Spring Fever: Weekend Digging part 2

I was disappointed with the fact that it rained this morning and the forecast made it look as though it would be raining nonstop for the next 4 days.  I really wanted to get that little plot done that I started yesterday so I could have one thing truly finished outside, for once.  Luckily, the sun came out for long enough that I was able to finish digging, edging, and planting!

Slightly farther than yesterday, I got a bag of peat moss to work into the naturally-occurring rocky clay and planted Mom's baby tiger lilies along the edge.  I put down a little landscape fabric in the tongue and started filling it with rocks and gravel, which I'll continue to do as more rocks surface in the beds and the terrace.

After about 6 work hours total, it's finished!  I dug out all the prairie grass and weeds, worked in some more peat moss, and leveled out the ground to allow for drainage and to fill the gap between the ground and the skirting.  You can't really see it from this angle, but I put the last of the edger bricks against the little hill up to the deck so the water wouldn't wash down quite as bad as it does now.  I planted a row of red morning glories to climb up the deck railing just for fun.

Looking at it now, the plots are too small for big bushes.  Unfortunately, they're too close to the house, so it probably wouldn't work very well.  Oh well, it's not like I have a bunch of bushes in pots waiting to be planted.  I wanted to get the dirt work done first, and for good reason.  My parents and neighbors have plenty of daylilies and irises to donate to my cause, and they'll work perfectly here.  It's just a matter of digging up and splitting what they have, which won't take very long once we get started.  The tiger lilies are small with bright orange flowers... should I get some of Mom's larger orange daylilies or peachy irises?  Or yellow irises?  I don't have many options without going to a store, but I'm not sure what would work best.  Thoughts?

It was very nice to start a project one day and finish it the next, for once.  That's not how things normally go in this house so the confidence boost was definitely needed.  I also went through old pictures from last spring when we first got the trailer (many of which can be found here)and remembered how far I've really come... that helped a lot too.  Overall, I'm pleased with my progress today!  Now to clean myself up, make some food, and set up for an evening of beading.

Happy Father's Day to all the daddies out there!

Spring Fever: Thumb greening, fever breaking!

Finally! The last couple of weeks we've gotten some nice summery weather.  It's not quite consistent yet... and we're still getting some heavy thunderstorms that cause flooding in the prone areas... but it's finally warm enough that my little ash trees are taking off!  Took long enough.  It's been such a bizarre spring.

Yesterday I got the urge to plant things. Lots.  My terrace still needs some dirt work done (but at least the tractor should be working soon, we finally got that part of it going) but I'm eating lots of salads so I needed some more vegetables growing to support my salad habit.  Mom and I planned out some containers for me with seeds she had and made a short list of plants to pick up at the store and got to work.  Here's my plan:

Medium Smart Pot: Cherry tomatoes and petunias.  We had to get full plants for this pot, which is fine.  We ended up getting a cherry tomato plant, a yellow pear tomato plant, and a package of white petunias.  Why are people nervous about mixing flowers and vegetables in containers?  I was... I never even thought it was an option until Mom got a book like this one (might even be this one, I'm not entirely sure) that gave me permission to try it.  Why the stigma there?  Hmm.

I'll start some Lavender in a pot until I have a good spot to plant it permanently outside.

I started some catnip in a pot and I might split some to leave outside as a perennial and bring the rest inside.  Aside from the obvious feline uses (hehe!), catnip tea has a list of benefits that are definitely worth a try.  Those of most interest to me are relaxation, relieving pain from menstrual cramps and migraines, and helping clear sinus congestion.  There are more, like relieving fever symptoms caused by a cold or flu.  Definitely sounds like something worth trying.  I already have some spearmint growing for tea, might as well try this too.

Medium plastic pot: cucumbers and dwarf sweet pea flowers.  The sweet peas I planted don't grow tall enough to need support.  My favorite summer snack is fresh refrigerator pickles.  I'm an admitted pickle fiend (for some reason, that's the only thing that can calm my stomach when I'm feeling a little carsick.  Not sure why that is.) and these are so easy to make!  Slice up 1-2 cucumbers into a colander or strainer, sprinkle a good amount of kosher salt over them, stir them with your hand a little, and let them sweat for about 15 minutes.  Rinse the salt off, put the cucumbers in a bowl or plastic container, pour some vinegar over them (enough that 1/2 or a little more of the cucumbers are sitting in the vinegar), sprinkle with some dill weed and white pepper, stir, and place in the refrigerator.  Stir or shake again after 20 minutes or so.  You can vary this by trying other kinds of vinegar, other spices, or even adding onions or peppers.  It's entirely up to you.  I use a lot of dill because I love dill, but you can also find different spice packets at grocery stores.  Nothing tastes better to me than cold dilly vinegar when I've been out in the sun!

