Spring: Full of (Garden) Hopes

Now that spring is well underway, I've managed to complete the majority of my planting. I did sort-of follow the "no planting until after Mother's Day" rule for Colorado. Now it's a waiting (and watering) game.

Sadly, the seeds we attempted to start in Maggie the Magical Potting Shed didn't take. L.E. and I are still trying to figure out what we're doing wrong, since we haven't gotten a seed to germinate in two years.

Since they didn't take, I bought some tomato starts from our local greenhouse/nursery. For the past couple of years, I've attempted to grow my tomatoes in 5-gallon buckets, but they've really struggled. At the end of last year, I decided to build two tomato boxes - one for each side of Whimsy's doorway. I had a couple of extra pallets lying around, so I chopped them up, gathered whatever random wood I could find, and built them. They're rustic as all get-out, a mis-matched mess. Or as L.E. would call them, 'whimsical'. I planted in them a few days ago, and the tomatoes are looking pretty good. Certainly better than they ever did in the 5-gallon buckets.

The boxes will eventually be painted barn red to match Whimsy.

Jay's favorite tomato to use the the San Marzano, so for the third year in a row, I'm trying. Nebalee and L.E.'s San Marzanos grew incredibly well last year. Mine did not. I ended up with about two quart bags of tomatoes for the freezer, and that was a stretch to get.

~~~

Last year, Mom decided it was time to replace the cross-buck fence that surrounded her horse pen. Her new fence looks amazing, and initially, I was more than happy to see the cross-buck go. Honestly, it was so old that it needed repaired every summer, and was in danger of falling over at any moment. It was a right pain in the arse. I was happy to see it go until I got all sentimental and realized I couldn't let the whole fence go. I needed a piece of our horse history, so I asked her for a section. The fence had contained two generations of mustangs: Ranger and Shadow; Ranger and Jesse, then Washoe. Estes. Skeeter. Alloy. Pearl. I couldn't let it go, I needed to keep a section.

At the time, I had some vague idea of using it to plant something in. I didn't know what at the time, but I knew I needed to have a piece of that fence. By the end of last summer, I'd decided that it would make a great pea patch and erected it between Whimsy and Maggie. I layered some manure from the horse pen, then added topsoil and let it sit all winter.

The peas needed something to climb, so L.E. loaned me
one of her foldable trellis things.

I love the peas' little "grabby hands" finding
and latching onto the support.

~~~

I am a lover of pallet projects, which shouldn't come as a surprise considering Whimsy and Maggie are both made from pallets. I built my tomato boxes from broken old pallets. Jay and I have a little "pallet porch" on the east side of our house with two Adirondack chairs that my uncle made from pallets. Between them sits a side table made from pallets, which now holds my fuchsias.

So it shouldn't come to a surprise to anyone that when L.E. had her windows replaced, and her new windows arrived on a structure made of pallets that I was eye-balling it. When she offered it to me, I couldn't jump on it fast enough. It just screamed to be used for some vining plant, but what?

I initially thought about pumpkin, because Nebalee's pumpkins last year climbed her arch and looked great. But ... I'm not a huge pumpkin fan. I already had peas and cucumbers accounted for in the cross-buck pea patch, so I decided to try my hand at sugar baby watermelons. L.E. and I can train them to climb, and with any luck, we will get a melon or two.

I spent last night enclosing the bottom pallet and filling it with manure and soil. The top of the back end of the pallet is just a hair over five feet. If the plants climb up the angled front part, and down the back (with some help and training from L.E. and me), that's about ten feet of climbing they've got. If necessary, I can add a hog panel to it in an arch, like I have in front of Whimsy. (Actually, I might do that anyway, just to be on the safe side.)

I didn't want the front half of the pallet to go unused, so I looked up companion plants for watermelon. The first two listed were peas and cucumbers, but those are already planted in the pea patch. I scrolled further and found that peppers are also a good companion. Jay and I use a lot of peppers, so I bought some pepper starts from some kids at a garage sale last week.

