apartments can garden too

My little apartment garden is slowly expanding. I found a big old kitchen pot at an antique shop and I'm using it to grow carrots. The little basket has a strawberry plant, but I plan to move it (along with the other strawberry plant I bought) to a bigger container. And of course, my herbs are still hanging in there. As far as I know, chives sprout flowers and stick up tall...still waiting. I'm so impatient for pretty things.

I still don't see any sprouts for my spinach and annual flowers in the big garden box. According to my calendar, sprouts could have shown up yesterday or today, but with the selfish cloud cover we've been having lately, it may take a few more days.

On the railing, I've got a sweet little mossy saxifrage growing. This little plant is so delightful; I absolutely love it. It's a perennial, so I'm glad I'll get to see it return :)

Inside, I've got a little fern growing on the bookshelf. I think it's so sweet in the watering can, among the books, don't you?

The Egg & I

I've been hit with barnheart. It's a fatal disease, you know. Sympoms include:

•  reading every book on farming that I can get my hands on. 
• Egg hatching and sheep shearing is the dinner conversation of choice.
• searching every nook and cranny of the internet for local farms looking for volunteers who are eager to learn the ways of the land.

To help with the excruciating pain of barnheart, I've prescribed myself with a little container gardening now that Spring is slowly showing her lovely, wonderful face.

Rosemary, sage, chives and lavender grow on our apartment porch.

On Saturday, I planted annuals and spinach. In just a few days, I'll see sprouts.

This fatal disease hit me the other day when I realized I've never tasted a farm fresh egg before. Not once. I even had a friend in high school who had chickens. They produced such wonderful, beautiful eggs, but I never got a taste. 

And then I started thinking about that silly little dream that came to my 16-year-old-heart. I read an article about nuns who started a cheese farm. Yes, I know, I wasn't your average 16-year-old girl. I mean, can you tell me of any you know who gain inspiration from cheese making nuns? I wanted to live like those nuns. Just me, my four dairy cows (all named after famous queens), and cheese. Glorious cheese.

The dream has shifted slightly. I only want one dairy cow now, and a miniature one at that ( who really needs six gallons of milk a day??) 

So, it's settled. Matt will be infected soon. It's only a matter of time before your spouse catches what you have.

One day, we won't be pouring over books on homesteading and livestock diseases. We'll be pulling potatoes, dusted with the rich soil of the earth, straight out of the ground, making butter from the milk of our own dairy cow and hopefully training Emma to NOT eat the chickens.

One day.

Tea Weather

The weather in Georgia has been sort of sneaky as of late. I think we've experienced every type of weather in one week. Last night, as Matt and I were leaving for Bible study, our Floridian sense kicked in..we could smell a storm coming.

The weather is still stormy today. It's gray and windy, but balmy. There's a quiet sort of anticipation hanging in the air.

We took advantage of the cool (but not too cool) morning and took Emma to the dog park. There weren't too many dogs, but that didn't stop her from having fun. Matt loves throwing a tennis ball for her. She runs after that thing, at full speed, down the hill. She's going so fast, she always tumbles as she makes a grab for that sneaky, bouncing ball.

I love her happy face.

We also went downtown to get some mat board for my photography projects for school; Matt also returned his GaTech parking permit. Since the permit was for Fall and Spring, and he graduated in December, he was able to get reimbursed for $298. YES. $298. 

Hello, extra money.

Now, we're getting some extra work in (with a niiiice long blogging break) and having tea. My current tea obsession is this Ahmad Special Blend with Earl Grey I got at the Asian market. It came in a gorgeous green tin that I needed for my pinhole project last semester. Now, I have 500 grams of loose leaf tea. That's a lot of tea. But it's ok because it's seriously the best tea I've ever had.