The Jig Is Up

O Gladiolas!

OK, the jig is pretty much up.

We had several consecutive killing frosts last week when it was cold, before it got warm and humid again; everything in my garden bit the dust except for the leeks, turnips, and a few little carrots and beet tops. I yanked most the leeks yesterday and made potato-leek-sorrel soup; and today used the very last sad-looking summer squash and some other sad, snagged-before-the-night veggies to make a vegetable soup today. Add enough garlic and some cheese and curry and it’ll be delicious.

I managed to get into the garden just before dark and strip it of anything I thought would get frosted, so I have baskets of green tomatoes slowly ripening on the dining room table, and grabbed as many of the scarlet runner beans that I thought might actually have a bean in them. I picked the peppers in the big garden and covered the ones in the beds next to the house, and picked any gladiolas that had blossom stalks, and handsful of other flowers.

 

Next day, the frost had killed the volunteer squash vines and pretty much everything else. Rather than take a chance with what was left, I brought in the volunteer squashes – three nice-sized buttercups and a small butternut – and picked the remaining peppers. This dry nasty year was wicked fine for peppers: I had 40, most large or very very large, and an amazing 8 had turned red. I now have bags and bags of chopped peppers in the freezer (thank you, Mom!), and one lone fresh one – as big as 2 normal ones - even after giving away a dozen or so. 

Some of the ripening tomatoes have been made into small-batch pasta sauce; the basil, also flourishing this year and now sadly kaput, has been made into frozen pesto and what I could salvage after frost went into some of the sauce; other tomatoes have been frozen, a few at a time. 

 For the next few weeks, at least, one of my daily chores will be looking at each tomato in the baskets, moving the ripe and almost-ripe ones into the kitchen for processing into sauce or bags of frozen chunks, and tossing any that decide to rot or mold rather than ripen.  Every day I also need to go through the two big baskets of pears that are daily coming off the tree and into the house, looking for ripe ones and rotten ones. Pears ripen off the tree – you pick them when they release from the tree when you lift the fruit horizontal to the limb; and you collect any that released themselves and have fallen into the flower bed that surrounds the pear tree. A ripe pear will often have a slight yellow blush, sometimes a rose blush, but you make the ripeness decision with your nose – if you wait for softness, you’ll be eating nasty mushy grainy blah. A ripe pear smells like – oh, sort of what heaven must smell like, and it explodes into a spicey glorious juiciness in your mouth. I don’t know how I lived most my adult life without a pear tree in it, and now I have one, I’m in love.

 The trees are glorious in spectacle this year, in spite of the drought. My ponds have dried up; I’ve never seen this before. I don’t dare water the perennials, nor plant any new ones. Fingers crossed that we get sufficient water soon and often before our world freezes, or next year may be a very sad year.

Speaking of which – and who’s speaking of anything else? – let’s  just take a snapshot of the antichrist who’s masquerading as president. These are things we know about him – not opinion, not unproven, just the bare truth:

·         He’s a liar. He lies all the time, about everything. I’m not talking about the state secrets and other sensitive matters all presidents have to sometimes lie about to the greater public – this one lies about everything, including insignificant, unimportant daily stuff. He’s pathological.

·         He’s a racist, and has been always.

·         He’s a bad businessman, and has always been.

·         He’s destroying the environment as fast as he can and encouraging other conscienceless actors to do the same.

·         He flubbed the pandemic response, and he’s actively trying to get us to kill each other.

·         He’s actively encouraging others to kill us.

·         He’s planning to kill us himself by eliminating our access to healthcare.

·         He doesn’t listen to anyone, thinks he knows more than everyone about everything, and can’t admit when he’s wrong. Which is often.

·         He’s a bully, a misogynist, and acts only in his own interests.

·         He’s alienated our international allies and made us an unwelcome, untrusted laughingstock to most of the rest of the world.

·         He tears families apart, and puts children in cages.

·         He wastes the nation’s money, often on his own entertainment.