Small Smart Pot: beans and carrots.  Again, doing a combination I'm a little nervous about, but the plants grow at different heights so it should be alright.  I looooooove fresh beans and I eat lots of carrots in my salads.

I started a new batch of baby lettuce greens and threw in a few seeds for butter lettuce from an old packet. They may not come up, but if I don't have to buy wilty lettuce from the grocery store it's a win all around.  I had one pot already but not enough to keep up with all of my salads.  Eventually, we'll probably bring the really big container up for salad stuff to take over.  It's really a stock water bucket, with a drain out the bottom, and mom used to use it as a little pond, but it works really well for container gardening.  Mom has no use for it at the moment so it'll come up here until she does again.  I may try to keep garlic going in that too, but it needs to get up here first and that won't happen today.

So, once I get my rear in gear, I have some work to do outside.  The soil up here is very rocky so I'm picking out the rocks I can as I come across them, but there are lots out in my "lawn" that will make mowing difficult, so I need to bring up the cart and start filling it with little rocks that I can use for edging.  I have a plan to put a pair of spirea shrubs at the end of the trailer, on the parking side, so I need to start clearing the ground for that so when we do get to the greenhouse to buy them they can go right in the ground.  I need to take my native wildflower book to the store and find seeds for some of our native wildflowers to spread out in my "lawn." Let me clarify... I live in the country, in the middle of native prairie in the Buffalo Gap National Grassland, tucked up against a hill amongst Ponderosa pines.  There's no point in me fighting the prairie to make a nice barefoot-grass lawn on the side of a hill.  It's a "fool's errand," as one friend pointed out.  However, I can encourage the wildflowers so it looks nice.  Bonus with that, they live out here already so they're already fine in this climate so that makes for minimal maintenance.  In fact, the less you mow them the better they do.  One good mow in fall serves to spread the seeds and that's really all you need to do.  Most of the perennials I want to plant on the terrace are similarly low-maintenance. 

I hope the weather is as lovely where you are as it is here today!  We had a big storm last night, but it was thankfully short-lived.  Hope you're having a great weekend!

Spring Fever: Updates

I'm still digging on the terrace.  I get about 1/6 of the way in 30-45 minutes once a week, at most.  It's been raining too much to get it done faster and the nice days have inevitably been during the week when I'm at work, and the dirt needs a day to dry out after a good rain before I can dig in it without needing the rubber boots.  Hooray for clay that holds moisture!  Sigh.  I'm fast approaching the time where I truly need some help from a machine and Dad still hasn't tried to get the hoist working on the tractor, so every day I dig I get a little more frustrated with the whole thing.  We got up well into the 80s today, so soon it'll be too hot to work outside during the day.  I'm getting rather impatient with that project.

I've done a couple more batches of yogurt since the last post on it.  I've reduced the amount of dry milk I use to 1/4 cup per 4 cups of skim milk and it's closer to what I want.  I've also noticed that using the previous batch to culture ends up with a tangier flavor than I like after 3-4 batches.  I ordered some probiotic starter this week so we'll see how I like that after a batch or two.  I'm enjoying yogurt for breakfast with some homemade granola, sweetened slightly with some applesauce.  It sticks with me all morning, better than a bowl of cereal does.  On that note, I've lost a solid 7 pounds since April (maybe up to 9... not sure my first weigh-in was entirely accurate), so it's nice to see a little progress, but as each of my projects gets a bit more demanding my exercising gets pushed farther down the priority list.  I may not stay with Weight Watchers after my promo period ends, for now it's just more stress to plan the meals as rigidly as I need to to make any real progress so there's no point in paying for it if I can't go full-out.  My health is important, but I'm healthy now, if just a bit heavy.  I can handle a little more time like this if I have to, then when I can truly devote the time I need to meal planning and exercising enough I'll get back on the bandwagon.  There's just too much going on right now to make it the #1 priority.

