40 Day Novena

I found about this 40 Day Novena (7/7-8/15) via the Catholic Unschoolers group, I think.  I am adapting it to suit my life, my personal challenges and failings.  If I did it as recommended, I know I'd never been consistent.  It is extremely hard, nigh impossible, for me to maintain consistency for 40 days straight.  I really think I am ADD and that is how it manifests itself in me!  So I am using this as a excuse to up my game a little bit, but also consolidate things that I have been trying, halfheartedly in many instances, to do already.  We'll see how it goes.  I am thinking even making the effort is part of the spiritual battle! 

My game plan: 

Reflection:

• listen to a homily every day - could be Bishop Barron, Bishop Burbidge, from my own parish, or some other reflection from another priest
• Reading - I am slowly rereading Augustine's Confessions and also reading Compassion & Conviction; The (&) Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement.  I'm also reading a collection of short meditations from Bishop Barron, entitled Centering.  

Prayer:

• Lauds every morning
• Divine Mercy every afternoon (need to set alarm for 3 p.m.)
• Night prayers with my family

Reparation/Penance:

• Confession - I need to quarantine as much as possible until after vacation (to keep my father in law safe) so I will go in early August.  
• Each day I will perform a work of spiritual or corporal mercy.  I am already on prayer requests team from my parish which is a good thing.  Two other things I can do are:  pick up trash around my neighbor when I take walks and remember to buy extra groceries and take them to the drop off at my parish for the food bank.  Next month I'm scheduled to make chicken for the homeless the first Thursday.  I also consider taking my glass recycling to the drop off site a corporal work of mercy since it helps Creation (and I absolutely hate the sound of breaking glass.  Gives me nightmares.  I have to grit my teeth the whole time!).  Conscientious recycling is a work of mercy!  Deliberately choosing to buy ethically and locally even if it is less convenient and more expensive is a corporal work of mercy, I think!  Wearing a mask, even though I hate it, should count too!  I don't hate it for political reasons, I just find it intensely uncomfortable!  I will brainstorm more to come up with ideas I can implement.  It is hard to do something every day in normal times, during CV19 it's even harder but I'll still work towards that goal.
• Consumption of media will be restricted to the following:  facebook for a quick check in with possible posts/messages from family, also I am in a discussion group about Christian civic engagement.  But I'm just going to dash in and out, no hanging out!  I will watch homilies, but that's different, I will still keep up my booktube channel.  That has been nothing but a good thing to me.  But, I will watch only one other booktube channel a day and one gardening/homesteading channel a day.  I often binge watch. I might keep up Instagram because I mostly just post photos of nature or books.  Only takes a minute. No twitter which I recently returned to. No political youtube, no politics anywhere!  I need a breather.  Although, I also am going to attend a maybe three zoom meetings.  Does that count?   Otherwise it would be in person and wouldn't be social media, so I don't think I'll include them.  And they also could double as spiritual or corporal works of mercy because they deal with racism, police brutality and the environment.  I want to restrict the totality of media consumption to one hour a day, whenever possible.  Some days will go over but most days could easily be restricted to 30 to 45 minutes.   Oh dear though.  This is all so complicated!
• Fast from sugar - this is something I regularly try to do but lately have been very bad at.  So I'm going to get stricter about this.
• Abstain from meat on Wednesdays and Fridays.  I try to do this also but often fail utterly!
• Exercise 1 hour a day - this includes walks, gardening, playing outside with D.  However, I also need to stretch regularly and I need to include in this doing at least 15 minutes of housework each day.  I am so lazy.  Outside of cleaning the kitchen and doing laundry, I hardly touch anything.  I wait until someone is coming over or there is some sort of pressure from something to get me going.  It's awful.  If I take a 15 minutes walk with D in the a.m.  Weed for ten minutes, kick a ball around with D or horseplay with him, plus some sweeping, vacuuming, scrubbing, I could get in an hour easily and will probably go over it.  But in truth I probably need at minimum two hours of this low key movement to be healthy.

Bookish Update - 7/5/20

We had a lovely low-keyed 4th of July.  R really outdid himself  He went out on Friday to buy fireworks.  The usual places weren't around and he had to really hunt to find them.  He also is trying to get the hang of his Big Green Egg that he got for Father's Day.  So for the third time he tried smoking ribs.  Ribs are really work intensive, starting the day before.  Anyway this was the most successful attempt so far.  He also got the meat from this local organic butcher shop that we'd never bought from before.  Wow, the meat was really delicious.  The hot dogs made by the butcher shop were the best I have ever eaten.  Man, I'm not kidding.  I am not even particularly a hot dog fan!

