Dandelion Jelly: We're Back And It's Spring!

First of all, let me apologize for my long absence. Two weeks of it are readily attributable to moving and not having internet access, but the rest is just plain life.

It's great to be back home. There are still boxes acting like decoration in several rooms, but enough has been settled back into its place to make it feel like home again and everyone is functioning well. The emotional transition took all of about 3 days, I think. We've traded the frustration of traffic for the frustration of slow drivers, but I'll take it any day. We've had very nice weather for the most part, and the hammock has been up occasionally. The lawn has had its first haircut, we had a wet, heavy snowstorm (yes, in that order), the early seeds are in (peas, beets, lettuce) even though it's a bit late. They yard needs all kinds of work, but I'm up to the task.

Yesterday, my two young sons picked an insane amount of dandelions in our meadow and piled them in my lap. What's a mom to do? Make jelly, of course! I knew dandelion leaves were edible, so it makes sense that the petals are too. I'd bet you could also substitute violets, since I know they also come from an edible family. I make a very pretty rose petal jam annually which we learned to love in Turkey. I've tried rose hip marmalade, but it was horribly labor-intensive and the recipe wasn't that good. This, too, requires patience or maybe a small party of friends/children to help. But this jelly is actually worth it! It has a delicate, light flavor reminiscent of lemon honey. Makes roughly 4 (6oz) jelly jars. Easily doubled, if you have that kind of time....

Maren's Dandelion Jelly

2 cups yellow parts of dandelion blossoms (no green at all), plus about 3 blossoms' worth for garnish

1 1/2 cups boiling water

2 1/4 cups sugar

1 Tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

fine zest from 1/2 lemon

1/2 package powdered pectin (about 2 1/4 Tablespoons)

small amount of yellow food coloring, optional

Gather a basket full of the biggest dandelions you can find. Pull the yellow from the green (easier said than done, but you don't want any bitter greens at all). You can process them in batches, freezing what you have till you have enough.

Place half the blossoms in the boiling water. Simmer over medium heat for 10 minutes. Strain, then repeat with the other half. Strain very well. If the water no longer measures 1 1/2 cups, add water to make up the amount. To the water, add lemon juice, sugar, pectin, zest and garnish blossom petals. Bring to a rolling boil and stir till sugar is dissolved, then boil hard for 1 minute. Pour into hot jars and seal. Process in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Adapted from a recipe by Mary Fillmore on Recipe Gal website. Recommended listening while working: copenhagencast.com. The Danish you'll learn is just a bonus.

Spring Love

Happy Mother's Day to everyone!

A Short Part of the Long Trail

Yesterday was hectic. We had hoped to go on a family hike but couldn't fit it in among the other Saturday demands: chores, ballet lessons, helping friends move, toddler naps, play dates, and the church potluck dinner. But the idea of a "family hike" struck a chord with the 2 year old and he expressed his desire to go many times during the day. It wasn't forgotten overnight, either. He preferred it to going to church this morning but was overruled by the rest of us.

So, after his nap today, we finally went on the family hike. Our usual Sunday family "hike" is a leisurely stroll around the Robert Frost Interpretive Trail just up the mountain, but that trail suffered serious damage in last August's flood and most of it is still closed. So Q looked up a new one which was labeled "easy" in the Vermont Gazetteer. It was actually a 600 ft gain in elevation and 2.5 miles total from car to cliff and back. Post-hike research revealed that other sources label it "moderate to difficult" and I concur. 

We started at Middlebury Gap, where the Long Trail (which is part of the Appalachian Trail) intersects Route 125, roughly 15 minutes from our house. Q took the baby in the backpack and I was companion to Mr. Junior Collector who was fascinated by everything on the forest floor and stuffed his pockets full of goodies as he plodded along. He had to be convinced to put down the handfuls of sticks from time to time so he could be assisted up the terrain. I suffered from museum sickness* but tried to deal with it for his sake. The girls darted between Dad in the front and me in the back, with the 5 year old reporting all sorts of hiking "news" to her older sister who promptly jotted it all down with melodramatic flair in a small notebook. 

Silent Cliff Trail was enjoyable in a difficult sort of way and it was worth the sore quadriceps I will have tomorrow. The view was really amazing. I felt like I could see Colorado although it was really the Adirondack Mountains. And it was truly a cliff. Don't walk that path in dim light because it ends abruptly at a small rocky ledge and you are suddenly looking down 600 feet to Route 125. Perhaps it is called Silent Cliff because the cliff part sort of sneaks up on you at the end.

