New Neighbors

Yesterday, John and I planted a new peach tree, strawberries, forsythia, and more pansies. We extended one of the drainage pipes that take the water away from the house, and we guided it into one of the new flowers beds, hoping it will help water them. It was muddy work, and the wind was fierce, even though it was wonderful to see blue sky and sunshine after nearly a week of rain. We decided to end early and do some cleanup. We hooked up the tractor and the cart, and loaded the cart up with bits and pieces of scrap wood that's been accumulating in an ugly pile on the edge of the driveway. We'd found an odd ravine out in our woods, a very deep, sudden drop off that makes sort of natural hole about 20 feet deep. We decided to put the wood in the ravine and let nature decompose it. So off we went through the woods, doing some brush trimming along the way. I was the scout, walking alongside the tractor so John could avoid tree stumps and holes in the path. As we shut off the tractor and wheeled the cart over the ravine, we nearly stumbled into the most wondrous thing - a fox den. A beautiful fox den, right on the edge of the ravine. They'd covered the top with a few branches, or perhaps dug under them, but I'd seen pictures of fox dens before and I'm pretty sure it was a fox den. I was thrilled. I've seen a male and female red fox playing in the yard one cold winter morning, and I'm hoping this is one of their homes. I believe they move around somewhat, but I hope they stay. At least in our woods they will be safe, since we do not hunt, and we try our best to protect the wildlife in our care. I left some chicken bones and a chicken leg that had seen better days, leftover from last week's roast, by the den last night in the hopes that they come by, or perhaps one of the residents will find it.

Spiders

This morning the land was covered in shrouds of fog and mist. The air was so heavy with dew it was like swimming on land. Big rolls of fog swirled through the orchard. As I walked Shadow down Hixburg Road, the dawn's rays touched the fields. Suddenly, hundreds of tiny spider webs clinging to the weeds in the cattle fields and in the lane that cuts through the woods burst into diamond brilliance. I just stood, marveling at the beauty.

I have a love-hate relationship with spiders dating back to childhood. I was afraid of them as a child. As an adult, having been bitten numerous times, I'm leery of them simply because I'm allergic to them - painful bites, with the last one in November sending me to bed for a day until the poisons worked their way out of their system. No, spiders and I do not get along.

Yet they are one of the most beautiful of God's creation, architects of webs of intricate design that boggle the imagination. And as a gardener, I know they eat many of the scourges that plague my garden and steal from the crops.

So I leave the spiders outside alone and thank them for their sentry duty.


Inside the house, it's another matter altogether.

Rainy Days

Today it's rainy and cold, so the only gardening I'll be doing today is getting a few more seeds started. That's fine by me. I'm on deadline for many of my writing clients today, and I worked too long yesterday and am really tired today. I was at my desk and working by 7:30 a.m., and except for a brief break for lunch and dinner, I worked almost straight through until 7:30 p.m. Oh yeah, and I also took a break to clean the kitchen, do two loads of laundry, and vacuum the house. When you begin listing such tasks as your 'break from work' it's time to slow down a bit.

I did get some wonderful news though - one of my health articles won the March Editor's Choice Award on Suite 101! The article is called Turmeric Benefits Include Cancer Prevention.

One of my great joys in life is to write about my passions and interests, and that includes health and herbal medicine. If my writing helps even one person, that makes me very happy. I always wanted to help people when I was a little girl. I dreamed of doing big things, like being a missionary, or running an animal rescue. Now I know that I'm not really cut out for work like that nor am I called to it. What I am called to do is write. Luckily, God can use that gift if I give it to Him to inspire, motivate and encourage others in healthy ways of living and being. So I give that talent over to God every day and just ask Him to guide me to write what will help others. Sometimes that doesn't work out, as when I'm writing for a client and they give me a list of topics. Writing about cleaning products or real estate may not be the most inspiring item on the task list for the day. But when I get to pick the topic, I hope I'm guided to write something that will be of benefit, not just fill space on the web.

Back to work. Have a beautiful day everyone!

PS: Yesterday was Pierre the cat's birthday. He turned one year old on March 25. He wishes to thank his devoted subjects for their tribute and well wishes.

Garden Visitors

Yesterday as I did a brief walk around the new vegetable garden to check on the progress of the cabbage and onion seedlings and the strawberry bed, I felt as if I was being watched. I glanced up and saw a bluebird perched on top of one of the fence posts. He's not the first bluebird I've seen this spring, but I suspect he's the same gentleman who likes to sit and sing to us from the satellite dish. He also peeks in on me while I'm working, sometimes startling me by belting out a loud, robust trill from the roof top when I have the window open. We've seen this fellow and a female flying low over the cow manure pile, and I assume they're snapping up some insects. They always return to the woods next to our property. I'm so hopeful that they have a nest there. Welcome, my friend. You are more than welcome in my garden.

Seed Sharing

For those reading this on my Facebook notes...this is my blog. You can always read it online at http://sevenoaks-jeanne.blogspot.com/.

I love giving away seeds from my garden. There's something special in packing up a little envelope of promise and sharing it with a fellow gardener. Today I sent a care package to someone special. I won't say who because she might read my blog! But the seeds in it will grow into beautiful flowers; gaillardia, daisies, Echinacea and more. I picture her garden and I smile, hoping that when the flowers bloom she'll think of me.

My friend Patty here in Prospect planted the seeds that I gave her and tells me the coreopsis is already growing like a weed in the cold frame. This weekend, I planted the rose of sharon that Patty gave me in the back of the perennial garden. I planted it where I can see it from my office once it starts growing.

Gardening gives me the opportunity to share something...I share so much through my writing, but gardening is something special, something more tangible. Through seeds and plants we exchange with friends, we give little parts of ourselves and receive in turn.

