NanciWorld

4/12/09

HAPPY EASTER!!!

Me and my Peeps want to wish everyone a wonderful Easter !!!

4/11/09

Grandma's and Grandpa's farm, circa 1988
i never knew my grandparents on my father's side, they passed away the same year as my parents were married, my grandparents on my mom's side moved to Florida before i was born, so i met them maybe twice before they were gone. With this background, when i met my husband to be's grandparents, they immediately became MY grandparents - they were just those kind of people. They were farmers, worked very hard all their lives in a small town outside of my city, and they really resembled (but better looking!) Grant Wood's painting, "American Gothic" (their names were Neva and Delbert - those are definitely Old American country names)! i had never known anyone like them before, the way they were so down to earth and the way they loved the outdoors... - they were part of the reason i became so interested in growing things. There are few people who have had that much of an influence on me; even the drive out to the country to their farm, past the cornfields and the cows, was fascinating to me! Grandpa was always fascinated in turn that a "city girl" like me "liked getting her hands dirty" in the soil! They both lived to be 95 years old, and, while Grandpa was bedridden for the last two years of his life, their minds stayed sharp till they day they died! I miss them terribly, but wherever they are, i hope they're on a pristine little farm in the middle of rolling green fields (without the work....!)

4/6/09

The Watergarden Journey

We started out with a 60 gallon, preformed plastic pond. No filtration, no aeration, just water, two goldfish, and several water plants....No idea what i was doing, either! But, the 2 goldfish turned into 7 by the end of the season, so apparently somebody was happy with the conditions! Of course, the fish were feeder fish, and i got them with the idea that i'd just let them die in the winter or throw them away (they were FEEDER fish, after all!), but, animal person that i am, i just couldn't, so instead, they spent the winter in an aquarium! Had this little pond for about 3 years, then got the itch to have a "real" watergarden, one that the fish could stay in all year, so, in 2001, hubby and i took a free watergarden class at a local shop, and jumped in head first, to coin a phrase!

We took one week of vacation to work on it - of course, it was the only 95 degree (F) week we had that summer! Just the two of us....when someone asks my husband what he dug the hole with, he always says, "With my wife!" Well, HE thinks it's funny... ):}

In a way, it developed a life of it's own, deciding what size and depth it would ultimately be, and when we were finished digging (mainly because we decided we'd had enough!), it was an 11' X 20' oval, 24 inches deep.
Anyway, it definitely turned out beautiful, and now i have another environment to grow plants in - water! All of the plants surrounding the pond were just moved or divided from those i already had, and all of the fieldstone around it came from hubby's grandparents' farm - hauled in one pickup truck load at a time! We have various types of fish - Koi, Goldfish, and Rosey Reds, and it's visited by a large number of American Toads every Spring, almost always around April 15, except we usually have warm weather by then, and it doesn't look promising so far, so Toad Day may be delayed this year! More about THEM when they show up...
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4/4/09

Grow Your Own!

The seedlings are growing - here's Skeeter keeping guard on them, just in case there's a ferocious plant - eating mouse loose in the house!

i used to start hundreds of seeds under lights every Spring, especially when we had a basement and i had more room. i was always a little worried that my neighbors would see the lights on half the night with all those plants and call the police! i assure you, though, there was never any "hemp" involved (although there may have been a stray Opium poppy or two in there!) But now with my leaf casting business taking up more of my time, (and i've gotten older), i tend to want "instant gratification" - or a lot closer to it! i'm not as willing to wait several years for a seed to grow into a landscape - sized plant! These days, i pretty much just grow Castor Beans, heirloom tomatoes, Moonflower vines, and some annuals that are hard to find around here.

4/2/09

Gargoyles in the Garden!

Forget concrete geese, elves, and deer! i have my Gargoyles! This green one is the first I ever found - i painted him with the only paint i had on hand at the time - a strange metallic green fabric paint! The fangs weren't cast very well, so i actually made these for him - implants, if you will!