Peonies and Piano and Early Summer

Martin's downstairs, spinning out a soothing piece on the piano. The rain is soaking the thirsty tomato plants and curling peas and strawberries.
The roses began to bloom two days ago, and we broke in our new picnic table yesterday with friends who sat around our fire ring, chatted, swung on swings, played badminton, and tore around our yard, yelling and playing soccer.
The days have been hot, hot enough for hours of water play in the Children's Garden under the Moses Rock.


The children have covered themselves with sand on multiple occasions and we've all browned in the sun despite good coatings of sunscreen.

We've been to the Children's Museum twice

(This is Texas Grandma making a spiffy man with the huge Light-Bright)

and the zoo twice, once with my sweet folks and again with Martin's sweet folks. The Pittsburgh Zoo, by the way, is the best I've ever experienced, anywhere. The only thing that beats it are the game parks in East Africa!


We've been eating perfect garden strawberries and salads of our own baby gourmet lettuce.

A few holes in the greens means ORGANIC goodness! Yeah! Our friend John M. (of the Rooster Sauce Brothers) ate a slug with his meal the other night. . .on purpose. He has eaten goldfish in the past, not a kind thing for the fish but a little extra protein for our friend J.M.-the-Slugman.

The baby thinks she's seven, and the peonies smell sweeter this year than any year before. My mother agreed to come while Martin's away in June for ten days, thus ending my blind panic. All in all, it's a happy time here at Wazoo Farm.

Here's a peony for my sweet Aunty Phyllis, who celebrated her birthday last week. Aunty Phyllis reminds me of a peony, and not just because she smells rather nice.

Martin's moved on to the guitar. . .I sense big projects this week, since (o joy!) our neighbor has lent Martin his pick-up for the entire week. He's tripping over himself in the delightful prospect of filling the bed with huge rocks from the cemetery . .I just need to get some writing projects wrapped up. And some burpless cukes (doesn't that sound LOVERLY) planted.

Lost the Tomatoes

Tomatoes, RIP. Blackened by frost. Even though I tucked them into little paper bags, they were weak.

The children survived, however, snug in their own little beds.

So I collected two baskets of sheets and blankets and hope I won't have to put them out again.

Cause for celebration: the strawberries, green fruits and blossoms and all, were saved. Not too bad, all in all. And two bitty pumpkins gone. The roses are feeling sorry for themselves, but they'll get over it.

Yes. We have a good excuse to shop at the nursery again. And no more frost in the forecast! Huzzah!

Thanks to Martin's Dad for the pictures! We had a good visit with you folks! Come on back soon!

Ghosts Surviving the Frost

Two close or breaking record frosts in a row. . .(click on the picture to see our strawberries, perrenials, annual veggies, etc., battling it out with the PA elements.)

Our garden looks like it's full of ghosts. Merry jumped into her favorite mode: PREPARE FOR IMMINENT DISASTER, and peppered the paper bag/sheet brigade with comments like, "I have to put away the chickens!" or when we went into the house, to my mother-in-law, "I was just putting away the pigs." Laura Ingalls Wilder, eat your heart out. But unlike the Ingalls' crops, our plants seem to have survived disaster one night. Can they make it another?

Guess what we'll be doing for the next few days? You got it! Washing sheets!

Tickseed Coreopsis

I love coreopsis, the cheery yellow faces, the light feathery foliage. It makes me happy. And browsing the perennials at our local nursery, I felt satisfied remembering that my tickseed coreopsis is returning even as I forgot it was in my garden.

But what an awful name it bears. . .cut to the scene at our kitchen, where Martin picks up something off our floor, pops it into a tupperware, and says calmly, "I think this is a tick."

Ticks give me the heebie-jeebies. I sent all the children to the bath and Martin disappeared outside, where I assumed he was smashing the tick with a hammer. Instead, he came inside again with the empty tupperware container.

--Did you get rid of it? I asked.

--Yes. (But he looked sneaky).

--You did smash it?

--No, I released it. Shh, shh. . .(because I'm beginning to rant hysterically. Martin has released flying cockroaches, spiders, all kinds of things into the outdoors instead of killing them--okay. But a TICK?)

--YOU GO RIGHT BACK AND KILL THAT TICK!

--I released it into the garden. It's a little garden friend.

* * * *
End of story? So he's really kidding, getting my goat in front of his parents, especially his father, to whom Martin had boasted he was particularly good at goat-getting.

Me? I just have to comb meticulously through three children's heads. And I've got the itches myself.

Merry Berry Jumping Bean

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Quick Update

Hello, duckies all!

Rain o rain o rain some more. Martin carped diem yesterday and whipped the lawn into shape. Power to the Irish. And Martin.

Also, my mother has been saving our sorry selves for going on three weeks now. Power to the mothers. Especially since, with the end of school imminent, we saw neither hide nor hair of Martin for a while.

Peas are up. Strawberries are blossoming, raspberries shooting, flowers blooming, the redbuds have just started and the crabapples are turning frilly pink into sensible leaves.

Birds are happy, and I disturbed a nest of young snakes (offspring of Sammy whom Martin saved last year)? near some new young shrubs.

Pictures later.

And tomorrow night, 80 people at our house--actually, Martin clarifies, he invited more like 60. This is why I smeared dirt on my face, put on sackcloth, and begged my mother to stay for another week.

And now I just have time for one more baby goat picture, from our friends, Mike and Donna's Toboggan Hill farm (by the way, all their exquisite pork--the only reason I am not vegetarian--is now 20% off):

After Being Sick, No More Pallets On the Floor

Beatrix at the Farm

Who needs to be scrubbed clean and hung out to dry?

After a good tumble with the chickens at our friend's farm, this child needs a hot bath.

