Garden productivity… :) Makes me pleased. And a few other things.

Wee little garden update:

This morning, I harvested $6.58 worth of fresh, organic produce.  Here’s how I figured it:

• One head of lettuce (Simpson Black Seeded — one of the BEST choices I made for my garden this spring).  Seven oz, after being torn and washed.  Five ounce containers of organic lettuce are typically $3.99.  At that rate, my lettuce is worth $4.49.
• Two ounces broccoli — actually my largest head of broccoli so far, only about 5″ across… Turns out that broccoli typically doesn’t produce well at first try…  Still, I’m not giving up.  I may try a different variety next time, though.  And plant it later, as the best of my broccoli has been harvested this month, when it’s warmer.  Anyway.  I can typically get organic broccoli at the store for $1.49/lb, so my two ounces equals $0.19 worth.
• Turnips — 3.5 oz.  Actually, they’re not turnips.  They’re the roots of Tyfon greens, which is a cross between a turnip and a kind of Chinese cabbage.  Tyfon was a good choice when they were young and it was cooler, and we ate a ton of it, usually garlic braised and mixed with red chard.  But as the weather has warmed, the Tyfon has been an absolute aphid MAGNET.  Gross.  So, I pulled the remainder of them out this morning, and a few of them had biggish, turnip-looking roots.  Thus, 3.5 oz of “turnips”, at $2.99/lb = $0.65 worth.
• Six ounces carrots.  We have a spot at the end of the garden where my daughter Fiala dumped an entire packet of carrot seeds.  Even with regular thinning, it has turned into a carrot forest.  I did a little research, because these carrot tops were developing powdery mildew.  It turns out that powdery mildew — which is fairly harmless on carrots, though it can spread to other plants and stunt growth — flourishes in dry days, in shady conditions, and in crowded plants which inhibits circulation.  The “carrot forest” is, unfortunately, largely shaded by a tree.  It’s dry here.  And, they’re crowded.  Thus, I’ve had to pull out lots of baby carrots, which really aren’t akin to grocery store “baby carrots”.  When they’re not full-grown, they’re rather bitter.  But, they’re still edible.  So, 6 oz carrots at $0.99/lb = $0.38 worth.
• I also harvested eight cherry tomatoes — 4 yellow and 4 red.  Organic tomatoes are really expensive — typically $3.99/lb.  So, my 3.5 oz of cherry tomatoes is worth at least $0.87.

If my math is right, that is $6.58.  And that’s just from today!  I’m daily harvesting produce.  AND, there’s still a bunch of red chard I need to harvest before it bolts, which I will do later today.  Organic red chard is typically $1.99/bunch this time of year, and I have enough for a good 4, 5, 6 store-sized bunches.  Maybe more.  And there are some lovely green onions that can be harvested.  Even though my garden is small — about 7′ x 20′ — it has been extremely productive, once I got it going…  Definitely more productive this spring than last;  I’ve learned a lot in quite a short period of time.

 

Lovely nasturtium, with lettuce and not-yet-red bell pepper growing in the background. And, for those in the desert, Palo Verde "leaves" make the perfect straw for mulch.

Audrey, who turned six this month, in an outfit she picked out on her own. Darling girl.

Fiala, in one of her newest favorite activities. She is about 75% healed of her Candida Albicans system-wide yeast infection, BLESS GOD!!

The many faces of FiFi. She saw a bug, her one phobia.

About two minutes post-bug. She's laughing at me grossing out over her picking her nose. She's quite pleased with mom being disgusted.

Precious girl on the tree-trapeze. There is such a tender spot in my heart for her. We have had *SUCH* a difficult three years+, and it gives me indescribable joy and relief that we may be coming out of it. Truly, all glory and thanks to God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ who redeems and heals.

More garden stuff, including a little seed giveaway… (plus, any takers for an online/e-mail natural birthing class??)

I promise that there is more of note going on in my life than just my garden, but since I have such a nice pic, I thought I’d post another garden update.

One other thing I wanted to mention, though (buried, here in the garden post) is that I’m thinking about making my birthing class notes available as an online/correspondence/something-like-that birth class.  Anyone interested?  I can e-mail you the PDF of the first class (of six, total) as a preview.  I would send copies of each week’s class, one at a time.  I highly suggest that you take two weeks to go through each class’s material and homework, because there is a LOT of info!  And, for full disclosure, the classes are really geared to married Christian couples, but I’m thinking about editing them to be more appropriate for other… uh… demographics.  The basic idea of them is to show the wonder and amazing, kind plan of our Creator God in the process of birth — so that the mom would birth, filled with that wonder, and eager to participate fully in His transformational intentions for her… and that there would be NO FEAR in birth.  If anyone is interested, I will take on three student couples for $40 each, and you can help me work out any communication kinks that may need fixing.  Beta test, if you will.    ANYONE can have a free copy of the first class’s notes, though.  karenjoy@onlysometimesclever.com

OK.  Back to this day’s regularly scheduled garden post:

This was yesterday’s harvest:  Red chard, green beans (I found more hiding under the red chard after the picture), two dinky tomatoes, and two Dragon carrots.

