Censored!

 

There I am, mugging for the camera in warmer days of years gone by. I am using this pucture to simple act a visual place holder. The real story here is the story. My latest garden article was deemed too edgy for the magazine that I occasionally write for. I get it: it maybe addressed some sensitive topics in my typically sardonic fashion. Therefore, I am posting it here so you can decide for yourself. Funny? or not!! Enjoy! (And let me know in the comments below!)

Themes for This Year’s Gardens

Fashion dictates the width of one’s lapels, or the shape of fins upon one’s car. Assuredly, gardeners are every bit as prone to exploitation in this coming and going of tides and trends as the next group of consumers. Last year’s All White or Santa Fe Garden seems ho-hum this spring. But what to do? In keeping with this hectic frenzy to be the first on one’s block, I proffer the following “hot tips”: a sort of sneak preview into this year’s cutting-edge trends in garden fashion.

The Car-den: Here in America the automobile reigns supreme. We are constantly seeking out the elusive concept of the true “American Garden”, and what could be more American? As we all have at least one rusting hulk taking up space on our properties, think “recycle”. We all know the old tire-inside-out planter trick- just take it a piece “further up the highway”, so to speak. Hubcaps make dandy planters, and an old transaxle stood on end makes a distinctive sculptural focal point. Vines may be grown up a spare drive shaft and that old windshield- cracked or not- makes an impromptu cold frame. Go the extra mile and create exciting garden benches from tattered back seats. In a pinch, the trunk makes a convenient tool or potting shed. Happy motoring!

The Remodeled Garden: Having some home improvements done to the domicile? What better source for garden ideas! Last year’s color coordinated appliances may look dated indoors, but outside, they’re sure to please. Let the neighbors know you’re sprucing up by planting that old sink in a garden bed… charming birdbath! And the matching toilet looks perfect with some ferns or trailing lobelia cascading over the rim. Tearing out the wood-grain paneling? It makes a stunning fence and from a distance it looks almost real. Linoleum floor gotta go? Try it as a whole new dimension in path covering. Simulated brick is so much easier to work with than the real thing- no buckling or heaving due to frost. You’ll find that wipe clean finish is terrifically low maintenance. Let your imagination run wild!

The In Town/Out of Town Garden: What better way to show you’re concerned about urban blight than to bring it on home? Here, the mood is cracked pavement and crumbling infrastructure. Tear out all those hybrid tea roses and upscale ligularias! Replant with ailanthus and ragweed! Spray paint quirky graffiti slogans like “Organic Gardening Rules” on the stockade fence. After dining at your favorite fast-food restaurant, bring home those wrappers and coffee cups and toss them in your yard. Chain link fencing is also a nice touch, especially if it’s slightly torn and you must crawl under it to gain admission to the garden. Put up signs that read, “No Loitering” and “Unauthorized Vehicles Will be Towed”. Get your friends to slump up against the fencing and solicit handouts or shout obscenities at visitors. This style of gardening is sure to gain approval among recent transplants to the country as it will make them feel right at home.

Star Ship 2024: Jealous of Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk and their journeys into outer-space? How about exploring those vast frontiers on your own chunk of Terra Firma? Nothing signals “Houston, we have a problem” more provocatively than renting a back hoe, creating several good-sized craters and applying generous tons of trap rock. Rename that garden cart the “Lunar Lander” and spend nights Moon-scaping. Plant exotic sedums, lichen, lithops and other “alien” species in large drifts...  Or better yet, consider “Is there Life on Mars?”, eschew plants altogether and simply spread that attractive orange mulch everywhere. Hire your neighbor’s kids to fly drones overhead and “beam” pictures back to “Earth”. Area 51 will have nothing on you and you’ll be boldly going where no one has gone before!

 

Scary Story!

 

This little weasel (aka Robin the (sometimes) Good) gave us quite the scare yesterday and we're not entirely out of the woods yet. As is typical, Robin ate, I fed Neko (with Robin's help) and then we retire upstairs to join Bob and look at the news on the Internet. Robin always get a Kong (*1). So we're drinking coffee and looking at the idiotic things that rethuglicans are puling on about when I turn to Bob and say, "Where's Robin?" She had obviously finished the Kong and had debarked to other parts.

I walked downstairs and Lo!! The muffins I had placed on the counter to thaw for breakfast has mysteriously disappeared. Robin was looking guilty and sort of slunk off into the living room, I took three more muffins out of the freezer. (In all fairness, she had left us one muffin) 

About twenty minutes later, it occurred to me that these were bran muffins... with RAISINS which we all know are poisonous to dogs. I took out my phone and gooogled just how toxic are they... turns out VERY!! Like 1 raisin for ten pounds of dog! Like I know Robin consumed more than 6 raisins!!

