Weather is So Very Local

The Baron is always wistfully hoping to see a tornado...preferably not here in the garden, but say, following one of those in the Midwest, the ones that turn the sky green and suck up all the air, plus anything else in their way. In fact, he likes them so much he watches that tornado channel whenever he's in the proximity of a TV and has any control over the remote.

So imagine his chagrin on finding out at church today that the clamor and banging that gave us six tenths of an inch of rain the other night was at the same time busy dumping six inches on a nearby area. The place is about three or four miles away, as the crow flies. In addition to the deluge, they also had a TORNADO!

So near and yet so far. That's the problem (if one is hunting them) with tornadoes in the southeatern part of the United States. They often come at night. In addition, if they occur in the Piedmont areas, they don't get far before bumping into an obstructive land mass, say a hill, or a mountain. I don't think "Tornado Alley" in the Midwest has any hills to speak of, thus they can go further and do more damage.

There is a higher mortality in the Southeast, though. For one thing, tornadoes don't have a "season" here; they can occur any time of year. For another, they are frequently at night so there's no way to send out the kinds of warnings that they do in the Midwest. And due to the milder weather here, there are more trailer parks to demolish. Trailers, or mobile homes, are essentially tin held together with staples. There is insulation between the outside tin and the inside fiberboard walls, but they're fragile things. That's why poor people like them: cheap housing.

Many counties, wealthier than we are, don't permit new trailers. They don't meet the building codes and rich folks don't like them cluttering up their pretty scenery. With Obama's new energy attack no doubt they'll eventually be outlawed, even those that were grandfathered in to the updated building codes. In other words, poor people will have fewer places to live, but everything will be pretty...and energy efficient. No more dangerous kerosene stoves. The Salvation Army better start some kind of building program or they're going to be turning away lots of folks.

This rain gauge is just like the one our car mechanic has. That's where the Baron got the idea for one of our own. He put it up so that I can see it from my desk. Not only is that an improvement over the glass and plastic ones we've had before, but I don't have to get up from my desk to see the water level. I believe this is a year 'round model, so we'll be able to count the inches of snow when the time comes.

Meanwhile, with all this great rain, it has been interesting watching the inches climb this June. We've probably had close to 4 inches this month, if not more. The only downside is that the slugs, snails, and pill bugs like the damp and have been increasing in whatever they have to do to make more of themselves. It doesn't bear thinking about, but meanwhile, these parents and their increase have taken to munching on my plants.

Tomorrow I am going to get some Sluggo and spread it around the susceptible spots. Sluggo is just iron phosphate in pellet form. Won't hurt the plants (though they already get a lot of iron from our orange clay soil), but it will send the offending creatures elsewhere.

By the way, the bush in the back of the picture is a lilac. In looking at the photo, I just noticed the mildew. Shoot, and I thought the bush had escaped this year. The black strap hanging to the left of the gauge is a left-over from when we had our roof replaced. After more than a year, our roofer hasn't finished, though he did clamp on rubber sheeting after the leaks appeared.

Don't get me wrong, this man was a very good roofer. He's been in business since 1953. But ours turned out to be a roof too far and he's not been back to fix it properly. Plus he and his Mexican workers banged nails through the eaves. It looks like we may be headed to court...bummer.

Wormy Palace

I hate just tossing out our vegetable parings, but I don’t want to make just a compost pile that would further attract the attention of noxious deer, who are getting hungrier and less afraid. Besides, I can't toss around large piles, nor can I afford an enclosed store-boughten one so I had to think of something else.

For the first time this year, those deer ate the daylilies. Well, actually, they eat them every year, but this season they came back over and over again. Out of a hundred or so usual blooms, we have one. Their appetites may prove beneficial if it thins out a bed that I’ve wanted to dig up and separate for years. On the other hand, if all the plants die back for lack of growth, I’ll have move in bulbs from other stands. It's an herb bed, so strictly speaking daylilies don't belong there. But since the shoots, bulbs, and flowers are edible, they pass.

Obviously it’s way past time for pepper spray and blood meal. Should have done those in February, but in February I was running on one and a half cylinders. You do what you can and let the devil sort the rest.

By the way, our county is now offering a bounty on coyotes. Wish they’d do the same for deer. The latter are mighty skinny, some of them, and suicidal. They like to run into the path of oncoming cars. Yeah, I know: they’re so “cute”. I never thought much of Bambi myself and I sure can't afford the car repair bills. One unfortunate social worker in an adjoining county had a mortal encounter with a deer while driving to work. Were I a close member of her family, or if any of my family met such a fate, I'd be known as "Dymphna the Deer Slayer" for sure. Princeton New Jersey hired their own official deer slayer some time back. None of the progressives with gardens or landscaping or cars objected to this added expense.

