The scents magnify

Night blooming cereus two nights ago, opening up as the moon brightened a dark greenhouse and this morning, the first gardenia opens. I am delighted and intoxicated. The magnolia still beckons me to pull a bloom to my nostrils as does the frangipani on the deck. 

Meanwhile in New Orleans, tropical storm Barry (which is just off the mouth of the river) threatens to inundate the city. It is a slow moving storm and the river is swollen from the rains in the midwest - levees will be challenged. Pirogues on Coliseum street in front of Commander's Palace just blocks from where I once lived, flooding before Barry, two days ago. What will it take for our government to mount a serious national effort to confront climate change? GOT to vote this dispicable President out!
This morning's harvest from the garden:

July, the longest day behind us

Rain has promoted many many blooms, the smell I have to bend a branch to inhale, delicious. This morning a walk to the river, where the tale of the day before is marked in the further erosion of the bank from 2.3 inches of rain. The garden benefits from Robin's pony, Joey's droppings - big green tomatoes, I anticipate red with lust. I have been enjoying cucumbers and squash and onions (better than in years past) and Blue house beans and swiss chard. We prepare for Pearl's 11th birthday - I am filling a piñata. 

I have been meeting with a counselor in hopes of managing my anxiety (anticipatory), a wonderful young woman who reminds me of my friend Diane - (she has a whimsical manner of dressing - all dressed in black one time, sort of vampish - costumes like - as if trying on personalities perhaps inspired by her clients ?). We are just beginning a therapy that goes by the initials: EMDR (eye movement desensitization and reprocessing). It brings up past moments of stomach unsettling events...and it has made me more sensitive to the feelings. I am more often than I thought of queasy stomach. Hoping to make traveling easier and sharing my kitchen a breeze! ah! 

cool rainy July 4th

I've slept wrong on my left shoulder and aggravated a pulled muscle and am tired and slightly hanging low with the sky, gray. Missed a call from eldest son, and sad to have missed his voice. Hiked up this morning to blue house to check on garden. Seemed in good shape until bean area; though I can't say that the top leaf buzz cut is worse than the night before! However, it does look like a deer ate tops of 3 cucumber plants. I sprayed more deer away as deer snorted from the woods. I may check again this evening. Some vermin has eaten beet tops in my garden - again last night. I can't find an access, not at least large enuf for groundhog, but perhaps a rabbit slid under the fence somewhere hidden by weeds? Ah, small small issue in the scheme of things!

Busy in Nanee Land

Blue house is filled again and Mojo is sometimes there and sometimes here. Since I roasted a chicken for a welcome home dinner, I am the dog choice abode for I have scraps. Both Pearl and True have grown taller, seem more confident and delight me with their play. Pearl drew a picture of her brother on his red balloon - it was so funny to watch as True posed, winking one eye and twisting his face, sticking out his tongue. Then she drew a self portrait on her balloon - i do wish I had taken pictures. 
It is a leap at first to Nanee land, but now it seems I never vacated, not completely. Somewhat like motherhood, a permanent twist of the mind - hijacking of synapses? It has been a cold week, cold wind, snow flurries forecast tonight after midnight. I cover the raised beds, but the plants seem ok. Not growing much in the  cold, but the arugula and spinach are treats which Pearl and I nibble. Cilantro is looking promising. Some of the strawberry plants have flowers. And in the green house the lime and lemon still bloom, scenting the air. 

one week

Next week at this time I'll be drinking coffee in preparation of driving to the airport at 10:30 PM to pick up the people of the blue house! Had fun this morning buying goodies for our delayed Easter egg hunt and some clothes for the kids as they return to cool evenings. And most fortunately Cooley worked me into his schedule to work on my irritated piriformis muscle. 
The blood root is blooming by the river and violets are up ( I think of Unka Don every time I eat the wild violets as he told me of the flower's B12 content). I remember the first year living here, making mint tea from the wild mint by the creek. eating watercress salads all spring and fall and watercress and peanut butter sandwiches. Coming down from the walk up Red Bud I pulled the top off dried bergamot stalks, thinking of adding some to tea. 
The raised beds with lettuce, arugula, spinach, cilantro, radish and beets look healthy. My onions are up 2 inches, but I think I need to plant more sugar snap peas as only a few have sprouted. The cabbage, kale and broccoli look good, though the swiss chard looks a bit weak. The twiggy pear trees have promising buds! Excited.

wake up rain

Alma came to dinner last night and helped me cover my 4 raised beds with plastic, but not frosty this morning, rain. I've uncovered the four and will leave them topless until Sunday night. I want to climb up to the blue house to see the Japanese magnolia this morning. Mojo restless this morning with the rain, perhaps he'll enjoy a walk. I think I will go into town for errands as it isn't a great day for other activities except perhaps crawling in bed with book - which I might do. 

pansies and violas in the window boxes

I couldn't wait any longer and this morning drove up to Slaughter's to find pansies for the window boxes. I bought some swiss chard starts even though I have seeds in a raised bed and in containers in the green house - insurance! Baldwin and Mindy can have any extras. I also came home with a few curly kale plants and a carnation. Dogs had to wait for me to finish planting before our walk to the river. 

