Instead we all spent the afternoon in the garden, digging, rotivating, and planting! It was glorious.
View from on top on the pile of mulch, just up the driveway from the veggie garden entrance.
View of everyone else working!
Darling Daughter's little patch of heaven!
And a view from near the house, looking the other way...
So far we've planted potatoes, dahlia tubers, dahlia seed, gerbera seed, a climbing rose, a celeriac seedling and celeriac seeds, mixed heirloom beetroot seeds, leek seeds, spring onion seeds, and mixed heirloom carrot seeds plus lots of rhubarb, bergamot and plenty of asparagus. Darling Daughter has the climbing rose in her garden bed: she reminded us this morning that for YEARS we've been promising her a garden bed of her own and so today was the day! After Daddy rotivated it we dressed it with Dynamic Lifter and fresh soil, then I helped her to plant four strawberry plants, a speedwell, some flower seeds and heirloom carrots and lettuces. And in her own inimitable way the carrot seeds were sown thickly in the shape of her name (thinnings will go down well with the guinea pigs, we reckon) and lettuces were arranged in a heart shape. It's a creative approach that I hope I share since I'm planting flowers cheek-by-jowl with the vegetables partly so that the garden looks lovely and - there is a pragmatic reason too! - to attract pollinators, of which we have few judging by the fact that I had to hand-pollinate all our cucumbers, watermelons and pumpkins. Future plans include a hive of stingless native bees.
No, not a vegetable
And yes, unusually for me (I'm known as a bit of a Luddite) I've also been seduced by technology in the form of my new Windows phone. I don't like having to have a new mobile phone (it seems very wasteful and recycling facilities for gadgets in Australia is still in its infancy), but since we don't have a functional landline it's a necessity and especially at the moment since I've got prospective candidates for the Principal position at Darling Daughter's school phoning me at all hours to discuss their applications... Anyway, my old phone (top right) has been on the blink for a while: there's nothing more frustrating that phoning someone or being phoned and the connection going after 30 seconds. Repeatedly. It turned out to be a fault with either the phone or the SIM card, and as I was entitled to a "free" upgrade I took advantage and ended up with the LG phone you can see above.
We're a non-Apple household and I can almost hear my Apple-loving friends yawning since the number of apps etc. for Windows phones is probably a lot less than for i-phones, but bear with me: I've been having lots of fun downloading various favourite albums from our networked MediaCentre onto my phone, with the realisation that I could listen to Verdi on the headphones while sketching! I tend to view anything related to games, music or videos on any gadget in a very negative light: why would you want to be playing Plants versus Zombies when you could be drawing/thinking/meditating? But even I can see some value in being able to listen to decent music while doing something else... Yes, yes, I'm very sad, but also very excited.
Now what else do I have to do this weekend? Ah yes, that's right... I have to felt a pocket for my new phone. You can tell I'm a Steiner parent!
p.s. great news this week: there's a possibility that the Regional Gallery is going to acquire one of my paper works for their permanent collection... which was very nice to hear. Fingers crossed it happens.
4 comments:
Still shuddering at the thought of those pre-Apple days. Not a non-Apple piece of computer hardware left under our roof ... and no more blue screens of death and urges to throw hardware out of the window either!!!
But the garden looks great. Glad to see E is enjoying her plot. Do you remember ours in Bognor? Right by the compost heap!!
Ah yes, I do remember our little flower beds. Mine, I seem to remember, had heather growing in it, and a miniature rose, all on top of the dead hamsters and a dead sparrow (whose bones I dug up years later!). I don't remember being very interested. In fact, I didn't really get into gardening until dearest husband and I made a garden at our first home in Bristol. I think I'd signed up for an allotment veggie garden by the time Mum died, and it's been downhill (or more frequently uphill) since then.
oh your garden is putting mine to shame sara! in a couple of weeks time I've booked FP and the kids for MAJOR garden time (luckily its still a little too chilly here for full on spring season planting..... but the overgrowth here will take us WEEKS to control)
I prefer twiddling in the garden to almost everything else (including working in the studio)
I'm with you about idiot phone/internet games (heck we don't even allow commercial TV in this house!.... i think commercial TV is evil! EVIL I TELL YOU!!!! it sucks the individuality out of little kiddies and turns them into zombie consumers)... but I'm in serious love with my new i-phone - I couldn't complete so much of my work without it - its camera and associated bits are brilliant (you'll see me go to town when I go to Impact 7)
Well I congratulate you on allowing yourself to do the fun option. Life is far too short not to! Really!!
And while I wouldn't be parted from my iPhone after needing to be dragged kicking to get one, I'm glad you are happy with your new phone.
And best of all - great news about the possible-gallery-acquisition : I would keep my fingers crossed for you but there's too much work left to do on my BAO effort...
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