Keeper of Memory

 Recently, I spent some quality time with some of my Best Beloveds. We laughed, and talked, and ate delicious food. We listened to favorite songs, and gently tugged at the seams of the world’s ragged edges until we could reknit them to our satisfaction. Perhaps best of all, we “remembered when” together.

It is a blessing to be in the company of people who carry memory with you, who have shared experiences and adventure, who knew you “way back when,” who have loved you through your “becomings,” all the ideations of yourself, to this Self, now.  We spoke of those who formed and impacted us-- parents and teachers, friends and family, poets, and singers. We told our stories, and our jokes and our heartbreaks; life is made up of all of this, of laughter and tears. 

My cousin Jill, daughter of my mom’s sister Sue, brought with her some of our family’s genealogy—or, as we now call it, “The Judgy Genealogy”—and we marveled together at some of the family traits that go back generations, and some that seem to skip a generation. We find the entire thing hilarious and couldn’t stop laughing at the description of some of our forebearers and assorted kin.

Take, for example. Elizabeth W Leathers who was “...always very strong seemingly as she did an enormous amount of yard work.” There’s a gardening gene I can relate to.

Then there is the assertion that Alfred O Leathers was “...not the last Leathers to be a great mathematician.” Clearly, this gene skips like a stone.

Hosea Gradon Leathers, one of the “.... nervous, temperamental type. Also, quite intellectual, as well as unreliable...a lawyer.” Oh, I have so many questions!

Then there is JE Leathers, who was reportedly “spoiled and high tempered. Never quite like other people. Very brilliant in some ways. Reality finally proved too much.” Who among us has not wrestled with reality?

But the entry that made us laugh the most inappropriately was a relative that died in 1854, “...when he climbed a tree and shot himself out of it. It may have been on purpose. The family never knew.” There is something about the wording that—as my people are wont to say— “tickles me.” I wonder how many people have accidentally shot themselves out of a tree. Did he have a catapult up there? Was it a squirrel gun?

Whatever the answers are, they are lost to the mists of time, but the questions remind me of how important it is to have people who can carry memory with us, laughing, and talking. Remembering when...

Lady Slippers Death March or Why You Should Only Hike with Photographers

 

During one of my outside-between-rain-showers-adventures I went on a “little” hike -- in search of Lady Slipper orchids. My friend Cathy had told me of a simple path that was full of them, so Mark and I decided to go explore one Sunday. We wandered to and fro, exclaiming with delight at all the Lady Slippers we discovered. Here a clump, there a clump, everywhere a clump-clump. It was truly amazing how many we saw. 

Mixed in with our Lady Slipper sightings were the occasional Trillium—what my dad Willis always referred to as “Easter Lilies,” and in my heart, I still call them that. Some had already begun to turn lavender, but many of them were still that fresh, clean white of a new bloom. Each new discovery was a joy.

Like Hansel and Gretel, we wandered on and on, over hill and dale; up hill, and uphill, and up more hills-- until I finally figured out that Mark was cleverly using my love of Lady Slippers to counteract my strong dislike of “elevation gain.”

If you’ve ever hiked with me, you know I prefer the kind of hikes where “elevation gained” does not interfere with my ability to tell stories, i.e. make me gasp for air. I like gentle hikes—actually I prefer the term “walks”—and long stories. Mark had outwitted me by using the lure of “the next patch” of Lady Slippers so well that it was only when we were headed down that I noticed that the path was kind of steep and had been “up” most of the way. He’s very clever like that.

What he might not realize is that two people can play that game. While he was coaxing me ever upward with blossom after blossom, I was slowing him down by pointing out various bits of flora and fauna—actually I don’t remember seeing any fauna; all that storytelling had provided them ample warning of our advance. But any unusual flora was enough to stop his otherwise relentless ascent.

Look at that moss! Looks fern-like, doesn't it?

 

As a photographer, he loves to capture unique angles and framing just the right shot often interrupts his version of the Bataan death march, so I have learned to keep my head on a swivel and my eyes peeled. Together, we combined our personal gifts to hike nearly eight miles—most of it uphill both ways-- photograph various bits of moss and fern and fungi, all without the other noticing how high we’d climbed or how slowly we’d done it. 

Look at the texture of that bark!

Win/win, not winded.

Spring Sky

Procrastination, Eventually

 I can’t remember what my opening sentence was going to be about because instead of typing it, I got up and got a handful of peanut butter M&Ms. Buy the time I got back to the keyboard the idea I had had melted away...the chocolate of ideas melts in your brain... if you don’t have words in your hand-- worth two in the bush? Brain? ---strike that. That’s lame. Let me try again.

Every week I intend to write my column in a timely manner. “Timely” often ends up being one of those “eye of the beholder” flexible words; it means different things to different people. I have yet to decide on a final definition. Procrastinating on defining “timely”—classic Sue!

