It's all about Donna

Several years ago my father passed. It’s coming up on 3 years in August. Fifteen months later, my mother passed, and 5 days after that my sister passed. You may wonder what this has to do with gardening. Everything. It has everything to do with the garden. How? I’ll tell ya. My folks loved gardening, especially when we lived in New England. Mom had what she called a rock garden with portulaca and the last time looked up the property online, it appeared to still be there. They had a vegetable garden in the back that produced well. So many fond memories! The garden has become my place of solace and reflection. It’s taught me patience and gratitude.

I’ve been left in charge of the family trust and as such their house maintenance is on the list of my many tasks. Bear with me. I’m getting to the point. A year ago, I had the house yard cleaned up. A massive accumulation of leaves, pine needles, pinecones, and so much more, including having a 50+ foot dead tree taken down and chipped. My ‘guys’ gave me a truckload of all this that is now a beautiful compost pile that I am using in my garden! I love that each bed has a little of my parents’ property to help nurture my plantings much the way they nurtured me. I am forever grateful for their unconditional love, grace, and understanding.

Having said all this, I am entering year number three of the garden and have grown from three raised beds to eight along with a dozen or so repurposed cattle tubs. Last year the garden gifted me with an assortment of beets, carrots, and radishes, along with okra, eggplants, lettuce and spinach. But wait! There’s more! It gifted me with a wonderful variety of tomatoes. Not just at the beginning of season, but a true bumper crop at the end of the season. From this experience, I learned to narrow down my tomato choices, so this year, I have 4 varieties instead of 10. I just harvested my first batch of spinach with more on the way as this year, I have a greens-dedicated bed that is nothing but lettuce, spinach, arugula, and kale.

In the beet bed, I’ve been pulling what I thought was weeds because what was breaking through the dirt didn’t look like baby beet leaves. Then I got to thinking, well, what if it is baby beet greens? I decided to leave the ones that were peeking out alone to see exactly what they were. Turns out, they are neither beets or weeds. They are Violas! …and that’s life in my day!

I had the wonderful blessing of being invited to participate in the Thanksgiving day family festivities at my friend’s ranch this year. I’ve known Kate’s family for years now. What made this particular day so special was realizing just how long I’ve known them all, and getting to witness how the niecelets, as they are affectionately known, have grown up into young women. The youngest, Katie, is now 18 years old. I first met her when she was about 6. There’s also Callie and Abbie. I think Callie is now about 21 and Abbie is somewhere in the middle. The other kids have grown up as well, but I know the niecelets the best.

What stands out most about this day, was the hay ride. Foolish me tried to carry a glass of wine on the trip. Wrong. Note to self: take a sippy cup next time. I had more wine on my than in my mouth. I digress. What came out of this trip was the realization that it isn’t always all about me even though I would like it to be. Kate has new calves on the ground. The topic of naming the newborns came up. I asked if she was going to name one Donna. I was quickly informed it wasn’t all about me. What do you mean it’s not all about me? We all laughed hard.

I realized on this day, just how thankful I am to have such wonderful friends as Kate and Jhereon, and for them to think enough of me to include me in their family day. I was honored. In reflection, I am very thankful to a former colleague who introduced me to Kate over 10 years ago.

This was a day that was truly about friends, family, and Thanksgiving.

My parents are pretty cool people. At this point in the game of life, we’re really good friends. Never saw that coming. I spent the day with them learning about living trusts. I’m their successor trustee. It can be a big job, and I get to do it. I learned lots about the process and I’m pretty convinced this is the way to go. Of course we all have to make our own decisions on that one. Read the rest of this entry »

If you don’t like musicals or Abba, then don’t bother reading this post.

Mama Mia! Here I go again!

What a totally entertaining movie.

With bacon.

It is most definitely all about me!

The first highlight of my day was meeting up with my girlfriend Nancy. I met Nancy working at the BNSF Railway. She’s a technical writer with an extremely dry sense of humor. I miss working with Nancy. We became like sisters. I’ve never had an older sister. I think it could Nancy… after all she is older. To me, Nancy is one of the cool senior citizens. I know when she reads this she’ll probably shoot me. Isn’t that what sisters do? I always knew Nancy older than me, but she is so totally lucky because I think she is aging much more gracefully than I and as such, she looks at least 5 years younger than she really is. But, enough about Nancy. Today is all about me! Read the rest of this entry »