There was a time in my life-my skinnier, single life, that I was a proficient nightswimmer. Large bodies of natural water: lakes, oceans, sometimes the eddies of a river, would unwittingly accept my sweaty armpits and oily hair as I checked the swim off as my daily shower. I'm pretty sure my sister Niki contributed her urine upstream from me a few times as well, bless her little heart. The girlfriends and I would sneak into the night, shed our clothes as we screeched off of docks or cliffs, and become mermaids at best, fish in the least.

Here's Sara and I taking clues that it will be a good night while we wait for Heather to come.

Heather wins!..and with glasses on no less! In the end, she chose french fries. Hmmm, maybe nightswimming may be a danger to my health after all?

Naaah.


Here's me timing my camera to see how long it will take to get a picture of Sara in mid-air jumping into blue.


Instead I got this. Oh well.



Aaaaahhhhh.


This is why I got the call this time. Heather is ready to POP next week and was delightfully weight-less in the blue.

My other highlight of this night (apart from the fact that I was nightswimming) was the reality that the last time I jumped through stars into blue (last fall) I was 30 pounds heavier! Still not ready for the public swim, but the salad a day plus consistent exercise is slowly but surely making a difference! Wahoo!

Thanks ladies! Call me anytime! Sorry we missed you Wendy and Rebecca (and even Niki).

Favorite nightwater picture ever here.

So once in a while, I wake up and say: Be Monica! Monica is my older, wiser, crafting-er sister. So last month, it happened! I actually conceived a project and then!...I actually started it. I didn't finish it mind you (we'll save that for 3 years later), but I'm happy with the progress so far. Plus I'm cheap. For 30 bucks here's the makeover taking place in the back.

Here's our outdoor firepit. See it? Way out there hanging in the flowerbeds? I really really need to get a winter cover for it. Because I never did, it was starting to turn a little rusty. For the past 14 months, I couldn't pass it without hearing a voice in my head that said: Cobalt blue.

I'm not even sure what cobalt blue is. But when I went to the store, I bought a special can of rustoleum paint that felt like cobalt blue. To them, it was "True Blue". That was about $6 bucks of my budget.

Rustoleum True Blue and I sprayed just the lid of the firepit. The rust-protection qualities of this paint are compromised if your project reaches over 200 degrees, so we left it on the top.

Next I went to the thrift store and started looking for something I could use to make some seating around the fire. This is the exciting and mind-numbing part of any creative project. Paused in the aisles, looking sideways at junk trying to find its potential, and risk the chance of bringing home more crap that sits as a memorial to good intentions. Fortunately, this run was fun because I found an old homemade clock cut from some funky log already sealed with 10 layers of varnish. Bingo!

$15 bucks for old-school 70's nature clock



We cracked it at the skinny edge to make 2 mini benches.

No nails or screws required! I simply rested the wood on concrete blocks. Five blocks total at $2 bucks each. Two blocks under the bigger bench, one under the smaller bench. The last two were upright as a decorative log holder.



And there we have it. Simple re-purposing with a firehazard of overgrown perennials, but at least an improvement!

$6 spray paint
$10 for 5 cinder blocks
$15 for old school wood clock / bench
______________

$31 makeover baby!







My ultimate goal for this space?

Clean, weed-free pea gravel so my cobalt blue shines appropriately. On the border? A wind-screen decorative wall. Maybe lattice work, with a suspended BIKE frame, also christened cobalt blue, with red clematis growing through its spokes.

I'll give credit where credit is due.


Inspiration from this book. For the bike part. Anyone got an old school rusty beach cruiser I can take off their hands?


On THIS page.

Now if I was Monica, it would happen July 2010. Maybe I'll get it done by May 2012.

My garden life typifies the battle between flesh and spirit. Late winter and early spring I think about how I need to plan out my garden, I marvel when I hear that people planted lettuce and onions in March, and I am certain! to have the beautiful, blossoming, tamed wilderness in my own backyard. Then July hits. I wither in the heat. I crawl into my basement and dream of dewey, windy, blustery and beautiful Oregon Coast.

Now? It's June and unseasonably wet and cold. Everyone's complaining but I'm still in my honeymoon phase of gardening. The excitement began back in April when I found some recycled composite raised garden beds. No deteriorating! No staining! I was sold! The Mister of the House brought home 6 boxes (essentially twelve 3.5X3.5 foot squares), and I was left to configure them on the lawn. I pored over these suggestions of stacking and staggering the boxes.

I officially purchased 12 squares, but I longed to have a stacked look. By redirecting the middle support beam OUT instead of IN on the bottom row, we were able to butterfly 4 boxes out from the main line. Does that even make sense? By pulling out the support centers (with the exception of the row 2) I was able to have 11 squares intact for planting, and still keep the easy to reach and mighty-perty stacked center.



