A Swan Needs a Pond

"...When I stand, I'm almost a tree.
Leaves, do you like me any?
A swan needs a pond.
The worm and the rose
Both love
Rain."


--Theodore Roethke, from Bring the Day!


I've been sick all day with the nastiest little cold.  Sniffling and coughing and aching.  No thank you!  I almost never get sick, so I forget how it is to feel miserable.  What has gotten me through today, besides ibuprofen, tea with honey, and naps, is dreams of my garden.  I went through my favorite seed catalogue again, Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, and made my list.  I sketched out my garden space, including the 2 raised beds I'm building out of old pallets.  And also the bean tepee I made out of the chair rail trim that used to be in my dining room.  I'm also going to try a vertical pallet garden for strawberries this year, as they tend to hog garden real estate and I think they'll do fine in a standing up pallet.  They'll have a better view, anyway.  And the chickens will be SOL this year.  Ha!  

Sorry, Sookie

The raised beds are going to be fantastic. I'm putting them up at the top of my driveway, in front of the garage door I never open.  It gets awesome sun and the radiant heat coming off the garage door will be a plus, as well.  In those beds, I think I'll grow:  cherry tomatoes--probably one Sungold and one Black Cherry, Chioggia Beets, Lipstick Peppers, Early Scarlet Globe Radishes, Bloomsdale Spinach, Cosmic Purple Carrots, Pepperoncinis,  basil and parsley.  Also, in the front, my neighbor said I can garden his little patch of ground that separates our driveways.  I think I'll plant Golden Bantam 12-Row Corn with Missouri Wonder Beans.  Plus some pretty mixed zinnias, for fun.  Also mixed into my front border garden will be more cherry tomatoes, green pattypan squash, and garlic.  


In the back, it's Purple Podded Pole Beans and Chinese Mosaic Long Beans on the tepee, which will also double as a kid fort.  I'm going to fence the garden this year to keep out the feathered predators.  It was lettuce carnage last year and I can't stand the heartbreak again.  So, in the fenced garden will be Sugar Snap Peas growing on a length of metal fence from my dad.  Peas and beans are my favorite things to grow because they are sooo easy and soooo yummy.  The kids love them both, too and will snack away right out of the garden, which warms a mama's heart.  Also in the garden will be 3 kinds of lettuce, Purple of Sicily Cauliflower, 2 kinds of broccoli, lots of garlic, and lots and lots of potatoes!!  


On March 20th, the 1st day of Spring and my dear old Dad's birthday, I will plant sweet peas practically everywhere--5 different kinds, all very fragrant.  Poke 'em into the ground or in pots, give them something to climb, and they'll bloom by June and go all summer.  They may be an annual, but to me, they're a perennial favorite-hahaha!


Until then, here are a few pics of the garden in years past.  It really will look like this again!   And even better, hopefully!!!  

it is or it ain't

"Love is or it ain't.
Thin love ain't love at all."
--Toni Morrison, from Beloved

I'm still thinking about love.  And why it's so important.  I think it's what binds us together in a community.  Whether that's a family, a circle of friends, a marriage, or a society.  Loving each other.  Loving the work we do at home.  Preserving and building things that will last, even beyond ourselves.  That is love. Love is like the egg in the crab cake of life.  It enriches and holds it all together.  Without it, life is fragmented, disconnected, boring.

Toni Morrison's quote above truly resonates with me.  If you love someone, then LOVE them!  Love is the answer.  Love will set you free.  Love conquers all.  The cliches just go on and on!  And you know why?  Because they are true.  If you want connection and deep meaning in your life, then fatten up the way you love.  Feed it.  Nurture it. 

Because if you don't, you'll look up and have nothing.

Light is the Center of Darkness

I love a love poem. Especially on Valentine's Day.  So here are a few for you, dear reader.  <3

Celestial North

 Nights like this you could tell me time

is porous as gauze and I would believe
you.  Tell me tonight has always happened
and always will be happening, since nothing
I know any longer says No.  Whisper it
and I would believe you.  Tonight the breeze
cooling us comes from the place where dreams
are harbored.  Say this moment when winter
swivels into spring is genesis writ small,
say light is the center of darkness
and I would turn toward it like a flower,
following your hand across the heavens
as it finds the north celestial pole.

 --Floyd Skloot

And, it wouldn't be Valentine's Day without a Neruda poem.  We should all be so lucky to have a love like this:

Sonnet 17

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

--Pablo Neruda

Out Of The Blue Drench

Southern Sunrise

Color of lemon, mango, peach,
These storybook villas
Still dream behind
Shutters, their balconies
Fine as hand-
Made lace, or a leaf-and-flower pen-sketch.

Tilting with the winds,
On arrowy stems,
Pineapple-barked,
A green crescent of palms
Sends up its forked
Firework of fronds.

A quartz-clear dawn
Inch by bright inch
Gilds all our Avenue,
And out of the blue drench
Of Angels’ Bay
Rises the round red watermelon sun.