The little boys didn't get all the way to the cliff- don't worry. Part of the trail was still snowy and muddy (not to mention also steep), so Q and I tag-teamed at the end and I went first with the girls, then came back and let him go with them while the boys and I started back. The combination of steep downhill, a baby in a backpack, and wearing bifocals slowed me down and I felt conspicuously like a packhorse picking my way down the tree root stairs, holding on to the tendrils of saplings for assistance. 

Mr. Junior Collector had turned into Captain Belligerent and was carried part of the way on his Dad's shoulders. But the baby was singing lovely monosyllabic songs of contentment on the way down and the girls ran ahead of me, reaching the registration post first. The conscientious 9 year old signed us out so the rangers wouldn't worry about us. We all ended the family hike in good spirits- even the 2 year old- and headed home as the sun set, looking forward to a round of warm toast and jam and soft beds. 


*Museum sickness is something I get when I have to walk too slowly, as in museums. I get bored, impatient, can't concentrate, look up at the ceiling a lot and want to sprint. I have discovered that I do better at museums when I walk rather quickly and cover the whole place several times over- or sit down.

Spring Saunters In

The transition from Winter to Mud Season to Spring has been very gradual this year. We've not had any major disasters like ice storms, late snows (knock on wood), flooding or the like, so there's not much to complain about. It's gotten steadily warmer each week and the grass is slowly waking up from its comatose existence. The crocuses are fading and daffodils are taking over with their sunny-side-up faces and fresh fragrance. Hyacinths and tulips are on their way. No hurry, though. I'm willing to stretch things out this year knowing that it is likely I will not see these particular beauties next spring.

My spare time is now spent in real preparations for packing this mess of a house. Lately, I've been sorting through the boxes of clothes and shoes that various kids have yet to grow into. I have been the recipient of some truly fabulous hand-me-downs for the boys- really good stuff that is one, two, or three sizes too big for the older of them. So there's the stuff he will wear this summer, the clothes and gear for next winter, and then the items I think might fit him by the next summer. It's a bit of a guessing game, but it must be done- and for each child. Not as much for the oldest, but there is still some sorting to do for her.

The enclosed front porch has become the dumping ground for bags of clothes and piles of items to give away, and it's getting crowded. I suppose I ought to be making weekly trips to Neat Repeats and H.O.P.E. to keep it manageable. It is nice to be done with some of the bigger infant paraphernalia (anybody need an Excer-saucer?). Maybe we'll host a "tag sale" or perhaps it is time to figure out FreeCycle.

This year, spring cleaning will also include a trip to the dump to finally get rid of some broken items which cannot be fixed and have been accumulating in the basement for a few years. What a relief that will be! I am reminded that there can be advantages to moving occasionally. The eradication of useless (or seldom-used) junk, the critical eye which asks everything to earn its place in the long-term storage unit, the paring down to just-above-essentials for the year ahead- these are all very useful parts of the moving process. And I am also reminded that we will have the unique opportunity to move back into this same space; maybe we can be a bit smarter about how things get arranged the second time around.

So the general themes that run through my days are: Spring (yay!), Gardening (yay!), Moving (ack!), Two-and-a-half-year-old (!), and 11-month-old (!). We don't lack for excitement around here.

May Winds Down

May 2008 has loomed so large in my mind for so long. The big day has come and gone. He's here, and, as expected, it's hard to imagine our family without him.

The other three are each going through their own adjustments. It seems the younger you are the louder your adjustment, but it's all within the normal range of expectations. I have appreciated the extra help and generosity of so many family members and friends, and my own recovery has been much easier to handle this time around. So life is good.

Even the weather is good. It's been warm and cool, wet and dry, and it's all good. We got some seedlings planted and the peas are growing. I'm harvesting rhubarb and watching the blueberry, strawberry, raspberry and red currant bushes begin to grow fruit. The peach tree has tiny fuzzy things on it and I only hope that at least a few will mature this year. The sour cherry tree is looking promising as well. The bulbs have all passed now, and it's time for the early perennials to flower: lupine, mountain bluet, spring phlox, azalea, iris, bleeding heart and spiderwort. The peony I salvaged as a single shoot from the pervious owner's flower patch has now matured and is about to bloom. I am very excited because I have no idea what color it will be- I can't wait! The yard looks great- thank you, Mom and Dad. The new ramp to the barn is really fantastic!















