Pink Moon

We are experiencing the Full Pink Moon of April.  

How did it get it's name?

According to the Farmer's Almanac it is from Moss Pink, or Ground Phlox that grows so rampantly, or did long ago, at this time of year here in Indiana. 

Last summer I was gifted a huge mess of thinings of Moss Pink in the middle of the drought.

I am one of those that do not want to be ungrateful so I held it over best I could in a shade sunk under about 6 inches of water.

When I got a spare evening after the sun went down I planted it around the west side of the front porch hoping it would not turn into a nightmare of extraction in the coming years....

My life as been lived with connections all around me. 

I have been told "You know....not EVERYTHING is connected, right?!"

For me it is in some way or another. 

I feel sorry for those that do not make those connections. 

It seems life would have no meaning then. 

Pink Moon

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on it's way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
Hey, it's a pink moon
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon.
It's a pink, pink, pink, pink, pink moon.

I saw it written and I saw it say
Pink moon is on it's way
And none of you stand so tall
Pink moon gonna get you all
It's a pink moon
Yeah, it's a pink moon

Nick Drake

I have spent many years almost hoarding my love for an artist until I could not contain it any more. Facebook and other online forums have offered me the release valve to post my constant attention to this ghost of the music world. 

Listening to Nick Drake's music is like reading his personal diary.

Knowing his biography makes me sad for the life not loved. 

He loved his life, but he did not, perhaps, see the love he needed from the world. 

One of my favorite covers of one of his songs is from Elton John. 

I think Elton knew exactly what Nick was feeling and could embody the lyrics almost as well as Drake himself. 

Way To Blue

Don't you have a word to show what may be done

Have you never heard a way to find the sun

Tell me all that you may know

Show me what you have to show

Won't you come and say

If you know the way to blue?

Have you seen the land living by the breeze

Can you understand a light among the trees

Tell me all that you may know

Show me what you have to show

Tell us all today

If you know the way to blue?

Look through time and find your rhyme

Tell us what you find

We will wait at your gate

Hoping like the blind.

Can you now recall all that you have known?

Will you never fall

When the light has flown?

Tell me all that you may know

Show me what you have to show

Won't you come and say

If you know the way to blue?

Elton John is so poignant in this at least because his instrument, the piano, is that singly focused machination - plucking(purcussing) of a string - just as Drake's was in his guitar. 

But I think it is more than that.

Drake's songs make me think he was searching for a teacher, a savior, a leader, to navigate this world. 

When he found none, he began to navigate his best, and ran adrift.

Most of us today reach that point at some time or another. 

It is harder for those of us who march to the beat of a different drummer,

 even more so if you are that drummer.

How does one make a path when you are the first to be YOU?!

It is a scary proposition to say the least. 

All the advice I can offer is this:

Who are you making Your Teacher? Your Savior? Your Leader? 

Be careful in whom you rely.

And ponder the Full Pink Moon tonight.

-Suzanna-

Changes, Challenges, Champions

Many times throughout our lives we will face changes that we did not initiate.
Many times we will initiate changes.

Many times we won't want these changes.
Many times we won't want the consequences of those changes.

Many times we do not have answers for what to do next.
Many times we have the wrong answers.

Many times we, as self sufficient Americans, want to fix our own problems.
Many times we will look for help when we were meant to help ourselves.

As I have read many early immigrants' diaries through the years I see this is a peculiarity of Americans that I guess to a great extent we still embody.

We want our freedom, we want our own way, we want to do it ourselves, we want to be left alone while we do it.
We forget what we want in the struggle to keep our heads above water. 

Many times this just is not possible.
Many times we hinder our own progress. 

Many times we (really I) get our feathers ruffled.
Many times we SHOULD get our feathers ruffled, but do not.

Many times the biggest challenge is to just ask for help.
Many times we don't realize we need help.

We will look and feel weak.
We will have to give up our plan, if there was one. 

We won't garner respect, but pity.
We will be trivialized.

Pity is NOT pretty.
Trivial is not what we are.

The changes have happened.

The challenges have set in.

I am reaching out for champions to my cause.

Many times I have tried to be my own champion, maybe, just maybe, the answer is to NOT be my own champion this time.

I am the big proponent for getting out there and reaching out to community - this was one of those unexpected events that will make me reach out in new ways.

I recognize it is hard to take that leap of faith that things will not fall apart and then one tumbles through the unraveling of unmet promises of others.

I know that feeling all too well.

That is the richness of youth - the lack of that knowledge, and then ensuing fear to hinder your choices.

I have a big Champion that I am going to rely on now.

My Champion and others that live and think the same way will be by my side.