Here is my solution for recycling house garbage… no, there wasn’t any meat involved in the process. I want to build up the soil, not attract rats.

I eat a lot of yogurt, organic when I can get it. I’m not much of a believer in the organic thing, but when it comes to animal fats, I’d rather do without all the extra added ingredients that cows are fed. Unfortunately, I can’t get away from their soy feed unless I find 100% grass-fed cows. Women who’ve survived breast cancer aren’t supposed to have soy, but it’s in everything. So the extent possible, I avoid those everythings and make my own stuff. But that's a subject for another post.

Meanwhile, I was throwing out the yogurt containers, all the while thinking “there must be a use for these”. Hey, anyone who collects dryer lint for other uses tends to think like that. It just means that if I weren't disabled, I'd be working somewhere.

Well, I found a use for them…at least some of them. I am making mini-compost bins. This low tech project requires a screwdriver or an awl and some scissors. A paper punch works for the parts that can be reached with that, and the pattern provided by the paper punch holes gives you a guide on how large to make the other holes on parts of the carton that can't be reached by the punch.

When you punch holes in the plastic yogurt carton, make sure to do the lid and the bottom, too. The holes have to be big enough and smooth enough to let earthworms get in, but not so big as to encourage voles. I use the scissors to trim the excess plastic from around the holes so as not to damage the worms as they move in and out.

To this “bucketette” you add ground up vegetable and fruit peelings and egg shells (they go through the blender effortlessly and you have a much smaller mass than you started with). This compost mass is layered between newspapers, as though you were building a strata…which you are, only for worms. Start with newspaper and alternate that with ground garbage. End with a covering of newspaper.

Now dig a hole in a part of your garden which has poor soil. In our clay soil, it’s not hard to find such spots. Make sure the hole is deep enough and wide enough to hold your yogurt carton easily. Make the hole a bit deeper than the carton so you can cover the whole thing with soil.

Wait, though. You haven’t invited your guests. Go to the part of your garden that has good soil and dig up some earthworms, along with some of the soil they’re crawling through. Pack this earthworm-laden soil around the yogurt carton, which will be shortly leaking its goodies out into the dirt. Cover up with some of the poor soil. Put a rock on top, one too heavy for a raccoon to lift. The rock also marks your spot so you can return on occasion to check its progress.

Meanwhile, you can be making new yogurt-compost containers and stacking them inside one another so they don’t take up much room. Put them in a convenient place, perhaps where you keep your plastic storage containers?

A caveat: I can’t lift a rock/boulder that would prevent a bear from getting to the goodies. If evidence of their presence appears, I’ll have to figure out what discourages those critters. I don’t need more animal company, thankyouverymuch.

Since it hurts my hands to do more than one container at a time, I make them as I need them. Meanwhile, I can store the accumulating veggie garbage in one of the un-holey containers, waiting till I have enough for another buckette of worm strata.

I like this idea of mine. Now I no longer look longingly at compost containers that cost a small fortune. This solution is much better for just two people’s accumulations, and I’ll bet the worms are happy.

For some reason, it popped into my head that what I’m making are little veggie coffins…

the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out,
The worms play pinochle on your snout…

Only in this case, they catch up on the local news while they eat. We will have well-informed invertebrates, rather like the current manifestation of the Republican Party.

Next I’ll figure out how to use coffee cans to make vole-proof tulip bulb containers. Those suckas ate 25 Cambridge yellow tulips and I haven’t planted tulips anywhere but in porch containers since.

Turning the Key, the Door Creaks Open...

It's been more than a year since I've been home.

I promised myself that when the fund-raising was over at Gates, I'd come back to the old Neighborhood.

Staying away wasn't a choice. The spirit was willing, but the flesh rebelled, big time. In fact, it is doing so even as I type. The difference now is a lowering of my fatigue level via Provigil. It works on whatever part of my brain responsible for sending messages like this:

"you.are.tired.go.to.sleep.now.just.for.a.little.while"
That is my brain not on drugs. My brain on Provigil sends quick snappy twitters. Things like, "hey, go put some manure on those tomato plants. Now!"

I like my second brain better. Too bad Provigil is three hundred dollars a month. One might as well have a coke habit. Indulging in modafinil (the generic name, though it isn't available in America as a generic) isn't possible. Cephalon has the patent and they ain't budging. Too bad, because my insurance covers only generics. Being diagnosed with hypopnea,the junior version of sleep apnea, means (theoretically) that I qualify for modafinil. But Cephalon has a death grip on that patent so no go.

