Tomorrow is Friday

Today I posted a short-short piece of fiction....a little writing warm up and I also wrote an essay about the economy and problem solving methods on my "other" blog. You can get to it through my complete profile. It will be different than this blog, more focused on writing, but then what do I know? I've already surprised myself with the offerings that have popped out on this blog. So forgive my predicting into the unknown and please just come back and visit me on both pages. I'll be glad to hear if ever something here has hit the mark for you, made you smile, or made you think or reflected back to you something you sometimes feel. Your comments on what you appreciate most will be of value to me. Thank you.

Well, tomorrow is Friday where I live and here's a picture of the last rays of Thursday, March 12, 2009 looking out over the Pacific. Hope you have had a good day and if you had a hard one, I hope there's a night of rest and renewal lining up for you.

Poem for the Topic of Troubles

When trouble comes
in small unmarked packets or
the large bannered varieties blazoned in headlines
"Oh why did that happen?
If only ... what if?"
But no,
all that has already taken place
IS.

How shall we be
of good cheer
In this world
of many troubles?
Birds fly
and sing
and drink dew from the cup of a leaf or
the slow drip of my leaking faucet.
We should be so simple;
migrating as the seasons command,
our boundaries no offense to any others,
residing in the zone where we belong,
a cup ready at the well for any sojourner,
the fear of poisoned waters dismissed in the golden sun of morning.

That we could live so with one another.
What if?






my collage & poem...my father's sketch

Sunset, Phoebe Cat, Presents in the Mail & Kale

Saturday, a day of presents from the garden...spinach, chard and kale...a reappearing theme here, because without a concerted effort, the needed quota of veggies just don't get eaten, but we're trying.
It was also a day of presents in the mail * Thank you Beth,Rosannah,Susan D., Gretchen and Babs...and on Friday I had already been feted by Susan H. & Debi and today Sarah Beth and Mark are cooking and giving. Saturday was also a day of tea and reading on the cottage deck because the sun felt so good.

Phoebe challenged me to game of hide and see and almost always wins when I try to capture her full face photograph. Playing above my head in the trees, she hid her eyes at the last second.

And then there were presents from the sky and sea as Saturday came to a close.

And I must say...it is now a very lovely Sunday.

Do Children Still Read Raggedy Ann?

Raggedy Ann Dolls are very popular in America and I suspect they have traveled to other countries spreading their good cheer. When I was a child I didn’t have a Raggedy Ann doll but I had Raggedy Ann and Andy books written by Johnny Gruelle (1880–1938). Yesterday at the local SPCA (Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) benefit shop, I found two Raggedy Ann books. Worth Gruelle, Johnny Gruelle's son, did the illustrations for this Raggedy Ann and the Golden Ring book. Here’s how the story starts:

“Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy were walking through the deep, deep woods in search of more adventures. The sunshine streamed down through the branches of the evergreen trees in ribbons of golden light and the birds sang and twittered happily in the leafy branches.”

Hey, that’s just how I felt the other morning when the sunlight broke though the clouds in between drenching deluges. I would that more children had woods to walk in and that play in nature in general was safely possible. Do children still read Raggedy Ann and Andy?
The stories are very fanciful, reliant on magic and imagination, dolls coming to life at night and wandering around with elves out in the woods where they find soda fountains and silver cups for their thirst and tinfoil wrapped chocolates for treats. Many of the illustrations capture changing moments of light, dark trees silhouetted against night skies that touched me with a longing to see glory and mystery. Standing in the benefit shop, thumbing through from one illustration to another, I re-experienced the outdoor nooks where I did so much of my childhood reading. I loved to hide under the shade of the willow trees on a plank that crossed the creek, my feet dangling in the water if the day was hot. Then in the empty lot next door I had a wooden perch in one of the apple trees.
I’d sit reading in the trees surrounded with the smell of the delicate pink and white spring blossoms or later in the summer, taste the apples hanging all around me.
Reading the Gruelle Statement of Ideals
I realized how the bright and wonderful pictures, the smiling doll faces, the magic and fun of dolls playing when folks aren’t looking, had brought those good hearted intentions of the Gruelles through to me as a child and that today I was getting another dose






of the sunny cheer that's still bound in the pages of Raggedy Ann’s stories. Thank you Mr. Gruelle and family.

~~~~~~~

Blue Sky Morning

More than the water or the trees or the path into the forest, these are pictures of the morning sunlight, a welcome sight outside our door this fourth day of March. We won't be staying inside much today.
The little red wagon is probably happy to be drying out a bit. My husband's great grandpa made it around the turn of the century, no I don't mean right before 2000, but in the late 1800's. It has done a fair amount of work in its day, including helping his grandmother roll her groceries home from market where she lived as a young wife and mother in Rochester, New York in the 1920's. The wagon is retired from hard labor now, the wood is quite aged, but the iron wheels will probably still be good in another 100 years.

We, however, who won't still be rolling 100 years from now, are not yet retired from our labors, so I guess I'll get cracking.
~~~~~~

PROSE rather than an ODE to KALE

Like any palate-confused child, I pushed lots of veggies around the plates of food it was my privilege to be served. In many realms it often takes me just short of ever to figure out and then come close to doing what is actually good for me, but this isn’t about me, this is about KALE.


