Hit the road, jack

daphne on June 19, 2009

It’s time. We are ready to hit the road, Jack.

Heck yeah we’re bringing Jack; who’d you think was going to do all the driving and the refueling and the feeding and entertaining of whining kids?  OK, not really.  It would be delightful to have imaginary handy Jack along, but it’ll just be the four of us cruising the country’s roads.   As you’ve probably guessed, I am busy teaching the girls the lyrics to such classics as I Ate a Peanut, and She’ll Be Coming Around the Mountain.  It’s going to be just great.

The critics say we are crazy to attempt this trip sans electronics. Concern is so high, in fact, that I have already declined, politely, three separate offers to borrow mini-DVD players.  Last night, Dave came home from work with a loaner.  His co-workers were worried about our caveman-style approach to car time.  I remain committed to old school.  How can we sing about all those bottles falling off the wall if the children have battery-operated alternatives?

I might be wrong, so to be on the safe side I will keep my mind open and the charged DVD player in the trunk.  You know, just in case Disney is the one thing that keeps me from going completely nuts.

Speaking of nuts, there’s the issue of food on the road.  Though I deny my children all the good stuff 360+ days of the year, travel time is treat time.  I’ve been loading up a box with all the means to make the trail-crossing pleasant; we’re got nuts, yes, and trail mix heavy with m+ms and licorice whips and potato chips, and more.  If our wagon loses a wheel, I am confident that we’ll stave off starvation.

And what about the garden?  Sadly, those berries did not ripen despite my repeated requests and explanations about the tight calendar.  In the interest of research, we threw more seeds in the ground, set out a drip line, and are hoping for the best.

Here’s what’s happening now, as I callously leave my fresh fruit and veggies behind in the dirt and ply my children with sugar instead:

After the first round of sprouts keeled over, I tried again for cucumbers.  Here they are, just poking up through the earth–

Dave apparently had a similar thought, so he went right ahead and dug in a baby tomato. Right on top of my squash.  See what happens when spouses don’t communicate?   It will be a fierce battle (but seeing as my squash has all her sisters and she, I don’t think his puny tomato has much of a chance.)  Only time will tell which veggie will prevail (Go squash Go!)

The potatoes trees are out of control.  What?  You didn’t know that potatoes grow on trees?  Perhaps you’ve heard otherwise, but then how do you explain this–

It’s a potato jungle out there.

We won’t be here to see all the changes in the garden over the next six weeks, but we did get to witness one marked change this week.  Ahh, Acadia.  What would a vacation be without a stopover first for some xrays?

Here she is at the beginning of the week, the happy-as-a-clam swimming cowgirl.

And here she is yesterday, noticeably sadder.

Her boldly attempted ceiling-slap-from-high-leap off the bed resulted not in a gold medal, but in a hairline fracture in her foot.  Kids!  Aren’t they a kick in the pants?

Rain clouds, rhubarb and cowboy boots

daphne on June 7, 2009

On the plus side, the unexpected plethora of water falling from the sky has turned our arid yard into a backyard jungle.  It’s just been a bit unfortunate for my little swimmers, who have been turning blue with cold while dodging thunderstorms at practice.  Acadia addressed the issue by pairing her swim suit with cowboy boots. That girl isn’t just trendy, she’s practical as well.

Sure it’s muddy and chilly, but oh how the garden does grow.  Check out this rhubarb plant from the Cretaceous period–

It’s not really prehistoric, but I do think it was sizing up my children for its lunch.

That Brontosaurus rhubarb plant isn’t one of mine.  We admired it in the yard of artist Tiffany Koehn, who gave us a personal tutorial on glass blowing.  She makes gorgeous jewelry and lamps in outrageous colors like these–

She let the kids pick out colored glass to create their own charms,

and even gave them each a chance to take the blow torch for a spin.  No, Mom, I’m kidding. Tiffany kept a firm grasp on the torch while we watched from a safe distance.

Meanwhile, back at our ranch yard, the potatoes have been eagerly soaking up all the rain.

