Bird and Little Bird

First Harvest.

I'm pleased to report that things are going remarkably well on the garden front. For the past few years, I've had community garden plots which are great for purposes of growing space and peeking at what other people are up to, but less good for things like remembering to water and weed in a timely fashion. Now that my garden is right in my own backyard, I can easily pull a few weeds or plant a handful of seeds whenever I'm out back with the dog, and things are looking pretty fancy.

And, the plants are now at the point where I can go out with a pair of scissors and snip off some sprigs of parsley or cilantro when I'm making dinner, or harvest a basket of baby kale for salad making.

Bliss.

At the moment, here's what is in the ground:

parsley :: cilantro :: tomoatoes :: jalapenos :: potatoes :: lettuce :: kale :: bush beans :: shell peas :: basil :: tomatillos :: sweet potatoes :: carrots :: celery :: asparagus :: beets :: mesclun mix :: sweet dumpling squash :: cucumbers :: zuchinni :: bell peppers ::

My beets, for whatever reason, are the one thing not thriving. The leaves have been yellowing and then wilting, turning sort of mushy, then dying. I've done a bit of research, but haven't been able to figure out what is going on. If you've got any ideas about what might be happening, please let me know!

Birthday Boy.

 

 

As it turns out, today is the day that my puppy is not really a puppy any longer. Miso the dog turns two today.

It should be noted that I am not a dog person. Or, perhaps more accurately, I am a reluctant dog person. Previous to the appearance of Miso in my life, I was the sort of girl who could sort of appreciate the idea of dogs, provided that they didn't touch me or get too close. That sort of thing. But then: Miso. It is ridiculously difficult not to be charmed by a creature that follows you everywhere and responds to your very existence with complete enthusiasm and joy. I mean, who says no to that?

Not me.

He is love in canine form, and I'm all in. I have become that crazy lady that shows strangers pictures of my dog. At night, I let him sleep with his nose on my shoulder. I find myself making scheduling decisions based on how long I can feasibly be away from him without either one of us feeling sad. It is inexcusably dorky, but also makes me pretty happy.

Happy birthday, pup.

 

And...We're Back!

So. That took a bit longer than expected. Being busy with things like chaperoning middle school trips to our nation's capitol and what not, I wasn't super on top of what was happening with the whole Typepad fiasco. But when the blog was still down this morning when I tried to post, I finally decided I should email and complain a bit. And, what do you know... It's back up!

I'd been wanting to share a bit about my new spring garden and have been meaning to get in here to do it for the last few weeks, but I think we all know that my appearances here are sporadic right now. Dawn and I have been working away on the book, on posts for Mud Puddles to Meteors, and then there is all the full-time job and parenting stuff to be on top of too. But we did manage to get a garden going in our new backyard, which I am very pleased with.

The raised beds that we built are very basic; just some 2 x 6 lumber cut to the proper length and held together with wood screws. We had a truckload of soil delivered to the yard on a weekday afternoon a couple of Thursdays back, and then spent part of the following weekend moving it into the beds.

I picked up some onion sets from a local produce market and started out by planting about two-thirds of them. I gave the rest to a neighbor, who has a garden bed just on the other side of our fence. Our house is on a very busy street in an urban neigborhood, with buses and other traffic going by in a steady stream pretty much around the clock. But you almost wouldn't know that from the state of affairs out back. Our yard has a short chain link fence on three sides, and on two of those sides there are neighbors with gardens as well. The guy to the side has a flock of chickens and is a professional bee keeper (raising queens for sale) with a couple of hives in the yard. To the back is an older Greek couple with a garden just a few feet from our own. In the evenings, we often stand in the yard and chat with the neighbors about bees, chickens, and who is growing what. We share plants, seeds, and advice. It is absolutely lovely.

 

Peas! Always the first thing to go in the ground here. I let the kids plant them this year, which I initially thought might have been an ill fated decision when the seeds didn't seem to be sprouting according to the expected timeline. But they are starting to come up now, so I guess it will work itself out. Even if they are not necessarily in the tidy little rows I might have imagined.

 

In the years that I have been living in New England, I've found that Fedco is a good seed company to go with here. They are in Maine, so the seeds tend to do well in our somewhat challenging climate and their shipping is timed well for the tragically short growing season.

Beets, lettuce, kale, carrots, and fennel have all started to sprout in the days since I first took these garden photos, so provided that all continues to run smoothly here on the blog, I'll be back to share more of that soon. Planting potatoes this afternoon!

A Quick Note About Wonky Interwebs.

Hi all! As you may have noticed things have been a bit out of whack here on the blog for the last week or so. Apparently, Typepad is having some internal server issues that have affected many of the blogs hosted there. I've got some fun things to share, and hope to be back soon, but I'm not sure that it makes a whole lot of sense to post until Typepad is finished resolving the problems it is having. I'm hopeful that it will all be on the up very, very soon. Hope to see you then!