The carrots would have benefited from another week or two in the ground.  The packet says that they should mature in 70-90 days, and they’ve been in the ground more than 120 days!!  Things grow more slowly in the winter growing season here… less sunlight.  But, sheesh!  Mature already!!  They’re lovely carrots, though.

My tomatoes are thriving.  I’ve harvested a dozen or so in the last couple weeks, though it doesn’t look like any will be red and ready for Thanksgiving.    There are probably 200+ tomatoes growing on my plants, but the bad news is that they’re all about one ounce “big”.  Teeny tiny.  Bigger than cherry tomatoes, but not by much!  I bought my seeds from Native Seeds/SEARCH, which is a fabulous, to-be-esteemed organization for growing, promoting, and selling native and heirloom seeds that do well in the Arizona desert.  However, the Native Seeds’ description of my Punta Banda tomatoes neglected the mention the size, and I neglected to notice the lack of description.  Here, on another site, they’re listed as cherry tomatoes.

My basil plants just won’t die.  Not that I really want them to, but when I add basil to any dish I’m making, I must confess that I use my basil-and-olive-oil “ice cubes” from the freezer.

Fiala, my three-year-old, ran off with a packet of carrot seeds and a packet of onion seeds a few weeks ago.  It is now clear where she planted them, as there are about one hundred carrot sprouts in about a one square foot area of my garden, onions sprouting in the gravel (leading me to think about the parable of the sower), and a sprinkling of onions and carrots in other less-than-ideal spots.    Precious, rascally girl.

I hope my garlic has lovely, round, purple blooms like this!!

I have one Mexican grey squash plant that is hanging on…  Broccoli that is sprouting (not too vigorously, though, and I think the birds like the sprouts), green onions that are slowly but beautifully growing, mystery volunteer tomato plants that are starting to flower and bear new, tiny fruit…  I planted some garlic cloves, too, and they’re coming up beautifully.  I love garlic and we eat a TON, but I’m kind of planting them for their flowers.  My green beans (Yoeme Purple String Beans, to be exact) are still hanging on, though I’m only harvesting about 1/4 – 1/2 pound every week from four largeish bamboo teepees.  I have set aside 33 seeds that would be good for planting, and will give them to the first taker who mails me a self-addressed, stamped envelope, if you wanna give them a shot!  Again, e-mail if interested.

My tomatillos are fairly pointless.  I have 1/2 gallon of teeny tiny tomatillos in my fridge, waiting to see if I will make salsa out of them for Thanksgiving.  I guess I should take them out of the refrigerator and let the husks dry all the way…  I’m fairly disgusted with how much space those giant plants took up, compared to the tiny fruit.    I started pruning the bushes WAY back, in hopes that the roots and stalks would super-charge the remaining tomatillos and make them grow big, but no such luck.  After Thanksgiving, I do believe I will just pull them out, amend the soil, and plant more broccoli, and maybe some cauli and rutabagas.

Now that I have a fruitful garden, I can’t imagine even NOT having one.  I pray I will continue to learn, and that my little plot of ground will continue to produce.

And, that’s it!  For today.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American readers, if I get overwhelmed by cleaning and baking and cooking and don’t make it back to the blog before then. 

Garden journal…

I’m so happy with my garden right now. What a difference a few months and 20 degrees make! The searing, endless 110+ days are over, which both I and my garden barely survived. Right now, in the Phoenix area, it is sadly, frustratingly, energy-sappingly hotter than it should be — by a good 15 – 20 degrees. Highs have been in the high 90s. But, I think it’s good for the garden, and at least it’s not 115.

I’m still composting in my two giant bins. I would have a batch ready to till into the soil, but my well-meaning husband dumped a bunch of yard trimmings into both bins (I had one bin “stewing” and was almost ready and the other bin for new material), so now, neither bin is ready. I’ll have to buy some composted manure to add to the garden when it’s time to pull out the crops which are just about done for the season.

