Gleaning is when you collect excess food or usable items/plants from neighbors, nature, etc.  I have gleaned a bit here and there at various times in my life, got comfortable talking with neighbors and other's when I'm curious to see how flexible they are with their goods.  Now that we have our own home and I can experiment a little more, I think gleaning and trading will come in great use, especially since we live in a semi-rural area and most of our neighbors have livestock and farms.  Some of our neighbors have already brought us corn on the cob, peaches, apples, and cantaloupe.   

During some of our neighborhood walks I noticed a few houses that had tradeable foods, excess on the ground, and things in their yards that perhaps they might be willing to let go of.  One such is a lovely lady who has a couple of walnut trees in her front yard.  The walnuts were littering the ground; hundreds of them, all over the sidewalk, in the road, scattered in the pockets of the grass lawn.  It took a few visits to finally knock and get her at the door in order to ask properly for the walnuts, but when we did finally get ahold of her she was very kind, mentioned that only her husband eats them once in a while, so we were welcome to bring a back and collect a bunch.

Quinn went to school, Perrin and I played a bit, cooked breakfast, took care of a few things, and then picked Quinn up from school.  After lunch Perrin went down for nap and Quinn and I walked to the neighbor's yard, bag in hand.  He worked hard and focused well, collecting as many walnuts as he could around the yard.  We collected so many of them before bumping into the mail lady.  She noticed our walnut gleaning and asked about what we were up to.  I mentioned the asking about collecting them and asked if she wanted some.  Our mail lady was so happy about the little bag of walnuts we were able to give her.  Both of us, the mail lady and myself, have never roasted walnuts and were excited to learn how.  

Hopefully she'll figure it out, and hopefully I will too!

Quinn had a good time and I felt like it was an opportunity not wasted to teach my son about how to find an extra food source.  Though I'm no homesteader, and we're definitely still pretty close to the city and city ways, but I think of our little half acre as an opportunity to start learning and practicing how to be more self-sufficient, and that includes teaching my children as we go.  If I can replace our store bought produce, meat, and eggs, many of our snacks and even some of our juices, I'd be ecstatic!  Collecting walnuts and making good connections with our neighbors is how all of those goals begin, because creating those good relationships within our community is vital to self-sufficiency as well I believe.  Being able to provide for yourself and family when completely alone is great, but you can really thrive if you have a community ready to share, trade, and help one another.

I plan on making homemade bread for our neighbor with the walnuts in return for their generosity.  I don't have a lot more to share yet seeing as we haven't started our own gardens, our chickens, or hunting, but I hope to help other's in the future and get a good community sharing sense going on.  We hope to bring to our neighborhood pears, peaches, apples, grapes, meat from hunting, eggs, chicken, and when our green house is up and running a regular supply of vanilla beans, cacao pods, bananas, and maybe a few other specialty varieties.  

Hopefully we'll get to that point, but today started with gleaning walnuts with my son.  In the end we had 5lbs of walnuts, shells on still, so there's plenty of work to do with them.  Guess it's time to buy a nut cracker! 

I made the last minute decision to go on a hike on Saturday, just a quick one close by at Antelope Island, so Tim and I grabbed our Osprey kid backpack for hiking and prepped both kids, some snacks, water, and of course a bowl and water for our puppy Zoey as well.  We had never been to Antelope Island, despite it being about ten minutes down the street from us, and luckily we brought the $15 cash needed to get to the island, (there was a payment booth to get there).  The lake was pretty empty, I've heard people say it's been getting lower and lower every year and they think it will disappear in the near future, and you could almost walk across on dry land to the island on it's eastern side at this point.

So we drove across the causeway to the island, the day was absolutely perfect blue, clear skies to the mountains on all sides, and the temperature was actually one of the warmest it had been for weeks, which was good because we forgot our jackets completely, including kid jackets.  I know.  I win mom of the year award for that one, hehe.  Quinn was very happy to carry his own backpack, water bottle, and snacks all together, and he was excited to be out in a place where he could jump on rocks and run down trails.  The dog was timid at first but excited as well, the joy of being outside with new smells and scenery was almost overwhelming for our little puppy, and she had to learn to listen while walking on leash all over again.  

