Garden Scents

Garden fragrances! Smells hold memories. I recall putting on a carnation for some occasion, leaning my head down to have a sniff, and being *snap* back over a decade at my highschool prom. (That would be nearly three decades, now.)

I can at any time recall the strange smell of red monarda (beebalms) in the hot July sun (possibly from spending so much time plucking Japanese beetles).

The smell of geraniums, while picking off spent flower heads or yellowed leaves. The smell of marigolds, or nasturtium blossoms. These are earthy fragrances - like portabello mushrooms. Nasturtiums and marigolds were brought to America to be smelled and eaten.

I remember strolling down NY country roads in June, to an embankment where wild strawberries grew. On the way I would pick one wild rose - the pink one called Rosa carolina - and walk along sniffing the sweet perfume. Girls wearing this scent held my attention in early teen years, perhaps as a consequence of those moments in the golden evening light. I would return with strawberry stained finger tips, the smell of the berries mingling with the rose as I continued to sniff my way back home.

As a family we have wandered in large rose gardens, seeing which of us can smell which roses - not everyone smells everything equally well. Moomin Light and I smell some roses in common, and others totally separately. Our kids are spread out over the rose scent spectrum, as well. Since many fragrances are caused by our neurological response to complex chemicals called esters, it's not surprising to me that we don't all pick up the same ones.

There is the haunting smell of a daphnia bush, caught from the other side of a pond. It took us nearly ten minutes one day in Duke Gardens to locate the source.

When we moved to this house we planted several large Lonicera fragrantissima ("the MOST fragrant") as an evergreen screen between lots, AND for the honeysuckle sweet scent.

Finally, how about something exotic and bizarre - like the numerous Victorian geraniums with scented leaves (I've sampled mint, peach, strawberry, amaretto, and even chocolate scented ones) or the recently popular pineapple sage? Just one more pleasure of gardening.

Tomato Feast

A feast for the eyes, then a terrific tomato sandwich for lunch. With salt and pepper and mayo - and salt and pepper potato chips and calabrese olives, and apple and artisanal cheese from Hillsborough's farmer's market, AND with good company and interesting bookish conversation, it's no wonder lunch lasts so long on weekends.

This tomato was my reward for driving past the big mega-station just off the exit ramp on I-40 before it enters the mountain pass from TN to NC. I aimed for the little station a half a mile further on, and was met by pumps from another decade, local people, real greetings, folks singing with the song on the radio, and a produce stand with many varieties of tomato, including this heirloom. I bought two, but the other didn't last 30 minutes after I got home.

The photo was taken by our oldest son - I found it on the camera and was so glad to see it.

La Paresse

I first saw this at the Ackland, in Chapel Hill, NC. It was labeled Indolence and I loved it at once.

It's a woodcut by Felix Vallotton, a Swiss born artist working in Paris in the late 1800's and early 1900s. Loving this led to a search for more work by Vallotton. Here I include more of the woodcuts, influenced by Japanese prints, which were the rage among the artists of the day.

His paintings (he did thousands of works in oils) are also full of these unusual diagonals and croppings.

But La Paresse remains my favorite. I love the economy of shapes and patterns of white on black. And it captures the lazy moment so well.

Reading Lessons 15-21

Part 3 (finis) - Lessons 15-21 that I wrote to teach my youngest son to read. Lessons 8-14, and 1-7 in two earlier posts.

15 - The hawk decided and plunged down to get his dinner. The wind whistled in his ears as he fell faster and faster. He turned his wings to catch the breeze and curve down on the chicken he had chosen. He could almost taste it. He was ready for the crash of claws and feathers and chicken when he snatched her. Suddenly the hawk spread his wings in panic and pulled up and away. He had almost flown right into the web of tight clear lines the farmer had stretched back and forth over the chicken yard. He would have broken his wings.

16 - The farmer had watched the chicken hawk, with his hands in his pockets. He had strung up the clear fishing line back and forth over the chicken yard earlier that week. He knew the red tailed hawks had come back for the spring, hungry from their long trip. He wove the fishing line back and forth in all directions, so there was no place large enough for a hawk to fly though. He hoped it would keep his chickens safe. He had seen wires over a pond at a zoo, to keep king fishers from diving to get the fish. He liked the idea.

17 - When the hawk dove to get a chicken the farmer had held his breath. Would it work? Would the hawk see the lines before it crashed, or would it get hurt? The farmer was a gentle man, and he did not want the hawk to get hurt. He liked seeing the hawks in the sky, and he knew they ate rats and mice that might eat his corn. He thought of the whole thing as a game, like the pig and pie game. He hoped he would win, but he wanted the hawk to… The hawk screamed and swooped upward just before hitting the lines. It flew in angry circles, screaming, and then flew away. The farmer smiled.

