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Six Things On A Saturday Morning

I missed Friday and a planned, well obviously only hoped-for, five-things post. I don’t know that six things on Saturday is a thing, but I will do my best.

1 — I finished the prayer shawl that I had been doggedly working on. There was a fair amount of ripping back and re-knitting, primarily due to the knitter’s state of mind and enthusiasm.

2 — This iris, Iris versicolor John Wood, was rescued from its temporary holding spot behind the garage and planted and has now rewarded my efforts by bursting into bloom. There is not much around it but an empty bed and weeds, but all of that will change with time, lots of time…

3 — I went through of nearly three weeks where I did not pick up a book, finding myself oddly unable to focus. And then, in one week, I needed to read Barbara Kingsolver’s Unsheltered and Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks for book club discussions. I enjoyed both books, although I also struggled with both in some ways and I realized near the end that I just needed to read something that would draw me in to the story, without the mental side show that I experienced with Kingsolver and Skloot. I ended up ripping through Karin Slaughter’s Grant County series over the course of about 10 days. It was what I needed, a gripping story, completely outside of my life. I can’t review each book individually, but as a whole I loved the way the series built on the characters through both the exploration of both the seriously dark and brutal side of human nature and our own need for, and fear of, vulnerability. In the beginning the characters are, in many ways, flat and stereotypical, but through the course of the books Slaughter adds layers of complexity, and the beginnings of insight, which often flat as characters return, time and time again, to their default modes. Much like all of us. This reader found the interweaving of character and story to become steadily more complex throughout the series. At times the characters walk a fine line between engagement and a shallow shadowiness, enough that the reader can read his or her own world-view into the experience. And well, I can relate to Sara Linton: smart, too much in her head, but also insecure when it comes to her emotions. In short, my reading of Slaughter might not be the same as yours.

Anyway Grant County suitably whetted my reading appetite, and I have pulled few books from the stacks and ordered a couple of more — got to use the May book allowance after all y’all. Shown above is the current stack. I am currently about 50 pages into The Splendid and the Vile and enjoying it very much. When I am done I will finally finish off the last volume of Manchester’s The Last Lion. Both books begin when Churchill becomes prime minister, and they should be an interesting pair to read together, although I tend to think of Manchester as a savoring slowly kind of book, whereas Larson writes more of a gripping read.

4 — There has been some sewing, although not yet really for me. Above are the results of one day’s worth of bias tape making. Those masks have all been sent out. Another 28 yard pile of bias tape has been created, and 14 more masks cut out, all waiting for assembly.

5 — Yesterday was a cold rainy day, and I suppose it would have been the perfect day to work in the studio, sewing those masks, but somehow I couldn’t drag myself out the door even for a short sheltered walk to the studio. Chalk it up to COVID unsettlement. Last month I binged on the Australian series “Offspring” and loved it. Really that series is what helped me get that prayer shawl finished and kept me somewhat sane. A couple of days ago I found the Norwegian series “Beforeigners” and I finished it off yesterday. It is a little gritty, and of course in Norwegian with subtitles, but fascinating. I love the way it explores the the idea of immigration with people immigrating through time, so the race question is obviated but in the end all the issues remain. It is a great reflection on otherness, on the seeking of safety and the disruption of chaos, and the way we define ourselves, and redefine our understanding of history through the lens of our current experience, as well as the shock of the reality of that history. I hope there is a second season.

6 — My TV day was also a knitting day. Finishing “Beforeigners” and watching a Metropolitan Opera production of The Magic Flute, yielded ample knitting opportunity. My current obsession is a sweater knitted holding two strands of lace weight linen. I started this last summer and then put it aside after finishing the first piece of four. I am now almost finished with the second piece, and I don’t want to stop knitting. Linen is not my favorite yarn to knit, although it is a favorite for wear, and yet, the changes in the colors holds my interest and drives me on. I will be wearing this sweater this year.

May 9, 2020
A COVID Chronicle

Yesterday I had one of those days that approached what was once considered normal, but which I now realize is not at all the way I want to spend my life and time. Am I in a cocoon which I refuse to leave? or is something else going on?

