Gardens (again), and Open Mic

61°f/16°C, rainy night, showery morning but ending soon. 

I'm interspersing flower and garden pics into this post today. I do seem to take a lot of them, but can't seem to control the urge.

The peonies are blooming! Again, 2 weeks early.

It was so good to get a whole night of rain. Not big storms, just rain, the kind that soaks right into the ground. I am especially grateful because I have so many seeds planted that were just waiting for a good soaking.  And for the past two days I have been planting flowers that I bought last week. I waited to do this until the last cold spell ended. 

These iris are so full of blooms they fell over. I propped them up later, but several others are doing the same. Need to think about this for next year.

I guess that frosty weather must have been our blackberry winter? The blackberries were blooming, but fortunately didn't get bit. We have had our redbud and our dogwood winters already this year, so perhaps this is the last of Old Man Winter. Although, it is supposed to get cold again this weekend. Humph.Regardless of what Mother Nature and her cohorts are doing, plants are determinedly doing what they know they are supposed to at this time of year. 

I bet this lovely bloom is on the ground this morning, after all that rain.

Today I am feeling the effects of all the digging and hauling,  but it feels good to have it done. There is still plenty more to do. I have not yet filled all my planters,  and a box of plants arrived in yesterday's mail. There is a full tray of peppers and tomatoes still waiting, and more seeds to get in the ground. I need more mulch for the herb garden, and have just started mulching the vegetable garden. 

This iris looks black in the garden, much darker than the photo.

But it is coming along. Potatoes, peas, and onions are doing great, lettuce is ready to pick, some corn,  beans and cucumbers are up, and lots of other things are growing well. The garden is such a hopeful place in Spring, and gardeners, I think, are the most optimistic of humans, going out every year blithely believing that this will be the best year ever. How often that optimism is checked by reality! How often achieving even decent results means hard work, lots of watering, and fending off wildlife and disease. And still sometimes we fail. And yet, when the next spring comes, and we are right back out there 

Another one opened yesterday. Such delicate colors!

Today is town day, I think, once Larry gets back from taking the @#*$ mower to a neighbor to repair. He has tried to repair it himself and just made things worse, I am afraid. I finally convinced him to take it to our neighbor Bill, who is a wizard at this stuff. 

Edit: neighbor wasn't home, so he's back, with the @#$% mower still in the truck. Now we can't pick up mulch and stuff today. Grrr!

Another new-to-my-garden iris, but I can't remember if it's a Siberian or a Dutch variety!

Last night we went to the open mic. I needed a break after all the garden work, then helping Larry fix the weedeater, and load the mower into the truck. (I will tell you now,  two chubby 75-year-olds pushing a heavy mower up a ramp into a truck is not the best idea! But we got it done.)

My favorite corner of this garden. The Mexican primroses are so pretty. Spread like wildfire, but I don't care--they pull up easily.

The open mic was excellent. Lots of great music, and I told this story, 

and sang this song by Kris Kristoffersen. I really like the lyrics, pretty fitting for our times, I think, even though it was written in 1972. (It sounds like a John Prine song; Kristoffersen actually discovered

Price in a little club in Chicago, took him with him to New York. John sang one night in a club there and was signed to a $25,000 contract the next day. That was big money in those days. Kristoffersen wrote this song as a tribute to Prine. Pretty neat.)

Last night's featured performer, Jim Snyder, shared a mix of classic songs, like this one:

He joined in with a girl who sometimes comes to sing, in this clip:

All performers were excellent, and again we marveled at how much some of them had improved since they first started coming. Honestly,  I have paid to see shows that weren't as good as last night. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Friends, Family, and Stoves

35°f/2°C this morning. Brrr! We dodged the frost/freeze but many places around us were hit with it. 62° as I write, but still feels cold with a chilly breeze blowing.

Yes, we covered those tomato plants we put out last week! Even though I felt confident we would not get a damaging frost, better safe than sorry. Larry covered the raspberries too...just in case. This cold weather will continue pretty much all week; tomorrow and Tuesday will warm up a bit, but then we will be back to 40- degree nights.  My beans are popping up anyway, but no sign of cucumbers or squash yet. I may have to replant.

We had a good day Friday, restocking our booths, then dinner with our friend Suzy. She has no family close by except her late brother's wife, with whom she is not close, and a couple step-nieces. Fortunately she has many friends and gets out every day for one activity or another. We try to get together with her a couple times a week--- she's great company so it's a real pleasure. I think as we get older we value our friends more. Even though we have a large family, people our age are comfortable company. We understand each other's aches and pains, have shared history and experiences. Even if we didn't know each other when we were younger, we remember the same music, historic events,  styles,  etc, so there is never a lack of topics to talk about.

