You should smell like dirt...and smoke

In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.  ~Margaret Atwood

 Yesterday it was a lovely early (early!) spring day. It was cool, but the sunshine and blue skies made it necessary for us to spend a lot of time out in the garden. We took the heavy layer of straw mulch off the raised beds to let the sunshine get at the soil.

I took pictures of things.

Things like flowers:

A dog and a witch hazel bush. Witch hazels here bloom in late winter. This one has been blooming since the third week of February.
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And the yard in its early spring, very little growth glory.

We wound up picking up sticks and stuffing the chiminea full of wood and having a little fire. We sat there for a couple of hours burning sticks, talking, drinking wine, and wishing that we had some marshmallows. Or marshmallow PEEPS!

Alas, no confectionary, so we just enjoyed the spring and a quiet time together in our yard.

How did I get sanding sugar in my hair?

See that? That, right there, is the dessert tower my cookie baking partner put together for a little party at his house.

I put that up there because I'm thinking desserts. Next Sunday is our highest of high holy dessert days - St. Patrick's Day. This will be the fourth year we have done the coffee hour refreshments for the weekend of all things green, Irish, and Leprechaun-ish. Jim has an excuse, he's of the Irish extraction. I just like baking cookies.

Sugar cookies and a tray of shortbread. We always do sugar cookies as they are fun to theme up and people really like them.

We will be baking all week, culminating in an orgy of baking and frosting next Saturday. I can hardly wait.

A good life well spent

My Uncle Arthur died this past week. He was (I believe) 85 years old. He had been suffering some sort of dementia for the past several years, and he broke his hip at Christmas. His kidneys started shutting down last week and he died peacefully with his son John at his side.

Arthur was a character. He was a policemen in Texas, and for many years was the Chief of Police of the small town where my family lived. After he retired from that job he worked as a bailiff in the county court. Due to a lifetime of hanging out with cops, criminals, and criminal lawyers, he knew more stories and filthy jokes than anyone I've ever met, and he told them with a twinkle in his eye and cracked himself up every time he told one.

I remember as a kid that I could hardly believe my Uncle, who was the funniest, kindest person, could be a cop. From what I heard, on the job, he could be a hardass when it was required, but to his family he was gentle and caring. Once he took my sister and I to the police station and "booked" us. We had our fingerprints taken. I was charged with "impersonating a female," and I still have my fingerprint card.

He loved dogs, guns, hunting, telling stories, grilling enormous chunks of meat, puttering in his shed doing things like making bullets, and most especially, being with his family. We'll miss you Uncle Arthur.

You know, when you wear gray, you remind me of something...

So much for my beginning of the year goals to write more on this blog. I have no excuse other than laziness. And an extreme dislike of the iPad typing interface. Don’t get me wrong, I love the iPad, except if I have to type anything on it. Which makes it, for me, little more than an expensive piece of screen with which to check my facebook (but not post on it) and watch videos on the Youtube.

And our iPad is so old that it won’t let me watch all the videos I want to watch because of something called the Flash player, that is apparently so old and doddery it’s the computer equivalent of an 8-track tape deck. And if I try to look at the facebook page of my friends, nine times out of ten, the iPad dumps me out of Safari. It also won’t let me play Scrabble on facebook. I might as well be living in a cave and sending messages with fire and a blanket made out of animal hides.

I find myself in the position of needing to stop using the fancy technology which is the perfect size to use while lying in bed like a beached whale. And honestly? I’ve spent most of February since I got back from SC going to work, coming home, putting on pajamas, and heading to the bed like I am a beached whale and the surf is up. It’s pathetic. All I’ve wanted to do was watch gardening videos. Down side: general beached-whale sadness; accomplishments = 0; increased weight and self-loathing. Up sides: I now know a LOT about seed starting, permaculture, and replacing my lawn with a no-mow garden. See, there are positives even in Extreme Laziness.

I need to put away the iPad and start using my laptop, which would enable me to 1) type, 2) play Scrabble, and 3) post things. (I would like to point out that I am writing this post on the lovely laptop.)

And then, if the weather seems like winter is ever going to be over, I need to put the laptop away and get out there and do something in the yard! Cause let me tell you, dear readers (both of you!), I have plans for this yard. No more grass in the front yard. More things to grow and eat. More native plants.

Do you know anything about permaculture? As a way to produce food and improve the land/environment it is extremely appealing to me. The one drawback is that online it seems that people who are into it are either 1) prepper/survivalist types, 2) dirty hippies, or 3) Australians. Not sure where the Aussies come in as they don’t seem angry enough to be preppers or earnestly mellow/stoned enough to be hippies. I don’t really think I have it in me to become a survivalist because I don’t think living without the mod cons sounds like fun. I don’t WANT to live off the grid. So…you can see where this is going! In two years I will probably be unshaven, unshod, unwashed and reeking of patchouli.

One thing I can promise you though, I will not be trying to grow white-girl dreads. That’s just not going to happen. I think you should only have dreads if you have naturally twisty, curly hair. Anne Lamott looks good in her dreads, as did Bob Marley (mayherestinpeace). If I have to give up washing, I was thinking I’d find out how I look with a crew cut and a pair of granny glasses, a la Sinead O’Connor. I will also be wearing a bra under my dirty t-shirt, I don’t care if that makes me a bad hippy; the other Permaculturists will just have to accept me WITH my foundation garments. I may be a failed Southern lady, but I was raised right, and I’m not leaving the house without a bra.

Anyway, that's it for today. I have posted (!), so go me. I went to a programs meeting for quilt guild, and now I am 1) in pajamas and 2) playing on the Internetz. 

Thomas Wolfe didn't know what he was talking about...you can go home again!

Just got home tonight from a week spent in Clemson, SC. Helped my parents move into their beautiful new home there. They'd been living in a cabin in the mountains while waiting for the house to be finished, driving down to Clemson every day to see the progress on the house, so they are overjoyed to be (mostly) in.

It was a long tiring week, but full of laughter, good meals, satisfaction, and golf cart rides. Yes, my parents are the proud owners of a new to them, used golf cart. It was delivered on Monday, and about five minutes after the guy unloaded it from the trailer, the three of us climbed on board and tooled around the neighborhood. Fun!

One of Mom's friends came over one day and helped us hang pictures and rearrange furniture. This lady is a good interior decorator and helped us get the living room looking good. I picked up some tips from her on how to hang pictures.

We ate some delicious meals...and quite a few burgers from Hardees. Mom and I went to get ice cream from Clemson, and went to Liberty to get some of her pictures reframed one day. What with one thing and another we drove over large parts of the Upstate.

Thomas was there from Thursday-Saturday, and with his muscle we were able to get them down from 2 storage units to 1 - and all that is left in that unit is things they are trying to sell.

They are all moved in, except much of their stuff is in the garage, ready to be unpacked in the next weeks and months.