But also the 4th of July was sweet because of D.  He played in the big blow up pool with his Mama.  He misses her so much during the week that it was really nice for him to have an extended time with her.  And then she bought him a star spangled pin wheel, an Uncle Sam hat, and some red, white and blue pom pom type things that he loved.  And he ran around playing with them for hours.  He loved Rick's BBQ and then staying up for the fireworks.  He kept pronouncing it as the BEST, DAY. EVER!  LOL.  He is so darling and such an incredible blessing to us.

We ended the day by watching Hamilton, though it is quite long so we only managed to watch the first half.  I had heard some of the music but had never seen it.  It's a weird, anachronistic take on Hamilton's life.  I found it at times quite clever and catchy and other times rather clunky and I kept laughing at the wrong moments which I think annoyed B who is a deeply devoted fan.  I was underwhelmed by Lin-Manuel which surprised me!  But the guy who played King George, and the guy who plays Burr were outstanding.  And Hamilton's wife, Eliza, has the loveliest voice!  I could listen to her all day.  Hopefully we'll finish watching this evening.

Anyway, to catch up on my reading.   I am more focused on my youtube channel than blogging about books here. I love being part of the booktube world.  It gives a whole rich dimension to reading for me.  So I have posted about all these books over there.

Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome:  I find the life of Ransome himself very interesting and would like to read a biography about him.  I got a slow start on this book which is well written and charming but paced slowly and so gentle it wasn't holding my attention until about half way and then I really got into it and wound up finding it quite delightful.  I am looking forwarding to reading Swallowdale, the next installment of the series, some time this month.

A Long, Fatal Love Chase by Louisa May Alcott:  This book was rejected by publishers when she wrote it back in 1866.  It finally got published in 1995!  It is a Gothic romance of an innocent young woman who gets trapped into a bad marriage and her attempt to flee from her evil husband.  It's quite dark in that quaint, Victorian way.  I found it quite enjoyable though it did go on a bit too long.  

John Adams by David McCullough:  Oh how I loved this book.  It was hard to read at times because so much of Adams life actually touches on issues we are living today in the wake of George Floyd protests.  Fascinating and highly readable account of the great man's life which includes his fascinating and great partner in life, Abigail Adams.  I learned a lot.  

*Blogger has updated and now I can't figure out how to link books to Amazon or other sites.  Sorry!

Pretty Garden Photos

Garden Walk

Garden Disarray

Ripening Aronia Berries

My bed of Ox-Eye Daisies

July 2020 TBR

Finish John Adams by David McCullough by July 4th.

At some point continue to read Augustine's Confessions with Ioana.  Depends on her schedule.

The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne

Work:  A Story of Experience by Louisa May Alcott

Persuasion by Jane Austen

Selection of Minor Works by Jane Austen

The Life of Olaudah Equiano

Swallowdale by Arthur Ransome

Compassion & Conviction; the (&) Campaign's Guide to Faithful Civic Engagement by Justin Giboney, Michael Wear and Chris Murphy

Garden Update

Weeds are still my major issue.  Here's what I've done:

• Weeded most of the bindweed and some other stuff too.
• Bought and received my my stirrup hoe and did some weeding.  Works pretty well!
• Also received my Fiskars Weeder which looks dangerous so I haven't attempted that one yet.
• I did a lot of weeding (well, a lot for me!) and had to take it easy for a day because my stupid wrists and fingers get all arthritic.
• Today I push mowed the back yard (which is small).  It was a good workout and so I've taken it easy for the rest of the day.
• Sadly the birds are enjoying our small blueberry harvest.  Sob.
• I also talked to the lawn and landscape co. and they will start mowing the lawn again (J had been doing it all spring while furloughed, but now he's back to work and since they have a reduced crew he's working longer hours so I didn't want to ask him anymore.  And S just doesn't do lawns.  He's not that kind of guy.  I guess I'm being sexist here because I or B could possibly do it too but I just don't do noisy, dirty machines with sharp blades and she takes after me).
• The landscape guys will also take out that bush in backyard
• mow behind our back fence
• cut back along the path in the backyard and put in new mulch there.
• We received the new chicken coop.  As soon as the bush is out, we'll put together the coop and put the chickens there.
• I got a pet sitter for vacation! 

