Every creative thought I have these days is about my garden. I'm dying for the rain to stop (about this time every year I manage to have some sort of Portland amnesia and believe that any day now the rain will stop) so I can stick a shovel in some nice, fertile, soft dirt instead of a sloppy puddle of muck.
This year, I aspire to grow artichokes, arugula, baby bell peppers, basil, beets, blueberries, carrots, cauliflower, chard, cilantro, cucumbers, ferns (okay, it's not all edible), garlic, huckleberries, jalapenos, jasmine, kale, lettuce, mache, moss, new mexico peppers, oregano, parsnips, pole beans, potatoes, radishes, raspberries, rosemary, summer squash, sunflowers, tomatoes, thyme, zucchini...
(I was tempted to add eggplant and quince just to fill out the alphabet a bit more, but I restrained myself. See? I'm capable of restraint!)
It's not all going to happen. We bought and planted the blueberries and huckleberries, and added another raspberry cane to the raspberry patch. We've got radish seeds in the ground, and the garlic is already a few inches tall. I transplanted the rosemary a year ago, and it seems to love being out of a pot and in the really-truly earth. The thyme dies back every winter, but then grows tiny new leaves again, so I hope it's going to survive. I'm discovering that I can grow some perennials, which makes me happy and eases the pressure in the spring.
Given my discovery of canning last summer, I should really focus on things I can jam and pickle. And salads for the Lovely Boyfriend, who wants one with every meal. Crap, that doesn't narrow the list down much, does it? What have I grown with some success? Basil, carrots, cukes, garlic, radishes (these two are in the ground now), lettuce, pole beans, potatoes, radishes, raspberries (in the ground!), rosemary (ditto!), summer squash (sorta), tomatoes, thyme. Narrows it down a little more.
Wow...I don't think I realized I'd grown that many things successfully! I think of myself as having a brown thumb, but chance has got to work in my favor sometimes. That and Steve Solomon's book Growing Vegetables West Of The Cascades. That man can make anyone a gardener.
The other thing I did just today was bake bread. Two loaves of whole wheat, with this amazing coarse organic wheat flour from the farmer's market. I can smell it now, cooling in the kitchen. I'm a huge fan of the book Kneadlessly Simple, which has a zillion or so recipes for breads you don't have to knead (but require planning ahead about 24 hours, and having a cool place to put bread to rise for 12 hours or more...). They end up delicious, complex and chewy, just really fascinating.
I'm still moving. I expect this process to go for another month and a half, minimum. Pack some boxes, bring them to L. Boyfriend's place, trip to Ikea for more storage space, build shelves, unpack boxes, bring boxes back to my house, rinse, repeat.
A couple of weeks ago, I got together with a friend of the LB's who does some photography, and she took pictures of all of my jewelry. I'm so excited to get these photos back! Etsy shop makeover, here I come.
Sadly, I haven't made a piece of jewelry in over a month. I feel bad, but then I remember that I've got a decent stock right now, and I've got other life projects in the works. I have this terrible, lifelong habit of starting something, but only keeping it up for a little while then letting it lapse forever and ever. Here is my new, very important lens on this problem: There is always an ebb and flow. This means nothing. I am not moving on, I am not giving up. I am ebbing, and flow will come soon.
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