Coyote and the Special Day

February 14, 2012 ~ Kitty ~ 1 Comment

One day Coyote went out to visit his friend Anansi. I say friend today, because Coyote was in a friendly mood and he hoped Anansi was too. You see, sometimes they are enemies, because that is how it is when people are too much alike. You will know what I mean if you ever fall in love with the perfect girl, one who thinks like you, likes the things you like, sings the songs you sing. For a time you will be very happy, and then one day you will be very sad. Looking at your reflection all the time is dangerous, because either you fall in and drown like the beautiful boy at the stream, or you look so hard you find all the flaws that you never knew you had.

Coyote was going to see Anansi today because he was bored. All of the people had gotten too easy to trick and set against each other. Everyone believed even the craziest stories he could tell. For a while that was funny, but now they had gotten better at tricking themselves than he was. This made Coyote feel bad, because they did not appreciate or fear him anymore. Even Coyote has limits on what he will do, but lately the people did not.

Anansi was hard to trick. That is not to say that that he could never be tricked. It had happened before; you know the story of how Coyote got all of Anansi’s legs stuck up on a sticky gum baby. Anansi got free eventually, but Coyote had a good laugh watching him fight a doll. Coyote laughed out loud just thinking about it.

When Coyote got to Anansi’s house he let himself in because the door was unlocked. This was a good idea because if Anansi was home, then they could talk, but if he was not, then Coyote could help himself to Anansi’s wife’s good cooking. Either way Coyote wins. Coyote liked to win and hated to lose. But he would rather lose then not play any game at all.

He walked around Anansi’s dark house for a few minutes before he found Anansi hanging from a big web near the fire place. The room was warm and comfortable, filled with Anansi’s treasures, but Anansi looked sad. He sighed and moaned as Coyote gave his greetings. Coyote did not want to listen to his troubles, but maybe if he could figure out what was wrong with Anansi, then he could fix it quickly so they could have fun. Or maybe he could make it worse and then just Coyote could have fun.

“Anansi, why do you sigh and moan? Why do you hang there, looking so sad when we could be having fun?” said Coyote.

“Fun? I can’t have fun today, Coyote, I have to think. I have been tricked, and I have to find a way to get out of this mess. “ said Anansi.

“Tricked! But I have not been around to see you in weeks, who could have tricked you, if not me?” Coyote asked.

“I don’t even know who did it, Coyote. My wife is mad at me, and she did not make me breakfast this morning. I am sore hungry, and with my stomach empty, I can hardly think. And if I don’t figure out a way to make her happy, I will have no dinner either. But I don’t know why she is mad. She says I forgot and that I don’t love her. But I don’t even remember what I forgot. Can you help me?” he asked.

Now, Coyote thought about seeing if he could stir up more trouble. Anansi’s wife was a pretty woman and a fine cook. She was normally kind and easy to live with. If Coyote could make more trouble, then maybe he could find a way to have her for himself. But he did not think that way for long. He had never seen Anansi so sad. Anansi looked almost sad enough to die, and without Anansi around, Coyote would be bored, even if he did have all the sticky honey bread he could eat. So he decided to help Anansi.

He talked Anansi into coming down out of his web and looking like a man. Anansi was a handsome man, with a bald head and skin as black as a spider. His suit was as gray and soft as a spider web. All the ladies liked Anansi, because he was as good at talking as he was handsome. With Coyote’s help he should be able to talk his wife into coming home and making his dinner.

So they went out into the world. First they went to the café near where Anansi lived, where all the people tell his tales. The men who sit there every day looked either as sad Anansi, or as angry as wild pigs. Coyote hurried Anansi out before he could talk to any of them. Putting him with these people would have made Anansi’s sadness worse. Or made him angry, in which case he might try to get even with his wife. If there was one person who could outsmart Anansi every time, it was his wife.

So then Coyote decided to take Anansi to the big market, to see if they could find out what was going on. When they got there everything was decorated in pink, red and white. There were displays in the windows of roses, heart-shaped jewelry, and big boxes of candy. It was then that Coyote started to figure out what was going on.

Coyote walked up to a girl sitting by herself looking as sad as Anansi.

“Why are you so sad, girl?” asked Coyote.

The girl looked up at Coyote, who while not as smooth, polished, and professional-looking as Anansi, was still a handsome man, if a bit wild, and said “My boyfriend did not give me a present today, and now I don’t have a boyfriend anymore.”

