Ready & Waiting

Well, here's the new greenhouse up and awaiting its first residents. The seedling cart in my office-cum craft room-cum seed starting room is getting a bit overcrowded and since I heat my little poly house with a space heater, some of them will have to get bumped out there even though the temps are still a bit nippy.

Despite a spate of warmer (60 degree-ish) days, the nights have been still dipping into the upper 30's. Forecasts for the rest of this week auger for even colder daytime temps and still more frigid night temps. So, needles to say, the heater in the greenhouse will be cranked up at full thermostat setting (usually kicks on at around 45 degrees). After being coddled inside for weeks, I don't think my little leafy babies will want to shiver under an unheated poly blanket.

And...if the sun decides to shine, then cold or no cold, the inside of that little poly puppy gets up to around 80 or 90 even with outside temps at least 40-30 degrees cooler.

So, it's all set up. Good to go. New shelf system installed and special upper tier shelf to hold the heater and...hahahaha...the oscillating fan when needed. Crushed stone center path to act as a mini-heat sink. (And it sounds nice to walk on, too.) All thanks to my handy hubby. Without him, not only would the greenhouse not have been put together along with all its nifty inards, but...frankly...there'd be no desire to even want to garden in the first place. Or do much of anything else for that matter.

Thanks, Sweetie. I love you. "HOO-RAH"!!

"Pack Up Your Seedies in Your Old Seed Bag and....

...Seed, seed, seed. Or was that "smile, smile, smile"? Well, why not have it both ways? Gathering together all the seeding equipment for a new season should bring a smile to any gardener's face. And if you're hearing the echoes of that "Boom!" in Baby Boom, it should also bring a twinge to your lower back a ping to those nerves in the back of your neck and an ooofah! to those sore rotator cuff muscles. Not to mention the snap, crackle and POP! of your knees. Did I mention that gnawing ache in your hip? (Sometimes I amaze myself that I manage to get out of bed in the morning. But, considering the alternatives....even crawling would be an option.)

It's at this time of the pre-growing season that I start to question my gardening fortitude. Maybe I should rethink all these cell packs soaking in the bathtub - over which I must bend my aching back and kneel on increasingly decrepit knees to clean the little black plastic buggers of last seasons soil remnants and possible pathogens? My enthusiasm increasingly wanes as I slog to thoughts of hauling wetted-down bags and containers of seed-starting mix. Did someone groan? Oh, that was me.

The least physical is usually relegated to a rainy, snowy, blustery, icy, nice-to-snuggle-inside-with-a-hot chocolate kind of day. The Annual Sorting of the Seeds. Culling my own saved from last year; organizing those newly purchased and making mental notations of the ones still in transit from the catalog companies. Peering through ice-covered windows, it's hard to envision planting out dates which were begat from hardening-off dates, from whence were calculated as a result of germination-dates which would discern appropriate seed-sowing dates. Coinciding with seeding commencement this year is the erection of my brand-spanking-new-portable greenhouse because it was just too cost prohibitive to invest in a permanent structure at this point. (*More on this later. Photos of husband in peril to come.*)

Initially I'd thought that this year there just wouldn't be adequate time for such "seedy" involvement under indoor gro lights. But, is there ever really enough time to do anything we really want to do? Is there ever really a right time for something bad or untoward to happen? Isn't there just a time when we finally run out of excuses - legitimate or otherwise - and simply have to take the plunge? You know, that proverbial "journey of a thousand miles"? And it's always a bigger plunge and a longer journey than we gardeners anticipate. Despite past seasons' history, we cling to illusions of control; that this season we'll keep a better handle on just how many little seedlings we'll opt to adopt. But, it's just that. An illusion. Somehow, some way...it always manages to elude our alleged control and equally inexplicably, we always manage to adapt.

