Garden Week

Right on schedule as every May, it is garden planting time.  While I was out enjoying lunch with a dear friend the man of the house was busy getting the garden ready.  All year when the horsestall and chicken coop get cleaned it is piled by the garden waiting for spring.  Yesterday the pile was spread on the garden and tilled in.  Nothing but beautiful fresh turned soil and "shit".  By Sunday it will be mark the rows and start planting.  This is supposedly the year to down size.  Bean, peas, potatoes, corn, cukes and onions.  No lettuce, Swiss Chard or spinach.  They are seasonal eats but the other veggies are staples for canning and freezing that we enjoy all  year long.  I opened our last quart of green beans yesterday.  Usually I put up enough to get us through a complete year.  Last years garden did not produce it's usual bountiful crops.  Potatoes were next to none.  Hopefully this year will be better.  I love seeing the shelves full of beautiful canned vegetables and corn in the freezer.  Tomatoes, pears and peaches I buy by the bushels from the Amish.  A fresh tomato from the garden is always welcome but I find that they never ripen at the same time so it is easier to buy a couple bushels for canning spaghetti sauce, chipotle sauce and just stewed tomatoes for soups etc.  Our few plants provide the all time favorite "mater sandwiches".  Fresh bread, vined ripened tomato, mayonnaise, salt and pepper, it is a daily summer lunch.

We took a 4 day get-a-way from Cook'n by the Creek last weekend.  One of my favorite rides down Rt 15 south.  I never tire of the beautiful hills along the way or the Susquehanna River.  The sun was bright, sky was blue and traffic light.  We had Pandora playing.  My station, the 60s Rock and Roll, Richard's choice the old time country with all the great artists that have left this world.  My station brought back some great high school memories.  Like the formal dances of Prom, Christmas Ball and the Sweet Heart's Ball.  It made me wonder about the "last dance".  At the time we never think, this is the last dance and the last Prom.  To close down the night it always ended with a slow dance.  The songs I listened to along the way were all ones we had danced to 50 years ago.  Wow, it sure seems like yesterday getting all dressed up in a gown, "spike heels", and a beautiful "up do" hairstyle.  We were the lucky generation to have the ever so famous bands playing songs that gave us memories of a life time. 

Well, the garden is planted, temperatures are hovering around mid 60s and the rain has moved in.  Just what the garden ordered.  Last night we put up the frame for the cukes to climb and got the seeds in the ground.  Now to wait and look for the first little cracks in the top of the soil meaning the seeds have sprouted!  The green beans that we planted Sunday have already shown signs of sprouting.  The row had a long crack down through it.  Being the impatient type person I had to scuff the dirt and there it was, a bean sprout.  Happy gardener!

One of my favorite places at Cook'n by the Creek.

I never tire of the beauty in the "wish flower".

This delicate flowering bush is beautiful to look but the overly sweet pungent smell I don't
care for.  Thank goodness the flowers only last a week or so.

By the way..............the garden did not get downsized.  I knew it wouldn't.  We say that every year at the end of the season and when a new season begins it is back at it. 

The next job here will be brush hogging the pastures and fields.  Looking at them yesterday I mentioned it is time to get the brush hog hooked up with Mr. John Deere.  So it begins, the summer fun.  Put me on a tractor so I can breathe deep, enjoy the view and remember things that have been locked away in my memory files.  Another year, full circle.

The cabin is showing progress even though we spend less time each day working on it.  I don't think work is a way to describe our time there, more like "loving on it".  The heavy duty jobs are finished, it is now the fine tuning which requires little muscle power and more "take our time to figure it out".

With Memorial Day weekend near it is time to think of so many that have touched my soul.  We usually put artificial flowers in the urns.  Not this year, we were at the garden center buying flowers for the house and cabin when I thought........I am buying my mom's favorite flowers for the urns this year.  Real, not artificial and it made me happy.  I am sure they won't last all summer but the thought is more loving and respectful.  Pansies and geraniums with all the colorful glory. 

Enjoy the long weekend and remember.........pass it on!