beans

I've learned quite a lot about beans since we've lived here at the greenwood. I started with Thomas Jefferson's hyacinth bean, which turned out to be beautiful, but potentially poisonous. The king objected to its wayward ways, obliterating the front walls with its foliage. He is not moved by blossoms.

I moved on to the more conventional bush bean which, although more restrained in its growth habit, requires prolonged stooping to search out and harvest the beans. Plus, the deer find the bush form much easier to graze the leaves off of. . . . Back to the drawing board.

From Baker Seeds, I ordered Scarlet Runner beans and the Purple Podded Pole bean. The Scarlet Runner bean flowers early and starts producing beans reliably all summer - but I was not a fan of the slightly fuzzy skin. It's not bad, but the purple podded pole beans were beautifully smooth and the purple pods much easier to spot and harvest. Their drawback? They start producing later in the season, but when they start - do they ever start! They produce well into the fall, if you keep harvesting the beans.

Then last year, my globe-trotting parents brought home several packets of beans from various ports they'd called into. I planted several of what I felt certain were bush beans - just to humor them - only to discover that the beans were rampant runners. I erected towers under them and let them climb among the tomatoes. The beans were slow to start, but delicious. They have smooth skin and stay tender well past what I had learned to expect of bean sizes. These were called "Perfect" Judios. Judios apparently means beans! Looking it up now, however, it also apparently means Jews. . . .

I agreed. These were just about perfect beans. Eating-wise, anyway. For this year, I planned to stay with the Perfects and the purple podded pole beans. No Scarlet Runners. Sorry! But then my parents came back with more packets from foreign ports. Oh dear. Here's a close up.

Look at those colours! (I have since decided that perhaps the fungicide they put on packeted beans is coloured. . . . surely the lima beans are not fuchsia? We'll see.)

Which brings me to where to put them. . . .

You know those ugly pvc pipe caps builders insist upon putting right next to your house? (and does anyone know what they're good for?!) We did this:

It does get sun part of the day - just not first thing in the morning, the time of this shot. Meanwhile - I've put in some of each type of bean at each trellis.

Should be fun!

on the beach

The pictures by Michael Shakespeare Gregg of the child dedication/baptism last weekend are so splendid, I didn't want to bury them in an otherwise rather drab post about liturgies!

Here is the family in question: Here, the 'officiants'. Aunt Dawn with Joshua, the elder. He did well! And now it's Joey's turn. He looks a bit ill at ease; perhaps we'll hold Uncle Jeff's hand. . . . . . . and he did well, too. It was quite a day. . . .

________________________
Here's the liturgy again, for those who wanted it.

All photos in this post (c) 2010 Michael Shakespeare Gregg

in memoriam. . . .

. . . a picture of the daffodils that gave their 'full measure' to the clutches of wee toddlers.

You can surely see the one that caught my eye also last year - here's the picture from last year to compare. Of course they would decapitate my favorite flower. . . . Perhaps this will spur the bulb on to greater efforts next year, however, and we'll see two [dare I hope for three?] of these beauties!

buried treasure

It doesn't look like much now, but we planted hundreds of tulips in this little bed. So far, they have escaped detection by the squirrels, who are overwhelmed with a bumper beechnut crop. Hopefully, the first they know of the tulips will be when they bloom next spring! Then, I'll dig them out, and store the bulbs till fall again, by which time the veggie garden can be cleared away, the squirrels will have forgotten all about tasty tulip bulbs, and I'll bury the treasure for another overwinter and spring surprise.

That's the plan, anyway. I'll let you know how it goes.

Elsewhere, we buried daffodils like bodies in the woods. . . .

and B'u covered them over and raked away all trace. The surreptitious nature of our enterprise was belied by the sheer number of people who turned out for the event! And yes, they all helped too, although Luther worked more in the unburying and leaf distribution mode.

Happy Birthday, David. I'm thinking that's the first birthday/bulb-planting party you've ever been to!

garden recap

To summarize, there's the failed garden, the tomato garden and the water garden. [ a tale of three gardens]

The failed garden produced a lot of weeds, prolific carrot, beet and radish tops, a goodly amount of smallish tomatoes with no taste, and some pretty - but stunted - red chard.

Steve came over the other day to help me shut it down. Here, by the way, is a visual depiction of why the garden failed. Yes, the failed garden is in the dark place - who knew the sun would be just to the right of where we put the garden?!

But before we shut it down completely, we dug out the languishing gladioli and peony and tried to remember where we'd put the potatoes.

