Add a few leeks

Photo credit: Richard Johnson

... a bee in my garden at the Shuswap ...

Mati and I found two clumps of leeks in Miranda’s garden.

Since she will be in British Columbia for the summer, he and I have taken to watering her raised garden beds  in Calgary and thinking about what can be planted there.

For now, we should start using the leeks that have sprung up from last year.

I used some yesterday, adding them to the egg filling I was making for a sandwich.

But today, a light bulb went on.

The Baja Salad Kit from Costco could stand a few additions. I am trying to get the proportions right between how much salad there is, and how many leeks need to be cut.

And on that point of adding something, while making the salad, if pouring food out of a bag and into a bowl can be called making a salad, I remembered the now popular salads that include shredded cauliflower. So while Richard fried the pork chops, which sat all day in a bag with the marinade originally intended for elk steak, I shredded the cauliflowerettes he had brought me from Costco. When there is not too much cauliflower, and it is shredded, it feels like a creamy addition to the salad. Yes, in the spring time when leeks are tender and mild, -- get a packaged salad, then just add leeks and I can really believe I made a salad.

Arta

Hydroponic Garden

... the view of the lake from the hydroponic garden ...

David and Shauna Pilling have a hydroponic garden:  a beautiful view and a great advertizement for Wolseley Plumbing as well.

An amazing garden that you don't have to weed.

David bought a pump  from Wolseley Plubing, and some buckets and some pvc.

At the beach, one day,  Laynie, Connor and Glen went for a walk toward Johnson's Point.

Laynie  saw a blue barrel that she wanted to rollback back up to the house, but Connor said, no leave that.  No one wants it.  So Laynie left it.

David Pilling saw the blue barrel next and the blue bucket has migrated up to his house and that is now his reservoir.

David also has electrical conduit up there.  David will turn that into a green house.  So cool.

David and Shauna went out tonight to go fishing.

... a Pilling pallet place for plants ...
 ... to b ie seen at the back of Connor and Carly Mariee's house ...

As well, David and Shauna went to D Dutchmen for their Friday night date.

She wanted a litre or two of lemon meringue ice cream, arguably the best flavour in the dairy.

The clerk went to the back and brought out all she had, two 11 litre buckets.

Shauna just couldn't tell the lady no, take one back, so now they have two.

That is roughly $100 worth of ice cream.  I say, $100 well spent.
 ....
Now speaking of Connor, he built 3 raised beds out of pallet.

He has a 2 section compost made of pallet.

He also has a pallet campfire.

Now he can sit around and have a fire there since it is fine with fire regulations.

Although Connor might walk by a blue barrel, he would never walk by a pallet.

Arta

Beach Columbine

On Sunday we took a long beach walk.  During our walk I found some columbine growing right out of the rocky beach.  I decided they needed to live in my newly planted flower bed on Lot 4.  So I tugged them out, getting as much roots as I could.  I hope they take root in their new location.  I can't help but think they'll prefer the nice dark dirt they've been transplanted into.

A New Strawberry Patch

David Wood and his grandkids came by with a wheel barrow full of strawberry plants they had thinned out from their own patch.

We planted them in the flower bed in front of Arta's house.

There is lots of room there.

Last year that earth held the wave petunias.

Now there is a species of the wave petunia that you don't have to keep dead heading.

It really works.

Last years ours was pink, called Bubble Gum and they kept blooming no matter how much neglect they got.

It looks like the daffodils in the new strawberry bed are wilting now.

I told Michael it wouldn't be until next year that we'd get any fruit on them.

He told me that even then, the birds would probably steal them and we would get any.

He's probably right.

We will see what a little sun will do.

Right now they are wet and in a good space.

Mary.

"grow, strawberries, grow"

What Good is a Helmet on Handle Bars

Otter
... water colour by Wyona Bates ...

Our ward has a Facebook page that I check day to day.

Les Stehmeier commented that since church has been cancelled, (pandemic restrictions on having meetings with more than 50 people occurred), he has been noticing that one day blends into another and it is hard to tell which day is Sunday.

