Friday Finds/August 15

My Friday Finds this week:

1. Shutting Out the Sun: How Japan Created Its Own Lost Generation by Michael Zielenziger, which I read about at In Spring it is the Dawn. It sounded so fascinating to me that I bought it immediately, and hope to read it soon.

2. Travels with Charley: In Search of America by John Steinbeck. Though I read this book a long time ago, the review on the 60 going on 16 blog made me want to read it again, and soon. A few years ago, my friend Les and I were going to read this together. Maybe we'll do it in 2009. What do you think, Les?

3. The newest collection of poems by Maxine Kumin called Still To Mow, which I saw on the shelf at the library. I've already posted two poems, and will share another before I return the book. She is such a wonderful poet, with a kind heart and warm spirit. The title comes from John Gardner: "When you look back there's lots of bales in the field, but ahead it's all still to mow."

Housework/Bathroom/floor choice

This is what we've chosen for the bathroom floor color. It is called African Desert. Bold, isn't it?! I figure if I don't do something bold now, at 60, I never will. :<)



The walls will be Benjamin Moore's Wythe Blue, and the casements, Linen White, to continue the colors from the adjoining bedroom.


I'm happy, happy. It will be put down the last thing after the beadboard and paint are finished.

Wordless Wednesday - harbinger of fall

Book Report/Tottering in My Garden

Tottering in My Garden
A Gardener's Memoir
by Midge Ellis Keeble
nonfiction, 1989, 1994
finished, 8/11/08
Second reading in the Canadian Book Challenge


Have I read a gardening book I enjoyed more? I don't think so. I so admire Midge Ellis Keeble. She is funny, informative, and best of all, real. I just love her, and I cannot recommend her book highly enough. It is a book for all of us.

If you think gardening books are too erudite or threatening, read this one. She is a joy. She writes of the gardens in her life, from young years to older years. There is information here that will help everyone who loves to garden, whether a beginner, or someone who has gardened for 35 years as I have.

The author moved quite a few times and each new home presented a different gardening situation. She freely admits that if the first place hadn't been so perfect she might never have continued when she encountered less ideal conditions.

I had been working in a gardener's paradise. Apart from the deep compost, we were on top of a hill with superlative drainage, in full sun and facing south. The weather had alternated between misty rains and sunny days - a fool's paradise where one could do no wrong.

From there, she has gardens that are more like the "real world." And she names the chapters after each one such as "the clay garden, the sand garden, the shade garden, the tired garden." She talks honestly of her successes and failures, her trials and her joys. Every once in a while she offers, "notes for the novice" which I learned from even though I've had a garden for a long time. One of my favorites was near the end of the book, when she is an older woman:

A bench: You can weed and plant from a firm, non-tippable bench. Knees wide apart, toes turned out, bend forward from the big hinges where legs meet torso (you do not have a hinge below the small of your back). Let your chin drop and rest on your chest. When reaching for a tool beside you sit up and walk yourself around, still seated, then bend again keeping the back straight. Don't lift your chin when reaching - it's straining and twisting that get us into trouble. Try it. You'll be surprised to find out how much you can do and how much better you feel when you keep your weight off your feet and your knees.

I wish someone had told me that when I was 25!

She doesn't separate gardening from the rest of life, and spends a fair bit of time talking about the various houses, and particularly about the last country house they built. It is that dream we all have of building the exact place we want down to every detail; a joy, yes, but also a tremendous hassle. Her humor and fortitude in the situations that come up are inspirational.

Midge Ellis Keeble's introduction serves well as a description of the book, and also expresses how I feel about my own gardening life:

Every young gardener should know that gardening is an adventure, liberally laced with misadventure. ... We should know there will be time for other things. A garden is not the main theme of life. It weaves in and out, waits, disappears and reappears, providing a counterpoint to family, home and friends, giving colour and balance to life, challenges unending, and often a dash of the comic.

Housework/Bathroom - update 2

The great new tub surround with many convenient shelves is in, and check out the shower rod - the name of the company is actually "Hotel Shower Rod!" It is just the best idea! It bows out, giving more room when you take a shower. I've had the shower curtain for a while and I think it's adorable and very cheerful. I love the new white faucets.


