garden

first forage of the season

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

Consisting of: nettles, dandelion, and sorrel (our friendly garden rabbit finally had its fill and deigned to let us have a go).To which was added: olive oil, lemon juice, garlic, a handful of seasonings and slices of cold hamburger.
*Note: to eat nettles, pick off leaves and chop finely (discard stems)

the sound of spring: snap crackle ping

~ carin ~ Leave a comment

Once upon a time there was a very pretty wisteria vine. It was May and things were fine and fragrant and there was nothing to fear.

By July the purple petals had fallen onto the patio and were swept away by the people who lived there. The vine had grown leafy and become a shady place under which the people sipped chardonnay and nibbled sandwiches all summer long. 

Then came October with its spooky witchy ways and blustery habits, dislodging the leaves of the lovelyy wisteria, turning it into something resembling a launch pad of ten thousand alien pods, each of which threatened to disengage the eyes of innocent stargazers.

All winter the people watched the pods dangle menacingly outside their window, fearing for their noggins every time they stepped through their door.

How will we ever remove those ten thousand pods from our wonderufl vine?? they wondered as they gazed at starry solstice skies through swimming goggles.

Then one day in March a great snapping and cracking filled the air. Tiny round missiles hurled themselves at the windows and Jake the Cat meowed something that sounded like: wtf? as he took refuge under the kitchen table.

No, wait. That was me.

The cacophony of cracking continued for a couple of days. And while the sound initially unsettled the people something wicked, they soon realized—around hour 42—what was happening. The pods, it seems, dry into sticks over winter, then twist open—that was the cracking—each releasing four or five penny-sized seeds. That was the pinging against the window.

As soon as it dawned on them that the world was not, in fact, ending, the people relaxed, poured some pinot and began to enjoy the show.

Of course, by then it was almost over.

These people, they’re bright(ish), but nothing stellar.


Mother Nature on the other hand—that’s one smart dame.

Ready for May flowers.

delinquent paths

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

So I have a labyrinth in the backyard this year…. Doesn’t everyone? Really just a series of paths I’ve paced out in the snow, all connected, most of which follow the regular paths underneath, but some—and I love these best—run like delinquents straight through the middle of perennial beds, through the tall grasses, behind the spruce, across the veggie garden. Places I normally don’t walk. (There’s something very freeing about traipsing cavalierly over ice-encrusted earth where in just a few short months tender asparagus will present itself for my dinner.)

Cheap thrills, I know.

It wasn’t planned; I made this accidental circuit one night when I didn’t feel like going out for my usual walk through the neighbourhood. I wasn’t in the mood for cars and street lights so I walked in the yard instead under Orion’s Belt, up to my shins in virgin snow.

Only afterwards did it occur to me that I suddenly had my own personal head-clearing, right-outside-the-back-door well trodden walking ‘circuit’. I’ve come to love how I don’t have to plan A Walk, that I can just throw a jacket on over my bathrobe, stick my feet into boots and do a quick ten minutes before breakfast.

At first, of course, I felt like an idiot walking in my backyard. I think that’s what gave it the labyrinth vibe—the way it reminded me of years ago at Trinity Bellwoods Park in Toronto, how I’d been a minute into the labyrinth there, wondering when the magical life-transforming meditative qualities I’d read about would kick in, when a group of teenage boys showed up. As I tried to focus on my steps, they got comfortable, leaned against a wall, laughing and pointing. Apparently I was a scream.

I so desperately wanted not to care, to be already transformed, above such piffle. Instead I found myself concocting a plan where I’d make a quick and dignified exit, muttering just loud enough… something about that damned earring—where could it have gone??

But I’m not a very good actor, so I kept walking. One foot in front of the other. And then the other. Again and again and so on. Finally, finally, finally, as I made the last turn to come out, I realized I wasn’t thinking about the boys anymore, in fact I couldn’t remember when I’d stopped thinking about them—I hadn’t even noticed they’d gone, that the place was quiet. For how long, I had no idea. 

It was the first time I’d tuned out. In a good way.

A testament, I guess, to the power of the labyrinth, essentially the absence of destination that lets the mind relax. Also a repetitive quality helps, a constant looping back and forth. 

Qualities my own faux labyrinth has in spades.

True, it takes time to get past thinking the neighbours might peek through the hedge and call someone, but I love how eventually I forget about them, and most other things, and just walk—just following my own circuitous, well-trodden paths between Echinacea stalks, behind the blackberries, down this way, then that, turning right, left, along the cedar fence, criss-crossing the patio, past the bird feeder, the serviceberry—knowing it’s there but seeing none of it—and back again.

At least until the snow melts. After which, it’ll all disappear into a distraction of well-behaved stone paths that beg to be followed, perennial beds too crowded to walk through, things to cut and trim and pull and plant. Not to mention the big invisible sign over the asparagus that reads: Trespassers Will Go Hungry.

Until then, consider me occasionally and happily tuned out.

~

alien pods as farmers’ almanac, or worse?

~ carin ~ 2 Comments

In case you’re thinking of adopting one any time soon, here’s a peek into Life with Wisteria—

Blooms in May and looks like this.

When the flowers are gone the vine greens up into a thick canopy, keeping the patio cool and shaded and even sit-underable for a while during a gentle rain until the drips finally manage a way through.

Ours is either Chinese or Japanese. One variety twines clockwise, the other counter clock. I can’t remember which is what, nor can I remember which way ours turns. Nor do I much care I guess, else I would have figured this out (uh, google maybe?) sometime in the fifteen or so years since we planted the thing.

In early summer you get a few seed pods. Two, maybe three. You hardly notice them until autumn when they hang down through the by then de-leafed vines like fat string beans.  We’ve never had more than three.

Until this year.

And that’s only half the trellis.

I must say, en masse they look less like innocuous string beans and more like alien pods with a plan.

From what little I understand of the universe, shrubs and trees put out extra seed when they sense stress of some kind, usually in the form of bad weather. (So what are they trying to tell me—I need more kindling?)

Okay. Thanks, I guess.

But may I ask what’s going to happen when these babies start falling? And when exactly will that be? While I’m outside with a cup of tea or sweeping or raking or shaking out a mat? While Peter’s on his way to the barbeque to innocently grill a winter hamburger or plank of salmon? And will it be all at once as an angry battery of hard, pointy pods, each with seven or eight hefty seeds inside that we’d have no chance against—none. Especially if we’re looking up at the time. Or will it be a cruel and strategic one time event…?

Because fall they do.

Talk about stress.

I mean—Should we get helmets?

~