The deer and the damage done

Oooh, it is so hard to be fighting demons you thought you'd beaten for the last time.
But of course, with homesteading there is never a "last time," because those critters are working just as hard and fast as you are to outsmart your every last line of defense. 

Sigh. 
They stayed OUT, last year. ALL last year. But not this year. One morning I woke up and the fence was broken-- maybe from a storm, or maybe the deer snapped it. But either way, they took advantage of the break, and were able to learn what was inside this wonderful Eden of mine. A friend called it a "candy bowl." Exactly. The next night, they came back, with friends. And the night after that. Admittedly, I was a little slow on the uptake. But in the beginning, I had confidence that just repairing the old system was going to do the trick. Not so. Once they learn what's inside, they work harder at getting to it. Little by little, my beans were whittled away. Little by little, all my green tomatoes disappeared. 

Sunday morning, I came in from a first-thing-in-the-morning check (after replacing all the wire) and pancaked onto our bed with a defeated howl. "Uhhh-oh," said Patrick.
Later that day, I attached 3-foot stakes to the tops of the fence posts, and ran twine all the way around, at two levels. That worked for a night. Then, Monday, one of them figured out it could break the perimeter wire and pull itself over the gate, under the twine. 
Tuesday morning was not a happy morning. After I'd built up those reinforcements Sunday, I figured I was done. Like, "if this don't stop them, nothing will!" And they were like, "Not not NOT!" So I spiderwebbed the middle level of twine with the top of the fencing, all the way around. And I stapled some fencing to the top of the gate.

I am praying that I have won the war. It does not seem that they can jump this high. And the perimeter wire does seem to slow them down-- they have to break that before they can do anything else. And I just replaced all the perimeter wire with 18 gauge stuff. And it is HARD to break! 
But, I'm rattled. My confidence in my system is gone. But after the confidence is gone, the learning can begin. Oh, these lessons. These sometimes hard and sometimes lovely lessons.
Phoosh.
I am reminding myself that it is only July 9th. Many people wait until the 1st to even PLANT their beans, and, provided the &#%ers stay out for the rest of the season (this increasingly feels like a very tall order) mine have plenty of time to recover. There will be a crop. They did not touch the zucchini, or the potatoes, or the kale. (I might have encouraged them if they'd eaten the peas!) 
Cross your fingers for me, please. 
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A pretty spot

Hi!
We had a fine weekend-- pretty mellow as Fourth-of-July weekends go. I went with Patrick to his all-day Independence Day gig, and watched fireworks. Saturday and Sunday I did yard and garden stuff, took it easy, got a little sunburned, y'know, good summer stuff. 
The dramas of the weekend were Del's hot spots-- icky awful oozy pussy things he seems to be prone to during the hottest weeks of the summer-- and the damn DEER, who managed to find a way into my garden. So our weekend had its moments of feeling daunted and grossed-out and irate (the DEER) but now, with an embiggened fence (update on Wednesday) and a lot of hydrogen peroxide and Gold Bond powder we have both situations under control. 
And I got to make Del an Elizabethan collar out of some blue-and-white ticking I had in the stash, and his poor self-pity face, when it's not making me sad for him, is quite hysterical. 
So anyway, instead of pictures of my bean-stumps (sobs and tears and tears and more sobs) or pictures of poor Del, I will give you pictures of my flower garden. 
This is the first year the garden itself is really starting to look good. I never realized how long a road "decent" can be when you start with a blank slate. Also, the depth of the bed is daunting. I've done lots of two-foot-wide foundation plantings-- those I can handle. This is a whole different ball game, and it's shady. 
But this was the before...

...and though the garden does look a lot better in person, in the pictures above you can see the snowball bush that's getting tall enough to hide our fuel tank fill pipe, and and the pretty leaves of everything, and the foamflower that's blooming against the rich purple ligularia leaves... oh, it is all so pretty out there. The two hydrangeas I planted on either side of the porch did not die, over the course of the long hard winter, and are now rebounding triumphantly. 
It certainly has come a long way from weeds-and-sedum-and-a-few-ferns-and-more-weeds, and that is satisfying. A total transformation.

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Luscious.

I bring to you today slightly different view of garden from alternate garden-view window (the guest room).

