May 1 is Mary's Day

This morning there was a May Crowning at school, to celebrate the feast of Mary the Mother of God and the beginning of her month. There is a procession with Mary's statue, and hymns and chanting. Inside the church, there is a Rosary and Marian hymns and the ceremony of the crowning. Kindergarteners and eighth graders traditionally process in together, after the rest of the school. They are each given a rose to place at Mary's feet inside the church. Eighth graders wear their dressiest clothes and take a class portrait, and kindergarteners wear their Dress uniforms.

R was almost at the end of the line.

Look at the knees of her tights! There must have been an incident at morning recess.

The eyes on the far right belong to her best little friend Joe. It's funny to think how those big boys in suits will be the peewees next year when they start high school. It's all in the perspective.

The principal talked about the eighth graders who are just about to graduate, and remembered his own daughter walking down the center aisle of the church as a kindergartener with her own eighth grade escort, 23 years ago. He had to stop for a second. I think he was about to cry.

It was a beautiful ceremony on a cold, overcast day. I didn't take any pictures inside the church because I'm still shy about that, unless it's a wedding or a Baptism. But it was sweet to see the little heads and big heads alternating in the first pews.

Happy Friday

Seedling Update

It's been awhile since I updated the progress in the guest-bedroom seedling room.

The frost-hardy plants that were big enough have gone outside to the raised beds. There are containers on the porch with more cold-tolerant plants. The tomatoes and peppers and cucumbers are getting big. I hope I can manage to keep them happy inside until late May.

I think the pole beans are probably going to get too big before it's warm enough for them to go in the ground, so I will either have to rig up some kind of cold frame, or consider them a loss. R has had fun to watching how fast they get so big, so it's not a total loss.

In the foreground, lemon basil, purple basil, asters and Charentais melons. In the background, summer savory, lavender, Aunt Ruby German Green and Brandywine heirloom tomatoes, and Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes.

The tomatoes are beyond ready to go into bigger pots. I have to do that soon.

Lemon cucumbers, sugar baby watermelons, beans in the back and regular bush cucumbers on the right.

Even the windowsill has been annexed for cilantro.

I am embarrassed to admit, there is actually a corner of the basement with seedlings. Mammoth and Teddy bear sunflowers, salad greens and some flowers.

April 30

Garden in the old house

I came across a cache of photos from two years ago, when R was three. She used to like to put on her lion costume and travel around the garden picking things before they were ripe. No matter how many times I pinned her down for bug repellant, she always had a mosquito bite swelling up somewhere on her face.

We had a nice garden in that house. Small, because only the side of the house got unfiltered sun, but big enough for some tomatoes and peppers and zucchini. In this picture, she is brandishing a banana pepper.

I admit that this week's lunches have been very dull.

April 28

We have all been sick. R got it first and got over it quickly. I can't seem to shake it. So, not a very inspired lunch today, but a break from chicken soup and crackers. R watched me make it and said "peppers look prettier than they taste." I disagree, but I can see why a kid would think that.

What now?

There are some nice surprises when you buy a neglected house and start to dig out the overgrowth. Peony shoots pushing up under piles of dead leaves and pine needles. Looking deep underneath the backyard trees, and seeing the buds of giant purple Star of Persia alliums.

On the other hand, there is the "hellstrip." The impossible to landscape strip between the street and the sidewalk that bakes and scorches all summer. Neighbors told us that one owner had hand-picked river rocks and placed them between ornamental ground cover along the whole strip, and carefully maintained it.

That was a long time ago. Now there is close to 80 feet of this.

"Roundup, Roundup, Roundup and repeat," one neighbor suggested. I think that purposely using Roundup is one of the things we will have to answer for in the afterlife. But after seeing the alternative, I will never judge another person for using it.

I got down on my hands and knees, and dug up every one of these rocks by hand.

In between, I looked on the computer and found great ideas for xeriscaping the hellstrip. I got inspired to divide and transplant some of the xeric plantings in the backyard, and create the first beautiful waterwise hellstrip in the neighborhood.

Then I thought about how quickly well-intentioned xeriscaping becomes scraggly late-August-highway-median in the hands of someone like me with no knowledge or money. And I balked. D. pointed out that there is probably a reason that even neighbors with nice yards have hellstrips with patches of browning grass, or boring stretches of tidy rocks.

So I think we are going to take out the weeds, level the dirt, lay down a weed barrier, and put rocks on top. Smaller rocks, with fewer gaps for weeds. We will still have to pull the occasional weed, but there will be no Roundup. And the beautiful river rocks can be saved for another day and another part of the yard.