Yesterday was absolutely beautiful – and warm. I spent some time potting flowers and then realized I need to buy another big bag of potting soil. I always underestimate how much I need. In the middle of it all, we took off for the grocery store, picked up our order, drove back home and did all the necessary stuff to bring it in the house. More work on the porch and then inside because my allergies were flaring up.
Oh, but it feels good to be back on the porch, making it pretty. And to see the hostas and coneflowers and day lilies coming up from the ground, getting taller every day. Don is in the midst of a clean up project on the property and is enjoying working outside.
Some lobelia – I used it last year in this pot and I really love the purple and white inside this textured Italian pot.
I’ve potted some of the impatiens, including in the hanging pots. I’ve added plants to the antique English and French pots that I use in the Secret Garden. I’ll get some photos of those soon. Today, I’ll finish with the impatiens that I have on hand and will put the gardenias in the barrels by the Funky Patio. That is, if the potting soil holds out. Probably one more trip to the nursery is on the docket for tomorrow morning.
I’m also working on the other Nancy Drew puzzle. While I wait for the coffee to brew in the morning, I walk over to the kitchen table and add a few more pieces here and there. And then I work on it again in the late afternoon. Another puzzle arrived in yesterday’s mail; “Peonies” by a Japanese artist.
We’re sure enjoying this beautiful weekend. I hope you are, too.
Stay safe.
Happy Sunday.
sounds and looks like you had a busy-yet-lovely day … except for the allergy part. hope today is more of the same, minus allergy problems.
gardening isn’t my thing (mostly for never having a good spot for a garden), but i sure like the results! thanks for the pretty photos.
taking it easy here today. my family and i talk by phone and send text messages, of course, but today i will again drive over, they stand at the door or on the porch while i stay in my car so we can see each other when we talk. i love and miss my family very much so it helps to see them when i can, even though i can’t hug them right now. some wonderful day we will!
hope you all stay safe, are well and have something fun to do!
kathy in iowa
Kathy, you are always so positive and I look forward to reading your comments. Take care of yourself and stay safe.
to barbara …
thanks very much for your kind words and wishes!
i am grateful if you find positivity in my comments and thank you for mentioning it … because sometimes lately i’ve felt like “a pessimist in optimist’s clothing”. i know that feeling is depression and stress from the coronavirus mess trying to override my belief in God, all the goodness in the world and the creativity and strength in people (including me) … and i am not ever going to let depression and stress win.
thanks again.
i hope you have all that you need plus treats and fun things to do and that you and your family are safe and well.
kathy in iowa
kathy in iowa
Glad you have a way to see your family, Kathy. That is just what you need! Stay safe.
you are right, claudia. they are like medicine and the forever joys of my life!
talking with friends like you and everyone else here means a lot and helps a lot, too. thanks for starting/maintaining your blog and creating such a wonderful atmosphere and drawing in kindred spirits. i don’t know who to thank for helping me get here, but i am glad to have found mockingbird hill cottage!
hope your day is starting well and stays that way!
kathy in iowa
Well, I’m so glad you’re here! xo
Here in Colorado the conventional wisdom is that you don’t put anything in the ground till Memorial Day weekend, and nothing in pots till Mother’s Day. I’m wicked jealous of your photos, but practicing patience. What makes it more difficult is that today is beautiful and in the 70’s. Enjoy your day!
Thank you, Jayne! Stay safe.
My Mom always said not to plant before her anniversary (May 15th) so I always wait for that. Not sure about shopping for plants this year, tho. My son has been doing my grocery shopping so I have not been in a store for weeks! Lovely to see your pretty plants, tho, Claudia. You do such a nice job of setting up your porch! It always looks so inviting!
Well potting things is different than actually putting things in the ground. But we can start to do that the first week of May, but I held off even thinking about putting anything in the ground until this week and will probably plant next week. Stay safe, Ellen.
Claudia,
Everything looks beautiful and especially soothing.
Thank you, Susan. Stay safe!
You’ve been busy and it looks just fabulous! I love lobelia, too. Isn’t the weather glorious? I got seeds started (A little late but that’s OK.)
And I’ll look forward to the new Nancy Drew puzzle. I’m thinking of ordering that one or similar when we prepare to head to the lake. Assuming we head to the lake.
I’m reading a book you might find interesting — The House on Vesper Sands by Pariac O’Donnell. New author to me. It’s a mystery set in Victorian London and so far, I’m intrigued (and I’m nearly done!)
