The "it's been a few months, perhaps I should write something" post

Two posts and several months ago, I blamed my lack of writing on a busy schedule of judgifying (no that's not really a word) and teachifying (ditto). Apparently my lack of writing is due to something else. I now blame sunshine, hiking, and lazy evenings sipping wine on the patio with Dr. C. Ahh, summer. Isn't it just AWESOME!

I have written a few blog posts in my head this summer, mostly as I'm biking home from work. Then I remind myself to enjoy the ride, the sunshine, the trees, the mountains . . . and I forget what I was going to blog about. Oh well!

I was re-reading my post about my 2009 intentions and realized I have not really changed my intentions much. This one got to me:

So, my biggest intention this year is to simply be with whatever my feelings are and not try to force myself into some half-formed ideal.

Still working on this, think I will be for a long time. I noticed when I went to my 20-year high school reunion last night that I was doing some of the forced-feeling thing. Not in the "wow I am so happy to see you (not)" way but in the "I don't care if anyone notices how fat and unstylish I am" way. Only after I gave up on all that did things get fun. Big surprise there, eh? And I realized this morning how, well, nervous I was and that I acted all weird trying to hide my nervousness from myself. What a colossal waste of time. On the other hand, nervousness got me to paint my toenails a delicious shade of teal.

Some of the things we planted didn't survive, like the Coral Canyon Twinspur, the thyme, the various stonecrops, flox and sedums (I just did not water them enough), a couple of the newest penstemons. There's one corner of the front walk that's really hard on plants. The walk also faces west, so it gets intense sun in the afternoon. The shrubs are growing very slowly - we hope they are building good root systems.

As for the food plants: the tomatoes have really taken off, as have our berry canes. The corn is tiny and most of the broccoli has been more bitter than it should be. Good greens and herbs. We have both intentional and volunteer squashes. We have no insect pest problems because there is a flock of about two-dozen quail who nest in the old pheasant cages next door. They swoop into the garden every morning and eat all the bugs. (They also enjoy baby plants - that was an adventure.) After the fall harvest, we intend to till everything we can and sow a late soil-building crop. Year by year the land will get better and produce more, we hope. We also need to do more tree pruning, to let some light in.

You might have noticed that I changed the layout of the blog. I thought that having the rain motif might encourage the monsoon season to, you know, create some actual rain. I also created better links to some cool blogs. I will hopefully be updating my reading lists soon.

Well, I think that's sufficient updatey-ness. Hope you are also enjoying your summer!