"Life is Compost"

Have you ever maintained a compost pile?

 This is mine - a yucky looking mess of coffee grounds, filters, banana peels, apple peels, crushed eggshells, a branch the dogs broke off in their antics, discarded lettuce, carrot peels, and other such stuff that will decompose. The trick is keeping the wet/dry balance correct. If it is too wet, add newspaper, straw, or other dry materials. If it is too dry (which we deal with here in our arid climate), add more greenery or veggie materials. I go heavy on the coffee grounds and kitchen waste because they add a lot of good, wet matter. Any material that will decompose will eventually turn into compost. Could be years. If you want to speed up the process, a correct balance of wet/dry makes a big difference in the time the pile takes to decompose and become use-able compost.

The result, over time, is this:
a rich, dark colored loamy soil to spread around plants as a mulch, or mix into the soil that will offer minerals and a healthy dose of food and encouragement the plants need.

There are different methods of keeping a compost pile. Mine is in a big plastic bin. Others use an open, fenced in enclosure, or make one out of old pallets. Some use several piles, at different stages of completion. As I keep one pile, adding to it every few days, I have to dig into the pile to get to the good stuff, and sometimes I need to screen out the in-process compost from the completed product.

It is really not complicated. You don't need fancy equipment or chemical additives or a compost starter. Compost will happen.

I loved reading this quote, from Diane Setterfield's The Thirteenth Tale. Her character, Vida Winter (an author), is speaking. Puts a thoughtful spin on compost.

"Life is compost.
You think that a strange thing to say, but it's true. All my life and all my experience, the events that have befallen me, the people I have known, all my memories, dreams, fantasies, everything I have ever read, all of that has been chucked onto the compost heap, where over time, it has rotted down to a dark, rich, organic mulch. The process of cellular breakdown makes it unrecognizable. Other people call it the imagination. I think of it as a compost heap. Every so often I take an idea, plant it in the compost, and wait. It feeds on that black stuff that used to be a life, takes its energy for its own. It germinates. Takes root. Produces shoots. And so on and so forth, until one fine day I have a story or a novel."

March In Review

Joining here with Emily Freeman, Chatting At the Sky, and others, to share as we glance in the rear view mirror and prepare to move ahead into April, equipped with all we learned in March.

March Lessons:

1. Austin Kleon, author of Steal Like An Artist, (great book), wrote on his blog a phrase I love.

                                                          mise en place

Love the sound of that (even though I won't pretend to say it with a French accent). It is a French term chefs would use for everything in place, all ingredients in order and tools prepared and ready to create a delicious masterpiece. He writes..."For writers, I think it is equally important to have your workspace organized and ready to go, nothing in your way."

Actually, I can quickly find just about anything on my desk, even if it does look a mess, there is some order to the piles and it drives me crazy when I can't find something. But I love this phrase - wrote it on an index card to lean against the lamp as a reminder to create order, to think ahead of the tools I'll need, to be prepared. To work toward mise en place.

I know enough of myself, though, to know I do need to just start. Not wait until everything is perfectly in line - it is a goal - but the balance is to do something, to write, even in my messy place (the English mispronunciation).

2. Another blogger and author, Melissa Michaels of The Inspired Room, wrote of her definition of style. It is a style I can understand without worrying about color wheels or texture or whatever. Real life.

"When  I talk about style, I'm thinking about my authentic style of living at home, not how stylish I am (or am not!)...I don't need all the latest rules...I just need to learn to be more in touch with how my surroundings impact my life."

"My home is a reflection of who I am because I'm happy to be surrounded by stuff that matters to me and I can say good-bye to stuff that doesn't. What that means is: I have to continually refine my home to let go of the stuff I don't need, the stuff that distracts me, and embrace the things that inspire."

What inspires me?
books
plants
clean, uncluttered, uncrowded spaces
to know where everything is (even if it is in a pile)

She adds, "Creating an authentic home is a matter of personal reflection and the determination to make progress in letting go, as much as it is about what to add in."

I realized something. It may look like I collect books. What I am really collecting is words. I want to save them, savor them, remember them, and re-read them. More on this in #6.


