Vegetable Garden Plans

Remember in grade school when you had to write an essay called "What I did on my summer vacation?" I thought of that this morning as I jotted notes in my gardening journal - "What I will do differently next year in the vegetable garden." I spent Saturday morning tending the vegetable garden and Saturday afternoon thinking about what I'm going to do differently in the garden next year.

Here's my list:

• Corn: Our neighbor Tom and his son Tommy dropped by in the morning, gifting us with a box of delicious sweet corn. Next year, I'm going to plant it in two week intervals so we don't get 40 ears of corn at once. We got sick of eating corn and some went to waste, getting too dry in the fridge to eat. If I stagger it, maybe we will enjoy it, get a break, and enjoy it again!
• Tomatoes: At this point I cannot keep up with the tomatoes. Nice problem to have, right?! I just can't pick them fast enough! I've given away so many but many are just left on the vine. Next year, I'm planting half as many. And I'm staking them. They have flopped all over the garden paths and I'm squashing tomatoes underfoot as I walk. I have to go the long way around the vegetable beds to get to the ones in the back so I don't step on tomatoes.

• Green beans: Either I have to invest in a pressure canner or plant less. I can't freeze anymore. I froze another gallon bag yesterday, with about 2-3 more gallons to freeze today. Green beans anyone? The ones we bought from Southern States, I must say, are absolutely wonderful - Blue Lake and a heavy producer.
• Cucumbers: I only got a few cucumbers this year. Next year I must plant more!
• Beets: Plant about a third as many
• Turnips: Plant only a row or two. How many turnips can one family eat?
• Peppers: Plant more of the bell kind and plant varieties recommended by the Cooperative Extension....ours are smaller than normal. I froze a lot and am giving away more.
• Melons: Plant fewer cantaloupes and more watermelon. I can't get enough of the watermelon. I could eat it all day long. Home grown watermelon is AMAZING.
• Strawberries: Would you believe I'm getting yet another crop??? I had berries for about six weeks, then they took a rest, and yesterday I harvested another cup. I love these every bearing plants and I bought them at Lowe's. They've now spread throughout the whole berry bed!
• Greens: More lettuce, less spinach. And I'll harvest spinach when young and eat it as salad.
• Onions: Plant more!
• Carrots: More! I had the most amazing, wonderful carrots...straight, long, sweet. Superb. I am still digging out pounds of them. They freeze or keep well. Yum!
• Squash: I lost most of my squash to squash beetles. Next year, row covers are in order to keep them from using my squash plants as a nursery bed. I must have raised thousands of those things!
• Broccoli, cauliflower and Brussels sprouts: plant them in fall or skip them entirely. It was a lot of effort especially for the cauliflower with very little to show for it.
  

Next year I want to try:

• Peas! Thomas Jefferson grew them at Monticello, John loves them, and if I don't plant as many beets...well, there's room for peas!
• Sweet potatoes: We love them and I'm hoping they grow well in Virginia.
• Potatoes
• Garlic: My neighbor Patty gave us the most wonderful garlic she grew. I'm hoping she'll give me a few starter bulbs.
  

And one last takeaway - I'm planting more flowers from seed next year. This year I focused on the vegetables, but you know what? I could have fit several trays of perennials under the grow lights inside. My Echinacea that I grew from seed is such a joy and a treat - I have lots of purple, of course, but yellow and White Swan everywhere. The helopsis grew from seeds I saved, and I've got more. I missed my snapdragons this year since I planted so few. The zinnias I sowed around the shed were wonderful but I could have done with a lot more. I'm not going to skimp on flowers next year. Seeds are so inexpensive, and I've already learned that Echinacea, lavender, helopsis and a few other perennials grow well from seed. So I'm going to try some new varieties in 2010!

Rain is expected today and all day tomorrow, which for this gardener is very dangerous indeed. I've got the Parks, White Flower Farm and a few other catalogs waiting next to my chair in the living room and that gift certificate my sister sent me for my birthday gently calling my name from the desk drawer. I've got some new iris circled....and daffodils...and...

Enjoy your day!

My New Organic Gardening Column!

I will now be contributing a weekly column about organic gardening to RawPeople. The column will appear on their website and in their monthly newsletter. I am so excited!







I've got a logo and everything! Check it out - this means I've finally arrived, right? Ha! Martha Stewart, P. Allen Smith and Rebecca Kolls, look out!

