Tomato Love

My garden is a sad sight right now, and looking through these gorgeous, green pictures has me really missing summer.

At the beginning of this gardening adventure, I took us through the six varieties of tomatoes that Sister and I planted in our garden. They were: grapettes, yellow pear tomatoes, the mortgage lifter, brandywine, beefsteak and Ruth’s Perfect variety.

LOOK AT THE BABY TOMATO PLANTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Brandywine was our absolute favorite. It was basically everything a tomato should be: firm, tart, sweet, tomatoey. We bought that and our other favorite (the grapette) at the Country Caretaker in Canaan, NY. I tried to take note of where we bought different plants to see if there was any kind of longterm trend about their health and productivity. We started the tomatoes with a handful of worm castings and some Neptune Fish Emulsion oil. It stank, but maybe helped?

Our yellow pear variety completely took over a whole corner of the garden. We ended up using five or six stakes to hold it up and it sprawled all over everything, which was unfortunate because it just wasn’t that good.

The yellow pears were beautiful, but quite pithy and relatively flavorless. I’m not sure why, but am open to any suggestions about why that would happen so I can avoid it in the future.

The beefsteaks were yummy but never got to the really massive size I expected of beefsteaks and it didn’t produce very much, either. In fact, when we needed a great big slicing tomato, we usually went to a local farm stand to get one. Garden Goal for next year is to find some really good, juicy slicing tomatoes that produce consistently throughout the summer. Of course, I was a little late getting the plants in this year, but we still should have had more of a yield.

The grapettes performed spectacularly, however. In fact, they rarely made it back into the house. SO tart, juicy, and with just the right amount of bite to them. The plant stayed pretty small (probably because it was seriously overshadowed by the yellow pear vines) but still produced gorgeous little red grape-sized bunches of tomatoes. My mouth is watering…I miss them…and summer…and heat…

If I’ve discovered something about gardening though, it is that it is about far more than food production. There is so much that goes into the whole endeavor. Research, preparation, and care. I loved to watch things go from little baby plants full of so much promise and potential; I liked to find out what was harming the plants and then do battle with the disease or insects; I liked to watch them ripen into the exact thing they were meant to be.

I love the sensations of gardening. The heat, the dirt, the connection to the earth and the food. The velvety feel of the tomato leaves. The smell of them when crushed between thumb and forefinger. The horror of the wasp-infested tomato hornworm.

And, more than anything else in the garden, I enjoyed eating the tomatoes. Here is my favorite way to eat them (if they make it into the house). Chop up cucumbers, tomatoes, and bell pepper and sprinkle with crumbled, soft feta cheese. It is the best and simplest salad, and I could eat it every single day (and sometimes I DO!).

I’m excited to start seeds in a few months, it’ll be my first time starting them myself and I know it will entail a lot of research and notes and hope and I am looking forward to the whole process. Let me know what you think about the first little tomato patch I ever grew and if you have any tips about starting seeds or growing healthier, more productive tomato plants feel free to share them in the comments!

I think I can confidently say that this is the year I became a gardener. It is going to be an activity and a joy that stays with me throughout my life, I am quite sure, and I’m thankful for the friends and family and the plot of land and the seeds, advice, and tools that made it possible.

Also that the groundhogs stayed away. It was a miracle.

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Kale, Kale, Kale, Kale. Kale, Kale, Kale, Kale. Kale, Kale, Kale, Kale, Kale Kale Kale Kale.

I wrote all those ‘kales’ to a song in my head. CAN YOU HEAR IT?

 

So. Kale. It is a miracle plant. It produces, and produces, and produces. It is a produce producer. Get it? Because it is produce?

Yeah, yeah, forgive me…I’m tired guys. As I write this I am struggling through some epic Whole30 cravings and I don’t WANT ANY MORE KALE EVEN THOUGH IT IS GOOD FOR ME I WANT A BOWL OF CEREAL AND SOME ICE CREAM AND SOME PIE.

Last night before I went to sleep I found myself watching short videos on the Food Network because GLUTEN-Y FOOD!

I miss gluten.

And dairy.

And sugar.

And carbs.

BUT ENOUGH ABOUT ME, LET’S GET TO THE KALE.

Kale has been a workhorse in our house this summer, and Sister and I have thoroughly enjoyed going out to the garden and snipping off leaves and filling literally bags and bags with our haul.