I sure hope you get to the lake, Jeanie. I’ve heard of that book. I’ll have to put that on my list. Stay safe!
Your flowers are lovely. Enjoy your new Nancy Drew puzzle and the Spring weather. Received our grocery delivery yesterday. Received most everything ordered with a few substitutes.
Marilyn
It’s so nice to know you have food in the house, isn’t it? Stay safe, Marilyn.
What a lovely weekend. I was expecting rain here today but after the morning overcast it turned sunny for the rest of the day. I too worked on my containers and planted the tomatoes and peppers in the garden. Still want to buy parsley and impatiens but the garden will be ok if I don’t.
I bought some Cerinthe Major Purpurascens seeds because of an article I read in a magazine and thought I would change up the hanging basket on the front post as my “new this year”.
Thanks for sharing pics of your porch, it is wonderful!
Kelly
I’m going to have to look up that flower, Kelly. Glad you’re enjoying being outside. Stay safe!
Oh the flowers!!! Lifting my heart as well as yours, and I don’t have to do the work! LOL. Thank you. The weekend here was beautiful, too. This morning a little gray. It’s amazing how much the weather changes my moods. No wonder letters from 200 years ago mentioned it. Since I’ve become a little bored with crocheting afghans, and everyone I know has a few, and the places that take donations require certain colors, certain sizes, and even certain brands of yarn, which is a pain, I decided I’d try some thread crochet and make a couple of Irish crochet doilies to comfort me after our trip to the Old Sod got Corona-en. My hands have grown shakey and my arthritis makes it hard to hold the small metal hooks, but even using a slightly larger thread and hook, I have so very little control. I also seem to have lost my ability to follow pattern directions, either written on in the charted Japanese style. After about 15 attempts, I decided my doily making days were over. So then I decided how about some simple embroidery using only outline and French knots. Ordered a kit and began to stitch. Well, first I had to remember that I needed to make a tiny knot and could not recall how to do that. Once I figured that out, I began. Jeez, did I really used to be able to get floss thru the eye of that needle? So I found a slightly larger needle. Still hellish. Takes about 5 trembling minutes to thread the needle. Long story short, my stitches are too long, my lazy days are lopsided, and my French knots are about as good as ever which was never very good. The whole darned thing was so stressful that I’m pretty sure I won’t finish it. I understand now why my Aunt Marjorie, who could do everything with handwork, spent her last 10 years making … afghans. Granny squares. Larger hooks. In some ways it feels like a great loss, a disconnect from the person I used to be whipping up doilies or samples like Rumplestilskin, and a fact of life all at the same time. Now the weather is moving (slowly) towards warmer days when it will be uncomfortable to have a lapful of yarn and a heavy project to keep turning. Sigh. I have a stash of needlepoint canvases but most of them are petite point which clearly are beyond my skill set. And the last time I worked on one, I about went blind trying to see the color charts. I don’t mean to complain, I’m just observing and feeling frustrated that the joys of my teens thru 50s are no longer satisfying, especially as we are house bound. Thanks for listening! I’m very glad you have the puzzles and the yard work and your creative companion to help get thru the days and the worries. Hope this is a good week, whatever week it is.
I can’t do the kind of work I used to, either, and threading a needle is a lesson in frustration! You’re not complaining! I feel the same way and it’s very disheartening. I have a needlepoint canvas in my stash but I’m wary of it, as well as the hand quilting I need to finish. Thinking of you, Nora. Stay safe.
xo
Dear Nora, it’s hard to see the changes of aging in ourselves. Sometimes I remind myself of my age and remember a. that I was never this old before and b. that I have observed other dear ones as they aged and felt the frustration of diminishing skills. We change. It is not a mind over matter thing, as it seemed to be when we were younger. Still, we do what we can. I admire your perseverance. Have you seen those super bulky yarns and knitting needles? I imagine that they would be easy to use and to read a pattern for, as they are so big and not fussy.
I’m glad you had a nice day.
We did, too; here in SoCalif. Until it all went to h*ll.