The Watermelon Artist (aka, Hubby) says my head is going to get so big I won't be able to fit through the garden gate anymore. Which is impossible living with him. He keeps my feet on the ground when excitement threatens to float me out the door like a helium balloon.

Lest you think I am getting too big for my Wellies....my gardening disasters are legion:

• The coreopsis that are slowly taking over everywhere....
• The Crepe Myrtle seeds that grew into the coreopsis that are taking over everywhere...
• Watching all my squash get wiped out by squash beetles
• Planting WAY too many turnips. Good gracious, how many can one family actually eat? I can't even give them away.
• The shade garden that wasn't in shade. Oops.

There are probably many more that I can't think of right now. I'm sure, however, that nature will continue to keep me humble.

I'll post links to my column here, so you can pop over and comment. Please feel free to email me at jeanne grunert at dishmail dot net with suggestions for topics. The focus will be on growing organic edibles, but I'll probably talk a bit about flowers. Got to feed your soul along with your body with some beauty, you know what I mean?

German Shepherds are Priceless

I've seen reports that Border Collies are the smartest dogs, but I think German Shepherds come very close. Shadow has allergies, and when dogs have allergies, their skin, ears and other parts itch. Shadow's allergies have been acting up and at 3 a.m., I heard her fussing from her sleeping spot under our bed trying to scratch her ears. Her tags jingle and the noise wakes me up. A few minutes later, she scrambled out from under the bed and went right over to Hubby's side. She stood up with her paws on the bed and whined, licking his face. She usually does this only when she needs him for an emergency midnight walk.

When Hubby rose from the bed, Shadow immediately trotted down the hallway to the bathroom. I heard Hubby exclaim something and the cabinet door open, the jar for cotton balls clinking as he removed the glass top.

"What's going on?" I asked and joined him.

Shadow was already laying down on the bath mat with her head off to the side, waiting.

Hubby said in amazement, "She trotted in here, pointed with her nose to the exact cabinet where her ear medicine is kept, looked up at me, then pointed to the cotton ball jar. Then when she saw me open the cabinet door, she went to the bath mat and lay down." (that's where we always administer her ear medicine.)

The last time she needed her ear drops was MONTHS ago.

How could she remember? And tell us what she needed?

German Shepherd dogs are smart, I tell you - uncannily so.

Slow Transition to Fall

It's starting to dawn on me that summer is over. Last night at choir practice, I was delighted to see not just the handful of college students who return to herald the change of seasons but two entire rows of college kids eager to sing with our little group at St. Theresa's. I haven't sung with this many voices in an actual choir in over 20 years, not since high school. It makes such a difference when you lose your way in the music to actually hear other voices singing the notes...and it's just fun to be around the college kids as well as my friends. There was a new energy among us too.

So the first sign of fall is here: the return of the Longwood University and Hampton-Sydney students. It's like migration patterns among wildlife...the students flocking back to Farmville.

The hummingbird feeder needs less frequent refills. They've either started heading south for the winter or there are wild plants blooming now which they prefer.

Gone are the green crickets, replaced with the mature big ones that Pierre loves to chase and Shadow snaps and eats. Shadow's lush long haired coat has begun to shed. The last time she shed like this was March, and her spring coat came in. The undercoat is now pulling out in tufts and I imagine she'll grow her thicker fur now for the winter. She should be an Alaskan or Maine dog with that coat - Virginia winters aren't usually that bad!

Walking Shadow yesterday morning up the driveway towards our road, we rounded a turn and stopped short. Standing not fifteen feet away was a buck (male deer) complete with antlers. They're back too, present every evening in the yard eating grass, with small bands following them around. Shadow barked and he fled for the woods, where I hope he'll stay on our non hunting property for at least a few weeks.

The last of the melons are in and the vines are dying. The corn stalks have died completely and I'll remove them this weekend. I'm still picking and freezing green beans and harvesting herbs. Tomatoes anyone? I can't pick them fast enough and my family can't eat them enough. Soon they'll be gone, but next year I'm going to register with Ample Harvest so that my extra vegetables can be used by the local food pantry.

I don't have many fall blooming flowers, so I'm enjoying the last of the helopsis and echinacea, the morning glories, impatiens, petunias and salvia - my old standbyes. The marigolds in the fall are my favorite for by this time they've attained bushy golden perfection, and they last well into November.

