CertainSeason

Annual Amorphophallus Watch

Every year, over the past ten years (yes...we've been together ten years now) Bill's amorphophallus tuber, which he brought up from the Keys, puts on a spectacular display and it is different every year. It is never less than beautiful to watch, but occasionally it is really spectacular.

This appears to be one of those years. While outside the vicissitudes of winter play out...it was nearly 65 degrees here this week and today it is snow flurries. We've had more snow in the past two weeks than we've had all winter, in fact.

In any event, while winter runs its erratic course, inside it appears that the amorphophallus is about to bloom. In fact we think it may actually flower this year, which is one of those "good news/bad news" situations.

The good news is the bloom of an amorphophallus is so spectacular -- newsworthy actually -- that when a similar plant bloomed at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden the lines were out the front door. 

When old enough, the tuber produces a 6' flower (early May, before the leaf emerges), resembling a giant vase made from the purple vinyl used for cheap '70s car seats.

The bad news is it stinks like rotting meat.

Stay tuned.

The Long Cyber-Winter is Over!

For months...some of you remind me it's been since November of last year!...I have been able to post writing to this blog, but no photos. Alas, some, nay most and possibly all my inspiration to write comes from the illustration and the lack of that, at the very least, took the fun out of it for me.

So though I attempted to post photos by sending them to my friend Dan (with whom I do GayWisdom.org) that was pretty much an unworkable solution. Dan has many better things to do than to post my photos.

As it happens, it turns out that the reason I was having problems had to do with the server I was using. At one time I had three different servers on my machine (which I am told simply clogs the works in the end)...Internet Explorer, Firefox and Google Chrome. I almost never used Internet Explorer, was pretty wary of Google Chrome and stuck pretty close to Firefox. But when I had a PowerBoost done by Norton, the technician removed all of them but Internet Explorer.

And Internet Explorer was the problem. I can't tell you why or anything, but the moment I switched over to Google Chrome, I was, once again, able to post here.

Harrumph!

So I missed posting the chrysanthemum turnips Pat and Barb served us for New Year's Eve dinner in Maine...I missed posting about my little health scare in December when I went down to NYC for routine bloodwork and ended up in the hospital for three days!...I missed the holidays altogether (including my mother's quadruple bypass, open-heart surgery) and I've all but missed the weird winter we've had in which we've had more rains than snow and those rains nearly washed away our drive.

Worse, the lack of ability to write about what life is like here in the country (and anyone that tells you it's quiet and peaceful is crazy!) made taking pictures less fun and less urgent in my priorities. 

That's all over now.

It's been a long frustrating winter, blog-wise. I am pretty sure some people who had been following have given up on me. But we're BACK! 

grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

All of a sudden, starting with the last post (actually starting with the "Apple Buddha" post...I got Dan, with whom I share this blog site, to post that photo), I am no longer able to upload photos. I can get the pictures from the camera to the computer. I can get photos from the computer on to Facebook. I just can't seem to get a photo on to this blog. Very frustrating. Especially when we have things like snow before Halloween going on...

Monsoon Season and Visitors

Lots and lots of rain and lots and lots of visitors. Mary and Emma (sister and niece) were here ever so briefly (alas) and Bev and Clinton and Bob Rigdon from L.A. was supposed to get here, but Irene foiled his plans. Bev ended up stuck with us for three or four extra days. Mary and Emma...in and out! And I'm not just sucking up here...but don't they look like sisters rather than daughter and mother?

We went to the Southern Vermont Garlic Festival, which was tasty and fun. We cooked up a storm (an unnamed storm) including Billy's lovely rice pudding pie with the prune puree layer. We didn't have prunes, so this time he used apricots to good effect. We made tomato puddings and tomato tarts and homemade pasta with cherry tomatoes (noticing a theme here?)...hard to remember all the food we've done, but there were some merguez sausages with homegrown peppers and onions in there somewhere (that was transformed into Chicken cacciatore last night). But all I got pictures of was the garlic festival and Gramma Billy's Rice Custard Pie (renamed for the occasion.)

