Focus your energy on one thing to be more successful at more things.
It’s all great advice and I have taken it to heart during periods of my life that I felt it all applied.
I admire discipline. I have contemplated getting it tattooed on me somewhere I could see it often. I like to be organized and make numerous lists when I need to get things done. I always like periods of chaos and serendipity.
Where I struggle is trying to put myself in a box. I know the benefits of being clear in your communication with others. Even who you are and what you value should be obvious in your musings.
Where is this contemplation coming from?
I was chatting with my son the other day and he was giving me feedback on my blogs. He loves process and is driven by order. He suggested I narrow my scope of topics and use the website to express specific topics.” It’s unorganized” mom, he said. If I want to read about your dream yoga I have to search for it. Label and tag all of your topics to help with the navigation.
It was good advice. I even attempted to sort through the eclectic stories to file them in order of topics, relations and common themes.
Sigh. Ok confession time. I am interested in anything and everything. My interview to volunteer took over an hour because I was curious about many opportunities and didn’t want to turn down any that might be mutually beneficial. I am a realist and know that it isn’t possible to do it all yet I enjoy the push to try and do more. Sometimes less is more. Being willing to narrow the scope and hone in on projects that enhance your skills sets is golden.
So what is the purpose of a label? I have learned that in order to nurture and attract like minds you have to be able to define your ideas in a common language. I bet you thought I was going to dis on labeling things? Not true. I understand the importance of helping others to steer through your body of work to the place that interests them. The exchange of ideas understood and consumed is heady and very desirable.
I am not everyone’s cup of tea nor do I try to be. I do my best though to think of labels many can understand and relate to.
My son’s feedback was good and I continue to take it to heart as I post my blogs. I won’t guarantee him that I will narrow my topics. He knows me better than that but I will ensure they are labeled in the most scientific way.
Spring is in the air! Literally for me as it’s the time of year I contemplate what I can grow vertically. I am intrigued by garden walls, stackable pots scenarios and the arrangement of complementary plants that can grow together.
A few years ago, while I was knee deep into my shaman exploration, I attended a weekend workshop in Ferintosh Alberta. It was held at an eco farm just outside of the small village. I learned many things about meditating with plants and the creation of infusion, tinctures and solar extraction of plant essential oils. I also learned about vertical options for growing complementary vegetation.
This blog, I want to explore options for how to arrange vertical structures for making the most out of small spaces.
Wall Gardens
My husband and I took a walk around the canal area near Venice Beach in California during one of our adventures. I fell in love with how creative the home owners had become with their small spaces. In particular, the wall gardens. They were created from all sorts of materials. Some were cinder bricks stacked up with the holes facing outward where potted plants could be inserted. Others were made out of landscape fabric with various sizes of pockets attached. You can buy all sorts of premade ones but I wanted one with specific dimensions. I am lucky to have a partner who is game to create whatever I can envision so off we went to build our own version of the Venice inspired garden. We got to work with a couple of 2×4 weather treated boards and some landscape fabric. I sewed the pockets together with my limited sewing machine skills and we assembled it with a staple gun. I fixed it to the side of the shed with some screws and then stood back to admire our handiwork. That was the easy part. The tricky part was finding plants that would not require too much watering. It’s a challenge to keep the plants hydrated in summer with this type of set up. I chose to fill it with succulents for obvious reasons. It turned out to be one of my favorite combinations.
Recycled Air Compressor Planter
My dear husband has a tendency to pick up other people’s abandoned junk. He comes home and asks me what we are going to do with it most often. Being someone who hates to just throw it away I have incorporated a lot of these homeless items into my landscape. Tim got to work making a hole in the two cylinders. We then bolted it to our fence. The depth of the planters created was deeper than the garden wall pockets so I was able to add more soil. I still decided to stick with succulents for easy maintenance.
Propane Tank Planters
Do not attempt to cut holes into propane tanks without the help of a professional. Once we consulted someone we then had 3 holes cut to work with. Hubby bent two metal pieces into a stand that he then was able to attach the tanks onto. The structure stands about 4 feet tall which is ideal. The containers are good sized so I could put bigger plants into them. For now I haven’t attached the planter to any permanent location so it can be moved throughout the yard or onto a balcony.
Other Vertical Planting Suggestions
I have incorporated numerous pots into my yearly garden designs. This way I can move them around. I can bring in the plants that I want to winter over, which sometimes consist of many plants. It’s an easy way to be able to change your mind about vegetation groupings seasonally or anytime you want to use one of your planters as a focal point.
I use lots of vines in my yard too. Along my fences are ornamental kiwi, grapes, Virginia Creepers and a few varieties of Climtas. I have been on the lookout for a Wisteria to add into the mix.
I have several bonsai trees that I put outside during the warmer season and bring into my office and music room in the colder months.
The succulents I use in the planters are recycled into small inside gardens if they aren’t able to survive outside in the gardens during the winter.
However you chose to garden, having at least one vertical option, has added to my enjoyment of nature’s bounty.
Dream Yoga has begun. The little white haired girl braves the stairwell to her core beliefs. Ready & willing to challenge their truths. Let go of the self talk that keeps her anchored in concrete.
