Lesser Homes and Gardens

 Dear Creative Chicks,

As the sign above implies, I have been spending my blogging time working out in the yard or recovering from working in the yard. Anybody know a massage therapist who comes to your house, rubs muscles you haven't used since this time last year and accepts payment of withered tomato plants?  Me either.

Why isn't yard work an Olympic Sport?  It is strenuous, time consuming, requires lots of specialized equipment and Lord knows, it is competitive.  Oh come on, surely you have committed lust in your heart for the yard down the street that has all that stuff blooming when yours looks like Mother Nature is in a snit or pouting because you haven't spent years of trial and error and thousands of dollars trying to charm her to bestow her bounty in your direction.

I will be the first to admit that I don't know squat about what I'm doing. What I do know is that squatting for more than minutes at a time may be my undoing.  If you see me in one position for very long, it is only because I don't have the Olympic skills to stand upright.  I would hire a trainer but I don't know any who accept packages of zinnia seeds in payment.

Hugs,

Ida Clare Summer is here!

Summer has arrived in Big Thicket.

“Don’t you have more to write about than just the weather?”

Frankly no.  Summer starts here way before the calendar makes it official and ends just after Halloween.  That’s why in all our Halloween photos our witch make-up has puddled around our ankles.  And you thought that was witches brew.

Summer here is like a relative that you were anxious to see come to visit but then overstays her welcome until you want to move out of your own home and just leave it with her, if only you could.   Summer in Big Thicket comes with a big suitcase full of humidity, mosquitoes, fleas, red bugs, and canning.

When I first moved to Big Thicket, I tried to remain outside the loop, so to speak, of the canning circle.  After all, there is only me and my occasional roommate to feed, so why would I go to the trouble of putting something into jars that I can happily buy down at the supermarket in a can that has an expiration date of 2017?

Because it tastes better, it supports the local farming economy, and because people are hell-bent on giving you their excess produce; their plums, their okra, their berries.  And what kind of ungrateful wretch would I be to turn down food grown in the heat of summer that was sown, fertilized, hoed, nurtured, debugged, picked, washed, and delivered to you with a bedraggled look of desperation:

“Puleeze, take these squash, and I’ve got three rows of onions and the tomatoes are coming out of my ears.”

Well, if you insist.

Maybe summer won’t be so bad after all.

Have a creative week,

Ida Clare I love Nature!

Dear Creative Chicks,
It’s Happy Muse Day Again,

Inspiration can come from any where and if you ask many creative women what inspires them, they will answer “nature.” 

The natural world we live in is truly inspiring and hopefully will be here to inspire us for years to come if we as a species don’t screw it up.

You may or may have not have guessed that I am not one who loves to go out into nature and get my hands dirty.  I prefer to observe nature from the comfort of my artificially regulated environment which includes air conditioning, background music and an adult beverage of my choice as I admire God’s handiwork.

So imagine my discomfiture as it occurs to me that short of inheriting a small fortune or finding a “Yard Man” under my pillow, I am going to have to contemplate nature up close and personal by working in the yard.

Sigh.

What’s a creative chick who’d rather be eating cheese dip and reading trash fiction supposed to do? 

My neighbor Miz. Dot knows everything about working in the yard and since she has ten green thumbs and the beautiful yard to prove it, I’ve decided to take her advice and do one thing at a time so I don’t get overwhelmed. 

Now that the azaleas have stopped showing off, it is time to work on them.

So I decided to create a check list - one way of creatively procrastinating – Right?

So I have been attending the azaleas:
Prune.   Check
Dig out grass from around them.  Check
Bend handle of tiny shovel-trowel thingee that Miz Dot loaned me and has used for years.   Check
Replace tiny shovel-trowel thingee that Miz Dot loaned me.  Check
Buy industrial strength hatchet to chop San Augustine Grass.   Check
Worry about the bugs and worms and snakes that could live in the grass.  Check
Chop snake into tiny bits.  Check

Work too long sitting on ground so that I cannot get up without assistance.  Check
Find milk crate to keep at side at all times to use to get up without assistance.  Check
Have garden fantasy and decide to make flower bed bigger.   Check
Go into the woods to dig topsoil for flowerbed.  Check
Worry about lions and tigers that might live in the woods.  Check
Learn with relief from Miz Dot that lions and tigers don’t live in the woods in Big Thicket.  Check
Shovel dirt into flower bed.  Check
Have trouble getting out of bed next morning.  Check
Become obsessed with finishing project.  Check
Google stuff on internet about putting pine needles around azaleas.  Check
Go into the woods and collect pine needles.  Check
Worry that pot growers and meth labs could be in the woods in Big Thicket  Check
Sneeze, wheeze, wipe nose on shirt tail.   Check
Search medicine cabinet arsenal for allergy medicine with "sell by" date in this century.  Check
Fight with fire ants.    Check
Treat ant bites.     Check
Wow, getting a little suntan on arms.  I like this.   Check
Crap.  Developing tan line at wrist where gloves stop.   Not liking this.  Check
Fix supper exhausted.  Check
Eat supper while lying head on table.  Check
Stand under shower till water runs cold.  Check
Fall asleep at computer answering emails.  Check
Job incomplete.  Check
Start again tomorrow.  Check

I hope that you won’t be discouraged by my check list.  Some day I am going to be glad I pruned the azaleas, but it will probably around this time next year.

Have a creative day. If you don’t hear from me for a while, you’ll know that I am probably trapped in the woods under a bed of pine straw waiting until the bears, meth dealers, or snakes go away.

Here are a few photos from my yard.  Remember this place was here before I got here and I haven't had time to kill everything yet.

Old fashion roses growing on old iron bedstead.

I want a garden bench to sit out here and smell the roses.

This trellis is a metal front porch post.  Love this.

This is the trellis up close.  Maybe gardening is worth it.

May the Muse be with you!