From the Edge of Darkness 17: Kavanaugh

Trash Can; Charley Freiberg photo

Kavanaugh. Omigawd me boyo, did the Holy Mother watch that dramatic act you put on last week, do you think? If she did, you’re sunk.

Drama. High dudgeon. A show honed to warm the cockles of the President’s heart, and we’re pretty sure he’s the antichrist. Yer on the wrong side of the bench, there, Boyo.

We’re never going to know for absolute certain if our boyo Brett was the drinkin’ bro who scared his accuser – oops, that’s accusers – badly enough to warp her life. It really doesn’t matter if we ever know, and it doesn’t matter that he denies it – in fact, for this discussion, let’s assume it wasn’t him, it was another bro. It doesn’t matter that it was very long ago and so probably not provable one way or another. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Republican or a Democrat or what kind of political bent you secretly hope the next  person who gets onto the Supreme Court leans toward. What should matter is our boyo’s responses – not so very different from the imperatives around ‘fessing up in the confession box – what matters is what he said and, particularly, how he said it.

I was raised Catholic. Take my word for it that all good Catholic girls and boys learn at an early age how to lie without actually lying. Lying is a sin, so it’s wicked important to learn, early on, how to make people think you said one thing when you actually didn’t; to make them think you answered a direct question without actually saying anything worth listening to at all. It’s a useful social skill, so long as it’s not abused: it can save people’s feelings; it can save a person from telling a direct lie; it can get you out of a tight situation. It can make the prevaricator believe that he didn’t actually tell a lie – a prevarication isn’t actually a lie, right?

Learning to prevaricate takes some practice. First, you have to convince yourself that you aren’t actually lying. Then, you have to learn to use the language in a way that someone who isn’t paying very careful  attention, or hopes for a particular answer, will take as an actual answer to their question. You need to be able to determine what answer your interrogator wants to hear. You need to be able to look like you mean what you’re saying, and look your questioner in the eye while you say it. It’s best to say something that’s actually true – just not the truth that’s expected, or that was asked about.  If all else fails, it helps if you can put on a very dramatic act, or throw a loud and long hissy fit while you’re answering, or even better, instead of answering.

Our boyo is clearly an experienced prevaricator, but he isn’t a particularly good one – he’s ‘way too obvious. But he’s a skillful actor and his hissy fits are magisterial – which means “wicked awesome.” Magisterial may sound like a quality we want in a Supreme Court judge, but not when we’re talking about his ability to throw a hissy fit. 

Kavanaugh prevaricated under oath – about a lot of things, so we know he’s willing to perjure himself for personal gain, and I’m sure he’s convinced himself it’s not really perjury because of the circumstances. He also showed himself to be mean and a bully, attacking individual senators who questioned him – and I’m sure he’s convinced himself that he was pushed beyond human endurance, and he’s not really mean and a bully. He’ll probably confess that one, which will make it ok in his soul. He proved he doesn’t handle pressure well; and I’m sure he’s convinced himself no one could handle that kind of pressure better, so again, it doesn’t really count. He also proved himself to be a bizarre conspiracy theorist, a hater of Democrats, and angrily politically prejudiced, and if those things by themselves didn’t convince you he has no business being on the Supreme Court, then you aren’t paying attention, or you’re so desperate to get a judge who you assume will make decisions based on your kind of conspiracy theories, hate, and political anger, that you don’t care about the best interests of our nation. I have no idea how our boyo will justify that part of his presentation to himself. He carefully thought out and planned to say those things, so all I can imagine is that he thinks those character flaws are actually good things. You listening, Holy Mother?

Let’s agree that whether our boyo was indeed the bad dude or not, whether he remembers it or not (lotta drinking there, me Irish lad), whether or not he deserved it, he was under a whole lot of pressure these last weeks. A whole lot of pressure is something we all hope to avoid, but often we can’t, and how we react under such pressure tells us a lot about our true character. What we hope is that under pressure – under the worst kind of pressure – we can act with grace, calmness, compassion and kindness. 

Our boyo Kavanaugh failed the test. Big time. So has our President. Had he truly cared about our nation, about closing divides and also about saving someone who might be a truly good man, and his family – and a good woman, and her family - from embarrassment, stress, threats and humiliation, he would have withdrawn the nomination when the accusations were first made. Had he been a thinking man, a wise man, he would have realized that continuing with this nominee could lead to nothing but pain and anger and a wider division in our country. 

