Tuesday, June 29, 2010

It has been so hot and humid that I don't want to go outside and pull weeds. I know that I will have to pay for this. The weeds will win. That is to say, the grass will win. I have a lot of grass in my garden....in the flower bed where it doesn't belong.
I put some bottles into the recycle bin out by the kitchen door. My feet are bare in order to take advantage of the cool wood floors....anything to stay a little cool. In my bare feet I walk to the sidewalk that leads to the recycle bin...and I burn my feet. It is that hot outside.That's it. That is the last job I am doing outside for today.
The rest of the day is spent indoors. I have a stack of magazines that I should throw out. My favorite is People Places and Plants. It is a regional magazine that features gardens from my area, features new plants and lots of ideas connected to gardening. My garden is only 10 years old. It has a way to go before I can sit back and say,"There. It is finished." Actually, gardens are never finished. They are like children...always growing and changing.
People Places and Plants magazines have been saved for a long time. Surely I have memorized the ideas that I wish to use in my own garden. To be safe, I will spend this day looking through those old magazines. I have a bad habit of ripping out ideas and saving them. If I throw out the magazines before I rip out the good ideas, then good ideas will be lost to me.
The first thing is save is the last page. There is a column on the plants out back....weeds for medicinal purposes. This interesting article is written by Corinne Martin who is a certified clinical herbalist. Each issue of the magazine contains an interesting article on a different native plant. I rip out the article and put it on my bookshelf....in the gardening section. If I keep doing this, I will have a folder on native plants and their uses.
There are several articles on Tasha Tudor. I adore this old lady and her 1880s way of living. She has all the skills of an artist, a writer and a homesteader. She can plant, sew, weave, can produce from her farm. She has dogs, chickens....lots of animals. She has a gorgous garden. I delight in reading about this feisty old lady. I save everything about Tasha Tudor, as there are no more current news from her. She died a few years ago. I am taking this personally, Tasha.
I have gone through only 2 copies of my favorite magazine. The truth slowly dawns on me: I have no desire to part with them. They are water stained and some smell of mildew from their spot in the basement. I still want them. They will be stacked on the kitchen porch to keep them in sight. In this way, I will look at them more often. I stopped buying magazines a few years ago because of the failing I have: I can't throw them out. Perhaps People Places and Plants have a website and I can read them online. It would save storage space on the kitchen porch. In the meantimes, I am reading a 2003 copy of PPP.

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