Every Tuesday and Thursday the employees of St. Louis County have an opportunity to walk the streets of Clayton, Missouri. Our personal trainer from Gold’s Gym, Phil brings us out of our offices and work stations to the beautiful outdoors. Absorbing vitamin D in the sun and breathing fresher oxygen all the while exercising. In a fleeting moment I captured a photo while we waited for the traffic light to change. Happy walkers, we are!
Summer time is here! It is the Memorial Day holiday weekend, and the forecast promises sunhat weather. High 90’s, sunny, & humid, and we are moving our greenhouse! My prayers were for no storms and lightening, but I was not specific about my temperature request. 90% of our plants are moved. Tonight we have more hanging pots to cart to their temporary residence, our backyard! Our neighbors probably think we have flipped or saying “Dean & Anna are flower children for sure!” My grandson exclaimed, “It’s a jungle out there!” I keep wanting to get beyond this move, dreaming of a slower pace, less plants, and more time to care for them. It will come!
I ponder the Photo Challenge of the Week: Hands. I keep coming back to the famous art work by Michelangelo’s “Hands of God And Adam”. Adam literally means “earth” in Hebrew, what God called His first man. This Hebrew word is derived from a word which means “to be red”, ruddy color like man’s skin or the Akkadian word “adamu” meaning “to make”. According to Genesis, Adam was made from the earth “adamah”.
With gardening, I feel the presence of God in all my senses. I touch the dirt, the living earth. I smell the basil as I plant it in the terra cotta pot, and hear the raindrops fall on its leaves. My eyes and heart see the delicate pink hibuscus blossom opened wide to the sunlight peaking above the green tree tops. And I taste the goodness of God when I indulge in my salad greens. God is good!
I have been everywhere and back this past 10 days. Yes, it has been that long since I posted on my blog. Besides my full-time job and everywhere it sends me any given day, I have spent time with family, and of course at the greenhouse. The greenhouse is not so crowded these days. Yeh! We have been selling many botanicals, perennials, and herbs, mostly at the Saturday farmers’ market. Our wild-looking tomato plants have not been a hot selling item. Not because of their looks we do not suppose, but because the township where we sell does not allow its residents to plant vegetable gardens! Yes, you read that correctly. I could not believe what I heard residents saying. So our healthy, long-stemmed tomato plants have made new homes in organic farm fields as well as in family and friends’ yards where they are wanted. Our farmers’ market clients have swooped up bedding plants and hanging planters. Our greens are loved by others besides ourselves! With my restless personality, we have started moving some other plants out of the greenhouse to our yard in preparation of our move Memorial Day weekend. Our “momma” plants, a huge arrowhead, rabbit’s fern, and red-leaf philodendron are sheltered under the Japanese maple near our front porch. The beautiful geraniums made their way to the wagon in our front yard. And the Kingston ferns are loving the filtered sunlight under the big sugar maple. My husband put up the screen house in the backyard ready to put the little plants on tables inside after this busy Mother’s Day weekend. It the midst of all this activity, one evening I found an immature robin bird sleeping in the “momma” red-leaf. It was awaken by my watering. He scurried away from me in short flight, but hung around the front yard. I think this robin bird became as restless as I feel. He was not around the next morning. So happy our plants made a home for him while he was learning to fly. Just hope the neighbor tom cat did not come around.
My stepson visited the South Padre Islands during his spring break. He shared this lovely photo. These sea shells have so many different designs, arranged in the sand based on species, time, water, sun, the whole life system. Below is a poem sparked by the photo …
Our lives are like sea shells in the sand.
Arranged on a palette, seemingly haphazardly.
A beautiful seascape with the ocean, sun, wind,
and sparkling sands highlighting.
Small, significant, striped, or speckled shells.
Ridged, in the rough, raw, reckless, and ruffled.
Omnipresent, opaque, oval, and an oyster’s home.
Is your life smooth sailing right now?
Or does it feel hollow echoing sounds,
reminders of voices from the past?
Storms interrupting life?
There is a Pearl awaiting discovery.
