Garden at the Farm

My parents have almost three acres of space at their farm, but this is by far my favorite garden on their property. It's a beautiful, meandering garden that is just exactly who they are. The rocks and wood have all been poached from different places they go motorcycle riding and camping...from Wilseyville to Pi-Pi Valley to the Apple Ranch near Yosemite. Here is where they sit quietly drinking wine and listening to the small fountain in the pond, where they battle snails and deer and wild turkeys, where they lovingly transplant and shape and tinker. They experiment with light and foliage and structure and it is a beautiful treat for all my senses. I often step out of my car and walk the paths of this garden, to the side of the kitchen (including the veggie patch and fruit "orchard" of a half dozen trees), opening and shutting each gate behind me, before I even venture into the house. They often find me here, and because my mother is crazy, she greets me with, "What the hell are you doing?" And it feels like home. So I tell her, "I'm visiting." I love that garden.

Garden :: Grows!

 Beans, yellow squash, zucchini, pumpkins, strawberries....

 cucumbers....

greens....

Not pictured: tomatoes, spinach, kale...all growing just out of the line of sight from these photos.

Gardening for me is at once a leap of faith, confirmation of the physical laws of the universe, irrefutable botanical science, and yet a completely magical and mysterious process.

The fact that each of these things was a seed, mere potential, not four weeks ago? Plus the fact that these have grown by no less than 35% in the few days since I took these pictures, standing barefoot in my backyard?  This plus that equal awe, every single time. It never gets old.

On Father's Day we had dinner at my mom's house. Standing in her garden, troubleshooting tomato death, marveling at her beans and the way the hummingbird sage starts I propogated from the native  beauty in my front yard are now so huge they need to be transplanted...AGAIN...I could very nearly feel the thread that connects me to her through the roots of those plants, and then through her, connecting both of us to my grandmother.

One thing I'm pretty sure Grandma Dot never asked my mother to do, however, is hop into a 50 gallon garbage bin and jump up and down on it (holding onto the eave of the garage for balance) to make room for a final bag of garbage. That crazy is so patently Mother that I couldn't help but remember the time she had dad's gray bomber truck loaded sky high with pruned branches from, among other things, a dozen rose bushes ambling around her property. When she ask me and my brother to hop in the back to "pack it in", my brother raised his eyebrows at me and shook his head ever so slightly. Thank you, no he seemed to be saying. 

He's been in every kind of pickle imaginable because of that woman, so I didn't question it....my turn, I thought to myself.  I climbed on the edge of the truck bed using the wheel hubs as a makeshift step ladder and scooted toward the cab. With one hand on the top of the truck, and my left foot planted on the edge of the bed, I toed my right foot around until I found my footing and I lept onto the top of the branches. It was no less than a 40 inch vertical leap, and I can't remember exactly what I was thinking when I fell through the tower of branches, cracking and snapping my way as I plunged hip deep into the thorny wood that scratched and gouged first my ankles, then my knees, and finally my thighs...but I'm pretty sure it was something like GODDIZZLE.

My brother shook his head and gave me a (not unkind) I told you so look before my mom started nagging at me that I need to do more I hadn't packed it in  enough and there's plenty of room just start jumping. So I did what I can only hope my own kids do one day...I started jumping.

Black Thumbs

 Backyard

 Front yard

Side yard

Geraniums aren't fancy (neither am I)...they are a bloom-where-you're-planted kind of friend (so am I)....You can't kill them. And? If you do? If you do, they are a break-off-a-piece-and-start-over kind of cat (as am I).

There are dozens of geraniums, in various stages of transplant and growth, around my yard. I think 90% of them are offshoots from the pink and red trailing variety that have lived for 4 years in the giant pot next to a raised veggie bed in my backyard.

I love them because they were Grandma Mary's favorite flower. She had a bit of a black thumb. "I kill them with kindness," is what she would tell us, as she watered everything in her yard....to death. But geraniums don't mind if you over water them. Or under water them. Or anything else. They will produce (and reproduce) their happy little blossoms until time out of mind.

Really now....I kind of love them.

Thoughtful :: Missing Her

They say you die twice. One time when you stop breathing and a second time, a bit later on, when somebody says your name for the last time.   ~ Banksy

Gram died a year ago, yesterday. Me and Tommy talk about her the most, I guess. Scotty tells me he knows that she lives in his heart. I tell him that's true. But. I guess I would give just about anything to hear her singing, one more time. Hear her laughing, one more time. Hold her hand, one more time. Today, I'm going to say her name, one more time, and I hope there never is a last time. I love you, Grandma Mary.

