April Madness

Late April is a tricky time in the garden. The slow rains are done, but downpours alternate with bright sunny moments, forcing all of us into carpe diem mode. This weekend was no exception. On Friday afternoon, I was clearly behindhand because of wet soil, meetings, and bad timing. We spent Saturday catching up on house cleaning and watching the rains rush through, followed by enough sun to dry the roads before the next downpour began. I made a list of everything that needed to be done and assigned it to days in the coming week, working around budget commission meetings. Sunday afternoon’s task was emptying the compost barrels.

After lunch, I pulled on boots and garden pants and headed out back. I stopped into the greenhouse to admire the open shelf where 72 tomato starts had been until Friday afternoon, when they ALL went away (a new record) and realized that a few starts needed water.  I meandered back to the house with the watering can and tended to the plants before beginning the listed project. After gathering the big wheelbarrow and deep shovel, I headed for the chicken run. There were to garbage barrels full of sifted compost from last fall that needed to be empty before Mark could tidy and begin sifting the winter’s work.  Twenty minutes, tops, I thought. And it did go quickly, which was good, because it was starting to rain again. The herb bed in the back took some of the compost, then I added some to the asparagus, and the bed on the south side of the house.

That’s when things began to turn from “small project” to “all afternoon.” Maybe, I thought, I should toss over that bed while I am here and pull out some of the weeds that are growing there. That will only take a few minutes. I got out the pitchfork and tossed the bed.  After that,  I headed back. The rain was still holding off…maybe I should plant out those cabbages under the hoop? That would be quick, too. When I went in to get the cabbages, I noticed that the collards and chard, planted at the same time, really wanted to be freed from their containers as well.  Should I bump them up? Seems like a waste of effort if they could just be planted. But the bed needed to be tossed and de-lumped. I looked at the sky. The shower was passing.

Ten minutes later, I was deep in bed prep, plastic cover tucked to the side of the bed, hoops off, chickens commenting on the process.  The sun was warm. The plants were really ready to be planted out. Even the signs were painted. I tucked them into their summer home and headed back to the greenhouse with a few starts that would not fit.  They needed to be bumped up. Other starts needed to be tended inside as well.  And the shelf needed to be brushed off. And maybe the doorstep should be swept? Oh, and there was that rake head, painted blue, that Julia dropped off when she picked up tomatoes on Friday afternoon. That needed to be worked into the front garden fence.

  I was outside for two hours completing a “twenty minute” activity and I still hadn’t picked up all of my tools. The sun was out. The air was warm. It was time.

I am smarter than a chicken!

I am smarter than a chicken. I am. I have college degrees. I am smarter than a chicken.

The chicken coop left the garden beds two weeks ago. It was time to begin planting and they needed to  be in Summer Quarters, behind the garden fence, around the compost piles, and under the laurel hedge. It’s a nice spot. They have shade, places to hide, and lots of compost to dig in. However, this batch of chickens has decided that they do not like to lay their eggs in the coop. One likes the empty rabbit hutch, the other the day lilies. The third really does not care. She lays an egg wherever. So, when we moved the coop, I knew we were in from some work.

                The first day, we tied the fencing to the trellis and hung pinecones off of the high bars. Pinecones have worked in the past to convince chickens that there is really a higher fence. The next day, there was an egg in the rabbit hutch. I shut the  hutch door and put up some twigs around the gate, which is the low point in the defenses, and added some pinecones which  look cool and  move, unlike twigs and wire fencing.

                For about two weeks, I have been adding twigs to the fence whenever I find a gap and a chicken egg out (thry often let themselves back in after laying). One day, I was home early enough to watch a determined chicken check out the defenses. I thought we were good until she climbed onto the top of the (empty) beehive and launched herself over, flying through a remarkably narrow gap.   I tossed her back over and rearranged the hive, away from the fence. She still got through when I was not watching.

                I spent an hour  one afternoon arranging some tempting nest boxes in the run. The old langstrom hive that I have never used, tipped on its side, was one candidate. A milkcrate of straw in the coop was another. I considered a pile of straw under the hazelnut, an old favorite, as well, but did not do it. My egg-dropper took me up on the hive box offer and has laid two there so far. The others refuse.

                Saturday morning was warm and sunny, so I headed out to do some serious spying on the ckickens.  Armed with the grass trimmers, I observed. Rosie, the hutch layer, pushed her way through the gaps around the gate. I closed them and tossed her back. She found another gap. Toss. Close. Trim. Major fuss from the other side. Fly. Gap. Toss back. Fuss. Repeat.  I watched and waited for over an hour, hiding behind the artichoke, trimming and raking the grass, until I was sure she could not get over, and left for twenty four hours.

