Berries!! Reaping what was sown...

So two years ago I started a real garden. I mean, for real, I dug up an area of our yard, put in a raised bed (two actually), and planted berries. I planted raspberries and blueberries. (I also have one of those hanging strawberry planters.) Just to clarify, I love berries! I am a sugar-holic and would be a fruititarian - as my parents termed my brother when he would eat nothing but fruit - if my organs and pocketbook could take it. Last year, I picked many raspberries and discovered that they really need a trellis to support their 7 ft height.

This year with our early spring and summer, I am actually in town to partake of the wonderful fruits. For the first time, one of my blueberry plants actually is starting to create berries, and the raspberries have gone crazy! A good kind of crazy. I have been going out every day to pick a handful/bowlful of berries. I couldn't go on Saturday, so on Sunday I got to collect two day's worth of berries - 4oz - and there are still many unripe ones on the bushes! So what did I do with those 4 oz? Save them for a healthy snack the next day? Nope, I ate them all in one sitting, not an hour later. They were fantastic!

A few days ago, I got the first strawberry that I could and yesterday I picked off 9 more. Healthy snack today! Yippee!! Now if only I had the patience and ability to make a larger portion of our yard into a garden, think how wonderful that would be! Oh, and a hot house, and a whole area devoted to butterflies, and more consistent composting, and.....

All photos copyright Katrina Kouba Boles

Creative Slacking

Though I personally have been in something of a creative lull for months now, I am trying to encourage myself to get back on the saddle. Part of that process is of course, reading books on being a creative. I'm about half-way through a really great one by Ellen Langer called On Becoming An Artist. My original thought, when I saw that title, was that I already am an artist so why would I need to read this book? But the title has more to do with what the author learned about becoming an artist than how the reader could become an artist. Anyway, so that should get my juices going a bit.

And I love this quote that the author included:

"The important thing is never to let oneself be guided by the opinion of one's contemporaries; to continue steadfastly on one's way without letting oneself be either defeated by failure or diverted by applause." -Gustav Mahler

Meanwhile, this is a project we recently finished at work. It's not my best work, I think, but for the short time-frame in which we had to get it done, and the basic idea comes across pretty well.



Until next time...keep creating!