• Tomatillos (“Mt. Pima” variety): I have four giant bushes, a good 4+ feet tall each, supported by tomato cages. There are hundreds, if not thousands, of tomatillos on them, and they’re slowly ripening. However… those dumb things are marble-sized. I bought the seeds from Native Seeds/SEARCH, which is a fabulous organization, and I support them wholeheartedly. However, I need to ask better questions before I purchase seeds from them in the future. I wasn’t aware that I was getting the world’s smallest tomatillos; the seed/product description really didn’t mention their teeny-tiny size. I’m still looking forward to making some tomatillo salsa; it’ll just be like making jam, where you have to harvest and clean hundreds of berries for one small jar. The tomatillos are also so large that they’re shading the garden in a greatly unwelcome way. The days are getting shorter, and all the veggies need as much sunshine as they can get; the tomatillos are hogging the sun. I’m getting a bit impatient with the plants, and am considering yanking them out, just to give everything else more sun….
• Tomatoes (“Punta Banda” variety): I have finally controlled the winged aphids that were sapping the life out of my tomato plants. I finely grate about 2 tsp Fels-Naptha soap, dissolve the shreds in water inside a 64 oz sprayer, and spray the tomato plants every 2-4 days. In the interim, I just pinch those nearly microscopic suckers. I now have a good 100+ tomatoes growing on my 11 main plants. Again, these were from Native Seeds/SEARCH, and the tomatoes are only about golfball sized. Still. I’m happy to have an abundance of tomatoes, even if they’re smaller than I prefer. None are ripe yet, but many of them will be in another week or two. I also have about eight other smaller plants, that have come up volunteer, very likely from not being fully composted. The largest of the volunteer tomatoes are just now starting to blossom; I’m excited to find out what kind they are!!
• Green beans (“Yoeme Purple String” variety): These, too, are from Native Seeds/SEARCH. After not bearing any fruit and me barely able to keep them alive in the searing summer heat, they’re now growing wonderfully; I harvest about half a pound every three days from the four bamboo stake teepees I constructed. I think next time, I will choose a different variety; these become too fibrous too quickly… But, still, the beans are good for stewing in soups and Crockpot stuff, and eaten fresh & raw when very young. I’m happy with them.
• Zucchini-ish whatever-it-is. I purchased some seeds touted as Mexican Grey Squash, which is by far my favorite summer squash — think 7-8″ chubby, light green-grey colored zucchini, firm and sweet with tender skin and NONE of zucchini’s bitterness. The plants were dying on the vine in the midst of summer; perhaps it was too hot for them, too. They’re now producing nicely in fairly compact plants. However, they’re NOT Mexican Grey Squash. I contacted the small seed supplier, and suggested that the seeds had been cross-pollinated before they were harvested, as the squash and the plants themselves are quite confused: darker green than MGS, with skinny necks like a crookneck squash.  The supplier got really, really, really defensive, bordering on nasty.  So, I’m not linking to them.  In spite of their questionable background, the squash is tasty. I can’t decide if I will plant these again or not. Unfortuntately, I burned the growth end (or whatever it’s called) of one of the plants with some natural, homemade (and completely ineffective) bug-killer, so only one of my plants are producing.
• Hopi Pumpkin. This GIGANTIC, HUGE vine spread out a good 10′ x 10′ and produced a grand total of three squash. Only one of them are even full-sized. We’ve eaten one. Another, I accidentally harvested when trimming back the vine, and the third and largest remains on the vine. The vine is just about dead and I’m going to need to harvest it, too. I’m waiting as long as I can, because I have winter squash coming out my ears from the CSA I participated in. I’m definitely going to grow winter squash again, but not that variety. Butternut, most likely.
• Chile Negro. These slow-growing plants are finally producing, too. I have about 15 chiles growing on my five plants, none ripe enough to harvest yet. I’m planning on picking these green, too. I think. After I sample them, I’ll decide if I’m going to grow them again.
• Newer crops: I also have Red Chard growing, which is beautiful and tasty. It kind of got off to a slow and bug-eaten start, but they’re doing nicely now. We’re going to eat some tomorrow night. The first harvest of carrots (“Dragon” variety) should be in mid-November. Green onion, bulb onions, and broccoli are also sprouting, but nowhere near ready yet.

Overall, I feel like I’m finally past the frustrating first stages of “I HAVE SO MUCH TO LEARN AND NOTHING IS GROWING RIGHT!!” and am now able to put to use what I’ve discovered about organic desert gardening, and I look forward to an ever more-fruitful garden.

Family outing on the cheap, plus thoughts on art, and a little kindergarten vanity.

On Labor Day, using the Culture Pass* I’d checked out on Friday, our family went to the Phoenix Art Museum, which I’d not visited for five years, and had missed.  Normal admission price for our family of seven would be $32.  ($10 for adults, $4 for children 6-17, free for children 5 and under.)  With the Culture Pass, we paid $12, as Martin and I were free.  Very do-able.  I packed a picnic lunch, which we ate outside in the very warm, dappled shade, next to a creepy sculpture-fountain of a woman “bleeding” water out of cut-up forearms.

