Summer time

It's been a couple weeks since I posted, pretty quiet since the 4th of July.  We had a great day with family and friends.  We were a little late for the balloon launch, but we got there in time to see them fly.

We loved The Amazing Spider-Man

Sitting around gabbing 

The girls and I just made ourselves comfy while the boys had 
a good time setting off 'tons' of fireworks!  

My niece and daughter in law

We have lived in our home for over 20 years, my neighbors are not
only our friends but have become an extension of our family.

Our garden is starting to produce some yummy veggies, our first tomato and banana peppers arrived.  We are waiting for a couple more tomato's so we can enjoy a big fat BLT:

Utah is now in the dog days of summer, the heat has been so crazy over 100 degrees for multiple days.  The air doesn't seem to move.  
In our area of the woods this also means plenty of fires in the mountains, at one point we had fires on 3 of our mountain ranges, we actually had ash falling on us in our back yard.  Since then we have had a couple good  rain storms and I think all the fires are out now.

It looked like a volcano was going off, luckily no houses were lost in this fire.

Now that the grand kids have gone back to Georgia and the 4th is over I have been trying to decide what project I want to get started on in the house, the dreaded basement closet (still full of my boys 'stuff'), the garage (ugh to hot),  old family video's organized and digitally redone, the list goes on...

I also must admit I  have really enjoyed these last few months on my own schedule, with no job, but I am starting to look around and throw my resume out to a few places.  I miss the extra spending money and before we know it the holidays will be here, and by then I will have 3 cute grand babies to buy for:) http://www.xmasclock.com/  

Heat, Ma'am!  it was so dreadful here, that I found there was nothing left for it but to take off my flesh and sit in my bones.  ~ Sydney Smith, Lady Holland's Memoir


The summer night is like a perfection of thought. ~ Wallace Stevens

Inch by Inch and Row by Row

My mom reminded me of this song, and I had to share it, seemed rather fitting as of late.





 Garden Song

by David Mallett

CHORUS:
Inch by inch, row by row
Gonna make this garden grow
Gonna mulch it deep and low
Gonna make it fertile ground

Inch by inch, row by row
Please bless these seeds I sow
Please keep them safe below
'Till the rain comes tumbling down

Pullin' weeds and pickin' stones
We are made of dreams and bones
Need a place to call my own
'Cause the time is close at hand

Grain for grain, sun and rain
Find my way in nature's chain
Till my body and my brain
Tell the music of the land

CHORUS

Plant your rows straight and long
Season with a prayer and song
Mother Earth will make you strong
If you give her loving care

CHORUS

[The Anti-Garden Verses - by someone whose name Arlo forgot]:
Slug by slug, weed by weed
Boy this garden's got me t'd
All the insects come to feed
On my tomato plants

Sunburt face, skined up knees
The kitchen's chocked with zuchinis
I'm shopping at the A&P's
Next time I get the chance
[End of Anti-Garden Verses]

Old crow watching from a tree
He's got his hungry eye on me
In my garden I'm as free
As that feathered thief up there
 

CHORUSlate.
                                                             

Bugs and Slugs, nah just got me some gloves!

I am so much in the gardening mood right now, and the weather is only participating about 50% of the time where I live.  So I am trying to be patient.
Meanwhile I have been spending the colder days on my computer looking up other great ideas for gardening.  This is the one I came across today and thought it was really clever.

You can check out the information at http://www.apartmenttherapy.com/the-diy-modern-outdoor-succule-94477

I must admit something to you, growing up my dad always had HUGE gardens, I mean like take up most of your back yard kind of garden.  As a teenager I remember him coming home from work changing out of his nice clothes and putting on his shorts and cowboy boots (yes this was a fashion nightmare for me) and heading straight to the garden. I think it was his way to de-stress and unwind from his busy day at work.
On Saturday mornings he would wake us kids up EARLY so we could go out and weed and pick the veggies before the humidity and heat of the day set it.  I resented this like no other, first of all I hated all veggies, and I hated bugs, slugs and all the the other creepy crawlies that live under spinach leaves and zucchini plants.

It wasn't until last year that I really had the desire to put in a garden.  I had the need to plant something and see it grow.  Maybe it was because my baby left the nest, maybe it was because I was in a job that stressed me to the hilt and I needed to unwind and going outside and weeding and watering and babying those plants was therapeutic.  I honestly don't know, but I am hooked.  My actual garden area is very small as you will see in upcoming blogs hence the need to find creative ways to garden. So hurry up warm weather I need some gardening therapy, go figure!


~There can be no other occupation like gardening in which, if you were to creep up behind someone at their work, you would find them smiling.  ~Mirabel Osler