So I call our vet and they advise to give her a teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide 3% every 15 minutes until she throws up. Anyone want to guess how hard that is? I think I managed to get like a drop of peroxide in her mouth and a bunch all over my face and hands (She wasn't having it). So off to the vet's we went; me hoping that Robin would simply puke in the car as she hates car rides anyway but no go.

I wind up waiting at the vet's for over two hours as they try (unsucessfully) induce vomiting. (*2) I sat with Robin, thinking maybe seeing me would help her hurl in unfamiliar surroundings. Still nothing. So the vet then takes Robin back into an exam room and they stuff her full of charcoal, which apparently helps absorb any toxins, which she will then throw up. They instruct me that when she throws up, it will be a big, fat, nasty, gooey, black mess.

Which it was because three minutes after returning home, Robin hurled copiously all over the living room rug. Personally? I was simply glad she had expelled the offending food (*3). I examined it (yes, that's what dog owners do!) and it looked pretty undigested so I'm at least mostly sure she got rid of everything in her.

Today, she seems fine. She ate with gusto (nothing off our counter), ran around outside, pooped an "interesting" black turd (more charcoal!) and seems fine. She is due to return for a follow-up exam on Saturday to check her blood for abnormal readings. I told her today that those were the world's most expensive muffins: $300 for three muffins!!!

(*1) A large-ish rubber thing that looks like some sort of sex toy that you fill with broken up dog biscuits and peanut butter. Robin is a serious fan of her morning Kong!! Keeps her "busy" for about three minutes...

(*2) Interesting fact: I noticed Robin's eyes were really red and the vet explained the vomit-inducing medication is administered through eye drops! Who would think this?!!?!? It apparently gets absorbed really quickly through the conjunctiva! Weird!

(*3) Lots of it! Breakfast! A Kong! Three muffins!! The dog is NOT starving!!

The Life of PIE

 

In celebration (yes! another holiday!) of "Pi Day"(that is March 14th or 3/14) Bob suggested that pie was indeed called for. I had recently scored a bag of limes and the urge to concoct hit, so I made a Key Lime Pie. And as it's (kinda) green, it will double for a St. Patrick's Day dessert as well. It is delicious.

On other green notes, Spring does seem like it's here as the grass is greening and perennials are poking their heads above ground. Hooray. I actually have several primroses (the Stop and Shop/Shop Rite variety) blooming outside. Those are hardy little buggers! And peepers! Our vast estate is full of emergent sounds. Welcome back to all the birds and bugs.

This post is brief as it's another truly lovely day outside and I'm eager to get out there and do a bit of gardening. So byyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

Everything's Comin' Up Roses

 

So Bob and I went to the Flower and Garden Show at The Hartford Convention Center. We got slightly "lost" (more like turned around)and had to back track and wound up accidentally on the right street, right in front of the Convention Center. I must say (*1) that who ever designed this concrete monstrosity of a parking garage and convention center was lacking just a bit in the ease/aesthetics department. After parking your car, you wander in an endless frigid expanse of cement and crosswalks, searching for an elusive elevator. One nice consideration was the above sign which helped us recall exactly where our car was located in the cement wilderness. For this we can be grateful!

We had pre-purchased tickest and thought we'd be whisked straight into the exhibit, but seems everyone else pre-purchased tickets so we stood cheek-by-jowl with hundreds of other plant nerds, inching our way forward all the while serenaded by a young woman folk singer with and oddly tiny guitar. Not quite sure what she had to do with horticulture... I guess it was to keep us calm as we shambled forward.

Here's Bob pretending to be a giant as he impishly pranked holding what was in reality a giant watering can turned fountain. There were several impressive displays featuring large flowering trees and giant pieces of equipment (also turned into fountains) and lots and lots of forced bulbs and shrubs and primroses and hellebores. Yes, there were plants for sale but it struck us as a hard time of year to purchase plants because you'd have to hold them unitl it was warm enough to dig and plant them outside. But there was a stellar flower arrangement area where we were asked to vote on our favorites. Some pretty far-out arrangements, many incorporating odd materials and crazy color combos.

The sheer number of non-garden related tchoctchkes available was also impressive and inexplicable. Wind up dogs and cats (!?), clothes (and not garden related), jewelry... although I admit the only things we purchased were a bottle of an interesting Hibiscus liquer and a pair of alpaca socks. We ran into the nice people at The Connecticut Gardener magazine (Hello Anne and Will!) for whom I write entertaining garden humor. Also, we encountered a woman with whom I used to work at the auction house, lo these many years ago. Unexpected!

