Thank You ...

Thank you, nameless lady at the YMCA yesterday - you were rushing out as we were entering, 3 girls in tow with hands full of bookbags and workout bags - and you paused not only to tell my boys "thank you" for holding the doors open for you but you also told me I was doing a great job raising these "fine young men".


If you only had known how my kids and I had started to feel about this whole "opening doors" thing.  I have taught my kids to open doors for people since they were barely big enough to push them open with all their might and leave handprints on the glass.  At first when they were about 3 or 4 they would get comments about "how sweet", or "how cute", but as they grew their efforts at basic kindness would go completely ignored.  Now at ages 9 & 7, people rush through the door while talking on their cellphones with not even a basic acknowledgement or even a nod.  Countless times upon arriving at a school event my boys would hold open a door, where what I thought was common courtesy for another to grab the door for their group, etc - a dozen or more people would rush through the door busy with other things obviously, while I'm left inside the building wondering what happened to my kids!


The basic act of saying "thank you" to our "young men and young women" seems to have left.  I still often get thanks for holding doors but why not my kids?  I can count on one hand the number of times in the past few years that I have had a child open a door for me, and I have realized why - it's the parents.  These children are obviously the offspring of the non-thankers of the world.  Our kids are the adults of the next decade, please show them basic respect for all they do and are trying to do.


Kudos to those of you out there who teach your kids basic kindness and courtesy, there are still some of us out there who really appreciate your efforts, and notice active parenting when we see it!


My kids are probably sick of me telling them that people really do appreciate their efforts even if they don't show it.  YMCA lady, I honor you today for saying "thank you" to my boys, having your daughters thank them (much blushing ensued!), and for calling them "nice young men" within earshot of them.  You have renewed their faith in adults this week!  To you I say "no, thank you"!

Ready or Not....

It's time to plant!  If you live in Virginia Beach anyways :)

My "oil pan carry-all" is ready for another season, it's my favorite thing for carrying planting gear as well as harvesting.  I even had some leftover innoculant from my soybeans last year so the peas got the royal treatment :)

Uhhhh, yeah... this was definitely not in the budget, but how can I pass up a good deal?  Paid 5 bucks for the whole lot of the pansies below.  Every year I wait until the big box stores have flats that are droopy or need deadheading, they mark them way down since they won't do those things and they don't sell when they look that way.  They were just getting too large for their cell packs and needed water but not too bad off, as they perked right up in the rain we had in the yard yesterday.  Need to plant them asap, but what a deal!

This morning at 7:30 a.m. - look at that temp -  the kids wore shorts to school!

Every year at pea planting time I get to use one of my favorite tools...why on earth did it take me so long to splurge on this thing?  It saves way more than the $25 I spent on it in backache and ibuprofen costs.  Now if only it had a reverse, right?  This ADD gardener has to move posts often so I definitely need reverse.  

I even organized all my stakes and random sharp objects that were strewn about still since last fall.

I also created a "special pile" of all my broken stakes and pole bits... 

Do you do this too?  I've got sections of poles that are only 8 inches long in there but I can bear to get rid of any stake-like object LOL!  At least the small ones are separate now so I won't get so frustrated every time I try to dig a long stake out of the pile and "come up short"!

Check out the temp as I came back in the house at 12:30 pm... crazy stuff!

Now for the details on today's plantings - 

(* new to the garden this year)

Sugar Snap Peas - old seed 

Green Arrow Shelling Peas - Southern Exposure

White Onions - local feed store unknown variety

Evergreen Bunching Onions - FEDCO (old seed)

*Deep Purple Bunching Onions - Southern Exposure

*Tokyo Cross Turnips - 35 day variety

*Purple Top White Globe Turnips - Southern Exposure

Swiss Chard - old 2009 seed "just to see"

Olympia Spinach - FEDCO  

Mesclun - old 2008 seed 

Mizuna Greens - Baker Creek

Tango Lettuce -  Sustainable Seed Co.

