Emily Dickinson Poetry Walk, this year virtual, May 15

Just a quick note: the annual Emily Dickinson Poetry Walk in Amherst, commemorating her death, is virtual this year. So we can all go!

 It's on May 15,  12-1 est,  and you go to  the https://emilydickinsonmusem.org ,  scroll down to Remote Poetry Walk, and sign up for the Zoom event.  They'll send you the link on May 14. You can sign up to read, or make a memorial message. Or you can just tune in and follow the walk.

Thank you, K, for alerting me.

Reward after an overdoing day

Today I seem to have done a bit too much. I do tend to forget I'm not a kid in my sixties any more.

So what with an energetic workout complete with weights, music practice, carrying the heavy awkward vacuum cleaner down a flight, vacuuming the downstairs including kitchen and bathroom, then lugging it back up, actually easier than down because it wasn't trying to pull me downstairs on the way up, and there was a shower in there somewhere, then lugging plants and potting soil about, doing the drying and folding of a large load of son's laundry as promised, and various other things, I found I was too tired to put it the laundry in the car and deliver it.

I want to drive the car at least a bit because I'm still learning how! New car six weeks ago, still mysteries. And I don't want to get too nervous to drive, which is possible in this kind of situation. I know myself rather well. When I'm doing things I'm great, confident, capable and all that. Stop doing and nerves take over.  Which is why I didn't arrange for him to pick up which he gladly would.

Anyway I ended up promising the laundry for tomorrow. And a few things I thought I'd do today, such as pizza dough. Sufficient unto the morrow be the pizza dough thereof.

And then, feeling a bit defeated, I suddenly saw this lovely friend sitting quietly on the feeder.

 I've made many attempts to get pictures but the redbellied woodpecker is the most skittish of visitors, taking off at the slightest movement from me. Only a moderately good picture, but it's like getting a blurred picture of Nessie. You're just glad anyway! It's taken him a year to return since I had the big dead branch removed, and the feeder hanging from it relocated, no overhead cover, let alone stay still a minute.

And finally he obliged. So this is a good day.

Garden rescues and experiments

The potting soil arrived and, before I repot the bigger house-plants which are in urgent need, I played a bit.

The Vicks plant in the green dish, I nearly killed twice leaving it past frost last year, then putting it out too soon this year, saving only a remnant, which obligingly started putting roots into water. I forgot one day to check and it was dry. Oh. Nothing daunted, it's started new roots, so I've rehoused her in a pot, next to her friends. And I started an apple pit thing in another pot. A couple of dried cores buried in the pot and a few pits scattered on top.  We'll see. After dinner gardening. The third pot above has no occupants yet.

Then through the window I noticed a cheerful little blossom struggling up outside through the iris and daylily and pachysandra and vetch and scarlet pimpernel and Montauk daisies and thyme and sedum and Thai basil and lavender and whatever they call that pretty ground creeper that gets yellow flowers.

 It's the scrawny little azalea I rescued from across the street when my friends moved out, and before their tenants moved in. Along with a clump of yellow daisy-like Fall flowers, which I don't like, bitter yellow color, bad taste in my mouth, but the goldfinches love it, so it stays.

Finally, the little azalea is getting going, despite its crowded situation. I've been tossing spent tea-leaves, organic, says she virtuously, around it,  in hopes, for a couple of years. Adding acid, they love acid. My rescued rose on the patio, likewise. If I had a holly, I'd include it. They all like additional acid. I'll leave the azalea alone, since she seems to know what she's doing.

I only took a bit of the plant material from across the street, politely leaving plenty for the incoming tenants, though I'd been invited to help myself. It was a waste of honesty, though, since the first thing the new people did was tear out every living thing, leaving a wasteland in front of the house. Scorched earth policy. I guess they prefer mud.

So it's good I transplanted what I did. I'm at the other end of the spectrum, my tiny area crowded like a permanent rush hour. The amphibians and worms and birds and bees of all kinds, and praying mantis, love it, so I'm not arguing. And there's no room for weeds.
A certain amount depends on your definition of weeds, of course.

I'm pretty sure if I suddenly found purple loosestrife or phragmites grass out there, I'd yank them out sharpish, they being the Al Capones of the plant world. But other than that, not so much. Since we have cold winters, plants like bindweed die off annually, so they're not the infernal pests they are in other states.

This is big talk from someone who just potted two four inch pots, no?

Mother's Day, 2020

For the first time in the crisis the weather was warm enough, well, 60f, to sit out. So Handsome Son came over bearing groceries which became a mother's day gift, and we sat chatting, drinking tea, each with own teapot and tools, eating fresh cornbread. First time for a sit down chat for so many weeks. Distancing observed. Note the napkins tucked over the individual teatrays, to defend against birds while son arrives.

