Finding Treasure in the Backyard

A few years ago I wrote a post about how I resonated with the lyrics of a country song: "The only ground I ever owned was sticking to my shoes."  My gardening has been limited to containers on the front porch.  While I have had fun with this container gardening, buying a house and therefore the dirt that goes with it opens a whole new world of possibilities.  And I am absolutely giddy about this.  

We looked at the house once before we signed the contract to buy it and that was in January.  Any yard in January just looks dull and brown.  The selling point for us at this house was the screened in deck so it was hard to look beyond that to the yard.  Since moving in a few weeks ago it has been fun to be a part of the transformation of spring.  For us spring has even more surprises since we have no idea what plants and trees we actually have.  My mother was very jealous of the flowering quince blooming next to the basement window.  I was sick right after moving in and loved lying in bed looking at the purple blossoms on the redbud tree outside our bedroom window.  Then we discovered the irises under the pine trees, peonies popping up, and the 2 lilac bushes in the yard-- jackpot.  

As I was poking around the lilac bush and daydreaming about backyard possibilities in my head I noticed a mushroom growing by the storm drain in the yard.  I hadn't seen a mushroom like this before so I called Arthur out to look at the beauty of nature in our backyard.  Then we realized that it is was a morel mushroom.  In our backyard.  To give some background info-- morels are highly sought after mushrooms because they are suppose to be delicious (if one were to enjoy eating fungi).  They grow in the area and mushroom hunters keep the locations they hunt top secret.  My former boss hunted morels and shared with an 85 year old patient where he finds them at.  A few weeks later he went hunting and found this patient there already there gathering the mushrooms.  Last week there were even a few people who took time off from work to spend the day hunting morels so it is a big deal in this area.  But we just stumbled over them in the yard.  Arthur is going to cook them up for dinner later in the week.

So now that I have a whole yard to garden in there are so many more possibilities.  We can plant potatoes or a few squash plants.  My blueberries can be plunked into the ground instead of being shipped home to my parents garage for the winter.  We can start a compost pile outside instead of the basement and maybe someday have chickens-- city ordinances allow up to 4 hens in a backyard.  Arthur did wander why I moved 3 bags of dirt to our new house if we have a yard full of our own dirt.  I informed him that it wasn't dirt but potting mix and we couldn't get that in the backyard.  Omnia Vincit Amor. 

After writing this we found another huge morel (and Arthur has big hands):

 

Back Porch Contemplations

Expounding on the contentedness one is experiencing while writing probably borders on braggadocios.   On the other hand, reflecting on the blessings of life is a valuable humbling experience.  So while I will attempt, dear reader, to avoid making a habit of it, please allow me the joy of describing the setting to this current post.

I am sitting with my feet up on our screened in back porch, feeling a gentle breeze and listening as the leaves rustle slightly with the sound.  I have just returned from a run (something of a rarity; I would be dishonest leaving you with the impression that I frequently do, but I have hopes of improving) which has left me with a nice muscle fatigue that makes sitting all the more pleasant and a cold shower that effectively cooled me down and left my mind feeling fresh and energetic despite a tired body.

The trees have really leafed out over the past week or so, and the bridal veil spirea is living up do its name, with small white flowers at the height of their glory.  A great fault of mine is I've never learned to identify bird songs; (a fault a hope to one day rectify) were I a capable naturalist this post would include a list of at least five bird species that are all working to serenade me.

Out in the yard, my dear Alex, so long confined to growing plants in her small containers, happily sets about tending to her own little patch of earth.  She has busily set about laying plans for our estate, and I am as excited as anyone to see where this leads.  Her research has been admirable; she is currently weighing the advantages of grass varieties, can tell you about plants that aid butterflies and birds, and is working through the pros and cons of different tree selections or removals in enough different configurations that advanced combinations is necessary for an adequate calculation.

Yesterday was something of a new experience for me as we worked to set some of the flower beds in order.  I have never pruned a rosebush before, and I walked away from the experience in decent shape; one small scratch on the side of my hand.  The yard had fallen into a certain amount of neglect in the years leading to our acquisition, it turns out trimming rosebushes is not high on the priority list of certain octogenarians.  I was shocked at how much I was instructed to trim away and halfway wonder if I killed the poor thing, but my wife assures me that such is the art of pruning.  It is pleasant now looking across at what we have accomplished together (and what Alex has accomplished by herself.)

Indoors, the houseplants are doing alright.  Clive, the Chinese evergreen you met in part 1, is suffering from a touch of edema, a condition where water and solutes build up in or around cells and cause blistering.  He is currently convalescing in our bedroom, hope being that some increased sunlight and warmer temperatures ease the affliction.  We expect a full recovery and a happy life.

Alex was given a generous budget plan for plants.  Certain studies I recently read have me convinced that the air filtering capabilities justify an ample supply around the house.  Gertrude the geranium sits downstairs next to the walkout entrance.  The way she cranes her leaves towards the light throughout the day certainly have the effect of making her look as though she longs to be put outside.  Alex has been rotating her to ensure even growth, and when I work down in the basement on a computer project she makes a comfortable silent companion.

Anyway, I just don't feel the desire to provide you with a narrative this week, dear reader.  The bliss of the present is so great I just wish to dwell on it.  Next time, hopefully my post will contain more action words.  'Till then, Omnia Vincit Amour.

Still Fortunate in the Storm of Moving

So things continue to slow down in our lives after the whirlwind of the past few months.  This means hopefully we will post a little more frequently on the blog.

