Coffee and...Part 16! :-D

Yikes, water in the basement, mowed down plants, double vision - what activity!! Glad my life is pretty dull right now. Spent the day working my buns off in the garden, planted a zillion things and only half a zillion left!! I am going out of town for a couple of days and I knew DH wouldn't water things, so I really worked!!

Think of me today. I am taking a private tour of the dome of our state's capitol. Have to wear pants (so no one is peeking up your skirt), and tie shoes so they don't fall off. You have to climb a ladder to get to the top. Now folks, I am NOT a ladder person. I have my zanax handy, but still think I may pass. I hate to be such a chicken, but at this stage of life, I just don't care what people think. Pits are sweating just thinking about it....

Hey Julie - take a look at my backside -- does it look smaller??? LOL

Good luck with all the problems!! Gosh, Friday the 13th is over too...

Kooger...I probably would have been the one sleeping through that last flood incident. Trust me, even if it had been my fault the pump went haywire...my DH would have gotten his sweet feet at that time of the morning...if not by himself, I certainly would have had some company. Yep! Sainthood *is* in order for you! ((((~HUGS~))))

Double vision...Hmmmm...well, I guess I was having "quad vision" before my surgery. That's double vision in both eyes. Now I only have it in one eye. (I was under the impression that cataracts only caused darkened vision. But, evidently, when the cataracts are really bad double vision takes place.) I told DH that after the surgery that my vision was something very close to looking through the end of binoculars...nice and clear but really small. LOL

I think I've come up with the solution of fixing how the world sees us. We'll get everyone a pair of binoculars and they can only look at us through the WRONG end! :-D (Pati and Sarv...you are BOTH *perfect* in my book!)

An update on the progress...things *are* getting a little clearer each day. And I am adapting (slowly) to the changes. Thank you all for you support and the information you've given me.

Molly, I really feel for you. SOme people just don't *see* anything but GRASS when they're behind a mower. My DGS does those mowing things in my yard...and he's not even *supposed* to be MOWING my yard! Last week it was two new little trees, and ONE of them *wasn't* just a twig! Two weeks ago, it was my DH who backed over a larger one with his trusty "Lawn tractor." (Three down and only a few more to go...who do you think will WIN? ME, of course! Last night I caught 'the kid' mowing in MY turf again...you guessed it...he was heading right for the last tree in that group. Man! I let a yell he could HEAR over his music AND the noise of the lawnmower. LOL That kid won't be mowing THERE again! LOL (BTW...he's 17 years old. Definitely old enough to know better.)) And then there's the hubby who thinks nothing of mowing the weeds that have gone to seed...and guess which direction he throws the seeds? Yep! Right *into* the flower bed! Argh....!

Let's see...yesterday I planted more of my seedlings, planted the 'frog', and finally got nearly 2 dozen pots filled up with caladium bulbs (HOORAY for me! Those caladium bulbs *should* have been potted up weeks ago.) The GH units and my garden shed are still filled with more trays and pots and wouldn't you know it, we got tons of rain last night so it's too wet to work in the beds. Oh well...it makes it that much easier to pull weeds, right?

Sarv! Cannas! Did you get yours planted? I'm probably going to enlist my youngest DGD this afternoon, and we'll plant the rest of mine in containers. I decide where to put them later.

Later

~julie~

Good morning. I thought I posted something here yesterday but it must be wandering out in cyberspace. I even remember writing it while cooking dinner or something so who knows?

Julie, it sounds like you are doing fine and your time off from gardening isn't going to be as long as you thought it might be. Sorry about your trees, grrrr, hot rod lawn mowers!

Molly, your lawn and flowers got a haircut too but not always at the right time or in the right places. Hope the mowed plants come back for another try. Some of those little plastic fences sound like a good idea, and hope for the best. I mow my own lawn because my hubby isn't patient with plants that hang over on to the lawn and he doesn't care for the meandering edges on the flower beds. Straight lines would be just fine with him, or no grass or flowers at all.