"Do you think there will actually BE any potatoes?" I asked, "The greens died back quite a while ago. . . ."

"Sure!" Steve replied, ever confident. "We just have to find them." Much digging ensued. Yes, Luther liked that part, and entered into the game with vim and much vigor. Ha! Lookee here!! A potato. Whaddya know?! All right, so there weren't that many of them, but what fun to find them! Here's the full haul. Really, you could stop laughing now. . . .

In other garden news, the tomato garden is now rather spindly, yellowing and browning, but there are still several Long Tom tomatoes on the vine, so I'll leave it standing until those ripen. Those were the favorite this year, by the way. Bright red all the way through, almost solid flesh, very few seeds and, according to the king, delicious.

The water garden has had its ups and downs - growth and water level-wise. We've had a LOT of rain! The Fairy Tale aubergine did not do well there - and I finally transplanted them into a container in the courtyard where I hope I can control the water and the bugs that reduce its leaves to a tracery. I secured some seeds from the few which did grow, and which I will plant early [in containers!] next year. We may get some more aubergines this year, however, if the new flowers on the recovering plants are any indication.

After a full growing season, I now count myself well able to distinguish between a newly germinated bean vine and the weed version that looks almost identical, but grows twice as fast, strangling everything in sight, before putting out little white flowers and no beans. I don't think I can describe the difference to you, it's really more a general feeling I now get of malevolence from the weed versions. Of course, over a day or two you can see the growth spurt, which is also a dead giveaway.

Speaking of growth spurts, note to self: One Thomas Jefferson vine (the so-called Hyacinth Bean, now rumored to be toxic?!) is MORE than enough to adorn just about any trellis, wall or other structure. Ten was overkill. . . . It lures you into complacency, however, by a very slow start. It germinates only once the soil is good and warm, and then puts out the initial leaves and then. . . . just sits there. For weeks - nothing. You plant more. By now, of course, the sun has warmed the soil and they germinate a bit more rapidly, put out the initial leaves, and. . . . sit.

OK, maybe one or two more. . . .

Same story.

Suddenly, they all erupt. They're pretty things - look at these flowers! The bean pods are just forming, and not quite visible. I have to resolve whether or not they're edible. I'm hearing conflicting reports. Typical, the one thing I should have PLENTY OF might be toxic. Figures.

Anyway, here, you can't see the wall they've engulfed. I'm also a little worried about the 'Hummingbird Vine' I planted along with them. That's the feathery fern-type foliage you can see in the foreground. And that's just from one seed. One teeney, tiny seed. Oh how I hope they don't produce more seeds. . . . But back to the water garden: the beans are finally doing well, now in the cooler weather. Further note to self: green beans are hard to spot next to green leaves and vines. (keep looking at the picture and see how many you can find! There's more than you think) Unfortunately, I planted only the Scarlet Runner beans in the water garden - next year, I'm sticking with the Purple Podded Pole bean. . . . They're beautiful, and a whole lot easier to see! Oh, and they turn green when you cook 'em, so not to worry that eating purple beans might put you off. . . . [I think I'd like them purple, but, like I said, they turn green when cooked. Sorry!]

I gave up on the failed garden tomatoes I'd planted from seed (Cour di Bue Italian heirlooms) and threw some seeds in the water garden. The first tomato is finally almost ripe! One good thing about lots of water is that you don't see skin splits on the fruit. Apparently that's a result of "uneven" watering. . . . The tomato garden suffered from "uneven watering" - as split skins testified!

Here, you see that the arugula is also flourishing in the cooler weather. We may actually get a salad out of that! The red chard looks ok. . . . not exactly like what you see in the grocery store. Ah - but here - basil! Oh, my, basil. . . . It's almost 4 feet tall and very, very healthy! Yep. Planted from seed. A 'Genovese' strain. Very flavorful! I'll collect seeds from that.

Next on the agenda, replacing the crap-for-soil Tom builder used instead of real dirt in the area I told him [over and over and over again] would be the garden. There's just no getting around it. Nothing will grow there otherwise! And there's not a whole lot of sun in the areas that still have pristine soil.

Ah well. I've got all fall and winter to work at it. Who needs a gym membership when you have a shovel, pickaxe, wheelbarrow and rock and hardened clay slime to excavate and haul away?! The worst part is that the soil here was just perfect. Rich and not a rock to be found. Certainly no clay. Lot of roots, though! It is a forest. . . .

a quiet sit down. . . .

The bench outside - the one I look at every morning and evening and sit on much less frequently (unfortunately) - has made a U.K. appearance.