Yes, Claire, I know, I know. YOU’RE the one who goes out and harvests it. In a future post I should discuss how I love to dig, plant, weed, grow, and photograph the plants…but for some reason I lose interest right around the time they’re ready to be eaten? Hmm.

This is our favorite recipe, which is loosely based on one over at Epicurious, but is also different because it has evolved over time and also because of our laziness. Now, I don’t like things with sausage with few exceptions: one being my mom’s spaghetti sauce (HI MOM) and another being THIS RECIPE SO MAKE IT, OK?

• Boil water. Add pasta to water. Preferably shells or something that can hold onto the sausagey/kaley/cheesey yumminess coming your way.
• Buy Italian Sausage–remove from casings, break it up, and brown it in a pan
• Add a little bit of chicken broth to that pan.
• Chop up the kale FINELY (or else it gets too clumpy later); add it to the browning sausage.
• Drain the pasta, setting aside some of the starchy pasta water.
• When everything is cooked, stir it all together and then add more grated parmesan cheese than you think you could possibly need (I miss cheese), and then ADD MORE.
• Add some of that starchy pasta water and stir over high heat for like…a minute…

It should be saucy, delicious, fragrant, kale-y, cheese-y, and mmmmmmmm the best meal of summer. We have made it at least once a week!

AND FINALLY: there have been a lot of capital letters in this post and, frankly, you can and SHOULD read it as if I am yelling at you. Know why? No carbs or sugar have entered my body in a few days and I’m currently at the place where I’m kind of internally rage-y about that. Whole30 for the win!!

Now, MAKE THIS RECIPE AND EAT IT AND LET ME KNOW HOW IT GOES.

🙂

PS: the video below is of a caterpillar on a kale leaf, don’t say I didn’t warn you

 

Root Vegetables: Beets, Turnips, Carrots

Am I the only one that pronounces veg-ed-i-buls in my head every time I write it?

No?

Oh, wait, yes?

Oh, you did say no. Okay.

MOVING RIGHT ALONG

After the Zucchini Disaster of 2017 I decided to plant BEETS. They grew rapidly, and I hardly had time to take a picture before it was time to yank them out of the ground, let them sit for a while on the porch (because, again, I’m more willing in growing things than actuallyharvesting and eating them), let them sit out there a little longer, listen to my family nag me to go get the beets off of the porch and do something with them Alex, for crying out loud!, and then take them inside, peel them, roast them, cube them, cover them in feta cheese and asqueeze of orange juice (TRY IT! SO GOOD! WHOLE30 MEANS I MISS FETA CHEESE SO MUCH! FETA EMOJI IF THERE IS ONE, AND IF THERE ISN’T ONE THERE SHOULD BE!) eat them and then a few weeks later write a blog post about it and NOW YOU’RE HERE!

(Hmm. I feel like I might have covered everything in that sentence. I hope I can think of more things to add to this post. Oh wait, I never run out of things to say. ONWARD!)

CARROTS

Brother T brought some heirloom seeds from Baker Creek. In fact, they were these seeds: the Cosmic Purple Carrot. They grew and they grew and they grew…one thing I have grown to appreciate about root veggies is that they are willing to wait for you to be ready for them. Lots of veggies are READY WHEN THEY’RE READY (tomatoes, squash, beans etc.), but the root veggies can hang around a little while until you’re ready to use them. These were a big success and we even boxed up a few and mailed them out to Brother T and Sister KT in Portland so they could experience the sweet purple and yellow carrots for themselves.

Stole this photo from Sister’s phone.

Turnips, turnips, turnips.

I love turnips, but these didn’t go as well as I hoped.

I planted the turnip seeds between rows of potatoes, then transplanted them because the potatoes took up way more room than I thought they would, they actually survived the transplant and they THRIVED* but then I didn’t realize it was time to pluck them out of the ground and they got too big and kind of bitter and sort of woody. According to Uncle Gee they would taste better if they grew in colder weather. According to my Mom they would taste better if we bought them at the store, peeled them, boiled them, smothered them in butter and salt and pepper.

According to my dad they would taste better if they didn’t exist.

That being said, I will never cease to be amazed that I can put a tiny seed in the ground and it will grow into exactly what it is supposed to be, if given enough time and the right circumstances. It is truly a miracle.

I also thought this would be a good time to display one of the only Zucchinis that survived the Zucchini Disaster of 2017 as well as the ONLY CUCUMBER I GOT BEFORE THE BUGS RUINED MY CHANCES OF CUCUMBER HAPPINESS!!!

