Farewell Spring

Today is the first day of summer. And while I do love summer, I love spring more. Because with spring comes peonies. And unfortunately summer brings their season to a sad farewell. I was blessed to have a whole two weeks (perhaps a bit more) of blooming blossoms, though, and am trying to get excited about what the rest of the year holds for our other plants. But in the meantime, I'm enjoying the last of my peonies.

Here's my the inside of my Chicago bungalow.

For the home decorators out there, I am recovering all of my red pillows this coming week. Red and I are officially breaking up. And for the moms out there, YES, white couches are CRAZY! DON'T DO IT! Grey covers are being included in the fall budget. 

My newest piece, finished last month. India ink on painted canvas. 

I love the way it looks with the metal birds. 

And of course, I can't talk about birds without acknowledging my real ones. Here are three of our four Buff Orpingtons, just a few months shy of being full grown.

For your amusement of the day, I was gardening outside yesterday in the hot sun when Lexi said she wanted to put on her bathing suit and swim in our little pool. I told her to go ahead and go inside to put it on and then come right back out. Well, I got distracted. This happens. And a lot of time went by. And then, just as I was about to go and check on her, she opens the back door. "MOM!!!! I PUT SUNSCREEN ON ALL BY MYSELF!!! I PUT IT ON MY BELLY AND MY LEGS AND MY ARMS AND MY FACE AND MY BOTTOM!!!! ISN'T THAT GREAT???!?!?"

And there she was, at the top of the stairs. White. White. White. In every single place she said, plus some.

I bet you can't guess what the inside of the house looked like, can you? 

Farewell spring,

 and welcome summer.

I am happy when my hands are dirty

I am amazed by seeds.

A tiny insignificant little speck, becomes this. With the right amount of water, soil, and light. 

Normally, any plants that I am responsible for die within a few weeks of being in my care. Except for geraniums, for some odd reason. (I have had these crazy geraniums for five years now and I can't tell you how many times they have resurrected themselves from a sure death of neglect).

My garden, at the moment, is thriving. I have a feeling I was supposed to thin these plants out a little more than I did, but they seem ok at the moment. That's the beauty of this year being an experiment. I have no idea what I'm doing, so it's perfectly fine to make mistakes! At least they are edible mistakes!

This bed is a mix of lettuces, spinach, kale, arugula, tomatoes, eggplant, cilantro, carrots, and bush beans. Everything is doing well so far. I was a little leery of planting all these items in the same bed, but the research I did said it should work. We will know better by late June/July when the plants are much larger.

This cilantro is so flavorful! We eat a LOT of cilantro over here, and I don't think I have ever had any quite so good.

My husband, a sometimes salad person, LOVES my spinach. Honestly, it is delicious. I sometimes have a hard time with spinach unless it's in a smoothie, but I didn't even need salad dressing! Sweet and savory.

The bare looking spots in this bed are where slower growing plants are, such as carrots and eggplant. In a month this will probably be unrecognizable. The cage tops we built to keep out our crazy squirrels tilt off fairly easily. They also keep little baby fingers out of the greens as well. ;-)

Greens for salad every night, fresh from the garden.

The funniest thing about all of this is that 100 years or so ago, gardening was essential. All the common folk HAD to grow their own food. Either that or they starved. Now, growing your own food is almost a luxury, and has become more of a hobby than a way of life. With all of the processing and fertilizing and everything that is changing the food in our grocery stores these days, I count myself blessed to be able to have land in the city that I can grow food on and feed my family with. 

Even for someone who doesn't have any land, it is still possible to grow food indoors with the right amounts of light, or in a pot on a deck or windowsill! (We will be exploring this concept more once winter hits.) So grab a pot, or dig up that lonely patch of soil, and plant some future food! 

Happy gardening!