Cultivate

So this year is the first year I've ever tried to grow my own garden.

One of three strawberries so far! Mmm.

My parents and grandparents are all great gardeners. I've got some great childhood memories of gardening with my mother, finding "wormies" in the garden and saving them from imminent death. My grandparents gave me odd jobs around the yard, and I'd get to see my grandmother's wonderful wildflower garden. My dad grows lots of great veggies, and in the summer you can reliably find him tending it in the backyard. I guess I always thought that one day I would just know how to create these beautiful spaces.

This is what happened. 

Not really so much. My first attempt at growing plants has been a bit of a roller coaster ride, with mistaking what I planted for weeds, to frying nearly all of my seedlings in the sun, to a squirrel absconding with my first strawberry.

My first ripening tomato!

Anyway, it's rewarding, if only I have grown a couple strawberries and kale. Also, I'm reading Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver right now, and it's makin' me feel all folksy and connected to the earth.

You can see some of the blooms unfolding in a spiral pattern. Cool!

Cultivate. I've been thinking of that word conceptually lately. I'm sure it's influenced by making my first home with my partner, and truly nesting for the first time on my own. Regardless, I can't shake this feeling that I am at a beginning of my life, starting not just a new chapter, but a new novel. And in this novel, the epilogue will be determined by cultivating different facets of my life, if I have any say over it.

Kitty helping me siphon the Red Chili Pale Ale.

Marie and I left rainy New Mexico for beautiful, sunny Oregon.  Our wonderful friends Kyler and Alex got married on Gray Gander Farm, Albany, OR.

Daw.

There was plenty of Maiden the Shade to go around.

The ceremony and reception were so beautiful and fun! The goats approved.

We also stared in awe at Kyler's marble race. It's pretty awesome, all ten minutes of it.

It was so great to see the old Bellinghamsters! I do miss the green of the northwest, the berries aplenty, and the hint of the ocean in my nostrils. Marie and I both really wish we could make it up there again this weekend for Matt and Marcela's wedding in Washington.

Happy to be in the Northwest and happy to have just eaten a huge awesome meal.

The day after, Marie and I hung out in Powell's in Portland and met up with the none other than Marie's college roomie Anna!

She also brought us macaroons, which were delicious. 

Just a few weeks before that, Jenni, Preston, and K McRae came down to Santa Fe. We played Settlers of Catan, ate ugali at Jambo Cafe, hiked in the foothills, and learned to marinade for a three-month belated housewarming party.

Representin' the Fort Collins hometown brew. (Also, I totally won this game!)

Grilling veggies.

Oh, and I think Zeezy misses them.

Rawr

Anyway, I hope the people in Russia, Germany, Thailand, the United States, and everyone else out there who apparently have checked this blog are out there, living, loving, cultivating.

-LTB