Had our President been what we hope for – we wouldn’t be where we are today. We would be better.

For the blog. I am One Witness.

 

To Garden In October

Sage. Marjoram. Chive. Thyme, thyme, thyme. Mint. Peppermint. More mint. Calendula. French tarragon.  Bay. Kaffir lime. Summer savory. Nasturtium. Holy basil. Thai basil. Clove pinks. Rose petals. Parsley. Garlic chive. Egyptian onion. Sorrel. Dill. Genovese basil. Parsley root.

Most of these went into my own cooking, but armloads of many went to the chef at the café, and to the baker one town over, also. The garlic chives and chives are two big mounds; the sage plant is as large as the rhubarb plant, which is massive; and the marjoram, busily escaping into the field with the thyme and mint, is as large as a large side table. This warm weird summer, the tarragon grew lush and long. The dill seeds itself and pops up all over the garden; most of it has long gone to seed, but there are several bushy baby dill plants that started themselves at the end of summer. Sorrel is a spring herb, but returns in fall. This year’s parsley is last year’s parsley, over-wintered in the kitchen.

I look out the window near my computer that overlooks the garden and the back forty: the maples are ablaze. And yet, the garden still produces.

Hopeful October tomato plant

 Still there are flowers: carrot – an impossibility, but this was a summer of miracles – coral and lime green Love Lies Bleeding and some red that was planted late and is just now starting to bleed. Clove pinks in raspberry and pale pink, cosmos in magenta and in pale colors, orange and yellow and cream nasturtiums vining and bunching and climbing; calendula in yellow and orange and burnt orange; magenta hardy hibiscus, purple salvia, purple sage, blue, blue hydrangea. A purple aster from last fall has rebloomed in full glorious purple, some perennial I planted this summer has grown high and is covered with magenta flowers, and the purple and rose morning glory flowers still cover the scarily healthy vines that still engulf one compost bin and twine amongst the scarlet runner bean vines and fall clematis that themselves twine about the back fence. Orange California poppies still emerge and shine amongst the glads and the morning glories that are creeping across the middle of the garden.

The scarlet runners, heat-loving plants, are still blooming a little, as are the tomato plants, the fall raspberries, and a summer squash. I pulled half the carrots last weekend, and the results have totally filled the vegetable bin in the frig; I’m not sure what I’ll do with the other half. Fava beans, which like cool weather, are also in full bloom again, producing their black and white flowers and their strange, padded pods. One lone buttercup squash still hangs from the tomato cage it crawled up; I brought in two big ones to harden and wait in a basket under the dining table until wanted in the winter. There may be another hiding amongst the raspberries, but I won’t know for sure until the fall berries are finished and the slow-moving bees have hived for the winter, when I’ll be able to cut down the old canes and see what’s hidden deep in the patch. 

Working the fall raspberries

Sixteen sweet dumpling squashes have been piled in another basket, and between us and friends, we’ve already consumed 9 of these little wonders. Seven butternuts also came inside, and four have already been eaten by us or friends; the last three will wait in the basket with the buttercups until all the sweet dumplings are gone.

The green pepper plants are waist-high and still flowering, still covered with small fruits; I’ve frozen about a dozen, chopped up into useful sizes, and the two I hoped would ripen and turn red – and had half done – were cut short by the chipmunks, who chewed a hole in one side, climbed in (yes, they were that big) and ate all the seeds, then chewed an exit hole on the other side. I cut off the hole rims, rinsed out the inside of the peppers well, then chopped up the remains and sent them to the freezer, too.

From the bathroom window I can see one tall, multi-flowered sunflower still abloom in the raised beds near the house, and another  - last one – in the garden. Most of the garden ones have been thoroughly eaten by chipmunks and birds, and the giant flower remains – stems, roots, giant leaves - are slowly moldering in the compost bin. 

Unknown Perennial

Unknown plant - tomatillo? Ground cherry???