Bronze Mignonette Lettuce - Baker Creek 

Red Salad Bowl Lettuce - Southern Exposure

Mache/Corn Salad - Sustainable Seed Co.

I had a lot of seed still from past years that I used, but most of my new seed for 2012 came from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange based right here in Virginia.  Part of the reason is that my beloved Baker Creek Catalog appeared too late so they missed the boat with me this year.  Yes, I know I could have looked at the online catalog but it's garden planning in winter - hey I'm loyal to whoever sends me the garden porn to look through on a bleak winter day!  I'm funny like that - I've been ordering from them for years so I expect that my catalog will arrive in a timely manner so if it doesn't so sorry - better luck next year!  Southern Exposure wasn't a hard decision for me though because they are our "local" seed company, organic, non-GMO, heirloom and all that stuff I want plus have varieties that have proven performance and historical significance right here in the Mid-Atlantic (remember how much older my state is than everyone else, that's neat stuff!), so it was a no-brainer.  I still randomly get seed from a few other places of course, but they got the bulk of my order for 2012.

I'm such a nerd...

Drawing and redrawing plans and dreaming while other moms are out shopping or whatever it is that the hip moms do LOL!

I'm actually just having fun with the kids' art supplies because I wanted to plant my peas today but it's lightning, thunder and pouring rain!!!  Boo, hiss....

At least now I have everything ready and staged: onions, seeds, peas are soaking, fresh pair of garden gloves laundered... tomorrow should be a "go"!  I'm actually late this year, most years I plant peas last week, so I should be safe from Mother Nature's weirdness :)

Birthdays and Busy-ness!

After this post today you can call me the Queen of Rambling...this one is all over the place!

I keep wanting to post about my seedlings, you know - what has sprouted, the varieties that I planted, etc. but I have all these random photos from the past few days lurking on my computer desktop.  Since I want my seed variety post to be "clean" so to speak, for my future garden reference all this other stuff is getting lumped together - this is not an indication of any less importance of course, because....

...yesterday was Loch's birthday!  My little "Miracle of Modern Medicine" baby turned 9 years old!

Can you believe I don't have any special post or photo montage this year for him?  Bad mommy...

oh, alright... maybe a quick one -

he hated the hat, hated balloons, hated my cake... I'm not much for cake baking :)

But below is probably one of the "baddest" mommy moments...

oh yes, that's a tire-sized bag of Dunkin' Donuts for his class, bad, bad mommy...

I was so busy yesterday between baking him a real cake for home, Garden Club shuttling, Swim Team, and having to be "out of the house" for a realtor showing it I just didn't have time to make anything for his class.  Shame, shame... I actually was pretty mortified carrying this thing into school, especially since I've never even been to a Dunkin' Donuts until then LOL.  To be fair though, Loch thought it was fantastic since "all the other moms" do the donut thing.  It's never even occurred to me until he said something!  Forgive me O Gardeners and Healthy Eating People - this will not happen again, I promise.

I did see some cool stuff at his school yesterday, look at this art project one of the students made, imprisoned by money - genius!!!  I love the guy holding the sign "help!".

Loch's Garden Club got some new t-shirts yesterday donated by one of the parents, pretty cool design!

Quote on the back...

A photo of Loch's Garden Club board, it's right inside the school's front door and has lots of info for other students to pick up and take home, hopefully the other students and parents stop and get thinking!

So proud of him, they were starting seeds and planning out their spring plantings when I picked him up.  

This past weekend it was time for maintenance on my Subaru, luckily I only needed regular maintenance, and she rolled over 50K miles last week.  Not too shabby for having her since 2007, if you include a few 2400 mile Minnesota round trips she has done, that's hardly any miles I drive here at home!

Seriously... he polished the insides of my rims before putting the wheel covers back on and rotating my tires LOL...

Today it's a bit chilly so I spent all day getting some household paperwork done and bills paid, exciting stuff.  I was able to make a library trip earlier today, sense a theme here?

I don't know about you, but it's hard to have a financially induced meltdown if you occasionally take a break to look at bug houses LOL!

Seed post to come soon!