When is it time to garden?

When Betty and I moved into this house, there was a dried tangle of last winter's dried flowers and weeds. They were quite an eye sore. We worked hard and we cleaned them up. We were pleasantly surprised as we saw new growth coming up where the old dried foilage had been. We were even more surprised when we saw that there was a variety of plants. I didn't know which were weeds and which were flowers. We have a neighbor across the street who has a beautiful flower garden and so I decided to ask her to help me identify the different plants. She told me that she was a professional florist and that she would be happy to help me identify what I had in my garden. She declared that I had a variety of valuable flowering plants, and that we had a lot of weeding to do.

Summer came and we enjoyed the flowers. We enjoyed the early daffodils, jonquils and tulips. We enjoyed the fragrance of the lavendar and mint. We enjoyed the iceplant and other ground covers and they formed a beautiful quilt over the soil. We watch Iris and periwinkle bloom. We started to clean up the weeds around the outside edges. The results were pleasing. We enjoyed the flowers and forgot about the weeds.

As blossoms came and went, they left behind a tangle of stems holding spent blossoms. The color is nice, but the garden needs tending.

Behind the lillies I see a carpet of unwelcome weeds. I realize tonight that a half hearted effort isn't going to get the flowerbed presentable. I am going to have to work at it each day until flowers are trimmed, weeds are pulled, and the mess is cleaned up.

If I quit before the job is done, I have wasted my effort. The weeds will grow again and plants that are desirable will grow beyond their borders. Mint is terrible for that.

Our lives are like the flower garden. Our time is colored by the enjoyable things we do. Trips and entertainment make our lives enjoyable. There can be weeds in our life as well. We develop bad habits and unhealty attitudes. These weeds can choke out the beauty of life's garden if we don't take the time to weed and prune.

Early morning meditation is a time that serves this purpose for me. I read from the scriptures. I write in my journal, I read things that help me grow, and I ponder how I will be spending the day. I can tell when I have been neglecting the garden by not taking this time at the beginning of the day. Unhealthy habits and attitudes creep in and I know it is time to tend the garden again.

Roses and Fawns

Our house is on the west side of Colorado Springs. It is just a few miles from the forrested mountains. I am surprised to see the deer as often as we do.

The other morning, Betty got up to let the dog out to do his business when she saw a couple of spotted fawns playing. They were on our lawn and that of our neighbor's next door. They were running and playing without regard to the people that were watching them play. Betty saw them, but I only had her word that it happened.

A few days later, Betty looked out the window and squealed. The deer were back with some of their family to play in the yard. This time, I grabbed the camera and took some pictures through the glass. Some of the pictures were not the best, but it was fun.

This picture shows the corner of our yard where our roses used to grow. We watched them bud and bloom earlier this summer. No sooner had they bloomed, that the blossoms were cropped off. Our neighbor who is a professional florist warned us that would happen. As soon as they see the red blossoms, they know they are just right to eat. They say that roses are edible. I'll have to try some rose petals in our next tossed salad.

The deer seemed quite bold so I opened the door and went out into the yard to join them. The dog barked and they cleared the fence just as if it weren't there. They were not eager to leave, however. They just stood there and watched us. It was as though they were enjoying watching us as much as we were enjoying them. There was no fear in them at all.

Looking towards our neighbor's yard, you can see a doe and her spotted fawns. I walked out to the corner of our yard. There is no fence, there is only a retaining wall that is about 24 inches high. Around to the right of a bush, I could see one of the twin fawns looking guardedly at me, a strange man with the flashing box.

As I stood still and watched, the little critter's curiosity won over caution. It came toward me with it's tail straight up in the air and it's nose twitching from right to left.

The telephoto lense on the camera allowed me to get close to the little venturer.

When I snapped this last photo, he turned and was gone.

Betty and I really enjoyed the deer that morning. We would even be willing to sacrifice a few roses to entice them into the yard.

As a 1930's Spouse

I took the test earlier and didn't agree with the result. I was going to drop it, but I have a brother who motivates me to do things I wouldn't do otherwise. That's a good thing.

Betty and I took the surveys this time as a joint effort. This was more realistic result. At least it was flattering to me. I think Betty was sometimes hard on herself. I think her score was a bit lower because we no longer have children at home. She's the best in the world as far as I'm concerned.

97 As a 1930s husband, I am Very Superior Take the test!

71 As a 1930s wife, I am Superior Take the test!

This little exercise gave us a chuckle or two, but we also were able to see things that we could do to improve our relationship. Thank you, Larry.

A special visitor

This week, we've had a special visitor. She was attending a seminar at the Antler's plaza hotel and needed a place to stay. Her name is Jane Haynie.

