Beyond the sunny Philippines An island lies, whose name I do not know; But that’s of little consequence, if so You understand that there they had no hens; Till, by a happy chance, a traveller, After a while, carried some poultry there. Fast they increased as any one could wish; Until fresh eggs became the common dish. But all the natives ate them boiled,—they say,— Because the stranger taught no other way. At last the experiment by one was tried— Sagacious man!—of having his eggs fried. And, O! what boundless honors, for his pains, His fruitful and inventive fancy gains! Another, now, to have them baked devised,— Most happy thought!—and still another, spiced. Who ever thought eggs were so delicate! Next, some one gave his friends an omelette: “Ah!” all exclaimed, “what an ingenious feat!”
But scarce a year went by, an artiste shouts, “I have it now,—ye ‘re all a pack of louts!— With nice tomatoes all my eggs are stewed.” And the whole island thought the mode so good, That they would so have cooked them to this day, But that a stranger, wandering out that way, Another dish the gaping natives taught, And showed them eggs cooked à la Huguenot.
Successive cooks thus proved their skill diverse; But how shall I be able to rehearse All of the new, delicious condiments That luxury, from time to time, invents? Soft, hard and dropped; and now with sugar sweet, And now boiled up with milk, the eggs they eat; In sherbet, in preserves; at last they tickle Their palates fanciful with eggs in pickle. All had their day—the last was still the best. But a grave senior thus, one day, addressed The epicures: “Boast, ninnies, if you will, These countless prodigies of gastric skill— But blessings on the man who brought the hens!”
Beyond the sunny Philippines Our crowd of modern authors need not go New-fangled modes of cooking eggs to show.
-Thomas Iriarte, Translated from the Spanish by Geo. H. Devereux
So many little tasks need doing before setting off on a journey. Of course there is the packing of supplies to use while I’m away, but there is also the making ready of Home. It needs quite a bit of tidying up, just to show the homemaker that she does love this place. Being extra nice to the garden by deadheading and cleaning up also does a lot to ease my sore heart, because it dreads saying good-bye once again.
And I’m in the middle of my biggest garden project ever, that is, the biggest I’ve ever taken on by myself. Ten areas of the garden will have been changed in different ways, when I’m finished. That sounds like it is almost everything, but it’s not. I won’t be finished for a few more weeks, mostly because October and November are better months for planting perennials around here, but also because I plain ran out of time this month.
Last fall I planted three clary sage plants, which are biennials and will bloom next June. I hope I can remember to start a few every fall so that I can keep them coming. Below you can see one of the older ones in the foreground, next to the pincushion flower I planted last week, and in the background two of the younger clary sages I was able to get from a local nursery recently.
As three big conifers to the south of me, including my own Canary Island Pine, keep growing taller, the amount of “full sun” in the back garden has been shrinking. It was a case of bit by bit, and then all at once. All at once I realized why the purple coneflower barely blooms, and even the recently planted Mexican Evening Primrose is not happy.
apple mint
Also there is the problem of the unpleasing design, or lack of design, from the last landscaper, of the area near my front door. I’m unwilling to live with it, so it’s taken hours and hours of thinking and thinking and reading on the Pacific Horticulture site, researching and shopping for plants, imagining how they will look if I put them here or there. I’m moving several plants installed last year to better places.
When I get new gallons or 4″ pots on site, I arrange them still in the pots where I think they work, and then I think better of it, and carry them elsewhere. To the front yard — No, the back yard — how will it look alongside this other plant that can take part shade? Weird? Probably… Oh well, they will have to get along. It can be exhausting being so unsystematic.
Naked Buckwheat
I’m excited to have my very own Naked Buckwheats — this is a California native that I often see in the mountains. My daughter Pippin has them growing wild around her place. And now me!
I decided to grow annual vegetables in the front garden near the perennial asparagus, because they will be sure to get enough sun there; but I need to add more soil first. I should have waited to buy the kalettes and Chinese Broccoli until that bed was ready, but I didn’t, and they were in little six packs, so I spent an hour transferring them to larger pots so they won’t get rootbound while they’re waiting.
I have cut down the asparagus a few times, first because of the aphids, and then so that I could rake away all the mulch and add more soil, and new mulch. But spears keep coming up, and looking ferny lovely:
When I cut them, I throw away the fronds or chop them up for the worms, but there are always several that haven’t become fronds yet, and that are the right size for eating. I accumulated enough to roast a panful this afternoon.
And I made a batch of Jammy Eggs to have for snacks on the journey.
