The Jerusalem Artichoke’s On Us

Posted on April 5, 2012 by literarylee

We never thought about them.  All winter, those pounds of Jerusalem Artichokes slept snugly underground just where they had grown the summer before, slowly expanding into the knobby whitish tubers I finally dug up a few weeks back.  Even if this hadn’t been an unseasonably warm spring, we would have had to deal with them soon.  Each of the probably 100 or more I harvested would have sprouted and grown into a new plant, each vying for space in a small bed that would have become so crowded none would have grown well.  Even if I’d only dug them up and thrown them away, I would have had to do something with them.   Clever, the idea of pickling them.  What a good way to use many at once.  Continue reading →

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The Joy of Making My (Garden) Bed

Posted on March 25, 2012 by literarylee

I vanquished the last of the invading host of weeds in Smith, my plot in the community garden.  The mild winter and early spring had provided the ideal conditions for those pernicious plants to slowly, steadily grow and thrive, sending shoots and suckers and roots and rhizomes, little sturdy, weedy arms and legs, out in a hundred directions.  Three weeks ago when I first started preparing this plot, you could not see poor Smith for the weeds.  He didn’t just have a mere, green, five o’clock shadow, oh no.  The poor soul was blessed with a full, thick verdant beard of plants that did not belong.  I was sorry to see the graceful lines of the two arced garden paths completely obliterated, the three sections of raised bed they demarcate blending together under a thick, wavy sea of green.

I was appalled at the ugly mess but also secretly thrilled.  Pulling thick weeds from a garden in the spring is one of my favorite gardening tasks.  So odd to enjoy it, but I do.   After my work today, the third or fourth round of clearing the garden, Smith is now ready for plants and seeds.  In fact, I’ve already planted 15 cauliflower plants,  seeded beets, parsnips, turnips, onions, leeks and peas, plus set in about 40 cloves of garlic.  Though I love the look of the garden now with its newly turned black soil mixed with rotted leaf mulch, I’m secretly sorry this job is done.

Here’s how I pull weeds in an early spring garden.  First, I loosen the soil with a garden fork, tipping a hunk of it back to lift and loosen the plants from the soil that clings to them.  When I have freed up a section of those green nasties, I get down on my knees and rip up, bare handed, clod after weed-infested clod smashing each on a rock or the garden fork.   Thus I reclaim the soil for happier plants, the tomatoes and peppers, sweet potatoes and squash and such I will soon set into the bed.

What is it about clearing a garden that appeals to me?

I like the productive, raw physicality of the task.  Continue reading →

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Garden Wars

Posted on March 19, 2012 by literarylee

I waded deep into the weeds
     and fought with might and main.
In pitched combat, battle joined,
I finally overcame.

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March Fourth? March Forth!

Posted on March 4, 2012 by literarylee

Click for a soundtrack to this post:   Washington Post March

Once again March 4 is here.  I still get pleasure, probably a little childish, saying to people, “Today is my favorite day of the year.”  I enjoy springing my March forth idea.  Whoever I ask smiles, raises his eyebrows, and hazards the same guesses: “Is it your birthday?  Your anniversary?”  “No,” I say with a slight uplift at the end of my voice, urging him to guess again.  I wait for the pause, the little chuckle, the slight wave of his right hand, as if wanting to gently bat this moment away, the faint shrug, the shake of the head, “I don’t know. What?”  I deliver the punchline: “It’s the only day of the year that makes a sentence.”  Another pause, eyes slightly a-squint, head cocked a few degrees to the right, thinking, and then, getting it, his eyes roll up and around, the universal reaction to a pun, “I get it.  March Fourth.”  “Right!”   I raise my own hand, a loose fist of decisive energy.  “March forth!  To Victory!  Onward!”  At home here, when our children were young and still now, I play Sousa marches and, in fact, we march around a little, laughing and enjoying our own private joke.  Once again we get it and after so many years of humoring dad, it now humors all of us.

I’ve been thinking a little differently about it this year.  For me, the boldness, the decisive marching forth is becoming trust in something bigger, in Some One bigger, call it the Universe if you’d like (I don’t mind), but I’ll call it God.  Always in the past I’ve focused on the boldness of the marching.  Now, especially after making several big life decisions over the last few months, I realize taking the bold step needs a bit of faith it will land somewhere solid. Continue reading →

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Collecting Pub Names, part 3

Posted on March 1, 2012 by literarylee

Here is the third portion of my collection of pub names which I gathered during a one month trip through England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales in 1999.  You can read the first portion and an introductory note here: Pub Names Part One and the second portion here: Pub Names Part Two.  My favorites in this portion are, Bird I’ The Hand, The George, and The Glebe.  What’s a Glebe?  And why don’t we name our homes, our front and back yards, our gardens?  (Oh, wait, some of us do name our gardens.)