There's a new ceiling light and fan which our daughter's boyfriend helped Tom put in.

The old vinyl floor is up, and we're thinking of Marmoleum. Have you heard of it, or do you have it anywhere in your homes? It is an ecologically sound product, and the color choices are gorgeous. We thought perhaps the floor could be the highlight of the room, and then go with white walls and casements. We decided to not try and put in the floor ourselves so someone came by this morning to measure. He'll be giving us an estimate soon, though he doesn't know that we are going with this store (not a big box, but a local) anyway. Actually, we've never had estimates. We choose who we want to do a job, and that's it; something you can do pretty safely in a small area. If a person charges too much or doesn't do a good job, the business won't last too long.


Tom took the sink and vanity out a while ago, put it at the bottom of the road with a "free" sign, and it was gone in no time. We have a new sink on order from Home Depot, and instead of the pedestal we had thought we'd be getting, we've chosen a stand which has chrome bars for towels and wash clothes, and a little shelf at the bottom.

Today Tom is steaming off the old wallpaper.

I'm thrilled with the prospect of this new room after 23 years!

Today's poem - The Final Poem by Maxine Kumin

The Final Poem

Bread Loaf, late August, the chemistry
of a New England fall already
inviting the swamp maples to flare.

Magisterial in the white wicker rocker
Robert Frost at rest after giving
a savage reading

holding nothing back, his rage
at dying, not yet, as he barged
his chair forth, then back, don't sit

there mumbling in the shadows, call
yourselves poets? All
but a handful scattered. Fate

rearranged us happy few at his feet.
He rocked us until midnight. I took
away these close-lipped dicta. Look

up from the page. Pause between poems.
Say something about the next one.
Otherwise the audience

will coast, they can't take in
half of what you're giving them.
Reaching for the knob of his cane

he rose, and flung this exit line:
Make every poem your final poem.

From: Still To Mow, 2007

Sunday Stroll/August 10

A Sunday Stroll in numbers and thoughts and pictures this week.

1. I'm giving up geraniums. They had some pretty flowers last year, fewer this year. But really, I just don't have luck with container gardening. Over the years I've tried basil, rosemary, lettuce, some annual flowers, tomatoes, peppers, and not one planting has really looked good or produced well. I've tried clay pots and plastic pots; I haven't even had success with the tubs I bought from Gardeners Supply.


They probably need fertilizing over the summer, but honestly there is enough to do in the gardens. If I lived in an apartment or small house, I could devote more time to the pots, and would study the best plants and how to grow them. Maybe the sunny terrace is just too sunny. Whatever the reason, I'm quitting. Years ago I gave up hanging plants because they just looked awful after a couple weeks. I so enjoy looking at other people's patios and porches, and will let that be my pleasure in container gardening.

2. As I noted in the bowl of daylilies post, my daylilies are winding down. There are still a few stars in the garden, and I'm thrilled that I have blooms over so long a time without ever planning varieties.

3. The corn has tassled!


And I can pretend I'm in a mid-west cornfield.


4. I'm giving up the cucumbers because they are too spiny. I have to peel them in order to eat them, and I love cucumber peel. Garden note: don't grow this variety next year. It was Garden Sweet Burpless F 1, but it isn't really "burpless."

5. This year I started a bunch of different annuals, but wasn't thrilled with the results. Maybe if I had an annual bed somewhere they might look better, but just tucking them in among the perennials hasn't turned out so well. Next year, I'm going to grow from seed only the real kings and queens of my annual garden: cosmos, cleome, and lavatera.



6. I may give up green zucchini. I've moaned and whined about my lack of success with the vegetable which is the over-producing joke of the garden. But this year, the zephyr has done so, so well that maybe I'll just grow it as my main zucchini/summer squash crop.

7. I'd like to have a couple more peonies.

8. Onion, leek, and shallot plants are the way to go. We've grown them from seed under lights for years, but have never had such good results. The cost is a little pricey but it is worth it because of how many vegetables we get. I haven't bought an onion for months. I thinned scallions, then small onions, and now the huge ones are in the garden.


9. Time to divide and move the iris to a spot across the road where they can spread to their heart's content, and hopefully look oh, so lovely in a purple "drift" as the perennial gardening books say.