While walking the first little way I realized that the simple trail I had picked out, named the Lake Side Trail Loop at the north west side of the island, was heavily used by the Buffalo as well.  I knew there were bison there from when Brigham Young had placed a herd there, I just didn't realize how free roaming they were, or how populated the island was with them.  We had to keep a close eye around the trail's turns and hills, and an even closer eye on Quinn to make sure he didn't run off ahead of us or around any large rock outcroppings.  A few times we came around a corner and found a bison not thirty feet from the trail, staring us down.  Even at the very end of the 4.8 mile hike there was one point at which we had to leave the trail and give another feeding bison a large buffer.  It was about ten feet from where we had to walk and I decided I wasn't in good enough shape to run at 40 mph for any length of time.  That's how fast they charge after all.

As we made our loop around the west side of the trail's loop there were some fantastic views out over the water and down to some of the beaches.  It was hard not to take pictures constantly, especially when we let Perrin out about halfway down the trail and he just started hustling, running down the trail as fast as he could without biffing it.  He made it for a while on his little baby legs, but eventually just flopped down time and time again, not crying of complaining, his stubby legs would just give up every five or six steps and we decided to stick him back in the pack.

Quinn really surprised me on the hike!  I was expecting to have to turn around after a mile or two, but Quinn didn't complain until the very last quarter mile.  I was really proud of him, almost five miles carrying his own pack and everything!  For a five year old I think that's great!  We only stopped twice to drink some water and the kids ate lunch in the car on the way back.

One of my favorite parts of the hike was actually how the sunlight seemed to make some of the bushes glow.  The fluff from the seeds was so thick that the light shining through them became so soft, giving the bushes halos everywhere.  I'm more of a deep dark woods and alpine terrain girl, but the sage and prairie was lovely that day.

Tim and I are considering getting a yearly pass just because the park is so close and we can practice hiking there in the afternoons, as well as snowshoeing.  I don't think I would go running there though, just because of the number of large aggressive buffalo, but maybe in some of the rougher trails, or if you get up there in elevation they might dither out a bit in numbers, making it not as much a risk. 

You know, it's kind of funny, I'm not so sure there are any antelope on Antelope Island, but we did see a lot of Bison!  I'll have to do some research and see if there are any antelope left.

Sorry, this post is a little bit of a downer, but I felt the need to write about it, let it out a touch.  If you're having a hard time with depression or something please don't read this.  It won't help, it's not a boost.  I'm having a hard time just writing it and being willing to share it with ANYONE else because people have this opinion of me that I'm always happy, or that life is fine for me, or that I don't get depressed or sad because I'm a strong person.  All of those assumptions are completely wrong, so this post is more of a little bit of what life is actually like for me.  These feelings plague me, even as I work to remedy them year after year after year.

I promise I won't continually write posts like this.  I just needed to get this one out.  Maybe other's feel the same way.

When I was younger, pre-teen to teenager and even into early adult life, I had friends, some very different from who I was and what my beliefs were, but they were wonderful to me. I had a few really good friends that I loved spending time with.  They meant the world to me!  We had similar interests, loved to do similar things, uplifted each other, motivated each other, and I made a huge effort to be there for them, and some of them, though very few, made a similar effort for me.  I really didn't feel alone during those days, I felt like I could share my thoughts and feelings about things, that if I was in need there was someone there that understood me, that would jump to help me just like I would for them.  And by jump I mean I would fly, take a train, road trip, whatever needed to help out those friends.  I would drop just about anything to help them on a moments notice if they were in great need.  All other things could wait, and once in a great while one of those close friends would do the same for me.  I loved them so much.

I don't know what happened, but they're all gone.  

All the middle school and high school friends, all the college friends, mission friends, and I've come to the conclusion that I don't know how to make friends anymore because I try to at church, or even outside of church, and everyone is so busy with life that I become an acquaintance to everyone rather than an actual friend I can sit down and chat with.  No one wants to talk with me, very rarely do people reach out to me unless they want something from me, which I'm happy to help!  I love helping people, especially when they ask for it and I genuinely find other's stories interesting and worth my time, but at the same time, I don't have anyone like myself to talk to, to connect with regularly, to relate to or just have fun with anymore.  There's no 'girl time', no 'going out with friends', no 'gotta help my friend out with-' or 'my friend is coming over to help out'.  People gloss over me for the most part, and no one seems to have energy to connect anymore.  I'm just another face and old memory.  I feel like most my old friends treat me as if I'm already dead or something; they forget that I still live. 

