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Over the years, we got better at gardening. Casey started trying new things when we had a tiny yard in California. But it was very dry, prone to ant infestations, and our cat treated the small raised bed as a battleground. He would fight with neighborhood cats and they would take turns using the raised bed as a litter box. So not much grew in it.

Then we moved to Vermont and had abundant land. We moved in the summer and Casey grew radish and zucchini in a small plot.

2022

The next year, we ordered many seeds in a catalog but there was a low germination rate. We did not use any plant starts nor utilized any grow lights in the spring.

We also raised chicken from chicks, which was the most fun I have ever had outside. They free ranged on our lawn and went to our neighbor’s homes for fun. They were silly and sweet.

Summer finally came and we got realistic about what could actually grow in our garden. We had a hügelkultur and was able to grow all kinds of squash on it. We found what we were good at: tomatoes, potatoes, squash, raspberries, and strawberries

2023

The next year Casey started his orchard. There were chestnut, mulberry, currant, and elderberry trees. He had spent the last three years clearing the land of trees to make room for these food trees.

We also went out and purchased some fruit trees for fun. The apple yielded the best fruit.

This year we had grown many squash, potatoes, black raspberries, strawberries – all the things we had mastered and felt good about the minimal effort we put in.

I also had a “vanity garden” which was two beautiful rows on a hill in the front of our house. I had always been jealous of the Instagrammable gardens and tried my hand at one. It was too much work and it was too far from our main garden where the soil was already primed from the years prior of growing.

I was also pregnant so I never watered, weeded, mulched, or fertilized. We got some tiny vegetables out of it but I lost interest as the season went on.

2024

We didn’t make any maps in 2024 because we had a bigger project: growing a baby. But that year still our garden yielded so much. Now we had our perennials down and could just pick at our leisure. We had a lot of squash hybrids because we had let them do their thing in the garden.

2025

This year we removed the hügelkultur, and bought starts from a local guy who would sell them out of his home greenhouse every year. We purchased mostly peppers and tomatoes and they have all been growing so well. Now we are so much better at gardening. Picking the vegetables is way more fun with a toddler.

Our trees are also yielding. We had tons of things to share with others. With a toddler I was able to stay on top of the elderberries and make syrup and tincture on time.

I also decided to tackle a new challenge: improving the perennial garden our house came with. Over the last give years I did very little work on the garden the previous owner put in. There were many beautiful things but it was very overgrown. The peonies, phlox, conflowers, and and hollyhock were the pride of this garden, but had grown unruly. Goldenrod and vetch routinely take over.

This year I reinforced the rock wall. The irises had stopped blooming, so I separated them. The tiger lillies had taken over so I trimmed them all down. I purchased many new flowers from a friend who started a job at a seed company.

So that was the main project this year. I’m going to try tulips and poppies next spring and see what happens.

My husband and I decided to collaborate and create a pocket-sized card containing information about the dirty dozen and clean 15.

This was important to us because we are constantly reminding each other and asking one another about produce while shopping. So if it was useful for us we thought it would be handy to others too.

I’m currently selling copies of them on my website.

I’m launching this blog back up again with this sweet 3d card I just received in the mail from Zhenya!

My friendship with Zhenya has transcended time and so many boundaries. We met in Russia over ten years ago. I moved back to the US. We saw each other in Denver. She moved to Ireland. I moved to Vermont.

Moving to a new state and getting guests for the first time means gifts, celebrations, and most importantly, cards. I collect every card I receive in this scrapbook.

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My favorite thing about my family is that they are just as sentimental as I am. We prefer to write and our feelings certainly come out in our cards that we write to each other.

The best thing about making friends abroad is being able to send each other care packages and write letters.

It started when I was seven and moved away from Tucson. I kept in touch with my cousins and my best friend through letters. Even though we had email and could text soon after, writing letters never lost it’s charm.

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I typically do not enjoy my birthday because of built-up anxiety and wanting to make the day perfect but a fun fact is that my 28th birthday was the very first day of lockdown.

It was the beginning of some of the best years. I finally had time to breathe and sit and create and sleep. I got engaged on my birthday and married a year later. For many, many, many people quarantine was a struggle but for me, it was a special bittersweet time where I felt happy and weightless like never before.

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I received two cards from two very dear friends on this day. They’re still some of my favorite letters I have ever received.

Looking at this brings me back to when quarantine started, where everything was uncertain but all I knew was what I had in my life and my house was good.

Everytime I travel somewhere new, I make a new journal documenting well, basically everything. No meal or sight is left undocumented. My partner reads these little journals and is impressed that every little chicken nugget I eat has profound signifigance to me. Well, I interpret it as being a super neurotic traveler.

By now, I have a couple of shelves filled with notebooks and scrapbooks. I have journals just for travels, notebooks saved from school and work, and regular diaries, too. Did I already say that I’m neurotic?

The last four years of short-term travels have been documented in adhesive-backed photo albums. My mom used these same albums to document my childhood, so that’s probably why I lean towards these. You can save just about anything in it’s pages. It’s therapeutic for me especially after the trip to think about it. I find that after a long plane or car ride, you need one day to just do some bullshit with your hands and write a silly little story. It’s like therapy – filing away the little receipts and ticket stubs. For longer trips, I journal each day instead of afterwards.

This year is 2020 and because of covid, there are even fewer pages. I planned on summer trips to Connecticut, Atlanta, Orlando, and Tucson, but none of them happened. I wonder if we will ever “return” to normal and what did that even mean?