Marian & Greg’s Wild Animal Park

Our house has more wildlife than I ever expected. The newcomer is a frog. A very loud frog. We haven’t seen him, but he croaks for a while every morning. 

Of course we have squirrels and they have been hiding walnuts and acorns in my vegetable beds, between the leaves of the strawberry patch and under bushes. I’m finding shells everywhere. And one of them has been enjoying the free salad bar;  I planted lettuce two weeks ago. 

Every morning I provide them with clean water in the bird bath, put out bread and fresh sunflower seeds.  The crows come and dip the bread in the water. Crows are very smart. They know and remember individuals. It’s a good idea to make friends with them. You really don’t want to ever make them mad because they will take revenge. Blue jays like the bread dry and the little birds (sparrows?) prefer the seeds and splash around in the bath. 

We have a couple of hummingbirds that come for the nectar on the red pineapple sage blossoms. I always thought they just eat and run, but now I see one of them hangs out on a branch very close to the sage, then like a thirsty cowboy hitting the bar, he dives and drains a few blossoms and takes off. But I think he's a local and lives nearby.

Those red sage flowers attract an army of bees. We have one sage by the front door and one in the back yard. I have left them bee drinking stations filled with marbles (so they won’t drown). I never thought I'd go from being terrified of bees to being so happy to see them and I never thought I'd have 100+ right by my front door!

The first butterfly came a couple of weeks after we planted the new sages out front in July. She must have recommended the neighborhood to friends and we now have several butterflies. 

We still have hot days – it was 90 yesterday – and there are a few lizards that enjoy laying on the hot paved areas. As soon as I open the door, they run into a crack.    

For a city girl like me, this is all very entertaining. It’s also gratifying. I like knowing that my garden has provided a nice safe home for the critters. And it means that the garden is healthy.  

Trying a REALLY BIG New Thing

How would you like to help me think of a name?

Oh now you’re curious!

No, not a dog or pet.  Not a boat….or an English country home. 

I have decided to leave employment in the corporate world and start my own business. 

I began taking on clients as a Professional Organizer.  I originally imagined mostly overcrowded kitchen cabinets and closets and people wishing to apply the Marie Kondo concepts to their home. 

While most people do have a space at home or an office that needs decluttering, so far I am finding that the biggest challenge for everyone is an overwhelming amount of paperwork. Whether catching up on a backlog or figuring out what to keep and purge, how to organize it in a better system, or just stay on top of it as more keeps piling up, everyone struggles with paperwork.  As much as I dislike my own paperwork, it’s much easier to objectively organize someone else’s.   

I’ll be working full time as an employee through August and revving up my business in September after I return from vacation. I’m starting to do all the start-up things one does to conduct business properly.  Top of the list:

Name the business!

A Butterfly and a Bee

When you’re planting a garden, how can you tell when you’ve got it right?  The obvious sign is that the plants don’t die. But what about achieving a higher purpose?  

The other morning I was overjoyed to see both a butterfly and a bee hovering at “Hot Lips”, one of my new flowering native sage plants. 

This has been a summer of transition for our garden.  We did the first stage of a landscaping plan. (Greg 80%, Marian 20%)  It was a very rainy, cold and cloudy spring well into June and it didn’t dry out long enough to get a job done. Then it got too hot. It seemed to take a very long time to accomplish a few things. Looking back, it was 3 months and we did a lot, but it happened in small increments with many days between tasks. 

Step 1:  Moving Mountains

We moved our two very large raised beds from the back yard to the front to get more sun. After a late start planting, I am now harvesting string beans, chard, beets, cherry tomatoes and Persian cucumbers.  The peppers are looking good and we’ll see if the eggplants make it to maturity.

Step 2:  But the Rose Came Back the Very Next Day

We removed all the boring old hedges and sickly roses along the front of the house. We replaced them with drought tolerant plants: a variety of sages which ought to flower at different times of the year and artichokes which are green and leafy all year.  But one stubborn rose bush came right back!  Rather than fight it, I am allowing it to try again. This time I am providing it with companion plants - plants that grow right around it that will help it stay healthy. I put in chives. The strong onion scent is supposed to confuse predators that are attracted to the sweet scent of the rose. I am now adding chopped chives to everything we eat!

