2025, animals, books, Family, gardening, home, Uncategorized

Too Much Of A Good Thing

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About three years ago, Husband and I planted a climbing rose along the railing of the stoep. The rose did very well. It is a winter hardy Morden Rose from Manitoba. Two years ago we planted two more of the same variety along side it. I had no idea they would take off the way they did. You can see them in the header photo and below. There are hundreds of blooms and buds on them. The only problem is that the railing isn’t high enough to support them, so I have to tie them to the railing with twine. I have tried to wind the stems and branches in the railing, as well. We often underestimate how well our plants and shrubs are going to do. It really is too much rose for the area, but I love them.

Our raspberry patch has exploded with new growth this spring, and I anticipate having one of our largest crops ever.

Our neighbor trimmed a tree that had been shading them, and we got lots of rain. I am sure we will be giving lots away, since there is no point in freezing them since we are moving.

We also have far too many books. The shelves in the next photo were full of books until yesterday, when Husband culled some and packed the remainder into 15 banker boxes, the boxes all labeled as to genre and topic. The books will stay in the boxes until after we move to Luverne.

We had to do this so that the painter can paint the wall behind the shelves. The culled books are in the back of his pickup and are going to the landfill on Tuesday. Our next chore is to move the remaining bookcases away from the wall so that she can paint behind them.

We will just empty the bookcases and put the books and record albums somewhere temporarily until the paint is dry, then put them back in the bookcases. We won’t box them up until we actually move. Many of them are our cookbooks, so we will need access to them.

It is hard to decide if I would rather have too many roses, too many raspberries, or too many books. I suppose there are worse things to have in excess, like a friend of ours who has 17 house cats.

What do you have too much of? What are your favorite roses? Any favorite raspberry recipes?

23 thoughts on “Too Much Of A Good Thing”

  1. Stuff. Plans were for me to move in next few months to another town, but that fell through yesterday. But in any case I have too much stuff.
    Clyde

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    1. We lived in Taiwan. Books accumulated, and accumulated, and accumulated. Eventually, I came to a system. I’d choose a random number of hundreds, like 200, 300, never above 500, though. I’d go through the shelves mercilessly, pulling down novels once read but never to be read again, old college textbooks, old church cookbooks, things that were no longer of interest, whatever. I wouldn’t count as I went, I just culled stuff that was no longer of use, or perhaps NEVER of interest. When the shelves appeared reasonably spacious again, my spouse would go through what I had culled and put things back that should be kept. THEN I would count. Usually I’d exceeded the “cull number”, and they would be “gotten rid of” somehow.

      The system worked. When we left Taiwan in 2018, we brought only half a dozen boxes of books. But, it’s time for another cull here. Perhaps, this time, only 100.

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  2. Like Clyde, we have too much “stuff.” I’m working on decluttering the garage, culling the old LPs and CDs that we will never listen to again, downsizing the book inventory, and throwing some of Sandra’s mom’s inherited “junk.” But she likes to have “things” around that give our house a homey feel, so that’s an uphill struggle to get her to part with many things. She’s getting better, but we’ll still probably procrastinate until the last minute when we ultimately move to a smaller place.

    Can’t go wrong with red roses, but any color is fine with me. Sandra made a wild raspberry-rum jam that was fabulous back when we lived in Carlton MN and had raspberry bushes in the backyard. Other than that, I prefer blackberries and strawberries.

    Chris in Owatonna

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      1. I repeated myself??? OMG!!! 😉

        I vaguely remember mentioning it here, but I’ve told many people about that jam over the years. *shrug* Old brains, overstuffed file cabinets full of memories and experiences, slow recall. Whatcha gonna do?

        But glad you enjoyed the jam. I’ll have to see if my wife is willing to make some again, now that I’m thinking about it.

        Chris

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  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I am hoping for too many sour cherries this year. However, it just started raining, although it is to stop soon. Last year too much rain ruined my cherries and I do not want a repeat.

    This weekend? Too much tension. Last night I had a hard time falling asleep after the terrible events here over the weekend. However, I am so grateful Law Enforcement caught the guy. I was afraid he would succeed in getting more on his vile list. I feel hung over on this one and I did not drink.

    Favorite raspberry recipe: Raspberry Jalapeño Jam is terrific. Then there is homemade raspberry liqueur. Fill a quart jar with raspberries. Add 1 C. Sugar. Fill the jar. With vodka. Open after 6 weeks. Strain the raspberries out and give them to tim. Keep the liqueur. This is marvelous on Breyers Vanilla Bean Ice Cream.

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    1. An update: starting Thursday her body went into shut down mode and her brain goes off the tracks for much of the time. She is in high pain. Hospice is just catching up to the pain. Right now she cannot articulate a word but true to her personality she smiles and laughs.
      Don’t like raspberries in any form. Just don’t like the taste. Like rose bushes, never tried to grow them, but my mother’s green thumb grew many varieties. Do not like them as cut flowers. Don’t get why they are the big star of cut flowers.
      Clyde

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      4. Hospice is such a blessing. I hope they have her pain managed now. I am sorry you and Sandy must go through this.

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  4. The culled books are going to the landfill? No Goodwill or something? (She said, drooling, while anticipating the UU book sale in October…)

    Photos. When we were searching for photos for our friend’s memorial, I became acutely aware of how I need to just TOSS a lot of photos I’ve held on to for decades – distant family, vacations we’ll never revisit…

    And computer files where I put emails that I might need to refer to again – hundreds of these to go through this summer, hopefully a little bit each day.

    My favorite roses are the ones in the public rose garden, or that someone else is growing. My favorite color is that yellow tinged with a deep pink.

    I have a Raspberry Clafoutis recipe somewhere – will make if we actually get some of our raspberries this year.

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    1. you might talk to your church and see if they would be interested in opening an account speedy deliver them EDE – DEE delivery auto St. Cloud who makes really easy and I’m sure that christian or Renee were to put that on a pallet inside the delivery truck it would be delivered to the church, very inexpensive and certainly could pay for the delivery with the sale of the books

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  7. I have too much of everything. I may have to increase my daily “things that leave the house” because at the rate I’m going and the amount of stuff I have, I won’t be able to downsize until I’m 102.

    Pink roses, please, but like Barbara, not if I have to grow them.

    I found a raspberry streusel topped muffin recipe about four years ago. I can make it with either fresh raspberries or frozen raspberries and it’s probably my go-to muffin recipe these days.

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  8. As for roses, I like spray roses and tea roses best, but if they are full size roses, the two-tone kind are loveliest to me, yellow with orange tips, or maybe white with deep pink tips. Anything but plain red.

    I used to make raspberry jam once a year, but haven’t gotten the usual crop of berries during the past few drought years. Rum sounds like a nice addition to a favorite jam.

    I don’t think sending books to a landfill is necessary – don’t you hae little free libraries? Or a Books For Africa dropoff?

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