Jalapeno, serrano, serrano, habanero.
Hopefully, they'll survive.

~~~

On FB the other day, a friend of mine was saying that she's always wanted a big, beautiful garden, but the soil in her area is mostly clay and rocks. She lives less than 20 miles away, so I understand what she's talking about with regard to soil quality. The thing is, yes, our soil isn't the easiest to grow in, but there are work-arounds. For me, it's repurposing pretty much anything that will hold soil.

Potatoes in a tire stack

Garden freckles in old enamelware.
Concord grapes in the tires behind the pot.

Rusted out charcoal BBQ grill? Flowers.

Onions in the pallet collars.

I will never have the big, beautiful garden that my great-grandparents had, but the little bit that I do have is plenty. I must be getting old and sentimental, because I feel closer to my Great Grandma Wheeler when I garden (and when I can, but that's an end of the season thing).

Diana Moves Home

Before I talk about my wonderful, wonderful Wonder Woman pomegranate, Diana, I thought I'd give a quick update on my Black Widow pomegranate, Yelena. I did, indeed, love Yelena to death and she did not make it through the winter. I know I said I'd give her until June, but it was pretty obvious a few weeks ago that she had shriveled up and said "screw this". I can't blame her. She was a tough one, and probably would have made it if I hadn't messed with her so much.

Diana was a cute little thing when I got her. Here's a flashback of her baby pictures.

So she wasn't little-little, but compared to
her recent pictures, she was tiny.

She looked rough for a bit during her
transition from Georgia to Colorado, but she rebounded.

Move-in day to the greenhouse at work.
Diana, Pina the pineapple, and Lemony the lemon plant.
Pina looks great, but Lemony kicked the bucket a couple
of months in.

Diana thrived in the greenhouse! I put here in there to just survive the winter, all I wanted her to do was not die. She thought she went on a tropical vacation and exploded. At one point, she was growing between 6-8 inches a week.

Diana's last week in the greenhouse.

I had to move her out of the greenhouse in the beginning of April, because I was afraid that she'd get too big to move. Luckily, L.E. has a beautiful south-facing window that she has loaned us.

She's thriving in L.E.'s window as well

Being a Colorado native, I was completely ignorant of how pomegranates grew until I saw my first pomegranate tree in Italy, so I've been completely fascinated by how the fruit grows.

The buds grow very quickly
into this elongated thing before blooming.

As the bloom forms, but before it opens,
it looks like a demagorgan from Stanger Things.

You blink, and next thing you know,
there are fruits growing!

Diana will live with L.E. for a few weeks, probably until mid-May, before I move her to Whimsy. This time with L.E. is a great time to harden her off. Not that L.E.'s house is cold, but it is cooler than the greenhouse at work, and we're able to wean her off the drip system she was on. She'll get watered on a regular basis, but no more IV fluids for her. Once she moves out to Whimsy, she'll get a good trimming to start to train her to be a tree rather than a bush. And, sadly, I'll remove most of the fruit to encourage her to grow strong roots so she'll be ready for the winter.

I have a few things left to finish in Whimsy before Diana goes in the ground that hopefully won't take me too long to complete. I want to change out the insulation and put screens over the windows so she doesn't try to grow out of them over the summer.

Putting Maggie to Work

Following last year's failure to get any seeds to germinate, and the subsequent building of the Magical Potting Shed, we finally got to put Maggie to work. I'm not finished insulating Maggie, she's about 60% complete, and I need to buy a couple more sheets of insulation to get her to the point that Chief can put up the OSB walls. However, between the insulation I do have, and the warmer nights, L.E. and I decided it was time to start our seeds.

Not only did Maggie get to work, but we got to use the re-purposed potting bench! I've been looking forward to this day for a long time. Maggie isn't a large shed, but she's big enough for the three of us to work in there side-by-side. The pull-out dough board was perfect! It allowed me to work between L.E. and the Bionic Cowgirl without us bumping elbows.

This pull-out dough board is the
reason I fell in love with this piece.

Mom donated vintage trays to use.

L.E. getting going on her seeds.

L.E.'s seeds happily hanging out in a
south window.

My seeds in the other south window.