I have a feeling that this will be one of the most real and raw experiences of my life.

I am willing to do it because I am tired of fake and insulated.

None of us begin our first grade papers like this:

I want to be restricted by my fear and stifled by my inability to garner respect and cooperation from those surrounding me.

I want to do what others tell me to because they lack vision, drive, and faith.

I want to lead an unfulfilled life with no purpose realized all my live long days.

Here is my first grade paper if I could write it today:

I want to fulfill my purpose and use my gifts and talents as they were meant to be used.

I want to walk the path I know to be right for me.

I want to never lose my Vision, Drive, and Faith again.

Suzanna

Cat Calls For Square Foot Gardening

http://www.palmbeachbeaute.com/scents-for-the-flower-child/

The above photo does NOT reflect what prompted cat calls from a passing mini van yesterday as I plotted and worked my SQUARE FOOT GARDEN RAISED BED.

As a matter of fact I was more astonished by what actually DID prompt it! 

I had never seen this mini van before (a weird occurance in deed in such a small town that I live....)

Honking of the horn and some spirited hollering did not shock me as much as what was yelled: 

"Squirrely Acres!" with a thumbs up in my direction!

SOMEONE has recognized me from here! [NONE of my neighbors know I blog here...:)]

I was their minor celebrity. 

WHAT THE....?!?!?!?!

(One of my friends was talking about this phenomenon just the other day - I have NEVER considered myself to be an individual to be celebrated outside my most intimate circle. And in THAT circumstance they all just tend to put up with me instead of applaud my behavior...)

In a bewildered, but thankful, fog I stumbled back to my crouched troll position at my square patches of earth. 

It never ceeses to amaze me the reactions I get to my approaches to gardening. 

"What the HECK are you DOING?" is the most common.

"You KNOW...." followed by the most asinine of advice for something they know nothing of....

Abject silence accompanied by wide eyed stares and gaping mouth.

I personally do not see anything so crazy about it. 

In fact I see symmetry, and order and lines and graphs when I make a square foot garden. 

When it is all laid out it is kind of self explanatory - I think.

Maybe it's just Indiana.

Folks are used to seeing thousands of acres being raped by huge hulking machines into these monocultures of small countries inhabited by grain people. 

http://www.agweb.com/article/where_did_the_corn_acres_come_from/

What is square foot gardening?

Well, quite simply it is marking out your garden beds in square blocks instead of the customary rows. 

Usually I incorporate intensive gardening methods. compost/compost tea, and mulching in this simple tiny island of a food factory. 

As in some previous years I incorporated my own version of hugelkultur this time around.

I have been doing this for so many years now that I do not worry if my squares are not even and actually square. 

Close is good enough.

My gardens are my heaven, so I do not want stress in the making of them!

It is perhaps hard to see from the above photo that there are 16 squares laid out in the raised bed. 

Four of those squares in the upper corner have been left blank - I will be transplanting a tomato in that 4-square patch when the last frost date passes. 

If you imagine numbering each square from left to right and top to bottom 1 - 16 you can easily plan out what you would want to grow in each tiny field that is created by the grid of hemp string I have used. 

As you can see in the squares that would be numbered 4, 12, and 14 I have already transplanted cabbage seedlings. 

The other squares have various lettuces, greens, carrots, and radishes that I simply sowed the seeds in their respective tiny fields.

As the lettuces mature and need to be removed, I will have room for other things to put in their open fields. 

A way to help keep the open fields of tomato and the edges of the cabbages free from weeds better you can put some lettuces in those areas also.  

So basically we made these raised beds at the last minute last year because of lack of space and I was too lazy (or smart?) to try to wrestle the roto-tiller.

The frames were made from scrap lumber, then a layer of black plastic was laid down to choke out any weeds, then we dumped top soil in and broke it up with hand tools, then a layer of very mature and aged horse manure went on top. 

We watered it and waited about 5 days to put in the tomatoes we planted in there last year. 

The two beds you see pictured held 8 tomato plants and generated TONS of tomatoes for slicing, juicing, canning, and sharing! 

We also have an oblong raised bed that we did the same thing with but was our HOT PEPPER bed!

We had 16 pepper plants there and probably will never have to buy hot peppers again! 

The twin bed to this one that I planted up yesterday will most likely be my herb bed, with a tomato or two tucked in it also.

I love this kind of garden because it is ever changing and you can have succession planting to keep you eating out of the garden most of the growing season.

As for the hugelkultur: 

After our wood lot was cleared each time we brought a new load in for cutting, I had to get rid of the debris somehow. 

I got the bright idea of filling up the sunken raised beds with this almost chipped and dust of wood that was left over. 

