Shifting

This week seemed to mark the shift from indoor domestic bliss to outdoors and dirty fingernails (also bliss).  The soil has warmed as has the air; we probably had our last frost last night (which was unexpected since yesterday was pretty warm as was today).   I probably won't be painting as much as I have been these past months but will instead be designing new garden beds, nurturing all the seedlings in the cellar, and making lists of plants to buy and plant and looking forward to putting it all together as May approaches - so exciting!  We have a porch, one of three, that faces the backyard and golf course.  We call it the golf deck - around that porch was a pretty much ignored border that consisted of yews (I think) planted as foundation shrubs to hide the porch lattice and was meant, by whoever planned it, to be no/low maintenance - I can't stand borders like that personally.  Dan and I both disliked that border but we left it a few seasons as we gave our attention to other parts of the yard.  This summer, that border will be "remodeled"!  A few days ago, a landscaper came and had his crew yanked out 4 of the 6 yews and also cut a tree down from the sun border.  After he left, I immediately went out and made a new border outline with a hose as my guide and then spray painted along the hose to cut in a much enlarged area.  Then I spent a couple days digging out all the grass and preparing the dirt for planting.  I made a garden design, picked out and ordered plants, chose a couple small trees to go in there and now I excitedly wait for everything to arrive.  Oh, and that lattice will be removed and our wonderful carpenter, Mario, is going to install horizontal shiplap that I will paint before I plant.  I can't wait!  Here are some befores and pending afters.

 There goes the first one - yay!!

 That lattice is going to be replaced with lovely tongue in groove wide ship lap.

The area will be planted with two smallish trees as the back bone - a pink blush Japanese Snow Bell (styrax japonica) and a Golden Spire Ginko and perhaps one more,  a heart leafed Red Bud (cercis), and small shrubs and many perennials, all with lots of texture and color in leaf and flower and hopefully, blooming from spring until fall.  It was a much ignored area and quite wasted but now it will be delightsome.  Here's a peek at how the babies are doing "down-cellar".

That bottom 2nd tray doesn't appear to have hatched but it has; the seedlings are a maroon color so they don't show up on camera.  Now for stuff that has been going on inside the house this last while.

We had this chair re-upholstered and it just got back from the upholsterer along with a couple pillows with leftover fabric.  So cheery and cheer!

 I practiced painting with a new-to-me kind of paint - gouache (pronounced gwash) and I felt like I was in elementary school art class as I painted a picture like one I'd seen somewhere online.

 It's hanging in the ocean room until I replace it with one a bit more refined - it's meant to look the way it does though; childlike.  Then I decided to make a poster type painting for the Jungle room about love in the current vernacular - as in I'll love you, like, forever - get it?  And practice drippy painting.

A couple more things and then I'm done with this post/journal entry.  Earlier this week we had our monthly women's enrichment meeting and it was taught by a woman new to our congregation who is educated in biology and homeopathic medicine.  She hails from Germany which she says is mother of homeopathic and natural medicine.  She taught us about food as medicine; medicine as food, to begin with and all sorts of fabulous information about the need to return to eating whole foods; fruits, vegetable, whole grains, raw whole milk, good fats, less meat and dairy, (but when we do eat meat and dairy, that it be grass fed, cage free, free range, no antibiotics, that whatever an animal eats, we eventually eat).  I already know all this but it was wonderful to hear her take on it and how fully and completely her family practices whole food eating with almost no junk food or added sugar.  And she made us delicious raw blueberry cakes, bowls of glorious salads, plates of fresh fruits, beef bone broth, peppermint herbal tea and raw milk to drink.  And she taught us about homeopathic medicine; its
origins and definition.  Then to end the evening, I blew it by bringing out a huge pan of sugar laden strawberry crisp and whipped cream.  Ha!  That was planned.  I was so inspired by her lesson that I have a huge stock pot of beef bones simmering on the stove (day two) and all week long, even today on "sugar Sunday", I have eaten only the best and cleanest I ever have and it's been delicious.  I haven't even eaten any cookies today!  Here are some pics of the bone broth as I've got going.

 I cut up onions, carrots and celery.  Her recipe calls for celery root but the butcher I went to for the bones didn't have any and I didn't want to make another stop in all my errands.

 I roasted the large bones and a smaller meaty shin bone for one hour and then put them on top of the veggies and covered the whole thing with water along with 3 T of apple cider vinegar.  I brought it to a boil and then lowered the flame to the lowest.  It has been simmering for 30 hours and I'll call it done when the bones start to crumble, at about 72 hours.  Bone broth is incredibly nourishing and so tasty.  I sighed when I drank the cup of broth our teacher of last week had prepared.  She has it on hand all the time and her family drinks it like hot chocolate or with cooked noodles added to it for a quick soup.

A couple of hours ago, and without my husband because he's in a lot of pain as he prepares for knee replacement surgery, I walked down our street to the beach and sat on my favorite rocks and watched the surfers on the huge waves going on today.  We happen to live down the street from Bass Beach, the most popular surfing area on the NH seacoast so it's a favorite pastime for many to congregate down there and watch the surfers.  I walk along the ocean just about everyday and as fast as I can walk or jog but I rarely let myself sit down anymore and just relax and enjoy.  Today, in the warm sun I did sit down, watched the surfers, and also pondered upon my joyful and full life, my dear and beloved husband, how much my life has changed from just five years ago when I used to sit on these same rocks and ponder my life - always with gratitude, sometimes with peace and contentment but often in a cloud of quiet desperation (in Thoreau's words) and thought how much God has blessed me and heard my prayers.

 My rocks.  Bass Beach.  The End.