Ri-Ri's Nowhere

07/10/2023

I present.... bonzai carrot...

07/07/2023

A story of wild berry and fuchsia bread told in four pictures.

07/04/2023

Every garden needs a crew of predators to help with pest control. This guy is more than welcome to keep slithering around. I'm rooting for him to root out the mole that's been making tunnels around the garden.

07/02/2023

Ri-Ri was born a month early due to a guy making an illegal left-turn because he was trying to beat the traffic at a red light which was about to turn green. Instead of accomplishing his goal, he did the exact opposite and held up the traffic because he caused an accident by plowing into our vehicle. That moment changed all our lives forever.

One of the local news outlets wrote an article about Tallulah while she was in the hospital struggling to recover from the accident and then they came to our home in Long Beach for a follow-up after she was released from the hospital nearly two months later.

Although I was physically uninjured in the crash, the accident smashed my reality and my mental-health took a serious dive off a rather high cliff. I went to the VA for help. They provided me with an emergency appointment with mental-health therapy. I knew I was relaying a seriously screwed up story when the therapist stopped herself from crying, not once, but three times, during our initial appointment. She prescribed me some medications to help with what I was mentally experiencing. The meds helped for awhile and then they seemed to become counterproductive after several months of being on them, but I kept taking the prescriptions until I moved from Long Beach and relocated to the Oregon coast.

The cottage I am renting had a small patch of grass on the side and the back was nearly by overgrown berry bushes. The property owner told me that I could make a garden if I wanted to and at that moment Ri-Ri’s Nowhere came into existence. I had no idea at the time how much therapy can be found in germinating a seed and then nurturing it until it becomes capable of nurturing the nurturer. I still experience traumatic effects of the accident, especially when driving on city streets, but the garden has become my salvation. It has become my safe place. It has become my therapy and the magic it carries will inspire my daughter while it becomes the place where her first memories are made.

Ri-Ri’s Nowhere is Growin’ & Goin’.

She remains hospitalized a month after the crash, and still hasn’t held her newborn daughter.

06/28/2023

We have our first from seed harvest. One of these are huge and another is shaped like a heart.

We are Growin' and Goin'

06/25/2023

These guys are the vikings of the garden.

06/22/2023

Had to move the fencing away from the sunflower patch because Management kept trying to pull the leaves from the stems.

06/20/2023

We were visited by a lone doe yesterday.

06/19/2023

The braided rosebush above the herb garden seems to have attracted some visitors.