When I was in my 20s, I imagined a glamorous career that took me to big cities and beautiful places. I wanted to experience the world via planes, trains and automobiles, rub elbows with famous people and dine at chic restaurants, clinking glasses with witty and interesting people.
That’s not exactly how it worked out. Oh, there is plenty of travel. But as you know, travel isn’t all that glamorous anymore.
Airports are among the most unhealthy places in the country, over-crowded by hurried and often distraught travelers, abysmal, heart-attack-inspiring food, mind-numbing delays and nowhere to sit. Big-city cabs are atrocities on wheels. They smell terrible and there is always a spring in the seat sticking up into my bum. More than once I have questioned my good judgment for getting into a car with one of these dangerous and dangerous-looking men.
A good hotel can be a small oasis of sanity, but it’s still a hotel. And you don’t get to pick your neighbors. How many amorous couples, giggling girls and drunken good-old-boys have I had to share a wall with? Yes, I am the kill-joy who knocks on the door at 2 a.m. and explains that she has to get up at 5:30 a.m. for work.
To travel, I must also leave the serenity and quiet of my country home. I have put the care of my little dogs and pet chickens and the watering of my fragile container plants in the hands of my husband and son. God only knows what devastation occurs while I’m gone and gets tidied up before I find out about it.
And while I’m enduring airline delays and munching on stale sandwiches with the other weary travelers, I always think about what I’m missing at home—tons of vegetables that should be picked, weeds plotting world domination, flowers blooming and fading. There are also the peaceful surroundings and views, such as this serendipitous view through the garden gate. (Don’t these two mourning doves look like they were sent from central casting and told to look like lovebirds?)
Mourning doves prettily perch on the garden bench. They kindly waited while I snapped their photo.
Although the travel isn’t easy, I will admit though that the people are worth the effort. For example, among other recent travels, I headed to Chicago for the Garden Bloggers Spring Fling, where I had a fabulously good time rubbing elbows with some of the most interesting people I know–other garden bloggers.
“So where are all your fabulous photos from Spring Fling?” you ask.
Well, it seems that since I live in a rural area and don’t get to socialize all that much with other gardeners, I completely lost my head and forgot to take photos. Oh yes, I have a few photos from the Chicago Botanic Garden and a few other places, but not so many of my old and new gardening friends. So if you weren’t there yourself, head on over to the official Spring Fling website and see who was there.
Next year our Spring Fling will be in Buffalo, New York. Will someone please remind me to stop talking and take some photos?
Some of My Recent Examiner Posts:
Easy homemade pita bread
Using flowers to beautify the vegetable garden
Must-have plants: Baby Blue Eyes
Great ideas: Make an edible flower tower
Robin
My son, Benjamin, really knows how to get my blood boiling.
The other day we were sitting out on the back deck enjoying the warm sun and fresh air when he turned to me and said, “You know, your garden doesn’t look very good this year. Before there were lots more flowers and vegetables.”
To which I replied…
“What?!?!?! It’s only May! Not even Martha Stewart can make tomatoes produce in May.”
Wisteria blooms over the garden gate. By summer's end, the sweet autumn clematis will have reached up from the other side.
Still, he did have a point. I have been a bit slow to get things rolling here this spring. My attentions have been torn between work, house, cooking, animal husbandry, writing and a great deal of time exercising on the spinning bike, classes and my home yoga practice.
Thankfully, many flowers, herbs and fruits return on their own. I’ve added bedding plants from the nursery. But I still have a stock tank pond and some more vegetables and flowers to attend to.
The herb garden includes flowers--columbine for spring color and celosia once June arrives and to the end of the growing season.
Most of that will have to wait until after the Garden Bloggers Spring Fling that comes up next weekend in Chicago. I will work in new bed digging and some woods clearing between other business trips I have planned this summer.
Jubilee strawberries produce all summer long. A single bed is enough to keep us in strawberry shortcake and to eat for breakfast with Greek yogurt.
I am also making time to just sit still and appreciate what I’ve been given. I hope with all the busy-ness of gardening, you also have a beautiful place to sit and enjoy what you’ve created.
Wisteria also grows along the fence at the back of the garden. If you look closely, you can see a couple of asparagus stalks that have persisted even after tearing out the asparagus bed.
Robin
Due to my down time in the fall, I have been far behind on my spring gardening activities. That means that I don’t have loads of beautiful garden photos to show off right now, though rest assured things are greening up and growing nicely. The spring rains have even helped me do some springtime lawn seeding.
What I can do is report on the animal front. You were worried about my chickens, right?
T. Boone Chickens has made an amazing recovery from the fateful attack that led to the loss of our beloved Johnny Cash.
But you know how some people are improved by the trials, tribulations and crises that life throws at them? They develop a sense of calmness, serenity and patience? Love for their fellow beings?
Well, if chickens are the same way, T. Boone isn’t one of them. Although he has survived and is thriving, his temperament was not improved by the near-death experience.
Now that Johnny Cash, the former top rooster, is gone, T. Boone has the opportunity to indulge in his full roosterness. Sadly, he is not a gentle lover. In fact, he’s downright mean to my poor little hens. When Johnny was their lover, he was at least gentle with his attentions. T. Boone is clumsy, rough and—how can I say this?—not a particularly good aim.
T. Boone's clumsy attentions to the hens have left them a bit ruffled--feather tufts here and there.
The hens have to tolerate him, of course, but they are very put out by his attentions. And although he does seem to stand guard over them when they are out of their run and walking about the garden, he does a ridiculous stomping tantrum if one of the hens dares to get to close to one of the little treats he finds in the yard. Stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp, stomp with those big chicken feet, like a toddler who hasn’t gotten his way.
I do worry about the new hens who have arrived here at Bumblebee. How will they ever deal with this brute?
Four young girls—two Black Starters and two White Leghorns—arrived a couple of weeks ago. We are keeping them separated and allowing them some supervised and separated meet-and-greet time for now. In a few days we’ll allow them out of their runs together to get an even better up-close look.
Maude greets one of the four new hens.
(By the way, send me your egg-intensive recipes. We’re getting six eggs/day and there are only three of us. When Ben heads off to The Citadel in August, Harry and I will have to deal with half a dozen eggs/day by ourselves.)
With all this talk about chickens, I suppose you’re wondering if I’m still a gardener. Yes, indeed.
In fact, I was working on doing some planting this past weekend and what should I find? Well, look here…
A nest of baby bunnies in the garden--right next to the lettuce patch.
Yep, a nest of baby bunnies. And the mom bunny very cleverly located them right next to our lettuce patch. Just a short walk to the salad bar!
I have touched the nest and talked to the babies about having mom relocate them. But she seems happy with their current digs next to my lettuce. So be it.
Harry, of course, is devastated, what with lettuce being his favorite food and all.
And so it goes here at Bumblebee…
Robin
