It may be a rectangular wasteland, but it's mine all mine!

First off, us Wood Street ladies need to apologize for our general blog malaise. It seemed like such a good idea, but things got a bit off track. Maybe it would be more accurate to say we haven't really decided what direction to take this blog in, to loosely carry out a metaphor. In any case, here's what I've been thinking about in the realm of all things hand-made, crafty, and generally involving what I think of as good taste.

First things first. It's finally been consistently above freezing here in the perpetual winter wonderland that is Chicago, so this evening after work I went outside to spread my seed. Seeds. Sorry, typo. Cilantro, spearmint, a mix of 6 types of lettuce, rainbow chard, and something called "bountiful bean". All from Seed Savers. I take a little bit of pride in my rainbow chard, as it's the very one that Barbara Kingsolver mentions being unable to live without in her book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, recently leant to me by my wonderful boyfriend. (Awwww.) I've got some golden cherry tomatoes started in my bedroom/nursery, as well as some basil and arugula seeds I saved from last autumns bounty, which hopefully will get around to germinating one of these days. Leeks are also in sproutling form, but still too tiny to put in the ground. One of these days I'll post a picture of the little plot of earth I've tilled in the backyard, but for now it looks more like a rectangular wasteland of mud, so I'll wait until it's bountiful and adorable.

I love gardening, even though I do it like a crazy person. I'm of the belief that plants naturally want to grow and, if weeding is any indication, you often have to try pretty hard to get them not to. With this in mind, I scatter seeds like a bit of a nut; aiming for some sort of crop seperation, but not really putting very much work into it. I also have yet to buy a watering can, so I've been scooping water out of a pot I fill by hand and dribbling it over my proto-plants. Joined by my lovely housemates, we also tended a bit to the compost bin, which is definitely somewhat out of balance. Our small yard and numerous household chefs make for more green than brown, but we'll get there yet. Yanking all the grass and weeds out of the ground and adding those to the pile seemed to help.

In other, more decorative news... I've started following Bows and Arrows, named for a shop/gallery of the same name in Dallas, Texas. I'm a little unclear still on the dynamic, but I think I'm correct in saying that the team who run it ( and ) are both artists, and she also a floral designer. They have gallery shows and teach floral design classes and generally seem to ooze funky good taste and adorableness. It occurs to me that this might be a life path worth considering. But decisions like these can be made at a later time. But for now, I'll content myself with eyeballing their adorable crafty wares and delightfully textural floral arrangements. I suggest you do the same!