Various and Sundry

Just some miscellaneous thoughts and photographs.

Breakfast. Home-grown eggs, cheddar cheese, cranberry relish. We've discovered this again this year, and it's become a favorite. Put a bag of cranberries and a peeled orange into a food processor. Pulse until ground to your liking. Add up to 1/2 c sugar and enjoy! We like a half cup or so with a large dollop of Greek yogurt and maybe a sprinkle of granola. It's replacing the boat-o-ice cream we used to eat at night, and, shockingly, we aren't missing the ice cream.




Pink Flamingo. Sometimes you just have to give in and get girly!



Two-week-old mixed greens seedlings, transplanted into a window box. Their younger sisters will be started later today.

Hope Springs Eternal!!

I am embarrassed to say how many times I have tried starting lettuce to grow inside, only to see it languish and die. It's just so doggone expensive, and I would love to have a flowerbox or two growing in my breezeway, under lights. So I tried again today.



I planted 5 greens; Bibb, spinach, two romaines and Tango leaf lettuce. They should make wonderful salads. So should have the lettuces from all those other times...

But I'm not giving up. Not this time.

Gardening Successes

I'm not the most technical gardener in the world. (Wow. I have become the Mistress of Understatement!) I love to plant and grow things, and that's about where it begins and ends. I want plant X to grow where I plant it, not that I plant it where it will grow best. I've spent a lot of money and made a lot of mistakes over the years.

I am getting better. I've had a few little successes in the past year or so, things I am kinda proud of. Because of the weather, I'm going to share a few of my indoor gardening successes. I would appreciate it if those of you whose mad gardening skills far outstrip mine would just encourage me. I don't mind a little teasing about how excited I am about these little things, but telling me, "Well, honey, I did that in my teens" would just quash my little gardening personality, OK? Thank you.

My Christmas cactus decided to bloom. Again. Two years in a row. I rock.






My orchid, which I bought in bloom and managed to keep in bloom for 2 months or more, is, well, looky here!



Can you see it? I admit, the picture is of the notsogood variety. But my orchid is reblooming! I told myself that, if I could get it to do that, I would get myself another orchid. I really like them, so, off to the store I'll go. It'll have to live there, behind the sofa, with my African violets. Those I've been able to keep in bloom for a long time, by top secret methods. (Ignore them, watering only when they wilt. Seems to work for me, as long as they're in a north or east window.) (So much for top secret.)

I also managed a wifely coup. Last year sometime, I asked for a shelf to be installed along our east living room window. I put plants there during the winter months, and there's a grow light there as well. I've been able to keep plants healthy that way. Well, late last winter, Mr. Jip and Miss Skye got all excited about someone knocking on the door right outside that window, jumped up on the shelf, and tore it out of the wall. This weekend, I convinced John that he wanted to re-install that shelf. It needed to be done, as the plants need a home and the Christmas tree lives just in front of the shelf. So, in order for the tree to go up, the shelf had to go in. I'd show you a picture of the shelf, too, but Blogger is not letting me.

So much for my mad skills. Puny little gardening ones. Miniscule photography ones. Minor computer ones. Guess I'll go get more coffee. That I can handle!