There's a lot of 'I' in all of this, and that idea often flitters through my brain, because I've been taught to look outside myself; perhaps other's feel the same way and I can break the trend?  Maybe I can be the friend that someone else needs.  Maybe I can lose myself in serving and thinking about others.  I should be the one to reach out to others who need the same thing.  I've heard all of those paths mentioned from other people, and my brain regurgitates them often. So I try them; I try to reach out to new people at church or at my kid's school, or neighbors again and again and again.  I try to get in contact with old roommates, mission companions on occasion, or even high school friends.  I try in little ways at times as not to 'bother' them or interrupt their lives too much. I want to create bonds, I don't want to make a nuisance of myself.  

Apparently none of that works, or perhaps it made those people feel special and happy inside but I have no idea because they don't ever contact me back, or if they do it's a quick reply, almost as if they are trying to be polite but aren't actually interested in chatting with me.  At all.  Once in a while I'll get to chat with a person that seems like they'd be a great friend, and we really connect the few times we get to chat, but then long stretches go by where they become busy and I don't want to add more stress than they already have, so I wait and hope they remember me.  Usually they don't.  Or if they do they don't make any effort to contact me.  

So for the most part I cry to myself, I go out by myself (to the grocery store mostly), I read about other peoples accomplishments in art or family or other things that interest me, and I keep it all to myself.  Unless I call my dad and talk his poor ear off.  I've dragged my husband a 'bout from time to time but I can tell he dreads going and doing some of the things I really want to, so then I just feel guilty and don't bring him or don't go at all.  I pray for Heavenly Father to send me a friend, to help me find someone, to help me make those connections again.  I've been praying for a few years now.  Not much has happened, but I'm trying still because sometimes the Lord expects us to be patient.  I just hope I don't have to wait until heaven.  I don't want to feel alone that long.

My husband is an amazing man, and most the time I can chat with him about something basic; games, politics, opinions, home reno, travel ideas, dealing with kids, retirement, hiking, armored combat league, but when it comes to the things that I'm really excited about, books and my stories, events, art stuff, animals and personal goals and dreams, they aren't as relatable to him and it's hard to get in depth.  Yes we laugh and share things, yes I love him and feel loved by him, and yes I trust him, but he has his own areas of interests and I think it's hard for him to see the importance in me pursuing my own interests as well because they are so different from his own.  I'm not mad at him, nor do I think it a terrible thing that he likes such different things and doesn't understand my likes all the time, I actually encourage him to pursue the things he loves, and sometimes he tries to encourage me too, though I think he regrets having to take the kids when I do paint.  They aren't exactly mild children.

So at this point I have no one, I don't feel the encouragement, I don't feel the deep connection with others like me, I don't feel like I have anyone that really understands me at all, and most the people I reach out to don't realize how desperate I am to just have a friend.  A close friend again.  Someone that calls/texts me back, that wants to make an effort to be there as well, that plans outings and such, with or without kids, to gallery events or fairs, or just to try a new market or go shopping for a bit.  Or even to just sit down at a restaurant or café and just talk!  I loved having art buddies because we could share information and were always so excited to progress and learn together.  One of my best friends wasn't even an artist, but we loved so many of the same things that it didn't matter at all.  We had so much fun, we laughed so much, and always looked forward to getting together.  We spent years like that!  After I got married it was like she disappeared though, as if she didn't want to reconnect with me, not even when we had young kids around the same time, and she never reached out to me again.  Responses were simple replies that showed she obviously didn't feel like chatting with me.  It hurts a lot, thinking about that.  To me she was still one of my best friends and I still thought we had so many years to share as such, but apparently she didn't think the same.  I really miss her.  

I think often about the past, probably more than I should, because I feel terribly alone and heavy these days and it doesn't help.  

I am my only motivation within my little artworld now, along with all the ghostly, encouraging echoes of strangers I've met at events and markets where I've shown my artwork.  My ambitions to write during National Novel Writing Month and draw during Inktober each year are held up by myself alone until I realize no one else cares or seems to notice my goals (despite them being mentioned), so I let them slip away to deal with the crying, whining many needs of my children and husband, just to have someone ask later, "oh, weren't you doing that?", and then comes the sorrow and pain, knowing that it had been a goal, one I looked forward to, but no one else around me really understood, so it was seen as being something selfish and I end up feeling guilty about it...and yet people still think I am able to accomplish those goals.  It makes me want to scream sometimes!  How does one get anything good done in life without any encouragement and instead with constant guilt trips and interruptions by the ones you love?  But you are still expected to accomplish the thing in the midst of all of that. How do you even find the motivation when you are all alone and everyone else thinks of those goals as frivolous, or something to be forgotten?  I can't magically pull extra hours from the day, and when it's just for myself it's hard to say not to the needs of those around me in order to accomplish anything personal.  