I can’t imagine what’s doing beneath the dirt, but a few more days of precipitation and we’ll be climbing those potato stalks to a castle in the sky.  Not far behind are the strawberries, which are still rock hard and green, but crazy plentiful this year.

I have told them that we’ll be hitting the road soon and I expect ripened berries within the week. Likewise with the raspberries, which are all abuzz with bees but remain curled up in small green nubs.  They also seem determined to ignore my schedule and start ripening just about the time we load up the car.

Come on garden.  I’m not asking for much.  Just a taste of your sweet fruit before we leave town, and a little bit of respect for my schedule.


Yup, it’s me; all cool-like and laid-back

daphne on June 1, 2009

Ok so I’m starting to lose it.  School days are done and summer is upon us and I’ve got three weeks of swim team and jump practice to coordinate before packing up the car and turning our (station) wagon west east not to mention figuring out hotel stops and food and oh yeah, I’m losing it.

Have no fear. I’m working on a new me.  You can tell I’m all new by the mellow look in my eye and the way I saunter to and fro with nary a care in the world.  I’m laid back.  I’m cool.  I don’t need a petty calendar to tell me where I’m supposed to be and who I’m supposed to be picking up when.  If I forget a kid I’m sure she’ll call (note to old self — write cell number inside kids’ shirts.)

With such a blase attitude towards juggling life and kids, you can imagine that the disorder of my garden isn’t ruffling any of my feathers.  Oh no.  I am hip and if the squash wants to wind itself around the tomatoes and the potatoes are fraternizing with the cucumbers, I don’t mind.  Who am I to enforce something as dull as tidy rows of planned vegetables?

Sure I spent hours toiling away beneath a punishing sun, lining up seedlings and painstakingly pulling weeds, but all that’s behind me now.  After all, the roly polies have settled into the neatly groomed spots vacated by the vegetables-to-be and they seem quite happy.  And you know what they say–when a gal’s got happy bugs…well, I imagine they have something to say about that.

Ok. Ok. You got me. I like my garden in rows.  And I like my days planned.  But I’m facing a mutiny in the garden and a couple of weeks before setting out on the open road and so I am embracing a new attitude.  I’m throwing caution to the wind and trying out days without a plan.  (If my hands are shaking and I seem a little hyper-ventalatey that probably just means I need more coffee, right?)

I can do this.  After all, I learned my lesson last summer and I am more than ready to toss out the crazy and embrace the lazy in these my dog days of summer.  So here I go.

I’m putting down the calendar.

I’m breathing in.

I’m breathing out.

Look at me! I’m so totally relaxing.

(Ok, can I have my calendar back now?)

Not so great expectations

daphne on May 25, 2009

So it looks like I planted the spinach a little too late.   And the lettuce.  And the cucumbers were perhaps to fragile as tiny sprouts to withstand my man-handling of them into the garden.  Either way, as far as veggies go so far, looks like I missed the boat.

The boat I was trying to catch runs on an extremely complex tide table.  Here’s the thing– I want a couple of productive harvests this summer.  The first should come in right about  June 10th, and then I’d like another healthy haul near the middle of August.   All I’m asking is that the sprouts take a nice siesta for the six weeks that we will be gallivanting about the country, cruising up and down the coast and then soaking in sunny Des Moines while our Jr. Olympian breaks all sorts of jump-roping records.

Too much to ask?  Maybe for the leafy greens, but the raspberries and rhubarb seem game.  Ditto the strawberries, which are producing fruit in a frenzy.

The potatoes, a first attempt for us, are also good with our game-plan.  The plants are sturdy and beautiful, and from what I hear they are content to hide out underground through the hideous heat of July.

In the vegetable’s favor, I did fall in the tomato patch, and that spill seems to be paying off.  There is a sprinkling of healthy looking sprouts of unknown origin coming up in a haphazard sneeze.  Cucumbers from a spilled seed packet? Squash from un-composted seeds?  Only time (or a more seasoned gardener than I) will tell…

I’ve come around to the fact that we most likely will not get to eat any home-grown greens before we hit the road. I’m really ok with it, especially since all the ingredients for summer desserts (cobblers, pies, crumbles) are returning on their own in spades.

