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Cotton, Cotton everywhere

Memorial Day is widely held to be the beginning of summer.

This year it was also the first day of Cottonwood Season.

Now there are piles of cotton everywhere: hanging in big tufts in the trees and scattered everywhere about the driveway and the walks, floating on the surface of the pool, pressed up against the grates of the condensing unit for the air conditioner. The AirConditioning system always gets its annual service after Cottonwood Season.

Our one cottonwood tree is fairly old, over 30 years, and large pieces of it break off in every summer thunderstorm or in the occasional winter ice storm. I used to worry that it would fall on the house, but no more, although it is still large, I don't think there is enough of it left to do major damage. In fact I would be happy if enough of it fell down that we had to replace it.

T he problem is what I would I plant in its place? A big magnolia? I would love a big old magnolia although it is possible it might be just as much a pain to clean up after. I console myself by thinking the actual blossoms would be prettier and would make my heart sing. Of course, I am not replacing the cotton wood yet and when it does go it will take a substantial portion of the shade in the front of my house.

Still every year when the cotton falls I wish it were a different tree.

(magnolia image courtesy of White Flower Farm)

May 26, 2009
Happy Memorial Day

Every year my town has a big parade on Memorial and it is one of those local events where everyone turns out and all the local organizations and groups march along, the town police drive slowly flashing their lights, and the firetrucks sound off their sirens and horns for the town's children. It is not big on floats, although there are a couple, but it is big on community spirit. The young people at one of the local churches sell refreshments, and a large sample of the town's children participate: the scout troops, the karate and marshall arts classes, the dance students, everyone is ready to march and perform and the crowd of mostly local residents is happy to cheer and applaud their efforts. Really, it is just right in terms of parades, and it was just right for a small child's first parade.

So this Memorial Day morning Owen and Grandma capped off a lovely morning of playing and counting and helping Grandpa gather up the cardboard boxes for recycling with a trip to town to watch the annual Memorial Day Parade. Mom was able to join us as she returned home from the walk-in clinic, where she found out she has strep (poor Mom), just before they closed the main street town so the parade could begin.

Owen had a good time watching all the hullabaloo which included some dance and karate demonstrations, balloons, flags, candy, and the aforementioned fire trucks.

Grandma noticed that the high school band ambled along in a way that would have never been acceptable for band members at her high school in Texas, where marching drill was an important part of band culture. But the parade was fun nonetheless despite the lack of precision and fanfare.

After the parade we all convened at home where, sun-dazed and hungry, we fell upon a luncheon of gazpacho and Bouchons au Thon and then collapsed, ready for the first lazy summer afternoon.

May 25, 2009
Wearing my Grandma Hat, Day 1

I'm wearing my grandma hat and am having a wonderful, if exhausted
time. First I was up too much getting ready. Then there was the 4
hour drive home fromLGA yesterday, a trip that normally takes two hours or less. I console myself by thinking that the first half of the trip, LGA to the city of Scarsdale
, took 2 hours, a trip normally in the vicinity of 30 minutes. This
makes the last half of the trip seem more reasonable. No need to
remind me why I am happy to no longer have to commute anywhere near NYC.

Grandson
Owen has arrived with a cold and has been short on sleep for two days.
So we are planning very quiet days to start off. So far though he has
been patient and very kind to the kitties and has made kitty-friends. It helped of course that he gave them treats and picked out presents for each of them at the pet store.

Today we baked a birthday cake for Grandpa, and Owen decorated it. Later he helped Grandpa blow out the candles.

Grandma's camera battery died just before the big candle-blowing scene
though, so she only got a picture of the cake. Needless to say, the
cake was just as yummy as it looks. Owen can come apprentice in
Grandma's kitchen whenever he likes.

May 22, 2009
Happy Birthday to G

It is sunny today, for the first time in what seems like ages, although it has probably been only about 6 days, maybe a week since the last sunny day. Although I like those partly cloudy days I had been hoping for more sun so that the pool would warm up. Cloudy cool days and nights in the 30's do not make for a warm swimming pool. This is especially true since have the solar heater turned off because it has a significant leak.

I am happy it is sunny because I think it should be sunny for G's birthday. Of course every day is someone's birthday, but I don't think it should be sunny every day. So I suppose that is arrogant and inconsistent, that I want it to be sunny for my friends, but not for yours. Actually I do think everyone should have a happy birthday, but I wouldn't want to live somewhere where every day was sunny. I would be incredibly happy if it were cool and cloudy on my birthday, but since my birthday is in July, that is not particularly likely to happen.

But back to the birthday.

G asked for this salad for his birthday lunch. It is one of his favorite summer into fall salads.

The recipe is here: Fried Mozzarella with arugula and prosciutto. This past Sunday we had this salad for the first time this season, with fresh mozzarella and fresh local arugula. Of course there are no local peppers yet, and there are never local olives. I didn't happen to have the ham on hand but the salad was wonderful anyway. G asked if he could have it again for his birthday, so I made sure to get the ham, except that I got Spanish Serrano Ham, which we prefer to the prosciutto.

The sweet man I married said he would rather eat at home saying my cooking was better than most restaurant food. I disagree, but still, I can't help but be flattered.

