Nashville.

A word of advice: if you don't like country music, you might want to skip this post. We had a week steeped in Hank Williams and Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard, with the occasional Patsy Cline and Loretta Lynn sprinkled in for good measure. It was BLISSFUL.
In the beginning, though, there was naught but anticipation. This is what a 14-hour drive does to me, apparently:

But then, thrillingly, we were delivered. Sunday morning, we went to "church" (an early morning gospel show) at Robert's Western World on lower Broadway, and looking back at the pictures, it seems like we spent the whole week there. 

It is awesome. From 11am to 2am every day, you can walk in, find a comfy seat at the bar, order a PBR, and hear all those golden old country songs. Mama Tried. Jambalaya. Folsom Prison Blues. All the musicians were first-rate, everyone knew how to sing and how to perform and how to banter between songs. There is all manner of wonderful stuff on the walls, a pressed-tin ceiling, and a wall of shelving with cowboy boots for sale. And that mural... well...
We spent a lot of time on lower Broadway (the center of town, where all the honkytonks are) and it was so comforting to know we had a default activity-- if we ever found ourselves bored, or irritable, we could go sit at Robert's and be soothed.

We also found a fun blues club on Printer's Alley-- a nice change-of-pace from all the 3/4 time and drawly choruses, when we needed one.
During the day, we saw the city. It's tiny. Everything worth seeing downtown is concentrated around four square blocks; everything worth seeing in East Nashville is the same way. We visited Gruhn's Guitars on South 8th, which was Patrick's idea. There are fabric stores that make my heart pitter-patter, that feel spiritual... and I can only assume this here guitar store affected my sweetie in a similar fashion.

We went to the zoo, and the Tennessee State Museum. We got hand-dipped milkshakes and did a Civil War walking tour. I bought boots; Patrick got a beautiful Western shirt. I ate chicken and waffles and fried green tomatoes.
Inevitably, though, we found ourselves back at Robert's, staring into our beers. 

Just look at that sign. How could it not be good, with a sign like that? I ask you.

This was my favorite band of the week-- Rachael Hester and the Tennessee Walkers. The only complaint I will make about lower Broadway is this: there aren't enough female-fronted bands! I love Ring of Fire and Crazy Arms as much as the next hillbilly, but I want to hear You Ain't Woman Enough to Take my Man, too. Watching this band set up, noting the chick singer and the fiddle player and, oh my, is that Chris Scruggs on guitar? Oh my. I put a five in the tip jar and requested Faded Love, my very favorite Patsy cover. I may have gotten a little teary, but I swear that was the beer's fault.
Ahem. Where were we? Oh right. Tuesday night, we got a little fancied up, and I was able to take a picture of Patrick and I without him flipping the camera the bird. 

We went to F. Scott-- definitely the toniest place we ate all week. And then, the infamous Bluebird Cafe.

It was definitely an experience. It's as intimate as everyone tells you-- I took this shot from our table, I didn't have to zoom or anything. But what they don't tell you is while Robert's is a goofy pasture where the wannabe cowboys roam free-range, the Bluebird is essentially a music industry feedlot. The songs were all originals, but so thoroughly steeped in the shallow, pop-song style of corporate country music... well, it wasn't our scene. One had a refrain of Hey Ya'll Hey Ya'll. The performers were all really talented, but forced into the very narrow confines of what sells on country radio these days. Still, part of the well-rounded Nashville experience. We high-tailed it to Robert's immediately, and drowned our sorrows.
If it wasn't for Gillian Welch and Jason Isbell and Kacey Musgraves, I'd be convinced that country music is dead forever.
Anyway.
All too quickly, we came to our last night in town. How could this be? 
I felt so aligned with this town, even with all its cheeseball charm. I loved its neon signs and river view and walkability and adorable little bungalow neighborhoods. Patrick and I talked about staying another night-- "we've got another $109 for the room, right?"-- and we talked about having Del shipped to us in a mailing tube. And we talked about the day when I'm rich and famous and we can have an apartment here.

Sigh. We walked over to check out the Shelby Street bridge over the Cumberland, for pedestrians only, which ended up being a dreamy-perfect swan song. Look at that damn view.

