Busting Sod

My previous vegetable gardens have all been planted in existing beds. This is the first time I have stated from scratch. Two things immediately became clear as I started this project. First, I do not have the strength or weight (in spite of my increasingly Rubinesque physique) to manage a rototiller. Second was the reaffirmation of my suspicion that I do not possess the gene for wheel barrowing. No matter how I try I cannot push a barrow in a straight line or keep one upright for more than a few feet. If there is a trick to this skill I wish someone would tell me. However, give me a pitch fork and a garden rake and I’m a veritable Paul Bunyan.

I decided to start small this year, just 20’ x 10’. This will give me a chance to find out what this soil will support and what kind of animal threats I may have to face. So far, with John’s help, the rototilling is done and the compost got moved to the bed so I could dig it in. The bed is covered now with black paper in the hope that the grass and weeds in the soil will die off. You might say I’m trying to kill off a grassroots movement. Meanwhile I have started some seeds and hope to begin planting the hardy stuff in a week or two. The plan is to put in peas, beans, zucchini, beets, tomatoes, onions, peppers and sunflowers (for feeding the birds next winter). Next year I’ll start earlier and branch out.

Could It Be?

A remarkable thing happened tonight shortly after 7:00. I was about to bake a batch of “Julie’s Audacious Brownies” (recipe from Dr. Julie Blacksmith to follow) for tomorrow’s Newbury Women's Club Annual Flea Market, when I realized I didn’t have enough sugar. I set off for the Newbury Village Store, three tenths of a mile north of us ....... Are you ready? .......... WITHOUT A JACKET, OR HAT, OR GLOVES! I smiled all through the baking and I am sitting here, now, positively giddy. Of course licking the beater and bowl probably helped a little. In my head I know we really aren’t out of the woods, weather-wise yet, but my heart I am hopeful.

Julie’s Audacious Brownies

1 C sugar
1/2 C margarine or butter
2 cups of chocolate syrup
4 eggs
1 C + 1 T flour
1/2 tsp. salt
1 tsp. vanilla
1/2 C chopped nuts (optional)

Topping:
2 C miniature marshmallows
1 1/2 C sugar
1/2 C margarine or butter
6 T milk
1/2 C chocolate chips

Cream together sugar and margarine (or butter). Add chocolate syrup and eggs; beat well. Add flour and salt; blend. Stir in vanilla and nuts. Bake in a greased 10x12 pan in 350 degree oven for 30-35 minutes.

While brownies are still hot, sprinkle with marshmallows.

Topping:
Mix sugar, margarine (or butter), and milk in saucepan. Over low heat, bring just to a boil. Remove from heat and add chocolate chips; stir until melted and blended. Spread over marshmallow topped brownie cake. Let cool and cut into bars.

Spring

I think spring is on it's way to Vermont. The trees are getting the slightly pastel, fuzzy look on the ends of their branches that comes with swelling leaf buds. The air is filled with wafts of eau de skunk, and the slushy puddles in the drive way are giving way to mud. Yes friends Mud Season is on it's way. In celebration I give you my ode to mud, I little thing I put together about five years ago.

MUD

• A colloidal substance of oppositely charged particles where electrostatic repulsion maintains suspension.
• Water soak soil
• Soft wet earth
• Muck
• Mire
• Sludge
• Beef stew
• Swallowed up shoes
• Forget your Gucci’s
• Splattered nylons
• Loafers sucked off
• “Wipe your feet before you come in.”
• Low slung vehicles caught in a quagmire
• Mud boggers
• Really big tires
• Melted roads turned to mush
• Paw prints
• Battling brown film with mop and pail

• Will Mud Season ever end?

Warm gentle breezes

The songs of birds

Greening grass

Swelling buds

Daffodils

Spring!

Colors

We moved to Vermont 3 ½ years ago. From the moment I arrived I felt more at home than any other place I have ever lived. Before that we were in Florida for 9 years. That was a least 8 years to many for me. When it snows people ask me if I miss living in Florida and how can I stand all these gray days?

Do I miss Florida? ABSOLUTELY NOT.

As for gray days, that is in the eyes of the beholder. I’d like to tell everyone to look at the sky as if you intended to paint it. Would you mix a little black paint into some white and smear it on the canvas? No. You would look closer and see that the grays are steel, and charcoal, lavender gray and blue gray, and slightly yellow gray and almost white gray. Then there are the whites. White white and yellow white and pinkish white and almost blue white. There are stripes and wisps and the outline of billows.

In Vermont we have greens. Pine green and blue green and dark and dusty gray greens found in leaves and needles of the evergreen trees. There are oval leaves on rhododendron; sharp pointed needles and soft lace like foliage on pines and furs. There are varying shades of browns fading to gold in the underbrush that peaks through the snow under the trees. And tree trunks. There is the big sturdy chestnut tree in my neighbor’s yard and huge tangles of overgrown lilac bushes along my driveway. Bark in shades of brown and varied in texture, and the lovely long peeling white skin of birch trees.

Then we have the snow. The surface glistening like it was dusted with diamonds. Layers of compacted stuff viewed in the gash cut by the plow that clears my driveway, like striations of a geological dig going all the way down to a dirty mess at the bottom (A reminder that mud season will by oozing our way before we know it). Gray? What gray?

I am secretly hoping that we get a blizzard the end of March or early April. I like to go snow shoeing and haven’t been able to this year (the foot thing). I’m thinking I might be able to get comfortably into my boots by then. I miss the fun of breaking the snow as I make my way back to the 5 acres behind my house and the peaceful silence. I like to look for tracks in the snow. I don’t know much about identifying what I see but I enjoy seeing the different sizes of bird feet and especially the tacks of the squirrels. Their feet leave prints like little baby feet, except for the long claws at the tip of the toes.

Sometimes I wish I could paint, but the images in my head refuse to translate through my fingers to paper or canvas. But that is OK. Anything I might capture would be a moment gone. Instead I’ll savor the beauty of the moment and all the colors of winter in Vermont.

Just getting started

I'm not sure why I have started this or if I have anything to say, anything of note anyhow. I'm at the end of a two and a half week stay at home due to some minor foot surgery. Except for the mobility restrictions imposed on me, it was a wonderful respite from my usual life. I read, knit, felted a handbag and communed with myself. The later is something I rarely get to do. What I discovered is that I like being by myself, with my little dog as companion. I enjoyed the quiet; the slower pace. I would have liked to have been able to sow some seeds for the vegetable garden I hope to start this year. Unfortunately, I didn't realize this until I was already confined to the sofa with my foot in the air. I've been planning it in my head for a while but need to get it down on paper. So I guess that is the next step; plot it out, make a list of all I will need and get the seeds started. There is still time as planting here really isn't safe until the middle to end of May. In the meantime I must steel myself for the return to work. Ah Well.