I Am Now A Cult

/ B / Leave a comment

Huge ugly argument with the ex this weekend over me digging up trees from the orchard.

Year before last, I planted a couple new apple trees in the orchard. They hadn’t really gotten much of a root system yet, which isn’t all that unusual for new trees. All plants tend to follow the sleep, creep, leap rule… the first year you put them in, they sleep. In fact, I’ve often checked things obsessively the first year, thinking they were dying or dead, only to find them just languishing in the dirt doing little.

Orchard, year 7

The 2nd year, plants creep. This is when I had to resist the urge to douse them in fertilizer to speed them up. They are still getting root systems and acclimating to climate, etc. So they just grow very S–l–o–w.

If they make it through until the 3rd year, this is when the stuff underground is relatively established and they should take off. My apples should have been in that stage, but thanks to 2 years in a row worth of horrible summer heat and drought, they were still just creeping along.

So I thought since they had little root system and hadn’t been in the ground long compared to the rest of the orchard, they’d be good candidates for potting up to take with us when we move. (Dear gods make it soon!)

All good cult leaders advertise

So we got them out, in the truck and were almost done when the ex comes by and throws an epic fit that I’m taking HIS trees out of HIS orchard and how dare I?

Long story short… there were a lot of words, a lot of threats and even some shoving on his part, which thankfully did not melt down into an all out brawl in our driveway. He told my daughter AT LEAST 5 times that Danny and me had poisoned her mind against him and that she was “Drinking the Kool Aid” because she wasn’t siding with him. So apparently, Danny and I are now cult leaders. So I put up a sign, just in case anyone else wants to join.

Join our cult! Only 5 cents!

What a bargain! Right?

This is why you don’t grief creative people. They make art of your bullshit.

On a brighter note, I took my little cultist and her dog walking this morning.

I’m SO ready for summer and to go get in the river. Kiddo is talking about getting a job next year, so this might be our last full summer off together.

Garden will probably be all in pots this year for portability. I’ll post on that when it’s underway. Until then.

Have some Kool Aide! And don’t let the bastards get you down.

B

Ugh Lawyers and Ex Husbands and Drama oh my…

/ B / 5 Comments

Hi folks.

I’m still stuck in what seems this Neverending Cycle of Shit called Getting Divorced.

And unfortunately, can’t say a whole lot about any of it, because if my ex can use it against me or ask his lawyers to file charges against me for it, he will.

Progress IS being made, albeit at the pace of a geriatric sloth on tranquilizers, but it IS being made. Some day I will emerge from the other side of this and return to my plant and dirt obsessions.

For now though, I just have my indoor jungle and a few things I dug up from the yard of the main house… in the middle of the night… like I was stealing my own shit.

I’m hoping to at least build a veggie bed this spring. Maybe I’ll get some pictures of that. I am working on one painting, but haven’t really made it a priority. I need to. Like I really need to. Encourage me to paint people. Demand that I paint. Tell me I must paint, the fate of all cute gooey furry things on the planet depends on it. I just really need a karmic kick in the ass to get me inspired again. All the stress and daily bullshit has really taken a toll on my creativity; which I need to fix, because that actually helps me deal with stress. 🙄

Anyway, daily current mood looks something like this:

And my brain often resembles this:

Between the two I’m just not getting much accomplished, other than reacting to the daily shit storm of life.

Hoping for a break in this very soon and I can move forward of my own volition again instead of just being drug along… under a bus… on spike strips.

Good advice ladies, if you ever decide it’s time to get divorced, save lots of $. Then put what you can in carry on bags, move to another country, leave no forwarding address and change your name. Life will be easier.

Later gators –==<

B

We will return to our program after this message…

/ B / Leave a comment

Dirt is going to be on hold for a while folks.

I am currently in the middle of a life shit-storm, otherwise known as a divorce and won’t be able to focus on blog or webstore for a while.

