Tag Archives: Nodding Violet

Many wonderful things.

books, church, food and cooking, home, my garden, , , , , , , , ,
The turtle is an old pool toy.

As summer warmth makes the lizards and bees busier, so it works on me. The point of Too Much Heat might lie ahead at some point, but evidently I am still on the continuum with no end in sight. New opportunities and fun things have recently come into my life, so that my calendar has been over-full for a couple of weeks, and my heart the same. So far I haven’t reached the stage where I am craving empty days… but today I am a little bit at loose ends, and probably distracted by the wildfire smoke that is drifting south from the Woodside Fire up on the coast, not close to us, but making the air unhealthy.

I don’t like having to keep the house closed up against smoke, but I am glad the indoor spaces had cooled off the night before the smoke blew in; I had closed all the windows and shades that morning, and in the evening it was still cool, so we didn’t open the windows when the sun went down. Our only “AC” is the marine air that almost always flows into the neighborhood in the evenings or at least at night. So far, the heat (about 90 degrees at the moment) has not seeped indoors very much.

Leaving comfort behind me, I walked out the door into the smoky heat to add water to the fountain, to see new things that have bloomed, and to deadhead a little. I tend to focus on garden “problems” that need fixing — transplanting, weeding, trimming, irrigating. But when I don’t have it in me to do actual work, I usually can remember to just look around and be thankful — for my patch of paradise.

At church, we had a funeral this week, and I was able to participate in commending a 90-year-old child of God to her Father. Our funerals are so nourishing to the soul, as the hymns and prayers acknowledge our grief, and help us grieve in what is ultimately a healing way. The Church and her sacraments are truly full of Christ, His Life and Love, and I come out of every funeral full to the brim.

I told my priest that I wish I had a book into which I had transcribed over the years all the short homilies he has given at the end of funerals. Each is unique to the person and the situation, but they all are incredibly rich and edifying. Next week will be another funeral, for a priest dear to me, and I am very interested to learn how that is different from other funerals in the Orthodox Church.

I trimmed all the lavender but two bushes that the bees were still visiting, though they are faded quite a bit. Another purple note showed up in soup I made, using gifted carrots, cabbage from the freezer, a few ingredients from my garden: Painted Lady beans, kale, parsley, and tarragon.

I have joined a small in-person book group reading The Ethics of Beauty (by Timothy Patitsas) together every week, and an on-line class to study Universal History. I’m planning a trip to see my granddaughter Ivy in a youth musical production, and will continue visits about once a month to the nearby house of a family at church, to read stories to three young children. This is one of my very favorite activities, and it’s so sweet how this arrangement benefits all of us.

My new housemate Bea has been with me now for about a week. We are already having a good time brainstorming about various events we’d like to collaborate on, around books, high schoolers, tea, cooking… She’s baking a cake at this moment, and almost every day she is playing the piano, and that makes the house feel right.

Our usual women’s book group continues, and we have been reading Peace Like a River, by Leif Enger. It’s the second time I’ve read it, and I love it still. I’ve been reading Death Comes for the Archbishop over and over, because the narrator and the story are very calming, when I wake in the night and can’t go back to sleep on my own. For the first time ever I’m reading The Iliad in the original (translated), and that has been satisfying. Because I haven’t read the whole of the Odyssey before, either, I’m a little reluctant to jump into watching the new movie based on it. But I’ve read plenty of interesting reviews!

My large Nodding Violet plant I have been planning to give away as soon as it started blooming again, which is Now! If you live nearby and want it, let me know in a direct message. It needs protection from frost, so I bring it indoors in winter, but many people in my area leave them under a roof outdoors.

Here is a clearer photo of it from a year ago:

At the moment I can’t remember what this plant is… I think a salvia. But it is the one that pulled me outside this afternoon when I saw it out the window. One of the bright and wonderful things in my life right now.

Samwise and the swallowtail.

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Ladybug on sunflower leaf.

When I woke today, a multitude of urgent tasks filled my mind and sent me off in the wrong direction. Eventually I was rescued by the Jesus Prayer, by Jesus Himself. As I calmed down I realized that a few of the tasks were not that urgent, and when I began to consolidate my lists, one task fell off altogether, being a completely unnecessary outing, and large project that would have followed. That was a drive to the apple ranch to get Gravenstein apples, a variety that I usually miss out on because they are so early. But it won’t hurt to miss out on them again — why change tradition?