Fall...apples, pears and crisp Sundays watching football together while I do my counted cross stitch (the only craft I can complete. We'll leave the quality to the imagination). Cozy sweaters and curling up in front of the fireplace with a good book.

And bulbs. Fall bulbs. Masses of them. Bushel baskets of them. I can't wait to show you what I'm planting this year!

Today I plan to knock off work a bit early and go for a walk to enjoy the last long days of summer. I hope you find time to do that, too.

I (Heart) Helopsis

I wrote the headline for this post then started giggling madly. It sounds like what a crazy girl from a Greek myth would write on the wall of the Acropolis: "I (heart) Helopsis!"

Actually, Helopsis "Summer Sun" is the gorgeous yellow perennial flower that's blooming like mad in my garden areas. I bought Spring Hill's "Sunny Perennial Garden Kit" (please use the link in the left margin of my blog to visit them to see it if you are curious - I get credit for the click!) and we planted our first Helopsis in 2008.

Since then, I've been treated to masses of bright yellow flowers from July through fall. I collected seeds last year and sent packets to my sisters in New York and New Jersey, and gave away seeds to friends and neighbors around here too. Everyone reports great success with the seeds I collected, although I managed to mislabel the ones I gave my sister - "these are the weirdest black eyed Susans" - oops.

Here's the scoop on Helopsis:

• Perennial
• Full sun only
• Blooms mid summer to fall continuously
• Easy to collect the seed heads from dried flowers, save and plant next year (I got seven new plants for my efforts)
• About 24-36" tall
• May be divided after 4-5 years
• Yellow flowers
• Good as a cut flower

So here's to Helopsis. I "heart" Helopsis! (ssh, don't tell The Watermelon Artist, also known as Hubby)

********

PS! More Jeanne Every Day!

I know you just can't get enough of me and my crazy ideas....STOP LAUGHING! It's true! (isn't it?)

In order to keep my various interest separate (and so that my gardening buddies don't have to slog through alternative health or business posts, and vice versa), I'm now splitting my blogs into three. Best bet is to bookmark, link to 'em, or subscribe to each if you want.







Starting Monday, August 24, find my ideas and writing on each topic here:

• Seven Oaks (where you are now) - gardening, wildlife, home & hearth, bservations of rural life in Virginia

• Best Steps to Success (http://beststepstosuccess.blogspot.com & website www.beststepstosuccess.com) - this is going to be for natural health, diet and spiritual topics. I'm describing it as mind-body-spirit ideas. Lately I'm feeling more compelled to write about all three aspects of health, and this is going to be my platform to do it. The blog will feature my personal reflections and ideas on the journey, faith posts, my personal experiences on various diets and/or using certain natural healing techniques and similar ideas. The website will feature my books on these topics, E Books and selected products and books from friends in the field. Stay tuned!
  

• Acorns: Small Business Marketing - (http://sevenoaksconsulting.com/marketingtips.aspx) - marketing tips for small business owners and entrepreneurs

So go on...subscribe to each...bookmark or link to them....and enjoy.

Still Crazy After All These Years

This month, my super hubby and I celebrated our 11th wedding anniversary. This October marks 18 years of being together.

We're still crazy after all these years. About each other. And just in general.

Every day is filled with joy. I never knew living with someone could be this wonderful. We laugh from the time we see each other in the morning until we say goodnight. We own a business together and work side by side.

Yesterday I found the watermelon we'd harvested and left on the kitchen counter 'decorated.'

The face developed over the course of the day. When I returned to make a cup of tea, it had a nose. Then eyebrows and eyelashes. Ears somehow appeared after dinner. I couldn't stop giggling when I spied that goofy watermelon.

I'm afraid to look at the cantaloupe in the refrigerator...maybe savoring the moment of discovery is a better word.

He writes me letters from the cat that start off "Dear Mommy, I am sorry about the dog but I had NO CHOICE..." that get crazier from there, complete with inked-paw print signature.

He leaves me comics from the newspaper with the dialogue boxes carefully whited-out and new dialogue written in, especially if the comics have to do with dogs and cats...Shadow and Pierre could star in their own comic or made for TV movie.

We watch silly cartoons at night and Disney movies because we agree there's nothing on television worth watching, and we both giggle at Spongebob Squarepants, Tom and Jerry, and Disney movies like Ratatouille and Dr. Doolittle.

