Paying it forward

Planted four more tomato plants today as an experiment to determine how the first five plants planted on May 15 do in comparison to the second four, planted today, which proceeded the first six planted way too early and all of which died a horrible death a few weeks ago during one of our May frosts.
What a strange, cold spring. But beautiful. I love the unexpected rain showers, the clouds, the breezes that keep it cool. But a few warm days would do wonders for the peas languishing against the fences. A few vines have flowers, but the plants are tiny.
Also planted a jalepeno today and eight marigolds, that always brighten the garden.
Collards went in yesterday as well.
Neighbor Scott got excited over his first sprouted pumpkin seed.
"A sign of life," he said.
I found out that he was jealous last year when we were harvesting and he wasn't.
Also found out that Forest and Vivian, the previous owners, had dug up the dirt in the garden and replaced it with good dirt.
I have had success in the garden due to their gift that keeps on giving.
I hope that Ben and I will pay it forward when we sell this house. Planting of perennials, the new patio and rock garden, for starters.

Planted four new tomato plants amongst the mesclun, which is bitter. Another view of the garden, which is puny yet.

The finest of cloth

Yesterday I photographed more Iris. They are unfortunately not in my yard, but I will work on having some Iris for next year. They are exquisite, and I love to turn them black and white. The leaves look like the finest of cloth, draped from a patterned stem, with plumes for added decoration.

Snow, sleet, hail, rain, sunshine--all in one day.

I exaggerate. There wasn't snow, until the hail coated the ground white...I call that snow. And it wasn't really sleet, because the hail had formed half-pea-sized pellets that coated everything the ground.
I texted my gardening friend, Sue, who had insisted we plant our tomatoes this past week. She promised to "watch the weather," and take "full responsibility" for the tomatoes. I  laughed when I sent her a photo of the "snow" on the ground, and she texted back, "Don't let it hurt our tomatoes." I responded with a "HA."
I've been reading gardening blogs, feeling discouraged about my gardening knowledge, given that I've gardened over the past 30 years. Unfortunately, it wasn't continuous, which  means that I've had 30 gardens in my mind, but only six in real life, and a few of those were not much to brag about.

I'm reading a gardening blog, A Way to Garden, by Margaret Roach. She has been writing for 30 years about gardening.
She said, "Don't plant tomatoes early." But it is a good learning experience for me as well, to see how tomatoes do when confronted with sleet, hail, rain and then hopefully some sunshine soon.
I will go out and buy some more tomato plants to plant, just in case, to see how they do in comparison.
Not as a "told you so," but as a gardening experiment.

Tulips and Iris

He wins, I win.

