rain. and more rain.

okay so it’s the end of march. as previously stated, blogs don’t suffer from neglect. but perhaps there was an effect on me?

first is of course the gardening news. the seeds are sprouting! so far, three tomato, one eggplant and one very precocious pepper sprout. i am planning to do almost all of the back yard garden from seed this year–it’s much cheaper, sprouts are ridiculously adorable, and most importantly, i thought ahead and started them in time. the average last frost date for phila is 4/14, so i will (somewhat cautiously, as things have been odd weather-wise lately) plant the direct sow (ie–outdoor starters) sometime this week. a delight–the rosemary and thyme have successfully over-wintered; while they remain delicious and thriving, the sage remains to be seen. i have also purchased some proper mini-trellises for the green beans. last year’s were droopy! and the seed potatoes are guaranteed not to have blight. and perhaps, maybe, possibly there will be a small blueberry bush. that’s if we decide we could harvest any out from under the noses (ahem, beaks) of our new bird tenants. (outdoors, no new friends in the house, there isn’t any more room!) they are a collection of sparrows, per usual, and a delightful group of mourning doves. they make me recall fond childhood visits with the paternal granparents. they sit on his office windowsill reminding him of (not-so-fond) childhood mornings being dragged out of bed for school. they are idiotic, and lovely. so far, though, nobody has moved into the birdhouse. it’s quite cozy, the first year it housed some very happy (and very productive) little wrens. at least i think they were wrens.

it’s really very late. i’ve been on a kick of 4am to noon sleep, which feels in some ways lethargy-inducing. need to get back to the far more natural 2am to ten. other news will have to wait. hopefully not two months.

can’t get off the roller coaster

lots to catch up on, but not now. now, just this: rollercoaster ride has begun. now the challenge is to balance all of the things in life i have been enjoying at leisure with the non-stop craziness that is my work schedule for the next month. the birds might get a little cranky with me. the laundry might not get done. the cold-hating herbs might live in the kitchen for a while before i get to harvesting. the new knitting projects, though, should get plenty of time. there are after all dinner breaks.

snapshots of my brain

well, i’ve been disregarding this collection of babble for a while. i’ve formed a far easier habit–arranging one striking moment of my day into three lines and posting them on a communal haiku blog here. (todays thought, of course, involved rain. lots and lots of rain. in fact, i’m wondering if i shouldn’t upend the rose pot again to dump out said lots and lots. note to self: three layers of rocks are insufficient, must tomorrow drill holes in pretty pot so as to not drown pretty rose…) here’s today’s snapshot for you, in case of interest, but mostly because i am rather pleased with this one, which rarely happens.

withered cell walls gasp,
plump, swell, blossom, divide and
burst. there is too much

in other news, we are experimenting with that odd critter called mac after reeling from a massive attack on our main laptop. because of course mine has been limping along for nearly a year and in need of replacing. i really don’t think i want to defect, but i’m very much interested in having a much lower chance of infection. i take a spartan dislike to bouncing icons (icons in general, i prefer to keep my view in list form, guess i’m a fuddy-duddy)

wait… how many words can i come up with to mean plain-old-fashioned?

what else. oh yes, picnics, picnics, grills and more picnics. this summer seems to be about gathering people together to create and enjoy large amounts of edibles. and something is eating my eggplant plant, which i must solve if i am to continue to grill delectable eggplants. also, the barely teenage folks at our fountain farmstand say i must hand pollinate my zucchini, because [warning! warning! fad {yet totally legitimate} environmental cause alert!] i don’t have enough bees. *sigh*

back in the technology age

up in the mountains in the house my grandparents bought in 1937 we have no climate control, no cell phone access, and no internet. the phone book is even a few years out of date. it’s a twenty minute drive to get to the nearest anything. although there is a dvd player, cable and satellite need not apply.

now for those of you who feel panic at the thought, i challenge that you come to the mountains with me for a few days. it is ultimately relaxing to let go, to be unable to manage or deal with anything other than the people you are next to and the critters that stroll by on the lawn.

