Friday, March 15, 2024

Muddy Waters

I’ve been listening to ‘On the Nature of Daylight’ by Max Richter… probably stuck with me from ‘The Leftovers’ movie I saw yesterday, or perhaps 'Arrival' seen years ago, but still remembered.

It is sublimely sad and haunting in a lonely way.  Describes perfectly how I feel at this moment.

It is so difficult pulling myself out of this funk a lifetime of years has buried me into, but I keep trying.      

It is equally difficult to pull happiness out of the air I breathe in order to create a life that is sun shiny bright to write about when I feel only pain.

This is a downer, but it is me at the moment.

It's not recommended tripping over an insignificant step stool, as the consequences have been so painful, it is common to rehash them in terms of a hellish nightmare.

The pain of the fall and the triggering of my pinched nerve pain, well it was difficult to separate the two for a week.  Ultimately the pinched nerve pain elevated itself into optimum mode, and required a steroid shot to soothe it back down.

The real pain was waiting around the corner when my sciatica nerve became so excruciatingly horrible, I wanted to die with each footstep I managed to take.

After several weeks, I can walk with a knife twisting through my ankle feeling with each step, but hey, I’m getting used to the pain as if I was born with it.  It will be Hallelujah time when it is no more.


My birthday came and went along with my incomplete blog post.
  A card did appear from my cats but debunked by Charlotte tattling on her daddy buying his version of card for the kitties.


She washed her butt and as she meandered out of my sight down that dark hallway, I could hear her whisper “Get real!  What is one day from another… it’s just one day from another.  We’re lucky to have eighteen years, while you so extravagantly have seventy-seven-years so far.”


So much for that!






Growing plants in the house… well, I don’t recall how I chucked them out of existence, but it must have been brutal at the time, as I have nothing left to ever suggest they even existed.

Fast forward twenty years…

Eleven have been mail ordered this past six months… okay, fifteen originally, but two met an untimely death when they became so leggy I put myself out of misery, and they became yesterday’s trash.  Two others were duplicates that were to be planted as two to a pot, but they became quite robust so only one per pot and the other two were tucked with sadness into the bottom of the kitchen waste bin.

A terrible end… 

My bad.


Peperomia Fraseri
Recovering from third planting.
Toothpicks holding it up
until rooted well :)


I’ve failed so many times with these poor little souls that they, along with me, feel like ping pong balls being batted back and forth endlessly.
  They have quite a bit of tenacity, surviving my blackened thumb.

The internet literally has about 3,830,000 opinions for how to mix the potting soil for these little buggers.  They will typically grow on trees, rotten logs, bark, and rocks, which makes these plants both epiphytes and lithophytes, depending on where they’re growing.

I think all of mine grow south of the equator, as they have been growing and blooming this winter.  So… after much reading, most of it wasted, these are my conclusions.

I think by now my husband would be nodding off in indifference, so if you wish to join him, have at it.

I originally began planting them in wonderfully thick raku planters made by Letsgetmuddy on Etsy, using Fox Farm Ocean Forest potting soil.  This soil creates surface tension preventing water from freely soaking into the soil.  I think this is a problem that happens to most soils in pots.

I water, wait awhile, then water again so the soil will soak it all in well.   It’s a pain in the neck, but necessary.

I tried pumice on two plants, and Orchiata bark from New Zealand on some of the others.  I mix 50% potting soil and 50% pumice or small orchid bark.  Medium size orchid bark might be better, but I only have the small.  It’s all a gamble.  Do not use perlite.  It just crumbles into nothingness. Quite a disaster when I tried to mix it.

It's quite a mess, all the problems people have with peperomias.  The photos make a gardener want to weep.  Over watered, underwatered, not enough light, too much light…HELP!

Peperomia 'Rosso'
May become a group of minature trees 
after the bottom leaves fall off :(


Mine have overhead plant lights to slow down the leggedness, and I poke my finger into the soil or feel the weight of the pot to determine when to water.  One must check their plants every day, just as if they are children or pets.  If you have no time, then stop yourself from buying one.

I group mine together to raise the humidity around them.  Nothing else will raise the humidity, no matter how many times you are told a product will.  Mine need lots of company. 

In winter when the heat pump is on more often, the humidity drops, and they need to be watered more often.  Summer, when they are resting a bit, they need to be watered less.  One must always check to stay on top of it all.

Peperomia elongate was a splurge, because of the higher price, and just as two new leaves began to open, I checked one day too late to water and to my horror, the new baby leaves fell off.

Peperomia elongata
With it's little flower spike
that is still growing taller.



Two more peeked out some weeks later, and I babied the little toddler until they are now almost full grown.  It is sending up a flower spike that will disappoint if you are looking for spectacular.  Most people call them ‘rat’s tails’, but in reality, they are just stems lined with extremely tiny flowers.

I think those with a spirit of adventure will enjoy Peperomias.  If you’re like me, failure is not an option.  It is just a set back to be overcome.

I seemed to have almost talked your ear off if you are a plant lover, if not, then I’m sure you left ten paragraphs ago to scream bloody murder, determined to skip the next post.

Anyone still reading this...

The few photographs I took from my front porch of the garden, and my resident Cooper's Hawk picking off my mourning doves for a tasty meal :(  Better photos will follow in the months to come, if I ever get over the pain of my fall.




A Grey Tree Frog on the garbage bin.





Mourning Doves puffing up feathers on a cold day.








Took me more than fifteen minutes of taking photographs
to finally realize a Cooper's Hawk was in the garden.  Do you see it?








Cooper's Hawk with a down feather in its beak.
With the amount of feathers, 
I'm guessing its victim was a Mourning Dove.
























