Want some rain? Got lots.
We've been waiting for three grueling weeks for weather that actually will let us into the garden.
When it's not actually bucketing down like Niagara, it's pouring white gravel that cascades down the roof and heaps itself up along the walls like winter snowdrifts. The chickens are on strike and spend the whole day indoors on their segregated roosts, the Reds glaring at the upstart Americaunas and vice versa.
The ducks -- not the brown ones, who parade up and down proudly with the geese in all weathers, but the white ones, who appear to think of themselves as fair weather foragers -- huddle in their inner pasture and shovel through the same mud over and over and over, till they look more like feathered nutria than anything else.
Under these conditions, housebound Risa is going slowly berserk.
She understands it's not Nashville, but gratefulness is maybe more work than she's up to. Both hands are very arthritic this May and self-pity was always one of her talents.
She did try to do a little broom-pulling down at the park.
In enough rain gear to probably rubber-band the cuffs and sleeves and go exploring on the moon.
She waddled out to the edge of the area of infestation and took out her frustrations on the Scotch broom, feeling her way through the job in her steamed-up glasses.
The broom fought back, of course, and it was a bit of a draw. Some of the invaders lay, roots up in token of surrender, in the rain, and Risa retreated, frazzled, broom-slapped and blackberry-bitten, to her truck and steamed up the windows instead. Her gloves lay huddled on the truck seat, shivering. It took awhile for her to pull her self together enough to drive home.
The park rangers didn't show. Whether they had enough to do on one of the other parks, or, like intelligent life, had looked out the window and remembered the paperwork needed catching up, she couldn't say.
There's a surprising amount of life to the garden, in spite of these conditions. No one in their right mind would reach for a trowel and the summer starts (tomatoes, eggplant, and peppers in our case), but the garlic, onions, bok choi, cabbage, kale, collards, peas, and favas are resolutely chugging along. And you should see the sunchokes!
For dinner last night, Risa cooked up some canneloni in a saucepan and reserved the water for yeast starter for today's baking. At the chopping block she cubed tofu, grated elephant garlic and walking onions, chopped sun-dried tomatoes and bok choi, kale and spinach leaf midribs. In a preheated iron skillet, she sauteed them in oil, tamari sauce and cheap sherry, and then served over the canneloni with choice of spaghetti sauce, medium salsa, or both. Salad on the side.
The salad, shown in progress here, is the soft parts of the bok choi, kale, and spinach leaves with two kinds of romaine lettuce and lots of fava leaves, scissored, with some onion greens, chives, chive blossoms and fresh marjoram scattered thoughout. Beloved likes hers with raspberry vinaigrette. Risa simply adds hers to the tofu layer over the canneloni.
Maybe she should be grateful after all.
The coldness soaked into her. -- Laura Ingalls Wilder, On the Banks of Plum Creek
We are having a touch of summer in the high 90's so out door activity is limited to early morning and evening. I have been turning a round table failure into a wall hanging smiley face in the basement. When irrational turn to art.
ReplyDeleteHope your hands get better have you considered foods as a cure?
Hugs Lisa
I agree with the foods for healing, but if you have a community acupuncture clinic in your area (treatments on a sliding scale of $15-$35), I'd give the needles a try too. It can really help with chronic conditions, and help you regain function.
ReplyDeleteWe had that kind of spring (and summer) last year, and it was heartbreaking on about seventeen levels. Educational, too. Thankfully we're being more evenly rained on this year, with a few sunny warm days between some nice soakers. We had almost no tomatoes or peppers last year, so I have high hopes. Those monsoons are when weaving and spinning leap to the fore ...
ReplyDeleteIt's very sobering. I have been successful with growing my own summer starts forty years in a row, but the last two have been hideous!
ReplyDeleteThat's the thing about survival gardening; sometimes circumstances have wiped out entire subsistence communities. Modern civ buffers that -- but now the possibility exists for wiping all the communities at once.
I don't have any spinning and weaving in hand but there is some insulation to put in the attic, so I've brought in the ladder. Once it's dry I'll move it into the hall! :)
Send us some rain!
ReplyDeleteFava leaves? I'll try those. Thanks for the hint.