High Water

March in Michigan was beautiful. Warm and sunny and it got me itching for a camp weekend. I had to wait (and wait and wait) until May to make the first trip up.

Robin has accepted a full-time position at a winery in Oregon, so I used her impeding absence as an excuse to take off for an overnight stay. No kids, no dudes, just the two of us. 

Our camp is on the Muskegan River, so we expected some flooding. There was water on the road for about 100 feet leading to the driveway.

It wasn't really a problem because the water was just a few inches deep.

Notice my new, green Sloggers? I'm so fashionable.

 The driveway was completely dry, so we didn't have to haul our stuff on through the water.

The river bank last fall had about an eight foot drop to the water, but on this weekend it was up over the bank and about half way up the yard.

Again,it was not a problem for us. We had great company and cold beer. What more could you ask for?

We weren't sure if the water would be too high to turn on the gas, so we planned a cook-free dinner.

 

This was the most delicious meal ever. Throw in some cribbage and we were happy girls.

We really lucked out, because the water didn't get to the fire pit. We ended the day with this:

Perfect night.

The Garden Begins

The glory of gardening: hands in the dirt, head in the sun, heart with nature. To nurture a garden is to feed not just on the body, but the soul. -Alfred Austin


I've got nothing left in me lately. I'm not sure how to get through the next hour, except to just get through the next hour.
Tonight, when maybe I should have been doing a million other things, I went to the garden. It has healing powers I cannot explain.

Let me start at the beginning.

After multiple recommendations, I ordered from High Mowing .  It was so, so hard not to order one of everything. I excitedly texted an ambitious list to Hubs of all the beautiful vegetables I was going to grow. He responded with a gentle reminder of my limited garden space. Boo. Someday I'm going to till up half the backyard and garden myself silly.

But for now, I had to restrain myself. I settled on the following list:

De Cicco Broccoli

Necoras F1 Hybrid Carrot

Improved Rainbow Mix Chard

Luscious F1 Hybrid Corn

Purple Glazer Garlic

Lacinato Dinosaur Kale

Siskiyou Sweet Walla Walla Onion

Costata Romanesco Zucchini

Honey Nut Mini-Butternut

Green Finger Cucumber

Kentucky Wonder Pole Bean

Sugar Snap Pea        

I tried to pick things that we often buy and reminded myself that we can still have all of the other veggies, I just have to buy the other stuff from the farmer's market. Man, you can grow anything in Michigan! Well, almost anything.

My cousin is a horticulturist, so I asked her for advice about getting my seeds started. When she offered to take my seeds and start them I was thrilled. Obviously, she is awesome.


Seeds safely in her hands, I have been able to focus my energy on chickens and readying the garden beds. More on the chickens later.


Last fall, for once in my life, I didn't let my end of the season laziness get the better of me. I actually tucked my beds in with a layer of chopped leaves and then a layer of straw.

I pealed back the layer to find rich, wet soil. It seems a little too wet, but we've had a ton of rain lately so lets just blame it on the rain, yeah yeah.

I got a text message from my cousin saying that my starts had been delivered to my house. I got home to discover a problem.

That's 9 flats total, including 3 flats of Swiss chard. We like Swiss chard, but what the hell are we going to do with 3 flats? I only have three 4x16 beds and one will be full of tomatoes, so yeah, I have a problem.

I called several people trying to give plants away with little success. I can't just pitch them into the compost pile, because that would be murder.I'm still working on finding homes for all my orphans.

I really wanted to try the Three Sisters planting method this year, but discovered problem #2. No corn. My cousin asked me to remind her what seeds I had because all the plants got moved around in her greenhouse and she wasn't sure. I guess she missed the corn. It's not really a big deal, we can buy some from the local greenhouse.

On this night of soul feeding, I planted broccoli, carrots and cucumbers.

I left space for some nasturtium around the broccoli. My mantra while I garden is, "I will not overfill my beds. I will not overfill my beds. I will not overfill my beds."

At the start, the beds seem so empty and I always want to squeeze in *just one more* start. Then, by the middle of summer, I have an over-packed, amazon forest of a garden bed.

I hope my girls will love gardening and be able to find the same joy in it that I do.