Time For A Garden

It's been a while since my last blog post. Either April burned me out far more than I'd realized or its one of those life got in the way things. More specifically work, but either way, my writing and blogging time has been relegated to the backseat for the past few weeks. I like to think it's sitting back there, making notes for when I allow it back into the passenger seat - hopefully not notes on how to do get back at me for making it sit in the back seat for so long. Because knowing the types of characters that I write, that's exactly what they are doing.

In the last post where I shared my garden, Andrea asked how to make time for yard work. Well, that's what we're going to chat about today.

As a mother who spent a lot of time on her flower beds from before kids onward into having teenagers, the first rule is: Plan to be interrupted at any given moment and work accordingly. This means, pick a small section, a corner, around a tree, the side of the house, whatever area doesn't feel entirely overwhelming. Acknowledge upfront that it won't get done in a day, or even maybe in a week. 

Get your tools together and check on the kids, whether they are in the house with someone else or running hilly nilly through the yard, and then get to work. If I'm going to be planting a new flowerbed, I'll spend the first round of time marking the area and then clearing the grass (or weeds). Then I'll dispose of whatever I just cleared - ideally in the mulch pile that I keep in the back of my yard. At this point, I could be done for the day, or if everyone is behaving, break up the dirt and make a plan for what I want to plant there. Again, I could be done for the day.

If all is well, I'll begin planting. This is a point where I really try to keep things picked up as I go along because if I've made it this far into a day, it's very likely I'll get pulled away by someone. If, by some miracle, I manage to get everything planted, its time to break out the hose, give it all a drink and then toss a bag or two of mulch around everything. The mulch is an important step and should be done as soon as possible after the dirt is broken up because weeds will pop up very quickly in that nice loose soil. Mulch will keep them to a minimum. Mulch is your friend.

Eventually one little area spreads into another and another and before you know it, or years later, depending on your level of interruptions and ambition, you'll have a lovely garden to show for your efforts.

Things to keep in mind:

Gardens take perpetual upkeep. Even with my gardens established, cleaned up and mulched, I spend around ten to twenty minutes a day walking through and plucking out weeds while appreciating whatever is flowering that day. Only make the garden as big as you feel you have the time to maintain.

Mulch has to be replaced every year if its not put on thick enough, and every two years to keep it freshed up and make up for decomposition. I used around 9 yards of mulch the first year and only 5 the second to fill in the thin areas and then make it all uniform in color. Around here, 5 yards of mulch is about $150. Another thing to keep in the budget.

Flowers will need to be thinned or replaced depending on how well they do.

Roses are pretty, but can be finicky and need pruning. I enjoy them in other people's gardens.

Avoid shrubs that need yearly pruning. Unless you have time for that sort of thing. I thought I did at my old house. I was wrong. I'm opting for less time and stress in this garden.

A curved bed is more visually interesting than a straight edged one. Lay out out a hose to get a feel for the edge line does work nicely. If you have a riding lawn mower, be aware of the types of curves it can and can't mow in one easy swoop. You don't want to have to break out the weed whip every time you mow because you made the curves too severe.

Beds with a border are easier to maintain. Bricks and edging blocks cost around $1 each and make a great border that can be mowed right over. At the current house, I opted for the cheap black plastic edging that get's half buried in the ground. Seems like it was $20 for 50 ft or thereabouts. Make sure to keep enough above to hold 3-4 inches of mulch back from your grass. Rocks can make a natual border, but you'll need that weed whip to keep things looking neat, and it doesn't do a spectuacular job of keeping your grass and flowers seperated wherever the rocks meet.

Perennials are awesome. They come back year after year, will spread, and can be divided. Check when they flower and try to mix them so something is always flowering in each bed. Generally, once established, perennials take a less watering than annuals. 

Ornamental grasses, dwarf trees and shrubs add interest beyond the usual flowers.

Ask friends and family for pieces of plants you like from their gardens. Free plants! I've lost track of how many people I've given plants to over the years. I have plants from both my grandmothers that I moved from the old house to this one. It's a great way to remember people once they are gone and, even better, you can continue to pass them on to others.

Watch the clearance racks at your local nursery or home improvement stores. 95% of everything I buy is clearance or on super sale. Sure, it won't look great the first year, but next the year, it will. Just make sure to avoid anything that has mildew, or anything that looks like a disease. The majority of clearance plants are there because they're done flowering or the season is winding down and the nursery just wants to clear out all this stuff that's totally root bound. July is a great time to snag plant deals.