The Dream-
I stand in the stairwell of a stadium when I notice a little girl. She seems upset. I approached her. She is blonde, maybe 4-5 years old. She is wearing a little white dress that comes to the knees. She has white socks on. The stairwell is concrete and stark grey. It seems to be placed to the left and is wide enough for us to walk side by side. I ask the girl if she is lost. She replies that I don’t know the dangers here. She says she can’t trust me. I am stunned and quick to negate her. I reply that I am an adult and can help her as well as help myself. She looks at me and gives me the feeling that she doesn’t believe me. She turns away from me and starts walking up the stairs. I hear her snivel and follow her. We continue up the stairs until we come to what looks like a water slide tube. I suggest we take the tube as it will lead us into the stadium faster. She agrees reluctantly. We get stuck in the tube and end up reversing back to the stairwell. She doesn’t seem upset as if she expected me not to be able to navigate the tube. She gets out and starts walking down the stairs this time. We come to a widening area and can look out to the stage of the stadium. It’s empty and there doesn’t seem to be anyone around yet I feel like there are others present. We go back to the stairs and I follow her as she makes her way upward again. I wonder where her parents are and why they haven’t appeared yet. I feel like we have been in every possible position in the stairwell but haven’t seen anyone. We keep walking up and down without any more interaction. I wake up from the dream.
There comes a time in your life when you get curious about who you are. Where your ancestors came from and what part of the human gene pool you belong too.
You hope if you are a bit of rebel like me, for intrigue. Colourful characters that you can, perhaps, relate to and blame for your less than stellar traits.
My son has been asking about our family tree. He recalls a project from grade school where he made a tree and listed his lineage. It was pretty easy to do on the maternal side as my dad was a genealogy buff and did tons of research for the LDS church. The paternal side is a bit more challenging as not much has been done to record and share those bits of the puzzle.
On occasion, after my mother in law had a few liquid bouts of courage, she would recall her experiences in Austria during World War II. She had been sent to a farm with her twin sister to work for food and boarding. It was not a time she remembered fondly. Listening to what happened to her mother and father was heartbreaking. It didn’t come to the surface often for her. I was always willing to listen though and comfort as best I could. My father-in-law’s family is from Germany. I don’t know anything about them but hope that my son can chat with his grandfather to get some bits of the story.
My dad has an interesting heritage. His father was born in England and was one of seven children. Their parents were a butler and maid for a wealthy family. The research tells a tale of betrayal. The butler ran away with another maid and left my great grandmother to fend for herself and the children. She did what most women in that circumstance did in those days and dumped the kids on the steps of the famous Barnardo’s orphanage.
This is where the trail gets murky. The family was scattered across the world. My dad was able to track down all but one of the siblings. My grandfather and his brother landed in Eastern Canada. My grandpa was a character I never met unfortunately. I learned that he had been a Grand Master Free Mason.
My mom’s side of the family was a bit easier to keep track of. She was a Campbell. My grandpa’s family helped bring the pioneers to Western Canada from the Southern States. Further back there are some skeletons in the closet that depending on whose side you take are memories of victory or complete betrayal in the Scottish highlands.
The famous cry of the McDonalds “The Campbells are coming” is even a folk song that depicts the betrayal of the opposing Campbell clan. My history connects to the House of Argyll and Robert the Bruce. The layers of betrayal and greed are interspaced with lessons on survival and family preservation at all cost. It would take years and books to untangle those webs.
It’s a big family, according to Google there are hundreds of thousands of Campbells roaming the earth today.
At my grandmother’s funeral, 350 direct descendants spilled out of the church. We used to have an annual family reunion in the mountains. Camp was like a small city full of relatives of every kind. It is a pleasure to be part of such a prolific clan even if there are some sins of the father to atone.
It’s worth knowing how you got here and the recipe within you that helps to enable who you are.
I know I am made up of warriors, gardeners, artists, leaders, followers, thinkers, enemies and friends. It defines my DNA but it doesn’t define how I manage that gene pool within me.
I admit it has some effect on your natural curiosities. I wondered why I loved to immerse my hands in dirt and develop my gardens. In the past my people were stewards of the land. Designing and lovingly taking care of large public and private gardens. Carving out a living in the forests, eating and preserving the wilderness here in Canada and the Highlands of Scotland.
My grandpa Campbell was an artist who made some of his living from selling his paintings while supporting his own thirteen strong clan. I share his love of art and of collecting things. I inherited some of his coin collections and a few of his paintings which I cherish. I spent my childhood roaming the mountains and forests with my grandparents and extended family. It was a childhood of dreams.
Like the clan of the Campbells, I feel most free and spirited in the mountains and most at home living a nomadic existence.
My son is a data scientist. He has a passion for research and validation of information and data. He took his family tree and is now dissecting it to understand its roots and also try to prove it’s validity. He has suggested some discrepancies in the Argyll threads and has brought forth some interesting theories on a different Campbell line. I am encouraging him to follow his instincts and report back to me.
Perhaps we will learn that our story was different from the present existing version or help to squash any doubt of who we came from.
Either way, I am intrigued to find out. Somethings we don’t need to prove as their are pictures to document the way.
