See How My Garden Grows

 

It's midsummer and the garden is hitting its stride.  The Strawberry "thanks for the tomato cages" cherry tomato plant is still ripening tomatoes for devouring.  This handful will be headed to Durwood tomorrow.

He'll be glad when I show him that soon this first Early Girl big tomato will be ready to be picked.  I'll bet it'll be the first one I take to him in his new assisted living digs.  I dropped off the application for residency today, talked the executive director of the nursing home off the ledge when he called me (while I was getting a haircut) to ask what they'd done wrong since I was taking Durwood out of there so quickly.  I assured him that they'd done nothing wrong, that the hospice nurse had told me that he didn't need skilled nursing so moving him to assisted living would save us a boatload of money every month and he'd be able to regain some leg strength and balance because they'll encourage and help him to walk more.  There are fewer people needing help there unlike at the nursing home where it's too easy to just leave people parked (path of least resistance, you know).  While waiting to talk to the LPN at Grancare Gardens, the assisted living place, I met the other two male residents who are over the moon to have another man moving in.  



I was sad to see the only baby butternut squash has fallen from the vine.  All of the other flowers are male flowers that I can see right now but I have faith that more squash will appear.  (you can tell because between the flower and the vine the males just have a stem while the female flowers have tiny baby squashes)








The purple coneflowers and the butterfly weeds are blooming so there are butterflies fluttering around the yard.  I see lots of monarchs and today I saw a black, blue, and orange one in the garden but since I was all the way across the yard in the house I haven't got a clue what kind it was.



 








The red-skinned potato plant is going gangbusters and the sweet potato vine is taking its own sweet time growing but it is growing.  I can't wait until it's time to open the bale and see if we've grown
potatoes.







July 25--Paul Cezanne, Great Pine near Aix.  Gabe hiked up the valley.  He took the same path he had taken since he was a boy.  When he rounded the house-size boulder he was relieved to see that the tree was still there.  That pine had been his refuge when things got too crazy at home.  When Dad and Leona got to fighting, throwing plates and pickle jars and cutlery at each other, he and his mongrel Amos would slip out the front door and head for the pine tree.  It was just big enough to hide a ten-year-old boy with a medium size dog until things cooled down at home.

We just had a short, fast moving thunderstorm.  I do love me some thunder.  Thunderstorms make the garden happy too and I like that.  Time to fire up the dishwasher and hit the hay.  

I've got 6 days to gather up things for Durwood's new place and to make sure that all of the hospice people and the oxygen people and the transport people deliver their assigned parts in good time.  I'm hoping to find a sturdy small kitchen table at Goodwill so I don't have to buy a new one but I will if I have to.  I found out today that hospice will provide him with a wheelchair and hospital bed so that's off my list of things to buy.  I'm happy that TVs are reasonably priced and he's got a tall dresser that will be perfect for his clothes and as a TV stand.  My mind's like a hamster in its wheel right now. Yes, I have a list.
--Barbara

If You Knit On Them...

 

... things get done.  Not that I finished anything big but I did manage to finish the Bodhi Leaf washcloth this afternoon.  It's kind of small and thin but I'm thinking maybe a good dunking will let the yarn bloom, puff the thing up a bit.

After supper I worked on the Montparnasse Eco Cardi back.  Lately purling has made my right wrist ache so I try to do no more than 4 rows, 2 knit and 2 purl, at a sitting.  Love the color, don't you?  It'll look just great with the gray and brown/gray sleeves and fronts.



 

Caught the sun peeking through the maple tree's leaves this morning.  Lately the sunrises, when I've been up for them, haven't been very colorful.


Today's big news is that Durwood can move to the assisted living facility a week from tomorrow so I spent most of today getting things organized and will probably spend the next few days following up.  Fingers crossed that this place works for him and he'll stay there a while.  Moving him once a month isn't very relaxing.

