First of all happy Easter and happy Passover to all who celebrate.
I have been celebrating my birthday this weekend. The big day was yesterday but no need to confine the celebrations to one day! Bookman made me a delicious carrot cake. He also made chocolate chocolate chip and peanut butter coconut milk ice cream. And he gave me a wonderful present, a portable Royal Aristocrat manual typewriter! It has been completely refurbished and is in excellent working order. I can’t say the same thing for my typing skills. It has been since seventh grade that I have used a manual typewriter and early college days since I have used an electric one. The keys are much farther apart than on a computer keyboard and take a whole lot more effort to push! Plus, this old typewriter has no key for the number one or an exclamation point. A lowercase “l” has to be used for a number and a period and single quotation mark combined to make a exclamation. There are no italics and of course, I can’t erase my mistakes. I have no correction fluid in the house, so the lucky people to be the first recipients of my typewriting will have to put up with some typos. It’s a wonderful fun toy.Bookman and I took a bike ride today too. My beautiful new bike, Astrid, continues to do me proud. We are getting to know each other better and better and I like her more and more. We did a 19-mile ride today. Want to know how to go faster? Don’t dress warm enough for the weather! It requires you to pedal faster to keep from freezing. I thought shorts and a long sleeve jersey would be enough but the sun decided to disappear and a light wind blew the whole time and it was only about 50F/10C. When we got home my hands were numb. But it was a good time anyway. And a good excuse for a hot cup of coffee and a big piece of birthday cake!
Seed starting is going fairly well. The onions are doing great, the peppers are beginning to sprout and the
tomatoes too. Today I started twelve pots of basil. I found a new cover for the greenhouse online and it arrived Friday. The greenhouse is set up on the deck and I moved all the seed flats out to it. It stays warm enough inside it overnight that I don’t have to move everything back into the house at the end of the day. And so far it hasn’t gotten hot enough during the day to put the little sprouts in any danger of being cooked. They sit inside, steamy and warm. If the greenhouse were big enough I’d crawl inside it too.Two years ago Bookman and I made two raised beds in which to grow blueberries. We have done everything we can to acidify the soil during that time from adding carbon in the form of leaves and shredded cardboard, using peat moss mulch, and adding a whole bunch of sulfur and watering with diluted vinegar. It is entirely possible that my PH meter doesn’t work, but since the needle does move I’m guessing it works well enough. I’ve been hoping for a miracle all winter, but after testing the PH yesterday and having the needle land just below 7 (it needs to be around 5) I decided the whole blueberry enterprise is just not going to happen. I can’t begin to say how disappointed I am because I love blueberries so very much and local organic blueberries are so very expensive.
In a last ditch move of desperation, I tested the soil in an area of the garden that has had leaves composting on it for two years. My reading was only slightly better than the blueberry beds. Defeated. The small half alive blueberry bushes will be dug up and composted, the raised beds disassembled, the soil from the beds used to fill in Amy Pond and dispersed throughout the garden. I’ll be planting a couple of honeyberry bushes. These are purple fruits that look liked elongated blueberries. The shrub is a member of the honeysuckle family. The fruits have a berry flavor that no one can agree on. Some say raspberry, others blueberry. Some say currants others saskatoon berries. They can be eaten fresh or made into preserves. Most important of all, they do not require acidic soil. It will take a couple years for them to get big enough to produce any sizable amount of fruit but hopefully it will be worth the wait.Meanwhile, around the garden I notice the Siberian squill have put up leaves and will probably be blooming by the end of the week. It is a bit early, but the weather has been warmer than normal. Also up are the bunching onions (green onions/scallions). They are perennials we planted last spring. It’s not quite a big enough bunch yet to actually harvest from, but considering I was not expecting them to come back (I have no idea why) I am happy to see them no matter how small.
My witch hazel is also blooming. It is the common variety and is supposed to bloom in October. It did early on once or twice, but then it decided to change its bloom time to early spring. I have no idea why. I was hoping to see the asparagus I planted last spring popping up but there is nothing yet. I guess it is a little early still. Even when it does come up I won’t be able to pick any because it is too young. I have to wait at least another year or two. Oh the anticipation!
The forecast for the week is for cooler than normal weather with several chances for rain. I’m not happy about the cooler than normal, but the rain will be welcome.
Happy late birthday! Sounds like you had a nice one 😀
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Ana, Thanks! It was pretty good! 🙂
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Happy Birthday! I’m all for prolonged celebrations, but it looks like you’ve been busy too. Lovely typewriter.
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Piningforthewest, thank you! My husband and I joke that the older we get the longer the celebrations should last so that by the time we reach 100 every day will be a celebration day 🙂
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Happy Birthday, Stefanie! I totally believe in celebrating over several days 🙂
What a fantastic birthday gift from Bookman! I really want a typewriter too. Have fun with it!
