Changes - I'm left brain and pro-active - don't deal well with them

Can't believe it has been almost a month since I posted. The time has flown by. My daughter and granddaughters were here from Missouri and we had a July 4 event at my oldest grandchild's home - that is the beautiful Anna that was on Good Morning Dallas, Channel 8, recently. I love to look at the old snapshots of Miss Anna. As a baby, she did hand-painted silk scarves and even had her own label. She was a joy to watch as she would pick up a brush, put it back, contemplate which of the others to choose, then finally grab one and begin painting. Many of us still have our scarves and ties.

Anna also worked in my office when she was a little girl - she filed, straightened up the desk, threw items into the trash can, those types of tasks. I paid her by check and then cashed the checks for her. She loved sitting at the desk as a business person. She would pick up the phone and pretend to talk.

Rox and Lene are getting so grown - I hardly recognized them. They are doing very well in their school in Missouri - both play sports. I just can't get over how grown they seem.

It was great to see my daughter Krisy, especially to enjoy a steak dinner at a local restaurant. Krisy has always been a steak lover and we had a great time. I try to call her Kristina when in her presence, but she will always be Krisy to me.

Some of us who taught together at Silberstein Elementary and Gonzalez Elementary Schools in Dallas (2002 through my final year 2007-2008) recently enjoyed an evening together, along with families, at the Asian Buffet in Mesquite. The place is huge and had lots of different dishes, including steak and sushi.

It was super to see everyone. I do miss the teachers and the kids. There are truly some of the world's best people associated with Dallas ISD.

I'm hoping on Monday, Aug. 9 that we can do this again and that more of our friends can join us. I put the info on my Facebook page and this is not last minute, so hopefully I'll get to see lots of the terrific people I miss. The Aug. 9 event is right before the teachers return for the 2010-2011 year.

Now, my changes complaint - when I set up a program, I like to be proactive, to think of all possible ramifications, effects, etc., and only THEN draw up my plans and documents. Lately, it seems I'm involved in situations in which the opposite happens - we get into something, act on information we've received, then we're told the policies have changed. That is difficult for me, especially AFTER I've acted on the previous information.

It will be quite a nuisance to constantly ask, "Are you sure you want to do it this way?" or "Are you sure these are the guidelines we use" and other questions. It will be easier to just withdraw from all that and do my own program.  Maybe this and maybe that is a right-brain way of thinking and it works extremely well when one is an artist, writer, entertainer, and in many other professions that require creativity. It just doesn't work well for some of us when rules are made and then constantly changed once we're in the program.

I try to be balanced, using both left and right brain - left brain for step-by-step activities, balancing checkbook, being accountable, keeping my calendar up to date and right brain for all the creative activities I truly enjoy. I just like my actions to be "grandfathered" in, IF I've already been completing things and someone decides to change the requirements. I do understand reasons for the changes and, in many cases, applaud the need for them. I just don't accept that changes should be made in the middle of a project.

I seem to be quite a misfit these days. I am going with the flow of that to the greatest extent I'm capable. Of course, I'll absolutely be more careful in the future about activities in those groups. I don't like feeling frustrated or irritated. I wonder how many people really enjoy those emotions?

I've asked myself, "Why is this happening to you?" I've answered, "Maybe I need the lesson." Therefore, I will become much more careful to be 100% authentic and up-front with people with whom I'm involved in any project, association, business venture, etc. This isn't always easy for me in the sense that I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, where we were taught to always be polite and sweet, no matter what was happening. I learned from that to not always express myself when something bothers me. I need to improve in the area of letting others more clearly become aware of my dislike.

Life is growth and I do think, as long as we're on this planet, there is more opportunity to learn. My desire is to become the very best person I can be. The recent frustrations are giving me a nudge toward being more objective.