The Lamb Inn, Robin Hood Inn, Fox and Goose, Stubbing Wharf, Woodsman, Rose and Crown, Swan with Two Necks, Shannon and Chesapeake, Rope and Anchor, The Duke of York, The White Hart, The Golden Lion, The Woodpecker, John Smith’s, Border Rose, Bird I’ The Hand, The Summit, The Free Huntsman, The Gale, The Falcon Inn, The Queen’s New Inn, The Ox & Plough, The Greengate, The Bull’s Head, The Mayfield, The King’s Highway, The White Lion, Dicken Green, The Garfield, The Queen’s Drive, Jolly Miller, The Stag and Rainbow, Setter and Vine, The Talbot, The Almhouse, St. Winifred’s Hotel, The Bull, The King Edmund, The Eagle’s Vault, St. Hida Hotel, The Queen’s Arms, Prince Albert House, Harlech House, Cheapstow Castle, The Glebe, Black House, The Queen Victorian, The Plough, The Windsor, The Sefton, Thwaite’s, Kirkstone Pass Inn, Brotherswater Inn, White Lion, Ratchers Tavern, Brackenrigey Inn, The Beehive, The Pheasant Inn, The Waterloo, The George, The Lane End Inn, Twice Brewed Inn, Milecastle Inn, Coach and Horses, Gosling Bridge, The Crown, The Globe, The Joiner’s Arms, Graham Arms, The Globe Tavern

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Obituaries: Life Affirming, Bite-Sized Bios

Posted on February 27, 2012 by literarylee

I appreciate obituaries.  Reading Gustav Leonhardt’s in an Economist magazine a few years ago reminded me that an account of a person’s life, written at the time of his or her death, can be very life-affirming.  I like reading and collecting epitaphs for the same reason though they require a little imagination and creativity recreating a life from only a few spare snippets.

I had never heard of Leonhardt and thought it a shame my first exposure to his life was just after his death.  He was an artist whose medium was the harpsichord.  The article said his “life-work was to persuade the world how beautiful the harpsichord was, and how the harpsichord repertoire should be played.”  I admire the passion and vigor he brought to his craft.  Reading the account I could picture him as a student, sitting in the Vienna library “tirelessly hand-copying” piles of original scores.  He was supposed to have been studying conducting at the time, but spent his time collecting ancient music instead.  When I avoid work, I seldom replace it with something even more rigorous.  Continue reading →

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Birthday Greeting to an Artist Friend

Posted on February 24, 2012 by literarylee

Oh Evelyn our friend so dear
Seems you’ve clicked off another year.

The march of time: relentless, cruel,
No pausing, stopping (as a rule).

And not just that but Decades! Six!
To persevere – what were your tricks?

But sands of time they do not stop ya’,
For creativity few can top ya’.

You making beauty ageless, sweet,
Year after year was no mean feat.

Paper, textiles, yarn or plastic,
Your view and work are sure fantastic.

With passing years your vision heightens
While our dim sight your artwork lightens.

So that is why we, age disdain,
Worry about it? All in vain!

All these little rhymes to say
We hope this is a special day.

This party we would never miss,
To celebrate and reminisce.

So Happy Birthday, our dear friend,
Felicitations warm we send.

Along with love and admiration,
And for decades more art, keen anticipation.

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Ae Fond Kiss

Posted on February 21, 2012 by literarylee

Robert Burns

Ae fond kiss, and then we sever;
Ae fareweel, alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.
Who shall say that Fortune grieves him,
While the star of hope she leaves him?
Me, nae cheerful twinkle lights me;
Dark despair around benights me.

I’ll ne’er blame my partial fancy,
Naething could resist my Nancy:
But to see her was to love her;
Love but her, and love for ever.
Had we never lov’d sae kindly,
Had we never lov’d sae blindly,
Never met-or never parted,
We had ne’er been broken-hearted.

Fare-thee-weel, thou first and fairest!
Fare-thee-weel, thou best and dearest!
Thine be ilka joy and treasure,
Peace, Enjoyment, Love and Pleasure!
Ae fond kiss, and then we sever!
Ae fareweel alas, for ever!
Deep in heart-wrung tears I’ll pledge thee,
Warring sighs and groans I’ll wage thee.

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I aspire to this

Posted on February 13, 2012 by literarylee

Here’s another sweetly written essay by Verlyn Klinkenborg, published in last Sunday’s New York Times.  I want to live life doing what he does: “…write and read and do chores and whatever I can to stem the tide.”

Mouse House

I also aspire to observe and write reality similarly though with (whose else?) my eyes and words.

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Address to My Blog Readers About Our Two Successful Burns Suppers

Posted on February 10, 2012 by literarylee

My dear Life Literary Reader
On lofty precipice I now teeter
As I attempt the noble meter
Of “To a Mouse,”
To tell you ’bout our two Burns Feeders
I am no louse.

The first, we held in highland far
A drive, three hours or so by car
To Jack and Carolyn’s, friends they are
With Nancy and Larry.
We ate some haggis: food bizarre
And a little scary.

Scottish Centerpiece

We read some poems by dear Bobbie
It was our joy, it is my hobby.
Ate broccoli but not kohlrabi
Enjoyed the scene.
Though morning after, felt so blobby
And a little green. Continue reading →

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