Garden Variety Lifelong Learning

The busy never stops in our yard this time of year. On the one hand is the weeding, mowing, and watering. On the other hand is the photographing. I take a lot of pictures as the local wildlife starts coming in to enjoy the garden. Lately, a hummingbird moth and a hummingbird have come around to sample the bee balm blooms. It's frustrating and shows me how much I don't know about photography. And the hummingbird harasses me by hovering in front of me, daring me to get a good shot. Every time she returns I experiment with my camera. Lesson one: make sure the battery is charged. Here is a sample of my work from the past four days. Click on the picture to enlarge.

The moth was easier since I could get closer

I have a birdwatching setting. It works except the wings can disappear in the blur of flight

Similar issues with the moth's wings

Getting better. Nothing like a full charge on your battery!

I can almost see the wing. Almost.

Luckily, even hummingbirds need to rest

She stretched and flew off again

Day 4, I learn about the shutter speed setting

I hope to continue improving as long as she comes to my yard. And as long as I can hold out against the mosquitoes.

Coming to Flower

I once had a discussion with a friend and fellow gardener about finding "volunteers" in the garden. She said she never had volunteers, but it was probably because she was a compulsive weeder. As soon as something sprouted that she didn't plant, out it went.

I tend to weed slowly. I like to make sure I can identify the plant before I pull it up. You can't always tell what you are growing when it's a seedling. I have had unusual flowering plants appear in my yard simply because I waited to see what would happen. A year or two ago, a droopy petaled flower appeared in our yard because I decided not to weed it. It turned out to be a woodland flower called white avens.

White Avens, geum canadense

There is a saying that a weed is a flower in the wrong place. But it can also be in the right place and we just don't recognize it yet. Watching something grow without knowing what it will become takes patience and acceptance. Sometimes you have to let things be and see what develops. What we consider annoyances today can surprise us when they come to full flower.

Mulching, Writing, Learning

Today I figured out how to mulch leaves with my reel mower. I had spent a lot of time researching this online, and the result was that no one thinks you can mulch with a reel mower. I like being "green" when it comes to my yard, so I tried finding an alternative method that wouldn't require gas or electric, but there is none. OK, there is one, but the bike pedal mulcher I found on YouTube was a one of a kind invention. I decided I would just pile up the leaves and see if I could get my mower to do anything, and it did. It isn't a perfect system, but as long as I keep raking the leaves into a pile and slowly work the mower through, I can shred all but the biggest oak leaves and get a good workout in the process. It works for me.

As I mowed my leaves, I thought about other areas in my life where I have been told I can't do something, or that I'm not doing it the "right" way. I lost my inspiration to write because of helpful critiques of my writing. I've started to write again, but I spend a good portion of my time trying to turn off my inner editor, who desperately wants to catch those passive sentences that seem to be the bane of my critics. My inner editor just wants to be accepted by her peers, but the writer in me can't write if she's interrupted every five seconds to fix punctuation and dangling participles.

I also think about homeschooling and my progress toward unschooling. Again, the naysayers were always there. They questioned my ability to teach my own, how my children would socialize, and how would I teach with a toddler running around. As I proved myself new questions and helpful advice surfaced: "How will you teach two with a baby?" "What will you do about subjects you don't understand?" "What about labs?" "Unschooling? How will they learn everything they need to know?" "What about college?" And the ever helpful: "Well, you can always put them in school if it gets too hard." It's interesting how no one ever tells parents of traditionally schooled children, "Well, you can always take them out and homeschool them if it gets too hard."

If I accepted the ideas that it can't be done, it's too difficult, or it is simply beyond your abilities, I would not home educate. I would not write. I would not mulch my leaves with a reel mower. I choose not to do things the easy way. How can I find out what I am capable of if I do things like everyone else?

Weeding

A bindweed leaf covers a bee balm flower.

I haven't spent enough time in my yard lately. I can always tell. Weeds. Give them an inch and they grow a mile. Bindweed does this in particular. I spend the early part of the growing season pulling it up, especially out of the bee balm. It knows that once the bee balm reaches its full height of three feet, I can't reach the vine's roots.

