My Life May be Crazy Right Now — But I lost 5 Pounds

The view of the Coloma valley from our back deck — I’ve died and gone to heaven…

So where the hell have I been?? Certainly not writing on my, poor, neglected blog. Okay, so while I finished The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Small-Space Gardening, I was also working on the edits for Hobby Farms: Small-Scale Rabbit Raising…and packing and moving to one of my favorite places in California — Gold Country (Sierra Nevada Foothills)! We’re now living on our little micro-farm at Hawk Hill.

Here’s part of the terraced potager. I can SO work with this, muahahahahaha.

Thirteen to fourteen years ago we lived out here and it’s been “home” ever since. So we were tickled pink to be moving back. We’re now out of the suburbs and have 5 acres of land to mess around with…can you even imagine what’s going on inside my head? The funny thing is that you’d be amazed at how much small-space gardening is still involved. I have a small, hillside-terraced potager which will be the first garden I’ll tend because it’s fenced and hot-wired to keep the deer out. Yup, we’re gonna have a face-off with the deer now. I also have containers on my back deck because it’s safe from the deer, as well.

Hydrangeas at the top of the potager.

Out front at this point, we have to carefully select ornamentals and veggies alike and plant those that are deer-resistant. Notice I said deer-resistant as there really isn’t any such thing as deer-proof. But I’m having a run of good luck do far. Not only is it gorgeous, historical, and right above the American River (white-water river rafting!), but I once again have my horses home.

Ya gotta love my mare’s fly mask…

If you’re a horse person, you’ re smiling right about now ‘cuz you get it. Right after we moved (about 3 weeks ago) the book edits came back for Small-Space and of course, I had online articles to work on in-between. Did I mention that in the middle of everything my kids and grand kids came to visit us from Tennessee for two weeks? No time for breathing — or eating. And I dropped 5 pounds off somewhere.

Yeah, so that’s where I’ve been: in Crazyville. But, a good kind of Crazyville.

I hope you guys will hang around because I can’t wait to share my gardening escapades as I start my gardens all over again!