And speaking of flowers and roses, I recently made the above bed for our beloved princess Robin the Good. Poor Robin was sleeping on a bed that Mommy made for Frank the Dog (*2) and it was getting thin and probably not all that comfortable. She seems to really like it and nothing is too good for our little angel!

(*1) Sounding altogether like Ed Grimley if you remember him!

(*2) Both long gone! Frank the Dog was resident canine way back in Bridgewater; that's like 20 years ago! He's still missed. A quirky fellow, but brave and true! Although an amusing aside is that Mommy embroidered his initials (for Frank Valley Keating) in such a way that it reads like FUK. I always appreciated that detail!

Crazee Holiday Cluster

 

Oh February has just been a big blur with us lurching form one holiday to the next!

First we encountered Ground Hog's Day- always a major event at our house, despite my sister (hello Beatrice!) telling me that the groundhog has an abysmal record of notifiying us of Spring's arrival. (something like 33%? Not good!) And lo! He (She?) predicted a quick end to our already non-existent Winter. And the Winter arrived with fury... (*1) All it does is snow:

So shuffling out past Ground Hog's Day, we encountered The Super Bowl. Except that we couldn't watch it as we aren't signed up for any of the streaming platforms offering the game and I'll be damned if I'm signing up for another stnking streaming service. (Don't get me started on that bait-and-switch game.) So a day later, (*2) we watched high lights of half time and some not very funny Super Bowl ads. (*3)

The Super Bowl was quickly forgotten as we catapulted directly into Mardi Gras. We were expecting a big snow storm- the first in several years- so we went out and purchased provisions for the weather event and Fat Tuesday. We managed to score a King Cake and were thrilled it even included the all important plastic baby. (*4) However, our gooey, cinnamony hopes were dashed on discovering the cake was super stale. I returned it to the store. Better luck next year!!

(Of course, a fabulous Bob sculpture enrobbed in the fluffy white stuff!)

And of course, the very next day was Valentine's Day. We spent the majority of the day romantically removing all that lovely snow that fell on us. We were both exhausted at the end of the day. A few friends pointed out that Valentine's Day coincided with Ash Wednesday and I suppose that's bad news for all the people who "celebrate" Ash Wednesday by giving up things like chocolate for Lent. (*5) Not being among the (ahem) faithful, we went right on celebrating...

And if memory serves me correctly, Monday is President's Day. Not sure what sort of edibles we'll do to celebrate that but it won't include chocolate!

(*1) Damned ground hog!

(*2) Bob got up earlier than me on the Monday after "the big game", so I enquired of him, "Who won?" He informed me that the Kansas City 49's won. To which I replied that was a mash up of both teams. He responded that one- or both- had won.

(*3) Some weird thing about feet being washed and lots of beer and I lost interest...

(*4) Bob placed it and I got it on the first slice! I think it means I'm required to buy next year's cake.

(*5) Haven't we all given up chocolate because it's full of lead and cadmium and other heavy metals? 

Happy Birthday to Beatrice!

 

Happy Birthday to my sister Beatrice! While carefully considering all the ways to honor her and celebrate her name day, I decided the bestest way was to illustrate exactly where her present comes from. A true story of farm to table!

Here at our factory, our employees are skilled in the most efficient methods of converting feed to the raw stage of our product. Above, is Neko, your personal provider.

Freshly generated product is harvested several times a day and transported in our state-of-the-art conveyance to our modern processing department.

(Note: employee monitoring collection in the field). After arriving at our hygenic and scrupulously inspected facility, product is added to the ever-growing heap of compost in preparation..

Several months of patience is rewarded with the finished product, ready to be delivered right in time for Spring planting! Black gold! Happy Birthday Beatrice! May your garden grow green and be the envy of all your garden friends!!

Visitors!

Other people look out their windows and have lovely untouched expanses of pristine snow... not us! We had about an inch of snow the other day and it was quickly violated by our outdoor activities, which on this particular day included dragging 3/4 of a ton of steel down to Bob's studio on a cart. (They would deliver on a snowy day. Most of the time, the steel company is a day or two off in their projected delivery day).

Also, Robin and I do a fabulous job of running around and generally marking the snow up. It looks like a school-full of crazy kids has visited. But we did have visitors of another sort:

That's Robin the Good's paw print on the right, next to small pawprints that were left all through our back yard. I think they were foxes? And I think there were two of them as prints that worked their way to our terrace (nosy little buggers!) wove in and out of each other. They inspected Robin's cache of outdoor toys and probably looked in the back window to see what we were up to. 

Here's another shot of Robin's front foot print. She was very interested in the trail of the visitors! They're probably the same little individuals who left a small poop on the very southeast of the terrace a afew weeks back. Just letting us know they're here!