The yellow irises are also in bloom. The first few opened next to the house and were promptly beaten down by a huge rainstorm Sunday night, about an inch and a half of rain fell in an hour or two. But those that were still just buds remained standing, and the purple irises remained standing as well, even though they were already blooming. This makes me wonder now, was it the rain, or something else. The yellow irises that were beaten down are near the earliest blooming of the purple irises. Perhaps the purple blossoms were spent and limp, providing no resistance to the onslaught of water.

May 20, 2009
We tell ourselves stories….

With apologies to Joan Didion for borrowing at least a part of the title of her fabulous book of essays (unrelated to today's post).

I was reading Nassim Taleb's The Black Swan today while I was outside waiting for the grill to warm up and watching our lunch cook, and it struck me how much time and energy we humans spend, as a species, telling ourselves stories, simplifying data to make it intelligible, and interpreting what we see in the world in a way that makes some sort of sense that we can see ourselves through. I don't believe that this is unique to me. Perhaps not everyone has a running commentary going on in their head, but everyone interprets what they see and forms it into some kind of narrative by which they live their lives. And I increasingly believe most of us are not even conscious of doing so.

This is why it is so difficult to perform any kind of truly unbiased judgment or interpretation of facts.

An example of this can be seen in can be seen in Nick Paumgarten's new article in the New Yorker, "The Death of Kings". Paumgarten scatters many anecdotes throughout his tale of the crises in the financial market including a comment by a private-equity executive who said he knew the gig was up when his cleaning woman took out a sub-prime loan to buy a house in Virginia. And yet he kept his money in the market.

Paumgartner also talks about how someone was advised to take a job, even though they were offering him too much money, because either they were "stupid or have so much money it doesn't matter", and the rational thing to do would be take the money while the taking was good.

Even we see danger we tell ourselves stories that it is okay. That we are doing the right thing. If your pay is based on how much revenue you generate it makes sense to do whatever possible to make more money, regardless of the long term effects, regardless of any small interior voice that is telling you it is all folly. You see that people who shouldn't be getting loans are getting loans, and you know that the end is near, but you also see everyone you know making money so you rationalize your actions, thinking you can just make a little more and you have plenty of time to get out.

We all believe these stories in some form or another. The fact is the stories we tell ourselves are far to simple to accommodate an increasingly complicated world, a world of our own making. We tell ourselves if we work hard and save money everything will be alright and when things fall apart we tell ourselves we were too lazy or too greedy. Or we tell ourselves that good things happen to good people, and we search our souls to see where we went wrong when things go wrong.

We tell ourselves that everyone deserves to own a home and we forget that home-ownership opens one up to all kinds of unexpected expenses and risks. We tell ourselves that if we eat right and exercise we will live to a ripe, healthy old age. We tell ourselves that the markets will rebound because they always have in the past. We tell ourselves things will always get better. We tell ourselves that lightening won't strike twice in the same spot. We tell ourselves that if we live in gated communities and send our children to good schools nothing bad can ever happen.

I tell myself that if I can just have everything organized I can meet every challenge in life.

We tell ourselves stories in order to live.

May 19, 2009
Moments of Perfection

It was a rather hectic, hassled, and harried week.

There were, however, moments of perfection

1. A perfect lemon meringue pie. Not a crumb remained.

2. Irises

3. A kitten.

It seems we both have a weakness for foundlings. His name is Moisés. He is currently about 5 weeks old and has been home with us for a little over a week.

May 16, 2009
At last, vegetables.

The Farmer's Market opened Sunday. I was there.

I came home with baby bok choy, japanese turnips and a cheese from a new cheese company. This one is a cow's milk cheese although I think most of their cheeses are sheep's milk. They also have sheep's milk ricotta and ricotta that is half cow half sheep. I will be buying from them again.

Of course I got eggs from a local poultry farm that has completely free run chickens and a few other things less picturesque.

It is still early in the season for most produce here but anything fresh and green and flavorful is a treat.

Today I also went to another farm stand and market where I picked up beets grown by a farmer who extends his season using big plastic tunnels that are kind of like giant cold frames you can walk through.

Fiddleheads and Morels are also in season now.

We had the fiddleheads tonight along with chicken breasts cooked with the morels and fresh asparagus cut from my garden. At least something is still growing in the long abandoned vegetable garden.

Looking at the bounty I can see why our food budget is bigger than the average American family's. But to me it is so worth it to have good food. I didn't start out being so picky about what I ate, and I have had periods where I was a true junk-food-junkie, but those days are mostly gone. I would rather have excellent quality, healthy nutritious food that I can savor. I love vegetable but I am no vegetarian, and I adore a good cheese. But even with cheeses I have learned that having a bit of a really nice cheese is so much more satisfying than just another block of grocery store cheddar. Spring is always a period where I am desperate to get away from the grocery store, when the produce looks tired and tastes flavorless. It may serve the purpose of food, but it is only fuel, not nourishment in all senses. I am always happy for the local markets to open.

