In the Garden with Gentle Palm

My Father

Dear Friends,

My father died suddenly and unexpectedly last week.  I will be back to posting soon, but have needed to devote all my time and energy to my family.  I hope all of you are well.  Hug your children, spouses and parents.  Hold your friends close.

Creating Some Zen

When Defender of Liberty is not, well, defending liberty, she loves to move furniture. 

She would say this is not strictly true. She would say that Old Stone House has been a challenge, and that she is still trying to find the exact right configuration and use for each room.

OK, to tell the truth, she would say that I have interfered with her much greater interior designing wisdom, and that she is only now getting to do "what she knew was the right thing all along" with some of the rooms.  Of course, in our old house, City Victorian Rehab, she also moved furniture all the time, including the old upright piano, which eventually expired as a result. 

Be that as it may, we have tried at least five different configurations and uses, and three paint colors, for the breakfast room off the kitchen.  It has been variously furnished as a mud room, a sitting area, a coat/sports equipment/toy storage area, and even - a breakfast room.  It has been cream, green, and yellow.

The first floor study has had an even more varied journey.  It has been a sitting room, a study, a sitting room again, a computer/t.v./play room, and back to a study again.  It has had wing chairs, a couch, one desk, two desks, and currently, two desks and a couch.  And somewhere in the middle of all this, D of L, Tenor and Many Shoes were on the television show "Trading Spaces Family" along with our neighbors, during which the study was "decorated" as a sitting room/study combination.  But that is a story for another day.

D of L has now decided to take over the room for herself, which I have encouraged.  She will be able to create a space purely to her taste, and have "a room of her own," to quote a certain famous writer.  She intends to fill the bookshelves with her books, empty the room out, and create a zen-like space to work and read.  Sounds wonderful.

What do I get?  I get to move my desk back up to our bedroom, where I had it before.  I had a cozy corner of the bedroom all set up, with everything I needed to hand.  It was wonderful, and D of L hated it.  She eventually banished me and my cozy little desk set-up down to the study.  Yes, the same study from which I am now being banished back up to the bedroom.  Not that I am complaining.

Mid August

I often feel a little out of sorts in the middle of August.  Frankly, I'm ready for fall.  Even though we're gorging on fresh tomatoes and corn, it's too hot most days to really enjoy the garden.  I'm filled with a restlessness I can't explain.

I feel ungrateful.  Who in their right mind would hurry summer along?  And yet I'm longing for apples, cool weather, and end of season garden chores.  It's not that I want the gardening season to be over - it's just that I'm ready for the next phase.

Maybe I'm just one of those people that always has to be either getting ready or packing up, and can't just enjoy the dog days when chores are fewer and the bounty comes in.  This time of year always seems stifling to me - and not just because of the weather.

The last week in August we are going to the beach, to a lovely small town in Little Blue State.  We will swim in the ocean, build some sand castles, walk on the wooden boardwalk, have dinner with old friends and watch the dolphins swim by.  Best of all, only a week or two after we come home, the inevitable cool wind will blow one day, and it will be fall.

See Blue

This post's guest photographer: G.P.

See Blue.  See Blue sit.

See Blue stay.

Stay Blue, stay!

See Blue come.

Good dog, Blue!

 

The First Corn

A milestone day every year. 

The time has arrived.....

Picking the first ear -

It looks good -

You can walk out to the garden when you are picking corn, but you have to run on the way back!

  All cooked and ready to go to the table -

First butter:

Then salt:

Then eat!

Mmmmm....

Although it is a little hard to eat corn with teeth like these:

The perfect summer dinner; corn and tomatoes from the garden, and locally baked bread, spread with olive oil and crisped just the right amount in the oven.

It tastes delicious like this:

And also like this:

My favorite dinner, available only in August of each year, (assuming no disasters with either the tomato or the corn crop,) which makes it all the more appreciated!

Practically Perfect In Every Way

We are back from a whirlwind trip to visit D of L's sister Bethyboo and her family in Green and Leafy Suburb.  Yesterday, we drove into Gotham City to see a matinee of Mary Poppins.  We had fabulous center orchestra seats because Bethyboo's neighbor is one of the two Banks children in the show.  Her nice mommy got us the tickets.  It is definitely a kid's show - I don't need to see it again.  (Unlike the movie, which I could watch over and over.  Of course, the movie has Julie Andrews, a bona fide goddess, but that is another matter.)

G.P. adores his cousins Button and Namesake.  We had fun before the show going to Jekyll and Hyde for lunch. Here we are with all of them and Bethyboo's husband, Uncle Fun.

The kids had a great time playing on the "Love" statue:

And we got to walk through a BIG street fair:

 

Two happy cousins:

After the show they got autographs, and G.P. and Namesake got to meet Mary Poppins (aka Ashley Brown) herself:

Best of all, after the show we got a backstage tour!  Miss Jane Banks showed us around.  It was sooo cool.  Here is G.P. with the actual kites used in "Let's Go Fly A Kite."

Bethyboo and D of L where they belong - lit up on a Broadway stage!

The boys both left with Parrot umbrellas just like Mary Poppins carries.  The motto for the weekend?  Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious , of course!

Still Sizzling

It is still ungodly hot.  G.P. has spent the week at soccer camp, and Papa and Nana and I went to watch the end-of-camp "World Cup" and the skills awards ceremony today.  In the skills competition, G.P. won "Best Dribbler" and the "Best Overall" award.  He was one happy boy:

Reports on the other creatures around here -

Blue is growing, and has arrived at the "steal every shoe available" stage of puppyhood:

The guinea keets have progressed to being allowed in the outside section of the pen, as they are now too big to get through the wire, and it is too hot to be inside:

The mommies still keep a close eye on them:

The front garden still has enough flowers in bloom to attract lots of "pollinators" as G.P. calls them:

And, lest I start worrying that G.P. is getting too big, he still likes to play dress up:

Check out those pumps!

Turning Up The Heat

It has been one of those August days.  96 degrees.  Hazy.  Hot.  Humid.  It was still too hot when I got home to even think about working outside.  I went out just long enough to pick about 20 Early Girl tomatoes, which, along with one large zucchini, D of L turned into a lovely pasta sauce for dinner.

After I read the first chapter of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban to G.P., D of L went in to kiss him goodnight.  He said to her, "You know, I can smell you and Nana before you come into the room."

She said, "Do we smell good?"  His response was, "Medium."  When asked to elaborate, he said that Nana smells like perfume, and D of L smells like soap.  D of L then said, "Does Mommy (that would be me) smell good?"  He replied, "Oh yes, she smells good - she smells like dog."

I'm flattered that I rate a "good" rather than a "medium," but I smell like "dog" ???

D of L assures me that he meant that I don't wear perfume, but couldn't he have said "She smells like the garden" or even "She smells like tomato plants?"

Sheesh.

Garden Support

Tonight, I got home in time to take the hand-off from D of L, who had to leave at 6 p.m. for a meeting.  I made G.P. some dinner, read him the final two chapters of Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, and had him in bed by 8 p.m., which in the summer is a remarkable feat.

Then I had to make a bunch of phone calls, but because of modern technology, at least I got to make them outside on a lovely, if warm, summer evening.

One of the calls was long.  I ended up pacing up and down the front walk, where the big perennial border is blooming.  As it got dark, and I struggled to help the person on the other end of the phone, I found myself stroking the Anise Hyssop flowers each time I passed.  While I was soothing the other person, the flowers were soothing me, both with their scent and their feel.  Even when the light was gone, taking the color of the garden with it, the shapes remained, lovely in the dim light.