I’ve frozen endless bags of tomatoes, shell beans, green beans, yellow beans, zucchini, summer squash, and beets. I’ve made 17 pints of zucchini relish, four of dilly beans, and 20 of tomato juice – these from tomatoes I bought. There are still six celeriac plants, parsley root, and half of two rows of carrots in the garden, with the slowing but not finished scarlet runners, one lone green bean plant producing a couple of beans every few days, and okra plants still producing pods. A basket of green tomatoes resides in the dining room, slowly ripening, and another basket’s worth still hang from their plants outdoors. Maybe I’ll make green tomato mincemeat. Maybe I’ll make piccalilli. Maybe I’ll just pick them and let them slowly ripen indoors. 

Two patches of parsnips will stay in the garden over winter, and I’ll keep my fingers crossed that the chipmunks don’t eat them during the winter, because there is nothing so wonderful as over-wintered parsnips, and nothing so destructive as this year’s excess of destructive chipmunk colony.

A few onions still hang from pegs in my kitchen, with several skeins of shallots. A half-basket of potatoes still rest in the pantry. The bee balm is gone by; the Sweet Annie is picked and sweetly drying in a vase on the table. Many of the new perennials are blooming in the garden, though small in size yet.

Late Love Lies Bleeding

Here’s the big tally: This summer I moved 276 bricks, 325 pavers, 52 bags of pebbles, 109 bags of cedar, and 66 big rock-like chunks; and that doesn’t count the actual rocks I hauled home from the backside of the town’s deserted sand pile, or that I found on walks with the Old Barkie Boy before his demise. I have 2 pavers and 10 bricks yet to place. I could use more. I know where I’d put them; but I told the guys at the building supply place, if I come down here and try to order more, send me home and tell me no more this year. No. No. No.

It’s was cold the last few days. Some of that bounty’s going to end up in this week’s soup. And I will marvel at how long this growing season has lasted, and all the things that grew that were impossible, or improbable, or fantastic.

Beastreau spends a lot of time on the wart in Catman's chair

And wonder why I can’t get an artichoke plant to produce even a single bud!

For the blog; October 2018.  All photos Deb Marshall.

Still in bloom on the wart:

 

 

 

To Garden in September

Okra pod in the north; Deb Marshall photo

 

I picked my token handful of okra this weekend; my poor little stunted plants, overwhelmed by the yellow beans, nevertheless produced their gorgeous flowers and a handful of pods, which I sliced up and put in the week’s soup. 

Scarlet Runner bean flowers; Deb Marshall photo

This time of year is strangely satisfying. It’s nearly impossible to keep up with everything that needs attention – there are tomatoes to freeze daily, the scarlet runners are still in bloom but also bear pods that need picking and shelling, and whenever I attempt to do so, I get seriously buzzed by the hummingbirds, which are very, very busily loading up prior to their long trip south. The green beans are putting out their second crop, and there were just enough fresh dill heads that I could make a batch of dilly beans while I was waiting for the zucchini relish to cook down enough to can. 

Under this, somewhere, is a compost bin! Deb Marshall photo

 

The morning glories have completely overwhelmed one compost bin and are beginning to cover bin two, keeping the bees very busy, between runner beans, fall raspberries, and morning glories. But half the yellow beans, and some of the shell beans are spent; I pulled out two patches and rediscovered the satisfaction of finishing a job, of seeing plain empty dirt again. It felt so good, in fact, I yanked the remaining beets, too, and sent them to the freezer. Then I trimmed out the part of the fava beans that no longer sported leaves, and picked clean one long tendril of winter squash. 

Squash climbing tomato cages; Deb Marshall photo

Squash amongst tomatoes; Deb Marshall photo

Tonight it’s raining, making me happy enough to be inside canning pickles and relish. We need the rain, but every time I go outside, I tell the hummers to hunker down and wait a week before heading south, because a hurricane is due to land later this week . I wonder, each year, how they manage to make their long way to their winter homes; there’s always a hurricane brewing, so how do such delicate creatures manage? The little female whose wings make a buzzing noise almost as loud as Buzzy Boy’s has been about this last week and hung out with me in the garden one afternoon; we like to think she’s one of his daughters. I thought Buzzy himself had left for the season after the day he hovered about me in the garden last week; but this weekend when I was working in the path between the house and the close raised bed, he came barreling down that pathway and zipped across just above my head, turned, and did it again, twice. Maybe that was this year’s goodbye!