"I'll take you home!" offered Beatrix, but we had to intercede. Our fences are not strong enough for two toddlers.

I'm Planting Seeds. . .

Occasionally, life seems to upset. At home last night, we thought over taking a dehydrated middle daughter to the ER last night but hydrated her successfully before falling asleep at midnight--overseas, Sri Lanka and Thailand and other countries suffer. When the tunnel of worries gets rather dim and heavy, the best place for me is outdoors among growing things. So despite the fact it was cold and rainy this morning, and despite the fact that I'm late to start seeds indoors, Merry and Beatrix and I left the sicElspeth safely in front of the TV with some sugary tea and toast.

I wrapped Bea in some raincoat contraption and Mere suited up and out we went into the cooling hands of our spring garden. . .

And there we found grace in the reliable, cheery, auntie-like tulips,

deepening grass and blooming trees,

lettuce seedlings

Martin's latest hardscaping

and our own soil mix.

And there's nothing like bringing dirt indoors by the bucketful to brighten a house dimmed by sickness.

So we'll just put ourselves in a bright window like the seeds and hope for warmer, sunnier climes soon.

Holy Monday Finds Woman Still in Robe, Hair Mussed

I'm watching the lady across the street take down her plastic Easter eggs from her redbud tree with a long pole and hook.

We spent OUR Easter out in the garden (Martin and I) since all three of our girls were sleeping after being hit by the Dreaded Tummy Bug. Here's the inedible Easter cake Elspeth and I made out of crayons:

Poor Elspeth is still fighting her way through, and now she's getting feisty and punching the air. Meanwhile the dandelions are turning a bright cheery yellow. Martin's reading Malcolm X for class while he tries to calm Elspeth with the other hand and I am finally contemplating a shower. We drove by a friend's house whose children are also down for the count and she came out to meet us with a wry laugh. "It's so nice to talk to PEOPLE," she said (though we're fairly sure we're playing host to the same bug we kept our distance). "There IS life beyond our own house."

Sometimes, sometimes, people, thinking about life, for just ONE day without the kids sounds SO good. As long as they came back bouncing and beautiful and smelling as sweet as the lilacs about to bloom in the Pump Garden. . .But these early days, when our kids pick up sickness on holidays, are good bonding times. Happy, happy bonding times. Times for the scrapbook of pestilence. I've only forgotten to take pictures, though.

Egads! Is that a garden ornament? Well, we usually stay away from garden ornaments like bad germs (and they tend to proliferate once you've opened that door), but this one I stuck in the children's garden, (can't help thinking of the Velveteen Rabbit becoming real, though this one is as fake as they come) to surprise the kids. Also, it's serving now as a marker for the PeeGee (what a horrible name) Hydrandea I stuck in the ground (bare sticks at the moment) and the chive and cornflower seeds I sprinkled there.

Happy late Easter. Hope yours was as peaceful, but less messy, than ours.

Good Friday Gardening

All during Merry's week-long illness, I've been stealing outside with Beatrix on my hip. We search the soil for signs of new life.

Of course, there are the spring bulb's blossoms that welcome us on the way out of the door, and I'm not ungrateful for them, but it's the more subtle returning life--the tiny points of perrenials bravely poking their way through dead leaves and thawing soil--it's those that thrill me, that make me pull in my breath and live again myself after the endless winter.


And today, Good Friday, I spotted my first brave pea seedling. I'm always incredibly amazed when my seeds actually sprout and unfurl and become strong. These peas were the result of a community planting--my friend Arne and her little crawling boy, Lucas hoed and turned over the soil, as did Merry's friend Catherine--and then a second wave of pea-planting friends arrived, to plant a second round of vining sugarsnaps. We're no-till folks, but I turned over the soil, cheering the earthworms, and I gave them plenty of compost, as I imagine they want some good, juicy soil (and guru Eliot Coleman says his best peas resulted from an accidental double-dose of manure).

Life--it's stirring everywhere, under our feet, in the air, in the robin that settled down and watched us with his head cocked thoughtfully. Every winter, I forget what Green and Warm is. Or I enter a tunnel of child-sickness and busyness and I forget what To Be at Peace is. But that does not mean it is not there. I am thankful for seasons--waiting for spring through the endless grey of winter teaches me how to wait, and how to be in the silence of frozen earth and darkness. And then comes warmth, and light, and I remember again what they are, and I rejoice.
(Aunt Mary Jane stopped by and watched Martin work, Elspeth forage, and Bea climb walls.)

And finally, for a good Good Friday reflection, check out my dad's poverty blog. He says it well.

POOL GARDEN IN PROGRESS

Take one HORRIBLE above-ground pool, list it on freecycle,

Live with the trashy side-yard for a while (too long),

Add one laundry line and sand toys,
Subtract the fence one day with a hammer & handsaw and attitude while the kids sleep,

Add a baby,

(And sleep yourself,)

Throw in a pinch of landscape fabric (for what WILL BE brick paths) and a few workers,

Locate one wee brawny man who loves to hang out in the local graveyard collecting rocks (none inscribed--he leaves those where they are)

Ensure he is MAD-CRAZY FOR ROCKS, LIFTING ROCKS, ARRANGING ROCKS, BREAKING SUBARU AXLES WITH LOADS OF ROCKS, BUT RATHER CLEVER WITH ROCKS,

Plant a dozen or so fruit trees,


Begin what will be raised beds,

Give Mad-man rockerfella a chance to work. . .

And you get:

A WORK IN PROGRESS: the Petit Pottager, or what will be forever known to us as the Pool Garden. Watch for future developments.

Boogie on down for Lent by Kevin

Our friend Kevin Mathman M. made this missive for us to magnify our magnificent lenten dancing. . .as he saw it. Oh yeah, baby.

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