July 24--Joseph-Francois Ducq, Diana.  The leather strap of her quiver of arrows dug into her shoulder and chafed between her breasts as she ran into the forest.  Her bow fitted her hand as if it had grown there and she held it so that it didn't catch the low brush that grew in the open places.  She had been hunting since daybreak, leaving her warm bed before first light and heading out with her game bag slung around her waist.  Her brothers were too small to hunt and since their father had gone off to the war it fell to her to feed the family.  Mama and the boys tended the garden and Eli fished the streams.  It was Anna's job to bring home meat and she was good at it.

My mind has been running like a hamster on a wheel ever since I saw the assisted living place yesterday trying to figure out what furniture I can take from here and what I have to buy.  I'll find out tomorrow when I can start bringing things for the room, like a dresser and TV.  I hope to find a small kitchen table because Durwood is a kitchen table sitter so he'll be most comfortable if there's one in his new place.  I need to get in touch with the social worker at the nursing home to get the release paperwork rolling, drop off the application at assisted living, find out how to arrange transport, and make sure what he needs will be there next week.  Good thing I'm a good organizer.
--Barbara

Not So Lazy Monday

I had big plans for sitting around, for lolling around today but that didn't happen.  See, last

week I was told that Durwood doesn't need to be in the skilled nursing facility, that he would be better in an assisted living situation.  (no one mentioned that when I was scrambling around to find him a place at the end of June)  Last night a friend mentioned a couple places that she was familiar with so I decided to make a couple unannounced visits this morning and I found the perfect place only two blocks further from home than he is right now.  And even better, about half the cost.  I put down a deposit to hold the studio with the best view of the garden, took pictures, and visited another place which was lovely but more expensive, farther from home, and didn't have a kitchenette.  Tomorrow the nurses from the assisted living are going to visit him to evaluate which of their levels of care he fits into and with any luck he'll be able to move by August 1.  Fingers crossed.  This is the garden his room overlooks.


 
The stargazer lilies are showing themselves off.  Even though they're pink which isn't anywhere close to my favorite color, I love them.  They're gorgeous and they smell almost better than Dad's roses.


 


Speaking of Dad's roses, this little rosebud is fixing to open.  Hopefully the Japanese beetles that turned the strawberry leaves into lace last week won't notice it.  Japanese beetles love eating roses.


 

I was quick enough and lucky enough to snap a cellphone photo of this little lady hummingbird on the feeder today.





 

In between roaring around checking out assisted living places and getting ready to go to Aqua Fitness at the neighborhood pool tonight I managed to add ten rows to the Bodhi Leaf Washcloth so I'm ready to start the decreases.  With any luck I'll get it finished tomorrow.


 

Oh, and the zinnias really like living in the green planters on the edge of the patio with the petunias.  Why do I keep forgetting how pretty zinnias are and how easy they are to grow from seed?


July 23--Josephine Trotter, Frank's Party.  All Frank wanted to do on his birthday was ride the carousel.  Since he was now an old man of five years old he wanted to ride on of the life-size horses on the outer ring.  Frank had been in love with the carousel since the first time he rode it with Pop holding him tight and standing alongside him.  Every year Pop let him choose a horse on the next ring out.  His third birthday was the first year that the horse went up and down.  That year he had begged to ride every ride, to spend all his tickets on the carousel.  Last year Mama had given up inviting his cousins and friends to go to the amusement park for his birthday.  They wanted to ride on all the rides but Frank only rode on the carousel.


In honor of Shark Week on The Discovery Channel I dug out the "creature cup" that DS gave me for either my birthday or Christmas a couple years ago and bumped noses with this critter as I sipped my coffee.  Makes me smile and these days I need smiles.

You know, forty-five minutes of jumping around in a pool kicking your legs and swinging your arms is tiring.  My eyelids keep slamming shut.  I hope I manage to write more than ten words before I conk out.
--Barbara

Lazy Sunday in July

Everybody deserves a lazy day now and again.  That's my story and I'm sticking to it.  I didn't wake up until almost 8 o'clock this morning (halle-freakin'-lujah!) and didn't get around to doing yoga until after 11 o'clock.  This goldfinch was flitting from feeder to feeder, playing tag with another male goldfinch so I thought I'd take his picture.  Trust me, he isn't nearly this blurry in real life.

