Dear David and Cathy

Cathy, you sent the best card and letter at Christmas with a photo of your horse, and David's old show bridle, which I loved. I hope we get to see your place and meet all of your animals some day...of course I understand that now is a bad time but please let us know if and when you'd ever consider it. We like to have a project to help with instead of being entertained so maybe that will trick you into letting us come visit.

And I thought maybe if I did this electronically a letter would actually get sent instead of just rattling around in my head. I started this blog a while ago but only my sister has read it, and Terry. It's just for practice.

So it has been too hot everywhere, even up here in Wisconsin (especially up here?), but when the weekend comes and the garden is in danger of disappearing under the weeds, we get out there anyway. By "we" I mean Terry, of course.
And it happens eventually, like today...but first we have to walk around holding cups of coffee, looking at things. It was easy to decide to pick some raspberries first, because those are my favorite things to eat (except strawberries, which did NOTHING this year so no point even mentioning them).
Then we needed a break so I hung some clothes out, Terry made a list for the grocery store, and we went to buy groceries including garden produce because Terry gave Cully and Laura all the ripe stuff we had from the garden when we went up Thursday night to help them move the last couple of things from Laura's apartment into Cully's.

When we came back from the store I had visions of making a really good lunch but we had leftover pizza instead. Then it was time to look at the garden again and really decide what to tackle. But instead of doing that I looked at all the flowers I planted. I always wanted bunches and bunches of tall annuals to cut however many I wanted for bouquets in the house and this year I have them.
I also love the scent of lavender and grow that. I snip the flowers and then dry them in the living room window because it's so hot and sunny there.

I have experimented with sewing little sachets for them for putting in dresser drawers so your clothes smell good.

Almost every single time I go out and snip the lavender flowers our next door neighbor Virginia, who lives to garden and take care of her huge lawn, comes out and asks what I'm doing.

I also wanted to mention the animals we have. Here's where one of them lives.
Terry likes to greet him or her with a shovel whenever he can. But this family of groundhogs has a real survival instinct.

We also have raccoons who love to visit with us. We take them for a ride out to the fancy neighborhood on Lake Mendota and let them go so they can get to know other people, too.
So I guess that's plenty of our garden tour for now. I'm inside in the air conditioning writing this while Terry finishes weeding the worst spots, which happened to be the leeks and onions. In a while we're headed to my parents to help them with hanging a quilt thing mom made for above their staircase and then to their neighbors' for a cook-out.

We think of you all the time and treasure the notes you both send. You guys are terrific writers and have a beautiful optimistic and can-do spirit of handling whatever comes your way, which is inspiring. I know you draw strength from each other, your faith and, I hope, from the support and love of your extended family.
Shirley

I Didn't Know They Came From Eggs

Sometimes I have to side with the authorities when it comes to reporting grammar crimes, even though I have a record myself. This one was just asking to be reported!

Ambush

A few weekends ago a stranger rang the doorbell and I answered. It was a thirty-something white woman with a long braid down her back who, when I opened the door, looked me earnestly in the eye while clutching a construction paper-covered tin can with both hands, took a deep breath, and said "I'm an unemployed, funny mom who wrote a 15 second comedy song to the tune of O Holy Night. Would you like to hear it?"

I froze, trying to comprehend what was happening. She had a tin can...for money? She was knocking on doors, asking for money in a creative way? Wow...but now I was supposed to say "sure," politely listen, then pay her what I thought the song was worth? Or what I thought she should have? Or...I couldn't think what to do! I was so intensely uncomfortable that after a few seconds I finally managed to get out a "no thanks" and shut the door.

I've been second-guessing myself ever since, mostly about being a Scrooge.

Then last week there was another encounter with a different person. My adult daughter and I drove up to my house after dark, waiting for a pedestrian to continue walking past the opening of the driveway. Instead she waited as we pulled in, got out, then walked towards us. It was a young black woman in a stylish leather jacket, saying "Hi, I'm Amy, don't worry, I'm not a killer! I'm just wondering if you can loan me bus fare so I can meet my son! I feel really stupid asking, but I'm broke until payday and I could pay you back next week!"

"Um, we could just give you a ride there, I mean my husband and I could," I said, hesitantly...he was pulling up behind us in a second car.

"Well, no, I can take the bus," Amy said heartily. "I just need a few dollars for bus fare."

After a few minutes conversation including an offer of three dollars, Amy walked away with five dollars--"how about just an extra dollar or two for a pop."

I am sorry for anyone who feels they need to ask strangers for money, straight up or disguised in a ruse...but both of those times left me feeling like the loser, and I keep trying to figure out why.

