Folklore in Ireland and Scotland says that you need to get all the crops in before the first frost; anything left after that belongs to some spirit or another (it seems to vary by region) and good grief you don't want to take it from them!  That way lies bad stuff.

When I got home, then, I got dinner started (turkey meatloaf...yum), and headed outside.  First task was to take down the beans from the poles.  There were some beans that had grown since the last picking, so those all went in a bowl.  Some may be okay for eating...but the rest I think I shall save for seed.  In all likelihood I have more than I need, so if anyone is interested in trading, or just having some bean seeds.  They tasted good and vined with very little assistance.  If you've been following you know of my very "hands off" (read: lazy) approach to gardening, so the fact they were so easy is a definitely plus.  I suppose I should see if I can find what variety they were.  I may still have the seed pouch, but I wouldn't be so confident about that.

Next I hit the sunflowers.  I managed to get three large heads and one medium sized head that are FULL of seeds.  I can't wait to grab those all and roast them for Jim.

Finally, it was time to grab the rest of the brussel sprouts. I pulled all the stalks and cut the leaves off into the compost.  (That's where the bean stalks went too.)  The stalks are sitting on the porch on the table next to the sunflower heads so I can get the sprouts off of them tomorrow, hopefully.  Then the remaining stalks will go into the compost as well.

Now I have a full compost bin, but it is full of greens.  I need Jim to rip up the many cardboard boxes in the garage and put those in there.

I left the tomatoes and bell peppers in.  I want to pull the green tomatoes off and then see what happens.  And, the strawberries have some late berries that will be a nice dessert at some point.  I guess that could have been tonight, but time was up.

To review...my second harvest since this experiment began was...lackluster.  I  did get six pints of zucchini canned, and I have a boatload of strawberries in the freezer to be jam.  But I got nowhere near the tomatoes and bell peppers of last year.  Similarly, while I did well, with rosemary, the remaining herbs were not so great.  I am not entirely sure what I did differently, so I will just chalk it up to the fickleness of Mother Nature.  This does mean the home made Yule baskets may be a bit light in the food department, but I think that's okay.  The point is to give of myself and what I have, and if that's a whole lot of zucchini bread and strawberry jam (not a bad combination, actually), then that's what it is.

I am already thinking ahead to next year, of course.  I certainly want to get with Misty about the grapes, and then talk to Jim about, yes, another bed.  I've learned that with some things you can't wait -- if they bolt or get beyond ripe, then you've wasted that garden space, and gotten no food out of it.

The wheel has turned, and the signs of autumn are everywhere.  I would like to get some straw (I don't know why...I just do) to cover all the beds with a nice blanket (that will also decompose), so they can be ready to go for spring.

Have a great autumn!

First Harvest!

Well, it has actually been happening for a while now, but the zucchini is putting out fruit like you wouldn't believe and they are BIG.  It's like I'll check in the morning, and there are little or no zucchini, and then later I'll look and holy COW!  I anticipate a lot of zucchini bread in my future.

The raspberries have finally started to come in, but this looks like it will be a low harvest year for those.  Strawberries have stopped, but then there was new foliage and new blooms, so perhaps a second harvest on those.  One of the neighborhood kids LOVES strawberries and has occasionally asked to help me pick them, although I haven't seen him since I got back from Starwood.  He is very interested in strawberry jam, however.  We have also gotten about half a serving of green beans.  And there may finally be sprouts on the brussels.

It is time to take in the last of the lettuce, I think and maybe throw some more seeds out to 'see what happens.'  The tomatoes and peppers are getting a slow start, but I anticipate that will fix itself.  Two of the cucumber plants look like they'll not make it and the bean seeds I planted later only yielded two plants that are just kinda...there.  I do still have a pretty bean pyramid structure ready for them, in case they take off.

Tonight, therefore, we'll be celebrating our first harvest, commonly referred to among druidy parts as Lughnasadh.  The calendar says that is on Aug 1, but in keeping with my plan discussed elsewhere of going with the energy of the land, we're doing it today.  I had hoped to time it with the tomatoes or the sunflowers but as those both got in later than anticipated, that may put it after the Equinox! As part of that, we'll be sacrificing last year's Corn Dolly to the fire, and blessing the new one I just finished making.  Here is last year's:

The shawl she has on was one of my first crochet attempts last year.  She's made of corn husks not from corn I grew (because I don't...yet) but from the area.  Ohio is corn country (some call it maize) and so that's what I use.  Because it's for our land, I augmented it with a piece of bean stalk, and some flowers and herbs we're growing.

Here is next year's.  She is unadorned, as of yet.

Hopefully this will bring on the harvest of many things

Janet had a visit with a social worker to get her on a program whereby they will take her to "adult day care" five days a week and maybe get some other assistance.  It's a temporary fix, however, as she continues to decline.  Today was a good day though.  We went to Goodwill so she could drop of clothes, because "Someone else might get some use out of them."  Then to Walgreen's so she could get some Gas X and finally, Tim Hortons.  Coffee and a doughnut has become our thing while running errands.