I found my hubby after a disastrous year or two in college of dating completely unsuitable men. I wanted so much to get married. I wanted a man who cared about family, who believed in traditional values, and if not Catholic, at least Christian and spiritual. Most of all, I wanted someone responsible and dedicated to the same ideals I was.

My beloved aunt, a nun, suggested praying the rosary and asking Our Lady's intercession to guide the right husband to me. I took her up on her suggestion in May. By August of that year, Hubby and I had BOTH seen an ad in the newspaper for a group called "Single Booklovers" and signed up. It was like a dating service for people who loved books.

I answered his ad because he lived in Huntington - just 45 minutes from my house. He wrote back because I listed Dante as a favorite author on my profile page.

18 years later, he's drawing goofy faces on watermelon to make me smile.

Yes, we're both still crazy after all these years...

Minty Goodness and Butterfly Bush Babies

Many gardeners hate mint, but I love it. I can understand why. It's pretty invasive. But it's beautiful, smells sweet, and provides a useful medicinal and culinary herb.

When I was a little girl, Mr. Hoffman, the retired chemistry teacher who lived next door to us, used to pick sprigs of mint from the plants growing next to his porch. He'd hand me the crushed sprigs and I'd inhale the fresh scent of mint. I loved to pick the leaves and crush them in my hands.

To this day, mint is one of my favorite flavors. It reminds me of the horses I loved since I always carried Brachs peppermint candies in my pockets for them. My old horse, Kricket, was so loyal he followed me wherever I went. At a horse show I opened the back door of my little Pontiac Sunbird and reached into the back seat of the compact car to grab my riding jacket off the hanger and finish preparations for my class. The next thing I knew, I felt the tickle of whiskers on my neck and the warm, grassy-smelling breath on my face...Kricket had stuck his entire head and neck into the car behind me, and had one hoof up on the little lip of the door frame as if he was going to try to step into the car too! A quick peppermint candy from my pocket lured him calmly out of my car. I actually found an old photo, circa 1990, of me with Kricket and am pleased to share it with you (he died in 1991 and although I have leased horses, I have never had another one. Not yet at any rate. Time will tell)

My mint grows from a little packet of seeds I bought from Parks, and I'm disappointed. The flavor is bland. I don't know why.

If any of my Virginia neighbors want to trade, I'll take a few roots and slips of their mint plants.

I read online that mint frequently cross pollinates with other mint varieties, and you can often get new kinds. So a type of mint that was growing in my garden back in New York may be hard to recreate here in Virginia. My friend AJ has this problem. He loved a mint he grew in New Jersey, but now that he moved here he can't find another strong mint like that one.

I love mint tea, but today it's warming up and I was out in the perennial gardening pulling gigantic weeds all morning. So I'm hot and slightly dehydrated. I've got a huge pitcher of ice cold water with mint sprigs floating in it in my office and I'm drinking it up. Nothing is quite as refreshing as mint crushed in ice water!

Today I discovered that all the volunteer seedlings in the garden ARE butterfly bushes. Hurray! I've got a nice one growing in a super spot on the hillside. I only had annuals around it so it picked a great place to grow. Next year I will have a lovely Buddleia there. Another one I discovered after (a-hem!) pulling up all the weeds around it is already blooming with gorgeous purple blossoms. I have two white butterfly bushes and one purple one. I'm so glad the purple one reseeded. I have on my 'to buy' list the bicolor one called Kaleidoscope and Buddleia Black Night, the really dark purple one. We want to add a lot more of them on the edge of the forest. The deer don't seem to like them and they grow so well here.


Speaking of deer, the mama deer with the bent leg graced the orchard last night with her fawns close behind. The fawn was in the perennial garden sleeping under the bird feeder yesterday. John spotted him as he walked Shadow up the driveway to the mailbox to pick up the mail. I saw his darling little head peeking out from between a sumac and a pine tree. He didn't eat a single perennial. I'm grateful.

Saving the Harvest

I wimped out on using John's grandmother's canning equipment yet again yesterday. Sigh. I don't know why I'm so intimidated by a big old pot, a bucketful of beets, and Mason jars.

Maybe it's the instructions. I read my Ball Canning Cookbook over and over again. It's as if the warnings against not boiling the jars long enough are highlighted in screaming neon letters. "BOIL AT LEAST 30 MINUTES TO PREVENT SPOILAGE." And then lots of warnings about spoilage and signs thereof (but no first aid hints).