When I was in college, I saw a woman wearing a tee that said, “Art Can’t Hurt You” and while part of me understands the sentiment, I actually don’t agree with that.  Art encompasses a wide range of experiences and emotions, including ones that hurt.  However, I don’t get weird about it.  We acknowledged to the little girls, “Yeah… that’s sad.  And creepy.  I wonder if the artist was sad?  It’s painful to look at, huh?”  and we just let it go at that.  Actually, the older boys were more creeped out than the girls, because I think they grasp the concept of mortality and emotional pain better than the 2- and 5-year-old girls.

Anyway.

The whole thing made for a cheap and VERY enjoyable outing.  I’m so glad my hubby was along;  his presence allowed us to stay a good five hours.  If it was just me and the five kids, I’d have been done after, oh, three hours or so.

I really don’t have very many pictures.  When I’m involved in something, I find that I rarely remember to document the process;  I’m too busy enjoying.

We headed first to the Western American Art exhibit, at my insistence.  I don’t consider myself a cowgirl — at all — but I love, love, love Western art.  My all-time favorite painting at the Phx Art Museum is Ed Mell‘s Sweeping Clouds.  Looking up Ed Mell, I just now discovered that I don’t care for all of his paintings, but I sure do love the one hanging in the corner of the PAM.  Western art in general, and that painting in particular, reminds me of the very best things about living in Arizona — dramatic scenery, a sense of solitude, unique aspects of nature, the vibrant colors of the desert, and the best skyscapes of ANYWHERE….

Not my pic. I'll admit, I stole it from a Russian website and am now uploading it here. I didn't want to link to that site, because it seemed a little fishy.

Other highlights included the installation of Yayoi Kusama’s You Who Are Getting Obliterated in the Dancing Swarm of Fireflies which is essentially a dark, mirrored room, about 20′ square, with a reflective floor and ceiling, and thousands of computer-programmed LED lights of varying colors hung at all heights.  It’s kind of hard to find your way in, orient yourself, and then find your way out again.  It doesn’t sound like something I’d enjoy, but I LOVED it.  So did all the kids, especially Fiala.  We went through it probably five times or more… probably spent a good 30 minutes total in that little room.  It was what the best installations are:  Unique, an experience, a wee bit unsettling, but also thoroughly enjoyable.

In the kids’ art room, the girls and my 12yo, Grant, went to town, drawing and playing for upwards of 45 minutes.  I stayed there with them while Martin and the other two boys visited the Modern Mexican Painting exhibit.

It's inspired by Escuelas de Pintura al Aire Libre, the open-air painting schools of Mexico.

 

Fiala, very intent.

 

Audrey, candid.

 

Audrey, posing, now that she realizes Mom is snapping pics. Goober. Cute little goober.

So.  The Phoenix Art Museum.  You should go.  And pick up your passes from the library. 

————–

*The Phoenix Library system has a great program called the Culture Pass.  There is a little kiosk inside each library branch that has cards which you take to the desk to “check out” a free pass, good for 2-4 tickets, to be used within the week, to various cultural attractions around the area.  For our one-income family, this is a fabulous way to make often-pricey museums an extremely reasonable outing.

 

Garden! Honey laundering! Motivated Moms! Obsessed with bread! New glasses! Hiking!

• 

  Rhubarb Chard from Seeds of Change

  I have carrots, green onions, broccoli, and red chard seeds planted in my garden.  I’ll be planting more of everything, plus lettuce and bulb onions, as space allows.  Still growing:  Mexican grey squash (I’ve eaten lots of them, raw, when they’re about 3″ long, right before they turn yellow and die); Yoeme purple string beans (tall and mostly green, but appears to be heat-stressed… some blooms… I’m waiting to see if the plants will do better as the weather cools);  basil (the only thing that’s really thriving;  we eat basil in stuff 4-5x/week now);  tomatoes (loads of blooms, but not really vigorous, strong plants… again, waiting until it cools to reassess);  hot red chile plants (healthy-looking, but small and no blooms).  I’m trying to decide what to do about my ginormous Hopi pumpkin plant.  It is literally spilling out of my raised bed… the squash plant is about 10′ x 4′, and it is taking up so much room that could be used for something else.  The plant appears to be thriving, with huge, green leaves and dozens of blossoms, and it would be a shame to rip out something so vigorous.  But, the pumpkins grow about 2-3″ big and then die, much like my Mexican grey squash.  My husband thinks it’s due to the heat and that I should give it some time.  I’m trying not to think about all the other, possibly more fruitful veggies I could plant in the space that dumb pumpkin is hogging.

