Saturdays in the Garden - Screw Ennui

OUTSIDE

It's October!  There is a LOT that goes on in the garden this month and it can, in fact, be a little stressful especially if you live somewhere that winter can come on anytime and is miserably cold and snowy.  Like Iowa.  The A Way to Garden blog does a great monthly garden chores post. I particularly love the number one item on her list:

1. Leave especially ornamental or wildlife-friendly plants standing. Don’t act as if you’re vacuuming the living room; clean up beds tactically for maximum enjoyment by you and the birds.

Most garden to do lists for preparing for winter will encourage the gleeful removal of all dead vegetation.  It is certainly important to do this for any diseased plants but for everything else? As long as you're not too type A? Just leave it until spring.  There are so many living things that use that dead and dormant vegetation to get through the winter and many of them may even be helpful to you come next garden season (like loads of beneficial insects). Just leave it. And take the time you saved to go have a piece of cake to console yourself that winter is coming.

So what's going on here?  We've had some chilly nights but no frost yet so I'm still harvesting some tomatoes, peppers, a last few green beans and some gargantuan carrots!  I finally grew normal sized carrots! It's a garden miracle!  I need to harvest and process the kale and chard for storing as there is a good crop of those.  There are even a couple of plants still flowering - marigolds and a pretty aster that I don't know the name of and have no idea where it came from. Those are the best kinds of plants.  I'm hoping that some radishes and sugar snap peas I planted in early August will bear fruit but I think I will run out of time.  Finally I need to start thinking about planting my garlic and have pulled out a few of the bigger heads from the harvest for re-planting.

LIFE

Though I'm afraid to jinx it by mentioning it, I think I am coming out of a mild case of depression that's been plaguing me the last 3-4 months or so.  It hasn't been debilitating, I've just been unmotivated and uninterested in almost everything.  The word that keeps coming to mind is Ennui which is French and pretentious but in my mind it seems to perfectly encapsulate the mixture of boredom and mild despair I've been feeling lately.  Listlessness and just wishing something, anything, would happen. The change in season has helped as has being home again.  I've also decided that while I need to continue my work towards some of my longer term goals, I also need to bring some activity and excitement into the short term.  One thing I'd like to do is start doing some traveling again.  I love to travel and never do it anymore mostly because of cost and it being hard to get away from work.  Well screw all that.  Life's too short.  I'm not going to be irresponsible but it also doesn't make a whole lot of sense to put things off.  Honestly I'm not sure I shouldn't feel lucky to have such first world "problems". 

So are you a cheerful personality who never has an attack of the doldrums or do you wrestle occasionally with periods of lower spirits that seem to come out of nowhere?  What usually pulls you out of it if anything?    Finally, If you could travel somewhere and were trying to go easy on the pocketbook where would you go?


WATCHING, READING, and BLOGGING

Watching

I finished up my binge watch of Longmire Season 4 last weekend and was....super disappointed.  I haven't really wanted to watch anything since as if all TV has been tainted by unmet expectations:0).

Some friends and I had a girls night last night and one of the women's husbands very kindly picked out a few movies for us to watch.  We picked Serena (2014) which he pitched as a romance.  Ummm..... I guess it's a romance if highly dysfunctional relationships in depression era North Carolina are your thing?  Despite a pretty stellar cast (Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Toby Stephens, Rhys Ifans) it was terrible.  The nicest thing I can say about it, is that it was a perfect movie to watch and tear apart with friends!

Reading 

Finished Last Week:

•  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling:  On the downhill portion of my Harry Potter re-read.  I think this book is going to be the one about which my opinion changes the most from first to second read. 

Currently Reading:

• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: So maybe some day I'll pick this up again?  Until then it will sit here on the currently read and look encouraging.
• The Founding (The Morland Dynasty #1) by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles: This is the first book in a series that follows a single British family through numerous generations into modern times.  This first book takes place in the early 15th century.  This is such a fascinating idea and I have high hopes but I have to say the characters in this first book are shallow and are doing nothing for me.
• Of Noble Birth by Brenda Novak:  Despite the presence of pirates it is not making me happy mostly because of deficient humor and boring main characters. 
• Leviathan Wakes by James S.A. Corey: Space Opera!
• Uprooted by Naomi Novik: I think this book may be suffering under the influence of too much hype.  I like it thus far (about 1/4 in I'd guess) but I don't feel gushy about it and am definitely not craving it.
• The Dream Thieves by Maggie Stiefvater:  The second book in the Raven Cycle which focuses a bit more on the character of Ronan.

Blogging 

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:

I posted stuff - go me!

TUESDAY:  Review of Unfinished Business by Anne-Marie Slaughter  I really liked this book about modern feminism and work culture.
WEDNESDAY: Review of Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor I loved this YA book about a young witch in Nigeria.

