Spring Opens With Pink

Many things seem to be coming to a head right now. My Master Gardening course is complete and now I have to put in volunteer hours (if I want my certification). I did learn quite a lot in the class but I suppose I expected the class to be less about answering people's garden questions and more about answering my own. I wish that it had been less academic and more practical. Mostly the class was about using resources to find answers. (Like books, the Internet, and OSU publications.) Ah well. I did learn some botany that is not necessarily important to gardening (you could garden successfully for a hundred years without knowing exactly how the xylem works) but is never the less quite interesting.

Yesterday we finally signed our refinance papers. It is a week later than it should have been and until it funds I'm not going to discuss what's next or anything like that for fear of toppling my very fragile house of cards. Let's just say that we have been holding our breath around here.

I actually went to the gym this week for the first time in five months. And almost immediately felt my back going out. I haven't actually been laid up...but the threat is real. This ALWAYS happens. Either my back goes out or my ankle flares up (a medical mystery). Still, it felt good to go and put in some time.

The kittens seem to be improving. I say "seem" because they have lots of little bare spots (Pippa's whole chest is bare of fur- poor baby!) and Penny's stomach is still distended though they are both playful, have big appetites, and the bare parts of Penny's face have started to fill in with fur again so it seems that even if the ring worm isn't completely cleared yet, it's got it's marching orders at last. We take them in this morning to get the official word on their progress from the vet. Hopefully he'll tell us we can play with them soon because it's killing us all to not be able to interact much with them. They are terribly irresistible and the sooner we can ease into the whole dog introduction the better.

Spring is definitely here now. Officially. But I didn't need the official word to know it. When spring is officially here McMinnville turns pink. First with the ornamental (and fruiting) plum trees. Then with the pink dogwoods trees (one of the only planting trends around here that I can get on board with) and then with the ornamental cherries. It snows pink blossoms and is just gorgeous.

I have to confess that the only non-fruiting tree I am tempted to plant is a pink dogwood. Mostly because I would like to be able to cut branches of them for vases in my house. I can't go around cutting up other people's trees so it makes sense to have my own. I don't like using up precious space that could be growing things I can eat, but I may make an exception in this case. Plus, dogwoods always remind me of my mom and the things I love about her. I don't think the pink ones are necessarily what she would choose. She planted a pretty dogwood in our garden in Ashland and it had delicate whitish green flowers. Still, for me it's got to be the pink ones.

The daffodils are all out now, plastering the landscape in bright yellow points of light. Wonderful! I've never lived in a place so widely and generously planted in spring bulbs.

I'm thinking that the next time I paint a living room I want to paint it red. I've never had a red room.* We haven't had lots of success with blues. I like greens a lot. We've had a Dustpan Alley turquoise blue for a kitchen and I might repeat that one. But I like warm colors. I like yellow but have only done a bedroom in it. I do love the orange I did my studio in and might repeat that at some point. But the living room...I keep thinking of a rich color, but fresh cut flowers have to look good against it. I can always do green. But I feel like breaking out a little with something new.

This is where my thoughts are. The near future. It is near impossible to focus on the present.

Time to drink more coffee and write to a friend.
I hope you all have a wonderful Saturday!



*We've had a red ceiling before.

Williamson Ranch Update

(plus a gentle reminder not to clothe my ample ass in double-knit)

My birds are still moulting. I don't understand this whole moulting business, I was under the impression that hens do this before winter and kind of all at once. Mine have been doing it for a few months straight through the cold in a very painfully slow operatic style feather dropping dance. They are still laying eggs, just as they have been all winter- though certainly each of them is laying less as we've been having to buy eggs for the last two months. By the way, the chickadee above is Pinny, who has lost her long tail feathers now and looks rather stunted.

I love macro lenses. This is going to be a rhubarb leaf soon. Right now it's just a brainy looking tumor of plant material that is pushing it's way out of a vegetative bud. I am learning to like rhubarb because I have a glorious clump of it, but I admit that I still prefer it in tandem with strawberries.