And it has been raining and raining and raining...my gauge (which I can't show because my computer is doing weird things) shows three inches in the last 48 hours. It's been more. It's a small gauge. The ground is soggy.

Goodnight Irene

We were unscathed, personally, by the storm. In fact I know we've had higher winds. But the flooding in our area is not to be underestimated. And Vermont took a major hit. We went out to see what we could see last night, after the storm had long passed...and it was impossible to get into Granville proper. All the roads in or out were flooded...22...149...Church, North Street...even the road into Vermont....all flooded and impassable. We ended up having to go all the way around on 149, over the hills, over to 22N. And once we got into Main Street, the only way back was the way we came in. This picture (left) was taken this morning, when the road was passable again. The waters have actually gone down from last night (thankfully)...this is normally just a field of grass.

The Pember was high and dry atop the hill. But just across the raging Mettowee...a good four or five feet over it's banks, the Slate Valley Museum had been completely overrun by the river, at one point flowing around and through the museum itself. They were sweeping mud out all afternoon.

More pictures as soon as I can get my computer program to function properly.

Don't Ask...

This sign greets us every time I pick up Bill from work and drive him home (click on it to enlarge to be able to read the sign). The other side says something about reading Romans. One wonders two things with this clown:

1. How closely has he read Leviticus? Right across the street there's a field with two different crops planted in it (by some farmer that I am certain is wearing two different kinds of fabric)...wonder if he's over there stoning that guy all day...and,

2. Just how much same-sex marriage demand is he experiencing?

Oh well...

Meanwhile our garden is becoming more interesting...red onions (red zeppelins), white (actually, technically I think they're called "yellow cranes"). some really nice jalapenos, squash (always squash), tomatoes, cherry and Romas...and some itty bitty garlic. Barely the side of a single clove. I think I should have cut the scapes and harvested them earlier...

The beans are about done. Thinking about a fall garden...spinach, beets, etc. I still have another tape of radishes.

A Deed, Indeed...But Whose?

So the phone rang yesterday morning, and it was Mrs. Halderman, the wife of the couple from whom we bought the house. They have sold the farm...250 acres for $420,000 in case you were wondering...and are in the process of  cleaning out the big house. As she put it, she went to look through a drawer she "would have sworn was empty" and found some papers in which she thought we might be interested. And, indeed, we were...as it seems to be an original deed to the house with Lemuel Haynes' signature. At first I was of the opinion that it was the deed which transferred possession of the house to Haynes, but the date is 1825 and we're pretty sure he moved in here in 1803. It's going to take some more detective work, but it is a deed and it notes that "in consideration of the receipt of one thousand four hundred and twenty-five dollars" title was transferred to Lemuel Haynes."

Haynes' signature is visible, faintly, in the bottom fourth of the document, in the top of the blank space on the right hand side of the page, to the left of what look like what might have been a seal. The document is framed so that both sides of the document are visible...on the reverse is another notation about Lemuel Haynes and, interestingly, and puzzlingly, a reference to "Rutland, Vermont". 

The document is handwritten and in that 19th century hand that is difficult to read (and with all the use of typing and keyboards anymore, will probably become completely undecipherable to future generations!) It is not easy to read the text, so I am still trying to determine exactly what it means. But it is Haynes' signature. 

On a different subject, in the past two weeks, a vacuum, the lawn mower, the house water pump have all broken in addition to the toilet seal in the upstairs bath and the garbage disposal both leaking. Oh, and Bill's car has about $1,000 in repairs that are needed.

Wishing that deed had our name on it at this point!

Picking Up The Pace

I feel like we've had a steady stream of houseguests since Memorial Day...mostly because it pretty much has been a steady stream of houseguests since Memorial Day.

Or maybe I'm just getting old and tired.

Toby and Kip were up two weeks ago, visiting from Texas. They had been at Easton Mountain and dropped by for lunch on Monday. Then Ron and Jiyoung and Bodin and Reese came up with Rudy (seen demonstrating the finer points of slingshot usage in the photo at the left.)