Fortunately, my doctor gave me some free samples; I hoard them and use only half a dose. I now have ten days of functioning left. After that, back to a snoozy reality. I am definitely saving some Provigil for the 4th of July Tea Party. Can't miss that one!

I have gone back to the sleep patterns of my youth, a pattern that all of my children inherited, unfortunately: I'm a night owl. My best time is about 10:00 p.m. onwards. I would much rather be a lark, like the Baron, up with the dawn and enjoying the sunrise. Ah well, you go with what you get.

One of my night owl offspring sent me this comic strip. Does he know me or what?


I'll be back, y'all...there's lots of stuff piled up, but Duty Calls. A post on Gates, then I can roam the Neighborhood, annoying Those-Next-Door -- all nine choirs of 'em.

Heh.

Remembrance Day for Shelagh, 2008

Today is the fifth anniversary of my daughter’s death. Up until now, it has been a hard, gruelingly sorrowful day for me. But not this year.

The relationship between us has changed ever since I dreamed of her about 10 days ago. She looked amazingly well – serene, calm, and joyful. There was a kind of glow to her and to the younger woman who was with her.

In this dream, I was having some kind of get together and lots of people were moving about. It was reminiscent of family parties we had when Shelagh and her brothers were children: lots of kids running in and around the adults, chasing one another while the grown-ups tried to carry on adult conversations over the noise.

As I was making my way through the crowd, I came upon Shelagh. Suddenly she was just there, obviously with another woman who was shorter and younger than she was. They were both dressed in either white or pastel dresses, loose and comfortable. They both also seemed to have an inner light, a dimmed radiance surrounding the two of them as they faced me.

The sight of her was startling. “Shelagh, you can’t be here. You’re dead, remember?” She laughed, put her arm around me and assured me that all was well. “Oh, Mom, you’ll be okay. And I’m fine now.”

At that point the dream ended. The Baron had come in the front door, returning from church, and the rattle of the doorknob wakened me. The dream itself was so vivid that I was disoriented for a few minutes after I came back to the surface.

Since then, things have been the same, but different. I don’t grieve any more. Instead, I remember all the things I loved about my daughter and how fortunate I was to have been her mother – as rocky as that road was sometimes.

She has taught me to forego judgment; it’s very freeing. And knowing she’s all right brings its own unutterable peace.

Is the dream “real”? It depends on what one considers reality. I think of it as a gift, and I don’t inquire as to the source.

A fellow-blogger remembered what today was and sent me a long, comforting note. At the end of it, he said:

BTW my own view of the afterlife is that souls have work to do just as they did on Earth. They become a welcoming committee for new souls and also are guardian angels for those of
us who are left behind. I have a story from [his son]’s closest high school friend that definitely says they act as guardian angels.

Shelagh would have liked that idea. She’d have opted to be Ahnold’s guardian angel. Well, whoever gets her had better have a sense of humor. She enjoyed teasing people. After listening to the Baron and me sing while doing dishes, she remarked drily, “love isn’t blind, it’s deaf.”

She was right, but we’re still singing…no doubt, she’s singing too, wherever she is.

Salmon Cakes à la Cheap and Sneaky

I like fresh salmon, but I question the wisdom of eating much of it since the fish - like chickens, beef, etc. - are fed soy. In addition, a lot of farmed salmon has color added to the feed so they’ll look pinker.

Having had cancer, soy is on the verboten list. And the darn stuff is in nearly everything: low carb “breads”, salad dressings, cereals, etc. Even the sardines I’m supposed to eat often are packed in soybean oil.

So I’ve gone back to making salmon cakes from wild-caught canned salmon. The kind from Alaska, not China.

I used to make these years ago with cod in New England, back before you could easily get fresh salmon there. Recently I had some leftovers (unusual) and a friend liked them enough to ask for the recipe. Recently I got another request from someone on a diet.

Here they are - this serves three people if one of them is a young man with a big appetite. Otherwise, a family of two adults and two kids would find this sufficient. For more people, just double the recipe.

Open the can (duh) and drain the broth into a separate bowl.

From here you have two ways to mash the salmon: put it through the blender or mix it with your hands. There are soft bones in the fish which have been pressure-cooked so that they will crumble between your fingers and finicky people will not know about this extra addition of calcium. The blender is easier and more thorough, however. Less messy, too.

Dump into a mixing bowl and add a Tablespoon or so of dried onion. Mix well to distribute. Set aside.

