Married life...4 weeks and counting...

It's a lazy Sunday morning. I have encouraged H to sleep in, and I have taken a morning stroll with the cats. The garden is doing well despite the bunnies who have nibbled the tops of all the pea sprouts, the spinach, a few basil leaves and the Romaine and leaf lettuces to a nub. They don't seem interested in either our red lettuce which frankly is not my favorite, or the Swiss chard. However, there was plenty left for a salad yesterday, and I harvested enough basil for three snack bags of pesto. There's some neglected parsley that I harvested yesterday (also for pesto) and the remainder seems happy to have those leaves gone. The sungold tomatoes have outgrown their tall cages and are now about 6 foot high, and the one that I broke off at the top has regrown a sprout to replace it. The radishes are up, marking the rows of carrots, and the corn, planted late, is about to the top of my thighs. The winter squash that had about 5 sad leaves when I left for NYC has grown over the radishes and the potatoes and peas. And the raspberries are ready for picking if I ever get to them.

I started the garden really only to clean up the yard before the wedding, and now, as with many things wedding related, it has taken on a life of its own. Alida and Rodney had their son-in-law Jordan till and manure the big garden, and Rodney drilled holes in the oak barrels and filled them with gravel and soil as a wedding present. Without that we couldn't have planted this amazing bounty. The rudbeckia that Judy gave me are thriving, and the lilies, though they didn't flower, seem happy, as does the red petunia. Lois' pulmonaria, geraniums, nettle, little rudbeckia are also thriving, and Nan's Johnny jump-ups are at last starting to fade after having done extremely well in the stone circle and in pots around the house. The poppies she gave me have bloomed pink, with the cilantro and several sunflowers. And the dahlia bulbs from Emmet and Kerstin have formed a thick green hedge, though they have yet to flower. And of course, I am leaving many things out.

Yesterday, I put fish emulsion on everything except the pepper, and then watered again late in the afternoon as everything was looking peaked with the 95 degree heat. The house plants that have been vacationing outside in the shade of the maple were glad of that. I weeded again... that never seems to accomplish anything, but it is oddly satisfying, if hard on the back.  I should put down mulch, but I never seem to get around to it.

So this morning, as the temperature is more comfortable, I am going to take a walk, and do some writing to the sound of Ed's snoring (and yes, Ed IS the cat, not the husband).  The town is quiet. And Herb (the husband, not the cat) and I will write some thank you cards.  Those cards won't begin to convey all we feel about those we think of as we write...

We hope yours is a peaceful morning.

My husband is awake...time to pour him some iced tea.


Later in the day...

Not only did Nora generously pour me some iced tea, she also put on a kettle so that we could make more tea for later.  Such a dear girl.

We invited friends down for a birthday celebration this afternoon, and then got underway making rhubarb cake.  Nora had cut fresh rhubarb stalks this morning, and we measured one leaf at 28" across.

While the cut rhubarb was soaking up confectioner's sugar, we drove up the hill to see a house recently listed for sale.  It's clearly a survivalist's special--a new-enough house, but set almost a mile off the closest road, up a steep and rutted two-track.  This is clearly someone who did NOT want neighbors. And we suspect that track was all plowed by that homeowner, since the Town responsibility ended at the intersection, eight-tenths of a mile away (or further).  If you lived there and had to plow that out once or twice a day for five months at a stretch, you’d be tempted to just let yourself get snowed in and live off your canned goods until April.

We got home and continued the rhubarb adventure, about which the less mentioned, the better.  This is something Nora’s made a dozen times, and one of my favorites, but this time it was like poltergeists interfered at every turn.  NOTHING went correctly.  Is the stove haunted?  Or is it just that we’re distracted, knowing that I’m going back to Boston in three hours for another week away?

After a very fine visit out on the deck, we washed dishes, put leftovers away, started a load of laundry, and wondered what comes next.  We’d spent two hours talking about economics, about downtowns, about business plans… none of us are naïve, but none of us see the next steps yet.

Note my use of the word “yet.”  I really do think there are next steps here.