Last night for some unknown reason I went downstairs, dug out this red yarn and some needles, and cast on this Bodhi Leaf washcloth from the Mason-Dixon Knitting's Field Guild #7.  First I did my usual and went down 2 needle sizes, which is what I do whenever I knit a dish/washcloth because I'm a loose knitter, but I got about 20 rows into it and realized that what I was making looked like a Barbie washcloth so this morning I frogged last night's efforts and started over.  Getting caught up to where I'd left off is what took up my morning.  Who cares?  It's Sunday.



After lunch I cooked up an ear of Sunny Hill Farms sweet corn and took it, along with salt and butter, over to Durwood.  He claimed to still be full from lunch (which is the main daily meal there) but somehow managed to make the corn disappear.  I promised that next time I'd wait a couple more hours so he could spoil his supper with an ear of corn rather than feel overstuffed after lunch.  He said that many staff members are entertained by the phalanx of birdfeeders that I set up for him and a hummingbird visited yesterday so he's loving it too.


Once I got home I took myself downstairs and got the next garment in the queue started.  It's a Tunic no. 1 with a redrawn neckline out of some linen-like upholstery fabric.  I'll get the neck binding on and the hems sewn tomorrow.

July 22--Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Wedding Dance.  By nine o'clock every wedding dance has devolved into a sweaty, liquor-soaked scrum.  The well-dressed, well-mannered guests of the afternoon church ceremony have checked their inhibitions at the door and made their way to the bar, thus the downward spiral of behavior begins.  Bridesmaids are barefoot, their mascara streaked down their faces as they dance in a circle in the center of the dance floor.

I was invited to visit a friend who lives in a place with an indoor pool after supper.  We had the pool all to ourselves so she taught me a bit of tai chi in the water.  It was so relaxing, I kind of feel like an overcooked noodle.  I think I'll turn in.
--Barbara

Hello, Fred

 


I stopped in every post office in Green Bay over the last month and every single one of them was sold out of the Mister Rogers stamps.  Last week I looked on usps.com to double check what denomination stamp needs to go on a postcard and noticed the "shop" option so I clicked it.  There Fred was in all his cardigan glory so I ordered a sheet.  Since I was there I took a look around and found a sheet of bioluminescent sea life.  Got that too.  And next month there are dragon stamps being issued.  I pre-ordered those.  I like stamps.  I don't collect stamps but I like the pictures on them and consider which one to put on things I send, trying to match the stamp to the recipient.  It's probably seriously goofy of me to do it but I like it and I like the pictures on stamps.  I figure it's a harmless thing.







  
 
This morning a guy came with a hand auger, a wheelbarrow full of gravel, and a long coil of corrugated pipe that was pierced.  He was here to auger out the window wells on the rental side all the way down to the drain tile BY HAND, then insert the pierced pipe, and fill it with gravel so when it rains the water drains down that gravel filled pipe instead of leaking into the basement next door.  it only took him a couple hours to do two wells but it was extra-sweaty and super dirty work.  He earned every penny of what I paid him.





 
In the afternoon I went downstairs to do Durwood's laundry and while I was down there I sewed up the last Shirt no. 1 that I cut out last month.  The fabric is some cotton pique that's been in the stash for at least 4 years and, lo and behold, the front and the back of this shirt match.  I don't know, I may be establishing a dangerous precedent with that but I'll risk it.  If it's as crummy tomorrow as today was I suspect I'll get a Tunic no. 1 (the next project in the pile) sewn up.  Or maybe I'll just loll around on the couch knitting and napping.