The birds were competing for cornbread, hoping we'd drop some, bluejays, catbirds, sparrows. Overhead two tree-swallows, first of the year, yes, doesn't make a summer, but I'll take it, and a lone crow mobbing a redtail hawk. A little peregrine darting around the trees on the hunt.

This was one of the best Mother's Day celebrations I've had. Son not working, rare on Sunday, weather cooperative. It was wonderful.

Basho, Villon, weathermen

In one way, all poets are weathermen, in the sense of rebels, but today more literally.

Basho, just happened on this haiku today

Has it returned,
The snow
We viewed together?

Centuries later comes Villon

Ah, ou sont les neiges d'antan?

Insert your own grave accent on the ou.

Translated often as "where are the snows of yesteryear?"

To which friends in New England can say today: right here, in fact.

No snow at my house but bitter wind, warm coat, gloves, fleecy pants, beret, hood pulled over it, and the wind was hard work to walk against. Blowing from all directions. I kept a close eye on the old trees as I went. They can come down with a split second of warning.  You listen for that creaking sound.  If you hear it, you run.

A 75' tree came down on a neighbor's house a couple of years ago. Her son, out on the patio playing cards, with beverages, with friends, heard the sound, yelled RUN, and they all as one man, first seized their beer (!) then ran.

 The tree crushed the fence and all the chairs and table they'd been sitting at. Then, very male, they set up the game indoors, hunting for more cards and refills. Yes, teenage boys, why do you ask?

Meanwhile his mother, white and shaking, ran to my house to decompress. We had tea.

Wrens, Basho and Accidental Poetry

This morning, within minutes of my throwing out the breakfast crumbs, a wren pair came to sample them. See one wren on the fence to the right of the feeder? They like the lentil bread.

And this week, finally, the woodpeckers and,  today,  the white breasted nuthatch, started using the feeder on the shepherd's crook. It's taken them a year to trust the area after the big dead cherry branch had to be cut before it fell on me. That was their overhead cover from hawks. Very glad to see them back.

Basho haiku today

Skylark on moor
sweet song
of non-attachment

One of my earliest memories is the skylark singing over the moor, so high he was invisible, squinting up to find the little dot in the sky. 

And finally, have you tried the Accidental Poetry game? Pick out books, stack them so the titles  make a little thought. Like this

You can emphasize it a couple of different ways.

But nothing will ever top the wonderful government statistical publication entitled Population of the British Isles, Broken Down by Age and Sex. Well, aren't we all?

Sparrowgrass cream soup

I woke up this morning,saw the chilly rainy weather, not getting above the 50's f, and decided I might as well make soup today. I'd put the asparagus in the freezer in case I didn't feel like using it right away.

So here's the story. I looked up a couple of recipes and thought they were a bit like workbooks, full of busywork that didn't seem strictly necessary. So I'm sure you assume I did it my way..

Anyway, here's a couple of handfuls of asparagus, most of a large onion, the only seasoning necessary salt and fresh ground black pepper.

 This is a delicate flavor, no need for a lot of spices. I did use chicken broth, well, one little packet of chicken. Turned out the other box I had was beef, which I must have picked up by accident, but oh well.

I made a roux in a separate small pan, usual butter and flour, ending with cup of warm milk whisked in to complete it. That I left to one side keeping warm till the main action was complete.

Back at the soup pot, onions, only roughly chopped, no need to get carried away, they'll be blended soon anyway, asparagus snapped a bit, oil and butter,  half cup of broth, cook the lot.

 If your asparagus is farm fresh, this will be about five minutes, tops. Unlike the recipes which said 12-14, using old stuff maybe.

Then stick blend. Stop to wipe soup off glasses, note to tip pot further away from self. Then add in the rest of the broth, cook a bit, then the warm roux mixture. About ten minutes more over gentle heat will do it.

I don't add cream, but I did swirl a spoonful of plain yogurt into this right before diving in. It was, well, it was very good. Try it. It's really worth doing.

I got four helpings from this, each one cup, 8 fl.oz. or floz I like to say. My soup ladle, just measured it now after years of meaning to, is half a cup.

I usually make enough soup for six helpings, but I think this worked better in a smaller batch. I have enough stems frozen to do another batch some time.

I freeze soup in single helpings, just enough for one. In the olden days when Handsome Son came to dinner, I'd just take out enough containers. One for me, three for him, he likes the soup around here.