Today looks like a nicer day than what we have had lately. Yesterday I dodged rain showers all day trying to get things done outside. I got a few things done inside too, and even made a banana pudding. There's plenty, help yourselves.

We are invited to our neighbor's for dinner this evening, then I will be leaving Friday morning for another endurance ride. This one is near Mt St Helens in Washington. The weather is supposed to be pretty good by Saturday. Forecasting weather for mountain regions is tricky so we'll see what we get.

Gotta get moving now.

Mmmmm banana pudding. I made a peach cobbler the other night but we pigged it up and there's none left for the counter. Sorry. boy, those frozen peaches sure are juicy, it was more like peach glop, but it went well with ice cream.

Julie, better day by day! Didn't he put a corrective lens in when he removed the cataract? I see pretty well without glasses, use them only for reading small print. I'm not sure why things look so small to you, but while they do, check out my rear end, it could use some reduction.

Kooger, keep swabbing. Geez your whole house must be damp from all that water. Got rained out for golf today, not really raining but it did rain last night so the park must have decided no carts, otherwise we'd be out there. Not too cold, so I'm heading out for the flower beds to pull more weeds and crab grass. Wish my plants grew like that stuff does. I bought some sweet potato vines and I'm thinking of putting a couple in hanging baskets as the little while petoonies are pretty boring. Wonder if there's enough soil in there to support them. Found a box of 6 phlox that need to go in too. And some more seeds that need planting. I must have delusions over winter that I will get this stuff in at the right time.

Good luck on your ride Molly, hope the weather holds for you. It's been on and off here and the weatherman doesn't seem to have much better luck than I do just looking out the window. OK, off to the weed patch, where's those old shoes......too mucky for the good ones.!!

Company for dinner tonight. Starting with gingered shrimp toasts; romaine salad with blue cheese, carrots and walnuts; falfalle with asparagus, mushrooms and mascarpone, and a lattice rhubarb and white chocolate tart. Biscotti and a sweet Italian wine as well as assorted cheeses will get 'squoze' in there somewhere. Don't know about the wine since it is all in Italian, but the biscotti is from the same winery.

The Tart sounded a bit odd, but worth trying. The white chocolate layer between the crust and rhubarb adds a little richness, oh yes, there was a wee dram of single malt scotch to help 'tenderize' the rhubarb, that added a nice subtile smokiness to the tart. All in all it tastes pretty good, particularly to single malt fans.

balvenie if you like wines from Italy give a Brunello di Montalcino. I love 99% of the wines from this vineyard.

Yum, Yum, Robert!

WOW! Robert...that menu sounds *wonderful*! (And don't look now, but I think the tart is missing...(as julie tip toes out the door....hehehehe).)

~julie~

Following Julie with spoons and bowls.......heeheeheeheee

psssst, Julie... over here...

I've got her cornered!!!!!!!

How is that for fun in Vienna down an avnue in the park?
Maria

How fun!

another one from Vienna horses and carriages every where to take you for a spin

I love shrimp toast. Can I come over?

I have some left over strawberry shortcake!! Help yourself. Not quite midnight, but I'm calling it a midnight snack. Have picked about a gallon of berries. Had a terrible storm here tonight. Thunder, lightening, wind, rain and hail. We got over 3 inches of rain in about an hour. Won't be planting anything for a few days, but plenty of weed pulling.

Maria - great pictures! I really like that bicycle cart - wouldn't that be fun!

Robert - pass the pie - those other gals really didn't want some, they're saving me some! So, where's the white chocolate? on top of the bottom crust? then u put the rhubarb on top of that? Could that work on just about any rhubarb pie? I need some answers here or else just the recipe! LOL

lol I was thinkin about askin for the recipe too...the DH loves rhubarb but has never had it in a pie (Those Chileans eat strange *G*) he always eats his raw with salt.

