The Garden is In

If the yard won't look spring-like, I guess it is up to me to bring some florals outside.

Thank you all for your comments about Danny's hats. He's putting together some photographs so we can all have a peek at the collection. He's flattered that anyone is interested.

I couldn't stand looking at the bare earth a second longer, so I took advantage of our warming weather to get in the early vegetables. Today I planted:

Three varieties of peas
(Laxton's progress #9, Little Marvel, and Frosty)
Two varieties of spinach
(Red Cardinal, Bloomsdale)
Kale
(Red Russian)
Rocket
Curly Endive
Mixed cutting lettuces

The peas, spinach, kale, and endive should be through by the time I'm ready to plant tomatoes and peppers in the raised bed. The lettuces and herbs all grow in containers. I'll get some onion sets in the ground this week as well (I do love spring onions). I'm not sure what else we'll grow in the hot part of summer, but I have a shade garden planned for the back of the house (another raised bed).

I'm not sure what it is about a garden in the city, but everyone that passed by stopped to ask what we were growing. Just think, if more people would garden, they'd get to know their neighbours. The small college next door has a community garden nearby, and everyone is welcome to participate. I haven't, as I have the home garden, but it is a good option for people that might not want to undertake a major project of their own. I haven't seen more than a handful of students out there.

 I did change clothes before digging up the garden. I wore dungarees to garden, as you do. Everything is tidy now, and if I can keep the teenagers from flicking their cigarettes in my garden, all will be well. And the protectives packets, though perhaps I should be grateful it is just the packets landing on the sidewalk.

These never-worn shoes were a bargain at the thrift store. Trying to buckle the itty-bitty buckle made me understand why they were donated. No shoes are worth twisting your hip out of place contorting to fix a buckle. When I rule the world, all shoes will have velcro closures. And all skirts will be trimmed in pom-poms because, hell yeah, pom-poms!

Outfit Particulars:
Ann Taylor skirt-Goodwill
Top-Had it for years
Shoes-Goodwill
Jacket-Goodwill
Hair Flower-Tiff and Tam
Bangles-All over
50's flower clip earrings-Hand-Me-Ups
Silver belt-Goodwill
Fragrance- Gres Cabotine Rose

I moved the chairs from the back patio out front so I can sit and yell at the kids to stay off my lawn-which I really had to do last weekend as they were trampling about where my tulip bulbs are trying to surface!

Check out that fancy storm door behind me. It was so nice having it open today with the warmer weather.

Tomorrow, a visit to the garden centre.

Little by Little

There's a child who lives down the street with his mother and brother that is very shy. I always say hello to him when he passes on the sidewalk, and he'll nod hello back. We've tried engaging him in conversation as he's just a bit older than Danny, but he'd always scurry away before being asked if he'd like to go to the park, or play.

Today, I was harvesting a few things from the garden and he was pacing the sidewalk, looking bored in that way children get when the new school term is only a week or two away. Summer's essentially over for them, and there's nothing left to be excited about.
"You grow stuff?" he asked.

I introduced myself, and showed him around the plants, letting him smell the lemon balm ("furniture polish") the tarragon ("medicine") and the oregano ("pizza"). We talked about bees, and weeds, and  how he's starting grade 7 in a new school, and is worried about getting lost as there's a different room and teacher for each class in middle school. I remember that same fear-I didn't tell him that sometimes, I still have nightmares where I'm sitting an exam and realise I'm in the wrong class.

"So are these vegetables...you know, fresh?"

It seemed like such an odd question, but he was so sincere I figured I must have misunderstood what he meant. He clarified,
"Did you grow them, or were they just here, you know, like nature?"

Oh.

I grew up in a very urban environment with only the tiniest bit of green in front of the house. We played in alleys, abandoned buildings (don't do that kids, if you're reading) and railway stations. We had parks that were more cement than green, and until I was ten when we moved north, we had to get in the car and drive a bit for any sort of enjoyment of nature that wasn't a beach. That said, by the time I was in grade 7 I knew how vegetables grew. I blame the schools, I really do. We live in bloody Nebraska where a good 3/4 of the state is covered half the year in corn and soybeans. Oh, I know Omaha is a city, but five minutes outside the city, you're in farmland. Really, you can't miss it-green stuff all over the sides of the road.

