flowers in the yard

Spring has come to San Diego, and I'm enjoying the chance to play with flowers from the yard.  I've been enjoying the delightful distraction of learning more about flower arranging, occasioned by my plans to be the florist for a family wedding this summer.  It's nice to have excuses for spending time with beautiful things.  This past week, the poppies and irises started blooming, and they're lovely.

And, this week, we finally finished the giant head of cauliflower we picked out of the front yard.  That's a whole lotta cauliflower.  
And now it's time to dream of summer gardens.  The tomato seeds are germinating away in their starter trays...

still growing

Sorry for the long hiatus from the blog.  I guess I just got distracted.  I blame Facebook.  Also that I haven't figured out our rhythm for sharing digital photos now that there are two laptops in the house and the camera's mostly in Matt's possession.  

It's not that I haven't thought of things to share...  Things keep going and growing.

For example, the garden:

With my dear neighbor all moved in, I started a little potato-growing experiment.  For a bit of a hybrid between container growing and in-ground gardening, we planted 5 varieties of potatoes in burlap bags (courtesy a favorite local coffee roaster).  In my yard, I cut out the bottoms of the bags, and dug them into the ground a bit.  I'll add more soil as they grow, and unroll the bags to cover the stems.  Or, so the plan goes.
Some turnips and carrots were ready for harvest this past week.  Well, at least one of the turnips was well past "ready."  It's size skews the sense of proportions in this pic.  Those carrots were not really as small as they seem next to that purple giant.

I'm also dreaming with seed catalogues these days.  

Matt tried a little garden experiment of his own, too.  (And, oddly, it sounds more like something I'd come up with.  He's usually the one who wants to do things the "right" way, and I'm all about the quicky crazy way.  I think he hit some kind of breaking point with my ability to accumulate seed packets and his desire for a less-cluttered house.)  He took a whole bunch of flower seed packets and threw them all in an area of the garden, mixed up together.  In another section, he threw an assortment of herbs.  Happily, it's been awfully rainy for San Diego, and little seedlings are popping up.  It remains to be seen how many are weeds...

I'll keep you posted.

In the meantime, I hope your Friday doesn't feel like the 13th!

jamming

Wow--it's sure been a long time since I posted here. 

I think I wanted to save my blog from the fullness of my impatience during that time between when Matt began his exit of Camp K-V, Iraq and when he actually, finally landed in San Diego.

Then, I suppose, I've been distracted with getting used to living with my dear husband again.  Which is a delightful challenge.  It's good to be together again, and to settle into our house together.

One of the messes he came home to was our backyard.  It was a disaster.  I'd attempted to begin cutting back our uncontrollable (if abundantly fruitful) passionfruit vine and made a bigger mess of it.  The banana tree that bloomed in August fell over a few weeks ago from the gradual pull of the weight of its fruit, and was poorly propped up by a teetering pair of stacked chairs and a wooden prop.  And so on.

Last Friday, we made a go at cleaning it up.  And things are looking much better.  We're just eager for the trash truck to come down our street this week.

One little piece of our work was picking the last three hands of bananas on the other plant--the one that bloomed in June.  They were still green, but I've decided that I don't think they're gonna turn yellow on the plant.

So, with those bananas now turning yellow, tonight, I made my second batch of banana jam from one hand.  It's too early to say for sure, but it early results seem very promising.  And with peanut butter on a sandwich: yum.

Banana jam recipes were a bit tricky to find, so I thought I'd share mine.

Homegrown Banana Jam

7 cups of bananas, chopped

juice of 2 limes (about 1/2 c.)

2 cups of white grape juice

4 1/2 c. sugar

Combine it all, mashing the bananas up a bit.  Bring it to a boil, stirring regularly.  Let it boil for about 15 minutes, 'til it seems good and jammy.  Pour it into jars, and process for 10 minutes in hot water bath.

Makes 9 1/2 pint jars, with about a half-cup left over.  I'm a big fan of left-over jam samples.

(Why do you suppose half-pint sound so much more quaint that "cup" when speaking of jars of jam?)

yes we can

I don't know why it hadn't occurred to me that my newfound appreciation for canning coincides so beautifully with the election of a president who has lifted our hopes with a slogan so beautifully affirming of both the generous possibility of human communities and jam preservation.  Yes, we can.

Who knew that my own little efforts at food security would resonate so elegantly with this exciting moment in history?

The passionfruit vine in our backyard grew crazy this year, so I've been enjoying the challenge of figuring out ways to preserve it.  

