How Does Your Garden Grow? Part II

When garden planting time rolled around this year we did so very conservatively, keeping in mind we planned on moving this summer. This way there will be less to clear away when we leave. This is my favorite time of year, and one of my favorite things to do is to fill up the garden and flower beds with beautiful green growing things. I'm having withdrawals.

We've had so much rain lately that weeds are popping up like...well, weeds. The garden barely starts to dry out before it rains again. I wasn't able to get out there to weed for a long time. Last week I finally completed the task, and found that many of the "weeds" are volunteer poppies, tomatoes, and one solitary sunflower. I left them wherever they were if not smothering rows. There were hundreds of them, and more pop up every day.

The original tomatoes and peppers were sadly all killed off by a hard frost we had a few weeks ago, but have been replanted. All but one plant are oddly short, but are full of blossoms and little tomatoes have set on.

Other than that all we planted were onions, radishes, kohlrabi, and peas. All can be harvested fairly early in case we leave.

Three weeks ago

Last week.... From left, kohlrabi, peas, volunteer plants, and onions. Both rows of radishes have been pulled already on the far right. Caged tomatoes and the one pepper plant are on the far end.

Today

My flower bed west of the house is filling up with thistles and nightshade, so I need to get a shovel out and do some damage there. I have to admit, I've been tempted to give Eli the go-ahead to mow it all off. My poppies have bloomed gloriously already and are now bare stalks with the knobs of their seed pods bobbing humorously in the breeze...or under the weight of rain drops, more appropriately.

The little bed by the deck that has been home to our cherry tomato plants for the past four years is a mess of volunteer tomato plants.

It's sad seeing all these spots grow wild and out of control. The money I usually spend on flowers is being saved for the new house. There are no pretty hanging baskets on the front porch; even my geraniums by the back door are still in their winter pots for easy removal (surrounded by even more volunteer poppies). The time I usually spend weeding and planting is being used to pack and patch and paint. I wander through greenhouses and garden centers aimlessly, just to smell. Maybe I should have planted a few things here and there anyway? Who knew that this house deal would take so long?

How Does Your Garden Grow?

Limbo

Occasionally when I rise for the day the thought occurs to me that it's been a while since I wrote anything...a blog post...a letter...even my most trusted confidante, le journal, has been sorely neglected since March.

SO what has been going on around here? We've basically been in limbo, waiting. It's hard to think of anything else, and everything I do seems hinged on the thought if we move this summer. I'm sure my poor Mom, my poor friends, and especially my poor husband are fatigued of hearing it all the time.

"If we get the house I'm going to..."

"If we move I can do this...."

"What do you think about this if things work out?"

And especially the: "You are not going to believe what just happened with the house deal!"

I, too, am exhausted by the thoughts swirling around in my head, and try as I might to distract myself, there they are. I think I'm growing an ulcer over the situation. If we don't get a definitive answer one way or another soon we may have to invest in counseling. As much as I fear the whole thing falling through and getting stuck in this tiny house even longer, knowing something would at least eliminate the nail-biting.

You may wonder what's taking so long to finally close on the new house. As I mentioned here, things rarely work out smoothly for us, and mostly don't go the way we want at all. This time is no different. We are far from being mortgage experts, but we've definitely been getting a crash course these last couple years.

We thought it was worth trying for a VA loan (since Eli is a veteran) for their lower fees and interest rates. The bank that offered us the loan was out of state, which presented a whole new set of difficulties. Paperwork was over-nighted or emailed, and VA loans take extra-long anyway. And then we lost our first loan officer, and no one informed us. After over two weeks of not being able to contact him I found the number for the bank manager and learned he was no longer with that bank. We had been assigned a new loan officer. I also learned that day that the government red-tape associated with VA loans was going to take too long to hurdle; we didn't have time to get everything done (including repairs) before closing at the end of June.

We switched gears, and found a local bank for a conventional loan. A week into the mortgage process I made a call to see why things weren't moving forward, and we found our newest loan officer was also "no longer with this bank". What are the chances that this happens to us twice in a row? What is going on?

We are now on our fourth loan officer, and awaiting another appraisal. The contract was extended and closing is now on July 29th. Loan approval rests on the new appraisal. I'm not sure why it wouldn't go through, but...you know how things go around here. We should know by the end of next week what direction this is going, but then again, I've thought that before too.

We have started packing, patching nail holes, and painting. Think positive, right? Only now I'm having to run to the garage to dig through boxes and totes for things I didn't think I'd need until we were in a new house. Walls and cabinets are bare. I will not tell Eli I'm kinda relishing the more minimalistic look around here for a change....

Because of all the rain we've had in the past couple weeks, and because a creek forms the northern property line of the "new house", I drove past the house yesterday to see if there was sitting water anywhere. Thankfully the creek was still safely within its banks. I'll leave you with a couple shots I took of the creek and yard, as visible from the road.

St. Joseph, please get us this house!