I plan on getting the shop back up and running, I’ll be adding some new inventory when I do, but it won’t be related to Cordes Farms any longer. This also means I won’t be living where I am living much longer. I’m not sure where I’ll be or what things are going to look like yet, so it’s hard to move forward with blog and store until I have some answers.

I will tell you all this though- I’m not sad about the direction things are going. I’m looking forward to the adventure.

And I’ll be back. Just need a bit of time to reinvent myself.

Until then,

B

Bradfords are Evil

/ B / Leave a comment

Those of you that aren’t yet convinced that Bradford Pears are evil, spreading little thorn covered demons, I want you to take a good look at the photo above.

That stump is what remains of the biggest Bradford Pear tree I think I’ve ever seen. Now I can’t blame Pa Paw for planting this beast, because when he planted it, people were told that Bradford’s were sterile and were the perfect ornamental tree for any home landscape. It wasn’t until 20-30 years later that they realized that this was, in fact, complete and utter BS.

Bradford pears do, in fact, bear fruit. They are not sterile as once believed. This means the birds eat them and spread them EVERYWHERE. Worse yet, the trees that sprout from that fruit are not true to their original form, but true to the root stock that the Bradford’s are grown on, which is the Chinese Callery Pear. Here the Midwest, the Callery Pear is considered an invasive plant. The photo above is what happens when you try to cut down a Bradford and can’t or don’t burn out every last bit of the stump and root system along with it. Unless I want to destroy a huge patch of Paw Pa’s Surprise Lilies and Day Lilies, I will be cutting down little Callery Pears that sprout off of this root system from hell for YEARS.

Did I mention the new trees have thorns? Thorns that are as big and sharp as those on Honey Locust (which we also have here). These lovely trees have been known to grow in thickets so dense and so covered in thorns that they will shred tractor tires or bulldozer treads of the machinery trying to clear them from unattended land.

So once again this year, I’ll be hunting them. If I see them in the woods or our fields, they are immediately cut down. I’ll cut all these sprouts off (AGAIN) this year, I’m hoping that eventually the root system will die out and they’ll stop coming up. I may be fooling myself with wishful thinking…

My other option is to dig up all the those lilies, find them a new spot and burn the ground deep enough to destroy the Bradford’s Spawn, then let it recover. I have considered this option.

Seriously folks, don’t plant these freaking trees. They look pretty and innocuous sitting at the nursery or garden center, but they are in fact, the Children of Hell. If you’d like a pretty white tree to plant that blooms in early spring may I recommend a Service Berry or Wild Plum. These both grow nicely in the Midwest and are actual natives, so they add wildlife value to your landscape. Or grow actual pear trees, like Bartlett or Kiefer Pears, then you get fruit AND pretty flowers. Our domestic plums bloomed last week also and were beautiful. Or if you’d like a little color- Ornamental cherries are nice, Peach trees have gorgeous pinky-peach blossoms. Redbuds are amazing for color (and you can make lemonade from the flowers)!

/endrant

-B

Quickie GSA

/ B / Leave a comment

GSA: Gardner Service Announcement.

Yes. I just made that sh*! up.

I keep seeing people in my gardening and landscaping forums asking, what is this purple flowered weed that’s taking over my yard and how do I get rid of it?

It’s early April and the grass in our yard is just beginning to grow. There is an abundance of wild onion, clover and chickweed already sprouting as well as a carpet of purple from henbit, several species of violet and dead nettle. This week I’m starting to see the occasional spot of yellow from dandelions.