We took the table we've been working on and got it staged with a couple chairs we have had in the booth for some time.

We had to make a top and a drawer for it, but I think it's cute.

Yesterday afternoon we went to a birthday party/baby shower at granddaughter Hannah's house. It was our son Derek's 54th birthday, and Hannah's husband and his 2 sons all have birthdays within the first 2 weeks of May. And then of course Hannah is expecting in July. She looks so much further along than that!

I had to dig out this old photo of me when I was expecting my youngest son, back in 1986. I think this was taken just a couple weeks before he was born. Hannah laughed when I sent it to her. Two pregnant peas in a pod! But she seems to be a lot bigger than I was.

It was a nice party, about 50 people and children there. Even though it was only 57°, Derek cooked on the grill, and Hannah had a small marquee set up with tables and chairs, so when clouds covered the sun we were still comfortable. It was a big blended family event, with Derek's ex-wife Tara and her husband, her husband's mother and sister, and her mother, aunt, brothers,  their spouses and children and a few of their kids. Then there was Hannah's husband's family, and Larry, Haley, Desiree, and me from Derek's side. And of course several good friends, a couple neighbors, etc. It is good for all families when divorced couples can stay friends. We have known Tara since she was 14, I think, so she has been part of our family for a very long time.

Speaking of granddaughters,  Hannah's sister Haley is now the proud owner of this vintage Chambers stove.

These, and the O'Keefe-Merritt stoves, are considered the Cadillacs of old cookstoves. My Tappan Deluxe is also a great stove, but this Chambers is amazing. It has a griddle built into the top,  and two ovens! The girls' other grandma had this stored in her garage. It belonged to her late husband's first wife, who passed away in 2002, so it has been a minute since this has been used. Apparently she never used the ovens because they look like new. I so wanted this stove myself, but I knew the men in my life would kill me if I asked them to move another heavy old stove! Of course, now Derek has to move it anyway for his daughter, which I admit makes me grin wickedly!

This is the second granddaughter I have corrupted, as Sarah took my old Tappan Deluxe up to her cabin when I got another one in better condition. I just love it that my granddaughters understand just how amazing these old stoves are. They all love my old Tappan, but I never thought they would want their own! Haley will have help getting hers going from our son Aaron, who lives just 15 minutes from her.

Today I used up all our asparagus to make cream of asparagus soup.  I think we have eaten asparagus every day for the past 2 weeks! I love it, but we couldn't eat all that we were getting, and I had over 2 pounds in the fridge.  Now it's all made into this delicious soup. What we don't eat today and tomorrow I will freeze. We will enjoy it as a special treat in the winter.

The recipes I have all say to thicken it, and to add cream or sour cream before eating, but I like it just like it is. It is so simple to make. I cut up onions, celery, and asparagus, added a little garlic and mixed in turkey broth from the cellar, and simmered til the vegetables were soft, then used the immersion blender to puree it. It doesn't even need salt and pepper,  it's just delicious without adding anything more.

I spent this afternoon pricing for the booths. We went to a small flea market, then did some picking at a few thrifts on our way to pick up from the auction on Thursday, so I had a pretty good pile of stuff to clean up, research, and price. This is less than half of it, I think.

I have a lot of plants that need to be put in the ground or in planters, but it was just too chilly for me today. That will be tomorrow's to-do list. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.

Energy

Several readers have commented on the amount of energy Larry and I have. I don't know if it is more than most people our age (almost 75). We probably don't do anything unique, but we do eat a good breakfast,  usually eggs and toast, or oats, or granola a few times a week. A bowl of cereal just wouldn't do much for us. 

We don't watch TV in the mornings. Well, right now we don't watch it at all because we still haven't replaced the broken one! Just haven't really missed it. We might listen to the news in the morning on NPR, or read some news stories online, but that's it in the mornings. I like to read a few blogs, or call one of my sons and ease into the day that way.

Then there are breaks. We take them pretty often.  I might work for an hour, then take an hour break. No naps for me, but Larry will take a short one occasionally. (He used to take 2 hour naps, but that stopped when he quit drinking whiskey, and just drinks zero beer unless we go out. That change made a huge difference in our lives.)

We usually have 2 meals a day, maybe a snack of fruit in between. Evening meals are usually light, but not always. Kinda depends on how much I feel like cooking!