I agree with him, though I don’t know if it is for the same reason.

Every day I have the feeling that somehow Sunday has just past.

Twice in this week I received a Newsletter from my ward.

I received another message from the Stake, inviting me to join a Regional fireside with Fiona Givens and her husband.

Once there was an email telling me about 3 Friday Forums, one of which has Yogi Schultz talking about Mormons in cartoons. I shall surely attend, having read Mormon cartoon books in the past. If Yogi doesn’t point to any new ones, I will still enjoy the same cartoons again.

I had a message telling me about the lockdown at the church building – no more basketball there, or meetings, or parties, no funerals, no weddings.

I had two messages from Colin Steele, our Stake President. A message from him sent and then re-sent. I have written a few of those myself. I am helping Natalie Woodruff Berg as she gathers material for the ward newsletter. I can tell you that every day seems like Sunday to me.

So when the real Sunday came, I decided to see what it was that I really did on Sunday. Here is that list.

I emailed Catherine Jarvis to see what time their family was having church. The time is flexible. It depends on what time her 3 teen-agers to wake up. Yesterday the time was extended by the wait for the last one to get out of the shower.

1235 Red Train
... water colour by Wyona Bates ...

My son came over to plant my sweet peas.

This may have been his Sunday act that pointed to the scripture “this is religion pure and undefiled, to help the widow”.

Or maybe he just did it because he wanted to.

I had done what I could to prepare the earth.

I can’t bend down to put those little seeds in one by one. He spread his arms out wide, signaling to me to stand back.

No hovering.

I watched this  6 foot 7 inch man kneel on the ground and plant each one of those seeds, 6 inches apart. I watched his large work-worn hands working carefully, even tenderly placing each seed in the earth, as if he had been breaking bread for the sacrament. He gently gave them another drink of water, then covered them with rich black earth before starting with the nasturtium seeds in a row just in front of them.

I had picked up a rake by now.

 A three-point landing.

 Usually it is my two feet and a crutch. But I can get mobility with a rake as well. He took his broom to the front of the house and to the middle of the road. He swept the loose gravel to the curb so that in the near future, when the street cleaning machine rolls by my house, it will pick up that gravel. I shouted out to him as he swept. Talking felt good and social distancing feels good as well, even at 30 feet.

“Why did you do that,” I queried. “You have never seen me swept the road in front of my house.”

“Oh neighbour shaming,” he called back to me from the road, still sweeping.

He didn’t need to say anything more.

I got it.

The neighbour to the other side of him does this to the road that goes by our house.

Yes.

Neighbour Dave. As well, when it is winter, Dave clears his sidewalk with a shovel first, and then he takes a broom and sweeps the sidewalk. There is never a day that I might walk by his house and slip on the sidewalk. He is the ultimate caretaker of the hundreds who will walk down our street in normal times. We live on one of the feeder streets to the university which could have 20,000 people driving or walking into it on any week day, given ordinary times.

As Richard was sweeping with that big industrial broom, a young boy on an iridescent blue bike rode by, his helmet swinging from one of the handle bars. “Better put on that helmet,” Richard shouted out at him.

“Yah, OK,” said the boy as he swung around Richard and to the curb, now one foot of the boy with thick black hair resting on the cement, the other still on his bike, putting on his helmet, then shoving off and riding down the middle of our deserted street again.

I hadn’t heard the yell out. I had only seen the boy stop and put on his helmet.

“Did you yell out at him.”

“Yah,” said Richard, laughing. “What good is a helmet on handle bars.

We stopped working outside. Richard closed it down telling me, that was enough work for an old woman to do. I might have worked two or three more hours out there, but I went back inside.

Back inside to Zoom Church.