I sat outside for a bit after dinner, eating my new favorite dessert of cherries and almonds, listening to the birds.  We appear to have a late nest of robins, as a mother (I'm guessing) and juvenile were bipping around the yard.  They need to get on that eating of bugs they are allegedly so good at.

I had hoped she would participate some in the evening festivities, mainly distributing fairies and placing Elsie.  I purchased the fairies when we bought the house and hoped to decorate the yard with them.  Finally the yard feels like a place worth decorating.

I also found a place for Elsie the Owl.  Elsie had been sitting by the backdoor, looking like an extra cat out of the corner of an eye.  Elsie's head also had the eerie habit of spinning around for no damn good reason.  Sure, maybe it was slightly nudged by someone as they walked by, but it just wouldn't stop.   The first time it did that, Jim said, "Oh, that thing needs to GO."  Agreed, and now she's outside where hopefully she can freak out whatever is eating the flowers.

Regardless, Janet didn't feel good, which she blamed on having to take too much insulin (really it's because her glucose is too high, but whatever.  Picking battles.)  Jim came home and ate, we had a fire, we made offerings and got omens.  The wheel keeps turning.

Bolting for Solstice

From Wikipedia:

Bolting is when agricultural and horticultural crops prematurely produce a flowering stem (or stems) before the crop is harvested, in a natural attempt to produce seeds and hence reproduce. These flowering stems are usually vigorous extensions of existing leaf-bearing stems, and in order to produce them, a plant diverts resources away from producing the edible parts such as leaves or roots, resulting in a poor quality harvest from the grower's point of view. Plants that have produced flowering stems in this way are said to have bolted.



From me: 

Bolting is when I realize I am not getting fresh broccoli this season.

This past few weeks I have learned about bolting.  Both my spinach and my broccoli did so.  I managed to salvage enough spinach leaves to get barely two servings for Janet and I.  Despite warnings that the leaves would be tough, they were fine.  I credit the healing power of bacon grease.  Bacon fixes all things.  That and a little lemon juice, then crumble the bacon used to get the grease from, ta da! Delish.

I am not so lucky with the broccoli.  I cut everything off in the empty hope that maybe it will sprout anew.  
My head lettuce also liquified from the insides out.

For those keeping score that's a yield of 2 servings of spinach out of six plants, no broccoli out of six and no head lettuce out of six. 

Ah well. 

The strawberries however were going like gangbusters, until yesterday.  We finally have raspberries on the plants, and tiny little apples.  I didn't think we'd get any apples, as I thought the frost killed all the blossoms.  

This past weekend we finally finished planting everything we have to plant.  After I pulled the spinach and slimy lettuce, there was room to plant the tomatoes and bell peppers.  I bought a yellow squash and a zucchini so I will at least get three of one or the other.  (For those who didn't watch the video, I lost track of which plant was what, so I have no idea whether I've already planted two zucchinis or two squashes).  The beans are looking good so I put up the twine scaffolding I had last year.  Janet came out and turned over the onion leaves so they would bulb.  

The herb pots have expanded.  In the big one I put basil, oregano, and parsley, and then the smaller ones have rosemary, lavender, and a LOT of sweet woodruff.  I got one plant from a friend and then bought what ended up being six more at Dill's. They are small enough that I can bring them inside over the winter, but I do want to get another large planter.  While I'm not sure what I'm going to do with all the woodruff, there was one benefit.  When it rained a little bit ago and I went outside, the scent was AMAZING.

Really, the only thing left is finding some cucumbers we can make pickles out of, and then maybe some more beans.  We have one more pallet and some dirt, so we shall be good.

Last night we opened the deck in style with an impromptu cookout.  Three friends came over spur of the moment.  Janet made lemonade, showing me how to do it, and she ate with us.  The lights are on the canopy, torches were filled and lit, and it was basically THE perfect evening.  The only thing that would have been better would have been the fire lit, but I need to fix up the firepit.  That is the plan for this evening. Maybe once that is all done we'll take another video tour so you can see how stuff has changed.

In other news, Janet bought an owl.  Not a real one, one of the garden ones used to deter pests.  She said "Owls are good people," and since it's both her money and something with which I totally agree, I didn't argue.  She named it Elsie after her best friend.  Elsie was also an asshole, I hear.  Right now the owl is sitting inside as we decide what to do with her.  She continues to freak us out, as she looks like a cat...or...something....

We have reached the point in this odyssey where outside assistance with her is necessary.  We have someone coming for an assessment in July.  While it will be nice for help, this is just an unpleasant reminder that things are not going to get better.  Ever.  And that is heartbreaking.

But....The garden still grows, and I still get stories, and help, and occasionally little gems of wisdom. When she told me about the owl she tried to keep as a pet, I showed her my shelf of owl figurines, and that made her smile. 

Solstice is in a few days and I will be at festival.  Hopefully everyone will take care of the garden while I'm gone.  May the blessings of the shining sun be upon you and yours!