From the field, Whatever

Bondage

7 Comments

Relax, Susan.

😉

Silly me didn’t plan far enough ahead to schedule visits for this week; which means I’m chained to the desk, to this view, for the whole long week. It’s a good thing, really. I’m feeling almost caught up now, ready to cope with whatever curveballs my clients try to toss my way.

I sort of moved in today, finally, after a year at this desk. I brought some things I love… things to make me smile, things that comfort me, things that let me feel content in this place without a view of the outside, things that remind me of happy times spent elsewhere. Honestly, I’m coveting the recently-vacated window cubicle, tho the view is far from spectacular; at least there is sight of the sky and some green and growing things. I’ll stay here anyway, on the aisle, subject to whoever happens by with something to amuse me. The distractions are constant… homemade brownies! … bochinche (gossip) that I’d missed… the boss asking me into her office, the phone forever ringing.

😉

What I’d really like is to be free of all of this… to have the summers I remember as a kid… the sun and the sand and the ocean. Freedom… freedom from being responsible to anything but what brings joy and makes me smile.

(Dreaming)

This morning, on my hike from the parking lot, there were coworkers gawking and pointing at the dozen or so turkey vultures warming their wings on the roof of the building, waiting for some warmth to lift them aloft… waiting for something to carry them away from the needs and obligations of their mundane everyday life.

Garden, In the neighborhood, Whatever

Sunday Market

6 Comments

Blogger was behaving badly this weekend and rather than fight it, I gave in to my occasional tendencies to be a lazy bum and didn’t even bother trying to post anything. Summer doldrums, maybe.

I made it to the Farmer’s Market in town this morning – that’s were I found this drop-dead gorgeous crocosmia – I love the burnt orange flowers. I hope this one’ll fare better than the one I planted years ago; the nice lady who sold it to me said it’s winter hardy if well-mulched. We’ll see. The hummers should appreciate it as long as it lasts.

The Red Bank Farmer’s Market is an odd mix: part traditional market, part craft show, part kitsch. Today there was a huge display of silk (plastic?) flowers next to a table with the sweetest organically grown herbs, a vendor peddling a dozen varities of pickles, someone selling tacky t-shirts, etc. all surrounded by fresh Jersey produce. All I bought with my $20 was the crocosmia; the rest went towards one too many cups of coffee in the park down by the river. Plus, I got sunburned, again.

😉

Cucumbers and eggplants and squash and peppers are in – as are peaches! No donut peaches, yet. Ever tried them? They’re a favorite in my house – the flesh is white and the skin really thin – and they’re very juicy (definite kitchen sink snack) and they taste just slightly of almonds. Yummy. Maybe next weekend.

Garden, In the neighborhood, Snapshots

Parterre at Deep Cut Gardens

8 Comments
Click for a nicer view!

Are you wondering what a parterre is? Don’t speak French?

😉

A parterre is a symmetrical garden, often with roses or perennials and boxwood hedges. They’re meant to be viewed from above, to better appreciate the pattern of the design, but I preferred the ground-level view of this still young planting.

I’ve been watching this one take shape for a couple years now at the local horticultural park. It was nice the other day to find that the park system had reached the final stages of restoring this treasured part of the many display gardens at Deep Cut.

I think the view will be gorgeous in the wintertime from the top of the hillside by the rockery – the weeping hemlocks there laced with snow – and the curving lines of the boxwoods in the parterre outlined in white, too.

A pic of the parterre from two summers ago is here. I can’t imagine how much nicer it’ll be two years from now.

Snapshots, Whatever

Fish stories

6 Comments

Update: Susan had a bit of fun at Delia’s expense also. Delia, of course, knows we make fun of her only cause we love her so. You know that Delia, right?

This pic of Delia, unashamedly stolen from her blog (and a definite contender for next month’s cover of “Field and Stream”) reminded me of this pic of the DH:

Apparently the size of the fish has nothing whatsoever to do with the goofiness of the fisherman’s grin.

😉

Dog days, Remembering, Snapshots

A year later

10 Comments

It’s the Spring of your life,
I laugh at your foolishness,
protect you from danger,
make sure you grow and glow with health,
practice and play until…

It’s the Summer of your life,
What a beauty you’ve become!
You’ve (almost) grown into yourself,
You live at full tilt, with a passion for life.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

It all started innocently enough. Heartbroken and dog-less for the first time in 12 years, we found this adorable pup to ease our lonesomeness. He’s brought joy and a good amount of laughter, but also a sense of déjà-vu; that we’d done this all before, that we know all the pitfalls, have fallen for these same tricks and devilment sometime in the past. There is no better way to forget, or remember, than a puppy.

I imagine I’ll always think of them linked this way; the leaving of one so close to the coming of the other. Today is Luka’s Gotcha-Day and this past Friday marked a year since Buddy passed away.

Dogs, especially old dogs, are a treasure. They are more than themselves, they are us. Part of us. They live our life, are the calendar of our joys and sorrows. We run our fingers through our past when we caress their broad chest and velvet ears.