A couple of days ago, to turn to a sadder tale, I wasn't in the mood to make a cake but I fancied a little something. And we will draw a veil over the YouTube squeaky lady who explained how this was a chocolate cake needing no baking, no pans, no ability either.

 It was baked in the microwave. In a container. And took approximately three times as long as she said, might as well have made a real cake. And it's almost edible. If you're desperate for a cakelike object with your tea. Identity witheld to protect the guilty.

 No pictures, I'm protecting you from the science fiction thing trying to escape from the dish. She had put in so many disclaimers I should have guessed it was a dud.

 And we will never know how many iterations it took to yield that very nice cake she cut into enticingly. Or maybe she ran to the bakery in desperation, facing a deadline.

But as my Uncle George would have said, this cake's awful, I'll be glad when I've had enough!

Vetch, a favorite, appears

It's spring for any number of reasons, one being the flowering of vetch among the ground cover. It's flowers are like tiny sweet peas, not surprising, since they're in the same family.

This little corner also houses sorrel,scarlet  pimpernel a bit later, and other wild flowers some people refer to as weeds. 

Interestingly a lot of the flowers in my wildflower book also appear in my weed book. It's largely about location and density and whether it's a pest to crops. It's not about some moral failing on the part of the plant, though some folks talk as if it were.

Anyway I treasure them all.

I noticed them as I was rolling up the daffodil foliage. I just sort of take it in handfuls, roll them back and hide them under the ground cover. That way they decay naturally, out of sight, and you don't see them yellowing and dying off. But they do preserve the nutrition for next year's flowers.

I have a few square feet of land, and I talk as if it was the back forty.

Asparagus tip tips, and first world problems

So I washed and washed the asparagus to get the sand out, then you know about determining where the tender part of the asparagus tip ends? I used to grow it, so I've done a lot of this.

You snap each stalk. Where it breaks is where the tip ends and the tougher part starts. It tells you.

So here, tips for steaming, and stalks for soup.

Meanwhile back at the dryer. The supplier now tells me the dryer I told him about does after all exist, but he has no mounting  bracket and installers are on leave because of the virus.

I had found the dryer he said didn't exist, he grudgingly found it's still made, but, oh oh..the mfr won't take orders, made in China, completely shut down. No dryer, no bracket, no installer. Aside from that, Mrs Lincoln.. I'm pursuing another supplier but not with much hope.

First world problem, but I'm still not impressed that the supplier guy claimed the dryer didn't exist. Claimed their chief salesman agreed with him (!) One o' them there hoaxes.

Asparagus is in!

Over as soon as they opened. Several other cars there already when I arrived. When the day's crop is gone, it's over till the next lot is ready. Very slow growing this cold season. Could be a day or two. So people who know that are prompt.

Picked this morning from the field next to the trees you see.  All the precautions in place. Everyone masked, polite, friendly.

And now for a lovely dish of steamed sparrowgrass with lemon butter sauce. No need to get more fancy. This is Jersey Fresh!

It's a nice change from the excitement of the weekend. It wasn't all sitting on the patio. There was a urgent call late Saturday from tenant about sparks shooting out of the wall in the laundry area. We both feared an electrical fire, and he had had the presence of mind to spring for the breaker box and turn the circuit to the washer and dryer off.

Then various tests and consultations with Mike and my neighbor over Saturday and Sunday, all done by text and phone, indicated that probably the dryer was shorting out, not the circuit.

Which means replacing it. Which may be very tricky. It's wall mounted in an alcove, water heater one side, wall the other, no floor space because door. It's small and the appliance people who usually save me are telling me dryers like this don't exist, where did I get the idea etc. I sent pix, model info etc. Silence now.

I'm pursuing this with other suppliers but they usually have nothing this small, that's how I ended up with the current supplier, who did great detective work when I needed to replace the washer.

 I think that man has left, though. Maybe I drove him out! So tenant will be getting his clothes dried by his mother, that would be me, until, and if ever, we get a solution.

Really didn't need this added stress. I thought I was doing okay up to now. Until neighbor told me of two close friends who died this week of the virus. And doctors now think his sister in law who died in February, probably had it too, not detected.

So this is what's up. Where I live is very much affected.

But I'll still steam the asparagus. And maybe make soup, too.

First tea on the patio this year

First outdoor afternoon of the year, listening to a Georgette Heyer audiobook, weaving a miniature hat, watching the clouds.

 A crow chasing a redtail hawk out of his nesting territory, getting in a fierce peck at the tailfeathers. Turkey vultures flying lazy circles.

 Drinking tea, eating cashews and golden raisins, while bees buzzed around the flowers and the newly opening lemon balm, sage and thyme.

