I love these June Mondays. My shifts at the hotel are in the distance of the week, busy Sundays are through, it's quiet around here, no supper plans needed because my husband has Monday night softball games. Cherie is taking a math class that meets evenings, so she's busy doing her assignments.
Ed works at his bank. Margaret is ascending to high snows with our Abby on their epic adventure. She tells us that they are walking with two young Israelis these days, fresh out of IDF service. Joe and Jim are busy with school, work, and their beautiful families. We've been in touch. It was Fathers' Day yesterday...
It's quiet. Today it is a misty, moisty Monday. The cats are out already, (the boy cats) and picking through the wet grass. Corwyn is content to be inside. Predicate is being sociable for once, making little half purrs and meows---sort of a flutter tongue. She's hungry, and I will feed her shortly.
Yesterday we were sociable, celebrating Fathers' Day. Ed picked up some Buster Bars from the Dairy Queen and we sat and chatted over at the neighbors' porch in the golden sun.
After two years of planning and prepping we readied the Kitchen Garden. Today is the day to plant it.
I am a Tasha Tudor fan, and I collect her books. (I have collections of books by different favorite authors, a veritable library, you know.) Tasha Tudor illustrated a book called "Betty Crocker's Kitchen Gardens."
In it is a perfect little lay-out for a manageable garden, something Corgi Hollows has needed since relocating to the country from the suburbs.
A garden too big is discouraging. A garden too small is not worth the time. This is a "just right" garden, and its location is perfectly sun-filled, close to water, and remarkably designed for ease in weeding.
It took a lot of time to figure out exactly where it should go, and assemble the materials. I had to specially order a couple of the seeds to plant: lovage and burnet.
Ed is on board, manufacturing a watering system and contributing his own tomatoes and pepper plants.
We all helped fill the beds with five cubic yards of dirt----especially delivered last week by a dump truck. I managed to fill a wheel barrow with fifteen shovelfuls of dirt. I would then fill ten barrows, and dump them into the raised bed area. By then this old gal was DONE, and I'd wait for the next day. It took awhile to fill those beds! My husband was the main filler of the beds, but Cherie and Ed did their part too.
Lots of work, and the work is just beginning.
I am not a gardener. When I was a child our friends, Ginger and Dick, had a huge garden where rows of beans grew, Swiss Chard, everything....
My mom and I would go over and help weed and water in order to share the fruits. I hated weeding. I preferred to spend time with their dog, Taffy, who I considered to be one of my best friends. Taffy thought the same of me, I think. She was a purebred Chesapeake.
I didn't like the heat or the dirt of the garden, but I do now appreciate the produce and the opportunity for sunshine and vitamin D----and all the other vitamins being produced!
I needed a manageable garden that would invite all family members into the project. When I discovered the book illustrated by Tasha Tudor I was intrigued. This might just be it!
The garden has a mixture of herbs and vegetables. There are not many plants, but enough to glean a good crop. Lots of Rosemary, mint, thyme, chives and onions, and some different lettuces.
I'm excited about it!
This garden is getting in late, but it's at least getting in! I've been working on the planning for so long I know that if we are all still here next year we can get a much earlier start! These are long-term projects!
My peonies are all coming up beautifully this year. Last year I planted a Sarah Bernhardt, and it is doing well, having survived the long and hard winter.
The older peonies are all doing wonderfully well too. They are just starting to bloom now, and I'm thrilled with their color and health.
Things do grow well here in this Minnesota black dirt. These lands west of the Mississippi are famous for their fertility and their ease of producing ANYTHING! This was the beginning of the great Plains, and formerly grassland, old oak and maple forest. Swamps and bogs, wetlands and marsh meadows lace the hummocks of land in this gently rolling landscape. Water is really everywhere this year. The arable land is dotted throughout the territory.
Everything is SO green.
I'm interested in how our plants will thrive----and I'm resolving to keep the weeds at a minimum.
No easy task.
The time of the singing of birds is come. The winter is past. Soon it will be just the jays crying about the swift passing of summer.
Then it's orientations and school for three of us in the house---
The job at the hotel is fascinating, I must admit. I'm learning it, slowly but surely. I get to fold all the sheets and towels, so I'm always checking for cleanliness. You can stay at "my" hotel and be assured that all is well. People are mostly nice. Some are tired and crabby, but you have to be nice to them anyway. There are those that are terse, and I try to be professional with them. Jokers. It's always interesting to help a terse guest, then switch to a joker! Give and take...
