Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

You are here: Home / Home

Seed Catalog Fantasies

   This is the month for gardening catalogs. No doubt about it, every year January’s slow rhythm and cold climate join forces to draw me into colorful, papery daydreams about how my flower beds and vegetable gardens will look in the coming months. If I am a willing slave to  list making and reVolutions, then I am a love struck teenager when it comes time to dream up the new year’s lushness. 
That is a heckuva lots of carrots, you guys.
Do not forget to thin them once they sprout to about an inch of green fluff.
This makes all the difference in the world.
My Grandpa has always grown it, and I agree it performs really well in Oklahoma.
   Between farm chores, ironing Handsome’s work shirts, sort of doing P90x, cooking meals that are NOT chicken-lime-cilantro-tortilla soup, and reading for our fabulous little book club, I have been salivating over the myriad possibilities held teasingly in the pages of two truly gorgeous catalogs: Burpee and Gurney’s. Click on those links just to browse, but also do yourself a favor and request their free catalogs. 
Some like minded soul somewhere in the world painted this. 
It made it to the internet without a source. 
And now sits on my lowly Pinterest page, 
inspiring and reminding me to dream big green dreams.. 
Three cheers for Audrey Hepburn.
As well as for the neat and tidy, anonymous artist 
who loves gray paint as much as I do.
   This year we’ll be tackling some major improvement projects around the Lazy W. And just so no one thinks I am throwing around the Victorian “we” too loosely, it is true. I am one of the lucky women whose husband is happy to do some heavy lifting in the garden. In fact, he freaks out a little if I do certain jobs myself. Another way I am spoiled, I know.XOXO
   We’ll be building raised beds in the largest (and also enclosed) garden plot which is on the west side of our house, sort of the way to the pond and back field. Within those raised beds we’re installing plastic and/or cardboard weed block, infilling with layer upon layer of horse and buffalo manure, chicken litter which includes  shredded paper, hay, dirt, chopped leaves, you name it. This lasagna process has already begun, thankfully, several weeks ahead of our first seed sowing. Between those raised beds I hope to grow something short and fragrant but also mow-able. We’ll see how THAT pans out. Any brilliant ideas?
   The bald spots in the east facing flower bed are gradually diminishing, each season since we’ve lived here bringing with it more “kept” plantings and bigger, prettier shrubs and perennials. But there aren’t NO bald spots yet, so flowers will be planted. Big flowers this year. Really big ones.
Can you see the sparse garden over there? It’s the east facing one.
This is how we first saw the house back in September 2007.
Let me just say that the previous owners had been renovating the home’s interior
 and had great ideas for the garden but ran out of time to implement them 
before being relocated by the military.
***************
Since 2007 we have replaced the roof with a really pretty dark charcoal shingle,
following a vicious hail storm which was followed by an equally vicious tornado.
We have replaced the front door and picture window 
because of a pretty devastating house fire,
and moved back then replaced that chain-link fence with three wire.
Also, that is not our horse, but she was a sweetie.
This is more or less how the flower bed looks now, 
when viewed standing at the front door. 
I think this photo is from November 2011.
   I am only planning to dig two new beds in 2012, and they are both small ones, and I have already started amending the soil to make the job easier. One is the space near the chicken coop, where a few things like butterfly bush, cedar, and Rose of Sharon have gone wild. The other is a curvy spot right outside my kitchen window, which this year will be my very own potagerie. A place to grow heat-loving herbs like basil, oregano, and mint. As well as those little food stuffs that a cook needs quickly while preparing meals. Cherry tomatoes, strawberries, carrots, hot peppers, etc. Smaller crops that require less real estate but more attention.
   Thanks for listening to me ramble about farm improvements and for joining my little garden fantasy. We’re approaching the end of January soon, so the time to stop dreaming and start working in earnest is upon us. I’d love to hear what your garden plans are for 2012!
Slow Food is the Best Food
xoxoxo

Thursday Potential (Small Stone January 12th)

   After what might have been the deepest, most solid sleep I have enjoyed in weeks, maybe months, I sit here on Thursday morning facing a long, solitary day that pulses with incredible possibility. It is thrilling.
   Snow covers the ground, not deep and fluffy, but crusted and bitterly cold, probably something closer to ice. Yet the sun is bright, loud in his brightness, defiant of the single digit temperatures. I feel grateful to not have to drive anywhere today, fortunate that my place in this world is a cozy one, a safe, happy, meaningful one. 
   Over the next eight or nine hours, what improvements can I make in our little corner of the world? What reaching out can be done? How much can I strengthen our foundations and adorn our dreams?
   Choosing how to funnel my abundant energy is often my biggest daily challenge, and today is no exception. but today it is a motivation, not a burden. Today the possibilities are potential.
   I cannot help but wonder how much of this feeling has to do with my hair being freshly washed and blown dry.
   

