Growing Things

It's pouring rain this afternoon. Marvelous would be the best way to describe it. I went to work at 5:30 this morning to glean corn in Swan Quarter, NC. We got back about noon. I have a finance meeting tonight. SO I'm spending the afternoon working on my papers for the board of ministry in my sweats here on the back porch. If you gotta work- do it in comfort when you can! But it's super rainy, the cat is curled up in her bed, classical violin playing on ipod... an A+ paper writing day if you ask me.

And a day to update the blog. Because where there are papers there's procrastination dont'cha know!

I've been growing things this summer- and some of them will actually come back to Durham with me for all you lovely people to meet! The spices, and maybe even the tomato plant will be joining the menagerie on my porch. If you eat at my house this fall: prepare to eat freshly spiced food! The sage and thyme have been a super troopers- they just took off. I need to cook something with thyme so I can cut it back some and not waste! The parsley looked a little peaked for a while. It doesn't do so well in the heat. The new rosemary and lavender are doing much better- they've moved inside now because they don't like so much water. And Basil (pronounced like the saint), the boxwood basil (pronounced like the spice) will be joining us to spice up tomato soups and italian food. It's doing great- it will even be a topiary one day after some growing and cutting back. It smells lovely as well.
In the non spiced category, the bromeliad that will come back with me is growing again. It's not huge, but I think it could get huger if I gave it a larger pot. Not sure that's a good idea though with the small house. But it's BEAUTIFUL- it has tropical-ish leaves and this huge red flower growing up out of the center- it's going to be AWESOME in bloom. So prepare to be wowed. And then there is the moon flower. It's ambiguous as to whether or not this one will live (pray for the little thing!). I'm trying to root it, which I've never successfully done before, so we'll just have to see if it takes or not. But if it DOES it's a climbing flower with giant white blossoms (like a hibiscus) that bloom at night.

I've learned some things with my growing friends this summer. First is that I love being in the garden. It's a delightful way to spend an afternoon- nothing talks back, for the most part it's cooperative, and it's peaceful good thinking time. But something else is that you just can't determine an outcome... for anything! You really do have to plant it, water it, love it, do what you can, and then go inside and stop fiddling. I'm pretty sure fiddling is how I killed the tomato I tried to grow a few years ago. Some things just have to be placed into God's hands and then let go. If the lamb's ear (a fuzzy plant that feels like a lamb's ear) is going to live, we'll have to wait and see. Why did the lambs ear work and the wildflower die? Who knows. But that's just kind of how a garden is- love it all you want, you can't make it do what you want. But it's still so beautiful... yeah, life's kind of like that too.

Love and Hugs,
A