Free Bird!

                I came home this afternoon and went on the egg hunt. One blue egg in the hive box, one brown egg in the day lilies. One chicken under the hutch, watching me balefully. Clearly, there are still some gaps. I need to make sure she cannot push her way out from UNDER the fence this afternoon.  I AM smarter than a chicken.

Household Cleaning Plans

According to a radio report yesterday, couples who wash dishes together tend to stay together longer than couples who do not. It was a sign of the ability to take on an unpleasant task and complete it together. We do not do the dishes together—I cook, Mark washes, ninety five percent of the time—but we do clean the house together every Friday night or Saturday morning. It has become one of our long term rituals.

We did not always do this. For several years, Mark worked in Portland and came home for the weekends. During the week, I was teaching and busy figuring out that new job. We were often faced with a messy house and a pile of dirty clothes on Saturday morning, right when we wanted to go for a walk or talk with one another.  Without a system, we argued. Mark claimed that adding another requirement to cleaning the bathroom was Mission Creep; I claimed it was just Doing the Whole Job. Because there were no defined projects, no ends in sight, it was ugly.

Then I found Home Comforts by Cheryl Mendelson, aka “The Crazy Cleaning Lady,” at the library.  It is an excellent book; she takes on how to clean just about anything in the household in specific detail. She even explains the chemistry behind various cleaners. I was fascinated. Mark agreed that she was an expert.  I bought the book. When we argued about how to clean the tub, we could refer to the expert. If the author said to do it that way, it was done. No more Mission Creep.

She is also an advocate for a Schedule for cleaning. Some things need to be done every day (dishes), some things once a week (change the sheets), some things once a year (clear out the basement). It depends upon your household. I made a chart of daily, weekly, and monthly cleaning jobs and then divided the monthly ones up over four weeks. Now, cleaning the bathroom consisted of the weekly activities of toilet, sink, tub, and floor plus one monthly task, like washing the mildew off of the ceiling.  I made some adjustments to make sure each week took about the same amount of time and effort in the next few months. The week I wash the bedroom and living room floors has a simpler kitchen task, for example. The system assures me that each task will be done each month, so that I do not have to try and do everything in one week. I can let the webs in the corner go because I know that I will clean them next week, when I am not washing out the fridge.

The schedule has made a huge difference in our work. Now, on Friday after school, I make the cleaning list: the weekly tasks, the monthly tasks, and whatever else needs doing, like repotting the tomatoes.  We turn on the radio—rhythm and blues on Friday night, bluegrass on Saturday morning. I start with the kitchen. Mark works on the bathroom. Laundry moves in and out of the washer, depending upon who is closest at the time. We each have physical tasks and paperwork tasks. We finish at about the same time most weeks. We no longer argue about cleaning the house. In fact, we have both come to enjoy both the process and the results.

Leek Toasties: We just discovered this recipe in River Cottage Veg.

Slice a huge leek or two into rings. Saute in butter with salt, pepper, and thyme until soft. Pour about a quarter cup of milk into the pan and add a handful of grated cheddar. Heat until melted and warm. Spread over whole wheat toast. Eat with a salad for dinner. Every week in April.

March--

March-- the challenging month.

Robert Frost said that April was the month of constant changes, shifting from spring to winter when a cloud passed over the sun and that may be true in New England, but, in Oregon, March is the month of constant changes.I find myself moving in and out of the house, working quickly to button up the just planted garden bed before the rains begin, catching the plastic tarp right before it blows away. Then I come in, change out of wet and muddy clothes,  find my book, make a cup if tea, and settle down-- in a bath of sunshine. March.

This weekend, despite downpours, I planted out the first of the garden beds, filling one with broccoli, cabbage, beets, kale, and mustard starts that we planted on Candlemas and then covering it with the steel hoops and a light weight plastic tarp. The other bed is tucked in the south corner of the house, under the kitchen window and holds some large lettuce starts, arugula, and mustard, all of which will be eaten before it is time to plant out the corn and squash in the same spot.  The starts were ready, reaching out of their pots and tangling together. They had been living in the greenhouse, so they were already hardened off as well.  We will be eating fresh greens from our garden soon.

We also had a lovely walk through the woods this morning, visiting with friends, watching out for the spring wildflowers, climbing the hills around town. We got hoe just before the downpours-- which have now ended once again.

March. 

