Category Archives: In the Garden

Scotched by Short Straws

23 Thursday Jan 2014

Posted by in Far Away Places, In the Garden, Life at Home

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–at home, currently reading “Someone: A Novel”, by Alice McDermott

Just as we settle into one way of living, opportunity knocks…and my better half is off to the (rat) races again.  That rat.

Which means that we’re taking a month-long hiatus from retirement … with me living home alone in the core of a busy city… and he, at some faraway solitary hotel surrounded by sand dunes and the Persian Gulf.  Early reports inform that there is nothing to do there.  Nothing around for miles…except for a few shops.  Alas, a shopper he is not.

To my way of thinking, it seems my darling husband has drawn the short straw this time around, no matter which way the straw is sliced… whether in comparison to other business destinations he’s traveled to… or whether the other slice consists of staying home with me.  What will be interesting to learn… is whether or not said short straw is the last straw… that is, whether this straw is enough to break the camel’s back of all future business travel.  I can only confess that I’m glad I’m here… rather than there… even though it means that we will be apart for thirty-one days, by the time our scotched retiring days resume.

It amazes me, in a way, to think that it wasn’t that long ago that my husband always had some business trip up his starched sleeve. Why it wasn’t unusual for him to be away one week out of every month.  While I can’t say I ever liked his being away, I was always content to remain home rather than accompany him.  Even when he visited the likes of Thailand and Beijing and Hong Kong, I was glad to stay behind.

In former days, there were good reasons to remain home. There were children to raise.  Then there was my taxing career … those heavy reading and writing and arithmetic riddled days of international tax consulting.  In later days, there were a host of time-consuming volunteer activities.  And later still, the flimsier excuses of my gardening and home remodeling projects.

In other words, I had no true interest in joining him on his business travels.  I knew that I’d be on my own much of the time — since he’d be tied up with business during the days… and many evenings, too.  And since my past experiences with traveling solo proved to be more exciting in theory than in practice… it was easy to stay home.

Travel disorients me.  So much so that I once disembarked a Swiss train at the wrong place and time… and ended up admonishing myself for almost an hour, while lugging heavy bags and walking the tracks to the next station in hopes of getting back on track.  Then there was the time I was persuaded to take a “private” taxi cab out of La Guardia one cold wintry night, realizing too late I was not traveling in a licensed cab at all.  Even now, I can recall that feeling of tremendous relief when I arrived at my hotel alive and all in one piece… even with my sense of peace shattered in pieces.

I could go on…. but why humiliate myself?  Suffice it to say that Rick Steves would never hire me.  And that without my husband beside me as tour guide and companion, I’m fairly certain that I’d never have dared to traveled to most of the places he and I’ve been privileged to experience together.  Italy.  Ireland.  Australia.  New Zealand.  Alaska.  England.  Paris, more than once.  Greece… later this year.

But as I write these thoughts, I see that maybe there is no long straw to be had… this time around.  There is only short… and shorter.  Because home feels less like home without my husband’s presence.  And, though wonderfully busy by day, life at home these last few evenings makes me feel as if I, too, am off living in a foreign land.

Enough with writing (or is it whining?) about short straws and solo travels in foreign places….and time to offer a bit of redeeming space for a recipe for my husband’s favorite butterscotch cream pie.  No short straws with this lovely pie … no matter how it’s sliced.

Enjoy.

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Butterscotch Cream Pie

3 cups milk
2 egg yolks
1/3 cup cornstarch, scant a tsp.
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2/3 cup butterscotch chips, softened in microwave*
1/2 tsp vanilla
2 Tbsp butter
 
9 inch baked pastry shell

Mix eggs yolks and milk in a bowl and set aside.  Soften chips in microwave — medium setting for 70 plus seconds, until creamy when stirred.  In a large sauce pan, mix all dry ingredients with a whisk.   Stir in milk and eggs.  Mix well and heat on medium high heat, stirring constantly.   Mixture will thicken in 5 to 7 minutes.  When thickened, add vanilla, butter and softened butterscotch, stirring constantly.  When completely mixed, pour into baked pie shell.  Serve with whipped cream.  Keep leftovers refrigerated.

*Note:  I use Guittard Butterscotch Chips

The Right Word

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in In the Garden, Life at Home, The Great Outdoors

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The difference between the almost right and the right word is really a large matter — it’s the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.  — Mark Twain

In spite of appearances to the contrary, my standard poodle Max is inspired to action by the right words.

And aren’t we all?

Like today, for instance.  Today my right words were Curly Dock — which I learned was the name of the mystery plant growing in my east garden for the past year — the very one I watered when it wilted in last summer’s triple digit temperatures, the one I was so happy to see survive our mild winter intact, the one I’ve been observing every little bit this spring, waiting to see how it would develop and what it would become.

