For the Good Times

Can a blog get cobwebs?   Or flat line?  If so, this poor web needs airing out and dusting: tear off the calendar pages, put away the jeans and put on the flip flops.  Its summer, which is not , apologies to Forrest Gump, like a box of chocolates, but could be likened to an Ted Drewes concrete or Dairy Queen Blizzard.......chilling but smooth, mostly refreshing, but not without tough and chewy intervals that can break your teeth.


We are gnawing our way through one of these episodes now:  the corn is pollinating exactly when the daytime temperatures hover just below 100 and the nights hold the day's heat like a goose down quilt.  The soybeans are a crazy quilt of heights and a potpourri of weeds.  We are drenching the fall flower pots with the weapons against various rots at our disposal.  Can't change the fact that the black weed barrier could reasonably be compared to the daytime temperature on the sunny side of the moon...or perhaps the artificial turf during a July businessman's special at Busch Stadium II.


Speaking of baseball, the Cardinals need some relief pitchers  too.

At mid-week, I was prepared to take a sabbatical from NOAA, Fox News, and my yard. But after looking through the snapshots from this toasty June, I have since revised my resignation and resolved to use tunnel vision, blinkers, or at the very least, a duck billed hat, to make the best of what this summer throws at us after the All Star break.  Enjoy this sampling, break out the fireworks, fire up the grill....and run those sprinklers!

Three Rings and a Robe

'Tis the season.  The season for receptions and speeches, advice and tears, dreams and reminiscing. For well wishing, cakes, and platitudes.  For travels to distant cities, for ceremony, for tradition, for costumes strange and medieval, for pageantry.  For giant leaps, bows, and tossing apparel in the air.

For graduations?


For a circus!


Actually, I find it quite delicious that the Kid's Korner graduation here in Tarkio incorporates a circus into its graduation festivities.  Anyone who knows and loves a preschooler already knows how life with a 3,4, rising 5 year old cannot possibly be confined to three rings.  Each and every child there has, in turn, been a tiger, a clown, a magician, a stunt man, and a trick rider.  

In the audience sit moms and dads, a raucous assortment of little brothers and sisters, grandmas, grandpas, aunties, uncles, babysitters, and even, for the fortunate, a notable number of great grandmas and -pas.  This assembly is what sets our little town apart from the majority of preschool programs taking place this merry May: whether or not we know the names of the little ones dressed up on the stage, we know who they are. ( Those eyes; they are just like her momma's....I remember when she graduated from grade school. )  How many towns in our country 
gather four generations for a preschool program?   Not many, anymore.  What sets this place apart is how many names in our cemetery still exist in our schools; how many families have remained faithful to town, school, church and even political party lo these many years.  Its a blessing; its a curse, but its a characteristic, and a notable one, of our little town. Goodness knows, I am filled with regret each time a denizen of one of the grand old families passes on.  It is also cause for celebration when there are four year olds on the stage in their jaunty black "mortar boards" whose mommies and daddies have settled in the same little towns where their grandparents are buried  and the same old schools where their photos in the graduating classes of  whatever gradually fade to black and white.

We don't all come home again.  Far, far away on the tradition laden lawn of a historic campus, we will celebrate another graduation.  Despite the University of Virginia's school colors of orange and navy, the graduates of the School of Law will be wearing sober black when they receive their rolled diplomas.  There will be hoods and mortar boards, brunches and receptions, and general lauds for the class of 2012.  We dither about the correct interpretation of 'summer cocktail wear' for an afternoon reception in the Law School's courtyard garden and comfortably air conditioned halls.  There are gents in bow ties and boating shoes, ladies in broad brimmed beribboned hats.  I am gratified and justified when I spy seersucker even if it is not the rule, but the exception. Fruity frosty desserts await in cunning little square glass serving ware; we slip a couple into Ann's bag for Lizzie's preferred souvenir ('something breakable, Mommy, but not TOO breakable'). Perched on the granite wall, we enjoy the people watching; we even meet a professor or two before heading off to supper.  It seems only fitting that we warm up with tiny tidbits before the main event of ribs and fries at the Barbeque Exchange in Gordonsville.  Our version of summer cocktail wear looks more than a little too upscale for the clientele banging in and out the screen door and squinting in the westering May sunshine.