That's all for today - will try to get back to this soon. On Wednesday, I'll be working more volunteer hours at Kirby Creek in Grand Prairie as I earn my Master Composter certification. Also, need to pick up worms in GP. The worms are for Thursday when I'm doing a 2-hour program at the Ellis County 4-H camp. This is through the Master Gardeners association. We're making Worm Towers as one of our parts of the program. The kids always love anything that includes red wigglers.

Will let you know how that turns out and, as always, I'm glad to know your thoughts.

Composting and Community Gardening and a Mentor Party

Miss Margaret and I went Saturday to work at Kirby Creek in Grand Prairie. We are doing our volunteer service hours in order to become certified Master Composters. It was HOT, but a great day. It is wonderful to see local people come to the garden to weed, water, compost, pick veggies, mow, etc. Glenda was out the other day to water and Vijit waters often. We appreciate his leadership at the garden. Enjoyed seeing Ameeta (Vijit's wife) again. The squash bus seemed to have lessened. We started 2 new bins. The greens were cut down as the guys (Vijit, Bruce, and Earl) cut the honeysuckle to free the A-frames on which the butter beans could be twined. Bob and Billy had mad the frames and they are great. We also were able to get grass clippings when Earl and Margaret mowed. Bruce did a lot of weedeating and pulling weeds. Liz and Glenda really spruced up the veggies and sunflowers. Vijit and Ameeta did some of everything. I work too, but always impressed with how much the others can accomplish. Our rest and eat time was delicious. We enjoyed chips and sala, bean dip, quesadillas, and chutney. Hands-on is really the best way to master gardening and composting.

From Kirby Creek, we went to Miss Margaret's (actually, that is a Mrs., but we just call each "Miss" as though we are teens living a century ago) beautiful home where we showered and changed. Then we went to Ginger and George's home for the Master Gardener Mentor event. As always, everything was perfect. Ginger gave a tour of her garden, hen and goat pen, bee keeping area, etc. She is Mother Earth personified.

Being in Master Gardeners and Master Composters is truly a blessing to me. The people are great and I love learning so much and getting back to nature.

Working at Kirby Creek Community Garden in Grand Prairie

Saturday the 19th will be fun since we are having "salsa day" as we take a break from the gardening and composting tasks.

About a dozen of us showed up Wednesday June 16th to work. Many of us are working on our volunteer/service hours in order to earn our certification as Master Composters and to receive the Shepherd's Compost bin with aerator insert.

At the garden, the plants that looked wonderful the Wednesday before looked pretty bad today, either from lack of water or chlorosis or a fungus. The leaves had turned yellow and mottled and a few plants just looked deadish. We are checking to determine exactly what caused the problem.

Squash bugs had really taken over the squash plants. We washed them off, trying to drown them, but they are survivors!

We weeded, pruned damaged leaves, mulched, and did other tasks to make the garden better. Vijit and Tracy have been watering, but that takes a long time with as many beds as there are. Hopefully, the city will be able to fix the irrigation system so that the veggie beds will be watered through drip irrigation instead of hand watering. As we learned in Master Gardening, drip irrigation is always superior.

There were lots of cherry tomatoes and we had those at our "rest and eat" time. Liz brought the zucchini quiche and it was delicious. We enjoyed the cherry tomatoes with the chutney Viit brought that his wife made. Margaret brought strawberries and blackberries - it was a fun break and we got to hear more about Billy's document that lists all the planting dates, harvesting dates, etc., on one page. Vijit is going to make a copy for each of us.


Looking at the two tiny cantaloupes (one golf ball size, one tennis ball size), Billy pointed to a flower and the bee pollinated it and said a new cantaloupe may grow there. This was very interesting to me.

Saturday, we're also going to cut away vines that are growing around two more bean/cucumber frames and move those so that the butter beans can grow upward. Some of the cucumber vines were growing horizontal along the ground under those frames currently in place in the cuke bed and Billy and I weaved the extensions into the fencing on the frames so they will grow upright and, hopefully, the squash bugs won't get into the cukes.