In that spirit, here's how I have been making passionfruit jam:

Ingredients:

about 30 ripe passionfruits (really, though, some are awfully little, so make it more like 34)

2 1/2 limes

water

about 4 lbs of sugar

Get the pulp out of the passionfruits.  My preferred method, to get most of the pulp but few of the seeds, is to cut the stem-end of the fruits off, scoop the pulp and seeds and everything into my little food processor, and run it for a few seconds.  The food processor frees the good, tasty pulp from the seeds.  Then, you can pour it through a strainer, into a bowl.   Add the lime juice, and set it aside.   (I think a few seeds make a nice addition to the jam, so I let a few of them through, too.)

Put the rest of the passionfruits--the wrinkly outside--into a big pot, and add water until at least half of them are submerged.  Boil them for at least 30 minutes, until the white pithy parts are all moist and swollen and kind-of purplish.

Cool the fruits you've just boiled, and peel the outer, crunchy skin away from the now-moist pithy pulp part.  Compost the skin, and put the inside pulp layer into the food processor.  I only have a little food processor, so I do about 6 fruits at a time, adding about 1/4 cup of the water from the boiling pot into each batch.  Blend the pulp until it's milkshake-thick.  (You'll end up adding about 1 1/2 cups of the water from the pot you'd boiled the fruits in.)

Now, as you put all the pulp and the juice into a big pot for turning into jam, measure the volume, and add an equivalent amount of sugar.  Bring it to a boil, and watch until it begins to turn jammy.  It doesn't take long--apparently, there's a good amount of pectin in that pulp.

Put the jam into jars, and process in boiling water bath. 

fruitful life

I didn't make a conscious decision to plant holy-sounding fruits in my garden, but this week's yield certainly does have that appeal.

Here's a bunch off my Praying Hands Banana, named because the bunches (called hands in banana-speak) look like hands held in prayer.

And passionfruits, named because the flowers reminded Spanish missionaries of Christ's passion.
Pretty good choices for the backyard of a preacher who images it to be here little promised land, in the spirit of Micah 4, complete with vines and fig trees, eh?

 

So far, I've mostly been freezing passionfruit juice, or dumping it into iced tea--but I'd be very keen on hearing of any favorite uses you have of either bananas or passionfruit.  Maybe there's a jar of passionfruit-banana jam in store for whoever can come up with the best idea...

transformation (worth more than a hill of beans?)

I have a whole bunch of blog posts swimming around in my head.  Mostly, I haven't committed them to actual words yet.  So, in that spirit, I start this post with a picture.  I don't have any deep thoughts to accompany it; I just thought these beans had wonderful colors.  They came out of the garden as I was tearing out the last of the summer garden.

After the help of many friends and a load of compost, the winter garden is now doing its underground magic.  There's something daring about starting with seeds.  It feels much more dangerous and beautiful than seedlings from the nursery.  And it reminds me that garden life starts with dried up, dead things: seeds from old plants and a pile of decaying compost.
Speaking of dying things, or at least, things dying to their previous selves, I've been taking note of the gulf fritillary that love my passionflowers, and enjoying their transformation.  I caught this one in the act of making its cocoon.

Thanks to recent conversations with Colleen, my dad and others, I've been pondering the transformations that may be life-giving for the church.  As I read the communion liturgy, proclaiming that Jesus Christ saves us from "slavery to sin and death," I mourn the way our own, institutional fear of dying seems to occupy much of our attention.  As people of resurrection, I pray that we might trust more (and more fearlessly) in new birth.  

And, as Colleen helped me consider just this morning over coffee, birth is not simple, clean or solitary.  I wonder what it would look like for the church to put more energy into the life-giving, painful, uncontrolled process of helping prepare for new life and new birth?  (Perhaps we should put energy into dying well?)  I suspect our priorities would need to shift a bit, and that we'd need to be open to a considerable bit more uncertainty.

I wonder what our caterpillar is thinking as it forms this cocoon.  Does it have any idea what life might be like on the other side?

passion

a little urban passionflower

and some butterflies learning about the birds and the bees

My garden is really a mess.  I haven't taken good care of it for a while.  So, I'm just counting it as grace that beautiful things are lurking in it, if you look closely. 

juicy

I gathered my first passionfruit today.  I've been keeping an eye on my vine, which is loaded with fruits.  Every time I look, they all seemed to be still green and very firm.  Then, today, I noticed something different: something deep red and purple, lying just under the vines on the ground.  

I took them inside and here's what I found!

I'm totally new to passionfruit growing, but I've since read that if I let them get wrinkly, they'll be even better.  So, I guess we'll see what happens with the two on the counter.