Little do we know that graduation at UVA is a circus unto itself.  We queue up for a city block for a bus ride to the hallowed and historic Rotunda.  Despite the august surroundings, a party atmosphere overrides the solemnity of the black gowns.  Thomas Jefferson appears to be floating on a sea of mylar balloons with shapes and characters of special significance to each graduate...or perhaps just easily recognized by loved ones in the mob lining the sidewalks.  Are we sending the next generation off into the real world, or are we watching a Chinese New Year's celebration or Thanksgiving day parade?  I expect to see Underdog float over the Rotunda.  

Our party of ten echoes the congregation at the Kid's Korner circus;  grandparents, wife, sisters, mom and dad, aunt and uncle arriving in three different flights and a Honda CRV.  When Ben's name is called, we raise enough clamor that the lady from North Carolina next to us asks us to cheer for her son when he walks across.  We double our efforts.

Circus to commencement; stunt man to J.D.  We are family; we will celebrate.

Over the Hump Day

Here we are again, on the cusp of another Mother's Day.  In the lexicon of those in the flower business, Mother's Day is a combination of both Christmas and New Year's Eve: Christmas in that one can either receive all one has wished for, or not, and New Year's Eve, because all must be accounted for, the good, the bad, the surprising, the disastrous, the serendipitous and the disappointing.  There is no silver bullet, no Fairy Godmother, and no miraculous recovery after Mother's Day.  Sports analogy time:  the bullpen may earn the save, but there is no chance you'll come back from a 12-zip deficit.  Its the home stretch; finishing is the goal.  You cannot start the game over.  There's no reset.

But there is another goal if you are part of a family business like we are.  On Mother's Day eve, we have been successful if we don't look at the clock Saturday afternoon, leap into our cars, and peel out of the driveway, down the gravel road leaving a cloud of dust and a sigh of relief behind us.  We are family, as the song goes, and we've lived in our work for months, leaving the scene in body, but carrying the anxiety home to bed, sharing our dreams with our aches and pains. During harvest, we work on a single task but dispersed over multiple vehicles and many square miles of field and highway.  In the greenhouse we are compressed into 2.5 acres of plastic, one dining room table and a single grimy office with three computers.  Beginning in March, we spend our hours, seven days a week, pushing from one task to another, all time sensitive, biological deadlines looming, with the added uncertainty of the weather outdoors influencing the environment indoors. Every miscue, whether sins of omission or commission, can have lasting effect on the final bottom line....after Mother's Day.


So...it is to return to a sense of proper proportion to wait on our customers Mother's day week.  Here is the couple gently lifting their frail mother onto one of our wheeled hand carts so she can ride through the colorful aisles she has been patronizing for nigh unto twenty years.  This lovely woman used to bring her less sturdy friends out to the greenhouse, several trips during the spring, choosing a couple of pots or so each visit.  Her daughter still plants a sampling of the same flowers her mother always chose; I see these flowers daily all summer long.

Here is another husband and wife, spending a good solid forty five minutes hunting down two geraniums of the perfect shade for the older woman in the car.  'When you are ninety three,' he tells me, ' you don't change your mind.'  Perhaps not, but the mother in the car tells me, 'I've planted red for years and years! I want pink ones for a change!!'  She is wearing a pink sweater shell with just a hint of a sparkle.  I have no problem detecting the spark that keeps her going. Little daughters and sons accompany moms, pushing the hand carts and offering opinions. Often mommy or daddy allows them to choose their own flowers and they handle the pots with all the concentration accorded great grandma's heirloom teapot.   Around 4 or so, the men arrive.  Typically, men purchase tomatoes and peppers, or cucumbers or squash.  But a lost male on Mother's Day eve wants a BIG plant, basket or tub.  They may not get past the first greenhouse they enter if some BIG plant is within reach.  Sorry, guys; I am not making this up.


The gang at Hurst Greenery disperses to their own homes, yards, gardens.  We go 'shopping', examining the flowers on the benches with a gardener's eye, not professional interest.  We still have sales to make; will this flat be a leftover?  Or will some paying customer ask for it the day after it is watered into my yard?  This is an easier decision if the flower in question is slightly flawed, or in an odd sized container.  Carrying coals to Newcastle, the pickups and golf carts groan with their colorful cargo. The moms of the family cherish other garden related goodies, gleaned from deliveries of the week: ceramic pots of exotic hue, quaint metal garden ornaments, pot stickers, trellises, solar lamps....