June is on its way, with the end of preschool, the end of 3rd grade, the beginning of Q's summer job and all its inherent unpredictability, a family reunion, a 5th birthday, and more mosquitoes. I feel like maybe I should stock up on some kind of energy drink. Any suggestions?

Counting Down

Well, there are either mere days or mere hours until the arrival of kiddo #4. In the meantime, I am rushing about like a mad woman trying to get things done. Mind you, these are not all very important- not like what some people are doing. I've gotten all the major items crossed off... now it's just the little things which I have convinced myself are absolutely essential. Here's an incomplete record of recent accomplishments.

Lots of gardening and yard work have been on the list this week, including mulching all the beds, starting all the remaining seeds in little peat pots, mowing the grass, moving this plant and that, watering everything, pruning a few things, and weeding like crazy. The rugosa was ripped out yesterday afternoon, thanks to Renita and Toby and their back hoe. After the kids went to bed, I went out and replanted the daffodils and put the new peony in its place. The sun had gone down, so I only worked until I couldn't see anymore. Too bad I forgot to wear my buzz-off gear. Black flies are evil.

This morning, I rushed out to get 4 more bags of mulch and then up to my favorite nursery to use a generous gift certificate my neighborhood friends gave me last week as part of a Baby Welcome party. (Thank you!) I picked up a nice red Champlain rose and three light pink geraniums. I hurried home, fed and put Torin down, then went out to plant, water, move things, and mulch. Whew. It was nearly 80º out, so I took frequent breaks to sit in the shade and make up more things to do.

Next on the list is to make a few more dinners for the freezer. Enchiladas are coming up, after having finished two chicken dishes and a Tillamook casserole last week. I have also been writing down things like Torin's routine and the schedule for the week my parents will be here.

After I posted these lists in obvious places, my husband noticed them and commented. My response was that I felt like the world was coming to and end and that I had to do certain things to get ready. It is, in a sense. Life after is never the same as life before. Gardening is much easier this week than it will be next week. Life after might be better... but it won't be the same. Furious preparations (even if some of them are completely unnecessary) help keep my mind off the fact that I am essentially a walking time bomb. I suppose all of this highlights nicely the "J" side of my personality type. Next up- change all the sheets and maybe give a few kids a haircut. And what will I do when the list is empty? Well, I will lie down on the couch and meditate... and maybe come up with a few more things to do.

Spring Break

Normally, I reserve this blog for my own thoughts and ideas... but sometimes the kids take over. That's what has happened this week. I'm here to report that Thirty Marens Agree: having all three kids at home during a week of the most gorgeous 80º weather is great; also that having all three kids at home while my husband is away conducting research in Morocco is exhausting. (Not to mention the fact that simply being pregnant is exhausting.) 

I tilled the gardens and we planted peas and a few cabbage seeds. We watered all the growing things (children included) since it was so hot and dry. The daffodils came up and are now fading in the warmth, hyacinths are in full swing and tulips are next. The trees are all leafing out a few weeks early this year, and we have made many trips to the river just to throw in rocks and see them splash. I moved the daisies to the wildflower bed and chopped one of the rugosa roses down to nothing in preparation for having it removed by my friend and her backhoe. Last year's raspberry canes have been removed and I look forward to another grand raspberry harvest. I still need to move the tree peony my neighbor gave me- I stuck it in the wrong place last fall. Oh, yes, and all those daffodils I planted last fall are coming up nicely. Hopefully they will multiply and look even better next year. 

Below are the kids in their Moroccan habiliments. There has been much dancing to Putumayo's North African Groove at our house. Brightly colored fancy leather slippers not shown, but very popular, as is the children's book in French. My treasures included a small wooden box for my collection, dried rosebuds from the spice market, brightly colored scarves, silk tassels (for my camel's saddlebag, I guess), chocolate, and a cookbook in French- which means my husband gets to help me make couscous.

Signs of Spring

It's official- winter is over! Here is the irrefutable evidence that early Spring has sprung in Vermont.


Crocuses are popping up.



My neighbor is out practicing his golf swing.









And... the kids are running full-tilt through the backyard again!

Dividing a Holiday

I love Easter. It's such a pleasant holiday in every way. I love the great and marvelous Reason we celebrate it, and I even like the various non-spiritual traditions that go along with it. I'm not so big on the Easter Bunny, per se, but I like the traditional meal, the baskets, the eggs, the beautiful array of spring colors allowed, and- yes, I'll admit it- the candy.