Those roots are impressive. My best attempts at pulling it have yielded six inches to a full foot of root. If it breaks, bindweed simply grows back. Give it a couple of good rains and it covers over the tops of the plants with heart-shaped, sun-depriving leaves. Soon it is knotting and redoubling until the tangle of vines weigh down the weakened plants and break the stems.

The thing is that bindweed has a pretty flower. They open like morning glory, a white and purple streaked trumpet that heralds the dawn. But don't be fooled. As lovely as the flowers are, the vine is insidious. It always looks for an opportunity to take control.

Life is very much like this. We are attracted to the beauty of things without considering what lurks behind it. We might try to make something work because that flower is so pretty, we don't want to lose it. But those flowers close quickly. Seeds follow and create a new generation of problems. The longer we leave it, the deeper its roots dig in, and the harder it is to extract it when we realize we have to do something about it.

Outside

The backyard is full of animals lately...

We picked more than a quart of strawberries. Not many were taken by the catbird. I think they were too well hidden under the leaves of the plants...



Sierra has been getting creative with this dwarf Colorado blue spruce. Call it the warm weather snowman...

Of course, not everyone gets to go outside. Once you start catching chipmunks, you end up on the naughty list. Then you do your nature watching from behind a screen...



Nice turnout. Hobgoblin is set for the cat ballet.

Brambles: The Unkindest Cut

Today was a beautiful day. After several days of rain, it was nice to go out in my garden and juggle and weed. In that order. Because as I juggled, I couldn't help but notice how healthy the plantains looked, spreading their large leaves across the lawn. I pulled out one. The still damp earth gave it to me roots and all. Any gardener knows how gratifying it is to pull a weed and have it come out with all of its roots. Which means you need to pull another. And another. Who needs drugs and alcohol with this kind of high?

Later I noticed the vines on our blackberry brambles. I think they are morning glory vines, but they are a bit more aggressive and their roots run very deep. Definitely not as gratifying to pull up, but if I don't make the attempt they shade out a lot of my plants and I lose fruit and flowers. So I started unwinding and pulling, trying not to loosen the pale berries that were forming.

Blackberry brambles don't seem to understand when you are trying to help them. For yanking out the vines, I have an armful of scratches. I feel like I was attacked by a pack of cats with razor sharp claws. Which would be possible around here, but they are not to blame today.

Why do I give my sweat and blood to my garden?

That's why.

Worlds can be found by a child and an adult bending down and looking together under the grass stems or at the skittering crabs in a tidal pool.
~Mary Catherine Bateson

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we only will tune in.
~George Washington Carver

I thank you God for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees, and for the blue dream of sky and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes.
~E. E. Cummings

Of Birthdays and Backyards

I wanted to share a picture of Sierra on her birthday, and the cake I made for her and Buelo. Everyone seemed to enjoy the cake. It was chocolate buttermilk with buttercream frosting.



Sierra looks so beautiful and calm in her picture. It's funny how you can look at someone and not notice how they are changing and growing. I'm so busy with my wild child I don't always stop to take a close look at her. I usually notice how stunning she is when I watch her dance or see her in a picture.

Speaking of pictures, Sierra found this beautiful star shaped flower in the yard. She took a close up shot of it.

It is pretty special, don't you think? Especially when you consider it's roots.



Yes, it's a dandelion. A wildflower that most of my neighbors yank up before they flower. Isn't it wonderful how the things we take for granted can suddenly surprise us and make us look at them in a new way?

Dirt Happens

Last weekend was my first opportunity of the year to get down and dirty in my garden. It's been getting into the 50's here, and all of my crocuses have started popping up. They always take me by surprise, so that I have to carefully lift the mulch of leaves I left on from last Autumn. The earlier I lift the leaf cover, the better, as some of the flowers have speared through the dry leaves. Once their flowers have opened, it's sort of like trying to pull an open umbrella through a hole.