I really need a friend again.  I miss the ones I had badly, and I want to be their friend still, but some of them don't want to be friends, some of them hate me and blamed me in the past for their sorrows, which doesn't make a lot of sense when I try to encourage others, especially when they made the choices they did.  Some of them have their own difficulties they are trying to deal with, which is completely understandable and I wish I could help them, but at the same time that leaves me with no one.  Some of them I spend sincere, deep moments with, but once I'm out of eye sight they forget I ever existed.  They don't realize that friendship and connections mean more to me then that.  I've expressed wanting to get together with many of them, and they say they'd love to.  And then they never reach out again.  I see everyone's posts on social media, all their struggles and happy moments that they choose to share, posts about family and friends and accomplishments.  Plans and hopes and dreams and exciting and tough moments.  I see them often enough, and I hate going onto social media now, because it says I have over 500 friends, but no one reaches out to me for years.  I make a post once in a blue moon and not a single person I would usually call friend makes a comment or a like.  They don't even check to see how I'm doing.  No one. The people that do show encouragement are a few distant family members who I am trying to slowly create more of a bond with.  I don't think they realize how much their comments and encouragement mean to me, because there is literally no one else.  I am so grateful for them!  

So now I'm at a cross roads; either I keep accepting the easy excuses, which are very acceptable for the most part, that everyone else is just too busy to be my friend, that they have their own difficulties and trials they're working through, or that maybe I just need to put forth a bit more effort.  Or the second road; I recognize the pattern in front of me that keeps popping up time and time again, and realize that people are polite but actually don't want to be my friend, or don't want to connect with me, for some reason or other that I don't understand.  That perhaps I'm more easily forgettable than I had thought before, or that I'm some sort of burden or difficult to be friends with. And I'm not saying all that to be depressing, but honestly, sometimes I wonder if there is something about me that makes it difficult for others to be my friend, or maybe its some sort of commitment problem people have, or maybe I'm just not reaching out enough and I have to be annoying to find friends these days.  

I have no idea.  

In the end, honestly, I just miss having friends. I miss having someone to talk with, someone to relate to and that is excited about spending time doing some of the same things as me.  I don't like being the person that has to constantly drag my family out to do anything, I want someone else that's excited about things as well to talk with again.  Is that too selfish of me?  There's still a lot of 'I's' in there, but a good friendship goes both ways, so honestly I want to give as well, not just receive.

And if you are one of my old friends reading this, I miss you.  I don't think bitterly about anyone, just that I wish they would talk with me once in a while, share their lives a bit, let me know how they're doing.  I just miss you, no matter who you are.

Also, for family that reads this, I ALWAYS love talking with you guys, it makes me feel loved and not so alone.  So feel free to reach out at any time you feel like chatting, I'm here for all of you and love you guys so much!      

Large leafed indoor plants are some of my favorites; I have several varieties, and a list of others I would like to add to my collection, but there is one that I have loved for some time now, and have found it the most difficult of plants for me to keep.  

Calathea Orbifolia.

To be honest, all calatheas have been difficult for me actually, including the Calathea Warscewiczii that I inherited from my sister (THANK YOU FOR THE PLANTS!).  It is just about dead and I'm about to repot that sucker and start from scratch with what I know just to try and bring it back from the brink.  But the plant I really love is the Orbifolia, and I HAVE to figure it out!  It has the most beautiful wide dark leaves with silvery stripes running through it, and I love how full it is, just like my monsteras.  

The first Calathea Orbifolia that I purchased was a little tike with about ten leaves on it, none larger than the palm of my hand, and it had a new curled up leaf getting ready to pop out.  I was so sure I would be able to keep it alive, especially after raising a lemon tree from a seed, keeping and propagating four vanilla vines into twelve long vines, and watching my first cacao tree branch out into a true mini tree.  I had raised difficult tropical varieties of plants in the cold of Connecticut, Oregon, and then into Utah.  My knowledge is not complete, but how hard could a plant bought from hardware store be?

