gardening
I posted this on another member's LJ, but this is an expanded version:
Most of our property (it's 50 x 100, which is huge for our municipality -- and we unfortunately pay real estate taxes accordingly. $8K annually is obscene. We have a small one-family house, so most of it is back yard, with a decent-sized fenced front yard) now is devoted to roses -- it's an obsession my husband and I share (though we have his and hers gardens, so we don't have to compromise on which roses we buy -- I get what I want, he gets what he wants, and everyone stays happy). We have one 6-year-old peach tree, which gives the best peaches we've ever tasted. I grow Jersey tomatoes and red bell peppers each summer in pots, so I can move them around as needed.
However, we're moving to Florida within a year (hopefully to the Ocala area, where I want to try to get a job at one of the big TB farms. No one will hire this little fangirl to work with their multi-million-dollar breeding stock, but I'm hoping one of them needs someone with my administrative skills -- maybe the Steinbrenners will hire me?), and we hope to be able to buy at least half an acre, possibly more (though the larger pieces we've looked at, while they have newer homes on them, all have well water and septic -- which we've never had to deal with, being born-and-bred city kids -- and Bobby is vehemently against the idea of either a well or septic. I think I could deal with septic, but not a well). Once we have more property (and time to take care of it, since we'll both be retired, though I may work part-time at Barnes and Noble just to keep me in books if I can't get a job at one of the farms), I plan on putting in a large veggie garden. I'm going to need to wrap my head around the differences, though - I'm so used to the short growing season we have in NJ, and I don't know what types of plants I'm used to will do well down there. I think spring-flowering bulbs receive enough of a cold season in the Ocala area, but I'm not sure if broccoli and cauliflower will do well.
It's going to break my heart to leave our rosebushes here, though -- we expanded the rose beds a lot in the past 7 years, but some of the older roses have been in the ground for 15 years (the Tropicana hybrid tea in the front yard is huge, despite being well-pruned every spring -- and it pumps out blooms accordingly). Except for the minis and minifloras in pots, here's no way to take them with us -- they're too well-established to survive the move, and they're on the wrong rootstock for Florida, anyway (Dr. Huey or multiflora, plus a bunch of plants are ownroots -- and for various reasons, roses need to be grafted to fortuniana rootstock to do well in Florida), so the point is moot. We go -- they stay.
I hope whoever buys the property appreciates them -- though I may contact the local rose society and tell the members to come up and take what they want out of the back yard (leaving the rosebushes in the front for curb appeal) before we put the house on the market. Only a dedicated rosarian would want to take care of over 200 rosebushes. We love it, but not everyone is as crazy as we are....
Now, if the weather would only cooperate so I can get out and do my spring pruning! Tuesday is supposed to be nice, so maybe I'll take a half day vacation -- then take the other half on the 16th, so I can come home and watch the Yankees on Opening Day in the Bronx -- I could have gotten tickets to the game, if I'd wanted to spend $1K for the seat. (Yeah, right -- though if I'd hit the lottery, I wouldn't have thought twice.) So I'll plop myself in the living room with a mug of tea and two Jack Russells competing for lap space. A friend is going, so he'll try to get me an Opening Day tee shirt. I have a ticket for the following day -- a rare Friday afternoon game. AJ Burnett is scheduled to pitch that day (CC is the Opening Day pitcher).
I also have a ticket for one of the two exhibition games with the Cubs -- the Saturday afternoon game. I didn't even try to get a ticket for the Friday night game, which is the first game ever in the new Yankee Stadium -- I never go to night games because I go alone (Bobby hates crowds, noise, and going to NYC) and take public transportation to boot (90 minutes from my house to the Stadium, between the Light Rail, PATH, and NYC subway is a lot easier to deal with than Yankee game traffic and trying to park -- and paying through the nose for gas, tolls and parking -- I'd rather take that $$$ and buy a couple of tee shirts). Oh, the ticket for the Saturday game cost me all of $1.10 -- the service charge was more. They rolled back the prices of some seats to 1923 levels. (Funny -- my father went to games in the original Yankee Stadium the year it opened -- he was 8 years old. I wish I could have him with me at games in the new Stadium, though I'm sure he wouldn't be happy that the old Stadium, with all of its history, is being demolished. He died before they broke ground for this one.)
Anyway.... I got tickets for three other games, too -- including one on my birthday! It's the first time they've played at home in several years. I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be. And I'll be spending what would have been the 32nd anniversary of my employment with the City in Yankee Stadium (the Red Sox are in that day) -- what a great way to celebrate being retired.
