Lots To Learn About Gardening

There is so much talk these days about eating fresher and better foods and more and more people are growing their own food. When I was young, growing up in Sheboygan Falls, we had a huge garden and, as a child, I remember helping to maintain it. But it doesn't appear that much of what I was taught stuck with me. I do remember my mom canning vegetables in the kitchen with the whole place all steamed up and the noisy rattle of her pressure cooker. We did not have air conditioning and I am wondering how hot was that?

So this year I decided that I try planting a garden and I did learn a few things:

1. Gardening sounds like a lot more fun in April than July.

2. Put your garden close to a water source.

3. Know what you want before you plant the plant, i.e., tomatoes/peppers.

So armed with little knowledge, I went and bought some tomato and pepper plants, got some bean seeds from Target and researched what I needed to do to get healthy raspberry bushes.

My beans started out looking like I was going to have an ABUNDANT crop. I bunny proofed them with cayenne pepper and something else and that seemed to work so well I was starting to wish I had shared some of them with the bunnies. The first and even the second time I picked them, I had beautiful beans. So my friend, Betty, came over and helped me can them.

I haven't tried these guys yet so the jury is still out on how they taste. But so far, so good. But then something started to happen to the beans. The leaves looked terrible and I would get itty bitty beans that stayed itty bitty. So I think lesson #2 would have helped that.

Next, tomatoes. I don't like to eat tomatoes as just tomatoes. I like salsa, I like ketchup, I like to use tomato sauce for various things. So I went to a plant place and told them exactly what I wanted to do with the tomatoes and I could tell they were really just helping at this place and weren't exactly sure what I needed any more than I did. But off I went with my tomato plants and this is what I have:

Seriously, I would need like a million of these to make a couple batches of sauce. And they're yellow. I want red tomato sauce.

For my salsa recipe, I needed some hot green peppers and some sweet green peppers. On my plant I'm getting little red peppers. About one every other week.

The raspberries ..... I'm overwhelmed by all the "advice" I found by googling "care of raspberries." I did get about 16 raspberries this year though, more than last year, and I understand it takes a while for them to really get going so maybe I'm heading in the right direction.

Since I ask people who are more experienced gardeners than me, which is everyone who has a garden, I'm getting some good advice. I learned I should look for "paste" or "beefsteak" tomatoes for my sauce and where to get paste tomatoes. Thanks, Brenda, for your recipes and your good advice on preserving. I'm already planning my garden for next year keeping in mind that August has been a lot cooler than July.

The End of the Hillside Season

This year, my hillside was the best it has been since I started this project. Oh, yes the weeds are still abundant and there are still "holes" that need to be filled, but the plants were bigger and more abundant than they have ever been. I was disappointed that their bloom faded so quickly. I don't know if the hot, Really hot, dry weather in July hurried their demise or if that's just their life span. I also see that this will never be a tidy flower garden. I don't know what the first pioneers saw as they entered into Iowa, but plants die as others bloom so there are always plants that have lost their bloom and dying mixed in.

Unfortunately, I had to neglect it quite a bit during July as temperatures were in the high 90's, but felt like 120! That's just not for me, but with the return of tolerable weather, I have been able to get out there and I am pleased to say that I Think I am conquering the vetch that I have been battling since I started this project. Oh there's still quite a bit of it out there but it has gone from 95+% to I would say less than 50.

Here is a little flock of butterflies that landed on a spot where we had just watered, I think looking for some relief from hot and dry.

I also see a lot of these little guys a I'm out pulling out the weedy business and trying not to destroy their habitat.

When I was down at the Farmer's Market a few weeks ago, I learned about monarchwatch.org and I ordered a monarch waystation to plant next spring which will be perfect for one of those "holes" I was talking about.

My hillside slopes towards the back of our property so hardly anyone sees it. My sister-in-law Cindy told me it's too bad I can't throw it up like a table cloth and reverse it. My neighbor recently told me they could see it from their house, but it was too bad no one else could. In a way it is too bad, but earlier I have talked about how it's a sanctuary, my place of rest and peace, my place of worship and while it would be nice to share it, I think I'm fine with it just the way it is.

