Greetings on this drizzly Saturday morning. I welcome the cool off and the rain, what a whirlwind of a month! All of my shenanigans finally caught up to me yesterday afternoon when I got home from work. Hitting a brick wall isn’t always bad…. I fell into bed for a solid three hour nap, got up to help stack & move some wood that had fallen over and trapped the tractor in the lean-to….then on to do some chores only to return to bed by 9:30 for a good solid night until 7 this morning.

While I was preparing a simple dinner and doing laundry last night the garden had it’s final till. The nitrogen and lime that had been sprinkled on a week ago were worked into the soil. We will see how it goes this year. We are rotating the rows this year, making three very long rows instead of 10 short rows. Joe says he needs a break from the upkeep of the food garden, so has suggested I just use the larger portion of the garden for the flowers. We will plant the flowers, a few beans, and then pumpkins in the east side for the grandkids to enjoy!

We already have a lot of volunteer sunflowers (or was it squash) popping up, Joe tilled them under yesterday, but I’m sure there will be plenty to pull out. I will have s sunflower patch in the area where the raised beds are, but this year we will be limited the number of sunflowers that will be invading the flower patch. We will leave what we can in the new squash patch and see how it goes. The old squash patch is being converted into an orchard. The one next to the house is well over it’s prime – some trees 45 years old. We’ve lost a few due to ice damage and just general rot, so we are starting a new orchard near the garden for future generations to enjoy. They say the best time to plant a tree was yesterday, the next best time is today….so we shall put a few in the ground today.

We’ve been wanting to start trees for each of the grandkids, so I called the two oldest last weekend to ask them what kinds of trees they wanted us to start for them on our property. One said Mango and the other said Peach….after explaining to them that indeed this is not a southern climate where such wonderful trees can grow, I offered three options – a flowering tree, a nut tree or a fruit tree. Of course the nut – our three-year-old grandson wants a nut tree, and the 5 year-old granddaughter asked for a flowering tree. My daughter requested a flowering tree for Lily-Bean.

Joe really wants a filbert tree, which is also called hazelnut, but the three places we visited didn’t have any. He also wanted a pink star magnolia tree, which they didn’t have either….but we did pick up a Lilac to replace one that died this winter, a pink dogwood, a hybrid star Magnolia and several woody trees including a Ninebark to use in my flower bouquets. Even if I don’t end up doing the flower thing much longer, the woody trees are beautiful and we will enjoy them for years to come. We will continue to hunt for the elusive filbert tree so we can get it in the ground and growing so that the grand-son can watch it grow as he grows. I think they will be coming over next weekend, so we can have some quality time chatting about the different trees around the property and make some sort of fun out of the situation but also a learning opportunity.

The lilacs are about to pop open, the tulips & daffodils are just about finished. The Lupines are putting on great growth as are the Peonies and all of the new things in the perennial gardens. I’ve found some suspicious looking tall flowers of some sort in the garden – I’m thinking they just might be bachelor buttons that somehow drifted in the wind and landed in the garden – so much fun! I happened to winter over a few spare Snap Dragons here and there that are doing very well indeed.

Cheryl, the lady who gifted me most of my perennial garden last year, came over for an impromptu visit on Wednesday “because she was in the neighborhood”. It was an odd Wednesday, but it all happened to work out. I gifted her several wonderful seedlings that I had grown from seed in addition to several of the things I got as plugs. It was great to visit with her and show her where I put her stuff, she had some suggestions, words of encouragement then off she went! I hope I can do her plants justice! I’m hoping that the area I put them in one day will be a bit of a destination for our visitors, but we shall see how it goes. I have visions of turning that area into a class/meeting/meditation area….but we shall see where things lead.

In order for that to happen, something needs to give, I’m indeed not superwoman….and doing the 2,100 plug order, in addition to my own 1,400 seedlings, in addition to helping out with my mom, working full time, having a social life and all the other things in between, I need to sort out what comes first. I spent several hours putting succulent containers together to sell in the stand this weekend – that’s time I could have spent getting the flower garden next to the house in order.

It will all come together, everything will be fine, but there certainly does need to be some sorting and prioritizing. Thankfully, if I wanted out of the flower situation at this point, it’s not too late, I could sell every last seedlings to all my flower friends at a great deal, and walk away from it all and enjoy a boat ride or two, prep the flower bed next to the house and work on that seating area next to the milk house….but…..I’m looking forward to seeing those Asters I started in February and seeing how tall those amazing Artichokes will be to put in arrangements and harvesting those Strawflowers for wreath making this fall….and using the Mountain Mint and Spearmint in cool drinks to sip on in the yard this summer….and don’t forget about the 6 different Amaranth I started that will be used at three weddings this summer and the 5 trays of cosmos that are sprouting in less than 5 days….yeah, I suppose it’s too late to back out now.

As promised, here we are at the end of the blog – where I’ve heard people skip all about the flower situation and scroll down to just read this part because this is where I leave updates on Lily-Bean….here is the update: She has an appointment in Seattle on Tuesday. Even though her heart looks good according to the EKG, her troponin levels continue to be high in addition to her blood count being off they are not hugely concerned. Hopefully there will be more discussion about that Tuesday. My daughter is concerned that Lily will never walk. The support group we found on Facebook is rather difficult to keep up with, all the news is so sad, sure there are great stories, but what is the likelihood of things being sunny for Lily? So many kids have trachea tubes, feeding tubes, wheelchairs, braces to help keep them upright….none of that is horrible, but it certainly isn’t the outcome that we expected when we think of a healthy child joining this world. Life is hard enough, tossing in extra challenges is heartbreaking. We are focusing on what Lily is doing now, her legs do not move much, but her hands and wrist are moving a bit, she is lightly grasping objects, her head is moving from side to side, she smiles, she’s attempting to make cooing noises, she is almost 10 pounds now – gaining about 2 ounces a day in a weeks time span!! But she is barely two months old, I’m sure that my daughter is setting up there at that house, watching her daughter flop around thinking ‘omg, is this it’ – not really realizing that new babies are floppy anyhow, and every baby progresses at different times, nobody has a crystal ball to know what the future holds. We can all hope for the best, do everything right, and take things one day at a time.

I hope all is well with you and yours, I hope you are taking it one day at a time and finding joy, peace and happiness in things you do every day. If you aren’t, please find a way, life is too short to be unhappy. I’m here if anyone wants to just talk – reach out if you need to. If not me, then someone you know and trust, I hope everyone of you that reads this has that person in their life. Thanks for visiting. Until next time hugs to you, have a fabulous weekend dear friends!