Wednesday, March 15, 2023

A Day At Home


 Here's one of the rose bushes in the little garden area off the kitchen where the bananas grow. You can see them sending out their canoe-paddle leaves. Everything is just so beautiful now with blooms and new green growth. I had to spend most of the day outside because staying in the house on a day like this would have been a sin. 
I walked to the post office and was happy to find that the three books I ordered a few days ago had arrived. 


Lily and Jessie both had one of these and Lily still has hers and Jessie's is here. August and Levon love to look at their mama's book from when she was a kid and when the boys were here to spend the night, August asked me if I could get him one. I told him I most definitely would and then I thought, oh, why not? And I got one for Levon and Magnolia, too. The book, for those of you who are not familiar with it, asks the child to write in facts about themselves in humorous ways and there are places for autographs of people they might know like a man over six feet, three inches tall and a fireman. It is a little outdated in some ways. The first page asks them which they are- a boy or a girl. Don't tell the damn religious right or the defiantly unwoke, but it's not always that easy. But I am excited to give them to the little's, as I call the three youngest grandchildren. 

Levon and August are in Panama City Beach with their mom and two of her mom friends and their children, totaling six kids. They are staying in a condo and of course it's chilly but it does look beautiful. I got these pictures today. 



She bought them the wetsuits when she realized how cold it was going to be. I'm sure they're having a very fine time and the chilliness will help to prepare them for the trip they'll be taking in a few weeks to go to Montana or somewhere like that to go cross-country skiing with friends. Those boys lead exciting lives, don't they?

Like I said, I spent most of the day outside. I set Ralph to vacuuming and he's been busily cleaning my floors since late this morning. I did a load of laundry and hung it on the line and when I reached into my clothespin bag I kept finding little sticks and then leaves and oak tassels. At first I thought that they'd fallen in there the last time I'd hung clothes because I keep the bag on a nail in the old pump house but then I figured out that a bird, probably a house wren, had started a nest in it. It's that time of year. 

I kicked bamboo and I trimmed a few plants and I cut down some vines that hang from the live oak in our front yard. While I was going that, I found a little volunteer native Buckeye that had come up. I remember one coming up last year, too, but it died (or so I had thought) and I had forgotten it. This one looks quite happy and sturdy though. 


I was so thrilled to find it. Can you see my Croc'ed foot?

I hauled the vines and some more downed branches and limbs to the burn pile and then I got to work on the garden. Mr. Moon tilled the perimeter of the garden to help with weeds and I spent several hours pulling dollar weed and betony from first the inside of the west part of the fence and then the outside. This is where I will plant the rattlesnake beans. I did not get it all finished but soon I will and then we will plant. We are trying to figure out how to fit the things we need to plant for the summer garden into what's already there from the winter garden. We always manage but it's like a puzzle with space and timing as the pieces. The kale is still looking too beautiful to pull and hasn't bolted yet and the rows of arugula and lettuces I planted are coming along nicely so I can't pull them. The mustard and collard greens are still coming along and we are still enjoying them so, no, I can't bring myself to get rid of them yet. The little garlic patch isn't taking up much room and it is growing with great vigor! Same with the onions. The potatoes are looking great but they do take up a lot of room and it will be months before they're ready to harvest. I am happy to report that the sugar snap peas are growingly politely on both the east and south fences. Mr. Moon has planted tomatoes and peppers of various kinds and we should get the cucumbers in soon. They're going to have to go on the north fence. And of course we HAVE to plant our beloved field peas and speaking of field peas, I still have some in the freezer and need to finish them up before the new ones come in. They freeze so beautifully. 
So that is the garden report. 

As always, it is the yearly possibility of it all that is the most exciting and soul-satisfying. Soon enough the bugs and heat will dash our dreams. Something's already going after the peas and has eaten one or two of the collard plants to lace. 

Meanwhile, the croscomia, beauty bower, and bamboo are living their best lives, taunting me with their unwanted yet unhindered presence and the rice paper plant is trying its best to make a comeback. 

Enough of all of that. 
A few months ago I took a picture of the old structure on our property which may or may not have been a barn. Here are pictures from today. 



Someone had asked me to please take a picture of inside the building and I promised I would and today I did. 


That's the view of it from the door you can see in the pictures. And yes, that is a pool table and to explain its presence would require another long story and I am tired and so are you. 

Love...Ms. Moon


32 comments:

  1. The sheer size of your property surprises me. I think ny entire house could probably fit into that outbuilding.
    You're an ambitious gardener. It helps that both of you do it. Great food in your future.

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    1. It's about two acres but it's in a very weird shape. A T-shape. Odd. And that outbuilding is quite large. I've definitely lived in smaller places.
      I don't think I could do gardening except perhaps in containers if Glen wasn't here to help me.

