Monthly Archives: January 2021

Flora, fauna and future of the garden.

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“From December to March,
there are for many of us three gardens –
the garden outdoors,
the garden of pots and bowls in the house,
and the garden of the mind’s eye.”

-Katherine S. White

I received a Christmas gift of flower seeds, which made me realize that I really do need to get busy and finish the upgrading of my greenhouse that was begun by my neighbor Bob in October. He supplied it with electricity and installed grow lights, but it remains for me to set up the heater, thermostat, fan and timer.

Then I can get seeds started a little earlier than would be otherwise possible during this season when the greenhouse sits in the shade of my two-story house. In the meantime, neighbor Terri and I can talk about our gardens past and future. Yesterday she gave me this heavy Pink Banana squash she grew last summer, evidently a good keeper!

I can eat one thing from the garden currently: collards — and I found a wonderful, vegan recipe for collards in coconut milk that I will try to post here. Fruit from the arbutus or Strawberry Tree got spoiled by the rain this year, but before that, at least it didn’t have anything like the mysterious pests or diseases of last year, which was a big relief.

Not my photo!

I received New Year’s gifts in my garden, not plants flowering or fruiting but birds visiting. Their energy and personality are even more welcome when the landscape is dark. On New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day a pair of Northern Flickers came by; they got my attention fast, such big birds acting like woodpeckers on the pine tree, but nothing like any woodpecker I’d ever encountered before. They hopped around the garden for hours, pecking in the bark mulch, so I had plenty of time to leaf through all the pages of Peterson’s guide until I found them. This was the most exciting Bird Event (repeated this morning!) since my first sighting of Hooded Orioles at the hummingbird feeder some years ago.

A different sort of event was when a bird flew into my slider and sat stunned on the mat for such a long time that I was able to take its picture. I had been thinking that these were some kind of sparrow, but once I got such a clear image, it was hard to fit the little creature into that family.

Attached to a suggested blog post in my WordPress feed that very evening, I glimpsed a photo that looked very much like mine. It was a blog post about Pine Siskins — what do you know! It’s Pine Siskins that I have been enjoying here for a couple of years at least.

They feed alongside sparrows, finches, and warblers, while chickadees and bushtits enjoy the suet feeder nearby. Juncos and titmice, jays and doves fly in and away. Occasionally a towhee visits… then the Cooper’s Hawk swoops down for the kill and adds drama, only three feet away from me across the glass. If I don’t take a break from watching these busy birds, I won’t get any seeds planted. Yes, that could happen….

…because the world is full of delights.

Salted Toffee Cookies

Christmas, food and cooking,

Here they are, Bakers, the cookies you have been waiting for! I’m sorry it’s only a recipe; I’d have liked to give you each a cookie with a glass of milk. As it was, I barely finished them in time to give a few (12th Day of) Christmas cookies to two neighbors. Today most of the Eastern Orthodox begin their celebration the Nativity of Christ, so I may prolong my cookie baking in solidarity with them.

You may recall that I created this recipe more than five years ago, to make use of part of a bag of mini Heath Bars. Normally I’m not attracted to recipes using brand items of that sort, and I doubt that I personally will make another batch of these; I have too many other true favorites, and new recipes to try. But I wanted to get them just right (not too salty) in case one of my children wants a repeat performance enough to need the recipe — and for those of you who expressed an interest. They are yummy, there’s no denying that!

Salted Toffee Cookies

1 cup room temperature butter
1 cup dark brown sugar
4 egg yolks
2 teaspoons vanilla
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons hot water
3 cups flour
½ teaspoon coarse sea salt
½ teaspoon cream of tartar
A bag of mini Heath Bars, chopped; or a bag of Heath milk chocolate toffee bits – (1 ½ cups)

For topping mix in a small bowl:
2 tablespoons coarse raw or Demerara sugar
1 teaspoon coarse sea salt

1 – Cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy.
2 – Add the egg yolks and vanilla and beat more. Scrape bowl.
3 – Add 2 cups of flour. Dissolve the soda in hot water. Add the baking soda mixture, the last cup of flour, salt, and cream of tartar to the bowl.
4 – Add the toffee and mix until just combined. Make little balls and dip the tops in the sugar-salt mixture, and place on parchment-lined cookie sheets.
5 – Bake at 350° for about 15 minutes. Let cool before eating.

From the brook the water of joyous tears.

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“What, I ask, is the truth of water? Is it that it is formed of hydrogen and oxygen? … There is no water in oxygen, no water in hydrogen: it comes bubbling fresh from the imagination of the living God, rushing from under the great white throne of the glacier. The very thought of it makes one gasp with an elemental joy no metaphysician can analyze.

“The water itself, that dances, and sings, and slakes the wonderful thirst – symbol and picture of that draught for which the woman of Samaria made her prayer to Jesus – this lovely thing itself, whose very wetness is a delight to every inch of the human body in its embrace – this live thing which, if I might, I would have running through my room, yea, babbling along my table – this water is its own self, its own truth, and is therein a truth of God.

“Let him who would know the love of the maker, become sorely athirst and drink of the brook by the way – then lift up his heart – not at that moment to the maker of oxygen and hydrogen, but to the inventor and mediator of thirst and water, that man might foresee a little of what his soul may find in God. If he become not then as a hart panting for the water-brooks, let him go back to his science and its husks. … As well may a man think to describe the joy of drinking by giving thirst and water for its analysis, as imagine he has revealed anything about water by resolving it into its scientific elements.

“Let a man go to the hillside and let the brook sing to him till he loves it, and he will find himself far nearer the fountain of truth than the triumphal car of the chemist will ever lead the shouting crew of his half-comprehending followers. He will draw from the brook the water of joyous tears, and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountain of waters.'”

-George MacDonald

From Plough

The writer can’t help it.

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“Anyone who writes is beset by all kinds of dangers. The list is extensive, it’s not difficult to guess what traps it holds. The intellectual dangers are particularly unpleasant, though. Very briefly speaking, the writer cannot think, he can’t help but participate in the intellectual life of his age to some degree. He cannot, he must not, take refuge in absolute, childish innocence, since with time this becomes stupidity.

“But what’s to be done, since an abundance of theories, beliefs, and even, in relatively recent times, ideologies proliferates on all fronts? Absolutely accepting any single theory means losing all freedom of thought. The greatest misfortune is — was — embracing some fashionable or dominant ideology. But we can’t escape at least partial asphyxiation, the era poisons us all. Poisons and redeems, since we can’t live outside time.”

-Adam Zagajewski, in Slight Exaggeration