L.E. always plants a much more diverse garden than I do, but I'm getting there. This year, I'm attempting sugar snap peas, potatoes, and onions, which are already in the ground. The peas are starting to come up, but the potatoes and onions aren't doing much. They went in a week after the peas, so I expect to start seeing something in the next week or two.

The seeds I planted are San Marzano, brandywine, and cherry tomatoes, along with some small watermelons. I've become such a hoarder re-purposer, that I couldn't let L.E. get rid of a pallet stand thingy that her house windows came on. Instead, I'm going to enclose the bottom pallet, add dirt, and plant the watermelon so it can climb the pallet-formed trellis. 

I realized that after I plant the watermelons, I will still have a lot of area in the pallet that was going to be full of dirt, and I can't let that be unused. I looked up companion plants for watermelon, and found that I'd planted most of those elsewhere, but did find that they do well with peppers, so I'll buy some jalapeno and serrano starts to keep the watermelon plants company. 

I've also been trying to figure out what to plant on the north side of the pea patch, because I can't let that good dirt go to waste. I think I've settled on glass gem popcorn. I have a couple of varieties of sweet corn that I planted last year, but we have a very generous neighbor who allows us to harvest his sweet corn, so it seems silly to grow my own, if I can get some guaranteed good stuff from him. My glass gem popcorn didn't do well last year, but maybe this year, with more space it'll do better. Also in the pea patch, I'll plant cucumbers.

This is a huge increase from my attempt last year, but I've made some tweaks to my gardening plans, which basically means container gardening is out and in-ground gardening is in. 

Send all of the green thumb juju my garden's way, please. It'll need it.

Feral Fifties - Joining the Circus

I took this to heart when I saw it,
and have been living by it since 2021

In the summer of 2021, a friend of mine from NaNoWriMo posted some pictures of her circus journey with Old Lady Circus Club, and I was instantly intrigued. I mean, who hasn't watched a Cirque show and wondered if they could do some of those cool things? I asked if I could join her sometime, and on August 26, 2021, I ran away and joined the circus. We started with the aerial sling, and it was amazing! Like playing on the playground, but the sling felt secure. 

I dove into circus 100%. Despite being much older than the other gals in OLCC, I was welcomed with open arms. Trying something new is always terrifying, especially something like this, but the warm welcome instantly set me at ease. Circus became my "me time". 

Oh my Lord, y'all, the bruises. The bruises are epic. Painful, yes, but a source of pride in a twisted way. Sling is probably the most painful, and leaves bruises that look like you've been flogged. Lyra bruises look like you've been caned. Trapeze didn't leave a lot of bruises, but I definitely came home with rope burn more than once. Silks, while the hardest to master, don't bruise as badly as sling, and I think that's because you can adjust the tension. When I was beginning my circus journey, I swore I was going to have Jay make me a shirt that said, "my hubby doesn't beat me, I play circus". It got to where I would warn massage therapists and doctors before I ever disrobed.

I failed to take pictures for the first few weeks of OLCC, but then week four came along and we learned to do two very basic drops. I had to break out the phone for those!

Angel drop

(But I think it should be called the Dracula drop)

360 drop

I really enjoyed playing in the sling, even without the drops, and it was a great foundation for me as a fifty year-old beginner.

Airplane

Seahorse

Hip key

There's probably a name for this shape,
I just don't know what it is.

Gazelle

One of the greatest things about OLCC was that we had the opportunity to spend a few weeks trying out different apparatus. Lyra and I became fast friends; it was more intuitive to me. I understood how the solid ring would move under pressure, so I felt as though I picked up skills more readily.

Mermaid. This stupid skill took me weeks. It's not physically hard,
but mentally it kills me.

Span set skills on the top of the lyra are terrifying, and some of my very favorite skills. I didn't get to work top bar stuff until I moved out of OLCC and into actual classes, but immediately fell in love. 

Double knee hang

Straddle back

Gazelle

Gazelle

Iron Cross

After lyra, we moved into silks. I'm not gonna lie, my heart and soul love silks. My body does not. For the past three years, I've been intermittently taking the beginner silks classes hoping that my strength will catch up to my will and it hasn't happened yet.