Oh, it was hard for Coyote to keep to the task at hand then. A boy and a girl newly broken up could have been lots of entertainment. People in that state are easy to confuse and agitate. He could have had them lost in the woods and proclaiming love to a possum before morning. Or he could have wooed her for himself.

“What is special about today?” asked Coyote.

“Why, you crazy man. Today is Valentine’s Day. Today is the day when my boyfriend has to give me something nice and tell me how much he loves me” said the girl.

“Let me get this straight. You had a boyfriend? Were you happy?” asked Coyote.

“Yeah, I guess so” said the girl.

“Was he nice? He treat you ok?” Coyote asked, everything failing into place.

“Well yes, except forgetting Valentine’s Day “ said the girl, near to tears.

Coyote talked to a few more people, and then went back to Anansi and said “We are in trouble. The people have made a good trick. They have figured out a way to make everyone think that the love they have in their lives is not the right sort of love. They have the women all worked up and excited, telling them stories about the perfect man, and then they have a day where the men are all supposed to prove they are that man. But they can’t, because that man is a story. So the men go spend lots of money they don’t have, buying things no one needs, and then lots of them still get in trouble with their ladies anyway. When the trick works right, they end up with no money or lady, and the women end up all alone. Your problem is your wife has been tricked. But don’t worry, I have a plan.”

Coyote was mad, and he planned to figure out who was behind this. But right now was not the time. He had to get Anansi home and get his wife to feed him. Later they could work together to figure out who was to blame.

So Anansi and Coyote got all the supplies they needed and then went back to Anansi’s house. Then Coyote went to find Anansi’s wife and bring her home, saying it was an emergency. She figured that Anansi had gotten stuck in a gourd again or some such thing. So she came hurrying home, because even though she had been tricked, she still loved him. When she got to the house the whole pathway to the door was covered with rose petals, and Anansi was hanging from above the door in spider form. When she got up to him she found that in each of his hands he held a present. There was a box of chocolate, a shiny necklace, a stuffed bear, a bottle of wine, a new hat, a jar of expensive lotion, a glass rose and a new cooking pot.

The cooking pot was Coyote’s idea.

Coyote knew there was nothing he could do right now to get even with whoever was behind all this. And it felt wrong somehow for everyone to be tricked without Coyote being a part of it. So he decided to go see if he could help a few break-ups happen, and maybe find a few pretty girls looking for a Perfect Man.

Image by Andy Panda

Winter Garden

December 24, 2011 ~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

Today I just want to post a few pictures of my winter garden. Last winter I started experimenting with four season gardening, but I only planted a few things. This year I have a whole bunch more.

These are peas with lettuce in the background. I had peas for a while this spring and harvested quite a few, but for a very short time. By the time we got to May it was already too hot for them. This is one of my favorite crops. They are easy to plant, easy to grow, have pretty white flowers and make a weird squeaky sound when you touch them. There are lots and lots of flowers right now, so I should have a crop of peas to eat in the next few weeks if this amazing weather holds. Even if not, as long as it does not get too cold these plants should be ok.

This picture is of chard, onions and carrots. All are from seed. The odd part is the onion seeds were planted last spring. Not sure why they decided to just hang around and wait until now, but that is OK. They need to do whatever works for them. I put some compost and lime on the chard yesterday. This is my first time using an additive for a specific plant. I normally work under a system of everyone gets dirt and compost and the strong survive. But I really want chard to be big and delicious for New Years, because those are my greens of choice. The carrots have nice tops but the carrot part is tiny because the soil here has too much nitrogen. I don’t have a good plan on how to deal with this. Each year my soil will get better, so where do I put the plants like carrots and sweet potatoes that grow best in bad soil?

This is the only time I have had success at brassicas, which I have up until now planted in the spring. These had a few bug problems early on, as you can tell from the outer leaves. But the first frost mostly fixed that. It killed the moths and the cabbage worms, but from time to time I still see these ashy gray aphids. Since then they have been growing like crazy. I am actually amazed at how big they are. Had I realized this, I might have planted them further apart. There are 6 plants in a 3×4 area. I am going to harvest the one in the front for dinner tonight. Mmmmm corned beef and cabbage. The flavor of the outer leaves is a little spicy and bitter, different than cabbage normally is, but I like it.