Today I learn it’s a weed.  The perennial kind, hard to remove, because it has a long, thin tap root that snaps apart when handled.  It lives in the east garden where nice hollyhocks and feathery cypress vine and forever four o’clocks thrive.   No way did this resemble a weed to my eye, since its form was almost fern-like.  It was only a few days ago I became suspicious, when she sprouted an ugly set of flower stalks.  Enough so that I decided to take time to identify her by name this morning.  And dig up what I could.  And to walk away, knowing I will only be able to remove it, once-for-all, with help of chemicals.

“Chemicals are our friend,” my chemical engineer husband tells me all the time.  Though I try not to use pesticides in my gardening, he’s right about chemicals, when it comes to Max.  Finally, after months of searching for the just right cocktail of medicines, Max is growing like a weed.  Last November’s scary scarecrow look — when he reached a low of 36 plus pounds — is gone.  I pray for ever.  Today, thanks to the just right dose of chemicals, he carries close to 50 pounds on his princely form.

To say he carries does not imply an overly active dog however.  That would be his sister dogs Maddie and Cosmo.  No, Max prefers to carry his heavy load why lying around.  Like this morning.   When I was attempting to remove Curly Dock from my garden, this curly dog of mine was far removed from dirt and bugs and weeds – lying high up on the back porch, under the comforting cool shade of the Cherry Laurel.

But speak the right word and this prissy poodle of mine will move like a bolt of lightning. No lazy lightning bug flittering about , mind you — when he hears the word “hungry?”, it’s better to get out of the way fast to avoid being mowed over.  I don’t know why we burden the word, hungry, with a question mark.  But this I know: while it’s good to mow down most weeds, it’s better to be mowed down by at least one.

It’s the difference between Curly Dock and curly dog.

Right as Rain

20 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Home Restoration, In the Garden, Life at Home, Mesta Park, Soul Care, The Great Outdoors

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It’s been raining like clockwork — as in spring forward brings spring showers brings Spring indeed.  The lawn is greening, perennials are pushing through soil, bulbs are blooming — or swelling and swooning with bud — while shrubs and trees attempt to steal the lime-light wearing their best feathery green fringe.  Not just in name, Spring is truly here.

What difference a year can bring.

After last year’s drought, I can’t imagine ever regarding rainfall as anything other than the miracle it is.  These days, when I hear the first pinging upon roof vents, everything else gives way.  I can think of nothing better to do than peek out windows and doorways to watch drops of all sizes hit hard scape like a dart board. Dot. Dot. Dot.  The single circles of sound dissolve into a symphony of crackling static; random raindrops swirl to spill liquid, coloring outside of their lines to cover every speck of visible surface.  When it reaches ground, it finally smells like rain — that inexplicably sweet, dampened earth mixed around seed and root that transforms a garden into a dwelling of possibilities.

It’s hard not to look outside without thinking about the changes this small urban property has seen in the last twelve months.  Yesterday marked one-year of ownership.  I no longer think about that uprooting from Mesta Park or the reasons that spurred our twenty block migration north. And while it’s true my bad knee needed a one-story home, I now like to think that this 1950s California Ranch needed me too.

By the time we closed on the purchase, this property had been through a bit of a drought too;  its owners had moved away to greener pastures long before selling it.  And though the house was never ugly to my eye, others didn’t share my opinion.  Why even at first glance, my own dear sister wanted to know what I was going TO DO about those front porch shrubs.  Like every other shrub planted without rhyme or repetition, these were starched crisp at attention in military crew-cut formation…and less I forget, my ‘meet and greet’ plantings were a mismatched set of Mutt and Jeff.

Before - Southwest Elevation

After - Southwest Elevation

To say the house didn’t ‘show well’ perhaps explains why it languished on the market for a year before we came along.  To borrow words of one new neighbor — the same who walks by my house everyday, just to track the transformations taking place — it had a bad case of the blahs when she saw it during ‘open house.’

After - Southwest Elevation - Closer Perspective

No one says that anymore.

After - Looking Southwest from Front Porch

The all too-many-to-recount changes were created through good, old-fashioned elbow grease — what I once thought my grandmother kept under her kitchen sink —  during the worst drought I’ve ever experienced.

Before - Southeast Elevation

Some changes were subtle while others were expansive.  Yet all were important.  And if I were to do it all again — heaven help me —  I’m not sure what I’d do different.  At least, that’s MY story.  Which is not to say this place is perfect or ever will be.

After - Southeast Elevation

But I’ll crawl out on one of my green-leafed limbs to say it’s perfect enough — perfect enough to last me the rest of my life.  And though I can’t point a finger at the reasons why, I know that the gifts of renewal I’ve showered upon this place have somehow strengthened me too.

We’ve bonded, this house and me, project by messy project.

Why to say this place feels as right as rain, after a long hard drought means something to me this year that it didn’t last.  It means I’m home, darling, in a way that has nothing to do with labels.