Mother's Day dessert, spring planting

Here's dessert after a lunch of roast chicken and potatoes 

Slice of lime cake, some Greek yogurt, blueberries and pure cane sugar.  

I got some sewing supplies organized for Pine Ridge 

Lovely walk Sunday morning, beautiful warm sunny day and walking in the morning means shade. Greeting neighbors on their patios. I went about two thirds pondwards before deciding I needed the rest of my energy to get home.

Then a period of sitting doing niksen on the deck in morning shade. 

This afternoon Gary wanted to get going planting so I gave him a few tiny sprouting potatoes to set out. Many questions. Which way up, how deep, what size pot, knowing he'd do what he wanted anyway! I don't worry if my advice gets wafted away on the wind. 

I already had some potatoes going, so I decided the linited amount of planting I could do Sunday was this. I'm taking Rita seriously and trying not to overdo.

Chives to restart after my ancient ones didn't make it, wildflowers to just throw about, this worked last year, honesty seeds from my own plant. Note the grabber within reach. And the container with the blue lid is the squirrel deterrent. 

It's essential peppermint oil, and qtips. I soak them in the oil and push two or three into each pot. Squirrels don't like it and stay away from your seeds.

That's Sunday's gardening done. I put Chris's morning glory seeds to soak before I put them in, maybe Monday. They'll go in the ground this year, near the shepherd's crook to give them something to climb. And there's a pot ready for some other flower.

And that's today's Hope Springs Eternal Gardener's Hour. I just had to water the seeds in and I was ready for a cup of tea.

And for supper the world's easiest stew. 

Can of diced tomatoes, can of cannellini beans, with what's becoming a go to seasoning, umami mixture and smoked paprika.

The aqua faba from the beans is saved for baking as an egg substitute.

Happy day everyone. Plant seeds, real or metaphorical. Real toads in imaginary gardens.

Gardening is an art. Mine's on the artisanal good enough for gummint work side.

Ted sez. 

Shut up, Ted 

Billie sez

See, wheels!

On the principle of do a thing and the universe will get right back to you, I bought a large and heavy bag of potting soil to go with the annual supply of flowers and herbs, just one flat total, this is not a big deal.  However, when I lugged the bag of soil from the car to the house I realized that this part was indeed a big deal. So I remembered I had a nice little dolly in the car trunk from back in the day when I packed art supplies to teach workshops.

Got it out, remembered how to unfold it, and there was a handy way of trundling the soil through the house and out to the patio while saving my back a bit.

But the part about the universe getting back to you is that Quinn blogged this very day about this very thing, except the task she was doing didn't really lend itself to wheels. Considering it's about twenty years since I unearthed my dolly, and I'd done that before I read today's Comptonia entry, this is one of those arrows of coincidence that make you wonder.

Anyway, oops, here come the Ds.....well, we shoved her aside, quite enough from her, thank you, and though it took three of us we got all the doings safely on the patio
 

 Here we are, Dollivers on a dolly, except Blondie Firstborn thought it wasn't her style to be sitting about on heavy machinery, and she took up a place among the herbs.

and supervised while Boud filled  pots with soil ready to plant tomorrow with various flowers and herbs.  Seen here the pots some of them waiting for potting soil. She got Michael her brilliant handyman to build those cedar surround things so that her mismatched pots don't show and squirrels can't knock plants off the fence.


She got lavender, basil, oregano, parsley, tarragon, rosemary and who knows what else. Right now she's studying recipes which use  tarragon, that not being a common herb for her.

Amazingly, considering we did all the heavy lifting, after all that, she sat and read at least that's her story.  She was snoring quietly for a while, no pages turning that we could see. But we were nice, and didn't take any unflattering pix of her with wild cherry blossom falling off the tree overhead and into her open mouth...we waited till she woke and spluttered for a bit..great fun.