And before you know it, First Friday is upon us again and this batch of artists was...how do I put this?...stressful. At least that was the excuse they gave me every time they reneged or backed out or didn't bother to show up when they said they would. They were stressed and just couldn't....[fill in the blank]. They were the most unprofessional group of artists I have yet to work with and I would never work with any of them again.

So I was most relieved when Bill told me it was OK with him if I didn't get up Saturday morning and drive down to Connecticut with him to spend the Fourth with all our loving friends there. I just couldn't. And of course that made it possible for Bill to take off early, after work on Friday, which gave him extra time with everyone. And it made it all the easier for me to sit back and realize that I was coming down with a cold and sleep most of Saturday away.

Starve a fever, feed a cold...and I got a taste for a good old-fashioned burger. Stuffed it with cheese and grilled it like any good Fourth of July. It was a gorgeous Saturday night, even if I was feeling under the weather. It was sunny and warm, but not too warm nor too muggy (that may change with the thunderstorms that rumbled through last night.)

The garden is happy...got a little warmth this week, more rain. Some tomatoes are making a go of it. And the fennel and sorrel are taking root. Even got some marina di chioggia's to sprout. Maybe this year we'll actually eat them!

Last of the Planting...Let the Sunshine!

Put in the last plants in the garden for the season. Added some green bell peppers (learned my lesson last year....this year those suckers are gonna touch!) and some jalapenos (also touching). Bill likes yellow summer squash so I put in six plants of those

and added another four Brussels sprouts in addition to the three I sprouted myself. Put in some regular eggplant. The only one of the three I tried to seed that germinated at all was the Japanese pickling eggplant, and I'm not at all sure that is going to survive. Not sure what's happening with the beets I put in (as seed), so I gave some of those hills to the Brussels sprouts.

And just as a point of comparison to last year...the picture on the left is the current garden as of today, June 5th. The photo on the right is the garden from last year on June 24, less than twenty days hence. It is sort of a stunning comparison. I can't believe how much further along things seem to have been. Maybe another two weeks will make a difference. I had to double check and make sure when I saw the date on the last year's garden. The weather has been so cool...and while everyone is talking about "all the rain" my garden definitely hasn't seen it this year so far. I am still watering.

 

 

 So here is the 2011 Garden Census...from the left:

Row 1: radishes...fennel...sorrel....purple bush beans.

Row 2: tomatoes (12)...some cherry, some Romas, some beefsteak

Row 3: yellow crane onions...bell peppers (5)...jalapeno peppers (4)

Row 4: red marble onions, red zeppelin onions

Row 5: Walla walla onions, garlic

Row 6: broccoli (3)...beets (maybe...not a sign of them yet)...Brussels sprouts (4)...summer squash (4)

Row 7: cucumbers (2)...bush beans (again...maybe...only 1 showing so far)...Japanese eggplant (1)...classic eggplant (4)...muskmelon (4)

Row 8: potatoes (you can't see row 8 in this shot...but it's there.)

Turns out that some of the Jerusalem artichokes I moved (and are doing quite well on the hillside) are doing just as well even though they were plowed under. There are almost as many volunteer plants growing in the garden as I have on the hill. Gonna be a good year for Jerusalem artichokes, I guess.

Happy Birthday to Me!

Nothing says "Happy Birthday" better than Boston Cream Pie...and roses from my sweetheart...a gray rainy day that is making the green all the more lush. The sun broke out ever so briefly...but the rest of the day is going to be Seattlish.

Actually it turned out to be overcast but little rain until the evening. Went shopping with Patty and we were joined by Mark at lunch in Manchester. Got a beautiful leather bag and some nice shirts and the Dorset Exchange. Much fun just tromping around Manchester and Dorset with Patty and Mark.

Mark gave me a flat of a variety of plants...what a nice birthday gift! Several tomatoes, fennel, cucumbers, bell peppers, bee balm, broccoli and beets. Got'em all in this morning (5/17)...it's just been perfect planting weather...wet, not too much sun. 

Turned over so much garden this year. The plot is twice the size it was last year. I need to get busy clearing the weeds from the rows, they're coming back with a vengeance!