The hospitality industry is quite the art!
The other day two of my students from subbing came through the door. "I KNOW YOU!" said the young one, smiling broadly! Surprise!
I do miss the kids.
But I'm glad for the time to catch up here at home. Projects have laid untouched for nine months, and I need to get things together. I'm still working on my book about the Kensington Runestone, and it is coming along slowly. I have the text almost done, and the first illustrations.
So much more to do!
I'm cleaning out cupboards and vacuuming up shedding hair. The porch is an oasis that beckons on the warmer days. The english ivy has covered the screens already, so it is green and inviting out there. I want to just sit and drink tea and have "biscuits."
I'd love to have you over and talk about the Rapture, coming so soon, politics, current events! Our friend, Carl Teichrib, who stayed with us while he attended Paganicon in Minneapolis, has his book "Game of Gods" out, and it is worth much discussion.
Let's have "book club!"
I'd like to discuss how to handle controversies. We are in an age of persecution like never before. There is a spiritual blindness that is thick as a fog you could cut with a knife! How do you manage to be a loving light of Jesus Christ, a believer who clings to God's Word with tenacity, and live and move in a world that hates the Truth?
I'm guessing that if you are a believer you may have the same concerns.
How do we then live?
Where are we to go?
What are we to be doing?
What is the meaning of everything?
Naturally I look to my faith to guide me, but there are always the specific circumstances of daily life to navigate and manage. People bring their own experiences and personalities to us and each one is endlessly fascinating and worth helping.
At the hotel I am seeing a side of the population that is desperately needy. I wonder if you even realize, in your comfortable abode, how the "other side" is faring. I'm seeing it. I saw some of it working at the deli (now closed) but much more at this hotel, and this is a "NICE" hotel.
Pray for the hurting. I can only do so much, with encouraging or directing to sources that may or may not help. It is still the choice of the one who needs to accept it or not. Sometimes people choose to not be helped and we all must suffer the witnessing of their demise.
It's so hard. Everyone has problems. They are all just a hair's breadth different in nature and severity. We are all blessed, in so many ways, but our issues can cloud the blessings.
Poverty, disease, death, addictions, ---these are plaguing all of us in some way.
The only way to deal with them is constant prayer and trust in the God who can heal. We can make better choices, too.
Let's do it.
Off to put those seeds in!
Ed works at his bank. Margaret is ascending to high snows with our Abby on their epic adventure. She tells us that they are walking with two young Israelis these days, fresh out of IDF service. Joe and Jim are busy with school, work, and their beautiful families. We've been in touch. It was Fathers' Day yesterday...
It's quiet. Today it is a misty, moisty Monday. The cats are out already, (the boy cats) and picking through the wet grass. Corwyn is content to be inside. Predicate is being sociable for once, making little half purrs and meows---sort of a flutter tongue. She's hungry, and I will feed her shortly.
Yesterday we were sociable, celebrating Fathers' Day. Ed picked up some Buster Bars from the Dairy Queen and we sat and chatted over at the neighbors' porch in the golden sun.
After two years of planning and prepping we readied the Kitchen Garden. Today is the day to plant it.
I am a Tasha Tudor fan, and I collect her books. (I have collections of books by different favorite authors, a veritable library, you know.) Tasha Tudor illustrated a book called "Betty Crocker's Kitchen Gardens."
In it is a perfect little lay-out for a manageable garden, something Corgi Hollows has needed since relocating to the country from the suburbs.
A garden too big is discouraging. A garden too small is not worth the time. This is a "just right" garden, and its location is perfectly sun-filled, close to water, and remarkably designed for ease in weeding.
It took a lot of time to figure out exactly where it should go, and assemble the materials. I had to specially order a couple of the seeds to plant: lovage and burnet.
Ed is on board, manufacturing a watering system and contributing his own tomatoes and pepper plants.
We all helped fill the beds with five cubic yards of dirt----especially delivered last week by a dump truck. I managed to fill a wheel barrow with fifteen shovelfuls of dirt. I would then fill ten barrows, and dump them into the raised bed area. By then this old gal was DONE, and I'd wait for the next day. It took awhile to fill those beds! My husband was the main filler of the beds, but Cherie and Ed did their part too.
Lots of work, and the work is just beginning.
I am not a gardener. When I was a child our friends, Ginger and Dick, had a huge garden where rows of beans grew, Swiss Chard, everything....