Don't worry about it being small the first year. Plants grow. A $1 perennial will look like the $9 pot of the same thing next year.

You can put perennials in your pots, or mix them with annuals for more summer color. When fall rolls around, transplant the perennials from your pots into a new flower bed and you'll have a head start on next year's gardening project. Or, if its a fairly large pot, keep them in the pot and move the pot to a protected area by the house to minimize damage from freezing.

Rocks add interest to flower beds. Stack them, spread them out, use them as a border, throw one here and there. I happened across someone wanting two cargo van loads of rocks out of the backyard of a house they'd recently purchased. It didn't cost me anything more than a lot of sweat and the gas to drive across town.

Gardening is an excellent workout but don't forget to wear sunscreen, because unlike the gym, the sun will get you while you sweat.

How long does it take to make a flowerbed the size of mine? That totally depends on how much time you have. At my old house, I had a lot (a whole lot) of smaller bed areas that equaled the size if my now one giant bed. I created those small beds, as dealing with my infant to teenage kids allowed, over 18 years. At the new house, with self-sufficient teens, I created the bed in two and half months. It was a long and sweaty, exhausting two and half months, but well worth it to have the whole thing done.

Spending time out in the flowers is a wonderful place to go while pondering plots or when your characters stop talking to you.

Happy gardening!

June IWSG

This year seems to be flying by and by the end of each day, I wonder where the time has gone. Things have been super busy with the oldest graduating last week, getting his Eagle Scout rank this week and finishing up on the financial paperwork for college. All things both stressful and exciting. The youngest is wrapping up her last few weeks of school, which means I get to play chaperone on a school trip to Chicago this weekend, along with an orchestra concert and honors ceremony also this week. I guess that sort of explains where time is going lately.

It certainly hasn't been going toward writing.

One of my giant flower pots.

Stepping stones my daughter and

I made years ago and moved to

our new house to create a path

down the hill

After signing the contract on The Narvan last month and diving in to edits on a couple short stories, I was brimming with energy. Then, overnight, I crashed hard. And so, sitting at the bottom of the enthusiasm well, I decided to step away from the laptop and get outside and enjoy what good weather Michigan has to offer.

We get about six awesome days a year. No, seriously. We went from dead of winter to summer, then back to a couple days of spring, back to winter, and back to summer. Bodies should not have to go from winter coats to shorts in a matter of two days, and back and forth. In between all that was a lot of rain, which turned everything into a swampy mess. It's currently summer but the mosquitos haven't yet gotten the memo, so it's enjoyable to be outside.

The front of the house walkway flower garden.

We found this old plow on the property when we purchased it.

Though it's broken, it makes a good garden decoration.

The garden I started last summer needed a lot of weeding and five yards of mulch to cover all the thin spots from last year's application. And all of that was up hill. It was a good workout and I managed to get my first sunburn of the year in May.

I'm amazed how well everything is coming in already. 98% of what I bought and planted last year was on clearance. Meaning it was either half-dead, mostly dead, root-bound to or the extreme. Yet, all but five plants have come up and gone crazy. The pansies from the one pot I had on the porch last year seem to have seeded themselves all over my garden. Which is awesome.  Free plants! I prefer not to buy annuals other than to fill my pots. Everything in the garden is perennial. In fact, most of what I put in the pots is too. I just pull it out in the fall and put it in open places in the garden.

These were all rocks we either found on the property, that

we transported over from our previous house, or hauled out

of a backyard for a guy we found on Craigslist in the middle

of the hottest part of  last summer. Let's just say there's a lot

of sweat involved with these rocks.

The plants are coming in so well that I will have to split several of them already after only one year. They really love this soil! Plants in the garden at my previous home didn't look this good after ten years. It's pretty neat to see plants actually grow like they do in the pictures in flower catalogs.

The ground cover I planted last year was honestly just a few little sprigs and now those pathetic little bits are lush mounds that have spread all through the rocks. As rain washed over the rocks and broke tiny pieces off, depositing them down the hill, they've spread all over. At this rate, I won't need much mulch in a few years.

Next year's project is putting in a pond with a couple waterfalls, but for now, the rocks are in place to fill that area. Now that the hard gardening work is done for the year, I can sit back and enjoy watching things grow. And, of course, get back to writing...right after I stain the deck.

.

April and May Eye Report

It's been awhile since I've done a report post so it feels like there's a lot to say. Sorry for the long post.