The White House Garden

This morning as I read through my usual slew of oddball websites I was dismayed at the harsh criticism leveled at Michelle Obama for her gardening project at the White House. (I read conservative political sites, Roman Catholic blogs, and gardening almanacs on the weekend. Throw in the writing websites and news sites on weekdays and some business publications too. No wonder I'm a grab bag of useless trivia and strong opinions.) I'm no fan of Mrs. Obama, especially since her "first time I've been proud of America" comment during the campaign. But I do think that her idea to plant an organic garden at the White House and get a class of 5th graders involved is commendable. Yes, it will be organic. Yes, they will have help from the White House gardening staff, including a staff carpenter whose hobby is bee keeping (fascinating, don't you think?). I have no objection to that. The White House, after all, is a mansion, a combination home and work place and diplomatic reception site for the most powerful leader in the world. If there are gardeners out there working in Mrs. Obama's project and I'm paying for it as a taxpayer, so be it. I pay for their maids, butlers, chefs, flower arrangers and whatever else they need anyway, as do all Americas.

The coverage of the proposed organic garden, however, is more mean-spirited than I thought warranted, particularly on the conversative blogs. Most of the pundits who are poking fun at it seem to be mocking the pretensions of organic, locally-grown produce. The problem isn't organic, locally grown produce, but marketers and journalists (yikes, that would be my ilk!) creating fancy-dancy names for this stuff. Hard as it is to imagine, many people dislike anything that smacks of elitism. Words like "slow food movement" and "environmentally conscious gardening" take something simple and try to make it into an upper crust activity. Folks, it's gardening, pure and simple. I think the commentators are reacting to the words she is using to describe the garden. They are linking it to the Obama's "green agenda". A little garden at the White House, as far as I'm concerned, is fine, and if it encourages others to dig up their lawn and plant a vegetable patch, I say go for it.

Growing up, we grew what we could in the postage-stamp sized backyard in Floral Park. I've written about my next door neighbor, Mr. Hoffman, a retired chemistry teacher who plowed his entire back and side garden under and grew an abundance of vegetables and fruits. We all did this. It was probably a holdover from the World War II Victory Garden days, or a time when produce was more difficult to ship.

There's nothing wrong with organic, locally grown produce. I have seen lots of research in the course of my assignments as a gardening and health writer that demonstrate that organic produce is higher in vitamins and minerals. The most likely reason is that organic and/or locally grown produce is grown in richer soil. I look out the window at my garden and know that the variety and quality of what I grow will be superior to what I can pick up in the supermarket. We spent six hours yesterday moving compost into the vegetable beds, planting broccoli rabe, Swiss chard, spinach, lettuce and radishes, and doing other tasks. Today we are going to work with the fruit trees. I can almost guarantee you that our fruits and vegetables will be healthier than the produce at the supermarket.

I also counted up my seedlings yesterday and estimated the cost if I had to buy this much produce. As of today, I have a tray of broccoli and Brussel sprout seedlings hardening off to transplant next week. I have 36 plants of each. When I checked the supermarket on Friday, broccoli was sold for $2 a bunch for convention and nearly $3 a head for organic and Brussels sprouts were about the same. You do the math. My 99 cent package of seeds, time and water will yield over $100 of produce, and it will taste better too. Even during the height of the bull stock market, you couldn't make that kind of investment return!

Gardening is great for kids. My fondest memories of childhood are gardening memories. Gardening with my mother before she got sick, when we had mostly flowers in the backyard. Then gardening with my dad and Mr. Hoffman. I developed this lifelong hunger for the earth in that little suburban backyard. If it gets kids into the fresh air and sunshine and away from their computer games and television, I am all for it.

If Mrs. Obama can encourage that same hunger for nature and growing things in a class of inner-city Washington DC 5th graders, I applaud her efforts.

But we need to get rid of these fancy labels...just call it a garden, call it a fun project for the kids, and instill a love of nature and vegetable gardening, and leave out the political agenda of green, organic, environmentalism. Although it's fine up to a point, it turns off some.

And a garden above all else is inclusive. Remember, weeds grow right alongside flowers.

First Gardening Day of Spring

Today is the first gardening day of spring! We plan to work in the orchard today. We have tiny fruit trees we planted last year. They are just starting to leaf out. We need to spray them, and we are going to spread the wonderful rich compost around each one, and re-mulch them. I also found pansies on sale at Lowe's for just $1 and $3 for a flat of 24 - I'm not kidding, I got 48 pansies for $3! They were on the discount rack since they looked wilted, but they are fine and perked right up. I'm going to add them around the front of the house. We also have forsythia, azaleas and rhododendrons to add to the front of the house. And don't forget the vegetables! I've got cool weather annuals that will begin to harden off today, and seeds to go in this week - lettuce, spinach, swiss chard. I think I'm behind on this, but I still can't get the New York/Long Island gardening calendar out of my head. This week in the newspaper they had an article on harvesting potatoes. I thought John was going to leap up from the living room chair. "You can grow POTATOES?" he demanded, waving the paper at me. I shrugged. I had no idea! Now he's already talking about growing potatoes over next winter. Where I'm not sure, but I have a feeling more of the yard is going to get dug up. I can't wait :)

Our latest scheme is to add grape vines...and I have my eye on raspberry bushes, but since my husband loathes raspberries, in every way shape and form, I'm going to have to sneak them in somehow....

And strawberries. Back to Lowe's this week to pick up some strawberry plants.

Let the gardening begin - it's officially spring!

Name This Cocoon

Okay my Virginia gardening friends...or just anyone in the know...what will this cocoon turn into? I found three on my buddleia (Butterfly Bushes) in the butterfly garden I put into the perennial flower beds last year. They are each about two inches long, fat, and beautifully ridged shades of gray, taupe, and brown, with a bit of red cast to them. Am I hatching something wonderful, like a monarch or swallow tail butterfly, or Mothra?

Garden Progress

Yesterday was the first day without rain for a week, so as promised, I shut down the office at 1pm and we headed outside to finish the garden. I'll try to post pictures of our progress later.