The last picture is of my artichoke patch, all finished and sincere. These were planted last spring, but pretty much left to their own devices. With having a job and the big garden in the front, I never got around to even watering them. Somehow they were still alive when I was raking a few weeks ago, so I decided to build a special area around them so I could not forget them again. The fence is the wattle I was building in the last post, and the border is $20 of landscaping timbers. The plants are noticeably bigger just in the last few weeks.

Building A Wattle Fence

December 17, 2011 ~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

It is the middle of December and the weather is perfect for being outside. I wanted to do something and also felt crafty. I made a long list of projects, but before most of them could be done I had to clear a bunch of ivy where we will be putting in a chicken run. So since all the ivy had to go anyway, I thought I should do something with it, and that is what prompted this project.

A wattle fence is made by weaving flexible branches or vines between posts, like making a giant basket. The posts can be very small like the ones I used for this, or much bigger. The weaving material needs to be small and pliable enough to work with. Saplings are great for this; many people use willow and it is supposed to be just about the best thing you can use. I don’t have any willow, but I would love to try it some time. When I buy land for my farm one of the first things I will plant is willow.

This is an old practice. If you have a hatchet and enough material, you can build fences, walls, or even houses using these techniques. When building a house use wattle and daub. Daub is a mud type stuff put all over the wattle. You should look it up, they can be neat. Wattle can be pretty or rustic, and can last a long time.

The first step is to cut down some branches. I chose to cut them each 4 feet long. You can clean off all the smaller branches on each or leave them for the weaving; I chose to clean them because I find that easier. I left some forks and lots of little nodes to set the weaving on.

Once I had as many as I thought I would need, I made the ends sharp with the hatchet. Hitting things with a hatchet is fun; if you have never done it before you should. After that I pushed them in to the ground and then hit them with a hatchet, so were really small at the top. At this point I realized they would have been better a little thicker; I worry about them falling over. But they are what I have, so I carried on.

Once the posts were in the ground I started gathering the weaving material and weaving it on. This is the part that took a long time. Sometimes the ivy would break while being pulled out, as it was such a tangled mess. Some of this was here before we moved in, and we have not done much to keep it under control. I took off the leaves and roots of each piece to make them easier to work with. Some pieces were very long, as much as 8 or 9 feet, some that I used were as small as 3. It was pretty much random. If I liked a piece I used it. If not, I put it in the leaf pile. This part took several hours of work over the course of a few days. The hardest part is joining a new piece to an old piece; sometimes that can be really annoying, but before too long I had the hang of it. As you can imagine, it gets pretty complex. I went around the fence 3 times on each level, wrapping, braiding and weaving the ivy.

: This picture is of a first pass, but you can see the finished ones underneath.

This is fun alone or with friends. It is much faster and easier when you have help, because often 3 or 4 hands are needed to make it work right. The structure is all done now, if a bit wobbly, and I am happy with the results.

If you don’t like old fashioned or rustic, it might not be your thing, but if you like free then it certainly is. There is more I can do here if I want. I can weave the other direction, making it sort of chain link. Or I can go diagonally from post to post, making a diamond pattern. Or I can decorate it, which is what I am doing. So far I have added on some ivy with leaves, and I am going to put on bows and maybe some white holiday lights.

Last Harvest

November 9, 2011 ~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

Today might be the last big harvest.

Leaves are dying and a frost is expected this week. I still have dozens of tomatoes and pepper on the plants and I have not decided how to deal with that. I could pick them all green and let them turn red inside over the next few weeks. I could try covering the plants with blankets and hope for the best. I have heard that pulling the plants up and then hanging them upside down can allow the tomatoes to grow a bit more and ripen better, but I don’t think that is practical. Some of the plants are about 6 feet tall and about half as wide. I can’t imagine being able to move them and hang them with out damage.

The Garden is over. Sure I have several winter crops that should do fine with a light frost; carrots, cabbage, peas, lettuce and lots of herbs. But those don’t feel quite the same. The high point of the garden is red ripe tomatoes, beans that make loud cracking noises when you break them, big messy bunches of wild flowers, and a canopy of sunflowers (they got cut down months ago, so I am over that lose). Gone are the things I have to climb under to harvest, the plants that I can hide behind if I don’t want to be engaged by my neighbors. I guess it all makes sense, winter is the time to pull in, stay close to home and rest. And given how hard my little piece of perfect worked this year it deserves the break.

