Thoughts from Alison that might at least entertain you!

2012, A Garden Odyssey

Well, it's started. I spent the morning (a little too much of the morning, on this incredibly hot memorial day) beginning work in my space over in the community gardens. As you probably know, I had decided not to garden this year - but later decided that I couldn't stay away entirely. I'm sharing a plot with another gardener so I have about half the space that I've had the last two years. This morning, though? It seemed like miles more space than before. And sadly, it looked like this before I began:

I managed to get about a third of the space worked well enough that I got tomato and pepper plants in the ground, but I'm a little bit at a loss for the rest of the space at this time. I'm hopeful that I'll find a few hours yet this week on cooler mornings to get some (most if not all) clearing done on the rest of the plot. My plan is to then plant mostly summer squash varieties and try my hand at some pie pumpkins. Quite honestly, I'm leaning toward this "mostly squash" plan because I can give up lots of space to those plants and not feel like I've completely wasted the space. Wish me luck... we shall see. The end result after about 3.5 hours today (better but far from perfect) looks like this:

Circle of Art 2012

This past Sunday brought the now annual (I believe this year was the 8th) Circle of Art Auction to the Saline Picture Frame Company near Ann Arbor. This annual event is brilliantly planned and executed every year, and I am always impressed. John and I had great fun there as always, and came away with three new pieces of art for our home. You may know that I have a certain thing about ceramic pottery, and this year (so as not to disappoint anyone with expectations) two of our three finds were ceramics! The first picture here is a planter (complete with drainage hole) made by Kay Yourist - the very potter from whom I took my few pottery wheel classes.

The second piece is actually a partner to a piece we bought at this same event two years ago. I felt certain that I "needed" to have the new plate to go with the dish we already have by the same local artist, Pam O'Hara. Both pieces are pictured here, this year's plate is first, followed by the dish from the earlier event.

The third piece is perhaps something (something else?) that we needed the least - but this beautiful photo of an Egret caught our attention, and it came home with us as well. We hardly have room left to hang things on the walls, but will find a space for this after it is framed. I am guessing that it may find a home in our guest room (also known as the Elephant Room to some...) because of the predominant blue theme there. The picture here doesn't do it exact justice with some glare from the plastic sleeve, but I think you get the idea.

Kudos to you again this year, Saline Picture Frame folks, family, and friends. Thank you over and over for all you have done to support Food Gatherers with this fantastic event!

Green Wall decor - Complete!

I'm quite pleased with what I consider to be a finished "new" wall! We had the photo in the center (from Wayne National Forest in SE Ohio, something I've had since my days working at The Nature Company) reframed in a beautiful wood frame so I could pair it with my Mother-in-law's fantastic botanical wood carvings. Hooray!! Now I have to move on to the rest of the living/dining room for window coverings and such to go with these changes...

Presenting Fiona Siobhan!

She is a wee spunky Irish lass, of course...

Green Wall!

Artwork and plants still to hung/placed, but I'm liking this quite a lot! Next up? Window coverings and living room coordination for the new color.

Asparagus-Wrapped Prosciutto and Wontons

From the dinner table at Prune Ridge, a recommendation for dinner! Tonight we had these wontons - chicken and cilantro - from the freezer section at Trader Joe's. They're extremely fast and easy to cook right from the freezer, and really good! The cilantro element was noticeable and impressed me from a frozen entree. I rounded out the menu with these prosciutto-wrapped asparagus spears, cooked up quickly and easily on our Foreman Grill. I long for a patio (which may actually come along at some point this spring or summer!) and a gas grill on which to grill up this kind of thing, but the Foreman makes it possible and fairly simple to grill things indoors for now. The asparagus are simply washed and then wrapped with thin strips of prosciutto. I brushed some olive oil (with a smashed clove of garlic in it) over the spears, ground some pepper over top, and grilled them on a medium-high heat for about 4 minutes. Yum!

Sprucing Things Up A Bit, Part 1

I'm on a mission to make our home (the main floor living area, at least) just a little more lovely. Prune Ridge is an extremely lovely place, for the most part - and I really can't complain, but I want lovelier!  

We have a collection of mostly inherited pieces of furniture with the exception of our shelving, the piano, and our love seat (which is broken - perhaps not the best purchase!).  This means that while our furniture is nice and meets our needs and we really love a few pieces, there is a pretty incohesive theme, which doesn't really lend itself to lovely.  We invested in new window coverings for the door-wall in the living room, but in the end?  I hate them!  And on the good-sized window in the dining room, we have incredibly dated (but still functional) vertical blinds.  Yuck!  So, here we go.  