3. Books I read this month:
Plain Simple Useful, by Terence Conran
Pottery Barn's Complete Book of the Home
The Power of Habit, by Charles Duhigg
The Happiness Project, by Gretchen Rubin
How to Grow More Vegetables, by John Jeavons
Propagation Basics, by Steven Bradley

In January and February, I read all fiction. The Hobbit, the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, and the first four Harry Potter books. It felt good this month to go back to all non-fiction, but I will mix it up a bit, for next month.


4. Thursday is my final class for the Colorado Master Gardener course. It has been so much fun to meet one day a week with like-minded plant lovers, to learn just how much we didn't know and still don't know about plants. Lugging our textbook around has built up muscle to prepare for the soon-to-be-here gardening season.

I am not a scientific thinker. Quick impressions and emotional response are more my speed. However, it has been fascinating to dig into the whys of plant growth, plant health, and plant identification.

At our mountain cabin, I recognized the trees are not all identical pine trees. I was able to use the identification key (like a computer flow chart) to discover we have three different types of conifers: Ponderosa Pine, Pinon Pine, and Rocky Mountain Juniper. Now, I see the trees in a completely different way, and around town I can recognize the variety of trees. Once the shrubs green up, I'll be able to identify and learn more about them, too.

On a Nasa website, they say, "Anyone can think like a scientist."

Science is . . .

• Observing the world.
• Watching and listening
• Observing and recording.

Science is curiosity in thoughtful action about the world and how it behaves.

Anyone can have an idea about how nature works. Some people think their idea is correct because "it seems right" or "it makes sense." But for a scientist (who could be you!), this is not enough. A scientist will test the idea in the real world. An idea that predicts how the world works is called a hypothesis.

Hmmm. Is my hypothesis correct?

If an idea, or hypothesis, correctly predicts how something will behave, we call it a theory. If an idea explains all the facts, or evidence, that we have found, we also call it a theory.

I came across this looking up something for my son's schoolwork.
It helps me realize I apply science in more ways than I thought, giving me a new appreciation for science and learning.
Observation.
Pay Attention.
Curiosity in thoughtful action.

5. I have written before of the benefits of aloe in treating burns. Do have an aloe plant in your kitchen? You should. The aloe plant I had before died, probably from overwatering. Three burns in three weeks convinced me I needed another plant.

Yes, I did. I grabbed a cookie tray fresh out of the oven. I can explain what I did, each step in slow motion - I can't explain the logic of it. Oh, it hurt. Six blisters on five fingers, my whole palm red and shiny. I split open a long aloe leaf, soaking my fingers in the cool, slimy juices. Over and over, wiping the fluid across my palm and fingers, gently rubbing it in. For an hour or so.

Our son, the day before, made some aloe jelly, a project from a Junior Master Gardener lesson book we are working through. The juice, scraped out of one leaf, mixed with hand lotion, kept in the refrigerator. I applied it to my palm and fingers several times during the evening.

The next day the pain was gone, the reddness gone, the blisters flat and soft, not raised or raw. Two days later, the two worst blisters were flat, brownish spots, the rest, gone. Amazing, especially as two of the previous burns were still ugly red lines.

Do you have an aloe? I will try very hard not to overwater this one. And, I will try not to burn myself (I do try not to, really!). I seem to have a knack for this - best to keep an aloe handy.

6. Paper. Pen. Pocket.
In "Becoming Jane", the movie biography of Jane Austen, she hears a phrase she likes, pulls a paper and pen out of the pocket in her apron, sits down on a nearby bench and jots it down. The grumpy lady asks, "What is she doing?" The young man, who understands her, answers that she is writing down words, or something like that, I don't remember exactly. Jane Austen was a collector of words, and she was smart enough to write them down immediately. I assume I will remember them later, but rarely do. I learned I do need to carry pen and paper, tucked in a pocket so they are always close at hand, available and ready to jot down a thought or a phrase or that perfect line. To collect those words.

That line she jots down makes it into Pride and Prejudice, "Miss Bennet, there seemed to be a prettyish kind of a little wilderness on one side of your lawn. I should be glad to take a turn in it..."
I love how the words she collected became the classic story.

