Apres le deluge

Two weeks ago was the trip to Texas for my Aunt Joanne’s funeral. That was crazy busy and a mix of sadness and the comfort of being with my sister, my parents, and much of my mother’s remaining family as we celebrated my aunt’s life.

Last week Matt was here with us for the whole week. It was great to have him here. We did not do too much once we had our anniversary party on May 4 (go us for sixteen years where everybody survived) other than hang out, drink a lot of wine, bake cookies, eat good food, and talk. So while it was not overly busy-busy, we did sit up late talking most nights and I was sad and tired when he left.

This week I think the last two weeks ganged up on me and punched me in the head. I have been exhausted ever since Monday. Monday, my friends, was not a good day. Monday I made the huge (huge!) mistake of overeating Mexican food at lunch and then going to yoga right after work. Lord, it was not good. We worked a lot on our core muscles in class. I spent much of the class red-faced and sweating, trying to decide if I was going to pass out, throw up, or in some other way embarrass myself.

And when I say sweating, please disabuse yourself of the notion that I had a fine mist of ladylike perspiration on my upper lip. This was full-on - drops rolling off my brow onto the yoga mat, pants sticking to my moist legs, and my hands so wet that I could barely cling to the mat during certain poses - sweating. It was disgusting. Also disgusting was the frantic planning I was doing in case I actually started feeling like I was going to…reverse swallow. Thank all that is good and holy, that didn’t happen, but by the time we got to shivasana, I was a trembling wreck.

I don’t think my digestive track has quite normalized yet either, so this week I’ve been feeling like a Victorian maiden…very fragile and delicate. Once again I wondered why no one ever asks if I would like weak tea and dry toast… apparently it is not my destiny to be coddled. Still, overall I have my health and did NOT spew in the yoga studio, so I can’t really complain! I am grateful for all my blessings.

Anyway, here is what is going on at Chez Graham Gaeng. We are planting more fruit trees and bushes. We have ordered the following:

2 fig trees

Raspberry bushes

Blackberry bushes

Blueberry bushes

Hardy kiwi vines

Gooseberry bushes

Pawpaw trees

Seaberry trees

We’ll be planting everything when it gets here, as well as building a little arbor for the kiwi vines to scramble over.

The snow and sugar peas I planted weeks ago are now flowering so we should be in plenty of peas soon. I started harvesting lettuce (lots) and radish (one) yesterday. So much fun to eat a salad made out of our own garden.

The cranberry beans have broken out of the ground and are little four inch tall plants.

The artichokes are surviving. So far not a lot of new growth, but I believe they are like the tomato and pepper plants, they need heat to truly put on any growth. And we have had warmth, rain, and then a few days of cool weather (and even close to frost) and now warm again. But no real tropical heat, though I know in my heart that’s coming. We have tomato plants in the ground where they are happily not growing and I’ll have to buy some peppers soon. My two new roses are also sitting there in the ground, not dying, but not particularly growing either. All things in time.

The garden makes me happy. I spend a lot of time out there after work, just walking around looking at things, pulling the occasional weed, and enjoying the new herb spiral and fountain. I take a book to read out there, but wind up spending most of my time watching birds, looking at the plants, and fending off mosquitoes. The occasional sighting of Mr. Fox in the next door neighbor’s yard is always exciting!