And then, of course, the photo shoot. 

Damn him! Good thing he's cute, or there'd be trouble.

And then, one last shot of Lower Broadway at night, and home to bed. 
What a fabulous trip. Our hotel room was awesome, we had HGTV, we only ate one bad meal, it only rained a little, and in the meantime, we had the city to explore, and each other. 
And now I'm home, back to facing down deadlines and blanching green beans and loving my Delmer-dog (who missed us terribly, but definitely bonded with my parents). It's a good life, but so nice to get away ever once-in-awhile. I left a piece of my heart in an empty PBR can atop a barstool at Robert's.
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Garden eating: July

Before July totally passes us by, I'm going to sneak in with another installment in my Garden Eating series. (June's installment here.) Early July was beets beets beets, and now we've abruptly fallen through the trap door into zucchini-and-green-beans 24/7. Grilled zucchini, shredded zucchini, zucchini pizza... it's all there. The above was just grilled zukes over pasta with a garlic-oregano vinaigrette and some feta. So easy.

Steamed beets and potatoes over greens with green goddess dressing.

Pasta with white beans, garden broccoli, tomatoes, and lots of garlic.

My very favorite summer vegetable soup. The picture might say otherwise, but this actually conceals a lot of zucchini in the base. Every summer I hope for a chilly night so I can justify making this soup-- this week we had a 46-degree night! Perfect soup weather.

And... zucchini pizza with more beans and more broccoli. This recipe is such a winner-- I know I've blogged it before. 
Forgive me for not linking to it right this hot minute.
I need to go and pack. We leave in ELEVEN HOURS. Hot damn. I will be back in this space Monday, 8/5, with photos and tales to tell. Nashville, here we COME.
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Thinking of fall

I am not someone who goes into denial about the end of summer. I forget what the topic was, but the other night I found myself in a vivid, pleasant fall dream, and woke in the early morning thinking about sweater tights and canning applesauce and making soup. It was lovely. Fall is like the Olympic podium for gardeners-- if all goes well-- and you stand and wave, and maybe someone gives you a bouquet of flowers for pulling out the Gold Medal in Kale, when the odds were against you and you'd sprained your wrist in training three weeks ago. 
I almost always win the Gold Medal in Kale.
This summer, I am also close to medalling (meddling?) in basil, beans, garlic, parsnips, and, thrillingly, tomatoes. Some of those plants of mine are absolutely loaded, and the string support system I'm using is working great.
But anyway, fall. This is time of year I start thinking about fall. I've sowed rows of fall carrots and beets and more parsnips, and chard and mustard and broccoli raab (experiment!) too. Last year's winter garden did so well, I'm trying everything again, and then some. This morning the air is cool and dry, the high is only 70 degrees, and I forget every year how just the air makes such a difference in my attitude for the day. Cool and dry = get out there and sweat.

Chard babies.

I pulled our garlic the other night, my first-ever homegrown, and it was stupendous. I'm not sure if there will be enough to plant for next year and enough for us to eat all winter long, but time will tell.

Calendula.

I planted a metric ton of beans this year. I have two small plantings of bush beans (Provider) to eat as green beans, staggered by about three weeks (which is great). I also have about 60 linear feet of these, above, a variety called Maine Yellow Eye, which are supposed to be grown and dried on the vine and shelled out for soup beans. I'm not sure if it's overly optimistic or just pure fantasy to think Patrick and I might sit around the fire in January shelling out beans and drinking wine... mmm... well, we'll see.

In the meantime, it's nice to dream.
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Humbled

I'm pretty sure the fates were listening the other night, when I got on Facebook and started semi-bragging about how my deer fence was working and my green beans were gorgeous. You have to be careful, when you're farming or gardening or homesteading, to not slip from satisfaction into smugness.
Saturday we went to Grassroots for the day. It's a big four-day music festival near Ithaca; camping there for all four days and muddy night used to be religion for Patrick and I. So there I was, meeting a friend of a friend, talking gardens and chickens and predation. And there it was: "We've got our chicken coop built into our garage," I said, "so there's an extra layer of protection." Satisfaction slipped to smugness, right there too.

