To The Ohio. . . and Back Again

Friday night I left with a group of 60-some young single adults on a bus bound for Kirtland, Ohio. About 15 hours of driving, two hotel breakfasts, three slices of pizza, two chapters of 'O Jerusalem', and one testimony meeting later I was right back where I started! Well, maybe a little more sleep deprived and spiritually fed :)

We first went to the Kirtland Temple:

Did you know the walls used to have more of a blue hue
 to them, the roof was red because of whatever they
dipped the shingles in, and the doors were
 an olive green? It's hard to imagine. . .

Yeah. I wore my neon yellow Gravely shirt :)

The Community of Christ did an excellent job of the tour and history of the place. It was interesting hearing the stories without the usual Latter Day Saint lingo.

After visiting the temple we drove the short distance to the LDS Kirtland visitor center, where the saw mill and the N.K. Whitney store are.

 I remembered most of the tour (led by the wonderful sister missionaries :) from a family trip several years ago (especially the sawmill, cause it's so cool!), but this time they told us the story of Orson Hyde, the man the Whitney's employed to watch the merchandise (their upstairs storage was worth something crazy, I forget how much). He had thumbed through the Book of Mormon, read some verses, and declared it a fraud. For the next year or so he preached against it, until one day he felt a 'prick in [his] heart'. So he actually read it, found it to be true, and was baptized.

This is where Orson Hyde slept with the inventory
 on the second level of the N.K. Whitney Store

Here's the cool thing - He was then called on a mission to the city of Jerusalem. His companion gave up and turned back before they even got out of the United States, but he continued on and served for three years as the only missionary (as far as I know) the church has ever had in Jerusalem. There's now a garden there named after him, and when I'm there in the fall, you will see pictures of it :)

My ukulele has now been to the beach.

We wrapped up the day with a little Lake Erie, which was great once we found it (we detoured to a ranger station and a water treatment plant first. . . )


I came away from this trip with a deep sense of gratitude for the immense sacrifice the early saints suffered for their faith. If I were asked to sell all I had, my business and/or home, to help pay off a church debt, would I do it without doubt or hesitation? Would I stay stalwart in the face of immense physical trials? Even when those trials take the lives of my loved ones? I am in awe every time I try to contemplate the strength of will and testimony the early saints must have had. We owe so much of what we have today to their perseverance. So 15 hours of bus time, two sack lunches, two really late nights, and one rainy Sunday morning later I have a greater respect for the faith of those who lived my church's history, and a resolution to try a little harder to be a little better :) 

The Bee's Knees!

Though Pushing Daisies lovingly sowed these seeds a long time ago, today provided the circumstances necessary for those seeds to sprout into their full splendor - an intense desire to become an amateur beekeeper! Or as Chuck would say, and Urban Honey Pioneer :)

The guys that maintain Longwood's hives came by today and taught us all about bees. So cool. I was running a little late, and forgot my camera, but next time I will definitely be taking pictures.

Did you know the smoke that they use doesn't really slow the bees down at all? It interrupts their communication by masking pheromones, like the one that signals 'attack'. And the smoke also makes them think the hive is on fire, so they go into survival mode, filling up on honey for the time it may take them to find a new place. Once they're full of honey it's harder for them to sting you because they can't bend at the middle as easily! How crazy brilliant is that?

We learned tons more, but I don't remember all the technical terms. So cool though.

I also rescued some baby plants from under the greenhouse benches when we were weeding today:

This is some sort of succulent, not sure which one yet. . .

And another Christmas cactus! I'm not a huge fan
 of the full grown plants, but they're so cute when they're small. . .

Green Things Growing

It's funny, but even though I live only a short walk away from one of the most beautiful gardens in the world, I still prefer my own little garden plot, weeds and all. There's something to sitting on land you can call your own and enjoying a space you design and maintain. Enjoying the beauties of a professionally maintained garden is great, but this vegetable garden thing brings a deeper satisfaction.

And with that, I post pictures!

Product placement! Keens. That's the brand all the cool interns wear :)

It may not look like it. . . but the weed population has been greatly decreased.

The basil was looking lovely, but I'm going to
 need a lot of basil this summer,
 so I pinched it. Fresh pesto! Yes!  

 

And here's my first tomato
 'Brandywine something' I think

This Frankenstein scaffolding I've come up with is supposedly to aid my watermelons in going up instead of everywhere. Of course, this is my first time growing them, so all of this is improvisation.

Progress!