The other undeniable certainty of this whole seeding game is the natural progression of our commitment: You help bring these living entities into the world, and you nurture them. Protect them and stand at the doorway of the greenhouse as they venture off into the Big Backyard World, their lunchboxes of kelp meal and (hpefully) healthy soil under their leaves. How they fare under that open canopy of sky's school may solely depend on the environment from which they were bred and raised. After all, the seedling doesn't fall far from them what's seeded them. While you know the door to the greenhouse is always open should they ever need to return for some needed CPR (Critical Plant Resusitation), they've got to fend mostly for themselves. Sigh! Seeds. They grow up so fast!

Already adrift in reverie mingled with giddy (if not somewhat painful) anticiption, I am poised with my other arsenal of seed-starting staples: a bottle of Advils, heating pad revved up at full tilt, cats nearby for a quick pet to calm nerves and once again the three of us purring to the faint aroma of fish emulsion. Warmed by the rising heat from heat mats and a bank of flourescent fixtures grateful that for another season I've still got game... even if I'm barely covering the point spread these days.

Another Exciting New Year's Eve

Yep, looks like Pa and me'll be celebratin another New Year's Eve the same ole way.

After a few stiff shots of moonshine-laced eggnog, we'll do the nasty on the front porch shellin last season's dried "Happy Beans". The one's we scored...eh... smuggled..er..hid in the trunk...uh..."someone sent to us" from Mexico. (Yeah, that's it: "someone" sent them to us.) Then we'll use an old recipe Pa picked up from Moondoggie back at Woodstock: where we mash em and roll em up in some good Jamaican papers I've had since the 60's, mon. Kick back, light up and rock in the New Year on our rockers with memories of Jimi, Janice and The Dead dancin on that ole front porch roun' midnight when the ball drops in Times Square.

About the same time Pa & me'll drop one last dime...toke one more for Crosby, Stills & Nash (pre Young), give in to the usual munchies and chill on the porch till dawn. Been a bummer of a year. Hope when the sun comes up and the clouds of smoked Happy Beans drift off...so do those old troubles and woes. Probably just making way for new ones. *Sigh* But....considering the alternative of not settin on that porch again next New Year's Eve with Pa (even without the Happy Beans)....I'll take whatever the New Year has to offer.

PEACE & HEALTH IN A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

ANGELS WATCHING OVER

Well, we got the tree afterall. Debated and debated. There was so little time to do much of any decorating not to mention so little energy. But, as I sat one afternoon last week in the vet's waiting room while Tyler was receiving one of his three-times-a-week courses of medicine, I decided that just as we had gotten a small tree for Tyler for his first Christmas with us (which I really didn't want to do because my first beloved cat, Mister, had died earlier that year and all I could think about was the first Christmas in nearly 20 years without him)...I decided we would have a small tree, again, for Tyler and now for Sandy as well. It would be a "Tyler & Sandy Tree".

It's a small tree. Bigger by some standards, but smaller in comparison to our past trees. About 4 feet high, resting on top of a two-foot table, it stands alone in the living room surrounded by only a few little soft Christmas sculptures. But it's the decorations which make it significant. After searching through all my own handmade and gifted handmade ornaments, I ferreted out only the angels and all the cat ornaments I could find. Or anything relating to either Tyler or Sandy or Mister.

Above it all rests the angel I made over 12 years ago. Above it all she looks down on the tree. Above it all I hope her symbolism and the message and hope of Christ's birth looks down on us all. In my home and in yours.

Blessings and Prayers to all.

CHRISTMAS IS A'COMIN...WITH OR WITHOUT ME!

I've always plunged full-tilt into the pre-holiday preparations for Christmas. But with each passing year and another yuletide clearing the pumpkin pie and Thanksgiving stuffing off the table to make way for fat red candles surrounded by holly wreaths and gold ribbons, I'm finding it more of an effort to plug in those twinkly lights inside my head and sparkle for the remainder of the month.

