Stuck inside!!!

Dont you wish you could sit in the dirt and be with your plants all day and into the night? My heart rate goes way down and my mind shuts off. I LOVE IT!!!! But I have 2 young girls and have to spend considerable time with them inside doing nothing. I love my kids but I really need to complain!!! Its so tedious and I just want to go roll around in the dirt.
I can get them to do this for 15 minute intervals but not the same thing ya know?
Does anyone else have a reason theyre not sitting outside growing roots out of their toes and sprouting leaves from their ears? This is the place for you!

Its too hot?
Are they too young to not be able to go out with you? I remember when my trolls were younger, they each had their own yard tools, including a mini wheel barrow, shovel, rake and other implements of destruction.
Andy, almost 18, used to put 1 weed in it and would push that silly wheel barrow around for hours it seemed like. saying the whole time "hebby pawpaw, hebby" (heavy). Then there was the year that I planted a garden and gave him 2 cherry tom plants of his own. Do you know, his grew to almost tree size, producing tons of toms and mine were wimpy? Unfortunately, he was old enough to remember that one, lol.
Jen.
P.s., i do feel your pain tho. I hate knowing that i cant garden because i have to cook, do laundry, pay bills, etc..now we've added 2 horses to the mix and that takes away more time (although im not complaining, I love it).
Enjoy the time with them while you can tho. My baby just graduated and is in Jackson tonight waiting to enlist in the US Navy tomorrow. They grow up fast.

I feel for you Greta..I can play in my garden all I want when I am off work. My kids are all grown now.
Could you involve the girls in planting and havingthem help you..let them plant some seeds and watch them grow?

Cheers,
Carol

Yeah its all good, the little one loves to rub herself with peat moss and the big one (4) has her own garden and can name alot of plants... but theyre impatient and only focus for a few minutes, its not the same is it?
I guess I meant I wanted to vent that I wish I had a little tent and lived in my garden sometimes and was hooping people would share the same feeling.
You know stuck in the office. Stuck in the car.... stuck in..... bed?

it was raining this afternoon!! But i was out there as soon as i woke up-ok a few mintes here and AIM peeps then i was out the door!!!
My kids know when spring comes moms gone till fall,she will come in and feed us at different times during the day-if its to hot she will spend the afternoon at the pool with us and then shes back in the garden and shes LUVZ it!!!

Mom you coming in yet its dark-ahhh theres the lite switch :)

if they are big enough to fend for themselves for a few hrs-GO outside!!!! Put in the lion king if they are little-I just cant wait to be KING!!!!!!!!!!!

Could you trade babysitting with a fellow gardener?

Notmartha you are hilarious!!!! I know EXACTLY what you're saying hahhahhahha!
Ms Jen it must be strange and exciting to have your boy enlisting tomorrow ( or should I say today as its pretty late here). Ive been thinking about you tonight with the 2 horses, I know how much work that can be! What time does your day start?
Gardenwife... my fellow gardeners are quite a bit aways...... country living. Besides we just use the time to talk on the phone bout how all our babies are doing ( both kinds).
And Starzz I posted somewhere earlier about you..... hostas maybe?
I dunno guys, I have great kids luv em luv em luv em but its actually alot like not martha said. I get a bit freaky when the sno melts. Im not just a mom Im a HORT GEEK as I like to call myself.
DOESNT ANYBODY HAVE ANY COMPLAINTS ABOUT WHATS KEEPING THEM OUT OF THE DIRT? SPEAK UP!!!!

Lol...Greta..you mentioned that you liked my variegated Catmint..on the Perennials II post.

The only thing that keeps me out of the garden is working..so I can have enough money to buy more plants!
(and live of course)
One the way home from work last night I bought 4 more plants .....I can't stop buying them.
I got Tiarella Wherryi,.... Corydalis cheilanthifolia (Ferny corydalis).... Lamium white nancy ( I have three other cultivars..I love this plant)....and because of Dave posting his Mexican Hat Ratibida columnifera, I bought that one too.
Fun Fun Fun...
I love the image that comes to mind when you say.."sit in among your plants and grow roots"
Cheers,
Carol

Lol, my day starts about 7 am..we're boarding them. I wish they were here, but we just dont have the land or the facilities for them. OR the knowledge to have them here actually.

