weed loving wonkiness.

I am always fascinated by plants, or, as hubby calls them, weeds. I did a lot of studying when I lived "up the hill" and for a long time after I moved here, I ignored the weeds, because hubby always mowed them down quickly. Now that we are not moving quite so quickly, I get to enjoy them for a bit.

This one, if I have identified it correctly, is a wild parsnip. I will not eat it, however, because I cannot positively identify it. Deb where are you?

Deb was a good friend of mine who introduced me to wild foraging. I was confident to eat what we found BECAUSE SHE KNOWS HER STUFF. But NEVER eat something unless you POSITIVELY know what it is. What you don't know can kill you. Not that I know this from personal experience. LOL

Nope, don't know what it is either, but I can enjoy its beautiful white puffy self.

I do wish I knew more. I don't have the confidence to really KNOW with many plants. I've been trying to get to know a few here and there, like Mallow last year, and I was confident enough to make some sore throat soothing tea this winter from the dried bits I saved last year.

This lovely is definitely edible, it is chickweed. The taste is a bit tart for me, but it's good in salads. This is one that Deb introduced me to all those years ago.

Others were shepherd's purse, a lovely little plant with heart shaped seed pods, that is kind of peppery and sharp, another good in salads.

I feel like I've written about this stuff before here. Oh well. That was then, and this is now...

Just the lovely weed patch in the front yard, that drives the neighbors crazy because it is Growing. I really need to live in the country. I wonder if I will ever get to go back. I don't like making the neighbors crazy, because they think we make the neighborhood look bad. 

It's pretty sad when these green beauties with occasional pink blossoms sticking up are considered ugly. I long for the times looking out the window and seeing dozens and dozens of wildflowers looking back at me. The huge variety of trees. Sometimes deer, or wild turkeys, or even adorable baby skunks. Lizards with blue bellies. Chickens glad to see me because they know I am there to feed them. Cows with their big liquid eyes waiting for the same thing. 

But there are gorgeous daffodils. There are a few tiny daisies coming up, and alyssum. The rosemary is full of bees. 

I think I need to find some garden places this year. I know the Congregational church has a community garden. I am wondering if my former boss still digs in the dirt there. There's a raised bed box in the back yard that needs filling and planting. I even have some seeds. February seems early, but everything's blooming and I am sneezing. In some ways it feels too late for planting, but I know that's not true. 

It has been hard. I find myself, yet again, just sitting. 

But I did get out for a bit and admired the "weeds" and thanked them for being persistent, and apologized for pulling them yet again, for the sake of a Neat and Tidy Yard, which pleases my hubby and my neighbors, but makes my heart a little sad. Yeah, I'm a bit wonky. I love me anyway. 

is it that close to spring already?

Of course, if you are in the Yukon, I don't think that there is a question, and also in some other parts of the country THIS year, like Texas, it is clear that winter is still a thing. But here, with such mild winters that once in awhile we get a light frost, and it hasn't snowed since 1969, it is a little harder. Today when I was out, I thought, I should have everything planted by now. There are flowers and blooming trees everywhere. My daffodils are going crazy, and so is the oxalis, although I think of that as a WEED but hubby doesn't seem to, and then there is the shepherd's purse and purslane and mallow and wild geraniums and dandilions which aren't weeds TO ME but they are to HIM. Every year it's a Discussion about Weeds and me running around trying to harvest a few before they get mowed down. I miss my pasture, where there were so many wild things that I could harvest, and not worry about someone (well, other than cows) mowing them down. 

Oh well, I chose to live here, didn't I. 

I spent some time in the craft room today, but not crafting, I was cleaning and clearing. Sometimes I see videos of people deciding to clean their craft room and finishing in a few hours. HA. Mine will take weeks, since there are those pesky Parent and Child boxes in there, that I don't have a clue what to do with. I open one of those and I turn around and leave the area. 

So today just a picture of my beautiful daffodils, where there are some freesia popping up, and a few daisies, and a lot of rosemary covered in bees. Lovely. 