• PLEASE READ this article on honey.  Please.  Who knew that honey was such a controversial topic??  It is imperative to your safety that you buy honey that is a product of the USA, or at least the western hemisphere.  Honey from China — tainted with illegal antibiotics and heavy metals — is saturating the American market, because honey from China is banned in Europe.  “Some of the largest and most long-established U.S. honey packers are knowingly buying mislabeled, transshipped or possibly altered honey so they can sell it cheaper than those companies who demand safety, quality and rigorously inspected honey. … Almost 60 percent of what was imported – 123 million pounds – came from Asian countries – traditional laundering points for Chinese honey. This included 45 million pounds from India alone.”  HONEY SMUGGLING.  Who knew?
• 

  "Like" OSC on Facebook for new post updates, quick responses to any questions and comments, plus additional tidbits.

  Perhaps it’s too early to make a true judgement, but Motivated Moms seems to be working great.  It’s oddly helpful to be accountable to a sheet of paper which is waiting for me to tick the boxes.  The system is a real change for me, because instead of cleaning the bathroom in one fell swoop, it has you clean the toilet one day, the mirrors another day, the sink the following day, etc.  However, breaking each task into 2-to-20 minute segments makes each of them more do-able for me.  Plus, I find it difficult to disappear into my bedroom for an hour and a half to clean the master bath from lighting fixtures to tile;  I just don’t have that large chunk of time often enough, and I just can’t leave my kids unsupervised for that long.  But, pretty much everyone can function on their own if mom is only “gone” for 20 minute segments.  It’s just now noon, and I’ve already accomplished more than I would in an entire typical day.  Plus, I’ve gone on Facebook, done some gardening, made a loaf of bread, and busted a few heads.  Not really “busted”.  I’ve applied some mothering. 

• Speaking of bread, I’m an obsessed baker again.  I’m really motivated to find a recipe that WORKS, simply.  I have been making my Best Ever Gluten-Free Flour Mix for the last couple of months, consistently having it on hand to whip up some cupcakes or muffins or pancakes, and that has been wonderful and helpful.  Though it is a really versatile mix, I haven’t been able to successfully make sandwich bread with it, and I’m determined to come up with a bread recipe that will work using that flour mix.  Simple = sustainable.  I want to be able to daily (or nearly so) bake bread, and I know I won’t do it if I have to get out twenty billion ingredients, or remember a complicated process.  So far, the results are tasty, but too dense.  I’m tinkering with everything tinker-able — amount and kind of liquid, oven vs. breadmaker, amount of sugar and yeast, amount of rising time, etc.
• 

  They make me look hipper than I actually am.

  I got new glasses. 

• I went out hiking, early Saturday morning, with two friends, Cristi and Wendy.  It was the first time I hiked in about six weeks.  The hike wasn’t particularly strenuous, but it was good to just get out and get moving again.  What with the heat, a summer Bible study, my garden, our vacation, and simply getting out of the habit, my hiking went by the wayside.  I’m re-motivated now. 

Glutton for punishment

As a glutton for punishment, even though my summer garden was/is far from successful, I am still very much looking forward to August 1st, when, according to a Maricopa County planting calendar put out by the University of Arizona, it’s the right time to start putting up (as my Midwest family calls it) green onion and carrot seeds.*  I have them purchased — Seeds of Change this time.  Heirloom and organic, but not native.

Parade Bunching Onion

I’m hoping that amending my soil MORE will help.  I’m continuing to make compost.  I have another batch about ready to mix into the garden with my fall planting.  I think I will also add more sand and some gypsum, though it seems like the jury is still out on whether or not gypsum is really of benefit to clay soil.  AND I will follow the garden calendar.  I’m not really sorry I didn’t follow it (or anything like it) when I did the initial planting;  I just needed to DO IT, to get myself started…  Sometimes one learns best from poor decisions, right? 

Dragon carrot

Seriously, this garden has been a real test of character for me.  It has become a daily effort to persevere even though the fun and most of the hope is gone for this summer’s crop.  “Keep weeding, keep learning, stay attentive, don’t give up just because it wasn’t an instant success,” I have to encourage myself.  I’m trying to take a longer view — which is also difficult for me — and place my hopes on future crops which will benefit from this summer’s failures.  ~sigh~

But, like I said…  I must be a glutton for punishment because hope — while not quite as abundant as it was fourish months ago — springs eternal, and I really am looking forward to better success next time.