So far, my preparations have included: making egg nest cookies (see recipe below), gathering up some favorite candies like Brach's jelly beans, Cadbury mini eggs, Reece's peanut butter eggs, and the smallest chocolate bunnies I could find, and making sure we have this year's collection of puppets. (Long story coming.) Still to do on my list: boil and dye eggs with the kids on Friday night, make Finnish Pulla (cardamom bread), and plan the meal.

Long story: When Sonja was born, we lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. One day, near Easter, I was browsing in The Wordsworth Children's Bookstore (now called Curious George and Friends) at Harvard Square.
I came upon a display of Folkmanis puppets and fell in love with an 11" tall chipmunk. I dug really deep for the seventeen dollars he cost (these were grad student budget days) and decided he would be the only thing in Sonja's Easter basket that year. After all, she was only 6 months old. We called him Filbert, and he was a huge hit. He played peek-a-boo, he clapped his hands, he scurried all over and tickled... he was lots of fun, and still is. He played a major role in Sonja's adjustment to Turkey the next year. Most Easters since then have featured a Folkmanis puppet as the main thing in the basket and we now have a good, if varied and odd, collection of puppets. (This year it's a skunk, a fairy, and a river otter.) Traditions are funny things and they often begin in accidental ways.

This year, though, I am looking forward to deliberately trying something new to see if I can bring an added measure of spirituality to our Easter. I was reading the February edition of the Ensign magazine, and came upon a great little collection of reader-submitted ideas for making a family Easter celebration more spiritual. They all sounded good to me, but there was one in particular that got me thinking. I decided to run it past Quinn to see if it was okay to adopt, and he agreed.

Thus begins our new tradition of Spring Day. From now on, we will have our egg hunt and baskets on a Saturday before Easter (which we shall call "Spring Day"), and Easter Sunday will be reserved for a special meal and Family Home Evening devoted to reading the scriptures and learning new Easter songs. No commercialism allowed that day. Whew, what a relief! Now I can separate those two halves of the holiday and emphasize the spiritual message without distractions. I have great hopes for this system, which is similar to the way we do Christmas at our house.

I'm so excited for Easter! I've felt the wonderful joy of this celebration before- it's been burned into my heart on several occasions- and I always look forward to hearing the story and feeling that exultant elation of the Spirit again. Christ is the Lord, our Savior, and I know it! He atoned for our sins, died and was resurrected for us so that we might have the opportunity to return again into the presence of God the Father. It's the most amazing and wonderful gift, and it fills me with joy. Happy, Happy Easter!



What are your family's Easter traditions?


Egg Nest Cookies:

---

1/2 cup butter
3oz cream cheese
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon almond or lemon extract
1 cup flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon water
4-5 drops green food coloring
1 1/3 cups flaked coconut

Jelly beans

Beat the butter and cream cheese together till well mixed. Add sugar and extract and beat till fluffy. Add flour, baking powder and salt and beat until well mixed and cohesive. Cover and chill dough 1-2 hours. Meanwhile, prepare the coconut by adding water, food coloring and coconut to a screw-top jar. Shake to color all the coconut. (I spread it out on waxed paper to dry a bit.)

Heat oven to 350º. Remove dough from refrigerator. Shape into 1" balls, roll in coconut, place 2" apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Bake 15-20 minutes till edges are firm. While cookies are still hot, press a jelly bean in the center of each. Cool on wire racks. Makes about 25 cookies.

Middle March

Around here, they say that Vermont has five seasons: Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter, and Mud Season. We're officially into season number five now with freezing rain coming on top of the filthy, patchy, crusty, leftover snow and ice.

Our gravel driveway is full of icy little puddles in which Torin feels obligated to splash every time he gets out of the car. (Wet shoes go on top of the heating vent when he comes in.) Laurel still has to bring snow pants and boots to preschool because they go outside in almost every kind of weather and they come home caked in mud. And, even though the ground might be warming up a little, it is common knowledge around here that you don't plant anything in the garden until you can squeeze a handful of soil and it crumbles rather than making a dripping mud pie.

March is the longest month in Vermont. There will be no flowers until April. There are a few birds coming back, but the trees will remain bare until May. There might be some wet snowman-making snow still to come if we're lucky, but mostly the weather is not that great. No biting cold to brag about. No deep snow with six-pointed flakes. Just a few ice storms to keep us grumbling, with some flooding and ice dams for good measure.

