Our soil garden and a Meggyver

How to grow soil. 

1. Live in south GA where farmers till their  fields when it's breezy and where trees grow big, fast. 

2. Have a foot deep wading pool that doesn't hold water, in the middle of the patio. 

 3. Throw in twigs and sticks that fall from the sky. 

4. Add small limbs from shrubs you've pruned. 

5. Add some weeds you didn't pull before they went to seed. 

6. Set fire to it and enjoy the flames (stand by with rake and hose, just in case.)

7. Spread the ashes and repeat 3 &4. Also rake and blow in leaves and that south GA topsoil that lands on the patio.  

8. Remove wood for the stove as needed. 

9. In Spring, before weeds go to seed and you need a place to burn those, 

push sticks aside or pile them nearby. 

Meggyver the soil up by scooping it into a dustpan on a stick. Transfer into trash can to transport it. 

Three good sized piles!

10. Replace sticks and start over. 

Sometimes gardeners have to say "uncle!"

You'd think folks with the perseverance to pull dozens of wisteria like these out of the ground 

could transplant one old flowering quince. 

Friday after lunch.

Wendell, "let's take out the wisteria, smilax and cherry laurel bushes around the magnolia tree as far as the camellia."

Meg, when we got to the quince, "looks to me like it'd be easier to transplant the flowering quince than to pull out all the wisteria that's growin IN the shrub. Besides, the magnolia is shading it. See how it's growing into the tree to get light?"

So we trimmed the top, pulled and dug (puller bear, mattock, shovel). We sawed off four inch wide roots. 

Our reward- we split off two quince. We quit for the day; two hours was enough at this when we could start again Saturday morning. We filled the hole in so the roots wouldn't freeze. 

I woke up with a back ache so I was relegated to watching, cheering and walking the scraps to the burn pile. 

This time Wendell brought a small pointed hand spade and an iron pole his father had  used to find plumbing pipes in the ground. He continued digging for another two hours until he was down to the orange clay subsoil.  Still the quince wouldn't even rock back and forth. In the thirty odd years the tree had grown next to the ancient quince, magnolia roots had grown through the quince roots which grew down, around and under. 

Saturday afternoon.

Meg, "Remember when we started this I said it'd be easier to dig up the quince? I've been proven wrong. Its more like we'd have to dig up the magnolia to move the quince. And since the original goal was taking out wisteria, which you did, its time to say,'uncle!' and fill in the hole. "

Wendell, "After I do that I'm going to dig up some more wisteria and smilax just so I can quit and feel like I've actually done something. But at least we've learned how to tell flowering quince roots; they're as red as the flowers."

And he was right. 

Potting Mix Moments

Discovering that YOU didn't make all the holes in the potting mix bag that's been stored in the solarium for a year. 

Where did Mrs Mousie get the dryer lint for this nest?

And realizing, no matter what you do, short of fencing Birt out, he will tag this new herb pot. Happily, I have another pot to use as a pedestal and Birt is a short dog. 

I anchored the center tube with a weight on the ground, set the big empty pot over that and smaller one on top to tie the two together. Looking forward to nasturtium and Swiss chard if the seeds sprout, and transplanting lemon grass into the center when the warm weather settles in. 

Success! Only the herb pot can be 'tagged'.

Inheritance

The narcissus around our birdbath haven't bloomed well for years; in part because its in shade and then they haven't  been divided in a long time. Really it's best to take them all out and put some back.

Last week I got a huge clump out only to discover the ajuga ground cover both sheltered and over shaded by the next clump of narcissus. 

Steady she goes! Better wait a bit to dig the rest out so as not to sunburn OR freeze burn the ajuga. 

After a week I needed to do something with the dug-up bulbs; If they were to survive I couldn't just leave them in a garbage bag. As my left arm still isn't functioning 100%, preparing and planting narcissus in a flower bed was out of the question. I could've washed and then dried them to plant later but I already have too many projects on the back burner and probably would wind up just throwing them away. And then I remembered where I got them, in the field where the family mansion burned down. Grandmama told me, when she got married (before WWI) she'd gone home to Rome GA and dug up narcissus, daffodils and butter'n eggs bulbs from her grandmother's garden to plant around her new home.  They'd survived the fire.  Later when neighbors grew corn on the land, the plows spread the bulbs over the vacant lot. 