My garden may not bend to any artificially imposed time table, but at least it shares my main philosophy:  Life is Short.  Eat/grow dessert (plants) first.

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And the fun with bugs continues.  Here’s a gratuitous picture:

Girls And Their Roly-Polies

Your Rockin’ Rhubarb Resource

daphne on May 18, 2009

Despite a decidedly rocky start with rhubarb, I have made a remarkable comeback. Even though I was deceived as a child into believing that my beloved frozen strawberries were in fact rhubarb (and therefore off limits,) I have now gotten to a point where things with scary names aren’t intimidating.  Well, except kohlabi.  Anyone in their right mind would be terrified of kohlrabi.   Any-whoo, back to my personal growth.  I am so totally mature.  I not only grow rhubarb, but I harvest and eat the stuff too.  I’ve even been crowned Her Majesty the Rhubarb Poobah (note: position is self-appointed.)

Yes, I am the proud tender of a healthy crop of rhubarb, the successful propagator of little rhubarbarinos, and the baker of some award-winning rhubarb recipe (note: no awards have actually been awarded.)  Acadia and I pulled the first harvest last week–

She is standing in front of the strawberry patch, which has somehow doubled since last year, and behind that you can see the raspberries and the row of rhubarb.  Funny how my spinach is struggling, my cucumbers are wilting, but the pie-friendly plants are chugging right along.  Even my garden knows dessert comes first.

Do you have questions about when and how to harvest rhubarb?  Click here for a refresher on the facts.  You don’t eat the leaves, just the reddish-green stalks seen here–

You can get an idea of their size in comparison to Acadia’s kindergarten-sized hands–

As long as a few leaves remain on the plant, you will continue to get new growth for a couple of months.  This was our second harvest, only a few days after the first.

After I pull the stalks and cut away the leaves, I rinse and dice the rhubarb.  The inside color varies from light pinkish-white to light green.  The more green it is, the more tart it will taste.

I freeze the chopped pieces flat on a tray before storing them in ziplocs in the freezer.  This makes it easy to add to recipes, which I do as is, in it’s frozen state.  Here’s my favorite thing to do with rhubarb. It’s a super easy recipe and it goes beautifully with vanilla ice cream.

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Notes from the roly-poly front:  The girls are starting to scare me with their mandatory round-up of these guys. The forced participation of all roly-polies born in our yard in the fun and games over at the newly opened roly-poly pavilion just seems excessive.

Here they are, not looking nearly as awful as they do in real life, going for a ride in the tuperware to see Kira’s teacher. Kira wants to know why the parents seem indifferent to the babies, crawling willy-nilly all over them without any special regard for the youngsters.  She didn’t like my answer (um, self-preservation in the face of abusive conditions?) and thinks she’ll get further with her teacher.  Apparently second-grade teachers don’t scream or use sarcasm when asked a simple question about the child-rearing habits of a billion creepy bugs.

Roly-poly pavilion now open!

daphne on May 13, 2009

On Saturday morning, while I was busy disengaging the wild raspberries from the strawberry patch and moving weeds to make room for rainbow chard seeds, my daughters had more pressing matters at hand.  The pine needle roof of the fairy home, constructed specifically to allow for shade and breezes, had blown over. At least now we had our answer as to what was keeping the winged nymphs from moving in.

The girls set right to work…but you know contractors.  No sooner had they promised to address the structural issues that had befallen the fairies then another job demanded their attention:  the roly-polies had arrived, and they needed a pavilion. Stat.

Ahhh the roly-poly, characterized by an ability to roll into a ball when disturbed.  Not that I am criticizing.  After all, I’ve got access to happy hour.  Who’s to say that without that half-priced vodka tonic I wouldn’t be curled up in a ball myself?