Spoilage? I picture the three of us dying from botulism. In the emergency room with food poisoning. That's what keeps me from starting this darned project.

My sisters have made jelly, relish and lovely preserves. They've sent them to me for Christmas. I've seen Mary's jars of relish in her basement. They didn't harm anyone with food.

I'm willing to start my project and have it be a failure. Oh no, it's not my sneaky perfectionism creeping into the task. It's fear, pure and simple.

Maybe I was scarred by the time when I was small and my grandmother put green peas into the pressure cooker. That story was told and retold over and over again. My dad, up on a ladder, scraping peas off the ceiling. Repainting.

I'm scared of pressure cookers, too.

So the freezer is now my best friend. I've learned this season how to blanch vegetables. I've never done that before. This former city gal had maybe one bag of pepper slices left at the end of the summer back when I gardened on Long Island. Not like now!

So far, here's what I've blanched and frozen from the garden. All of the weights and measures are approximate. Next year, John wants to put a small scale in the kitchen and take accurate records, which sounds like fun to me - I'd love to really understand the yield we are getting from the garden. All produce is organic, and the list below doesn't include what we've eaten. It's just what I've frozen.

• Spinach: 2 gallon bags
• Swiss Chard: 2 gallon bags
• Broccoli Rabe: 1 gallon bag
• Peppers: 2 gallon bags, 3 pint bags
• Beets: 3 quart containers
• Sweet corn: a dozen ears, frozen; 4 pints as corn kernals
• Green beans: 2 gallon bags, 5 pint bags
• Squash: 1 pint container (an experiment!)
  

And in the refrigerator:

• 6 spaghetti squash
• 2 watermelons
• 5 cantaloupes
• About 5-6 pounds of carrots
• Another 3 -5 pounds of beets
• About 2 pounds of small turnips
• Bag of peppers
• Bag of green beans
• Cucumbers
  

I've got more green beans to pick today, and two huge bowls of tomatoes. The tomatoes this year are fantastic. I grew Early Girl, Sweet 100's, and an heirloom variety called Mortgage Lifter. Mortgage Lifter is a surprise. It starts pink and turns red. It's got a meaty texture that's great in tomato sandwiches. We're eating tomatoes all day long - lovely salads of simple garden cucumbers, fresh tomatoes, dressed with sea salt, vinegar and oil.

I used to grab a Dunkin Donuts huge sweet coffee drink at 3pm and a package of cookies. Followed by Cheetos and Pepsi on the Long Island Rail Road heading home at 7pm.

Now I'm eating a freshly picked salad of cucumbers and tomatoes at 3pm and doing yoga. And my commute is down to a minute as I walk from my office downstairs each evening to unwind with a good book or head out for a bike ride on the winding rural roads.

No wonder I'm smiling and happy all the time!

* * *

Thank you for the notes of condolences. Professor Russo's death hit me particularly hard. She died from Multiple Sclerosis (MS). That is the same disease that robbed me of my mother and made my childhood horrible. My sister now has the same disease. Three friends have that disease too, with one friend as sick as my mom was. It's really hard to watch so many brilliant, bright and beautiful women (yes, they are all women) struck in their prime by a mystery disease. One of the reasons I began to study natural health was because of my frustration with traditional medicine - more ways than I can count, but one big reason was that no one could tell me why my mom got sick or what to do. Today's advice for MS patients is the exact opposite of what they told us to do in the 1970's and 1980's.

So I was feeling way down low yesterday...hard to concentrate...feeling very sad. My phone rang. On the other end of the phone was Sister Claire from Amityville with some research I'd asked her for. I've started working on a book project about my great-aunt, the former prioress general of the Dominican Sisters in Amityville, Long Island. "I've found the research you asked for!" She is going to mail me the biographical information I requested a few weeks ago. I've started writing down the family stories, the myths and legends surrounding my grandmother's sister, a formidable spiritual figure in our family, but as soon as I started writing them down I realized that some of the stories just couldn't be true. It's amazing how telling and retelling stories about our ancestors changes facts! So I am grateful to the Sisters of St. Dominic for helping me with a bit of factual research about where my great aunt was stationed, the years she served in different schools and her official titles - things like that.

Suddenly I've got something exciting to work on again, a writing project that will challenge me, and my mood lifts and I'm off and running. Give me a good writing project any day of the week and my spirits lift!

