Holy Toledo! You can learn useful stuff on the internets! I have blossoms from three or four kinds of squash plants and I know blossoms are food, but how?
That couldn’t be any clearer, could it? I struggled a little with the cleaning, but figured out a trick with a slowly dripping faucet. Before I knew it, Pete and I were eating about a dozen of these. It wasn’t even difficult!
Confession: if you stuffed it with pesto and cheese, then breaded it, I’d probably eat a washcloth.
That-a-way. I guess.
According to the weather maps, we should be canoeing around town right now. Mysterious! The streets aren’t the slightest bit floody.
Many things are going well with the garden, but not all. Two containers are not draining properly and the squirrels are persistent, but this was confusing. I didn’t know if white spots on squash leaves were a problem or not, but impatience definitely is.
Is this a thing? IT IS.
How did we survive before we could ask the whole connected world questions and demand short answers? I put “white spots on squash leaves” into the Great Gazoogle and dozens of excellent teachers appeared. This guy, for instance, answered all my questions in one minute, twenty-seven seconds and he could have shaved off almost the first thirty.
Water + baking soda, both sides of the leaves, twice a day, three days. I’m half-way to problem: solved!
Across the room, I saw light clinging to the wall in a way my father photographed a thousand times, though I see now it is surprisingly camera-shy.
Suddenly, I need a bathing cap with green plastic leaves. I assume that’s the hormones talking.
Suddenly, it’s hot. The sun’s hot, the air’s hot, people are sweaty and hot and miserable. I love it.
Suppose there’s a redheaded grandmother standing on your lawn, pointing a camera at the uppermost branches of your Japanese maple. Fear not! She will take only pictures and be gone in a flash.
Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.
Longtime guests of this here establishment may recall the Beany Benediction:
I. I am a genius!
We dismantled Dad’s kitchen and I ended up with a bigass container of dried black beans; by bigass, I mean a 7-quart Sysco restaurant container, and by beans, I mean of indeterminate age and/or magical power. For many long months, I stared at this container and waited for inspiration, which means breath of the gods and there’s just not enough Gas-Ex, thank you. One day, a plan came to me. Pete laughed out loud, uncertain I’d do it. Two nights ago, we filled a quart bag with beans and went for a walk. The plan:
1. On a rainy night, fling beans near chain link fences everywhere.
2. Wait.
3. Watch out for falling giants.The possible results:
1. Planting.
2. Composting.
3. Feeding outdoor critters.We enjoyed furtively peppering lawns, alleys, empty planters and scrubby gardens with prospective beanstalks, which process became more entertaining the closer we walked to the center of town and spectators. No one asked us what we were doing. No one said, “You’ve literally beaned me.” No. People watched as Pete and I walked by and I exhorted our little legumes to grow toward the sun, be free, be free! This public art project memorializing my father is called the Beany Benediction.
No cows will be harmed in the making of it.
That was 2008. Dad’s been scampering around the Elysian Fields seven years now, while I’ve been planting gardens in the ‘burbs. Partially used or unused packets of seeds piled up everywhere. Pete and I resolved to take action. Let’s say we had a Seedy Scheme.
It’s a subtle history of stuff I failed to do.
Pretty, pretty mischief!
Der Seedulator
We bypassed the overmanicured lawns and blessed the shady spots and bushes and in-between spaces. Pete tossed seeds hither and yon, by which I mean in the places where no people are looking and where things are being and it’s possible squirrels alone are going. But maybe not.
That’s how the life gets in.
Poor Impulse Control 