 Calm, neighbors playing with their kids. Kids laughing, because out of the house.

The trees in their earliest green. Dogwood in blossom.

I wish everyone this kind of quiet afternoon, to recover our balance, and remember later.

Basho for today

In my new robe
this morning --
someone else

I had read this haiku the other day, forgotten about it, then upcycled the sweater. Centuries after he wrote, his words may have unconsciously directed that idea. Cool.

Lentil bread verdict

So here's the finished lentil curry loaf, to be cut again, into four loaves. Nice crisp crust, the crumb a bit heavy. Next time I'll use less water in the lentils, and I might chuck in capers as a nice addition. The curry flavor is indectectible, so I'm not sure what the point was.

All in all a 7 out of 10. It's edible, and may be better tomorrow. It's a savory bread, not a jam holder. I think capers or some such accent would be good. Or spread with butter and anchovy paste is an idea.  I had it toasted with sharp cheddar for supper, not bad.

No whole-wheat so needs must

I'm so used to whole-wheat flour that it's a new landscape not having it. Now that I have enough white ap flour, and need bread, I consulted with my trusty Healthy Bread book for good alternatives.

And found curried lentil bread. Worth a shot. It worked differently from my usual.

See how it's trying to rise and escape? Then, wrestled down again, it looked yellowy. I used red lentils, which is why. They're more orange than red in color. Here it's going into the oven.

Then I had to guess at the baking time.  I guessed fifty  minutes, rather than the usual 60 when I use this pan. Waiting for it to cool before I find out if it worked out.

The recipe wanted two cups of whole-wheat, for which I subbed rice and oat flour that I'd ground. I'm guessing the change in flour accounts for the runaway tendency, since they have zero gluten. But the other 5.5 cups of Ap may have saved it. And the vital wheat gluten the recipe includes.
The cup of lentils rounded out the solid ingredients.

Whatever it's like, I have plenty of it.

A funny thing happened on the way to the clothes closet

Just musing on what to wear today over the usual white tee, and noticed another turtle neck that hasn't worked for me for ages. The scissors were close at hand.

And this happened. Another handy comfy jacket. No sewing. Wearing it right away. Notice the phone purse, an experiment in filet crochet. Also a safety feature, never without my phone, because You Never Know. I have a few purses, to work with different outfits. Of course!

Posed on location in the Little Gallery, aka downstairs bathroom.

Later in May Day

After the storms moved away yesterday, I got out to pick violets and yellow sorrel for my first day of the month flowers.

And on the way, saw a bee sleeping in the honesty plant. Still there when I came back.

Spring!

Great addition to May Day and White Rabbits

I noticed a reference on Twitter this morning to Basho, Japanese haiku poet, and the comment that if you read a few a day, it will carry you through quite a while.

You can't really assimilate and think about more than a few haiku of this quality a day, if that. They're so compressed with meaning and suggestion, that they stop you in your tracks.

So I looked for a book of his poems, found this on Hoopla

Read a bit and didn't like it much, full of academic argument and debate pushing the work out of the way. More of a comparative study guide than I wanted.

 I found a better version, he's written a lot, plenty to choose from. And actually bought it for my Kindle, where it's nestling in my file of Austen, Trollope, Anthony not Joanna, and ready for a few minutes quiet study daily.

I was at an online meeting last evening, despite technical obstacles, arghghg, and it opened with a reading from Richard Rohr. I can not read him in print, just find him incoherent.

 But read aloud, suddenly he made sense. Nice discovery. Probably my rapid reading interfered before. And it fits in with the haiku in concept so well. When the student is ready the teacher will appear.

Anyway one great bit from Rohr stays with me: life is not about me, but I am about life. I stayed on that for the whole meditation period that followed, until my tablet cut me off (!) I'll be back next week.

The group is sponsored by the convent where I learned goldwork embroidery and met my first Anglican nuns, still in traditional habit, and had a good time with them. It's through their newsletter that I got the invitation.

 So I was glad of the chance to remeet some of the community without driving. I'm neither religious not Anglican, but this seems like a time not to be concerned with divisions, and they were welcoming.  The leader is a laywoman, as are a lot of participants.

And now I'm off for a natter with me mates at our Ravelry knitting group.

I'll leave you with a couple of sky views from under my porch between rainstorms. I had planned to go pick violets for my first of the month flowers, but the weather's telling me to wait.

Meanwhile, Happy May Day, and White Rabbits.

MIF and a squint at books

I heard yet another rerun of the tea discussion today: milk in first or not. The original idea being, and I strongly doubt it, that putting a drop of milk in first prevented  your china cup from cracking.