My mom and I would go over and help weed and water in order to share the fruits. I hated weeding. I preferred to spend time with their dog, Taffy, who I considered to be one of my best friends. Taffy thought the same of me, I think. She was a purebred Chesapeake.
I didn't like the heat or the dirt of the garden, but I do now appreciate the produce and the opportunity for sunshine and vitamin D----and all the other vitamins being produced!
I needed a manageable garden that would invite all family members into the project. When I discovered the book illustrated by Tasha Tudor I was intrigued. This might just be it!
The garden has a mixture of herbs and vegetables. There are not many plants, but enough to glean a good crop. Lots of Rosemary, mint, thyme, chives and onions, and some different lettuces.
I'm excited about it!
This garden is getting in late, but it's at least getting in! I've been working on the planning for so long I know that if we are all still here next year we can get a much earlier start! These are long-term projects!
My peonies are all coming up beautifully this year. Last year I planted a Sarah Bernhardt, and it is doing well, having survived the long and hard winter.
The older peonies are all doing wonderfully well too. They are just starting to bloom now, and I'm thrilled with their color and health.
Things do grow well here in this Minnesota black dirt. These lands west of the Mississippi are famous for their fertility and their ease of producing ANYTHING! This was the beginning of the great Plains, and formerly grassland, old oak and maple forest. Swamps and bogs, wetlands and marsh meadows lace the hummocks of land in this gently rolling landscape. Water is really everywhere this year. The arable land is dotted throughout the territory.
Everything is SO green.
I'm interested in how our plants will thrive----and I'm resolving to keep the weeds at a minimum.
No easy task.
The time of the singing of birds is come. The winter is past. Soon it will be just the jays crying about the swift passing of summer.
Then it's orientations and school for three of us in the house---
The job at the hotel is fascinating, I must admit. I'm learning it, slowly but surely. I get to fold all the sheets and towels, so I'm always checking for cleanliness. You can stay at "my" hotel and be assured that all is well. People are mostly nice. Some are tired and crabby, but you have to be nice to them anyway. There are those that are terse, and I try to be professional with them. Jokers. It's always interesting to help a terse guest, then switch to a joker! Give and take...
The hospitality industry is quite the art!
The other day two of my students from subbing came through the door. "I KNOW YOU!" said the young one, smiling broadly! Surprise!
I do miss the kids.
But I'm glad for the time to catch up here at home. Projects have laid untouched for nine months, and I need to get things together. I'm still working on my book about the Kensington Runestone, and it is coming along slowly. I have the text almost done, and the first illustrations.
So much more to do!
I'm cleaning out cupboards and vacuuming up shedding hair. The porch is an oasis that beckons on the warmer days. The english ivy has covered the screens already, so it is green and inviting out there. I want to just sit and drink tea and have "biscuits."
I'd love to have you over and talk about the Rapture, coming so soon, politics, current events! Our friend, Carl Teichrib, who stayed with us while he attended Paganicon in Minneapolis, has his book "Game of Gods" out, and it is worth much discussion.
Let's have "book club!"
I'd like to discuss how to handle controversies. We are in an age of persecution like never before. There is a spiritual blindness that is thick as a fog you could cut with a knife! How do you manage to be a loving light of Jesus Christ, a believer who clings to God's Word with tenacity, and live and move in a world that hates the Truth?
I'm guessing that if you are a believer you may have the same concerns.
How do we then live?
Where are we to go?
What are we to be doing?
What is the meaning of everything?
Naturally I look to my faith to guide me, but there are always the specific circumstances of daily life to navigate and manage. People bring their own experiences and personalities to us and each one is endlessly fascinating and worth helping.
At the hotel I am seeing a side of the population that is desperately needy. I wonder if you even realize, in your comfortable abode, how the "other side" is faring. I'm seeing it. I saw some of it working at the deli (now closed) but much more at this hotel, and this is a "NICE" hotel.
Pray for the hurting. I can only do so much, with encouraging or directing to sources that may or may not help. It is still the choice of the one who needs to accept it or not. Sometimes people choose to not be helped and we all must suffer the witnessing of their demise.
It's so hard. Everyone has problems. They are all just a hair's breadth different in nature and severity. We are all blessed, in so many ways, but our issues can cloud the blessings.
Poverty, disease, death, addictions, ---these are plaguing all of us in some way.
The only way to deal with them is constant prayer and trust in the God who can heal. We can make better choices, too.
Let's do it.
Off to put those seeds in!
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