Chokes!

Thanks for checking in, friends and family – lots of love and hugs all around!  And now, back to our regularly scheduled programming…

I’ve been staring at these plants for MONTHS, watching and waiting.  Even though I grew up eating them, I had no idea how artichokes grew.  The long ignorant wait is over…

So pretty!  I keep hearing the same things outside my window when people walk by: “Oh, what a nice gard… wow, what the heck is that big plant?”

In other garden news, we’ve got fertilization happening with the squash – both with a few of our winter (hard) varieties and with the mystery compost squash that sprouted up from last year’s vegetable waste.  We’re still not sure what it’ll turn out to be…

Turks cap squash – should eventually turn out looking like this.

The mystery squash is making a run for it!

I love spring.

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Dad

My memories of my dad are less clear than they used to be, but they’re still all there.  I remember the sound his heart made when I’d snuggle up next to him on the couch.  I remember his crinkly-eyed smile, the one that was true and had love behind it.  I remember his suited shoulder that I would crash into when he came home from work.  I remember his voice soothing me to sleep, and I remember his voice admonishing me for being rude.  I remember the sound of him chewing.  I remember watching him pull my mom away from preparing dinner to dance with her.  I remember his laugh in all its incarnations – the polite hee-hee all the way to the tears-streaming-down-the-face hysteria.  I remember his “proud papa” look.  I remember hearing him forage for a midnight snack.  I remember how good it felt to feel surrounded in his hugs.  I remember him calling me Punky Doodle All The Day, and I remember the day when I was 13 and I told him I was too old for that nickname.  I remember the disappointed look on his face.  I cringe at that memory.

There aren’t many things I regret – I’m more of the mind that life is life and it goes forward, not back. We make our mistakes and have our successes, and regret simply forces us back in time.  But I’d give anything to take that back and hear him call me Punky Doodle again.

He died eight years ago today.

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Back from the Dead

Lord.  Have any of you tackled that crazy flu that’s been going around?  Whenever I’ve had the flu, there’s been one day when I feel like I’m going to die, then 3-4 days of ickiness.  Well, this was a doozy.  My mantra was “I’m going to die”, and I repeated it hourly for 7 days.  Ridiculous.

Luckily, I have the world’s most patient nurse, so was able to send out for Gatorade and Fudgesicles (the only things I could stomach).  Unfortunately, I then got him sick, so had to reverse roles for another week.  Sheesh.  Thank god that’s over, and next year?  Flu shots for everyone!

I haven’t quite gotten back in the kitchen (currently littered with empty Gatorade bottles, numerous straws and Dayquil packaging), but I have been able to take advantage of this lovely weather and play in the garden.

We planted the east side full of melon and winter squash, mulched the whole lot and started the waiting process.  I can’t wait to see what works, what doesn’t, how they all look – we’re planting a lot of new and interesting stuff this year from Baker Creek Seeds, so the experiment continues.

The west side you’ve seen, but now it’s chock full of tomato seedlings, scattered among the broccoli, and the front is full of summer squash, pumpkin and fennel seeds.

Just as we have risen from the depths, I expect these seeds to do the same (we’re very metaphorical around here)…

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