This is how many potatoes you can buy for $1 at the potato stand at the lot next to the lot where Steve was seeding last week. Two kids were selling potatoes there as if it were a lemonade stand while visiting their grandmother. I hope grandma knows about the prices! They were definitely freshly dug from her garden, still covered with dirt. I hope she knew about them being dug up as well!Today I wanted to write a blog about some ideas, or about the Donor Appreciation Day at the monastery yesterday with the great chicken dinner and two polka bands. But today was a day for working in both gardens, then putting the new oarlocks on the new oars for the little duck boat out on the pond, then a little photo shoot with Steve of his new sprayer (he got a new seeder today, too, which was a sight to behold and will make seeding lawns a much nicer process and more weed-free than the current process).
The prairie has moved from purple in July to bright yellow in August. Coreopsis, grey-headed coneflowers, false sunflowers and bright bunches of goldenrod covered with bees. I’ll include a few shots.
I’ve lived here for just over a year, and today was a day that showed me how far I’ve come in this year. Last year I felt really anxious, sort of trapped in someone else’s house. I was grieving the sale of my own home, and none of my stuff seemed to fit or look right in this house. I didn’t know how to be here, or what to do with myself. In the past year I’ve learned how to be inside in the winter, though the winter was difficult, too. But I learned I love the prairie in snow, just stomping around in snowshoes. I learned it was a great time of movie-watching and reading and thinking, and projects like the living room renovation. I still felt like I was living in Steve’s house, though, and though it’s a nice place to live, it wasn’t mine.
This summer I moved into gardens– flower and vegetable, and enjoyed the porch. I cooked a lot, and am looking forward to more cooking. I got a new grill, which I love. Today Steve and I walked around and looked at what’s left– peppers, basil, cucumbers (maybe), tomatoes and beans, and who knows what is going on with the brussel sprouts. We also walked around and scouted out possible spots for both the large garden we’ll spray and burn in fall and plow in the spring, and a spot for the writer’s cabin I want in a few years. Steve has some ideas for both the design and the landscaping. The scrappy apple tree between the white pine and the spruce tree surprised us both by being full of apples. I learned the names of a lot of things this year, what the names describe and what they mean.
I had some chores to do– laundry on the line, the oars, the grill, some watering of the potted plants–and invited over my neighbor from back in Cold Spring, who is coming for dinner. I’m excited to show her my garden (though hers far exceeds mine, and I’m hoping she’ll give me some advice), and to have her in my home.