My first stop was the perennial beds. I'd been meaning to trim down the last remaining perennials, but always felt like it would take too much time. Fifteen minutes later I had all the seed heads removed and the area spruced up. It's amazing how the mind tricks you into believing a chore is going to take forever, and it only takes a few minutes! (Remind me of this the next time I have to fold laundry, okay?).

One of the amazing discoveries we made were several big cocoons on the butterfly bushes. I took photos and will try to post them later today. I don't know whose cocoons they are, but we left them undisturbed. I will check them daily now to see what hatches!

We then went into the vegetable garden area and finished putting up the rest of the fencing we had. We managed to cover almost 2/3 of the fence line. It was hard work. We then put down landscape fabric into the last of the big vegetable beds, and dug the trench around the outside of the fence to bury the wire. We made the requisite "L" shape with it and buried it well so that hopefully creatures like the ground hog won't tunnel under.

Now I'm off to check the old Farmer's Almanac for planting dates. Seeds can go in very soon, and I will begin hardening off the broccoli and other cool weather vegetables.

I can almost taste them!

The photo today is NOT my home, but a beautiful picture I found online....had you fooled, didn't I?

Cookies

Seriously, why do cookies always go on sale during Lent?

Bicycles

Well, we did NOT buy bicycles this weekend. I had an emotional meltdown in the auto parts aisle instead. I had my heart set on an old-fashioned bike, the kind with coaster brakes and no speeds, a twin of the bike I had as a child. John said, "Are you crazy? You don't want that," and stomped off the automotive aisle.

I had a meltdown because it felt like yet once more, when I knew what I wanted - someone was there to tell me I was wrong. Like when I was a kid, and my mother asked me which dress did I want. I'd point to the red one.

She'd say, "No you don't want that one - you want this one." And she'd pick out the frilly pink one.

"But I DO want the red one. I love red."

"No," she would say, "You don't. Little girls do not wear red."

"But then why did you ASK me if you were going to pick it out?" And I'd get in trouble for talking back, all the while wondering why I'd been asked my opinion when it didn't matter anyway. Next Sunday all through church, I'd spend a miserable hour in the frilly pink thing, all the while thinking non stop about the red dress the color of flames.

Bicycles are emotionally charged things for me. I've mentioned that as a child, we received few presents. One of the family traditions was receiving your first 'grown up' bike on your 8th birthday.

On my 8th birthday, I raced downstairs - and the living room was empty. There was a card on the table. I snuffled back my tears. I made it through breakfast until I started crying. "It's my birthday and there's no present," I bawled. My parents were horrified and raced me out to the garage.

They hadn't forgotten my birthday - they'd forgotten to wheel the bike from the garage into the living room! It was raining the night before, so rather than tackle the task in the rain, they'd meant to sneak it into the living room in the morning.

There it was in the garage; a shiny, blue, 1977 Columbia Roadster. I fell in love.

My bike became my constant companion...I rode it to school, to the library, around the neighborhood. It meant freedom! I didn't have to depend on a grownup to go where I want; I could go to my friend's house, the park, anywhere...just me and my bike.

The sight of me pedaling around Floral Park in my school uniform skirt, I am told, was something many people remember about me from those days...the kids used to make fun of me for looking like the Wicked Witch of the West on her bike. Remember that from the Wizard of Oz - the real lady in Dorothy's town, the one who put Toto in the basket on her bike? I had a basket like that, and my Catholic school uniform kind of looked like the mean lady's dress. I thought it was funny and kept on riding. I didn't much care what the other kids thought. My bike was part of me.

As with many childhood toys, it became 'uncool' to ride a bike to high school, so my poor beloved bike languished in the garage for many years until I was in college. John and I had started dating by then and I wanted to ride my bike for exercise. Unfortunately, the tires were flat, the brakes didn't work, and rust had set in. John tried to take apart the bike to fix it, but he couldn't get it back together again. The brakes were ruined.

I told him not to bother - just throw it out.

There are two things I regret getting rid of: my bike and my piano. At the time, I got rid of both for good reasons. The bike ended up in the garbage, the piano ended up as a birthday present for a little girl who started crying in my home when her dad took her to pick it up (which sort of made it okay, even now, since I know she loved that piano as much as I did - her eyes were shining when she set eyes on it, and she hugged her dad so tight I thought she'd never let him go). Now I'm kicking myself for getting rid of that bike!

I'd never ridden a bike with speed gears; I had no idea how to work them. I also never rode a bike with hand brakes. A friend let me ride her bike. On my first test ride, I nearly crashed because I forgot how to work the brakes. I must have had the bike on the wrong speed setting, too, because it was like peddling through molasses! Frustrated and angry, I gave up riding bikes. I felt totally uncoordinated. I wanted my blue bike back but it was gone for good.

Now here we are, ten years later and I spot a near-twin for my old Columbia Roadster. We've dreamed of riding our bikes around these back roads, taking them on the new Rail Trail that's opening this summer. Plenty of wide open country spaces. I could ride my bike to visit my friends, I could ride it for fun. And lo and behold, Wal Mart has old fashioned bikes with coaster brakes and big white walls...and the lady's bike is BLUE like my old Columbia Roadster.

Oh, how I wanted that bike. I thought and thought and said: yes, this is the one I want.

I'm a grownup. I've supposed to have put childish things behind me. But my heart longed for that bike...or so I thought.

And then my hubby has to ruin it for me.

I caught up with him as he was checking out the motor oil across the Wal Mart. "You're making me feel like I'm a child again and my parents are insisting I don't want a red dress, because little girls don't wear red, only it's my favorite color," I tell him. He seems surprised. He had no idea how upset I was.

There's a point at which being 'obedient' to one's husband means something pretty darn simple; listening. I wasn't going to buy the blue bike if he was this mad about it. So I listened to what he had to say.

"It's not that I don't want you to get what you want," he said. "It's that I think you're going to hate it later. The speeds help you make those big hills...think about the ride to the bridge (the crossing between Appomattox and Prince Edward counties, where we take long walks in the spring and fall with Shadow). It's a huge hill. You aren't going to make it with a one speed bike." He paused. "I just want you to have fun, and I don't think you're going to have fun on that old blue one for what we want to do." Another pause. "I want you to be happy."

