Lazy W Marie

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

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early season pleasures

Since the fresh new season is in full swing, we are spending more and more time outdoors. From sun to sun, the farm offers more work and more fun than ever. Actually my work is more fun this time of year! I love it. Cleaning animal habitats, collecting dried manure, filling troughs, watering and doting on plants, just (as my Grandpa Rex would say) puttering around… None of it is difficult in this season. Physical and spiritual pleasures abound.

 

gu basil seedlings

Right now, upstairs in a sunny window seat in our bedroom hallway, dozens of seedling containers are growing all kinds of tiny crops, not the least of which is basil. You heard me right, friends, basil. The king of herbs. Now sprouted into fluffy little leaf-topped groves, less than a week after touching that sexy black soil you see there, baby basil is a soul-deep pleasure. It awakens everything culinary and horticultural in me. Several times per day I walk slowly past this nursery of miniatures and gently scan the pads of my fingers across those verdant ruffles. I dare to lean down, pinch a leaf bud or two, and inhale the nearly imperceptible perfume. And the fragrance of all that moist peat is intoxicating, too. I just adore it. This productive collection of seedling trays promises me food and flowers all season long.

gu fresh herbs

Fortunately, while we wait for the new herbs, a few stalwart specimens overwintered very well outdoors and are now fresh and green again, offering me perfect little bundles of bright flavor for all kinds of recipes. It’s been a while since I’ve had the pleasure of walking barefoot out to the herb garden to clip just the right amount of herbs for dinner. And what a true pleasure it is! Soon the sage, rosemary, and oregano already producing will be joined by so much more. Gardening for the sake of cooking more than doubles the pleasure. These endeavors are far more than the sum of their parts.

gu lettuce

The vegetable garden is renewing herself slowly but surely, too, and just watching the gentle evolution is a total pleasure. Spinach, mesclun, kale, snow peas, radishes, two kinds of cabbage (different varieties than what I’ve grown in the past), and these fluffy red sail lettuces you see, which were gifts from the Will Rogers Garden after a recent work day. Everything is still small and perfect. I am enamored by the petite sprouts of spinach and kale and by the rounded, optimistic faces of snow peas when they break ground and timidly unfurl that first pair of leaves. They say, “Surprise! I’m here!” And then an angel’s harp chimes once.

A half dozen tomato plants are sitting out there too, also gifts from Will Rogers. This is exciting if a bit risky, considering the last frosts we often get. A few days ago I scattered some extra basil seeds among the first tomato plants. Because, you know, Caprese. And adjacent to the edibles out there are so many perennial flowers and bulbs that come up on their own every spring. This year I can already tell they have multiplied like crazy. Clematis, day-lilies, bleeding heart, thornless blackberries, caladium, so much. A slow, easy meandering walk down toward the vegetable beds is worth doing any time of day. It quiets me. And excites me. I am quietly excited. Or excitedly calm. Both.

gu earls

Whenever possible I have been venturing out around town here and there, exploring different garden centers and spending all the money I make selling eggs. Ha! This is its own kind of pleasure. Exploratory. Stimulating. The garden centers get me thinking of how things look together and of what my eyes are craving this year.

I’ve been to the big box and hardware stores when other farm errands require it, a fancy schmancy place way out north I keep hearing good things about (it’s drop dead gorgeous but expensive), and finally and with the greatest affection… Earl’s Nursery about ten minutes east of here. I love that place. They know me and I know them and we love each other. (Or at least, I love their plants and they love my money. This is a healthy arrangement.)

All the colorful displays are dizzying, you know? A kaleidoscope of color and texture unlike anything else. I walked through their greenhouses yesterday in a thin cotton sundress and straw cowboy hat and nearly sweated to death. That would have been a wonderful way to go.

gu hottub curve

More on this soon, but the curved flower bed and flagstone patio near our hot tub is getting a makeover. Yesterday I cleaned out most of that ocean of dried leaves, pulled what few weeds straggled up, celebrated the flowers emerging on their own, added composted horse and buffalo manure, and planted more pretty stuff, both edible and ornamental. So fun! I’ll share more photos and ideas from this project as it look better.

gu me mia

And as always, Mia the overly attached gander is right there ready to help. He provides unlimited cuddles and an unflinching goose soundtrack. “Hooooonnnk…” xoxoxo

After spending so many weeks planning and daydreaming about the new year’s garden, it is such a physical pleasure and mental relief to actually got outside and work. Move things. Affect change. Improve your surroundings. How divine to end a day sweaty and caked with dirt, decidedly in need of a second or third shower before cooking dinner.

