Skip to main content

Jalapenos sorbet anyone?

 So how do you like politics now? I believe I left you last time with the notion "If you don't like politics vote for less government!" Simple fact is politics will always be as nasty as the government is big. If government had no say in the issues that effect your life why would you care who the President is. If Congress had no power would you find your TV filled with ads announcing what a slimeball your Congressman is.  If the Supreme Court decided one esoteric case on a dispute between States every two or three years would you really care who did what in high school?
  The funny thing is most Ds and Rs agree government should solve this problem or that, they just disagree on which problems they want government to solve. Than if you're a 'good citizen' you work your tail off to help get 'your guy' elected. Perhaps donating time or money certainly making compromises with the hope that it will all add up on election day and you'll 'win'. But what do you win? More importantly how long will it last - will the next guy use the new powers given to the last guy in an equal and opposite way with perhaps a flourish of new power working against you? In all but the most base circumstances government is the problem not the solution.
 Yeah it's been a nasty few weeks for politics and the election is just under a month away so don't count on anyone singing Kumbaya soon. The garden on the other hand has been a delight. No seriously, an absolute delight. Now Deb and I might be getting a blue ribbon from 4-H from all the things that have been dehydrated, frozen or otherwise put up for use later but it's steady good not overwhelming. The nectarine tree gave us a great crop but it gave the fruit a bowlful at a time.  One super ripe juice dripping down my beard nectarine for breakfast a couple more just 'cause and than during the heat of the day into the kitchen to slice and freeze the rest, next day next bowl. So too tomatoes, a few in something for dinner perhaps a tomato sandwich for lunch but always a crock-pot stewing some down to be frozen for later or cut up into the dehydrator to get preserved in olive oil. The basil to pesto a few pears in honey more raisins than my winter oatmeal will be able to handle and of course butternut squash piling up on the table as a centerpiece of sorts.
  Perhaps it is a juxtaposing that makes the garden seem a delight. We lost out cabin and property to a wildfire this year, my gardening neighbor and friend Shawn died of his cancer on Labor Day and my niece continues to struggle with her fight against cancer the thousand little frustrations of normal life each bite like a gnat and politically I'm expecting my neighbors will vote to give me no politician I care for and perhaps as many as 5 separate tax increases. So life ain't all nectarines and pesto, but the gardens been a delight.
 The music is some old blues starting with some Howlin Wolf  I've cued up Smokestack  Lightnin' but I've actually got a best of Chess Records version on the stereo. They both are quality so potato tomato.
  The Blues seems appropriate to a rainy day that will lead to a cold night and the freeze tonight will likely mean the end of the summer garden. A few things will likely take both the cold and the rain as a good thing. I expect I'll see the spinach perk up and I'm hopeful the garlic and potato onions (Coral Mtn in fall Green Mtn in spring - Thanks Kelly!) will offer up some sprouts of fall growth. I'm not sure about the Swiss chard's handling of a light frost. I kinda hope it does well as I've barely eaten any during the summer and it needs to find it's place if I'll bother growing it again. Beautiful stuff, makes you feel like your garden could make it into one of those magazine photos but the flavor is just OK - kinda like a beautiful girl with no personality.