How can I express the gratitude I feel for these loved ones I see day after day.  For their tolerance, their support, their exertions, their good nature, their sheer persistence and sense of humor whatever the situation.  There is always pain, always disappointment.  Less certain is success or triumph.  We make do with the beauty of our produce, the occasional compliment, and the satisfaction of our team work.



Happy Mother's Day to all my lovely family........rest up!

Raindrops on Roses

I'm no Julie Andrews, so this post concerning my favorite things won't include bright copper kettles, or whiskers on kittens, and certainly not snowflakes on my nose and eyelashes, though I could be tempted by crisp apple strudel.

It's a reprise of many spring evenings past.  An afternoon departure in a chilly wind under a cloudy sky.  Arrival at the destination around cocktail hour....or beer thirty in the parlance of the guys helping us unload the flowers.  Fill the truck with diesel, use the restroom, change drivers.  I pull out of the quick stop, merge onto the highway and point the truck north.  Blake unfolds the magazine he's had stuck in the back pocket of his overalls.  We tune in Bret Baier and Special Report. This is what passes for down time.  The remainder of the drive is our own.

This is one of my favorite things. Chilled and dirty, our dining options are curtailed even in St. Joe.  But the lot behind Panda Express is plenty spacious for a big black pickup and long green trailer; its a quick hike across to the Target after a salty steaming bowl of beef and fried rice.  The Panda may lack ambiance, but speaks the truth about speed.

While I pick up essentials for crunch time at Target, Blake is rousted by North Pointe security..really.  No, we aren't squatters; we are card carrying consumers, but we must look suspicious.  I bring back bags of trail mix, granola, Oreo snack packs, antacids and a cube of diet Dew.  On the run.  A grande and a tall Starbucks for the rest of the trip home. Team trucking.

Time for the ball game.  We tune in first on the station formerly known as KKJO even though we know it won't come in much north of the Nodaway river bottom.  Tonight the clouds have gathered and there is lightning to the north.  The static is thick so we hear about half of the play by play.  No mind; this is part of the ritual. We stick with the broadcast until any vestige of a human voice is obliterated by Mother Nature.  Tonight the Cards are pounding on the Brewers; good news for us, we can catch the last couple of innings when we get home.

The two of us listening to the game on the radio makes the drive less a matter of work and more like being in our living room.  The rain comes down, enough to run the wipers and clean off the accumulated insect matter but not so much to affect visibility.  Tractor lights in the field and the incense of moist earth wafting through the cab are bellwethers for the season.  This is respite; forward movement without haste.

Time enough for tomorrow's itinerary.  Too late to change today. Just rain, baseball, and Blake turning the pages of a yellowed paperback in the passenger seat.


I could almost break into song.

...'Raindrops on roses and...'

Double Nickels

I have already turned 55.  Might as well own up to it.  If I don't tell you, then Blake certainly will.  It is one of the perennial jokes of our marriage that I am a good half year older than he is.  Haha.


But for the next six months, we will share that age.  From here on out, both of us will get the senior citizen discount at Pamida (perhaps Shopko will be less generous and we will regain our youth for a few more years?).  
We will march together farther along the path between getting carded for our youth and getting carded for our....well, not for our youth.


Because my husband is the love of my life and his happiness and well being is my utmost concern, I want to reassure him that its NOT TOO LATE...that double nickels is not a speed limit (except for those few miles around the Cameron McDonald's...but I digress), nor a speed bump.  There is still plenty of time for all those dreams and goals to reach fruition as he reaches his maturity.



For instance......there is still time to grow his hair like Elvis.....or a beard like Jason Motte.


There will be plenty of hours to read Shelby Foote, John Dos Passos, and those monster biographies by Ron Chernow.  


You can still learn to upload and download pictures.....and maybe construct a powerpoint.  I wouldn't make it a real high priority though.


I certainly hope you will write your very own book.  I can't wait to fix a few apostrophes.  

Finally,  there is still a chance we'll get better at golf.  I know its a slim one, but, in the immortal words of Lyle Lovett: 

 Look

 I understand too little, too late.

I realize there are things you say and do

You can never take back.

But what would you be

if you didn't even try?

And in that spirit of experimentation, of Churchillian never give upmanship, of hope over experience, I promise to join you on the golf course when you try out your brand new Cobra Amp Offset Senior Driver.

