Moving Day

I've moved! You can now find me at One Foot in the Garden.

Crazy, Stupid Weather

Here we are in June and it's supposed to be sunny, at least in the afternoon. We get morning fog here during summer, but then it clears and we have gorgeous weather. Sweater in the morning, tank top in the afternoon. It's the way it is here. Really. Usually.

Yesterday I wore a wool coat to work. This morning I turned the heater on to take the chill off the house. It's supposed to rain into next week. I'm ready for summer and the weather isn't cooperating!

Jumping Back In (with two feet)

A year and a half ago I stepped back from blogging under my real name. I’d had a bit of a run-in with a mean-spirited commenter and it felt safer to use a different name for a while. Now I’m ready to re-claim my blog and worry less about what someone with too much time on their hands might say or think. So, here I am -  my name is Deirdre and this is my blog. At least for a while.

A couple posts ago I wrote there are changes coming this way, but it might take a while to get there. There’s a new blog in the works, one that’s truer to my ideals and goals. It’s been a journey, this blogging, and each time I think I’ve found the right format for my voice I grow and stretch and discover new tools. Someone (I don’t remember who) described blogging as “a living book” – I like that; it gives a bit of weight to what bloggers hope to achieve when we sit down to put our thoughts and images out into the world. A blog adjusts and shapes itself alongside life if we let it. It can draw a community together; people who haven’t met, who may never meet, find common ground and camaraderie. We share ideas and solutions, laughter and tears, recipes, tips, pictures. And friendship, that’s the best of all.

Until the new blog is ready to unveil I’ll keep posting here. I'm still making notes and editing photographs for the new place. It's going to be pretty.

Progress

I must be getting better at this gardening thing; today I picked up a snail with my bare fingers.

Changes...

There are changes afoot here at Wild Plum Cottage. I'm still tinkering, so it might be a while yet, but will (hopefully) be worth the wait.

A New Friend

 Meet Jeremy. Okay, it's not his real name. I don't know what his real name is; he's not ours, so it doesn't really matter.

He's pleased to meet you.

Starry Night

Tonight, under a clear, star-scattered sky, I burned a bad time in my life. It’s been a long while since I held a fire ritual, the letting go of what no longer serves me well. Something about flames and purpose gives me a sense of a fresh start. And that’s where I am right now – cherishing the moment, recognizing the hard work that’s led me to this sweet time.

For the past couple weeks I’ve been clearing old files, digging through storage bins, drawers, closets, and cupboards. I’m astounded at what I’ve found. Things I didn’t remember owning. Or writing. Things I’ve kept for no rhyme or reason.

In the bottom of a drawer I found my old journals. When my first marriage ended, and for several years after, I poured my guts onto paper, frantically trying to figure things out and fix myself. While reading through a few pages this evening I wanted to reach back in time and smack that girl I was then, the one who so willingly took all the blame and cried how all her dreams had been destroyed. Maybe slightly amused pity is a better response. Because life has turned out almost exactly the way I wanted it to, despite my fears I’d never be happy again.

I watched the smoke from those journals curl away from me, like a living thing. A satellite eased across the sky; hundreds, maybe thousands, of frogs croaked melodiously while I sipped blackberry brandy and snuggled deeper into my coat and scarf. And I let it all go.

A Bit of Summer on a Cold Winter Day

Last summer I was a blackberry fiend, picking more than 40 pounds of wild blackberries. From most of those berries I made far more jars of jam than I’ll eat, which makes them ideal for gifting, and a few jars of blackberry sauce that I could fall into and happily drown. That left one large bag of berries still in the freezer, calling out to be made into something easy and summery in the middle of this cold winter.

Because I’m on a big organizing spree, I don’t want to can anything right now. The prospect of hauling out canning equipment and then waiting for jars cool on the counter just doesn’t appeal to me right now.  Clear counters are so pretty; I want to enjoy them a while longer and still have the satisfaction of having made something delicious to enjoy later. Last year I made a small batch of blackberry brandy that has aged perfectly. It’s a good thing to do with fruit when you’re already up to your eyeballs in jam and can’t face another jar.

Here’s the basic recipe. (I’ve played with it a bit in the past, using more berries, granulated sugar, and letting it sit for about a month longer.)

1 lb. blackberries

8 oz. superfine sugar

1 liter brandy

Combine all three in a gallon jar (or divide it between smaller jars) and stir. Stir it again once a week or so for the next two months. Strain, bottle, drink.

This batch of blackberry brandy won’t be ready until we’re well into spring, when we’ll lift our glasses of summer to toast the passing of winter.

Saturday Morning Memories

This morning, still half-asleep, I rolled over and asked my husband what time it was. It was 8:20 a.m. and I should have been awake and out of bed at least half an hour earlier. I didn’t jump up right away, but lay there thinking for a few minutes, letting my mind wander wherever it needed to go.