I can relate to you actually. It seems like i had lotsa time to spend in the dirt, and now everything seems to have bottlenecked. My son graduated, my DH will be home in 2 weeks, problems with the ex, getting a child support case filed with my attorney, work (as if), and all the other little things that make life work. I can usually find an hour here or an hour there, but thats the same time that the mosquitos are looking for dinner.

I'm so proud of him for enlisting. We've been preaching to all the kids about it (dh's twins are now 19 and working at taco bell, part time, living from place to place). At first he was going to join the Army. I raised an eyebrow but didnt say anything. Then he decides he'd rather be on a ship instead of the front lines. Good for him!!!. I think the draft is just around the corner, and I'm glad that hes getting in now, while he still has a choice.

Jen

GRETAGRETA, I'm sitting in the house with my nose pushed against the glass WISHING I could be outside too. This is my first year gardening and I had such great beginner's luck...everything in my containers grew beyond my wildest expectations! I should explain that my "summer" here in Florida is from about October (spring) to late April (fall). Now it is so hot that I only go out early to empty yet another sad container and water what's left. All my Coleus and Begonias are huddled up on tables under umbrellas. So, I log onto DG and read all the posts and see all the pictures of the summer gardens and turn slowly green with envy!

When my kids were little, I just gave them a hose, a kiddie pool and some pots and pans.That way I could grab an hour or so for myself. Girl, you got "cabin fever"!!!
Pati

I used to live in arizona so I know about the summer being over....
My kids have the pool... they have all the gear but nobody wants to live in the gvarden with me except the slugs. We could curl up under the hostas together.
Starzz Im glad youre out buying the plants, I had alot of money last season aND bought whatever I felt like. This year is tight but I still buy alot, just get really sneaky and guilty about it. My Dh repects my green envy but doesnt really get it.
MsJen I am amazed by your description about your family. Sounds complicated. I guess you gotta just ride it out. Im not a military kinda person. Meaning I dont know many people who are joined up and I doubt Id want my kids to get involved in whats going on currently but thats not what I want to say. What I want to say is that Im honored to hear about your sons efforts and wish him only the best. As far as taco bell goes....I had some wierd food service jobs when I was nineteen. Sometimes you got to let things go before you get serious. My brothers are both sea captains and spend alot of time on the water. I almost drowned as a kid and have a real water phobia. I go out on boats only occasionally and the sea is so intense!!!!

Here is Grandpa's solution for keeping kids busy in the garden:
Dig a hole- a BIG hole but not over the head of youngest child.
Fill said hole with water.
Tell children (who are wearing only skivvies) to never, never go near the hole.
Add a margarine tub or two. Watch the fun begin.

This kept my children busy for hours. Filthy dirty fun.
You guessed it! At HIS house.

I have to put in 40 hours a week at the ol' rocket factory (windowless, no less) so I lose a lot of prime gardening time. My husband is out of work right now, so I can't even think of quitting. O.K., I can think of it, and do constantly, but can't act upon it yet.

Yeah!@!!!!!!!! Mud puddles are so much better than kiddee pools! Especially when theyre off limits. My 18 month old is always 'helping ' me weed the beds. Ugh!!!

Greta,
I could also throw in 2 cancer diagnosis in less than 6 months of each other, upcoming radiation therapy, etc...
What about butterfly nets for the girls? Maybe that would occupy them for ..oh, maybe 10 minutes? lol.
That mud puddle sounds fantastic. I love gardening right after the rain, not only because everything smells so clean, but i get to get soooo dirty. Aint nothing like mud squishing between my toes...oh god, i need a life, roflol.
What about having them paint stepping stones? or bricks, pet rocks?
Jen

Paint anything! No seriously. Go to the dollar store and get a bunch of paintbrushes. Give each of the girls a bucket of water. Paint the sidewalk, the house, the dog, the flowers, and the fence. Who cares.

When It dries, Paint it again!

I keep kindergarteners amused with this every year cause it is still HOT.