Being a word collector, I collect quotes, thoughts, word images, stories, characters told in words. Why be a word collector? Because they are thoughts of people past and present - thoughts in tangible (sort of) form. Like being able to grab and hold a thought. Which I can't do, and which is why I write down the words. And collect them.

7. Our daughter shared with me a phrase she heard,
                                      THE EINSTEIN HOUR

That time of day when you are at your best, sharpest, most productive, most clear thinking. Plan for that time, use it for your best work. Right now, for me, that is 8 to 9 am. I mark that out on my planner pages and use that time to write. It helps me to have that hour set aside. Ideally, I would like to write much longer than that, but an hour done is far better than just intentions, and for me, real progress. The specific time may change as life changes, but think about when you are at your best. Pay attention to that productive time - use it for your best - it may mean reading with children, walking, cleaning - find your Einstein Hour and use it wisely. What is your Einstein Hour?

So, March accomplished.
April ahead.
Wonder what lessons April will offer?

Other People's Tumbleweeds

A new garden friend and I sat on the bench, chatting. About plants, of course. She maintains a large xeriscape garden and wished she could keep up with her planned chores rather than cleaning up other people's tumbleweeds, filling up the dumpster each week with the huge, bulky, prickly weeds that blow into her garden.

This one, around the front corner of our house is bigger around than I can reach. And if I did, I'd be full of prickers. I tried to take the photo with my hand holding the base for a size comparison, but I couldn't reach out that far without getting prickers stuck in my sweatshirt. They are too big for a trash can and have to be smashed down or clipped into smaller chunks, or some gardeners burn them down. Last year was a record breaking year for tumbleweeds, the second worst on record, here. I saw a huge one, caught by a gust of wind, blow completely over our roof. Some days the roads are full of them bouncing down the street. Avoiding them with the car is pointless. This year looks to be similar.

I wish I could assure you that in my yard, all the tumbleweeds came from somewhere else. Nope. Sorry. On the sides of the two back sheds, I didn't finish pulling them up last summer and fall. So, I am guilty. Some of those tumbling bundles of prickles are from my yard. If you don't pull them out when they are small, they seem to grow overnight into behemoth monsters, unapproachable and threatening. Don't touch me or you'll get hurt! Leather gloves are a necessity.

Under a cover of snow, they don't look so unfriendly. But they're lurking, waiting for a dry, warm breeze.

Even if you live in an area without these monsters, we all deal with other people's tumbleweeds. Other people's mistakes, messes, hurts, neglect, misunderstandings, spreading their prickers, poking us as we walk through our days. Dealing with problems when they are small is best, but not always possible. Some days it is enough to pull our own weed problems without having to deal with other people's also. But, reality is, it is not always our choice. They are there, tumbling along in front of us.

The answer? Clean up what we can. Be patient. Tackle them one at a time. Be prepared. Know that the seeds are being scattered with every breeze blowing them around. If this one is cleaned up, there will be others sprouting.

Does this all sound depressing? Hopeless? It helps me to know that, as in a garden and learning to take better care of my plants, there are many life lessons intertwined. Weeding is critical. Watering is vital. Neither of those tasks is done once. Over and over and over. Again and again. Daily effort. Life is full of small daily tasks, rinse and repeat. Once in awhile one of our guys tries the line, "But I'll just have to do it again tomorrow. Why not wait till then?" And my response, "Yup, and since the food will just get eaten and the dishes will just get dirty, I might as well wait till tomorrow, or even the day after that to cook, right?" Which of course, doesn't happen.

Other people's tumbleweeds. One at a time. Small steps. Solved, Cared for. And the life and the garden become beautiful and rich.

Best Buds

I do have something more serious I could write about.
But maybe you need a chuckle today?

I have these two face pots, and like to give them amusing (to me, anyway) names by what is growing in them at the moment.

Spike Jones

Do you know Spike Jones?

A musician from the 1940's and 50's, his group put a silly twist on whatever serious music they played.

Tchaikovsky or current hits, nothing was beyond their creative interpretation.

In the days before computer generated sounds, they added cowbells, gun shots, whistles, played tunes on air pumps, rearranged their instrument pieces, banged sticks on window shutters, or whatever it took to make the sounds they wanted. His early 50's TV show is full of the slapstick humor of that day. Nonsense, yes, light-hearted fun.