That's different from: no, you can't have it.

I'm glad I asked and didn't sulk.

I knew his logic was smart...we share the same dream of spending lazy spring afternoons peddling around the country roads....I know I have to grow up....I think I want to recreate those childhood moments of feeling like I was flying on that bike, the sense of freedom....but it's 2009, not 1979, and I need to live in the present moment....

With regret, I said goodbye to the blue bike. It is still in Wal Mart in Farmville if you are interested in it.

We left without buying bikes, but now I am considering the purple one with the simple speeds. They're written on the shift thing like gears on a car. If it's like a car, I could handle it. On the way home from town, John started explaining to me how bike gears work...and he promised he'd show me how to use them. I made him promise to be patient with me as I learn this new fangled thing called hand brakes and gears.

I think I'm a closet Luddite.

A purple 26" mountain bike that can also go on the roads means I can bike to see my friends. I could climb hills on that thing.

Purple is my second favorite color.

Maybe some days, we just have to grow up...and let go of our past...but gosh, even as I turn 40, it is so hard!

Spring Ahead

After spending hours in Lowe's yesterday, we 'think' we bought the right sprayer for the fruit trees, and the right organic oils. It is so confusing trying to grow organic fruit here in Virginia. Half the books are written for northern climates, and even the information the man from the county cooperative extension office sent me confuses me. Maybe it's just me. I'm a "learn by doing" kind of person, so I feel like I need to roll up my sleeves and just try stuff to see what works.


We bought horticultural oils and organic spray stuff and found the sprayer that attached to the hose at Wal-Mart. Rust, powdery mildew and Japanese beetles look out, here we come...or maybe they're all somewhere in the woods, laughing at us now. Probably the latter. We have apple, pear, peach, plum, cherry, apricot and nectarine trees in the orchard, all to grow to standard size. Right now they are pitiful twigs, less than five feet tall. We bought whips from the Arbor Day Society; although I believe in their cause and am glad we supported the monetarily, I wouldn't do this again. It just takes too long to get a decent crop. Most of the trees look like they survived last year's hot summer and this winter's snows with some leafing out already. The plums look the healthiest, the apples the least healthy. We'll see if the cherry trees survived last year's tent caterpillar onslaught that resulted in us having to chop down every beautiful cherry tree along the forest perimeter. They were beautiful, but swarming with tent caterpillars, and those insects managed to find ANYTHING they could eat...including the orchard trees...so we removed them all by hand, without spraying one single chemical.

It's another week of rain in the forecast and we are both feeling that spring suddenly snuck up on us. We listed all the chores we need to do and are feeling like there won't be enough time to get them done. John wants to reseed the lawn and spread compost. I need to weed the perennial garden, plant seeds outside, stake the rose, and remulch everything. The entire front of the house needs to be landscaped. Let's not forget all the stone work- the garden paths, the border around the front landscape. The deer fence is where we left it around the vegetable garden, about a third done, with the roll of wire mocking us at it drips rainwater. I've got wonderful tomato, pepper, herbs, and eggplant seedlings going, as well as the daisies, gaillardia and crepe myrtle. Yesterday I put in more pepper seeds, calendula, thyme, peppermint, catnip for Pierre, and chamomile for me. I also pulled out all the cool weather annual seeds that need to be directly sown into the garden, although they're going to have to wait until we get the fence up. We just can't chance it. There are too many critters who would enjoy the banquet our organic feast will provide to them.

First things first; that deer fence and critter fence just HAS to get up, or I won't get a single lettuce leaf. In our suburban garden in New York, the rabbits ate our entire string bean patch down to the ground in one night. We won't let that happen here if we can outwit the four-legged residents of Seven Oaks Farm.

I dream daily about the time when I can just walk outside and pick some organic fruit for my breakfast, make a big salad of tomatoes and cucumbers for lunch, and cook a bunch of organic vegetables for dinner! Between what we grow, the free range eggs from Patty, and the locally raised beef from the Hertzlers, I'll be able to feel the family so healthfully this spring, summer and fall, and hopefully preserve some of the havest too.

I'm eating about 50% raw right now and feeling great. The cravings for all the junk foods have passed. If I want something like a cookie, I can nibble at one, and feel satisfied; two feels too much. And would you believe, ice cream doesn't taste good to me anymore? My love affair with dairy foods is fast fading. I still enjoy cheese, but the other day John brought home a half gallon of Reese's Peanut Butter Cup ice cream, and normally that would trigger a good binge, but this time I had one spoonful, and it was enough....it really was. The more raw fruits and vegetables I eat, the better I feel. I'm no longer craving peppermint candies, either, so I can keep at least one Lenten promise!

You may be wondering why I listed meat and eggs a little while ago if I'm all for a raw diet. I'm transitioning very, very gradually into a raw and living foods diet, working my way towards vegetarianism little by little. I'm cutting out a bit of meat each week. I've gone all the way vegetarian once when I was in college and ended up making myself sick, so I don't want to make the same mistakes. A little bit every day goes a long way. If you'd like to read my articles on a raw food lifestyle, I'm writing for a new website called Raw People. Rick and Katy Joy run a great site and are lovely people, so if you get a chance, do pop over and support them!

The weight hasn't budged by more than half a pound per week, though, and I was wondering why until this morning I opened my email to a newsletter from Frederic Patenaude. He answered reader questions today. One lady wanted a peek into his diet. He listed his breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks on a typical day. I took one look at his post and though, "Mama mia! How many calories have I been eating?" He was eating a third of what I eat, and he's an active man! Yikes! Suddenly, I realized that I am going to have to make even more of a committment to reducing CALORIES in addition to fat, meat, dairy, and sweets. Even though raw, vegan foods are so good for you, if you eat too many you can still gain weight. I thought it was just the raw nuts which I loved (I cut them out for the time being) but by the amount of fruit I was consuming, I'm betting I was getting too many calories there too. I've switched over to a larger salad at lunch; hard to overeat on green leafy vegetables. I've limited my morning fruits to 2 or 3, and perhaps one later in the day for a snack. We'll see if I can jumpstart the scale.