Volunteer Delta Sunflower

I’d wanted to water the garden early, but it ended up being not-so-early, and what do you know, that was not a disaster. Putting the hose on thirsty plants — or were they plants that merely look dry because it is August? — gave me so much joy, I could hardly bear it. I remember when my current garden went in, ten years ago, with its extensive automatic irrigation, my daughter Pearl was concerned and said, “But Mama, you love watering the garden!” Evidently that is true. It’s a great gift to have such work.

Viburnum coming along after hard pruning.

It seems to me that the irrigation system needs some adjusting; my thought is that as the plants are more in number and greater in size than when we first programmed it, and even since the last changes, I should customize it further. That job is a mental challenge for me, as there are six different valves/lines and three programs, for each of which one has to determine how many days per week and how many minutes of run time. As I have done so often, I will have to study the diagram and how to enter the settings via the dials and buttons, because it never sticks with me. If I just give some areas a little more water by hand, that will relieve my anxiety. It will be easier to tackle the problem if I am confident that nothing is dying of thirst right now.

Path mulch reapplied after 9.5 years.
Salvia clevelandii

As I walked around with the hose, noting how many things are alive and obviously growing, happiness filled me. The thoughts of J.R.R. Tolkien that Eugene Terekhin writes about recently in “Why Gardeners Will Save the World” make me think that my garden is helping me while I am tending it:

Quoting a letter Tolkien wrote to a friend: “I think the simple ‘rustic’ love of Sam and his Rosie (nowhere elaborated) is absolutely essential to the study of his (the chief hero’s) character, and to the theme of the relation of ordinary life (breathing, eating, working, begetting) and quests, sacrifice, causes, and the ‘longing for Elves’, and sheer beauty.”

Terekhin: “Mythically speaking, Sam [the character in Lord of the Rings] was ‘down to earth.’ He was a gardener who loved all things that grow — as all hobbits do.”
….
“The most important thing one can do in wartime is to grow a garden. Because when we grow things, they grow us. It takes a long time to grow something, and as we tend our garden we grow together with it.”

I know for sure that just being out there, soaking up the scents and the colors, watching the bees and butterflies drink from the flowers I tend on their behalf, is to me that most essential, ordinary life such as Tolkien shows us. For quite a while I followed this glorious, common swallowtail in all its glory, a creature that was drinking from just about every zinnia in the planter boxes. He and I were of the same mind about Being, and being down to earth.

Happiness is a butterfly, which, when pursued,
is always just beyond your grasp,
but which, if you sit down quietly,
may alight upon you.

-Nathaniel Hawthorne

I like rain and roasted onions.

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Rain… rain… rain… It’s been raining All. Day. It’s night now and still raining. I’ve been exulting in it, because I didn’t have any responsibilities that required my going out. I could tend the fire, chat with my daughters online about their weather, roast onions, read, and even accomplish one housecleaning task that has been hanging over my head for months: cleaning the ceiling exhaust fan in a bathroom. Yippee!

The nodding violet that I brought indoors last week before freezing weather arrived looked so lovely with the rainy light behind it, I had to take its picture.

Sir Gawain by Howard Pyle

On the table by the violet are a few of the books I bought to go with an online course I am taking this fall: “Christian Wonder Tales.” It is taught by Martin Shaw, the mythologist and storyteller whom I met at the Symbolic World Summit last winter. Tolkien’s Sir Gawain and the Green Knight didn’t get in the picture, but is another title he recommended, and I have it upstairs.

Who knows if I will read any of these books to the end — I haven’t even finished The King of Ireland’s Son, by Padraic Colum, which is quite delightful. Also perfect for listening to, because the narrator Gerard Doyle’s Irish brogue, telling the stories-within-stories as is the custom with Irish stories, has me journeying entranced from the Irish cottage to the castle and back again, meeting mysterious characters and challenging assignments around every bend in the road.

Now to the topic of food: Back when my friend Susan was also my housemate, sometimes I would walk in the front door to another sort of captivating story, the aroma of which was the essential part. What are you cooking?? I would ask, drawn immediately into the kitchen, and it took a few repetitions of this encounter before my nose remembered what she had told me: “It’s only roasted onions!” I eventually had to start making them myself.