My 4-day work weeks are going well. :)  Last week, my first week of that schedule, was a little bizarre.  My brain skipped Wednesday entirely or something, since normally (for a solid 8 months with few variations) when I worked 2 days in a row it was Thursday-Friday, so I spent all day last Thursday trying to remind myself that it was in fact Thursday, not Friday.  This week has gone better, but tonight I'll probably skip packing my lunch and just go to bed early.  The dishwasher is still running anyway, I'm too tired to wait up for it just to pack a salad.

I'm debating how to get more students and where to hold the lessons.  Going to houses isn't ideal, at this point mostly because of the distractions but also because of the impracticality of me wasting time between each lesson driving all over town lugging all my instruments around if I get more students.  However, it's also not a great idea to expect everyone to come out to my house.  It's out in the country, on a nasty muddy road with all the rain we've had, I don't have insurance on the house yet or a solid set of front steps or walkway, and there's still a major unfinished renovation project right inside the front door with tools and such... My 6-year-old student would probably impale herself on the tools there, if her parents could get her (and probably her sister too) packed up and out to my house for a 30-minute lesson in my small-ish living room.  As such, I really just need a little studio space centrally located in town so I could do several lessons in a row without having to drive all over creation.  Such a place is probably out of my budget for the one day a week I'd use it, so I'm not sure what to do there.  I need to get my instrument chops back up a little more and get a viola lesson to be sure my technique is good enough to teach beginners.  I did find out today that there's a real violin teacher in town, so that takes some of the pressure off of me, but she's booked.  Maybe I can do the super beginners then pass them off to her?  Need to talk to her.  Long to-do list for that one, huh?

Saturday is another show at The White Elephant so I've been beading a bunch this week.  I'll get more pictures up as I go, but at the moment my cell phone isn't working so I can't email them to myself to get a post up tonight.  Sounds like bedtime, yes?  Yes.

Fresh from the desk: Abstract in green

Spring is very slow to get started here.  We've only broken 75 degrees a couple of days so far, the vast majority hovering around 60 with rain and wind.  Let me tell you how un-thrilled I am about this.  It's abnormal for this area for it to be so wet and chilly coming up on June, though I guess last year was about like this too.  Not for this long, maybe... it took us until the middle of May last year to get 3 dry days in a row so that my mobile home could be moved up the hill, since it got stuck in the mud the first day we moved it.  We haven't had many more dry days in a row than that so far this spring.  It's wearing on my nerves and patience, being the solar-powered girl I am and considering the number of projects I need to work on outside that I'd like to get done before the heat of the summer hits. 

I didn't start this post to whine!  I'm sorry!  What I meant to say was I have green on the brain.  In more ways than one really, I'm ready for the lush leafy summer we're destined to have after all this moisture and I'm looking for more ways to be self-sufficient and reduce my carbon footprint.  So far, that includes yogurt, which I'm still experimenting with, but that's for another day. 

I found the soapstone centerpiece for this and have been wondering what to do with it.  It's rather thick, mostly a pale green with some flecks of orange/coral, with a symmetrical shape and an asymmetrical carving on both the front and back.  Considering the shape and size of it, I figured the necklace should be around choker length so it would lay the best.  A comfortable slightly long choker length for me is 16", so that's what I went with here.  It lays comfortably just below the hollow of my throat.  Since the hole is drilled lengthways, it's not a pendant really on its own, but it's simple enough that I didn't want to overload it with anything too flashy.  I beaded a simple daisy chain for it, alternating between green foil-lined bugle beads and matte bone white large seed beads, all surrounded by forest green seed beads.  It's a simple piece, but I think the soapstone is showcased the way it should be.

It's time to build up my inventory for my next Saturday show.  This one I'll be doing alone, but that's alright.  More to come!

Spring Fever: Spring Cleaning Part 1

Greetings my loyal followers!  It's been a wet, chilly spring here, which has caused its share of issues and frustration compared to how spring used to be here.  The weather has been just plain crazy for a few years... but I won't get into the climate change debate here. ;)  Today's exciting news is that my two little ash trees we planted last fall survived the winter and have brand new leaves on them today!  Yesterday the little buds were still sealed up so tight I wasn't sure they'd ever leaf out.  Those poor trees lived in their gallon buckets for too long, and we didn't get them planted until very late in the summer, plus it was a nasty winter, so because they had taken so long to show any sign of life I was wondering if they made it.