 Except that real tea drinkers pour the tea first, around a silver spoon if you're nervous about grandma's cups, then add milk to taste, depending on the strength of the tea. First cup out of the pot not as strong as later ones. It's a minor art.

 My mom used to say the best tea with milk in, was the color of a golden sovereign. A useful tip if you'd ever seen one, I suppose. She had, they still being legal tender, if very hard to come by, in her youth.

Vital supplies, more under the shelf.

Speaking as one whose tea is more builder's than Downton Abbey, charges roaring like a wild beast out of the pot, I still put milk in second. In my Chinese mug. No saucer, my dear, averted eyes, pearls clutched.

So that being settled, and I'm sure you were engrossed, on to snooping.

I like how many people's homes we can see into via online meetings and newscasts. I always like to see the books and wonder if they've hidden the Agatha Christies and put out the Decline and Falls for bragging rights.

Here, with no editing, is a ramble round my four walls, getting closer by the day. Enjoy peeking.

 Cookbooks, not many

 More cookbooks

 Writing, musing

Wildlife

 From art teaching days

 Knitting, see that ww2 British one?

 Weaving, stitching, tapestries

 Handmade

Handmade and blanks

Rereads, Heyers, Pyms, Bensons, Delafields. Handsome Son gallery on top. Frames of handmade paper.

I gave away many artbooks and other readables during the Great Winnowing. Haven't missed them, what with Kindle, ebooks, audiobooks.

But I still enjoy browsing in paper books.

Music continues, supposed to be good for the brain. Jury's out.

So I continue to play music. It's very good for your breathing to play a wind instrument. As I find when I try an extended exercise, gasp, achh..

Then after working on the exercisesyou see here, for alto recorder, moving on. These exercises are like those ghastly Czerny piano exercises which turned generations of young players off forever.

 They're really about dexterity, very important. But it's not about music, just about developing the physical ability to actually play it. Like learning to drive so as to take road trips.

I never had a piano teacher as a kid, started at six, who actually grasped this.  But they weren't performers, just local ladies who'd probably done coursework.  No joy in it. Which accounted for my misery and longing to dump the piano.

 I did have much better singing teachers, and never wanted to dump my voice.  My mom wanted me to develop  good breathing technique, to help with severe asthma. She was very smart, wanted to avoid addictive asthma remedies available back in the 40s.

 So she  arranged singing solo and in a children's choir. And we found I turned out to have a good voice. It's the facial architecture -- high roof of the mouth gives resonance. It also enables good tone on recorder and flute. Lucky.

 I eventually took up violin in middle age, with great encouragement from serious musicians who thought it was wonderful just to be trying it. They knew all about the work and all about the joy.

 My hands aren't designed for violin though -- pinkie fingers set low, so the stretch to play notes is a big strain. Take a look at great string players and see those lovely long pinkie fingers, it helps a lot. I had to move on for fear of injury, sad day.

 And later recorder and flute, more work, tons of joy and friends and playing together. Ensemble playing with friends is what I like. Not performing. I've outlived my string ensemble, and quite a few of my recorder friends. That wasn't in the plan, though.

Then today, after Rooda exercises, on to some lovely stuff.

Morley, played,  first line on soprano recorder, second line on tenor recorder.

Then I declared my musical journey paused till tomorrow. I might sing a bit. We'll see.

So that's the Great Doh, Re, Me Me, Me!

Accidental cooking

Just got a reminder from my cookbook book club about this month's chef, Marcus Samuelsson. Checked it out on Hoopla, though ebooks aren't my preferred form for cookbooks, but no choice right now.

He's a Swedish Ethiopian, great imaginative chef, came to Harlem  and owns The Red Rooster restaurant. The book of the same name is a social history of Harlem, the waves of cultures that have enriched it, and the food and drink that resulted.  Worth reading even if you don't cook from it.

However the first thing I noticed was a spice mix, berbere, new to me. So I had to try it. After going to YouTube to learn how to say it. Three syllables.

 It involved all three of my spice cabinets and quite a few of the contents. I had to sub one or two things, oddly enough, common items like paprika and dried onion flakes. But I think I got close enough for starters. It requires fenugreek, and you did know that fenugreek seeds are methi? Same thing. My Asian store sells it as methi seeds. Good to know.

It involved several stages, toasting the first group of spices

Grinding them in my ancient coffee grinder

Mixing them with the second group

And finally trying the mix.

 Sliced sweet potatoes for roasting seemed like a good test. I'll let you know... off to cook now.  At every stage the smells of the spices are amazing.