Living in My Garden

Posted on June 28, 2008 by cmf

The weather has finally gotten nice, and the garden is so lovely that I find I want to spend all my time out here. I’m blogging from the garden right this very minute. My new fence adds just the right privacy — I no longer feel watched by my neighbor — and I seem to have been out here all the time lately. Of course, spring came so late that I was effectively trapped in the house from October until June. So now, it’s all outside, all the time. I’ve been eating breakfast and dinner at my little table under the apple tree:

One of my big projects this spring was re-covering the cushions on my patio furniture. They’d faded, and gone flat, and you can’t buy replacement cushions — I think it’s a ploy to make people buy a whole new set of furniture. So I ordered some fabric from Sunbrella and bought a massive piece of foam at the fabric store, and now I have really pretty cushions that are twice as thick and cushy as they used to be. And I splurged on a firepit, so in the evenings, I’ve been coming outside to my lovely garden, where a little fire both keeps me warm in the chilly Montana evenings and keeps away the mosquitos we’re having this year thanks to the record rains. I hung my little Coleman lantern in the apple tree and Raymond the dog and I have been spending lovely evenings on the patio couch, reading, or sometimes watching a movie on my computer — it’s so peaceful and lovely and so so nice to be out of the house, away from the TV, and outside, where there are birds (I have a flicker who likes the veggie garden) and flowers and plants and stars.

Clothesline of my Dreams

Posted on June 25, 2008 by cmf

When I bought this house there was a ginormous clothesline out in the backyard. The clotheslines of Livingston are somewhat famous with handymen around town — most of them were made of enormous plumbers pipe and set into three or four feet of concrete. With the winds we have here, you need a sturdy clothesline, especially if, in the case of the family I bought this house from, you have 8 children.

Needless to say, I had that clothesline cut down when I was renovating. It was in a terrible spot in the backyard and everyone who came over for a barbecue bumped their heads on it. But I missed having a clothesline. It seemed ridicuous to be running the dryer when it’s 80 degrees with 15% humidity outside.

I bought this one from Clotheslineshop.com. It’s called the Versaline. It was kind of expensive. Actually, it was really expensive, but I wanted a clothesline that I could take down, and one that would fit in this unused space in my side yard. This is the perfect place for a clothesline — it’s out of foot traffic and really close to my back door (which goes to the basement where the washing machine is). One of the things I’ve discovered with retro-technologies is that if they aren’t convenient, I won’t use them. Riding my bike around town is easy and fun and saves me gas, so I do it. A clothesline where it isn’t a pain to use means I’ll use it. I have to say, this was expensive, but I’m really impressed — it’s quite sturdy, well-designed, and works exactly as promised. I’m thrilled. I’m resisting the urge to wash perfectly clean clothes just to hang them on the line!

Making up for Lost Time …

Posted on June 24, 2008 by cmf

In the garden that is — it was a long weekend out there — but so much fun. This year, I added containers with flowers to my garden. I bought some pretty Martha Washington geraniums that I didn’t have time to plant right away so I just stuck them out there until I could get around to doing the pots in the front of the house. But they were so pretty, and I’ve been spending so much time out there lately, that I decided to do the pots in the veggie garden itself. See — pretty!

I also took the wall-o-waters off the tomatoes this weekend. Here’s the before photo: and here’s what they look like now: I saw this trellis method when I was in the south of France a couple of years ago. The tomatoes are trained up a string. I like this because it’s pretty, and because it’s easier to get in and see what’s going on with the tomatoes than when they’re in a cage. Depending on how much support they need, I may put more horizontal supports on these trellises as needed. I also mulched them in a deep bed of straw. I seem to be obsessed by straw mulch this year — I like the way it looks, and if I can cut down on the watering, that will be a good thing. The other thing I did is to write the name of the tomato and pepper varieties right on the raised bed. By the time things get ripe, the tongue depressors I use for plant markers have generally fallen apart. So this way, I figure I’ll have a pretty good record, and it’ll fade before next year.

