Another Year Gone By.

The past two months are a blur. Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Eve have come and gone and we're already past the middle of January 2016. Why does it seem that time is moving more and more swiftly as I get older?

Some of the highlights of the past couple of months include gardening. Yes, gardening. In December. In New York City. Early winter 2015 boasted some of the warmest weather in recorded history with temperature hitting 70 degrees two days before Christmas. As a result, my garden was in quite a confused state. My front yard hoop house, which had been winterized with a plastic covering, was now as warm as a spring day and producing a bumper crop of cilantro and some red leaf lettuce. The lettuce was sufficient for a small side salad (yum) and I am still harvesting cilantro for cooking. I find this winter cilantro to be even more fragrant than the warm weather variety.


The holidays would not be complete without some Christmas-related crafting. Although I was busy with many things, I made time for some last minute card and tag making. The tags came from my RTU (Ready To Use) stash of leftovers and I embellished them a bit with gold edging and text cut from gold card stock. For the cards. I decided to go simple. Instead of designing something from scratch, I chose a free ornament cutting file from birdscards.com, mounted the finished ornament on cardstock squares that I had in my RTU stash, and used one of my favorite card styles: the matchbook. The cardstock I used for the card was double-sided so the inside was a coordinating print to the outside. A bit of ribbon, a small ornament and a bow round it out. I printed out my own greeting on my computer, slapped in inside the completed card and, voila!, a finished card. You can find the free cutting files on Birdscards.com's website HERE .

I also made time to create an winter themed over-the-door sign for the Dorchester Senior Citizens Center. A couple of years ago I made a spring themed door sign and I thought it was time for another season to be represented. Again, I used cutting files from www.birdscards.com for the corners and some of the snowflakes. The plan is to eventually create signs for every season so they can be changed every three months.

Valentine's Day is around the corner and I haven't done a thing to prepare, craftwise. I better get moving. Looks like the next few months will be a blur also.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

Ah, Spring!

(Click on any photo to view a larger image.)

Unidentified flower in my garden.
I don't know what it is but I like it.

King Alfred Daffodils. These bulbs have been
blooming and propagating for over 20 years.

After a long and very cruel winter, spring has finally arrived with all its glory. The mulch has been pulled back from the gardens revealing all the new green growth that was stirring underneath. In my garden the crocuses and daffodils have been having a party. Daylilies, hostas, black-eyed Susans, sedum and more are beginning to poke through the ground. There is a very healthy crop of cilantro and even some lettuce that survived the winter under my hoop house. Along with the beauties come the beasts and I've been ripping up weeds all over the place but that is to be expected. But some of my plants, like my 15 year old strawberries, did not survive. It is yet to be determined what else may have fallen victim to winter's icy blast.

Orange Daylilies preparing for
their turn on the garden stage.

Still have lots more work to do. These pots
await their turn for spring prep.

I tend to want to grow everything I see and invariably will end up with so many plants that I don't know what to do with them all at the end of the season. This year I think I'll be taking a more measured approach. I'm going to concentrate on those plants and seeds that I already have on hand and limit getting new ones. I am also going to limit what edibles I grow to those that I can easily preserve and consume during the off-season.  I have been blessed with a dehydrator and a stand-alone freezer which allow me to preserve my own food for future use. One of my greatest joys is cooking with the herbs and vegetables that I grew and dehydrated during the summer and fall. There's nothing like crumbling fragrant cilantro or basil into the food as it's cooking or making an omelet with my own veggies.

The growing season is here and I'm ready. Bring it on!!

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

A Weekend in the Mountains

The wintry weather that had plagued the northeast early in December had warmed up enough for my husband and I to spend a couple of days in our mountain retreat. It turned out to be a lot more work than either of us had bargained for when we discovered water all over the floor in the master bath. Apparently the shower faucet had not been completely in the off position. We didn't know this because the last time we were in the house there was no heat, no electric and no running water. In our absence, all those utilities were made functional. Although all the sink faucets had been checked, the shower faucet had not and the little drip-drip-drip accumulated in the base of the shower. There would have been no problem had it not been for the rubber mat that was blocking the drain. It was a mess but not nearly as big a mess as in the basement below which caught all the water that seeped through the floor. This will haunt us for some time to come in the form of mold, mildew and warped floor boards. SIGH. Lesson learned.

Still, the weekend was not a total wash out (pardon the pun). We did, after all, have working utilities which made all the work a lot easier to deal with. For the first time I was able to really wash and sanitize the bathroom so we could wash, bathe and use toilet facilities. The heat was working and greatly appreciated. We have three heating systems in the house: a gas fireplace, electric baseboard heating and a wood burning stove. The gas and electric are currently operational. The wood burning stove will be cleaned and serviced during the warm weather in preparation for the winter, The house is surrounded by acres of trees so we'll have no lack of firewood. Here's the gas fireplace in the corner of our living room. The logs are ceramic and only for show but, boy, do they put on a show. It truly emulates a wood burning fireplace.

In order to fit some of the things we took up to the mountain house, we had to remove one of the car seats and leave it in our home on the living room floor. My husband, who parked himself in front of the television after our return, found himself looking at the folded seat, particularly at the two holes at the top of the backrest that hold the removable headrest. Perhaps all the mountain air spurred his creativity because the more he looked at them, the more they reminded him of eyes and he decided to "dress" the seat using Christmas stockings and a Santa hat. After I stopped laughing, he asked me to rig up some "teeth" which I accomplish with some bathroom cups and double stick tape. Our beagle, Marla, appeared to be jealous of all the attention we were lavishing on the "Chair Monster" so she pulled out its tongue but seemed appeased enough afterwards to pose in front of it. My son quickly proclaimed that his father possessed a very strange and deep seated sense of humor, something he doesn't often demonstrate to this degree. 

2014 is drawing to a close and I have to say that, in spite of many stresses and uncertainties along the way, the year-end activities have been very enjoyable. 2015 promises to be interesting to say the least. I'm looking forward to it.

Happy New Year, everyone.


Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva

My December Garden

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Snapdragons

Spike plant and Ivy

It is the middle of December here in New York and Mother Nature still amazes me. I still have flowers blooming and my cilantro is still perky. In the glass shed I use as a makeshift greenhouse, there is a pot of white snapdragons that won't quit. It just keeps blooming and blooming. Right next to it there is a pot that contains a spike plant and some ivy that is as fresh now as it was in June.

Cilantro

Sweet Allysum

Lest you think that the only plants performing well are in a sheltered environment, let me introduce you to some of the others that are planted outdoors. Although my white sweet allysum which grew and bloomed like gangbusters all summer is waning, it is still putting on a show with a handful of tiny white snowball blooms.

Lavender

Pansies

In raised beds on either side of the allysum I have lavender and cilantro. The cilantro doesn't grow tall in this weather but the leaves are still fragrant and tasty and I just harvested some for my kitchen. In my backyard I have purple pansies that apparently missed the memo that winter was upon us and are still blooming with impudence.

I've been making adjustments to the hoop house I erected over the raised bed in my front garden. Last year I dismantled it for the winter and covered the bed with a layer of bubble wrap to insulate the soil somewhat and protect the onions I had planted. It seemed to work well enough. This year I'm trying something different. I'm planning to keep the hoop up and covering it with plastic and have added a ridge pole across the top of my hoops to strengthen the structure. I'm making a fitted cover for the hoop house from a roll of heavy duty plastic. I'm going to order special clips to hold the plastic in place and plan to install openings that will allow me to access the interior of the structure. I've never done this before and have no clue how this will work out so wish me luck. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Until then...

Ballo ergo sum
- Gitana, the Creative Diva