KateAndDally

Returning to the Earth...

Last spring and summer, when I was unemployed, I actually had a vegetable plot.  You couldn't really call it a "garden" -- gardens have variety.  I had tomatoes.  Several different varieties of tomatoes, but tomatoes nonetheless.  I tried to grow herbs, particularly basil, so I could make pesto, but those plans died abornin'.  So I tricked out two beds (spending money we turned out to need further down the line--but who knew?--since I was so eminently employable and was sure to be snatched up the moment I sent out my resume - HAH), planted my cuttings and waited.  I had the puppy, the blog; and spring spread into summer without a noticeable rise in heat or humidity, so, after I'd scanned the job sites and sent out my day's quota of resumes, I sat outside and read a lot. 

And the tomatoes grew!  And then the rats came, partly as a result of the dogs and partly because of the free tomato nosh.  And after that, the tomatoes lost their luster. 

Then fall came, and winter, and the family budget got really tight.  I won't bore you with our alarm (believe me, we were very alarmed) but the pod people came through at the end of the winter and the wolf backed away from the door.  He's lurking behind the maple in the front yard, occasionally lunging out as we pass, but we're only feeling his breath and not his teeth.  (But I figure if I torture his metaphor enough, he'll keep clear...)

 

So. Comes this fall, this lovely soft fall, and TLO wants to plant bulbs.  And oh, by the way, Mummy, here's the Burpee catalogue.  And see, here's the bulbs I want to plant.  Aren't they gorgeous?  I want those, and those, and those and those, and those...

 

Ay Yay Yay.  The child is expensive!

 

Anyway.  Yesterday she and I cleared very tall weeds out the south side plot, here,   and planted the first of our red and yellow tulip bulbs. 

 

Tomorrow, perhaps, we will clear out the old tomato bed, seen here.  Yes, those weeds are as tall as the ones we cleared out yesterday.  Yes, my thighs hurt, as does my butt.  But you probably didn't need to know that...

Other Things that Make Me Smile

Through absolutely no effort on my part, the rugosa bloomed this weekend.

I suppose I really should fertilize it, or prune it, or something kind.

Also, we have really wonderful neighbors.  They've brought dinner for us for the last two nights, and generously included a bottle of OK wine.  (Let's just say it benefitted from me forgetting to put the cork back in last night.)

Well, F*** Me, It Works...

I have LARGE BUSHY plants in my veggie plot.  And more basil than I know what to do with...I guess it's time to make pesto...

I also have tomatoes...'course, they're not ripe yet and I guess any kind of tomato tragedy could befall them, but still...

Nothing of interest happening in the fragrant annuals bed...I mean, I have some sproutings which I'll have to thin out (move), but other than the lantana TLO picked out a few weeks ago, there aren't any blooms...yet...

Fat and Happy

that would be me, sitting here in the cool but humid breeze.  I believe the term of art for women of my stature is "zaftig," but as I sit here encouraging Kate to poop, I'm sucking in (up?) my coils of belly fat and there's no way around it, ladies and gentlemen: it's fat.  And tonight is Wednesday, normally a night for me to fence, but there's literally three mounds of kid laundry on the sofa that needs to be put away and an equal mound of my own laundry to tidy; as well as at least 10 loads of dirty clothes stashed in the linen closet in the bathroom that must be washed and sorted.  So: how handy for me, I'll use sedentary housework as an excuse not to exercise.  Excuse me, the timer's gone off and I have to feel the Kidlets.

Back again.  I'm happy and relieved to have gotten my semi-automatic watering system installed in the old rosebed, which now has two nascent rose bushes, two tomato plants and two NZ impatiens plants that I transplanted from the two containers by the front door.  You can see the plants; the three "automatic waterers" in the background are 2-ltr  soda bottles with pierced caps and open ends; you fill them with water and plant them; the plants suck the water out through the pierced caps; everyone's happy.  Thank you, Canadian gardener Doug Green!  (I'd link to the actual instructions but 1) I've given them to you here; and, 2) they're contained in an ebook he's published on growing tomatoes that costs $7.50, if memory serves, and it's a pdf that resides on my intraoffice network -- so sad)  Anyway, if you're like me and you know nothing about growing tomatoes, you could do a lot worse than pay $7.50 to learn.  I mean, let's face it, most of us buy our plants if we don't grow them from seed, and how much can that cost you?  I bought my heirloom tomatoes from Natl Gardening Assn for something like $50 for 12 plants...if I was really organized, I could have bought the seeds for next to nothing and started them in the basement like real gardeners, but I'm not that together, so it cost me bucks. 