– – – – – – – – – – – –

In the Autumn of your life,
you grew more sedate;
your troubles so far in the past,
I’d almost forgotten
the Spring of your life.
Your colors still vibrant, but
a tinge of silver frosted your muzzle
and foretold…

The Winter of your life,
your eyes as clouded as a December sky,
You passed as gently
as snow falling on frozen fields.
I weep now and remember all the seasons of your life
and the years of mine that you carried away with you.

*Poetry adapted from Pieces of My Heart by Jim Willis

Small truths, Snapshots, Whatever

A postcard

9 Comments


Summer has its windows open: listen to the crickets and smell the thick breath of the sea. There’s not a cloud in the sky and miles of warm sun-scented beach ahead. We could walk for hours… leave our shoes on the boardwalk, skip stones by the jetty, trace our dreams in the sand.

That magic place where the sea meets the sky… I want to look at it forever, watch the slow progression of waves and listen to the dune grasses strum, laughter carried across beach blankets, the laughter of gulls rivaling ours, that old longing in me now so familiar as the waves roll in.

My sense of time and distance is lost to the lullaby of the surf, to an egret stalking the salt marsh on angel’s wings, the beckoning breeze and its thoughts of you.

Take my hand, stay for a moment, taste the sea’s kiss on my lips.

A postcard scene… wish you were here.

It rained today, all day.

I daydreamed.

Garden, Whatever

Good thing I like potatoes

9 Comments

For Vicki’s Saturday Shopping Challenge this week, I thought I’d try my luck at one of the U-Pick places. Other than apples and pumpkins in the fall, there’s not much local for picking yourself, so the DH and I drove an hour or so west to a U-Pick farm that I used to visit occasionally to buy greens for the bunnies.

Collecting our buckets for picking felt something like standing around in the international arrivals terminal at the airport; I registered at least five different languages being spoken. Apparently, many farms and CSA’s in the area are catering to the 1.5 million immigrants that make their home in NJ by growing produce from around the world. At least 2/3 of the farm fields today were planted with vegetables that were unrecognizable to me: African eggplants like Kittaly and Bitter Ball, greens like Sour Sour and Callaloo, Thai peppers and eggplants. Judging by the carloads of families there picking, I think I must be missing out on something good… and according to the manager of the place, more traditional (less ethnic) vegetables rot in the fields because (white) people are too lazy to spend a day picking them, so they’ve made a business of planting what can’t be found in most supermarkets.

Potatoes and onions were ready today and I recognized them, so that’s how I spent my $20. A bucket of red potatoes went for $10 and I had the most fun digging them out of the dirt. Has anybody else ever pulled a warm potato out of the sandy ground and been amazed with the way things grow? Very cool.

I’m easily amused, I know.

A dozen or so big sweet onions went for $4.18 and the DH grabbed some odd melon from the farm stand on the way out and we called it a day for $20.17.

I’m thinking of French onion soup and mashed potatoes. Lots and lots of mashed potatoes.

😉

In the neighborhood, Pastimes, Whatever

Fair time

5 Comments

Like a ten-year old, I love the county fair. I love the lights and the clowns and the racing pigs. The blue-ribbon vegetables on display, the 4-H girls and their horses, the masses of people waiting in line for deep-fried twinkies (ick!)… it’s an absurd scene and I just can’t get enough of it.

I used to do a lot of my Master Gardener volunteer hours at the fair. I’d go every day and stand around watching the people go by. I had to stay in a little booth most of the time, under a sign that said, “Have a garden question… ask a Master Gardener!” Can you imagine the crazy questions people would dream up to ask? I loved it though, loved to talk with complete strangers about what it was that was killing their prize dahlias or whatever. I’d sneak away for ice-cream or lemonade or zeppoles and to pet the horses or visit with the 4-H bunnies.

I like to watch the kids on the rides, too. Tonight I laughed at a mom with her little son on the kiddie roller coaster, shaped like a dragon or an earthworm maybe; she was screaming right along with the rest of the kids.

I’m trying to think of an excuse to go back again tomorrow…

Garden, Whatever

Garden of green

12 Comments

The garden is planted with the best of intentions each year; seedlings artfully arranged by height and shade tolerance, careful rows of tomatoes, lettuce, cabbage, peppers, a small colony of sweet basil, off to the side a rambling mass of cucumbers and squash.

This abundance is always reduced in the same manner. Lettuce and cabbage are the first to go (rabbits) followed by broccoli and kale if we braved them. The cucumbers and tomatoes are pruned early by something too young to know better (groundhogs) but grow vigorously to fruit until they ripen and are sampled yet again (squirrels). The peppers and basil are ignored (thank heavens for that), but the squash is ravaged (mystery bugs) and the foliage repeatedly eaten down so that there’s nothing to shade what’s growing below and the squash ends up sunpocked and dirt encrusted.

Every year we try again, build the fence a little higher and hope the critters might go for a neighbor’s garden instead.

The tomatoes, if I get to them before the squirrels, are sublime. Just this week I did a little quality control work with the first couple ripe grape tomatoes. I love them and could make a meal of it, no washing or cooking required. We plant so many that it gets to be hard to keep up with what ripens each day. Always a nice thing to have too many sun-warmed tomatoes; nicer still is the watching and waiting for them to be red and ready for picking.

How’s your garden growing? Who’s eating what?

Just me rambling about birds, books, bunnies, or whatever!