Lazy W Marie

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

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friday 5 at the farm: green goose garden goals

Hey friends, I cannot BELIEVE it’s Friday afternoon! Like not at all. I fell ill sometime Tuesday and have been in such a weird feverish daze ever since. It truly feels like I lost a whole week of life. Thank goodness Monday was crazy productive and that my husband is amazing. He did all the animal feeding and dishwasher loading Wednesday and Thursday and stocked us up on groceries and medicines, too, after some hellish office days. All I had to do was try to sleep and fight off coughing fits and not complain too much about sitting still. Pretty sweet deal.

For Friday 5 this week, I ran across this old snapshot that inspired a short list of gardening things on my mind. The little girl there with the round bare belly is me, having just harvested fresh carrots from my Mom’s garden in my childhood home. Those boys were neighborhood friends. And yes, for sure, in addition to gardening I have been hooked on patchy jeans and bleach blonde hair ever since. Also flip-flops.

baby gardener C

 

The 2017 Green Goose Gardens are already in process:

  1. Wider curving herb bed near the kitchen window, to accommodate multiples of each herb.
  2. More organized composting system (we finally have a grip on manure management).
  3. Three Sisters will grow out front along with watermelon, pumpkin, and sunflowers.
  4. I’m building a modest shade garden near the pool house.
  5. Overarching goal of producing all our own edibles plus lots of certain things to sell at the local market (Saturday mornings beginning in June). 

Number 5 is really the kicker, and of course it cooperates with all the rest, especially number 2. We have all winter been plotting and planning and setting aside both space and funds to make these things happen. I have been gradually relocating compost, one wheelbarrow at a time, from the middle horse field to the front field, with the goal of improving the soil texture there (right now it’s mostly sand). Handsome has been scheming fence reconfiguration, ordering seeds, and designing me a three-bin compost box. I have been reading and pod-casting up a storm, getting my brain filled with other people’s good-experience wisdom for small-scale, high-yield market farming. It’s so exciting.

What makes all of this seem more possible in 2017 compared to years past is a beautiful alchemy of life changes. One key element is that I have greatly reduced my outbound volunteering. I rarely leave the farm now to do anything other than errands for us, and I like it. I am more focused, my housework stays up to date (except when I am sick, like this week), and I have far more hours now to dive deeply into making this place more than nine lazy acres. We feel like the W will be coming into her own soon, and it’s thrilling.

Yay for so many mild January days that gave us a head start on spring! Looking at this list of five garden goals, I am so happy to know that each of them is well in motion. Oh and I started some lettuce trays today, so watch Instagram for seedling updates!

Happy weekend to you! Stay healthy! Grow something green!
XOXOXOXO

 

soul cake

Hello, happy first weekend of December! Long time no blog, haha. That’s getting to be the usual around here, but not for lack of things to share or writing urges. Evolution is in the air, though, and I am happy about it. Blogging will pick back up in time.

A good portion of my week has been spent up in the Apartment, sewing aprons and towel sets, organizing Christmas gifts, making yarn crafts, and playing a not-low-key-enough game of fetch with Klaus. Between tasks we chase each other back and forth along the length of the second story and up and down the stairs. We have wrecked many a laundry basket and more than a few framed paintings on the wall in the hot pursuit of slobbery tennis balls. His slobber, to be clear, not mine. Okay.

These hours immersed in creative projects have been so nourishing. My thoughts are clicking into place. My physical energy is adjusting from slightly obsessive marathon training back to a steadier, stronger norm. And I have lots of beautiful textiles to show for the time.

This was a fun custom order!
This was a fun custom order.

The soundtrack of this past week has been mostly Sting Christmas music. One of the best songs kind of sums up life lately. Soul Cake. Do you recognize it? Please go give it a listen.

Soul cake, soul cake, please good missus a soul cake.

An apple a pear a plum or a cherry,

Any good thing to make us all merry.