Now how to make the filler? Regular carb meals would permit some mashed potatoes, or finely crushed saltines, like you were making crab cakes. Medium carbs would allow for some mashed white beans, but if you want to make it low carb, use a large zucchini, grated and wrung out in a towel. Then sauté the zuke until it really lets go of the liquid (a little salt helps) and throw that into a colander. Squeeze out the liquid again.

Add the zucchini or the potatoes or crackers to the mixing bowl with the salmon.

On top of that put in about 1 Tablespoon of mayonnaise and one or two eggs. Some people prefer to avoid yolks, but they give you the same omega oils you’re getting from the fish (well, similar, anyway), so go whole hog. Or use two egg whites and give the yolks to the dog or cat.

On top of that put a large pinch of crab boil mix. It gives a good “seafood” flavor. If you don’t want to use that, then use dill. Fresh is best, though dried is tolerable.

Mix the whole thing with your hands until it is an even mooshy mess. If it seems too liquidy add a bit of cracker crumbs or flour or even oat bran. Anything which absorbs the liquid.

If too dry, use a bit of the salmon broth.

Use a cutting board of a piece of waxed paper on which to arrange the shaped salmon cakes. I sprinkle them with high protein flour on the top side and then let them sit in the fridge for a while. They seem to hold together better that way. But you don’t have to: you can simply heat some olive oil - enough to cover the bottom of the pan - and place some of the cakes, flour-side down (they won’t all fit in) - carefully into the pan once the oil is heated. Use medium heat, not high.

Turn oven on lowest setting and get out an ovenproof platter. Mine is 170 degrees so it won’t burn the paper towels on the platter.

Cover frying partially and cook until the bottoms are crisp. Takes only a few minutes, and you can flatten the cakes a bit when you check them.

Before turning over, sprinkle a bit of flour/salt or bread crumbs on the uncooked side. Press it in a bit before turning. Again, cook them for a few minutes partially covered…if you put the cover all the way on, I think it makes them steam a bit.

When bottoms are browned on both sides, put on platter and place in oven to keep warm while you finish the others. Depending on the size of the pan and the size of the salmon cakes, this will be one or two more batches.

These things absorb oil, so don’t put too much into the pan. Just enough to make them crisp. Add extra oil for each batch and let it heat before putting in the salmon cakes. If you don’t heat it sufficiently, they really will absorb the oil.

Again, remove and place on platter in oven.

Low carbing, serve with coleslaw and another vegetable, perhaps asparagus or green beans. If you need to gain weight, have some corn on the cob instead.

My family likes seafood sauce, so I use low carb ketchup, a squirt of lemon, a pinch of celery seed and a bracing amount of horseradish. The commercial kinds are way too sweet for our tastes.

Gloomier, Leaky Monday

The rain continues to pour as though we’d suddenly been moved, house and all, to Oregon. Today is colder which pleases me…slows down the spring flowering process, making the dogwoods bloom last longer. The woods are filled with flecks of white.

And because the precipitation is soft and incessant this rain doesn’t run off; it moves through the clay all the way down to the ground water, --i.e., all the way down to the well. In all our years here, the well has never gone dry – except for the time I left it on the roots of some new trees while I went into the house for “a moment”, which turned into forgetting to go back to the hose until…. Voila, the kitchen faucet was dry the next morning. I was darn lucky I didn’t burn out the pump in the well house. And you don’t want to be on the receiving end of a lecture by the Baron. Guys worry about the infrastructure more than women do. We just want it to “look nice.”

The only problem with the rain is our new tin roof. There is a persistent leak now, which runs from the corner of the ceiling in the kitchen over my desk and fills the cabinet above it before thoroughly soaking anything lying on the desk. It is a recalcitrant hole that refuses to be fixed.

The roofer, who has been putting on metal roofs since the 1950’s, has come out twice. Last time, he was “positive” it was taken care of. Grrr…I am giving him the bill for the carpenter who will have to fix all the damage once the roof is really repaired. Meanwhile, pieces of the ceiling kerplunk into the bowl below; I can’t see the damage because a corner cabinet is installed on that wall…I try not to think about what it’s doing to the insulation in the crawl space.

I really like this man – can’t believe a guy in his 70’s can scoot up a ladder like he does and then move so nimbly on that steeply angled, smooth metal. Besides, I want to maintain cordial relations if we can. He takes great pride in his work and our cottage now represents one of his significant failures. I am determined that we not end up solving our problem the American way: in court.