Canoed

I had Back to School Night last night. And today I'm yarg. (yawn + argh = yarg)

But! It was back in July when we took the boys on our first big canoeing adventure! We headed up to Strawberry and spent a few days on a private lake (let's call it a pond) and also went to Bardsley Reservoir. No phones. No computers. No television. Best cheeseburger on the face of the planet at the snack shack near Pinecrest Lake. Soft serve ice cream for breakfast. Three fights over how to steer the canoe. Sore shoulders for three weeks.  Heaven on earth, really.

 Just noticed that Thing Two is doing The Robot in this picture. Dying laughing over here, really.

 You can't see her in this picture, but puppy Lego is in Scotty's lap here. She loved canoeing!

 I remember laying out in the sun to get a tan in high school. I don't remember a six year old laying on me when I did,

Learned (a bit late) that our canoe anchoring system was not sufficient for the ride home. (not to worry, we made it! and so did our 52 pound, 17 foot, canoe!) Was reminded that I can always call my daddy when I need help. Haven't had to do that for awhile, but I had such a familiar rush of well-being when I looked at Erik, after helplessly tiptoeing down blocked off side roads still an hour and a half from home (a 3 hour drive already creeping up on 4 hours and no end in sight), and said, "Let's call my dad. He'll know what to do." And he did. Love him. When he caught up with us on the backroads leading to the Altamont Pass, with enough rope to secure a navy fleet, he found me giggling helplessly at the absurdity of chasing our foam mounts down the road, through barbed wire fences, and across farmers' fields, as they rolled away like chicklets from our swaying and bobbing canoe.

He shook his head (not without affection) and said, "You're so much like your mother." I'm pretty sure I saw Erik shudder.

Keep All Sissy Soft Suckers Off My Corner*

*Run DMC ~ Is IT Live

Teaching is not for the weak.  Nor is parenting. Nor is death. All three have collided for me this week.

In perhaps the most surreal moment of my week so far, I pulled up to my mom's car at my grandma's funeral on this drizzly Monday afternoon. Her windows were up and she was mouthing something to me. I squinted at her through the glass, and it became apparent that she was trying to tell me something. 

I could juuuusssstttt make it out.  "They all think you're baked." Alright. That's.....weird.

I'm down to the next 12 hours. If I can get through the next 12 hours, I believe I will be able to say that the last 72 hours were not so bad in hindsight.

From my garden! I'm looking forward to a lot more of this. Starting soon!

Gram

When my grandma died last Monday, May 23rd, I sat down next to her and stared out the window, tears spilling down my cheeks....hands in my lap....lost in my thoughts.  My hand went to my head, my head went to my childhood, all my memories wrapped up in the woman lying next to me.  43 trips around the sun, and the next one had to be done without her, for the first time.

I lost my hero, and as I sit writing this, I'm crying again for the first time since I stood up and walked away from her room that day. It's hard to be sad when you think of Gram. She was bigger than life, and as I have stared at the ceiling this week, at 2, 3, even 4 in the morning (more times than I'd care to talk about), overwhelmed by this loss, restless from my helplessness, I have been thinking about all the things that I learned from her.  For right now, I'm recording them old-school in one of my (many many many lol) paper journals. But I can tell you that the one that bubbles up and calls for most of my attention, the one string I keep pulling at that continuously unwinds into more and more thoughts and memories, is that I learned that family is the most important thing in our lives....and that family includes everybody we love, whether we are related to them or not.  Orphaned at 14, she spent the rest of her life reaching out to the abandoned children who were most lost. I learned that there are a lot of them, that you can never run out of love (patience? that's a whole other matter :), and that when you open up your heart and your home amazing things happen.

When I came into the kitchen at Aunt Barbara's, this is the scene that greeted me. I had to laugh. I've seen this exact tableau a hundred thousand times in my life; dudes at one end and chicks at the other, food everywhere, hillbilly folk accounted for, and laughter. The stories were already being told. The old ones that have been perfected over the years and MUST be told by the appropriate person (my family will stop you mid-memory and say, "No, no! Let so-and-so tell it!" haha; new ones that are unfolding and require the input of everybody at the table, and when those stories feel complete and just right, they'll be wrapped back up and trotted out whenever we need them. And we need them a lot. If you had to die, you'd want to do it in my family, because we really do believe (and put into practice) the idea that as long as somebody remembers you and tells your stories, you will live in their hearts, forever, and that's what immortality looks like.