I sent a basketload of herbs up to the French baker this weekend: thyme, marjoram, sage, mint, chives, French tarragon, and some calendula for her to play with. This year has been an amazing year for herbs; I cut back my giant sage plant twice before it occurred to me to find out whether the chef at the café near my office, and then the baker in town, could use some of the excess, and both have taken a couple of herby armloads. There’s always too much marjoram, my yard’s a bed of thyme, and the sage plant engulfs anything planted near it; but this year the tarragon grew lush and long, as well.

Bee headed into the morning glory; Deb Marshall photo

Pollen-dusted bee emerging from flower; Deb Marshall photo

A Week Later

Not enough time to finish writing a blog entry, last week! In just the few days since last week’s several days of rain, the hummers we know have left for the year, and some we don’t know are stopping by on their way south. We assume these are Canadian hummers, and so I speak French to them. Ca va, mes petites! Au revoir, a bientot! Et bon voyage!

The scarlet runners have almost finished blooming, finally; the winter squash vines all have powdery mildew, so the squashes will be coming in by next weekend, ready or not. I scored 38 pounds of ripe tomatoes at Musterfield Farm and spent today making tomato juice – if you’ve never had anything except commercial tomato juice, you have no idea what tomato juice really tastes or looks like. I don’t have the space to plant enough tomatoes to freeze and make sauce and juice, so every couple of years I buy juice tomatoes, then eke it out because a dozen bottles or so go really fast otherwise.

Unknown weed growing under the kitchen wart

Winter squash upon the new pavers; Deb Marshall photo

The green beans are almost done – I’ll pick the last batch tomorrow then pull the vines; the bean tower beans are also done, but it’s loaded down with morning glories, so I’ll keep propping it up when it falls over for a while longer. I pulled the few actual carrots in the patch that’s blooming, and blooming, and blooming, even though it’s impossible that they should be; and yanked a couple more tomato plants that have given up their last tomato. I also picked the almost-red pepper some nasty chipmunk chewed a hole in, ate the seeds out of, then chewed an exit hole in the opposite side. It was a big pepper; I cut out the chewed parts, washed out the inside, chopped it up and froze what was left, and then I picked the other big pepper I was hoping would get red – not taking any more chances!

Lots of beans to shell. Lots of help (!!) shelling them.

Catmandoo in the shell-bean basket; Deb Marshall photo

I’ve got some wicked exciting new heavy chunks of cement that look sorta like rock to build some new flower beds on t’other side of the fence. With any luck I’ll start moving some of them tomorrow, and with more luck, I won’t get sunstruck and wind up shriveled up in a little ball in the wicked solid compost bins the Husband just made from seven of the pallets that were delivered this summer!

The new planting bed and short wall I built with some of the chunks; Charley Freiberg photo

 

I have two sets of garden clothes this summer: the days’ current one, absolutely soaked with sweat, and the one from two days ago, still damp from sweat. This summer has been --- exceptional. Someone remind me when I’m bitching about the cold this winter. 

Last glories of September; Deb Marshall photos

Nasturtium vine; Deb Marshall photo

This is breakfast in late August and September:

Toast a split section of baguette, or a couple slices of any good sourdough bread. As soon as it's done, scrape a raw garlic clove all over it - the garlic will melt onto the bread. Then drizzle a good-flavored olive oil across the bread, and top it with slices of a juicy, ripe tomato - the heritage varieties are especially good for this. Salt the tomato slices, then put summer savory leaves and flowers on the slices. Basil works well too, but summer savory is to die for. Eat; get olive oil and tomato juices all over your plate and hands and down your arms. Lick it off your body, sop it off the plate with a crust, or maybe even another slice of excellent bread. A piece of Brie on the side wouldn't be inappropriate. Store the flavors in your memory to pull out in February when you can't bear winter a moment longer. Try not to repeat - remember, there's breakfast again tomorrow morning, and it's still tomato season.

There is a path there, somewhere; Charley Freiberg photo

And a path here, too, believe it or not; Charley Freiberg photo

For the blog alone, 17 September 2018

Summer Savory; Deb Marshall photo

For the