So what do Vermonters do in March? We have two things going on to keep our minds off the distant Spring. First comes Town Meeting Day on the first Tuesday of the month. Town Meeting is a very long-standing Vermont tradition which began in 1762 (15 years before Vermont became a state). Of course, Vermonters didn't invent town meetings- the Greeks did- but I've never seen it practiced in any of the other places I've lived. Maybe they do it in other New England States, I don't know. Anyway, here's and excellent primer on how a Town Meeting goes. Quinn attended Middlebury's this year (which was held on the first Monday night), and we both went to the municipal gym for the Australian ballot voting the next day. We voted on things like the schools' budgets, a bond for a new bridge in town, and the Presidential Primary candidates. It's real citizenship at the citizens' level and it's fun!

But the fun doesn't stop there. Lots of Vermonters like to poke a hole in a tree and spend all night tending a fire, too! March brings us to sugaring season, when the sap begins to rise in the sugar maples and all that fine Vermont maple syrup gets made. (The photo at right is my neighbor, Dayton, giving the girls a taste of fresh sap after he trimmed a tree limb. It tastes a lot like water.) We tried it one year and I made just about a pint of liquid gold from our biggest maple. It was a fun experiment, but it will be a number of years before I try it again. It requires several things I don't currently have: time, many sap buckets, time spent collecting the sap into some huge container, an outdoor (or nearly outdoor) heat source like a fire pit or wood-fired evaporator, time, and lots of time/help watching the stuff all day and night so it doesn't boil down to nothing and get scorched. It's a good thing the sap doesn't rise at some other time of the year; who could stand to make syrup in August? No, it's good, old fashioned, Vermont-style, mud season fun. Especially for those with a lot of extra time on their hands.

For those of us who don't make syrup and have had all the voting fun we can handle, March is the best time to catch up on those winter illnesses we might have missed: influenza, strep throat, conjunctivitis, ear infections, pneumonia, bronchitis (that's where I get to raise my hand), the common cold, or whatever. Let's get it all out of our systems now, before the weather turns reasonable and we all want to be outside again. Do I dare to dream of dry, green grass...?

What do you do for fun in March?

The Magic of Seed Catalogs

This winter, I've been thinking that maybe I wouldn't plant very much in the garden in spring. We're expecting baby #4 at the end of May, and I'm just not sure I'm going to be up to planting, weeding and harvesting. I just couldn't get excited about it.

That was last week. I've been receiving various seed and plant catalogs all winter, but it wasn't until I sat down with the Jung catalog two days ago that I began to feel the desire to plant things. Lots of things. Fortunately, there will be a few obstacles to my outlandish dreams besides the already mentioned baby: hardines zone, money and space. If I had unlimited funds and many, many acres in zone 5 or 6 then I would make a big walled garden with a gate, path and a wisteria tree, a really big orchard, a rose garden, and a weeping willow tree or two out in a meadow. I haven't quite figured out where in my little acre I'm going to put the forsythia hedge or pussy willow bush, the aronia berry bushes, the six apple and pear trees or the plum trees. I'm only slightly bitter about not being able to grow certain fruits like apricots, plumcots, sweet cherries, pawpaw (not to mention lemon, clementine and grapefruit), nuts like pecan, walnut, and almond, and old fashioned English roses. But I'll get over it, I'm sure.

I will have to plant certain things, though. Peas, first of all. We must have garden-fresh peas to munch on while playing outside. Lettuce, Diva cucumbers, and tomatoes are pretty much essential. Sonja wants to grow onions, garlic and carrots besides lettuce and peas. Laurel wants cabbage, and I want corn and pumpkins as well. Then there's the herb garden: parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, oregano, cilantro, basil, lemon balm, mint, and chives. I'd like to try growing stevia and see what it's like.

And that's just the vegetable garden- I need more peonies, shrub roses, hydrangeas, berries, coral bells, lilacs, and other beautiful things. There are perennials I've never tried and I'm still hoping for another great sunflower patch like I had in 2005. It's all a great game, a dance, made more bitter and sweet by the restrictions imposed by the brevity of the growing season, hungry wildlife, the whims of Mother Nature and my own physical limitations... but I think I'm ready to get in the game again.

Weather-predicting Woodchucks

Ah, yes, it is Groundhog's Day. That extremely odd holiday when we celebrate (or don't) the shadow of a marmot. Where did we get this holiday? A little clarity is needed.