In semi-related news, my love for butterflies and a homeschooling opportunity came into direct opposition to my gardening efforts this weekend.  In my Amazon cart, unpurchased, is a “butterfly garden“, which is really a pop-up mesh-sided habitat for butterflies.  I was rather excited to see a money-saving, real-life large green caterpillar on one of my tomatillo plants.  (Here in the desert, we rarely see caterpillars!)  I called out all the kids, and we watched the guy munching his way along…  I was much less excited when one caterpillar had turned into two, and together, they had absolutely decimated one plant and were well on their way to demolishing a second.  My husband pulled them off for me last night, and against his wishes to dump them in the trash, he deposited them, at my pleading, into a bush in the front yard.  In the meantime, I went to pick up our son Grant, who had spent the afternoon at a friend’s house.  As I briefly described Caterpillar-Gate to her, she went to the cupboard and pulled out a butterfly garden!  I happily took it home.  Though the two caterpillars were “gone”, I was pretty confident that more may show up.  Sure enough, there was another chubby green muncher on my largest tomatillo plant this morning.  I collected five different kinds of leaves from around the yard and plunked them and the caterpillar inside.  We’ll see if he weathers the change.

———-

*This is a really long run-on sentence, isn’t it?

 

Summer panic… and peace

Right about this time every year, there gets to be a tight feeling in my chest, which I have to fight for… oh, about five months.  It’s a bit like claustrophobia, but it’s more along the lines of heat-o-phobia.  Truly, I despise summer in the desert.  Some people really love the heat and thrive in it.  That, however, is not me.  I have worked hard to find things to appreciate about the place I live so that I’m not living with a crappy attitude and wishing to be elsewhere, half of my life.  My husband is a native, his dad is a native (which is REALLY rare;  the Phoenix area is a valley of transients)…  My mom and stepdad are here, my sister and brother-in-law are here, my niece is here… plus, we truly have the most amazing church where we both serve and are fed.  Not to mention my husband’s fabulous job that he’s been at for 19 years.  It’s highly unlikely that we’ll be leaving any time soon.  I have come to value the benefits to living here, apart from the weather, which, any time I really let myself think about it, I could pretty easily conjure up some tears.  I mean, I really despise summer in the desert.

But, I will not dwell on the endless 110°+ days;  I will, instead, continue to look for things that make the desert tolerable or even pleasant, and fight the heat-o-phobia and its accompanying tears which threaten to steal my peace.

Several things have made the transition into summer easier for me this year:

1. There have only been a handful of 100° days so far.  Today, as I write, we have been the beneficiary of some low-pressure front, or something like that, and the temps are supposed to top out in the 70s.  Yesterday’s high was 80°.  I know that God doesn’t allow these sort of days solely for me, but I like to think of them as Him giving me a bit of hope and reprieve, letting me know that I can make it, and that it’s not ALL oven-like misery.
2. I have been waking earlier.  Much earlier.  A couple of weeks ago, I started hiking a mountain — hill, more like it — that is nearby.  I wake at 5:30 a.m., am on the trail by 6:00, and home by about 7:15 just in time to help my hubby gather his lunch for the day, his to-go mug of coffee, and to kiss him goodbye.  The first day I did the early-morning hike, Martin said, “You could do that every day and it would be OK with me.”  Other than a spunky 2yo who sometimes wakes way too early and won’t stay in bed, and has the power to open the fridge and take out everything she can’t eat and have a surreptitious binge whilst Daddy is in the shower and Mommy is not yet home, it works really well.  And, I have the great feeling of becoming fit and healthier, as well as breathing in the cool, early morning air and being there to (almost) greet the sunrise.  I do a balloon-shaped trail that is about 3.6 miles, savoring the temperatures that are in the 60s or 70s…  It has been wonderful.  And, somehow, it’s SO MUCH EASIER for this night owl to roll out of bed at 5:30 for a hike, instead of, say, the stationary bike.
3. 

   I think ours is taller than this, and it's in bloom.

   Our backyard is now over five years old, and the pathetic little saplings have matured and grown into a lush (for the desert) green oasis.  This may not seem like much, but when I’m surrounded by hot, brown, and dry, it’s such a blessing to be able to walk into my back yard and breathe in a little bit o’ GREEN.  The trees are now climbable, and one of them even has a little rope swing attached.  We have two medium (but lovely) fruitless pistachio trees and two large tipu trees.  Wonderful.

