summer, so far

item #1:

today I biked 3 miles home in flip flops; with a bag not designed for biking slung VERY awkwardly over my neck/shoulder, messenger bag style; holding on one wrist a half gallon container of milk in a grocery bag, which I bought forgetting that I'd be biking home and which wouldn't fit in my shoulder bag. the headwind was atrocious, and my shorts -- not really bike friendly -- kept blowing up my leg high enough to give people a show. BIKE COMMUTING SKILLS: ACQUIRED

item #2:





sayonara, number 23. we've had a string of nice weather FINALLY OMG THANK YOU PORTLAND so I drove over to sellwood pool, brought a book, and lounged for a few hours. they heat the water to 84 degrees, so despite the fact that it's only now gotten warm outside, the pool was the perfect temperature. there were about a hundred thousand kids there. I ate an ice cream. pool admission cost me four dollars. everything about this story is awesome, guys.

item #3:

the pea trellis fell over.



it happened sometime between monday morning and yesterday. we've had a pretty steady north wind these past few days, and the pea trellis is, as I have mentioned, super janky. two of the wooden supports simply snapped from the weight of the peas. this comes literally on the heels of my thinking dreamily on monday, these peas are the most successful thing in the garden so far. go figure. I had to leave them when I discovered them yesterday, but today I bought a couple of heavy plastic stakes and tried to wire them to the existing supports. it's hard since the stand of peas is so thick. I have a suspicion their season is beginning to wane, so hopefully the thing will hold up long enough to harvest the last of them.

it was a good run. we have probably a 3 or 4 pound bag of peas in our fridge right now. I love eating them straight off the vine, but we have so many that I'm going to have to can them or pickle them or feature them in several recipes this week.

item #4:

the rest of the garden hums along.


italienischer lettuce heads, bigger than dinner plates


the whole greens bed. salad 4eva


herbs. the fennel is spreading everywhere, including into neighboring plots, oopsies. and it's like 4 1/2 feet tall


strawberries & their runners. they, too, are beginning to take over


one tiny successful tomatillo. there are three other plants, but none with flowers, and since tomatillo plants flower each other in pairs, I may not get any this year. HURRY UP DUDES


peppers. right now they don't look so good so somebody remind me to google pepper problems, k?


the pole beans are climbing very enthusiastically up the trellis.


the edamame is bushy. but not yet beany.


teeny tiny sunflowers! they need to be fertilized. hell, everything needs to be fertilized.

item #5:



I cooked the first of the chickens from the slaughter. I made the marinade from smitten kitchen's thai-style chicken legs, plus the accompanying mango slaw, and I pretty much want to eat that dinner forever and ever. In fact, although I've already had dinner, I now feel compelled to go pour some hoisin sauce on some peas and call it good.

official portland summer: so far, so good.

more miscellany

things you don't often hear fron conductors
"I don't know what that instrument is, but could you play it louder?"

what all that kale looked like

(click through for notes)

for reference, those are full-size bell peppers; I had to stand on a chair to get the full shot.

more things the cats have destroyed
makeup brushes, which were somehow extracted from my zipped makeup bag and thereupon drooled all over
about 30 q-tips, pulled from a not-quite-closed bathroom drawer, drooled upon, and scattered throughout the bathroom and hallway
cotton balls, likewise
bathroom rug, repeatedly
bathroom towels, not destroyed but climbed upon and coated in cat hair
my sanity, increasingly

what I'm yearning for lately
another thanksgiving furlough

how I only partially missed halloween


I didn't dress up this year -- until the last minute, I thought I'd be working all three nights of halloween weekend -- but a certain someone and I did at least pick and carve pumpkins. I think I like his better. it's sly. plus, the face of mine (on the left) is very obviously rotting at the bottom. we can't all be beautiful all the time, I suppose.

walking the wire

It's a strange time lately. I believed the end of the opera season would bring some much needed quiet and rest, but it's six weeks after the close of our last show and everything is as hectic as ever. There are a thousand reasons for this; here is a glimpse:

