slowly she turned

Living the Slow life in North Carolina

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  • Sunday morning musings

    I don’t know how much I will be able to do in the garden today. The spirit is willing but the flesh is attracting mosquitoes. Lots of them. Vicious little black asian tiger mosquitoes. After I got up twice last night to find the hydrocortisone for my bites, I finally put it next to the bed. I am trying this Off botanical lotion that has eucalyptus as the main ingredient, but I think I sweat it off pretty quickly.

    The temperature is supposed to go up to 88 today. This may mean that we’ll have to consider turning on the A.C. Since I made the decision to get serious about living simply last summer, we have been trying to do without air conditioning. However, it is medically necessary for me to get a full night’s sleep, and sometimes that means that the air conditioning is medically necessary. It has taken years to get my husband, who would live totally without A.C., to understand this.

    One of my weekly tasks is to put down the cardboard and newspapers I have gathered during the week and cover them with straw. These will be my garden beds and paths for next year. I use the cardboard and newspapers to kill the grass and weeds and to attract earthworms. The earthworms till the soil to a depth of about 12 inches. Now, I could just leave it at that and plant through the newspaper when the time comes. That would be the permaculture way. But I like to cover this layer with humus or topsoil when it’s time to plant. It seems to give me a little extra time before I have to deal with the weeds and grass again.

    I used to hurt my back almost every year near the beginning of the season. This method seems like a lot of work at first, but building up the beds instead of digging down has been much easier physically because it is much less maintenance later. And you can see by the photos I’ve posted that I am getting a nice little return out of a very small, organic space.

    I pulled up most of the pea vines and spinach and arugula that have gone to seed. The rest of my little pepper seedlings will go where the peas were, and green beans are already sprouting where the carrots and arugula were. I have to figure out what to do with my gourd seedlings and the ground cherry seedlings. Gourds, like squash, have been problematic for me. It’s a shame, because I love the idea of making gourd vessels. The ground cherries – I just don’t know. They are listed as weeds and wild food in some books. They should be able to survive anywhere. Last year I grew them in pots, but they needed lots of water. Even missing one day threw them into a sulk.

  • peas and carrots!

    The carrot curse seems to have lifted! Maybe, just maybe, this is my graduation year to green thumbdom. The proof will be in the squash. I have never ever been able to produce more than one of any kind of squash.

    Today we cut down the mimosa tree. Don’t fret, mimosa fans, it will grow back, believe me. This is the second tree we’ve cut down in order to make more room for Mr. Sun! See how much I adore you, Mr. Sun? I suffered in silence while you schemed about nailing Mary Ann.

    My day was mainly occupied with pulling weeds since the ground was so wet. I planted ten tiny Kung Pao pepper seedlings in the strip between the sidewalk and the street. The field peas, okra, and green bean seeds are up.

    I was completely discombobulated and dismayed to see that the Sopranos is coming on tomorrow night and my HBO is not hooked up. I thought for sure you would let me know in time. You know I don’t have the attention span to watch what passes for TV entertainment these days, so I miss all the commercials. Why, oh why, didn’t you tell me? You know that I can’t handle the knowledge that the Sopranos will be on and I won’t be watching! Maybe I can rent a cheap motel room.

  • Ode to the Jazzcat

    I’ve seen a lot of poetry on the blogs as I’ve been toodling around. Bet you didn’t know that I’m a poet, too!

    Ode to the Jazzcat (sung to the tune of My Darlin’ Clementine)

    Little Jazzy
    Is so snazzy.
    She’s the greatest cat of all.
    But we love her the
    Best when she
    Doesn’t pee pee
    In the hall.

  • Certified Roadside Farm Markets

    The News & Record reports on the new certification program for local produce in Wednesday’s edition: Farmers apply for certification.

    Excerpt:

    “There are folks who will run down to a wholesaling warehouse, repackage produce in folksy-looking straw baskets and hawk it as home-grown.

    “How to tell the difference between home-grown and hornswoggle?

    “That may be where a new program the N.C. Department of Agriculture is launching will come in.

    “Farmers across the state have begun applying for status as “Certified Roadside Farm Markets,” a status that will indicate that more than half of what they sell they grow.”

    I think that these restrictions should be greater than more than half, personally. But I am glad that something is being done. If I am buying through a middleman, I might as well go to the supermarket.

  • today’s harvest

    Oakleaf lettuce, amish deer tongue lettuce, beet greens, and broccoli

  • oh, ALL RIGHT!

    ’scuse me while I vent a bit…

    This tooth does not hurt me right now. In my childhood, I had this tooth, along with every other freaking back tooth in my mouth, filled to the max with silver. This dentist was related to us and apparently was not up-to-date on the latest pain management techniques, unless you consider increasing pain as pain management. He also liked to make fun of my hysteria.

    Fast forward: As an adult, I began to have persistent pain. I had this tooth sanded down and reshaped to fit my bite three times. The dentist told me I needed a crown but she wouldn’t do it until a root canal specialist did a root canal. The root canal specialist said I just needed a crown. The dentist didn’t want to do a crown. In the meantime, I was scrubbing it with peroxide and suffering. Then God intervened and placed a piece of bone in my hamburger. I cracked it and was treated to a blessed crown by a different dentist.