I picked up a package of kabobs in the "reduced for quick sale" meat case at Pick 'n Save today and grilled them in between rain showers.  I kind of overcooked the meat in my zeal to make sure the onions and peppers were cooked but figure I can make a bit of au jus to moisten them up.  I'm having a hard time getting back into the habit of cooking decent meals but I'm not giving up, not just yet.


And Sunny Hill sweet corn is now available on a wagon near me.  I nabbed a few ears and had one with my supper tonight.  Mm, Sunny Hill corn is the best.  I'm trying to figure out a way to take an ear all cooked and ready to devour over to Durwood tomorrow.  I'm thinking wrapping it in foil and then rolling it into a towel to keep it hot on the short drive to the home.

I didn't write the prompt last night.  By the time I got home from knitting I was so beat I just went to bed.  I do have this lonely little Black-eyed Susan to show you though and I promise to try writing the prompt tonight.  Cross my heart.
--Barbara

Not the Only Writer in the Family

A couple weeks ago I received the gift of a handmade book.  It's a treasure.  LC made it for me all by herself.  She put my initials on the cover twice--"BM" for my name and "GM" for Grandma even though she calls me Meemaw--and the initials are backwards as is the book.  She's left-handed and writing right to left and the way pages go takes time to work out.  Inside is a picture of the Cat in the Hat and it says on the facing page, "The Cat in the Hat mad a mese."  (psst, she read it to me and it says, "made a mess.")  I love it, exclaimed over it, and think it's brilliant.  She's 4 years old.  "Four and a HALF, Meemaw."  I can't wait for more.






 




All I have to show you today is flowers.  Mostly lilies but the daisies, bee balm, and spiderwort were all blooming at the same time when I went out this morning looking so bright and cheery and like flowers should look, I think.

I also spent some time this morning digging out the weeds growing between the patio blocks.  I sprayed weed killer the other day and was waiting for a not-too-humid day to dig out the corpses and today was the day.

This afternoon I visited Durwood and then came home because my baby brother came over to see me.  His job takes him all over the country so I don't get to see him much.  We visited for a couple hours and I got to show off my garden.  It was great to see him.  We plan to get together more often now that his office is in DePere (5 miles away).

July 19--Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Strawberries.  Such a sensual red.  The berries glowed with the perfect red, ripe and glistening.  You had to be careful not to fill your pail too full or the weight of the berries would crush them all into mush, but such a sweet mush.  It only took the barest sprinkling of sugar to bring the flavor to the epitome of strawberry-ness, the pinnacle of fruit.  It took no effort at all to mash the berries before the cup after cup of sugar was stirred in.  Then the slow heating, stirring so it didn't scorch, waiting until it had boiled long enough to sheet off the spoon.  That was the tricky part to learn.  No store-bought Sure Gel for Grandma, no.  You learned to see and feel the moment when the sugar and the natural pectin from the berries joined together just right so that the jam gelled as it cooled, so that it glistened in the rows of jars like liquefied rubies.

Hm, I wonder if I have any strawberry jam downstairs.  If I do I know it was made with Sure Gel because I never did learn to cook it long enough for it to gel on it's own.  I know that, up in Heaven, Grandma shakes her head every time I make jam.  *sigh*  I do other things right though, really I do.

I learned an important lesson today--Do NOT put your camera into the same pocket you just put three cherry tomatoes into.  Write that down.
--Barbara

Woohoo! I Still Got It

This afternoon my list of "have to do today" opened up so I dialed up the 5 hours of nature sounds on my Kindle (just in case my muse came for an extended visit), unlimbered my Alphasmart,  dug out the last 2 chapters of The Seaview and the scene I was aiming for, and got to putting letters together to make words.  Real words that turned into sentences and then arranged themselves into paragraphs.  Lo and behold, within an hour I had 3 printed pages (just over 1000 words) that segued nicely into the scene I wanted it to.  Made me feel like a real writer.