 The frost will likely at least bring color to the trees leaves if not speed up their dropping altogether. The ash has been dropping leaves for a while now and the maple had a tough year with the drought (and been showing it in it's leaves) so I'm not sure what schedule it will follow this year. The fruit trees are however as green as spring. I figure that's a good thing for the overall health of the trees and while I've got to get some pruning done, especially on the nectarines, I'll leave that to some warm mid winter day. The hole for my little Albert Etter apple tree is dug and just waiting for that 'tree' to drop it's leaves and show me dormancy. I fought with myself over it's planting site but with the hole dug it would appear it will grow in the front yard just a bit too close to the sidewalk. I'm sure years from now you'll hear this grumpy old man complaining about the neighborhood kids "stealing my apples". 'course that supposes we'll each live that long which would be a good thing (someone remind me of that when you hear me griping!).
 As this is something of a wrap-up for the garden year I have to mention I've found a second good use for mint. Mint in all it's varieties is an aggressive and invasive plant. That's good in that like oregano you can plant it in lousy conditions and it will survive and give you more than you need. Unlike oregano I've never had a real good use for mint. The chocolate mint, I got a small rooting from a neighbor, I intentionally planted in heavy shade, bad dirt, and bordering the lawn. Mind you the smell of a torn leaf is nirvana, if nirvana was a Junior Mint. I know because I, at first unintentionally, hit it while mowing the lawn. It seems this use of the plant to encourage me to mow the lawn along with the rest of the hints has kept the mint small and in it's spot. That might change. The nectarine harvest spurred me to buy at the local ARC thrift store for a whopping $6 a little ice cream maker. I never did make ice cream per se but the sorbet we made was excellent. As the nectarines started to peter out the neighbor gave us some apples but honestly apple sorbet sounded boring. Add a 1/2 cup of minced chocolate mint and you've got something. You should own a little ice cream maker!
 The other surprise win in the garden this year was poblano peppers. I haven't for quite some time grown peppers. Simply, in order to start them early enough to get anything of a crop I have to start the seeds using heating mats and nurse the sprouts along in our sunroom windows where they compete with my tomato starts for window space. Additionally, my neighbor Tom has been growing and sharing his poblanos, that he does quite well with, each year. Oddly, Tom mentioned that the local nursery where he buys his poblano plants had none this spring. He more than made up for his lack of the more mellow poblanos with a variety jalapeños, Thai and some other eye watering varieties, but no poblanos. My sister Donnell was at the other branch of the local nursery where they were having an overstock close out on you guessed it poblanos (along with a bunch of others) for 50 cents. It was late in the season but she was kind enough to give me a few too many. I stuffed them in the garden where I could with the poblanos getting perhaps the best dirt. The poblanos snapped into production and just yesterday I picked a small bucket full of the largest. So win!
 Before I leave you till next year I want to mention my 'begging bowl' that's what I call it. In the mornings when I go out to the garden to pick whatever is ripe and ready I bring a large white mixing bowl to hold the haul. Sometimes it's too big sometimes it requires a few trips but it's always the same big white bowl. Some years back I recall learning that some Buddhist monks would carry a bowl into which people would put offerings of rice or other items and whatever the monks collected was their food for the day. In Christianity Mathew 6:26 offered some equally humbling thoughts about our worries and our needs. Thus while I am an agnostic I do try to remind myself of the humbling kindness of my garden as it provides my meal for the day. It is a very spiritual thing that one can ponder for hours sitting in the shade with an ice tea looking at the garden.
 The number of plants that I've killed and seeds that did nothing were about my usual number and proof that I'm no Buddha. I think that might be the secret to it all. I expect that I'm not a 'great' gardener merely a dedicated one who enjoys the challenge, experiments, and the occasional victory. If I could just bring that same expectation to the rest of my life and politics in particular I do think I'd be happier. Meanwhile if you could all help a friend along and use your vote to vote for less politics this November I'd be much appreciative. Doug A.  