I actually feel like we have been feasting on Soul Cake for weeks. Life has taken a delicious turn, and we feel nourished far beyond even the good done by a few days in the Apartment.

Thanksgiving with my family was beautiful. Aunt Marion and Uncle John hosted us locals, including sweet Grandpa Stubbs. My sister Angela was with us, such an answer to hopes and prayers. The nieces (when did they get so tall and skinny?) kept everyone entertained and stocked up on cuddles. As always the food and surroundings were perfect. We feasted and laughed and healed each other a little and made a thousand sparkling memories. We wrapped each other with love. It was an excellent beginning to a long, cozy winter.

My Grandpa the gardener and humorist, with his baby girl (my Mom) and his firstborn (Aunt Marion).
My Grandpa the gardener and humorist, with his baby girl (my Mom) and his firstborn (Aunt Marion).

 

Handsome keeping Kenzie out of reach of some intense romping from pup Sadie, seen here embraced by Chloe, freshly eleven.
Handsome keeping Kenzie out of reach of some intense romping from pup Sadie, seen here embraced by Chloe, freshly eleven.

 

I feel like this photo will go down in infamy.
I predict this photo will go down in infamy.

The Soul Cake feast began before that, too. Handsome and I managed to spend a few precious days in Estes Park with our oldest, maybe my fifth trip to visit since she moved there but Handsome’s first. Every minute with her is worth a hundred written pages. She makes us proud and happy, and we cherish the opportunity to see the world through her eyes. That quick weekend also gave us a good appetite for winter and all the wintry holidays. (But let’s not talk about extreme altitude sickness, which is apparently very real. I discovered the depth of this particular despair for the first time on this last trip and hope to never experience it again.)

We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can't you tell? xoxo
We spent a frigid but sunny afternoon walking and playing at Lily Lake. She is in her element here. Can’t you tell? xoxo

I often fall asleep saying thank you thank you thank you for so many things. From our marriage and family to my husband’s career and my own secret aspirations, from health and well-being to finances, and every little thing in between, life is amazing. So many answered prayers, miracles of every shape and size, unexpected blessings, and innumerable joys. Even the remaining heartache is so clearly encased in the glow of hope and faith that it barely casts a shadow. This is not one of those fake it till you make it seasons. It’s a bright, hard-won time for celebrating. And we intend to seize it.

God bless the master of this house

and the mistress also

and all the little children,

that round your table grow.

Soul cake is everything around us lately. The food we eat, the people who love us, the work we are lucky to do. Soul Cake is time and energy and reading material and music. Movie nights, cowboy parades, Santa sightings, and twinkling light displays. Scriptures, traditions, desperate prayers answered beyond our wildest dreams. It is all abundant for us, for our children, for the generations before us. Our friends are Soul Cake for us and we hope to be theirs.

Nourished in all these way, fed heavily on Soul Cake, the Christmas spirit comes easily. On this first weekend of December I am already effervescent and relaxed. Giddy, really.

bedspring-ornaments-c

Stockyards City Christmas Parade. One of our favorite traditions...xoxo Check out those longhorns!
Stockyards City Christmas Parade. One of our favorite traditions…xoxo Check out those longhorns!

We were talking this morning about the sustainability of Christmas traditions. We were between donuts in our pajamas and the Christmas parade in Stockyard City, and the radio ads were full speed ahead with materialism. I am feeling the exact opposite of worried about that. Because the extra nonsense always falls away in its own time. We are healthy and strong in our Souls, because of all the Cake, and that’s what matters.

donuts-c

We hope that you’ll be kind

with your apple and your pear,

and we’ll come no more a-soulin’

till Christmastime next year.

How is your winter starting out? Are you feeling hopeful and confident, or do you need a heavy helping of what nourishes you? Either way, I wish you all the very best. We have plenty Soul Cake to share if you need some.

Happiest of Decembers, friends.

If you haven’t got a penny
a ha’ penny will do.
if you haven’t got a ha’ penny
then God bless you.
XOXOXOXO