I will have to make a separate post for the potatoes but (spoiler) they were good. I also have a few posts languishing in the drafts folder about tomatoes, peppers, furniture refinishing, art, raspberries, more photos of riding horses, July 4 (I know.), climbing a mountain, climbing a different mountain, kale, flowers, waterfalls, Norman Rockwell, Philadelphia, Washington D.C., the county fair, peaches, and MISCELLANEOUS.

Huh. I’d better get busy.

 

*throve?

 

 

Something About Lettuce

Hello!

I found this post in my drafts folder with a somewhat cryptic note from Past Alex which said, “ALEX TURN THIS INTO A STORY OF THE LETTUCE”

I don’t know what Past Alex wanted! I know that the following pictures were included in the draft:

1. Lettuce Seeds

2. Torn Packet of Lettuce Seeds

3. This photo of Claire watching Trevor hurl a tree branch into the field

4. A selfie of me looking skeptical with Baby Garden making an appearance just over my right shoulder. Unsurprisingly, there appears to be some dirt on my face.

Perhaps Past Alex is thinking, “I don’t really like lettuce. Will I eat this lettuce?” and I can confidently say no. I still don’t like lettuce and I didn’t really eat enough of it. Which brings us full circle and technically makes this a story about lettuce. There was a plot (a garden plot, get it?), and some conflict (will she eat the lettuce?) and some resolution (this sentence is ending now).

 

 

Swiss Chard

I spent a few minutes trying to come up with a pun for the title. “Let’s Re-Chard Our Batteries!” or “How to be Elegant and Chard-ing” but titling things has just never been my forte. (It’s just too chard.)

(Haha?)

Well, I haven’t been very good about updating the blog in the last two weeks. They have been full and good weeks, and I’ve taken a ton of pictures with the intention of posting, but then time slips away and days are busy and I just don’t feel like opening my laptop. Then there is this dumb perfectionist streak in me which likes to do things THE RIGHT WAY, and THE RIGHT WAY means I need to write all of the posts that I’ve been intending to write, RIGHT? And that makes me reluctant to start writing at all…

Sister told me to stop being a doofus (I paraphrase…) and just to write a post about what I did and I can catch up later, or not at all, and who cares, and stop being a perfectionist already. (I’M TRYING!)

So, I bring you Swiss Chard.

You guys, the garden is looking good. It makes me so happy! There are little baby veggies cropping up now…tomatoes, zucchinis, cucumbers, and the littlest, cutest, tiniest eggplant. IT’S SMALLER THAN MY THUMB! I will take pictures and post them soon, I (almost) promise!

The greens section is looking particularly good. We told my little cousin that we were growing salad ingredients and he looked at us with a serious face and asked, “Are you guys growing croutons, too?”

He’s 17, he should know better.

JUST KIDDING, he’s 4, and it was super-cute.

Yesterday, Sister and I decided it was time to harvest some Swiss Chard! We planted both red and yellow varieties and we bought them as tiny seedlings from the Country Caretaker. They’ve done really well and are mercifully insect-free. I read that Chard is the one thing that is better to harvest by snapping the leaves off rather than cut them, so while I got other parts of dinner ready, Claire went out to the garden and snapped a bunch off. Aren’t they GORGEOUS? C. thinks I should paint them, and maybe I will.

I was also excited because I received Nigel Slater’s cookbook “Tender” for Christmas, which is overflowing with recipes based on whatever was in season that he picked from his backyard veggie-patch and last night I got to pick veggies from my own backyard patch and get some inspiration from Mr. Slater.

The book is fantastic. It combines stories of gardening and poetic prose and delicious recipes. I will also point out that I think these photos look pretty nice, but just be aware that I carefully cropped out the clutter on the table, the rickety back porch, the unglamorous photos of dunking the leaves in water to get the dirt off of them, the kitchen floor that needs to be swept, etc.

We were running low on supplies, so I didn’t have everything needed to make any specific recipe, but I cooked the stems first and a bit longer as per his suggestion, and then added the leaves to the sauté pan.

I heated up some leftover BBQ chicken by cutting it up and adding it to the pan in the hopes of having reheated chicken that wasn’t rubbery and dry and it worked! Added some baked potatoes and slathered them with butter and ricotta cheese.

Sister made some fresh lemonade and added mint from the garden which was amazing. Dinner was garlicky, lemony, BBQ-y, and delicious.