·         He’s lazy, rarely works, and brags about it.

·         He has shared state secrets with our enemies, and given them encouragement and succor.

·         He makes fun of cripples, abuses women, encourages violence among his followers, says despicable things about American heroes.

·         He has turned our norms of decency and fair play, the statesman’s greater vision of acting for the greater good, and most of our safety-checks upside down, inside out, into the garbage.

·         He acts like, and talks like, an autocrat, despot, king.

Let’s leave it at that list, which doesn’t include a host of the despicable things he’s done and said. In public. In front of cameras, so there’s plenty of proof.

Ask your foolish friends and family to listen to this list of shame and ask them if that’s really what they want to be voting for in November.

And let’s all stop calling his, and the bullshit of the Republicans who follow his lead, “disinformation.” Let’s call it lies, which is the unpleasant but true word, and let’s call him and all of them out on it. Over and over and over again.

October is a blue moon month: two full moons, on the first and on Hallowe’en: harvest moon and hunter’s moon.

 All photos Deb Marshall

 

A Rant, An Update, A Pondering

 

Bachelor's Buttons

OK, I’m in pain. All my friends are in pain. Most of my patients are in pain. We’re wobbling on the edge of a deep abyss – one we never believed would happen at all, much less in our lifetimes – and there are awful depths, and twisty turns, and dark swamps, murky corners, heartbreak, physical and mental pain, soul- and spirit- destroying possibilities – no, not even possibilities, all these things are manifesting right now, and have been for some time – and it’s out of control, out of our control, beyond understanding – and very, very scary.

We’re growing old, and we’re much, much older than we were just four years ago, when there was still hope, and masses of people hadn’t turned evil yet.  We’re not sure we want to live through what’s inevitably coming. And the idea that our kids, our grandkids, our great-grandkids --- if they survive --- will have even longer to suffer and to have to strive against unthinkable odds to fix what has gone so horribly wrong makes us even sicker at heart, at soul, at spirit.

I get mentally nauseous trying to write this. I’ve started and stopped at least half a dozen times in the past several weeks. I’m going to try once more, this time to get all the way to the end.

Hibiscus

 We are in an era in which harmful lies are no longer perilous, and in which too many people believe that if one repeats something – any thing, no matter how wrong, how evil, how false, how damaging – if one repeats it often enough, that sanitizes it and makes it real and benignant. People’s minds have become warped and twisted; and I don’t understand how.

If you were to ask almost anyone; pretty much everyone: wouldn’t it be good if everyone was well fed; had a comfortable home; had good, free health care; could get any education they wanted; didn’t live in daily fear, either low-grade or acutely violent;  didn’t feel the need to arm themselves against other human beings; weren’t disrespected or hunted by other humans; weren’t frightened by the strangers they meet; cared for each other enough to do the kind and simple things that keep everyone healthy and secure; could enjoy breathing clean air, drinking clean water, were sure that their children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren would have all those things – if you asked almost anyone: wouldn’t those be good things to have? They’d say yes.

They’d say yes, but then they’d argue with you about whether climate change actually exists (seriously, in this day and age?) and they’d tell you their right to not wear a mask trumps everyone else’s right to stay healthy and safe, and they’d insist that there are no trends nowadays of racial discrimination, sexual predation, ecological disaster, gun insanity, and reject the idea that it’s possible for us all to be provided with shelter, health care, food.  They’d make exceptions about who is deserving: not for lazy people, not for people who aren’t trying hard enough, not if it means raising taxes, not if it means I may have to sacrifice something, not if the person or group getting the benefit offends their sensibilities; they’d ignore or try to justify or deny the savaging our so-called president has done to public property, national parks and reserves; if you asked, they’d tell you that all that stuff Christ said – and that’s inherent in al religions – about caring for the poor and sick and less fortunate isn’t what was actually meant  --- ahhh, this is just making me soul sick all over again.

This is called "Pumpkin on a Stick." Look at those thorns!