Now it's finally getting nice enough outside to see some progress outside as well as inside the house.  I've been doing some of these things in stages over the last month or so, but here's a full list of what I've done so far that would be considered "spring cleaning."  Some of it may be a stretch to fit that definition...hehe!

1.  Winter clothes are washed and stored in plastic tubs and spring/summer clothes are now out of storage.  I keep a few hoodies and a sweater cardigan around to toss on when it's chilly, but the heavy work sweaters are all put away now.  There are a few reasons I do this twice a year.  It gives me a reason to go through everything and purge items that don't fit, never fit quite right, didn't get worn much, or are just plain wrong and get them ready to donate to the Salvation Army. (They got a new building last year and the store is HUGE! We always donate there because we know it will immediately be shopped for locally and it's easy enough to drop stuff off when we go up there).  It's been a struggle to let go of the "wishful thinking" jeans that I wore a few years ago and other similar pieces; they don't provide any true motivation to actually lose, all they do is take up space and give me a pang of guilt every time I see them.  The other main reason, other than just to keep my dresser and closet minimal, is that often I'll get a blouse or something on clearance at the end of the season, wear it a couple of times, then put it away.  When I get it back out for the next season, it's fun to take out because I often forgot I even had it!
2.  Mattress is vacuumed and turned.  I flipped it in January or so, but it's wearing out so I decided to turn it 180 degrees so it wears a little more evenly.  In a few months I'll flip it again.  Why vacuum?  Dust mites.  Gross, huh?  Yeah.  Just a little vac is probably not doing me a whole lot of good there, but at least I try, right?  I have lots to get done elsewhere so that's probably about as far as I'll get on this particular project for now.  My allergies haven't been near as bad lately as they used to be so I'm doing alright. :)
3.  My computer and cello have both been taken in for service.  This one's probably a stretch... but it certainly can't hurt to have the computer cleaned out or the cello soundpost adjusted and bridge replaced.  Probably needs new strings too but we'll see how it is when I get it back.  Both were behaving badly for the last several months so it was time to at least get them looked at, if not fixed.  The computer's just plain dying, which is sad and nervewracking, but I'm saving up for a new one.  The cello just probably needs a couple adjustments and it'll be alright.
4.  I've wiped out and disinfected the bottom cabinets in my kitchen, and everything in them.  I've had lots of mice recently and they can get into the wall and therefore the bottom cabinets, so that was a necessity.  It should be done every couple of months anyway.  I'm not sure whether the mice are coming in on their own or if the cats are bringing them in to play with... it's really hard to tell... but now I have a couple mousetraps working 24/7 to get it under control if the cats aren't helping lol.
5.  Another stretch... I've joined Weight Watchers.  It's working slowly, and it's tricky to plan my meals right, but I'm working on it steadily.  I have a vow renewal to go to (and look good for!) in July and I was sick of the plateau I was stuck on since January.  Overhauling my eating habits is like a spring cleaning project, right? hehe!
6.  I'm in the process of cleaning and ironing the curtains.  They haven't been up for very long but I still had to paint a few of my window frames so I figured while I had them down I could get them ironed nicely before they go back up.  Some of them can't be machine-washed, mostly the nice new thermal/dark ones (not sure they're complete blackouts, but they do a darn good job), and that's okay.  I'll vac the fluff off of them and iron them too when I get done painting those windows.  I'll get the office ones back up today, though I need to adjust the rod first.  It got put up rather crooked... oops!

I have lots left to do.  This is by no means the end of my spring cleaning projects, just what I've done so far.  We'll be installing baseboards in the next few weeks so my next project today is to vacuum really well down in all the edges and corners so I'm not permanently sealing Q-tips into the floor!  My younger cat loves to steal my used Q-tips out of the bathroom garbage and play with them.  Of course, because I have no baseboards yet, they easily roll into the gap between the wood floor and the wall and promptly get stuck.  Why does she do this?  I have no idea!  She's a strange little kitty lol.  She likes my used cotton balls too, even with astringent on them.  Beats me.