Lastly, we have two new additions this week:

A wonderfully comfortable swing


and an outside place for Raya and Soot to go. Even if it's just for a few minutes, it seems to make them happy for the rest of the day.

Bowl of daylilies - August 10

Just as a fireworks display ends with a grand finale, so does my bowl of daylilies! There are a few plants still going, mostly the big yellows in various shades. You may see some of them in the bowl, but I thought I'd end the season with a collection of the last blooms on several plants. I can't complain. They've been giving me great, great joy for many weeks. So, until next summer, it's ta ta for now from the Windy Poplars daylilies.

Bowl of daylilies - August 9

Mrs Bale couldn't say it better

If you are interested in weather, and interested in my rainy, rainy weather in particular, head over to Amy Kane's blog, and read this entry. The following was not uplifting:

Meanwhile, meteorologists see no signs that the weather - caused by a warm, humid air mass hanging over the region, broken up only by small and infrequent cold fronts - will change in August.

Time for me to pick up my book, curl up in a chair, and read, read, read!

Comments

My internet connection is via satellite, and it doesn't always work when there is rain here or in Texas, where the satellite is, I guess. I've posted a comment myself, and approved two from others and I simply cannot find them. I think that the upload time is just too long during this weather. So, if you know you've left a comment, and you do not see it, please try again.

Today's picture/Watching

This snake is in the flower garden just below the terrace, and hasn't moved even when Tom drives the tractor up full of wood, and we pile it on the terrace. Amusing entertainment for a creature who really does know how to relax!

Bowl of daylilies - August 8

The not-so-lazy days of August

As I read Heidi's words on the lazy days of August, and phrased my reply to her, all of a sudden it became clear what I've been feeling in the past week. Does this happen to you? Often it takes communicating, either in print or verbally, for me to understand my thoughts.

I told Heidi that I don't feel the lazy days so much. I may have as a child, and for the few years between college and when Tom began teaching, yet when you have children in the school system or are a teacher or are married to one, August is a different sort of month. You know that I love fall, so it isn't a sadness that summer is coming to an end. In fact I wrote about that very thing last October. Yet this time is anything but lazy, quiet, relaxing. August is all about preparing for the opening of school after Labor Day. I know many across the country, especially in the South, actually begin classes in August, but except for a very few times, up here it is the day after Labor Day. And it isn't only Tom; I have friends who are also teachers, and they are in this same mode of activity.

The month of August begins with meetings which continue off and on until Labor Day weekend. And in between all those meetings, there is a bit of a frenzy to finish up all the household projects, get the wood split and piled for winter, etc. By September, the darkness comes earlier, the evenings and even some days are cool enough for the woodstove, and there simply aren't enough at-home hours for Tom to do all he likes to do around here. For he is not a teacher who relaxes on a hammock in the summer. In those few weeks between the ending of the school year in late June until the beginning of the August meetings, he happily lives his farmer life.

Anyhow, I commented to Heidi that I feel antsy, uncomfortable, and that I'm waiting, not just for the start of school, but also for the summer to be over. As much as I love getting together with people, and having fun, by now I'm tired and feeling that restlessness which oftens accompanies tiredness. I'm a person who loves the common, the everyday. I welcome September for the order it imparts on our daily life. It is just this end of summer, rushing about, trying to fit everything in sort of time that I'm not so fond of. Once Labor Day comes, I can relax. What is done, is done. The projects left unfinished can be worked on next year. It is just the feeling in August that everything must be completed that causes me a degree of anxiety.

I've been reading a bit in a Gladys Taber collection called The Best of Stillmeadow, and she has quite different feelings.

The turning wheel of the seasons rolls slowly now, in August. People walk without hurry. ... There is a hiatus between the hard work of mid-summer and the brisk days of woodcutting, filling woodsheds, chopping kindling, to come. Weeding in the garden is just about over. From now on, the vegetables can hold their own, weeds or no. ... Nature and man both seem to me to move on a light rein for a short time, a restoring time.

I wonder whether the fact that so many vacations come in August is because of the heat itself or because it is a natural time for man and Nature to relax. I have read that energy is highest in October, and it may be so. If this is true, then August is the time for dreaming, for taking a thoughtful look at life and for letting some of the chores go by the board.