 

So let’s just answer a few of the infuriating things we’ve all heard lately:

·         “We get it: Black Lives Matter. Go home now, I’m sick of listening to it.”  > Can’t go home. As soon as they go home, or stop making the national news, any potential progress stops.  Remember what happens every single time a bunch of people are murdered by a madman and the “we need to do something about gun control discussions start?”  Yup; two weeks later it’s again a non-issue.

·         “All lives matter.”  > Saying “Black Lives Matter” doesn’t mean all other lives don’t matter. It means that we recognize that some pretty horrific things have happened regularly and recently, as well as historically, to Black people, and we need to stop ignoring that and start doing something about it. “Black Lives Matter” also means Native American lives matter, immigrant lives matter, female lives matter, impoverished peoples’ lives matter… in the lengthy chain of connection, all lives matter. But those who respond “All lives matter” as if that were a clever or smug response, are really shouting out “We don’t f’ing care what has led to this and we aren’t going to go out of our way to help fix it. Go away; this is bugging me.”  And that is a big part of the problem.

·         “It’s my constitutional right to….[fill in the blank]” >Yeah, well, it probably actually isn’t. But whether it is or not – so what? Why would you choose to scare and endanger your neighbors and fellow citizens just to make a point? It’s selfish, self-centered, makes you a social pariah, and foolish. So grow up, suck it up, grow a conscience, and do the right thing for humanity. And that includes more than face masks and guns.

·         “It’s a hoax; it’s all fake news; I don’t believe it.” > I don’t even know what to say to this. Are you living in a fantasy world? Get over yourselves. Our world is falling apart, and we don’t need this childish, gratuitous nonsense, no matter how much fun it is for you at your ridiculous Trump rallies or in your inane militias. Are you enjoying some fantasy world in which your illegitimate ideas make you feel powerful in your evilness, or are you just stupid? This goes for you Q-Anon followers, a thousand times over. ARE YOU PEOPLE OUT OF YOUR MINDS?

·         “Biden’s not good enough. Bernie should have won. I’m going to write him in.” If you don’t vote, or vote for anyone besides Biden, you’re voting for Trump. You will personally be responsible for what happens in the next four years; you need to be spanked and sent to stand in the corner. If Bernie should have won, then why didn’t he win the primaries? Was someone not bothering to vote? We don’t have to love Biden – we just need to acknowledge that he’s 1000 times a better choice than the antichrist.

·         “I don’t think Biden’s capable of fixing this.” Well, Trump created most of this, and has proven incapable of handling the rest, so for god’s sake, don’t vote for the evil guy again, but let’s give the good guy a chance. Trump’s trying to kill us; Biden’s not. And Biden isn’t trying to kill us.

The new hibiscus

 

Rant Over For Now

The garden, at this time of year, is magical (when it’s not hot and humid). I get as much pleasure pulling spent things out of the garden and watching the bare beds re-emerge as I do putting seeds into them in the spring. Tidying up; and reveling in the morning glories gone wild, scarlet runner beans, the height of the amaranth and sunflowers, the brightness of bachelor’s buttons and nasturtiums and calendula, and discovering some surprises, some from long ago. There is one, just one, vigorous Sweet Annie plant at the back fence, sprouted from some fallen seed from a patch planted several years ago, for example.

What’s left in the garden now are a dying summer squash plant, the scarlet runner beans which are mostly not ready for picking, Gilfeather turnips, a few late-planted beets and carrots, some tomato plants, a volunteer buttercup squash emerging from the compost bin with several promising looking fruits on it, excellent large sweet peppers turning red, parsnips that will stay in the ground over winter, pears which are not yet ready for plucking, some very sad fava beans and some very large okras, re-invigorated sorrel, and lots of fall flowers. 

Inside the house, the basil  has been turned into pesto and the last large summer squashes into relish, the tomatoes get frozen a few at a time as they ripen, as do the beans; and the top shelf of the frig is packed with cucumbers in various kinds of brine and vinegar, lovely refrigerator pickles. A cabbage became sauerkraut; I have only quart canning jars left, and one box of canning jar lids – these things aren’t readily available this year, thanks to a rushing return to food preservation inspired by Covid – so I can make some tomato juice, perhaps, but that will be all – everything else will have to be frozen. And that’s not a bad thing.

