My little piece of country

I am in awe of our little home here in the big city this afternoon. I returned from a beautiful walk with Mollie in the park, worshiped at church with brothers & sisters literally from around the globe (part of the sermon was given in Nepali) and am loving the "bit of country" outside my window and... ta-dah!!... inside my home!!

What is this bit of country, you might ask?? I'll not leave you in suspense any longer, dear friends. It's: A VEGETABLE GARDEN!!! A few of my neighbors adore gardening, so I'm accustomed to enjoying the fruit of their labors in the form of flowers in our front & back courtyards each summer (Drew mows the grass & I weed the front flower beds whenever I can carve out a few hours). This year we've started something new with the association dues. Ever since Drew & I moved in, the building across from ours has been abandoned--with weeds growing in the front lawn. We mow them periodically, but this year our neighbors took a rototiller to it and planted a community veggie garden! So far it's looking great, and we're welcome to the products any time. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers, melons, herbs... love it! We have yet to taste any of the growth but love that we can see it outside our windows day in & day out. A little piece of country on the street.

And a little piece of country inside my home? Here it is:


It's my new windowsill herb garden! I'm hoping the new plants get enough sun (which definitely won't be the 6 hours of direct sunlight that's recommended). If not I'll transplant them to the street garden, but I just love having tasty (and attractive!) greenery around. We have a mysterious inedible plant (left), next to barely enough sweet basil to satisfy my pesto addiction, pineapple mint (it tastes amazing! I plan to make tea with it this evening), a weary cilantro plant, 2 kinds of parsley and salad burnet (which I'd never heard of before but now love in green salads).

In other domestic news? Made dinner for my neighbors who just had their first baby (Thursday!... after delivering dinner I got in some decent baby snuggle time), made new laundry detergent (I swear by the homemade stuff... works great & no phosphates!), bathed & brushed Mollie and now (*gulp!*)... time to tackle laundry.