What Did You Do With Your Summer?

 I don't know about you but I'm still struggling to get used to the 'new norm'. I am slowly but surely getting my ducks in order.

My health and nutrition have improved, and I have a dedicated exercise routine(s) which have in turn greatly improved my quality of life and, especially, mobility.

I feel like a 20-year-old.

Gardening

Yep. It comes with codgerhood.

Although to be fair, I have always tried to do a little gardening if I could wherever I lived. It's a wonderful way to get some therapeutic exercise in the sunshine. I love the smell of warm, damp earth.

And sprouting seeds, watching them grow as you lovingly transplant them from pot to pot, hardening them off (dashing outside as the sun goes down and frost danger looms) and finally transplanting them directly into the soil.

It Was A Real Crapshoot This Year

Indeed. With Covid clamping down at the beginning of the season, gardening things where hard to find as people mobbed for quarantine veggies. Especially veggies. I usually buy my garden plants already started in little trays but this year, with the future uncertain, I went through my cache of seeds and started my own plants.

Aside from a couple of hiccups, it went very well.

  • I planted tomatoes, green peppers, golden berry, kale, and yellow beans. Except for the beans, which went directly into the ground, I lost track of my seedling pots and didn't know which was which for awhile. Cotyledons all look alike to me. Eventually, when they sprouted their secondaries, I figured it out. No harm, no foul.
  • The tomatoes took so damn long to germinate I kept planting more. And more. My seed are quite old, some of them, so I thought I had planted duds. Silly me. I ended up with quite a myriad of tomato plants of various species. We've been grazing off them all summer and they ARE yummy!
  • Spouse requested okra and I didn't have the seeds so I ordered some back in February when the rona first hit. I finally got them in July and quickly planted them. Plants did come up... and I got a single okra on each of my four plants. Yes, that's exactly four pods. <heavy sigh>
Other than these minor distractions it was a lovely summer. I also bit the bullet and ordered some long-coveted concrete border stones. The scalloped kind in white. They took awhile to arrive but when they finally did I had a great garden project to occupy my time.

I knock off "work" as soon as Spouse goes off to his "real" work, lol, and sit out in the garden knitting, crocheting and listening to a podcast or audiobook while I enjoy the summer-room that is my garden.

Barbecues And Into The Night Discussions

Spouse enjoys the garden on weekends. He pursues the Manly Art of the Grill while I kick back (knitting, crochet, etc) and keep him company while he cooks me supper.

I don't work on weekends.

A number of times, after tidying up, we would sit out there and chat well after dark. Around dusk I would light the mosquito burners and set them out. Spouse complains if the smoke happens to blow in his face but the things are effective, one for him and one for me.

Summer nights have always been my favourite. When I was working, driving out on a soft summer evening into the balmy night was always so exhilarating!

I miss it sometimes, the driving I mean, but I will always have soft summer nights.

Cheers!



Location: Toronto, ON, Canada

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