I know some people who like it because it is their birthday, some who like it because it is so obscure, but many more who forget to celebrate it altogether because it is neither their birthday nor a major holiday with attendant grocery store candy. I, myself, am somewhat torn as to whether or not I like Groundhog's Day. I always remember it, but find it a bit difficult to settle on an appropriate celebration ritual.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you will know of my intense love for Spring. You will also know of my intense dislike of groundhogs. Thus my conundrum: if the rodent sees his shadow, there are 6 weeks more of wintry weather. If he comes out on a mild, cloudy day, then there are some unspecified number of weeks fewer. If this ground squirrel could be the bringer of consistently good news then I might make a place in my heart for him. But he's fickle and unreliable... not to mention the fact that anyone can see he has no control over the cloudiness of the day! By golly, why isn't it my shadow that predicts spring? Why the groundhog?

Well, the great online encyclopedia says the following about the beginnings of Groundhog's Day: "Perhaps the earliest known American reference to Groundhog Day can be found at the Historical Society of Berks County in Reading, Pennsylvania. The reference was made February 4, 1841 in Morgantown, Berks County, Pennsylvania storekeeper James Morris' diary: 'Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.'"(The Folklore of American Holidays, ed. H. Cohen and T.P. Coffin (1987), page 57)

It also gives this alternative origin theory:
"In western countries in the Northern Hemisphere the official first day of Spring is about six weeks after Groundhog Day, on March 20 or March 21. About 1,000 years ago, before the adoption of the Gregorian calendar when the date of the equinox drifted in the Julian calendar, the spring equinox fell on March 16 instead. This was exactly six weeks after February 2. Assuming that the equinox marked the first day of spring in certain medieval cultures, as it does now in western countries, Groundhog Day occurred exactly six weeks before spring. Therefore, if the groundhog saw his shadow on Groundhog Day there would be six more weeks of winter. If he didn't, there would be 42 more days of winter. In other words, the Groundhog Day tradition may have begun as a bit of folk humor."

Now that's something I can follow: folk humor. I think I feel much better about Groundhog's Day knowing I don't really have to take it seriously. Not that any of America's 10 prognosticating woodchucks could predict how many weeks are left of Vermont's winter, anyway. So I can go on loathing (and relocating) groundhogs whilst celebrating the day that is six weeks prior to the Spring equinox. Hooray, and happy Groundhog's Day!

Spring preview

I know it's early, but I have had some spring in my family room. Nothing too garish, mind you. The colors blend with the scene outside the window, but there has been this gorgeous, heady fragrance wafting about that has me permanently converted to forcing narcissi.

This is my first year forcing any kind of bulb indoors. In November, I bought nine bulbs of Inbal Paperwhites at the local store, a nice shallow pot and some marble chips. I left most of them in the cellar, placing three bulbs in the pot with the stones. I filled it with water up to the base of the bulbs and set it by a sunny south-facing window. The kids were rather curious, watching each day to see how much they had grown. (Torin wanted the rocks and I had to convince him they were not part of his toys.) It didn't take long with all that sunlight- and the fact that they were right over a heating vent- and I had my first blooms before Christmas! It was much earlier than I thought they would flower, but very welcome anyway. I began another three in a bowl. At Christmas, my neighbor gave me a lovely present of a gorgeous blue pot, beautiful polished stones and three more bulbs; the result of six of them together was a real joy in early January.

I have let the greens grow all the way out now, and the first three bulbs are drying so I can plant them outside next fall. I began the last trio today in the first pot and will savor their delicate looks and sweet fragrance sometime in February. Next year, I may try tulips or hyacinths... this is much more fun than pouring over the seed catalogs with longing, resigned to the fact that real spring is at least 12 weeks away.

Hope Springs Eternal

... or it will, if you plant it in the fall.

In a moment of weakness, I succumbed to the enticings of an email advertisement. It came from a bulb company's website with which I am familiar, but from which I have never ordered. They are a wholesale company (I have used their retail sister site) and usually deal in quantities beyond my home-garden scale.

I generally scold myself every spring for not planting more daffodils the autumn prior, but who can stomach the planting of lots of bulbs if they've spent the whole summer gardening and are completely sick of it all by October? Not me. This year, however, I was a light gardener. So, the advertisement for 100 mixed naturalizing narcissi for a mere $40 seemed like a really, really, good idea. I threw in 10 pink-cupped ones for under the apple tree, too. I was going to add 100 dark blue crocuses, but they ran out between my placing the order and their filling of it. Oh, well, I suppose that's for the best.

The very heavy box arrived today, and we got to work. I scavenged the local stores for left-over crocus bulbs, and found eight. We gathered our 118 dry gems in the wagon and planted around the apple tree first. Sonja and Laurel helped drop in the daffodils and crocuses, and Torin was satisfied to carry around a small shovel and pretend to dig in leaf piles.