In Memory: Professor Russo

My sister - ever the source of news - sent me a bereavement notice today for Dr. Mary Aleksunas Russo.

Dr. Russo was a professor at Molloy College, the Catholic college I attended for my undergraduate degree. She taught in the English department.

I loved her.

She knew my name.

She knew every students' name.

She encouraged me to write. I still have a paper I wrote for her mythology class in 1988. When I get shaky about my talent, I read her comments in the margin, and I feel uplifted all over again. Over 20 years later, her words still have that power and I can hear her voice and feel her warm hug. She saw the beauty, the gems in her students. She taught me new ways to see mythology, poetry and children's literature. I even took a night class so I could have her as my professor - I would only take Professor Russo for children's literature. No one else would do.

She knew I loved writing Gothic thrillers and left a little Count Dracula doll in my mailbox at the college as a Halloween present.

She was a former nun, an amazing teacher, and one of the best human beings I have ever met.

The kind of person I can only hope I become.

Joy sums up essence.

She died after a long illness on August 1.

God, please give her a good spot in heaven. You'll love her laugh. And when you need a hug, she'll be there for you, like she was for me.

Below is the official notice from the college:
I am very sad to announce that Professor Mary Aleksunas Russo, Professor
Emerita, of Molloy College passed away on Saturday, August 1st after a
very long illness.

Professor Mary Alexunas-Russo

One of Molloy’s treasures, an alumna from the class of 1975, later
Professor Emerita, served for twenty-three years on our English faculty
with distinction and joy. Yes, joy. Few teachers matched her charisma
in the classroom, her melodic recitative on pronoun agreement, her
clever detection of Greek divinities in everyday experience, her magical
delving of character and motive in story and myth. She lived to teach.
She loved to teach. She was Molloy at its best.

Over the decades, Professor Russo worked with awesome diligence on a
variety of projects at Molloy, creating the children’s literature
course, coordinating the Communicating Across the Curriculum Program,
developing a portfolio project for English majors, and teaching Molloy
courses at St. Agnes High School. Nothing she did she did carelessly or
quickly. Her colleagues applauded her flawless preparation, her
diligent execution of each and every task.

Still, her heart was always with her students. She remembered their
names, opened her time to them, prodded them to perfection, and heard
from them years after graduation as they sent notes of thanks and
praise. Especially, she offered them opportunities to see their poems
and prose in print in our literary journal, Curiouser and Curiouser.
She delighted when their eyes lit up as they saw their work bound and
open to public reflection. Regularly, she assumed far more than the
moderator’s role to keep the journal going–choosing, revising, and
counseling until the publication appeared. All for love.

Molloy in 1993 awarded Professor Russo the honorary degree, Doctor of
Pedagogy, recognizing her contributions and accomplishments. But even
more valuable to her were the two Faculty Recognition Awards the
students gave her. Mary once wrote, “I love teaching; it is my
vocation, not my job. I often wonder where Mary ends and the teacher
begins, for both seem to have coalesced so wonderfully.” Indeed, they
have. God bless you, dear Mary Russo

Sunflowers

I never liked sunflowers. Now I love them.

Back in Huntington, my father in law planted sunflowers every year next to the patio. And every year it was the same story. The chipmunk who lived in the drain pipe would eat the seeds, or wait until the seedlings were a few inches tall, then chomp off the seedling.

We had one big, fat chipmunk by the end of the summer - and no sunflowers.

At our home in Virginia, Jack plants sunflowers along the southern wall of the house. They grow Jack-in-the-Beanstalk tall. We have one that's at least 12 feet tall, and others nearly as tall. Behind the driveway on the edge of the woods, he planted dwarf sunflowers.

I love their huge, sunny flower heads...the bees that dance on the petals...the seeds I use to feed the birds during the winter.



I never liked sunflowers very much. When John and I drove out to Montana in 2000, we saw mile after mile of sunflowers blooming in the South Dakota fields, and I started to warm up to them. How could I not? That was one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. I've grown fond of our patch of sunflowers. I've even started collecting little sunflower-themed things for the house: a paperweight painted with sunflowers, a serving tray, a key rack for the pantry.

* * *

Yesterday after church I ran to the grocery store for a few things. Between the heat and singing in the choir, I was thirsty, so I stopped at Dollar Tree and bought a bottle of water. I didn't notice until my first sip that it was flavored water. A quick (and slightly panicked) check of the label reassured me that it was aspartame-free, but I was not happy about the chemicals on the label.