    Fast forward to two years ago: “Doesn’t that hurt?” the hygenist says as she pokes a sharp pointy object between my teeth. Well it hadn’t for a long time, but yeah, it hurts NOW that you skewered it. I went to the periodontist. He sent me back to the dentist to close the gap between my teeth. I went back to the periodontist. Again. And again. I went back to the periodontist for that one tooth about TEN TIMES.

    Fast forward to one month ago. “Doesn’t that hurt?” the hygenist says as she pokes a sharp pointy object between my teeth. Well, no, as I struggle not to flinch. I know where THIS is going. The dentist comments on how healthy it looks for an infected tooth. Isn’t that nice. I use a prescription mouthwash for a month.

    Fast forward to today. “Doesn’t that hurt?” the dentist says as she pokes a sharp pointy object between my teeth. No. I didn’t even have to struggle not to flinch.

    Yet, I am going to the damn periodontist tomorrow!

    I’m just about ready to have the damn thing pulled and be done with it. It will save me a lot of gas.

  • Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the garden…

    It’s “Allergies II.” I thought the spring allergy season was over, guys.

    My DH, bless his heart, has been sweeping and mopping floors this weekend. I have been sneezing and blowing my nose this weekend, ever since I worked in the garden yesterday, that is.

    I went to one of my favorite places, Edward McKays, where I saw a hardback copy of the revised Moosewood Cookbook. My old copy is tattered and saturated with food stains (in other words, adored), so I pulled it out to see how much it has been revised. Written on the top pages, side, and bottom were the letters BEK. I almost passed out. Seriously. I had to sit down for a while.

    Now I realize that this book could have belonged to say, Bernice Elizabeth Knight or Bradley Edward Katz. Or it could have belonged to anyone with the last name of Bek. But my friend Ryan was a vegetarian and loved to cook. It was not his apartment that burned. So conceivably, his family could have packed up his things for a few years and sold some of them after time healed them enough to deal with it.

    I will never know if this was Ryan’s book. But I’d like to think that it is, so I bought it.

  • today’s work in the garden

    It is amazing how little space 320 pounds of dirt takes up. But I put down a small narrow bed and expanded the little island bed I made in the front of the garden where there is the most sun.

    The island has watermelons, okra, butterbeans (okra and butterbeans are seeds I saved from last year’s crop), basil and nasturiums. I planted the narrow bed with okra and field peas. I planted more green beans in the lettuce/broccoli bed. The field peas I planted last weekend are already coming up!

    I bought blood meal from Lowe’s and sprinkled it around everywhere, plus added bone meal to the new beds. Here’s the mystical fertilizer – the last time I was at Mama’s house I roamed around her garden and picked up every little broken piece of china that I found. Then I lined them up along the edge of the narrow bed.

  • today’s harvest

    Today’s harvest is radishes and peas. And spinach, but I ate that before I took this picture! I love to eat these peas raw. I don’t grow enough to have for a whole pot, just enough in waves so that I can have snacks in the garden as I work. Why did I ever cook peas, I wonder?

    The dirt proves the carrots were freshly pulled out of my garden! There’s also freshly picked dill in that basket for some cottage cheese dill bread tomorrow. This is in the bamboo chair that I’m so crazy about.

  • a fun mentalist church

    I just read Dan Smith’s post about the UCC. He says that if the UCC is fun, then that must make other churches da mentalists. I like that.

    So I thought about the Church of the Covenant. I think that it is fun. The minister’s main message is that you should pursue happiness and authenticity, within the context and circumstances of your life. Sin is defined by having the wrong priorities about what is important. By becoming fulfilled, happy, and authentic people, we can serve others and they will in turn support us in our spiritual journeys. In every communication Jim sends out, he asks us to have fun that day, or to find some time to do something we love.

    And the Church of the Covenant is mentalist. No one talks down to you as if you are incapable of independent thought. You are encouraged to ask questions, discuss, participate, examine issues, offer your opinions, even and especially if they are different. Their website is called A Thinking Church. The service that I attend at 9:20 is more a philosophical gathering of seekers than a church service.

    So the Church of the Covenant is a fun mentalist church.

    Here’s an excerpt from one of Jim Dollar’s sermons titled Being the church is about being alive.

    “When is the last time you had a good time (anywhere in your life)? When is the last time you did something that could qualify as “play”? When is the last time you laughed from the depths? What do you look forward to? What are the compelling interests in your life? What are the sources of energy and enthusiasm in each day? What delights you about your life? What makes you glad to be alive? What brings you joy? What do you love to do? How often do you do it?”

    “What stands between you and what you love? What are the barriers that prevent you from having a good time? What are the obstructions that keep you from enjoying your lives? What is going on in your lives that rules out any possibility of fun?”

    “We cannot hope to “have life and have it abundantly” without answering these questions regularly. The church that helps us ask, and answer them, helps us come to life, and be alive. The church exists to help us address the personal issues arising from our experience of life in the world. But talking about personal matters is not what we think the church is for. We think the church is about spiritual matters. And, we have yet to understand that there is no line of separation between the personal and the spiritual.”