My Mother's Veggies

                Dinner tonight is one of my late winter, early spring favorites—a simple baked dish of fennel, parsnips, leeks, and potatoes, roughly chopped, married with olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic, and baked in the oven in an old casserole with a lid. I was struck, this evening, by the differences between my veggie drawer and my mothers.

                My mother was a good cook of her time. She knew how to use garlic and onions, salt,  and pepper.  She was ahead of her time, experimenting with  Chinese cuisine for a dinner party. But, her range of vegetables was limited.  She kept onions and potatoes in the under the sink, carrots, celery, iceburg lettuce and pink tomatoes in the fridge, broccoli, spinach, and peas in the freezer, and canned corn and lots of tomatoes in the cabinet. Occasionally she peeled and boiled a hubbard squash, which was always deemed “wet.” For Thanksgiving, she cooked creamed pearl onions to rest next to her excellent stuffing. We had the occasional—and, in my mind, disgusting—Boiled Dinner, where cabbage and turnips were boiled to death with corned beef. There were apples, oranges, and bananas.

                We still eat most of these veggies, except for the boiled cabbage and pink tomatoes,  but we have added so many more. We eat fresh greens—kales, mustards, chard, argula, cabbage—all winter long. In spring, we add asparagus and mushrooms with fresh eggs. Summer is the feasting season with tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, broccoli,  green beans, zucchini…And then fall brings in the heavy squashes and root crops of potatoes, beets, carrots, and parsnips. Our palate has expanded, mostly because of the garden. Parsnips and kale grow well here. I had to learn how to cook them.  Now, I cannot imagine my kitchen without them, in season.

                I am glad my mother fed me her full range of vegetables as a child. I was never allowed to be picky; I had to eat what she put on my plate, even if it was boiled turnips.   I remember her kitchen when I lift down her cheerful casserole dish which we used—still use—for baked mac and cheese and toss my mixture of veggies in.

Sunday Morning in the Greenhouse

It was a cloudy morning, cool and misty. I cleaned up the greenhouse, washing away the remains of honey and wax from straining the hive; swept the floor; consolidated bags of potting soil. Once the space was clear, I moved the spring crops in-- they have spent the last three weeks in my classroom, growing under lights.  I planted some kale, lettuce, argula, and mustard starts  in the ground and watered them in. They look a little beat, but will recover. Once everything old was in order, I brought out the tomato and pepper seeds and planted them, two by two, in the deep six-packs. They will go to school on  Monday morning to bask in light and warmth until Spring Break. The planting season has begun.

Emporia, Kansas

             Emporia Kansas has a memorial to fallen teachers on its campus. It is a replica of a one room schoolhouse set on a knoll, with a pair of black granite plinths carved with names. It is on the edge of town; the highway purrs in the distance beside the football fields on one side, on the other is an empty parking lot.  It was a still peaceful evening in late June when we visited. School was not in session. There are 113 names on the two slabs, 113 adults who died in school,  protecting their children they were hired to keep safe—and most of them have been added in the years since I began teaching.  We studied them—there was a clump of deaths in Texas back in the 1930s—but the rest of the names were familiar, even though we had forgotten—how can you forget?—a few. Springfield. Columbine.  Roseburg. Sandy Hook.         

  

I was a fairly new teacher when Kip Kinkel walked into a high school in Springfield Oregon, about fifty miles south of here.  The idea that a student would walk into a middle class suburban school and begin shooting was unfathomable. There had been shootings Near schools before, of course, but not At school. It was different. Not a pattern. After Columbine happened, one of my ninth grade girls, given to drama, was afraid to walk across the quad to the counseling office. “What if a shooter came in?” she asked. I assured her that she would be fine and sent her on her way. Schools began to search for patterns, to interview kids who wore trench coats and failed English class, who were not engaged. The biggest change, though, was that kids stopped wearing trench coats. No positive changes in the gun laws. No increase in mental health screenings.  Then the Two Towers came down and our attention shifted elsewhere.

  

              I have been teaching for twenty years now. I have distinct memories of at least two students who terrified me because there was nothing behind their eyes. They never did anything in my class to raise suspicions, but I watched them closely anyways.  We all know these kids, like we know the ones who shine so brightly in our classrooms.  And the unfathomable is now….commonplace. Another shooting? We say. Something has got to change. But nothing does.  This behavior is now normal. And my confidence that we will be fine, that we are safe at school—or in any big crowd of people-- has slipped away. I don’t think I would send a young girl worried about a shooter out into the building these days. I’d let her stay where she felt safe, at least for a little while.  Because I know, now, that it is just a matter of time. It could happen here.  And we would just be more names on the plinth.