Writer Sarah Salway's delightful little bench of a site, A Quiet Sit Down features benches from all over. Quirky benches, gorgeous benches, startling benches, intriguing benches. . . .

And now the greenwood bench, from my favorite place in the whole world.

I'll be back in a minute.*

_______________________
*"It only takes a minute to spend a couple of hours."
(from Captain Jim in Lucy Maude Montgomery's Anne's House of Dreams)

vultures a go-go

Remember the black vultures spotted congregating in the gallow's oak?

Well, they'll have to find another tree. That one is coming down. It's dead, and the local authorities have determined that it endangers life, limb, property, and powerlines.

Fifteen men; six trucks; several chippers; one crane with cherry-picker attachment and assorted ropes, chains, chain-saws and other cutting implements and the vulture tree can be expected to capitulate by the end of the day.

Meanwhile, the road is closed. And the dog sleeps on.

On another note, despair not, as there are still black corvids a-plenty!
They show up in gangs of tens of thousands and turn the leaf mulch. Obliging of them, wouldn't you say? Here, look at a close-up. These guys really work wingtip to wingtip!

categorical lessons

I admire writers who seemingly effortlessly organize their work into a manageable number of neat categories. My friend Cheryl, for example, over at A Simple Yarn has taken days of the week, and has "Everything in its Place": knit on Monday, garden on Tuesday, weave on Wednesday, simplify on Thursday, photograph on Friday, eat on Saturday, reflect on Sunday, and one catch-all: "the kitchen sink". Her archives are called "On the Shelf".

How clever! How cool! How totally unlike my mish-mash! sigh. . . .

You will note that I have no visible categories listed. That's because they're all over the place. I thought a system of categories would develop as I wrote. I was wrong. Instead, here are the categories that formed [alphabetically]:

bureaucratisms * critters * details details * foundation * front left corner * gardenings * glitch * greenwood chronicles * in the woods * kitchen * landmarks * Luther * now what? * people * ponderings * quotings * rant * roof * soundtrack * stone and brick * tower * walls * weather

Granted, this site did start out to chronicle construction, and that would explain some of the wierder categories like "roof" and "walls". Still, I defy you to find some sort of order in the whole thing! But yet order - or pattern - seems to be where we can begin to appreciate beauty; learn; find meaning. I'm still waaaay too random here. . . .

But maybe there's something else going on.

I present my last knitting project.

Surprisingly, this was one of the hardest patterns I've ever worked on. Normally I'm able to memorize a pattern pretty quickly, and don't have to continually consult the written pattern. Not so, this one.

No - it's not really all that complex, it's just that there's no immediately recognizable arrangement of the admittedly recognizable repeated elements. The bobbles (those knobby, bobbly bits sticking up) don't fall at the same place each time in relation to the cable stitch crossings in the middle for example, and the yarn-over lacey bits on the sides are festooned with apparently random extra yarn-overs every so often.

The free pattern is here, if you'd like to look at a much better picture of the finished project. It's a very cool shawl that can be worn as a cardigan, hood, sleeves, and who-knows-what-else!

I almost gave up on it, though, because it required me to be bound to the written pattern and to continually count, pay attention to where I was, and rip out the bits where I'd lost track and gone astray. The pattern does not emerge until first after the 16 row pattern 'set up', and then the pattern itself is a 24-row repeat! [Meaning: it takes 24 rows to knit one complete pattern bit. That's a lot to go through before you get to repeat a recognizable pattern! Imagine, for example, a song that has 24 lines of melody before it repeats, and you'll see what I mean.]

Worse, it has bobbles.

I've always hated bobbles. They're like a one stitch detour - round and around - that leaves you with a stop-and-go tangle of yarn and needles. It requires you to go forward [turn], backward [turn], forward [turn], backward [turn], and then forward again - increasing and then decreasing as you go. I don't mind the increase/decrease bits so much, but I don't like the continual turning of my work. Clearly, something was going to have to give if I was going to knit something that had so many bobbles in it, and it did.

I learned to knit backwards.

Hah!

Bobbles are now a breeze, just a slight delay, while a bit of texture is worked in. I begin to see a correlation in this versatile shawl with the lengthy pattern and regular detours, and my lack of categories with an easily discernible organization. OK, maybe at this point "organization" is still too organized a word to apply to my non-categories, but I'm working on it, and I'm hoping that after a few more rounds, a pattern repeat might be seen to have come into being. Not continually turning around helps! The end result might not be a mess, after all, but something very unique and versatile if I just stick with it long enough.