There is a lot more to write. We went to Tanglewood again, and the Shaker Museum, and on a hike up a mountain. We had a birthday party for Brother T with a lot of sprinkles, and we started taking tennis lessons, the fireflies are out, the Tiger Lilies have EXPLODED and they line every country road, the cornfields are getting tall and ripply, I went on an impromptu tour of the big farmhouse where my dad grew up and almost cried at seeing the rooms and spaces that I’ve heard so many stories about. The first Cosmo bloomed, Brother T thinks I should start an online store for watercolor prints, we went to a crazy July 4th parade, and our Pilates teacher has started doing REALLY HARD PRIVATE WORKOUT SESSIONS WITH SISTER AND I and at this very moment I am kind of struggling to type because my arms are so sore. 

PLUS, I’ve battled eggplant flea beetles and the super-horrifying Squash Bug.

And yeah, I should share some photos of all of those things, but for now here is Swiss Chard, and another moment of me chipping away at that rock-hard block of perfectionism at my core.

Have a lovely day, all of you. (And take a look at that homemade blueberry-raspberry pie Claire whipped up for the 4th! Mmm.)

Alex

Garden Progress Report: A Photo Essay

We had some extremely hot, sunny days last week, followed by cool, rainy days. The garden has seemed to love it, and is absolutely bursting with new growth and tiny leaves and–yes–even some miraculous little green tomatoes. Be still, my heart!

I’ll just pop some photos up and keep the words to a minimum…

Bad news first: SOMETHING HAS ATTACKED THE ZUCCHINI PLANTS. Three of them have been taken down by something that chews around the bottom of the stems, and I think the yellow squash is next…

 

This is a row of lettuce, popping up in a gorgeous green line.

 

A potato sprout. In the few days since I took this picture, the potato sprouts have gone wild!

 

Itty-bitty turnip leaves.

 

Heirloom carrots looking like tiny blades of grass.

 

I think these are cosmos. We’ll have to wait and see…

 

Lemon verbena, smells delicious.

 

Little grapette tomatoes…

 

The cucumber vines are starting to spread out.

 

An eggplant blossom, looks like tissue paper and appeared out of the blue!

 

My flowers are doing well, too. These are dahlias.

 

All the tomato plants bar one have yellow blossoms appearing from nowhere and multiplying overnight.

 

A bell pepper blossom and, below, the bell pepper plant:

THE RAINS THEY ARE A’COMING

I broke out the real camera for this post, ya’ll. As will be evident in the increased quality, amateurish control of exposure settings, and as much bokeh as I can figure out how to get.

If I remember to do it, I’ll try and take this same picture as the beans grow. I’ll also let you know if they prove to be “exceptionally tender and delicious”.

These pictures are from Saturday, I think, and were followed by four days of thunderstorms and rain, so Sister and I were pretty anxious to get all the rest of the garden planted.

Red Swiss chard

Let’s be real…there was probably dirt on my face, too.

Mmmmmmm can’t wait!

Bush beans and zucchini

There are two questions now on my mind.

1. MULCHING?
2. How do I actually, you know, harvest plants?

Look at that, you guys.

A TOMATO BLOSSOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I planted the pole beans along the Northern fence and hopefully they will climb right up the sides. Our neighbors are professional landscapers, and I told one of them that it’s intimidating to have pros watch you pick up a shovel and plant things, but she said veggie gardens are all about experimentation and to just go for it, so that’s what we’re doing! (She also brought over some Cosmos seedlings and says that they will get big and colorful and bloom all summer long. Can’t wait!)

So, there we have it. Our hopeful veggie garden contains:

• six varieties of tomatoes
• Kennebec potatoes
• yellow and red swiss chard
• turnips
• heirloom red carrots
• romaine lettuce
• butter crunch lettuce
• kale
• arugula
• dill
• cilantro
• lemon verbena
• sweet onions
• red onions
• chives
• yellow squash
• zucchini
• purple eggplant
• white eggplant
• orange, green, and purple bell peppers
• one jalapeño plant
• and cucumbers

PHEW!

Wait, do you think I went overboard?

Potatoes: A Post for Mom

Hi Mom,

I know you love potatoes. Here is a post just for you.

Love,

Your Favorite Daughter

There is only one place around here where you can buy seed potatoes and we were a little late to the party, so there were only two choices left. Fortunately, the Kennebec variety seems to be one of the most versatile and tasty types around.

So many numbers. So many instructions. I did MOST of them, but I don’t like it when people tell me what to do 😉

It didn’t smell very good, this bag. There were lots of potato eyes looking back at me and, nestled lovingly in the bottom, a completely rotten potato.