Why do I leave those leaves when neighbors all around me are banishing them with blowers? Simple. Leaves are a cheap mulch. My oak tree is more than happy to dump a ton of them onto the garden bed, so I don't have to lug bags around. They keep the ground insulated so that my plants don't heave in the freeze-thaw-freeze cycle. And as they degrade they add nutrients to the earth.

When I lift the leaves at this time of year, they are added to the compost pile. I have several compost piles cooking in my yard. To make the pile decompose faster, you can turn it regularly. My husband likes to help with that. I think it has to do with wielding a pitchfork. It's a very manly activity compared to weeding and planting flowers.

Of course, turning compost isn't necessary. The nice thing about compost is that it doesn't need any help. Eventually, everything breaks down and becomes rich black dirt. When we had to remove one of our trees after a windstorm, we kept a large pile of woodchips. I did some neat science-y things with the kids. We looked at some of the various fungi growing on the pile. I also shoveled into it to show how warm it was inside. That pile has diminished in size since we first made it, without any interference from us. If you are patient, dirt happens.

I hope everyone has a lovely green day!
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I Put Down My Weed Whacker, And You Put Down Your Thorns...

I truly admire weeds. I think God made weeds to show us how to be strong in the face of adversity. Think about it. Have you ever tried to pull out a weed? They have many ways of proving they are mightier than you.

Some weeds have deep roots. Plants like dandelions and Queen Anne's lace have thick carrot-like taproots, while vines like bittersweet and poison ivy boast stringy roots that spread in every direction. If you don't pull the whole root out, the weed simply grows back. And laughs at you.

Some weeds protect themselves. Aside from the itchy oils of poison ivy, some plants protect themselves with various sizes of thorns and barbs. Stinging nettle will not even tolerate a stirred leaf. Its tiny barbs really do sting. The brambles and wild roses sport various sizes of thorns.

Some weeds are prolific. I know, I know, pull them out before they go to seed. The trick is knowing when that is. Every year the garlic mustards shoot up and become seedy before I even notice them. And some seeds disguise themselves as a toy. How many pounds of dandelion fluff have been blown across my yard by a happy child? The seeds themselves are ingenious. They can be buried for years in layers of dirt and mulch and happily sprout when I inadvertently expose them to light. (This usually happens when I dig a hole for a sad shrub that will weepily wilt for a year before it decides whether it wants to live under my care.)

Please don't point out the shelves of weed killers. They deplete the soil, they are hard to isolate from the plants I like and anything with "-cide" in its name is not something I want to use where my children are wont to roll around. Besides, I am a noble gardener. I respect the strength of will in my foliaged foe. If I need to kill a weed, I will use my bare hands, as God intended. Sportsmanlike.

Playing in my Yard...

It's nice when you can take a step back from all of the weeding, mowing, trimming, raking, sweeping and just look at what you accomplished in your garden. Since I do almost all of the gardening myself (except for the composting--thanks honey), I don't always notice what the overall picture looks like. Call it "not seeing the garden for the flowers." I tend to hyper-focus on all the little details.

I forget to look at the big picture, which shows all of the devotion.

Some days I even forget to play, which is what all the hard work is about. If I do not enjoy what I do, why do it?

Homeschooling can be like that too. Some days we work hard, we have struggles, I doubt my own ability to teach, and I wonder if I am doing the right thing. But if I step back, I see my family happy and thriving, my children engrossed in their activities, and I remind myself to enjoy it.

I remind myself to play.

Life must be lived as play. ~Plato

From Our Garden

Happy Easter!

Appreciating the Environment

My parents taught me to love nature.

The house I grew up in was across the street from a park. We had a big picture window that looked out onto the park. It was nice seeing the sunset out of that window. We were close to the Botanical Garden and the zoo, so we spent a lot of time gazing at plants and animals. My parents had some property upstate. They called it the farm, but it was really wild land across from farms. We would go there to pick blueberries, my father blazing a trail with his machete (that’s how a Puerto Rican does it.)