Because of his age, Mr. W. has a genuine “Southside Virginia” accent. I enjoyed listening to it, and he sure does enjoy talking – he has the old Southern habit of settin' and talkin' for a spell. But I think that part is ending; he hates coming back, trying vainly to find the @#$%^&# darn hole. What a bummer…sure is a pretty roof.

I wish we had our old one back, though. It wasn’t “pretty” but it was solid and must have been at least fifty years old, with patches here and there. It may have even been older. What it did NOT do, which this one does in the least little old wind, is rattle. You’d swear there were trashcans rolling off the roof on the south side of the house (where the fig trees are). You know the way live theater makes those sound effects for thunder by rattling thin tin sheets? Well, that’s the noise we will have to live with when the wind gets up. I keep reminding myself that it could be worse. We could live in Corpus Christi and be forced to listen to the darn thing 24 hours a day…the wind in CC in unrelenting.

It’s most fortunate that I’m a procrastinator because I hadn’t gotten around to having the gutters installed. The first time I called Mr. W about this mess, he immediately did a gotcha: “I bet y’all had them gutters put on, didncha?” For once, my tendency to put things off worked in our favor. Besides this darn leak is nowhere near the edge of this noisemaking nuisance.

Time to go empty the plinkety-plink bowls…

Rainy Sunday Ruminations

I came over here to clean out the cobwebs and set up shop for a while. Things at Gates are bizzy, bizzy. I like the quiet here. A few birds chirping, even in the rain – cardinals nesting in the forsythia, too. Forgot to clean the blue birdhouses. However, I'll bet the wrens are in the storage shed already, nesting on the garden tools so you have to move one ever so carefully. They used to like the eaves above the figs until the cat took to sitting in the window staring at them. That would make me nervous if *I* had feathers. Lulu has never left me anything feathered, though any number of moles and voles has met their end at her paws. I actually don't mind the moles so much: they tunnel through, eating their fill of Japanese beetle grubs. The darn voles, on the other hand, eat bulbs: lilies, liatris, poppies, tulips, etc. I've learned to soak them in hot pepper sauce for a day before planting. Lasts long enough for them to make it through the winter and then I have to get more assertive. For some reason, they don't like daylilies or daffodils or jonquils.

Since I haven’t been back “home” in months, I took a look around the Neighborhood. Peeked over God’s wall and noticed He’s let the grass get a little long. Everything is lush and green, though, just as He claims to have intended. Maybe I’ll go over later and "borrow" a cup of coffee. I’ll have to wear my wellies to get thru His grass, but it’s a good excuse to let Him know I’m baaack!

Usually these announcements make Him roll His eyes, but the coffee He serves is exquisite (Italian, maybe?), so it's worth a little rolling-your-eyes-toward-heaven patience. Come to think of it, Who could He be rolling His eyes to in the first place??

This season has been a bit strange. Cold nights froze most people’s tomato plants, but the darn figs are setting fruit earlier than I’ve ever seen them. This is a problem for a tardy pruner. You’re supposed to keep the “bushes” at about ten feet, but if I do that now, I’ll lose some fruit. Maybe I can work around it.

To give you an idea, I don’t usually see fruit until late June, usually when I’ve just decided that they will not be bear that year. The extension agent swears they only bear every four years or so, but these guys put out every single summer. When he told me that was impossible in our 7b climate zone, I just shrugged and agreed. Who am I to argue with the Authority on such matters? But come September I’ll be making preserves. And not falling off the ladder.

The dogwoods are blooming, but the Forest Pansy redbud wasn’t very flowerful. Perhaps it was due to the bad drought late last summer. I can see the buds on the mountain laurel all through the woods. What a wonderful plant. The lilacs are blooming away since we cut back some mimosas. Now they get more sun.

Darn deer have eaten everything in sight. Even the boxwood, for heaven’s sake. The azaleas under the pine are nubs. I kissed the parsley goodbye, too. I’m glad they leave the chives alone, and the daffodils and rosemary. Be grateful for small blessings, shall we? I will resolutely ignore the microscopic green leftovers where 25 Oxford yellow tulips should have bloomed. Should have…except for the raging appetites of those supposedly “cute” little deer, which grow bolder by the day. They multiply like Catholics…I mean Muslims. Mexicans?

Whatever. It’s obvious Catholics are no longer breeding according to plan…hmm. So much for sticking to the rhythm method.

Q: Do you know what they call people who use the rhythm method for birth control?
A: Parents.

And deer are not cute, except when they’re roasting on a spit. We need to put those critters on something besides the rhythm method. It isn’t working for them, either. There are now six deer for every person in our state...I mean dominion. Commonwealth. Or, as they say around here, "by the grace of God, Virginia."