Blooms Abound

My yard has been alight with blooms. Chrysanthemums are nice and purple and blue after the yellow daffodils finally gave in to the end of their flowering season. The azaleas were gorgeous and the honeysuckle has been very nice, although, I'm missing the sweet smell that has clouded the area now that the blooms have finally given up. The tiger lilies up the street are profusely blooming and I'm going to miss them, too, when they are gone.

My cucmbers are also blooming. While my father, who is much further south than I, has been harvesting squash and cabbage like mad over the past week (all planted on Good Friday, you know), I have been patiently waiting for my garden to really take off. The broccoli is nice and large and I'm going to see something happen with that very soon, I think. And all this rain has really set my garden into motion. I have onions peeking out from their little corner and getting larger all the time. I expect to be harvesting them in a month of so and I'm excited for it. 

I feel so behind with all of these folks that are harvesting out of their gardens right now when I could scarcely get started until mid-April. Our last average frost date is April 15th and while I started my seeds well before that, the cool evenings we experienced around mid to late April and lasting into the first couple of weeks of May, stunted my efforts after I transplanted. I don't dare get anything planted before the 15th. The last few major snow storms this area has seen have been late April storms that blanketed us with feet an feet of snow and ice.

While I had an excellent mortality rate with my plants this year, only losing two and those to the cat, I'm pleased that our modest garden is thriving. But I'm still jealous of those that are getting much more out of theirs right now than I am.  I didn't want the entire bed covered with plants at the beginning. It seemed too overwhelming for the kids to have anything going on that would be that busy. They are perfectly happy with our several plants and are looking forward to when I get pumpkins in the mix later this month.

I did finally get my shamrock bulbs planted. I know I'm late but now that I have some time on my hands, I'm experimenting. I've never grown shamrocks before and I'm very much looking forward to seeing them.

Like everything in the world, life is so uncertain these days. I was hard pressed to spend the money to put a bed in with the lay off hanging over our heads. Disheartening. But I planted anyway in hopes that I could at least get the kids that experience.They have enjoyed helping to take care of the pots of herbs. We snipped some garlic chives and I made a garlic chive butter sauce for smashed new potatoes.  One of their first direct experiences with taking out of the garden, cleaning, and then making immediately into dinner.  Both of them were glowing with pleasure when they told their father that they had, just that day, gone out and harvested some of the chives in the meal.

It has been an exciting time. We have broken through and really started and finished some of the long list of chores around the house. The amount of useless stuff is shrinking. We are in a better position now than we have ever been and neither of us are working. Instead of having a room of boxes of memories that just take up space, we have part of a closet. Instead of an overwhelming amount of junk the kids wanted to keep from school, we have convinced them that it is ok to let some of it go instead of having it piled everywhere and taking up valuable space in chest of drawers.

I have finally sat down and started going through the piles and piles of crafting magazines a girlfriend of mine gave me and have been scanning off what I want out of them and the rest are going to the used book store to see if we can sell them for credit for other books we want. I've been avoiding this for some time because it meant that I would actually have to organize the craft armoire that has been in such disarray since we moved in last October. But I finally decided that I needed that space for things that I couldn't let go of, like the pictures of the kids and the ribbons they have won and their baby books from what seems like yesterday. 

It has been an interesting month. And I am almost happy with the results. We don't *need* to be pack rats. My husband has been carrying around an old server that hasn't worked in years in the hopes that it would magically start working again one day. He realized when going through the box that he had no idea where the power cable to the things was hiding so out it went. We are in a large enough house that it can accommodate all of the things we need with precious room to spare and that is a nice thing. I hated being so cluttered into the last house we lived in. No room to put a desk because the rooms were too small and every inch of space was covered with furniture. And if it wasn't there was a box dutifully standing by never being unpacked because there was no place for it. So sad.

But now we're moving right along and the massive amounts of craps has dwindled to almost no crap at all.