Chatbug Karen

I have always envied persons knowledgeable in producing a great garden. My friend, Rebecca, puts out a garden each year and I enjoy reading about her experiences in doing so. I admire all the hard work she and her family put into the garden. My son begged us to put out a strawberry patch one year. Thanks to his Grandma, we did get a few strawberries. The birds ate most of the fruit. Our dirt is a hard, clay type soil and is very difficult to turn let alone get anything to grow from. I have wondered if we needed to mix peat moss with the dirt or what we could do to make things grow in our garden. My grandma used stuff from her compost pile but I never paid attention to what she did with the compost. Did she mix it with the dirt or use it as a cover. I am confused as usual.

Rebecca recently posted instructions on making a compost pile. I can remember my grandma sending me outdoors with things to dump onto the compost pile. Having a compost pile is a great way to get rid of peelings and other food items and makes a wonderful soil builder for a garden. I am putting the link here, on my blog so that if I ever get energetic and my Blue Cross NC covers chiropractic massage, I may try to put out a garden.

For those of you who do not know what a compost pile is, here is a portion of the explanation that I borrowed from Rebecca’s post.

Compost is just a fancy word for decomposed waste. Or, as Wikipedia says, “a combination of decomposed plant and animal materials and other organic materials that are being decomposed largely through aerobic decomposition into a rich black soil.”

The first nice weekend of spring and I work my fingers to the bone! I pulled weeds and pushed so much dirt around that my fingers are, literally, bleeding. My hands and arms look awful with all their scrapes and scabs. I hate that my skin gets wrecked like that and that is why I try to get it all done in one weekend. I have the rest of summer to heal!

I am having trouble getting used to my new phone. It is the type with a lock button on the side. I like a phone that locks because an unlocked phone has the tendency to get bumped and dial without my knowledge. That is not a good thing because it can use up my minutes. The problem with the lock on my new phone is that sometimes I have to push the lock twice and sometimes it only needs to be pushed once to unlock it. I have not figured out when each number of pushes is required and have been hanging up on people! I’ll keep trying. I love my qwerty keyboard enough to tough it out.

This has been a tough Monday to get myself motivated. Most of our schools were on spring break last week so I know I am not the only sluggish person today!

Happy Hump Day! I saw that phrase on Facebook and just had to say it! For some reason it cracks me up.

It is a beautiful sunny day here in Indiana. A little bit chilly but that makes it nice when working in the yard. Not much sweating when you have a cool breeze. I plan on getting a load of river rock to fill the flower beds. Where does rock go? We dumped a bunch on top of plastic ground cover a few years ago and now there are bare patches. I love to visit the rock place and look at all the pretty things they have to offer. I would love to have some pink rock and black rock to make a flower bed. Wouldn’t that be beautiful? For now, I will stick with my river rock plan. It is much cheaper.

I have also been thinking about getting one of those prepaid cell phones for my mother in-law so that is on my to do list. She really needs a cell phone but doesn’t think she does. I think she would be okay with a prepaid one. Every penny counts when you are retired.

My grocery list is getting longer. We are just about out of everything! I actually ate oatmeal for breakfast two days in a row! I much prefer a blueberry bagel. Who knows if I might find something in the meat case and decide to cook tonight! Maybe not after working with the river rock. I might not be able to walk much less stand at the stove.

While driving through the countryside yesterday, I saw hollyhocks blooming everywhere. They just sprout everywhere their seeds blow. That is, everywhere besides my yard. I have decided that since I have not had any luck getting my hollyhocks to bloom, I am going to try a different plan. I am going to plant them during February and get them sprouting in my living room before it is time to put them outside. Handy Pantry is a good place to buy certified organic sprouting seeds, sprouters, kits, supplies and information on organic vegetable gardening. I am sure they will let me use their supplies for my hollyhock obsession.