Step 3:  Salad and Herbs

I planted several pineapple sages and Spanish lavenders near the “bath house” in the back by the rosemary. We sold the clawfoot tub so it’s not a bath house anymore. It makes a really nice seating and dining area, with its old brick floor and the partial shade. 

There are a few stepping stones beside this herbal collection and on the other side there is lettuce  and a colorful patch of nasturtiums. It was not intentional, but the area is nicely divided into salad on one side, herbs on the other. The strawberry patch is still there and thriving. I learned to buy a bundle of “uglies” - 25 bare root plants for $9 - and plant them in January.  

Step 4   Where the Sidewalk Ends

We had a plumbing disaster in January. The 1946 main sewer line collapsed and the only way to replace the pipe was to jackhammer the concrete walkway that had been built on top of it. We were left with a very expensive bill, no walkway and a jagged edge of broken concrete near our entryway. We also had a huge pile of rubble which my hero Greg hauled away. Until we decide on the rest of the front yard, we are stuck with this jagged cement eyesore just by the front door. We moved some stepping stones from the back to create a new path for now and I planted alyssum which is almost like ground cover and creeps well over the edges where the sidewalk ends. 

Step 5:  Where the Wild Things Are

There is a very large empty space in the back yard where the raised beds were located. The soil didn't look great to me but during the first heat wave, volunteer tomatoes sprang up at this abandoned spot - from last year’s seeds. I didn’t bother with cages - the vines are sprawling everywhere. I added pumpkins, melons and zucchini to cover the bare spots. It was a late start but everything is growing nicely with very little water. My neighbors already have enormous zucchini. But summer is long. So we'll have melon and squash in October!

All of this was a lot of work. There has been a lot of digging, hauling, moving gravel and piles of cement, delivering and spreading compost and mulch, pruning, planting and watering. We don’t need to join a gym. 

One can easily get caught up in the work and the fantastic salads and convenience of getting fresh food 5 feet from one’s doorstep. 

But when the bees and butterflies start coming, you know you’ve contributed to the greater cause of nature. 

Hot Lips - Butterfly and Bee Hangout

Lavender and Salad by the Bath House

Sungold 

Jagged Cement

Happy Birthday To Me

From this day on, I will always look back and wish I was this young again. 

This is what I tell myself when I feel sad about aging. The night before my birthday, I joke that tomorrow I will be another year older. 

Our society is very age oriented. There are so many occasions when that number brings a new right - ability to work, vote, drive, rent a car, get discounts, stop working, access money you’ve saved and so on. At any given time, we have an age we’d like to be and except for 18 and 21, it’s usually not our current age.

Age is one of the first questions we ask children and we are asked to enter on forms. We wonder how old others are. We even ask this about objects and food!  How old is that antique, that house, that bottle of wine, the container of milk. 

It’s OK to slow down by choice but not by biology. We do not value wrinkles. We have a million products to slow down aging or give the appearance of youth. We commend younger folks when they finally slow down to smell the roses. Older folks are perceived as less capable and there is less respect for being old fashioned. I don't like getting older. I reached the point where I'm facing a decline. 

So it takes a bit of self-convincing to remind myself that my birthday is a celebration of life.  I made it this far!  And I am lucky!  I have had a really excellent life so far with so much more to look forward to!

At 58, my health is pretty good.  My knees and back are fine, no aches or pains. My hair is thinner and slightly graying and I have a few wrinkles near my eyes and that frowny look due to sagging cheeks is setting in. The skin on my arms is getting papery. 

I was blessed with a very happy childhood and great parents. I have a loving mother, a wonderful husband and respectful kids that became the sort of people the world needs. I’ve had mostly positive experiences in my life with friends, hobbies and work that empower me to confidently want more of all of the above. 

I am more curious about everything now than when I was younger, thanks to life experience. The internet came in my middle aged years and now I learn about new things every few hours and I can look up anything I want to know. So many things are within reach. 

There is something good about every age.  

My mother said this when, as a child, I asked her “how does it feel to grow old”?  Of course I was 6 at the time and she was in her 30’s, but it was a fair question. 

I'd say she was right. There is something good about every age.