Let’s start with yesterday. In what now feels like another life it would have been just another day: two doctor’s appointments (only one for me) a prescription run, book club, two meetings. Yet I chafed. I went out, I came home, had lunch and went out again. I missed book club because one of those appointments got in the way. I didn’t want to go to meetings, even Zoom meetings. I wanted to zone out on the sofa with my knitting in my hands and something entertainingly mindless on the tv.

But why?

As we all know the last two months have not been particularly easy. And yet I am remarkably privileged. I have a safe home. I have a yard so I can go outdoors without meeting other people. I can afford food. I can afford Tikka’s medications. I am not worrying about how to pay the mortgage, the utility bill, my insurance premiums. I am well. Many others are not so fortunate.

On the social side of things, I miss people. I miss sitting with friends with a drink, adult or otherwise, the casual camaraderie of friendship, of sitting close together, of that palpable sense of presence that exists in all living things, the soul we might call it in humans, that thing that is there in all of us. That sense of presence feels muted on Zoom. Of course Zoom is better than isolation, but is still not the same as connection. We can connect when our eyes are focused and present, but I have been in too many distant conversations, where it is apparent that we are all there and not there simultaneously. Even when we pay attention, our attention seems muted. We can see but not feel. Virtual communication is better than no connection at all, but it is not babies alone who cannot thrive without touch.

Admittedly I have loved the absence of distraction, the time to get lost in a project. I has been many years since I fell prey to teenage boredom. More likely there are more things to explore and do than there is time available. Is that because I am an introvert? Possibly, although I sometimes think our world has taken this whole introvert/extrovert thing to an extreme, perhaps even an extreme of extroversion — where the big event, the casual gathering, the escaping from solitude and in a sense, even close personal connection, is the norm. What if all this has left us less resilient, less connected. What happens when all the distractions of busyness are taken away?

Well, here we are finding our way through. I can’t say that I have done particularly well. I was good at slowing down, at creating small routines. I thought I was slowly mastering letting go of a sense of obligation, that my worth in the world depended on what I accomplished in the world. Now I see that I was only taking baby steps. All this fell apart. I would have a day or days of joyful work and busyness and then I would have a day or days where I could barely drag myself off the sofa. If I didn’t have a dog, or need to drink and/or eat occasionally, I might not have managed at all. I don’t see the point in pretending that everything is happy/busy/full all the time. Our humanity is in our vulnerability. Increasingly, it seems to me that to deny this, to hide it, sets a dangerous precedent, for individuals, for societies.

Anyway I am here. I am actually better. I am slowly returning to a sense of routine, at least a minimum of acceptable behavior. Acceptable to me, at any rate. Those last couple of days of mindless televised anaesthesia seem to have helped me face another one of those inner demons, those voices determined to keep us down, the ones we run from and hide behind a veneer of business. I cannot be the only person who does this.

Which brings me back to the beginning of this post. I miss small social gatherings. But I also realize that I am happy in this little space called home, that something about me has always seen and yearned for home as a sanctuary. Although I don’t wish to hide in my sanctuary, I also do not want a life of distraction.

I am sure I will spend another day on the sofa. I am also sure that in the greater scheme of things it does not matter if I do or not. Perhaps it would be bad if I stayed there for days, or weeks, but that is not about to happen. In the meantime, I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, and although I claim that this space, my home is my sanctuary, the truth is that I carry that with me wherever I go. If I learn anything, perhaps it should be that I should be far more careful about who and what I allow to impinge on that space.

May 5, 2020
Corned Beef Chronicles

Back in February the idea popped into my brain that I needed to make corned beef. I cannot actually remember which came first, the thought, as March was rapidly and somehow the idea of corned beef and cabbage was floating around the world, or seeing the brisket in the store. I suspect the brisket came first, and although I grew up occasionally eating a “New England Boiled Dinner”, corned beef and cabbage is not really a part of my culinary lexicon, although I like both corned beef and cabbage separately.

