her able hands

I haven’t felt it this bad in a long time, this Mercury in retrograde wire-crossing madness. Chris and I can’t even have a conversation. It’s as if I’m speaking an alien language and he understands absolutely nothing that is coming out of my mouth. I can’t understand why he doesn’t understand, so I say it again, this time with feeling. Not warm fuzzy feeling, either. My brain can’t seem to call up a different wording, a better way to explain what I’m trying to get across. I just say the same thing, only a little bit louder and with just a touch of venom. Still the blank, exhausted look on his face. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I haven’t spent more than two minutes in the garden all week, and I’m feeling it. The discombobulation. Gardening is my therapy and right now, I need some back-to-back sessions to get myself on track again. But it’s Friday. One more day of institutional, corporate, unintelligible marketing lingo bull crap communication, then five days off. Of course, the middle day is surgery day, and you can measure my level of frustration by the fact that I’m so looking forward to having two days off to get my shoulder sliced like a roll of bologna. I intend to spend great chunks of Saturday and Sunday with my hands stuck in the dirt, not talking at all.

Yes. That’s what I’ll do. A vow of silence until Mercury moves out of retrograde on the 9th. If you need me, I’ll be in the tomato patch, that soft, sweet place just the other side of the woods.

Technorati Tags: garden, mental health, mercury in retrograde, effective communication, therapy

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I needed just a sip of fortification before I got down to business making my first One Local Summer meal. Yesterday was hot, sticky, still, stagnant and stinky. Work sucked the spirit out of me. An iced vodka tonic spritzed me back into shape.

The only thing local in the drink is the ice and the strawberries. But having the drink brought me back home to a local state of mind. Before that I was at the mercy of the waxing moon and Mercury in retrograde, reeling from the confusion and disorganization at work, the total lack of direction that accompanied so many marching orders.

For my first meal, I wanted to go to my local grocery store with a recipe in mind and see what ingredients I could find. My goal: whole grain crust pizza on the grill with a big salad.

I already had the salad covered, the greens beds are just bursting with tender leaves. Anything in the mustard family is quickly going to seed, however, as is the spinach, so I pulled the whole plants, snipped the leaves and tossed the stems to the chickens. Cluck, cluck, yum. Is it too late in the season to start more lettuce? I’m going to give it a try. Fill in the empty spots in the boxes.

So grocery shopping at the local ACME for local ingredients was as disappointing as I expected, but held one surprise. Tucked into the corner of the small fancy cheese case, four or five balls of organic mozzarella. I picked one up, expecting to see California or New Jersey, but no! Right there on the bottom of the front label, Cleveland area dairies! Made in Cleveland, a mere 40 miles from my doorstep. I mentally high-fived the ACME purchasing director for giving local producers a spot in the case. Local and organic.

The flour aisle also had a few choices. I would have been shocked to find locally milled flour. The nearest was central Illinois, non-organic, 50/50 whole grain and white flour. I figure it’s about four or five hundred miles, and I raised my bar for next time. I’ll buy from Frankferd Farms with the neighborhood buying club I got invited to join. They’re 96 miles from my home, in Pennsylvania. They do organic flours, milled on-site with locally sourced grains.

I started the dough (my favorite from Amy’s Bread, but with half whole wheat flour. I used my own young garlic (chopped and worked into the dough with a little cayenne, kosher salt and oregano,) harvested last weekend from the garden at the old house. There’s at least a hundred more bulbs in the ground there (second year plants) that I’ll pull up after the flowers open.

I sliced the zucchini and yellow crookneck, from the Saturday market, into thin ovals, then tossed them with a bit of olive oil and grilled it them. The dough made enough for 3 pizzas. Grill one side of the dough first, turning it to change the direction of the markings, then flip it, brush with olive oil, add toppings.

I was in a bit of a panic about the sauce, but then remembered that I had one more quart jar of slow-roasted tomatoes from 2005. Oh, joy! Juanne Flammées! I couldn’t believe how fresh they tasted after two years in a jar in a basement. Unbelievable.

I sprinkled the grated cheese, dotted it with the grilled squash, the tomatoes, chopped basil and oregano, and a little kosher salt.

I’ll get my food miles lower for next week, but for a first try, I’m very happy with the results. And with the leftovers I had for lunch today!

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The peppers seem to be limping along in the face of the slugs and the beetles. They’re all producing tiny flower buds even though their leaves are a total and complete trainwreck.

Nightshade flowers are so, so dainty. Really, I’m going to have more potatoes than I know what to do with, and need to look at some recipes for the freezer. Then buy a freezer! You can see the 30-foot long tomato trellis in the background. I moved around the volunteers, I guess about 24 of them, and so far so good.

Again, with the photoshop silliness. I don’t know, this one didn’t come out the way it did in my mind…the nightshade in the shade of the giant oaks at dusk. Almost.

I love having a clothesline. Chris installed it two weekends ago and bless him, he’s going to change out the cheap-ass plastic clamps that make the arms extend (two of which busted before we even had the sucker set up) to heavy-duty steel clamps. Why is everything made like such crap any more? I didn’t want a long, rope clothesline going across the yard. I felt like the visual interference would have cut across my sense of stability here, or my creativity. Or something. I like this contained cubic area of energy efficiency. Isn’t the little clothespin bag my mother made so perfect?