 --Sylvia Plath

Over the last few days, I've enjoyed the bright blues all around.  Morning skies, the milky periwinkle mist over the valley floor, the electric blue of the day, and the indigo nights.  The sunrise this morning, while not Southern, was just as described by Sylvia above.  In what may be, one of her most upbeat poems.  Love it.  Love nature.  Love it all. 

The feel of a coming Spring will do that to a person.  Even when I've had crazy days at work (full moon--no, seriously) and moderately bicker-y kids, the loveliness of season trumps all.  The smell of the air, and my sore muscles from working in the yard all day on Sunday tell me I'm waking, emerging from fallow fields, and ready to broadcast new seeds over the world. 

Today, while driving the kids to school, we talked about travel.  It was one of the best conversations we've ever had.  I love traveling and I really love meeting foreign people, in general--much more so than Americans, if we're being honest. I'm a reverse xenophobe.  I realized that I haven't really talked travel with the kids and it was soooo fun to do so.  I would love to take them to Europe, specifically France, England, Scotland, Switzerland and Italy (Sicily with OM and brood).  Not in one trip, and I know that's a big list of wonderful places, all deserving of serious time spent, BUT, we're dreaming here and why not?  My passion for these travel dreams rubbed off on them and they had lots of fun questions and I'm looking forward to talking more about it.  And then doing it someday! 

So I'm off and out--while the watermelon sun is still shining.

Harbinger

Winter Birds

The winter birds are bold.

Showy baubles on the bony fingers
of February trees—
against a backdrop of bolts and bolts
of gray flannel sky.

I watch them as they watch the river.

Silver flash of fish
and the brief brightness of
unfiltered sun on the water
blind me into seeing this moment.

These eagles and herons

make themselves known now,
like the daffodil in Spring—
shocking beauty in the bleak,
a harbinger of awakenings.

--Meagan Elliot

I wrote this poem several years ago, inspired by what I see on my drive home from work.  Today is February 1st and I can feel things a'changin'.  Yesterday, the air smelled like Spring, like life.  I'm seeing the Winter Birds again.  My tulip bulbs are nosing up through the dirt.  The chickens seem perkier and expectant.  Pretty soon, I'll hear the varied thrush's referee whistle in the morning, smell the skunk cabbage, and hear the year's first frog.  These are exciting times!

I've been in a very mellow place over the last month.  Doing what needs to be done, but then taking much repose.  Dreaming.  Planning for Spring and Summer.  Imagining what I want my life to look like and making an effort every day to live that.  I am ready for change.  I am ready for awakenings.

Are you?

Happy 2012!

Hello, again!  I have been a very bad blogger, indeed.  However, in my own defense, I have had so many wonderful happenings lately that I've had nary a moment to stop and record it on the intermaweb.  And I do believe, one of the points of a blog is to blog about your life but not live-to-blog or do-to-blog or whatever.  Ya feel me?


Today is the first day in weeks that I've had a moment to sit and write.  My dear friend, Joy, came this weekend to celebrate my birthday and she just headed out on snowy roads to get back home to Spokane.  I've got the laundry machines hummin' away, a 3 week old Sunday crossword puzzle, and the snow is falling so prettily; it's a perfect time to write.

I took a New Year's Eve trip to Sitka, AK, to surprise Colette for her 40th birthday (4 days late).  Thanks to sweet Hannah for being my partner in crime on this.  Colette was surprised!  We had a fantastic new year's eve!!  We went to Winter Skillet,  one of Sitka's annual concerts.  It was fantastic!  Then we walked all over town, visiting lots of adult beverage consumption stations (BARS, yo), one even had a rockabilly band and dancing:

Oh my! How cute are Hannah and Colette???

Sitka is a vibrant community, full of interesting people and lovely places:

The Pioneer Home on New Year's Eve; and it's snowing, too!

Russian Orthodox Church in the center of the town, and that mountain!

His name is Rio and he dances on the sand

Thar she blows (we saw 2 whales!)

We also enjoyed time a la maison, sitting by the fire, playing games, and...making croissants!  The croissants (quaaasahnts!) took 2 days to make, rolling and folding and chilling and shaping and rising and baking, but oh my oh my, were they ever delicious--next freakin' level delish!!!!  

O, baby, I KNEAD you!

 Say it with Hannah, "Qwaaaaaahsahnt!"

roll and fold...

...and fold again

and roll again

And roll some more the next day

Colette fills a croissant with dark chocolate

Some of these have almond  or chocolate filling inside, and some are plain

Voila!  

This may be the tastiest thing I've ever eaten!  Totally worth the extreme effort and time commitment.  Alls ya need is the Cook's Illustrated recipe, butter, flour, and yeast, oh and about 3 days!  But, damn!  

What a way to ring in the new year!! 

Very Good Morning

Fanny, Sookie, Ruby and Rick wish you a very Merry Christmas!

And my dad wrote a beautiful poem for his Christmas card this year that must be shared:

And now on to the Swedish Ginger Cookies (the fat in the cookie: bacon grease) for my dad, who is visiting tonight with my Grandma Ethel, and Boeuf Bourguignon for dinner!  The very good morning will soon become the very good day.  Cheers!