Next, we went looking for good places to plant the mixed daffodils. They went in around the barn, the smokehouse, up the berm and near the woods path entrances. By this time the girls were done and Torin had limited patience. I put him in the wagon and planted the remainder haphazardly in a few key locations. By the time they come up in April or May, I might not remember where to look for them all, but that's part of the fun.

I have a feeling that all the effort will be worth it. Spring may find me a light gardener again, but at least I won't be berating myself for autumnal laziness. No, I'll be hanging up my hammock and enjoying the therapeutic cheer and hope that bright golden daffodils bring to my soul.

Rose Petal Jam Revisited

Early summer is when my rugosa roses are at their finest. The tall bushes are covered with magenta blooms that have a great classic rosy smell- it's heavenly! Last year, I tried a recipe for Turkish rose petal jam, as you may recall. It was fun, but the jam itself was rather syrupy. This year, I tried a new recipe, and it's great! Here it is:

Rose Petal Jam
1-3 cups (depending on how bright and fragrant you want the jam) fresh rose petals from bushes that have NOT been sprayed with chemicals
3/4 cup water
juice from 1 lemon (about 1/4 cup)
2 1/2 cups sugar

1 package powdered pectin (like Sure Jell)
3/4 cup water

Put the first 4 ingredients in the blender and blend really well. Pour into a pan and boil till sugar is dissolved. In a separate bowl, mix pectin and remaining water, then add to boiling pot. Boil hard 1 minute, pour into prepared jars and seal in a water bath like regular jelly. Makes about 3 to 3.5 cups of jam.

It's an acquired taste, but we like it on anything toasted: bread, english muffins, warm lemon scones....

My hoe

I feel that I should apologize for so many gardening posts. However, it's MY blog, and if I don't write about gardening, then you get to hear about Boring Moments in Mommying. So, while my kids watch Winnie the Pooh, I'll say a bit about tilling the soil.

I have a good hoe. It's sturdy and yellow and reliable. It's also very labor intensive to use on large areas. So for Mother's Day, I hinted that I would really like a small tiller or cultivator to weed and prepare the larger sections of our vegetable garden. I don't need a mega-muscle roto-tiller, just something that can handle mixing Moo Doo into a 9x12 bed.

Well, Quinn and the girls made a not-very-sneaky visit to Home Depot in Burlington (an hour away) and picked up a little unit that fit the bill. It was presented last on Mother's Day- after the chocolates and the new shirts- and we were all anxious to see it. I opened the box, pulled out the instructions, then the cords and battery charger, then the... empty packaging! They had grabbed the box for the display model.

We had a good laugh. Poor loves had tried so hard. Well, I went back to HD to return the empty box and get a real one only to discover that the display model was the only one left. Perhaps I wasn't the only mom with "cultivator" on her wish list. (HD accepted the box with no questions.) Hmm, what to do? Upon further research, I found that the kind of machine I had envisioned costs several hundred dollars- not in the budget at the moment. So I did nothing.

For a week now I have watched as the weeds slowly took over the place where my bean seeds are supposed to go. Cucumbers? Not in yet. Melons? Waiting. I resisted the call of the hoe for days on end, knowing what it would do to my already-compromised back. "To hoe or not to hoe" would run through my head every time I passed that patch of ground.

Today I had about an hour to work outside while Torin slept. I knew I could get most of the back yard mowed... or I could hoe. You guessed it- I got out that long, sleek (relatively inexpensive) tool and took out all my frustrations on the dirt. There were rock chips flying and weeds withering and grassy patches rolling over in their new graves. By the end I was sweaty and annoyed, but then I raked it all smooth and stood back to look. Ahh.

I hope I can get out of my bed tomorrow to plant those seeds.

Dig it

I did some gardening yesterday. I was a little bitter about the first project, shamefully. The Young Women's group at church decided they wanted to do some service in the form of planting flowers around the church building. "Great idea! I'll buy the flowers." On the prescribed day, it poured rain... AND there was a more deserving project readily available, so we did that instead. Everyone felt good. Meanwhile, I had 80 little baby plants on my porch waiting to go in the ground. I announced that I would be at the church on Saturday morning and anyone who wanted could join me. Well, Saturdays are precious indeed. No one came. Quinn was busy, but took Torin with him, and Sonja and Laurel helped a little. I tried really hard to do it with a cheery heart, but I wasn't successful. I got 3/4 of them planted in just over an hour, then prayed for some rain because I didn't have time to water them.

