Summer scenes

I love that even when I feel like I don't have anything to write about, when I feel like I haven't made any "progress" on the house or the sewing projects or the flower garden, I can walk outside with my camera and see the progress of the season.

This week: loaded blueberry bushes. The birds (waxwings?) nesting in the honeysuckle have hatchlings. The currants are ripe; the birds are thrilled. Maybe next year they'll get made into jam, or dried for baking. Deer have found my garden, and are eating beets, beans, chard, and peas. And stripping the new growth off my apple trees. Friends providing a barrage of helpful deer-repellent tricks give me courage...

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Let me tell you

Let me tell you about Mrs. Frewert. I never met her, but I know a lot about her. She owned this house before we did, and you can absorb a lot about your home's previous owners just by looking around. In a town like Gilbertsville, you learn via osmosis, too: from older neighbors, from friends, from family members who still live in town. "Which house did you buy?" folks will ask, when we announce we've just moved to town. 

I used to say, "Oh, the big gray one across from the Park." Which was usually rewarded with blank stares.

Now I say, "Used to be the Frewerts'." Bingo; immediate recognition. 

Mrs. Frewert liked dainty wallpaper, and stained glass, and flower gardening. Above all else, however, she liked bearded irises.

There are bearded irises everywhere. Overgrown, choked with weeds, in full shade where they'll never bloom, in full sun where they bloom like the dickens, clustered around maples in the yard and around outbuildings and birdhouse poles. 

I began (slowly) overhauling the flower beds this weekend. Above is the before picture. It's a big job. And, don't get me wrong, I love bearded iris. When they bloomed a couple of weeks ago, the sunny bed along the side of the house resembled a jewel box: tourmaline, topaz, amethyst. Covered in morning dew, they glittered in the sun. But. Enough is enough. I have my own designs for the house's flower beds, and though I love iris, I also understand too much of a good thing. I am relegating the irises to the side of the garage (opposite the compost bin), chopping their huge, knobby rhizomes into neat little chunks, and giving a lot of them away on the side of the road. 

You want some?

And then I'll dig out (probably) fifteen years' worth of overgrown weeds, and fill those beds up again with foxglove, coreopsis, cranesbill, coral bells, and lady's mantle. What are your flower bed favorites? Anyone want to send me a pre-paid shipping box to stuff with irises? How about seven? How about seventy?

Updates shall be forthcoming.

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Vegetarian for Beginners: Roasted Potatoes, Eggs, & Greens

Maybe it's because I've been meeting lots of new neighbors, but lately I've found myself explaining my husband's vegetarianism a lot. It's a practical conversation: what does he eat, they want to know. Don't I, a willing carnivore, get tired of dulling down my cooking to suit his taste? It's made me more mindful, and also a little proud, especially when the meal involves stuff from the garden. It's got me thinking.

The hardest thing about cooking vegetarian, I think, is the lack of a main character. Working with meat, it's a foregone conclusion that the chops or the roast or the steak is going to be the star of the show: everything else is just a side-plot. Building a vegetarian meal is more like picking a soccer team. You want a good striker, a good sweeper, a good goalie, and lots of strong and capable wing-people. This meal is like that: a trifecta of simple foods so comforting the absence of meat isn't noticeable.

We cook this a lot: in the summertime with fresh-from-the-garden chard or beet greens; in the wintertime with frozen spinach or kale. It'll work with escarole, collards, and just about any other dark leafy green you can name. Potatoes and fresh or frozen greens are always available, so the meal tastes good and in-season all year. 

The "Recipe"

Potatoes

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees while you cube as many potatoes as will fit in your biggest roasting pan. Keeping the potatoes spread out in a single layer will ensure crispness. Add one or two tablespoons of olive oil-- enough to keep things from sticking to the pan-- and a liberal sprinkle of salt, pepper, and maybe some dried rosemary or dill if you're feeling fancy. Roast, turning the potatoes every 10-15 minutes or so, until done, about thirty minutes.

Meanwhile...