3 years in, and I still can't climb

Fabric management can be
incredibly frustrating

No idea what this shape is called

Same shape as above, 
different angle

Witch's broom

Iron cross with knot in silks

Iron Cross without knot in silks

After a session on silks, we transitioned to dancer trapeze. Like lyra, it was more intuitive to me, but with the potential of rope burns.

I have no idea what this is called,
but it's cool

I also don't remember the name
of this shape.

I can't seem to find most of my trapeze pictures, which is sad, because I had some really cool ones. 

Of course, life circumstances changed a bit, and I had to step away for several months, then struggled to get back into it. The struggle is mostly mental, because I've gained back a lot of the weight I'd lost (thanks menopause) and I'm not playing with the same ladies that were in OLCC - we've all moved on to other things. As OLCC fizzled out, I moved into regular classes, and I love them, but it's not the same close-knit support system.

Feral Fifties - Learning Grandma Skills

Losing weight on Noom, and gaining a lot more confidence in what my body can do, happened to coincide with turning fifty. I like to tell people, "I quit my job, got a bunch of ink, and joined the circus." 

That's not entirely untrue. I left my job at the career college in 2019, on my fifteenth anniversary. I wasn't quite fifty when I made that jump. I didn't like the way the college was going, and morally, I couldn't do it any more. I used to be proud of the impact I made on our students, and knew that the graduates I was putting out into the field were the very best of the lot. However, over time, I became more and more constrained by corporate. I was being told to do things that went against every fiber of my being, and I just couldn't do it any more. 

As soon as I found out about our surprise Gremlin, I embraced the whole grandma thing and learned to crochet. I mean, what is more grandma than crochet? My great-grandma had tried to teach me when I was young, but gave up in frustration when I struggled with even finger crocheting a chain. My Grandma Mary also tried to teach me, but gave up. Luckily, I ran across an ad for the Woobles. I was feeling optimistic, riding on the high of successfully learning new things in the recent past, and bought Fred the Dinosaur.

The Woobles were able to teach my what two grandmas had given up on. More specifically, the Woobles YouTube channel that I could stop, rewind, slow down, and watch as many times as possible without the tutorials becoming frustrated. Jay hasn't quite picked up crochet yet, but considering the number of times  he had to listen to the tutorials, I have no doubt he could pick up the yarn and go to town.

I tell you what, it's a good thing I'd learned perseverance throughout my lifetime, because trying to pick up this skill was tough. I frogged Fred more times than I could count, but I finally succeeded. Then, I made a second one so Gremlin could have one at each parents' house. I took my new-found crochet confidence and jumped into another project. I decided that since I didn't have the skill when the kids were little, that they were all getting some crocheted critter in their Christmas stockings.

Not even the animals were safe - I started making things for them to wear as well. Tally the Turtle got an Avs sweater, the horses got Christmas stocking caps, L.E.'s dog got a Christmas hat, the cats got witch's hats.

The Gremlin got the bulk of my crocheted critters, of course, and I had a great time making them. 

This was supposed to be a dragon blanket,
but I got overwhelmed and mounted it for Gremlin instead.

After this, I swore I'd never use glow-in-the-dark yarn again.

Once in a while, though, I'd find a project that wasn't for Gremlin, and just enjoyed making little keepsakes.

This was a weekend Halloween project in AZ.
What a treat to sit by the pool in late October to crochet.

I made these little sloths to commemorate
our trip to Costa Rica

There was one crochet project that I started a month or so before Mom and Bill's accident. There is a group of us old bloggers who keep in touch and call ourselves the "Squirrel Brigade". My intent was to make a squirrel for each of the bloggers' households, just as a fun little thing. After the accident, I couldn't bring myself to make more. I tried, but I lost my mojo for that project. Last year, I packaged it up and sent it to Rachel and Mr. Daddy (remember them, from Once Upon A Miracle?) for their second little miracle child.

Grief is dumb sometimes, but I hope their young 'un can enjoy the squirrel.