Pears awaiting...

 The furry purries are still at odds with each other, but less so – Madame remains hissy prissy growly girl, but Mister mostly ignores that and sleeps near her, if not with her, chases her every so often, and sticks his face in her food bowl when he wants to. He’s a lover and a drooler; we’re smitten, and sure she will be, eventually.

Rasta Furian - the thing Biscut's pissed off about

Pissed-off Biscuit

How could this piss anyone off?

 

Odd Things We Think About

It occurred to me this morning as I was changing cold cotton sheets for warmer flannel ones (I’ll regret that as soon as it gets humid again) that I’m surrounded by things a friend who died several years ago had given me over the years. The flannel sheets I put on my bed were a pair she’d bought for herself and later decided she didn’t like the color; the blanket I added to the bed came out of a cabinet she’d bought for herself on the West Coast, but had no room for in her East Coast home and no good place to store it, so she passed it on to me. The glass I drank from last night had been another purchase she’d become bored with; the futon in the chapel is the same, and a side table, lamp and chair in the living room were also items she had in her West Coast house but felt didn’t suit her New Hampshire home.

The Gypsy bought a lot of stuff that, for one reason or another, she eventually decided didn’t suit her so much; in the last decades of her life, she had enough money that she could indulge her changing whims, and I was often the beneficiary. There is another set of flannel sheets that were her castoffs, and the rugs in my bedroom were also hers; in my jewelry case is a pair of earrings, and a single from a pair we split to share in our extra ear piercings. My closet holds clothes she gave me as gifts, and clothes she cast off; the dishes I eat off of were a birthday gift.  I don’t have to look hard to find things in my house that I use regularly that were once hers, or resembled things she used to own – we both liked the products made by several local artisans, and over the years bought items from them at the same time. She talked me into buying our couch, and into several other purchases that I wouldn’t have made otherwise. I’m literally surrounded by stuff that reminds me of her daily.

 

This year's weird plant - much bigger than last year. In the garlic bed.

The odd thing about this is that I like most the stuff that was hers or came from her, and I like thinking about her; but a few years before she died, something I still don’t really understand happened, and I hadn’t seen her for several years when I discovered she was on death’s door and had told her family she didn’t want to see any of us. She believed that I’d done something – I still don’t know what, it had something to do with an old friend of mine she had started dating, and when he had a period of personal troubles that he didn’t want to share with her because the relationship wasn’t old enough or secure enough, and in the Gypsy’s mind I’d somehow betrayed her. It sounded crazy at the time but it was a bone she’d gnawed on longer than I could have guessed, and she didn’t want to talk about it except to tell me she never wanted to see me again. And she never did.

I assumed that sooner or later time would out, and she’d change her mind, or rethink what she felt were her injuries, or something – and we’d be friends again. It didn’t happen, and now I wonder if her final illness – she had metastasized cancer – had somehow been exerting itself on her mind, years before anyone knew she was ill. I’ll never know, and it doesn’t really matter.

But now, in the times I become aware that I’m thinking about the Gypsy, because something or other of hers, which I’ve become so comfortable with that I acknowledge it but usually don’t think very much about it except as the passing thought  “this used to be the Gypsy’s,” has somehow woken my larger awareness, I wonder what she’d think if she knew that I’m still surrounded by her in so many material ways, and that I think about her, consciously or barely so, pretty much every day. I wonder if it would infuriate her; or if she would have mellowed, given more time. I wonder if she regretted having given so much of her stuff.

And mostly, I wonder how one defines a relationship that changed so radically, but continued even after it changed, and continues still, though one person is dead.

It’s a curiousity.

Grain Amaranth - I grow it because it's lovely.

 

 

 

All photos Deb Marshall