Because this is view from usual garden view window (office).
We are overdue for a garden update, aren't we? This was the last one. TWO freaking WEEKS AGO! It was a different world back then, friends. Men were men, women were strong... wait. Wrong sentiment.
Women are stronger now, because women (namely woman) are dealing with a gallon of peas every damn day. I haven't done anything with any of the glorious greens I've grown, other than an occasional salad, and I sent ALL my garlic scapes home with last night's dinner guests, because the peas are keeping me so busy. 
But I pause, still. I pause nearly every day, en route to garden, and say WOW, look at this little patch of glory today! This fun jumble of stuff that was pink and yellow last week, and now is coming on red and white, as the poppies bloom amid the ripening currants. 

And the lamb's ear blooms with blood-red dianthus behind it.

It is the loveliest. And other than pulling weeds (there actually aren't many) I haven't done much out here. It's a free and easy kind of flower garden. Just perfect. The swarms of bees and butterflies and beneficial wasps agree. 

Then, we get to the edible parts.

But I keep getting waylaid by the poppies.

See?
These red and purple corn poppies were always strewn around my mom's garden, growing up. She mostly let them grow where they self-seeded, meaning there were always a few dozen popping up amid the potatoes or the green beans. Poppies popping. When we moved to Gilbertsville, she gave me some seed she'd saved. Then I bought seeds for catchfly, and scarlet corn poppies, and now everywhere there are flashes of red and magenta in the potatoes, the beans, the dill. As it should be. It keeps the whole thing from looking too serious.

Everything is doing well out there. The tomatoes are maybe a little behind the beat, though the Early Girls all have green fruit. The potatoes are rocketing. The viney things-- damn, every day I come out there and things are practically unrecognizable. I swear the cucumber plants have doubled every day this week so far. I need to figure out a method to trellis my beans, and fast. I built one Monday night, but it collapsed in last night's thunderstorm. Ploosh. Soon I will be fielding zucchini.
It's the time of year where my feet are still on the ground, but just barely. This is what I told Patrick the other night. The garden is like this incredible, irresistible hot air balloon that pulls me away from being "in the moment" for a few months every year. Or maybe it pulls me into being in the moment: the moment of picking green beans, the moment of shredding zucchini, the moment of stacking bags of broccoli in the freezer. Either way, I'm on deck for a flight to the realm of High Summer Scramble, picking-canning-freezing flurry. It's not a bad place to be. Every year I look forward to it. Every October I look forward to slowing down. So it always is, so it will be.
The certainties of gardening. Just another reason I love it.
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Freewheeling Saturday

Hudson, NY. Finding ourselves with a rare summer weekend with no gigs, and no rehearsals for Patrick, and no obligations, either, we made a brief escape. Having fallen in love with Kingston, NY, last fall, and feeling like we needed to do further explorations in the Hudson valley, we headed to the town of Hudson, at my dad's recommendation. It's a tony town. In a lot of ways, it feels like the richer parts of New York City. But we skirted politely around the high-end, mega-hoity-toity designer furniture shops and antiques shops where I knew I wouldn't be able to afford even a doorknob, and found a couple of more accessible ones, and a record store where we got a Norman Blake album for $5. Mainly, though, we walked and took in the architecture and enjoyed just being. There really is something magical about sitting on a bar stool in a town that is not your town, with no where to go, nothing to do, no one who knows where you are or expects you back. 
We stayed late. We walked down to check out a waterfront craft market-y thing with live music, then we tried a hike at the Greenport Conservation Area, but the flies.... oh, the flies. If I could make deer flies extinct... do you hear me? deer flies and English ground ivy, Lord. I'd be a happy woman. 
But I digress. We found a terrific, friendly little bar/restaurant and ate a wonderful meal out back in their courtyard garden. A firefly came in to check out my glass of Chardonnay. It was special. 
Something tells me I'll be thinking about this day in Hudson for a long time. 
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Where it gets cool

I went antiquing yesterday for the first time in a very long time. And wouldn't you know it, I had terrible luck all day. Don't you hate it when that happens? The one place I was planning on spending two hours and walking away with a whole box of booty was half closed for (long overdue) renovations. So I took a drive past my very favoritest of places, Old Odd and Unique, which is usually closed on Thursdays. But they were OPEN! And as I parked, I knew my luck was about to turn.
Some of my favorite scores have been had at this little shop of wonders over the years. Antique doorknobs. Old magazines. An old fan and an old radio. And this silver-plated belt I wear at least once a week in the wintertime. 
But I was not on a mission for trinkets today. I was on a mission for a pot rack. Specifically, something cool to turn in to a pot rack to hang over our stove. I knew I was headed to the right place. The guy is great: friendly and creative and knowledgeable, and fair. He led me to an old wagon wheel (too country) and an old stained glass window (too much color) and then to that fabulous wacky thing, something I'd never seen before: an expandable clamp-on luggage rack from the 20s or 30s. It would clamp right on to the running boards of a model T, he told me. I was sold. I was so completely and utterly sold. Coolest. Pot rack. Ever.
And then the punch card holder begged me to take it home, and I listened. That I've already hung, as you can see, on the partition between the kitchen and the dining room. I've never done anything with an "industrial" vibe-- never quite felt like it would match our space. But now, somehow, in this kitchen with its smooth stone counters and its stainless steel range, it fits. 
I have no idea how we're going to hang the luggage-come-pot rack, I should mention, but it will happen at some point in the near future. Some way, some how. 
Now, if you'll excuse me, the man lift has been put into place, finally, and it is time for this gal to commence House Exterior, Summer, 2014: Driveway Side.