Boxes 3 and 4 we planted perennial crops asparagus and strawberries. Because they are proficient spreaders, we put them in the box that is enclosed on all sides. For asparagus, you dig down 8 inches and then plant. As they shoot through the dirt, you pile more dirt on them. Look how they have already taken off (box 3)! It will be two more years until we start harvesting them. Be excited!



We tilled up the grass, put down weed barrier, and halfway enclosed the garden with 6 cedar posts. The posts are 8 feet apart and in the middle are some newly planted grapevines. These vines will be trained along the wires at 2 and 4 feet, and include table grapes and raisin grapes, all seedless. In the above pic you will see the fake owl that is supposed to scare the birds away from my garden. Not quite sure if it is really working yet.



This butterflied box is on the east side, so in the afternoon it is a little shaded by the middle stack. I planted lettuce there because it prefers colder temps, and I knew it wouldn't mind. It was just yesterday that I had my FIRST salad cut fresh from the garden. Delish!



Here is a picture showing the full configuration. 5 rows long with 4 butterflies, and a regular 2 square at the edge. Filled with compost, peat moss, vermiculite and poop...we're ready to roll!

From June2010

So I have to admit, I was pushing for the raised beds because A)my buff neighbor Katrina grows a killer garden and has them ....and B) I have been LooooOoving this book "The Backyard Homestead" and it talks about how great raised beds are to have warm dirt in the spring, plant things closer and utilize space, and keep weeds out. The full title of the book is "The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre". Here's a snippet.

Another tip I got from this book was a teepee trellis for vining crops. So when I found some 10 foot tree limbs in the canyon, I brought them home and made this makeshift play-place for the kids. Here is our teepee that we planted pole beans and melons around the base.



I am totally a novice gardener. It was just yesterday I found out that if you grow melons and squash next to each other, they become cross-dressing transvestites. By that I mean you will have a disgusting pumpkin flavored watermelon. No thanks! So we just transplanted squash (i.e. pumpkins) away from the melons and we'll see if we get any crop from these heat-loving crops that need 100+ days to mature. Yikes!



The pole beans are already starting to do their work.

In the main old-fashioned garden bed we are planting potatoes and corn. Since we have animals, we used the old hay and straw to keep weeds down and mark pathways in the garden.



So all I have to say is CHICKENS! They have kicked out all my straw searching for bugs. I was excited to have chickens to eat bugs in the garden, but am wondering if they will do more harm than good (i.e. pecking new buds on my baby grapevines and stories of chickens pecking ripe delicious produce). One peck is all it takes for the floodgates to open.

So considering keeping the chickens out of the entire yard. Hmmmm.



Here we are at Old Faithful last week. While we were vacationing, the chickens were busy scattering my straw. Argh.

Here in my neck of the woods I am pretending to be a bit of a farmgirl. But I don't really know what I'm doing. Plus animal poop triggers my gagging reflex. Across the valley there is a Living Historical Farm, where people really do know how to farm...without machines...in petticoats.

Volunteers plow the fields with a horse-drawn spade, and long-skirted women bake stew and bread in the wood stove at the homestead. They put my bread making debacle to shame. A little while ago Rainbow Girl got to sing some Christmas songs at The Farm's Opera House.

When we went inside the Opera House, some old time singers were harmonizing the old Christmas tunes that I couldn't name. There was a gee-tar, violin, and four-part harmony all cozied up with western pine floors and victorian red walls.

This was the queen matron of the group, and she was feelin' it. So was I.

Back then...was life simpler? Sweeter? When you have to work 2 hours for a loaf of bread, do you pull up your petticoats and run whenever there's a gathering at the Opera House, or a barn dance? Did the women bring fresh pies for refreshment? Did pioneer boys try to steal kisses behind the curtain? Did the men still smell like "fertilizer"? Did the women blush when asked to dance?

Hey buddy! What's with the levis? You just ruined my memories of the long-forgotten past. Levis are 20th century. Get back in your homespun!

Oh well, in comes the crop from the 21st century...featuring Rainbow Girl.

If only Justin Hackworth had been there with his camera. Can you guess which shoes belong to Rainbow Girl?

Being a 21st century girl is worth it, but only if you have purple clogs. Thank you Grandma Cozy.

If they had waited just a couple of days, these horses would have been pulling a wagon with sleigh-runners...not old-fashioned handcrafted wooden spokes made by the carpenter named...

Heeey, wait a second. What's with the rubber wheels?

Oh well, back to the good life. Come on Rainbow Girl, let's hurry home to some hot cocoa bubbling in under 60 seconds, cooled off with a scoop of frozen cream. From a cow I didn't milk. In a freezer that doesn't need ice. Who would have imagined such things back on the farm!

Merry Christmas