I ate dinner on the deck; maybe a first in 42 years for March 11th (Andi's birthday!). Tomorrow night we will lose an hour to Day Light Savings Time - a slight disruption. A little over three weeks until Pearl and her people are home - yippee!

a balloon and tulips

Discovered on the way home from walk to the swim hole: mylar birthday balloon on the ground above the wet weather water fall. Perhaps it is Katrina's birthday; we can celebrate no body just as well. On the logging road is a deer foreleg a coyote  may have dropped after discovering the discards of a hunter. Dogs sniffed but left - I would have thought that Mojo would have carried it home. 
I planted my 18 Queen of the Night tulips in the front yard in a spot i am hoping the moles won't tunnel which would bring the dreaded tulip eating voles. I'm also thinking that this may be a last chance to dig in the ground before it freezes. Then again who is to know what this winter will bring.
The river khaki colored with white caps. 

End of July - gardenia blooms

The day lilies are almost spent; and I regret, as usual, not having more blooming flowers for August about the house. My encore roses have failed to flourish as they seem to do for everyone else; the deer were rough on them and the horrid grass in the front of the house has starved many plants of nutrients and water. And then there is the gardenia on my deck blooming! I cannot complain.
I have nearly completed work painting my front deck, second one this summer. I have almost "enjoyed" the brush strokes, glopping on the thick medium to cover a deck neglected too long. And the repetitive task has been company to sad happenings which bother. Like my good friend's grandson who at just 5 has developed aplastic anemia. Or the sudden death of a wonderful man of the community - a man who was committed to social justice. A man whose death doesn't allow anyone who knew him to waste time mourning, but whose life prods at us to do more. To act when we see need.
And the heat today prompted me to join the floating world and follow Pearl to the river with tubes balanced on our heads. Little True in his own little inflated bloat tethered to his Papa's tube. Wonderful!

enchiladas

My friend, Mike Waterlond, taught me how to make enchiladas in my small kitchen in the house my husband and I rented while attending UVA graduate school. We made corn tortillas from scratch and a tomato sauce with a large can of tomato juice, a quart bottle of beer, along with chiles (the large brown dried ones and a can of jalapeños). Mike taught me that to cut the spicy heat of the sauce, you could add more salt. We dipped the tortillas into the cooked down sauce, placed the shell into a pan and added cooked sausage, chopped onions, cheese and black olives. When we had depleted the sausage, we stopped - there must have been 15 of them. As directed I spooned sauce over the lot and added cheese. They went into a 350 degree oven for 1/2 an hour.  Mike married Diane Wakoski a couple of years later; she had come to UVA for a year as poet in residence.
The batch of enchiladas that evening were so hot to the palette that only I could manage two.  I learned that evening that if you had unexpected guests just up the heat or hold the salt. Since then (40 years ago), I have amended the recipe: I now stuff store purchased tortillas with fresh vegetables from the garden. I still add olives and cheese. But if I don't have beer, I add Piri Piri spice. I use home canned tomatoes.  Diane divorced Mike, claiming he was gay. Last night's enchiladas contained zucchini, onions and swiss chard from the garden, red beans, Kalamata olives and sharp cheese. They were delicious.
Mike was the first person I knew fairly well that died of AIDS.  I hadn't heard from him in quite awhile; another classmate and close friend said that he had been working as a lobbyist in DC.  I think of him every time I assemble enchiladas or cook his Round Top chicken soup (which also contains a bottle of beer!).

Blustery Day

A fine day for walk, brittle leaves papering ground creek and sky in the wind. Monday morning with grand kids who joined my effort to pick up black walnuts in the yard for relocation - even T could throw them successfully into the wheel barrow. If I leave the nuts to accumulate under the large tree by the house, I will inevitably slip one cold morning. And if we should loose power, navigating the wheel barrow to the wood shed is nearly impossible through nut strewn lawn. With any luck, there will be no need for wood stove this winter. Stop such thoughts!
We had a heavy frost already on Sunday morning; gone okra, peppers, squash and marigolds. I regret not harvesting more marigolds, their fragrance reminds me of Mexico and of India (though India by photo, while Oaxaca I visited for Day of the Dead). The cool days have inspired me to clean the garden of dead stalks; I scattered volunteer dill seeds on several of the beds. I want to conquer the wildness on the periphery of the garden next summer! I began well this spring, but the edges got out of hand.I am thinking of making an iris bed on one side - I have the irises that need thinning.
Yippee, today is worthy of celebration: Gay marriage is legal in Virginia! I am hoping to have a marriage at my house soon for friends.

one month - where have I been?

Celebrating the return of summer this first day of September; August having been the coolest on record. Mr. Lee and I returned from a luscious swim an hour ago, water salubrious. Happily musing on visit by my eldest son and his family. Nothing like a room with two two year olds: Fia savvy and articulate and Tru agile in all but words. They played in the sand and water at the swimming hole cheerfully; but with the doll house inside my house, relations were testy. Tru trying to befriend, Fia wanting no interruption. As Tru's mother pointed out, two year olds don't play together - more parallel play.
The food was extravagant with garden tomatoes at every meal and fresh eggs for breakfast. Steaks with fresh herbs, roasted vegetables one night; another evening kale salad (have to make soon again: kale with currants, toasted walnuts and vinaigrette dressing), jerk chicken and rice. Good wine. Good Good company. I am re-savoring the days and evenings. Memories to take me through the winter while sipping an espresso (exquisite coffee Ez brought from Houston).  