Selfish

July 8, 2011 ~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

Pulled in so many directions, chained to ideas and people.

Drawn and quartered, falling to pieces. Bloody meat in the sand.

With these shackles, what do you know of freedom?

Can you paint me a picture with your hands bound? Can sing me a song with your Bluetooth attached?

Who do you belong to? Not yourself; please don’t lie. You are a slave to an idea that is not your own.

You work your job with no love and no passion. You go everyday and wish you felt proud. You don’t, but you do.

You read your New Age inspiration; you dream yourRockyMountaindreams.

Then you see a trust-fund baby holding up a stupid sign.

“This is your life” is says, and you cringe. You want to stop reading. You want to find truth in this whitebread, neo-hippy crap.

You want to be one of those thin pretty girls, who are so happy with their $100 a week yoga habit and their raw food diet. You want to talk to them, but they don’t even know you are there. You want to be so rich that it is ok to be poor.

“If you don’t like something change it.”

You look at your life, and start counting all the things you would change. And then all the money it would cost, and all the hours it would take. You sell your life by the hour. You sell your inspiration at a bargain rate.

“If you don’t like your job, quit it.”

And eat what? And live where? Who will help you when you are hurt and hungry? Who will be there when you are strung out and alone?

“Open mind, passion, travel.” Painful words, hurtful words. Unless you are a bird.

“Life is short.”

Shorter for me than you; hours wasted in a box. Those who are imprisoned always seem to deserve it to those who are free.

“So go out there and start creating, live your dreams and share you passion.”

You steal a few minutes from your master’s clock, and you create. You squeeze your dry old soul, looking for a single drop of life, so you can give it away. There is no pleasure in your passion, no joy in creation. Only release. Only anger, only hate. Only the giving.

Don’t. It is better to keep your creations to yourself, to look at them in solitude and know that you burned. To remember that you were. Hide them in darkness; view them by the light of single candle. No wants them anyway, but if chance allows your words to be read the unthinkable could happen. Someone, somewhere could find meaning in your art. Or pleasure in your song. Or joy in your creation. And if that happens, you lose your soul as well.

Joy in a Suburban Homestead

June 3, 2011 ~ Kitty ~ 1 Comment

The time I spend working on my garden is precious. From planning to harvest, each stage gives me new pleasure and challenges. Every year I experiment with new varieties and placement, new structures and supports.

One of my favorite changes this year is the bean tunnel. It is made of livestock panel and some metal fence posts. The idea is for the beans to climb up it, making this pretty covered tunnel that I can hide in. Having a small yard in a dense neighborhood means very little of my yard has the private solitary feel that I like from a garden, and also almost no shade. The bean tunnel is an attempt at making private space, no matter how small. So far I love it. The beans are growing exactly like they should with almost no help from me. The ones climbing are mostly rattlesnake (Bountiful Gardens seeds), a very tender purple spotted bean with great flavor. We grew it last year and liked it, so we decided to do it again.

On the ground you will see black weed block. This is also new this year. My front yard was all grass when we moved in. And no matter how hard you try, grass is resilient. I think I work harder killing all my grass than anyone in my neighborhood does keeping theirs a creepy green color all year long. This year Erik had the idea to hoe up the first few inches of grass, staple down weed block and then cover with something. The something you see here under the tunnel is rubber mulch. I got it because it is recycled, rather pretty, lasts forever and nothing is going to grow in it. The downside is that is sucks to walk on with bare feet. The other option I tried, which you can see to the left, is sand. Feels great on the feet, and not likely to get things growing in it. But it will wash away over time.

SAM_0028 — Specially trained attack tomatoes

Speaking of structures, a new one is called for with these tomatoes. They have bent this support and are about to take it down. Tomorrow I am going to take some more livestock panel and make something to put around them that might be a little more sound. While I am at it, all the other tomato plants which are still pretty small might as well get the same treatment. Lots of volunteer tomatoes this year, there is a one under the sunflowers that looks to be a roma of some type.