If you haven't given up aspartame-laden products, I urge you to do so. When I was 26 years old, I had so many stomach problems my doctor thought I had irritable bowel syndrome. I was told I might have Crohn's disease, IBD, or a bunch of other problems. She referred me to a gastroenterologist but before my appointment, I decided to visit a holistic health practitioner.

That appointment changed my life. Lynn' was a nutritionist as well as herbalist. When I entered the waiting room, she gave me a dietary questionnaire to fill out.

I remember sitting across from her desk as she scanned the questions. "I think you may have made a mistake," she said gently, showing me a question on the form. "You wrote here that you drink a gallon of diet cola a day. Did you mean another amount?"

"No," I told her. "I keep one of those big soda bottles of diet cola on my desk at work all day and I drink it. And I drink bottles and cans of it during the day." I actually started my day with Crystal Light drink mix. I'd been drinking this much since high school when aspartame became the norm.

Lynn said. "You are poisoning yourself. I think that's what's causing your problems."

I went cold turkey and cut out the aspartame. Within a month, my stomach problems completely disappeared.

I did not have Crohn's disease, IBS or any other terrible disease. I didn't need the medications the doctors recommended I take. It wasn't in my head.

It was aspartame poisoning.

Since then, if I take even a tiny sip of aspartame, with 20 minutes I've got stomach cramps. My throat, tongue and entire system feels as if it's been burned.

So yesterday, when I downed the ice cold flavored water, you know now why I checked the label.

Fortunately - or maybe unfortunately - since changing my diet over the past 8 months, I cannot tolerate ANY artificial sweeteners and many chemicals in my food.

The flavored water was a mistake.

I felt like I was poisoned yesterday! Within two hours of drinking that nasty thing, I felt tired...spacey...like I had the flu. I had to lay down.

I switched to pure water from our lovely well, ate only fresh fruit and downed about a gallon of water. I felt fine after a few hours. I checked the label and the drink had Splenda - and lots of chemicals. Seem like my body doesn't want that either.

So be warned; even something as innocuous as a bottle of water can be laden with chemicals!

Virginia Life

Snapshots taken by my sister Mary of their time with us in Virginia. We toured Monticello and the University of Virginia. My neighbors, Patty and Ron at Shady Acres Farm, were so kind to us and let my family visit their animals. We took the family for a walk through our woods and down to the creek with Shadow trotting along sporting her hot pink bandana (not just a fashion accessory - it's easier to spot her in the woods!). And we had a big family barbecue on Sunday despite the showers. Enjoy a glimpse of my life in Virginia.




Our hero, Thomas Jefferson - statue at the University of Virginia.


Above, the vegetable gardens at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home near Charlottesville, Virginia.

We took the family for a walk through our woods. My sister Mary really captured the feel of our place with the photo below. That's what most of our property looks like.





Our neighbors and friends, Patty and Ron, welcomed us to their farm in Prospect, Shady Acres Farm. Patty raises wonderful Boer goats. Below are her goats and the photo at the bottom is Ron, her Belgian horse Dozer, and me reaching out to give Dozer a pat. We were dressed up because we were heading into Farmville for dinner.






Sadly, with the latest news story of how a baby's photo was taken from a family blog, I will not post my little grand-nephew Adam's picture. But imagine the cutest baby you have ever seen and that is Adam for sure!

Sustenance and Remembering Lucia

Gardening nurtures my mind, body and spirit in a way that few other hobbies do. This morning as the dew lay heavy on the ground, Shadow and I entered the vegetable garden. I gathered the rest of the spaghetti squash, cucumbers and a cantaloupe. The kitchen table is covered from one end to the other with bowls of fruit, tomatoes, squash and whole watermelon and cantaloupe. Last night's dinner was almost entirely grown in my garden, with the exception of the potatoes in the potato salad and the chicken - and I know I could, if I wanted to, have grown either of those things too.

Many of you know that one of my other abiding interests is healthy eating and encouraging good health through natural healing. In my travels, I've come across a wonderful blog that I would like to recommend to you. Meghan Telpner's Making Love in the Kitchen is a celebration of healthy eating. Her witty, funny and insightful blog is a joy and I am glad to have met her online and connected with her through Facebook and her blog. I recommend it highly.