When I need to be done cleaning for the day, I have a necklace, anklet, and earrings to work on (each from separate custom orders), then to get started on my first crocheted baby blanket!  I practiced my stitches last night so I'm just about ready to get going on it.  Happy Spring!

Spring Fever: I'm just plain crazy.

I'm seriously considering taking up crochet.  Why does this make me crazy?  I have a million other things on my plate already and I still haven't decided for sure what to do about my job situation so time is still a major issue. 

Pros: 
1.  I always have trouble finding belts, headbands, cardigans, etc. that do what I need them to do.  This will make all that MUCH easier on me considering how often I get to actually go clothes shopping for a specific item like that.
2.   I already have ideas for crochet-bead jewelry.
3.  Looks like fun, and not too hard to figure out considering many, many hours of my childhood were spent tying the house up in knots, right Mom?

Cons:
1.  Time.  I'll have to make room for it and I rarely sit down long enough for anything like that because, frankly, I have a lot to get done.  All the time.
2.  I'm good at starting gung-ho on projects that never get past halfway finished.  I must have inherited that.
3.  Cost...kinda, if I get into the fancy yarns, which I won't for a while... but again, this will expand opportunities for my crafting business.

I should pick up some macrame anyway since I'm working in hemp now too.  Perhaps I'm just fidgety and feel that learning something new will kinda propel me out of the rut I'm in.  I've only been out of school for a couple of years, maybe my way of coping with that and the transition to "real life" is to need to learn something completely new once or twice a year or so.  Hmmm, there may be something to that.  For now, I need to paint my window frames so I can maybe put my curtains back up this weekend.  It's finally a nice weekend and I'm finally getting some work done around here!  Yay!

Fresh From the Desk: Time for a change?

Purple glass donut pendant on off-white and
matte blue daisy chain, with rose quartz chips

Carved resin pendant on knotted hemp,
with wood and bone beads

Resin pendant on brown and off-white bead chain,
with brown shell and peace jade

I finished that purple necklace tonight, as well as two more! :) The pictures are bad.  Yeah.  Sorry, I'm in a hurry.  After this weekend I'll take some better photos of what I have left.  Actually, that brings me to my first bit of news.  Someone at our bank is interested in her own piece, which is easy enough, but she suggested that I bring in catalogs or something to distribute when people ask about it.  Hmmmm, that sounds like a great idea!  I don't know if I can pull together a full catalog in any kind of decent time, but I can work on a tri-fold brochure or something with examples of what I can do and options for your own custom piece.  Thoughts on this?  Have an example of hemp, daisy chain, and straight beaded, with options of length, color, and whether there's a pendant?  I think it may be worth a try.  It certainly can't hurt to print off a stack for her, she sees lots of people every day.  This means I need to start scheduling in dedicated time to my marketing.  I have also had a few order/requests from friends this week, which unfortunately will have to wait until I can get up to Rapid to shop again, but all these are signs that things are picking up for some reason. 

I'm also starting to teach violin lessons next week.  I'm not a violinist, and I never said I was, but I have taken the classes, I do play cello, I know the Suzuki method, and the student is only 6 years old.  This one I may be able to handle for a little while.  I'm nervous about it since I don't play violin, and haven't since that one half-semester in 2002 or something when I took the class.  I'm debating advertising for my lessons and setting aside a day each week for them, but I'm nervous about getting lots of requests for instruments I don't play, like the violin.  Piano or guitar, those I can pawn off on someone else in town...those I can't even pretend to play well enough to teach lol!  Also, I don't have a good centralized location for them.  My books, instruments, and tools are at my house, obviously, but it's not quite ready for company yet, it's not really set up for it anyway, and parking will be an issue if I have several in a row.  Maybe once I get the island finished, baseboards in, latch on the bathroom door, and the huge wood box out of the living room...but I digress.  My house isn't a good place right now.  I could use my parents' house, but it's their house so I'm not comfortable taking it over for a whole day every week and the students might be nervous with extra people wandering around.  I know I would be.  For just a few students I could go to their houses, but that means I don't have access to all of my supplies that are at home and are impractical to lug around everywhere.  Can't afford to rent anywhere, and the room at the State Home is way too big just for lessons and people wander in and out all the time.  Haven't figured out the plan for this yet, obviously I'm still a bit anxious about it and finding excuses not to really develop it yet.  Maybe after the lessons have been going for a while I'll have a little more confidence. 