Isn't it just so interesting that two women living much the same sort of life, can view a month so differently? For me, July is that dreamy time. As noted last summer, I love the old song, You Go To My Head, with its wonderful line, "like a summer with a thousand Julys." July is when I love to relax, when I love to see people and go out to dinner and the movies. By now, I'm beginning to 'hunker down' in preparation for the fall, for the school year, for the shorter days; all of which I love. Yet in this in-between month, I can't settle down. I'm just waiting.

Wordless Wednesday - Cellar floor after much rain

Zucchini

I read this online: Zucchini grows best when exposed to 6 – 8 hours of direct sunlight each day.

Well, we've not had very many of those days in past weeks, and yet, this is the best year for zucchini I've had in ages and ages; maybe ever since we moved here in 1981. It doesn't care how soggy the ground is. It doesn't even care that I chop off those prickly leaves often so I can reach in without pain. It doesn't care that the plants are too close together. All I know is I'm happy, happy, happy, as Emeril says. I've eaten a lot and frozen a lot. And made that cake! The doors all stick, the cellar is wet, but I have zucchini!

Today's poem - The Domestic Arrangement by Maxine Kumin

The Domestic Arrangement
from Dorothy Wordsworth's Journals

Wm went into the wood to alter his poems
writes Dorothy. I shelled peas, gathered beans,
and worked in the garden. This is Grasmere

where she picked and boiled gooseberries,
two lbs. of sugar in the first panfull
while Wm went into the wood to alter his poems

a trip he makes almost daily, composing
the lines she will later copy. Mornings
she works in the garden at Grasmere

which looked so beautiful my heart
almost melted away, she confides
while Wm's in the wood altering his poems.

On one of their daily walks she observes
helpful details of Wm's famed daffodils.
Then it's back to the garden at Grasmere

where she ties up her scarlet runner beans
and pulls a bag of peas for Miss Simpson.
Leave Wm in the wood to alter his poems;
praise Dorothy in the garden at Grasmere.

by Maxine Kumin
From: Still To Mow, 2007

Today's cd/Sleep Through The Static

Jack Johnson
Sleep Through The Static
2008

I'm a word person. When a song is playing with words, I can't read, or even converse very well, because I'm listening to the words. That's why I prefer instrumental jazz if I'm reading or talking to people. But for every single rule, there is an exception, and Jack Johnson is mine. His words roll over me, as if he were just saying, the meditative "om." I've never known anyone like him musically. I wrote about him already, but today I'm featuring his new album. It is my favorite so far. I hear occasional words and I even read the liner notes, but mostly it is that voice, that music, that calm which he projects. I like to think that his music could really change the world. No road rage, no hatred of our fellow world citizens, just the peace that he gives off.

Book Report/The Ponder Heart

The Ponder Heart
by Eudora Welty
unabridged audio read by Sally Darling
fiction, 1953, 1954
finished, 8/4/08

Sometimes I think I just don't "get" certain books. I wanted to adore The Ponder Heart because the author is Eudora Welty, to my mind one of the best writers ever. The narration by Sally Darling was sublime, in the sweetest of southern accents. It should have been a wonderful book, but I felt like I was on the outside looking in on people I didn't understand. The characters seemed like caricatures rather than real people; their actions so "out there" that I couldn't believe in them. Though the writing was very, very good, I thought the story and its people just plain silly. After I finished listening, I read the back of the case and saw references to Caldwell, Twain, and Dickens. Well, then, of course it didn't appeal to me. I'm not fond of any of those writers. Two words used to describe it were "high farce" and "raucous," features I don't like at all.

I did became quite fond of the narrator, Edna Earle, whose uncle Daniel Ponder's story she tells, and I liked the descriptions of the southern heat before the days of air conditioning. But those are pretty thin aspects to praise, and on the whole I didn't care for the book. It was quite short, only four hours of listening, and had it been longer, I probably would have quit.

Bowl of daylilies - August 4

These daylilies are from a "pink collection" I bought from White Flower Farm four years ago. As always, you may click on the picture for a closer view.