Flowers are "out"

Volunteer Park Conservatory

Well, not in this yard, but in botanical gardens the tide is changing. Water-guzzling, space-hogging flowers are not all that politically correct. If you click here, the link will take you to a NYT article about how public gardens are reinventing themselves with an emphasis on food festivals, art, cooking, health, interactive activities and sustainability. According to the article, there is "less interest in flower-gardening among younger, fickle, multi-tasking generations."

The Cleveland Botanical Gardens Flower Show was the largest in the country, and it was abandoned this year when the garden couldn't find sponsors. The flower show has been replaced by a food and garden festival, sponsored by a medical clinic and a local supermarket chain.

In Seattle, our lovely 100 year old Volunteer Park Conservatory may close due to city budget cuts. The Friends of the Conservatory are working to save the structure, and the rare plants inside. Hopefully it won't be turned into a vegetable hothouse. (I'd be happy to never hear the overused words local and sustainable again.)

As the NYT article says, our society has "a mania for interactive entertainment." Surely we can save a few quiet places for beautiful, useless flowers?

White-crowned sparrow

We always look forward to seeing white-crowned sparrows in the summer. This is one of the sweetest little birds, and you never see them gobbling sunflower seed at the feeder like the house sparrows and finches. I saw on the excellent Cornell Ornithology Lab website that the song of the white-crowned sparrow is the most studied of all bird sounds. It's interesting to ornithologists because the sub-species around the country sing different songs, but all with the same introduction: a sweet, whistling sound.

But they don't sound sweet when the alarm button gets pushed. The most frequently heard noise from white-crowned sparrows is a sharp, loud pink, made by males near the nest. I love all birds (except crows) but an hour of pinking is like Chinese water torture. I think they nest in the laurel hedge; every garden needs a messy corner for the birds. Our ex-cat Vino/Tabby/Tigger likes to laze around in the yard next door, so of course they see him, and set up the alarm.

There is special Providence in the fall of a sparrow.
Hamlet, Act 5 Scene 2

Bathing beauty

Putting on sunscreen before she goes swimming...

Bringing up baby

If you had an infant in the 1950's, baby care was about setting up a schedule of feeding, changing and putting down in the crib. I guess I was difficult and cried for months. At the hospital I slept when it was "time" to eat, and back at the nursery I woke up and cried for another 4 hours. Or maybe I had a tummy ache. I still have a card with Baby Suzanne's astonishing formula recipe: Karo syrup mixed with canned, condensed milk. Who knows what I wanted, but eventually I stopped crying. (I seldom cry now, so maybe it worked.) Anyway, no one remembers being a baby.

Parents loved their babies then as much as now, and this was considered the right way to raise them. So I'm just pointing out how things change. Now moms don't worry about spoiling their babies with attention and feeding. For the first year and beyond, they are fed exactly as nature intended and as often as they like. The moms lug them around in slings and carriers, and seldom use playpens. I think all the attention makes babies feel secure and loved. Isn't Nova happy? This is wonderful, although it's a great deal of work. Hey, maybe those 50's mothers were on to something? (Just kidding, Amanda!) And who knows how Nova will raise her children someday. But you can bet she will have different ideas than her mom.

On another baby subject, Amanda and Tom have weathered Nova's first illness. We believe she had a virus called roseola. It was a bit scary with rash and high fever, but it just ran its course without complication. Nova is smiling again this week, and she has two new front teeth to show off. She cut them while she was feeling miserable anyway. Good job, Nova.

Yard sales

When you have a granddaughter, you have a good excuse to stop at yard sales. And look at these sweet old dolls and the antique high chair I found last weekend for $10. I was walking to the mailbox, minding my own business, and next thing you know I'm running home for my wallet and car to load up the pile of stuff I bought from a nice neighbor.
I suppose deep down, there is a little girl in all old ladies. Sometimes I'll see an old-fashioned toy and get that exact tug of desire I would have had at age 5. I think this means you are either young-at-heart, or getting senile. Well, who cares?
We are all children trying to be adults. Someday Nova and her dotty Nana will have fun playing with these old toys.

JUST ONE DOLL

If you could only keep one doll
Of all the dolls you own,
If only one doll would become
The last doll in your home,
Which doll would you give favor to,
Which one would your heart choose?
Would it be the prettiest,
Or the oldest and most used?

by RomaMay

Sweet and sour "something"

Last week I tried a recipe from the local newspaper for homemade sweet and sour sauce. The article said sweet and sour is "the most famous and abused Chinese dish in the West." Probably. In Chinese restaurants, it's often a sticky sweet, fluorescent goo with fatty deep-fried lumps of meat. Yum. And I've eaten my share of it.