And trying to plan what I can grow, and what I need to plant NOW... and making a list of plants I want to put in the back yard. Lavender and Rosemary for starters. And Sage. I find myself back at my dad's garden. It was on a hill, with built up areas on both sides. Honeysuckle. Roses. Calendula. Strawberries, asparagus. Memories of brushing the snow off the broccoli and picking off the tender buds and popping them in my mouth. And then in May, when we could go out and grab snow peas. I would love to create such a beautiful idyllic place again. My dad did, after we moved away from Dreamland, he created such a place of respite in the courtyard where he lived. I wish I had some of his confidence and his "gumption" which he said I always lacked.

See his garden, laugh at his antics, reminisce if you've been there.

DAD'S GARDEN

 

something to say...

well life kind of took my breath away for a bit. It's one thing to believe in Heaven, quite another thing when so many you know and love have gone on without you.  

But today I had something to say again, and had a little bit of time in my crafty room. We got Chinese take out a few days ago, and the one who packed it stuffed a lot of cookies in there. I usually use these little bits of fortunes in a piece somewhere, and a Rolodex card seemed perfect. So I did two of them.

Just scraps and stickers, one on a background of that security liner from an envelope, and the other one was the last of that series I did with paint and washi tape.

These are fun, just grabbing little bits of stuff and gluing them down. The flower was a scrap from a coloring book, I used some of the rest of the page on a different project and threw this part away, but rescued it. The other stuff are just some cool stickers, and a flower stamp. Just little bits of fun there. 

The other thing I did today was with some foam blocks I got from the Dollar Tree awhile ago. I had no idea what I was going to do with them, but today I was thinking about some foam I had a long time ago that you heat and then make an impression in them, and use them for a stamp. So I did that with a couple tiny holiday stamps, a clover for St. Patrick's Day and a pumpkin for Halloween. 

First I heated the cube a little bit with my heat gun, and then pressed the stamp into the surface. I think I'll get better at it if I practice but here's the result. 

The blocks came in a package with I think four to six colors. They are about 3/4 of an inch foam, not sure what for, they don't really stack well. I am not even sure why I bought them, but I found a use for them. We will see what else. 

Here's the teensy stamp, pushing down on the cube after I heated it. I couldn't get a picture of the indented cube, but below are what the prints look like, of both stamps.

I think it will be fun to figure out what to do with this, I'm seeing some card fronts when I measure better and do better with the foam. Half the fun of crafting is experimenting and seeing what happens. Sometimes it turns out and sometimes it doesn't. So I may or may not do this again. I'm thinking I will, because it's fun. 💚💗💛💙💙

FEBRUARY!

So February, do you have any more rain to give us please? January gave us a little. January gave us some very windy days, some power outage, and some rain. We could still use some more, February. 

I AM thankful for the first daffodil. There are a lot of buds, and the rosemary is also blooming and full of bees. The back yard is green, and it is calming and lovely. 

I see the start of  chickweed and mallow. I didn't know mallow well until last year when I started reading about all the wonderful medicinal qualities and even dried some. Last year, I caught hubby digging it up when he thought I wasn't looking. Have to watch him more carefully this year! 

Many around the country are dealing with lots of snow. I envy them for ten minutes, and then I am thankful that the driveway doesn't need to be plowed, and the chicken coop dug out. 

I have some friends who have chickens here. I've thought about it, but we have enough hawks in the area that might be a problem, and plenty of rats and racoon. That reminded me of when my dad set up a trap to catch a coon when it kept raiding our coop and stealing our chicks. My son and I went out early one morning and there was a baby in the trap. We let it go. Fortunately it didn't raid our coop again, and I wasn't going to tell my dad, but we ended up confessing and my dad just laughed. 

I think of those days and remember the good mostly but sometimes it makes me profoundly sad. Today I'm remembering the good and being thankful that we had the chance to live in such a wonderful beautiful place and my children got to grow up knowing the wild places and the wind. And the wild plants, that I haven't seen much here, but as we get older the weeds get higher before being dealt with, and I have the privilege of greeting some old friends and making some new ones. Trying to distract Husband so he'll let the "weeds" grow longer. 

 Now I need miner's lettuce, henbit, and maybe some mullein. I got some calendula seeds, need to get them planted too. I have some very old lavender seeds gathered from my plant that died awhile ago... and I put a few on a paper towel the other day and wet them and lo and behold they sprouted!! So some lavender's gonna grow here again too. Rebirth I think, after this season of loss. 

So, February, give us some rain, so I can grow stuff.