I dream about the garden....I am so looking forward to the time when I can simply walk out my backdoor and pick a ripe, juice melon for breakfast.....grab some lettuce for lunch. The orchard trees are still too small to produce, but the ultimate goal is for us to store and dehydrate as much fresh, organic fruit as possible too.

Soon, someday soon...but for today....it's more rain!

Rain, the Rite of Spring

Today it is gray and cold and rainy. I love rainy days. I love Weather. I capitalize Weather because to me it means extraordinary weather - blizzards, thunderstorms, downpours, shimmering blue skies with burning hot suns. Strong weather with an identity and an opinion.

Rain makes me more productive. As a child, I loved to sit at the kitchen table with my crayons and coloring books and listen to the rain on the metal exhaust fan. It made such a loud noise in our old house! I love rainy days. Right now, I am sitting snug in my office, with the heater that looks like an old fashioned coal stove warming the room. Rain patters at the windows, driving Pierre the cat crazy. He leaps from window to window, trying to catch the raindrops. He thinks they are toys. Then again, he's just turning one year old, so everything in the house is a toy to him...raindrops, ladybugs, electrical cords...cats find toys wherever they are!

From my perch in the tower office, I can see signs of spring in the garden, encouraged by the rains. The perennial garden is bare except for spots of purple and white. The crocus are up and eager to share their colors. They lend patches of joy to the garden amidst smiling yellow daffodils.

Rain...the rite of spring!

My thoughts are really turning to gardening today. Maybe it was working outside this week in the vegetable garden and realizing that in just a few short months, the first of the organic vegetables should be on the table. The seedlings are thriving under the lights, and now the gaillardia seeds I collected from the perennial garden last fall are sprouting. I gave my neighbor Patty lots of seeds, and she emailed me today to say they are all thriving in her cold frame. I'm so happy I could share part of my garden with her!

Surprise Gardening

Yesterday, temperatures soared near 80. John asked if I could stop working early to help him out in the garden. He wanted to get some of the deer fencing up around the vegetable beds. The seed starting and planting calendar for Virginia that I printed off the Internet says that we should begin some of the cool weather crops outdoors very soon - St. Patrick's Day, or thereabouts, which is only next week. We're both well aware that our garden is going to be of great interest not just to the deer, but to that fat groundhog we've seen wandering around near the fruit trees. He visits every so often, but just often enough to let us know he's around. Our pair of red foxes left their "calling card" right next to the garden too, and while I don't think they'd bother the vegetable plants - one never knows. So the fence has to go up, and not just any fence. We know we need to have it eight feet high to keep the deer out, and have several inches bow out in an "L" shape and planted below ground so that if the groundhog decides to tunnel under, he'll hit wire - and hopefully give up. We'd placed the fence posts last fall, and one roll of chicken wire was waiting in the garage. We hope this will work, although friends tell us we may need one hot wire - an electric wire - around the top to really discourage the deer. I hope not. I hope they go back into the woods where they belong!

Around 3 p.m. I closed down the computer, changed my clothes, and headed outside to help. I turned the corner around the garage and was surprised and delighted to see not a fence, but a new garden that I could gaze at from my kitchen windows! The area where we'd just placed the old 1950's cement flamingos, the silly things from John's grandparents, and the old bird bath was now a raised garden bed. John was happily angling the corners of the wood to make it an octagon. We have a thing for octagons in the house. When John designed the house, he designed the two towers and the tower rooms - my office, the master bath, the living room and the dining room - as octagons. Once when the electricity went out and we were sitting together in the living room, he read to me by candlelight the passage from Thomas Jefferson's writings that had inspired the octagons. Jefferson noted that in octagon shaped rooms "the shadows cannot gather in the corners" and that was why he had them in Monticello. John and I are both fans of Thomas Jefferson, and John used his architectural ideas as a springboard for his own for our home . We built the house so that "shadows may not gather". Sure enough, in the candlelight, no shadows could gather in the corners - a beautiful analogy.

The new flower bed is a long octagon rather than a perfect one, like the tower rooms of the house, and looks sort of like a boat. In fact, by the end of the day, we had nicknamed it the boat or the rowboat. I took down our beloved silly flamingos and put them in the shed. They need to be stripped again and repainted. They look like they are molting paint. I left a trail of hot pink paint chips on my route to the shed. Jack, John's dad who lived with us, is excited about the new flower bed. He's itching to plant there. My 81 year old father in law has a strange green thumb. There is not a marigold seed he has ever put in the ground that doesn't grow. I say his green thumb is strange because he kills plants that are easy to grow, and things that every garden book on the planet says won't grow from seed, wont' reseed or winter over, Jack manages to do. I have no idea what his secret is - maybe it's just luck, maybe it's just him! I know we'll have some marigolds out there for sure.

It's so nice to have a husband who knows me well enough to surprise me not with store-bought things, but with hand made things. A new flower bed made out of scrap would is worth more to me than a diamond necklace, and I'm grateful my husband knows that! The pile of wood by the driveway left over from when Philip and John worked on the porch is now reduced, and I have a new planting area to play with this spring.

So what should I plant? I need a focal point in the center. It's in full, direct sun. I haven't got a clue. Guess I'll surprise you too!

PS: We got about a third of the fencing done, too, before we were too hot and tired to continue on. It's supposed to rain the next several days, so I guess completing the fencing will have to wait...

Hot Dogs

So do you say hot dog or frankfurter? We say hot dogs. After power was restored, we cleaned out the refrigerator. Most of the food was fine thanks to quick thinking - we packed garbage cans full of snow, then packed the food in them, and it kept frozen or cold until the lights came back on! But some things we didn't take out of the fridge in time. Some nasty cold cuts, a tub of dip that was already past its expiration date, and a package of hot dogs for Shadow were sent into the woods for the wild animals to eat.