But a true s&s sauce should be translucent, light and tangy. You might like this recipe, because it has simple ingredients, and it's as easy as using one of those mix packets. It works for shrimp, chicken, pork.
Or, whatever :-)

For the sauce:

1/2 cup canned chicken broth
3 tbs. rice vinegar
1 tbs. honey
1 tbs. soy sauce
2 tbs. ketchup
1 tsp. cornstarch
1 tbs. water

Mix all the ingredients (except for the cornstarch and water) together in a small sauce pan and heat gently. Mix the cornstarch with water, then add to the sauce and simmer for a minute. Set aside while you stir-fry the meat and vegetables.

After I browned the shrimp, I added some garlic, chopped ginger and vegetables to the wok: carrots, onion, green pepper.
When the vegetables were "Chinese" cooked, I put the shrimp back in the wok with a handful of cashews and pineapple. I was lucky to have a nice fresh pineapple, but canned is fine, too.
Finally, add the sauce to the wok, and let it simmer for a few minutes to heat through. It was light and delicious with brown rice and Trader Joe's pot-stickers. And nothing at all like the restaurant version.

Talk doesn't cook rice.
Chinese Proverb

Clematis and dahlias

This is the jackmanii variety of Clematis. If the summer weather is cool, it will bloom for weeks. They can be fickle, but I've had these two blue ones for many years in the same spot. In the winter, the vines look completely dead and you cut them back almost to the ground. They like this hard prune, and come back each spring better than ever.

They're growing over the top of rotted out wood pyramids. I was going to replace them this spring, until I started looking around and got discouraged. Everything was cheap and flimsy or else beautiful and expensive, and it seemed a shame to spend all that money on metal "art" when the vines would cover it completely. But the old wood ones may finally fall to pieces this winter, and I'll have to find something else. Whatever I buy has to support a surprisingly heavy mass of foliage. I know this, because I drag the tangled dead vines off each fall.

You may be familiar with the other variety of Clematis which is evergreen (armandii.) It has white flowers and in Seattle can bloom in late winter. We have one over the back deck, but I've cut it back hard too many times, and it's never forgiven me. People have strong preferences about both, but the jackmanii is the flashy one.

It is a beautiful time in our garden right now, right at the cusp of being overgrown. Soon the lilies will be finished and the daisies flopping over.
This is one of my nicer dahlias, called "Arabian Nights." It is a great cutting flower with long stems, and this week looks at the peak of perfection.

The BBC Plant Finder page lists "gardener skill level" for all the flowers, and this one is listed as "Experienced." Really? Ha! That makes me feel pretty smug.

Hope you have a great summer weekend. Not a cloud in the sky this morning, and perfect weather ahead for Seattle, although I'll be busy running up the water bill.

Wave Petunias

I'm not a big petunia fan. They get straggly so fast and I hate dead-heading the sticky plants. They attract aphids, too.

But this new lavender petunia changed my mind. The variety is called a "Wave Petunia" and it even has its own website. You should look for them next spring. I felt a bit ripped off when I got to the cash register and realized a pack of six starts was $5, but these two pots are overflowing, and the flowers keep on coming without pinching back or dead-heading. I goose all my annual pots with 20-20-20 fertilizer once a week, and I'm sure that helps, too.

The silvery lavender color looks super against the blue freshly painted wall...

Larks, Wagstarts and Pipits

I'm good at identifying backyard birds by sight, but by song is a different matter. And there is nothing more frustrating than not knowing "who" is singing out there in the corner of the yard.

I have this CD set of Western Bird Songs that John gave me years ago, and it lists the calls of all the birds in Peterson's Western Field Guide. If you have an iPhone (which I don't) I understand you can download an app that gives you bird pictures linked to their song recordings. I guess it would be handy in the field (if your phone was working) but when I'm out in nature, I'd rather have my nose in a book than a device. Looking around these days, I think I'm in the minority on that.
Anyway, I have several bird guides, but Roger Tory Peterson is still my favorite. The dear man passed on in 1996, and the range maps in my 1990 edition are out of date. There are newer editions, but I love the way my old soft-cover field guide has survived many backpacks, suitcases and rough use. And photographs, while useful, could never take the place of Peterson's field drawings for ID purposes.

There are a whopping 522 birds on the Western Bird Song CD set, so the tracks are grouped by families of species, which mirror the book:

Titmice, Bushtit and Verdin
Dickcissel, Lark Bunting and Longspurs
Cardinal, Crossbills, and Redpolls
Olive Sparrow, Towhee and Seedeaters
etc.