So my husband decided to work in the front yard/public part of our property. And he chooses a weekend when more people are out & about; dense neighborhood. His misses seeing humans; I know he does. I’d told him to always be prepared if he was in the front with all the neighbor activity, especially on Saturday and Sunday, as to what he’d do if somebody walked up to him and decided to have a chat, like would he need to remember about physically distancing, etc.; or does he feel he has a good plan in his mind about it, to be polite but safe. (When we’re so not used to doing it since we’ve barely left this house’s interior for three months since the Covid scare. We normally aren’t seeing or interacting with people in a physical/in-your-face sense; for instance, we get a home delivery, we yell thru the door “THANK YOU!!!” but [due to high-risk complications for the virus] we stay behind the door. We haven’t been out in stores since mid-March. We haven’t been thru the drill which is now pretty much de rigueur for others. We’re greenhorns at being in situations where you’re running into other people since this Covid crisis went into higher gear.)
Well, it happened. My worse neighbor in terms of recklessness with no distancing, never a mask, regular ‘gathering’ of too many people on his property, paying-tenants living in his house (multiple people in the home, easily 10 or 11 humans, not all related to one another; and they’ve mostly kept their outside jobs so they’re back & forth throughout the day, lots of activity, and HIS job puts him with the paying-public/customers in retail all day long, such that his virus exposure is potentially quite concerning) … the guy DID come up to my husband at the sidewalk and my husband rose from where he was digging to greet him. Neither was wearing a mask. I was looking for my husband so rounded the corner of the garage only to see him standing maybe three feet (?/I’m not good at measuring distances) from this guy’s face. I yelped, my husband immediately leaped backward, realizing his mistake (on the six-feet distancing) the minute he heard my voice. I said to him afterward, “What were you thinking?” He said, “I forgot.”
My theory is if we’d been ‘out there’ all along, going to stores (essential businesses) each week (or to whichever of my doctors is ‘in’/available and not doing tele-medicine), we’d have ‘down’ the routine by now … masks, distancing, even gloves perhaps; all second nature. Whereas with Husband and me, we’re stay-at-home novices at it. But ‘I forgot’ doesn’t cut it. All it takes is one slip-up which has always been my fear. What can we do now but hope for the best and prepare for the worst? My husband and this negligent guy were exchanging ‘air’. Because this neighbor has NEVER been careful from what we’ve observed, one has to hope he’s not one of the asymptomatics; a positive, silent carrier. But I’ve been in despair, because we’d tried to be so careful since February and had made SO many preparations and plans, only to have it come to this, just one careless exposure; one mistake.
I was on the phone with a friend Sunday and she told me I need to lighten up.
Sorry; for me, it’s a life or death issue.
Needless to say, it wasn’t the best weekend thereafter.
But I’m trying to move forward today (Monday). I spoke with a relative this morning who said he had workers come into his home not wearing masks on Saturday. Very awkward although he had on HIS. (Man, I would have had a few xtras on a table, requiring them to wear them!) And I have another friend who told me Sunday that she had a window cleaner inside and outside of her house who wore booties and a mask but never used gloves, so she had to try to remember everywhere he was inside her house so that she could follow with sanitizing after he finished and left (although he DID have his hands in a lot of suds of course). To me, all this sounds very stressful.
Am I totally wigging out? Am I completely over-reacting out of my fears for this virus and its aim to try to kill me with all my underlying issues? There’s been so much conflicting information; I’m getting where I don’t know what or who to believe anymore.
I’m just really so sick of the whole matter and I know everybody else is, too; and the danger in it is that we’ll begin to let our guard down ’cause we’re so fed up with the ‘new normal’. I see it happening in myself, as if I’m caving in and willing to take chances I know I shouldn’t. I’d sorta prided myself on not being one of those Covidiots. But it hit me all day yesterday after this incident with my husband and the neighbor; feeling like it’s a losing battle to keep trying to escape this enemy virus. I felt myself giving up; giving in to it. The constant tug-o-war in the brain of knowing what is best to do vs doing what I want to do. I’m feeling done with ‘home’ although that also comes in waves and I go in & out on the subject. All the contradictions. I can’t stay inside my house for the next two years til there’s a vaccine. There’ll have to be baby steps with great personal caution but, at some point, sooner than later, I’ve gotta brave it ‘out there’.
I mean, really-really-really, when thinking of this pandemic, not just here but globally. What a terrible thing to have happen in the world, affecting so many people and all of our lives. Nothing to really go on at this point but the hope for a vaccine, which is nowhere near ready yet. It’s awful. I’m so sorry this had to happen to everybody, not just me.