Before I Go To Sleep (a book review)

   Our fabulous little book club’s current selection is set for discussion this coming Saturday night. I just polished off the last page tonight after dinner, and I am giddy. You know that feeling after you finish a book that has exhilarated you since page one? No dry spells, no slow, laborious climbs to action or understanding? Some books leave me exhausted; this book has left me inspired, though not in the spiritual sense.
Introducing
Before I Go to Sleep
by S.J. Watson
Before I Go to Sleep: A Novel


   Okay, I do not groove spoilers. I will try to keep this short and sweet. 
   I would recommend this book to a wide variety of audiences, with the simple caveat that it offers up some salty language, violence (though nothing we don’t see in a standard PG movie) and the full spectrum of marital relations. Ahem. 
   Would I approve of my two beautiful teenage daughters reading this? No. But I do think they are both intelligent and sensitive enough to appreciate the story behind the scenery. 
   The premise is that a woman, the speaker of the book, has lost her memory and must live day to day rebuilding it (at least enough to survive and maintain hope) from what she has managed to write in a private journal. As the title suggests, her memory is wiped clean every night when she sleeps. Just take that in for a second and imagine the awful implications, the far reaching consequences of losing both your long term and your short term memory every single night.
   Whew.
   How could a book like this be inspirational? I’ll tell you. I am freshly inspired to treasure my memories, both good and bad, and to be grateful to be an active, viable liver of my own life. Captain of my ship, if you will.
   Watson builds suspense better than Stephen King, in my opinion. He must be incredibly gifted to be able to write such a complex story from such a limited perspective, and using such a repetitive format without causing the reader to get bored? Wow. And the ending is delicious… 
   Okay, that’s it. Anything more and I’ll be flirting with spoilers. Have you read this yet? I would love to hear your thoughts! Haven’t read it but want to? If you’re interested I’ll lend it! My loaning policy is that each person must write his or her name and a quick review on one of the inside covers. Circulate as much as you want. 
Books are meant to be Read a Lot!
Cherish your Memories!
xoxoxoxo
   

5 Senses Tour, Contemplative Tuesday in January

   Since its earliest hours, today has felt serious and more quiet than normal. I am wonderfully free from external pressure and hurry, unlike my husband who is at the salt mines again. I feel like we’re on the brink of something special, but something quiet maybe, and I don’t want to miss it. The easiest observation to make is that the animals are cuddling each other a bit more, wrapping up in closeness and affection against the chilly air that swept in overnight. Also, the gardens are turning inward, funneling all of their energy streams toward cold, dry roots and springtime fantasies. Today is a good day to take inventory, to reflect, and to nourish from the inside out.
What I See: Indoor plants newly fertilized and outdoor garden plots gone dormant, sitting expectantly like blank canvases or empty lined pages. Grassy, manure-covered rectangles teasing me for new designs this year and promising bigger, lusher harvests if I get around to building those raised beds.
“The violets  the mountains have broken the rocks.” ~Tennessee Williams
What I’m Reading: Three books this week, though the first one more than the others because it’s the subject of our Book Club dinner, which is this Saturday! 
    Before I Go to Sleep by S. J. Watson. This is a page turner! Proper book review coming soon.
  Game Change, a behind-the-scenes account of the 2008 Presidential elections. Reads like a fiction, thoroughly enjoyable. 
   True Memoirs of Little K by Adrienne Sharp I’ve mentioned this one before, too long ago, and it is still unfinished because I didn’t read enough during the busy holidays. Review of this luscious book forthcoming too.

What I Hear: Very little apart from the gentle, sleepy murmurings of the animals. The guineas are free range now, all but four, and their songs pepper the farm from sun to sun.
What I Feel, What I’m Touching:  Lots of manure. My goal is to have the farm spotless by the end of the month or earlier and to have the gardens all spread with the rich, crumbly stuff well ahead of the spring rains.
This is a pile of chicken litter removed from our coop. 
See all the cool white shreddy stuff?
May I suggest if you have access to shredded paper, 
whether you use it as animal bedding or not, 
consider using it in your compost heap.
It retains moisture beautifully, lightens up our Oklahoma clay,
and keeps one more thing out of the landfills.

What I Smell: Cinnamon Scentsy, laundry soap, and my husband’s pillow while I write.


What I Taste: Orange juice, heavily buttered English muffin, and fried eggs.

   I can’t be sure exactly what’s on the horizon, friends, but I feel goodness all around us. I feel a surge of hope, an oceanic depth of love, and greater calm about our storms than I have felt in years. Happy Tuesday. Let me know if you see whatever it is I’m waiting on.

Feel Every Detail Today
xoxoxo
5 senses tour

Still Morning (Small Stone January 10th)

   At 6:38 this morning we creep outside for another Hot Tub Summit. The moon still rests high on her nighttime throne, gloriously full, casting brilliant silver light all over the hills and valleys and fields. I cannot detect the slightest breeze, no movement anywhere. Even the geese are quiet. The farm is still asleep.
   Oak, blackjack, red bud, and pine trees stretch their perfect, inky silhouettes out against the sky while we soak in the scalding water and unwind ourselves from the night.
   
   When the time finally comes to abandon the quiet, to begin a new day, that smooth gray canopy above us has clicked over to a deep shade of blue. The moon is politely receding into the western sky. And the guineas have started their morning song.