Anyone have any favorite uses for passionfruit?

worn

I feel like my garden has gotten out of my control; I've been away too much, and, when here, I've been distracted and busy.  It's been hot, too.  So, I spent some time on Friday evening doing my least favorite garden tasks: tearing out overgrown and dry plants.  There's still a bunch more of that work to do.  

Today, I started some new seeds, which is a happier job.  

And, as if a sign of grace and possibility, the fig tree yielded up some delicious fruits.  I love how figs hide their fleshy beauty inside such misleading, shriveling brown exterior. 

In between a bunch of other adventures (including fashioning 5 veils to make clergy robes look like nun costumes for our Sound of Music Singalong at the church), I also finally sewed a wraparound skirt from an old sheet I got at the thrift store.  It's deliciously soft, and lined with another dangerously soft (and worn) sheet.  

On Friday, I tried to take care of myself a bit: a fresh haircut, buying some watercolors, and a massage; when I was in Santa Fe, I relaxed enough to notice how tense the muscles in my shoulders were.  I still feel tender from having those muscles loosened.  A good, looser kind of tender.  Enough to make me think I should not wait so long next time.

harvest

There are several blog posts waiting and wanting to be written, but currently I only have energy to share the joy of some summertime harvest with you.

First, the fun of blueberry harvest in some friends' backyard in Portland, where I spent a fun day of hanging out after electing some new bishops for the UMC as a part of our Jurisdictional Conference.  Here's a friend, holding up the juicy berries we picked.  I'm still enjoying them.  

And, a part of the harvest waiting for me when I got home.  Our little neighbor, of garden reorganization fame, has taken to lurking by our gate to beg for fresh tomatoes.  Who could resist and charming 3-year-old with tomato-eating ambitions?!?
There are plenty to share.

fruity

I'm pretty excited about the bananas forming in my backyard.  They're beautiful, and bear promise of tastiness.

I'm also having fun with buckets full of apricots from my family's tree.  I'm feeling better about my pie and jam-making skills, as I get more practice.  And, it's all quite tasty.

Plus, I've been delighting in other sweet things lately, including:

Matt's thoughtfulness, even from a distance, on our anniversary.

Others remembering and honoring our anniversary, too, with calls, flowers, gifts and their presence.

Good meals shared with friends, both new and old.  Even better, they've lately been made with things grown very nearby.  In the past week, my extroversion and love of company has been met with lots of visiting friends and invitations to be with others.  Sweet.

A request for prayer from someone who I know I disappointed and frustrated early in my pastoral ministry here; her asking for me to pray with her delivered to me a grace that I was hungry for.

And, I have a new computer, replacing the one stolen last week.  It's good to be back with a Mac.  

garden progress: june 14

Not that you asked, here's what the front yard garden is looking like this weekend.  :)

I'm quite pleased that the daisies I started from seed last year are blooming.  Mom and I have a long and lovely history of daisy-growing, and of transporting them from house to house at moves.  Maybe these particular plants will have such an illustrious story to share, one day.  (Not that I'm planning to move anytime soon.  I'm just thinking long-long term.)

good food

There are many good things to say about my trip back to Nebraska last week, to celebrate my cousin's wedding and to rest a bit, but I just keep getting distracted.  I blame that, at least in part, on Facebook.  Those word games are addictive.  But officiating at a wedding with my dad was more fun than I'd imagined.  A cool way to spend some time with him just before his 60th birthday.  (Happy Birthday, Dad.)

It was good to spend time with my mom, too, hanging at home and digging through antique stores in Grand Island.  I capture a photo of her in her most comfortable native habitat: in front of her computer with the email program open, in her bathrobe.  But, it occurred to me, posting a picture of your mom in her bathrobe is not a good way to honor her on her 60th Birthday.  So, instead, you get to see us at the big wedding dinner.   (Happy Birthday, Mom.)
Which, as it turns out, was a darn fine wedding dinner.  Of course, that some of the food--including the beef--was raised on the family farm my cousin grew up on didn't hurt.  It was so wonderfully flavor-ful and delicious.  After we ate, we noted that it was so good it would be nice to have a picture to remember it by, but, alas, this is all that remained on the table.
What do you think it means that she sat us at the "prairie chicken" table?

In other happy food news, Marian shared some of her grass-fed bison with me the other night, as she was offering the consoling ministry of solidarity with spouses of the deployed.  Wayne's not been far away lately, but away on enough little excursions in his ship to make such a dinner a really helpful thing.  At least for me.

We tried grilling beets, too--lovely, red-and-white striped beets.  They were pretty yummy--and with a little salt and vinegar, a bit like pickled beets, only with the nice addition of that smoky grill taste.  Mmm.  The squash is the first abundant crop of my garden this year.

