A Year Down the Road

Yes, dear readers, it HAS been a whole year since we closed on our house in High Point and began the odyssey down I-85 South to make a home in GA. [You can read that post by clicking here.]

To recap a bit...Missy M graciously shared her home with us (dogs, too, thank Heaven!) while we became locked in a much more protracted house-hunt than we could ever have dreamt. Thanks to the best realtor we have ever worked with as purchasers (yay, Rose!), we eventually found “it”...exactly the right house on the right lot in a town and a county we’d never known nor would ever have found on our own.

Check one off the bucket list:
find a whole sand-dollar

Along the way, we had a grand adventure to Arizona and have been to the mountains and to the beach, where I was able to check “find a whole sand dollar” off my bucket list. We said sad goodbyes to our Abbie-girl and M’s Miss Dixie...both left holes in our hearts that have only begun to mend with the additions of Logan and Pepper to Casa 303, as well as Rowan at 2244. The Adsit Adventure continues, and the Drool Gang is back to the full complement of 5.

Newest Drool Gang Members:
Rowan and Pepper

MDBT to WDW

Missy M and I renewed our annual tradition of Mother-Daughter Bonding Trips (MDBTs) with a week at the Most Magical Place on Earth. And it is...and it was...!

I found a wonderful group of Master Gardeners in my new County of Walton to help close the gap created when I left Guilford...and to reenergize me with lots of volunteer opportunities. I have worked closely with this year's MG training class (which has kept me on the go every Tuesday and Thursday from early January through the end of  March)...such a great group of people I might add. Slowly but surely, I am learning my way around Walton, one MG commitment at a time.

Columns in Walton Tribune

I began writing a bi-weekly gardening column for the Walton Tribune, as well as a monthly "gardening tips" column for the Loganville Insider, which means I get another check on a bucket list item: "become Elizabeth Lane* when I grow up."

So, what’s happening now, you might ask? Well, we are focusing our time and energy on maximizing our 1/3 acre property to create a kitchen garden space as well as a berry patch and a rose garden. Smaller than our 4-year plan for HPNC in size and scope, but more effective use of the ground we have, we hope.

Not to be too eye-rollingly obvious with the references...while we are putting down roots here, I feel like we are spreading our wings and embracing retirement.

And how is that coming along? Let me let the pictures do the talking...

We brought plants & things with us from NC...

...and then we had to till up the GA clay.

 OK, tilling up GA clay might work for a few irises, daylilies, and liriope (oh my...aching back!), but we are NOT planting our kitchen garden in the native soil here, folks. To mis-quote the Great Wizard: "No way, no how." Altogether now: RAISED BED GARDEN (RBG)...WOO HOO!

...and it should go about...here!

A raised bed garden (RBG) is in our future...

...and then we fill it!

First Mr. T builds it...

Voila! It looks like this!

I have seeded the new RBG with beans, melons, squash, and cukes...but you will have to take my word for that. It is way too chilly still to put the tomato and pepper transplants in the cold, cold ground.  Another week, maybe...

Meanwhile, the seeded transplants wait patiently...soaking up some rays on a sunny day...

Tomato and pepper transplants...waiting for 55 degree nights

Folks, trust me when I say, this is really starting to feel like home.

And, to think, it only took a year...

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*So, who is Elizabeth Lane, you ask? Have you ever seen Christmas in Connecticut, a "true" holiday classic from 1945, and one of my all-time favorites? Certainly, the story is a bit farcical at times, but the characters more than make up for it. Barbara Stanwyck plays the character of magazine columnist Elizabeth Lane, who is one of the country's most famous food writers. In her columns, she describes herself as having a farm in Connecticut, where she spends her days taking care of her child and her husband and being an excellent cook.

Lies...all lies! In reality she is a single New York City apartment dweller, who can't boil an egg and who doesn't "even own a window box." The recipes all come from her good friend Felix (played by the ever-delightful S.Z. Sakall). The owner of the magazine she works for (played by Mr. T's personal favorite actor in mid-century movies, Sydney Greenstreet) has decided that a heroic sailor named Jefferson Jones (played by the engaging Dennis Morgan) will spend his Christmas on *her* farm in Connecticut. Miss Lane knows that her career is over if the truth comes out, so what can she do to save her job?

Anyway...makes for an entertaining Christmas tradition in our family.

I totally connect with Elizabeth Lane's columnist character. Not the food writer part, necessarily (although I guess I have done my share of recipes, even if I don't have an "uncle" Felix to cook for me). And not the "living a lie" part either...since I do indeed have a window box and very-nearly a micro-mini farm, so writing about gardening is much more authentic for me than writing about food was ever intended for Elizabeth Lane. No, it's the I-want-to-be-that-clever-of-a-writer-when-I-grow-up part. And have my own column part.

So, when I saw the words "Columnist" after my name for the first time in the Walton Tribune, you know I was thrilled. It matters not that this is in Monroe, GA instead of NYC...no, the bucket list item said "write a gardening column."

Check!