Most of our property (it's 50 x 100, which is huge for our municipality -- and we unfortunately pay real estate taxes accordingly. $8K annually is obscene. We have a small one-family house, so most of it is back yard, with a decent-sized fenced front yard) now is devoted to roses -- it's an obsession my husband and I share (though we have his and hers gardens, so we don't have to compromise on which roses we buy -- I get what I want, he gets what he wants, and everyone stays happy). We have one 6-year-old peach tree, which gives the best peaches we've ever tasted. I grow Jersey tomatoes and red bell peppers each summer in pots, so I can move them around as needed.
However, we're moving to Florida within a year (hopefully to the Ocala area, where I want to try to get a job at one of the big TB farms. No one will hire this little fangirl to work with their multi-million-dollar breeding stock, but I'm hoping one of them needs someone with my administrative skills -- maybe the Steinbrenners will hire me?), and we hope to be able to buy at least half an acre, possibly more (though the larger pieces we've looked at, while they have newer homes on them, all have well water and septic -- which we've never had to deal with, being born-and-bred city kids -- and Bobby is vehemently against the idea of either a well or septic. I think I could deal with septic, but not a well). Once we have more property (and time to take care of it, since we'll both be retired, though I may work part-time at Barnes and Noble just to keep me in books if I can't get a job at one of the farms), I plan on putting in a large veggie garden. I'm going to need to wrap my head around the differences, though - I'm so used to the short growing season we have in NJ, and I don't know what types of plants I'm used to will do well down there. I think spring-flowering bulbs receive enough of a cold season in the Ocala area, but I'm not sure if broccoli and cauliflower will do well.
It's going to break my heart to leave our rosebushes here, though -- we expanded the rose beds a lot in the past 7 years, but some of the older roses have been in the ground for 15 years (the Tropicana hybrid tea in the front yard is huge, despite being well-pruned every spring -- and it pumps out blooms accordingly). Except for the minis and minifloras in pots, here's no way to take them with us -- they're too well-established to survive the move, and they're on the wrong rootstock for Florida, anyway (Dr. Huey or multiflora, plus a bunch of plants are ownroots -- and for various reasons, roses need to be grafted to fortuniana rootstock to do well in Florida), so the point is moot. We go -- they stay.
I hope whoever buys the property appreciates them -- though I may contact the local rose society and tell the members to come up and take what they want out of the back yard (leaving the rosebushes in the front for curb appeal) before we put the house on the market. Only a dedicated rosarian would want to take care of over 200 rosebushes. We love it, but not everyone is as crazy as we are....
Now, if the weather would only cooperate so I can get out and do my spring pruning! Tuesday is supposed to be nice, so maybe I'll take a half day vacation -- then take the other half on the 16th, so I can come home and watch the Yankees on Opening Day in the Bronx -- I could have gotten tickets to the game, if I'd wanted to spend $1K for the seat. (Yeah, right -- though if I'd hit the lottery, I wouldn't have thought twice.) So I'll plop myself in the living room with a mug of tea and two Jack Russells competing for lap space. A friend is going, so he'll try to get me an Opening Day tee shirt. I have a ticket for the following day -- a rare Friday afternoon game. AJ Burnett is scheduled to pitch that day (CC is the Opening Day pitcher).
I also have a ticket for one of the two exhibition games with the Cubs -- the Saturday afternoon game. I didn't even try to get a ticket for the Friday night game, which is the first game ever in the new Yankee Stadium -- I never go to night games because I go alone (Bobby hates crowds, noise, and going to NYC) and take public transportation to boot (90 minutes from my house to the Stadium, between the Light Rail, PATH, and NYC subway is a lot easier to deal with than Yankee game traffic and trying to park -- and paying through the nose for gas, tolls and parking -- I'd rather take that $$$ and buy a couple of tee shirts). Oh, the ticket for the Saturday game cost me all of $1.10 -- the service charge was more. They rolled back the prices of some seats to 1923 levels. (Funny -- my father went to games in the original Yankee Stadium the year it opened -- he was 8 years old. I wish I could have him with me at games in the new Stadium, though I'm sure he wouldn't be happy that the old Stadium, with all of its history, is being demolished. He died before they broke ground for this one.)
Anyway.... I got tickets for three other games, too -- including one on my birthday! It's the first time they've played at home in several years. I can't think of anywhere else I'd rather be. And I'll be spending what would have been the 32nd anniversary of my employment with the City in Yankee Stadium (the Red Sox are in that day) -- what a great way to celebrate being retired.