The Up Side of Moving

Roses and a peony from our yard

I posted a while back about how moving across several states still felt like same-old same-old. I was still doing the same things, just in a different house. The neighborhood still felt the same in most ways. We're mostly unpacked now, I did find the box of Tupperware that was missing (mislabeled as someone's clothes) and my measuring cups (inside the rice cooker) and the last few plastic cups and dishes (inside my canning steamer). The house is feeling like home. The animals and kids have adjusted. We did lose one cat, Chunkalicious passed away from kidney failure, but he was sick when we moved and we knew it was just a matter of time. Poor kitty. We did our best to make him happy while he was with us.

Now for the positive side of moving. We got rid of a lot of junk, but we've replaced it with new junk better suited to our new house. I'm loving the house and the neighborhood and, especially, the weather. It's warmer here. We've already uncovered the pool in the back yard, cleaned it, figured out how to treat it with the proper chemicals, and found plenty of floaty toys. We started swimming in late April. Back in Utah, our yard would still have had snow on it! We'll see if the warmer weather remains a good thing through the summer. It's supposed to get really hot here. So far we haven't resorted to our AC though it's been up into the 90s a few times already. Our house stays fairly cool.

The biggest thing I'm loving here though is the yard. I'm gardening again. Having sandy soil helps. It's much easier to dig up than the clay hardpan of our last house. We're in a different gardening zone so some of the plants I've wanted to grow for years are finally possible. I found out yesterday that there's even a palm tree that's hardy enough for our area. I'm thinking tropical oasis in our back yard. I've already put in rhubarb, raspberries, currant bushes, elderberry bushes, other berry bushes, roses, irises, a bunch of other flowers and herbs, and even a reblooming lilac bush. I'm excited to see how they grow.

My hubby put in raised gardening beds for me, too. I've got them full of tomatoes, squash, melons, peppers, okra, and popcorn. I still need to get Marigolds growing in them to help ward off the bugs. We also started worm buckets. The idea is that you have a bucket for kitchen scraps, lawn clippings, dog poop, cardboard, and a few other things that the worms can crawl in and out of, eat the stuff in the bucket, and turn it into compost that they spread into your garden. I got the idea here. We have plenty of kitchen scraps and other stuff and we have plenty of sandy soil that needs compost added. Why not get worms to do the work for us? I'll keep you posted on how that's working.