We discussed placing Savin around the perimeter of the cuke bed to kill baby squash bugs and a more toxic insecticide around the perimeter to kill adult squash bugs. However, we decided not to do that, since the insecticide would be sucked into the roots of the cukes, thus negating the organic emphases of the garden.

We are going to plant pumpkin, zucchini, and watermelon Saturday. We pulled weeds from beds with nothing growing in order to prepare for planting. There is a gas tiller that can be used to till those beds, but if we do a lasagna garden in one or more, we won't need to till that/those.

We also know to plant radishes at random among plants. I checked resources and nasturtiums and some marigolds also help. This is called "companion planting."

All in all, an interesting day - not much breeze and hot, but it feels good to learn.

We may experiment with one bed by doing it as a lasagna garden, as suggested by Liz.

We are hoping to see the grass, both in the bedded area as well as around the outside of the fence, mowed so that we can rake up clippings and start a second compost bin soon plus add more browns and greens to the one there now. There is a fenced in area in the SW corner of the community garden that contains lots of leaves.

Another task for Saturday is to do something with the triple wood slat compost bins that have been ignored for a long time.

We did harvest beans, squash, peppers, and there are a few eggplants growing (we didn't harvest the latter).

Community gardens are becomming more and more popular and one great advantage to working in one is learning from experienced vegetable gardeners. I appreciate everything I'm learning. Having been a city girl all my life and leading a non-domestic type life, I am really graining an appreciation of the basics and pratical tasks that can make us feel terrific as we succeed at them.

Learning to be a Master Composter

For a year I heard about the Master Composter program sponsored by the City of Grand Prairie. Finally, I was able to work out the class dates and had a great time attending recently with three very smart ladies who are also in Ellis County Master Gardeners.

Larry Wilhelm, who helped create the Master Composter program in Texas, was our instructor for the classes on Thursday and Friday night and all day Saturday. Since he has been involved in the program for over 15 years, he has lots of fun stories to share. At the classes, we received the Rodele book on composting, a t-shirt, a compost thermometer, and we were fed dinner on the two nights and lunch on Saturday. The visit to the Grand Prairie landfill was very educational as was the demonstration of building a compost bin at one of the community gardens.

The three ladies and I are now fulfilling our service hours by working at the Kirby Creek Nature Preserve and Community Garden in Grand Prairie. We turn the compost bin and will create more bins and we weed, prune, and pick ripe veggies from the bountiful plantings. We also may help set up their rainwater harvesting system.

Once we volunteer 20 hours, we each receive a free Shepherd's Compost bin (cubic yard size) with the aerating insert and after the additional 20 hours, we become certified Master Composters and will be recognized by the Grand Prairie Commissioners. In other words, to become certified, we volunteer a total of 40 hours.

The program in Grand Prairie is through the Solid Waste Department, under the direction of Vijit Singh, and through the Special Projects department, headed by Tammy Chan. These are terrific people and very helpful to us from Ellis County as we registered and began to participate. Two of us worked the Grand Prairie Mayfest with Vijit and found him to be very gracious.

Composting is extremely important both from adding much-needed nutrients to the soil as well as to our becoming better stewards regarding landfills. Trains bring trash from New Jersey and other northern states to Texas. We don't want their garbage. In my opinion, this needs to stop. We also want to stop throwing grass clippings and tree limbs into the landfills. Both are ingredients for composting.

Grass clippings contain the nitrogen that is vital to compost. Brown leaves and tree trimmings provide the carbon. Other ingredients include food scraps (NO MEATS, CHICKEN, FISH, OR OILS), dryer lint, shredded paper, cardboard, cotton and other natural fabrics, etc.

I will be teaching a class on Backyard Composting in the fall at the Lighthouse for Learning, which is Waxahachie ISD's adult learning program. I'll also be working with other Master Gardeners to teach composting (including worm or vermi-composting) to 4-H young people on July 22 in Waxahachie.

I hope you are composting - it is very important!