Zoom Church at the Jarvis’s home in Montreal. George and Kathy Jarvis had zoomed in from Edmonton as well. Another family came via telephone. Norman gave the lesson. Norman is Thomas’s friend from university and is staying over there during the pandemic. It was Norman’s day to give the lesson. Norman talked about only 2 verses from Mosiah, saying because he is of a different faith he doesn’t know the back story to these verses, nor what comes after, but as he tried to parse out Mosiah 5: 1-2.

As Norman talked about a political leader who changed the hearts of people, I thought about what it would mean to believe in the words of a political leaders, so much so that I would have a change of heart and participate  in words that promised the saving of lives.

I thought about how hard it is to believed political leaders. I thought about washing my hands for 20 seconds, every time (maybe all 40 times I get my hands in water), not just a few times a day. I thought about how hard it is to stay separated from my loved ones whom I like to eat meals with, to stay separated from those at the grocery store when I shop. I am social. I do stop and talk to someone who is pulling an item off the shelves that I would like to use, but don’t know what to do with. I really miss all of that. I miss meeting with my writers group. I miss going to the theatre at night – not that I don’t watch Metopera, National Theatre, Stratford Theatre, and Broadway non stop. I haven’t had time to go out to Netflicks or Primevideo, I have been so busy with watching other outlets. Now that I think of it, if I were younger someone would be telling me, “less screen time for you”.

Tamsin Greig as Malvolia
in Twelfth Night

Well, to come around full circle,

I can’t tell which of the above events was really Sunday.

I did close out the evening watching Simon Godwin’s joyous production of 12th Night, which is on National Theatre for a few more days.

Last night was my fourth viewing– yes with subtitles, since there is no other way to watch Shakespeare if I want to “get” what is going on.

Having gone out to the internet through my electronic magic, and listen to Tamsin Geig talk about the character of Malvolia (formerly Malvolio) I have been thinking a lot about what it is that happens when gaslighting is done to someone. Maybe there is a better set of words – what happens when people with power give wrong information to others and cast then into a dark room. I haven’t quite captured this set of ideas – those who have watched the show will know by the words making someone “yellow stockinged and cross-garterd”. At the end when Malvolia climbs the stairs and the gift of cleansing water falls on her, I feel water trickling down my cheeks.

Well, as I said at the beginning – Les said, it is hard to tell which day of the week it is on any given day.

Arta

Moiya’s Garden

... a close up of beans hanging from the vine ...

Moiya has an abundance of produce in her garden.

I went to pick some of it last night.

Oh, not the beans up high though there was a ladder enticing me to try to get the very last bean.

But when a person is not that stable on land, it is not a good idea to climb a ladder, so I left those beans for someone who will come after me.

Dave has the tepee of sticks that the beans crawl up at least 7 feet high.

... Dave has 3 beanstalks this tall ...

I picked from each one.

And on another stick a vine winds up the stick and then crosses over and winds among that branches of a nearby apple tree, making a lovely architectural feature in their yard as well.

I could hear myself whispering fee, fi, foe fum as I picked the beans for the height of the vines would surely remind a person of the Jack and the Beanstalk folk tale.

I shared half my bucket of produce with Wyona.

... sage browned butter ...

Then at home I snapped the beans, steamed them and then covered them with sage brown butter, a small condiment left to me by Ria when she visited in the summer.

“How long do you keep something like that before you think is is past it `best before’ date,” Rebecca asked me.

A lot longer than this I said, smothering my beans in sweet, smooth browned sage butter.

Thank you for all of the work of the Little Red Hen, Moiya.

I feel a bit bad swooping in and taking the fruit of your labour.

But I would feel a lot worse to let those beans just dry up on the vine.

Worms

What do earth worms eat?

Dave Wood and Bonnie Johnson cut down the old raspberry stalks so that the new ones can grow.

I have a whole hedge of raspberries and though they produce more slowly when they are cut down, I am not left with having to cut out the old stalks by hand.

Now I am left with the job of weeding between the plants, which is why I am thinking about worms.

Every time the tines of my pitch fork turn over another clump of earth, there is an earthworm or two that wriggles out.