Let me explain about hot dogs for Shadow...we usually have a package of hot dogs just for the real canine of the house. When we lived in New York, John bought chicken franks once, trying to get us all to eat healthfully. Unfortunately we all took one bit and gagged at the taste, so our then - dog, the Golden Retriever mutt Mr. Foxhound, got the rest of the chicken franks and we went back to Nathan's and Hebrew National beef franks. But the tradition of having dogs for the dog was started, and we always kept a package of cheap hot dogs in the fridge. Whenever we made ones for ourselves, we made an el cheapo one for the dog.

We tried this with Shadow. We bought a 99 cent package of hot dogs for her. Every time she ate one, she would have wicked allergy attacks...so no more hot dogs for Shadow. The package sat in the fridge. When the power went out, we didn't try to rescue them. Now they went to the wild animals.

But one problem: even the wild animals won't eat them.

I'm not kidding you. We put out the dip, the cold cuts, a bit of stale bread, some chopped meat that didn't make it, and the hot dogs. John checked the area of the woods (it's well away from the house) where he left the food. On the first day, the bread and chopped meat was gone. The hot dogs were untouched. Not even teeth marks in them. On the second day, the tub of dip was licked clean and the plastic container was left behind. The hot dogs were untouched.

John left them for two more days, but they were still untouched. Even the vultures won't eat them. I think he buried them in the yard.

Would this qualify as hazardous waste?

Energy Released

I'd been avidly working on my diet in December, following a "raw 'til dinner" philosophy. This means eating only uncooked foods until dinnertime. Unfortunately, because my weight was refusing to budget, I got bored and gave up. Junk food crept back in and February, I ate my typical diet.

Last week, I started feeling the need to eat raw again, and so I upped my daily quotient of raw fruits and vegetables. I love fruit, so that part was easy - eating fruit for snacks again, three times a day. Then I added in a big salad. Yesterday, because it was a day of abstinence for us Catholics, I chose to eat vegan until dinner. I had a raw granola cereal for breakfast, a grapefruit for my morning snack, and then lunch was a baked potato topped with tons of steamed vegetables and herbs - carrots, broccoli, mushrooms, and an herbal blend I inherited from my mother in law. It was the most delicious, filling lunch. I had another grapefruit and grapes later and enjoyed them enormously. Then for dinner, we had a very small portion of salmon, spinach, and pasta. I did allow myself dessert last night of hot cocoa and a few cookies, but I awoke today so full of energy I didn't know what to do with myself!

I'm always amazed at how eating raw, or as close to raw as I can get, gives me so much energy and clarity of mind. It's like a dam has been removed and flood waters race along the river, sweeping out whatever debris was in the way.

Today I have eaten only raw foods so far. A banana first thing, and black coffee. No sugar today. Then a big raw fruit salad, an apple sliced very thin and sprinkled with cinnamon, a handful of raisins, and raw peanut butter. It was delicious.

People who change to a raw food diet always rave about their energy level. I forget how much energy it gives me until I leave out the sugar and eat more raw and living foods. I wonder if some people are more sensitive to it than others? I seem to thrive on it, although I'm always hungry. I wonder if that goes away after a while? I think that before I wasn't losing weight because I was eating way too many nuts and seeds. This time, I'm leaving them out, and we'll see how it goes.

I'm at my desk and working now. I did my weight training exercises this morning, cleaned the office, neatened the stacks of books, filed a bunch of reports I'd printed out this week, cleaned my CD collection back into its proper spots, opened the windows, and pulled a bunch of items I need for tomorrow. I'm going to sit and write an essay I want to submit to the "Chicken Soup for the Soul" series. I've already boiled some eggs for the dog, and made a vat of iced tea. Later, we'll start spring cleaning and wash the upstairs windows. I plan to clean the house too. Spring is in the air - last weekend was the blizzard, and this weekend it is going up into the 70's! It's too muddy from the melting snow to do any gardening outside, so we'll focus on cleaning and getting the inside of the house in order today.

Cube Steak America

Michelle Malkin, one of my favorite conservative commentators, posted a great commentary on "Cube Steak America" - which is also a phrase I'm borrowing, since I like it. In other words, the economy has tanked so much that we are all trading in good cuts of meat for cube steak.

Thrift is in.

Hey, in my family it was never OUT - even while I was sitting in an office overlooking Central Park with people to screen my calls (thanks Ben and Portia), I was shopping at the local hospital thrift store and pinching pennies. The suit I wore in my NYU photo shoot - the one showing me in the luxury office (not mine; my boss' borrowed office at The College Board) - that was an $8 find at the hospital thrift store. I loved that about my neighborhood on Long Island. When you are a penny pincher, and you live on the edge of one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in America, you can always find designer duds at the thrift shop. Heck, I found a REAL Chanel dress - complete with what looked like a butter or salad dressing stain near the lap - on the rack there for $10. If it had been a normal size instead of a doll-size 6, I would have snatched it up, stain or no.

John walked our dog in the rich neighborhood. He was always coming home with boxes of perfectly good things. I have three sets of everyday dishes - and two were thrown out by a neighbor! (the one we use is one John bought with coupons somewhere). I have beautiful decorative pots for my houseplants courtesy of a neighbor's castaways, a sampler that I stitched that was a blank printed canvas someone threw out (guess they didn't want to do that craft after all), a quilt rack from my neighbor Bonnie in New York that was intended for the garbage truck, and a beautiful set of Japanese style vases, also throwaways from a rich neighbor back in New York, and all acquired without us spending a dime.

My parents were Great Depression survivors who climbed out of the immigrant class through the usual values of hard work and thrift. My dad was first generation American who remembered looking out of his apartment window in the Bronx during a snowy, cold night and watching his friends being evicted. This was at the height of the Great Depression. His family always ate well - his dad, my grandpa, was a butcher, and so they always had meat - but it took them years to save for the little Cape Cod house in Bellerose.