I managed to get out in the garden on Tuesday to plant all of my enormous asparagus crowns. If they don't take, that's it. No more attempts at growing it. I have to admit that the last two times I've planted it I broke the rules and planted it in clay soil with poor drainage and then had to finally conclude that the garden books mean it when they say asparagus likes a well drained soil. This time I've planted them in raised beds filled with a sandy loam. So we'll know how I've done in two years.

Whoever says it's always grey and rainy in the Pacific Northwest is BLIND. (OK, I admit that it's already been solidly grey for the last forty days, but geeze...aren't people fussy for sun?!) Being out there in the dirt was wonderful. We did have a little light sprinkle while the sun was shining and it sounded so delicate. I have a case of garden fever very bad. It's all I can think about right now. I've had my nose in the National Geographic Encyclopedia of Herbs for a week now while compiling a list of the herbs I will be planting in my monastery garden. I really wish I could get my hands on some mandrake just for the fun of it.

The girls were enjoying the gold light of afternoon though they're kind of mad that the feed has been low. We ran out and I'm waiting to get our bulk order of organic chicken feed in which we should have for them today.

I haven't cleaned out most of the refuse from my summer garden and so I have these wonderful lacy tomatillo ghosts lying around. Their seeds are all waiting for the right conditions to sprout. Nature is brilliant!

I would love a dress made of this tomatillo lace. Simple and delicate and beautiful like a fragile skeleton.

In case anyone was wondering, we are still going strong on the local eating. There have been transgressions (I'm not punishing myself, but I do love an excuse to use that word "transgressions" which implies the need to drop on knees in a posture of humility to beg forgiveness) and yet for all that it is impossible to be perfect, we've done quite well. I have taken to ordering salads whenever we're out now because I'm hungry for greens. Well, since I've had some salads out I'm actually not as hungry for them as I was. However, I am getting ready to beg one of my two favorite farms (Oakhill Organics) to let me put together an order. Their CSA was (as usual) quite full so I just have to hope they'll do it.

At my Master Gardening class yesterday we had a three hour lecture on lawns. Do you know how deeply I couldn't care less about lawn care? All I ever do with my lawns is rip them out to put in things I like better. I don't hate lawns by any means and quite enjoy them in public parks, but I don't have room for carpets of water sucking greens that I can't eat in my own small kingdom. My vegetables take water too, as do my roses, but I get other better benefits from those.

As always, I felt quite out of place in my class. There just aren't very many people with my interests there. And the double-knit polyester pant wearing woman with the very bad hair and the medical inability to smile is really hard not to stare at. (I'm sure there are people who really do have medical reasons preventing them from smiling, but I'm just being sarcastic here. I've tried being friendly with this plastic-fiber clad person with the awful hair and she just stares at me like an emotionless basilisk.) As a side note, if this woman didn't happen to have very large breasts I would assume she was a man. Please let me remember not to let go of every ounce of feminine allure just because I'm getting older. Please don't let me cut my hair very very short and perm only the top portion. Please...please don't let me ever convince myself that double-knit polyester will suit my generous bottom.

Looking at some of the ladies in my class has inspired me to get more vigilant about putting on mascara. I feel quite fat and ugly most of the time and it's easy to let things slide when you don't feel so great about yourself, but I have to remember that mascara makes my eyes much nicer and such a small detail can remind people that I care about looking nice even though I'm not obsessed over it and even though there is no chance of looking like a princess, there's no reason to look like an ogre either.

Clearly I am learning a lot more at my master gardening classes than just the difference between pruning subshrubs and caning plants.

I haven't yet gotten an official answer about my trees but the Directrice* had a look and she says it's frost damage and sun scald that has occurred and that I should wait and see if my trees survive. So I don't have to trash all my trees. That leaves me with the problem of replanting some of them in more felicitous locations. I am in love with my new garden plan which is so much better than my old one. Furthermore, after living here a couple of years I've come to realize that I don't want sweet cherries in my own yard. They don't preserve satisfactorily for my taste and I can get loads of them for cheap from u-pick sources when they are in season here. I also don't want to fuss with my half dead nectarine. So a few trees may be ditched and the rest replanted.

This weekend I'm going to a rose pruning class at the Heirloom Roses which is near by. I will also hopefully be acquiring a few new roses. It's time to get some new ones established. I was spoiled before by being so close to Garden Valley Ranch from whom I got the majority of my bare root roses when I lived in California. Now I'm close to Heirloom Roses. I think it's wise to always live close to a first class rose source, unless you're April, of course.

