Gardening and Spring Cleaning
May. 5th, 2007 11:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenWent to Hadley Garden Center and bought:
- kale (because I don't know if I'll get seeds from the old kale)
- 1 Sweet 100 cherry tomato (for snacks and summer salads)
- marigolds and two kinds of basil (grow w/ tomatoes, and the latter for pesto, too)
- two highbush blueberry bushes (two kinds, as they need to cross-pollinate)
- 1 black currant bush
- 1 pot each of three kinds of strawberries (multiple plants in each pot) -- so we can try the different kinds. There were also alpine ones, but we decided not to get those (small).
- 4 tall tomato cages, to supplement our stakes. We'll be looking for possible stakes next time we're at the farm, too.
- 1 hardwood stake to support the Liberty dwarf apple tree
Looked at some other plants they had there, but decided this would probably be more than enough for now. I'm hoping to make raspberry preserves this year as well, but would rather not deal with the plants themselves in our current location. The bushes we bought this year we're going to plant in their pots, in case we move next year. If it's going to be another year, then I'll re-pot them in larger pots (checked with the center and they said it would be fine to do so). They have quince trees there... I want one, sigh. But no place to put it -- yet.
***
Pruned the sage in the front yard, pulling out the dead older growth. I suspect that when we eventually move and I dig it up to take with us, there will be more than one sage in that spot...
***
There will be spring cleaning this weekend, and hopefully some construction too. Actually, there will be cleaning and construction most of this month, whenever there's some time to do it.
I was reading in the Druidry Handbook about how energy for certain events happen at a particular time, but that there are echoes or reappearances of those events at different times of year, and found that this definitely resonated with me (pp.80-81). JMG talks about how a deity may have a special connection to a time of year, but is still present the rest of the year, and that it is the same for the times of year themselves (solstice, equinoxes, etc.)
Spring cleaning, which is not a holiday or deity but definitely requires a lot of mental, emotional, and physical energy, is a reference to doing an extra thorough cleaning -- get all the rugs out and beat the winter grit and dust out of them, wash all the floors, toss out unusable things, and so on. Spring cleaning is useful for the body, mind and spirit as well... I find that whenever I'm going to embark on a project, regardless of whether it's baking, cleaning, painting, reading, or meditating, I need to clear a space as much as I'm able. So 'spring cleaning' happens year-round for me.
I love the special times of year, when everyone shares their experiences (either at the time of the event or later in conversation/email/blog), and certainly there are somethings that physically at least, are unique to specific times, like solstices and equinoxes and such. But I also find it annoying at times that I'll find the perfect gift for someone and then have to wait until his or her birthday, Yule, Christmas or whatever gift-giving holiday is appropriate. Mmm, that's one of the good things about being the local baroness... I get to give things more often ;)
The concept of things being continuous and not just at certain scheduled times is an important one for me, not just on the spiritual level but on the everyday level. Too often I've met people who go to church/temple/etc. but are lousy human beings. They observe the forms but not the spirit, and their hearts are little closed boxes, the lock on them long rusted shut. I knew this even as a child going to Sunday school, because some of my classmates were fine examples of un-Christian behavior. Sometimes kids grow out of that behavior, sometimes not (hopefully most of them). Kindness, thoughtfulness, respect, charity, love -- all of these are things that belong in the world, not just behind a closed door.
***
On a less serious note, a survey person just called and![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fitzw had great fun messing with their statistics... they were trying to find out what local businesses he was aware of and what he thought of them, what catalogs he gets in the mail, what advertising he might remember from daytime tv, etc. Lots of zeros on that survey...
- kale (because I don't know if I'll get seeds from the old kale)
- 1 Sweet 100 cherry tomato (for snacks and summer salads)
- marigolds and two kinds of basil (grow w/ tomatoes, and the latter for pesto, too)
- two highbush blueberry bushes (two kinds, as they need to cross-pollinate)
- 1 black currant bush
- 1 pot each of three kinds of strawberries (multiple plants in each pot) -- so we can try the different kinds. There were also alpine ones, but we decided not to get those (small).
- 4 tall tomato cages, to supplement our stakes. We'll be looking for possible stakes next time we're at the farm, too.
- 1 hardwood stake to support the Liberty dwarf apple tree
Looked at some other plants they had there, but decided this would probably be more than enough for now. I'm hoping to make raspberry preserves this year as well, but would rather not deal with the plants themselves in our current location. The bushes we bought this year we're going to plant in their pots, in case we move next year. If it's going to be another year, then I'll re-pot them in larger pots (checked with the center and they said it would be fine to do so). They have quince trees there... I want one, sigh. But no place to put it -- yet.
***
Pruned the sage in the front yard, pulling out the dead older growth. I suspect that when we eventually move and I dig it up to take with us, there will be more than one sage in that spot...
***
There will be spring cleaning this weekend, and hopefully some construction too. Actually, there will be cleaning and construction most of this month, whenever there's some time to do it.
I was reading in the Druidry Handbook about how energy for certain events happen at a particular time, but that there are echoes or reappearances of those events at different times of year, and found that this definitely resonated with me (pp.80-81). JMG talks about how a deity may have a special connection to a time of year, but is still present the rest of the year, and that it is the same for the times of year themselves (solstice, equinoxes, etc.)
Spring cleaning, which is not a holiday or deity but definitely requires a lot of mental, emotional, and physical energy, is a reference to doing an extra thorough cleaning -- get all the rugs out and beat the winter grit and dust out of them, wash all the floors, toss out unusable things, and so on. Spring cleaning is useful for the body, mind and spirit as well... I find that whenever I'm going to embark on a project, regardless of whether it's baking, cleaning, painting, reading, or meditating, I need to clear a space as much as I'm able. So 'spring cleaning' happens year-round for me.
I love the special times of year, when everyone shares their experiences (either at the time of the event or later in conversation/email/blog), and certainly there are somethings that physically at least, are unique to specific times, like solstices and equinoxes and such. But I also find it annoying at times that I'll find the perfect gift for someone and then have to wait until his or her birthday, Yule, Christmas or whatever gift-giving holiday is appropriate. Mmm, that's one of the good things about being the local baroness... I get to give things more often ;)
The concept of things being continuous and not just at certain scheduled times is an important one for me, not just on the spiritual level but on the everyday level. Too often I've met people who go to church/temple/etc. but are lousy human beings. They observe the forms but not the spirit, and their hearts are little closed boxes, the lock on them long rusted shut. I knew this even as a child going to Sunday school, because some of my classmates were fine examples of un-Christian behavior. Sometimes kids grow out of that behavior, sometimes not (hopefully most of them). Kindness, thoughtfulness, respect, charity, love -- all of these are things that belong in the world, not just behind a closed door.
***
On a less serious note, a survey person just called and
fitzw had great fun messing with their statistics... they were trying to find out what local businesses he was aware of and what he thought of them, what catalogs he gets in the mail, what advertising he might remember from daytime tv, etc. Lots of zeros on that survey...