Before I get started, if you're in the market for book cover artwork, my writing buddy Marion Sipe is having a 25% off sale. Check out her Facebook page to see some of her work.

And while we're on writing, after the last post regarding my project pile, I decided to dive into editing short stories. Violets, written from your V word suggestions during April, has been polished up and sent out into submissions. I'm currently mulling how to fix Tickle, a sci-fi short that's been sitting in my editing pile for a couple years now after some editorial feedback. Aaaand, pondering cover art for Sahmara, the fantasy novel I intend to self publish at some point this summer. I'm also having my first meeting tomorrow with the editor I'll be working with on The Narvan series.

Now then, back April and most of May and all the things my eyeballs read and watched.

On the watching front:
Helix: As much as I wanted to stay awake for the CDC and Immortals duking it out, Billy Campbell's whispery raspy voice puts me to sleep. When I was able to stay awake, I found this show creepy, disturbing (particularly the second season), and outfitted with just enough twists to keep things interesting. I was disappointed to find out there wouldn't be a third season.

The White Queen: I stumbled across this by chance and thought, 'hey, this sounds like a familiar title'. Well yeah, the book has been sitting on top of one of my TBR piles for about a year now. Duh. I knew I was in for goodness because: Phillipa Gregory. Again, I was disappointed the series didn't continue, but the show did a wonderful job of making history interesting. If only history was written as fictionalized romance in school, I would have paid a lot more attention. Now I guess I better get on reading the book. Oh, but there are so many books in my stacks.

Daredevil: We danced around whether to give this a try or not so soon after Jessica Jones, which we did like, but never quite fell in love with. And well, this seemed very similar as far a setting and superhero and plot. Loved the first season, with all the action, and trying to balance the day job with late night crime fighting and you know, being blind. The second season, while still pretty good, got really predictable. As in there would always be that one bad guy that survived just long enough for DD to ask him who had done this to him (because it was him). Always. To the point we started placing bets on which guy would be in the brink of death but still helpfully talking. But, for a superhero series, it had decent character depth and I'll be waiting for the third season. Punisher, meh. Every time I saw him, I kept saying to myself, hey, it's Shane, still being an asshole just like on Walking Dead. And Electra, also not a huge fan. While I did like that she wanted to be good, but was evil...but was good... and I lost track, her character generally lacked the depth I was looking for.

The Ranch: Totally going off what I normally sit down to, my husband suggested we give something funny a try. I hate laugh tracks. Just throwing that out there. But I like funny, and the show slowly grew on me. While a lot of the humor felt like Ashton Kutcher & Danny Masterson rehashing their roles on That '70s Show, but all grown up and as the sons of a cattle rancher, I did enjoy the relationship with their father and his odd relationship with their mother. A couple scenes where even touching.  

Not to mention Game of Thrones! So far I feel quite good about where this season is going. In fact, I'm downright happy with it. Which means someone is probably going to die and piss me off again.

I'm also watching Fear the Walking Dead, but I'm not sure why anymore. At this point in the series, I'm over the interest I had in seeing out the zombie outbreak occurred and how civilization broke down. I'm mostly hoping that the entire cast gets eaten and the show ends. Other than Salazar and Strand, they're all so busy being stupid, it's amazing they haven't become a main course yet. I take back everything I've ever said about TWD's Carl wandering off like a idiot. These kids, they're morons. And they're older. There's no excuse for any of them to act as irresponsibly as they are in these situations. I want to support the Walking Dead universe, I do, but my tolerance for stupid has been reached.


Reading:
I started my reading rush with Sherrilyn Kenyon, because it gets my eyes warmed up and my brain in reading mode. After pouring through Fantasy Lover and The Guardian, I was ready to branch out into something beyond paranormal romance.

Next up was Hunter by Mercedes Lackey. I've read, well, a shelf worth of her books, though it's been a long, long time. So when this turned up on the top of my daughter's stack of books she brought home from her book club, I grabbed it out of curiosity. Would I still enjoy her writing? Tons of world building here and an interesting point of view in the girl main character that goes a smidge too third wall for my taste, yet it was an enjoyable foray into YA fantasy, and I'm looking forward to the next book.

Then I tried to get into a cyberpunk novel, but after a couple days of attempting to get to a point where the story grabbed me, there came a point where I had to admit that it just wasn't working for me, despite that I've enjoyed other novels by this author before. I may hang on to it and try again in a few months when I'm in a different mindset.