With salt!!! Yuk. Now raw with a bowl of sugar to dip it in, thats different!! Pass the pie Robert please, this I got to try before Julie scoffs it all.
Carol

WSpirit, come on over.The Pugliese toast and shrimpies are great,with fresh ginger and a dash of cayenne.
Defoe- I'm jealous,our strawberries aren't even close to being ready. I'd sure go for a piece of shortcake.
Kooger, the chocolate goes on top of a blind baked tart shell and then the partially cooked rhubarb goes on top, then the lattice and is baked for about 50 minutes. The recipe is from epicurious.com. "Rhubarb and White Chocolate Lattice Tart". From the May 2004 Bon Appe'tit. I'll try to scan it and send it.

I think it will work.Hope the recipe is readable.

looks like it worked, even though the print is pretty small.To my own mind the addition of their 'wee dram' added a lot. Of course a single malt scotch adds that trace of mysterious, almost undetectable, hint of smoke. Rhubarb,raw,with salt ?? That's a brave man.

araness,

My grandmother used to make rhubarb pie in the spring and we're from Rochester, NY....I think that it goes back to the settlers here.

Darius?????where did it come from? HELPPPPPPPPPP

thanks Robert, gotta run ... I think I can make it out.

Everything you ever wanted to know about rhubarb:
http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/

Thanks Darius, I'm only just beginning to look on line for stuff like that. Maybe someday it will come natural for me'.

I'm a book person, raised with an encyclopedia on the shelves, -and in my Daddy's hands. I passed that on to my kids, "look it up" and got them the books to look it up in.

My Dad was the only person I ever knew who read the "Outline of History" from cover to cover... both volumes. He would pull a volume of our Collier's Encyclo from the shelf for an evening's reading. For a man with a grade school education he knew more than most.

"Look it up" and "follow the directions" - those will getcha thru most day's doin's.

"Look it up" has been firmly etched on my brain since I was a small child! Now that all my books are in storage, I find it automatic to use Google. Of course, I won't give up my reference books as long as I can hold a book and turn the pages...

Thanks Darius. Thats a super site for rhubarb lovers. The recipe list is going to take years to try out.

Here's some info on "Forced Rhubarb"

The practice of ‘forcing’ rhubarb, or growing it in dark conditions, didn’t start until the early 19th century when a Chelsea gardener made a chance discovery by leaving a chimney pot over one of his plants. He found that depriving rhubarb of light made the stems shoot up towards the light, which made for a more succulent-tasting product. This forced rhubarb is infinitely more delicate than the kind grown in ordinary gardens.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mostof_forcedrhubarb.shtml

Books are great, but I don't have enough room for them, so for me ... it's my computer! I can find and read anything with my computer!

Grandad used to force his early rhubarb using a corrugated iron wash tub that the bottom had fallen out of. Scrummy!! The later stuff was always tougher in the 'skin' and had to be pealed to stop the pies being stringy but that early stuff was no problem. It was the best with the sugar bowl too - needed much less sugar and was pinker.
Did you know you shouldn't eat rhubarb and spinach at the same meal? There is a family connection apparantly and the one reacts with the other to release something toxic. A lesson I leant the hard way - then grandma said 'but didn't you know?'! Put me off spinach, but not rhubarb! LOL
Carol

This message was edited May 20, 2005 11:36 AM

Hmmm, Okus - if rhubarb would deign to grow in my garden, I would find that out the hard way. Thank you.

I have always wanted to read more of today's DG quoted poet, Andrew Marvell, who coined the phrase about a garden grown old among its trees as "...a green thought in a green shade...". Well, do you think the local public library has his complete works available to the public? Even the local University of Maryland at Baltimore County didn't have his books available when DH and I made the trip. But! here it is on the net:

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/marvbib.htm

I haven't found the poem mentioned above,

(yes I did: http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/nymph.htm )

but for those persecuted by certain parties' mowing habits, following (stretching analogy and metaphor quite a bit) is a poem that makes us wish drivers' licenses were required for mowing.

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/damonmow.htm

edited to add: Here’s that poem by Andrew Marvell with the lines [...a green thought in a green shade]:

http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/marvell/garden.htm

another great Andrew Marvell source:

http://www.bartleby.com/217/0710.html

But, I'm with Blooms, I'd rather hold a book in my hands - we have enough here to fill all the spaces between the studs of our walls, but DH's commonsense rules instead of accessibility to books.

