Posession

With our internet connection lately you’d think we had bike pedals under the desk and that if you didn’t go fast enough the whole thing would conk out on you, as it does, all too often.

That’s okay because blogging on a back burner totally suits my new lifestyle which is to be a warrior for the greater good of my plants, fighting aphids and slugs and whatever else makes it way into my garden bed past the giant FEE-FI-FO-FUM sign I have planted there. Beer is working well. Or at least it was until a a few days ago, and then quite suddenly for no reason I had no slug carcasses in my morning collection plates. I’m not sure why they all climbed back on the wagon but maybe it was the sight of their bloated families lying in those pretty glass dishes by the tomato plants, hmm.

Another remedy suggested by a blog friend was to put crushed egg shells around the plants, but you have to bake an awful lot of cakes and quiches to circle one plant. Six eggs only made a demi tour around my mint and I have at least twenty other plants to circle. Someone else suggested marigolds but the slugs ate up them like they were parked at a 4,20 euro salad bar which really pissed me off. Now I’m left with 10 embarrassing little stumps, no heads or leaves (but apparently the roots in the soil are what sends out the invasion message which is NO consolation believe me) . The latests tip is circling the plant with cinders and we have a lot of that from burning all our wood cuttings so I’ll give it a try. This is another old timer’s trick and those usually work well.

Speaking of which…

I’ve inherited a lot of overgrown roses and what folks around here tell me is that Little old Lady was passionate about roses and bought them all the time. Part of her roserie is now our driveway expansion, oops but I did convince Seb to spare a few of them and to help me replant by the front fences . They’re straggley but showing hope and I keep pointing to the smoking wood pile when I talk to them (yes, I’m kooky…) reminding them how close they are to being sent to the fires. Roses are very dramatic so the move and *gasp* the sight of the fire has them all aflutter fanning their little faces. I suppose I need to learn more about how to care for them and I can’t help thinking of the Little Prince whenever I have that in my head.

Back to what I was saying, … I remember seeing an episode of A Haunting where a dead woman invaded the personality of the new owner and the woman started doing these strange things like wearing old flowered dresses and baking apple cinnamon cakes whereas before she was this high stepping career woman banker or something, I don’t remember. There may be something similar going on here as I’ve taken up drawing again with a vengence and the roses, I can’t stop thinking about how to get them to grow better and how I can make a new roserie. And the preocupation with slugs, I’m pretty sure Little old Lady had a case of it too because living here how could you not. Is there not a market somewhere in the world for French slugs?

So yes gardening, gardening, gardening and more gardening! I’m ob-sessed.

Flower fairies of the spring

The wildflowers in the garden are charming, --growing along the fence, pushing their way up through prairie grass, hiding in the shadows under bushes. We have a few books for identifying them and they're really fun to draw and add watercolors to later. I love learning about them.

There's a fun series of books by Cicely Mary Barker called Flower Fairies, maybe you already know it? These books have been around for a long time and I'd nearly forgotten about them until I saw them at the library a few weeks ago.



They've got some really sweet poems and pictures but they're also helpful in identifying common flowers and plants each season and great for getting little ones interested in seasons. Little S loves it when we find a fairy flower from the book because then he gets to see the picture of the fairy who lives there and go out and look for it. It's so cute to see him peeking under rocks for them with a really concentrated expression on his face.

The Flower Fairies offical site.

Popcorn and movies

Everything is going crazy blooming in our yard and I'm amazed to go out and find trees growing wild right in the middle of the garden. If anyone needs some trees in the area we have a veritable nursery here. We try to move them when we can but they just shoot up wild, maples mostly. They seem to really like our soil. That picture just above is is of something called lesser celandine and little yellow flowers are growing everywhere this week out of the foliage you see in that photo. The top picture is an almond tree, or at least I think it is. I'm not sure because it's really small, another border plant I plan on "adopting" before the new neighbors come, shhh don't tell!

The in-laws came on Sunday and had lunch which was nice but our heater ran out of fuel the night before, oops! so it was a little chilly. I can't believe it ran out again. Not the winter to buy an uninsulated house! Anyway mil was a little sour which this time at least I could forgive her for. When we asked her if she was cold she said "I'm dealing with it," in that snippy voice I know she uses when something isn't quite right. I did feel bad for them coming all this way and being in a cold house. We had a fire so it wasn't that cold in the lower part of the house but I could see she was thinking that we have his problem all the time and we couldn't have convinced her otherwise. We have great radiators in the house, huge cast iron ones from the last century and we have a fire nearly every night so usually it's very warm in our house. The timing was just really bad for running out of fuel.



The fuel truck is coming tomorrow though so we'll fill the heater again. It's the third time in six months!



Vacation for the kids starts on the 11th at the end of next week and we're trying to plan some things for us to do, or at least I am. I just found out that Seb is going to China for two weeks and those two weeks are the vacation time, sigh. He was somehow thinking in some twisted logic that I'd actually prefer him gone during the kids vacation, not thinking about the fact that 24-7 with two small kids would be hard alone. Since I just found out a few days ago I flat out asked mil while they were here what they were doing for the two week break but they have the other grandkids one week and I felt that she was still bitter about -The Incident- so I didn't push it. Seb told me not to ask because he doesn't want to feel obligated so I feel really caught in a web I've woven myself. It would be nice if they came for two days and then took the kids off on a jaunt for an overnight trip, or at least Little S. I thought about suggesting it but given the tone of the afternoon and Seb's darty eyes I thought I'd better come up with other plans.