Bird nest in a cage

The small bird is very well camoflagued; yet it seems an odd place to build a nest. I did manage to extricate one of the ripe tomatoes from beneath the nest yesterday. Look forward to baby bird peeps when I'm in the garden! 
Anticipating the arrival of my Houston grand-daughter with her people and small dog late this evening. A week filled with two one year old babies; one walking and one just about to (he's not quite one). Lucky me!

summer incidents mount

I'm going to hell

albeit, I have a heart

but a third incident this summer

marks a clear descent:

first, discovered by my dog, rotting groundhog

I vowed to check the trap more often.

But weeks later a second

groundhog's dead scent as I walked back

to the corn rows.

Now, the worst: young small opossum

climbing over corpse

of mother and sibling.

8/6/13

mhnorth

Rain

I will not complain. Rain. The river is running much as it did when I arrived here, 40 years ago when the river was navigable and the garden seldom needed watering. We have taken to tubing; grand-daughter all by herself on a yellow ring. I have beaucoup sugar snap peas and I eat them at least for two meals. While the west roasts in record high temperatures, it is cool here in the mornings, cool enough for a quilt at night. I can not complain. Though the clothes on the line appear weary.

WE ARE IN REHEARSAL AGAIN: LOOSE THREADS in performance the 2nd and 3rd weekends in July in the black bog theatre at VA Tech. Susan is coming out today so that we can read over the script together. The space of this theatre confronts me with a panic push into NOW where I can still fumble lines, struggling with the sheer emotional surges the poems urge in present time. It is wonderful, frightening and illuminating.
 

not so here here

Eating edible pea pods when I go into garden, picking a handful for dinner - lightly steamed with quinoa or in salad. Big weeding effort this morning in the back corn field where Alma and I planted a second planting of corn yesterday evening. Wanting to mulch before the weeds multiply again and wanting to weed between the corn already up, but can't say "thriving!" The garden calls for attention in the morning and evening and I go. 

 

A large machine

Well drilling on May Day! Exciting to see the huge derrick backed up in between the shop and the studio, jacked up and ready for tomorrow morning. Mr. Lee has had a good time peeing on all the tires. 
Today I followed Alma home after qigong and we loaded fence posts (t-bars) and wire cages into the truck for the garden; we now have the most sturdy pea trellis in the history of the garden.The wet spring has been good for the early crops, potatoes are beginning to break ground, lettuces, greens, onions - all look good. Great to garden with a master gardener!

I

 

Rain from Sandy

Up at the Blue House! It is wonderful to have another garden to raid for greens and flowers (mine are dead down in the hollow). Yesterday evening when I went into the chicken house to look for eggs, I had to step into the house to retrieve one egg on the floor. The khaki ducks alarmed at my step fluttered around the house in one smear of tan and quack. They are lovely to watch, these khakis. 

Watching news on the hurricane/nor'easter, Sandy, who is due to impact Virginia by Monday - although it is raining this morning either from Sandy or from the cold front. I do hope that we do not get any snow! Off to work for Obama this morning; later to Giles with Alma. I am sad to see the warm weather end and to have the vivid last bright leaves by the house fall. My small sourwood's leaves are lovely orange red, the golden rain tree more yellow orange.

Gleaning Garden

Corn stalks rustle spooky
as I yank dried, some mildewed, ears
from their spindly poles,
tossing in the bucket what may be ground
or over the fence to the chickens' delight.

I fret my vigorous October bean plants
which have yet to bloom as forecasters
warn of frost within weeks. My fall crops,
chard, spinach, collard, broccoli, begin
to thrive in the cooler nights.

I throw slugs over my shoulder this
overcast morning attempting to repair
my neglect. I am too much the dreamer,
poor gardener, as happy with my volunteer
arugula as with plotted greens.

(work in progress!)
Today I work for Obama! Last night a fun occasion to dance at the benefit for Anthony Flaccavento in Blacksburg. Three of us wearing our THIS SLUT VOTES t-shirts and many people wanting to buy them - surprised to find that they originated here in Blacksburg!  

Potatoes, buckets of

Yesterday before the rain, I dug the sweet potatoes. I first had to untangle shoots and weeds that had threaded through the bird netting which I had placed over the potatoes to protect them from rabbits and ground hogs. The soil was hard and dry, but the sweet potatoes were plentiful and unmarked by voles thanks to the hard clay soil. I tossed grubs over the fence to the chickens, not many of them. I still have potatoes to dig which I will when the winter squash plants die which have crept into the potato row. 
Last night rain from Isaac began as huge loud drops as DD and I were eating on the deck. We made a hasty retreat into the house as rain grew more intense. We garnered an inch and three quarters within a couple of hours; and it washed out the road and tainted my spring with muddy cow pie smelly water.