Next on my stack was Karen Marie Moning's The Highlander's Touch. I spent an enjoyable day of reading your typical portal romance and delivered reliably the quality experience I've come to expect from this author when I'm in the mood for a little highlander flavor. And while I was at it, a couple weeks later, discovered I had another book from the same series so I flew through Spell of the Highlander as well. I do enjoy her plucky heroines and their humor. And now I find myself thinking in the Scottish tone she uses in her books. Guess I better read something else to wash the Scot away.

Ever have one of those nights when you should go to sleep, but instead grab a book, and then realize you've read it before, but you stay up half the night and read it again anyway? Yeah, I did that. I think I've gone through all the Sherrilyn Kenyon in all my stacks now. Maybe. I haven't checked my writing room stack and I probably shouldn't. Devil May Cry was just as enjoyable the second time around.

Next up was Christine Feehan's Dark Storm. Which wasn't in any of my stacks, but was at the book store on sale while I was there doing a job. Damn you sale racks. I need to get out of my paranormal romance rut. But I did appreciate that this book, while one of the Carpathian Novels, was a bit different than her usual formula. I like different.

Okay so the next book I read will not be paranormal romance. Really. And I need to stay out of the bookstore.

So Many Projects

With the frenzy of April behind me, I've had time to get all three novel drafts for the The Narvan sent off to my publisher and do a fairly major overhaul of Sipper, a long sci-fi short story. Today's plan is to get that off into submissions. But then that leaves at a crossroads of far too many choices.

Sahmara, a fantasy novel, is on the radar for self publishing - which means I'll need to devote time to editing and formatting and cover art. It's had time to rest after a heavy round of critiques and edits so my eyes will be fresh again, however...

Interface has been haunting me through my daughter's disapproving looks every time I mention that I'm working on something other than the YA sci-fi that I dove into last November and then set aside on in favor of writing Bound in Blue (The Narvan: Book 3). Oops. Sorry.

I'd love to get back to Not Another Bard's Tale, which I left hanging without a middle in 2009. Working on a silly fantasy novel would be a good pick me up for this very random spring we're having. It's the middle of may and it's currently in the low 40s. It actually snowed nearby last night. In May. The weekend before it was nicely in the 70s. Michigan weather is known for being random, but this is a little too over the top.

And then there are a host of short stories that need work. My submission pile is dry and needs refilling.

So many projects... Which to work on while I await the first round of edits on Trust?

A to Z Reflections 2016

Another April A to Z has come to a close. (Thank goodness)

I picked the least graphic photo.

You're welcome. And yes,

it really did hurt like hell,

but I turn into a comedian

when bad things happen. Don't

sit next to me at funerals.

April brought all sorts of interruptions to my intended writing productiveness. The first of which, on the eve of A to Z, was accidentally slicing off the tip of my index finger while making dinner. Not the best thing to do with a month of off the cuff blogging ahead of me. Mashing the keys with my giant gauze-wrapped finger didn't go so well and, for the first week or so, put be behind as far as visiting other blogs because it was just frustrating and painful to type.

While that was healing, the machine that is one of my primary income sources for my business decided to act up and behave like a two year old being force-fed an all vegetable dinner. For three long days I was covered in blue ink - no, seriously, my hands and arms looked like I'd violently murdered every single smurf that may have ever existed - while I played equipment tech and finally tracked down the faulty part and replaced it.

Which put me three full days behind on production, meaning I was working a lot of overtime trying to catch back up during one of our busiest months. One the whole, the work aspect of April was incredibly stressful and didn't allow me the time and energy I'd hoped for as far as spending time writing story starts. I still managed to do them all, just not as in depth or on time as I had wanted to.

On the more exciting side of things that distracted me from A to Z this year, was emailing back and forth to discuss a deal with my publisher that resulted in a three book contract for my space opera series, The Narvan.

But I made it through and wrote 26 short story starts, one of which became a full story. I visited blogs, made blog friends, and had a lot of laughs while reading some hilarious posts in a month that I really needed some stress relief.

What would I do differently next year? Write half the posts in advance. Having done posts both ways, each for two years, I'm ready to go with a combination and give myself a little slack. I'd love to continue with the short stories based on words visitors provide, but I'd also probably do some posts on random things to break them up, maybe every other day.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to stop by, some of you each and every day, and for all the words you so generously offered to inspire me. I hope you'll continue to hang around.