Happy Birthday, dear!!

Fried

We work hard during the busy months of March, April and May: old fashioned physical grunt labor for at least ten hours a day.  Not only do we pick up and set down, push, pull, lift, reach up, and kneel down, but we burn calories.  Lots of 'em.  And drop pounds.  


But I don't know how many hanging baskets I'd have to haul to compensate for the noon meal we ate this Sunday.  It was throwback day on the dinner table. We could have been a part of the congregation in Lyle Lovett's Church: 

To the Lord let praises be, its time for dinner, 

Now let's go eat.

We've got some beans and some good cornbread.

Yup, we've got some beans:  Ann has brought green bean casserole, you betcha, with cream of mushroom soup and lotsa those French's crispy crunchy fried onions on top.  Baked in the oven, too, so the earthenware pot sports a halo of that ineradicable brown rime that over time melds to the crockery. It will require a scrubby made of sterner stuff....like Kevlar...to clean that pot.

Lee is already up to her elbows in dish soap when I come in.  Another sign of a serious meal:  the type that fills more than one sink with prep dishes and skillets.  A throw away aluminum pan holds remnants of flour and seasonings; the air is redolent of fried food.  A platter is heaped high with crusty hunks of chicken fried round steak.  'Mom, I'm not happy with my gravy', she says over her shoulder,' I think its too thin.'  This comment makes me smile.  I've probably made gravy from scratch less than a dozen times in my whole life, so I'm hardly the final authority of gravy consistency.  Like the guy who stayed in the Holiday Inn last night, I have, however, listened to a real maestro complain about her lumpy gravy for nigh on thirty years though.  Millie's gravy may not win appearance awards, but I can attest to its flavor and the fact it will improve any roast, turkey, potato, or dressing it covers.  So I did what I always do to any white sauce: I turned up the heat and whisked the daylights out of it.  It was lovely and creamy by serving time, but this time I left the indelible ring of baked on flour around the top of the Calphalon.


'Stay back and watch out for Josh,' and the steam pours out of the oven door as the hissing baked potatoes are piled in a bowl.  The food pyramid is complete; starchy potatoes, saucy beans, and chicken fried beef.  Old fashioned farm food, created with the ingredients at hand, seasoned with simple salt and pepper, not artful, but satisfying.  Throwback food for folks with wet feet, bee stings, and cuts in all stages of healing on their hands.


We can't eat like that all the time.  But the kitchen today smelled like my Granny's kitchen on our weekend visits.  I don't remember much about the meat we ate at my grandparent's, other than a particularly memorable meal of rabbit, or maybe squirrel, when we bit down carefully and spit the buckshot into our palms as we chewed.  But I have a recipe card for Granny's Fried Chicken in my box, with the notation, 'Written by your Grandpa July 1977' from my wedding shower, along with her advice for a happy marriage...'Keep your sense of humor'.  There are worse tools to take into a new marriage than your granny's fried chicken and an ability to laugh when it isn't edible the first time you try it!!

What accounts for the nostalgia associated with these old fashioned recipes?  They certainly don't conform to the current popularity of raw, fresh, or green.  They make a tremendous mess; (Lee says pounding the round steak left raw meat morsels on her teapot, her back splash, you name it.), in both prep and cooking.  They are cheap; flour, oil, seasoning, and an inexpensive cut of meat; potatoes and cans of veggies that can be purchased every other week or so at loss leader pricing.  And they are made to feed the proverbial five thousand, easily expanding to satisfy more appetites than there are chairs.  


Wait!  Perhaps that's the appeal.  After all, gourmet menus with expensive ingredients are purchased for a romantic table for two, not a kitchen full of hungry men, distracted women, and children in varying states of near starvation.  An old fashioned casserole feeds at least a baker's dozen and who cares if we bake the whole bag of potatoes and there's one or two left over?  Its entertaining to see if Lucy can catch a cold potato on the fly!  Maybe we love big messy meals because we love eating with our big messy family.  Many days, we eat out of coolers; we grab slabs of grease at Casey's or fried fish at Torrey Pines; we subsist on bologna, peanut butter, and diet Dew.  Many meals we don't even remember what we ate.  But we celebrate our country roots when we cook in a haze of steam and grease; we pay homage to our forebears in spirit and truth when we fry.