Tonight's wine is a Spanish dry white, Rioja by Marques de Caceres.  Very light melon nose; green apple crunch, slightly acidic, light finish; second tier but not bad at all on an evening such as this.  Good night, friends.

Gentle Evenings

It's a soft night, by which I mean zephyrs, low humidity and pink haze.  Dinner is fixed and the Offering Kidlets eat it;  I sit outside with my Chateau La Roche Saint Jean sauv and savour the birdsong.   Life is pretty damn good.

Here you have a picture of the backyard rose bush:

We got pummeled over the weekend by a series of t-storms and so many of the blooms have shed their petals, but there are still enough to convey the splendor.  I love roses; so much reward for such little effort.  Prune and feed them at the start of the season; feed them every six weeks thereafter; spray them with Neem once a week; deadhead them.  That's it!  And see how you are rewarded!

I can hear TLO two houses over with The Youngest P and Wee Bree.  Mrs. P calls to them; it's her orchestra night, so TLO will be coming home soon.  UO shows up and TLO makes an appearence.  It's her school field day tomorrow and she grills him as only a true flirt can: "What country am I tomorrow?"  "Benin."  "No!"  "New Zealand."  "NO!" "ITA..."  "Not Germany."  "NOOOOO..."  "Hmm...institutionally governed by a weak head of state?"  "DADDY!!!"  And so it goes.   

Gardening

Well, the tomatoes have survived the first week in the ground.  We've not had any rain, although this weekend we're supposed to see roving t-storms and showers, and it feels like muggy, like we might; but so far, no rain. 

I get an electronic newsletter from a Doug Green, a Canadian ex-nusery owner and highly experienced gardener, who has relatively inexpensive ebooks on gardening for sale, which I recommend.  One of his tips for watering raised beds like mine is to take a 2 liter soda bottle, cut off the end, punch a hole in the cap with a hot needle (don't drill it, the hole will be too big) and bury it cap-end down in your bed...voila, a semi-automatic watering system.  It's stuff like this that makes me whack my head and say "duh!"  Anyway, I did that this afternoon...the raised bed has three varieties of tomato, two varieties of basil, and as a sop to TLO, I sowed creeping sedum broadcast across the bottom third.  I have some sproutlets too, which makes us both smile.

So far I seem to have lost only one tomato plant;  I don't know which one, but it doesn't really matter if the others pull through.  I purchased 2 of 6 heirloom varieties from the National Gardening Association; two of them are in a Gardeners Supply self-watering "tomato success" kit; others are in the 3X3 raised bed I put together last weekend; three are in the old rose bed I dug lo these many years ago, and one each reside in an old silk ficus container (on wheels) and in an old strawberry pot respectively...well, we'll just see how it all goes. 

TLO wants a flower bed to call her own; and I want a butterfly bed; and so we have seeds awaiting planting in the newly re-dug bed beyond the rec room window.  As I dug it out, I discovered a bed had been there once; someone had done what I've never done and added sand to our hard clay.  (I'm not saying this is bad; I'm just saying I've never done it -- I've always added zoo doo or some other compost-y kind of thing to our crappy soil).  I know someone once planted something there because I came across two bulbs.  Now, we've been in this house 14 yrs this weekend, thank you, and I've never seen anything bulbous sprout from that bed, so I'm assuming the bulbs are dead; but what do I know?  Is there a way to rejuvenate bulbs?  Should I soak them in compost tea or something?  Rooting solution?  Anyone out there know?