Football and Me

I am fascinated with football. I don't watch American Idol, Cake Boss, The Bachelor, even missed the Golden Globes, but during the fall and well into winter, there is usually a football game on my TV. I watch the NFL Network, ESPN and pregame shows. I read Packers.com and packersnews.com. While I can pay attention to all of football, clearly the biggest part of my football heart belongs to the Green Bay Packers.
I think it started when I was about 12 or 13. I remember Sunday afternoons sitting in the room we called the "den" of our family home watching Bart Starr, Ray Nitschke, Paul Hornung, Vince Lombardi, et. al. on our black and white TV. While we watched, I remember my dad explaining how you had four chances to make 10 yards, but if you didn't make in 3, you usually had to kick the ball to the other team. He taught me that you got 6 points for a touchdown and then an opportunity to get another point by kicking it through the uprights. He very patiently taught me the rules of football. After the Packers were victorious once again, he would change the channel to another game and I would ask him who we were for in that game. He always told me we didn't care. He also taught me that "The Bears, oh the Bears they play dirty." To this day, I think the Bears play dirty, but I don't think the Packers have ever made a dirty play in the history of the franchise. Packer football during my high school years in the early 70's was very different. Gone were all the greats and also the wins. My dad would hold his newspaper in front of his face like he wasn't really watching, but down came the paper quickly when something didn't go right. But by then Packer football had become a part of my DNA and so I suffered through the 70's and 80's and then Brett Favre made Packer football exciting again, then down again and earlier this year, Aaron Rodgers joined Bart Starr and Brett Favre in leading the Packers to another Super Bowl win.
Now we really days away from beginning another season and to say hopes are high for the Packers doesn't begin to describe the Packer Fever raging through Packer fans. So let the games begin and GO PACK GO!

Hillside Update

Last year, I started my wildflower hillside which, what I believed, was an incredible success. This year, it looks completely different and I think it may have taken a step backwards. It started out beautifully in the spring, all blues and purples and then the pink coneflowers began to bloom. However, the weed situation is appalling and I think the crown vetch is winning the battle for space. One thing I did notice is that last year I had quite a few thistles that I pulled out and I have not seen any of those this year so maybe I did win that war. Now the coneflowers are fading and I am not seeing the black-eyed susans blooming like I did last year.

I'm not sure why it doesn't look as good as it did last year, but I have a couple thoughts. One is that it has rained so much this summer and most of these plants are considered "drought tolerant." Does that mean they don't like a lot of rain or that they are able to survive with our without rain? I do note though that the rain beats them down and so they are on their side rather than standing up straight and they don't seem able to get back up. Their blooms seem way to heavy for their stems so they just can't get themselves picked up again.

Another reason could be that I have just not spent the time out there like I did last year. This is a very different year from last year and that was where I found my solace with everything that was happening in my life. The need for that has diminished. It's hot, it's humid and lots of rain seems to bring lots of mosquitoes and they nearly chase me back inside as soon as I get out there. With all the rain, things pull up easily, but everything is all mixed together so it's hard to always pull what I don't want. The roots are far away from where I see the plant and all too often I don't get to the root. I would like to see it from underneath, I think it would be a massive network of roots like subway tracks.

Clearly this continues to be a project. I may be too late, but this fall when things have died back a bit (especially the mosquitoes), I hope to spend more time out there pulling those plants that aren't what I want to see out there. Then next spring before it gets hot that's where I will be hopefully able to recognize which plants stay and which ones have to go. And so it continues.

My Internship and Other Surprising Things That Really Weren't Surprising

In her book "Cold Tangerines", Shauna Niequist says this: "I just turned thirty and I'm finally willing to admit something about life, or at least about my life and it's this: I should have written in pencil. I should have viewed the trajectory of my life as a mystery or an unknown. I should have planned lightly, hypothetically and should have used words like "maybe" and "possibly." Instead, every chance I got, I wrote in stone and Sharpie. I stood on my future, on what I knew, on the certainty of what life would hold for me, as thought it was rock. ..... Now when I think about the future, ..... I try to write in pencil."