Then again, maybe not. sigh. Here's hoping for the best, though!

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Help me out here - where would you position this post, for example, in the above categories?! Or should I scrap the categories altogether? Come up with different ones? For now, I'm going to label this one 'landmarks' . . . . [as in: 'looking for']

flora, revisited

You remember lone laurel.Well, maybe you don't. I think I only thought I had mentioned it a lot. It's a single laurel in small tree form, that grows in the woods behind our house. We stumbled upon it in one of the first walks through the property, long before we had any idea even where the house would go, let alone what it would look like.

I had no idea what this thing would look like in bloom. Truth told: I thought it would be a little scrawny. It's a native woodland shrub, how spectacular could it be?

Pretty spectacular.
Just look at those blossoms. Amazing.
Look closer. Each flower has little parasol-like ribs! I think it's incredible. Who could come up with this stuff?!Elsewhere, the flowers on the raspberry vines hint that it will be a very good year for raspberries. I gathered a pint in minutes last year. They are delicious.
And again, I am overcome with amazement and gratitude. The greenwood just "came like that" - with amazing flowering shrubs, flowers, and berries. They grow wild.

Our job? Not to mess it up.

this and that

The cupola survived the next cut. Here it is. Ready to go.Almost ready to go. . . . First, the weathervane has to go up. I had a picture of Tom-builder putting it together, but it's a terrible picture of Tom-builder. I can't do that to him. Anyway, here's a picture of Randy - looking on in approval - after Tom-builder assembled the weathervane and put on top.Much discussion ensued as to how to determine true North.

Here's Tom-builder and supervisor-Al discussing it.And here, the tower. Resplendent in the roofing shingles, just like Jack-dog promised.
Tomorrow?

Meeting onsite with stucco-man and Scott-kitchenguy.

Oh - and I get to see the concrete [finally!] poured in Houndstooth studio! Yay!!!

the hand. . . .

the dingle

I love this new word!

dingle (DING-guhl) noun: A deep narrow wooded valley; dell. [Of uncertain origin.]*

"But the dingle guards the downpours and holds them fast in its deep mud and root-webs."
Paul Evans; Country Diary: Into the Wild Woods Wenlock Edge; The Guardian (London, UK); Jul 7, 1999.

We have a dingle. It's off Penny Lane. You'll have to come see.



*Word-a-day from Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

the king tree

Some of you may have noticed an additional "contributor" listed - briefly - here at the greenwood.

The king, however, has declined to participate in my silliness. sigh. So - reluctantly - I will take him off the menu, so that the queen tree picture will be displayed again. I hope. . . .

The main reason I wanted to list him, you see, was because I wanted to put up a picture of the king tree! But then when I listed 2 contributors, it appears that the character pictures no longer appear for either of them. So I have been stymied all the way around. No additional contributor, and - now - no picture of either king or queen tree!







So you've seen the queen tree. Right?
[I mean "correct" - queentree pictured left and - smaller - above right. . . .]










Here's the king tree! [pictured right]














Below is the tree that got me to thinking about finding a king tree.
It's perfectly splendid, but it lives outside the greenwood! Can't have a king tree that doesn't live here. . . . So I've been keeping my eyes open on walkabout and the other day I spotted him. The king tree.

What do you think?

By the way, queentree took a hit during the last windstorm. She's a bit shorter now. She still has her arm bent, however, forefinger to cheek, pondering. . . .

I guess these things happen when you have a real live tree as an avatar.

curing concrete

Well, we're taking the weekend off. Concrete is curing. Here's the front left corner, all poured up, smoothed over, and a snazzy line drawn down the middle of it with a two by four. Reason? No clue.



Here's the studio - another recognizable shape.







I think it looks like a houndstooth check. What do you think?




The 5 foot trench? We think it may have been an "oops". I don't completely understand how this stuff works, but I think the studio is slab on grade, whereas the house is over a conditioned crawlspace. So the house had to be dug down some 4 feet, whereas the studio should only have had the footers dug. I think. . . . I really don't understand! But check out this picture below, where you can see where the 5 foot trench intersects the front left corner of the studio, and now there are footers on 2 levels instead of one.

I wonder how they tie this together, then? Just pour higher walls on that one side to get it all up to the same level? I don't know.

I guess we'll see. . . .

Meanwhile, here's a picture from down at the stream's S-curve - almost all the leaves are down.


And here is another view of Grand Avenue - looking down this time. The stream is all the way at the bottom - you can't really see it even with all the leaves down. Maybe especially with the leaves down! It carpets everything.