Please share with me some details about your gardening so far! I so love hearing about what other people grow, how they do it, what plants they love best, and more. This personal exchange is one of my favorite parts of answering phones for the Country Extension, too.

Okay that’s it for today! Enjoy your outdoor spaces, friends. Move stuff around. Touch, smell, watch, love. Abandon yourself to the constant river of miracles. It will take you to good places.

Oh! And use manure and compost. If you are local and want some, drop me a line. We have a lot. Cheap.

“Gardens are not made by singing ‘Oh, how beautiful!’
and sitting in the shade.”
~Rudyard Kipling, Complete Verse
XOXOXOXO

a sight for sore eyes, welcome spring

First the “Builder Bradfords,” then an errant fruit orchard or wild sand plum tree here and there along a creek, maybe a dogwood or two, certainly the magnolias… Now today the Redbuds, Forsythia, and Roses of Sharon are waking up. Slowly but surely our Oklahoma hills and forests are breaking dormancy and taking on the gentle blush of springtime. Daffodils, tulips, pansies, the earliest shoots of day-lilies and cool-season veggies, so many delicate splashes of color everywhere. The muted browns and grays of winter will soon be forgotten, and we don’t even care if half the flat green we see is from weeds.

Almost every year I forget how powerful the surge of new life is, how thrilling that first glimpse of a sprouted seed can be (I almost cried yesterday when my indoor marigold seeds had grown a centimeter in a few hours!) or how exciting it is when forgotten perennials reappear without my help. Science now proudly declares that skin contact with warm earth is good for us physically, too, that healthy soil contains depression-fighting microbes or some such? That, plus the undeniable deep bliss we get from the close-approaching sun this time of year… Friends, we are about to shed all those winter doldrums for good. Or at least for a good long while. Hang in there, okay?

forsythia
Electric yellow forsythia blooming at the Will Rogers garden in Oklahoma City.

 

white magnolia
White magnolia tree blooming, tall and elegant, at the Will Rogers garden in Oklahoma City.

 

Whether you’re an avid and experienced gardener or you just crave to grow a thing or seven, dive in. Dive in now, with both feet wearing flip flops and both hands, un-gloved, fingernails ready to scrape up some dirt. Do not waste time changing clothes or making a fancy list and plan; just start. Ignore your housework for an hour. This is the perfect time. Seize the sun and all his energy. Use whatever quarters and dollar bills you can find under the couch cushions and go buy the first seeds you find (lettuce and spinach are excellent things to start in March). Scratch up some soil. Plant those tiny babies. Tuck them in lovingly, with exactly the same native soil as you just scratched up. Water them gently.

Know that you have just become part of a miracle. Savor that idea.

My gosh. It’s only seeds, right? It’s only food that we eat all the time anyway, cheap and easy enough to buy at the grocery store, ready for dinner. But it’s actually the biggest miracle ever. It’s new life, the stuff of energy and motion and health, all from this tiny, inconspicuous fleck of brown that when touched by the right elements at the right time are brought into the fullness of all those promises imprinted by the Maker. He said this will become lettuce, and this kale, and this spinach. He said so, and it always happens that way.

Do you know what else He said? He said, “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” ~Jeremiah 29:11

How truly stunning, that while gardening we have this opportunity to participate in so many little (but huge!) miracles. How amazing to see His plan worked out over and over again, so many promises fulfilled that at first we are shocked by it all; then eventually we are so surrounded by lushness that maybe we take it for granted.

Of course, the biggest, strongest, most long lasting treasures, like maybe oak trees? They take a lot longer to grow. You really have to be willing to wait. I have to remind myself of this when I ache for the biggest prayers to be answered. It will be worth the wait. It will be strong and beautiful when it finally happens. These words echo in my ribs and belly.

Life is so beautiful, friends. Winter is hard and sometimes ugly, and it’s dangerous and it breaks our spirits a little. But springtime always, always, without exception, returns. The sun warms us. The earth thaws and breaks open with abundance. Color and texture explode, sometimes to feed us and other times just to delight our senses.

tulip
The Will Rogers gardens in Oklahoma City are filled with tulips right now! Go see if you’re local. They are just beautiful.

God loves you. He loves you so much and He wants your prayers to be answered. He wants you to live a happy, peaceful, successful, fulfilling life. There are hidden meanings to the wintry seasons we all endure, but they are only seasons. And He works it all out. Then He comforts us with seeds and sprouts and new life. (And we get veggies! And tulips!)