 

On the BLOG NEXT WEEK:

SUNDAY:  Re-read thoughts about Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire plus re-watch of the movie.
TUESDAY:  This week's Top Ten Tuesday, hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, is all about quitting which seems a bit of a downer.  I'll either post on this OR I may post a book review of one of the 25 books I have as a backlog because one of the things I want to quit is procrastinating writing reviews!
THURSDAY:  This week's Tough Traveling topic is Creative Cursing which is awesome but since this is the kind of detail I NEVER remember about a book (though two TV shows and one book come immediately to mind) I may just have to enjoy everyone elses' lists.  Join in if you have some ideas - its a fun meme hosted by Fantasy Review Barn.

Saturdays in the Garden - I'm Off to Hunt Butterflies

OUTSIDE

Well I haven't taken a single picture this week and don't feel like I've spent any time outside at all really.  Not truly outside. I took some time this morning and cleaned up the garden; removing the dead sugar snap, tomato and zucchini plants and pulling some weeds.  I also went ahead and planted some more sugar snap pea and radish seeds in the spaces where I pulled things just to see if I could get a fall crop.

Harvesting has been mostly of cucumbers, green beans, blueberries and the Juliet tomatoes.  With the tomatoes I don't have enough yet for any canning and they're not very good just slicing and eating.  I don't really have time to process them because life is about to get very hectic for the next 6 weeks - I likely shouldn't have planted them this year.  Ah well.

LIFE

As I alluded to above, I am headed out to do field research for the next six weeks or so.  I'm looking forward to it but also nervous because it makes life super complicated.  I'll be spending most of my time hiking around here:

I head off tomorrow and I'm pretty well prepared.  I'm stocked up on books, the dogs have been groomed and are ready to stay in rentals, and the car has had an oil change and some tender loving care.  Bring it on!

WATCHING, READING, and BLOGGING

Watching
I've been desultorily (awesome word alert!) watching Avatar: The Last Airbender for the 478th time.  It's nice to have on in the background while I futz around with other stuff.  I've come to the realization that as much as I just want to universally love everything about this show, Season 3 does disappoint me more than a little bit.  I need to move on to Korra but I can't deal with Aang being dead. 

Reading

Finished Last Week:

• In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker:  Immortal cyborgs in Elizabethan England!  Despite an awesome premise that is fairly well executed, the characters did not draw me into this one.

Currently Reading:

• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: So maybe some day I'll pick this up again?  Until then it will sit here on the currently read and look encouraging.
• The Founding (The Morland Dynasty #1) by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles: This is the first book in a series that follows a single British family through numerous generations into modern times.  This first book takes place in the early 15th century.  This is such a fascinating idea and I have high hopes but I have to say the characters in this first book are shallow and are doing nothing for me.  This book is officially on hold at the moment but I'll get back to it one day soon. 
• World After by Susan Ee: The second book in the Penryn and the End of Days series.  It's super grim - grimmer than book one - and I'm loving it.  What is wrong with me? Almost done with this one.
• The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater: I am almost done with this and so far I have really loved it but I am so worried about what the series has in store for all the characters!
• Of Noble Birth by Brenda Novak: I may DNF this one.  Despite the presence of pirates it is not making me happy mostly because of deficient humor and boring main characters. 
• Doctor Who: The Monsters Inside by Stephen Cole:  My other two device audio books (Of Noble Birth and The Founding) are not doing it for me so Doctor Who it is!
• Skin Game by Jim Butcher (Dresden Files #15):  This will officially catch me up with the Dresden Files series.  I'm a little sad there will be no more.

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:

SUNDAY: LONGMIRE - the second part of season 2. The fourth in a series of obsessive posts about this show.  Sorry. When will season 4 come out???
TUESDAY: Top Ten Tuesday: Authors I've read many books by.  Meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
WEDNESDAY: RE-READ | Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling
THURSDAY: Tough Traveling: Forbidden Love. A fun meme hosted by Fantasy Review Barn to explore all the beloved tropes of the SFF genre.

On the BLOG NEXT WEEK

SUNDAY: Fifth Longmire post featuring the second half of season 2.
TUESDAY: Review of Hostage Taker by Stefanie Pintoff

***The Blog is going to be on semi-hiatus for the next few weeks.  As far as I can tell I won't have reliable access to the internet during that time.  I'm hoping to write and schedule a few more book reviews but I don't expect to be able to participate in any memes. I guess we'll see.***

Saturdays in the Garden - Living in a Mountain and Watching for Tigers

OUTSIDE

There is a good bit going on in the garden and it's a mix of good and bad.  Let's get the bad stuff out of the way first.  Probably the most heartbreaking is that all three of my Beam's Pear tomato plants are wilty, probably from one of the fungi that cause this - Verticillatum or Fusarium Wilt Fungus.  It is making me completely sad because I love the Beam's Pear and have been looking forward to them all summer.  My Juliet tomatoes don't seem to be affected (they're a franken-tomato variety, i.e. not an heriloom so likely engineered to be resistant) but I only really grow them for canning - they don't taste so good right off the vine. Probably because this is when problems really manifest there is even a great post on tomato diseases and problems on A Way to Garden this week. To add insult to injury, none of the plants are even producing that much.  It's just a bad tomato year in my garden.  Bah!!

