I was at an herb sale yesterday and had to laugh when I saw they had sorrel for sale. Oh, of course they were selling the well behaved, easily contained French sorrel, not the take over your garden and kill your plants red sorrel.
Sorrel Comes In Many Forms
Sweet, tame French Sorrel
Sorrel is a fickle plant. There are several different kinds of sorrel, which are mostly innocuous. Garden sorrel, or French sorrel (Rumex scutatus), grows in an easily controlled, tidy [...]
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It was pictures like this that made me think I was going to be visiting flower heaven.
We’ve been in Costa Rica for a week now and I have to say I have been very surprised by what I’ve seen. The first big surprise was the weather. When packing we thought tropical equals warm. That’s not what Costa Rica had in mind for us. When we arrived it was cold and rainy. We thought it was a fluke day, but [...]
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Sometimes you learn a new craft of sewing skill because you want to. Other times you learn something out of necessity. Recently I started learning how to knit out of necessity.
Living My Convictions Changes My Lifestyle
You see I try really, really hard to live my convictions. This means that I no longer eat meat, as I feel it is both unhealthy and cruel; I compost everything I can, to keep things out of the landfill and help rejuvenate our [...]
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Procrastination Doesn’t Pay
It doesn’t look very foreboding in this picture from a couple years ago, but the bush in the center of the picture grew to enormous size and pricked everyone who tried to enter the house!
Well, at least it ought to be! Yesterday my procrastination caught up with me. Seven years ago we moved into our house, just a few days before Thanksgiving. At that time I transplanted a tiny little autumn olive from the property we moved [...]
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I guess what’s paramount in my mind right now is the nice cool weather we’re having. Usually during this time of the year I’m sequestered in my house, only venturing out for a few hours in the early morning. For almost two weeks now I’ve actually been having to put on a sweatshirt to be able to do my early morning work!
My front entrance garden is bursting with color right now.
I can’t remember an August that cooled off this [...]
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When you live in the country you have to learn how to live with nature. Sometimes that means protecting your crops from the very nature you love. In order for us to get any of our blueberries we’ve found it necessary to cover them with bird netting. I’ve written about this before and how we’ve come up with a nice fairly elegant, yet inexpensive and easy to erect system.
A couple days ago I was making my morning rounds, watering everything [...]
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Whew! I didn’t think it would ever look like our yard was going to come together. I’ve been working on it for two years and it looked like I’d done almost nothing, but this year, year three, things are finally starting to come together.
Plants are maturing, looking really stunning this year; our permanent crop plants are producing heavily; we got most of the fruit trees in for our little orchard. So the yard finally doesn’t look like an orphan.
An [...]
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First hydrangea blossoms opening right now.
Perfect Weather
This last week has been fantastic. The weather is warm enough to work outside and the humidity is still low. The gardens are bursting into bloom. I have snapdragons, carnations, dianthus, pansies, and petunias already in bloom. The hydrangeas first blossoms opened yesterday. My lilies have buds all over them.
Cornucopia In The Making
The trees have leafed out. The berry bushes are making berries. The grapes have buds on them. Best of all one [...]
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Knock, knock FEED ME!
Nature Amongst Us
One of the things I like the most about living in the country is all the wildlife. We have an abundance of birds which are my favorite, but also, rabbits, squirrels, raccoons, possums, and although I’ve never seen one I’ve seen the prints for deer.
Wildlife can be a delight and a pain at the same time. Just this morning I had one bold sparrow hanging on the window and pecking it, to let me [...]
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There’s nothing more aggravating than having an unreliable car. In today’s world a car is no longer a luxury. Gone are the corner grocery and drug stores. Now you have to drive 5-10 minutes to get to a super-grocery or department store. When your car repeatedly fails you, it can create tremendous amounts of stress and cost hundreds, if not thousands of dollars.
Not only that it can cut into time you’d ordinarily have to enjoy yourself. Putting in new gardens, [...]
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