Unexpected Visitor

Posted on June 22, 2008 by cmf

We had an unexpected visitor yesterday — it was early, about seven, and I was making tea when my dogs rushed the back fence, barking. I went out to shush them because it was early, we have neighbors — and who did I see on the far side of my back gate but Jacques!

I let him in and looked down the alley, but there wasn’t any sign of the Mighty Hunter. That was weird. So after I got the three of them to stop barking, I got on the phone. Jacques has been known to go on walkabout every once in a while, and apparently that’s what he’d done. We don’t know if he got following some of the many folks on the levee who had come down to watch the bridge collapse, or what, but somehow he went from the MH’s house on Tenth Street all the way across town to mine on C street — there are some big streets to cross along the way.

I have to admit, he did look, well, hangdog about it all. He sat in my kitchen looking like he’d had a slightly larger adventure than he’d meant to — I knew how he felt. When I was about seven, and Patrick was five (were we really that little? we didn’t feel like we were that little, we felt like perfectly capable people) we were stupendously bored. We lived on a farm then, and we’d been away for much of the summer so we couldn’t find our bikes, and the woods were full of mosquitos, and our parents were busy. So we decided we’d walk to Gigi and Shelley’s farm to play with them. It was always fun there. They had a pool. So we sneaked out the end of the driveway and started walking. It was August. It was hot. What took seven or eight minutes to drive was really far away. We got all the way to the corner where you turned off our road to go over to the one they lived on, probably 3 miles or so, when we gave up. We stuck out our thumbs and decided to hitchhike like the hippies we’d seen on TV (this was the early 70s). Of course, when that big, low-slung American car screeched to a halt we dove into the weeds. Suddenly it all seemed a little scary, especially when a heavy-set black lady came wading into the ditch to retrieve us. What are you two doing out here? she scolded. Where’s your parents? Where do you live? I’m going to give your mother a piece of my mind for letting the two of you out here on the side of this road. Anyone could pick you up. What are you thinking? Patrick and I looked at eachother and I lied. I told her we lived at Gigi and Shelleys. I knew that their mom wouldn’t be as mad at us as ours would be, and maybe we’d get to go swimming. So this nice lady and her son, who was driving, took us to the H’s house. When Mrs. H. came out, she looked at the two of us, in this car with these strangers, who were black (it was not a colorblind society that I grew up in) and sent us into the kitchen. The woman who picked us up just laid into Mrs. H, who was sputtering that she wasn’t our mom, and that yes, she thought we’d made an unwise decision. Mr. H came out as well, and with his famous Australian charm managed to calm this nice, apoplectic woman down. We sat in the kitchen, eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, knowing that despite the awe with which Gigi and Shelley were currently looking at us, we were in such big trouble.

That’s sort of how Jacques looked sitting in my kitchen yesterday morning. He was panty. He was a little freaked out. He seeemed very releived to be back inside a yard he knew, with his packmates. The MH left him with me all day as he had a tile job anyhow, and Jacques and I had a long discussion, much like that one in the H’s kitchen 35 years ago, about how he is always welcome at my house, but he has to tell someone where he’s going, and he can’t cross all those big streets by himself.

Livingston’s Bridge is Falling Down

Posted on June 21, 2008 by cmf

Big excitement here in a small town — the bridge to the 9th street Island is collapsing. It’s not a surprise — the surprise is that it hasn’t fallen down before now. The river has been high since just after Mother’s Day, and it really went up these last few days of warm weather. It was Thursday afternoon that the sag became noticeable, and they evacuated some folks, then closed the bridge entirely. Yesterday they took off anyone who wanted to go in a helicopter, and the DOT has arrived with a Bailey Bridge they’re planning to put in, but that will take a week or so. So yesterday afternoon and evening we all hung out, watching the bridge. It wasn’t very dramatic, but it was fun in that way that non-disastrous catastrophes can be — you’d run into people you hadn’t seen in a while, chat, watch the bridge, watch the guys with the big equipment, dogs would run around, little kids chased one another. And even the folks on the other side, they’re inconvenienced, but it’s not a disaster — their houses are okay, the island isn’t flooding, and the folks who decided to stay are watching out for everyone else’s animals and report that they’re actually enjoying the peace and quiet.