Comments

  1. Jalapenos Sorbet.... hmm. I had some Jalapeno Kombucha before.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hmm back at you! That just sounds I'm not sure if dangerous or interesting is the word I'm thinking of!

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eating hope

 Adam sat in the sun huddled under a blanket Eve had knitted. Scattered to his right and left a sketch of his new garden and a half dozen seed catalogs. Eve called these his garden porn. To grow a garden you have to guess the future and act in the present. Importantly, that begins with a guess. Some parts were clear; the average last frost, which plants could survive frost, the needed indoor start time for those and the later plants. That schedule had to be married to the best guess of what he wanted to grow and what might grow, again a guess. Once past the guessing a brief bit of pleasure gathering the seeds and ordering what was missing.   Adam looked at the sketch and knew from past experience this was about as good as his garden would look. Sure there might be some unexpected wins, a seed or plant that surprised. The unexpected wins would be more than offset by bad weather, pests, or just hopes that never blossomed. Poppies make heroin. Hope is like heroin. Last year ...

After the Garden

  Those of you who know me know I hover somewhere between Catholic and agnostic. Thus when I say there are surprisingly few words about Adam in the Bible, you know I had to look to check. If you need to check it yourself go ahead you'll see. A little about how he came to be, a touch about Eve, a bit about that garden thing and then on to what the kids did. Really, I expected a lot more!   I mean what about that day Adam was sitting outside the garden fence thwacking a stick against a tree?! He was just thinking, I don't want any more sadness God. Yeah, yeah I know it's your plan and I'm not supposed to question it but your plan sucks! He flipped his middle finger towards heaven. As he did a hummingbird who had become blind landed on it. Yeah, see that's what I mean God. How am I supposed to fix this? Sure I can name it and that's fun but how can I fix the pain in the world?  Look at the old garden! It's an overgrown jungle. I need pruners, saws and a shovel...

Sandcastles

  Hey all, I am literally surrounded by life. The window in front of my desk looks out to my garden. The garden is lush green with knee high garlic and potato-onions, flowering arugula and crimson clover, along with second runs of spinach and cilantro getting ready to pick. Beside me under a grow light is a tray of tiny tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, sage, melons and squash. Lord the squash! Thinking the seed was old I heavily over seeded the little pots. I should be so vigorous in my old age. The thinning will be a problem but that is for another day. For now I needed to clear the pile of seed packets off the laptop and write. Write while Deb pulls dinner and a batch of cookies together in the kitchen and the dogs settle from our walk.  Yup, surrounded by life but on a maudlin day. Last night and this morning was strong rain and the rest of the day has been a heavy grey overcast. It is the day before Easter which by Christian tradition is a day of joy. The Gospel accounts which...

A Fog

  If you've never been in a fog so thick that you can't see where to go, to read it sounds like a flight of fancy. I've been in such a fog as a young man driving home. You're creeping along a highway hoping what you're taking for a white line means something. Simultaneously, you're desperately eyes locked on the road ahead and fearing what might be coming up behind you. For some reason you feel compelled to get to the safety of home. Adam was in such a fog.   Adam had walked most of the way to Nod with his son Cain. To lose one son was a misery too great to bear. To never see the other again made it a journey he'd had to take. That was days ago and he'd been following the sun and the stars West back to Eve, his garden, and his dogs. The fog had begun lightly that morning with the path closed in but clear. Now he was on his knees looking as the path clearly split. Perhaps the Y would rejoin itself just a bit down the way. Perhaps one simply ended beyond w...

Place your bets

  Adam was filling his water tank. More exactly, Adam was draining his water tank onto the compost pile while the rain was filling it and threatening to overflow the tank. Spring is a complicated time. Early spring is a dance with winter. Plant out too early and the plants will die or go into shock and actually take longer to grow. The spinach which poked up is great for an evening salad but it might stunt the onions it surrounds if allowed to grow too much. Leave the water tank to fill and overflow and the adjacent wood chips will wash down the hill. Leave the the drain open you capture no water for the dry weeks ahead. - Time to check the tank level. He put his hat on and walk in the rain.    The rain had been gentle and steady. Even with the drain open there was some overflow but nothing disastrous. Adam thought of the line from that sitcom long in the future, Mad About You. The wife is trying to get the husband to admit he was wrong. After many iterations he finally s...

Atlas Pooped!