Greens

Warm some olive oil in a big frying pan, and toss in a sliced clove of garlic. Add as much rinsed, stemmed, roughly chopped greens as will fit, and set the lid on the pan. Greens reduce, a lot, when they cook-- once the greens wilt down you can add more to the pan, if desired. Cook tender greens like spinach a mere two or three minutes, and tough kale ten minutes or longer. Splash a little balsamic vinegar over, salt, pepper, and serve.

Eggs

Cook two eggs per person, however you like 'em. If you cook them once-over easy, you can let the yolks break over the crispy roasted potatoes, which is about as close to heaven as it gets... just my humble opinion, of course.

Enjoy!

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Lush mini-jungle

Two weeks is a long time, in June. Two weeks ago, I posted a picture of the garden, and exclaimed, it's come a long way in two weeks! Now, predictably, I look back on that photo and roll my eyes: that was impressive? Oh b-b-baby, that was nothing.

Everything is looking so good. So freaking good. Considering I basically threw everything in the ground, with zero compost and the bare minimum of tilling, and now there's this lush mini-jungle of a garden happening, I am seriously impressed. 

The only pests I've experienced so far are flea beetles, which are fortunately more of an aesthetic annoyance than anything else. The arugula is fine; holey, but fine. It still tastes good.

Thrillingly, we've begun eating from the garden, as well. Mostly salads (YAY salads!) so far, but last night I made creamed kale (yes, creamed kale), and next week we'll be eating peas.

Latest pea harvest ever, but hey, better late than never, right? I love this time of year.

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Second-longest day of the year

Returning is a wonderful thing, isn't it? I've been walking around all month, it seems, shaking my head and saying, goodness, it's so good to be back! I left my parents' farm when I was eighteen, lived in cities for eight years, and now I'm back to re-embrace everything I loved growing up. The soundtrack sounds something like reunited and it feels so good, reunited cuz we understood...


It's a pretty sappy time right now. Just ask Patrick.

Things are different for me in a rural place. The background murmur of city traffic--constant but not unpleasant-- is absent, now, and unexpectedly it seems there's a lot more room in my brain, in my senses, for other things. I notice things.

The flea beetles that turn my arugula to green Swiss cheese shine like little jewels in the leaves. The oriole's orange plumage is billboard-bright; his flight into the birches is the most dramatic moment of my day. Everywhere there's something to take interest in: a new weed, a new bug, a birdsong.

Some folks might miss their old friends or their favorite hometown restaurant that went out of business. I just miss the charms of weird little bugs and interesting weeds and bright orioles.

Just about every day I think of a new reason to be happy we're here. This is the life.

Tomato-Feta Pita Pizzas with Arugula (one of our favorite summer meals)

Arrange tomato slices on pitas, and adorn each one with a sprinkle of feta. Toss the arugula with a drizzle of olive oil, some salt, pepper, and a squirt of lemon. Put a quarter-cup of balsamic vinegar in an empty glass jar, and microwave for two minutes. Grill the pitas for five minutes or so, until the bottoms are crispy. Place on a plate, drizzle the balsamic "syrup" over, and top with arugula. 

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Weekend

Summer so far has been a bell curve of busy weekends, and I'm pleased to say that we are on the down-slope now. Sunday Patrick and I had our first day off together since mid-May. And for the first time since November, we spent it doing something other than working on the house!

We made pancakes.

We went to Cooperstown.

We had cold Chardonnay and arugula salad for lunch.

We drove home. Patrick mowed; I weeded.

Then, we grilled.

It was abso-freakin-lutely perfect.

Where did the weekend take you?

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In the bin

Chalk it up to my proud pedigree: I'm a cabinet maker's daughter, and I loves me some power tools. There are women, lots of women, who get to their happy place in other, more domestic ways. And well, I get to my happy place in some pretty domestic ways too. You might even say socially acceptable ways. But this, this isn't one of them. 

I'm pretty sure church sermons have been made linking the decline of society with the rise in women's empowerment. Which is probably why I was smiling like an idiot, wielding my Sawzall out on the lawn yesterday.

I built a compost bin. I said I would, and I did.

A long section of fence had been leaning drunkenly since March. The fence separates the back of our lawn from the swampy meadow beyond, but doesn't serve any real purpose. So, rather than repair said fence, I repurposed the sagging section. And now we have a compost bin. 

Note to self: must do more projects which involve power tools...

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