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Doggy date

Hey... you like sticks... too?

No way! This one's really yummy, want to try it?

Mooom! I think I made a friend!!!
We've been trying to get Del more comfortable around other dogs. He's great with the dog-in-laws, until food is introduced. Dogs we meet on walks are either, "oh hi, I'm a dog too!" or "BACK THE HELL OFF I'M THE DOG HERE!" His reaction can be a little unpredictable-- and I'm starting to think it has more to do with my body language when we're meeting a new dog than anything. But that is neither here nor there, really.
What this is about is walking Delmer Monday night and going by the park and seeing our friends Jay and Katie (and Chloe, their dog) and inviting them over for a campfire. Impromptu-style, the absolute best style for a long June evening. We'd all done a hike together a few weeks ago, which went really well, so we tried out Del's "host dog" skills. He was great. He shared his sticks. He tried to get rowdy with Chloe, (good dog-rowdy), and when she stepped all over him with her long deer-like legs, he decided maybe he didn't want to play after all. 
He made us proud. I love that proud-dog-momma feeling.
And, naturally, it was excellent to hang out with our friends (potluck friends) and catch up. The fireflies were out of this world.
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Full, crazy, and good

First, the preparations.

Then, the welcome.

The feeding...

...and the feasting!
How wonderful it was to reconnect with my friend Steph! Back from the Great White North of Saskatoon, Canada, where she moved to right after we got married. I've scarcely seen her, scarcely talked to her (other than on Facebook) since. (I did cater her baby shower, and make her a baby blanket.) But we picked right back up. All these things: two children and a marriage and lots of crazy travel in her world, a dog and neverending house projects and lots of crazy gardening in my world. We snuck snippets of girl-chat in between the querulous toddler and squawking baby. We drank wine by the campfire, and watched fireflies, after dark. We schemed up a girls canning weekend for later in the summer. And we celebrated her return home to central NY, hopefully for good. Distance between girl friends can really stink, but the reunions are always so joyous.
And standing there in my kitchen, oh my goodness. WAA! My kitchen is SO awesome! So perfect for entertaining little get-togethers like this, the way we love to do. Jose and Steph and the kids spread out along the peninsula with glasses of wine (and jars of pickles) and we all chatted and laughed and I ducked and dived into the fridge getting a little of this or that for the meal, and it was perfect. I dished up a bit of snap peas with mint and feta for the chilluns, and dipped noodles out of the pot-- to test doneness-- that were snatched by Jose to feed to Ximena. Noodles + chilluns is a great equation. 
The meal was so fun and easy and, well, rustic. I guess that's the word for this direction my cooking has been leaning lately. I bought local strawberries, heavy cream, a few lemons, a red bell pepper, and an eggplant. Everything else came from the garden or the pantry.

• Homemade pasta carbonara (just snipped chives, dill, sage, and parsley, black pepper, and a splash of heavy cream topped with poached eggs)
• Snap peas with mint and feta (just lightly saute the peas in olive oil, salt and pepper and add mint and feta)
• Mom's Chickpea Salad, which she made for our party, which I've since learned contains minced celery, red bell pepper, red onion, and black olives in addition to the chickpeas...)
• Lemon Cake with Strawberries

Man. Spending time with these friends I've had for going on ten years-- it is SUCH a gift. I don't consider myself to be the type of person to make friends easily, honestly: it takes a long time for me to forge a connection that is DEEP as well as meaningful and fun. But once I have that deep connection, it doesn't erode over time. It stays put, even when a whole continent gets in the way. Still, I'm so happy to have this gal and her... well, BROOD... back nearby for visiting on those special Ithaca weekends. Lucky me, and lucky us. 

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