We were gone all day, and most of the night. We got home at 3 am, and Genevieve and Patsy were nowhere to be found.

I am absolutely heartsick for them both. Yes, they're chickens, but it's incredible how caring for them and talking to them over the course of a year can make you love them. We shared so much of our story with them-- especially Genevieve, who I was so sure would outlive them all. Genevieve, who could fly even with her wings clipped, and was, I'm pretty sure, part Racing Chicken. And Patsy, the sweetest, most docile girl. 
Sigh. Losing chickens is such a conflicting experience. On one hand, it's a fairly regular occurrence. Chickens are tasty; lots of critters like to eat them. In one year we've lost four: one to the road, one to a dog running loose, and now these two. They're chickens, they're prey, they're uncomplicated animals that are easy to raise and have the emotional depth of a head of cabbage. So I try to accept it: we're going to be here a long time. Chickens are going to come and go, many many chickens, and there will be loss and we will live through it.
And on the other hand, trivializing the experience like that just feels so wrong. The guilt comes seeping in. The guilt and responsibility: we could've gotten home earlier, we could've asked a neighbor to close them up for us, but we didn't. That is even harder than the heartsickness. 
In the end, I have to tell myself that any life lived on this place, no matter how short or how badly ended, is worth living. It's that way for me, and for Patrick, and I know for our cats and our dog. I can only assume our chickens-- deep in their cabbage-brains-- felt the same way. 
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Bits of news, and plotting our escape

So, ahem, where were we? It has been incredibly hot. Tonight we have a date with Patrick's parents' pool, and tomorrow the high temp is only 77, so we're closing out the heat wave in style. I'd be totally fine if the rest of the summer stayed between 75 and 80. Moving on. Raspberries. Ahem. I have been dutifully picking the cup or so of ripe berries per day, and I have been making shrub. Maybe some husbands are lucky enough to have wives who make raspberry pie, or cake, or at least jam, but my husband has a wife who likes to stew her raspberries with vinegar and sugar and pour it over ice cubes with soda water. Has anyone else ever tried this? It's awesome. Here's a recipe. It's best to use Bragg's apple cider vinegar, as they say in the recipe, but really any cider vinegar will work. A few sips feels like the perfect tonic on a hot summer night-- light, crisp, full of good-- and, this may be a complete coincidence, but the mosquitoes seem to leave me alone when I have a glass of shrub in my hand. Hmmm.

Those old-fashiony drinks, man. There's a reason they caught on, and it usually goes beyond taste.

Two years ago I bought a slew of death's-door perennials at a July greenhouse closeout sale. I bought delphiniums and sea holly, and stuck them in this bed together. Where they are doing just swimmingly, without any help at all. And I'm loving how the gray-plumminess of the sea holly whispers to the alice blue of the delphs. Whisperwhisperwhisper. 

We have eaten zucchini every night this week. I am proud. I am a little tired. Tonight I am trying a spin on these, summer squash waffles (squaffles?), though I won't be making them vegan... just because. Waffles should include butter in them, at least in this house. There's a line in a favorite cookbook of mine about waffles, about how low-fat waffles don't, or shouldn't exist, because without the proper amount of fat you don't get the custardy innards. Any cookbook with enough spine to stand up proper and espouse the virtues of fat has my respect. Moving on.

Our freezer looks like this. I'm not one to say OMG, but. OMG. It is July, people, and I need to plug in my chest freezer!  I have a chest freezer that could hold a dead body. I make a point of emptying it out each spring and unplugging it (usually in April, after we've eaten through our winter stores), and it rests for a few months before fall comes along and I need the space for bags of frozen peppers or tomatoes or cauliflower. This summer, I started freezing earlier than ever-- and more intently than ever-- and so our fridge-freezer is now bursting, two months ahead of "schedule." Peas and zucchini and broccoli and kale and spinach and beet greens, oh my. Oh my. Last night I froze my first gallon of green beans, which was officially the coffin nail. So there's that.

