Well Good Morning to You Too

daphne on March 7, 2011

Oh.  Hello.

I didn’t see you there.

No, it’s fine.  Of course I didn’t think that just because I took a little time-out that the world should stop turning.  I mean, there are lunches to be made and dictators to topple and yes, teeth will continue to fall out and hey even the sprouts are defying logic and breaking through the chilly dirt.

And ho, what’s that I feel? Are these tendrils unfurling from my own stiff limbs as if spurned on by the heady scent of sun-kissed dirt?

Hibernating? No, not me.  For there is work to be done.

And I’ve been busy.

Doing, you know, stuff.

Important, stuff.

Like, making sure my youngest is dressed to fight dragons.

And prepping Grandma for some good, old-fashioned village – pillaging.

Well gosh, now you’re making me feel like all I’ve been doing is trying to be a viking.  But you know they have cool ships with handsome, half-clad men rowing in time to jaunty sea shanties?

And ocean breezes that would gently blow through my luxurious locks.

The glint of the sun winking off a newly sharpened hatchet.

The squawk of an albatross in search of an Ancient Mariner…

Hey, shame on you.  Do not encourage my digressions.

For there is work to be done once dragons lay slain.  A newly acquired village will need tidying.  And so it was that the local population was enslaved and put to work waking up the sleepy garden.

They raked and they hoed and eventually the garlic showed through, it’s sweet tendrils reaching towards the light of the weak spring sun.

They whispered sweet nothings of encouragement, coaxing irises from beneath frozen blankets.

The raspberries too would prosper under new management.  The field, an unwieldy brier patch of mayhem,

was hacked into submission.  A viking must insist upon order from her berries.

No more would raspberries be left to wither on the vine.

And the viking goddess (that’d be me) saw that it was good.  And so it was that she posted sentries in the treetops . . .

And high-tailed it back inside.

For her hands were getting cold.

I’m Not Getting Voted Off This Homestead

daphne on April 5, 2010

The last attempt I made to live off the land didn’t go very well.   Half pint and pa never bagged a bear, and what with all the churning and mending to be done I utterly failed at the task of putting up enough food to feed my family.  It was barely November and I had to hitch the old (station) wagon up to the grocery store trading post.

No amount of chopping wood would have saved me from being voted out of the Frontier House.

I don’t know how those pioneer ladies did it.  They were a tough breed.

Kind of like my own pioneer babe–

Don’t let the Holly Hobby dress and sweet smile fool you.  This nine year old is brimming with teenage ‘tude that would serve her nicely should I follow through with my decision to free-range her out on the open frontier.  And since you were wondering, yes I did wear this dress to school as a suburban child of the seventies.  There is simply no denying it, when it comes to fashion I’ve always been ahead of my time.

But never mind that, food failure was so last year.  My family is on target to make it through this year, this entire year, completely independent from grocery stores.  That’s us, totally self-sufficient…at least as far as jam is concerned.

Oh shush.  Don’t tell me I can’t keep a family on jam alone.  I can do whatever I want.

I made jam, didn’t I?  See–

When we polished off the last of the jars I made back in June, I simply defrosted what was left of our strawberry puree from the picking last fall.   Then I added just a pinch of sugar.

Or perhaps it was a wagon-load of sugar.  I’m not exactly sure.  Then a dollop of magic–

And Voila!  Jam!

2009/2010 will be known far and wide as the year we made it on jam alone.  Impressive, yes, but for 2010/11 I’ve set my sights a little higher.

Welcome to my lofty goal of the year:  tomatoes.  These guys may not look like much but just you wait.  These little guys have been tapped to nourish my family throughout the year to come.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

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.

******************************

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

Girls And Their Roly-Polies

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.

Spring, sprouting and flinging all over the place

daphne on March 15, 2009

Sometimes nature is cruel. Other times, while it’d be an exaggeration to call nature cruel, she’s not exactly helping things by subtly antagonizing the underlying issues of sibling rivalry.

Thanks, nature, for this.  One more reason to pit sister against sister in the eternal contest for who is best.

Allow me to settle the question equitably, in the interest of protecting their loving sisterly relationship.  IT’S ME! I’M THE BEST. LOOK WHAT I DID!

Yesiree–that’s a tulip. Or a daffodil.  Or something posing as a flower-to-be in exactly the same spot where I presciently dropped bulbs about a million years ago.

As I mentioned already, I was not all that excited about digging in the dirt as the first hints of winter swirled through the air.  It’s unreasonable to have to wait season upon season for something to rear it’s lovely head.  Like a pinata that you smack in the midst of a party and then wait and wait and wait and then finally as you are growing weary of all the waiting you are showered by a cascade of delicious snacks. Oh the joy.

Would you look at that?  Time, as they promised, has flown.

I was wrong to be smug about the waiting. It’s a delightful treat after all these months to get something as magical, as beautifully incredible and special as this:

Really. That’s two sprouts.  Try to contain your excitement.

I’m sorry, but did I hear a GET REAL?  Am I sensing a lack of bubbling enthusiasm over the little nubs that are popping from the earth in front of my house due solely, I remind you, to my brilliant foresight?  Fine.  I’m no dummy.  I know not everything can be chard crisps and amphibian sex.  You remember frog sex, don’t you?

I don’t mean to lead you on.  Springy though it may be, I am not going to delve back in to the birds and the bees.

But guess what boys and girls?  It is time again for the annual elementary school Spring Fling.  Seems like just yesterday that we boogie-oogie-oogied ’til we just couldn’t boogie no more.  This year it was time to spring back to the most totally boss, righteously bitchin’ decade of them all…the 80s!  Here are the two cutest valley girls of the year–

Give me a break before I gag you with a spoon. I know what you’re thinking, and no, I did not send Acadia to her school dance wearing a shirt that says Eat Flax.  I’m the real deal, baby.  All eighties, all the time. Her t-shirt, of course, reads Frankie says… RELAX as it flash-dancingly dips over one shoulder.

My family, much like spring itself, is so totally tubular.

Happy Bodacious Spring.