Potatoes

I love to dig potatoes in the fall, turning over the soil on a sunny day, gleaning from the rich darkness the white or red jewels. Oh, so poetic. But it is like finding treasure, those yellow fin and reds and you know of course how to find the new potatoes to cook with your peas in the spring? You find the flowering plants and reach carefully beneath, sort of like reaching beneath a hen for a newly laid egg. I've done that, the egg is warm, the hen cackles a bit--and the potato plant has all these tiny potatoes growing along the roots, they can be snapped off and the plant will continue to grow. New potatoes are the size of a plum and when cooked with new peas, ah, what a treat. I used to make a sauce of cornstarch and water and salt and blend it in with the cooking water--always I use a minimal amount as to not waste vitamins--and when creamy, salt and pepper to taste. I could eat that now, new potatoes and peas for breakfast, add an egg, viola, I'm in Heaven.

Soon,

Flower

Fall Cleaning

It is raining. It rained all night. There is something very pleasant about the sound of rain. It's sooths me in some ways, in other ways, when the fall rains start in the PNW, it usually means the end of summer. Yesterday at the farmer's market, there was an abundance of great tomatoes, many varieties. A delicious fresh smell in the air—tomatoes, berries, flowers. As I perused the tables of zucchini and greens and peppers, the sky grew very dark a nervous flickered through the venders. Finally rain broke loose and everyone scrambled. It was fun and wet. I had an umbrella with me, as I could see the handwriting...

This is a time of abundance, and at the same time, it is a time of returning to nothingness. I'm trying meditation with a mindfulness group—my intro being last night. I think it might help me get through the end piece of this divorce. My friend was asking me what the etymology of divorce is. This is what I found on Online Etymology Dictionary : 1377, from O.Fr. divorce, from L. divortium "separation, dissolution of marriage," from divertere "to separate, leave one's husband, turn aside" (see divert).

Turn aside, to divert. I think I was writing in my journal about water being blocked from a neighbor's property—it was in a movie. He was being forced off his land. That's the feeling I've been left with, although I think I'd say the love has been diverted—surely there will be another recipient for his love and my house, which I'll finish cleaning out next week. All is well that ends well, the saying goes. I'm trying to have resolution here, but he thinks I'm trying to keep him from being happy. That's interesting, because I think resolution will make us far happier in the long run.

What to do with the garden tools. I could bring them to the shed at the community garden. Mark them, so later I'll have them if I move into a little house. Or I could just buy new ones. There is nothing like a fresh rake.
Cheers,
Flower

Endings

And just like that I thought it was fall and I turned nostalgic, thinking of warm clothing (C. has on his navy-blue sweatshirt) and down comforters and hours and hours of darkness and good books and tea--and no mate. Not that I have to have a mate, I mean there are plenty of folks who seem perfectly happy living alone. I, on the the other hand, have been married most of my adult life. I believe in marriage, of cooking together, sleeping together, crying together, figuring out the tough things to get through, going through the births and deaths together. Now I must go it alone. Woman pioneer. And even though I have friends, the married friends infrequently invite the singles to the table. Why? is my question. Is the ending so obvious and painful in a single person that it's not a feeling to introduce it to the couple? Or is it some old policy, the matron, the old-maid, the...

But it isn't fall. The temps are supposed to surge into the 80s. More high pressure and I will take a trip to eastern Washington and get cooked to the bones. Hot! Dry! Spicy smell of pine pitch. And the garden--arugh! The beans are yellow, the spinach and chard munched off and two of the tomatoes--the other beans never sprouted. Arugh! And again the bright side--the spinach was fabulously delicious, as was the broccoli raab.

So a plan for the fall--when it eventually arrives, tons of manure. Now to figure out where to get it. I know I can't do the wheelbarrow work myself. I'll have to have it delivered. Or buy bags. Lots of bags of chicken manure. Once I used pigeon manure--oh it really stunk--but it really worked. I have a neighbor with chickens, perhaps I'll go knock on her door. Get busy amending in the areas that are lying fallow.

Okay then, do things end or just compost and make things richer. I'm voting for the second one. Things don't actually end, just change form.

Ciao!