If your yard is inundated with weeds, the following article might help: https://www.almanac.com/what-weeds-tell-you-about-your-soil

If your yard is full of henbit or dead nettle, be patient. This is what my yard looks like right now:

I’ve seen several articles online claiming that henbit will choke out grass, but I’ve yet to see it happen. All of that purple- that’s henbit, with a little dead nettle and a lot of tiny violets thrown in for good measure. The bees freaking love it, in fact all the emerging pollinators love it and that’s good news for both my currently blooming orchard and my soon to be blooming garden. I want to draw as many native pollinators to our property as possible. If you’re a save the bees kind of person, you’ll want to leave the flowers too. But here’s the good news- dead nettle and henbit aren’t going to destroy your grass. They will carpet the yard for about a month, then go to seed and die back to the ground until next year. The emerging grass will then take over, thicken up and make you spend hours mowing it all summer. Be PATIENT. Your grass is coming, just not yet.

This is henbit close up. My daughter likes to pick the little flowers off and eat them because they are sweet. Henbit can be eaten fresh or cooked as an herb, used in teas, salads, wraps and smoothies. All parts of the plant above ground are edible and high in iron, vitamins and fiber.

This is dead nettle or purple nettle. If you have this ‘weed’ in your yard, rejoice. It is a medicinal herb and can be used as an astringent and diuretic. Applied topically, it’s anti-inflammatory, anti-fungal and anti-bacterial. The leaves and be applied to wounds as a poultice. You can also use the leaves fresh or dried in tea. I use dead nettle to make dead nettle salve, which my family uses to treat everything from bug bites and boils to rashes of all kinds. I even use it as lip balm in winter.

Both of these plants are part of the mint family, which means they may look as if they are just taking over a yard. Don’t freak. By May they will be almost completely gone and your grass will take over until next year. You’ll never even know they were there. You could try and rip them out or catch all the seeds to stop them from coming back. You could use one of those nasty herbicides and then re-seed your yard with grass. Or you could leave them alone. Let the bees have their food, maybe try a bit yourself and have an excuse not to mow for a few more weeks. 🙂

-B

So dead sticks it is.

/ B / Leave a comment

So remember when I said we’d see how this goes and I’d either get trees or dead, moldy sticks?

I got dead moldy sticks.

Let me explain why.

I put lids on these, added heat mats below and watered the cups from above. All of these things combined created the perfect medium for mold growth, which in turn kept my cuttings from rooting properly. I like posting my complete failures on this page alongside the successes, so that you might learn from my moldy sticks and not have moldy sticks of your own. Plants need four things to thrive: Sunlight. I had a grow light on them and they are right by a Southern window, so that was all good. Water. I watered AND misted them regularly, because this is what I saw on the YouTube video about starting cuttings and was following their example. Soil. They were planted in peat pellets inside sterile potting mix. Air. Plants need to breathe. Their roots need to breathe. I seriously neglected that last one.
Long story short, my cuttings suffocated. Then they molded because they were dead. So sticks and all went in the compost pile (not the plastic cups) and I started over.

I only had 4 survivors from this experiment. As of yesterday, I’m down to three. 😦

So, I’m doing what gardeners do. I’m learning from my mistakes and trying again. I replaced the plastic cups with peat pots. I don’t water from the top down with these, I just pour water in the bottom of the crate and let the pots soak it up. I still put the lid on at night, but during the day, it’s left off so they get maximum air flow. Some folks I’ve read put a small fan on their seedlings for air flow.

These are pear cuttings from Tom’s grandpa’s trees that he planted over 30 years ago. There are only three pears left of the orchard he planted back then and two plum trees, one of which had a very bad case of gummosis and is attempting to recover after having over 98% of the tree removed. The pears have fire blight. I’m treating them, but I’ve already lost one to the disease and I wanted to get starts of Pa Paw’s trees before I lost the rest.

This batch is looking much healthier, so I’m hopeful. I’ll keep you posted as to their success or failure- if this round doesn’t work, I’ll get some stronger rooting hormone and try one more time before summer hits.

-B

I have nothing

/ B / Leave a comment

So I’ve been writing a lot lately, working on my novel that I’ve picked at on and off for a couple years.