What a cruel twist that our garden is bearing squash in abundance this year, when Matt, our family's chief squash enthusiast, is far, far away in the deserts of Iraq.

But let's not get distracted: that food was darn good, and for it, I am grateful. 

meanwhile, back at the ranch

the garden just keeps growing.  Flowers are filling into open spots, and vegetables are beginning to look possible!

(Just in case you'd thought I abandoned my garden pursuits, I wanted to assure you that I'm trying to stay rooted...)

I'm particularly excited to see the tomatoes growing stronger, and the squash, too.  The corn and beans I planted together along the fence are gonna be fun...
Here are my first fruits of the season!
I am enchanted by foxgloves, and started these guys from seeds just after moving in, nearly 2 years ago.  Finally, they're lovely.
The columbine is looking good, too--graceful and tall.

And, I just today noticed some Flanders Poppies growing up in the Bachelors Buttons.  Lovely.

food security

I've been reading Deep Economy, which my brother sent us recently. Challenging us to think about economies in different ways--and clarifying that, since the 1950's, increased wealth has not meant increased happiness--it picks up discussions many of my favorite writers have contributed to. Folks like Wendell Berry, Barbara Kingsolver, Michael Pollen, and more. It's also given me more enthusiasm for my garden.

I've also been paging through Jesus for President, which calls us to similar attentiveness to a different way of living in the world. Here, Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw challenge us to claim allegiance in the kingdom of God rather than any nation or community. Doing so demands that we make choices about how we'll live that express a love for neighbor that demands we do things differently--less as consumers and more as community members and those who want their actions to have positive effects on all others and on creation. Again, here, gardening seems important.

So, I thought I'd share today's update of how the garden looks. I've had some problems with a mischievous garden visitor. I suspect my cute, adorable, adventurous little neighbor, D. There are two small footprints on the top of most of my hills of squash. And all my clever popsicle stick labels at the end of rows have disappeared. Alas, who can really be mad at a 3-year old with a special gift for finding tomatoes in late-summer vine jungles?

Gardening is very satisfying for me--it feels hopeful and constructive in all the right ways. A good kind of economic choice.

We installed a gate, thinking it would make us feel a bit safer in a neighborhood where there's a bit more drug and gang activity than any of us wants. Turns out it may also help my relationships with a little neighbor--I can enjoy gardening with him when we're together, and not be mad about his little footprints or his habit of pulling up tags and tomato seedlings while I'm away.
Our fence is now complete, all the way 'round. It's gotten good reviews from passers-by, which makes me hopeful that it's not TOO unfriendly of a sort of fence. The avocado tree Marian shared is busting out new leaves, and I'm hopeful about the asparagus I planted in a trench. Now, I need to arrange the water system, and plant that last big section. What fun...
When I was planting on Friday, a man stopped by to chat. "I'm your neighbor!" he said very enthusiastically. He then offered me some mint out of his garden, bringing it over in a plastic saucer. Now, it's happily nestled next to some heirloom petunias, watched over by the lovely flamingo my mother sent. I feel a little bad about putting Mom's flamingo near mint, as she hates it so much, but I figure grace is big, and it's all a pretty long ways from her nose. (The other flamingo is watching over a pineapple, which I know is more agreeable...)
And, these bachelor buttons (at the top) are blooming nicely. There a favorite of Mom's too, so that should make everything okay.
Our little redbud tree is looking great these days--the blossoms are beautiful, and I can see the leaves beginning to grow!

in the ground

Holy Week is as good a time as any to stick seeds in the ground--it feels wonderfully hopeful.  Today I had some help from a pair of friends.  We put in some corn and beans, sunflowers and okra.  More will come.

You can see our exciting new fence.  I think we did a decent job of marking a boundary without putting up a hostile barrier.  No pointy things on top, and no solid walls.  

We also got a thank you note from our postal carrier today for finally replacing the horrible mailbox we've had.  She didn't even make mention of how long it took to do so...just said "Thank you, thank you, thank you!"

I did a good job of bringing in the mail, sorting it, recycling what I could, and not throwing anything on the table.  That makes day 2 of my attempt at de-cluttering my living space.  Of course, I was also buoyed by some extra and gracious cleaning help from Matt's mom.  ;)

limitations and abundance

I thought dyeing Easter eggs with natural dyes sounded pretty cool.  And, I had this chard languishing in my kitchen; I picked it in a hurry last Saturday, when the garden was being dug up.  I used part of it then, but didn't really have a plan for the rest.  I have observed how the red stems turn my chard-artichoke dip pink, so I thought I'd give it a try.

