Yard Art

When I was little, my grandmother’s garden felt like the Stations of the Cross, with pathways leading to various pieces of yard art. It was even arranged like a cross; you stepped up into the side yard on one of the arms, then walked to the center line, and turned  right to stand in front of the Virgin Mary in a clamshell, so popular with New England Catholics. The other two statues were a painted cement squirrel, and (I think) some sort of garden gnome. I loved walking the stations of these figures when I visited. Her sister-in-law favored pink flamingos around a cement birdbath.  My mother owned an Italianate fountain: a boy on a fish that spouted water into a large—and very heavy—basin, perched on a pillar. When the fountain broke, she planted the basin in petunias. When the basin broke, she kept the boy, fish, and pedestal. I grew up with some fine yard art, which I rejected out of hand. My own garden, I vowed, would have none of that tacky cement figure stuff, no plastic, nothing like that. Rustic trellises from tree trimmings, hand made signs, lots of veggies and few flowers (NO petunias, thank you!) were ok. The natural beauty of a cabbage would shine in my garden.

But then, in graduate school, I began to look at yard art. Wooden cut out figures of farmers and farmer’s wives bent over appeared in local yards on the coast. “Tacky!” I thought, but I also noticed as they moved. One week, they were in Kittery, then in Dover, and then, a few months later, they were about 50 miles inland at Great East Lake.  I took pictures. “There’s a thesis here,” I thought. There are, to a graduate student, thesi everywhere. Different areas supported different yard art. The Virgin Mary was popular around Boston, but not in Pennsylvania.  Some areas had more art than others. Glass balls, fake deer, birdbaths, gnomes….cement figures, wooden figures, ceramics….There is a thesis here.

When we bought our house, I caved into peer pressure and bought a pair of pink flamingos, who lived in the back yard near the compost piles and brush. When we built a little pool back there, they were right at home. We added a cement Buddha and Saint Francis, and then some mardi-gras beads. Blue bottles lined paths.   Broken dishes found new homes in garden beds. When my mother died, I brought home the boy riding the fish and the pedestal.  There is a small wall hanging of the Virgin Mary on the fence. A wooden crescent moon and hearts hang from tree branches.  Sixteen gnomes are tucked in the foliage; at least three came from Sarah Lee,  my partner’s mother, as birthday presents. Five painted Mrs. Butterworths are posing near the chives and asparagus. On Saturday, a friend delivered a cement figure that he had purchased years ago because it reminded him of his children. They don’t want it (at least, not now), so it is living in my yard. At night, when we are asleep, do all of these figures move around, have pie parties and long conversations?

My yard has become my grandmother’s, in a way. There are stepping stones and hidden figures among the cabbages. Pink flamingos look down upon the vegetable garden.  My family—all of it—has gathered in this space. And so, I am keeping the new statue, but, if Corey ever wants it, she knows where it is. Because I still kick myself for not claiming the squirrel from my grandmother’s yard.

Lammastide

In the circle of the year, Lammastide is the beginning of the grain harvest. Wheat, oats, barley—all of the northern grains that fed the community—were harvested and brought to the church for a festival and a blessing, also known as the Loaf Mass, in early August. Here in the Pacific Northwest, the big harvests begin at the same time. Fields of wheat are drying down. Straw and hay dust turn the sunlight  golden. Fruit tree branches bend over from the weight. The annual veggies are at their peak of growth and production. In the next six weeks, all of the madness of summer food processing will dominate kitchens and cellars.  Pickling.  Drying. Canning in light syrup.  Making jams and preserves. Tucking potatoes into paper bags and storing them away from the light.  Food driers and crockpots run overnight to keep up with the food tumbling in during this season. 

Transit Reality Check

Public Transit. I believe in public transit. I did not get my driver’s license until I was 26, and I’ve lived in Boston and Portland, so I have ridden a lot of buses in my time. I enjoy a good bus ride—stare out the window, eavesdrop on the gossip behind me, meditate on the nature of the universe of dinner plans—it rarely  feels like  a waste of time  to ride the bus, when it is on schedule. I’ll give an extra 35% of travel time gladly for a bus ride. However,….