Now, who knows what Marvell had to say about Epicureans? Balvenie, Darius and Happy have reached heights of excellence in that department that the Olympians would applaud. Defoecat, thunder and strawberries? Sounds like Zeus is trying to get your attention - LOL

This message was edited May 20, 2005 2:30 PM

This message was edited May 20, 2005 3:29 PM

This message was edited May 20, 2005 3:40 PM

I didn't turn up anything about not eating spinach and rhubarb together, but did find this:

"Most plant food guides suggest cooking the matured greens and pouring off the water to remove the strong taste. I never cook winter cress, other mustard greens, spinach, swiss chard, turnip greens, beet tops, kale or collards. All these vegetables contain high levels of oxalic acid, an important element for maintaining and stimulating peristalsis.

When plants containing high concentrations of oxalic acid are cooked, the oxalic acid changes from organic to inorganic. Cooking causes oxalic acid to combine with calcium in the body, or in other foods eaten, and destroys the nourishing value of both oxalic acid and calcium. Cooking the above foods can also cause crystals to form in the kidneys. Cooking changes our food. For example many people eat spinach because of its high iron content. Eaten raw, most of the iron in spinach can be utilized by the body, but only about ten percent is used if the spinach has been canned or cooked.

Another plant high in oxalic acid is rhubarb. As a kid I looked forward to my grandmother's rhubarb pies. They were delicious! Now I never eat cooked rhubarb because of studies showing the serious kidney troubles that develop from eating it. The damage is insidious and slow to manifest so the cause of these problems is usually not attributed to one's diet."

from: http://www.trackertrail.com/publications/tracksofthetracker/94winterspring/winterspring94pg13.html

darius, you're a wealth of information!

Oh my goodness, Darius. What a sad person the writer must be. Never to know the wonderful taste of Turnip greens with a hot wedge of corn bread fresh from the oven to sop up the juice. Or to eat my mother's Rhubarb cobbler, which was as good as the ones her mother made. Or to make a summer vegetable soup with ANY vegetable handy put in the pot. *sigh*. I might mention that my grandmother lived to be 88 and my mother passed away at 94, and these were some of their favorite foods all their lives.

Does this mean I should give up Greek Spinach pie? No way!!!
Pati

My Grandma had a farm with all the best veggies ... tomatoes, squash, beans, peas, corn, turnips ... the list just goes on and on. Also had cows and pigs, so we had plenty of fresh beef and pork. Yum! She lived to be 90. Her sight was perfect and her mine was too. Her "get up and go" had just "got up and went" after 90 years!

As much as we all must vary from person to person, I'll bet there's someone out there who will benefit from Darius' information about oxalic acid. Here are some raw food recipes that I must confess I'm too disorganized to follow. But, anytime any of makes a tossed salad, we're already doing the Hallejuah diet:

http://www.hacres.com/recipes/recipes.asp

101 and Patischell, I have wonderful memories, too, of Sister Beulah, Dad's oldest sister who lived to be in her 90's. She used to brag about how old - 2 weeks in the frig - her cooked collards in were that she served us when we visited. Was she teasing? Did people reallyy do that? She taught math and Latin, ran the State fair, created a children's library in the church, kept track of fellow alumni, sewed with a machine that you pedaled with your feet while coordinating all the other gymnastics required of a sewer...her love and enthusiasm for life have never left me. People seem to have such a different kind of relationship to the communities where they live, now.

I'm getting maudlin - someone hand me that mermaid suit.

I just used up my morning's get up & go out in the increasing heat of the day. It was lovely out there til it got around eleven o'clock. By then the heat starts striking back up at you from earth that is becoming to hot to walk on barefoot.

Now I'm lunching on fried chicken and potato salad while DG ing and cooling off. I'll have some of that rhubarb tart - funny how far these cyer treats stretch. LOL ~Blooms

HI, Stretch those treats over here please. I did gardening yesterday-before and after the storm. Too tired to do anything but check mail today and have a cuppa.
HI to everyone.