Whatever the origin of the idea, the idea of corning my own beef was not new. I cured my first corned beef in my late 20s, after George and I were married, when we could get really good corned beef and pastrami in NYC but not really up in Poughkeepsie. Perhaps I was also a bit of an overachiever, but making corned beef is not difficult, and I make corned beef a couple of times a year for 30 years or so, until George got sick, I got overwhelmed, and I simply stopped. I have no idea why I wanted to start again, but I suspect it was more about wanting corned beef hash than anything else.

So I bought the brisket and had to order some Prague powder, which arrived in a day or two and started brining the brisket using a traditional wet brine, in a pot in my fridge, much the way I have always brined a brisket. After two weeks I cooked the brisket and absolutely loved the final corned beef. And then, just this past week I did it all again.

Truthfully, the repeat process began before I even finished cooking the first brisket. I started on a whim, doing something known and true, something that had worked well for me, but it has been a decade since I last made brisket, and I have learned things in the intervening years, changed things, and have become perhaps even more curious, even more of a nerd in the kitchen than I was in my youth, even though as a single older woman I indulge those nerdy kitchen impulses less frequently than when I was feeding others.

Sometime while that first batch was in the brine, but before cooking, a notice popped up in my inbox, an old post from Serious Eats about making corned beef by Kenji Lopez-Alt, probably simply an annual St. Patrick’s Day marketing ploy. But this year I had corned-beef on the brain, even though I tend to think of corned beef as it was adapted my the American Jewish culture rather than Irish American culture. Either way though, corned beef is corned beef.

Reading the article, I noticed that Kenji compared the traditional wet-brine with a dry brine technique and I was intrigued by this, but my meat was already in the brine so it was a little late for that. When it came to cooking he recommended a slow braise in a low oven or cooking the meat sous-vide. Well, that did intrigue me. Initially I had boiled my corned beef simply because that was how i knew to do it, but somewhere along the line I had stopped boiling it and started cooking my corned beef in a low (200°F) oven for somewhere between 8 and 12 hours. The change occurred mostly because I had tried another recipe for brisket that cooked it in a slow oven braise and liked the results, so I adapted the technique for my semi-annual briskets with good results. I did not indulge in rigorous testing, but was tickled that Kenji liked the slow braise, and also that he recommended cooking the brisket sous-vide. I had never thought about cooking a corned beef sous-vide although I could not think of a reason not to do so. I have been cooking sous-vide for about a decade now, although I actually had not made a corned beef during that time. It was time therefore to try something new. I removed the first brisket from the brine, rinsed, and cooked it sous-vide at 180° for 10 hours, the time Kenji said he preferred.

And I loved that brisket. It was perhaps a little less firm, with a more shredded texture than some might prefer, but reading the article I was wondering if this was as much due to the wet brine as opposed to the dry brine. I have always liked my corned beef to be soft, fork-tender, and ready to fall apart, and am not fond of it with too much bite. In his article you can see a photo of the difference in the meat between dry and wet brine techniques, and looking at that photo I see much the same result I as found in the two brining techniques, shown above (first) and below (second). The cut, grade, and source of the meat was the same, the cooking time was the same, only the brining was different. In the second brisket I used the dry-brine technique in a vacuum-sealed bag in the refrigerator for 1 week. This is certainly more convenient in terms of timing, although that ay be more adaptable, and space, since beef in a sealed plastic bag takes less space and is easier to turn than a big hunk of meat sitting in a large bucket or pot in the refrigerator.

And the final brisket was also good (sorry for the smaller picture here, I ate most of that serving before remembering to take the picture). You can see the difference in the texture of the meat. The second batch is firmer, meatier, and holds together better. This is also what is shown at the top of this post, although that photo was taken cold, before steaming the meat, which does soften it up further.

The problem is that although I see advantages, I am not convinced that I like the second batch better. I can admit that perhaps the texture of the first batch was a little far to the falling-apart side of things, but the second batch was perhaps a little too firm and dry for my taste. It is possible that this is simply a question of cooking time. The second batch may perhaps have needed to be cooked longer, at a lower temperature, the first batch for a slightly shorter time. These are minor points and I can play with them. At the moment however, I am wondering if, the next time I simply need to simultaneously cook two briskets, wet-brined, and dry-brined, assume that the final cooking time might be different for each simply based on the effects of the brining process on the texture of the meat, and work side-by-side from there. I am also wondering if I can wet-brine in a vacuum sealed bag. Perhaps I am just getting too much in my own head.

