Hybrid – bonus

Oh boy! I was afraid of this! My garden blog ideas got together for lunch with my decluttering thoughts, and collaboratively raised a question. A very small one in the grand scheme of things, but nevertheless …

“Are these seeds worth putting in an envelope and saving for next spring’s planting?”

There – it’s out there.

These are seeds from a 2 year old, first year blooming daylily that enticed pollinators, and then enticed the bunny, probably “Gigantus Bunimous”, to try it’s luck at midnight dinner, and, alas, must have been driven away, or preferred something better. It was left on the ground 5 feet away from the daylily, but I knew where it came from because I was watching, hoping, the pod would produce viable seeds.

Remember, I am a gardener, not a landscaper. I rescued that seed pod from being breakfast for the squirrels, and put it in the seedling box, on the off chance it was mature enough to somehow produce viable seeds. And seed it did produce. But they do not look viable. And they are sitting, where? On my clutter hot spot – the dining room table.

Discipline!

Will they go in an envelope, or out to the garden for critter enjoyment?

Look closely.

One thing – and yet another tray

Seriously, this one is goofy.

You know those trays that come with small appliances, that you don’t use? Why do I save them? Now if it would be a bin – I could probably use that, no problem.

I have enough trays I like, and use, including a plastic faux crystal one from a meat and cheese tray many years ago, that I liked, and saved, and use regularly 🙂 It holds A LOT of food for gatherings, and never buckles, or chips, and it washes up like a charm 🙂 It is my charcuterie tray, procured WAY before charcuterie was a thing 😉

The little white tray that came with a mini fridge, not so much.

One thing – Old Chippies

As I mentioned yesterday, we are pretty simple people in what we use and maintain. High maintenance dishes are not our thing. But we get off the beaten path from time to time.

Time was, we had given one of our sons our Corelle dishes, purchased some white dishes, loved them, and then saw some very pretty blue pattern dishes advertised on a TV show. All in we went! Dishes, bakeware, trays. One time in the oven and we heard a tray crack. A couple times and the casserole cracked. Even so, we kept the dishes and we decided to use the loaf pans to “hold stuff” – you know – breakfast bars, water flavoring mixture packets. Right? Be creative. One by one the dishes cracked and chipped. Eventually we were left with one dinner plate, a couple small plates, and some bowls. Many with chips. And we are not hard on dishes.

We brought them up to the little house up north – and barely used them. Meanwhile we had gone back to the sturdy everyday china, white, we already had, and also bought some for the little house up north.

We brought the few unused blue bowls back when we brought everything back. I have no idea why. The silly things you do.

All in all, it was a good lesson. You live and you learn, and you stop buying things you really do not need just because they look great on TV.

Check!

The To Do list is getting check offs this weekend, with continued attention to decluttering.

Yesterday I wrapped up the final garden cut back – remaining hostas, and the sedum that were a casualty of the lawn maintenance leaf blowing. Every year I keep the sedum that is still standing. The bunnies and birds enjoy them throughout the winter.

Today my To Do list is focused on the nice fall weather sprint wrapping up, and snow in the forecast for this coming Tuesday.

The winter lanterns went out today,

and all the spring and summer decorations I brought in last weekend went into the storage bin. To keep everything all in one place, I also put all the seeds I harvested into that storage as well. Come January when the seeds need to go into the refrigerator (for stratifying), they will all be easily accessible and organized.

Since I only allow myself one bin for garden decorations, keeping clutter out is important. Today I tossed all garden plant information for things that are no longer in our garden, as well as information on spring bulbs that didn’t bloom in 2020. Tulips and crocus both seldom bloom here for more than a year or two. This fall, with so much going on, I didn’t plant any new tulips. Hopefully some will return next spring from my 2019 plantings.

Inside, I did my weekly “gardening” for the plants we overwinter – cleaning up the hibiscus, shamrocks and lavender plants from the die back that inevitably happens as they lose sunlight hours.

For the afternoon, I’m planning on getting all the batteries in the window candles. That is always quite a job. Once that is done, l’ll start putting them in the windows. With the days getting shorter, the window candles bring a cozy feeling.

I hope you have a good week ahead as we move more indoors and start dreaming and planning for next year’s garden!

Huge October

Happy November 1st!

Wow – where do I begin?

October was a huge month for us. Both our sons got married, and we moved into the meat of renovating the new little house up north. Every day was either filled with activities or work or coordinating for upcoming work at the house. It was a time of celebrations and transitions – a time of just being present and not even necessarily being ready to put pen to paper.

Friday night as the work week wrapped up and I looked at options for a quiet weekend moving into November, I began to formalize a project. We live in a moderately sized townhome with minimal opportunity to stow away things and abide deferred decisions. Our laundry room doubles as a workhorse of a storage room. This year it has worked even harder. Everything from extra food storage and supplies to harvested seeds have gone in there from March to September. Then with the October activities, even more items made their way back there. The cluttered state it was in was not good for me – dust catching, unpleasant to look at, and not serviceable to easily access anything. It needed some love – purging and a whole lot of organizing. So you know how it goes – from realization to starting motivation to the thick of it to pragmatism taking over. Today I can walk in there and go “Ahhhhh!” Mid yesterday, not so much. Bonus was finding a 3 wick candle I love, still in the box. Nice!

Today I need to move my attention outside and pull in all the garden decorations. We had a historic (literally record breaking) early snowstorm on Oct 21 and my garden clean-up cadence got a bit derailed. I need to wrap that up before beginning hygge indoors.

My sister put together this wreath for me last year and my mother recently gave me this plate. Going into November, with the temptation to let my energy be pulled away into things that are neither productive nor beneficial, this is a good place to stay grounded.