My mom's family had been well off before the Depression. My grandfather was a CPA, one of the first in his family to go to college, and he was a CFO for a big publishing house in New York City. But when the Depression hit, he lost his job. Instead of telling my grandmother, he pretended to go into work every day, and walked the streets of Manhattan looking for work. Pride? We'll never know. Grandma of course didn't cut back on the spending, thinking he was still earning his CFO salary. He caught pneumonia and died in 1935, when my mom was just 3 years old. He left them with only the house and whatever possessions they had, and virtually no money. My mom said my grandmother took in boarders to make ends meet. Mom slept in with her mother and they had a coal stove to heat the house. Later on, when my grandmother was too disabled by arthritis to live on her own, she moved in with my parents and she lived with us while we were growing up.

We lived within out means. We had a snug but small house. I slept in one bedroom with my two sisters, and my brothers shared a room, my grandma had the bedroom on the first floor and my parents had the other. We got one toy and one clothing item for Christmas, a toy for our birthday, and that was it. I had hand-me-down blocks to play with, some Barbies and horse models because I loved them, and when I was really small, Fisher Price toys like the schoolhouse and the barn. We had a box of roller skates from our parents, the old fashioned kind with keys, and a bicycle we handed down to each child. We got a new bike for our 8th birthday and that was it. Books came from the library, and for games we played tag, jump rope, or ran over to the playground. No backyard swing sets when the public park was only a few blocks away.

We had little money, hand me down clothes, and sometimes it was hard not to have or do what the other kids had. I went to work when I was 16 years old, mostly to pay for what I wanted to do - horseback riding lessons - but it was expected that as soon as I could earn my keep, I would pay my own clothes. I worked part time after school five days a week filing and typing and answering phones and taking out the trash for an insurance agency. I walked two miles from school to the insurance company, working from 2:30 to 5 every day. I did not participate in the school plays after my freshman year, or sports or most clubs, because I had to work. That was just what had to be done. In college my first semester, I worked two jobs - cashier at Macy's department store, and clerking for the insurance company, just to afford gas for my car and my textbooks. Later on, I worked as a copywriter in the evenings and cleaned stalls at the horse barn to afford participating on the college equestrian team. For most of my life, I've worked two jobs.

I paid for my own high school senior prom. My dress was a $20 bridesmaid gown that I bought off the rack from a bridal shop that was going out of business. I loved that dress and it fit like it was made for me. I paid for my class ring, buying the least expensive one, not necessarily the one I wanted, because I could afford it. I paid for my college books, got half an academic scholarship and half a scholarship from an aunt who taught at the college, and although I didn't necessarily want to go to Molloy - I had to. It was paid for.

Years later, when I was working as an executive, I continued living like I wasn't. We took inexpensive vacations, I shopped at those infamous thrift stores. We went out to eat only for birthdays and anniversaries, or I went to inexpensive pubs with my girlfriends for a burger and a catch up chat. We took movies out of the library and books too, and for entertainment we loved to hike in the parks, go to the free concerts in the town park, or just enjoy one another's company.

Yes, thrift is in. But for some of us, it was never out.

The pain America is feeling is real. But for some people, it's merely a return to what they should have been doing all along. Very few people could afford designer handbags, maids and all the rest. Where we lived on Long Island, some neighbors lived like they were rich. One neighbor had babysitters so she could go to her tennis lessons and she had a maid service clean her house. She was a full time mother. Her husband drove a food service truck. I don't think they were the country-club set, but they lived like they were. Others added swimming pools to their homes, 'entertainment centers', and all the rest of the modern nonsense that's not essential, while using their homes as piggy banks. We talked to them and heard them rave about second mortgages and how they had all this money now to add onto their homes, go on expensive vacations, and lease fancy cars. Now, I'm assuming they'll have to learn what we - and probably you - never forgot.

Thrift is in. Live within your means. Take comfort in the simple things in life. And keep the big three always in the forefront of life, and in this order: faith, family, friends. You'll never go wrong that way.

Go Cube Steak America! You had it right all the time.

The picture today is my grandma, Grandma Rudmann, dad's mom. I was very close to her and loved her a lot. I feel as if she is my guardian angel from heaven, always looking out for me even though she has been dead over 20 years now. She immigrated from Germany with her two sisters. She never had much by way of material possessions in her life. What she did have was a killer hug that would crunch your bones with love, and a true gift for cooking. I can still taste the oatmeal cookies she used to make. I remember her all the time and have a picture of her in my office, since she is one of my heroes in life. Grandma would probably just shake her head at the notion that "thrift is in". She would have thought all the excesses of the last decade very strange. To her, simple living was just that - living. Today's post is dedicated to Grandma.

Transitions

The snow is melting and the sun feels warm and strong, but I still can't do anything in the garden. The seedlings all survived their cold shock from the snowstorm and lack of electricity, and so did my houseplants, including two I thought were gonners for sure. So all is well on the farm. We did lose many pines. Some stands just looked like mini twisters went through. They were uprooted and twisted together. I've never seen anything quite like it.

My friend Annette, over at the blog called Annie's Gleanings, posted about our tea and visit last week. We are in the weird blogosphere space where we're both commenting on a real visit but in a virtual way. What an unusual meshing of worlds that happens now!

One thing she wrote about and that I noticed while she was here was that she was fascinated by my past life as a corporate executive. It's funny but some of my other neighbors here in Virginia were intrigued by it too. I guess they're as interested in my tales of what it's like running around buildings featured in "The Devil Wears Prada" (true story: some scenes were filmed in the lobby of a building where I worked!) as I am learning how to can tomatoes and raise goats. I guess the time I had to deal with the Secret Service, because I was hosting an event attended by members of the Bush family, does make for an interesting tale. I avoided Hillary Clinton on an elevator, afraid I'd have to make small talk with her, but I missed meeting my favorite mayor, Rudy Giuliani, as he raced by me once in the lobby. And I had lunch at a table next to Angela Lansbury and Rex Reed at Josephina's on the upper West Side of New York once; she looks fabulous, and is a gracious, classy lady. Although I felt rude because she caught me staring at her. I had to focus my attention on my salad instead. It's rude to stare at famous people when you're a New Yorker; it's the unwritten code.