About a month ago several of my friends got together to do our monthly Pinterest craft night.  Our projects for the evening included several sewing projects to make relief kits for refugees or those in natural disasters.  The Mennonite Central Committee gathers supplies to send all over the world when needed.  One of the projects was sewing drawstring bags for relief kits to be filled with hygiene items such as towels and wash clothes, soap, toothbrush, etc.  Our other project was making a comforter for bedding.  We were able to use a lot of scraps of fabric that we had from other projects or that have filled the sewing rooms of our mothers and grandmothers for years. The comforter even had a few pieces of material left from when my grandma made my baby blanket decades ago.  These projects were a lot of fun, although I may have had a few select words for my sewing machine since I haven't quite figured out how to use it.  We all decided that in the future we will be ready and almost excited about being the "older women" of the church that can dedicate such amounts of time to sewing projects for those who are in need.

The same week that we were working on these sewing projects I was in the middle of packing up all our worldly possessions to move.  I kept thinking about how different our situation was from a family that is forced to leave and take refuge for any number of reasons.  Many times they leave on a spur of a moment due to fighting reaching their neighborhood or it is no longer safe for members of their families since they are being searched for by the authorities.  When they pack up they can only take what they can carry and what they can pack in a few minutes.  They may not know where they are going or for how long.  Or if they will ever return to their homes.

As stressful as our move seemed-- and my husband informed me that we are not moving again-- it was good to keep it in perspective.  We both had employment and a way to make a living.  We had the funds to purchase a house for shelter.  We didn't have to choose what to take or leave behind.  We had a few trailers to haul all of our things.  We weren't running from anything or in constant fear for our lives.  How blessed we are in this process.  We were able to pack blankets and toothpaste and towels.  We might not have been able to find them but I knew I even had extras.  It is also a blessing to provide these items for some family at a time when they needed it most.  Omnia Vincit Amor.


The Mennonite Central Committee has an urgent need for hygiene and relief kits.  These are great projects for many organizations and the MCC has a warehouse in Newton where these items could be dropped off to be shipped around the world-- many right now are headed to Syria, Iraq, and the Ukraine.  Follow the links above for more information about the different kits that are needed as well as instructions for the sewing projects such as drawstring bags and comforters.

New Home, Part 1

Greetings faithful readers!  Your faithfulness in reading this past month has certainly not been met by an equal faithfulness by us in our posting, and for that we apologize.  However, I believe our absence is understandable in the changes of the last few months, changes that neither of us anticipated as recently as the first of this year.  I write this in a new town, in a new house, beside a new Chinese evergreen, with a new source of contentment, but shared with the same wonderful wife and the same thanksgiving to the same Giver of all good things for the love and help given by our collective families.

Our story goes back to mid-January, when my car was in need of a new fuel valve that put is out of commission for a couple days.  This issue was complicated by the fact that we both were commuting opposite directions and we had no alternative source of transportation.  Our crisis was averted due to the accommodation of my brother-in-law’s family, but it highlighted the tenuousness of our living situation, especially looking at future plans and goals.  Alex had been reading a great blog called MrMoneyMustache, which I highly recommend, and an article in it really convicted us about the cost our large commuting would have in the long term.  We both really loved our jobs, but two of the coworkers that Alex had worked with since she started moved on to other jobs, leaving her the most senior member of the team.  With their departure, Alex no longer felt the same strong ties to her job she felt before, and the opportunity was ripe for us to consider relocating.

Alex quickly found a job opening that was in a same “bedroom” community next to the city where I work, and she quickly fell in love with the position and location.  She accepted and we began house hunting.  The day of her interview, she had driven past a lovely house with a “For Sale” sign in the front yard, and the place quickly stood out to her.  We were able to schedule a viewing the following weekend with the owner, which we did after viewing four other homes with a real estate agent.  Alex’s dad actually texted after the last house with the real estate agent to see how things were going, and Alex responded with “Nothing has knocked of socks off yet.”  After viewing the house, Alex texted again, this time saying “Socks knocked off.”  

Problem solved, right?   Well, not really.  The house knocked our socks off, but the price stuck our socks right back on.  It took several conversations between ourselves, our parents, and our bank before we decided to place an offer on the house, an offer which was quickly turned down.  The owner gave us a counter proposal, but we had already discussed how much we were willing to pay, and while the gap between what we were willing to pay and what they were willing to sell for was in the end not all that big, I felt good walking away from the deal, happy knowing that we had a plan, we stuck to, and we hadn’t let temporary emotion overextend our resources. 

So we kept looking.  Nothing was looking like somewhere we saw ourselves.  I had started trying to come to grips with the idea that we were going to just have to accept that we weren’t going to get everything we wanted in a house, which felt really mature and wise.  I was comfortable enough with the idea that when the owner of the house we really wanted actually called us wanting to know if we still had any interest, I told him no.  The next day we went back to look at houses, this time with Alex’s parents to see what they thought.  We saw a new build that I originally had high hopes for, but quickly realized that there was a ton of hidden cost hidden in the package.  By the time we saw the next house, which was a perfectly nice house that the owners and done a wonderful job caring for, I was ready to shake hands right then and there.  Talking in the car later, I expressed this sentiment and my father-in-law quickly spoke up and said he thought we ought to really consider the house we really wanted again.

Now you have to understand something about my father-in-law: he doesn’t parse out advice in a freewheeling fashion.  He’ll let you come to your own conclusions and will really only intervene when he thinks you’re about to do something foolish.  So when he spoke up as quickly as he did, that made me rethink my position quite quickly.  Long and short of it is, we did call the owner of the house we really wanted back, negotiated a price we could both live with, and now I am sitting in our living room, listening to solo guitar as light streams through the window beside me, invigorating me and the Chinese evergreen.  We’ll have to tell you about the move and house upkeep next time, now I have to go get ready for a wedding.

For now, Omnia Vincit Amour!