Next, I took all three kids over to a friend's house for an annual plant exchange. My friend Beth is part of a loose group which gets together every May and exchanges pieces of whatever is taking over their perennial bed or extra seedlings or tools, etc. She invited me and I brought a tray of small offerings, some of which I knew would be popular since they are a bit unusual (white dragonflower, woodland phlox, species tulip, and a cute unknown). I also brought columbine, cilantro, snow-on-the-mountain (ground cover), and wild red bleeding heart. It was a fun little party. Everyone stood around talking about plants and eating coffee cake while admiring Jesse's free-range turkeys and peacocks. Jesse's daughter is one of Sonja's friends, so the girls were happy to stay for as long as I wanted. Unfortunately, Torin got hungry and tired so we left early. I took home 2 smaller irises, some day lillies, hardy geranium, yarrow, tall fall phlox, mountain bluette, and a perennial scallion(?).

When I got home, I put Torin to bed and went out to plant. I put all the new ones in their places, then tucked the leftover impatiens (from the church project) around my maple tree and behind some pansies. Then the mailwoman came and brought a package- two new rose bushes! I had already planted my new "Buff Beauty" yellow one near the west driveway last week. Two weeks ago I made a new bed near the east driveway encompassing the magenta rugosa rose and the little cherry tree. I added some Bergen's blue veronica for eventual ground cover, and made a place for two more rose bushes. I put in the "Blanc Double de Coubert" (double white rugosa- great fragrance), and the "Bonica" pink shrub rose.

By that time, Torin had been up for awhile and Quinn was in need of a break. It felt good to have gotten so much done in a morning, despite my bad attitude at the start. Somehow, working in the earth always softens my heart and clears my mind. And that rain I prayed for? It began just as I went inside.

First Mow

Ah, spring in full swing. It's warm now, and for good, I think. The daffodils are beginning to fade, and the fruit blossoms are not yet out. Dandelions are popping open everywhere. It seems like every single maple seed that fell has germinated this time around, and the mossy ground beneath our sugar maple was beginning to look like a tiny forest as every one of them opened their second leaves and tried to grow.

Well, as much as I like our big grand maple tree, I don't want them taking over the lawn! So I finally started up the riding mower- this would be the (lame) Craftsman mower we bought from the previous owners of the house. Last year, late in the summer, we had a service guy sharpen the blade and change the oil in it, and a month later it was running hot, smelled like it was burning, then finally started smoking. That's the point at which (being 9 months pregnant) I decided to put it in the barn for the winter and deal with it in spring. This week, I pulled it out and drove it up to the house. It smelled nasty, so I left it by the second driveway for the service man to pick up when he gets a chance. Meanwhile, my neighbors are out of town and Dayton (knowing the state of my mower, because we often talk about these sorts of issues) offered to let me use his (old but great) Toro while they're gone. It's a long and complicated story, I know, with very little point at the end. That point is this: I got to mow my lawn today for the first time this season!

Ask my family- I've always liked to mow the lawn. We had a (lame) Craftsman mower growing up, and it was my "car" long before I could drive. I enjoy the time alone outside (especially since I bought some soundproof ear covers). I really like the smell of cut grass; it brings back good memories of the best seasons from the places I've lived. I get real satisfaction out of looking over the yard when I'm done and seeing the mowing tracks and the sweeping beauty of it all. I'm not a total weed-n-feed/round-up competitive grass nut, but I do like the sense of order a good mowing imposes on my acre. Someday I would like to aerate, dethatch, overseed and fertilize the backyard just to make the grass itself happier. I enjoy taking good care of the plants that are important to me. For now, though, I'm grateful to be able to borrow a mower and get the upper hand before my yard turns into a sugar bush.

Small Animal Tally

The hav-a-heart trap has come out of hibernation.
So far this spring: one unhealthy rabbit (who had been hiding out under the deck near our garden beds), and one very fat and rather cute woodchuck (from under the barn). Our neighbors are quite pleased.

Rosy project

This year my rugosa roses bloomed well before the arrival of the rose-eating japanese beetles. They look wonderful and smell fantastic, and I thought maybe it was a good time to make rose-petal jam, a Turkish specialty we learned to love there. I have two recipes for it, so I tried one. It was quite fun, although the final result is rather syrupy. It might take some experimenting to find the right balance for a real jam. However, it's delicious and the kids now ask for "butter and rose petal jam" sandwiches. I'm anxious to make lemon scones to try it on, too. Maybe in the fall I'll tackle rose-hip marmalade....