I guess my stories are interesting, after all!

So here goes: how I survived corporate America, and lived to tell funny stories about it! Or: Transitions, from New York City to Rural Virginia

I never intended to be a marketing executive. Since I was 13 years old and won a national writing contest, I had one burning ambition, and one ambition only: to be a writer. I wrote novels, short stories, and articles. By age 19, I'd published two short stories. I graduated summa cum laude and first in the English department in college, literally submerging myself in the glorious English literature tradition. I took a year off to work and rest, then went back to earn a Master of Arts in Writing.

By day I was a copywriter, writing voice mail scripts and audio recordings for the Yellow Pages. I liked my job and my friends. At night, I went to Queens College and took writing courses.

That was my first mistake.

Never, ever, go to graduate school for writing...if you can write.

Writing courses are bad for writers. If you can write, I do not recommend them.

Graduate writing courses are called seminars. There is no instruction, or virtually none. Most of the time you sit around in a big circle and share your stories with your fellow students. They critique them. Why having someone who writes worse than you do pick on your story is a good idea, I will never know. Some stories were great. Others were horrible. Sometimes you knew exactly what to say to someone to help them be a better writer. Most of the time, you danced around what you wanted to say, afraid to hurt the other person's feelings.

My graduate experience was terrible. I didn't know it at the time, but it sapped whatever joy I took in my writing right out of me. My professors didn't give much feedback. A few were great, but these were mostly the professors I encountered in my old friend, literature courses. The writing seminars were disastrous. I lost faith in myself. I published many articles, but faltered as a short story writer and novelist. The writing professors at Queens College - all extremely left leaning, liberal, and dedicated to writing in the most "modern" style possible - were also a dreadful fit for me. They wanted me to write the way they wrote. I could not.

I had a professor tell me that semi colons were obsolete; I love them. It helps that I know how to use them. But that was how strange the writing program was - I was chastised for a semi colon, but my classmates, some of whom could not write a coherent sentence, earned the same Master's degree as I did.

I can write a coherent sentence. Most of the time.

I didn't know this at the time. Then, I thought something was wrong with me....

Around that time, just as I was finishing my degree, I had the opportunity to take a job as a marketing manager at the nursery and garden center where I worked. I'd been working as a secretary to pay my bills, and writing at night and on my days off. The money was much better, and I still got to write, but now I was writing business plans and marketing materials. As I created catalogs and marketing plans and advertisements, I found that I liked the work. I was good at it. And it paid better than writing.

Also around that time, I got married.My husband and I decided on a bold course of action. I'd pursue a career in marketing, since it earned more, and later, I could pick up my writing. It was a scary concept. What if I never went back to writing? How could I defer my dreams?

But then opportunity knocked...and I took a job in New York City for Actrade Capital.

And that's when things got interesting.

To be continued...

Thankful for Little Things - Like Heat!

Today I'm thankful for the little things in life - like heat, electricity, and running water! The snow storm hit on Sunday. I'm glad I stayed home from church, although I hate to miss it. Around the time I'd be trying to drive home, sleet was coming down, and our driveway started to ice up. By the afternoon, sleet turned to thick, wet snow. Then the winds picked up and it began to snow...and snow...and blow! Around 7:30, the electricity went out. We were hopeful it would be a quick fix, but when we awoke to 8 inches of snow and many downed pine trees on our own driveway, we realized it was not a quick fix. No heat, no electricity, and no running water meant we had to act fast. Thankfully I'd stockpiled bottled water in the basement, so we had plenty of drinking water, but we ended up melting snow in my canning pot and my big spaghetti-pots on the gas stove top to create buckets of water to flush the toilets. We packed snow into a garbage can and pails in the garage, and it acted like a nice refrigerator and freezer for our food. The house got plenty cold though. By the time Tuesday morning rolled around, the outside temperature was only 11 degrees. Inside, it was 49. I'm grateful for the good insulation in the house. Can you imagine if we didn't have good insulation? It sure was cold though! The pets were so cold they were huddling together and snuggling under the blankets with us. My poor seedlings were drooping...I thought I'd lost the tomatoes...but they are okay today.

I'm so happy that the power came back on. Today I am looking out through my office windows at snow covered pines that look like the Alps. I have a painting in my dining room that my mother bought from a Floral Park artist called Barrister of snow-covered pines, and it's one of my favorite pictures in the house. Now I have this view from my own windows. And since it's warm and I have a steaming mug of coffee at hand, I can relax and enjoy the view!

Thanks to Helen for calling on Sunday night to see if we were okay...and Patty and Ron our neighbors in Prospect for stopping by on Tuesday and offering us a grocery store run...I am grateful for all our friends here in Virginia!

These photos showing the progress of the storm, from Sunday through Tuesday. Shadow is racing around the lawn enjoying her first taste of snow. Then I have a picture of the garden trellis in the early stages of the storm on Sunday afternoon. There rest of the pictures show our driveway, Hixburg Road, and the yard covered in snow. Enjoy

Under the Weather

Well I'm home today, feeling under the weather...and waiting for the actual weather to roll in, in the form of more ice and snow. We're expecting up to seven inches of the white stuff starting later today. Normally I look forward to snow storms. I love being cozy and warm and watching the snow swirl by. Unfortunately, now that I live on a 17 acre pine tree farm in a very rural area, we lose power a lot. Sometimes on bright sunny days. So I'm not optimistic. I've got the requisite gallon of water per person stored in the cellar, food that doesn't require electricity to cook, and blankets for all. Brrr. See everyone when I see you.