Gardening is sustenance...food for the body, mind and spirit. Growing and cooking food that you grew with your own hands and watched develop forges a deep connection with the land and place where you live in ways that nothing else does.

In Memory: Lucia Capodilupo

My sister Mary forwarded an email to me from her colleagues at Teachers College Columbia Unviersity. Mary is completing her doctorate in education there, and I worked at Teachers College from 2005 to 2006 as a Director of Outreach (PR and grant-related communications). Mary wanted to let me know that one of my former colleagues, Lucia Capodilupo, had died from injuries sustained in a car accident in July.

I was very sad to hear that Lucia had died. Among the people I worked with at Teachers College, Lucia stood out in my mind for her kindness and cheerfulness. She was one of the few people who seemed welcoming to me and who invited questions. I didn't work with her much, but when I did, she was someone with whom I'd instantly feel at ease - she had that way about her. You left her office feeling buoyant and happy whenever you met with her.

I was surprised to learn that she had authored a book and that this kind, warm and generous woman was also a well known and much loved weight loss counselor who had lost 95 pounds! I am reading Lucia's book, Thin Through the Power of Spirit, and recommend it highly. Although some of it may seem far fetched, the deep yearning for a connection with a Higher Power, and how it impacts our weight is very true. Many people eat for comfort. Finding that comfort in a Higher Power - recognizing the true source of sustenance - is a truth Lucia recognized, as do many other people. When we take in the true bread of life, we are never hungry - when we connect with our Higher Power and fill the deep yearnings of our heart for love, comfort, and strength, and receive these blessings, we are sustained in ways that make overeating no longer necessary.

Vine Ripened Breakfast

There's something wonderful about picking a cantaloupe and eating a vine-ripened breakfast. This morning I just had melon for breakfast, picked fresh from the garden...juicy, not as sweet as I would have liked, but I imagine bursting with vitamins, minerals and other good-for-me things. I ate as much as I wanted and put the rest away for later. When eating fresh, raw fruits for breakfast, you don't have to worry so much about calories!

It was lonely here this morning without my sister and her family. They came from New York to stay with us for a few days and left yesterday morning. I got used to sitting on my rocking chair on the front porch with my big sister, sipping coffee, and watching the hummingbirds play at the feeder as the sun rose. I wish I had a transporter, like in Star Trek. Mary could zap over each morning for coffee then zap back to her home and job at Molloy College. And I could zap up to Long Island in the afternoon to go for a bike ride with her.

But that's not to be, at least not yet. We have to rely upon Amtrak trains.

We went up to Monitcello, Thomas Jefferson's home, and I enjoyed the recreated gardens very much. We also got a chance to visit the University of Virginia, which Jefferson designed. I stood in the rotunda and breathed in the scent of old wood and books: "Ah, the smell of learning!" We ate dinner at Charley's cafe in Farmville and my brother Joe came with his whole family for a visit on Sunday. I saw my grand-nephew, Adam, for the first time. He toddled around the patio and charmed us all with his affectionate grin and his new word: "GO!" And go he does, all the time...poor Dexter and Gina, my nephew in law and niece and baby Adam's parents. They never get a break with this little guy zooming around, showing off his new walking skills!

Shadow was an angel dog with the baby, allowing him to pet her thick soft fur, grab her tail, and crawl around under him. At one point Adam fed her one of his baby crackers. She gingerly took it in her huge jaws, walked to the garden, and amidst our gales of laughter, she buried it neatly in the flower beds, using that big German Shepherd snout to shovel the dirt over it. You couldn't even tell where she'd buried it! She has never done that before. Later that evening she went back, dug it up, and had a snack! If she was off on the lawn and the baby began to cry, she would pick her head up and trot back to the patio, gently licking his head or nudging him with her nose. It worked every time. The baby would stop crying and smile through his wet, sticky tears. Shadow would look worriedly at him, then when she was sure everything was all right, she would suffer another pat from his tiny hands, and lay back down on the lawn where she could watch him.

Now it's back to work...the house is quiet, loads of laundry are tumbling, and today's agenda is full of marketing work for my clients, writing and editing projects, and gardening tasks. Yesterday after the company left I blanched and froze a gallon of fresh green beans, and today my plan is to do the same with the carrots and peppers. The garden is bursting with life right now, and I am like the ant in the old Aesop's fable, putting aside as much as I can so I can remember these warm, fun days of early August when the January frosts lay thick on the fields.

Today's photo is by Mary K. Baird.