I did like the second corned beef, seared briefly in a hot skillet for breakfast, kind of hybrid, corned-beef/bacon texture and flavor. Not traditional perhaps but who cares. In fact, this second corned beef is making me think about pastrami more than corned beef, about the idea of using the dry brine on a pastrami. I’ve never made pastrami. I don’t have a smoker. That doesn’t mean that it might not be time to start thinking about it a little more seriously.

April 13, 2020
Monday Miscellany

It seems that all I can manage right now are these odd updates. The coherent stringing together of long passages eludes me. I initially blamed this on my back, but that is not truly the case. Let us just say that the peripatetic nature of my brain is currently jammed on run, and, despite the fact that I take two brief periods a day for silent contemplation, “always running” is far more descriptive of my mental process at the moment than any nod toward “peaceful contemplation”. I am not unhappy at home. There is plenty to occupy my attentions, but I also recognize that a certain lack of close human contact leaves my nerve endings slightly leaning toward frayed. This too will pass. In the meantime, if you know someone who lives alone, give them a call.

Another group of the Azaleas I purchased last fall are blooming.

And I am digging a hole. It is a slow and tedious process. This is an area near the garage, which is hot and sunny, and where I intend to plant rosemary. This photo was pretty early on in the dig, and the soil ends about 4 inches down, at least an inch of that is really just mulch. So I have a lot of digging to do.

I have since excavated much of that small cut out where these plants are supposed to go. I have two “tuscan blue” rosemary plants, which grow quite large and tall in an ideal site, and have delicious flavor. They are iffy here, but this site is hot and sunny and a place where I can easily protect them if necessary. But first they need a good place for their roots to grow. I now have three small buckets of rocks and am still digging. These buckets were purchased out of desperation. Kitty litter buckets would be perfect, and about the biggest thing I can hope to lift, but at the moment I have none.

Impatience and busy synapses being in the lead right now I am also cataloging fabric and back to sorting and putting things away in the studio. And working on masks as well as a few other things. The house and the studio are therefore cluttered. “Little Piles Everywhere” would be the story of my life at the moment. That is directly related to my inability to write thoughtful blog posts. But I know this will settle out in time and life will simply move forward at the pace it will move forward. Eventually my brain may slow accordingly. At least I am starting to sleep a little better.

I did update the knitting blog with more details about my pink sweater. Very little else has happened since then and I will gradually move from cataloging fabric to yarn and staring into the deep black hole that is the UFO closet. It will be good to have a list, and from that list create goals, things to work through with items that can be checked off as minor accomplishments.

April 6, 2020
A Walk Through My Neighborhood

Dogwood Arts opened yesterday, at least the trails are open and people can drive through neighborhoods admiring the spring flowers and lovely gardens. My own garden, which is on the trail, remains mostly a vision of potentiality.

But it is time to begin, by walking out the front door and heading east. We see the Kousa dogwood which was planted two years ago. The pale blossoms look lovely framed by the pink of my neighbor’s trees. These photos were taken Tuesday, between the rains, when the sky was still leaden and gray. But gray skies seem to bring out the beauty of flowers, and I will share a few blossoms found along the way.

That same dogwood, up close as I walk by.

It is a good neighborhood for walking, and we are mostly thoughtful of each other and observing social distancing guidelines. But it was also good for me to see friendly faces, even from across the road, and exchange a few words.

Here we are, turning to go up the hill to the street that parallels mine. Several large flowering cherries are on this corner, and I need to stretch to try to take a photo. This in and of itself is a small challenge.

I have made it up the hill without stopping, without back pain and will continue forward rather than retracing my steps. The street that parallels mine is wider with more traffic, but also not as flat, with edges that slope more deeply into the neighboring yards.