My father is the green thumb. That picture window was always full of tropical plants. In fact, I would say the number of plants in that window has increased since I left home. I think they help him feel a little closer to Puerto Rico. He can make anything grow. Many avocadoes and other fruit were grown from seed by him. My sister has that green thumb as well. Her room was full of African violets. I stick with easy plants. The kind I can ignore for a week and they won’t hold it against me.

My mom learned to love nature from her family. Her dad was in the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC’s) and had lots of pictures from places like Grand Teton National Park. I remember seeing a picture where he attended mass at an outdoor chapel and thinking, “Yes, that makes sense.” I always feel closer to God when I am enjoying the natural world. Mom showed us home movies from my grandfather’s collection. There were some movies where he (or my mother?) would film the clouds as they drove along on road trips. He wanted to film the clouds because of the impermanence of them. Little did he know how equally impermanent the landscape would be!

I can’t imagine life without plants. My parents gave me a strong appreciation of God’s creation. My greatest pleasure since moving into our home has been to garden and to fill my own picture window with house plants. And since I know the kind of gardener I am (plant and ignore) I have learned a lot about native species and low care houseplants. My own children will also grow up surrounded by nature. That’s nice. Each generation teaches the next. I want them to love nature as much as I do.

Perpetual Cleaning Motion

"Think they work you too hard?
Think of poor Ali Sard!
He has to mow grass in his uncle's back yard
And it's quick-growing grass
And it grows as he mows it.
The faster he mows it, the faster he grows it."
~The old man in the Desert of Drize, Did I Ever Tell You How Lucky You Are? by Dr. Seuss

"Now here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!"
~The Red Queen, Alice Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll

Why do I mention these quotes? They've been running through my head lately. Especially when I'm gardening during our unusually warm Autumn. Nothing has stopped growing. The grass still needed mowing. The weeds still need to be pulled. The hedges I had cut to half their size three times already had to be cut back again. Give me a break! My rose bushes are so confused I'm getting an October bloom! (I'm not complaining about the rose, just the stress to the shrub that is blooming out of season.)

There is also something very interesting that happens whenever I choose a spot to tidy. If I want the house neat (read: I can walk through the living room without tripping over stuff) the yard grows out of control. I've seen weeds become the size of small bushes in a matter of days. Most of them don't even have the decency to put out a flower like the dandelions do. They just get big and overpowering, with tendrils and seedy antenna-like stalks that give them the feel of invading green men from Mars. Outdoor toys magically appear out of the lawn. Not just soccer balls and bats, mind you, but also stilts and the mildew-stained play foods and sand-filled toy dishes that were banned from indoors.

If I want my yard neat (read: lawn doesn't resemble the wild prairie) my house suddenly throws up the toybox. Nothing can express the feeling I get after spending the afternoon wrestling with overgrown bushes to come inside, sweaty and tired, and realize that there is no place to sit because the Kingdom of Couch is under siege by the Kingdom of Floor and hundreds of little pipe cleaner men are casting juggling scarves of doom over their enemies. At least, that's what it looks like, I'm not sure of the plot. In the meantime, every piece of dollhouse furniture and dolls lay outside the dollhouse, because the dolls apparently phoned Clean Sweep or some other decluttering show to come and empty the house. I suspect if I peer inside the miniature windows I will see a tiny camera crew focused on a miniature interior designer who is discussing room changes. Meanwhile, the smaller couch just had a parade go through, evidenced by the confetti that has been tossed about. And look, the scissors that cut the confetti are still there. I'll be searching for them later, because even if I put them away now, they have a habit of wandering away from their drawer.

I don't want to give anyone the wrong idea. I love that there is so much activity in and around our home. I know it can't be neat and quiet while I am raising and homeschooling kids. I enjoy living here as much as they do. And they do help. Sometimes they even help without me nagging...
yelling...
telling them.

Strawberry Season

I've been playing with Photo Studio.

Our strawberries are just beginning to ripen. We've been hard pressed to gather some before the catbird. Catbirds, related to mockingbirds, love strawberries. Our catbird sits in our young apple tree and keeps an eye on the strawberries. We lose at least a handful of berries each year because he samples the crop. He's just lucky we like birds and are willing to share. We can't resist his voice, which sounds something like a kitten crying for its mom. Marina, our resident Dr. Dolittle, once had a talk with him. They mewed at each other for a minute and then he flew off. I wish she would learn enough of the language so that she could tell it not to hog the strawberries.