 I keep stopping to watch them, so I am not getting that much weeding done.

Arta

Gardening

Glen brought me over a the beginning of a climbing vine.
He told me to have patience, that it would grow.
That was many years ago,.I didn't have much patience.
Still, every year I weeded, watered and tended that plant

I want to be in two places at once.

I am asking the impossible.

I should be happy to be in one place at a time.

... digging around the base of the vine ...
... lifting the earth up ...
... pulling out the weeds ...

In B.C. I spent most of my time last week with a shovel and a pitch fork, trying to get the weeds out of the raspberries vines and separating the peony bushes from other plants that love the rich earth they are planted in.

There is a joy in cleaning around the base of the lily plants.

When I drive into Sicamous there is a house at the end of the T the leads either to the channel, or if you go the other way, to Askews.

At that T is a length of lilies as long as the yard on which the house sits.

Now I have some of those lilies by the side of my house and can hardly wait until they grow as tall as the bushes I have always admired.

Now the vine has grown
enough to have caught onto
the pole and begun to climb.
As Glen said, "Be patient, it will grow."

Lately I read one of those sayings that are meant to change people's lives, or at least comment on them.

This one said something like, "I don't want to spend my old age gardening."

What, I thought?

Arta

Roses for the House

Thanks for the roses, Grandam,
and for the ribs

I wanted to pick the white roses that are doubles on one stem for seven days.

But I never got around to it until there were two minutes left for me at the Shuswap.

That is when I grabbed for the scissors and ran for the bush of white flowers in my front garden.

I have been trying to make them climb up on the pillars on the front porch.

Ron Treleaven told me that my task would not be possible, since it was a bush, not climbing roses.  And he would know, for he gave me the gift.

I thought I would deadhead some of the blooms, but none were dead.

All in full glory and a pleasure to pick.


The other task that made me laugh was cooking ribs.

Wyona spotted a good sale on them.  

... too much food for the 2 of us ...

I slipped them into my cart as well.

Weeding all day is easier when I know that the slow cooker is doing it's job and all I will have to do is finish the meat off on the BBQ and add a little sauce.

 I was doing a practise plan for the summer when others arrive.

 Arta

Shopping at Hanna's

Doral asked me, "Will you be blogging while you are currently out in BC?  I'd love to see some photos of the comings and goings, the weather, the scenery etc.  We never seem to be out there when the blossoms or cherries are on the trees."

In answer, I am currently having trouble carrying my phone with me.  For others, having their cell phone in their pocket is the final thing they check when going from the house to the car.  For me, the final check still involves do I have my car keys.  So when I am in places that deserve photographing, I am without the means to do it.

For example, Wyona and I took a quick trip to see the new Winners in Salmon Arm.  We didn't get there, though.  We stopped first for a $6 lunch, and then went to Hanna's, the nursery that is just off of the highway.

Wyona went for a pumpkin seedling.  She found one that has a white rind -- her choice -- the unusual.  I took one of the traditional orange ones and began to plan where I would plant it when I got home.  Then she got a small basil plant and then some cilantro.  I followed suit.  The place we parted company was with the new item she has been looking for.  I have wanted a small clump of oriental poppies for years.  I had some seedlings in my hand when I was shopping with Moiya but put them back, thinking I would get some of Glen's at the end of the season.  Then I wondered why I was doing that to save $4.25 when I was really wanting them this year.

Japanese Maple ... small, medium or large

Wyona wants a Japanese maple and so we looked at the $89 one, the $129 model and then the $229 tree -- all are the same strain, just each one more mature than the last.

"Why did mine die, while my neighbour's to the left and right of me lived?", she asked the clerk.

Water is the key.  Water, especially in the first two years.  And those neighbours spend more Spring time hours at their home than she does.

Now by the time Doral gets here, perhaps my poppies will be in bloom and pumpkins will be on the vine.  I hear the cherries will be early this year; the blooms were early so the cherries may be gone by the first of July.  The Japanese maple?  I think she will purchase it when she has a clear window of opportunity to water it

You will miss the cherries by six weeks, Doral.  Start thinking peaches.

