You're Anal If...

A beautiful rainy day in early fall/late summer. What better day to do something anal like fall clean cupboards. Take all the dishes out. Load dishwasher with all the dishes I haven't used in several months. (Why am I keeping those dishes, anyway?) Wipe down shelves, doors and trim. Sort and clean spice bottles. Put them back in alphabetical order --- nothing anal about me at all!

Waterfront Property

Everyone has waterfront property. What we put on our lawns and what builds up in our curbs eventually ends up in our lakes and rivers. The leaves in the curb leach phosphorus that runs through our sewer systems and on into our waterways. Our city helps by cleaning the streets often. We can help by watching our curbs and doing a bit of clean-up ourselves. It rained cats and dogs today. Here's what has collected at my curb and sewer inlet.

Small Is What I Got

Small is what you get if you don't thin your crop.  We seeded too many and then didn't have the heart to toss the little guys out.
Tonight we're going to have 25 little carrots for dinner.

There's more to this veggie gardening than meets the eye. You either thin carrots as they grow or as you eat them! Is there a life lesson here?

Times Are Changing

 

Times are changing.  Gardening now includes eatables.  In my son-in-law's backyard, we built 7 boxes and are veggie gardening in raised beds.  Here's a picture of our Swiss chard.  Isn't it lovely?

Some thing we're learning:

1.  Veggies are meant to be harvested.  In my flower gardening days, I seldom picked.  I like the flowers where they are planted.  Not so with veggies.  

2.  How many tomatoes and zucchini can you really eat without getting tired of them?

3.  Thinning is important.

4. Spacing is an important skill.

Are we excited about our veggie garden?  You bet.  Will we do it next year?  You bet.  And next year we will be more experienced and better veggie gardeners.

Copper and Brass -- Lovely Metals!

In December I polish metals -- copper and brass.  It's a messy business but I love every piece I have and that makes the chore a labour of love.

The samovar above is one of my favourite pieces.  At well over a hundred years, it still looks good.  It came to me in Moscow via one of the Russian drivers at the Canadian Embassy.  I have a feeling it has mix and match parts but everything seems to fit so there it is.  I've had it (and cleaned it) for 40 years.

Now, a week before Christmas, all the metals have been cleaned and polished, from the copper kettles in the kitchen to the podstakanniks on the hall stand.  A little bit of gleam for the holidays.  They will all look nicer after a few weeks when they begin to acquire a patina but the new shine is perfect for Christmas.

Is it worth the mess, the smell and the attack on my fingernails?  You bet!

Christmas Is Almost Here

Christmas is almost here.  I can tell because the buds are swelling on the Schlumbergera  (Christmas Cactus).  My Christmas Cactus is an old variety.   It’s one of the Christmas Cacti that has stem segments (phylloclades)  that do not have the pronounced points along the sides.  It’s probably Schlumbergera x buckleyi.  While I don’t have the original plant, my plant is a cutting of a cutting of a cutting of my grandmother’s plant. I inherited my first plant in 1976 and have periodically taken cuttings and discarded the mother plant in favour of a smaller one. 

This cactus actually blooms at Christmas and is getting ready to bloom as we speak.  I keep it in a cool room in my house and never, never move it once it has begun to set bloom.  The plant sits in light that is also perfect for African violets.

I used to summer the plant outside.  One year I almost lost it when forgot about it and left it outside after the first bad frost.  When it was brought in, all the stem segments shriveled and died but the main plant was OK and put out new stems.  There was no bloom that year but the plant lived to bloom again the next year.

After so many years, my Christmas Cactus is an old friend.  I get a feeling that all’s right with the world when the Christmas Cactus blooms.

More, Please.

Walmart provides us with a condensed picture of consumerism.  Each Walmart store coaxes us to think we need the plethora of manufactured stuff on its shelves.  Each cheap ( but not so environmentally cheap) item is produced offshore and shipped to North America to satisfy our hunger for more and for new.

Where does it end?  Does it end when we have pulled from the earth all that we can and have emptied back onto the earth the remnants of all that we have ever had.   Or does it end when we say “no” to any more stuff.  “Shop ‘til you drop” used to be funny.  Now it is macabre.