Parade of Chicken Homes

Terry is yearning to build a chicken coop and keep a few hens. I'm intrigued by the idea, too, but stymied by the problem of finding chicken-sitters when we leave town for a few days. It's a lot to ask of neighbors when it's fifteen degrees below zero or raining nonstop.

That might not be an issue if we lived in the Tenney-Lapham neighborhood, which held the Tour des (Chicken) Coops yesterday--a self-guided walking tour of family chicken-keeping operations in the heart of the city. Dozens of people, including us, took them up on the invitation on a hot, sunny June afternoon.

The gently eccentric mentality of Madison's near east side translated into glimpses past perimeters of deeply shaded sidewalks and shared driveways into hidden, miniature, complicated backyards, with murals painted on sheds, walkways dotted with blooms, creative landscaping with scavenged materials, and--of course--chicken coops tucked away in a corner, or featured as the focal point of the whole space.

We were delighted to find one man's tiny yard contained not only a spacious chicken coop, but an espaliered apple tree (bought from Shopko 15 years ago), and a beehive--with plenty of greenery and space shielding it all from view as well as containing paths of hay leading to other, undiscovered features and an iron bed installed for climbing plants.

Is this what it means to eat locally?

I've had strawberry shortcake for breakfast or dinner every day this week.

I made too much last Sunday because I didn't know who was and wasn't coming over: might be no one, could be six or seven more people. I picked two quarts of strawberries, marinating each in its own experiment of sugar quantity, sent Terry for extra whipping cream which I whipped with confectioner's sugar (because it tastes good and keeps the cream from becoming watery if it has to sit for a few days), and baked two whole wheat shortbreads.

Alas, one batch would have been enough. But I couldn't bear to throw out all that goodness. I love my own strawberry shortcake--I think it may be one of my top ten favorite things to eat--and I really did wait all year for it, especially with garden-grown berries.

So I decided to forget about the usual inescapable realities like calories, fat, sodium, protein, and fiber, and eat exactly what I wanted, not even skimping on the whipped cream. It was the high point of each day, but by last night (Thursday) I was glad to finish it and not have it again for a while.

The really weird thing is, I lost one pound. And I am not overweight, just your average physically active, menopausal baby boomer. I always wish a couple of pounds of squishiness would disappear from my middle, but it's not a high priority.

I think I know what both Barbara Kingsolver and Geneen Roth would say.

Primal Picking

I once read that women tend to be more sensitive to variations of color than men are. It was theorized it's an evolutionary thing because over the past few thousand years women honed their skill at selecting the ripest, sweetest berries.

Hunter/gatherer theories about men and women resonate with me, and this one sprang to mind because I'm so blissfully happy when picking strawberries from my own patch. It's like searching for little brilliant red jewels hidden among the green leaves.

But I'm pretty sure the bliss factor crept up to consciousness level because of what's missing: I'm not swatting away at mosquitoes--in our yard the hatch is minimal. At least for now.

First Long Ride of the Year

There've been a couple of Thursday night Bombay Bicycle Club rides after work, about 25 miles or so, with the main point of the excursion socializing after touring the rural roads. I was tired at the end of those rides. But the one we took yesterday was what I consider the first long (50 miles) one of the season.

Terry and I had fun deciding on a route leaving directly from the house. We chose a published bike map that was round trip to Columbus, and decided to find a shortcut to keep it around 40 miles. The map showed Bristol Road cutting directly across the middle of the loop, so we turned off early onto it. But...what the map showed was different than what the road actually did, so we had some false starts and concentrated reckoning of where we were in relation to the sun when Bristol Road suddenly ended. (I cheated and used the GPS on my iPhone to double check.)

Meanwhile, we were delighted to come upon the Sassy Cow Creamery surrounded by pasture and fields, and were sorry we were too early to pay it a visit as customers.

By the time we figured out our shortcut and were counting down the last ten miles home on our odometers, the temperature had risen to the high eighties and we were running on fumes, depleted, both hungry and thirsty, and soaked with perspiration. But that didn't stop me from waving wildly from my bike on the River Road overpass as it crosses Interstate 90/04 to all the people trapped in cars below. I thought I was hearing appreciative honks from envious drivers above the roar of the stream of traffic down there, but then realized I was blocking impatient drivers behind me as I veered in and out from the side of the road with my waving.

When we got home, I couldn't get out of my wet clothes and wash off the greasy, bug-crusted sunscreen covering my face, arms and legs fast enough, and rushed into the shower. Terry was starving and shaky, and headed for the kitchen. When I emerged just a few minutes later, he was standing by the counter looking a little dazed. Wrappers from bread and cheese lay scattered, and the container that had held cut up watermelon was lying on its side. He was holding a bag of chips. "I guess I was hungry...that was about as far as I wanted to ride," he said, looking around.