Foolishness does not come close to how bad my choice was.  My understanding of this plant has been tested over and over and over again, and I found that I had not prepared sufficiently before buying it.  Obviously this was an impulse buy, and later I found out while doing research on my then dying plant, that though it is being to be sold commonly, it really is not happy in dry climates, climates that get cold at all, too little sun, any direct sun, the soil must hold moister but also must drain very well, needs fertilizer ONLY during growing season (which varies depending upon your climate), and any fertilizer that is given must be in extremely low doses once a month, plus if you give it too much fertilizer or fertilizer out of season it will hate it.  Humidity MUST be above 50%, preferably higher, and temperatures preferred between 65 degrees Fahrenheit and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, but likes life closer to 75 degrees.  Also, filtered or distilled water is a must, nothing else will work.

In essence, if I screw up any of that above my plant will not grow, will start to die, and will shrivel up.  Even if I do it all right it might still shrivel up.  Or so sayeth the experts online.  

Pretty much I have a love hate relationship with this plant, because I've had the one for a year now.  A YEAR!  And for the first time I watched one of it's leaves grow taller, uncurl and perk up.  I had a humidifier on it for most of that year, it took forever to figure out what kind of light it actually wanted, because it doesn't want deep shadow but at the same time it's leaves would yellow and the whole plant would throw a temper tantrum if it ended up with ANY direct light.  I finally got into a better habit of watering it with filtered water, which is somewhat annoying, but all my plants are happier with it, so it takes almost an hour to produce the filtered water enough for all the plants and water them.  Oh well, at least they're all thriving!  Kind of...

Anyways, I've finally added to my plant a plastic base with rocks in it for the pot to sit on and a bunch of water in with the rocks to raise the humidity level.  I have a humidity/temperature reader right next to the plant just to keep an eye on it.  I've found a spot in my house that the plant seems to enjoy sunlight-wise.  Now I just wait, right?  

While waiting... I bought another Calathea Orbifolia from the grocery store of all places.  They really shouldn't sell these at regular stores, it just brings depression into a person's life when they buy them then watch them die within the month.  This particular orbifolia is about four times the size of my current baby; sometimes if you buy a more mature plant it has a better chance of surviving.  I've had it only a few days now and it seems perky and has a few new curled up leaves waiting to climb upward and open as well.  

I put it in my normal mix for regular potted plants that need some extra drainage; a mixture of basic indoor potting mix put together with a cactus mix.  The potting mix allows for proper nutrients and will trap moister because of it's material, while the cactus mix breaks up the potting mix into moister loving clusters that the plant enjoys, rather than allowing it to be one giant soggy mess.  I've found great success in this mixture with most my plants, including my fruiting tropicals and my normal house plants, such as my philodendrons, pothos, maranta, and a whole slew of other ones.  How I cover my plant's individual needs is through fertilizers, water pebble trays or humidifiers, and placement to sunlight.  Almost all of my plants are also in ceramic or glazed ceramic pots depending upon their needs.

Back to the Calathea Orbifolia; I have two now.  A baby plant and a 'teen' plant.  The teen will be my test subject now.  Transplanting it from a plastic pot into a clay pot has occurred, with a nice mix of Audrey's custom soil blend, a plastic pebble and water tray placed beneath.  Let the experimenting begin!  The first one is with fertilizers; I usually trust Logee's suggestions on general care and fertilizers, which for Calathea in general they suggest a 15-15-15 or lower balanced fertilizer.  I've bought a 10-10-10 to try out since I couldn't find a 15-15-15 at my local store.  They also suggest a water-soluble fertilizer.  Mine is not, but I can always dissolve it before adding, or I can follow some suggestions and add the sprinkling of fertilizer farther away from the base of the plant so as not to burn the root system.  

I really want to see a tiny bit more growth out of the plant first, showing that it has adapted to it's new pot and position in our home, then add the fertilizer a tiny bit at a time.  I'll try to keep record of this experiment, especially since I want to figure out how to grow and propagate these tropical varieties in a colder climate.  I'm sure it can be done!

As my two Calathea Orbifolia grow or decline I will add updates.  I can't help but want to figure this out, maybe because it's a puzzle, maybe because of my pride at having kept everything else alive and flourishing, or maybe it's just because I really like this plant.  Maybe it's all those reasons, either way I'm going to keep at it until I get it right! 

Update: my Calathea Warscewiczii was dying, I decided to pull it out of the pot, double check it's roots for rot, separated it into three parts from the dead section, found that it was gobbling up water VERY quickly, potted it into three different pots, and am now waiting.  They aren't very happy, not even after four days.  I think I'm going to have to scrap this experiment, but I have one more thing I want to try; I'll pull one out and put it in a vase with water as if rooting it again.  I think I might have some luck with it, but only time will tell.  They look terrible right now.