In order to shift my focus to jewelry and music, I need to cut down elsewhere.  My regular job is fine, no problems there, it's a regular part-time schedule with minimal stress.  It may go full-time eventually, but it's not yet.  I have a once-a-month 20-minute job at the VA for $10, which is barely worth the trouble to get there but it's a jewelry vendor contact that I need to stay on top of.  Not like it takes much time anyway.  Symphony is done for the season, so that won't be in the picture again until the fall.  I have lots of gardening, landscaping, and general housework to do, which hasn't been getting done these past few weeks.  I'm on Weight Watchers now which requires more careful meal planning, which also hasn't been getting done very well.  There's occasional things like groceries, bead shopping, and having to hold a large cat that is currently draped around my neck because I've been gone so much the last week. 

Then, the major dilemma, I'm working an extra insurance day up in Rapid, every other week for 6 hours.  It was originally 3 hours once a week, on the same day as Symphony, which after gas and a meal just broke even with itself, but it was alright since I had to be up there anyway.  Now, we changed it to every other week so it takes less gas and therefore yields a little profit, but it still ends up being a whole day up there.  I'm torn in that I can't decide whether that extra $60-80 a month (after gas) is worth losing a day.  I really can't decide.  I guess the question is whether shifting my focus will yield more return, though I do need to go up there every week or two anyway for various reasons.  I really don't know.  My schedule at my regular job has been screwy the last few weeks, so that plus starting WW plus getting ready for spring/working on the house again plus (heaven forbid!) taking a weekend trip to see some friends, I feel like I'm stretched way too thin, like silly putty.  And, the little holes are growing the thinner I stretch.  As it is, no project can get the attention it deserves, and as such nothing is yielding what it should.  So, do I drop the extra day and use it elsewhere, or not?  I just went yesterday and I'm not scheduled to go back until Monday after next so I have some time to decide.  I keep going back and forth on it.  I'm torn!  Help!

Spring Fever: Landscape planning

This is the front of my trailer.  Isn't it epic?  The inside is much nicer, trust me, and at some point the siding will be redone to match/complement the skirting.  However, first in line is to take care of the pile of slime that my hill turns into when we get any moisture at all.  If you can't tell, I'm on a bit of an incline here.  It's basically flat where the house is but slopes down from there and on the back where the deck is the hill gets a touch steeper.  When we had a contractor here to build the skirting and deck, one of his helpers had a little tractor to flatten the spot for the deck and, without asking anybody (or billing us later), he dug up the whole front side too.  It's not as lumpy as it was and we would've needed to do some of that too, but he did it right before winter so I've been stuck with slimy mud every time it rains or snow melts.  I put down some landscape fabric, a little sand, and a few bricks to walk on to get through the winter without going too insane.  We still don't know who did it exactly, who said he should, and why we never got a bill for it.  It was one of a string of strange things that happened with that contractor so we're done working with him.  All that dirt work and there's still big gaps under the skirting that caused several days of frozen pipes this winter...if there was one thing I would've wanted done it would've been that.

Well, enough whining, what's done is done.  What I did yesterday was measured and flagged where my front entryway room, stairs, and garden terrace will go.  The sun beats on this side of the house in the summer and the wind whips around in the winter, so the front door needs a little extra protection from the elements.  We'll build on a little front room with a bench, coat hooks, a boot mat, and two cat doors (one from the living room and one outside, so the weather doesn't leak into the house), and a landing with stairs.  Those little metal stairs are hard to maneuver on and there's no place to set stuff down to open the door.

For the garden terrace, we'll add topsoil to make it level with the top and build a little brick retaining wall so there's a flat terrace from the edge of the skirting to just above where the propane tank sits.  I'm thinking below that in a semicircle between the new trees we'll build a little rain garden, fix the gutters, and set up the downspouts to drain into it.  Sounds like a lot of work.  At least I have it flagged out now.  Bedtime!

Spring Fever: More garden planning!