4. My garden.  Again, it’s only May, and I got it in a good month later than I should have, so who knows how fruitful it will actually be.  But for now, it’s medicine to my soul to push the dirt around and coax and nurture little plants into being.  Usually once a day (at least), I pull out my kneeling pad and just sit on it, looking at the garden.  Even when there’s nothing to do in it, I feel good looking at it either up close, or just glancing out the window while working in the kitchen.  Over the weekend, my hubby installed soaker tube for the irrigation and put up a little wire fence to keep our dog (and small children) from romping through the tender growth.  He proclaimed, “Now it looks like a real garden.”  I concur.

Things I thought I’d be able to do while my husband was in Northern Ireland for a week

Things I thought I’d be able to do while my husband was in Northern Ireland for a week*:

1. Read a lot:  Finish the book I’m working on, plus read the next one in the series.
2. Blog more.  Maybe every day!
3. Color my hair.
4. Clean the whole house.
5. Take my kids out for the day to the river.

Things I actually got done:

1. Color my hair.
2. Take my kids (plus one friend) out for the day to the river.

I don’t know why I thought I would have so much free time on my hands.  It totally didn’t work out like that.  Most nights found me collapsing somewhere at 9:30 or 10, too tired to even think enough to read.  But, I couldn’t sleep.  Most nights, I was up until 1 or 2 a.m., just tossing restlessly, or trying to read.  The whole week my husband was gone, I read a grand total of about 20 pages in my current book.  I blogged once.  I barely got the house straightened up for him, and didn’t deep clean anything.  We were doing school the whole time, and I still had other responsibilities — like leading worship in small group on Thursday night and in SuperChurch on Sunday morning — and we did spend an entire day at the river, so it wasn’t like I was sitting around doing nothing.  But, still.  Looking back, I’m not sure where I expected to find the time to do all the stuff that I thought I could do.

The whole time that he was gone, I wasn’t really tired, even though I was existing on 5-6 hours of sleep per night.  He’s been home two nights, and I’ve gotten 7-8 hours of sleep each night and am now EXHAUSTED.  I’m so tired.  I think it was that when he was gone, mentally, I just knew that the buck stopped with me, since my hubby was out of the country, and I had to be on my game.  Now that he’s home, I think I’m breathing such an internal sigh of relief that my body just wants to go hibernate.

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*He was leading worship for several meetings/seminars/church services/etc.  He rocked.

It has sprung, in the Sonoran Desert.

This last week, the acacias started blooming.  For me, that’s always the mark of springtime.

Here in the Sonoran Desert, the three major flowering trees are the sweet acacia, the palo verde, and the ironwood.  They bloom in that order:  sweet acacias in late February or early March, palo verdes in March-April or so, and ironwoods in late April or early May, usually.  Acacia blooms are dark orangey-yellow little ½” puffballs, and have a very distinct, cloying, powerful scent.  Palo verde blooms are usually (depending on the variety) bright, bright yellow, blanketing the entire tree with delicate flowers.  Ironwoods are more subtle, a very light lavender color, among the grey-green leaves.  Neither palo verdes nor ironwoods have much scent.

acacia farnesiana

acacia farnesiana, seed pod and bloom

I cannot stand the scent of the acacia.  Ugh.  When I was a kid, my mom took my sibs and I, weekly, to the Phoenix Library.  Each branch of the library is named after a native plant.  We usually went to the Acacia Library.  In the springtime, I remember taking a giant gulp of air while still in the car, then sprinting up the acacia-lined path to the entrance while holding my breath, to avoid smelling the nearly unavoidable fragrance.

The palo verdes to be found around the Phoenix area are typically either the Blue Palo Verde, parkinsonia florida (which is NOT native to Florida), or the Mexican Palo Verde, parkinsonia aculeata.

parkinsonia florida bloom, close-up (beautiful!)

parkinsonia florida

I didn’t know until now that the palo verde is an invasive species in many places, worldwide, especially Australia.  I was about to post something preachy about landscaping with only native species, but remembered that, while my front yard has only native plants, my backyard has several non-natives, including the Australian tipu tree.

Anyway.

My fave desert tree is, by far, the desert ironwood, olneya tesota.  Part of it is just because I like purple;  so many native plants around here bloom yellow and only yellow.  Part of its appeal is just because I like the shape of the tree.  And, I think it’s cool that the wood is so beautiful, often burled and two-toned,  not that I think one should go around chopping down ironwood trees.  The wood is so dense that it will sink in water.

A couple of years ago, I looked into visiting the Ironwood Forest National Monument, established by Clinton only days before he left office.  There wasn’t much info on it, especially on the hiking trails I sought, so I called the Tucson field office of the BLM, which administers it.  Well, it turns out that the Ironwood National Monument is a MAJOR illegal immigration corridor, and I was vehemently advised to stay away, especially as I had small children.  Golly.  The field officer blamed the situation Clinton, who had established the monument, but had given no funds for its development or protection.  Hm.  I still want to go, but maybe we’ll wait a few years.

