Gardening Marathon...

Whowehhh... I worked my little tush off this weekend getting my garden in order. Mostly because it was a beautiful weekend and I saw the weather forecast which is rain, rain, and more rain for the next week. So, I went and picked up six untreated 2' by 6' by 8'' pieces of wood to start the raised bed part of the garden. I was especially nice to a dorky customer representative at store and got them cut in half :). Leaving me with twelve 4'' pieces of wood. I assembled them with 3 1/2 inch deck/patio nails, two in each end to make the box. I have laid them out in the garden and measured the distance between them and the edge of the garden to make it equal. I plan to sink them a bit into the ground, but wanted to get their position first. Then I worked on putting up the fence. I purchased plastic garden fencing, which was the cheapest I could find and 6 wooden posts that I found in the garden section. I sank them into the ground about 8 inches. Then I used plastic cable ties to attach the fence to the posts and the metal fence that goes around the yard. Toward the middle of the front, I cut the fence at the third post and put another post right next to it. This is to have a little gate. That post will not sink all the was in the ground just a bit and then I made a latch at the top out of rope. I finished putting the fence up and now all I need to do is prepare the dirt and I'll be ready to roll... I mean plant! As a side note, I have ordered a Reel Mower that I'm hoping to have delivered today. This is my effort to be super "Green". And Earth day last week motivated me. I'm curious to know how well it works and how easy it is as the website claimed. Anyway, I'll let you know when I get it and when it stops raining.

Back On Track...Ali Vs. Mother Nature

So I finally got back to working on my garden and WOW is this work!!! I encountered some challenges that made this take much longer than I had anticipated. Oh, and in case your wondering, Kya got her stitches out this morning and though she is still limping a bit, she is doing much better.

Anyway, So I spent many hours working on excavating the grass off of the marked off garden area. I sort of wish I had kept track of the hours, but then again, maybe it's good I did not! I tried very hard to stay in the present moment, but I must say once I got into the rhythm of digging, my mind wondered off to all sorts of places. It was really hard to stay focused on the present moment. Then I encountered my first problem, which you can see in this first picture is a BIG root! After some time, I was able to twist it around and then eventually cut it with my Swiss army knife. Then I continued digging. I ended up with another GIANT root that was much more difficult to get rid of and because of my limited tools, I borrowed a hack saw from my boyfriend to cut it. Thanks, Honey! And Of course, in the last little patch of grass, there were three more roots! Thank, Mother Nature! They were the smallest, but still took a lot of effort to get them out. This picture shows the Big root at the bottom and the Giant root in the middle. If you look closely at the top are the last three.... yes I know I need to cut my grass! In addition to natural discoveries, I also found lots of unnatural things! Some of which I have posted. This first picture is of a metal toy gun. It looks like a kids toy, but it has to be at least a little old since they have not made metal toy guns in a few years. The next picture is of a fan or propeller type thing.... I'm not really sure! The last is a slab of cement that looks like it held down a post of some sort. Not very exciting, but I was impressed that I got it to come out of the ground fairly easily. Amongst these things, even less exciting, I found roof shingles, broken glass, and metal pieces. Unfortunately, someone has also dumped mounds of garbage behind my yard as well. It's really disgusting and I think it would take me 100 years to clean up by myself. I am hoping to clean it up a little though. After all this, I dragged piles of dug up grass on a tarp over to the fence and tossed them over. (at least it's organic garbage!) I used the tarp because again my limited tools, I had decided to not buy a wheel barrel. I have a feeling my back is going to pay for it tomorrow. Anyhow, The plot is cleared and ready to have the raised beds put into place, fence go up, and finally do some planting!! The last picture is modeled with my cat, Javier. He likes to play in the dirt too! More to come!

Side tracked, but somehow still about mindfulness!