First Harvest

Posted on June 19, 2008 by cmf

Here it is — my first basket of greens — this is Senza Testa from Seeds of Italy. I love this strange green — it grows like a weed, is slightly bitter, a little fuzzy, and really nice. I cooked these with some onion, chile, garlic and vermouth. Then I finished it off with some of my Milk Lady’s delicious yellow Jersey cream and ate it over pasta.

I also harvested this crate of broccoli rabe — both the Cima di Rapa Quarantina – Broccoli Rabe and the Cima di Rapa Sessantina. I’ve planted both of these at the same time the last few years, and although the Quarantina comes in slightly ahead of the Sessantina, they usually run about neck and neck. In past years I’ve waited too long to harvest the broccoli rabe and it’s gotten woody. This year, I harvested early, while the stalks were still juicy and I tried something new — I didn’t pull out the whole plant, like I’ve done before, but cut them back in hopes that I might get another harvest. We’ll see. The broccoli rabe is so delicious. I might have to break out Laurie Colwin’s great roasted chicken with broccoli rabe over polenta from Home Cooking.

One of those Weekends ….

Posted on June 17, 2008 by cmf

Okay, I admit it, it was one of those weekends that make you really a little crazy as a single chick. I finally jumped back in the internet-dating pool and had a Really Fun Date last week. I met him at a bar in town where I know the bartender, and one of my bestest guy friends was at the bar when I walked in (and then came over to introduce himself and sort of loom in a very older-brother kind of way that I found endearing). We had fun. We chatted. We flirted. There was touching and knee knocks and then we went for some dinner. There was kissing on the sidewalk. A date was made for Saturday night.

And then he stood me up.

By email.

With an excuse that would have been legit if I’d ever heard from him again, but as I haven’t, well …

In retrospect, there were red flags. My guy friend tells me the RFD (Really Fun Date) had come into the bar early, ordered a drink and then had gone over to lurk in a corner before I came in. Like he was checking me out. Like he was going to bail if I didn’t meet some unknown criteria. My friend the bartender seemed decidedly grumpy about the date (and as he’s been a pro bartender for a long time, there’s a reason we meet people in his bar). And then there’s the fact that he didn’t tell me his last name until I asked on email afterwards, and never would give me his phone number. And although the slightly-aggressive kissing was flattering at the time, when combined with Saturday night plans that elicited the comment from my dearest friend in Tucson: “Isn’t that what the kids these days refer to as a ‘booty call’?” well, like I said, red flags.

And so, it was a disapointing weekend.

However, as I sit here in the Backyard of Gorgeousness, with cedar waxwings and western tanagers and sparrows in my apple trees and Ray-the-dog curled up beside me on the couch and a wee fire in my firepit, I have to say — after all those years in the wilderness, after all those years renting crappy apartments and hoping for fellowships in graduate school and being broke and not knowing what was going to happen next — I look out over my garden, from which I ate a delicious dinner of sauteed Senza Testa greens with homemade pancetta; I look out at the gorgeous thunderheads shot through with that western light we call “God beams,” and really, despite all the difficulties of the past few years, I feel pretty lucky.

I have a good job. I have a house I bought myself with my own money and that slowly, bit by bit, I’m fixing up. I have a garden and two great dogs. I live in the kind of town where even when I go to meet a guy at a bar who turns out to be a snake, there are people who make sure to point out to him that I live here, that there are people looking out for me (and my sweet fraternal friend called that night to make sure I’d gotten home okay). I have a firepit, and a lovely yard and a Coleman lantern hanging from the branch of an apple tree by which I can reread Siri Hustvedt’s terrific novel What I Loved and a table in the backyard where I can eat my lovely dinner and write this post and four terrific girls, my pretend children, who will be back from LA for the summer next week and a whole town full of nice people who love me.

It would have been fun if the RFD had worked out, but well, looking at the glorious thunderheads lit up in the late-evening light — it’s hard to be too upset about it.

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Monthly Archives: June 2008