Yesterday Ben and I went to look at a used riding lawn mower for sale. I would rather sit down to mow instead of using the walk-behind power mower that used to be self-propelled. It broke, which made it impossible to push. But now Ben tells me that it is fixed, but I would still like a sit-down mower for our acre.
Before we left to look at the mower, he said he'd rather get a new barbeque. He has been wanting one for years (but not as long as I've wanted a riding lawn mower)...good lord do we sound suburban or what.
Even though we decided that Ben gets his barbeque, I had a feeling there was a reason to go meet the mower owners.
Pam and Roger live on a hill in Selah looking east to the hills and the desert. The house was built in 1929 and is surrounded with enormous old cedars. It's where Pam grew up, watching her father farm and her mother plant rose bushes and peonies under the cedars.
Ben and Roger talked lawnmowers and fishing and who knows what else and Pam and I got to talking about our mothers and plants.
Pam lost her mother in January. Her mother had a stroke in 1995, and Pam, one of four siblings in the area, was the designated caregiver. At one point she and Roger came to live with Pam's mother on the hilltop in Selah. Then her mother went to a nursing home for four years and Pam was her advocate, which means she went to visit almost every day. Pam and Roger eventually bought the home from Pam's mother. The last year and a half of her mother's life, Pam was the primary caregiver in their home.  Her sisters came once a month for an hour or two.
I asked Pam how she felt now that her mother was gone. Did she feel relieved? Was she grieving?
She said she felt numb.
As I questioned her more I discovered that she didn't have a close relationship with her mother, but took care of her anyway. And now that she is gone, Pam is wondering why she isn't grieving. She said she was sorting through a lot of feelings, including being angry at her siblings for not being there for their mother.
I asked her if she felt guilty.
"Yes."
We agreed that unless you've taken care of a parent the way she has, in the way I have, people don't get it. It's understandable. We aren't good about walking in another person's moccasins.
And even though I can wrap my mind around some  of her experience, I have a hard time comprehending how she spent 15 years, similar to the time I've spent being there for mom, in caretaking a person who had a stroke and was in and out of nursing homes and then in their home for a year and a half.
Mom has had strokes, but nothing that debilitated her indefinitely. At 101 you would never know she had the strokes.
Pam said the first day after her mother died she went to town and felt at loose ends knowing that she didn't have to run home, or run an errand for her mother.  I can relate, even though I'm not there yet.
She said she was tired still, and wondered why. I said, it takes awhile.
Ben and I left after an hour and Pam and I agreed we'd be seeing each other again.
And sometime this week Ben and I will go shopping for the barbeque as a four-year anniversary present.
He gets his barbeque. And he'll do the mowing. A win-win.

Day in the mountains

A salmon fish ladder constructed in 1987 to help the salmon up the river. So we were trying to figure out who was directing traffic. How were they supposed to know that a human had erected steps upon which they might climb up the river, rather than going up the rapids like they had done for how many millennia. Just a question.

We came into a meadow and about two hundred yards (it really could have been 100 or 300 I don't know) down at the end of the meadow were six elk cows. Yes, they are called cows, I checked wikipedia. And they all ran away as we walked out into the meadow. But it was very cool to see them.

I call this skunk cabbage, but it is more accurately corn lily, and more accurately than that, False Hellebore. It grows everywhere in the cascades where there is water...as in streams or in meadows where there is early spring moisture.

We drove about an hour and a half into the mountains. Nearly reached a junction of the Pacific Crest Trail. One of my goals is to hike it for at least ten or 15 miles. Not a huge task, I wouldn't think. Just need to do it. 

Mom's Day

It is a day to speak of the great things about my mother.
She taught me about the beauty of words, and although she drove me nuts most of my life correcting my pronouns, I will be forever grateful. She would have made a fabulous newspaper editor.
She taught me about the beauty of the world. She used to throw her hands in the air and exclaim, "oh, look how beautiful."
She always loved the ocean, but learned to love the barren beauty of the Yakima Valley, the light on the hills, the clouds, the open sky.
She taught me perseverance. Has she ever!
Her motto is "Never, ever give up." And she has demonstrated that with a toughness and tenacity to be admired.
Mom has always been generous and in these last years as her finances have gotten tighter, she is frustrated she can't give more.
At 101 she continues to strive to be a better person, asking forgiveness for her wrongs, wanting to better, kinder, more forgiving of others.
Mom has a faith that brings her peace when she isn't peaceful, trust when all seems like it is going to hell.
Mom used to be more acerbic at times, but it was only because she had a profound impatience with ignorance or bureaucracy that makes no sense. I get that.
She has always had a good sense of humor. Because of poor hearing she can no longer appreciate humor like she used to, but her self-deprecating sense of humor has grown stronger. We laugh over silly things. She laughs at herself.
My mother still pats me on the leg when I'm tired or discouraged and tells me, "It will all work out," even when she has no idea what needs to get worked out. And then she says, "Do you want chocolate?"
My mother and I have had a complicated journey together, but I love her deeply and will honor her on Mother's Day with flowers, a card,
and with one of those interminable dinners that almost send me screaming from the dining room.
But I will do it for her.