I love her. I know everybody does, she's universally adored far and wide, but there's no other way to say it. I love her and I will miss her. I already do.

Just Breathe (pearl jam)

 

Yes I understand
That every life must end
As we sit alone
I know someday we must go

Oh I'm a lucky man
To count on both hands
The ones I love
Some folks just have one
Yeah others they got none

Stay with me
Let's just breathe

Practiced on our sins
Never gonna let me win
Under everything
Just another human being

I don't want to hurt
There's so much in this world
to make me bleed

Stay with me
All I see

Did I say that I need you?
Did I say that I want you?
Well if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
'cause I come clean

I wonder everyday
As I look upon your face
Everything you gave
And nothing you would take
Nothing you would take
Everything you gave

Did I say that I need you?
Did I say that I want you?
Well if I didn't I'm a fool you see
No one knows this more than me
I come clean

Nothing you would take
Everything you gave
Hold me till I die
Meet you on the other side

Easter 2011

dipping a toe in....  : )

 My famous annual Mr. Bunny Cake....

 First time ever using the mini pie maker my mom got me

results:  apple and cherry yumminess

 My job:  salads....Berry Fruity and cold pasta salad.

 festive egss

 festive project

 the season of peeps!

 contemplating grandpa's hammock

 my brother's kids are trouble lol

 mama

and her great granddaughter

(George's daughter, Sarah, her daugher, Lola)

Handmade Christmas ~ In the Mail Part Two

I sent my cousin and his family a box in the mail for Christmas.  For Aunt Betty, I sent a pillow that I had made using an applique block from the flower series I was working on.

 I had said I wasn't sure about this blue one, and she mentioned it was her favorite one.  Perhaps she was just being polite; that'll learn her!  haha!

The pillow form comes out (the back of the pillow overlaps) and it was kind of a breeze to put it together.  The applique seems well done, which was a pleasant surprise, considering I made it!

I also sent two (semi-)matching candlesticks I had painted.  You know, what can I say?  They look like they should match, but one has more flowers than the other.  Whatever, I figured they can ignore the imbalance, or simply keep them in separate rooms, so as not to offend.  What a great gift!  oh dear.

 I found this dish towel too, when Cori and I went to Bizarre Bazaar a few weeks ago, so that went into the box, of course!

And we put in a letter from Tommy to his favorite "Uncle Moose", some pictures of the boys, and finally, there was this:

Also made from the applique blocks, using all three from the red series, I made them this 'table runner'.  I had decided a long time ago to make this for them, because Kelly had written in her blog about wanting to paint their dining room "eating room red", or something like that.  They have an amazing historical house mansion, and she was researching traditional paint colors, and so she mentioned it in passing and god I hope she meant it or this is going to be awkward.  haha


This table runner was very nearly the death of me, and there were three different times that it nearly didn't end up in the box.


The first time, was when I had sewed it together.  Using no pattern, and apparently no skill or sense, either, I managed to fashion a table-runner-esque object around the original three blocks.  Here's a picture of me, using my mad measuring skillz, to try and figure out what I needed to do:

Erik actually came up with the idea about how to do the red border and blank blocks.  I was pleasantly surprised that he was willing to play that game with me, and I think it was a mistake on his part, because it's a game I never grow tired of.

By the time I got it to here, I thought it was going to be great!  Then I layered it and pinned it, sewing the edges and turning it, and I was so bad at doing this that I actually considered cutting out the white blocks with the applique on them and starting over.

The second time it almost didn't make it into box, was when it was finally put together, and I realized there were some smudges on the fabric.  It was just dirty in spots, but who could complain?  That little square has been kicked around and lugged to football and baseball games for, like, two years or something.  What?  I'm slow.  I was REALLY afraid to put it in the washer, though, because for all I know, it wouldn't even survive one washing.  I mean, isn't it better for it to disintegrate on somebody else's watch?  Common sense prevailed (eventually) (barely) and it went into the washer and came out sparkling clean.  Yay!

The third time it almost didn't go into the box, was when I took it out of the dryer and saw the good news that my applique skills have come a long ways since I first started the flower block project!  Wow, am I getting good at it!  The bad news was that these red ones were among my first blocks... aaaannndddd....it showed.  :-/  In my defense, circles are hard!  Well, then, that's that!  I thought to myself.  I definitely can't send this out now!