It was really gross.

Then I chopped them up into the little pieces and set them aside, carefully avoiding the rotten ones.

It’s pretty cool that we are going to get pounds and pounds of delicious potatoes out of these old hunks of starch.

Planting potatoes takes up a tremendous amount of space. The little hunks of potato have to be spaced pretty far apart, and the rows themselves are spaced pretty far apart, so in the end I decided to only have two rows so that there was room for the other veggies. I planted them in the ground, on top of a handful of worm castings, with the eyes facing up. Later, as they grow, I’ll continue to mound the dirt around the plant. I learned from a gardener (possibly the wise old lady who told me young people would die if they had to go forage for salad ingredients, but she knew exactly what to pick out of her lawn) that if the hunk of potato you plant is too big, you won’t get many potatoes from it, because it’s happy to just stay the way it is.

And that’s all for now, folks! Tune in next time for more gardening anecdotes.

Mish-Mash Catch Up

So, where did I leave off in recounting my garden exploits? This past week has been so busy with actually getting plants in the ground and trying to beat the impending four-day rain storms that I am pretty far behind. Here is what we have covered thus far:

• Tilling the ground
• A promised post about rototilling which I can sum up briefly like this: it’s like walking a giant, huge, slobbering dog that likes to throw rocks at you and is pulling at his leash for about three straight hours. It made me feel ACCOMPLISHED.

Work gloves! Machinery! Ahh!

• Hey, I started Pilates last week! It was hard! Apparently, I have something called a “core”?
• This blog is nothing but a meandering stream-of-consciousness, isn’t it? Ah, well.
• Fence posts and fencing. Update: Claire and I finished putting up the last “wall” of fencing and tidying it up, then a few days later I decided we needed another fence post and we used our newly-created post-hole digging skills to knock it out of the park. Also: ow. See above: “having a core”

In preparing the soil, we removed approx. 7 tons loads of rocks. Insert emoji with the nervous smile and a lot of teeth that looks kind of like a grimace and kind of like it’s wearing braces.

After all that, I decided it was time to learn about soil additives. Now, that is a thing that really intimidates me about gardening because it involves words I haven’t heard since high school Chemistry and I didn’t really understand what they meant then, either.* In fact, the morning on which I said, “I need to learn about soil additives!” was also the morning that I woke up, brushed my teeth, went downstairs, poured a coffee, had something to eat, sat on the sofa, opened a crossword book, and then Claire woke me up three hours later.

Yup, there is dirt on my face in this picture, too. Do you sense a theme?

Okay.

I am talking, of course, about:

• nitrogen
• phosphate
• fish emulsion (?)
• potassium
• and other things

I assume the correct way to get potassium in the ground is to mash up bananas and go scatter them around?

As we have previously discussed, gardeners are so excited and happy to share advice. One nice lady, after filling me in on why the local bagel cafe is now CLOSED*** also offered me the advice that Neptune’s Harvest Fish Oil was the way forward if I wanted the best plants ever. Obviously, I promptly bought it on Amazon. (Related tangent: In this best of countries, you can order ANYTHING on Amazon and it is delivered within 2 days for free!! Anything! Milky spore powder to kill grubs**** or a book on how to paint flowers or an entire bag of worm castings, which is a nice way to say the refuse that worms leave behind after gorging themselves on organic material.) (Which brings me to my next point.)

Worm leavings.

Evidently, they are magic for your garden.

Yes, I have a gardening blog. Interested?

Anyway, this post is kind of not that useful for anyone else trying to figure this stuff out, because I have not figured it out. I am confused about fertilizer, also about worm castings, also about milky spore powder. In the end, I just used…a little bit of everything that was not a very harmful chemical substance.*****

And then there is the question of mulching, which I also don’t understand. It turns out that gardening involves a lot more than just sticking some seeds in the ground. And yet, it also mostly involves sticking some seeds in the ground and letting the rain and the sun do most of the work. It is a beautiful mystery.

Back yard majesty.

Other mish-mash catch up:

Remember that fun game I invented about finding a home for the worms instead of mangling them until they are “beeding” is still super fun for the toddlers in my life.

This girl loves worms.

And speaking of the toddlers in my life, this illustrated epic story tells the tale of a girl who held onto a rainbow even as a ‘rupting volcano shot rocks at her.