It's time to get ready to do some freelance work and also consult the lists of available roses for sale so I can compile my rose wish list. I always have one of those going at this time of year.

Happy Friday everyone!



*The head hauncho of the Master Gardening program. I call her the Directrice.

Recognize Your Food

This is an exciting time of year. Just as so many of us are shivering under our down comforters wishing we didn't have to get up and meet the cold winter air for another day, there is all kinds of life waking up outside, beyond our sight. Unless you're looking for it, how would you see this little plant here that isn't even an inch tall and is still hidden by the brown dead uncleared summer growth? But even more interesting to me is: how many of you can tell me what this little specimen will grow up to be?

When I spy unfurling fronds and delicate tender new seedlings I feel the same kind of excitement that I feel when looking at a new human baby, still covered with animal down and wrinkled from it's trip through another dark body. My heart rate quickens and all the chemicals that signal me to protect make me immediately value the very fragile nature of this new being.

Yep, even though it's a plant. More twisted still? I have these feelings for plants I know I'm going to eat. This little bit of green, this emerging bit of downy green is something I will add mostly to quiches later in the spring. Know what it is?

The next three pictures are all the same thing. Do you know what this will grow up to be? Can you imagine how I will prepare this thing in the kitchen? Can you taste it in your mouth right now?

Do you recognize this plant that yields (hopefully) tender matter to be roasted and sprinkled with salt and pepper? I think it's funny how so few people know what their food looks like at different stages of it's life cycle. We mostly know it right before it gets to our plate.

For me that's what's wonderful about gardening: getting to know your food from seed to plate. From root to roasted pan of earthy dinner. I love it when I can recognize herbs in the wild and spot vegetables growing in funny places. It was complete love at first sight when, in my old neighborhood, I discovered that the streets were suddenly covered in real walnuts...edible, free, nuts. I gathered them like an overexcited chipmunk. What a surprise to find so many of them, right there at my feet. Everywhere. Every year we lived there I gathered enough to get us through a whole year of walnut eating.

Finding wild berries is such a bonus too. Or a rogue plum tree. Finding sage or mallow feels like spotting treasure. How many of us could survive by scavenging food in the wild if we had to?* How many of us can recognize wild leeks or know which mushrooms are edible?

Maybe we don't really need to. But doesn't it seem like the kind of thing everyone should know? Or shouldn't most of us at least be able to recognize the food we bring to our table when it's still in the field or the garden?

We scorn people who don't know where Israel is on a map and don't know you can't drive there from here. Well, we do, anyway.

Recognizing food and herbs at different stages of development seems way more elemental and basic than knowing where a country is on the globe thousands of miles away.

Next up? My good friend Nicole is going to show me where to find nettle and what to do with it.

*I know I couldn't!

Spring Flings Lots Of Things
(from trees)

Like fledgling Blue Jays. Max and Rex found this little guy huddled up in Max's "fort"* It's a real pain in the ass when baby birds fall into the hedges where your boys are playing because then you can't just let nature take it's course, which would involve leaving the bird where it is knowing that it will probably die there. And possibly be mauled by the dog later on. Every spring this is what happens to many little fledglings. It's a part of life. A part of the spring cycle of events.

But little boys, no matter how spirited and war hungry they are, tend to get all soft when they find little guys like this. And honestly? I wouldn't want it otherwise since it shows that they have a conscience. So a great deal of excitement ensued. We put the baby in a box to keep him safe from the dog and then went on a mad hunt for earthworms to feed it. Isn't that what mama birds do?

This bird incident has brought an alarming fact to light: I have very few earth worms in my yard. We were rushing around because when a baby bird opens his gullet up to you you can't help but feel the urge to put something in it. We did finally find one after digging forty holes in the yard. Then I left Lisa with the boys and the bird and tried to find a number for Wild Animal Rescue in the phone book. One very frustrating thing about Yamhill county is that we have at least three phone books and every one of them sucks. You can't find the number for the police in it. So I then moved my efforts to the computer.