Last week, I decided to take public transit to visit my friend Amy, who lives in Milwaukie, Oregon. It is almost exactly two hours to drive my VW van door to door, but the Ark had developed a hiccup that could lead to a stop by the side of the road, and I did not want to deal a visit to the repair shop instead of dinner with a friend. I walked out of the door at 11 AM, heading to the Corvallis transit center a mile away. At 11:25, I climbed onto the Linn-Benton loop, rode for 15 minutes to the community college, transferred to the Albany bus, and rode another 12 minutes into the Albany transit station, arriving at 11:55.  Although my bus to Portland left at 1:05, I had to arrive an hour early because the loop bus takes a lunch break for an hour. I packed my own lunch and a book, and ate on a bench outside.  At 1:05, my bus pulled into the station, loaded up, and headed north. It arrived in Portland about five minutes late—no big deal. I grabbed my backpack, walked to the near-by tri-met stop, waited for the orange line, and climbed aboard. This new line travels all the way to Milwaukie, which is very cool. I admired all of the new public art along the way and studied the complex green paint for bikes around some of the stations. We came into town a little after four and I walked the last mile to Amy’s house, landing in her yard just before 4:30.  It took two local buses, one regional bus, and a light rail ride and two walks five and a half hours to travel a two hour car drive. And that was with every bus on time.

Recently, I broke my arm. I am fine, but I have been going to physical therapy 2.5 miles away.  To walk would be an hour and a half there and back—if my ankle was ok that day. To take the bus would be even longer, and would involve hours of waiting because the local buses run once an hour.  The ideal is riding a bike, which I now do, but that was out when I was in a cast. We drove for the first month.

These are just two examples of the problems we face when we begin to think about how to move people from one place to another without individual cars. When we say “just don’t bring your car to campus” or “you don’t need a car in Corvallis—you can get everywhere on the bus. Its free!” we are not considering the absurd amount of time and effort it takes for healthy people to commit to public transit.  Buses need to run every 15 minutes, day and into the late evening, to be user friendly on a broad scale. They cannot take lunch breaks. Bike lanes need to feel safe on busy streets. Walkers need paths to cut through long blocks. Everyone needs better signage to calculate distance and location. This is more than a cultural mind shift—it will require a complete shift of how we fund transportation and road design. It needs to happen; we need to begin today. Otherwise, in a few years, we will all be trapped at home, unable to visit a friend in Milwaukie.

July, 1969

July 1969.

My father and I are home alone with the dog. My mother and cousins are at a teen dance in the Hampstead town gym, sponsored by the PTA. My mother is chaperone.  Night falls. The fields, with quiet cows, are dark. Insects call. There is a hint of skunk in the humid summer air.  We have been watching the news on the enclosed porch. The moon landing.  There are men on the moon.  We walk outside, followed by the dog, and look up. The full moon is rising over the trees. “Can you see them up there?” my father asks. We all squint at the moon, watching for movements and shadows. Man, daughter, dog stand in the moonlight, casting moon shadows, and join the millions world-wide staring at the moon.  “I think so,” I reply.

Summer Canning

The morning is cool and quiet, cloudy. In the dining room, the red currants are draining; the gooseberries have been tipped and tailed. After breakfast, I wander to the basement, find the steam canner, gather the jars and long loops of rings handing on Christmas cords. Half way up the stairs, the lids are tucked in amongst the cleaning supplies.  Metal changes on metal as I dump everything on the kitchen table. It is time for the summer rituals to begin.

First, I boil the currant juice. Poured into half pint jars and sealed, we can drink the juice with fizzy water in the winter. Vitamin C. It is a deep red and stains the counter. The canner, with the usual quart of honey weight on the lid, rattles and steams. In the living room, NPR explains the news. While the currants seal, I make the gooseberry jam, boiling sugar and berries together, testing the transformation of juice into jam. It finishes just before the timer buzzes for the currants. Move quickly—trade the jars. Replace the lid, the weight, start the timer once more.  Clean up. Summer work on quiet mornings, before the day grows warm.

A Week in Garden Harvests

Radicchio

    

            I am in love with radicchio this season. I bought some seed this winter, when all greens looked good in the catalog (hence my overabundance of cabbages and broccolis) and started it in February, first in six-packs, then bumped up to a barrel in the yard and some four inch pots. It has been lush for months.  That has been one of its charms; whenever I harvest a full sized plant, I have popped another, from the four inch pot stash, into the hole. It keeps on growing without missing a beat. So far, it has been one tough plant, even when it was hot and dry a few weeks ago. It even repels pill bugs and earwigs!

                It is also a beautiful plant. Deep green leaves, veined with red on the outside. A cabbage-y, swirly leaf layout in red and white inside.  Some are more red, some more green.  When it first grows the true leaves, they have an adorable little twist to them, like the piping on a cake that turns inward to create the head. Layer upon layer of leaves build up on that twist, and the biggest lay down to frame the plant. So lovely.

                Radicchio is tasty, too. We started eating the young leaves in salads in late April. Lately, I have been harvesting the heads for sautéed greens. They are bitter but not spicy as mustard greens and they mix beautifully with kales and mustards. Last night, we ate them cooked with an onion and garlic, toasted pecans and raisins. So good.  Such a nice counter point to the ricotta pie that was left over from the night before.  This one is clearly a keeper.