• softball
  
• horseback riding
  
  
  
  
• stall cleaning
  
• feeding horses
  
• apartment hunting
  
• packing
  
• or at least thinking about packing
  
• training for a marathon -- or at the very least, running
  
• work projects
  
• finally enjoying the nice weather
  
• tending daily to the garden
  

(I went to the garden this morning to plant a bunch of starts I bought last night. It was nice to begin my day there, in the early morning light; everything was quiet except for the rush of water through the hose. Now in the garden: radicchio, mesclun, radishes, basil, lavender, rosemary, fennel (2 types), catnip, sage, chives, cilantro, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, cabbage, kale, butter lettuce, chard, bell peppers, tomatoes, watermelon, canteloupe, lemon cucumber.)

So here is my problem: I am totally overwhelmed by the amount of things I have to do on a daily basis, although nearly everything is exciting and good. It's a real conundrum. I would not want to give any of these things up, and in fact, would find it difficult -- each of them is a commitment I've made. I keep having the feeling that if only I could catch up, everything would settle back and I would be okay. I'm happy now -- sometimes radiantly so -- but also struggling.

Oh, blog. There is one more thing for that list. I've been coyly keeping it a secret from you, but I can't keep it forever.

• boyfriend

growth

the last of the plants that have been kicking around the house are now in the ground at my garden. the current tally stands thusly: radicchio, mesclun, radishes; early girl tomatoes (my favorite), cherry tomatoes; sage, cilantro, chives, thyme, lavender, rosemary, basil; watermelon, canteloupe; lemon cucumbers. the plot is hardly 1/3 full.

I love it over there. the neighborhood is quiet; kids play basketball in the street. a few doors down, a mother calls out, "ashley! dinner!" when garden-neighbors come in through the gate, we water our plots quietly and nod hello. it feels like something out of a remote childhood. on sunday, the ice cream truck drove slowly by; I heard a boy of approximately nine or ten yell in that almost panicked way, "ICE CREAM TRUCK!!!! ICE CREAM TRUCK!!! GET YOUR MONEY!" followed by a flurry of activity. I very nearly got some ice cream myself.

tomorrow is the barn-run horse show. tonight I am headed down there to feed and clean stalls (thankfully with all the horses gone); I have to grab my tack and all my tools, and clean them up, and get snacks, and double-check my show clothes, and then head to the show grounds. I had a very good but very late night last night, and I'm running on maybe 2 hours of sleep. at this point my body is being fueled by sheer stubbornness. tomorrow I'll wake up at 5 and get to the arena by 6 to lunge Cookie, and shine her up, and put her in her show halter for the opening halter classes. I'd like to come home with one riding ribbon. otherwise, the joy in being there is feeling like a part of the barn family.

addendum

step 20: be so sore the next morning from 3 1/2 hours bent over in the garden, you have to walk like an old lady.

gardening 101

step 1: survey your domain.



step 2: apply sunscreen to face, arms, neck. attempt to reach middle of back; find all contortion efforts unsuccessful. settle on covering only reachable parts.

step 3: admire neighbor gardens.





step 4: pick up $2 spade; get working. turn dirt lovingly. pull out little stones, occasional weeds.



step 5: get legs real dirty.



step 6: get back to tilling. wipe brow. feel sunburned.

step 7: kick off shoes.



step 8: meet your neighbor, Warren. feel slightly naked in your skimpy tank top and shorts, since he's clad in a sweatshirt and jeans. feel like a hippie when he glances at your bare feet, which are buried in dirt.



step 9: become embarrassed when your cell phone goes off, because the ringer is all the way up and it's your mother; her ringtone is the theme song from The Price is Right.

step 9A: internally apologize to Warren.

step 10: realize you've been working on your garden for nearly an hour and you're less than a third of the way done. abandon loving, careful tilling of soil in favor of strenuous hoeing; begin using feet to mix up dry dirt clods.

step 11: wonder if that sunscreen is working.

step 12: admire your work so far.