Where I discovered that we don't have a Wildlife Rescue Center per se, or at least I couldn't find any number for one. Instead, what I did find were some instructions on line about what to do if your child drags a mangy little avian baby into your kitchen.

The number one most important thing to do when you find a baby bird out of it's nest is to locate the nest it fell out of. Which, theoretically, shouldn't be difficult since fledglings aren't able to get very far on their own. If the bird is hurt then you should take them immediately to a rescue center, if your local phone books aren't completely useless and you can find a rescue center. Our little blue jay didn't appear to be hurt, though his legs were too weak to support him. Poor wee birdy.

After the kids shook the bushes to death (which is the most likely reason why our little friend was on the ground in the first place) and did a whole lot of arguing, shouting, screeching, and other unhelpful things, we sent them into the house and sent Mark (who is six foot three) into the hedge to see what he could see. He could see a lot of hedge. But no nest. We kept hearing what sounded like other baby birds in the bushes near by, but couldn't see a thing.

If you can't locate the nest, you should build a new one to fix into the branches close to where the bird was found. The parents will likely come back to find their offspring. So it's important not to pull a Dr. Doolittle and keep the bird to talk to all day and have stories written about your crazy-ass self. So we followed the suggestions we read about and built a pretend nest.

We sent Mark back into the hedges, or bushes, or whatever the hell it is we've got back there, to put the pseudo nest into the branches, which he fixed in place with wire. I think the nest might be a little exposed. Mark must too because he made some comments later about how he probably just offered up a meal to the local crows.

Here's the little fledgling that spring (or possibly our boys) flung out of the hedges. He's resting in his cozy tupperware nest of newspaper and dry grass clippings, probably relieved to be finally left alone by those awfully loud incompetent pink tinted creatures who are so clueless they didn't bother to half macerate the earthworm before feeding it to him. I mean, everyone knows you're supposed to regurgitate the worms for baby birds. The nest is even outfitted with drain holes. We did all take peeks at the nest site while making dinner and it seemed that there were parental blue birds flying around the site. So the chances are pretty good that the parents found their lost cublet.

However, I'm afraid to investigate too closely to find out that the little one is dead in his lovingly crafted nest. We really want this guy to make it. But a part of me feels like nature was practicing the natural cycle of life on this guy (by which I mean cruel death) and we got in the middle where we didn't belong.

I guess if I see a vulture out there in the next couple of days I'll know the answer. I guess if I don't I can assume the best possible outcome.

*aka: the cypress hedge. Or whatever those bushes are. Cypress sounds impressive.

Note: I actually have three posts that need writing and I may write and publish them all today. So get on marks, get set, and I'll pepper you with words. The next two posts are food related. Except that I just realized that the one about Ceaser salad Lisa or Mark's way, has no pictures. How on earth did I let this happen?! Can you read a post about food without a picture of the epicurean delight to tease you? I'm not sure it's ever been done. I'm not sure the food crowd will allow this. Will they pelt me with well rotted mushrooms? Also coming (thankfully with pictures) is my adventure learning to make baklava. Oh yeah, it's been a good food week-end.

Think in pink
Plus, a little celebrity conversation

This is the irresistible pre-spring nature show. There are some people out there (no judgment here) who are unmoved by blossoming Japanese plums. I'm pretty sure that until there is a lego version of flowering plums with hidden weapons in the branches, my kid will remain unimpressed. I find them just amazing. I'm not even a real devoted pink fan, but, I mean, look at em'!

As much as I love these grounded pink clouds, I will not plant any in my own yard because these are ornamental and my true passion is for fruiting trees. Speaking of those, I will have to get a shot of my cherry tree budding up. The buds are just beginning to split open showing pink blossoms. My blueberries are beginning to leaf out too. Except for the couple that don't look so good.

My mom is, in my opinion, largely responsible for having instilled in me a great passion for growing things. As I mentioned in my last post, this passion was latent until I had my very own playground in which to find out how fantastic it is to grow my own flowers and fruit. My mom is at a point in her own life where gardening is no longer a priority. She has much darker concerns right now. Still, yesterday morning she and I got feverish talking about building green houses, and raised beds. She can't help herself, this time of year rolls around and even though she is not tending a garden at this moment, she's eager to help me realize my garden ambitions.

