pickin' peas...

i realize i've harped on the blazing hell

of a summer we had last year plenty. 

no amount of moaning and lamentation could 

paint a picture of the brown and scorched sadness

of it.  therefore, i will focus on the beauty of the

summer we've been nuzzling necks

with this year.

if, in my next life, i'm a black eyed pea sprout,

i want a summer just like this one.  

i choose soil just as perfectly sandy

as this spot here. 

kindly mr. vegetable farmer down the highway

plants peas every spring to turn under come fall

to liven up his soil.

he always lets us come pick pick pick.  

then we shuck shuck shuck.

this trip, a bushel and a half. 

i'll blanch them, freeze them, and cook them 

just the way we like them. with cornbread. 

all winter long.

sunshine carrot..

i have dill coming up everywhere..

in between every other plant.  i let it go

to seed this past summer, with the idea to attract 

butterfly eggs.  whoops.  roxie and i were 

trying to thin some of it out of the beds yesterday

and realized how well the carrots are doing!

i did notice the white ones aren't as crisp,

but she didn't give it a thought and ate

every bit. when the boys came home from school, hank

acted put out that roxie had eaten them all so

he went and picked and ate his own while his

brother ate chocolate/oat granola.  

i'm a firm believer that if you have a picky

eater...get them in the kitchen or the garden.

even if they don't go for the greens

(like one of mine who is a meat and potatoes man), at least

they'll be getting some natural antidepressants, right?...

winter garden..

spring yearning.  in winter, it seems like everything outside is 

hibernating. sleeping. suspended. today i took time to walk slowly, glance carefully. there were bees on blooms!

who knew!?  and there they've been only steps out the backdoor.

i'm sitting indoors; wishing for spring and missing sneak

peeks just under my nose. 

buds on fig tree..

'freckles' romaine, dill, and beets

 onions i missed harvesting last year, dill and rainbow chard

 moss i picked up months ago in oklahoma and set in 

the bird bath where it feels at home.

sweets for the bees..

my mom and dad feed their bees each day.

she puts eight cups of sweetened well water out and

within 20 minutes they are buzzing

and swarming and thankful. each day they come from

the same direction and after guzzling their

fill return back to the south of the upper garden.

the hive is someplace in the woods below the house

but the exact spot is still a mystery. my imagination puts

it in a tall, grey, hollow trunk of of a long-dead tree.

we fed the bees and while we waited for them to come we

cheered on the tiny seedling of carrots, spinach, dwarf kale,

beets, and freckled romaine. for supper we had late

summer squash and a soup we made with rainbow

chard from my raised beds here in the city.

the brutal summer had made it a bit bitter but it

will start to sweeten now that the weather is turning cooler.

you can see they had more faith in their tomato plants after

our summer (i ripped mine out) and they are starting to

produce one last time.

rainy days all in a row.....

...always bring oregon and richard brautigan to whirl willy-nilly around in my mind.

rain's been falling for days here. doors are opening that have been stubbornly stuck all summer. floors that were silent are creaking hello. streets are rivers and rivers are swirling lakes. frogs are tuning their instruments for their nighttime serenades. the birds have gone silent. and the fence is sprouting it's baby mushrooms again...

pesto for winter.....

i finally cut back most of my basil plants. i had around 100 plants that i got for free from a nursery out near my parents' place. they were leggy so i pinched them back and stuck them all around the house in all of the flower beds. some of them i pinched back and some flowered like crazy for the butterflies. i cut enough to put away several jars of pesto (and give some away) for the winter. being in texas, i think there should be plenty of warm days left before the first freeze for the plants to bounce back for another round to hoard away for winter.

some of the cut plants.....

toasting the pine nuts in a dry iron skillet....

ta da.............

morning glory mushrooms

what a slow-motion.

cloud-headed. curvy-thinking.

mellow-bodied sunday....

my fence keeps making mushrooms...

you say tomato....

i say weiner...

symbolism at it's best

moth love in the city

planting in the garden around three weeks ago.  

we met.  

to look at him now 

you would never know how

frightening

phallic

lair of the white worm-like

and gross he was.

i picked him up in my gloved hand 

thinking he was a funny turd-shaped rock.

he squirmed.

i screamed.

 and because i'm the best mom. ever.  

i let him live in a jar. in the kitchen. 

this morning i peeked inside like i do every morning and he was!

gone....

cursing and squealing we searched until we found him on the kitchen curtain. 

drying his feathery miracle wings. 

the day we met...

the day we said goodbye....