A year ago : construction and deconstruction

 What was happening here a year ago? The primary task was completing the renovation of the studio (previously a three car garage, then a pottery studio) into a new apartment for Leto and Kade. Secondary to that was trying to wrap up the gardening year. And that was all squeezed in between full days of work for Cornell University (Dept. of Food Science). 

The apartment was being renovated on a shoestring budget. Originally Leto and I had planned to have one of our favorite Amish contractors do the majority of the work. Unfortunately his timeline, Leto's absence and our budget ran into a brick wall. The last time I tackled any serious construction, I was in my twenties and had a body that was still invulnerable. Needless to say, last autumn I came face to face with the consequences of age and disability. Everything that was hard before was so much harder! 

Building a kitchen out of a space that previously had held kilns and shelves full of pots

 

This bedroom space had previously been our gallery. I did my best to retain as much of Nancy's incredible paint job as I could.

As the construction progressed, I was faced with sorting through and disposing of all the things that took up space in the apartment. In most cases, they were things we used back when we ran the pottery studio, or when we first moved into the house. These objects were usually weighted down with the kind of pathos that makes for a great therapy session to go along with the trip to the dump. Coming across things like our kayak roof rack cradles brought tears to my eyes. How to explain what life was like before September 2009? We would kayak multiple times every week during the summer. Sometimes we would leave the kayaks on the roof rack the entire month. After the surgical debacle that resulted in my coma in 09, kayaking was not an option. Too many abdominal muscles involved and too much risk. Saying goodbye to something as simple as a roof rack part was a sudden reminder of where we had been when the door of that life slammed shut. 

Bit by bit, with the apartment taking shape, there was time to stop and take note of how the seasons were changing. Despite the chilly nights, the garlic beds, overseeded with cilantro and poppies, were doing their darndest to grow. I have always been under the assumption that cilantro was a fragile annual that needed summer warmth. Turns out, I was completely wrong. It genuinely likes the cold weather! We have been saving these cilantro seeds now for the past few years and I assume some of that cold tolerance is being passed along. 

There really is something incredibly indulgent being able to pick little bits of cilantro in December.

 

Seeds collected earlier in the autumn were ready to be sorted and put away for the year. A few types of seeds were ready to be winter sown. Last December was my first attempt at trying to grow species iris from seed. I wish I had done more research about their germination needs.

Winter sown seeds, labeled and waiting for winter!