Good days and bad days on the subject. Say a prayer my husband didn’t get exposed to anything on Saturday. Seriously; I’m worried. He was leaning in, in a light afternoon wind, trying to hear this soft-spoken guy (and my husband is slightly hard of hearing). It was too close. ‘Way too close. And it puts me personally in a position of having virtually no control, which I don’t like.
Anyway, again, today is Monday and I’m trying to attitude-adjust and get my hope & common sense back. I don’t want to be a quitter; it has a nasty connotation. I have to think beyond myself and think of others. We’ve all separated (the smart people!!) for a reason, to help each other out. We have to keep fighting and keep the enemy at bay.
I just hope my husband doesn’t wind up sick from this age 30-something, careless/thoughtless neighbor. If my husband gets sick, I will, too. We live together in a small house. I worry terribly about my pets if that were to happen. There’s no one to take our sensitive, elderly, good-sized dog; I don’t know how anybody else could or would keep up (ongoing) with the water and food for our equally-elderly feral/stray cats who are too old and slow now to try to find their own sustenance (very dependent upon me for their survival after 13 years).
I saw a headline on my home page today, “The Coronavirus is Pushing America into a Mental Health Crisis” (Washington Post). I decided not to read it.
Have you thought of separating (quarantining from one another) for two weeks? I know it would be next to impossible in our small house, but we could do it if necessary. Since your husband got too close to your neighbor, maybe you should stay in separate parts of the house. I know what you mean. It’s all exhausting and how long can we keep this up? Rick and Doug came by yesterday and we had an outdoor social responsible visit (in masks) but when Doug came to get Sam’s leash, we touched hands, so I furiously washed my hands two times and added a dose of hand sanitizer. And they’ve been isolating just like we have been. It’s all too easy to fall prey to second guessing and ‘did I do enough?’ xo
Well, it’s a sensible idea you pose, but we didn’t do it. It really is quite impossible in our small, very-basic house to separate, and we have nowhere else to go (like if we knew somebody with a granny apartment out back or something). We’re on one floor. Because of the in-limbo ‘remodeling’ (home improvements), there’s just, to repeat, nowhere to go. We do have side-by-side but separate bathrooms but there’s only one usable bedroom and we’re only living in half the small living room and half the kitchen. It has been ongoing for too, too long (this whole-house overhaul) with boxes of packed stuff shoved against walls and out of the way of stalled improvement projects (DIYers) and I regret we weren’t able to get ‘done’ with the work on the house before this all happened. (I am slow with my decluttering; a lot of the problem about the home improvements is ME; I’m in the way of work my husband needs to do; but, you know, I fight a lot of health difficulties and often don’t get a lot of productiveness in my days.)
We don’t have a basement. I’ve heard of people like nurses or doctors separating from their families and sleeping in the garage, but our garage is completely full of packing boxes and there’s only standing room by the washer/dryer, besides which our temps are extremely hot (100 degrees on Weds 5/6/20) and the garage is not insulated (with only one small window).
We have a pulse-oximeter so are checking our oxygen levels (breathing/heart rate). Checking our temperatures. Checking in with each other with any odd symptoms. As I write this it’s May 7 so we are at Day 5 if my husband was exposed. The incubation period for COVID-19, which is the time between becoming infected and symptom onset, is on average 5-6 days; however, can be up to 14 days. So, we wait. And I try every day not to cry.
Yes, it would be hard for us, as well. Very little space and only one bathroom with a tub and shower and that’s on the first floor.
Love the flowers, especially the pink ones with dark centres. I have really enjoyed gardening since we have had to stay home. It is lovely just looking at the growth changes in my plants, and I really enjoy eating food which I have grown.
We want to start vegetable gardening next year. In these times, I think it’s going to be increasingly important. But we live in the woods, basically, with a lot of deer, so we’ll have to install high fencing first. Stay safe, Robyn!
You two would be great at vegetable/fruit gardening, Claudia – – Don as Chief Chef with the homegrown goodies and you with your green thumb (and of course you ARE vegetarians). I think you’d have a lot of fun with it and, yes, ‘in these times’ we who eat a lot of fresh produce have really felt the squeeze when dependent upon other sources, so I think the self-sufficiency factor is really positive.