Jane was married to Galen Haynie from Manassa. Galen was killed in Vietnam. Galen was a descendant of Christen Jensen. I knew his grandmother as Aunt Kistie Mortensen. Galen's mother was Aunt Kistie's daughter Lucinda who married Earl Haynie. Earl owned and operated the dry goods store in Manassa for years.

We have really enjoyed Jane's visit and hope to get to know her better. She will be off tomorrow to a family reunion in Grand Junction with Anna (Knight) Wheeler's family.

Little house in the city

I have heard it said that we humans have the tendency to fill whatever space we occupy. We seem to have done just that when we moved into the big house on the hill. The house had a lots of space for storage as well as an ample two car garage, a garden shed, and a work shed.

A time came that it was necessary for us to move into smaller quarters. We moved from a four bedroom home into a two bedroom home. We moved into a smaller garage, and we have no outer buildings other than a small greenhouse that we want to use for raising vegetables.

For the first few months in the new home, we were just settling in we said to ourselves. We needed time to get around to the things that were still piled up in the garage. Today was the day to tackle the neglected storage space. We need to be able to park our new car in the garage and there just isn't enough room for both our accumulated junk and the new car even though the car isn't a very large one.

I took a look at the back door of the garage and nearly bolted. I wasn't ready to handle the boxes, the orders from my sweetheart, and the frustration of finding a home for everything we had been ignoring for months.

I turned and looked at the front door. Yes this garage has a back and a front door. We aren't sure yet if the garage is a one car garage, or if we pack them like sardines to get them both in out of the weather. Betty insisted that we get it done, and we buckled down and started moving things and emptying boxes.

Betty doesn't have the heart to throw things away. She insists that we can make money if we put our junk out in the front yard and intice people to give us money for the things that we'll throw away if nobody buys it. She has labels to put prices on everything, but in the meanwhile, it will have to stay in the garage. It's my most sincere desire that after this marvelous garage sale, our wallets will be well fed and we'll have a chance to try and put both cars out of the weather.

My back is killing me, but I think that before I go to bed tonight, we will be putting Lil Red into the garage. We still have a lot of sorting and pitching to do, but it's really nice to be able to see at least part of the garage floor.

Ole red has been replaced.

I knew it was time do do something last Sunday when I went to church. I got into my old rusty 1990 Nissan in my navy blue suit and headed of to church. When I came back to pick Betty up for meetings, a group of young adults pulled along side me. They pointed to the pickup and snickered so that I could see. I was wounded, but I knew that if I didn't do something soon, I would not be able to do anything.

Saturday we went shopping. The salesman laughed when he saw what we had brought to trade in. They finally offered us a small amount for my trusty old vehicle and came home with a new set of wheels.

The salesman returned one of my old license plates. He said the other one was rusted on and he couldn't get it off. That was a likely story! I wouldn't want those old plates on a new car any way.

Dad came over to visit today. He has a new vehicle too. He was telling me that his is bigger and prettier than mine. I am glad he feels that way. Betty and I kept our old Venture Van (Betty's car) and this is to be my car. I sure like it and so does Brewster. Every time I go out to get in the car, he insists that he should go too.

We've started a SFG

What you are looking at there is our attempt as a Square Foot Garden. It's quite the fad in Longmont and people are telling us that they are getting wonderful results. We put it off until quite late in the season, but we finally got started and created two 4' x 4' boxes. The box is filled with a special mix and each square has a different crop planted. We carefully chose seeds that have enough time left to give us a crop by the end of the growing season.

This year, we planted red radishes, white radishes, parsley, summer squash, lettuce, parsley, chives, turnips, carrots, and marigolds. We will have a real challenge trying to keep the deer and the weeds out.

We are supposed to water the garden from a bucket of sun warmed water so that the cold temperature doesn't stunt the growth of the plants. They are in only six inches of soil, and they only have 60 days of growing season left, more or less.

Betty is the head irrigation engineer, and Brewster is the head foreman. Kent has been the low paid labor in this little project. We are all anxious to see what the end of the summer will bring to us.

Our neighbor told us that we should consider visiting the farmer's market that they hold each weekend at a local park. Betty and I felt that we need to be learning to garden again. Produce is so very expensive and will be even more so as the price of gasoline goes higher.

Walking in the Garden of the Gods

Just a mile or three from our front door is the city park nown as the Garden of the Gods. I have really seen it change over the years.

I love the red color and the beautiful green. This morning, it was quiet and the shadows were long and dramatic.

This rock formation is called the kissing camels. There is an exclusive country club nearby by that name, and a private community. Our home teacher lives in Kissing Camel Estates.

Wouldn't you know that in the middle of the Garden of Gods, there would be a representative of the dark side. To me, this formation reminds me of the devil leaning over a fire warming himself.

Here is a view of the kissing camels from the opposite side of the formation.

Walking through the garden this morning was a wonderful way to start the day.