I'm also pretty certain at this point that I won't be getting any zucchinis this year.  One of the hazards I've run into trying to grow cucurbits in a small space is pollination issues.  I can't usually grow very many plants of each which means there's a risk of there being too few male and female flowers blooming at the same time for pollination.  I think that has happened with my two zucchini plants sadly.  The upside is that my cucumbers seem to not have had this issue!  I know the leaves look wilted in the picture but they just needed some water.  They do appear to have a bit of powdery mildew however....

I also thinned out the carrots a bit and they are really doing well.  I usually do a crap job of growing carrots so it's a lovely surprise.  Also my first fully ripe Meyer lemon is ready to pick and it's got a new little lemon starting.

I'm the jerk carrot that looks robust at the soil line but is only 1" long.

Finally, last week I posted a picture of fluffy clouds floating in a blue sky.  This week we had two days with some crazy storms that produced dark, dark skies.  Also, today I spied on a couple of monarchs...ahem...while they busily produced the next generation.  The next generation in fact will be the one to migrate to Mexico!

LIFE

I've been lusting after RVs of late.  A strange thing perhaps but the thing is I have to travel for work on a regular basis and figuring out what to do with the dogs is always difficult (often times my travel is for field work that is weather dependent and can change at a moment's notice) and expensive.  Also, I think it would be easier and less expensive to travel and explore in general...with the dogs!...with an RV.  I really like the idea of a small RV instead of a trailer/camper that you have to tow because I just have a little Pontiac Vibe.  The thing is a) have you seen how expensive they are? and b) I have lots of logistics questions.  But look at this beauty:

Sigh.... Anybody out there have experience with using an RV?  What's your opinion of them?

WATCHING, READING and BLOGGING

Watching

I've continued on with my umpteenth re-watch of seasons 1-4 of Doctor Who.  Even though it's the umpteenth time, I am picking up nuances and such that I've missed before.  I've discovered how very much I really do love the ninth Doctor...sigh.  I just finished season two like 10 minutes ago and sobbed my eyes out once again at the end of Doomsday.  Oh, Rose.  *sniff*

Books

Finished Last Week:

• Ghost Story (Dresden Files #13) by Jim Butcher: Harry is actually dead and a ghost in this one.  Clever Butcher, very clever.  In the end I quite liked this one. Better than Changes.
• Angelfall by Susan Ee:  I picked this up and finished it in two days after seeing it highly recommended at Bibliosanctum.  It was good and I've already moved on to book two. 
• Doctor Who: The Stone Rose, Doctor Who: The Feast of the Drowned, Doctor Who: Winner Takes All - The first two feature the Tenth Doctor and Rose and the third features the Ninth and Rose.  The two with the tenth Doctor were very short and I didn't particularly love The Feast of the Drowned.

Currently Reading:

• Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe: So maybe some day I'll pick this up again?  Until then it will sit here on the currently read and look encouraging.
• In the Garden of Iden by Kage Baker:  Immortal cyborgs in Elizabethan England!  Need I say more?
• The Founding (The Morland Dynasty #1) by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles: This is the first book in a series that follows a single British family through numerous generations into modern times.  This first book takes place in the early 15th century.  This is such a fascinating idea and I have high hopes but I have to say the characters in this first book are shallow and are doing nothing for me.  
• The Neverending Story by Michael Ende: I've picked this one up again on audio. 
• Cold Days by Jim Butcher: Listening to in the car.  This one is making me grit my teeth and want to hit something.  
• World After by Susan Ee: The second book in the Penryn and the End of Days book. 

On the BLOG LAST WEEK:

SUNDAY: LONGMIRE - the second half of season 1. The second in a series of obsessive posts about this show.  Sorry. 
TUESDAY: Review of Howl's Moving Castle: Book and Movie
WEDNESDAY: Doctor Who - I finally get around to watching and reviewing the 50th anniversary episode and also babble on about some other whovian things.
THURSDAY: Tough Traveling: Flying Rides. A fun meme hosted by Fantasy Review Barn to explore all the beloved tropes of the SFF genre.

On the BLOG NEXT WEEK

SUNDAY: Third Longmire post featuring the first half of season 2.
TUESDAY: The Top Ten Tuesday topic this week is fairy tale re-tellings!! Woot Woot!  Hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.
WEDNESDAY:  Book Review TBD.  Probably Changes by Jim Butcher.
THURSDAY: The Tough Traveling meme this week is highlighting New Beginnings in Fantasy land.  Learn more over on Fantasy Review Barn.

I'll leave you with these words of wisdom I received in a fortune cookie this week:

Never set the tiger free if you live in the mountain*

* If you have any idea what this means I'd love to know.  How does one live "in" a mountain?  And what does that have to do with tigers?