Our weather this Spring has been marked by sunshine and a dry wind that comes up mid-morning. It’s been a striking change for us, after six years here in Paradise where we largely were able to forget about those breezy prairie days back in South Dakota. It’s been this way for at least a month.
The wind blows hard enough that we’ve shifted some of our outdoor exercising from midday to earlier in the morning to avoid it. We love bicycling, but both of us find a 20+ mph headwind distracting. Plus, in this arid country any stiff breeze always carries a bit of the topography with it, and rubbing bits of Colorado out of one’s eyes quickly becomes tiresome.
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Out tiny garden is doing well so far. Blossoms on tomatoes and all that. Of course, if we didn’t follow the admonition “Just add water” nothing would survive at all. What the heavens don’t provide, we do.
Here are the plantings we’ve done this year, and I know these tender seedlings would appreciate your thoughts and prayers. When they see me come to tend them they must shudder inside, knowing the risks they are being exposed to.
- leaf lettuce
- tomatoes
- spinach
- basil (already died off of a chill)
- kale
As you can see, we’ve focused heavily on plants containing lots of anti-oxidants. I think Robin and I need all of those we can get, since there are days when I think I am oxidizing way too rapidly for my own good.
It’s all for fun, since we basically eat the output as fast as it comes to maturity. Gardening the way we do it is much like fishing is for me. You don’t want to calculate the price of those fish per pound or you’d never get in the boat.
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The best gardener that I’ve personally known was Ida Jacobson, my maternal grandmother. Her husband Nels took care of the rest of the farm, but the garden was Ida’s baby. And it was not a hobby, not for Grandma J.
She used the garden to feed her family, and her small home on their farm had a “root cellar” below it for storage. (Like the one in Wizard of Oz where the family took shelter from the tornado.)
Rough board shelves lined the smallish space, and they were filled with cans and bottles containing pickles of various sorts, corn, squashes, peas, string beans, etc. Since there were several apple trees on the farmstead, many many jars of the most excellent applesauce were up there as well.
The floor of the cellar was earthen, as were the walls. When you went down into the dim cellar you shared the room with the creepy crawly things that called it home, and selected the jar or can you wanted paying close attention that you didn’t grab something that grabbed you back.
Grandma Jacobson’s gardens did not fail. They weren’t allowed to. They were luxuriant examples of how it could be, for me to remember and in my small way try to emulate today. Of course, she had access to all of the premier fertilizer one could ever want, gathered from barns and chicken coops, and she put those homely substances to doing serious work for those she loved and cared for.
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I spoke of fishing a few moments ago. Although I’ve purchased a 2020 Colorado license, the winds have kept me from doing much in this regard. I’m still a newbie to fly fishing, but have already learned that you catch no fish unless the fly hits the water, and when the air goes by at turnpike speeds that doesn’t happen.
Also, the fly will only go in the direction of the breeze, and that may not even be where the water is located. So until wind velocities come down a bit, I will not bother cluttering up the car with rods and reels. Patience is one hallmark of the true angler and I am well supplied with that. (Of course, skill is another hallmark, but you can’t have everything, can you?)
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This was Wednesday’s Google doodle. Lovely bit. From all accounts, a lovely man.
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Our governor said in his radio message Wednesday that he believes 50% of Coloradans are walking around carrying the novel coronavirus. Most of them (us?) are not ill.
He’s not a man given to rash statements, so his health advisers must have data that suggest this number is close to a true one. Let’s say that he is correct. Now the question is – how long does it persist on that healthy human being to the point that he or she could infect another person? How long before it fades away?
It’s like living in one of those old movie serials I attended as a kid, where the hero falls off a cliff in Episode 2 (he’s dead for sure now!), and then at the beginning of Episode 3 is shown clinging to a shrub until rescuers arrive (it’s a miracle!). It’s best that we don’t get too elated or depressed by news reports as each day passes. It will be some time before we know the whole story.
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Little Home In The Valley 
Jackie made rhubarb crisp last nite from our garden. “It was really good”.
I’ve told Jackie of grandma Jacobsons cooking and her strawberry-rhubarb jam. I’ve have very fond memories of the farm.
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