But then I remembered this blanket:

 My mom made and gave me this blanket, and I LOVE IT.  I really, really, do.  And you know, my mom is not the most patient, detail-oriented person I've ever met.  These octogons had to be pieced together, and where I have spent weeks meticulously weaving in tails my mother simply tied the knots so tightly it was like she was mad at them, then snipped the yarn tails to a low nub, and moved on to the next one.  The combined effect is to have little pieces of yarn sticking straight up from various points on the blanket (my OCD was happy to discover that one side was less like this than the other, so now it's a directional blanket, for my sanity) AND I've had to resew the octogons in several spots, just because the little knots don't always hold.  I was able to pick up a few pieces of the actual yarn she used when making the blanket, so it still looks great.

Did I mention how much I love it?  Because the truth is, my affection for this blanket (and the person who made it for me) is no less diminished by these (slight) logistical issues. 

I thought about all these things while I used the blunt edge of a flat, wooden toothpick to push the tiny edges back under, in the (many) various spots that they should have been tacked down with my needle and thread, and when I ironed the whole thing, I was this close to saying, yeah, this might just work.

When Erik held it up from across the room though, I thought all those mistakes just went away and it actually looked nice, from where I was standing.  That sealed it.  Into the box it went.  I should have thrown in some toothpicks, as I'm sure it will need a washing at some point, but I leave it up to Moose and Kelly, who are very competent and will, I'm sure, attack this situation with the vim and vigor it requires.  Including, but certainly not limited to, tucking it away, ready to pull out and decorate the table, should we ever come visiting.  There must be some statute of limitations on how long somebody needs to give up valuable cupboard space for such an occasion, but I want to publicly say, here and now, that I will never ask them how the table runner is working out for them.  It's considered part of the gift, at this point.  Just do what you need to do.  ;)

To summarize:  I will send you a box of half-ass gifts because even though I'm not very good at something, it looked great when I pictured it in my head.  Is it my fault that the execution doesn't come to the heights of my vision?  I say no.  Merry Christmas, Moose, Kelly, and Aunt Betty!!!!  :)

Handmade Christmas ~ My Brother's Family

 I already wrote about the rag rug I made my brother for Christmas.  We don't actually exchange adult presents in our family (except we all get or do something for my parents, and them for us) so I technically could have given him the rug at anytime.  I was going to give it to him a few weeks ago, when I finished it, but then my mom was all, "No!  Give it to him for Christmas!" and I was all....okay.  Besides, I had found an online sale on good bath towels and got him and my sister-in-law (not through him, through my other brother) a half-dozen towels each.  So there you go.  Together, they made a very practical present.

Anyway, my brother has two of my favorite girls and I like to make them things.

I made Kaziah this totally adorable corduroy skirt that has running horses embroidered on it.  I could die.  I want this so badly in my size!  It could not have been simpler to make, using the Oliver + S Lazy Days skirt tutorial (or, more to the point, what I remember of it from when I made the skirt before) and with no measurements and no pattern at all, I managed to nail it in both length and width.  High fives, all around.  She also loved the skirt, and wore it on Christmas Day after she opened it.  Love!  I also made her this sweet, slouchy, cap which I knitted.  (The pattern is free, if you sign up at their website.) 

 

 She put that one on right away, too, and as I predicted, it looks awesome on her!    It's exhausting being right all the time.

 Her entire prize package also included her own pointy scissors (which may or may not have been immediately confiscated by her mother) and Emily Martin's new paper doll book. 

 

 For my brother's ex-wife, I crocheted this rasta-inspired hat.  I've made this hat for her in several colors, and she loves them and they look adorable on her.  She had asked me for one in these colors, and I'm glad I finally made it.  When I got to my mom's, Monica was already wearing a gray one I had made for her last year!

  

And for sweet-girl Giannah, who is just as sweet and sassy as my brother was when he was growing up, I made this little gnome village.  This was easily my favorite thing to make this holiday season.  It involved a jigsaw and a drill, for one thing.  Plus, I am totally in love with these gnomes and their gnome-y kids from Wee Folk Art.

I also loved making the accessories; sleeping bags and a bushel of apples and a basket of eggs, and I even put in a Christmas tree with presents underneath.  I crocheted a rug for the bottom floor and had little tables and a flower pot with a rose bush.  *swoon*

I can't tell if Giannah actually liked it...I also gave her a Melissa and Doug wooden pizza party play set, and she loved that, but gave no attention at all to the gnome village or anything in it.  It may be something that she re-discovers in the quiet of her home;  I left lots of room for her to be creative, and to find rocks and wood to use as furniture, so she may end up liking it more when she's made it her own.  Or it may have been a (oh-so-fun-to-make) miss.  Either way, it's so cute!