But the hardest part of the walk was actually the final leg, a steep downhill stretch culminating in my own driveway. Having been inspired my neighborhood gardens, I continued the downhill track into my own backyard where to check out my own cherry tree, now in full blossom. Frankly, in this its first spring, I am thrilled for any blossoms at all and feel giddy like a proud tree-parent, even though this bounty is completely outside my hands.

And then around the corner, back up the east side of the house, admiring the bed of hellebores and bluebells, now fully open.

And home again, just before the rains return.

That walk, on Tuesday, was .8 mile. Something to remember, but hopefully improvement will continue and stupidity will be avoided, hopefully I will soon be back to daily walks and longer treks. Today it will be warmer, hopefully in the upper 50s if not low 60s by afternoon. Tuesday at noon it was 48 according to my trusty iWatch. Yesterday my walk consisted of mowing the lawn. That has proven to be a challenge, but one that is getting easier as the grass is no longer too long to mow easily. I can see the day when it is no longer a question of choice between pushing the reel mower or taking a walk, or weeding, or digging, as I see my back slowly getting stronger again, other muscles as well. But it is also a choice, and a choice that, at the moment, it is a privilege to make.

April 2, 2020
Five Things Friday

1. The first solitary fava bean is poking his head up through the earth. Hopefully he is merely one among many.

2. There is precedence for this hope, as the first solitary cherry blossom appeared a week ago now. She will probably fade before other blossoms fully emerge, but there are enough new buds that this fledgling tree will put up a small show; it is more than I expected in this, its first spring.

3. I also finally got the pea trellis up, just in the nick of time as the peas tendrils are long enough to start climbing. I ordered this trellis from Gardener’s Supply and it was not difficult to assemble, even though the directions did say it would be easier for two. It would have been. And, had I not been experiencing increasing back spasms as i worked on it, it would have been more symmetrical and perfectly balanced. But it works. And I am grateful.

Originally I hoped to build my own trellises, but I also realized — when I planted peas days before leaving, when I had a busy social calendar before we all began sheltering in place, before I fell and injured my back — that I would not have time. I picked this trellis primarily because it looks much like the trellises I made from copper plumbing pipe for my garden in Hyde Park. Those were all given away when I moved to Tennessee and a condo, as was my pipe cutter and my soldering equipment. Hopefully this will last at least a season, perhaps even two or more, and by then, if I have regained my gardening abilities, I will set up soldering shop again.

4. The peas will also need some thinning out, although not too much. I seem to remember that peas are more productive when they are not too widely spaced. Anyway, I did harvest a handful of shoots to add to my salad at lunch today.

5. I am recovering since my fall and am doing more, but am still working slowly. Yesterday, working on the trellis, I realized that although I am moving so much better, although still quite slowly, I cannot stretch, even my arm to anything beyond a casual reach. Any stretch, from any position really sends me into spasms, as did fastening clips anchoring netting to the trellis frame, if not very close to the body. Today I am taking it easy and not allowing myself in the garden even though it is a beautiful day and I keep telling myself I can just do a little bit. Instead I am working on short core-strengthening and light stretching workouts, interspersed through the day with rests and chores. And I have knitting and reading materials piled up by my comfy spot on the sofa. I do have other posts in mind, things I want to write about, but today is the first day I have been able to sit at a desk for more than 10 minutes or so, and somehow assembling longer thoughts into something coherent does not appear to be something I can do from a cozy corner of the sofa — I need the harder discipline of a desk and chair.

Stay safe….

March 27, 2020
In the Pink

Surprise, Surprise!

I finished the pink sweater and have actually been able to wear it, more than once even. And yes, I still love these ambiguous photos, where as much is left to the imagination as is revealed. That might change if I ever find unpack my tripod and am able take project photos again without relying on selfies.

Last you heard, nearly a month ago now, I had assembled the sweater and was working on the cowl, in fact had just ripped and restarted. If at first I had failed to put a twist in the cowl, the second attempt was also faulty in that I put in a full-twist rather than a half-twist. I can live with that. In my life it seems dyslexia always rears its head, and sometimes it is best simply to accept and move on.