There's also these guys. I can't believe how big they're getting. They've stopped peeping and are in that awkward and very comic stage where they make this dumb honking noise every time they try to cluck. The two buffs-- June and Maybelle-- are totally docile and gentle and have caught on very nicely to the standard practice of how to be a chicken.  Emmy, on the other hand. Oh, Emmy. Since the beginning she's been a... special case. I would pick up a buff, and it would freak out for two seconds before it figured I wasn't trying to kill it. Emmy never seems to come to any such realization. She flaps and struggles and honks and flaps and struggles whenever I pick her up. When everyone comes in to eat, she stands outside on the ramp making a sound not unlike a party noisemaker stuck in a trash compacter, piteously, until I walk around the other side and stuff her ass in there with the others. I've taken to calling her, lovingly but insensitively, pollo retardo, because-- I'm sorry, but she's a chicken-- I need something help myself cope with her stupids. We love our chickens, but they can be an awful lot of work. Funny work. Work that you get paid back for when they start laying. But still, work.
Ok. last little bit of news. We are leaving for NASHVILLE in eight days. I have insane writing deadlines right now, and I'm trying to get in as much of the garden as I can before we leave (though I have arranged for a garden-sitter), but this morning I woke up and said to Patrick, "One week..." and felt that intoxicating giddy-dizzy feeling you get before a big, long-awaited trip. We have five nights in a hotel on Music Row. Next week I am going to get us reservations at the Bluebird, if it kills me. I have wanted this trip, and been looking forward to this trip, since I met Patrick. Before that. Since I was in Nashville with my parents, at twelve, and realized, even then, that I was holding them back. Oh, sweet vacation. How I hear you callin'...

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Height of summer

Well, we're here. Yesterday I picked zucchini, green beans, and raspberries: the defining three crops of mid-July in this part of the country. I like that. I like that my life here can be defined by the crops of the moment, and their accompanying harvesting and cooking duties. 
I've been offering a small prayer to the Bean Gods every night before I head in to bed. Remember last year, when the deer breached the fence and gobbled my crop? They waited. They knew. They timed it so my plants were as loaded with beans as they were going to get, and then, they leapt. That was the night of July 12, 2012, so I've been waiting with baited breath as the nights tick slowly by and beans ripen... and no hoof-prints appear in the dirt. I am hopinghopinghoping the extra strand of wire all around keeps them out out out, but I am taking nothing for granted. 

Meanwhile, this little garden is looking pretty cute, for its first year in existence. The bishop's weed, which I anticipated would be sprouting all summer, is pretty much gone, even from around the roots of the currants where I couldn't dig it out. Take that. In its place, I have a lovely showy rudbeckia, and some silvery-leaved chamomile relative, and variegated pineapple mint, and two little lavenders. I planted a "beneficial insect attractant mix" on the right, which has turned out to be a fun combination of buckwheat, mini sunflowers, basil, dill, cilantro, and some clover species. I'm not sure it's luring praying mantids and lacewings and ladybugs, like I imagined it would, but it is kind of pretty all the same. 

It's just the beginning, but I can see how it's going to be.
Similarly, it's just the beginning of zucchini season, but I can see how it's going to be. BLOOMING NUTS.

I gave one to my neighbor Jody, and three to my mother-in-law. I have three gallons of frozen shredded already, and we've eaten them in ten meals in two weeks. Tonight is cold pasta salad with grilled zucchini, tomorrow is stuffed zucchini in tomato broth. I'm not ready to yell for help yet, but... I may reach that point! 

In the rest of the garden, the tomatoes are slowly swelling, the calendula (left side of the middle bed above) is about to bloom, the fennel (right side) is looking mighty nice, and my rows of mustard and bok choy and broccoli raab I sowed to replace the now-eaten beets are coming through. 

Some little tasks are starting to build up this week, which makes me a little anxious. But in this heat, and with these deadlines, I just have to let the garden be, for most of each day. I spend a few minutes in the foggy mornings, and maybe an hour before bed, but that is really all I can muster. Today it will be 91. It's 74 in the house, and headed nowhere pleasant, I imagine. 

Sigh. I'm thinking Del and I might have a date with the creek tonight.
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