Garden Log - 6/23/20

Today I:

• Weeded in the herb bed and made a slight dent in the Bindweed and Horsenettle.  I also weeded some in the Coneflowers (which were being strangled by the Bindweed) and the Lenten Roses.  There was an empty patch of mulch behind the thyme and rosemary that has been completely taken over by Stilt grass and Horsenettle. It has almost annihilated my Rosemary! It's a big area so I though that would be a place where I could try the smother with cardboard idea.  I tried and it looks woefully inadequate.
• In the afternoon (just now) I had S help me  I broke up more boxes and had him get up into the bed (it is raised and my balance is not good.  Just trying to hoist myself up on the garden retaining wall and then trying to carefully walk between the wanted plants to get to the weeds is impossible for me) and put more cardboard down and also to hold down the cardboard with chunks of firewood because the cardboard wasn't heavy enough to actually smother the weeds.  
• I also cut out the Black Walnut saplings trying to take over the spirea.  At first I only notice one but once I got in there I realized there were several saplings.  I can see portions of the spirea that are starting to die.  
•  I also worked on pulling more bindweed in the Spirea.

My plan is to work 15 or 20 minutes every morning before it gets hot.  And then if the day turns out to be ok weather wise and I have the opportunity to work some more when I can.

I am off to research how to prune a pumpkin plant!

Weeds

Weeds are taking over the garden.  In a no till garden, weeds are supposedly, eventually going to decrease over time because, again supposedly, by not stirring up the soil but by building it through mulch, weed pressures will gradually diminish.  Well, right now we have tons of weed pressure as they call it.  I'm feeling a little defeated.

Here's my overall strategy:

• pull some every morning to at least to keep some under control
• Chop and drop to use as ground cover BEFORE they go to seed.  They seem to go to seed very rapidly before I can catch them.
• Use cardboard to smother really bad areas if I can
• Gardening company will come a burn them away at some point during the summer (but until then I have to keep them from taking over)
• Learn to see if there are any benefits to the weeds.  For instance, we can eat dandelions.

I am trying to learn to identify all the weeds currently invading my garden.

This is a wild morning glory or bindweed.  It strangles out all the shrubs and wraps around everything.  It also grows thorns eventually.  It is a big problem in the front garden.

More bindweed.  It grows super fast.

This, below, is something called Horse Nettle which I had never heard of before and I don't believe I have encountered it in our yard before.  It is nasty!  Very thorny stem which makes it hard to weed without thick gloves.  It grows super fast as well (I guess all weeds do) and it has invaded my herb garden especially.

The photo below actually shows three different weeds that are taking over.  The St. John's Wort with yellow flowers are on the left of the photo. They are supposed to be there! The green clump at the top and the bottom of the photo is wild violet.  These pretty weeds, lovely when in bloom ,are aggressively taking over everything in my yard, my front lawn and all over all other areas of the yard.  I really need to get it under control.  In the middle is a dandelion, which I really feel no enmity toward as it is an early pollinating plant for bees and we do eat the greens from it.  And finally to the right of the photo is creeping sorrel.  I need to research this to see if it has any benefits.  It is a very delicate, low growing plant, very easy to weed.  I don't feel too hostile towards it either.

Japanese Stilt Grass is another major annoyance.  It grows everywhere and so quickly, it is impossible to keep up.  This is the weed I most think smothering with cardboard will work.

Below is Common Mugwort.  I have one area of my yard where I can not get anything to grow except this stuff.  I have been trying to get rid of it over the years and it always comes back, hardier than ever. I might try smothering it with cardboard too. 

The weed below looks innocuous enough.  I think it is called Boneset and apparently it is poisonous to cattle!  How it got in my yard I do not know.  Luckily I do not have cattle to worry about.  I do have a cat who occasionally likes to snack on grass.  Hopefully, he won't confuse the two.  This weed is popping up here and there all over the place.  I just pull it up when I notice it.  It's pretty easy to weed.

The photo below is Fleabane, which has delicate little daisy like flowers, quite pretty.  I haven't been very aggressive about weeding this one.  Will I live to regret my leniency?  I must admit I am a sucker for wildflowers.

Here's a pumpkin volunteer that comes back in the same spot year after year.  Well, maybe it's only been three or four years.  I keep forgetting about it and letting grow wild and it winds up taking over the garden by the Lenten Roses.  This year I am determined to learn how to prune it back so we can get a nice pumpkin for Halloween.

And finally (at least for this post!  I have more weeds I could talk about) this is a black walnut that has decided to grow up in the middle of my Spirea in the front garden.  Black walnuts are toxic to other plants near them, so I had better get this one cut down before he does any damage.