I am using the biointensive method, with increasing success. My lettuce and radish area is just about perfect – almost no space at all between these plants. That means no weeds, no mulch, and great water retention. The idea is to make a mini-ecosystem under a group of plants. I have found that growing close makes for much healthier plants, and that some plants like radishes will not even grow if too far away from others of their kind. I need to eat all of this very soon. With the super high temperatures (mid-90s everyday this week) lettuce is about to bolt, which will not be good eats.

Companion planting is fun, sort of like a game. For the last few years I have been trying to get nasturtium and squash both growing at the same time, with no luck. I killed every nasturtium I planted. Which was sad, because I thought they would be pretty. And they are! This year they are finally working. I have three plants living, one each red, yellow and orange. Which is odd, because the seed package shows red, and I have always heard they are red. I am happy they come in more than one color. I like surprises like that. I hope having the nasturtium helps with squash bugs. Summer squash is one of my favorite foods when fresh. Last year was a real disappointment for squash. Between squash bugs, mexican bettles (tricksy bastards) and not enough water, we got maybe 2 meals worth of squash all season.

Here are the two great friends- yellow squash and nasturtium. The leaves of the nasturtium are almost as pretty as the flowers. This plant looks like it either came from the past and was a favorite of dinosaurs, or else from an alien world. No, I don’t know why I feel that way, I just do. I have an active imagination. Oh, fun thing about my squash. I planted the seeds of several kinds at random, so until they have fruit I don’t know what they are. This one is yellow straight neck. One of the others is getting its first fruit and it looks like it might be a pattypan of some kind.

Sometimes I look at my tiny yard and I long for the future, when I will have a real farm with all the garden space I could ever want, with chickens and cows, and an evil mule. But most of the time I am happy with what I have. I am learning each plant’s likes, dislikes and needs on an intimate basis. Each plant is special. With a small garden I can take the time to care for them one at a time. Also, a suburban homestead is a nice step. A 5-acre plot might overwhelm me. I might run around like crazy planting things at random, wanting to use it all, and making a big mess. With my small plot I have to really think about how I am going to use every foot. Until I started this garden I always thought of growing my own food as efficient, self-sufficient and utilitarian. Having a garden in the front yard as taught me that a garden can also be a beautiful work of art.

Navigating by Star Light

May 23, 2011 ~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

“My fault, my failure, is not in the passions I have, but in my lack of control of them.” -Jack Kerouac

My future is the galaxy. No up or down, wrong or right, space in every direction. I turn my eyes to a specific light, like Hubble searching space clouds, zooming in. I fly towards my star. Light speed or impulse. Moslty moving. faster, slower. Meteorites and alien life stop me, new things to do, new people to learn, to be. The dreams of others like rocket ships crossing my path. So often the traffic laws must be obeyed, I have to obey the right of way. The right of your way, to your destination. But I fly, not straight ahead, but zig-zag. Stopping to pick the Andorian fire flower, or shake hands with the leader of Beta 3. I eat the crunchy tri-colored culture like a starving beast. And then I continue on. Sometimes my ship is rocking, party on the inside. Sometimes this tin can is cold and lonely, my screams pinging of the metal walls. The readout changes as the star date increases. I am getting closer the computer says as I beg for data over and over in the endless night. But that light is never as bright in my dreams. Never as close as the longing.

Belly Dance Week 1

January 24, 2011 ~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

So I figure I should put dance stuff on this blog, since it is about things I make and create. It was hard to decide if it should go here or my other one. My other blog is more about what I am doing and how I feel about those things. So it would make sense to go there because it is something social that I am doing, and dance is a way to express myself. But it is also an art and a practice. So here is where it will live. .

I am taking classes at Pera. They have really nice floors. I know that is a strange thing to notice, but I like the color and the smoothness, the way they felt on my feet. Most places I have taken dance classes the floors are either all beat up or made of weird hard rubber feeling stuff. I wonder how long Pera has been around to still have such nice floors.

Most of the class was spent working on taxeem. There were only a few students so the class ended up going slow to accommodate me. This is great because the personal attention means I am getting my money’s worth. This was not so great, because I felt like I suck and am never going to get this. So, this is how taxeem works: you are standing in the belly dance position (knees bent a little, tummy sort of tucked up, shoulders back) and then you do something like a figure 8 with your hips. Not front to back, instead up and down. You drop the right hip then raise it. Drop the left then raise it. Repeat. The leg of the hip being dropped should have little or no weight on it. That was where I keep messing it all up. For some reason I wanted to put all my weight on the bending knee. I am going to practice doing this everyday this week so next week the teacher does not have to keep teaching it to me. The teacher seems great, really nice. I just hope the next 4 weeks are not spent trying to get me to do taxeem correctly.

