From Desert to Rainforest

  Where have I been?  Nowhere! which seems to be my blogging problem.

   I like writing about new places as we explore them and there has been none of that lately. Instead I am back to physical therapy, my tenth week. Three days a week — an hour appointment, an hour of driving, an errand or two “because we’re up there” — the day is gone. 

  Our long hikes in the woods came to an end when the deer flies came out in May.

 Horrible things! They descend on the car, then you as soon as you leave the car. They are relentless, getting in your face, your hair.

 And they bite! 

  Right through your clothes. 

  We had been in a drought for weeks with no rain whatsoever and then last week the rains began and continue day after day. If it’s not storming or pouring buckets, humidity is rising from the ground. 

  These cheery Flower Pot Parasols popped up overnight in our hibiscus planter.

 Anyway, it’s unbearable for humans to be outside, and it’s only the beginning of summer. 

Our hibiscus don’t seem to mind. The blossoms are over eight inches across!

     

 And in spite of the monsoons, our tomato plants are producing delicious fruit. As have our neighbor Malcolm’s blueberry bushes, which he so generously shares with us.

  This is the first year our blackberry bushes have ripened berries. We’re not too fond of the berries but — oh well.

  Lots of birds are nesting in our yard and bringing their comical babies to the backyard bird feeder buffet. We offer suet, sunflower seeds, and peanut butter for our summer guests.

  We have baby Carolina wrens, cardinals, red-bellied woodpeckers, downy woodpeckers, titmice, chickadees, and house finches all entertaining us with their antics. 

  The babies are partial to the peanut butter log, both for the tasty treat and the handy perches for their clumsy flights.    I can spend hours drawing them! 

  We hope for adventures ahead but my Bucket List is in “recalculating mode”. The pandemic was sobering, life-changing in ways I haven’t expected. Which has led to mulling over the one I made when I retired and making revisions. It’s definitely looking to be a bit more “modest” and shorter than the original! 

  Theoretically we can now travel some places again, at least in our own country, but there is the reality of facing up to it that my body is no longer as eager to undertake certain activities and countries. We will be visiting family mostly for the near future and then maybe in the winter some travel adventures can be planned. 

  I will leave you with this. I read this morning that, “A new study shows that vegans are the happiest people,” rating themselves 7% happier than meat eaters do. Then I saw an ad for one of those subscription food services that deliver ingredients for a vegan meal, along with a recipe for making it.

  See the orange thing in the bun? 

85% of our meals are vegetarian, but I think we will pass on this one!

  

This Little Figgy

    When I moved to the South one thing I really wanted to grow was figs. I love fresh figs so much and you can’t buy them fresh in stores, only dried.  

  

And a dried fig is nothing like a fresh fig at all.

 We have had this fig tree for four years now and gotten a little fruit, but this year we are going to have a bunch.

  The yellow triangle by the top fig is a blossom and they don’t open any more than that. Not very showy, are they? And how do they get pollinated?  I don’t know!

   

  The Writer turned the sprinklers on the front lawn and look who came hustling out of the azalea bushes to see if it was raining. 

  It’s Yertle, our resident Eastern box turtle. 

  Did you know that Eastern box turtles can live a hundred years and once a female has mated, she’s good for four years of egg-laying? 

  

 Bob was inside and curious about what we were standing around looking at.  

  

  We have moved further agrarian pursuits to the front yard after many failures at raising a garden in the backyard.  I think we are finally going to have a tomato success story this year. 

  The cool spring we have had, along with 12 hours of direct sun a day, have inspired these two “patio tomatoes” in pots to shoot up to 4 1/2 feet tall and produce dozens of green tomatoes! 

And don’t you just love tomato blossoms? They’re so fancy and frilly when you look close. 

  And one final yellow flower photo: the hanging basket on the front porch. It seems like every year they come out with a fresh take on the plain, old-fashioned petunia and this one appeared simultaneously at every place in town that sells plants.  Never seen them before and I like the stripes a lot.

Signs of the Times - Latest Edition

  Panic buying. Long lines at the store. Empty shelves.

  Rumors of who has some and who is all out.

  Sound familiar? 

It’s not toilet paper or hand sanitizer 

or Covid vaccine this time. 

It’s gasoline!

  Colonial Pipeline, the main gas conduit supplying the East Coast, was closed down late last week by a cyberattack. By Tuesday night it was dawning on people that possibly there wouldn’t be enough gas to go around before the pipeline was up and flowing again. In spite of reassurances from officials and experts and pleas not to horde, people rushed out to top off their tanks, whether they needed to or not. Long lines at every station still open resulted in traffic jams.

   “Panic pumpers,” the media is calling them. 

 

 By yesterday we were low on gas and searched for over an hour before finding a station with fuel.

Why was there no line???

  They were not price gouging as some stations were but they were only taking cash.  

  We saw several cars drive away but happily we had some cash and were able to get some gas in our tank and be on our way.

 By last evening there was no gas available in town.  

Here’s a good motto for the 2020s.

(And carry cash. 😊)

The Farmer’s Market is Back

  So happy to have our farmer’s market back for the summer. It’s small (maybe three or four families selling their wares each week) but everything is actually local.  When we were getting ready to leave the house I got my market basket from a hook on the sunroom wall. To my surprise, someone else has been using my basket!

 Carolina wrens!

