Julia

The Farmer’s Market is open and I’m so excited. I wandered around and purchased some fresh goat cheese and lovely fresh bread. Then I came home and made a yummy sandwich –

Grilled Garlic, Olive and Parmesan bread with goat cheese and honey. It was so good!

First and foremost, an update on my adventures in Gardening: one of my beds, my bigger bed didn’t make it. The day after I planted the bed, I went outside to behold my handiwork and was heartbroken to see that my bed had been destroyed by my dogs. The didn’t just do some digging – they rolled around in the bed. I was heartbroken.

Almost a week later I learned why – I had planted bonemeal with all my bulbs which is apparently the canine equivalent to cat nip! When this little fact came to light I laughed so hard I almost cried. As a rookie gardener, I had no clue!

My smaller bed, with the gladiolas is actually growing. Though clearly one or two of the bulbs got squished by dogs who I can’t seem to keep from walking in the beds, so there’s that small victory. As a new gardener – I’ll take it!

In other news…

It’s funny, some of the authors I follow on Twitter are not only published but they’re holding down a day job and I have to say – I don’t know how they do it!

I have a first draft of a novel almost finished, it needs two chapters added and then to begin the task of first good edit and it’s sat that way for quite a while. Every ounce of energy I have lately is going towards my “day job” and while I love my job – I hate feeling like it’s such a drain on my energy.

What I find totally frustrating is that while my mind is preoccupied with work, the ideas that are popping into my head are not at all related to my current project but rather other random bits. Imagination is almost impossible for me to get focused, my mind just wanders where it will, but I wish it would wander towards these chapters I want to get written, not towards other ideas that I’d like to explore.

I have made myself a promise that in May I’m going to get back in the game – I keep telling myself “I think I can!” (I just hope I’m right.)

When I moved to my little house on the creek, the yard had been left to grow wild for several years. It had been mowed but that was it, so that Fall, with a machete and a chainsaw, I set about reclaiming the yard. The thing about that kind of work is that you have almost instant gratification – you can carve a real yard out of the overgrowth and see it take shape under your hands. It’s not elegant work by any stretch of the imagination but it does give a certain sense of satisfaction.

This weekend I spent several hours cleaning beds and replanting them and I must say, it wasn’t quite what I expected. I imagined all these lovely movies where ladies work in their garden in floppy hats, matching gardening accessories, and carrying a lovely basket. As I went back and trimmed out a few vines trying to make a comeback and watched the progress of a ladybug, that seemed like the kind of experience I was going to have (despite my inelegant gardening attire of sweatpants and a red cross tee shirt) and then I started in on the beds.

My experience went from being a lovely Southern Belle breezing around my yard to being Bill Murray in Caddyshack. I attacked stubborn monkey grass that had taken over the bed and when it refused to yield – I got out a shovel and began full out warfare! It would be hard to say who was winning, though I was gaining ground it felt like the monkey grass was growing, even as I digging it out. Not to be defeated, I got down on my hands and knees and began pulling it out by the roots.

At the end of the day, I was filthy and frankly sweaty and smelly but two beds were carefully planted with bulbs. I didn’t get that sense of accomplishment I get when I’m trimming hedges or clearing out land. In fact, I felt uneasy, what happens if after all that nothing grows? What if my beds remain cedar mulch and mud?

There’s nothing to do now but wait, wait and wonder if the rain predicted for the end of the week will be a good thing or a bad one for my fledgling little garden.

There are some people who take great joy in coaxing green life up out of spring’s mud, I’ve never been one of those people. While I love bright and beautiful flowers, the prospect of having them has never been enough to encourage me to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty.

It’s not that I object to getting dirty – it’s more about the return on investment. beautiful gardens are investment of time and energy, and I’ve never really seen the point. I can go to the Farmer’s Market and get beautiful fresh home-grown vegetables that someone else slaved over, I have plenty of flowers on the azalea and camilla bushes in the yard, so why would I bother going through the hassle of planting?