18 - The fox in the hedge watched the hawk lose the game with the farmer and smiled, too. He had also been playing a game with the farmer about chickens. The fox had won a few times, but mostly the farmer had won. He was a quiet man who thought carefully about things and got smart ideas to trick the fox. The last trick had been to put wires around the chicken yard. When the fox touched the wires it set off a loud alarm and flashing lights. The fox had been so scared he ran the wrong way at first - right towards the farmhouse. He grinned when he thought about it now.

19 - The pig knew the fox was in the hedge. The pig knew where everyone was all the time, except the farm wife. Somehow the farm wife was always where the pig did not expect her to be. She surprised the pig a lot. She often had that broom. The pig weighed more than 1000 pounds, and the farm wife weighed only about 100, so she needed the broom to handle the pig. Besides, the farm wife wasn’t going to get her hands muddy pushing the pig. The broom was the best thing.

20 - The farm wife looked out the window from the cool shadows of the kitchen. The breeze brought the smell of the cooling pie into the kitchen and she smiled. It was good to cook for people who knew how good her food was, even if one was a pig. And the game with the pig was fun. Most of the farm wife’s day was full of work, and she liked the little fun things that happened with the animals. She fed chipmunks in the wall of the barn, calling the cat lazy for not catching them. She liked to run at the chickens sometimes, scattering them all over the yard just for fun.

21 - The farmer looked over his yard and thought about the chickens. He liked to see his wife enjoy herself, even if she did it by scaring the big stupid birds. They were calming down from the hawk, and going back to pecking and scratching in the yard. The pig finished her slops and turned to go back to the mud. The farmer watched her huge body move away on little pink hooves, big triangle ears flapping flies off. He saw her lay down again and watched as her breathing got slower, and she started to gently snore. He knew she was dreaming of apple pie.

The End

Reading Lessons 8-14

Part 2 - Lessons 8-14 that I wrote to teach my youngest son to read. Lessons 15-21 (the end) in the next post.

8 - As the farmer poured the slops into the trough, the pig came over eagerly. “Wanted some pie, piggy?” the farmer asked kindly. The pig grunted and started eating the warm corn meal slops. It was like warm corn pudding. The farmer always made it warm for the pig, and got it to the farm yard before it cooled. He knew the pig would eat it anyway, but he knew she liked it best warm. He was a kind man. He scratched her between her big hairy ears and hummed a song.

9 - The barn cat looked down on the farmer and the pig. The cat knew how to get things she was not supposed to eat. The pig had a pie once last month, but only because no one expected her to take it. Now the farm wife knew the pig would try to steal pies, and it had become like a game. The wife always won now. But the cat knew how to get things. She stole sardines off the plate. She got in the milk buckets when the farmer milked the cows.

10 - The farmer knew the cat stole milk sometimes. The cow would be sleepy and the bucket would be full of warm sweet smelling milk. He would turn his back to wash his hands before taking the bucket into the house to his wife. When he turned back the cat would be sitting beside the bucket, licking her whiskers. “Did you get a taste while I wasn’t looking, missy?” he would ask the cat. She would look up at him and lick her nose. She knew she must never let him see her steal the milk.

11 - A hawk’s shadow moved over the eating pig. The farmer looked up and shaded his eyes with his hand. “A chicken hawk,” he said to the pig. “You’re too big to worry about hawks, eh?” and he grinned at the pig and patted her huge pink back.
The pig pictured a hawk big enough to carry her away. It would swoop down on wings bigger than the barn roof. The huge bird would scream so loud the ground would tremble.

12 - The big hawk’s screams would make the house dance like it was in an earthquake. The pie would fall from the windowsill, and land right side up on the stones below. The pig would rush forward to eat the lovely warm apple pie. She could almost taste the hot apples and the sugary crust. But the hawk would snatch her up and fly her over the house roof, away from the pie. The pig shed a tear into her corn slops.

13 - The chickens saw the shadow, too. They screamed and ran flapping around the chicken yard. They were afraid to get eaten. They didn’t want to be some creature’s dinner. They wanted to eat bugs and peck each other forever in the warm sunshine. They wanted to sit close to each other in the roost and fall asleep in peace every night. They were running and flapping and losing feathers and screaming. They were all going to die! They were all going to be eaten! Help! Help!

14 - The hawk looked at the scene below. The chickens looked fat and tasty. The hawk circled lower. He saw the farmer and knew the man might have a gun. But he didn’t see one. The chickens sure looked good. The hawk swooped lower still. He was going to dive down and grab one. Maybe the big fat white one. No, that big round red one. Or maybe the black and gray speckled one. It was fun to think about it while he circled over the chickens running all over their yard.

Reading Lessons 1-7

I wrote these mini story chapters to teach our youngest to read last winter. Once he knew the letters and basic phonetics from sounding out words with me, I printed this, cut it in strips, and we did one strip each night until by the end he was ready for other books and starting to read on his own. I had done something similar for our daughter; it was also three weeks long, just enough to get her over the hump.

Lessons 1-7 in this post, 8-14 will be in the next, and 15-21 will be in the last.