I’m also procrastinating in other areas. I’m rather embarrassed to admit that here we are, up to our eyeballs in April, and I have only purchased two—that’s right T-W-O—flowers. Usually, by the end of April, I have a couple of boxes full of tender blooms sheltering on my porch, waiting for the last of the frost to move on so I can safely plant them in my pots and baskets and beds. Two flowers—nemesia “Babycakes’; three tomato plants, two sweet peppers, one Poblano pepper, and fistful of seed packets for my straw bales comprises the totality of my plant purchases for 2021.

Sigh. I think I have Spring Fever. I can’t seem to settle on a task for long without wandering outside—between rain showers—and looking at all the growing things. It’s an on-going argument with myself not to hop in the car and go on an epic nursery tour...First I’ll stop at DeGoedes and wander thru the green houses, then on to Bennie’s Gardens in Chehalis/Napavine. Perhaps a quick stop at Adna Floral, before hitting up Sun Birds garden department...Any hardware store, 4H plant sale, or garden club I pass on the way by is also fair game. Please, take my money-- I must have all the pretties.

If my travels take me south, I’ll swing in to Tsugawa Nursery in Woodland. North, and I’ll find my way to Windmill Gardens in Sumner. But why go home yet—I’m this close to Flower World in Maltby, might as well keep on going. If you don’t know where Maltby is I’ll bet your Siri does. Ask her, she’s quite the enabler and Flower World is worth “getting around to.”

 Eventually.

Spring Sprang Sprung

 “Hot enough for you?” Not the phrase you expect to be on people’s lips this time of year, but this weekend was certainly worthy of that exact conversation. Temperatures were well into the 70’s-- and even above that in some locations.

Aiden enjoys the outdoors

Vultures taking the sun

Tea Party

Congrats to the Newest Husky!

It was perfect weather for dining al fresco with friends and neighbors, celebrating milestones—congrats to Maricella—a newly minted “Husky”! Tea parties on the back deck, cuddling babies, moving into a new house—congrats Cameron and Beth! Mowing the grassing, hiking into* Packwood Lake, and all manner of other, outdoor, fair weather activity activities. 

John like cake. Clearly.

Lane didn't get any cake. Sad.

It was really good cake tho

*Disclaimer: we did hike into Packwood Lake. Just not all the way. Most of the way, sure. But once I started post-holing in a snow field that went on as far as the eye could see, well—that seemed a sign from the Patron Saint of Hikers that it was time to turn around. So, we did.

Spring seems to have sprung with intention this year. However, I am a lifelong Northwesterner and this is not my first rodeo. Even as I formulate these words I can feel the clouds rolling in. Good thing I already mowed my lawn. And yes, I call my patch of thatch, moss, and weeds “lawn.” It’s green, and I mow it: lawn. It was also very dusty, so if you were my neighbor? This would have been a very bad weekend to hang your laundry out to dry.

My straw bales are “cooking” nicely. It won’t be long before I’ll be able to plant them. And speaking of plants, I’m really itching to start my annual Nursery-Hopping Road Trip. I guess “trips” plural would be more accurate, because once I start buying flowers it’s hard to stop. 

Speaking of flowers---during our hike on Sunday I spotted a lone Lady Slipper orchid; a fragile wildflower I haven’t seen in years. Perhaps Lady Slippers were just waiting for the perfect spring day to put in their appearance. 

Mish, Even More Mashed—Support Groups and SBG

 I’m thinking of starting a support group. NOT, as you might be supposing—based on this title—for Straw Bale Gardeners, but a support group instead, for people who love to complain about the weather.

I love to complain about the weather, and—all bragging aside—I’m very good at it. Unfortunately for me, my talents will have to lie dormant this week as we are scheduled to have day, after day, after day of good weather. That’s bound to put my skills into cold turkey/withdrawal mode. Hence the need for a support group. I’m thinking we could all get together and complain about having nothing to complain about—thereby keeping our skills sharp and our muscles warm, ready for the next round of complaint-worthy weather. Now I just need to brainstorm meeting locations—grange? Umbrella factory? — figure out the best cookie baker in my bunch, and we’ll be set to go... Thursdays at 10 a.m. work for you?

Abby is helping.

Speaking of SBG—and I was, earlier, sort of—I got my straw bales over the weekend and am ready to start prepping them. Since it’s scheduled to be sunny all week I’ll have to unfurl my garden hose to water them. Last year it rained so much during my twelve-day straw-prep period that I only had to water them myself once or twice. (Please note that I have very skillfully managed a near-complaint about being saddled with a stretch of good weather. Skillz, I haz ‘em!)