You-Tube has some of his music clips, if you want to watch.

My little Spike Jones even matches his checkered outfits.

You'll have to watch some of the clips to appreciate his style.

Cynthia

This is Cynthia. I planted these hyacinth bulbs last November, and tucked them away on a dark shelf in the garage, chillin'. After the leaves poked up, I brought them inside to keep in a low light corner for a week or so until the blooms began to form. Now in a sunnier spot, their fragrance and blooms perk up our winter landscape, making it smell like spring even if there is still snow on the ground.

                                                             Spike and Cynthia                                                                   

                                                                  Best Buds

Mini Mini

In a post last summer I mentioned my attempt to grow mini pumpkins and mini sweet peppers with seeds saved from ones I bought at the store the year before. I didn't know if because of hybridization and all the messing with plants that is done now, if I would see any production from them.

One mini pumpkin and one teeny little pepper. Hardly worth the effort, except for the fun of the experiment. We had a frost earlier this month. I left the mini pumpkin out, hoping the warm weather after the frost would encourage one last really big growth spurt. The plant withered, no more growth. With more frosts threatened, I brought the little guy inside. In an era when big is better, my pumpkin would not win any state fair prizes. Kind of cute, though, like a miniature for a fairy garden.

Perhaps Ichabod Crane would wish that this little pumpkin was hurled at his cranium rather than the head-sized one he encountered on that dark night in Sleepy Hollow?

Random Rambles, Part One

My plants are thriving with the subtle shift to fall weather. Warm days, with cool breezes. They are bursting with one last shout of color and productivity, setting up their seeds, preparing for the winter.

Yup, the zucchini, too. I thought they slowed down, but they, too, seem to be putting forth one last effort. Which means a bunch of zucchini to deal with. My neighbor said she would take some - she was smart enough not to plant them because she knows what happens. Not to say I won't plant any next year. I am sure I will. But, there are moments when it is just too much.

I made a batch of zucchini bread that was dry and bland. That failure helped me remember a recipe from my sister-in-law, Cathy. When we were newly married, we lived near them in the Denver area. Whatever she grew flourished and whatever she cooked was yummy - I learned a lot from her in my early wife days. I dug back through old, stashed recipes and found this, in her own writing. A nostalgia moment. The paper was torn, stains splashed on, obviously a well used recipe.


Zucchini Bread
3 eggs, beaten
1 c cooking oil
2 c sugar (I used a little less)
2 c grated zucchini
2 tsp vanilla
3 c flour
1 tsp soda
1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 c chopped walnuts or pecans
1 c crushed pineapple

Grease and flour two loaf pans or one cake pan. Beat eggs, add oil, sugar, zucchini and vanilla. Beat.
Then add flour, salt, soda, powder and cinnamon. Mix well. Add nuts and pineapple.
Bake, 325 degrees, for one hour.
"This is really moist and freezes well," Cathy added at the end.

Do you ever roast vegetables? It is a yummy, easy way to cook them. Pop them in the oven with some chicken for a simple and quick dinner. Last week I wrote about eating a rainbow of fruits and vegetables.
Roasted Rainbow
Red - red peppers
Orange - carrots
Yellow - summer squash
Green - zucchini
Blue - purple onions
Violet - beets
Potatoes
Cut vegies, any combination of colors, in slices or wedges, spread in 9x11 glass baking pan. Sprinkle with olive oil and Italian seasoning, stir. Bake 350, an hour or a little longer until tender, stirring once to help cook them evenly. I added the zucchini and yellow squash at the halfway point, as they tend to get overcooked.

Have you used a Misto? I used a cooking spray for years, loving the convenience, knowing the chemicals used to make it spray weren't good. I found mine at Bed, Bath and Beyond. Add 1/3 cup olive oil, pump it six or seven times, spray. It needs to be refilled now, a couple of months later. No nasty chemicals, just pure olive oil. With the convenience.

Did You Eat a Rainbow Today?

What is that supposed to mean?

Think of it as a visual reminder to eat a healthy variety of fruits and vegetables. Every day.

Red. Orange. Yellow. Green. Blue. Violet.