step 13: try to ignore back pain.

step 14: finish turning bed with an exhausted flourish. flop down on the grass. call your mother.

step 15: realize you have no idea how to organize your garden. take a stroll past the neighbors' gardens for inspiration.

step 15A: copy become inspired.

step 16: become exasperated with how long you've been working; finally plant your first plant.



step 16A: plant subsequent plants. suspect they look inadequate. wonder silently if you should have thought more about spring plants versus summer plants.

step 17: try not to compare your greens



to your neighbors' greens.



step 18: realize you've hit the level beyond ravenously hungry and may have moved on to hypoglycemic; plant the other plants in a hurry.

step 19: eat a burger, fries, and a milkshake. feel sore. examine sunburn. wince at sunburn. take luxurious shower. feel hungry again. eat toast, fall asleep on the couch with the cat.

in other news, Cookie nearly made me eat the dirt today. the barn owner let two of the mares out to graze in the front pasture, and they ran up to the back arena gate, startling the crap out of both of us. for probably two straight minutes Cookie pranced, jigged, and spun; she wouldn't stand still and had pretty much forgotten about me altogether. it was like riding a tightly coiled spring. I couldn't dismount without fearing she'd bolt and take me with her. I'm pretty sure I had a look of holy terror on my face as I tried to calm her down, keep her from exploding, figure out what to do, and stay on.

I had to negotiate with her for about ten minutes. TEN. MINUTES. and then, slowly but surely, I got her brain back. we rode for over an hour. I did not dismount -- voluntarily or involuntarily. by the end of the ride she was ignoring the mares. I consider the whole episode a major success.

a little bit of earth

I woke up dreaming my mother's garden—
fields in autumn, green turning gold,
grasses scythed down in the late, dark sun;
and here will be corn, she was saying, tomatoes,
flowers I never knew she loved.

I woke to a child climbing into my bed
—four-year-old girl of my sister's son—
hair like silk and the color of wheat
falling into her eyes, begging me to get up.

And in my mother's kitchen the strong light smelled of coffee
and autumn, in fact. In fact, my mother,
who hasn't gardened in twenty years, was taking a bath.
I heard her splashing through the walls. It was October;
the child came forward, one fresh egg cupped in her palm.

I woke up dreaming the harrowed fields,
sharp with stubble, my mother's lands.
She was already preparing for spring; she was already
stepping naked from the bath, away from grief—

a widow with work to do, weeds in the yard,
and the child calling softly to me, come on, come on, come on.

--waking elsewhere, cecelia woloch

Today I visited my new community garden plot. I've been on the waiting list for a year, which I don't feel so bad about because it turns out there are 1400 people on the waiting list.

1400.

The plot is a couple miles from here, nestled in an area of southeast Portland that's impossible a challenge to navigate because the streets start and stop randomly. You'll be driving down 57th and suddenly it dead-ends at a house and picks up again six blocks later. I lived in this neighborhood when I first moved to Portland and there were truly nights in the first few weeks where I would drive for two hours just trying to get back to the house.

I got lucky, because not only did I get a garden plot, I got a SHINY NEW garden plot. The garden is expanding this year and there's a new section with 23 new raised beds.



The plot is 20' x 20', which I just want to point out is bigger than the studio apartment I lived in during graduate school. (For real: the studio was 15' x 15'). I am SO EXCITED! I had a balcony garden for two years in my last apartment, and I got such joy from it. I already have a list of things to cultivate: tomatoes, peas, salad greens, cucumbers, kale, basil, chives, tomatillos, garlic, green onions. Sunflowers. Sweet peas.

It rained this morning, so I mistakenly thought it was a lousy day outside and therefore didn't step foot out the front door until 4 PM. In fact, it was the perfect temperature; a sweet, late-spring warmth. The opera season is over, and summer is coming. The sky glows faintly with the last of the day's light until well after 9 PM. My favorite time of year, while the days are still extending and extending; the flowers are still blooming, and summer is still a hopeful promise, a sweet singular taste.