So I'm trying to find a short two nighter thing we can do so we aren't trapped in the burbs for two weeks solid. All my neighbors will be gone so the town will likely be dead. We'll do a chateau or two or maybe even a day in Paris but I'd really like to go away for a few days on the train, someplace I've never been. If anyone has any idea of what a good, little Spring break destination is with kids in Europe (has to be quite the last minute deal and not too far off the beaten path) please tell me about it. Or hey while I'm thinking of it, if anyone is bored and wants to come for an overnight or weekend stay I'm taking reservations for the two weeks. And to sweeten the deal we're definitely going to buy this machine and charge it to Seb's company so please come and bring popcorn and movies!

I'm serious.

Neighbors

Our apple trees are getting ready to bloom, all except one lone guy who seems doomed for the wood pile. In fact all the trees look pretty sparse. The one in the photo? That's the healthiest one.

Maybe they just need some care. I'm not the best with fruit trees and I think maybe they don't like me so much either. One of them bailed out in the winter windstorm we had in January. I think our soil is too wet. In the photo you can see the powdery mildew on the branches. I'm no tree expert but that can't be a good sign. I imagine they will just slowly die off unless we can find a better way to drain the soil.

I don't imagine any arborists are reading my blog but if there is one, help me save my trees!

Yesterday over a group mommy coffee session I learned that they sold the house next door. That sure was was fast. We just heard the negotiations on Saturday and by Tuesday the news is already out. You've got to love small towns. I imagine that it just means that the offer was accepted but still I'm excited because we'll have neighbors and the house will get saved. There's nothing sadder than an old abandoned house and a scrappy yard. And we really have no visible neighbors around us, unless you count the couple in the gated house who are divorcing (rumor has it they´ve divided the house in half, War of the Roses style pending the sale). The house behind us is our most accessible and most neighborly.

I grilled Seb about who saw the house on Saturday. There seemed to be lots of visits and he couldn't remember much from his dugout post in the basement. I just hope they're nice. My in-laws have these horrible neighbors who are suing them for having put up a small laundry line in their backyard last Summer. They have a mental anguish claim against them for over 2,000 euros and they're likely to lose too, something about a clause in the homeowner's association and grandfathering in old laundry lines or something stupid. If you knew my in-laws and knew how anally NEAT they are about their yard (well, everything in fact), you would be shocked that anyone could get away with such a claim. They spend hours in their yard trimming, edging and mulching. The whole thing is out of hand and now apparently fil has a counter-claim because the neighbor has been spraying him with a hose each time he goes in the backyard to water. It kind of makes me worried that we'll have those kinds of neighbors. If people can get out of sorts to the tune of over 2K over laundry lines then I suppose dirt piles could cause heart attacks.

I just hope these new people will be nice, -an older couple not too fuddy duddy who love kids or a family like us with small children. Or maybe, better yet an arborist with small kids. I can dream right?

Springtime!

The first signs of Spring are arriving everywhere in my back yard and what an exciting time. I don't know any of the plants yet, not sure what bulbs are stuck in the ground and I'm trying to quickly decide what to move, cut and keep. Each day there's a little surprise outside the door when I walk past the garden beds that haven't been tended in thirty years or more. We live in such a gardener's paradise.

We had the vernal equinox yesterday afternoon. Wildflowers are in bloom everywhere, the cherry tree is budding, the roses are shooting leaves and colors are beginning to pop out everywhere in our little village--yellows, pinks and white. What's in bloom in your backyard or neighborhood today? Make sure you take a walk with your camera and find out.

Have a wonderful first day of Spring everyone!

Lost

We we're really productive and we got a ton of things done this weekend, not that I'm bragging. Believe me most weekends I am lucky to get laundry hung out. This weekend though we finished the plaster repairs in our bedroom where huge chunks had fallen from the wall when we removed the wallpaper last month. At first we were worried because we thought all the walls were falling down until we realized that in both places there was an old conduit --one for the chimney and the other for the heating unit downstairs and the plaster was old and weak in those places.

Plaster is really difficult but I thinks we've mastered it. We worked as a team with me making the batches (a lot of small batches because you don't want too much at one time) and Seb doing the actual filling. While I mixed plaster he sanded the walls and then he'd run over and do the filling when I told him it was ready. At the end of the weekend not only did we have the plaster done but we were ready to start thinking about wallpaper and paint. I can't wait until we have one complete room finished in the house.

We also worked in the yard a lot because it was such beautiful weather and we couldn't resist going out every hour or so to cut something or rake some leaves. Sometimes when one of us comes in after being gone for an hour on any given weekend these days we will explain to the other apologetically"oh yeah, I got lost in the garden..."


It's not a bad thing and the other person knows exactly what you mean because the garden is extremely seductive and wonderful. I got lost for 45 minutes on Saturday pruning roses! I found these fabulous pruning shears that are just like a pair I own but that are in storage and I was so excited that I had to go immediately and cut the brambles ! So getting lost in the garden on the weekend around here is totally normal.