Mom and I and a few of her friends went up to Hill City today for a seminar on container gardening sponsored by the Hill City Garden Club.  It was only an hour long, but it was nice to get out of the house and change pace a little bit.  Not that I needed to get out of my house, I've barely been in it for weeks, but Mom's been cooped up with her cold/flu for far too long so we made a field trip day of it.  We all ate at the Alpine Inn (their tomato basil soup is fabulous!), went over to the seminar, then stopped at The Farmer's Daughter to browse antiques.  Mom got a nice ceramic planter and I got an adorable 3-bottle wine rack.  On our way back we stopped in Custer at the sister's house of Mom's friends for some goat's milk and fresh eggs.  We'll be getting some yogurt and goat cheese from her when she has some made, haven't tried it before but I figure why not?  All kinds of healthy benefits there.  Now I'm at home sipping some amazing tea I ordered from Tea For All Reasons on Etsy.  I considered it a little splurge for myself and I've gotten more than enough enjoyment from the 3 cups I've had to justify the cost...wow.  Just...yum.  Yes.

So, on to the garden seminar.  Mom started container gardening last summer because in the spring she had broken one ankle and the other leg.  Yes, she had two broken legs.  At the same time.  Blame the deep mud puddles that formed in the driveway after a very wet winter and spring (and the fact that we had hired at least two people/crews to fix them who never showed up to do the work).  At any rate, she couldn't till or work the soil in the regular garden or do lots of bending/squatting and I was so busy working at the store that I wasn't home enough to do it all either.  She found out about Smart Pots from a friend of hers and ordered a few for herself and it ended up being the easiest and best gardening she'd done for years.  This year I'll be doing some of the same since I'm sure my dirt work won't be done in time to get a full garden in.  Today's seminar was more about how to pair flowers in a container for the greatest effect, so here's a list of the general concepts to keep in mind:

• Get a color wheel and use it.  (I need to get one for jewelry anyway, so it's definitely on my list.) Consider the color of the pot as well as the foliage and flowers of the plants to complement it.
• Once you have ideas for good color combinations, look for plants of differing heights, leaf textures, and spreading tendencies for the greatest visual impact.  Mix a spreading shiny vine with a velvety mounding flower and a spiky grass, for example.  The max height of the plants should be about 1 1/2-2 times the height of the pot itself.
• Consider water/light needs and group plants accordingly.  Read the labels for this info as well as the full size height of the grown plants.
• Be sure to fertilize regularly.  Potting soil often says that it includes fertilizer but it's often not enough for the plants to thrive in a self-contained environment.
• Don't be afraid to mix vegetables with flowers.  They use and contribute different nutrients to and from the soil, not to mention it's unique, fun, functional, and many vegetables have beautiful foliage.  We'll be trying that with some side-planting baskets Mom got this year, she has a book on combining vegetables and flowers and the pots in there are just gorgeous!
• Group plants into odd-numbered groupings.  The eye somehow prefers odd-numbered groupings.  Same goes for pots.  And jewelry.  And art groupings on walls.  And just about anything visual, for some reason.  Not sure why, but it's true!

I've decided to not really fight the native prairie when I start with my flower gardens.  I picked up a booklet on what plants are native to the area and how to create a garden with them in our semi-arid climate, since I know I'd be battling with the native plants anyway.  Might as well make them work for me!  I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would buy yucca when we have *so much* on the property out here!  I may as well make a native rock garden out back by the deck for minimum maintenance/weeding.  The front where I'll have my terrace can be a little fussier, but it gets very hot on that side in the afternoons so I need to be careful to pick full-sun plants that will stand up to the wind.  I want daylilies for sure because they do very well at Mom's house, and I'll probably grow a bunch of ornamental grasses, maybe some succulents, but definitely stuff that won't curl up and die in full-sun.  The stuff on the deck and the back hill needs to be part-shade probably, but I'll need to watch and pay attention to what the sun does exactly.  I know it beats down on the west wall quite a bit in the late afternoon and that's the terrace side.

Last summer we planted two ash trees down the hill from where the terrace will be, and when those grow they'll cast shade on the office and living room windows to help keep the house cooler.  It was late in the season when we put those in, so I hope they survived the winter.  Time will tell.  Below the tree line I put down some grass seed so hopefully some of that took, but that's mostly native prairie down there too so I don't want to fight with that too much either.  It's too much of a slope to have a nice lounging lawn and no natural boundaries between that ground and the field, so my nice gardens will be on my terrace and on the hill behind my deck, plus whatever containers I end up doing on the deck itself.

