Strawberries, Cherries and An Angel's Kiss In Spring

Food security.

If you grow your own, you gain a little independence from the big M. If we all do it, we can really leave an impression.

A hummingbird was visiting these pretty pink flowers yesterday.

Lizards are everywhere. Pretty turquoise ones too. Big fat guys that have probably been around a couple of seasons fattening up on bugs.
There was a lone lady bug beetle on the prowl, her relatives need to be invited to come for dinner too, is she just being greedy?

Squash seem to grow like weeds. Cantaloupe too.

This was the beginning of the raised bed. Leaf mold had been turned into the existing "soil". 

Then the tomatoes that had been started inside were hardened off. The first one went into a pot to test. It grew very well until the heat intensified.
Another had been transplanted into the raised bed shortly after the potted one.
It grew luscious, large leaves while the potted one's leaves remained small.
It became clear that it would be seriously stunted to be left in the pot so it was transplanted to the bed next to the luscious leaves. They are both growing along steadily; however the lush leaved one has the first tomato growing.
The rest were set out all over the yard in raised hoops, and in strategic locations where ever soil had been amended and there would be good sun exposure.

Cantaloupe was seeded into the bed after the zinnia sprouted. Without a diary of things done, it's hard to keep track of whether they sprouted or the transplants are now the ones growing there or both.

Either way there is a riot of growth going on. And everything loved the first downpour of monsoon rain, that rained on the forth of July Parade.

Stawberries, cherries and an angel's kiss in spring

Let's hope the going growing keeps going growing good.

She Can't Control Her Licker

No appointments for housekeeping, no pants to hem, and the weather a wonderful perfect temperature and atmosphere; (degrees you ask...that is a guy thing, she just knew it was a perfect day), it was a wonderful day to do yard work...
The "south forty" has been being neglected and is really the better spot to set up more raised beds.
Ms. SpoolTeacher has visions of an organic food haven, even though the Southwest challenges are great, she loves a good challenge.

For several years now, she has been corralling all of her fallen leaves. So by now she has a variety of stages of leaf mold occurring.

The clump in the first picture is from this pile. She had pulled the wire round off of the heap, moved the empty wire round to a clearing beside where it had been and was distributing the contents to pull out the driest parts to load in the bottom and then put the more decomposed contents on top of those. She is hoping to plant the rounds with vegetables now; she thinks they are ready to grow.
As you can tell from the first picture, life was forming deep in the depths of the pile, which was about 3 feet high. All through the interior, growth was occurring. 

She managed to get three wire rounds ready to grow, grow, grow....
And soil rich with decomposed leaf mold still left to toss under the pomegranate tree and more for the plum she'll do tomorrow.

And more leaves to start another heap.
The great thing about fall is leaves. The great thing about leaves is leaf mold.
She is still learning how to do it right but there aren't very many ways to do it too awfully wrong.
We'll see. She'll be planting them soon and hopefully will remember to take progress shots...

Here are the tomato babes out for a "hardening off" experience.

Here's the yard work she did the day before, raking leaves for the leaf pile farther in the back, leaf piles everywhere, everywhere a tree or wind blown crevice...

And Little Ms. Red-Haired Girl whirling circles around her feet trying to get her attention that, "It's four o'clock already, dinner, dinner, dinner. Come on already you've been doing this all day!"
Me, me, me. Such a demanding Little Red-Haired Girl. What little hair she has left.
"Warning: Spoiled rotten Little Red-Haired Girl Lives here and she can't control her licker!"

There's No Place Like Home

The day was beautiful, all the way through from beginning to end... weather, scenery, pace and company..

The color purple...in just the right proportion..Tertiary colors, (a triadic color scheme); purple green and orange.
Little babies on all of the fruit trees..I think this is the peach...

Beautiful trees, the sun coming through their leaves..
Chris, cross...a high wire act...
Little Red-Haired Girl, still a ragamuffin, following me here to there and back again...(she reminds me of Atreyu in Neverending Story)...

Hemmed three pair of pants...who ever said "you'll never need math"?!...

And then received three more to mend...

Little Red-Haired Girl, got really in her groove...

More blue skies...

The little tomato sprouts went outside for a drench of bright light...

Saturday again. There's no place like home.

Today Found Me...

Moving more dirt around, this time in my back yard (see front yard here) where last season a volunteer garden erupted through a pallet skid that was protecting a compost heap from my sister's dog who was staying for a spell. (super run on sentence?)

I didn't get much out of it except exhilaration and a few little tomatoes and a cantaloupe.

This year I hope to accomplish more. 

Stay tuned. It's just a heap of dirt now, not much to show.