A batch of ooblick is always good. When you are done-hose it away.

wow nice ideas. we just got a net tonite at Christmas tree shopsand shes running around the house whacking stuff. (sigh)
Msjen I think I read somewhere about your cancer and that you were throwingb yourself into the garden for somepeace which sounds very healthy to me. Not sure what to say except feel free to talk about it when ever you want to!
I love the paintbrush idea we have lots art supplies as both me and DH are professional artists. Its a serious business in this household!
My four year old goes to Montessori and paints rocks with water there too!
OK!! ENUF about these kids this thread is for us GROWNUP GARDENERS!!!!!!
Was a rainy day today.... all my transplants love this weather and I do too. I love lurking about in the rain watching everything look all green and well rested. Kind of a botanical SPA day. Jeez I feel kinda wierd talking about plants all the time.
Couldnt sleep last nite and reread most of Tracy Desoto's perrennial pruning. Spooky how involved I was at pruning techniques at 5 am. heh heh

Did ya take your shoes off and run through the mud puddles? I'm still like a kid when it comes to standing water, lol.....preach to my kids "stop that, youll ruin your shoes"...hehe, must be why i wear flip flops in the yard, easy to kick off. Any body ever notice how hard it is to keep your heels in place when you feet are wet in those things?
at any given time i have at least 2 pairs in the yard that i've taken off and forgotten out there.
Would have loved to have done that, but the lightning was way too close for me.
As far as the cancer, im doing okay with it. I still have my days of utter denial. Im sure it will really hit home when i start radiation. Facing your own mortality (or is it immortatlity) is a hard pill to swallow. I went through a few weeks of cleaning anything and everything because i just KNEW that i wasnt going to be here tomorrow to finish it. That was hard.
Today, I'm good. Clear results from the doctor, but every morning i look in the mirror, see how lopsided i am and find myself getting upset. then i touch it, say a prayer, and realize how fortunate i am to know that i AM a survivor.
Jen

Incredible.... thankyou.

Greta-
When my daughter was wee tiny we lived in Texas and I could not garden during the day because 1) it was too hot and 2) we had fireants something terrible.
If I tried to go outside for a moment, she would pull herself up on the screen door and cry and cry. And I would come in and cry and cry. My husband worked out of town 6 days a week and I am an artist like you. I was exausted and frustrated.

BUT THEN!! My husband and his brother came up with an idea and they installed lights all through the garden~ in the trees, down on all of my beds and containers. I started gardening at night when she was asleep in bed. It saved me.

Now she is 10 and I still have lights (much more grown up- they are on switches now instead of orange cords!) and it is still my time in the garden. The night air and the lacks of bugs and the silence....YUM! I am a night owl and that is when I have always worked on my artwork anyway. Still do. My studio is the greenhouse/studio so I doctor up the cuttings, have my drafting table, computer.....and peversley hope that we will have another little one soon to take up my days!!LOL

What a beautiful story!!! Thanks for sharing. I agree I like evenings best but Im a big chicken at night cause I have an active imagination and its dark dark dark. Im the kind of person that thinks about vampired zombies and aliens..... like that scene in "signs " at nite!
Im impressed by the amount of ideas people have thrown my way. My four year old went picking sugar snaps today for the first time. She is so awesome!!! The 18 month old rips stuff up but is better about hanging outside all day getting dirty buggy and messy.
I realize that even though Im a big whiner my kids are good country kids and are growing up on the land. I was a city kid so this is a fascinating influence Im putting on them.

Greta, I don't think anyone ever has enough time in their garden. If I could spend 12 hours a day there, it would not be enough, because just about the time I had everything planted where I wanted it, and all weeded, I'd see a corner of yard that just screamed for a flowerbed, and off I'd go again.

I steal an hour in the mornings, usually after getting my father changed and bathed, while waiting for the day care bus to pick him up. That is just about enough time to water what has to get watered in our dry climate. While watering, I stare at the bindweed, grass, zillions of baby elm and Chinese sumac seedlings and feel guilty for NOT pulling them out. I promise myself I will do it on the weekend, pretending not to see the miles of lawn that is knee high!

But then work, family, and everything else interferes, and my hour is gone.

MsJen, you humble me with your attitude. I sincerely admire you for it, and hope I can face it the same way if needed one day.

EXACTLY!!!