So now that I've rambled on and on, how does that sound?  Any pointers on semi-arid plants or perennials that would withstand hot sun and wind?

Spring Fever: Literally.

Not quite a fever yet but my head is threatening to explode from allergies-verging-on-a-cold.  My existence is a rather miserable one at the moment, regardless of the medications I've used today.  My parents have both had a nasty flu, Mom for almost 2 weeks now so I've had to pick up a little of her slack too and pray I don't get actually sick from it.

So that said, hello!  The last few weeks have been, at the very least, hectic.  A roller coaster of mundane and emotional ups and downs, new opportunities, and an utter lack of housework.  I've had a couple new side jobs come up that I can't turn down because I simply need more money to live on than I make.  I'm getting a few extra hours at a different agency up in Rapid City on Mondays helping with their marketing calls, so that takes a larger chunk out of my Mondays than Symphony normally would but it's not hard to deal with.  I interviewed last Tuesday for a new merchandising job that would be part-time some weekends, and since I haven't heard back from that I suspect it won't come through.  Judging by the amount of "free time" I've had lately, I would have trouble keeping it up anyway.  This weekend I've been helping my chiropractor's family clean their newly purchased house before they move in. I'll be going back this afternoon to shampoo the carpets, then next week they want to paint the entire house, basically.  I won't be around for that because of my regular job, but I think it will take longer than they think it will, based on my own recent experience with house-painting.  At any rate, I've barely been home enough to sleep lately and the sudden onslaught of allergies with the coming of spring is about to knock me on my butt for a while just to make me relax a bit.

I have some interesting jewelry retail opportunities coming up.  The White Elephant flea market in town will be opening its doors to community vendor tables starting the first weekend in May, so Mom and I will take some household stuff down there we need to sell and I'm thinking I should set up a jewelry display as well.  Certainly can't hurt.  Also, my first merchandising job at the VA Canteen (the job itself is almost more of a pain than it's worth) may prove to be a good jewelry outlet.  The canteen chief there is always looking for vendors, she says, so she'd like it if I set up a display there sometime before Mother's Day.  Both of these are exciting, since I wouldn't have to pay for a table or anything, but that means I need to scour my calendar for a good VA day plus make sure I have a decent amount of inventory for both of them.  Enter my frustration at not having been at home for long enough to even get all my laundry done in one day.  Tonight after shampooing carpets I'll try to relax, maybe make a necklace, and take a look at my calendar so I can get this all figured out.  I have a concert on April 9th and need to make a visit to Cody, WY after that to see two of my best friends once before their baby comes and maybe get a glimpse of Yellowstone while the parks are free, April 16th-24th.  The more I list the things I have to do the more intimidated I feel...yeek!

Anyway, I need to get some lunch before cleaning.  Must calm down and get my head on straight or I'll never get everything taken care of.

Spring Fever: The Great Thaw.

So.  It's been a long week, and I'm worn out and not feeling the greatest, on the verge of a sore throat that I must've picked up from Mom's flu that she picked up at the concert last weekend.  I did manage to get some Pilates in this morning and a short (but not easy) hike this afternoon so at least I didn't stay in bed all day like I wanted to.

Our snow was deep.  It still is deep in spots, on my little hike there were spots deep in the trees where it was still up to my knees even after 3 good days of melting.  There's a little dip in the neighbor's field that will run a little river when we get melting like this, which has only happened a few times in my life.  Luckily it's not flowing across my driveway because we were smart enough to put a culvert there, but there's a puddle higher up that is draining across so my driveway is a disaster.  Today I decided to follow the river to our back acres to see the waterfall.  I knew there was a little ravine back there but hadn't seen the waterfall before.  It was a short walk but hard to do in knee-deep snow lol.

Knee-deep snow still!

Ravine

Waterfall, but with too much glare

Waterfall (see it? on the left...ittybitty little stream...)

Top side of the waterfall

River in my parents' drainage field...it almost looks like a moat here lol

Neighbor's land, start of the river from the roadside ditch

So, with that said, I'm going to take it easy tonight and try to kick this bug before it kicks me. Hugs!