Are you interested in some slightly more practical gardening ideas this year? Something beyond “find spare change and throw down the first seeds you find?” haha Please stay tuned. I have lots of fun ideas for us. In the mean time, stay hopeful. Keep planting seeds. Keep trusting. And enjoy the slow parade of color. It’s about to get out of control. As always, thanks so much for visiting.

“Grace doesn’t depend on suffering to exist,
but where there is suffering you will find grace
in many facets and colors.”
~William Paul Young, The Shack
XOXOXOXO

 

Happy Easter Friends

Easter Sunday this year is falling at a time of so much change. So much new life.
The month is changing, the season is changing, and I am changing.

Are you?
Are you in any kind of metamorphosis right now, any kind of renewal?
More than ever I think, things are really truly changing.
I hope you are sensing it, and I hope it is all beautiful and exciting.

When I reflect on the Christian importance of this weekend, 
what my mind most often drifts to is redemption. 
We have been redeemed from our sins by our Savior. 
We have been traded. Purchased. Protected from darkness and storms
and even from ourselves for a while, 
our debts relieved and our futures bright and open with loving possibility.

 From a million years ago, one of our homemade Easter rituals, commemorating the Passover night.

This is so in step with how I have been trying to manage my own life lately, 
just the word redemption.
For what different things in this world am I redeeming my precious time and energy? 



Spiritually speaking, the question becomes even more challenging.
What trades am I making? What contracts are written with my free will,
after such a costly redemption?
It’s plenty to think about, but it doesn’t make me sad anymore.
Life is so throbbing with energy right now that I am only motivated, revived, 
and hopeful for the possibility of everything good and amazing!



Break your dormancy, friends.
Erupt through the soil, nourished by invisible things and sparked back to life,
filled with all the life force you need
to grow into your fullest, most beautiful, most useful potential.
Face the sun.
Accept every kind of weather.
Stretch your roots deeply and enjoy the company of bugs and worms.

It’s going to be a season for the record books, and I wish you the best of it all. 
Happy Easter!

xoxoxoxo




Thank You Puxatony Phil!!!!!!!!

   Well, friends, it’s official! It’s almost spring. The wizened groundhog did NOT see his truth telling shadow this morning,

“So ye faithful there is no shadow to see,
an early spring for you and me!”

   So we do NOT have to brace ourselves for six more weeks of winter! We may have as few as two weeks before the cold, dry months are behind us, and this girl could NOT be happier about it!!!

   On that note, by the way, the Farmer’s Almanac predicts a drought recovery for our little slice of paradise, so DOUBLE wahoo!!

This year I crave to fill every one of my thousands of weird containers 
with tens of thousands of beautiful plants, careless about formality. 
This year I am embracing Dee’s phrase,
“English with an Oklahoma accent!”

   As if to cement the prediction, here is our central Oklahoma forecast for this coming week:

   Gorgeous, right?? Those nighttime temps are barely chilly enough to justify the house heater, so I am looking forward to opening every window, airing out these flu-ish germ clouds, and sanitizing our cave with sunshine. I want to force fruit tree branches indoors, too, being a firm believer that fresh foliage purifies the air and lifts the spirits! Nothing to aid the flu there.

   And the daytime temps??  My goodness… Swoon worthy… I have five dirt manicures scheduled this week, one for every weekday. I’m super excited to finish off the raised vegetable beds with layers of organic matter, excited to scrape up some manure from the middle fields and wait for the rains (this is he recipe for GREEN fields), excited to start seeds in the dining room in anticipation of planting week.

Do you remember last year when we built these garden boxes 
from lumber reclaimed form the kids’ playhouse?
They still stand, all four of them, and the fodder from last summer’s bounty has been 
melding and leveling all winter long.
Just a few wheelbarrow loads of manure 
and a quick stir with a pitchfork will have them ready to plant!
These colorful zinnias were grown from seed last year, 
and around Thanksgiving I collected THEIR seeds, about tenfold.
The garden this year will be OVERFLOWING with zinnias!
P.S. the chickens love ’em.
I have mixed feelings about this.

   Honestly, this is so flipping exciting, it’s like someone called and said, “Hey guess what? Christmas is six weeks early this year, so get ready!!”

   Nope, it’s way better than that. It’s like someone said, “Hey guess what you get two birthdays this year!! AND vacation is extra long AND Christmas comes early and lasts late!”

   It feels like I won the bowling championship of the UNIVERSE. My cousin Jen knows how this feels.