The girls whiled away the afternoon, attending to the myriad needs of the bugs of our backyard.  Girls will be girls, you know.  And for my girls, even the smallest moth deserves healthcare with respect. Which explains Kira’s rage at her father, who, as she reported to me during my absence, “refused to call an entomologist,” despite her beloved moth’s “near-death state.”

I know. I can hardly believe I’m married to such a cold-hearted snake.  Refused his children the right to see an entomologist?  What kind of monster indeed?

I don’t know.  Maybe it’s my fault for setting the bar too high when I phoned in for back-up from the Humane Society to help out with that baby bird last year.

Or maybe Daddies just don’t understand the special bond between a girl and her moth.

My house smells like dirt (in a good way)

daphne on May 8, 2009

Coming back home after eight days away I am hit by one particular fact: my living room smells like dirt.  No, I can’t blame my husband for letting things fall to pot. The kids are in one piece and the house is still standing.  The house smells like dirt in a good way.  Forest path in the rain dirt, not dust bunnies beneath the bed dirt.  It smells like dirt in here because a few weeks ago I started some seeds inside, but then life got in the way and I high-tailed it to Boston and I just haven’t gotten around to the moving them out into the garden part of the plan yet.

But as they say to Marvin K. Mooney, the time has come. The time is NOW.  And I’m looking at a weekend of planting in a garden that is more than ready to go.  I think we’ve had some success with the sage. It’s coming back, and that bodes well for a summer full of my favorite pasta with sage leaves.

It also seems that taking that rhubarb risk is paying off in a big way.  All is going well with our original plant and her little rhubarbarinos.

The leaves are lush and green, but I can’t touch them without breaking out in hives. For some reason, the toxic leaves don’t bother the kids at all.  The stalks are ruby red and thick, harvest-able very soon, which means that days rich in rhubarb crisp can’t be far away.

As Dr. Seuss famously told Marvin K. Mooney, the time has come to GO GO GO.  I’m all about frenetic activity, and can’t wait to break out the shovels this weekend.

Which may work fine for me, but sweet Acadia sails on a different tack.  She’s slowing it down, making some time to stop and smell the tulips.

And pretty babes all in a row

daphne on May 1, 2009

According to the gardening gurus it’s time to plant potatoes, but all I’m doing is eating a whole lot of doughnuts.  Ahhh, the anti-healthy all-terrible non-nutritional terrific-tasting doughnut.  Nothing takes the sting out of stress like a deep friend treat dipped in chocolate.  And I’ve been a bit stressed lately, what with my eight year-old almost losing an eye and my newborn nephew pulling an extended stint in the hospital. So yes, I’ve been eating some doughnuts.

I did have bigger plans.  Plans of planting potatoes and nurturing newborns but then Kira caught the business end of a boomerang with her face and then it snowed, again, covering the garden and then there were stitches to be removed and airplanes to catch and a new nephew to be hovered over and so much for plans.  You can see how there was really little time for anything other than a doughnut.

So here I am in Boston where it is springtime in spades.  With everything so lush and bursting from the ground it’s impossible to believe that this gorgeous guy has to hang out and wait for his lungs to mature. I guess he spent his time in the womb working on his fancy hair-do.

Sure, plans of planting potatoes morphed into pacing in front of digital read-outs of oxygen levels, but that’s alright. I really don’t care. The numbers look terrific. And so does little Miles.

Anyways, plans are silly. Who needs them?  The potatoes can wait.  And so can I.

Especially when it comes to snuggly newborns.

And chocolate-covered doughnuts.

I’ll take one latte…and 23 fifth graders please

daphne on March 26, 2009

According to my best friend forever, Michelle, it’s time to get moving on this year’s garden.  Right-o, let me see; I need 27 starter potatoes, a pack of cucumber seeds, a roto-tiller, and HOLD THE PHONE!  I’m going about this all wrong.  Forget the roto-tiller, I’ll take an iced latte and 23 fifth graders.