This year health problems have gone beyond hampering the final bed down of the garden and brought things outside to a grinding halt. Unplanted perennials, still in pots have at least been plunged into thick piles of freshly-shredded leaf mulch or are sharing residence in the finished, other compost pile. Pain and depression over said pain has broken through a normally strong demeanor and kept me hunkered down, fairly immobile inside for spells. When I have regained some energy, positive attitude and the pain lessens, I've ventured outside usually to cut back as many tall, unsightly annuals as I can and letting them lie for the birds to feast on. Or arranging them as a pseudo-ground cover for what would otherwise be bare beds because of my inability to spread my usual layers of shredded leaves. On even better days, I managed to rake some of the larger, wetter leaves from the perennial beds and my husband scattered some of the aforementioned shredded leaves and grass clippings around the more tender specimens. But, for the most part, as was the case two seasons ago when my father passed away, the garden is on its own. What comes back...comes back. What doesn't....well...


And now my two little ones - my cats, Tyler (to the left) and Sandy (right) - have been spending more time at the vet's office and the specialty veterinary hospital about 25 miles from here than even I've been spending at my own doctors' offices! Adrenalin is a strange body chemical, and it never ceases to amaze me how it can mask whatever debilitating pains you may have at the time, so you can accomplish what would otherwise be impossible - if you thought about it too long. When it's come to emergency duty and round-the-clock watching over of my little ones, that adrenalin pumps out those needed endorphins like those that washed over the woman who was able to lift the car off her injured boy. (I'm sure we've all heard that story, and I don't doubt its voracity for a moment!)

Whether it's lugging heavy cat carriers, sometimes two at a time into and out of the car; tackling frightened felines to med them; staying up all night to watch over them; who eats what, when and who leaves "deposits" and how much and keeping charts; relearning intravenous and intra-muscular injections and even with the help of my husband as a "handler" when trying to administer subcutaneous fluids till that 100mls. drip out of the bag ...that only reveals the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what I'd do for them.

Then there's the inevitable bad communication between doctors. Only this time it's animal doctors. There's only one difference between animal doctors and human doctors especially when it comes to your asking questions, being aggressive, doing your own research, double checking their staff is administering proper meds and doses during hospital stays...and that single difference is this: One deals with two legged patients and the other deals with quadruped. In other words, they and the frustration they engender are identical. Oh, sure, you can luck into the occasional great sympathizer or compassionate caregiver, but that doesn't mean they're competent. So sometimes you have to sacrifice communication for competency. And that doesn't necessarily mean your (or your animals') treatment still won't get screwed.

I'm sure we've all had the feeling at one time or another when dealing with a human or animal doctor, that your name has been circled in red in their "secret little charts" and filed away under: "Difficult Patient" or "Difficult Patient-Owner". I suspect there's an internet site out there only privy to be logged onto by physicians where patients they consider to have attitudes are shared. "Attitudes" in doctor-speak translates to: "One Who Asks Too Many Questions". In my opinion, however, the unspoken (doctor-eye's only) full definition is "One Who Asks Too Many Questions For Which I As The Person Who Went To Medical School For Umpteen Years Should Know The Answer...But Don't And I'm Too Proud Or Conceited Or Egocentric To Let Her Know That, So That Makes Her A Patient With An Attitude Who Just Asks Too Many Questions". WHEW! Talk about off-gardening topics!

So the garden as well as the holidays take on a different priority this year. The survival of one and The Glory of the other will each do fine without my usual hoopla and hustle. One is up to Nature and the other is The Creator of that Nature. I respect and honor both. Right now, I trust the garden to Nature's quite capable hands and I hope I'm kept in the hands of The Creator to keep me going strong enough to keep my little ones in my care. Of course a little care direct from Him to my little kitts wouldn't be refused either. As long as I can keep that adrenaline flowing and those endorphins kicking in when they're needed. Painkillers don't help half as much as the desire to help them and that's a pretty damn strong desire.