serene satisfaction

so now we are the family who does too much...did Altar Guild this a.m., then set up my so-called "Tomato Success Kit" (self-watering variety) and assembled a 3x3 raised bed planter.  Then off to fencing, which featured the most intense series of bouts I've had in quite some time (and I'll have some lovely bruises tomorrow); and then I whizzed into the Home Depot on the off-chance they might have the replacement cushions I need for the lawn chairs; and lo and behold, they did, and for an entirely reasonable price, I might add; then home where UO said "let's go bike shopping for you right now", and we did, and we bought this and loaded it onto the bike rack...at which point I told UO I'd pay him to take the kids to a local festival TLO had been clamoring to see, and zipped back to Home Depot to get the rest of the cushions (the first was an experiment to see if it fit); upon my return I realized that: no-one's home but me and the dogs.  So I sat in the backyard, ate quiche and caesar salad and drank sauv blanc, this time from Napa.  Life is good.

The subject was roses

The backyard bush boasts many fat buds but the front bush has really popped:

and the recycler is nice, too.

Here's a shot of one of the blooms:

Raining here...

Major thunderstorms.  It's a fencing night and UO has offered to take The Littlelest Offering with him to a bike clinic, but that would leave Offering Boy enduring the Tornados of Doom all by himself, and he'd be cranky.  So here I am with a decent Bordeaux and exotic cherry tomatoes for dinner.  Dally, the Family Dog Emeritus and Kate, our Family Dog Adjunct, lie quietly in their separate hidey-holes.  Dally hides behind the recliner in the rec room or under UO's desk; Kate, at the behest of her adoring public, reclineson a soft fuzzy blankie in her kennel.  We love her, but we can only sustain so much puppy teeth love. 

I completely agree with UO about Atrios' post on the passing of Falwell.  And Atrios is exactly right: imagine Jerry's surprise at the folks around him in Heaven.  The perfect revenge comeuppance.

The Bordeaux is soft, fruity, notes of currant and strawberries, well-balanced tannins and a smooth finish.  Also under $10.  It's French, a 60/40 Cabernet/Merlot split and it's got other blends/varietals/whatevers-but-not-imitators out there, so take a look. 

I needs must go help TLO pick out a pretty dress for tomorrow.  Good night and don't forget to floss.

I'm Tired

So.  Today I wrote a penetrating analysis of North Carolinian politics at the federal level which most of you will never read.  (Howard Coble is both old and fat.)  OK, it doesn't say he's fat in the bio.  You'll just have to take my word for it.  I trashed the New Democrats for being old, or at least not so "new."  What's so "new" about a supposedly "pro" business coalition that has an average business voting record of something like 10%?  Being pals with Microsoft doesn't make you "new." But I digress. 

Once I polished off North Carolina, I hotfooted it up Connecticut Avenue into MD so I could help Offering Boy's 5th grade class garden in their school courtyard (missing lunch, I might add).  I was supposed to look in on The Littlelest Offering's lunch period and say hi, but I was bogged down in North Carolina and bagged it.  I hauled and raked mulch and maybe prevented a gang of enthusiastic 10 year olds from killing off a tree, and then I streaked back down 16th St back to the office to tote up statistics on business PACs' use of technology in the 2006 election cycle.  (You will be pleased to note that most of them have joined the 21st century and use websites and email to solicit their eligible classes.  If you know what that means, you are a lost cause.)   Then I retrieved the car, stiffed the valet and raced off to collect the Offering Children from daycare.  TLO greeted me with this: 

It is, of course, Corduroy.  The inside looked like this:

(In case you can't read the inscription, it is:

Roses are Red/Violets are Blue/Please stay as my mother/Because I love you.

Well,  cripes, how could I leave after that?

I believe I promised you wine on top of everything else...it's in the low 80s here, with a light cool breeze.  Kate is busy at my feet killing a "Wiggly Giggly."  (We have both the jack and the barbell; she prefers the barbell.)  I am sipping a "Baby Barbera" that I found at my beloved Sniders.  Our neighbor with whom I do not speak, The Retiree, is watering his lawn.  Kate abandons the Wiggly Giggly to check out this phenomenon and he calls to her: "Hello, Kate, hello puppy, hello Kate."  They haven't been introduced, but living cheek by jowl as we do, they couldn't have failed to notice her -- or us -- at 4 a.m. when we bring her out.  OK, he's not a total asshole.

On that note, I leave you all.  May all your Friday evenings be peaceful and full of puppies.