I figured it would soak up any runoff from my neighbor's yard up the way (we had major flooding last year in some rain storms - even in the middle of the drought!) and help stave off any drought we may have this summer. 

THEN, we added MORE topsoil and then another layer of aged horse manure, then just for giggles threw some left over potting soil on top of that! 

Soon we will be getting some green mulch from one of my tree trimming friends to help feed and keep this tiny farm moist!

-Suzanna

Sometimes Life Makes You Say EEEEEEWWWWWWW!!!!!!!

Now, I have to remind everyone that I am 44 years old, grew up on a farm, have been an outdoorsy type of gal all my life, not afraid of too much nature has too offer- except for big nasty hairy spiders!

I love to have my hands in the dirt all the time.

I am familiar with the dirt and the myriad of SOMEBODIES that live there!

I love all the things that we can do with the little guys (and gals) out there in the world to make it better for ALL of us.

You know, ever since I was a kid I watched the earth worms.

Yes, I know how odd that simple statement seems now that I look at it.

My point here is this:

NOT ONCE IN MY ENTIRE LIFE have I EVER seen the reproduction going on in the earthworm's love life....

http://www.naturewatch.ca/english/wormwatch/about/ecology.html

I have seen dogs, cats, birds, horses, pigs, cattle, even rhinos (while working at the Denver Zoo I got to see quite an array of strange things - not all of which the animals were doing I might add...)

Now that we have a puppy my trips outside at 3:30 a.m.are more frequent now than when I was a young twenty something.

This gives me a great view of the world at a time when normally I would be enjoying some crazy dreams in the warmth of my bed.

This morning right off the front porch was this scene to greet me:

Of course this picture was taken about 8:30 a.m. because well....I am just trying to get myself and the dog out the door before ONE of us pees down their leg at 3:30 a.m. 

My point in being astonished with this all is that 5 HOURS LATER these creatures are still going at it! 

Maybe they are dead and that is how the cold (and it was not cold at all last night) got to them?

I don't think so. 

Anyway, I don't think I got what it takes to be a worm.

THANK GOD on so many levels!

I need another cup of coffee and I will go plant some early veggies seeds.

Stay Squirrely!

Suzanna

The Spring Time Kind of Busy!

This was written a few days ago after the absolutely gorgeous weather we had. Today is the perfect back to gloomy cold weather that Indiana provides for the gardener/writer in me.....

Well, we got some much needed yard cleaning done and that opened up the way for a new HUGE raised garden bed.

It is situated atop one of the problem areas of the yard so this was PRIME raised bed space.

As much as I loathe open fields of unused grass- I am equally loathe to destroy lush turf - EVEN for food plants!

I have this innate sense of appreciation for some one's handiwork done well.

Any way, THIS was not to be appreciated except for the healing and redeeming that a raised bed with natural fertilizer and a layer of natural mulch can provide to a sandy packed foundation for a former above ground pool, now gone to the great swimming pool graveyard.

After a swimming pool, there was a haphazard pile of firewood odds that took up residence there for 2 years and then, last summer, construction debris from an emergency roofing repair/replacement became the woodpile's bunk mate in this bed of hot mess.

A truck belonging to one of the 3 grown children had to be evicted from it's comfy home like a claim jumper on the open prairie!

Rocks, nails, various saplings from stubborn dropped seeds had to be removed and the various buckets of wood stove ash had to be raked into it and spread out evenly BEFORE that first ground breaking outline of a POSSIBLE raised bed could be thought of.

So this week alone after 3 trips to the local transfer station to dispose of the construction debris, and 4 truck loads of dirt gotten from the brother in law (how would rural America exist without brothers-in-law?!), and a truck load of horse manure aged and settled like a fine wine were hand shoveled onto this small plat of a former accidental dumping ground - the garden is starting to look like the tranquil little respite it should be.

The wood frame will be painted the Barn Side White that the rest of the trim in the yard gets.

Barn Side White makes me think of crisp white sheets hanging on the line in a brisk spring wind.

All "spit and shine and let the wind blow the winter stink off of ya" type of thing.

Sugar, the puppy lab that the Easter Bunny brought, is proving to be an excellent back yard dog.

She has learned WHERE to potty in the yard and that is an important thing for a puppy to learn indeed!

I was going to to get a great deal of things done today and make the most of the sunshine and beautiful weather, but everyone took off with the garage and shed keys so I had no tools to work with except the back porch broom, a metal garden rake, and a wheel barrow.

So...Sugar and I picked through the beds for all the rocks we could find.

I am thinking that they will make great rock garden stuff for the Littlest Squirrel's rock/flower/water garden she likes to do every year.