DS and I swapped cars last week so I could get some work done on my little red HHR and I decided that I'll keep it and let him use the big van which will be much better for beer keg hauling and other brewery and parent-y type stuff.  Plus there's a DVD player in the second row of seats in the van that should make extended trips a lot more bearable for passengers big and small.  So I spent an hour this morning rearranging the junk I keep in there, making sure I had an umbrella handy, putting the basket of reusable grocery bags back on the passenger side floor, making room for my farmer's market basket and straw hat in the back back, and reconfiguring the box of grandkid entertainments (2 knitted owls, a stuffed gorilla eating a banana, lap blankets, and books) that stays in the car.  It wasn't until I got the HHR back that I realized how much too big the van felt to me.  I enjoyed being up higher but didn't enjoy the vast emptiness around me.

I made the best stuff for supper.  It's Jumbo Shrimp with Cuban-Style Black Beans from a

WW cookbook and it's so good.  Since WW made over 200 foods zero points the points per serving have gone from 10 to 2.  !!!!!  I know.  You saute an onion, then stir in garlic, diced peppers (I use bell instead of jalapeno; it's what I have), salt, 1/2# of peeled and deveined shrimp.  Once the shrimp are opaque you add sugar free orange marmalade, a bit of chicken broth (water with a dab of granules, I'm not opening a can or carton for 1 Tablespoon) and some cilantro.  And that's it.  You divide it in half and I squirt some green sriracha on mine to spice it up because I left out the jalapeno.  Mmm, delicious.  Now I have some left for tomorrow.  Lucky me!  (BTW, I was halfway through the serving before I thought to take a picture; a serving is a lot)


 

I got the heel flap knitted, the heel turned, the gusset stitches picked up, and now I'm decreasing down to the original number of stitches for the long slog of round and round foot knitting.  I'm not a fan of pink, we all know that, but I find I like this combo of gray, yellow, pink, and a kind of lilac-y pink.  It's a sock, it'll do its job. 

On my short erranding round today I detoured out to our storage locker to survey the contents.  I'm determined to sell what will never come back into the house, toss the trash (like the mattress and box springs that have been there for years and I am certain have become a complex of mouse condos), and bring home a carefully curated selection of pieces.  I'm tired of us paying $66 a month for it too.  Think what a nice bump that sixty-six bucks will make in our savings account.  (money in instead of out, gotta love it)  I'm seriously considering keeping the cherry drop-leaf dining table that Grandpa made in addition to the walnut writing desk & chair he built and the maple cedar/hope chest (he called it a "despair barrel") he made me that I'm definitely keeping.  Is anybody in the market for a pair of genuine late-1960s early-1970s era electric fondue pots (one avocado and one flame red) complete with cookbook, sectioned plates, and fondue forks?  I know where you can find some, cheap.

Look what bloomed!  It's a stargazer lily I found hiding behind some coleus when I went out to water across the front of the house.  The stake for the lily had fallen down so I pushed it back into the ground and then tied up the lily stalk.  Evidently I brushed one of the anthers (that's where the pollen is) with my left eyebrow and carried the orange smudge around with me all day until our renter stopped over this evening and asked what that orange stuff was.  Shows how often I look at myself in the mirror.



July 18--Roman, late Republic or early Empire, Necklace, 1st Century A.D.  Damien recognized the necklace.  He had seen it, or one exactly like it, in the museum in Naples.  He remembered it because of the large Baroque pearls that alternated with emeralds on the woven gold band.


And that's when I fell asleep.  I had a cracking good idea too but those few sentences were all I managed to scribble.  One of these nights I'm going to write more than a lead in.  Finally, I don't know if you can make it out but there's a hummingbird way up in the top of the apple tree.  See the tiny little bird shape in the middle?  When the Two Stooges built the fence a couple years ago they butchered the apple tree where it got in their way and evidently compacted the soil around it enough to kill the tree top.  Anyway, I saw the hummer on the feeder and just as I got ready to take its picture up into the tree it flew.  But I could still see it so I'm showing it to you.
--Barbara