In fact, I adore this sweater and can see that it will get frequent wear. I have worn it as a jacket on cool days, in the low 50s, when it was cloudy and brisk outside, and I have worn it in the house as well on chill evenings mostly because I intentionally keep the house cool. I would always rather put on a sweater than risk being too warm, and, loving knitting as I do, cannot imagine not having sweaters to cuddle up into.

I will post the details on the knitting blog later, based on the assumption that most readers here are not interested in the details. Of course considering how rarely I have posted on the knitting blog, that may be a waste of time as well. Feel free to tell me if you disagree.

March 23, 2020
The View From Here

Somewhere I stopped thinking about blogging. Just living my life, contentedly at that, never intending to stop, just not really thinking about it one way or the other. I am still just living my life, and still rather contentedly even though that life is somewhat different now that society has hit pause. And so it seems I cannot really explain why I stopped, or why I am here, writing again.

Instead I will show some pictures of the garden, signs of new growth, signs of things that need to be done, and may or may not be done at that. Somehow the pause is reminding me that life and the world will go on whatever we think of it.

I planted peas, perhaps late for Tennessee, at the very end of February, before going on a trip. I planted fava beans as well, after I returned, in mid March, only because I couldn’t find them locally and had to order them, perhaps also too late for Tennessee. But at the price of a pack of seeds, it seems better to try than to do nothing. The peas are up. And I have materials to assemble a trellis for them to climb. That was my goal for yesterday, and for today, but well, that is on hold at the moment.

Yesterday I was digging holes to plant three baby gem boxwoods when I got a little over-ambitious, did something stupid, and fell, hard, on my bottom. I lay on the ground a few minutes, admiring the new blossoms on the blueberry shrub, shown above, before getting myself upright and realizing I would not finishing planting shrubs that day.

A kind neighbor planted the shrubs for me. It took him about 15 minutes. It took me that long to walk out the front door and drag the hose up for him to water the newly planted shrubs. Today I am still moving stiffly, and am currently nestled in a pile of cushions on the sofa, where I will probably spend much of the day. I cannot stand, or bend over well, I can walk slowly and need to do that often. The pain is muscular, not sciatic, and I will recover. A pea trellis will probably not be built today, but I will get two boston ferns transferred from pots into the planters by the front door. If I do anything else, it probably be walking behind a mower, but since it is raining now, that too is a task that may be put off for another day.

I can knit. I am working on a prayer shawl, and a pair of socks (above). The yarn is Lichen and Lace in the color Citron. I love the happy yellow green color, a color I have always loved combined with purples and blues.

Here is a small itch peony starting to show its leaves. I am inclined to think this spot is too shady, that it may need to be moved. That may not happen this year. The digging in the garden is going to be harder than I had hoped. Despite the specification that the new beds all be filled with 10” of topsoil without rocks, that topsoil is mostly clay and heavy, and it is filled with rocks. The landscape crew had a great talent for coming to work on days I was not home. The area I dug yesterday was solid gravel 5 inches below the soil, part of the difficulty with planting shrubs. I hauled two large buckets of gravel with some clay to a low spot in the slope at the back of the yard before I took my tumble. I can dig through even packed good soil, but through clay, especially clay studded with rock, it will be a more ambitious project. I am tired of ambitious projects, but I am also determined, and tired of paying people to not do what I specified.

The worst thing that can happen is I will have fields of weeds. Weeds which will have to be pulled and turned into compost or turned under. Time will help the soil. And despite my anger and frustration at things that were not done, plants that are not in the right spots, human failings, I am also touched by unexpected human kindnesses. A person I do not know offering to plant my shrubs. All of this seems appropriate to this time. There will be setbacks and loss, but there will also be coming together and kindness.

No point in mourning that which is past or gone. This plot of land will still be here. Nature will prevail, whatever I do or do not manage. And there will always be surprises. For example I love the colors the rain has created on this paver.

I love that the camellias are showing the lushest bloom I have seen since buying this house. I love that the azaleas I bought last spring are all leafing out and showing buds, that life goes on, and that people carry on. The world reminds us that through every struggle, every winter, there will be a spring.

