Saturday Farmer's Market - Thingz Iz Astartin' T Happin'

Created by Heather at Capricious Reader, and now hosted by Chris at Stuff as Dreams are Made on.

UPDATE from Last Week:     

 Yay!

It's finished!

Well, not finished exactly.

It still needs a coat of paint or two on the window, as soon as the caulk is dry on the new panes.










This is one of the original windows from when the house was built in 1955, and it is going to be pressed into service again right away.








The first of my veggies are coming along well. I don't have much planted outside yet.




First, there are the Onions and the Garlic.

The onions are on the left and the garlic is on the right.

And that little feathery mess in between is marigolds.







These are the Snow Peas, and they look good n healthy. There are eight of the little guys.

















All the rain is waking the garden up beautifully. Ready or not, Spring is here. I have spots of glorious color and the promise of much more all over. I just wish my camera could capture what I see. I keep saying it's my camera, but let's be honest, it could very well be the photographer.

The first rose buds of the year are getting ready to open. The white is Iceberg, a sturdy bush that will be covered in white blooms soon. Some years you can hardly see the green leaves for the roses. I'm sad to say that I have forgotten the name of the yellow rose (will have to do some research) but it performs similar to the iceberg. Both are florabundas.

If you are looking for beauty with easy maintenance and no need for nasty chemicals in your garden, floribundas and grandifloras are good choices, at least in northern California. I sound like a paid advertisement, but I'm not. Honest. I used to have a beautiful assortment of tea roses, but they were so finicky, and required so much care - not to mention the poison I regularly dosed them with.

A nice big orange Pansy

These are little white and yellow Violas.

This is the Sedum, and the tight little buds you saw before are now opening up wide!

And now, a purple Pansy

My garden beds tend to evolve organically. If I see something I like, I try to approximate it somehow, and I sometimes I also incorporate found objects into the bed.




A few years ago we had to take out some trees and we've been trying to get rid of the wood ever since.

This week I moved three of the more interesting stumps into the front bed with the lavender and lantana.

I haven't decided what to do next.

At the base of the Crepe Myrtle, the Wild Clover vies with the Daffodils & Pansies for attention.

Song of Nature
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Mine are the night and morning,
The pits of air, the gulf of space,
The sportive sun, the gibbous moon,
The innumerable days.

I hid in the solar glory,
I am dumb in the pealing song,
I rest on the pitch of the torrent,
In slumber I am strong.

No numbers have counted my tallies,
No tribes my house can fill,
I sit by the shining Fount of Life,
And pour the deluge still;

And ever by delicate powers
Gathering along the centuries
From race on race the rarest flowers,
My wreath shall nothing miss.

And many a thousand summers
My apples ripened well,
And light from meliorating stars
With firmer glory fell.

I wrote the past in characters
Of rock and fire the scroll,
The building in the coral sea,
The planting of the coal.

And thefts from satellites and rings
And broken stars I drew,
And out of spent and aged things
I formed the world anew;

What time the gods kept carnival,
Tricked out in star and flower,
And in cramp elf and saurian forms
They swathed their too much power.

Time and Thought were my surveyors,
They laid their courses well,
They boiled the sea, and baked the layers
Or granite, marl, and shell.

But he, the man-child glorious,--
Where tarries he the while?
The rainbow shines his harbinger,
The sunset gleams his smile.

My boreal lights leap upward,
Forthright my planets roll,
And still the man-child is not born,
The summit of the whole.

Must time and tide forever run?
Will never my winds go sleep in the west?
Will never my wheels which whirl the sun
And satellites have rest?

Too much of donning and doffing,
Too slow the rainbow fades,
I weary of my robe of snow,
My leaves and my cascades;

I tire of globes and races,
Too long the game is played;
What without him is summer's pomp,
Or winter's frozen shade?

I travail in pain for him,
My creatures travail and wait;
His couriers come by squadrons,
He comes not to the gate.

Twice I have moulded an image,
And thrice outstretched my hand,
Made one of day, and one of night,
And one of the salt sea-sand.

One in a Judaean manger,
And one by Avon stream,
One over against the mouths of Nile,
And one in the Academe.

I moulded kings and saviours,
And bards o'er kings to rule;--
But fell the starry influence short,
The cup was never full.

Yet whirl the glowing wheels once more,
And mix the bowl again;
Seethe, fate! the ancient elements,
Heat, cold, wet, dry, and peace, and pain.

Let war and trade and creeds and song
Blend, ripen race on race,
The sunburnt world a man shall breed
Of all the zones, and countless days.

No ray is dimmed, no atom worn,
My oldest force is good as new,
And the fresh rose on yonder thorn
Gives back the bending heavens in dew.

from: American Poetry: The Nineteenth Century, Volume I.

I'm sorry this post ended up being so long, but I hope you enjoyed a little slice of

Spring Time.