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  2. I've been spending as much time outside these days as I can. the weather is really perfect. soon it will be too hot to spend more than about half an hour outside. I finally cut back and hauled away the dead banana stuff over at the shop and cut back the branches of the big yellow bells both of which already have new growth. it's looking like tomatoes are going to be the only thing I get planted. I did find a six pack of yellow squash but there were probably 18 sprouts in it and I only want a couple. and the feed store was out of green bean seeds.

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    1. Squash seeds germinate and grow pretty fast so if you don't mind springing for a package of those, you could easily get some on the table before summer's over. We have given up on squash. We have some nasty fungus or something in the dirt and always get squash vine borer and I doubt we've gotten ten good squash in the last five years.

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    2. that's why I thought I would try yellow squash instead of the zucchini I usually plant...squash vine borers. I think I read that yellow squash isn't as susceptible to the borer.

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    3. I'm here to tell you that is not true.

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  3. I envy you your garden time........ our ground is so saturated that all I can do is pull weeds in our driveway....the rest will have to wait till things dry up a bit (will they ever?). Your gardens are just gorgeous.....all that color! What I don't envy is the heat that will be sneaking up on you soon! And that barn? is lovely.....and looks very clean and neat.......... does it have plumbing? Probably not......but it is lovely
    Susan M

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    1. The heat is absolutely not something to envy.
      No, the old barn does not have plumbing. Or electricity either. Just sitting out there being a building.

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  4. Your out building looks intriguing, I love it. I played pool once and whacked all of the balls into pockets , thought i was born to hustle, but then someone explained to me that you had to hit the white one into the colored ones to make shots. "Oh". I never played again. Your crocs are the epitome of povvo fashion. Hip and Happening!

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    1. Well, you should have tried hitting the colored balls in with the white ball. You might be good at that, too!
      I had to google "povvo". I actually wore my crocs to town today. With socks. And a dress. I probably embarrassed Owen to death.

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  5. I think twas me that asked to see inside cos I'm a sticky beak over things like that. It has so much potential. I could live in that barn. What is it about pool tables? We had one when we bought this place. The agent said the seller would take $150 for it. Before I could say no, Himself said yes. It cost us more than that to get rid of the bloody thing that no one played on.

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  6. A lot of garden you have coming on, planted and not yet planted. It will keep you busy all summer, weeding, eating and canning it. That's what summer is all about. That and swimming and vacations.

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    1. Joanne- you know my life better than I do! You have nailed it all!

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  7. I LOVE that outbuilding! I see so many uses…a wedding venue, a playhouse for the grands….

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    1. Well, with no plumbing or electricity, none of that is going to happen anytime soon. There was a wedding out here right in front of it which made a beautiful spot.

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  8. Give the grands the job of designing the ideal play space. Large sheets of paper. Crayons. It would be fun to see what they come up with

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    1. That might be fun but in my opinion, this house is about the perfect play space for kids. So many rooms and doors and porches and even an upstairs!

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  9. Loving your garden report! Our peppers have just sprouted (indoors), and we'll be planting tomato seeds (indoors) this weekend, so they'll be ready to plant out about May 15. New experiment: growing sweet potato slips to plant out June 1.

    Chris from Boise

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    1. Good luck with your seedlings! And also with your sweet potatoes. I planted them one year and they've come back every year since!

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  10. The beauteous bounty of your garden continues to stun me and remind me of gardens I've had in the past that fed friends as well as family.
    Betony is one of the herbs that go into a ju-ju bag to hang just inside your door to keep evil away. I don't remember now what else goes in there, I made mine 20-30 years ago and it seems to be working very well still.

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    1. I don't need to hang betony outside the door. It surrounds the house!

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  11. I was also thinking that the barn would make a great games room for the Grands!

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    1. It probably would but it's also probably not safe in the condition it's in now.

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  12. I envy you your early planting season. Spring is so full of possibilities isn't it! And I just love that old structure too. Yep, a great play area for the kids if you cared to do it up!

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    1. Unfortunately, that is not on Mr. Moon's project list.

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  13. Well, now I want to hear about the pool table! It must seem incredibly exotic to the boys to own a wetsuit. I'd have been so thrilled to have a wetsuit at that age.

    Poor wren. Why do birds so often build their nests in terrible places?

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    1. Short story is that when the bar that had rented space in Moon Plaza moved out, they owed us money so Glen kept a pool table.
      I've had wrens fly into my house and try to make nests in cabinets and in a bookshelf. They are not as brilliant as corvids, sadly.

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  14. Those boys are so deliciously cute!! As are all your grands. I can't believe a bird was trying to nest in your pin bag! So cute! Yes, the planning of a garden is the best thing! The awful heat takes away some of the joy of yours sometimes as the freezing cold takes some of my garden too early. We start ours about May 15 and still.....some years that is too early and we end up replanting. As I sit here writing this we have gotten a couple of inches of snow this morning. I typed snot instead of snow just now and had to go back and change it. Should I have left it? hum?

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    1. Snow and snot can both be unpleasant.
      By May 15th we're already almost too hot to work in the garden so we have to get things in as soon as we can.

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