So, I did not get a chance to work on my garden this weekend because I ended up going to Albany so that my dog (yellow Lab), Kya could have surgery. For some reason, I did not foresee her recovery being difficult, so I had planned my whole weekend to visit people while I was there. I got through all my visiting plans until Saturday morning when I went to pick her up. She ended up with ACL surgery which is much like the ACL surgery that people get. She somehow had a partial tear to her left knee and they could not tell me that for sure until they did the surgery. Hence my denial about her aftercare. Her whole leg is bandaged up and she can only hobble around. Laying down and sitting is difficult because she cannot put weight on it and the bandage is wrapped tight so that her leg is constantly extended. Long story, short, we could not stay in Albany because my boyfriend lives on the second floor of his house and I can not carry my 82 lb. dog up and down just to go pee. In addition, this whole thing has resulted in my anxiety level sky rocketing... great time to try out mindfulness right??? Yup, sure is. Man, is it difficult! You see, Kya is like my baby... she is my only child and it is painful to see my only child in pain without understanding why and being so clumsy that she accidentally hurts herself even more. Not to mention the expense of this whole thing! She is normally a VERY energetic, excited, happy, playful dog. She is only one year and ten months old, so she is still very puppy-like and if you have ever met a Lab, you know what I'm talking about. So here she is completely unable to be the dog that she was meant to be! The Vet told me that this was Major surgery and she cannot go off leash for 4 weeks and she has to have this bandage and sutures in for two weeks! She cannot run around nor jump up on furniture. Now, prior to this surgery, Kya jumped on everything... except me. She sat on the couch with me while watching tv or knitting. She slept in bed with me... and now she cannot do any of that either! To explain my anxiety further, last night we went to go to bed and she made a running start to leap up onto the bed. Now, mind you, I helped her up into the bed the night before and back down in the morning. I had every intention of helping her up in the bed, but for the moment, she forgot that she was disabled and went full force jumping up. But instead of landing on the bed, her bad leg slammed right in the side of the bed and she let out a terrible scream as she scrabbled to get on the bed. Now, I can't take off her bandage, and I have no way of telling if she has damaged anything. So I sat in bed with her terrified, for an hour worrying that she has hurt herself further! As I was sitting there, I thought about mindfulness and I tried to think about the present moment and how she was now laying in bed next to me quietly. Then I replayed her leap over in my head and completely attached myself to the worry!!! I went through this several times before finally going to bed. Did I mention that I might have some anxiety??? Yeah, I just really want her to be okay. I was relieved today however after working 9 hours and coming home and her bandages were still intact as well as the bed in her crate which normally she would have chewed to shreds before. Anyway, here is a picture of her with her wrapped up leg. The vet said the techs got bored and decorated her bandages! Yeah, that's a heart and stars in pink and purple!! Not really my style, but cute even still!

The beginning

So, I have begun to take my first gardening steps. I decided to have a vegi garden and after reading "Gardening for Dummies", I drew up a little garden design. I decided to have a 9' by 20' garden. My plan is to have three 4' by 4' raised bed plots with a border going around the whole thing. I have started some seeds indoors using one of the kits (I don't trust myself).
Next, I measured out the plot after choosing the part of my yard that gets the most sun and it's up on a little incline for good water drainage! I staked it out with twine to make sure I got it nice and straight, then dug out the edge with a flat shovel. Not all the snow around here has melted, so I was surprised that it was so easy to dig up the grass. I have also noticed that the dirt is very sandy so I have purchased six bags of garden soil and a soil tester that I'll use later. My plan is to dig up all the grass in the plot, put up a fence (to keep my dog out), and then build the raised beds. It's also important to note that I live in Zone 4 which essentially means that it's cold here, so the growing season is short and not everything will grow here! Therefore, I can't actually plant anything outside until May 15th. So I have some time to get all this done!

What does Mindfulness have to do with, well Anything?

I decided to call my blog site Creating Mindfulness because I wanted to sort of journal my gardening experience. I am for the first time starting a garden. It should be an experience considering I have a difficult time keeping my indoor plants alive, but I am really wanting to make a good effort. So after I thought about writing about Gardening, I remembered that a good friend and my sister have a site about knitting and weaving. So then I thought well I could write about my knitting too! But there is no good title for knitting and gardening together aside from well, knitting and gardening. Then I thought about how I have been exploring the way of life in mindfulness. Mindfulness is the act of staying in the present moment. Sounds pretty simple, but it's not really. Do you ever find your mind wondering off and thinking about something that happened in the past (recent or not) or thinking about what's going happen in the future??? Well, I do. And that is NOT Mindfulness! Mindfulness is essentially being in the present moment, noticing or experiencing what is going on this very moment. Well to do this mindfulness stuff it's important to practice! So I've been trying to practice and the more I do, the more I realize that my mind wonders off ALOT! Anyway, what I have learned is when you realize that your not in the present moment, then your in the present moment, and bringing yourself back is the most important part. So it doesn't matter that my mind is wondering as long as I am willing to bring it back to the present moment. I have also learned that if I find myself talking about mindfulness or in this case, blogging about mindfulness, then I'm not currently being mindful! Tricky isn't it?!? So back to the topic at hand. What does mindfulness have to do with knitting or gardening?? Well, I have decided that these are two activities that I can practice mindfulness in. There is a lot to pay attention to while knitting (especially when your just learning) and there is also a lot to be aware of while gardening. Whether it is the physical work of it or the being aware that the plants need to watered or weeded. So since I am beginning my first garden and tend to slow down on the knitting in the spring and summer, there shall be more to come about gardening and maybe some knitting too!!