There’s only one thing I feel like I’m missing, something drawn into sharp contrast for me when I watch the movie Gladiator and Russel Crowe’s character talks about his home:

“My house is in the hills above Tiujillo. A very simple place. Pink stones that warm in the sun. A kitchen garden that smells of herbs in the day…jasmine in the evening. Through the gate is a giant poplar.” ~Maximus, Gladiator

I love smells, I love the way memories are tied into them. It’s the way Magnolia and night blooming jasmine make me think of home. I have this fantasy of getting my old pool house to be an oasis of lovely scents in the backyard. Planting honeysuckle to climb a trellis, gardenia and freesia to scent the evenings. I would suffer the indignities of digging in the mud for that.

Perhaps if I print the quote from Gladiator out and put it by my backdoor I’ll be inspired to go out and nurture a garden, maybe this year I’ll give it a try.

It was a good weekend, though the strange weather has persisted. I finished the week with great flourish, with my best friend and a bottle of wine. In truth, we were actually moving her into her new digs for most of the evening but we capped it off with a bottle of wine and giggling like girls so that was the best part.

On Saturday I went in the kitchen and tried my hand at a recipe that had popped up on my Facebook feed – Corn and Bacon Griddle Cakes. They are hearty, savory pancakes and they are so good. I felt emboldened by my success in the kitchen and took advantage of a beautiful day to go outside and work in the yard.

By “work in the yard” what I actually mean is go outside and tear things up – I cleared out two flower beds and I was getting ready to go in and lay down some mulch to help discourage the weeds but I put that on hold for the time being and I’m contemplating on doing something more. Don’t be too impressed, this is really my first foray into keeping up the yard, we’ll see if I can grow anything more than weeds or plants that thrive when neglected.

It’s Monday now and I long to be elsewhere, the weather is beautiful – there’s writing to do, recipes to attempt, and weeds to conquer but there’s also a living to be made so perhaps it would be best if I did that so I can afford to do all the other things.

I have had an on again-off again relationship with Archery for more than half of my life. I picked up my first bow when I was at summer camp, the instructor said that I excelled at it, but it went the way of many camp hobbies – when the summer was over, it was forgotten while Fall endeavors, like school and studying took the forefront. I wouldn’t pick up a bow again for many, many years…

But pick it up again I did, years later – a friend went on a trip and bought me back a fiberglass recurve bow and I set about trying to re-learn how to shoot. Over the next ten years I would practice in the Spring and Fall when the weather was nice and then a dog sitter dry fired my bow (shot it without an arrow) the string snapped and that was that for a long time. Until a month and a half ago, I got my bow re-strung and began shooting again.

The reaction that people have to my interest in Archery is usually entertaining, well for me anyway. Today I showed a friend the picture below, beaming with pride and the response I got was – “that was the last time I expected.”

Once the shock wears off I am asked the inevitable question – why? If you don’t hunt and don’t have Olympic aspirations, why would you shoot a bow and I really don’t know how to answer that question. There is something to me soul satisfying in that feeling when an arrow leaves the bow and you know that it’s going to hit the center of the target. There’s a glimmer of magic in that moment and once you’ve felt it, the bowstring still vibrating under your fingers, I don’t know how you could not be hooked, but how can you talk about a flash of magic without sounding a little “out there” so instead I usually talk about zombies.

Yes, people who can’t fathom the desire to shoot a bow for a moment of touching magic, will nod solemnly in agreement that shooting a bow in case of zombie apocalypse is perfectly acceptable. People are very complicated!

It’s not even March yet, but the azaleas are blooming…so are the camellias. It’s really strange.. Living on the Gulf Coast,  I have an uneasy feeling about the summer if Spring has sprung in February.  When things don’t cool down it’s bad for bugs and hurricane season, but I have to say it’s beautiful. Everything is a riot of color, and even as I am complaining about my concerns I am already ready for Spring to be here.

I’m ready for the Farmer’s Market on Saturday mornings, the yummy scones from the Bread Lady, the early vegetables which will be rather pitiful offerings at first and will then erupt into gargantuan sizes! I’m ready for the cheesy music every week.

I’m ready for weather that encourages outdoor activities, getting my hands dirty and coxing green life out of the ground. I’m day dreaming about cool evenings around a fire pit with friends.

I’m ready for the days to start to get longer.

Of course I’m not ready for hurricane season when Spring comes early on the Gulf Coast.