Kale, a highly nutritious vegetable, is said to have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory properties. If I would eat 3.5 ounces steamed I would get 30 calories, less than 6 carbs, only 1.25 grams of sugar plus 2 grams of dietary fiber. I’d have eaten 76% of my adult daily need of beta carotene. I’d get vitamin K, lots of vitamin C, lutein, zeaxanthin, B vitamins, Calcium, Iron, Magnesium, Phosphorus, Potassium, and Zinc. To be sure I've not left something out, you can go to the USDA Nutrient database to check up on kale or that chocolate bar you are thinking of eating.


The kind of kale I am currently growing, Lacinto or Dinosaur Kale, has very crinkly leaves. I have also successfully grown the Russian purple kale, but I think Dinosaur is my favorite. The leaves seem impervious, clean and strong. I want in my cells what they have going for them. Kale, like Broccoli, contains sulforaphane, a chemical believed to have potent anti-cancer properties, particularly when chopped. (Warning: I have read that because of its high vitamin K content, it isn’t good for folks who have to take anti-coagulants such as warfarin as it could raise the effective dose of the drug.)

Kale is easy to grow and it seems to resist pests. While I sometimes have to wash away a few aphids, it doesn’t collect the bugs or blights that go after many other leafy greens. Having lived most of my life in a somewhat warmer inland clime, it’s wonderful to find veggies that thrive on the coast. I’ve read that Kale doesn’t seem too picky about the soil either. Mine is growing in enriched composted soil in a gopher- proof raised bed, but I bet you could raise good kale in a window box in your city apartment. If your summer is too hot or your winter too cold, think spring and fall plantings. Imagine standing at the grocery store, looking at all the expensive produce, wondering what you’ll cook for dinner and then remembering. “I’ve got Kale.”

I can tell you what I do with kale in my kitchen and I’m sure kale recipes abound on the world- wide- web, but now that you have finally come to visit my blog, I don’t want to link you right out of here. I don’t always write about kale,other veggies, or even bread, for “man does not live by bread alone.” I hope you’ll visit and read some of my other posts; enjoy the photos and stay for a sunset on the Pacific Ocean. Anyway, I chop up kale leaves and put it in my soups. I also like to sauté it with red onions. You can steam it and serve it solo with butter or salad dressing. You can juice it with other veggies such as carrots and drink it. Cooked is better than raw for folks who worry about low thryoid, though. You can chop it up in your salad, or you can add it to an omelet. If you need to hide vegetable matter from people you cook for, put it in the chili pot, or add it to the pasta sauce, they won't even know it is in there.

You’ll often see kale leaves used as décor in various restaurant presentations. I remember some standard D I N E R type of dinner out one night where I suddenly realized that the kale leaf was possibly the most nutritious item on the entire plate. Not knowing if that little green frond packed with vital stuff had been washed in the restaurant kitchen, I dunked it in the water glass I had already decided was not tasty enough to drink and ate the leaf. As my husband read somewhere, one of those great quotes attributed only to anon, "You’re only young once but you can be immature your whole life. " So I'll work on the table etiquette, but at least I (am trying to) eat my vegetables!

Victory Garden Newly Imprisoned Asparagus

The asparagus bed isn't all tidied up yet, the water system needs to get rerouted and the temporary sticks and basket protections will come out, but the rain has been unceasing ( This is a fact, not a complaint. We need all the rain.)and no garden work has been possible since Saturday when we built the removable chicken wire walls. The asparagus has survived several nights safely and is growing tall and fat. Maybe it was too rainy for the dinner parties or perhaps we really have succeeded in discouraging nocturnal feasting.

Greenhouse starts...bush beans and salad greens and basil.



Winters continuing KALE....Cavolo Lacinianto Nero di Toscana Precoce

This is a wonderful green leafy vegetable...in fact I think it deserves a whole post of its own...yes, I will aim to write later today "An Ode to Kale."

But in the meantime let me give a Kale Leaf Award to a woman named Alliee.

She writes a monthly newsletter, Twitters (or is that Twits?)and has valiantly maintained a little shop of used books in Aptos, California. (see companyofsaints.com where You can buy books from her online). She reads and reports on what she sells. Her newsletters are always sprinkled with salient quotes of authors we should not neglect or forget, such as T.S. Eliot who asked,
"Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?"
~

She sometimes will refer to what she writes as rants...perhaps that is why she often makes so much sense. I am trusting she won't mind being quoted here by me. Here's an excerpt:

"...I discovered that the Greek root of the word, Economy, is oikos--which means household. Usually when someone references The Economy, they are not talking about a household. Instead they are referring to a monolithic numbers game that exists somewhere out beyond cyberspace; a gargantuan, convoluted leviathan totally out of the control of any particular person or family. While this monster obviously effects our households, there is little or no indication of how we might influence it. Instead, the evil empire whips through the air, causing rack and ruin through-out the galaxy; a modern day tale wagging the dog.
Why is it that The American People are held up as our most important resource when all that we've been asked to do is stay in school and wait for the government to fix things? What happened to victory gardens, volunteer services and hiring a college student who needs to make ends meet? Where is it written that cars have to be bought on credit and business can't function without bank loans? Why has integrity leaked out of essential operations? What are WE doing? How can you and I and the guy down the street impact the economy of our communities?..."
Oikos: Word Shop Newsletter February 2009


Happy Tuesday March 3rd, 2009 to you.
I am off to the many many things I can and should lay my hands to around here.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~