we saw deer, groundhogs, three snakes (hog nose and garter) birds bugs and rodents of all kinds, and listened to lonely coyotes try and find each other in the night. we found a local farmer who up and decided to become a beekeeper–his wildflower honey is delicious. we took a two mile hike to see a mellow waterfall (always a destination for us). we baked a delicious blueberry coffeecake. we ate our way through two visits to our favorite farmstand. we sat on the porch and listened to the whine and buzz, smelling damp green things.

crooked snake

get your mind someplace else. i’m talking, of course, about a plant. two plants, actually. i was sent off to college with four plants: an aloe (a spare baby taken out of my mother’s pot full), a wandering jew (a rooted shoot taken from my sister’s biology project), and a little decorative pot with one piece each of snake plant (also called mother-in-law’s tongue, ridiculously) and dieffenbachia (also called dumb cane, also ridiculous).

i still have subsequent and bountiful generations of both the aloe and wandering jew–in fact i have given pieces of each to more than a dozen people over the years. the snake and dieff, though are original. they have grown through four cities, many homes, a couple of accidents (that cable installer in my third college apartment knocked them over and busted the pot!) and many repottings. the past couple of years they’ve been needing some drastic change; the snake had grown all crooked and interwoven, the dieff had spilled out of the pot… they have been in such competition for space and nutrients that they’d stopped growing and were starting to look a little tired.

so today i finally put fear aside (not very far aside) and separated them. it was a lengthy and heartbreaking process. i should say root breaking. they were so far tangled that several of the snake pieces lost bits of the roots. (on a side note that nobody will care about, these plants have tuber-like roots that send offshoots out laterally and remain loosely connected to the original.) well, now both plants are safely settled, and i just have to wait. i hope they make it. they have traveled with me now for twelve years, and along with sam the turtle remain my longest (non-human) living companions. i’m very attached.

prepare to be whirled…

right. so new bird named salad. he’s lovely. another senegal–it wasn’t our fault, really, the rescue center called us up with a ‘free to a good home’ message, we met the bird, and… well, he’s home. extra-muscled legs with a freakish amount of feathers, a tendency to chew on anything near his beak, a charming upside down pose he strikes when put back into his cage before he was ready to be home, a not-so-charming shoulders up aggression pose when he’s too sleepy to come out, frequent clicking, and a great love of my mediocre singing. he was on a strict junkfood diet, which caused him some joint problems in his feet (resulting in a hilarious, yet sad, tiptoe effect when walking on flat surfaces) and which we are battling to overcome. so far, salad enjoys eating papaya, banana, cranberry, and dried root veggies.

speaking of veggies (which i was, you know…) the carrots have finally sprouted! ridiculous frilly tops, have the sturdy carrots. also, the first few eggplants are growing on the eggplant plant. (hee!) they are making very satisfying progress. the many green bean and zucchini seedlings have been transplanted, most of them survived. of course they reached the appropriate height and strength during the heat wave… so a few fried. but i still have more than enough. back yard is getting crowded.

we have been using the new grill a lot. so easy. so, so easy. and tasty. i could go on, but there’s no need.

what else… ah, yes. surprises. my very sly collection of siblings and cousins threw me a surprise brunch and matinee, on fathers’ day. yes, you see why i was surprised–a couple weeks before my actual expiration date (for those of you who haven’t seen logan’s run, i’m turning 30. and you should see it.) and on somebody else’s holiday. i was easy to fool, being generally agreeable about activities (they pitched a high end audio convention, which my brother and boyfriend would have loved had it been real, and i just said, sure, why not.) it was lovely. brunch place had choices for everyone (yay spinach and chickpea omelette) and the show was a really good try at absurdist theatre, which i like. if only they’d had a professional choreographer and an extra week of rehearsals… wasn’t everyone’s cup of tea, which made it all the more special as a choice for me. also, i spent the day covered in feather boas and a pink sparkly tiara.

also was gifted some yarn that is “me” colored, out of which i am told to make stripey knee socks. i can’t complain about the idea, but i might complain once i get to turning the heel, when for some reason the pattern seems to be written in sanskrit.

on a side note, my yoga teacher often slips bits of yoga theory and sanskrit in during class, and i happen to like the sound of the language very much. still meaning to brush up (ahem: relearn) my french and pick up something new. particularly interested in sign language and pretty sounding non-romance varieties… maybe after i learn to play the piano, yet another large project on the list.

okay. enough for one update. i need to get myself to sleep. try now, might make it by 4, 4:30.