If you’re thinking a SBG sounds like fun, get yourself to your nearest feed store or friendly farmer—I go to Overby’s in Randle. Good prices, and he loads it right in the vehicle for me. It would be even better service it he UNLOADED it for me—but in all fairness, I didn’t actually ask him the availability of that service. He offered to bag the bale for me, to keep the chafe out of my upholstery. Which turned out to be a service I should have taken him up on. In other related news: air compressors and lint-rollers combined, will—eventually--remove the chafe. “Eventually” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.

Ryan Gosling--get it?

If you live in Onalaska, I recommend Premium Quality Hay and Feed for straw. They are located right off of Highway 12, which is handy. Unfortunately, they also carry adorable baby goslings, and I spend way too much time trying to convince myself that that I don’t really need a baby Russian Goose named Ryan...

Once you have your straw—I’ll leave it to your own discretion when it comes to your goose needs-- just place the bales in a sunny location, sprinkle ½ cup of cheap, nitrogen rich fertilizer on them every other day for a week. Give them a good soaking each day you fertilize. Days 7-9: ¼ cup fertilize; use warm water to saturation. Day 10 is one cup per bale of a balanced, slow release fertilizer. On day 12 you can plant!

Probably best you didn’t get the goose after all, since Ryan is bound to pull up all your little seedlings...but it WOULD give you something to complain about...

April MishMash

 Yes, mishmash is too a word. If it wasn’t a word, what did you just read? I rest my case.

April weather has been all over the place—which is kind of normal. I remember the Easters of my childhood often containing a little bit of everything; rain, sun, snow, some wind, perhaps a brief burst of hail—or as one of my sons referred to it as when he was little and observed hail falling on our back deck—“Look, Mom! Snow Skittles!”

April First has come and gone. I recall my dad’s love for April Fool’s pranks—one of his great successes was telling his teenaged daughter-- at sunrise-- that her horse got out. I dragged my sleepy carcass out of bed and into boots and came stumbling out to ask him in which direction my wayward steed had been headed only to have him triumphantly crow “April Fools!” Well played, Willis. Well played.

Johnny searchs for hanging blueberries

Easter was last week and I watched the next generation of kids and dogs, hunting Easter eggs. The weather was semi-co-operative and the egg hunt was held outdoors—not indoors. A much better locations, we can all agree. It’s a lot easier for the dogs to abscond with some delicious treasure that way.

The sun came out long enough that I was even able to mow my grass for the first time this year. And in related good news—my lawn mower fired right up. Hooray!

We have new neighbors here in my neck of the woods and they are lovely people. Which, in itself, is nice. They also happen to be lovely people with a tractor brush hog attachment, a dislike of encroaching blackberry bushes, and a willingness to subdue my unruly vines as well as their own. They say fences make good neighbors but I submit that tractor owning neighbors make good neighbors. I feel pretty fortunate to have a plethora a generous, tractor owning neighbors, and Dene and Gloria fit right in. Welcome to the neighborhood!

All in all, April is off to a good start.

It Must Be Spring

 You know how I can tell? If you guessed robin’s tugging on worms or daffodils blooming or <please insert some other signs of spring I’ve failed to mention here>. If you guessed any of these you are sadly mistaken. I know it is spring because I need to mow the grass-- but my lawn got snowed on.

Of course, it wasn’t a lot of snow-- but that’s not my point. It’s also not my point that, resting on the laurels of the prior year’s successful lawn mower maintenance, I completely forgot to do any last fall. And here I am again, with my grass slowly greening, wondering if my mower will start...

Fortunately for me, there was some pre-season use of the mower-as-skidder, so all that dragging away of trimmed of tree limbs means that it hasn’t been that long since my mower has been powered up. It’s entirely possible that the next time the sun peeks out, my mower will fire right up.

This time of year, it’s a race to trim my grass before it gets as high as an elephant’s eye while avoiding rain-mixed-with-snow-showers. Or the ever-unfortunate “it’s a gloriously sunny day but I’ve got spring fever and am either 1) on a picnic; or 2) on a road trip to every nursery with in a day’s driving distance,  buying all the plants; or 3) both.”

A sure sign of spring around Casa Sume is the appearance of plants, seeds, straw bales—and usually in that bass-ackwards order. After the impressive—sometimes frightening success—of last year’s Straw Bale Garden, I’m kind of chomping on the bit to get going again. I can’t wait to have my first plateful of tomato bruschetta—topped with fresh whole milk mozzarella and new basil. I may have already purchased a tiny little nibbin of a start of my new favorite heirloom tomato, “Kellogg’s Breakfast.” While I have yet to purchase the straw that will be Mrs. Kellogg’s new home, I’m having her keep me company in the house. She has already grown to three times her height at time of purchase and I think it’s because she likes bingeing on Netflix with me...

Annie isn’t sure if a tomato on the couch is A GOOD IDEA