(Above, onions in my kitchen as it was 28 years ago. Notice bread rising in pans at left. The only thing that is the same now is cast iron pans always on the stove top.)

To keep up with my appetite for them, I’d need to roast a batch of onions once a week, but it ends up being more like twice a year. As soon as they are out of the oven I always serve myself a little bowl of them, which seems to be about one onion’s worth… or two — so I usually double the recipe below. Do you roast onions? You can find many recipes online; here is my version:

ROASTED ONIONS

3 large onions, yellow or red
2 tablespoons olive or other oil
1 tablespoon balsamic or other vinegar
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
fresh ground black pepper to taste
(1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme) – I never add this

Cut the onions vertically into quarters or sixths, and then slice those wedges crosswise as thick as you want; I make mine 1/8 to 1/3 inch thick. Toss them in a bowl with the other ingredients and roast in a sheet pan at 375 to 400 degrees for 45 minutes to an hour, stirring occasionally, until they are as brown as looks good to you. I think sometimes, in an effort to get them crispier, I have overcooked them and made them a little tough.

This evening I didn’t use balsamic vinegar, because recently I was given an extra special bottle of “plain” red wine vinegar with a noble heritage. Just as bakers like to pass their sourdough starter around to friends, so chefs and winemakers often share a vinegar mother (also called a vinegar scoby). My vinegar was fermented with a mother whose mother belonged to Alice Waters, and whose grandmother grew in Julia Child’s kitchen. Does that make my onions taste better? You know, I think they might just be the best I’ve ever made!

The flowery gifts of August.

family, love, my garden, , , , , , , ,
Nodding Violet

Right in the middle of a very busy week my oldest daughter Pearl and her youngest Maggie came to visit, and that gave me a lovely and relaxing day. They had been camping for four nights from Wisconsin to here, on their way taking Maggie back to college in the southern reaches of California. It had been a long time since I’d had some focused time with this grandchild; we did a lot of catching up on face-to-face time and hugging.

And she suggested baking cookies together, and even suggested which kind of cookies. She would like the chocolate macaroons I make at Christmas; it just so happened that for some reason I’d bought almond paste last week, not really knowing why. So we made those marzipaney treats that I’ve never before made at any other time of the year.

The recipe calls for egg whites but not yolks. So we made Key Lime Cookies to use up the yolks, and to use a few of the big bag of limes I’d bought recently, I also can’t remember why. I sent Maggie on her way with most of the cookies this morning.

We three made a feast of a dinner together and Maggie went out to gather flowers for the table. 🙂

As for tomatoes, an unrepeatable sort of agricultural science experiment has been going on here. I have a few plants in the back yard that I intentionally planted and fed and have been watering…. I staked them and have so far picked about fifteen delicious Sungold cherry tomatoes off of one spindly vine.

By contrast, growing out of a crack in the sidewalk in front is a Green Doctor cherry tomato plant, looking hale and hearty, on which are growing bunches of tasty fat fruits. That plant is living proof of what I have known for a long time, that in our climate at least, tomatoes love heat more than they love water. The only water the sidewalk tomato received was one light rain in July. But its roots, wherever they are, are kept warm all night by the concrete that soaked up the full sun during the day. I’m thinking about scattering more seeds in that crack next spring.

I need to divide my Dutch Iris this fall, so I had my helper Alejandro remove most of them, and here they wait, on the side of the driveway:

Today a cord of firewood was delivered right next to them; the arranging of that was one of the many business calls I made this week. I’m amazed at how many tasks were completed (trash removed, garage door serviced, Household Hazardous Waste disposed of) or projects started.

I was waiting in a lab and saw these signs on the wall. This way of using the word love is a pet peeve of mine, which I began to acquire in the days of the toy named Care Bear, about whom it was said, “Care Bear loves you.” Ugh. I don’t like to trivialize love by lying to a child about what a toy can do, but I also find the use of the passive-voice “You are loved” to be false.

True love is not something that just happens; even falling in love requires something human from us. Who is that unnamed somebody who loves me, that the sign seems to know about? Of course it’s all too inane. Let’s look at flowers instead. Try not to look too long at the distracting hose in the next picture. Here you can see the sneezeweed starting to bloom behind the zinnias.

My vegetable garden is quite skimpy this summer, but I am thankful to have zinnias everywhere; I will plant some greens again next month, and take my joy from the flowery gifts of August.