And that is all for today’s post…not because I have run out of words, but because the country internet is so slow I can’t possibly stand to sit here another moment! Until next time!

* Nitrogen, for example. Yeah, yeah, it’s an “element” but what does it mean when one thing leaches nitrogen out of the soil, and another thing puts nitrogen in the soil, and just when you think you’ve got it figured out and FISH EMULSION is the way forward, a Knowledgeable and Wise Old Gardener at the Garden Center** wrinkles her nose at you and volunteers the information that she would never add nitrogen to her garden.

** Otherwise known as a KWOGGC

*** TAX EVASION, GUYS! CARBOHYDRATE-RELATED TAX EVASION!

**** I DON’T EVEN KNOW

***** How many asterisks are too many asterisks? But what this footnote is really about is that Sister and I went to the store to buy grub killer because grubs are bad, but all the grub killers said things like, “THIS KILLS GRUBS AND 150 OTHER CREATURES” and we looked at each other and thought, “How is that not going to kill us?” so the grubs stay for now. Until I figure out what milky spore powder is.

Picking Out Plants & the Mortgage Lifter

AHHHHHHHHHH IT IS TOO BEAUTIFUL

Here is how last Saturday went:

 

I was trying to change my shoes while driving the car. That’s not the point of this story, though, it is just essential background information. Sister went into the local coffee roasting place* and when she came out, she had a free mug! So, I decided I would go in and get myself some organic dark-chocolate-covered cherries and a free mug of my own. I went inside and was glad to see the place had expanded and was full of people picking out coffees and nut butters.

But something felt weird.

I looked down.

And yes! I had two different shoes on!

Me: I have two different shoes on.

Lady behind the counter: You sure do!

…

Lady behind the counter: Would you like a free mug?

Here is also how our Saturday went:

We were driving up to Target** and SUDDENLY it seemed there was a plastic bag floating up over the hood of the car.

Sister: Alex? Is that our headlight?

Me: Why yes Claire, I believe it is.

And INDEED IT WAS. So we bought duct tape and taped that sucker on, because we are nothing if not resourceful and also good at driving old cars.***

Here is how our Saturday proceeded:

We went to Uncle Gee and Aunt T’s house and followed them over to the Country Caretaker, which is their favorite garden center. There are so many garden centers! I LOVE THEM ALL.

I confessed total ignorance to the nice people that worked there and they helped me out by talking about different kinds of tomatoes. We bought: Grapettes, Beef Steak, Brandywine, and one called the Mortgage Lifter, so called because the guy who created this type of tomato apparently used the proceeds to pay off his mortgage! The garden center tomato person told me they will turn red, and then yellow, and then gold, and will be delicious. Can’t wait!!

We got some cucumber plants, peppers, flower seeds, snapdragons, arugula, lettuce, tomatoes, and yellow squash. I CANNOT WAIT TO EAT THEM.

Uncle Gee also lent us a bunch of garden implements and tools which have proven to be essential.

 

Look! There’s no dirt on my face!

Following that, our Saturday continued thusly:

Sister and I went to what used to be a church and heard a solo piano concert by Ben Cosgrove, who composes beautiful instrumental pieces inspired by landscapes. It was an hour well spent. There were a few odd ducks there. And by “few” I mean everyone seemed to be wearing loose-fitting linen clothing? But the music! So, so beautiful. Here is a link, go listen to him and buy his new album:

https://bencosgrove.bandcamp.com/album/salt

 

The plants are living here until the garden is ready. We figure if they’re up close to the house the deer will STAY AWAY FROM MY PLANTS, YOU HEAR ME, DEER?

Here is how our Saturday ended:

With a visit from Aunt K, who we were so happy to see, and a nice, fun chat in Aunt W’s living room, and a pizza. It was a good day.

*Whenever possible, I am trying not to go into stores. There are so many of them here. They are so full of THINGS and it’s overwhelming. The stores I like are Garden Centers, Produce Stands, and Hardware Stores. Those, I can handle. Everything else needs to get drones to drop things off at my front door.

** Hoo boy. There’s a place to send you into paroxysms of culture shock.

*** This seems like a good time to reference the little local news tidbit I read in the paper this week. It is called LIBERATE THE EARTH and involves a group called the Artichoke Dance Company. Here is the blurb: “There will be a Wearable Art/Costume Workshop on Friday, May 26 at 7pm…Participants will create beautiful wearable items from recycled plastic bags to serve as costumes for Saturday’s performance. Please bring plastic bags to the workshop.”****

****NO!