I’ve never grown Fava Beans before, and only eaten them once. Truth? I don’t remember what they tasted like. I just love to say the name, Faahvaah Bean. The plants are stunning. So friends, tell me how to cook them!

Can I do anything with them on the grill? Have I mentioned how much I love my grill? I cooked on it both nights this weekend. Sausage and vegetables on Saturday; chicken last night. I never made it out to grocery shop yesterday, so my One Local Summer meal will come later in the week.

I intend to toss a few of these volunteers into the salad that night. So far we’ve got five little patches of re-seeded nasturtium, and thank goodness, because I forgot to plant any.

No shortage of salad greens yet, but the mustard family is going to seed.

My mother in-law came over to eat with us last night. After dinner we sat out on the back steps and chatted while Chris and Lila took Old Tangerine down to the ice cream shop for a couple of pints (Orange Pineapple and Black Raspberry) because I never did manage to do anything with the strawberries and rhubarb. Maybe tonight some muffins and a sauce for homemade vanilla ice cream?

Anyway, mom and I both noticed how luscious the petunias are looking since the nights cooled down a little.

I’m just not a huge fan of annual flowers, but petunias always make me so happy, in spite of the absurd amount of watering and dead blossom pinching they require.

This weekend wasn’t nearly as productive as I had imagined, on paper, with my giant list and grandiose plans. But it was again an exercise in attention. The children needed quite a good deal of my focused energy, and every time I got into a project, something would interrupt. Always something pressingly immediate. I’m apparently still working on the whole surrender thing. Otherwise, why all of the practice runs?

I broke away from my cooking to rub arnica on Ty’s giant, stinky foot. He sprained his ankle pretty badly at a picnic yesterday afternoon, which means for at least a few days Chris and I will be handling his jobs, including taking care of the neighbor’s property and cat while they’re on vacation. One must drop down deep to find the sympathy when faced with a surly young man who thinks his sudden injury requires every waking hour be spent in front of the computer screen playing World of Warcraft. Not happening, buddy. Sorry for your pain, here’s an ice pack and some ibuprofen. And a good book. Password is changed.

As I sat on the toilet lid listening to Lila chirp on about her friends in the neighborhood while she had a bath (mid-afternoon emergency soak and alcohol rubdown, after she went traipsing barefoot through a giant patch of poison ivy) I felt this vein of frustration, of being thwarted. But on and on she sang her sweet song about swinging, and sliding, and how much she loves everyone. I made myself pay attention—let the garden and the filthy, messy, disorganized house all drift away. The tension drained out of me and I couldn’t have cared less if the garden failed again this year as long as she keeps on singing.

So something about feet. I’ll have to think on that a bit.

How was your weekend? Did you learn anything new about yourself?

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Lila was ready for our Saturday trip to the market long before I had showered or made my list for the day.

We set out at 10:00, bags at the ready, the air crispy blue and humidity-free, cool and still. Week two had three more vendors and I had a chance to speak with the market manager about writing a guide to the growers. He seemed thrilled at the prospect, said it’s something he’s wanted to do, but there’s never enough time on top of his day job, going to school and trying to have a life. There’s money for printing in the budget, and another woman who helped start the market is a designer and said she’d lay it out if I write it. I almost said no, don’t worry, I’ll design it, but really, writing it will be a lot of work. I’ll have to interview each of the growers, and set it up in the framework of regional food supply and the history of this area.

Have you seen this magazine in your locale? I wonder what it takes to get one started? You know, in my free time, with all of my free cash.

So another great market haul, with plenty to spruce up my first official One Local Summer meal.

Strawberries and Rhubarb (hello, pie!)
Zucchini and Yellow Crookneck
Red Russian Kale
Broccoli!
Sunflower Bread
Red Butterhead Lettuce
Flowers
Dill
Wild Blueberry Scones
Maple Syrup

I’m running out here shortly to do a quick, Sunday-morning grocery shop. I hope to find some locally produced flour and cheese so I can grill pizza for the first meal. Also on my list, Grass-fed Bison, Amish Chicken and butter.

While out building the rest of the tomato trellis for the volunteers, I spied glinting color waving at me from the corner of the property. Black Caps! The canes along the back edge of the property are specked with tiny berries, it’s been such a dry spring, but for some reason the ones in the corner are bent to the ground with the weight of the massive berries. I’ve never seen Black Raspberries so huge. My best guess is that the dozens of Burdock plants peppered in among the canes are pulling nutrients up and feeding the berries.

Not enough to make a Black Cap Crumble, but my goodness, the snacking was sweet.

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I could…

go out to the garden and…

- build the rest of the bamboo trellis for the volunteer tomatoes
- plant french green beans and burgundy bush beans
- start a few trays of basil in seed starter mix, because the stuff I planted in the garden beds isn’t sprouting
- work on one of the ten writing projects I have going
- transplant the summer squash that’s finally coming up, but far too many to a hill
- plant more beets, chard & kale
- make a salad
- switch the laundry
- clean the living room

What I think I’ll do…

- enjoy the quiet (Chris and Lila off to pick up burritos for dinner, Ty next door helping Grandma)
- sit on the porch swing in the evening sun and read the latest issue of Cottage Living

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