I picked a ripe paprika pepper, and told him to take it home for his mother. He seemed so happy, then turned around about halfway down the street, and brought it back telling me she wouldn't use it. I couldn't convince him to take it. I replied that it was OK if he changed his mind, and that if he wanted to come back for some herbs to nibble on that's OK too. I really hope he does, and that Danny is around when he shows up. This was just the sweetest kid, so incredibly out of touch with the natural world-maybe Danny can drag him off to watch birds at the feeder or something. It would be one thing if he wasn't interested, but this child was. He comes from a lovely family that we see going out for walks, the children are polite if a little shy, and I'm sadly aware that his disconnect to the world around him isn't something exclusive to him. I don't know how we can get these children out digging, and planting, and cooking what they've grown but I'm frightened for humanity's future if we don't.

I've had the experience of supermarket cashiers not knowing what a fruit or vegetable is (broccoli rabbe is understandable, beets less so) but that's a little different from not knowing how gardens are planted. This was an intelligent, articulate child, so it isn't a matter of being a poor student-it is a matter of poor curriculum. They put so much emphasis on nutrition to the point where they're obsessing over children's weight and BMI statistics with letters home to parents, and confiscating juice from their lunch sacks that they got distracted from teaching them where food comes from. Heaven help these kids the first time they go for a drive in the country, and come across a feed lot. The hamburger didn't just materialise at the fast food joint.

I don't have any answers. I can offer seeds and windowsill plants to the kid down the street, but I can't do much for his classmates. There's a community garden, but you can't force children to use it. I suspect you'd get these kids interested in eating better if they grew it themselves. Maybe that's too optimistic, but at the very least I'd feel better if they knew the life cycle of plants. We have 4-H in the city, but it is tough making it appeal to youngsters. The schools start back just as the State Fair gets underway, but it is 150 miles away so there aren't class trips to see the exhibits. Families can go at the weekend, but not everyone owns a car, or can afford to rent one for the trip. We're staying over, so that adds a hotel bill onto the tab. I understand the logic of moving the fair location farther west (we're a large state) so more people from the largely rural areas can attend, but my heart sinks a bit because it is the kids in Lincoln and Omaha that need the fair most. If I could pile each and every one of them into the cheap rental car and bring them with, I would.

Too late for this year, but perhaps a neighbourhood gardening effort for youngsters can be something I can organise for next spring with a plan to enter their harvest in various preserved forms at the fair. I could teach a dozen kids to make tomato sauce or a jar of green tomato chutney.

Or maybe I can just get the child down the street to take home a pepper. Baby steps. Little by little.

Take Your Pick

Part of our decision to move into the city had to do with access to medical care. As Danny's medical stuff became more complicated, I didn't feel comfortable with a 25 minute race to the nearest hospital-a small, country one at that. Don't get me wrong, they do a good job with farm accidents, severed limbs, and hunting accidents-but even then after you're stabalised they send for a helicopter to take you into town.

Earlier this week, it was a sprained ankle (he's fine). It took under three minutes to drive to the urgent care down the street. Last night, it was an asthma attack. That took five minutes, but only because we hit a stop light at the end of our street. We live one street over from Children's hospital.

You hope you'll never need these things, but being spared the panicked drive up a rural highway in the dark of night gave us the ability to focus on our child-not avoiding hitting dear on the rural road. We had the choice of two large hospitals across from us, an urgent care during normal hours, and a clinic in the Hy-Vee that can handle most easy things like colds and earaches. There's another urgent care about 5 blocks to our north. After 13 years of living in the middle of nowhere, having this many medical options is a wonderful thing.

As we were leaving the ER last night (technically this morning as it was 2AM) the nurse handed me a form for him to be excused from school today. Danny shot me a triumphant smile (he's homeschooled) because he's rarely excused for illness (you can read a book in bed). I expect he'll be pretty exhausted today (he's still sound asleep) after an evening full of medications to facilitate breathing.

I know there are many, many problems with the American system of delivering health care* (that's another post) but for the moment we're just relieved to have any available nearby in an emergency. A trip to the emergency room with a child is always frightening, but knowing you can make it there makes it less terrifying.

We suspect much of this is allergy induced as it goes from warm, to rain, to last evening snow-with the mould spores going absolutely nuts in the air. The counts are pretty high at the moment, coupled with the typical spring pollens. Sooner or later, the sun will burn off the damp, the trees will be done pollinating, and the kiddo can get on with his life-but until then, we're going to be in for some difficult days, and late nights.

* I should mention that the staff at both the Urgent Care on Dodge Street, and Children's Hospital were fantastic with Danny, who tends to ask a lot of questions because he's studying anatomy. The doctor at the urgent care who spent time explaining the x-ray, and the nurses who didn't mind explaining why they had to look in his ears for an asthma attack were patient, thoughtful, and generally terrific.