It’s a great tradition; you can stick a tomato plant just about anywhere and it’ll usually grow. At my former veterinarian’s office in a strip mall, the vet techs put in tomato plants here and there among the commercial landscaping in the asphalt parking lot! I used to visit a gal’s blog who (she) had no place to grow anything except one side of her front yard in a brick planter off the lawn (conventional SoCalif neighborhood from the early-1960s with a lot of single-story houses packed in pretty tight to one another). You can grow quite a few veggies in a small space when you practice the square-foot gardening concept; there are books on the subject. She grows amazing, organic potatoes…in a wheelbarrow!
I have a friend who grows a large crop of blackberries each year in a not-so-big, slightly-raised bed (wood frame) in a side yard just off her concrete patio and she grows delish large lemons from a tree in a planter pot (maybe it’s a dwarf lemon but, I’m tell’in ya, the lemons are BIG).
I’m interested in more raised-bed planters; easier on the back. You can make them fairly easily; my husband did it; just taught himself how to do some simple construction; wasn’t a big investment in the wood to make the frames. I think they’re really good for lettuce. But I doubt our grandmothers had such fancy stuff!
Didn’t you used to sometimes check in with Susan Branch’s blog? She’s got a whole little ‘how-to’ on how to make a kitchen garden; it’s in one of the headers on her blog, just click and scroll down; I think they have deer on Martha’s Vineyard but her fence around the vegetable garden really isn’t all that high (in other years and other houses, my husband has successfully rigged some reinforced chicken wire fencing around a few plantings but out here where I am in SoCalif we’ve never had to worry about deer).
Anyway, I just think it makes a person feel good to grow some of their own food; doesn’t have to be anything so huge or elaborate. Goodness, plant a zucchini and you almost can’t keep up with it; same for yellow squash; one planting of each has a lot of yield. Depends on where you live but my bell peppers tend to grow a thinner skin, carrots can be a bit stunted, but we’ve had such good luck with green beans and cucumbers. I also like herbs and without much effort can grow basil, rosemary and mints (all in good-sized pots) out in the yard. It’s intoxicating to sit out there next to a pretty-green spearmint or chocolate mint. It’s enjoyable to plan the garden for the coming year; to read up on what grows well in your gardening zone/where you live, and what to try to plant WHEN. (I love the Farmer’s Almanac that appears in stores annually; the small paperback sometimes found at a cash register!) We usually do a combo of seed and already-started veggie plants from the garden center. We stagger the planting of the garden in that way, so that we can get early and later yields. Stretch it from, say, June and well into Fall. (But I know of people in SoCalif who really garden year’round; the weather is so mild here as a rule.)
Eating seasonally is so heartily recommended by the foodies & health experts, too.
Susan Branch, however, lives in a neighborhood with paved streets and homes fairly close to each other. We live in the woods, really. So deer would be much more apt to eat the vegs as they roam all over our property. We would need at least a 6 foot tall fence. But we are going to try to save our money to have a fence erected so we can start in on a garden next year. We would also go with raised beds. xo
I’ll leave this older post now but just wanted to make one more observation; I love the topic!
And I think this (food gardening) is a fun and exciting prospect for you! If it will be difficult and/or unwise to travel (like Paris this coming Fall, most likely not …?… [so much is unknown]) and you’ve saved on other things over these past few months as you probably will be in the ones upcoming (I have the same small amount of cash in my handbag that I put in there the last time I was at the bank, which was in FEBRUARY[!!] and we’re of course spending NO money on eating out, or fuel/maintenance for the cars), maybe you can indeed put some cash toward the garden fencing (without it being too painful on the budget). Deer are so beautiful, but I’m guessing they can leap! Our former longtime Animal Control officer for our city would tell me, even years ago, that it’s terrific to have a home garden with fruits and veggies and herbs but expect as a result that wildlife will also think it’s pretty terrific (they like to munch and peck!).
I’m no expert, just remembering all the years my husband’s put some time into growing veggies, you’ll definitely have some initial investment of the raised beds if you have box framing, of course your soils and organic fertilizers; but, you know, the seeds aren’t all that expensive and even starter veggies at the garden center in their little pots are, I feel, quite affordable. Obviously it requires your time and labor, such as the regular watering (but you do that anyway for your flowers and shrubs, so you’re sort of conditioned to being out there in your yard [and LIKING being out there!]; actually, watering, to me, is a therapeutic task).