I've seen my G'ma misdiagnosed and she lost her battle with breast cancer, my aunt chose to do the homopathic (?) rememdy and by the time she realized that it wasnt working, it was too late. My mom is a survivor. Shes been cancer free for 3 years Christmas.
I make mistakes, bunches of them, p@ss people off all the time, forget trades, am scatterbrained, make promises and forget to keep them...I really do try to do the right things, but really have a hard time keeping things straight. I know im getting off topic here, lol
I've learned lately, that life is a gift. And Jimmy Buffett says its best "I'd rather die while I'm living, then live when I'm dead."
In the meantime, remember to play in the rain, kick off your flipflops and play in the mud" : )

Youre NOT off subject!!! I really just wanted to hear from people and share a little bit of my reality. Ive been really enjoyinh the night owl thread... its like a chat room but slower and longer. Its funny, I saw this thing on TV the night before last about how chemo was bas and how this lady beat cancer and I was all excited for you and then about 20 min in I realized it was an evengelical station, they were trying to sell it as new science but it was kind of misleading. Im sorry youre feeling the pressure of stuff.. that forgetfull feeling. Somedays I walk aropund with that nagging feeling Ive forgotten something CRUCIALLY important. Mkaes for alot of guilt.
Being barefoot in the rain is the best.
Had a really wierd dream about tornadoes last night. I survived thank gooodness. Talk about drama. Dreams are so strange and amazing arent they?

I used to have tornado dreams all the time. Someone told me its because i felt like my life was out of control. Funny, you would think i'd be having them now, lol

No... the way you describe getting ready for being sick I think you are very in control of your life!!!!! ( cheers and hugs)

gretagreta I have good days and bad days.

On good days I can spend the day in the dirt and make my garden sparkle and pull weeds and move things around and try to get seeds to grow in my pitiful dirt that has no worms and pray for composting solutions somehow and try to undo all the troubles that have come from first the owner of the house we bought not being able to play in the dirt and now me...

and on bad days I sit in my window and look out at the birds and wish I could be out there creating more beauty to look at for the bad days which, unfortunately, are inevitable.

Old threads will tell what all the troubles are - there have been a long string of them - but let it suffice to say I have been given a LEMON body and want to trade it in on something new! But till that can take place I have days when I can't get out of the padded computer chair and days when I can't get out of bed.

I spent almost a year going from the bed to the chair on wheels and back. It was so hard! SO I can relate.

I know you don't want to talk about the kids much but have you actually thought about a tent? My mom put up one for us when we were tiny like your kids and we spent HOURS playing with our dolls in the tent while she laid bricks all the way around our house and set flower beds and hosta beds and planted English ivy up and down the hillsides... and we contentedly played in our tent, it was like being inside. We got to choose what we wanted to take outside to the tent each day - books today - etc. and you could even run a cord and take a tv out there with a vcr and tapes or cd's ... that would give you hours of uninterrupted time.

Just a thought. My sister says the best babysitter is Monsters, Inc. You might end up stringing lights out there and sleeping out in the tent yourself. (sounds like so much fun to me!)

Thinking of that - can you afford to hire a babysitter once in a while to sit with them while you garden in peace?

By the way, how are the hosta I sent last year in the trade doing?

Check out the hosta trade going on right now! I just sent divisions of your lovely plants to Kooger! Im such a big whiner!! But my kids are fine that have an enormous tree house that Ill take a pict of sometime, their own garden, a little pool, mud dirt toys toys toys. They are great and things are well with me, I just was feeling really selfish the day I wrote this thread. Next time Im weeding, Ill think of you. Hugs, Greta

Thanks Janiejoy, by way of G2! They're looking great and the only ones not in the ground yet. Pokey me! Was gone last wknd so left them in the garage in a bit of water and they look great. Will get them in tomorrow. Promise!

When I am at work, I am thinking about how soon I can get home to my garden. I set up my laptop on the patio and stay out here until bedtime many nights. When I get up in the morning I head out and water and sit in the garden to munch on breakfast and sheck my emails before I head to the shower and off to work again where I again think about getting home to watch the garden grow.

On my days off, I read in the garden and escape my house cleaning chores in the garden until I absolutely must get something done.... then I go back to the garden. Now that the nights are not so windy I have wrapped up in a blanket and fallen asleep out here several nights in a row. I woke up with a crooked neck so I am moving a lounge chair out here tonight :~) and a pillow... and a clamp on reading lamp.

I'll go back inside when winter comes!

I need a life like Zanys, lol

Awesome Zanys!!! Set up a bed/chaise!

Now all I need is a mosquito net :~) Bob is threatening to move our bed outside....and if there were more room out here I'd let him!