Of course, most of these birds with the wonderful names don't live in Seattle. And it doesn't help that I have a tin ear, and forget a tune as soon as I hear it. (Except for those jingles and stupid songs you can never get out of your head.) So by the time I've found the right bird grouping on the CD, I forgot what the song sounded like in the first place. More practice is needed.

Here's a poem by Robert Frost, about a woman in a garden and bird song:

Never Again Would Bird's Song Be the Same

He would declare and could himself believe
That the birds there in all the garden round
From having heard the daylong voice of Eve
Had added to their own an oversound,
Her tone of meaning but without the words.

Admittedly an eloquence so soft
Could only have had an influence on birds
When call or laughter carried it aloft.
Be that as may be, she was in their song.

Moreover her voice upon their voices crossed
Had now persisted in the woods so long
That probably it never would be lost.
Never again would birds' song be the same.
And to do that to birds was why she came.

Nova on a picnic

You call THIS lunch?

Oyster stories

One winter way back in the 1960's, my parents rented a house at the very south end of Hood Canal, which is not a "canal" at all, but a long and narrow inlet of Puget Sound. The Cape Cod style house belonged to a doctor in a nearby city, whose family used it only in the summer. It was beautifully situated right on the water next to an overgrown creek, where salmon spawned.

At low tide the beach was covered with oyster beds and other critters. Clams were plentiful and free for the taking right in front of the house; even Geoducks if you had the energy to dig them. At the time, we didn't realize how special it was to gather up a bag of fresh shellfish and make a free dinner. None of us were brave enough to eat a raw oyster in those days, so my mom would either fry or bake them with breadcrumbs and butter. Coming from Colorado, we were scared of the "big" ones and left those on the beach. The sandy clams (after a cornmeal soak) were steamed or made into chowder.

Since then, the Hood Canal has become the poster child for environmentalists concerned about the health of Puget Sound. Population growth and septic drain fields have caused low underwater oxygen levels in the southern end of the canal, especially in the summer. Goodbye, fish and bivalves. I'm remembering this now because of the devastation on the Gulf Coast, and the destruction of delicate oyster farms. We don't know what we've got till it's gone.

View of Hood Canal

Last week I bought a small $$ jar of Willapa Bay oysters and fried them for our Friday night fish supper. Willapa Bay claims to be the cleanest estuary in the U.S., and is located way out on the Washington coast, hundreds of miles from the polluted south end of Hood Canal. This is not John's favorite meal and since he is spoiled, I also made a couple of Mahi-Mahi fillets:
But I think oysters are delicious fried quickly in a light coating of "Golden Dipt", my favorite packaged mix for seafood. In restaurants, oysters are often too heavily breaded, overcooked or soggy. I'm no longer squeamish about the strange innards of oysters, and I like to eat the big fried ones with tartar sauce. I know, I know...fattening! But it's just an occasional treat.

Have you ever heard the saying you should only eat oysters in the months with an "r"? That would be September, October, November, etc. (the cold months.) Good advice in the days before refrigerated transport.

If you looked at the national forecast last week, you may have noticed the Pacific Northwest was the one cold spot of the country. We had a heavy marine overcast and most days struggled to even reach 70. This probably sounds good to those of you sweltering through heat waves.

To make a long story short, fried oysters were good on a chilly night in a month without an "r."

Nova goes hiking

Nova has a new "big girl" backpack from REI. She doesn't look too thrilled in this picture, but Amanda says she likes riding it it.
Of course, being in Mommy's arms at the top of a mountain is even better...
And a nice snooze on the hike back is a good thing, too. It looks pretty comfy!

Summer flowers

High noon isn't the best time for photography, but the flowers were beautiful yesterday in the bright light.
One of those garden moments when you stop to take a look around, and wish it could last forever.
When all the work comes together for a few short weeks in July...

Wildflowers, dogs and horses

And daughters. It doesn't get much better than that. I was sorting through pictures, and here's a few more from our 4th of July weekend in eastern Washington.
After such a wet spring, the wildflowers were lush along the Methow River.
Amanda and I went for a walk with Roger along the river in Twisp.

And I took another ride at Sun Mountain Lodge. Wrangler Kit rode a young palomino mare she was training.

I rode "Crazy," who was not crazy at all, but a good old Appaloosa trail horse. He knew everything there is about climbing mountains, so I just relaxed and enjoyed the scenery.

And it was spectacular-- we rode for 2 hours, and Kit took us up a mountain trail overlooking Patterson Lake to the east, and the North Cascade range to the west. The hills were green and blooming with wildflowers.

