Welcome to New Year!

Yes, I've been gone for a while but did  not vanish completely. The goal for the second part of the year was to rest and relax, away from everything that brings stress and enjoy my time off. And do what I wanted to do with my free time, if I felt like doing something. Summer was particularly nice. In that time I went to Vancouver and enjoyed local scenery, the beautiful bay and tasted local foods.

Then there was Santa Rosa for Heirloom show - awesome experience to be surrounded by so many varieties of veggies and fruit, and more importantly the people who really understood the need to preserve heritage and quality of our food. Did you know that there were so many varieties of watermelon for example? Or hundreds varieties of tomatoes and peppers and eggplants? Pictures can only show so much, but the real experience is something else. I was very happy that I got to spend a week with the show, volunteering with staff and learning so much about heirlooms.

In between fall holidays, my sister and I went traveling through Australia coast  starting with Sydney and up north from there, learning about local plants in the botanical gardens, and visiting koala in the nature reserve, loved the architectures and local Chinese garden, enjoyed afternoon teas, scroll through the golden beaches, gone fishing and much more. It was two weeks of paradise and the experience of a lifetime. Even managed to bring home some local seeds to try and plant here!

But more importantly, I've been spending more of my time interacting with local Master Gardeners, local garden community and the CSA farm. This is what really makes me happy. I can't picture myself going back to corporate world, so growing fruit and veggies, working with educating others, designing gardens is my future. At least it's my goal for 2017. Hope it will be a good one.