I leave you with this, one of the first blossoms on the flowering crabapple off the back deck. I hope you and yours are safe. I hope you find peace and joy, not isolation and fear. If you can take a moment, let me know how you are doing. We are all molecules in a great social network or web. Let’s keep these fragile chains alive.

March 20, 2020
Prepwork

Today is all about prepwork:

Parties, sewing projects, travel…

Perhaps, when I find time to catch my breath, I will tell you all about it.

February 27, 2020
An Update on Ongoing Projects

PINK SWEATER

There are many reasons it is not wise to knit when one has a sinus headache, especially the severe prolonged kind that lay one low for several days. The body of the sweater has been completed and assembled and I was pushing to finish the knitted-on cowl but I realized I had made a mistake, more than one mistake in fact, and somewhere I crossed the line bordering tolerable and unacceptable. First, I neglected to twist my knitting, allowing the cowl to lie properly, although it took me a few rows to see this, and my head hurt enough that I decided I could live with that. Until I noticed that in my pain-induced haze I was often failing to switch from knit to purl and back again at the row marker. Knitting garter stitch in the round is a bit of a pain, and apparently too much for my headache-addled brain. So much for mindlessness. Yesterday I ripped the cowl out and began again. This was sad because I was about half done with the cowl and ripped a full skein of yarn before starting again. On the other hand, the odds are high that I have missed this year’s window of wearing opportunity anyway.

GARDEN PLANNING

We are rapidly moving into spring and I have as yet to start playing with a rough plan on paper. I do not need to stick to said plan, but I do need it as a starting point just to sketch out some broad coherent form to the evolving garden, and to help stem my magpie instincts when in nurseries and browsing plant catalogs.

Admittedly my ability to plan was dependent on completion of certain bigger projects. The raised beds for what, at least at this point is planned as vegetables, or perhaps mixed vegetables and flowers were completed in late January. And at the moment I am having more fun thinking about what I can plant here than I am in terms of drawing up rough plans for the landscaping. Partly this is good because it is time to start planting early spring crops and start seeds, and bad because I also need to start thinking about perennials and shrubs, even though I know I will be able to completely finishing planting all the beds around the house this year.

In December the ornamental trees were planted, and the wattle fence was finished in the front yard, which helped me to start to imagine the space, although I am only now realizing that although this photo was posted to instagram, it never made it here.

The general plan was that January and February would be devoted to research and getting some plans on paper. To that end, I read two useful books, both of which have helped me refine amorphous ideas. The most useful of those, may well be Michael Dirr’s Hydrangeas for American Gardens. I adore hydrangeas, and loved the hydrangeas that were initially around the house, even as I acknowledged that they were too large to be situated as close to the house as they were. Now I have the opportunity to replant, and my goal is to have a variety of different hydrangeas in the front space making this book both a good source of inspiration and practical information. I am also reminded that planning is important and that it is sometimes better to work slowly with intention, than to quickly fill a space. Expect the front garden to develop over the course of a few years.

The other garden book is less focused on a single type of plant, but possibly more practical. I suspect Tracy Disabato-Aust’s 50 High-Impact, Low-Care Garden Plants will end up being one of those books that I reach for again and again when I need to solve a problem, or feel at a loss for ideas. It actually sits on my garden shelf next to a book I’ve had for ages, Nicola Ferguson’s Right Plant, Right Place, a book that has proven its worth in my gardens. I hope this book does the same, but even in the short term, it is helping me with refining ideas. If this garden is going to work long term, I have to admit that the energy of the young gardener is long gone, and I must balance my love of pretty things and unusual plants with my actual ability to work in the garden. Low-maintenance plantings are also critical to success.

As February is coming to a close other projects are competing with garden and knitting. I have yet to do my taxes, and I my need for clothes will become critical once the weather warms up. I am also going on another sewing retreat, but although I have worked in the studio and done hand work and embroidery, I have not looked at garment sewing since the holiday evening pants. As usual, I haven’t even started and I am already behind. And so goes life, always fun, never dull.

February 25, 2020