I try to keep a few basics that can be prepared without much cooking for those days when everything is just to chaotic. A good cheese, and artisanal salami, some fruit or a vegetable simply sauteed, a pickle, an egg, a selection of nuts. These are things that can be enjoyed no matter how stressful life gets. So much better than grabbing some carb and sugar laden fast-food item that just leaves my stomach aching while simultaneously crave more.

May 12, 2009
More from the Garden

I really haven't gotten out much this week (unless you count going to the grocery store as "going out", and I don't) so I have no alternative but to continue to make you suffer through garden photos.

That is the flower bed at the end of the driveway, called the "iris bed" because irises form the center of the bed. So far, it is my only flower bed as the rest of my front yard is in deep shade, where I can have lovely textures but very few flowers. The sunny lawn beyond the flower bed is also home to the tile-field for our septic system, so not suitable for more flowers. I try to have something blooming here all summer as it is my one bit of floral interest, at least until I get more beds dug; even then this will be the main flower bed at the front, welcoming, side of the house. All the sun is on the river-side which is not visible until after one walks through the house or over the hill.

Primulas in bloom. G chose these once on a trip to White Flower Farm in Connecticut (a little over an hour away). I had tried planting primulas before but they never "took" until we planted these. These two have since sent their offspring out to colonize the rest of the flower bed.

The ferns are also coming out in the little nook by the front door.

And these yellow tulips have appeared on the rise at the top of the hill. This area was shaded by a shrub that was cut down last year, a bushy thorny thing that latched into one's clothes everytime one walked by.

I know I never planted tulips here, or tossed them here after planting. The front flower bed and the vegetable garden, where tulips are often planted are both below this rise although on opposite sides. Last I heard tulips don't roll up hill, and I haven't planted yellow tulips in the past, although perhaps I should reconsider. At a party last weekend several neighbors were complaining that their tulip bulbs are all stolen by the squirrels and asked about my secret (soaking the bulbs in Ropel before planting). I wonder if this is the flowering of some squirrel's forgotten cache?

May 9, 2009
Anny Blatt Book Arrived

The new Anny Blatt book arrived.

I am not knitting the lovely sweater, which is called Valadon, in the color shown which is a light silvery gray/light gray mix. I am using this shade of Angora Super, which is called Celeste, and a lighter blue for the Victoria. IRL the celeste is similar to the color shown here, but perhaps just a tad more blue. The Victoria is back-ordered but should be in before I am ready to start the sweater.

It will not be a fast project, the jacquard-like bodice is knit at 30 stitches to 10 cm.

I feel doubly lucky because Valadon is not the only sweater I am interested in knitting in this book.

There are at least two other sweaters that I find very compelling, including this one, called Kennedy with fabulous cables and i-cord lacing in Merinos and Victoria.

It seems that I every time I decide I dislike some knitting technique, I immediately fall in love with sweater after sweater that employs that technique. I learned to love ribbing by knitting ribbed sweater after ribbed sweater. I see that I shall learn to love i-cord as well.

On other fronts I am knitting but have made no progress on blocking or sewing together. I collapse in my chair in a state of happy exhaustion each night and am thrilled to manage a little stockinette.

Which reminds me, I need to go count rows.

May 7, 2009
Pool Opening

This little boat has been anchored in the little cove just below my house for two days now and is still here this morning.

Sometimes when I am out on the deck and see him there I wonder and I sit there and make up little stories…ah, the places the mind wanders.

And I have been out on the deck. The pool is officially open and running, although I still need to add about an inch of water and there is a leak in one of the solar panels so we are not able to use the solar heater right now. I've called about the solar panels, but this is busy season and we are really on the outer fringes of his territory so I don't expect an immediate response.

In the meantime, I still have to scrub up the ring around the water
line of the pool — I'll do that before I add the last inch of water.
This is my living reminder of air pollution, the grime that accumulates
is an oily residue from the trains that run multiple times a day on the
tracks along the Hudson River. I get much less of a ring now that the
pool is covered most of the time.

Once I've scrubbed the pool there is still the deck, and power washing is not enough to do the trick, although it might work if I used a cleaning agent and a brush and just power rinsed. I think I have a scrub pad that can be fitted onto a broomstick to save the backbreaking labor. It certainly is worth a try. It isn't worth the money to hire someone to do the power washing, they only get the easy stuff and I still have to do the work to get the tough stuff off. I'd rather just do it right the first time myself.

That is always the tough question with pools and decks. Is the pleasure of having it worth the trouble (or expense) of maintaining it? I know tons of people who are eager for this or for that but never think about what is involved with maintaining it until after they've spent the money to get it installed. All they think of is the picture-perfect magazine view of the life they think they'd like to have. But there is a grimier side to everything in life.

I knew what the deck would entail, and the pool, and I like the control of my money and my time that comes with doing it myself. In my experience, in the long run, I come out ahead because no one cares as much about my pool and deck as I do, so I am more likely to pay attention and catch things early. And actually I've gotten my routine down to a simple series of steps. As for the deck, someone would have to clean it every spring. And I continue to have my issues with hiring people to do work I don't want to do just because I "can" hire them.

But then the pool came with the house, which came with the husband and I've long since made peace with its presence.

May 7, 2009