For starters: The Dining Area.  We have donated our very nice buffet in hopes that it will find a new home.  The piece was sturdy and attractive, and belonged to my grandmother.  We, however, didn't need it!  The storage space only served to hold things we nearly never used.  Things we did use were easily accommodated in our kitchen cabinets and one remaining cabinet (seen in the pictures) that matches the wood of our dining set nicely.  So, the buffet is gone from the first picture with it's vacant space visible to the right, before I adjusted the furniture.  Second picture at the end is the newly shifted furniture and bright space.  We can access all four sides of the table now!  You may be able to spot the vertical blinds in the second picture as well.  Those will eventually go away.  The next step?  Painting the wall!  We have a great color for the wall in the center of the pictures, which is painted paneling.  I'll share new pictures after successful painting.  

Following painting, we plan to replace the rickety old sliding door wall in the living room in the near future. New window treatments - matching for both the door wall and the dining area window will follow, and then whatever else I can pull together to make the place pretty!  Wish me luck...

Always Be Batman

Because this has made me chuckle a few times on Facebook, it needs to be shared here:

Galant, tu perds ton temps

This group (a French-Canadian a Capella women's group from all around Quebec, plus percussion by the partner of one of the singers) performed at The Ark this past Thursday evening.  All I can say (at least with only a few words) is that they are FANTASTIC!  This was one of the best shows I've seen in a long time, and I can't wait to have them back again and hopefully build a better audience for them because everyone should know them!  Two clips from YouTube here - one a full length video of theirs, and the other a clip from a live performance (on-air radio, I believe).  The shorter on-air clip gives really nice perspective of their personalities on stage.  Even singing the entire show in French, and being a bit nervous about their English - the show was beautiful, and the audience loved them!

Galant, tu perds ton temps

This group (a French-Canadian group from all around Quebec) performed at The Ark this past Thursday evening.  All I can say (at least with only a few words) is that they are FANTASTIC!  This was one of the best shows I've seen in a long time, and I can't wait to have them back again and hopefully build a better audience for them because everyone should know them!  Two clips from YouTube here - one a full length video of theres, and the other a clip from a live performance (on-air radio, I believe) of theirs.  The shorter on-air clip gives really nice perspective of their personalities on stage.  Even singing the entire show in French, and being a bit nervous about their English - the show was beautiful, and the audience loved them!

Back to the Garden?

Well, here we go...  Until the last few days, I have not been planning to garden this coming season in any way similar to how I have gardened the last two summers (in a large plot in the community gardens near our condo).  As I'm learning how to navigate my MS diagnosis, and working to not be overtired and/or overworked, and also as my initial MS symptoms are yet unchanged - I had decided that I would take a year off from gardening.  Last summer's garden season was quite stressful for me with a general feeling of being overwhelmed by everything about the garden.  In retrospect, it makes sense that a big part of what was going on was MS and we just didn't know it yet. 

I've been planning to garden on a very small scale in a few containers and some ground in our tiny little condo back-yard.  But?  The prospect of prepping new ground for a garden in our less-than-lovely little yard space has not gotten me excited at all about any garden prospects.  Also, I have learned a heck of a lot these past two garden years, and I started thinking in the last couple of weeks that I might actually want to get back out in the garden this year. 

And so?  Yes - as of this morning, I have confirmed that I will share some space in another gardener's plot.  I won't have as much overwhelming space as I've had the last two years, but I will have some space - and a garden partner who can probably help out (when I'm on vacation for a week in July, for instance) when I can't spend as much time in the garden as I might wish/need.  This morning I have placed my pre-sale order in a plant sale of local things (mostly tomatoes) from Project Grow.  I'll be picking up plants on Sunday, May 6.  I've ordered 6 tomatoes (various pictures in this post, roughly in the order listed below) including 5 of our favorites from last summer, and 1 new to try out. 

Varying sizes of tomatoes I hope to grow successfully this summer include Aunt Lillian's Yellow, Caspian Pink, Olga's Round Yellow Chicken, Green Zebra, Gajo de Melon, and Orange Russian.  I also have two sweet pepper plants and one basil ("Mammoth" basil!) on order.  I will likely add a couple of squash plants and possibly some carrots to the garden - and I think that will be all.  That will be plenty, and hopefully not too much!!  I'm a wee bit excited as of this moment with the idea of getting back out to the garden.  Wish me luck!

Big Dog, tiny cat bed. Tiny Cat, big dog bed.

Orange Ya Curious

I discovered this site, Orange Ya Curious, this past week while I've been poking around looking at "National MS Week" stuff from the National MS Society.  It's a simple site, set up nicely with links on different topics (answering lots of different questions) related to MS.  It's a pretty cute campaign, I must say!

In keeping with the Subaru theme...

John and I just ordered and made a downpayment on our newest car.  In about 8-10 weeks we'll be bringing home one of these to replace Charlotte Pearl (my red Forester).  I got to see this color/model in person in Toledo last week, and decided this is definitely the one for me!  The picture doesn't quite do the color justice in my opinion, but it's pretty good.  I have never had a brand new car in my life, and I must say I'm pretty stinkin' excited!

Subaru Dogs - Ski Trip

Posting these mostly for you, mom - because everyone should see these, especially if they love dogs!  There are many more, but here are three of the most recent that have made me laugh.  (See the following two posts for the other two)