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My Profile
Retro-retrospection - 2008-10-06
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9:31 a.m. - 2004-06-21
I’ve put aside my loathing for television and have started watching gardening shows. I know, exciting. Right up there with fishing shows. I’m learning lots though. Rather negates the ho-hum factor. I stumbled on one the other night that was all about growing peppers and I actually took notes. This year I planted habaneras, chilies, jalapenos, and bell peppers-red and green, so getting the inside track on peppers was a Good Thing. Was talking to SIL last night and I was yammering about my garden. Told her how I’d cleared the new veggie patch and set out all the tomato plants. She laughed and said, “LA, you don’t even LIKE tomatoes.” It’s true, I don’t. Mike does though. So do most of my friends and I’d be delighted if I get enough to share. Flowers are good. Flowers will always be my main ‘crop’, but growing something good to eat definitely has its attractions. Despite growing up here in the sticks, I’m an uptown girl when it comes to farming. It’s almost magic to me that I can stick something in the ground, tend it for a while and harvest honest-to-Godfrey food. The blackberries are coming on ripe and this year I mean to get them before the critters do. If I can get enough I’m going to try my hand at jam. Want to get some practice in before the grapes come ripe. Grape jelly is my ultimate goal. Since my only experience with canning is opening store-bought cans I need all the practice I can get. I’ve always been embarrassed that I’m so lacking in traditional homemaking arts. I can’t sew. I bake from mixes. My one try at bread baking was a disaster. The loaf I produced was heavier than a brick. My pop shellacked it and used it as a paperweight on his desk. I can crochet, but anything I knit looks like I worked the needles with my toes. My MIL is such a deft hand with things domestic she makes Martha look like a piker. MIL could turn an old chenille bedspread into a ballgown and make a delicious stew from a worn-out boot. She claims she got so good out of necessity, raising 4 kids on an enlisted man’s pay was a challenge. The only way she could keep her brood adequately clothed and fed was to do most of the work herself. Maybe so, but doesn’t stop me from feeling like a talent-less fool. SIL claims she can’t do anything domestic either and she’s the daughter of the house. Uh huh. I think having a high powered career and supporting her family for the last 20 years goes a long way toward balancing that out. Being neither a breadwinner nor a bread baker rather puts me in the shallow end of things, don’t you think? My one talent is accessorizing. I’m hell on wheels with a scarf. You need to know where to place a lapel pin or which bag goes with your outfit and I’m your girl. Yea, they shall come before me and call me Blessed for my vast knowledge of earrings and shades of pantyhose. It’s important to me now more than ever that I do something useful. My head knows my being a crip with no job isn’t my fault. My heart says otherwise. It’s desperately important to me to be good at something. Something which requires effort. Something with tangible results. It’ll make me feel less like a waste of space and more like a real person again. A Good Monday to all of you. Your pal, ~The Farmer Filospher
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