It’s to Wisconsin I am going, because my granddaughter Miss Maggie is getting married! It was barely over a year ago that her brother’s wedding took me to that state, and now back I go. It will be a very happy time, and I will be over my leavinghomesickness before you know it.
One of the asparagus beds.
It started raining this afternoon. Early autumn rains are just the best. I can leave the windows and doors open and breathe the rain, and hear it pitter patter. The drops began to fall when I was still in the middle of planting my Bouteloua gracilis, or blue grama grass (“Blonde Ambition”), and after I cleaned up my tools I still had to put out all the trash cans, plus an extra green bin a neighbor is letting me use. Four neighbors, two on either side of me, are always letting me use extra space in their green waste bins for my overflow.
Blue Grama Grass
Do you find that when you are getting ready for a trip, not only do you have the packing for the actual trip, and the everyday housework and cooking that has nothing to do with the trip, but also extra, surprise things that come up that take some of your precious time? I realized last week that I needed to lay in some firewood, and that took a whole day to deal with. I got a half cord and stacked it almost entirely by myself. In the course of that my neighbor Eric lent me his wheelbarrow and offered to repair my wheelbarrow. He noticed in going through my gate that it didn’t latch behind him, so I spent an hour figuring out how to adjust that latch. I don’t want the gate to fail to close when I’m away, if he should come for the wheelbarrow.
And what do you know, I also got inconvenient visitors this week — ants! They have been mostly crawling around on my computer table and keyboard — and my hands — so I am going to cut this shorter than it might have been, stopping at long instead of longer, and I’ll hope to check in from Wisconsin soon. But I still don’t have a tablet or anything larger than my little phone to work on, so I don’t know…
I haven’t tried this New York Times recipe yet, because I don’t have dates in the house at the moment, but I want to share a link to the recipe in case any among you readers are kindred spirits of the palate; you might be wowed and inspired as I am. Dates and walnuts are a tasty pair however you put them together, and I’ve long been in agreement with the idea that “everything is better with butter.” It’s lovely the way one can make a meal out of a salad or pretty much anything by adding an egg or two on top. Most of these ingredients are commonly found in my kitchen and often on my plate, but I would never have imagined combining them in such a striking way: Gheysava
It’s always an ordeal going to the Department of Motor Vehicles in my county. If you don’t make an appointment, you might wait in line four hours to get your business done. I had an appointment but still had to wait quite a while before they started running me through the mill by means of one device and machine and screen after another.
At least there were (not too robotic) humans directing me when to put my thumb down on the black box and how to “relax your elbow” when doing it; and telling me where to sit and where to stand and where to look for the rows of letters for the vision test. I came away eventually with my newly renewed driver’s license, but feeling quite “too old for this,” and with more errands remaining.
So on the way to the next one, a stop at the Big Box store, I listened to a reading of the Psalter through the Bluetooth in my car. The verses gave words to my lament, and directed them in the right direction, so that by the time I was pumping gas into my Subaru, I was peaceful, having been especially struck by the line, “All my bones shall say, “Lord, O Lord, Who is like unto Thee?” He is with us in our afflictions!
I don’t think I mentioned here yet that my dear daughter-in-law “Joy” is coming from Colorado with the four grandchildren this week, while my son is out of the country for a spell. At the store I found plenty of eggs to buy and have on hand for them, which was a blessing, as recently I’ve more than once found the shelves empty of eggs.
I went home with enough time to put all the groceries away, eat dinner, and then run my last errand, to the tax-preparer’s office, which was actually the least stressful part of the day. For a few years my taxes have been done by the same Nice Lady, and she and I have become friends; she really does like to see pictures of my garden, and we talk about our travel experiences and families. And now that pesky job is done.
The best thing that happened today, though, was the one unexpected event, of needing to clean out my big bedroom closet because of finding ants trailing through this morning. I haven’t put all the shoes and stuff back, but it was satisfying to do a thorough job of that, which, if it hadn’t been for a few ants, I would have continued putting off. Since I had to be driving all over for much of the day, it worked out well that I needed to do a homemaker-y thing right off the bat, because that is what all my bones love the most.
And I made a batch of Jammy Eggs to have for snacks on the journey.
It’s always an ordeal going to the Department of Motor Vehicles in my county. If you don’t make an appointment, you might wait in line four hours to get your business done. I had an appointment but still had to wait quite a while before they started running me through the mill by means of one device and machine and screen after another.
Gladsome Lights 