In the year and a few months since my father died some of his more endearing quirks have come back to me. You know those things parents do that embarrass or frustrate us when we’re kids and later seem kind of sweet? Those things. My father wasn’t an easy man to be raised by, so there aren’t many moments that I can describe as sweet or warm. But, thankfully, some memories settle on me gently these days. My father never lost his “old country ways”. His place in the world was strictly defined by his speech patterns and attitudes and he held fast to that to the end.

This morning I remembered the way he’d give the time; it was half past, five of, or a quarter past, with no reference to the hour. Half past what? 3:00? 5:00? It was yet another fine point of contention between generations and cultures, in the power struggle between parent and teen.

Today I’m a little sad, not because I miss him – we never had enough relationship to miss now – but because we never had enough relationship for me to miss him now. He was, in many ways, a good man who did his best. That’s what I think about now. I remember that he sang at the top of his lungs, horrifying us kids because the neighbors could hear. An overheard turn of phrase or line of dialog in a movie reminds me of my father in his better moments. And some of his not so great moments.

It’s the nature of loss and grief that memories sneak up on us in quiet times. In the ten minutes it took me to completely wake up and start my day I missed my father.

The clock on the wall reads a quarter past.  

A Worm Glow in Winter

A while back I wrote about how much I’d like to have worm beds for composting and that I have a love/hate relationship with worms. I like the idea…not so much the slippery, wriggling reality. You might remember that we have a big, round composting ball that breaks down our kitchen scraps pretty quickly; I love that thing.

At the very end of last year, the week between Christmas and New Year, I got a horrible cold. It was the mother of all head colds and I was truly miserable. I came out of it glad to be part of the world again and thankful to have a husband who cooks, makes pharmacy runs, and buys trash magazines without complaint. (Because, really, you’ve got to have mindless reading when you’re sick, and People magazine fits the bill perfectly.) I learned I’m not a terribly cheery person when I don’t feel well – there may have been some whining going on and I looked like hell. I’m still newly-wed enough to be slightly appalled to have my husband see me like that, and old mature enough to know that “for better or worse” includes colds.  

The few times I was out of bed and downstairs in the kitchen I looked out the sliding glass door at my frost-covered composter and wondered if any of the worms who’d made it home during the warmer months were surviving the cold weather. I was sure they’d all frozen to death just as I was getting more comfortable with their sliminess.

Last week I finally made it out feed the bin and check on their welfare, peering in, for a long time, with a flashlight one night after work. (I’m sure the neighbors think I’m a crackpot; clothesline, compost bins, prayer flags over the garden beds – our suburban, golf course hugging neighborhood just doesn’t see much of that.) Not only were the worms alive and well, but the bin was warm. I can’t tell you how relieved and excited I was. Worms and heat. It doesn’t take much to make me happy.

A New Year's Phrase

It’s a new year, bright and shiny and full of possibilities, but there will be no resolutions made; they only bring out the defiant child in me and I end up breaking them all, not caring that it costs me the achievement of a goal. Instead, I’ve decided to adopt a phrase, a nudging reminder that there are changes afoot and now is the time to make them.

A few of the changes are standard – exercise more, make better food choices. Most of us know those goals very well. Some are more personal, rising from questions that barreled at me around my birthday last year. There’s no doubt I’ve entered the phase of life called “mid”. It’s not the half-way point (or, most likely, beyond), but the point at which the balance can shift. I can be lazy and it’s all downhill from here, or, better, I can take a good, long look at what I need to be to stay happy, healthy, and contributing to this world. Fixing a goal in mind does no good if I do nothing to support getting there.

My reminder, the whisper in my ear, will be a question: If not now … when? There has to be a starting point for everything and it is now. Otherwise it’s always tomorrow, next week, after the holiday, when I have more money, when the cows come home and pigs fly.  When I’m tempted to slide it will be the question that calls me to make a choice – if not now, when? That doesn’t mean I’ll always follow through. Good lord, where would the fun be in that? But a conscious choice is always better than being an old horse following the same track home every night.  There are lots more trails to be explored and this year, now, I intend to gallop a little.

Tea and Chocolate and a Cold

Today I’m bundled up in warm jammies and woolen socks. It’s cold and windy outside, the remnants of a storm that swept through during the night, flooding roads and knocking down trees. I would have gone to work this morning and been on the road in that mess, instead I’ve got the cold that’s been going around these parts.

My husband is home sick too and, unlike me, is able to sleep his way through a bug. I’m not sick enough to stay in bed, but well enough to be bored. If I could settle down with a book or movie it would be so much better; aimlessly wandering around the house isn’t particularly helpful in the healing process.