Daily, we should eat a variety of colors. This is something I am learning, working towards each day, paying attention to the colors I choose to eat, and choosing colors other than brown - dark brown for chocolate and lighter brown for the breads and grains I love to eat. The health benefits, especially if we replace less healthy choices, are many.

"The nutrients that studies show have anti-aging, disease-fighting, and skin-protecting properties number in the thousands, and the colorful fruits and vegetables found in the grocery store contain combinations of them all. Building your daily menu around these nutrient dense foods will earn you a health trifecta: whittling off unwanted weight, staving off the diseases of aging, and rejuvenating your complexion."

                                        -7 Years Younger, The Anti-Aging Breakthrough Diet
                                                        by the editors of Good Housekeeping

I was surprised how many of the colors I had in the garden and the refrigerator. Sorting them, thinking of them by rainbow color gave me a fresh perspective of the better choices I can make.

An innovative company where a daughter works sets up a health challenge for their employees each summer, challenging them with exercise or nutritional competitions. This summer, they designed a program monitoring the colors and categories of daily servings of fruits and vegetables. Each employee entered their daily servings of the color varieties on their computers. She shared her charts with me. Each day, they marked the rainbow chart for R, O, Y/W, G, B/V. (The W is for white, including apples, pears, onions, jicama, potatoes, etc). Beans are also included because of their health benefits: pinto, kidney for red; lentils, wax for yellow; black beans for blue/violet. The key is to find the flexibility and the beauty in the challenge. A colorful plate makes eating interesting and pretty. I admit, I have a long way to go. Brown seems so much more appealing and yummy and satisfying to me. But I am learning to choose red, orange, yellow, green, blue and violet instead.

Learning. In process, not there yet.

What colors of the rainbow did you eat today?

Zucchini Ooops

Isn't this a cute, harmless little zucchini palnt? If you have grown zucchini, you know what comes next. I am not very good at thinning plants. I did make myself thin one out of four zucchini plants, these two that I knew were way too close together. Should have thinned three out of four, especially since I am the only one in our household that even likes to eat it.

Those little plants become monsters that take over a garden and thrive on productivity. Daily picking. How did that zucchini get that big? I checked this morning and it wasn't there. Their huge leaves hide the squash growing at astronomical speeds below them. Okay, that is a bit of an exaggeration. Just a little bit.

A soup recipe I tried once called for frozen yellow squash. I didn't know you could freeze squash, assumed it would turn all mushy. Sure enough, there in the freezer aisle, alongside the peas and carrots, I found a package of frozen, sliced squash. A little internet search, and there were the directions for freezing mountains of squash. Hooray!

With a few simple steps, working while our sons did their schoolwork, I froze six bags of sliced squash, zucchini and yellow, and two bags of grated zucchini.

The directions are easy. Cut squash in chunks or thick slices. Blanch - which means a short boil plunged in boiling water, or steam them - for three minutes, cool immediately in an ice water bath, drain, pack in freezer bags, and freeze.

Want to know a nifty trick? Stick a straw in the edge of the bag as you are zipping it up. Suck the air out, slip out the straw and finish sealing. Vacuum packed vegies!

The grated squash (frozen raw, without blanching) will be zucchini bread some day this winter, or I can toss it in spaghetti sauce or soups. The sliced squash will be a summery welcome on a dreary winter day. Now, I am not afraid to go see how many squashes are waiting for me in the garden. Let them grow!

Zinnias in the zucchini

Keep the Hope

Do you remember the post in February about the plant my son said, "Didn't make it?"

Here it is, now, three times the size, full of blooms and bees and beauty.

Seasons change. Life changes.

Keep the hope.

Full Summer Garden

This is my full summer garden, a raised bed, five by six feet, and two tomato pots. I was away for ten days, then we had family visiting here - this is the garden flourishing on its own with very little attention from me. Plant the seeds, water, watch them grow. Amazing.

It was raining when I took some of these photos, a much needed, deep rain. I could water every day, and need to in this desert climate, but a fresh, cool rain rejuvenates the plants far better than anything I could do.





On stage now: marigolds, tomatoes (cherry and beefsteak), bush beans, summer squash, chard, beets, parsley.

Coming soon: zucchini, corn, zinnias.

Waiting on the sidelines: mini pumpkins and mini peppers.