I’m telling ya, there just is no serene or more satisfying experience than walking out to the garden on a nice afternoon in summer, gathering tomatoes and biting into one right off the vine (just sun-warmed deliciousness). I grew up with a neighbor who grew blackberries along a chain-link fence line bordering two houses and, as a kid, I loved to gently pluck those berries and also eat THEM all warm and plump from the heat of the day; my fingers and face would be a berry mess. They also had a plum tree and we’d pick plums. The mom would make this scrumptious dessert called a buckle; was sort of like a coffee cake/cobbler but crunchy and just bathed/swimming in plum goodness. Man, THOSE were the days! The neighbors on the other side of us had an apricot tree and I think we ate more apricots than we ever picked to bring home to Mom. She’d look at our buckets and say, “That’s it? That’s all?”
What I can’t seem to ever find these days are what we called Babcock peaches; white peaches. So sweet and good; little things. (Mom told me they were actually developed in SoCalif where we live [points south, more like Riverside] and, of all things, during the Great Depression of the 1930s. I should read up on them. My mother came from generations of produce distributors and green grocers; she knew every crop in every field, every tree in every orchard, L.A. environs and beyond, taught by her father as he was taught by HIS father.) But another neighbor does grow figs, pomegranates, persimmons; loquats and kumquats; the old-timey stuff you also hardly see much in someone’s yard anymore. Our grandmas used ALL those kinds of fruits; preserving/canning, making jams & jellies, etc.
You know I was SO ANGRY about this time last year when these new people moved in ‘way up above us at the top of our back hillside and one of the first things they did…I’m remembering now; it was Father’s Day…was cut down this 40-year-old natural fencing (hedge; vine) which had been up there for decades so that we had privacy from that neighbor (these are the people who currently have five sheep we see occasionally, which don’t bother anybody on this acre-lot they’re enjoying [which is totally IN the city and the farm animals aren’t allowed, but my husband and I have decided with all the bigger problems of our life and the world, we’re not saying anything!]). Fortunately, we rarely see these people because they live in the front part of their property and one thing about the vine being cut away is that it left a good-sized chunk of land on our side at the top of the hill which is flat and in full sun now, i.e. a PERFECT spot for a garden plot although it’s a bit tricky getting a garden hose up there, although my husband has rigged a way to do it with the drip lines we installed for fruit trees on the slope. That’s where we’ll soon, like this weekend (when it’s not 101 degrees like it was THIS hot afternoon [today on Thurs {although I’m writing this Friday}]) or more likely next weekend, start our seed vegetables like carrots, radishes, green beans, etc. (I feel we could have started this project a couple of weeks ago already but my husband has the bulk of the work and he’s been doing other things in the yard like weeding and planting flowers in the front yard.)
We’ve already got squash, tomatoes and onions in the lower yard. But we’re actually almost out of dirt/ground there now although we still have two teetering (old and creaky!) raised-bed frames (on ‘stilts’), one of which I love most because it hits me at the waist where I don’t have to bend over as much as with the lower nearly ground-level ones (and I don’t know yet what we’re growing in these, but this is the last year for them; after a lot of weather in the past four years or so, the frames don’t last forever [wood deteriorates], so we’ll have to make new ones for next year; this is the final year for these older ones).
We’ve never grown much of anything in the Fall and I’m re-thinking that now, starting to look into what grows good into, say, October; not so much pumpkins but maybe some other squashes. They were always seasonally-available in the grocery store so I never bothered with growing them pre-Covid; now, with the difficulty of getting to the store and availability, I’m thinking, hmmm, depend on ourselves! It’s sort of an absorbing little project I need for myself right now, looking at seed catalogs, reading that Farmer’s Almanac, googling garden sites online, etc.
It feels good to know you’ve got some degree of food source in challenging times. My husband is getting somewhat alarmed about all this talk of Great Depression in 2020 and the long-term effects of a faltering economy; as all the experts are saying, we’ll somehow eventually survive Covid (hope it doesn’t take 36 months as what hit the headlines today) but the effects of all this unemployment and downturn will be far-reaching, years down the road to a recovery. So, I kind of like the idea of reducing the grocery budget with growing some food as a hedge against that kind of bad news. He’s feeling cash is King and we need to not spend it (to prepare for what lies ahead).
Claudia, you have such a green thumb inside and outside of your home, you could probably grow some lovely pots of healthy green herbs indoors in the dead of winter. I’ve watched you coax plants over the years which would have died in anybody else’s hands!
Thank you, Vicki! xoxo