They are perky little birds that are very determined to get inside buildings and construct their scruffy, inconvenient nests among humans. This one had just begun so I moved the nest outside to the azalea bushes and off we went to the market.

 

  Selection was limited as things are just getting started and prices are high. Purple buttercrunch lettuce, kohlrabi, radishes, and strawberries made their way into our basket. 

  The kohlrabi balls will be sliced and eaten raw as hummus scoops. 

  The tops have already been cooked and eaten, mild greens with salt, pepper, garlic, and vinegar. 

  Lettuce and radishes will provide us with colorful salads for a few days. 

  And the strawberries, oh, the strawberries! They burst in your mouth with juicy flavor, nothing like those hard things you get in the grocery store trucked thousands of miles across the country from California. 

  Nope, these are South Carolina berries, ripened in the hot South Carolina sun. 

  One of my favorite desserts is strawberry shortcake and that’s where our berries went. I can’t eat wheat flour (something in it triggers migraines) but I have perfected the best recipe for shortcakes with no wheat or gluten. Would you like my recipe?

Almond Flour Shortcakes
1 cup almond flour
2 tsp baking powder
Good pinch of salt
1 tablespoon sugar (or honey, maple syrup, etc)
Stir the dry ingredients and make a well in the center.
In the well, add 1/4 cup full fat plain yogurt and beat
1 egg into the yogurt with a fork.
Mix all and drop in four plops on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper
Bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes.  If you want the tops brown and crispy, turn the oven up to 400 for a few minutes.

Paraprosdokians

Paraprosdokian — a figure of speech in which the latter part of a 

sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected 

and is frequently humorous. 

(Winston Churchill loved them.) 

Where there's a will, 

I want to be in it.

Since light travels faster than sound, some folks appear bright 

until you hear them speak. 

If I agreed with you, 

we'd both be wrong. 

We never really grow up, 

we only learn how to act in public. 

War does not determine who is right, 

only who is left. 

Knowledge is knowing a tomato is a fruit. 

Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad. 

To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism. 

To steal from many is research. 

You do not need a parachute to skydive. 

You only need a parachute to skydive twice. 

Going to church doesn't make you a Christian, 

any more than standing in a garage makes you a car. 

You're never too old 

to learn something stupid. 

I'm supposed to respect my elders, 

but it's getting harder and harder for me to find one now.

Murals from ArtsFields

ArtFields Is Back and So Are We!

  

  Last year we missed one of our favorite events of the year, cancelled because of Covid. This year, ArtFields returns, the first event of any kind we have attended since the pandemic began. It felt so wonderful to get away, see people, see some amazing art, and feel a little normal again.

  Lake City made a huge effort to provide safety for all.  Masks (optional in our state now) were mandatory and social distancing enforced so we felt safe attending. 

  ArtFields was started in 2013 to exhibit artists of the Southeast, while bringing fine arts to rural South Carolinians and revitalizing a small Southern town.

 The competition offers over $100,000 in cash prizes. Two People’s Choice Awards are determined by the votes of people visiting ArtFields. A panel of art professionals selects all the other awards, including the $50,000 Grand Prize and $25,000 Second Place award.

  While there is never a stated theme, it does seem that most of the artists’ works that are selected by the jury are comments on timely social and political issues of the day. 

  As one would expect, many and diverse works reflected on the pandemic that has snuffed out the lives of 575,000 Americans and turned the lives of the world upside down for over a year.

  I liked this one a lot, telling the stories of some very average people in one neighborhood who answered the question, “How has the coronavirus affected you?”

 

 This photo essay made me think about how I might have answered. 

  I think I would have said something about missing all the important events and milestones of my family members for over a year, grandchildren growing up, all those sweet moments I can never get back again. 

  There were about 300 works in the show, spread all around the town, and we spent two full days taking it all in. 

I have lots more interesting things to show you, including the pieces we voted for for the People’s Choice Award, and next week, the winners. I hope you will enjoy the wonderful imaginations and the talent of these artists as much as we did! 

Azalea Days

  April is azalea month here in coastal South Carolina. In our yard we have five different colors, each vying for the title, Most Beautiful. 

  Azaleas are members of the Heath family, a group of plants dating from 70 million years ago. They grew first in Asia, cultivated at monasteries by Buddhist monks, and according to some sources, first imported and grown outdoors in the United States at Magnolia Plantation in Charleston just after the Civil War.

  We have five varieties on plants that are 60 years old. The one above blooms first and is the size of a large car. Behind it you can see a red camellia still in bloom which has been blooming since right around Christmas!

  Our shady backyard is deeply lined with magenta azaleas, the last to bloom. The wonderful tree that shades them is a giant Loblolly pine, 90 feet tall with an 11 foot circumference! 

  

  Our 154-foot long side yard has three colors interspersed: light pink, bright pink, and white. These light pink ones are huge and they are my favorites. 

  And as long as they are blooming, I can’t resist bringing big bunches of azaleas into the house and tucking them in every corner!

  There is one other thing you should know about the beautiful azalea: it has a dark side. The plant, blossoms, and even the nectar are deadly poisonous! In spite of that, honey made from azaleas, called Mad Honey, was added to drinks in the 1700s to give a more potent high than alcohol. It was described as giving the drinker “the spins”. Of course, one had to keep his or her wits about them and be very careful to drink only a small amount.

   Sources say it is still available in Turkey. I don’t think I’ll be trying it!