I’ve played about as much solitaire as I can stand, checked my Facebook page numerous times, folded a few loads of laundry, swilled down a gallon or so of hot tea, and made a jar of salt scrub for myself; all mindless pursuits.

Food doesn’t even sound good right now. Except for the piece of chocolate ganache goodness I found in the freezer. I’d stashed a slice of cranberry chocolate tart in the freezer last month as a test to see how it would hold up to freezing. Based on today’s taste test it did just fine. Too bad it was such a small bite.

In the time it’s taken me to write this I’ve emptied another mug of tea. Time to put the kettle back on and make another pot.

The Worms Crawl In ...

This post is about worms. You can skip it if you’d rather. My feelings won’t be hurt. Worms are gross. They make my skin crawl. Yeah, I know they’re useful, vital even, to soil and decomposition. Worm castings - poop - cost a fortune at better nurseries. At the local “beyond organic” farm where I buy the best tomatoes in the world (yeah, really) they sell small bags of worm castings for ten bucks a pop. I’m quite sure its worth that price, but … really? Worm poop?!?

So, here’s my dilemma. I compost in two bins in the backyard. One is kind of basic, a plastic box with a hinged lid. The other is pretty swizzle. It’s a giant plastic ball with twist on/off lids at both poles. We call it “The Death Star”. Looks just like the big evil thing in Star Wars that the good guys blew up. We roll it around the yard to mix the contents, helping yesterday’s veggie scraps break down a bit faster. I love composting. It makes all kinds of sense to me: from the earth and back to the earth.

This is where the part about worms comes in. Composting with worms is faster. Those little critters are dirt factories. Garbage in one end, soil out the other. It’s a fascinatingly basic process. Except for one little bitty thing. (See first paragraph.) They gross me out. I want a worm bed. I want to feed worms as many of my kitchen scraps as they’ll eat. I just don’t want to see or (dear god) touch them.

Last week, while emptying the kitchen bucket (which is really an old, plain cookie jar) into the composter, I found a lone earthworm crawling along the rim of the bin, just where the lid needed to be fitted back on. I gathered up my gut and, with the edge of a paper towel, encouraged him to wiggle back into the bin. I even spoke to him in a kind and gentle voice, which brought my husband out of the garage to remind me that worms have no comprehension of human language. No matter. I hadn’t retched; it was a milestone moment.

Two nights ago, while doing a last sweep through the kitchen and family room before heading off to bed, I spotted a twig on the floor. We’d both been in the backyard earlier in the day and sometimes track things into the house. I bent over to pick it up … and it moved. There was an earthworm in my house. Inside. My. House.

I’m sure I’d have dealt with the situation if I’d been home alone. At my last house I’d had to remove potato bugs from the living room a couple times, and I’m telling you, you could die from ugly with a potato bug. But, thankfully, my husband was home and he’s not bothered by worms. He carried it outside to the front yard where it is, I’m sure, contentedly doing whatever it is that makes worms happy.

Which brings me back to the fact that though I really like the idea of worm beds, I’m just not quite there yet. Maybe someday, but my skin with have to stop crawling first. It’s going to take a while longer.

Sun Day

Early yesterday morning, at about 6:30, we left the house for a day out, away from the projects and chores that have occupied our weekends for most of the summer. We used to do this often on Sunday mornings, but between painting the inside of our house and landscaping the front yard we haven’t had the time or energy to drag ourselves out the door before dawn. We like to take photographs in the morning, and the only way to make that happen is to leave the house at omigod o’clock in order to be somewhere beautiful at sunrise or shortly thereafter.  

Our destination yesterday was a few hours north of where we live, a valley with a small town and not much else. We drove up a mostly empty freeway for two hours, a little more than half-way, and stopped for coffee and scones in a small town known mostly for its secluded gardens and surreptitious harvest. It’s apparently a fairly trusting town even with all that going on. The man in line behind us at the coffee counter left his car running in the parking lot well out of his sight. Or maybe he was too stoned to realize he should have turned it off and taken the keys with him. Either way, it was still there when he got back.

We didn’t stop again until we were well out the road that twists and bends alongside the Eel River. The air is sweet and clean in this part of California. And so quiet that the sound of wind brushing through tree tops is a wonder.

There weren’t many cars on the road, and the only people we saw in the valley looked to be hunters gathered around a truck, maybe planning their hunt. We drove through the quick blink of town, turned around at the far end and headed back the way we’d come. It was never our plan to stop. We just wanted to see what was there, check out the scenery to see if it was really as pretty as we’d heard. We do that sometimes, drive out a road we’ve never been on just because we’re curious.

Maybe we’re lucky, or possibly just easily amused, but every time we point the car in a direction and pay attention, we find magic. Not the kind that knocks our socks off, not usually anyway, but the kind of magic that reminds us that the world, the earth, is an amazing place and we’re lucky to be here.