I watch the weather like a farmer. I grew up with this ritual, and continue. Spring seems to bring the storm fronts, but its started early this year. Above normal warm one day, and then comes that front bringing clouds and rain followed by cooler air. This cycle continues. St. Louis’ record high for today is 84 degrees set in 1990, and record low is 1 degree in 1948. The norms are 54 and 35, yet today we are currently at a sunny, clear sky 71 degrees. It is gorgeous! I took a stroll around the block during my lunch break. The crab apple and bradford pear blossoms are busting out today! A walk to the indoor pool after work will be refreshing, though still too cool for an outdoor pool! The next front is due in on Wednesday. This contrasting weather creates a beautiful palette for us to behold. Clouds, storms, rains, sunshine, and rainbows … Is not this a picture of life?
“It was one of those March days when the sun shines hot and the wind blows cold: when it is summer in the light, and winter in the shade.”
– Charles Dickens
March has such turbulent weather conditions, storms, tornados, and floods. Yet there is a knowing of what is to come after the ruckus. Baby birds chirping, wild violets showing purple, green grass glowing after the rains, and a rainbow’s promise of that pot of gold. For me the pot of gold is garden growth, showy dogwood blooms, the birth of a new thought, the memories of my child laughing in a swing, capturing a walk in the middle of my day … “No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn.” – Hal Borland . March into spring …
So I am salivating while planting a micro green mix and red sails leaf lettuce seeds at the greenhouse … I think viewing this July vacation photo of a salad made by my longtime Minnesota friend, Tamie Jensen started it! 
Is it not a palette to behold?! I am craving leafy greens … like fresh spinach, pac choy, arugula, leaf lettuce, borage, you name it! Some of these items can be purchased at most local grocery stores, and fewer even have the organic variety. And how far did these items have to travel to my local Schnucks or Dierbergs? And how much did that price tag say??? I am not willing to pay $5.99 for a pound “fresh” spinach that was grown 2,000 miles away! I have become “spoiled” or a better word “selective” in my grocery purchases after farming with EarthDance Farms this past year. Organic and local are the way to go for optimum health. I froze several bags of spinach, swiss chard, and kale from my field labors this past growing season. I just want fresh right now! Deanna Greens and Garden Art recently bought this 1300 square foot greenhouse full of houseplants and flowering plants. And it now makes way for my leafy greens! Not quite the same as spring or autumn sunshine… but it is organically grown, local, and cost pennies to those dollars! In 4 – 6 weeks I will be satisfied when a few of our nasturium blossoms and leaves are married with Deanna Greens and Garden Art’s very own leafy greens …
I arose this Sunday morning with the notion to bake. Fresh lemon thyme await usage, so I adapted a tried & true blueberry muffin cake recipe to accommodate my lemon thyme. I steeped the lemon thyme in warmed milk, and added the zest of 1 lemon into this butter based batter. The last of my poopy seeds in the cupboard went into the muffin recipe as well. The aroma of lemon filled my home, and awaken my husband. I steeped earl grey tea in my mug while he grinded his coffee beans and proceeded with his coffee ritual. I finished the warm muffin cakes with a lemon juice and powdered sugar glaze before indulging. Now we refrained and saved 10 muffins for my oldest daughter and her family. She just had her 30th birthday, and the kids were under the weather most of the week. We dropped off the goodies after church … Sure hope these lemon muffin cakes brought sunshine to their home …
Missouri is experiencing a winter blast on this New Year’s Day. Daydreaming about sunny days at Hilton Head Island (October 2010) and Valhalla on Island Lake in Minnesota (July 2011) … wishing to be in warmth and sunshine … I reflect where 2011 went and where 2012 is going like the sunrise and sunset …
Sunrise at the Cabana
Valhalla Sunset
For 9 months in 2011 Dean and I were apprentices for an organic farm called EarthDance Farms in Ferguson, Missouri. We enjoyed it so much that will do more than same as “sophomore farmies”. We purchased our very own greenhouse so we can play in the dirt even more. Here is a photo of Dean & I as Santa & Mrs. Claus for Ferguson’s 4th of July Parade themed “Christmas in July”. We celebrated our nation’s freedom with our EarthDance friends before the Minnesota vacation to Valhalla to see old friends. My 33 & 1/3 high school reunion came in September, and Rainer’s homecoming court in October.
“A mirror reflects a man’s face, but what he is really like is shown by the friends he chooses.” Proverbs 21:19
So glad my husband is my best friend, and together we choose good company.
Deanna Greens and Garden Art 