I finally decided it was time to get serious and finish the damn thing, but this means my head is in book and I have literally nothing dirt or art related to show you. Unless you count the research I did today on karst topography. I guess that’s sort of dirt/landscapy? But I’m not ready to talk about the book yet. Closer to publishing time, perhaps.

So here’s a picture of my kid. Taking stitches out of a goat.

You’re welcome.

It will surely warm up soon and I’ll have more to say on a garden and yard related front. Until then…

-B

Is it trees yet?

/ B / Leave a comment

I’m attempting to root some of our fruit trees. If successful, I’ve got video of how I did it and I’ll write an article, start to finish.

If it fails, I had wet, dirty sticks rotting in my living room for a month and here’s a picture.

B

I Don’t Have Blood Cancer

/ B / 1 Comment 
What a drag it is getting old...
-Rolling Stones Mother's Little Helper

I’ve had persistent tonsilitis for a couple years now which is probably going to mean a trip to an ENT before long to get them removed.

I’m hoping this is the reason for my persistent high white count, inner ear pain and the unbelievable exhaustion I’ve been experiencing for the past several months.

My doctor had other ideas this week though. I got a message from the nurse that said, “Now this test we’re going to order is going to come across as a little scary, but it’s how it’s in the system, so don’t freak out.”

I look at the test. They’re checking to see if I have leukemia.

I went and got the test that day. I didn’t want to put it off. I spent the next two days pouring over all my labs for the last several years and reading website after website of symptoms, disease process, etc.

There were a lot of tears and a lot of not sleeping and a lot of waiting on pins and needles for the results to come back. If you’ve ever been sick, like really, really sick… or been around people that are really, really sick- then you know, if you don’t have your health, you have nothing.

The curse of having a medical background is that you’ve seen the worst case scenarios for years. I took care of a lot of really, really sick people as a nurse. I watched plenty of them go through cancer and chemotherapy. I’ve had friends that fought through/ are fighting cancer, I’ve lost a parent and two grandparents to cancer- one of those, my Grandpa Keith’s second wife, JoAnn, was to leukemia.

I could fall off a ladder in the orchard, snap my neck and be finished. I drive I-44 at least several times a month with people I swear are qualifying for the Indy 500 while staring at their cell phones. I know there are no guarantees of tomorrow. I also know from losing people that there’s never enough time. Ever.

Still, somehow the idea of leukemia was worse than death by distracted driver or landing on my head while trimming trees. It was all too easy to imagine my slow decline over a handful of years that I’d be too sick to really enjoy, yet desperate to cling to every last minute. I saw that average life expectancy after diagnosis was about 5 years and calculated that at least my daughter would be out of high school.

That is my greatest fear/sadness of being sick or dying… what it will do to my baby. I’ve raised her to be strong, to hold her own, to be independent. Yet I know that no matter how capable or in control you feel, sometimes you just want your Mom. The idea of not being there for her if she wants or needs me… that’s what hurts the worst.

The doctor messaged me yesterday and said that the tests were all negative. She put me on a strong antibiotic for the tonsil. I’m hoping that’s the end of it. The stress of this week was a serious reminder though that I need to not put things off. I need to figure out how to go do those things I’ve always wanted to do or learn the stuff I wanted to learn. I also need to make every minute with my loved ones count.

I also need to stop chasing people and ghosts too. I’ve poured far to much time and energy into things and people that did not give back. If it doesn’t make me happy, I’m not doing it anymore. If I’m not your priority, you’re no longer mine. The time I have left is too precious to waste.

I know some of you are wondering, isn’t this an art and gardening site? Why does she keep writing about personal stuff? Sometimes ya’ll get art. Sometimes you get plants. Sometimes you just get what’s in my head at the moment. Yeah, I’m sorry for that. LOL. At least I’m not sharing what’s in there EVERY moment, now THAT probably would be something to really apologize for.

B

Ps. Laundry and dishes do NOT make me happy, but clean clothes and having silverware does, so on that I must compromise. 😉