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Thanks Iliana! The typewriter is so much fun. My poor cats don;t quite know what to make of it. I bet you would come up with all kinds of creative ways to use a typewriter!
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Happy Birthday, Stefanie! And what a wonderful gifts you’ve received from Bookman, both edible and not. That typewriter is vintage, very classy looking. As for weather, I’m sure you’ve had better days than our weekend, which is great for skiers. Yup, we’ve been having February weather this Easter weekend, lots of snow and very cold. But I’m not complaining since we had April weather in February. All the best in your spring gardening!
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Arti, thank you! Bookman is the best. The typewriter is very fun to play with. I even wrote two letters on it already. So very different than using a computer keyboard! Sorry you got snow! What a turn around from the gorgeous weather you had been having. I hope it all melts very soon!
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Happy late birthday. I have an old typewriter, too- I used to write letters on it just for fun. Sounds frustrating about your blueberry bush. When I had a big yard I was planning to get blueberry bushes, but now after some reading I realize it would probably be too difficult to get the soil right. I mistakenly thought lots of coffee grounds would help, but it seems not?
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Jeane, thanks! I wrote a couple letters on mine just for fun. And it is fun! The blueberries are frustrating but it was worth a try. I did dump lots of coffee grounds on them too. I think it would work to keep the soil acidic but when it starts of as alkaline, it is not enough.
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Happy Birthday Stefanie….many happy returns of the day! Here wishing you a wonderful year with all the best books, gardens and Bookman’s fantastic cooking and everything else that you love! I think Bookman’s birthday gift is adorable and so very quaint! It is a fun toy!! Hope you are enjoying re-learning to type the old and original way!
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cirtnecce, thanks! Bookman does alright 🙂
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A very happy birthday, Stefanie, and happy Easter and Passover too! I’m sorry about the blueberries, but honeyberries sound delicious too. 🙂
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Helen, thank you! I knew that failure was likely when I took on the blueberries but I wanted them so badly it was worth the try. I have never had honeyberries before but I’ve heard they are tasty and quite popular in Asia so I’ll let you know!
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Happy birthday, Stefanie! You’ll have fun with your new typewriter. I bought a manual Olivetti this past summer, same deal with the number 1. I think I do have an exclamation mark, but I’ll have to look to make sure. Anyway, enjoy your typewriter and your garden (I’m still jealous of that!).
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Joan, thanks! I wrote two letters on the typewriter already and had such a grand time doing it. If you are ever in the area you are welcome to come and visit. I’m sure I could find something for you to do in the garden 🙂
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Penyrhapus i chi ( that’s happy birthday in Welsh). What a considerate husband you have. Is he available for loan?.
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BookerTalk, I’m glad you said that was Welsh because I thought for a second you were having typing difficulties! 🙂 Thanks for the good wishes. Bookman is a good guy and I am very selfish so I don’t lend him out 😉
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What a gorgeous gift … it looks beautiful. The closest I got to that was a lovely pendant gift from a friend (my birthday was in March) featuring an old typewriter key letter S. I love it.
Good luck with the gardening, and Astrid sounds like a real doll! I’m sure you and she will continue to have many fun times together.
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whisperinggums, Bookman gave me a nice surprise. Your typewriter key pendant sounds wonderful! Gardening is always trial and error and the blueberries were worth a try even if they didn’t work out. Astrid is the best bike ever 🙂
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Happy Birthday! Bookman’s desserts sound delicious! Also I am sorry about your blueberries – but the honeyberries sound good! Let us know how they turn out. I planted some flowers- columbine, dianthus, artemesia – and lavender this weekend and put some good new soil in our raised garden bed. We won’t plant any seeds/herbs/plants in it until after our vacation next week, though.
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Laila, thanks! Bookman is a fabulous dessert maker and cook in general. If the honeyberries do well and taste good I won’t regret not being able to make the blueberries work. You’ve been planting out already? What fun! Oh and have a nice vacation 🙂
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Sounds like a lovely birthday weekend 🙂
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bookgirl, it was, thanks!
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Happy belated birthday! Sorry to hear about your blueberries. Ah well. Gardens. Always a source for pride and despair…
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Nikki, thanks! Yes you got that right about gardens. Hopefully the honeyberries really do make a good substitute for blueberries.
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Happy birthday! That all sounds really lovely. I want a typewriter so bad, but I can’t decide between a vintage one for fun and a more modern electric one that I could actually use for writing first drafts of things (right now I ususally write first drafts by hand to type up later; computers tend to stifle my creativity). I guess I want both!
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Sarrah, thanks! Maybe a Hemingwrite is exactly what you are looking for? I like a manual typewriter because it is imminently portable and doesn’t require a battery or electricity to function 🙂
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That’s a good point about the portability. I don’t know about the Hemingwrite; I will wait until it comes out and hear what other users say before I consider making such an investment. In the meantime, maybe I’ll keep looking for a useable manual typewriter.
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