Run Like You're Being Chased.

A couple of weeks ago, I ran the New York City half-marathon with my little sister, who lives in Manhattan not far from Central Park. We fueled up on significant quantities of Mexican food the night before, and arose at what can only be considered an unseemly hour the day of the race. "Race," however, is an interesting word for the whole phenomenon because I was certainly not trying to beat anyone at anything. My goal was, essentially, just to finish.

Which I did. And, I had a pretty good time doing it. The first eleven miles or so were actually fairly easy, and it wasn't until the last couple of miles that I found myself having to frequently refocus and come up with distracting things to contemplate while running along. There were 20-odd thousand other people running, so I suppose the effect of mass momentum cannot be underestimated.

My overall review: it was super fun, and I would definitely do it again, but I don't think that there is a full marathon in my future. I don't think. Although I'll be the first to admit that doing things that seem really hard and having them go relatively well is good for morale...

Oh, in other news, there is a great giveaway over at Mud Puddles. Just open for one more day, I believe, but if you miss out, be sure to check back at the end of the week for another cool giveaway (from our publisher!).

Sloth Skeletons and Refrigerator Pickles.

So, things got busy and I disappeared from the Interwebs almost entirely for some days, and now I am sort of back, but have nothing to show for my time away aside from a photo of a dock in Maine and a picture of a fossilized giant sloth. Right.

But this is not because I haven't been doing things. I have indeed. I went to Colorado for a week with my smalls and enjoyed things like airport trams and crisp mountain air. I went to Maine two weekends in a row, and can definitively say that I would recommend doing so to my friends and neighbors alike. I got semi-settled in at the new middle school teaching gig, and trained somewhat sporadically for a half-marathon that I am supposedly running in about three days time. Oh, and I moved to a new apartment.

I also made some seriously delicious refrigerator pickles, but feel like maybe this isn't quite momentous enough to sit well with the rest of the items on this list.

But I guess it's all a matter of perspective.

A Little Bit Here, A Little Bit There.

 

 

 

I had originally planned to try to work on my new quilt some each day, the way that I did with the last one that I made. That worked out well; the piecing work never felt overwhelming and I developed a rhythm with it that gradually built until the top was all of a sudden finished.

But there is a lot going on here these days. Work on the book. The kids and I moving from one house to another. I started a new teaching job the end of last week and now it is school vacation for the big kid.  So, not so much with the quilting and the knitting and the other non-required activities.

Just a little bit here and a little bit there, when the pace of things slows enough to allow it.

Printable Valentine's Day Cards (For You!).

 

Hi all! As is my custom, I made you a set of downloadable Valentine's Day cards again this year. But then I spent the day today running around to various places and things, including a cermonial procession at the girl's school where the children sent their mummified hens into the afterlife (a.k.a. the school dumpster). The smell was remarkable, in case you were wondering.

All of this is to say that Dawn posted the cards on our behalf, and you can find them and download a set (complete with envelopes!) on the Mud Puddles to Meteors site. Right. Now.

Enjoy!

Join Us For a Flock Migration Mobile Exchange.

Thanks so much to all of you for your enthusiasm about the book! Dawn and I are so very, very excited about the project, and the fact that you all are as well just makes it all the more fun to begin the process of writing, photographing, and creating.

Speaking of which, I know that I previously talked a bit about how much we enjoyed working together on the newest issue of Alphabet Glue, and it has cool to see pictures of families using the projects from Volume Sixteen as they begin to pop up here and there around the interwebs. We thought it might also be fun to organize an exchange of sorts based on one of the projects that seems to be becoming a fast favorite: the flock migration mobiles.

If you are interested in exchanging set of paper birds for mobile making with another family, hop on over to the Mud Puddles site to find out how to sign up!

On Cats and Bags.

As some of you might have already guessed, I kind of like projects. And to be busy. And to make stuff. And do things. And, when it gets quiet here, it is often because I am making and doing things in secret. Shhhh...

 

This turns out to be the case right now as well. As of yesterday, Dawn and I received our contract from Roost for the book that we are publishing with them in 2015. As you might expect, we are just a *little* bit excited about this, and have been all twitchy with wanting to share the news. But these things often have to be kept quiet until they are all official and what not, so I have had to bite my tongue in many a post here over the last couple of months.

 

I don't think I'm allowed to tell you anything more just yet, but when I am, believe you me- I will do so. In the meantime, I can tell you that if you are an Alphabet Glue or Mud Puddles to Meteors fan, this book will be very much up your proverbial alley.

So, a little cheer for good things happening during times of big transition. Life might be tricky here and there lately, but it certainly has its bright spots.

disclosure: These photos are really and truly random and unrelated to anything I just said. The cat sign is awesome though, right?