Braces, blogging about teen children, writing, reading, worship, and the Arizona “beach”

• My oldest, Ethan, just had a lunch that consisted of refried beans with cheese melted on them, and a glass of milk.  What the rest of us were eating (which included, among other things, baby carrots) didn’t work.  Duh.  I’ll have to get used to considering the Sore Mouth Factor when figuring out meals for him/us.  He got bands placed between his molars this morning, in preparation for the first of his braces, which will be put on in about two weeks.
• Speaking of Ethan…  A few years ago, I was wondering why I wasn’t getting more great parenting stories, ideas, and tips from those of my bloggy friends who have children a few years older than mine.  “Why isn’t anyone writing about those tumultuous teen years??“  Well, I figured it out.  At nearly 14, my son is now a… sentient being.  The smaller a child is, the more freely you can talk about personal issues:  An 18 month old isn’t going to get her feelings hurt that you divulged mothering struggles to your friends.  (Or strangers, as the case may be, in a blog.)  Your 13 year old?  Definitely.  So, I’ve learned that I can say virtually nothing about my son online, because I want to honor his privacy.  He’s wonderful, but you’ll just have to take my word for it. 
• And, where have I been the last month or so?  Working hard on ghostwriting.  More info on that, coming soon. 
• In my head, I keep composing a post on how vastly different I look with makeup vs. without it, and various thoughts on painting the barn when it needs painting.  Maybe I’ll get around to it some day…
• I’ve been reading a lot!  Lately, I’ve been working through Laurie R. King’s Mary Russell series, which is a curious mixture of historical fiction, literary mystery, Biblical scholarship, and feminism.  Very interesting.  When reading any series, I simply must go chronologically, so I’m on the 5th book in the series currently, O Jerusalem.
• I have a job!  I mean, I’m re-employed!  Or, something…  I’m happy that, this week, I start leading small group worship again.  There was some shifting in small groups, and I was out of a “job” for about six or seven weeks.  It felt like a long time, but it was good to go to a small group and “just” be a participant.
• Homeschooling 101:  You can take trips on a school day to just about anywhere and call it a field trip.    I took my kids last Friday to the Santa Maria River.  My mother-in-law came with, which was great;  she’s a perfect road-trip partner.  The kids did so well for the eight hours we were gone, other than the first three miles of the trip.  After listening to about five minutes of continuous bickering, I risked my MIL’s esteem by pulling over to the side of the road to chew everyone out.  Chewing out the kids, that is.  Not her.  On the way out*, we took a scenic route, partially by (well-maintained) dirt road, which is probably my favorite or second-favorite Arizona drive**.  On the way back, we took all blacktops, which took two hours and saved us 30 minutes, even though, mileage-wise, it was slightly longer.  The river is NW of Wickenburg, and when there’s adequate water, it’s about as close as we get to the beach, here in Arizona.  The water does not run all the time, so I get USGS alerts for when the water is 10 cubic feet per second or greater.  The pics below were when the water was at about 60 cfps.  We played in an area just where the AZ 96 (my fave road in all of AZ) crosses the river, about 15 miles SE of Bagdad.  The temps were in the high 70s, with a strong sun and cool breezes.  It was perfect.

I have some better pics, too, but everything I post here needs to be 100% modest and fully-clad, so those are a no-go for the blogosphere. 

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*The route we took OUT was Carefree Hwy (AZ 74) west to US 60.  US 60 northwest for only six miles to the point where it meets up with the US 93.  US 93 NW to AZ 89.  AZ 89 north-ish to Date Creek Road, which is 20+ miles of scenic and hilly dirt road.  Then, AZ 96 west to the point where it crosses the Santa Maria.  The route we took BACK was AZ 96 about 10 miles further west (bypassing, incidentally, my beloved Santa Maria River road, another extremely scenic dirt drive, because I was outvoted by my children).  Then, traveled SW sixteen miles on two-lane hilly, beautiful, remote blacktop of the AZ 97.  Then, SE on the US 93, which meets back up with the US 60, then back home.

**My all-time favorite Arizona drive is likely the long, ∩-shaped drive to get to the North Rim of the Grand Canyon, which follows the high desert and Navajo Reservation along the US 89 and US 89A (at the point north of where it intersects with the US 160), along the stunning Echo Cliffs and Vermilion Cliffs, then climbs rapidly up to the Kaibab Plateau and the AZ 69, which goes south along verdant, alpine meadow lush with wildlife (deer and bison).  Unparalleled, and remote enough to be sparsely populated, which is just how I like it.