What a Week

47°/8.3°C this morning, clear bit later mixed clouds and sun. Warmed to 73°.

What a wild ride this week has been! One of those weeks where we had to go out almost every day. I hate that. I am a much happier camper when I can be home for several days, or even a week or two, with no trips out. But sometimes life sure intervenes.

A better photo of that black iris. Just stunning, I think.

Tuesday was open mic; Wednesday we needed gas, groceries, line for the string trimmer, and we dropped off the riding mower at a repair guy 's place in the evening. So that day was a bust. No garden work at all. Thursday Larry had a VA appointment in Charleston. I was happily reading blogs and doing my puzzles, still in my nightgown, at 9:45am, having had a rough night's sleep due to arm and shoulder pain (should never have helped load that mower!). Suddenly I realized that we were to be in Charleston,  50+ miles away, in 30 minutes! Hollered for Larry, who was messing around outside, called the VA to explain, and we got there an hour and a half late. Fortunately it was just for blood work, so they were pretty flexible. Whew.

Since we were in Charleston, we stopped at the Farmer's market for herb plants. I want to expand my selection of herbs, and there's just nowhere closer. And since we were there, we decided to have lunch at Soho's, a restaurant we like in the market. As we were sitting down, in walked my friend Suzy and her friend Karen! 50 miles from home, what a coincidence. So we enjoyed a nice lunch, did our shopping, and got a call on the way home that our mower was already fixed.

One thing I bought at the market that was not a plant:

These are going to granddaughter Sarah, a Mothman fan. I also bought some Aztec chocolates for granddaughter Grace, from a chocolatier who makes the best chocolates in the state. These are Grace's favorites, and she can't get them where she lives. 

I was amazed that the mower was ready so fast.  How often does anything get fixed that fast? So home to get the truck and pick up the mower. It turned out that the problem was electrical,  and a fuse box and a few other parts had to be replaced. Who knew mowers had fuseboxes! The cost was reasonable, and it was such a relief to find someone so close who can do this work.

A few photos from the road to the repair shop, which is only a few miles from home.

One of the oldest homes in our county:

On the way home, we were behind this poor wrecked Jeep being hauled to the junkyard. A bad wreck happened just a little earlier, and the driver had to be life-flighted by helicopter to Morgantown. So sad, and sobering. Apparently they were just going too fast and lost control in a curve. I haven't heard anything about who the driver was, or their condition, but they certainly have our prayers.

I had our son Derek stop by to help unload the mower. (Not going to ever get involved with loading or unloading it again. Learned my lesson as my arms and shoulders are still giving me heck at night.) Derek stayed around a while to enjoy the firepit with us. That was nice. 

Today was booth day, but a light one because I have had little time to get anything ready. So we had lunch at Shari's with a group of friends, and it was such a good time. So many stories, I am pretty sure all of us left with brown legs due to the large amount of BS around that table! There were stories of snake-handling churches and church revivals, most of them pretty funny. 

Our friend Bill said he was at a revival once and the preacher was telling the story of David and Goliath. The preacher was really wound up and getting into the story, and as he was telling about David using his slingshot to shoot Goliath, the preacher yelled, "He just pulled back as far as he could, and let that stone fly, and it hit that big son of a b**** right between the eyes!" The congregation was stunned for a minute before everyone broke out laughing. 

Larry told them about a church he went to once, in Lincoln County, WV. There was a girl who went to church there that he was sweet on, so he agreed to go to a service with her. Suddenly a man picked up a box and started taking rattlesnakes and copperheads out of the box and handing them to people. Larry said he was out the door fast! And that if there hadn't already been a door there, he'd have made them a new one! 

After finishing the booths, we had a couple extra stops, one to pick up an armoire, another to buy a beautiful brass candelabra from a friend who is also a reseller. 

That armoire was heavy, and no one was there that could help load it, of course. I think i need to take some weightlifting training if I am going to keep on hoisting heavy stuff about. 

Then finally, home, where our dofs were overjoyed to see us. Dinner was leftover cream of asparagus soup, a free pizza bread (given to us at a restaurant on Wednesday because they said they messed up the ones we ordered, even though we couldn't tell the difference), and leftover cobbler. We ate out on the deck, enjoying the beautiful evening. 

We ended up at the firepit---it is just the perfect way to end a busy day,  I think. Need to clean up around the firepit, but that's a job for another day.

Tomorrow we still need to go out again, for concrete mix to finish the patio project, mulch for my herb garden, and a couple more cattle panels for trellising the tomatoes. We may just put off that trip though, as I am longing to be home. But Derek has invited us out for dinner to celebrate Mother's Day, since he has a golf thing on Sunday. So maybe Sunday we will just stay put all day? I hope so!

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

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.