Posts Tagged "Beauty And Vistas"

Mid-June Garden Goings On

Posted on Jun 17, 2008

First let me say: how the heck did it get to be mid-June already! My grandmother always said time sped up “when you get older.” I thought she meant 80’s — not 40’s! The speeding up of time though, is making me choose what I spend my time on much more carefully than ever… Gardening ALWAYS passes the where-to-spend-this-speeding-time test! There’s a lot of good garden eating going on around here as seen in the pic above. I love beets. Now that I figured out how to use a juicer I really wish I’d planted more – they are delicious with carrot and apples.

While the amazing amount of rain has been disastrous for the yellow squash, the kale is still going strong. I haven’t been quite bold enough to juice kale, but I hear you can..

Here’s Larrapin’s golf-ball sized watermelon. It’s a variety called “Blacktail Mountain” is is supposed to be very early. I’ll say! Hope it does better in the damp than the squash have — which went from lovely to covered-in-mildew literally overnight. Eeek. I’m planning to replant rather than try to save it I think (and hope for more sun, less dampness.)

The zuchinni are currently surviving….

Aren’t borage blooms amazing. I plant them to keep the tomatoes company and the bees love the blooms too.

And I’ve got stuff to plant that I don’t have space for! Sigh. Garden is never big enough. 🙂

Bush beans going strong. The little fence is enough to keep the bunnies at bay during that irresistable 2-6inche stage, which these have gotten past. If we get some good sunshine, we’ll have beans before we know it.

The dill has managed to attract a celebration of swallowtail caterpillars. It’s nice to be able to walk by and say words of encouragement and praise to a future butterfly.

So I was standing back admiring the garden, thinking what a beautiful place I have the privilege to learn from, when who should fly down from her nest in that tree at the end of the garden path but…

One of the roadrunners. This may be the female and maybe that nest is more serious than the usual piles of sticks in trees (and in the garage) that we call their “hunting blinds.” She stood all puffed out in the sun, drying out for a moment in between rain showers.

Thanks for taking a mid-June walk around Larrapin!

The Beauty of a Clothesline, Part II

Posted on May 7, 2008

When Is a Clothesline a Work of Art?, originally uploaded by Gardener At Larrapin.

I posted the pic above a few days ago, when the sun was shining enough to dry clothes in about an hour. Today it’s raining and I want to add my promised addendum to the clothesline post. Thanks “Amanda” for your comment and agreement about the beauty of clothes hung out to dry — and the silliness of communities that outlaw this simple way to save energy.

One group has gone even further to celebrate the clothesline:

Project Laundry List
Our Mission: Project Laundry List uses words, images, and advocacy to educate people about how simple lifestyle modifications, including air-drying one’s clothes, reduce our dependence on environmentally and culturally costly energy sources.

What fun! And why not get behind these simple things that can go a long way to reducing energy usage.

The main block to handing out clothes (as long as you don’t live in a clotheslines-outlawed community) is lack of time. Then the question becomes: Do I want to have the kind of life where I don’t even have time to stand out in my lovely back yard and hang up clothes while listening to the birds sing? That is the kind of question that has driven me to seek more simplicity and less consumerism. The less I buy and spend, the less I have to work outside the home, the more time I get to spend with the wind, the birds and my family. Now that’s a good deal.

I’ll end with this wonderfully poetic take on the beauty of clotheslines from poet Mendy Knott called “Instruments of Peace” from her blog A Creative Life. Here’s a snippet:

“Looking out the window, hands in the kitchen sink
washing up the dishes gives a person time to think.
I see our colorful clothing fly,
this old Arkansas home’s prayer flags;
from t-shirts stitched with slogans to denims and dust rags.
The blessed sun shines down.
The breeze it blows and fills.
They sail and pull at pins
as if the billowing clothes
could keep this old world spinnin’
spinnin’ spinnin’ spinnin’ spinnin’
spinnin’ round.”

(Read Mendy’s whole poem here: Instruments of Peace)