And no, we didn't make it to Winners.  Clearly gardening was the joy of the day.

Arta

Beauty

From Moiya:

Three days ago I saw a hummingbird come up to our back patio, so quickly found my feeders and filled them with food.

Now we get to see them regularly.

Beautiful!

The sweet peas on the west end of our front steps; the ones I soaked came up 3 days ago and are growing fast.

I must secure the netting for them to grasp on to.

The sweet peas that I froze overnight to aid in cracking open the skin on the seed so that they will germinate faster, are now poping out of the ground too.

The gardener lady at Walmart told me it was an alternate way instead of soaking them.

Both ways work equally well

Freezing them however, makes it easier to plant them.  No wet seeds sticking to your gloves or the earth.

The wild ferns stems are rolling up towards the sky and are getting about knee height. There will be lots of fern ground cover on Pillings Road this year.

The fishermen’s boats are making their way out on to the lake.

 I don’t know if the fish are biting yet though.

Hopefully we will get our vegetable garden planted this week sometime.

We live in a beautiful place and we are happy to be here.

Love,

Moiya

Daffodils on San Lorenzo

Hello,

I found Rebecca out picking these daffodils from beneath my bedroom window.

And this is the bouquet after a few days and she has pulled out the older ones that started to die.

While others are experiences sub-zero temperatures, the rain falls in Victoria, greening the lawns and washing down the roads and sidewalks.

The people here do not gloat.  They just wish for the next few weeks to arrive when the flowering bushes will leave the air redolent with the smell of Spring.
Arta

Skunk Cabbage in bloom

I have been working all over in the yard, but never touching some of the plants.

I only look at the beauty of the skunk cabbage and never get close enough to weed it.

Nor close enough to smell it.

I did not have time to stop and pick up the burdock that is at the bottom left of the picture, just waiting for a chance to embed itself into the bank of the stream.

Picking up those nasty clumps of seeds is what I should have been doing instead of trying to get the camera to focus "just right" on the skunk cabbage itself.

The brilliant yellow is the only colour in the garden so far.

On the trip back to Calgary I was watching for patches of skunk cabbage along the highway.

Usually there is a whole marsh of it, just to the south of the Enchanted Forest.

That area is not in bloom yet, nor are the water lilies that are there in bloom as yet, but a person who travels the road frequently should start looking out for the flower right now. 

Hard to imagine that the leaves of the plant are going to get six feet high before the summer is out.

Lovely patches of the plant can be seen from the highway, if a person looks over the side of the road and into the meadows along the kilometer that rims the Skunk Cabbage Board Walk in Revelstoke National Park.

The only person who should not look is the driver.

This is the closest view I can get for you of the middle of the flower.

I wish I could have captured the sound of the stream as it was running by, as well.

Arta

Don't bury the graft

Before you buy the tree, dig the hole.

I bought two trees without preparing a place for them in the soil. Those trees lasted two years, one of them in Wyona's garden, before they found their final resting spot. I heard the phrase, "Dig the hole before you buy the tree" plenty of times in those two years.

In the finest tradition of what I learned about planting the Italian plum tree and a cherry tree, I began to think first of where to plant the new grape vine I intended to buy.

Joaquim and I tried to dig a hole 2 feet x 3 feet x 2 feet, sift the gravel out (my lot is on an old stream bed) and put back the sandy soil in the hole for the grape vine.

Four hours later we had succeeded. He did all of the pick-axing, and the shoveling of the rocks onto the grate. I moved the soil through the wire mesh and to the wheel barrow. I carried the left-over rocks to a place where I shall build a rock wall with them.

Joaquim says it was easier digging a fox hole when he was in the Spanish army, than digging that hole for the grape vine.

My last vine, a red seedless grape called Candice, is moving up the side of the house and now I am out looking for a green variety, but have not purchased it yet.

I only have the hole dug.

Arta