1 - The pig lay in the mud. She was as big as a cow. The sun shone on her big pink muddy side. She wiggled her large triangle ears and grinned. She was cool on the bottom, on the mud, and warm on top, in the sun. She felt like two pigs. One made of ice cream, the other made of warm bread.

2 - The pig lay in the mud. She dreamed of baking like a big loaf of bread. She dreamed she was glazed with egg and sugar and baking golden brown. She took a deep breath. She could smell the bread baking, the smell of golden crust. She raised her big head and sniffed again. She smelled not bread but pie. She got up and trotted towards the farm house.

3 - The fresh baked pie was on the windowsill cooling. It was an apple pie. The pig looked up at it with her little pink eyes. Her big flat nose bobbed up and down, sniffing. Her big ears, with white hairs all around the edges, flapped with joy. She loved apple pie.
“Shoo pig!” said the farm wife. “This is NOT your pie! Shoo! Scat!”

4 - The pig grunted and tossed her big pink head, splashing mud on the side of the farm house. It almost got on the pie. The farm wife snatched up the pie and took it in the kitchen. She came back to the window.
“You’re not going to get that pie by getting it dirty. It’s NOT your pie! Shoo!”
The pig turned and trotted back into the farm yard.

5 - The pig lay down in the mud again, on the other side this time. Cool side to the sun, warm side to the cool mud. “I am a big cream pie,” thought the pig. “I am baking in the oven. My crust is getting brown. I will eat the pie with chocolate muddy sauce. I like the smell of coffee from the house, but I won’t drink coffee when I eat the pie. I’m a big pink and brown pie.”

6 - The pig lifted her head and looked back to the house. The pie was back on the windowsill. The pig got up slowly and snuck up on it. She was going to eat that apple pie. She could almost feel the hot apples in her mouth, the warm crust between her teeth. A broom came out of the window and smacked her on the nose. “Shoo, pig!” yelled the farm wife. The broom came down again - thwack!

7 - The farmer came into the farm yard with a bucket. He saw the pig sneaking up on the pie and grinned. Would the pig get the pie or would he have it with his lunch? It would be fun to find out. Then the broom came out the window and whacked the pig over and over until the pig ran away. The farmer felt sorry for her, but was glad there would be apple pie for lunch. He walked to the pig trough with the bucket.

Debd's Blog and Detective Work

A comment on one of my book reviews led back to Debd's thoughtful site of Eastern Orthodoxy, homeschooling, and books. However, the first time I visited Deb on the Run (now nightly reading for me) I was distracted by the photo at the top.

It's an image used by the creator of the blog scheme Deb is using. It looked like Cornwall or Wales or ...

Where was it? Subsequent visits to her blog fanned the flames - I had to know.

So I viewed the html source of her blog page and found that the scheme is called Ocean-Mist. Googling "Ocean-mist blog" led to some Internet info on the blog scheme and it's author Ed Merritt. Several more pages had questions from users of the theme, wondering where the photo was from, and guessing Cornwall. Further Google research found the phrase "Ocean Mist theme by Ed Merritt ported by Crimson, Photo by rexfarucao." That looked Portuguese, and certainly worth a check.

The next Google stop was "rexfarucao." A stock photo site had two photos by this photographer - both from the Azores. And Rexfarucao's Flickr photostream, all of which seems to be about the Azores.

The Azores? I had heard the name but had never looked them up. A Flickr search for Azores finished the job. They're incredibly beautiful islands in the Atlantic, under the government of Portugal. Click here to see a photo that demonstrates this is the source of the amazing photo in Ocean-mist. Then see this charming photo that shows the slow pastoral pace of some of the islands. Mullemulle has a wonderful Flickr photo set from an Azores trip. Or look at this wonderful Flickr set by Janica Franco, of faces from the Feira Quinhetista, on the isle of San Miguel. Explore many more photos of this amazing place at the Flickr Tag for the Azores.

In the harbor of Horta, on the island of Faial, there is a tradition of painting on the wall a flag for your ship/voyage. It is said to ensure a safe passage. Here is a passage by Jaoa de Melo (translated to English) about this.

Before sailing away, everyone must draw on the marina wall [Horta - Faial] a flag for a dream country, some sails filled up with the wind of love and doom, a geometrical or sophisticated figure, and write down the name of the yacht or sailing boat that went by, and leave messages and poetic phrases – for this will mitigate the wrath of the sea gods and grant the trip back home.

Many of these flags are captured in a Flickr photo set by Joe Taruga. The quote above is from that photo set, as well.

These flowers bloom famously all over the islands.

I dreamed and explored for several hours one rainy afternoon. It was almost like visiting - but now I want to go there for real. I don't speak a word of Portuguese...

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While nearly every Flickr photo I found of the Azores had "All rights reserved," the photo above, from the Flickr Photostream of Vida de Vidro, was shared. Many thanks!