Laurel stories

You could make about 10,000 Roman laurel wreaths from our monster hedge. Gerardo did a nice job trimming it this week. Compared to last year when he worked for us on the hottest day in 118 years, it was cloudy and about 40 degrees cooler.
But hot or cool, it's a big job. He does it alone with just a kid along to rake up all the clippings. It took him about a day and a half, but he also did the edging along the sidewalk which hadn't been done for years. My wallet is lighter, but I'm happy to hire such a nice guy and hard worker.
The painting above is by Waterhouse, called Daphne and Apollo. The Greek "laurel legend" goes like this:

Daphne was Apollo's first love. He was struck by Cupid's arrows and fell madly in love at first sight. Cupid forgot to strike Daphne at the same time, so she was indifferent to Apollo and tried to flee. He pursued and she was transformed into a laurel tree to escape him. From then on, the laurel tree became the symbol of Apollo, and he was depicted adorned with laurel leaves on his golden hair. And above is a 1901 painting by Alphonse Mucha called "Laurel." I love the beautiful detail in the foliage. It's very famous, and has been made into everything from night-lights to coffee mugs.

Anna's Hummingbird

Anna's Hummingbird is now a sweet, year-round resident along the mild coastal regions Washington state:
This is a fairly recent thing. Anna's Hummingbirds typically live in a wide variety of habitats including chaparral, but in recent years they're often found in suburban gardens where hummingbird feeders and exotic plantings provide them with food throughout the year. The Anna's don't make epic migrations like other hummingbird species, but travel around the countryside and hang out wherever they find something to eat. Smart!
Like Crocosima. This flower is a delight of the July garden, and the hummingbirds love it. Everything about this plant is nice. The plant is an impressive height but doesn't flop over; the red flowers bloom for a few weeks and then the stem forms a little row of "seeds" that look like an ornamental string of peas. It does well in our yard and has multiplied over the years, so now we have big clumps the Anna's like to buzz on sunny days.

The Madonna lily

Remember that the most beautiful things in life are the most useless-- peacocks and lilies,
for example.

John Ruskin

We don't have peacocks outside the back door (unfortunately) but we do have dozens of tall lilies blooming right now. The white trumpet lilies were beautiful in the early sunlight. This is my favorite season in the garden-- and over too fast.

I don't know if my white lily is a true "Madonna" lily (l. candidum) but it looks close. The "Madonna" lily is one of those pin-up girls of the flower world, and you'll find hundreds of photographs on the Internet if you Google it.

They say "Madonna" might be the oldest domesticated flower, for the simple reason it is lovely. The ancient Minoans cultivated it, and it's been a symbol of purity for 3,000 years. That is a long time to be pure. In the church, the white lily is also the symbol for the Virgin Mary. It was venerated because the petals suggested a spotless body, and the gold anthers a soul shining with heaven.

Who doesn't love them? And of course lilies come in bright colors: orange, rich gold and a dark cantaloupe. I'm still deciding whether to order the new "Purple Prince" trumpet lily from the fall bulb catalog. Just the name makes me want it. Not to mention the racy thought of a dark purple "Prince" next to a pure white "Madonna."


The modest rose puts forth a thorn,
The humble sheep a threat'ing horn,
While lily white shall in love delight,
Nor a thorn, nor a threat, stain her beauty bright.

William Blake

Nova visits her Boeing Aunties

While Tom was hard at work painting last week, Amanda and I were running around town. We made a lunchtime stop at Boeing Field, so John's work friends could see Nova for a few minutes in the parking lot. Of course we weren't allowed beyond the big gate, but Nova's Boeing Aunties seemed happy to give up their lunch break for a quick hello:
Nova has grown since the last time Nina held her!


Tammy and Nova, with Roger keeping an eye on his baby...

And here's Elaine, Bonnie, Nova and Amanda getting acquainted again:

Thank you, Tom

When you live in a 100 year old house, having a professional painter for a son-in-law is a good thing :-) Martha Stewart, eat your heart out. Our little house still has original wood siding, and the south side, which is blasted year-round by rain and sun, was starting to look pretty shabby.
Tom generously offered to paint it for us last week. What a great surprise!
In 30 years, this wall has had many coats of paint slapped on, but it's never been prepped so well. He spend hours scraping and sanding off all the layers of peeling paint. UGH! Hard work...but at last a smooth surface.
Then the undercoat...


And finally a fresh new coat of blue paint...
And while poor Tom was slaving for 3 days-- Amanda, Nova and I were playing. You're the greatest!