I'm older than 30, actually quite a bit older, but even though I should know better, things still change when I least expect it. I was reading this book while I was in Ohio with Cody and Elizabeth and I had my month of June written in stone and Sharpie. After working out detail after detail, I had everything in place and ready to do my medical assistant internship at Aultman working alongside Elizabeth. The only detail I had not covered was to ensure that all the T's had been crossed and the I's dotted between Kaplan and Aultman. They weren't and I was in a somewhat of a bind. I had seven weeks to get in a little less than 160 internship hours and the one thing I did not have -- time -- is what it was going to take to get everything coordinated and ready for me to get to work. I was able to do some observation hours and to this day, I wish my plans had worked out. This was the kind of clinic I want to work in, this is the patient population I like the best. But observation was not going to help me with the skills I needed and I realized I would have to come back to Iowa and finish up here. I was able to get in touch with a couple clinic managers I knew and found two clinics where I could obtain the hours and skills I would need.

As I was looking at finishing school and what my finanicial obligation would soon be, it was in my head that I would get a part-time job in an office as a medical assistant in addition to my transcription job. One problem. I don't like working in offices. My internship was an extremely short-term situation and I could barely think about going in and staying for the.whole.day. I know that I don't like to work in an office, that's why I love my transcription job working from home. So I'm finding God bringing me back to why I went back to school in the first place. It's to do free clinic work and mission trips. While Aultman wasn't a free clinic, it did have a large population of uninsured, and I think that's why I liked it there. So while that doesn't help much with the financial obligation, I can see God opening some doors to give me the desires of my heart, but for now I'm going to write it in pencil.

I Did It, I Actually Did It.

It's true, I did it, I actually did it. At a time that I should be thinking about retirement, I went back to school instead and now I am so close to being finished, I can very nearly touch it. I just finished up 160 hours of internship which was more challenging than I anticipated for many different reasons. I was able to use the skills I had learned in class and learned some things about myself along the way, for example, that I do not ever want to work in a doctors office. So what am I going to do with my new diploma? I have no idea. But, I believe that God will use it and me and I'm looking forward to finding out what that is going to be. For now, I am going to just enjoy spare time and the opportunity to get back to doing the things I have missed doing in the past year. Then perhaps landscape design.......?

The Nature Quest Continues

As I've become more interested in nature with a desire to leave more positive effects on the environment, I decided this winter I was going to be faithful in feeding the birds in my yard. We fed them sporadically last year and had been rewarded with a few interesting birds coming to visit us. This year I put up a few more feeders, I got one from my mom for Christmas and every other day I go out to fill them up. My dad made me a birdfeeder out of a birch log with holes in it that I actually have to make a "bird pudding" to put in it, but that is the feeder that empties quickly. Whether it's because we have about 30" of snow or because the birds know of a good eating spot, we have been able to attract an abundance of birds this year. There are blue jays, cardinals, little red-headed woodpeckers, finches and cute little chubby birds that I'm pretty sure are chickadees. Brenda said she looked out her window and saw deer eating out of her birdfeeders. I'm glad I haven't had that problem, the birds keep me busy enough with filling the feeders.

I have wanted to get pictures of the birds because there are so many different kinds, but, guess what? When I go out there with my camera, they fly away. I could sit out on my deck like I loved to do in the summer, but like I said, 30" of snow and temps up to a high of O degrees, doesn't make me eager to sit out there waiting for the birds to come back so I can take their picture. I guess I'll have to be content with watching them from my window.

One of my birdfeeders is out on my hillside and as I look out there, it's such a strange feeling when I think about all the time I spent out there last summer and all the color that was out there. My gardening flip flops still sit by the back door of our basement. I did get a picture of my winter hillside:

I'm eager to see how it is going to look in the summer. I hope my flowers have multiplied abundantly. I have plans for some things to add out there. For Christmas, again, my mom got me some butterfly cups so I hope to attract more butterflies. I would like to make a path around the hillside (or maybe part of it this year) and steps through the middle. I have not had a whole lot of success attracting orioles and hummingbirds so I hope I can create an environment that will be inviting to them. I've been so blessed by seeing God's creation in my backyard. What a gift this has been.

Much Love,