Which will be tricky this year as there is such a constraint on my time. However, what if I bust my butt in the shop to complete a bunch of things I must complete, and carve out a couple of days? Truth be told, there are at least two or three weeks worth of chores to attend out there. I want to muck around. I want to clean up. To weed. To prune. To put in time amongst my roses. To plant new ones.

This isn't so much of a hobby as it is a necessity. I'll squeeze it in there somehow.

Most people who know me know that I am unashamed to say that I really enjoy reading the smut mags. I don't feel that it says anything about my intelligence to admit this. Since human behavior is pretty much the most interesting thing on earth it should not be surprising at all that I like to know how other people live. What could be more fascinating than finding out how people with more money than sense live?*

There are some things I wish to say after having read the most recent rash of dirt rags:

There are a number of celebrities that these magazines are constantly referring to as "trend setters", "style icons", and "always fashionable".

I would like to interject here that Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen are not style icons. In fact, few celebrities have managed to look as consistently skanky. Sorry girls, you look like thirteen year olds who just discovered make up and Grandma's furs for the first time. Most of us have been there, Lord knows I went through a very painful stage of wearing all pink and blue eyeshadow, but I did eventually grow out of it. These two gals look like shrunken caricatures of rich girls with no sense of style at all and droopy shoulders.

Chloe Sevigny is another celebrity more known for her "fashion forward" wardrobe than for her acting. Good god, there are few people in the public eye more capable of reminding me of all the worst fashions of the past. Who pays these reporters to say that she is always fashionable? I want to hit them with big soggy pickles for saying such total trash. Plus, she always looks so bored. Which makes me want to smack her with a big soggy pickle too. (I really appreciate the website "Go Fug Yourself" for the things they have to say about Chloe. Though now the two creators of this blog are writing for one of the smut magazines and have suddenly become mysteriously unfunny. Such a waste.

I have just been reading all about the Oscar parties and something weird has come to my attention: that all the celebrities who attend the Oscars and the following parties get to take away with them really expensive "goodie" bags full of treasures. I think it's really creepy actually. Here are people, most of whom can afford anything on earth they want besides Buckingham Palace, and they are being given bags full of products that the rest of us will probably never be able to afford.

It's that whole concept that when you don't need a bank loan, the banks will jump hoops to give you one. The celebrities are being rewarded for being famous and making more than is really necessary for any human being to make while the people who made that fame and fortune possible, the people who ultimately bank roll their riches (us poor slobs who go to their movies and watch them on television) are working our asses off to barely be able to afford to buy Paris Hilton's cat-piss perfume.**

If I was a very rich person, I would feel really weird about taking expensive gifts whose purpose is really to woo me into endorsing their various products. Actually, I'm not a rich person at all and I already feel really uncomfortable when anyone tries to give me anything for free. Seriously. But here's where my feelings get complicated; my business is barely off the ground and if a celebrity were to be seen wearing one of my aprons I would be launched. It's exactly the same thing if I court them by sending them free stuff hoping they will be seen using/wearing it. Which is something I have been thinking of doing. But it's so gross. It's gross that celebrities take these goodie bags, free designer clothes, and free products. It's gross that companies go to such lengths to court them. Sycophants, everyone.

Apparently me included.

It's very hard for me to have sympathy for celebrities being hounded by the press when I know they are taking part in the big cycle of fame prostitution. That they are being rewarded to be seen at events by being given bags full of products worth $8,000 or more.

I would have a lot more respect for them all if celebrities, instead of taking all this free loot for themselves, auctioned it all off as it came to them and donated the proceeds to their favorite charitable causes.

Well, I must be off to work because, unfortunately I am neither thin enough or famous enough to be living off the fat of my past deeds.

*Yes, yes, I know. How judgy of me. How can I possibly know this? And what if Brittney is reading my blog? If she was, I think I'd be making a living with my blog by now.

**I lie not. It smells exactly like tom cat spray.

How can this be? I drank no beer yesterday, I got exercise, and today I am fatter? Plus: no beer is now synonymous with BAD DREAMS in which I am flunking lots of classes I didn't even know I was taking.