So maybe these things help our energy level, or maybe they make no difference and it is just a lifetime of being busy that keeps us going? And I wonder when we will slow down. I can already see that happening, actually, as I read through this post from May of 2009. 

"Here's what happens: I have too many things I want to write about.

It's like this many days--the variety of events of the day clamor to be written, but there is no time to record it all. I have to decide, and often something gets lost in the shuffle and never gets written.

Today is a good example:

Up and out early for work because I have a meeting with the maintenance guys to discuss things like hard hats, gloves, safety glasses, etc. Before leaving, rapid-fire instructions to poor suffering husband about what to plant today. Will he remember all that? Probably not, but I didn't get home until 10 last night so there was no time to discuss the gardens or plans. Show him the asparagus roots and how to plant. Will he get it done? Maybe, but there's a lot to do in the gardens today. The hardest thing I do all day: get in my car and leave for work.


On the ridge the sun coming up over mist-filled valleys below stops me, and I take a few pictures. Still early, I drive on.

Then further down the road the morning dew in the rising sun stops me again. More pictures. Still a little early--but have to get gas. Get to work 10 minutes early instead of 30 as planned. Oh well. Some things are worth stopping for (gas isn't one, but the car just doesn't go well without it).

At work, after the meeting: elevator decides not to stop on the first floor anymore. Call the repair guy. Weird old sprayed on insulation is falling in the boiler room--get samples to send to a lab for asbestos testing. Toilet stopped up (first of the day, there will be more). Get maintenance on to that. AC isn't working because a circuit board blew over the weekend. Repair guys get it replaced. Everyone is happy. Work on cooling tower documents and have a final (I think) draft. I now know more about them than I ever expected, but still worry that I haven't got it right. Work on shelter-in-place procedures. Plan more bloodborne pathogens and MSDS training for tomorrow. Review all the strange security incidents of the weekend with our head security guy and decide further actions. Call back about new bookmobile schematics and logo. Am horrified to learn of the killing of a former employee by her daughter. How sad is that? It was on my mind all day.

Derek (son #3) called to tell me he is being deployed in 2 weeks to the flooded regions in southern West Virginia. At least he'll be at the family reunion this weekend, and they will let him come home for his son's high school graduation. He needs to weld the frame of his son's truck--it's literally breaking in two.

On the way home, stop at funeral home. An older neighbor passed away over the weekend. The huge parking lot is filled, so many people to honor this quiet, gentle man. He will be missed.



On the way home, stop to take pictures of trilliums and maidenhair ferns on the roadbank. Wild things seem to pay little attention to our comings and goings. They continue to bloom and grow where they land. Stop to see Derek at a neighbor's house where he is welding. Promise the neighbor's wife tomato plants and some pepper plants. We have many left over plants this year. Riches!


More pictures coming across the ridge of the sun slanting down over the road. So pretty it just stops you, you know?

At home, get tomato and pepper plants, send Larry down the road with them. First he shows me the goldenseal roots he found today--yellow root, he calls it, a powerful wild medicine. And the bee boxes that arrived via UPS for the bees that are arriving this weekend. The UPS guys hate our driveway, I'm sure, but they come anyway.

After Larry leaves, I get on the phone and call storytellers, writers, poets, trying to fill the last slot in the WV State Folk Festival Oral Traditions tent schedule. No luck for an hour, after about a dozen calls, but I at least catch up on my friends. Finally, a yes! From someone I should have thought of in the first place. Then on to the computer, to think about what to write tonight.

What I really wanted to write about tonight was life, its hurried passing and leaving. Its richness. I wanted to write about goldenseal, about a husband who treks through the hills seeking the elusive plant, about what goldenseal looks like and what it's used for. I wanted to write about the neighbors who turned out in droves to honor their good friend. I wanted to tell you about the family reunion and the beautiful plants my sister is bringing, and about the plants I want to bring if I have time to dig them.

I want to write about so many things, but only succeed in telling you a little bit about each one--and yet each is a story in itself. Sometimes people say they envy our slow pace of life. I understand why it seems that way--when people come to visit, we slow down. Visitors are important, to be enjoyed. Other things drop away. Daily life, especially in Spring, is hectic as we try to plant and mow and plan and clean and still get me to work on time.

There is one thing I make time for every day: writing. Even though I never have enough time to write all the things I want to write about."

Yes, I have certainly slowed down since those days! 

But as the wise ones say, the way to keep going is to just keep going, so that's my plan. Not as fast,but like the tortoise, slow and steady. 

Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.