Tag Archives: gardening

Adventure

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As some of you know, my partner and I decided to make a pretty big change in our lives this year.

We sold our SoCal home and bought a piece of land in northeast Texas.

We’ll be building a new house there, but in the meantime…we are basically homeless. As in, we are currently sleeping most nights in a tent.

Luxury accommodations with an abundance of wildflowers.

Why did we do this? It was a combination of factors. The cost of living in our new home will be considerably lower. We appreciate that the state government here is more supportive of small businesses (no chance that Texas will pass legislation like AB5, which threw a wrench into my ability to do my contract writing work).

Our new home will give us more privacy and closeness to nature :)

We have room for a big garden, chickens, some fruit trees, and potentially other projects tbd.

Our neighbors are mostly quiet but a little bit curious.

There were other reasons behind our decision, as well.

It’s been only a week since we closed the door to our Pod, finished packing the car, and handed over the key of our house to our realtor. And I’ll be honest, it hasn’t all been exactly fun. Primitive camping is a chore. We have to carry in water and ice. It’s more humid here than we’re used to, and we aren’t yet acclimated. Little things crop up that test our patience (one of our air mattresses suddenly decided to develop a leak! Really???).

We miss seeing our friends. We made such great friends in Cali — we love and miss you guys.

But — and don’t ask me how this happened — one of the things my sweetheart and I have in common is that we don’t ever want to stop challenging ourselves.

Stove is lit …

So in a way, the discomfort we’re experiencing is the point. The human brain is a pretty adaptable piece of bio-machinery, but to keep growing, it needs to be challenged. It needs new problems to solve. By plucking ourselves out of one environment and setting ourselves down in one that is completely different, we’re forcing ourselves to adapt.

And we trust the pay off. We are surrounded by incredible beauty, here, and the people in our new community are incredible. We have so many new places to explore.

It’s not for everybody, but we are excited about this new chapter in our lives.

And once our house is built, our doors are open — so please plan to come visit us. Who knows, maybe you’ll like it so much you’ll decide to put down roots here yourself some day :)

Sunrise over our land

In which Kirsten fires another salvo in the Iris wars

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Isn’t this gorgeous?

Earthborn iris

This one is called “Earthborn.” I planted a few of them to set off the yellow of “Harvest of Memories” and “Second Act.” It’s working pretty well although to really get the effect I want I’ll have to move things around a bit.

Iris grouping: Harvest of Memoris Iris, Earthborn Iris, Second Act iris

It’s funny how with perennials it can take several years to get things the way you want them — because you put something in, and then see how it looks throughout an entire growing season, then move it and see how that looks . . . it’s like painting in super slo-mo . . .

(Close-up of one of the yellow irises here.)

Iris for your smilin’ eyes

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yellow iris

I planted these last year, so this is their first time blooming. I thought they were “Harvest of Memories” — that’s what I’d written in my notes when I was figuring out what varieties to buy and where to put them — but now that they’ve bloomed, I’m confused — I think that the falls on Harvest of Memories are supposed to be the same shade of yellow as the upper petals. As you can see, the falls (lower petals) on these blooms are tan. Did my order get mixed up? Is there some variation in Harvest of Memories colors? Did I actually order something different and neglect to change my notes?

Doesn’t matter, in any case, I like them a lot, whatever they are.

Update: here’s another picture showing how I’ve grouped my yellow iris with “Earthborn.”

On Tulips

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If you’ve ever planted tulip bulbs, you’ve probably noticed that unlike daffodils, tulips tend not to come back stronger year after year.

Constance Casey, writing in Slate, explains why.

She’s talking about hybrid tulips, of course. I have some species tulips planted in my front garden and they’re amazing. I’ll post a photo when they bloom. But of course they are shorter and less showy than the hybrids.