   Spring is beautiful to me in every sense, from the physical and sensual to the philosophical and spiritual.

   New life, renewal, vibrancy, color, energy, texture, redemption… All this dormancy and waiting is on the verge of paying off. We’re all about to redeem our wintry patience for vernal abundance!! Tears sown in grief will soon be blooming.

   I have no doubt.
Just hang on.

   Happy early Spring, you fine people!! Please tell me what yo’re planning and planting. This is EASILY the most hardworking and thrilling time of year for me, so I can’t wait to shake off this annoying fly and dive in! I even have new rubber boots and canvas gloves. Wahoo!!

“Spring makes its own statement, so loud and clear
that the gardener seems to be only one of the instruments,
not the composer.”
~Geoffrey B. Charlesworth
xoxoxoxo

40 Days Till Easter

   Springtime is high season for me. This is when everything greens up and things start to bloom. This is when the house is cleanest and my mind freshest. My birthday rolls around. And Easter approaches. I love Easter even more than Christmas, for a million reasons. Do you?
   Easter is when promises are kept. Easter is the fulfillment of hope and the answer to hard wrought prayers. It is a wonderful time for healing and forgiveness. It is the time of every single year of life that we can celebrate the light that follows darkness. Without fail, and independent of anything we do, springtime warms us up and gets our hearts thumping again. And Easter is the culmination of all the waiting, all the spiritual dormancy, all the deadness.
   This year I want to be ready. In yet another bizarre way, God is whispering to my heart a hidden meaning behind our childlessness… that I should be redeeming my time more wisely, not just filling it up. Not just comforting myself or wishing the weeks away. The hours that might otherwise be spent on coloring eggs and shopping for frothy Easter dresses can be spent studying the Word and preparing my heart for miracles.
“God is eagerly waiting for the chance 
to answer your prayers and fulfill your dreams, 
just as He always has. 
But He can’t do it if you don’t pray, 
and He can’t do it if you don’t dream. 
In short, He can’t do it if you don’t believe.”
~ Jeffrey R. Holland 

   I am not sure I agree with Mr. Holland’s word choice here, saying that there’s anything God can’t do, but I certainly agree and believe that the Lord wants a relationship with each of us, privately and permanently and apart from worldly tethers, and so we need to seek Him. That’s our part. Praying, dreaming, hoping, trusting, believing in His goodness above all else, far beyond pain. And in doing so we are assured that He will be there with strong, capable, powerful, merciful, loving open arms.
   And by the way, YES. God has already answered so many big, incredible prayers for us! Why would I ever stop believing in Him? So many dreams are already fulfilled, I get chills to reflect on where we are in life, on how much love already surrounds us. These yet unanswered longings, these fears which remain, are only scabbed over by my own limitations. He has the power to heal all of it, to work miracles I cannot even imagine! Same goes for you and your heart, whatever it is that you’re hoping for or against, He already knows.
   As late winter stretches and yawns herself into the dawn of another springtime, the life giving tremors of Easter are very real to me. Regret over wasted time and spiritual deadness is finally evaporating under the warmth of hope. The busy-keeping activity of recent months, trying to work away pain and over and over again struggling to make sense of things in my own weak ways, is being replaced with a craving for spiritual activity, seeking what He wants me to seek and discovering His power again.
“Let the past sleep, but let it sleep 
on the bosom of Christ, and go out into 
the irresistible future with Him.”
~Oswald Chambers from My Utmost for His Highest
   Lest we get too awfully serious this morning, below is a photo of Tomato the rooster. You know, spring chickens and all. He was only a few weeks old when this photo was taken, and my nephew Zane (well, Zane is *sort of* my nephew, and I love him so much) named him not knowing this feathery creature’s gender. I think it’s a perfect name. You may notice that Tomato got a bright red talon polishing that day, too, which may or may not have affected his personality in the long run. That was two years ago.   
   Nowadays Tomato runs free and wild when the sun is out. His rooster comb is a little wonky, which helps me tell him apart from the others. This is good because his full grown talons have lost their red glamour and we have several white and black roosters. Tomato can be a trouble maker, but we think he’s cool.
   However you observe Ash Wednesday, whatever your rituals are for preparing for Easter, springtime, or just another fresh new day of being alive, I wish you the very best. I wish you a long, wide view of the world, a closeness to Love,  and renewed hope for the biggest miracles you crave! Paint your talons red if it thrills you, and be happy. You are loved, and big things are waiting.
“I sought the Lord, and he heard me, and delivered me from all my fears.”
~Psalm 34:4
xoxoxo