Clearing the clutter

Greetings!
It's been a long, grueling few weeks, but a bit of oolong tea really helped! Each time I've been faced with a traumatic life event, what is reinforced is how important it is to have a sense of normalcy. Being able to make my tea in the morning is just one thing that does that for me.

We began the clean-up process at our property. It is a slow process and I am not the most patient person on the planet. While I try to complete orders as quickly as possible, I must admit it is difficult to focus. I am one of those people who does not like clutter (physical or mental). It feels so great to clean things out. My mental clarity returns. In my former life, I would tell students that I got more accomplished in the wee hours of the morn than most people did all day. When I have no clutter. My focus is keen. In fact, my nickname was Keen Kori in my former career.

It is frustrating to see all of the damage to our property. There, I wrote it down, thought it and said it aloud. Now, I can move on. We are making great progress getting the outside to look like it once did. Trees have been chopped and chipped. Piles of debris are being cleared. And, today, I was inspired! There is a flower garden just to the south of our main house. It was destroyed. I mowed it a week or so ago. Today, I looked at it and for the first time it occurred to me that it does not need to be there. What?

Now I have a vision of what the garden on the south side should be and just how it should be expanded. The blending building is a bit further south and slightly behind the main house. Our original plan was to create a path from the drive to the door of the building. The grass is slowly dying because of the vehicles that have to drive to the building to make repairs. What better time to recreate the space into a larger, informal garden with a winding path to the door? Better still...no more mowing on the south side of the house! We are always exploring ways to reduce how much lawn maintenance we do. So, I discovered one more up side to a bad situation. Yah!

While we won't be able to host our afternoon tea on the lawn this year, we are looking forward to doing it next year. Maybe the new garden will even be established! That would be very cool!

In the meantime, come visit us at the downtown farmers market each Saturday from 8 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. As always, samples are free.

Peace.
Keen Kori

p.s. Email is the most reliable way to reach me. My phone messages go to my email so do leave a message. If you include an email addy, then you will hear back faster. If you do not hear back from me in 24-48 hours either by phone or email (and it's not the weekend or a holiday) then it is a safe assumption that I did not receive your message.