I have seeds to share!

I have seeds to share? Have you looked at my garden or garden photos and wanted some of my plants? I’d down to trade seeds (or maybe something else?) for my seeds. Be warned that I think my yard is a weird micro-climate due to our giant sheltering Himalayan Cedar. Here’s what I have:

Calendula-all the ones in my yard grow yellow.

Borage-These are blue and lighter blue to white depending on where in the yard they grow.

Love-in-a-mist- these range from blue to white.

More Love-in-a-Mist

Walking Onion- I only have a few of these

These things are fun! They can be used as scallions when they are young or like shallots when they are big. I only have a few sets of 3 so I can’t spread as much cheer with these as I would hope.

My trillium had seeds this year! These are beatufil plants but can be hard to grown.

If you would like any of these, let me know! You can e-mail me at alexATsmallworldbuttonsDOTcom

Also, for a limited time I am offering my craft roasted coffee. Go here for delicious coffee.

Small World Blend coffee

 

I have lived in Portland for over 10 years and I had never gone to the Skidmore bluffs until yesterday. I’m not really sure how that happened. I dragged my housemate Maggie along with me running to the post office and then to a thrift store where I bought Paul a nutcrackers (so he would stop using my vice grips) two (yes two!) pairs of pants that actually fit me, and one of those cool apple peelers like the one that Badger uses in Firefly (except we later found out that it was missing a piece so it just made weird apple spirals instead.)

We rode around for awhile the false spring sun and I decided that I wanted to try to find the mystical Skidomore Bluffs. We found a strange overpass with tiny creepy molester parks on each end and this weird chained off pedestrian bridge with lots of locks in the chain like some sort of guerrilla artwork:

lots of locks in the chainlink

You can look at the link I mentioned above to see pictures from The Bluffs. It is probably one of the best views of Portland. Maggie and I at there admiring the view in the sun and watched other pairs of people that had the same idea as us. A lot of them had beer, which made us wish we had beer. I’m actually pretty happy that I hadn’t been there before, especially thinking about who I would have gone there with and that this was one of the few spots in Portland for me that wasn’t tainted with harsh memories that I would have to clear from my head to enjoy again.

But, now the weather is back to overcast and rainy. I took some photos of my yard again this year to document the growth of the garden this year.

I fianlly got around to pruning and weeding the hummingbird garden. It looks like there are several new foxglove rosettes that that makes me happy because foxgloves make me happy.

Roses at the back of the house along with strawberries, dock, more foxglve and forget-me-nots

I trussed up my jasmine plant. The Hummingbird garden is in the background and the pots have cooking herbs in them. I also have a tea plant that I my sister got me. I'm excited to pick my own tea to brew!

The cats seem to like it when we hang out in the yard with them. They also like scratching the garden boxes. This is Jakie, we hang out a lot.

Violets are always the first flowers in my yard.

Yhe Camellia bush by the door is always a close second.

I planted lots of seeds and now they are patietly growing by the window in my room.

These little pumpkin plants makes me happy. Hopefully come October we will have more than a single pumpkin like the past few years.

wisdom teeth, the Eugenic Dentist, the stupid facebook zoo game, and possibly looking for a subleter

Portland false spring came early! This could mean that we will get another one in February or that it will be miserable until May. I worked in my yard a bit over the past couple of days. It really needed it since I wasn’t around to do my winterizing last autumn.

I woke up this morning with a sore molar. It wasn’t hurting last night and some how within 7 hours it just started hurting. It was my stupid wisdom tooth. Every couple of years it moves enough to irritate me and shift all my other teeth around. It got me wondering why I didn’t have my wisdom teeth out when I was younger, my sister did. My dad had his out sometimes in his 30’s and ended up with an infection and in the hospital for awhile. I would worry about my body’s reaction to having them out but I’m probably healthier than he was and I don’t smoke. I just don’t want to go. This whole being an adult this is no fun. Why can’t my mom just make an appointment for me and write a note to get me out of school?