This Post Is Linked To:

Wednesday, February 14, 2024

Sucked into bondage by a Singer Treadle Sewing Machine

 


I am going to tell you a little tale about me that could be about as interesting as paint drying on the wall, so feel free to bail out at any time, if you dare.

As a wee soul of maybe eleven years old, around the time I began teaching myself to cook, I also began to teach myself to sew.  I had a Simplicity sleeveless blouse pattern I picked out at the Five and Ten Cent Variety Store, and my mom bought it for me.

But… I’m ahead of myself a bit.

Sometime in my early childhood I was gifted a rectangular woven sewing basket with a hinged woven lid and loop closing, either from my mom or my mom’s mother.  Whoever it was, the box is long gone now.


It contained an apple size pin cushion that looked like a tomato with six rays of thread pulled tight around the stuffed shape to form six quadrants.
  It would hold the pins and needles one was using for whatever project was at hand, then when finished the pins would go back into the pin box and the needles slipped back into the paper and foil package of needles.

A cloth shaped strawberry filled with emery was included to sharpen the needles, as well as a pair of sharp embroidery scissors to cut the threads and a thimble for my middle finger.  I preferred not to use it, but to push the head of a slim needle through thick fabric and have the needle head pierce one’s finger tip, well... let's just say it happened more than once, so using a thimble became an art I eventually learned.

This introduction seems to be going nowhere, doesn't it?  As cute as the idea was of a sewing basket, mine began its journey into the land of discarded items after I discovered a much improved replacement. 

Who in their right mind ever wants to hand sew, if they can bum a sewing machine off a friendly neighbor.  Mom’s best friend, the lady next door, Millie Gorden, had a third floor to their house that was filled with treasures, much like a finished attic would be.

That is where the ancient Singer treadle sewing machine was, the sewing machine dad had to bring down two flights of stairs, then out their front gate, down the street and into our gate, up the porch steps and through the front door.  I was his little “punkin”, but I think he wished I wasn’t that day.

My first project, the sleeveless blouse so simple, was sewn and worn with pride after I embroidered a few flowers on the shoulders.  I was already efficient in the art of embroidery, because I was just that kind of kid.  Mom could see the fallacy of keeping this decoration of bulky equipment in the middle of the living room floor along with a kitchen chair.

So literally, a traveling salesman a few month later sold her a used sewing machine with a cover that latched over it and must have weighed 50 pounds to this youngster.  Voila!  Dad then had to retrace his steps to deliver the antique back to the third floor of Millie’s home.  I’m sure I ceased to be his favorite child sometime around then.  As for me, I never had a second thought about it, but I’m almost positive dad did.

My setup was the portable sewing machine on a kitchen chair and me sitting on another kitchen chair opposite it in the living room, sewing away.  Not an ideal situation, but with five children, space was limited.  My accomplishments were meager with this arrangement, as the only fabrics I was privy to were the old ones stored in mom’s trunk in the basement.

There once was a photographic slide taken when my dad sneaked up on me as I was hunkered over the sewing machine, called out my name, and as I turned to look at him with curlers in my hair and pins stuck out my mouth… CLICK!  That slide came out every time he set up the projector.

When I graduated from high school, there was no extra money to buy a fancy dress, so I set to work sewing up my own lovely outfit.  I screwed up the sheer sleeve, ran out of time, and wore just my regular school clothes under my gown, too embarrassed to attend the graduation party afterwards.



Sometimes life just sucks.

I did manage to sew up a formal silk georgette dress for my popular younger sister when she left eighth grade.  It probably became trash later, as my sister had no way of taking care of it, but it was magic on her for that one special night.  That was around 1970, and I never sewed again until maybe a decade later, when I could afford a sewing machine for myself from JC Penney’s.

After I moved to Panama, Central America, I mastered the art of the sewing machine and all of its attachments to perfection, and had a wonderful wardrobe filled with many one-of-a-kind items.  I perfected bound buttonholes, French seams, and my collection of threads and fabric became quite a monster.

Then my sewing machine broke,

and I was broke…

so that was that.

Later I gained a size,

and could never, ever wear what I had sewn again.

The story ends as simple as it began –




Little things that give me a warm feeling when I enter my Writing Room





A little thing that give me a crap feeling when I sit down in my Writing Room


Austin trapped Charlotte in the cat pan 
when the screen was in place after bedtime.
She was screeching for maybe half a minute with me yelling to break it up,
as I can't instantly rush out of bed in my older age.
Whwn I sat up in bed I saw a frizzed out blur streak under my bed.
Upon investigation, little chunks of her fur were found 
scattered about in the Writing Room.
For now, the screen is not in use, and Austin is being cuddled more
to alleviate his boredom and stress.





Charlotte window Shopping.


Days of rain, then a light dusting of snow.


Common Sage in double-walled planter.


Living in the crack.


Winter Savory in planter


Common Thyme in planter


Christmas Fern in rain garden.


Just Hanging Out


Winter weedy ground cover





Not sure about this 'weed'


Dead Nettle 'Weed'


I think this is Bittercress.


Buttercup 'Weed'


Lyre-leaf Sage


Ghostly seed heads of Hairy Sunflower


Chimes and Chickadee nest box







But, 

of course, 

there is always more to this story.

I often called sewing my hobby, but I’m pretty sure a hobby is doing something you really love, and the only thing I ever loved about sewing was the finished piece of clothing at the end of the day.  

I still preferred hand stitched hems on some pieces of clothing which created extra work, and although I struggled to finish any project I began, I enjoyed being stylish too much to stop.  When one project was finished, there was always the next one to start.

I think the passion of sewing never entered the picture for me, so in the end, I began to hate the tedious work that always required perfection.  That I accomplished so much of it, I guess, is a nod to my perseverance, but now… when I could scrape the funds together to buy another sewing machine, I hesitate.

I love myself too much.

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...