 

new router conquers staggering heat

yep, i’ve been away because it was just too hot to be in the room with the internet access, and the router was dying a slow death, and…so…things were just inconvenient. here i am, though, in an air conditioned room with a laptop, babble-ready.

what’s been occupying my thoughts (the ones not devoted to feeling hot and cranky) this evening is my relative level of sappiness. i have always been susceptible to sad moments in books, tv, you name it. in the past few days, though, i’ve gotten weapy eyes during an episode of jericho (we’ve been watching the series on netflix, like it a lot) one of battlestar galactica, and a chapter in closing time (which i am reading alongside of a collection of stories, though i am usually a monogamous reader)

right. anyway, i seem to be extra sappy lately. eh, i’m done thinking about that.

now i’m thinking about how many extra pots and bags of dirt i need to resettle all of the sprouts i’ve gotten from my seeds. the green beans and zucchini are exploding, and nearly every seed planted came up. the onions are about 3″ tall and arranged nicely in bunches, so they stay put. the carrots appear to be duds! disappointing. but meanwhile, i need to give the green guys some room to spread out or they will begin fighting. much like the murdering fish (who fought despite a complete plethora of territorial space and food) the greenies are unaware that they do not need to compete. i will care for them all.

i am interrupted by some gentle squeaking by salad. oh! have i written here that we adopted a new bird? more to come…

a newly discovered fourth

egg, that is. sly sprunt managed to lay a fourth at some point. while watering the plants today i accidentally startled her into standing up, and lo! four eggs in the nest. something should be happening right around the first of the month if it will happen at all. i’ve also been witnessing the sweet (yet utterly routine…) feeding ritual. sprocket will gorge on food and then perch unsteadily on the edge of the nest (ie second food bowl.) while sprocket hurks his whole body to come up with food (picture a cat fighting a hairball) sprunt simply tilts her little head up and waits. after she’s had her fill from his beak, sprocket preens her face feathers to remove any missed bits of food. it’s so parental yet spousal at the same time. they have been more quiet and still than i have ever seen, supremely focused.

meanwhile… i now have nine herbs, six veg, a strawberry and a rose bush to plant, in addition to the four packs of vegetable seeds. can’t wait. need more dirt. always more dirt. the first epic battle with weeds has been completed victoriously–now it’s just down to diligent guerrilla warfare. and i suppose some sort of imagining to raise several of the planters off the ground to achieve greater amounts of light for the many crowded plants as they grow taller. finally getting a good start to the backyard garden, much later than usual. especially for the seeds. ah well, if the early fall stays warm i’ll be able to keep growing. mmmm, dinner from the backyard.  

vortex, once again

well, tech week, and in this case, load in/tech/performance/strike week is here again. so i won’t do things like poke about on the laptop or sleep for a while. good thing i haven’t yet put any seeds in… i would water them, of course, but those extra few minutes will be needed in the upcoming long days.

i think the second wave has abated, though, no recent sitings.

also, have discovered a style of knitting/crocheting called freeform, which seems to involve lots of swirls and being able to work on one bit at a time. i heart this very much. hey–qp makes for sort of a heart shape. i’m such a dork.

 

that eggy time of year

it must be spring, the lovebirds are at it again. the first egg was a ‘misfire’ and landed on the bottom of the cage. the poor thing was crushed. i took it to the kitchen to investigate. after opening it onto a plate, we discovered that it was indeed another empty egg, and nothing to be sad about. i have to say–a cracked open love bird egg is CREEPY. very perfectly egg-like and tiny. it looks like there may be a second one brewing, whether empty or not… in the meantime, it’s fun to see sprunt with a swollen belly while sprocket is on guard duty, and these resourceful yet idiotic birds seem to have nested in the food bowl again.

 it also means it’s time for me to clear the weeds out from the back yard garden and start thinking of seeds. SEEDS! the peppers and herbs are always fantastic. what else for this year? maybe squash again? do i bother with the tomatoes that hate philly water? green beans, we love those. beets???