27 May 2015

Brown Thumb to Yellow-Lime Thumb

Alright I am not going to jinx myself by saying that I have a green thumb just yet but I am well on my way to a green thumb!  Check out the back yard!


Yes if you compare to other pics the grass has really filled in the back yard. There are still a few bare spots but we are gaining ground. All of my flowers are doing quite nicely as well :) You have no idea how happy I am this year with my garden. Mind you none of this would have been possible without all of the rain we've had this year.


You can see in this picture how much bigger all of my plants are and where the grass has really filled in the yard. Still have all of the stumps but hey I feel that what has been achieved compensates for the stumps. The front yard still has a lot of work that it needs and most of the plants are seedlings at the moment but as you can see there are a lot of blooms as well. The one with the pink flowers has survived many years of my neglect and now that it has full sun it is incredibly lush and beautiful. In the distance there you can see a row of plants growing at the edge of the neighbors grass - those are sunflowers! Yup a medley of stuff in the front yard but next year it will take on a more organized look. This year I wanted to clean it up and make sure that I made the major changes. I feel it has been achieved. 

Not fully green but approaching a yellow-lime color :)

12 May 2015

Brown Thumb

I am glad I chose a different career path than that of waitress, I would have starved to death. I cannot walk and carry a cup of coffee to save my life. I'm amazed some days I can tie my own shoes but then I remember that I can purify difficult membrane proteins and I am a little more forgiving towards myself. According to the brain there must be sacrifices made, carrying a cup of coffee is not the end goal. The brain is a little full of itself most days.

Speaking of the career path, today was a good day. I like days where I have neat results with beautiful images and it all makes sense. I'm trying out some new protocols this week and I'm a little hesitant to do them. I always feel like if I mess them up I'm wasting money, mainly because I am wasting a lot of money. However, failure in science can be our best friend but not always, sometimes it's just a colossal waste of time and modest loss of money.

In other news this weekend was a good one, as I have moved some of my yard projects along! As you can see the walkway is expanding and it is looking rather spiffy if I do say so myself. I had a few rosebuds this year, a whole decade and this rose bush has produced exactly 8 buds. Eight. Buds. Yup. This year it was going to be torn out but then I noticed the rosebuds and I gave it a 10th chance. I mean come on 10 years and this is the only time it bloomed! The rest of the garden is coming along nicely thanks to some lovely rain, OK not lovely because it was rather destructive. We had a really bad storm last week on Monday but that pushed my sunflowers through the ground in record time. It takes about 14 days to germinate with constant watering but that mini-monsoon we had got them there in less than 7 days! We're expecting another mini-monsoon tomorrow so hopefully that will help the other seeds I planted in the back. Today if weather permits I'm putting down some more seed, I just got my wildflower mixes! I'm excited because a lot are perennials and the annuals self-seed after the season is over blooming all summer well into fall. As for the backyard the moon has a bunch of seeds that should really benefit from the rain and the little fruit garden has all sprouted! I have lots of corn coming up, lots of watermelon, and lots of cantaloupe sprouting. I also added to chile plants to the set because the seed I had put down did not come up. This whole black thumb is looking significantly browner, who knows by the end of the summer it may be green.

04 May 2015

Satisfying

Life moves way too quickly in my opinion, even if it is sometimes beautiful to see it pass us by. I think that's why we never notice the passage of time, it's a beatiful tapestry. Then we look up and a decade has gone by or a year or an hour. Weird but I find it difficult to reconcile the years with the course of life sometimes. I'm sure everyone feels that way sometimes, if not all of the time. Why so philosophical? Well this month has the 1 year birthday of a good friends daughter (today actually! Happy Birthday A!) and my nephew's 5th birthday in a few days! My time goes by quickly. A little too quickly sometimes. I feel like he's still a baby and I am just thankful that he loves hugs, cuddles, and kisses. I feel bad for my sister sometimes, imagine how she feels seeing her baby grow up!

Cleared walkway.
Test run with mold.
Well besides contemplating my mortality, I have also been busy working on my yard and I have quite a bit of progress. The back yard is about as good as it's going to get but the front yard has been my main focus for the past 2 weekends. The backyard now has a sun and a moon, with tons of lovely fruits and grains coming forth. Yes for once I may not kill my whole yard! Let's not jinx myself and just put in the work. The front yard has had quite a transformation truthfully. A tree is gone, 3 bushes have been moved, sunflower seeds have been planted, bermuda grass seed was distributed in desired areas, and all weeds/crabgrass have been cleared! Well most of the yard has been cleared. I have maybe 10% that needs to be cleared but that is part of a larger project so that may take a few more weekends. I have cleared an area next to the walkway to make it wider and plan to place some lovely stones in the midst. I also created some drainage for the rain gutter. Moved more lemon balm into the area too. Love that stuff! Did a test run with the mold that I bought last summer and never used because volunteering. I was satisfied but i think I may have a friend or two help because that was a lot of work to mix and pour by myself. This is only part of what has happened in the past 2 weeks, there is so much more to do in the coming weeks but this weekend it will be temporarily halted because I have Mother's Day coming up. Yup been busy but happy about the progress. Although with all this work I will say I have not been good about doing the piano playing like I had promised. I may have to pace myself a little better. I will show a better picture as soon as I take one of the full yard.
Moon to the left; sun to the right.

Rain Gutter drainage.