   Adam sat with his back to 'The Garden' fence and looked up at the predawn moon. He saw Sirius (the dog constellation) plainly but what was the name of that next constellation? Eve had named it and traced with her finger the bow and the belt. The belt, yeah, yeah, Orion! Orion walked with his Sirius on cold mornings as he had with his own dogs. He'd have to get home soon and walk 'em. A cool wind rang The Garden chimes urging him to move.  The peace and the beauty begged him to stay. He'd dally.   The new garden was slowly coming together. The raised beds were laid out some with permanent stone walls some with whatever was available. Soil had been scarce or more exactly worms and bugs were scarce. They'd come and were slowly showing up, 'tho not always the good ones first! Thus what he'd planted was thin and haphazard. Better something to eat than nothing. A couple of pears, a nectarine, and a fig, with hope for the future but nothing for tonight'...

Tommy the Turtle tours Tulsa

  As I slowed for the stoplight on the 4 lane I was inspired. The gym had been drudgery. To be done and now done. The library didn't have the book I was looking for but I grabbed some others. But there, there at the edge of the lane, making one of those comical steps that turtles make, was a small turtle raising his foot to triumphantly step on the white finish-line. I broke into a smile sharing in his Olympic moment. As traffic started to move I thought about jumping out to move him to the grass on the shoulder. But would that confuse him and cause him to turn around?! I looked in the mirror as I drove away. No one was being an idiot and driving over the line. The little guy was trudging off no fist pumps or premature celebrations for him just steady doing it. Me, I drove the rest of the way home smiling and thinking Yeah, just yeah!  This morning he came by the house. Or at least I think it was him, tough to tell with turtles. I did the math we're a good bit from the proverb...

Eat Pray Love

    Adam woke, to a sense of clarity. He felt like the the threads of the universe were connecting through his body. Every bird was sitting while he identified their call. Every word that he read fit like a puzzle piece in his mind. The air itself seemed more, more right. A manic morning and a time to avoid sharp tools? The pleasant hangover of a evening alone with Eve? Inhale deeply the morning air but tread lightly. The future was not mans to know! He no longer lived in The Garden. Yet he felt he could touch it. His arm, almost not his, reaching through a gossamer veil touching... Not the future, not truth, not any word that small more - je ne sais pas... more.   The peas were popping and the garlic and onions were reviving from their winter trials. So it was spring or perhaps a false spring as tomorrow would allow March to announce itself as either a lamb or a lion. But what would a wise man do on a perfect spring day. On a day when he could feel the universe coursing...

The tomatoes are red the gardener is blue

 I'm stuck in a loop. I think that's what software programmers call it. I know the roots of this hopelessness are firmly planted in the utter destruction of our cabin and property in the forest fire that I alluded to in the last blog's prologue. Knowing the source of a polluted stream doesn't really help if your just wallowing in it. It's the wallowing that is the loop. A sporadic series of should haves and could haves that leave you so second guessed out that I've got little mental energy to accomplish all but the littlest things. Musically speaking I got da blues!   The music is Billie Holiday - Lady in Autumn.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npoe5XeeMYE&list=PLbYb5_Imn1rsDMoIU38jxi_O0aRaYj4CG 'cause given my mood - well, it was the obvious choice.   If you're a libertarian like me it's hard not to on occasion reflect on a woman who's life included heroin abuse, alcohol abuse, abusive relationships and died at 44. The line between libert...

Bleeping grackles

 I've just spent the last 15 minutes searching bird guides on-line and on paper to try to figure out what is nesting in the grape arbor.  It looks like a nuthatch or wren that has dressed to go to work for UPS.  It's incredibly tiny and quite cute but clearly not one to be pushed around.  When I first saw it at the beginning of summer it was trying to take over a bird house I had created out of an old boot.  Some chickadees had moved in and I was thrilled to see the house used.  The chickadees had dutifully carried a boots worth of material from the yard to their nest.  At a moment when both the male and female were out collecting material my little UPS bird 'discovered' the boot.  He sat at the hole pulling material out.  Clearly their tastes in furnishings were different you could almost see him (her?) shaking his head "this straw with those drapes - come on!".  The chickadees returned and a battle royal ensued with it ending with two ...