I planted my narcissus in the sunniest spot i could find, the orchard. With any luck they'll be there for another generation or two. 

Up cycle Michael Kors cashmere

1. To honor the lambs, rabbits and goats who gave their wool and fur so we can be stylishly warm and 2. To snatch

victory from the moths who ate holes in these sweaters - I pushed the navy blue sweater into the left arm of the white sweater and that one into the right arm. Voila! Fabulous cat cushion. 

But I must admit, I'll be using this as a hat if it ever gets as cold down here as it did last month!

I did this.

 When we arrived in S GA in 1978 we couldn't understand why our neighbor said 'I built that!' when we knew it was the three old men (employed by Daddy's great uncle since they were teenagers) who did the work.

Now we know. Whenever I have left workmen to finish a job, even though I think we see eye to eye, they screw it up. If I want to be sure the job is done right I have to observe. (this also means I have to know how to do the work).

For example, the patio on the north side of the house slopes IN to the shelter. We had a little bit of cement leftover from pouring the slab to the east and, after filling old barrel rings to use as stepping stones, there was just enough to fasten cement pavers to channel the water. They put down two pavers. One fellow saw that it sloped beyond those. I agreed we should add two more and went back in the house. Sure enough! We have a row TWO pavers HIGH now (not four long). They didn't even fill in the old foundation from the post that was moved. Sheesh! The water still seeps in over and around the mat to the left. 

Daddy 'Poked Me' From Beyond the Grave

Our dogs just loved my dad. He grew up with dogs worthy of the long stories he repeated whenever we asked.  But he only owned one during his adult life, and that great dane, Missy-dog, stayed at home with Mom while he lived in a apartment to teach at the University during the week or traveled.  At times we couldn't tell if he'd come to visit his house, us, or our dogs.

Birt, our newest house dog would've been especially enamored.  We've been taking him to work with us at our office/studio.  Although we provide rawhide chew sticks to keep him occupied, Birt prefers paper towels and napkins out of the office trashcan.  If Daddy was still around, Birt would have a handy supply at every table and in every chair because Daddy left a trail of tissue.  Whenever Daddy wiped his beard clean he'd put the napkin in his pocket so he'd have one to go with the rest of his kit, a pocket sketchbook and pen. And there's a limit to how much a pocket will hold.

Last weekend I finally got around to moving obstacles from the concrete pad in front of the ancient garage we use for storage.  In 1997 we had hurriedly  unloaded a mess of 16ft. long heart pine boards torn out during renovating our buildings where the office/studio is now.  We'd planned to return that week with a crew to put the wood up on racks and then use it for sculpture crates.  The strong young men who worked for us soon moved on to other jobs, and then the European Union passed a law that all wood shipping crates must be stamped 'kiln dried'.  That put that project on the back burner. For 16 years.  True, most of the wood had been eaten by termites and I could throw it on the truck by myself, but enough boards were heavy enough for me to welcome having two teenagers to direct.  Troy and Ka'Harie have been helping me clean up all the abundance ever since they moved to Parrott three years ago. It has been a long list.

With visions of "American Pickers" invading the garage, and room to park and fill up (finally! because we re-cycle) our curb side trash bin, the first storage item I got rid of was Daddy's suitcase with summer clothes.  I remembered seeing him in each shirt, pair of pants and even the turquoise swimming trunks, on our trip to Mexico the summer of 1966.  That trip was before he discovered guyaberras. Those were distributed to family members when he died in 2005. All these shirts were dacron polyester/cotton mixes no good for rags and too hot for us to wear even if we overlooked the paint stains.  Still, I set aside 2 and the only pair of cotton pants, tan classic bell bottom corduroy Wranglers, knowing it would be a miracle to get out the funky old garage smell.

I put the shirts and pants in to soak over night in 20 Mule Team Borax and Wool Light. 

This morning I finished the cycle on the heavy-duty agitation mode and spun out the water.  I pulled out the pants.  There were little pieces of paper stuck to them.  I checked the right pocket.  Sure enough, an ancient  much agitated wad of paper napkins. 

Hi, Dad!