Isn't that what life is all about? Making progress? Here's my inventory of recent progress:

1. After three and a half weeks on the job I know how to:

•  pinch/deadhead anything
• tie standards
• trim standards
• clean standards
• re-tie standards
• water
• pot
• use hedge shears for hours
• make huge hanging baskets
• move full grown, huge hanging baskets
• safely operate industrial hair dryer
• install drip irrigation
2. After two and a half weeks of  gardening I have:

• several baby tomatoes
• a lot of weeds (some of which have been reduced to only roots)
• one baby watermelon, not yet pollinated
• several baby peppers, already gifted to neighbors
• one happily blooming yarrow
• one brilliantly blooming agastache
• four baby zucchini plants that resemble swish cheese because of:
• too many cucumber beetles
• one neighbor willing to take over the plot at the end of the summer :)
3. After a week and a half since re-committing to running I have:
• become tolerably conditioned to hills
• ran in the gardens 3 times
• learned to enjoy really cold showers
4. After a month and a week of blogging I have:
• completed a whopping 8 posts (now 9 :)
• learned how to wrestle semi-successfully with formatting
• started reading several other blogs
• begun to develop a desire to blog regularly. maybe. . .

Water + Sunshine + Time =

Weeds!

Lots of them. First they were little weeds, and they were almost kind of cute. . . and then they were medium weeds that put the "weed the garden" bullet point on my To Do List somewhere between "laundry" and "find name tag". And today, after a very lovely weekend devoid of any weed killing activities, they finally reached the my-garden-looks-really-weedy stage.

I had to move the bullet point up to the top of the list. It even bumped "make dinner" and "play ukulele" out of the way. So today I weeded my garden! Ok. I'm going to restate that - today I weeded some of my garden, and my new neighbors helped me weed the rest of it! There. That's better. Don't you just love neighbors? And social, productive activities? :) I was going to get a before and after picture, but then we all went to my place to eat avocado pie, and then I went running in the gardens, and then we had dinner, and then we talked and played ukulele, and now it's too dark. Sorry. Just imagine eyebrows that needed to be plucked. badly. and now they are! Never mind.  I'll just post the after picture tomorrow. That's probably more effective than making badly connected analogies. I just hope the weeds haven't grown back before I take the picture . . . I have this funny feeling they're working on it right now. . .

"I Start To Complain When There's No Rain. . . "

It hasn't rained in a while. But was rainy at one point a week or two ago - the wonderful, cats and dogs kind of rain that would drench you straight through if you were out in it :) So of course I dropped everything I was doing and sat on the porch to watch.

Now that it's been several days since precipitation, I'm starting to get antsy. And today as I was walking along in Philly, contemplating all the lovely things about rain ( the smell, not needing to wrestle with the hose to water my garden, cooler temperatures, a chance to use the word "petrichor", etc) I remembered I'd taken pictures so I could post about how happy I was that it was raining! So here they are. From my front/back porch to you:

That tree in the middle ( the big awesome one) is my favorite. It's big and green, and looks like the perfect climbing tree. As soon as I get over my fear of ticks I may just climb it :) It's a Castanea sativa, or chestnut tree. The edible kind, if I'm correct. Not Aesculus hippocastanum, or horse chestnut. That one's definitely not edible.

Just look at how beautifully green and cool everything seems. . . *sigh*. I suppose this is good for me, learning to live in a hot place. . . not that I'll be in a desert place for Fall semester or anything crazy like that. . . ;)

So until this (above) happens again, I'll be depending on this (below),

It was rescued from our closet by my roommate - yay for finding and using old stuff and not paying lots of money! It makes me think of the Brave Little Toaster. . . which is only minimally creepy. . . not creepy enough for me  not to use it :)

Just Walkin'

So I had a lovely stroll through the conservatory on Saturday  - plants are so cool. . .

I walked into the main conservatory, 

to the left of the main conservatory,



                                    

                                       into the silver room,

     past really tall cacti,

 through the orchids. . . (the best smelling room in the whole conservatory)

And into this place, which you may recognize from the last post. . .

                

Then I took a lovely detour. . . so many lily pads! . . . no frogs, and no frog princes, but I prefer the flowers anyway :)

I saw a photo of someone standing on one of these. . . they're pretty small right now though, I'll have to take pictures of them again at the end of the summer.

Then I walked through the North Passage, where they keep the BONSAI! I missed Longwood's bonsai class by a week. I nearly cried when I realized it. But don't you worry, I will someday become a bonsai master. Just like someday I will own/ride a Kawasaki Ninja 600R. It will happen.

This stand is as old as me :) It's also the youngest on display. . .

And finally my walk took me home. This is my commute to and from work :)

 I walk a lot. It tends to happen when you don't have a car, but even then I think there's something to using your own two feet to get you to where you're going. I mean, boots were made for walking, but so were feet! And though my feet may protest a bit after 8-9 hours of use, I am a more capable individual because of it. What if aliens trying to take over the world destroy all the cars and bikes and (sniff sniff) motorcycles, then what would we do!?! Being able to walk long distances is a basic galactic survival skill. Now if only I could find the motivation/time/place to go running. . . :)