Here is a link to a page about the CATBIRD

How I Spent Saturday...

I took advantage of a gorgeous day to repair this path into our backyard. I dug in some cinder blocks we had lying around and some leftover logs from our poor departed oak to make steps. The wood chips are also the remains of our tree.

Look at my azalea! When we first moved here it was the fall, and this is a deciduous Korean azalea. I looked at it skeptically and thought, Okay, I'll give it until Spring before I dig it up. Lo and behold, it showed me! Every year it looks better.

Zen and the Art of Lawn Mower Maintenance

I've found that the crabgrass in my lawn grows at about 20 times the rate of the regular lawn grass. For some reason, this is unsightly to the sensitive nature of our suburban neighbors. I can usually defend my right to leaving my lawn alone in early spring, when our grass is sprinkled with crocuses. Around this time of year, I pull out my trusty people powered push mower and prepare it for a new growing season as I mull over my reasons for using it.

1. It's environmentally friendly--the only gas is in the person pushing.
2. It's fun--I never had a musical push toy as a child, so it satisfies my inner child.
3. It's quiet--Monday mornings around here are pretty noisy as my neighbors' landscapers do all of their yards at once. I refuse to contribute to the noise pollution.
4. It's a workout--The only way to keep those blades humming is to push, push, push! Great for the upper arms!
5. It's incentive to enlarge garden areas and flower beds--the smaller I can make the lawn area in our yard, the better.
6. It helps me appreciate the bare patches where the children play--see reason #5
7. I don't have to worry about storing flammable fuel--see reason #1
8. No rip cord--truth be told, I never got the hang of starting a traditional mower. I would probably be useless on a motorboat as well.
9. It never stalls out--unless I do.
10. It's so easy, even an almost 14 year old daughter can operate it--now where did she go?

Maybe I'll have to do an entry about our crank handle mixer and our french press, too. I wouldn't want them to get jealous. It's my dream to have solar power just so that I can have the electric company owe us money every now and then! Don't get the wrong idea, it isn't so much that I'm an environmental activist, I'm just a penny pincher. If my frugal nature makes me green, just call me Kermit.

Leaf Them Alone!

I've found that one of the greatest examples of God's creativity is the leaf. Consider the leaf. Not only does it spend all summer feeding the tree, it also offers shade and puts oxygen back into the air. It filters pollutants. It slows the wind. As summer wanes it puts out a brilliant display of color before detaching and floating gracefully to earth. But does its usefulness end there? No!! Because that leaf is its tree's fertilizer! Left in place, it gives nutrients back to the soil, keeps down weeds, and provides food, warmth and shelter for the tree, plants and critters during the cold winter months. All of this in a leaf!

Every Autumn our suburban neighborhood is inundated with the noise and smell of leafblowers and huge piles form along the road, sometimes falling into the road. Every person around us has gardeners that they pay to get rid of all the leaves in their yards. And here I am, armed with my rake, moving leaves only from the open areas, transferring piles into compost bins, under shrubs and into a heavily treed area at the back of our yard. Every Spring little flags spring up out of the lawns in front of the neighbors homes: "Danger! Herbicides have been applied!" "Warning! Fertilizer application!" I shake my head. If only they would use what God has provided! And guess what happens to the leaves they get rid of? A truck comes and takes them to a town park where they are mulched and composted. By composting my own, I've just saved myself several car trips to get back my own leaves! For me, a neat and tidy yard isn't natural. I prefer my organic garden to a yard I'm afraid to have my kids walk barefoot through.

To learn more about trees and their contribution to our world, check this Arbor Day Foundation kid's site. Carly's Kids Corner in particular has a lot of games to teach kids about trees, the rainforest, and the creatures who need them.

And if I've provided one person with a good reason not to bag leaves this Fall, my work is done!