Michelle Obama (you know? my BFF,) had the most fabulous idea.  Actually, I think I’ll grab credit for the garden idea.  I have been telling her forever that ripping up that useless, chemically-dependent rolling green lawn in favor of an organic kitchen garden is the way to go.

She came up with fifth grader part, but adding in the latte was all me.  I’m civilized like that.

Honestly, the First Lady may not be totally aware of our budding friendship just yet.  It is an inevitability once she learns how much we have in common.  We both have two daughters who enjoy a nice game of bowling (although her’s play the video game while mine rock the real deal.)

Not for nothing, but my kids do rock the bowling alley with style.  And grace.  What’s better than a sport that can be played sitting down?

I digress.

I was demonstrating the leagues of things that Michelle O and I have in common.  For instance, we both are concerned with getting our kids to eat well.  We both have been know to say things like “You can begin in your own cupboard by eliminating processed food, trying to cook a meal a little more often, trying to incorporate more fruits and vegetables.”

Granted she said it to The NY Times, and I say it mostly to the swaths of prisoners I keep chained in my kitchen well-intentioned friends who drop by for a cup of coffee.

To top it all off, I just know our husbands would get along. They both play basketball and in their spare time serve as leaders of the free world.  True, Dave’s record on influencing foreign dignitaries is less than impressive, but his jump shot is all that and a bag of organic chips.   Not that the President should read that as a challenge.  Dave is much to busy organizing fifth graders in our back yard to fly to DC for a game of pick-up.

Ok then. Now that I have seamlessly covered organic gardening, politics, basketball, bowling, fifth graders, and lattes I can get back to that point I was trying to make…

Sorry, no time for points.  Let me sum up:

  1. Rip up your lawn.
  2. Plant a garden.
  3. Put a fifth grader (or twenty-three) to work.
  4. Sit back, relax, and participate in your local bring-a-family-bowling-night.

The 2009 Bring-A-Family-Bowling Winners

Nice looking group, right?  I can’t make any promises, Michelle; but the Obamas do have a decent chance at becoming next year’s lucky recipients.  (Don’t worry about skill; we’re all here to have fun.  Besides, I’m pretty sure that only the youngest in our group scored upward of 50 points.)

Changes in altitude, plenty of attitude

daphne on March 23, 2009

This weekend brought not only the first day of a spring break full of sassy pre-pre-teen attitude, but also the first day of spring.  Eternal optimist that I’m known to be, I chose to focus on welcoming the new season, and not on the emotional trip that is repetitive eye-rolling.  I’m a glass half full kind of gal that way.  Anyway, first day of spring…picnic time, right?  Well, that’s pretty much what we did. Only we did it slope-side.

Because one of the key benefits of waiting until mid-March to hit the slopes for the first time is the beautiful sunshiny weather.  And really, with skies so blue and trees so green the dark brown stink eye from my eight-year old pretty much just rolled right off my back.

Once we sat out the time-outs and got the group up the mountain, there really were no complaints from the happy campers.  At least during the second and a half that it took to snap this picture.

Even old grouchy eyes set her attitude aside for a little while.  Long enough to flash me this smile on the chairlift.

With smiles all around we thought it best to call it quits on the early side, get out before things got ugly.   Theoretically that is.  We actually called it quits when they sank down into the mashed potato-like late season snow and couldn’t muster the power to get back up.  The whiny sirens of tired children rang out across the mountain-tops, and we packed it in.

Which got us back home with plenty of time to hit the yard and get down to work.  We raked and snipped and watered and cut back the beautiful dried grasses so that now everything looks pretty awful.  Dried out and shriveled up and just waiting.  Brown ugly springtime.  Well, except for the rhubarb.  I know rhubarb and I have our history, but I really have come to love this stuff.  It’s predictable. It’s tasty.  And up it pops, no matter what—

The raspberries are putting out their buds too.  It is interesting that even as I renew my pledge to pay more attention to the healthy vegetables in my life, it is the sweet dessert ingredients that never fail me. They require nothing, and they deliver year after year insisting only that I promise to eat my dessert.

And that’s a promise I’m willing to make.