In the course of our travels yesterday we saw several squirrels; there’s nothing out of the ordinary about a squirrel, but they make me smile. Good enough. A small flock of wild turkeys half flew across the road in front of our car. They’re so much prettier - a bit majestic really – than domestic turkeys. Several deer picked their way along a rocky river beach. We watched them until they rounded a bend. And we were lucky, and alert enough, to spot a family of river otters playing and sunning themselves on warm rocks. We stood at the side of the road taking turns with the binoculars, counting (six of them), and watching until they slipped back into the cool water and swam away.

On our way home we stopped at a winery to eat the grocery store sandwiches we’d bought earlier in the day. It was a pretty place to have lunch and then make a purchase to add to the tiny little cellar closet we keep. We were home again by mid-afternoon, relaxed and more ready to tackle the next phase of home improvement projects in their due time. And we’ll remember, for a long time, that it’s a good thing to play and warm ourselves in the sun.  

Rocks, Roots and Clods

Gardening isn’t for sissies. We’re learning that with our backs. We've pulled lots of rocks, a network of old roots, and solid dirt clods out of the yard. The rocks and dirt go into the backyard to raise low spots. Then we dig, dig some more, mix good, new soil with old in the wheelbarrow, shovel it back in around the new plant, pat it down, repeat. So far we’ve repeated this process 26 times, not counting the two flats of ground cover that we cut into more than twenty little squares each and followed the same steps.

The dirt (I hesitate to call it soil) in our yard is adobe, a dense clay that just dares a plant to grow. It has to be amended in order to break it down into something that will drain properly and have the right mix of nutrients for our new plants. Of course, everything we’ve chosen for the front yard requires good drainage.

If When the plants take root they’ll be low maintenance, colorful, and fragrant. Our front yard will be the best smelling in the neighborhood. We’ve put in a variety of salvias, rosemary, a couple kinds of lavender, lambs ear, and lemon verbena. They’ll grow tall and lush and we’ll be glad to have worked so hard to help them along.

Hot Damn & Hallelujah (emphasis on the hot)

We’re having the first heat wave of the summer. The temperature topped out at 107 today and it’s still in the low 80’s at nine o’clock in the evening. That’s almost unheard of around here. It’s normal to have chilly summer mornings (sometimes foggy), hot afternoons, and then down into the 50’s at night. This year we’ve had light rain and overcast skies that didn’t clear all day. Until yesterday.

I’m sitting on the front porch as I write this, a tall cold drink sweating onto the table. My neighbors all around have their windows open to catch the slightest breeze. Laughing kids, barking dogs, a siren, crickets chirping, snippets of conversation – they’re all the sounds of summer in the neighborhood. Even the ground is sighing away the day’s heat. I love the smell of fading day, that freshly watered lawn fragrance and hot asphalt mixed with barbeque, trees, and the creek across the road. The full moon has just made its way around the corner of the house, completing the night’s beauty.

I’m sure I’ll suffer for it tomorrow when the air conditioner at work is straining to keep up. But for now, right this minute, I’m glad summer has come to call.

I Dare You Not to Cry

Brain Fog

Why is it that every time I decide to make dilly beans I forget to buy ... umm ... dill.

One Of These Things Doesn't Belong

Last night we learned an important gardening lesson: do not cook and eat a vegetable you can’t positively identify. An adventurous attitude is a good thing to have – it can lead to all kinds of wonderful experiences. At least, that's what we hope.

So, when several plants started coming up in the garden beds we decided to let them grow and be surprised at harvest time. It made sense. We knew what we’d planted in the past, and had a pretty good idea of what we’d put into the compost bin. The first surprise was that so many seeds survived the composting process and began growing when we spread compost into the beds. We stood over those little seedlings many mornings guessing what they might be. Cantaloupe, zucchini, pumpkin?

Yesterday we delightedly harvested potatoes, green beans - which we'd actually planted, and some strange squash we hadn't. We were pretty stoked to get so much of our meal from our very own garden. Weren’t we clever and headed for great gardening success.

You know where this is going, don’t you?

The wine was poured, our meal plated, we toasted our bounty, and took a first bite. I don’t know which of us made it back to the kitchen to spit it out first. Holy god, what did we just eat? I’ve never tasted anything so bitter. Swigs of wine, chunks of bread, and a dip into the sugar bowl were required to get rid of the taste.

Turns out I’d forgotten about the gourds I’d tossed into the composter a couple years ago. Gourds are vile tasting. You should never cook and try to eat a gourd. Lesson learned. We ripped out the plants this morning.

I Spoke Too Soon

It seems this was leaking for a long time. Explains why our water bill is so high. It's fixed now. (I hope.) Did I mention that we're on vacation? Working in the yard, hauling ass let me tell you, and calling it vacation. It's a good thing we love working around the house.