We also worked some on a sort of flamenco looking hand thing (forgot the name). It should be done with taxeem, but I could not do both together. We did some snake arms near the end, ATS snake arms are very different than the ones I have done before, more controlled. My biceps are killing me just from doing maybe 10 minute of arms. But that is good; I love sore muscles, they remind you that you are alive and you just did something wonderful. Sore muscles are almost always the result of doing something I love or I am proud of.

The plan is to do these next 4 classes and then do the next session, and the next. I think if I can stick with this it will be something I get a lot of pleasure out of.

Growth in the midst of winter

March 2, 2010 ~ Kitty ~ 2 Comments

Word is there will be snow today, but I think this should be our last wave of cold weather, so the little plantlings will be outside soon, so they can grow big and strong.

Here they are two weeks after going into the flats.

The onions are ready to go out now, but I don’t have a bed prepared yet, I hope they can hold out for a few weeks. It will be so interesting to see how the celery grow. Looking at the little plants, I can’t figure it out. I guess I could look it up, but I don’t want to spoil the surprise.

Last night I added lettuce and sunflowers to the flat. So the first flat is full. This weekend I am going to fill up the next 3 flats and then I will have all my seeds except the few (carrots, radishes) that I am going to broadcast.

I am doing something new this year, testing the soil. I have never felt this was nessacarry, and have taken a survival of the fittest approach. But I was reading a book on growing berries, and it talked about how important it is to know what your soil is like to make good choices about where to plangt, and how to prepare beds, that I figured I would give it a try. I gathered one sample yesterday from the front yard. The way this works is you dig little holes about 6 inches deep in 5 to 8 random spots of your growing area. From each of those holes you cut a slice from the side with a trowel, trying to get about the same sample amount for each depth. You put all these samples in a clean plastic bowl (don’t use metal) and mix it up. Once well mixed you put it in the little bag, take it to your extension office, and they send it off for testing. I will do the same thing in the rose garden tomorrow and then drop them both off. I am doing this a little late so it might not be helpful to my planting, but it will be interesting to know.

Yesterday I also set up an area in front of the living room windows to grow a wild flower/butterfly garden. I think the kittens will get a kick out of it. Those are their favorite window to sit it. This turned out to be a much more dangerous task than you would think, I tripped and got a very minor sprained ankle. It would have been funny recorded. I was walking, and then I was on the ground, with a little squeaky scream. My back was towards the walk way, so I put one put one arm behind me, and rested my head in my hand, all comfy looking. So by the time Jeff ran over to check on me, I was relaxed looking and said “Oh, I meant to do that, just needed a rest, right then” We also found a giant black widow. I don’t mind that they want to live here, but could they maybe hang out not on my plants (last year I picked one up on accident) or in my garden. Yesterday’s big girl was inside the hallow fake gray rocks that made up my front garden boarder. I was moving them to the butterfly garden. She was pretty sleepy from the cold, so she did not run out of it and bite us. Sadly, I made the decision to kill her. I did not kill the one I found last year. Our next door neighbors have a three/four year old, and I worry about her being outside and getting bit. I am pretty sure that if Puck, Jeff or I got bit, we would be able to go to the hospital and live, but I don’t know about a little kid, and I did not have time to go research it. I will research that today, so I can make a better decision next time.

Seeds!!

February 6, 2010 ~ Kitty ~ Leave a comment

Seeds

Originally uploaded by Kittyavatar

We got the first part of our seed order today, more than half of what we will be planting. I am so excited, too bad it is still cold and rainy, but I am sure the spring will be coming soon.

There is still lots to do. We need to make our flats before we can start the seeds. (Tomatoes Feb.15, everything else March 1) Then while they are going we need to figure out for sure where we want the gardens, dig them and make some raised beds. We are doing a hybrid of in the ground and raised, because our soil is very poor (if we can afford all the supplies).

Our Burpee seed order should arrive in a few days, and our live plant order will not be here until mid-march. We ordered some wonderful flowers and berries, for the rose garden in the back yard. I hope it is all looking lovely in time for the wedding.