I only have 3 of the 4 molars and only 3 of 4 wisdom teeth have shown up on X-rays. I guess my dentist I hated in Utah didn’t seem to think that it was necessary for me to have them out. I sometimes joke that he was the eugenics dentist. He seriously told me that the problem with my mouth was that I had a European jaw and American Indian teeth and that interbreeding was the problem….Now, as a 12 year old my politics were not fully formed but I knew that was a fucked up think to say. He also told me that I would either have to have my back bottom right molar pulled out or have a fake bottom one put in because the top one would grow and fall out because nothing held it up. what?

5 years ago I went to the dentist for the first time in 7 or 8 years. I went to the OHSU dental school and had one student work on my teeth for a couple months. It was tedious and time consuming but I felt like I got really good service done. Well, I’m going to call tomorrow and start at process all over again. ugh.

In other news:

-I made 2 different kinds of vegan cheese from cashews today. Some went into lasagna and some I’m aging overnight.

-I have been playing a stupid zoo game on facebook. It all started with Paul finally getting a facebook and then he started playing the game and I decided that I could play it better than him. I proved him right but now I can’t stop playing. I just wish I had  more work to distract me.

-I have started doing morning stretches and  meditation and taking vitamins again and it feels good.

-I set up my seed tray by the window in our room so I can plant a bunch of seeds on February 2nd like I do every year. 2 weeks ago I ordered seeds from Park Seeds and I have been checking to see when they would ship. They still hadn’t shipped today so I wrote to say that I have been working in mail order for 10 years and I find it completely unacceptable when they say that orders will ship between 5-7 days. They said that they hadn’t even gotten they seeds from their supplier yet? So, I canceled the order and I’ll just buy more seeds tomorrow when I get coffee and make a button trade off with someone.

-Jackie the Cat has decided he is my best friend again and has been sleeping next to me at night. He sort of plays Goldilocks with the housemates but probably spends the most time with me.

-We might possibly have a sublet opening in our house for a few months. If you know anyone cool who might like a place to stay for a few months let me know.

False Spring… happens every year.

It seems like every February in Portland there is a false spring. A week or two of beautiful sunny weather that tricks everyone into wearing shorts and riding bikes in smiling  packs. For me it lures me out into my yard with planning and planting in mind..

I live on a small corner lot and in the past someone must have really loved this yard. There is a  short chain link fence and every color iris you can think of growing all around the edges. There are lots of interesting plants that grow in the yard, it seems that I find new ones every year! There are lots of neat plants: lemon balm, roses, foxglove, strawberries, violets, money plants, mint, lupines, Camellia, lavender, peony, hen and chicks and on and on. I have also planted a lot of things in the past year too including a vegetable garden and a humming bird garden (Paul really likes humming birds!)

Last year I planted a bunch of seeds but our housemate at the time had a cat that got into our room and decided to eat all the seedlings! What kind of cat eats plants? I also had a damping off problem since it was really humid last year. This year I planted over 40 different seeds on Imbloc (feb 2) Some of the seeds are old and about 30of them have come up so far, I think that’s pretty good. I’m going to be gone a lot this spring so I wanted to get started early.

Last year I realized that I had never documented the seasons of my yard so I started. I have photos from April 2008, beginning of May, Mid May, and June. Well, after that the year went down hill and I got busy so I wasn’t able to take more pictures. I was able to get my winterizing done though so there isn’t much left to do this spring.

Well, our false spring was last week and I got Paul to scour the neighborhood with me for fallen birch branches. I have been building little fences around all of my flower beds. I think they look really nice. Today I spend about 2-3 hours working in my yard… most of it was spent trying to tie up the unruly Wisteria vines.  I let then grow our last year because I read that they will have more blooms of you do. Anyway, here’s an image that pretty much sums up my yard work and garden in February of 2009.

yard work...

Spring always reminds me of Paul’s old band Homesick. They had a song called Sping:

“…Maybe this year spring will never end

I feel my life’s been filled with hope again

maybe someday we’ll walk hand in hand

maybe this year everything I’ve planned will come together in the spring...”