Stream of Consciousness Sunday: Preoccupied

Father's Day this year was also the first day of Summer, so obviously I've been pretty preoccupied with my seasonal passion - Gardening. I was so excited when Fadra first announced that Stream of Consciousness Sunday was coming back as it gave me some motivation to dust off this blog & do a bit of writing again. My Tumblr has gotten much more action as I use it mainly to post photographs. It's been a busy transition from the end of school to Summer Munchkin activities so a few weeks of posting have been missed. Hopefully with the end of Baseball and Summer Hockey still a few weeks away, more posts will get done here each week.

So here's my 5 minute brain dump...



Morning comes quickly when I realize I've skipped a day of Allergy medicine.  It's been a particularly bad year for Allergy sufferers, like no year in the past. It started with my son. After a conversation with his pediatrician, she advised me that the Claritin we had been taking was the bottom of the strength chain as far as OTC meds go. I quickly switched him from Claritin to Zyrtec because he is usually much more sensitive to the triggers than I am.

The switch was successful for him, but I thought it made more sense for me to use up the Claritin we had left in the house - those pills can get costly when you are taking them for months at a a time.

Until I played a round of golf after work one day a few weeks ago, not realizing I had forgotten to take my daily dose. Of course the grass pollen counts have been sky high, so the next morning I felt like I was catching something. Took a hot minute to realize I felt like crud because of that one little white pill.  I switched to Zyrtec as well because the pollen counts did not look to be going down for quite some time. Took about a week to have the new medication to build up in my system & to feel like my old self again.

After transplanting up 10 pepper seedlings yesterday and putting down 1 1/2 cubic yards of cocoa bean mulch in the backyard landscape, again it hit me about 5:00 am this morning that I missed taking an allergy pill. I took the pill, then checked on my plants to make sure nothing got tossed about in the storm last night. After a shower & doing my hair & I checked to see if Fadra had posted yet & she hadn't, so linking up will wait.  Perhaps she's been preoccupied too.

This was my 5 minute Stream of Consciousness Sunday post. It’s five minutes of your time and a brain dump. Want to try it? Here are the rules…

• Set a timer and write for 5 minutes.
• Write an intro to the post if you want but don’t edit the post. This is writing in the raw.
• Publish it somewhere. Anywhere. The back door to your blog if you want. But make it accessible.
• Link your new posts to All Things Fadra (feel free to use her SOC Sunday graphic).

Sights of a Minnesota Gardener

Gardening is a labor of love. Spring comes & I am on a mission to do my part to keep our family eating well with the freshest produce we can get. 

Hummingbirds frequent our backyard & have for years.  This is the first year we've had a feeder out & so far these are the only birds that are snatching up the dripping nectar. I was amazed to hear that you are supposed to clean & replace the nectar in the feeders every 2 days. That's crazy right?! Others have said they only clean it when it's empty - I have settled on doing it once a week. 

The nectar in the feeder is clear. I'm not convinced that "red on the feeder" alone is enough, so I'm getting some red nectar to mix with the clear to see if that makes the hummingbirds come more quickly. I bought another feeder with a bottle that is blue, but now looking back on the decision, I shouldn't have chosen that one! I put together a red floral arrangement as well - hoping that the hummingbirds love it as much as I do.

The Clematis are blooming.

The peonies were gorgeous.

Even sneaked a few pics of the neighbor's varieties - so different than ours.

This is one of the stinkers eating on the plants in our landscape  

- also enjoying our plush grass.

Therefore the best of the produce is grown on the deck - far out of reach for big eyes like these, although the squirrels now venture up to steal a tomato or two quite often.

A small sampling of the plants from seed we have going: Flowering Eggplant (from Tyrant Farms)

FLowering Tomatillos (from Tyrant Farms) for Salsa Verde.

Austrian Winter Peas (from Tyrant Farms)

Sugar Daddy Peas, Super Snappy & Blue Podded Peas (from Tyrant Farms)

There are 3 varieties of carrots in this pot. (Incl one red cored from Tyrant Farms)

Garden Beans & Royal Burgundy Bush Beans (from Tyrant Farms)

Flowering Peppers (from Tyrant Farms)

So many new experiences thus far due to it being the first year I've sowed from seeds almost my entire deck garden. If you don't know about Grow Journey seeds yet, Google it & be prepared to be enlightened & tempted to take a plunge & give the subscription service a try.

I am not being compensated to talk about Tyrant Farms Grow Journey seeds.  From one year to the next, I've learned so much about what to do to improve each year's gardening experience. Documenting will be key to understanding what was done well & what needs improvement for the next season.