Just in case you were wondering, chard is not effective as a dye.  Neither the deep green leafy parts nor the garishly bright pink stems had any noticeable affect on my eggs.

Guess I should stick with the plants the recommend.  But hey: now my kitchen smells like stewed chard...

In other news and adventures, I'm feeling pretty blessed these days.  I mean, sure, I'm still dealing with the depression of Matt's deployment departure, but other folks have sure been good to me lately.

First, my obsessive lurking around crafty blogs led me to a fun give-away on Betty Ninja's site--and I won her drawing.  I'm waiting anxiously for the happy hedgehog to appear in my mailbox...  Then, I happened upon Oodles and Oodles' clothespin apron giveaway, and won again.  Now I can hang clothes in style on my new backyard clothesline.  Such a run of blogging grace!

Then, at work yesterday, two women in the office showered me with a magical sunflower basket of goodness--with cookies and a fun t-shirt and music and chocolate and lots more.  Just 'cause they were thinking of me and wanted to cheer me up.

All that's not even counting the carrot-dill bread Marian and Wayne brought by--or their avocado tree which is now planted in the yard.  Or the window and door trim my in-laws installed yesterday and today.  Or the books my brother sent me in the mail.  Or the care package from my mom.

So: today, deployment sucks, but it sure is beautiful to know that I'm surrounded by lots of caring folks and beautiful, thoughtful things!

I'm trying to ride out this wave of happy vibes and see if it will sustain me through an attempt to de-clutter my house.  It'd take a miracle...

potential

I spend the first part of today studying and discussing proposals that will come to our church's General Conference next month--suggestions of how to change the church for the good.  (Not all suggestions seem to think that the same changes would be good...)

And, this evening, I've been studying and scheming about which seeds to plant in my garden.  I've narrowed it to:

2 kinds of corn, 4 kinds of beans, 2 melons (even though I know my soil is mostly clay and they'd be happier in sand), 3 pumpkins, 2 kinds of zucchini, okra, 2 eggplants, leeks, turnips, chard, spinach, lettuce and some herbs.   (Did you know that you can grow a watermelon with ORANGE flesh?!?)

Perhaps seed packet descriptions and petitions to change the church aren't so different: hopeful descriptions of possibility that may or may not actually take root in beautiful ways.

(This is making me ponder, a little too deeply, what might be the church equivalent of the nasty little horned bugs that like to eat my plants.)

There are these very brief little "rationale" statements after General Conference petitions that have about the same depth as seed descriptions.  (That is, they tell you about the lovely orange flowers but not about the plants nasty habit of spreading itself all through your garden.  Or its susceptibility to powdery mildew.  Or its demand for a whole lot of water.)

So, here's hoping we'll have the wisdom to wade through all these pages of legislation and find what will grow the Kin-dom of God!  I'm sure thankful to have companions on this journey.

groundwork

I'm pretty excited about the newly-enriched, freshly-dug-up soil in my yard today.  I think my tomato seedlings are dreaming of their days ahead out here, too.  

It's come a long ways from what it was when we moved in: pavement.

What vegetables (or fruits, perhaps?) do you think would be most wonderful, beautiful and tasty in this front yard garden?

strange things growing

I finally dug my carrots this past week.  It turns out that they were looking a bit mutant.  Perhaps this is what happens when you don't do a good job preparing the soil down deep before you plant?

I think they look like little, headless carrot creatures, with big, thick tails.

Strange.

But, then, it's been a strange week.  Some expected and some new--and several days of reporting for jury duty.  The prospect of being on the jury for a murder trial was sobering, but the long hours of waiting to get into the courtroom made for good reading time.  I escaped via the pages of "Friday Night Knitting Club," and enjoyed the diversion.

Now, my trick is going to need to be to stop thinking of new projects and focus on the ones I've already started. 

I spend made a quick trip to Sacramento this weekend to get a bit more time with Matt.  Unfortunately, my visit to him came with a sit through a "family briefing" courtesy the US Army.  I'm no fan of such things, nor can I stomach the way they refer to Matt as "my soldier."  I don't want a soldier, nor do I want to possess my husband.  The upside is that I got to meet some of the folks he'll be spending the next months with in Iraq; somehow, making it through seems more possible when there are real (even, sometimes, delightful) people involved.

Work is continuing here at the house--all the concrete (except for the driveway and front walk) is now taken out, and someone's coming on Friday to dig up the dirt and add in compost.  Perhaps so my carrots will be less mutant next season.  Here's hoping.  Then, soon, I can plant vegetables!

Oh, and my papaya seeds finally sprouted, which gives me great hope.  I'd thought they were too old and dried out.