Nobody's Mad

Florist, mixed colors

Expected germination: 14-20 days

Approximately 18 seeds

7/18: Planted 2 per cell in 9 cells.

7/29: Noted first seedlings.

–MJH

We make bread with a bread machine, and if I am careful, the bread turns out velvety and delicious.  Because it tastes so much better than “shop” bread, we eat it nearly exclusively.  Bread is chemistry, if not alchemy: I think it’s important to measure the ingredients exactly, especially the yeast; and to use bread flour, not the all-purpose kind.  (The label on the bag of flour should at the very least mention bread.)  Getting the water-temperature right is a tricky issue that I assume you have mastered.

Your bread machine will dictate the order and method, but here are the ingredients for our brown bread.

Makes a 1.5 pound loaf.

• 1 cup + 3 T. water (80 degrees f.)
• 2 T.  oil
• 3 T. molasses
• 1 1/2 t. salt
• 2 T. dry milk powder (skim is OK)
• 2 cups white bread flour
• 1 1/4 cups whole-wheat bread flour
• 1 1/2 t. active dry yeast*

*We use the granulated kind that comes in a jar.  I prefer a brand that at least mentions bread machines on the label.

6 plants (pony-pack)

07/15: Bought.

07/16: Planted in upstairs window boxes.

–MJH

Expected rooting: 2 weeks.

Approximately 12 cuttings

07/08: Placed cuttings in jars of water.

07/16: Noted first roots.

07/20: Planted 1 cutting in pot.

07/22: Planted 2 cuttings in pot.

07/24: Planted all remaining cuttings in pots (about 6 cuttings).

–MJH

Expected rooting: 8 weeks.

9 cuttings

07/13: Planted 1 per cell in 9 cells.

–MJH

Pots awaiting new mint plants*

We sometimes refer to our Seattle house as “House of Blues,” although it is a very happy house.  The exterior is painted in three shades of blue, and the nickname also signifies a love we have for certain Southern music.

My week of gardening included starting nine rosemary cuttings, planting six yellow portulacas in the window boxes for upstairs, and doing routine watering and clean-up of the front garden.

Today I noticed the mint starts had begun to root in their glass jars.  They’d originated as a small bundle of organic mint from Safeway’s produce aisle and had been placed in water on about July 8.  What valiant, assertive little sprigs these plants are!  The roots form at the ends of the cuttings, not at nodes, and even the frailest little stems seem to be rooting.  In the back herb-and-flower garden, four pots wait expectantly.  When the mint cuttings have formed sufficient roots, they will join older mint plants from the front garden, which are already at home in the pots.

*In the foreground of the photo– strawberries.

For weeks I have been trying to write about “being yourself.”  It’s a slippery topic.

I once wrote the following: “To write truly, just make sure you are yourself when you sit down to write.”  (And I should have added, “Keep on checking as you go.”)  The trouble is, I have a big struggle with being myself, myself.

The most helpful things are so simple that it’s no fun writing about them: pay attention to the air in your nostrils; tell the truth, or at least, don’t lie; focus your eyes; keep your own counsel; do what’s right so you can sleep; be poised for action; don’t refuse to be “here,” use your imagination to lighten-up parts of your body.

After a while the whole thing sounds crazy, and the truest things sound craziest.  Well, that’s a beginning.

I picture myself at nineteen.  I am the passenger in a shiny Chevrolet driven by the young man I am dating.  We are driving across the industrial belly of Seattle, on our way to a nightclub.

I am tensely pretending to be what I already am– a nice, attractive nineteen-year-old girl– and desperately trying to think of something that a nice, attractive nineteen-year-old girl might say.

My date turns to me with a disconcerted look and says, “Don’t strain, for God’s sake.  Just be yourself.”

I don’t remember what I thought next, but it must have been something like this:

“Oops! Oh no!  What have I done?  He sees though me!  What if he never calls me again?  How can I fix this?”

And, not knowing what else to do, I would have intensified my pretense of being who I already was.

Because I had no idea what it meant to be yourself, not then and not for a long time afterwards.

The feeling of being not-yourself is a smarmy feeling.  You feel ashamed all the time.  The moral judgments are unrelenting.  If you’re kind and nice, you’re on your case immediately: “I’m so insincere, so sugary, so slimy, and so awful– I bet people see right through me.  Why can’t I be spontaneous and sincere like everybody else?”  If you’re bad, as we all are sometimes, then you’re bad, of course:  “The real me has put in an appearance, and  I’m bad to the core,” you think.  There’s no way out between being slimy and inauthentic or rotten through and through.

Now that we have our “Hose Garden,” an auxiliary watering system installed by Mike, I’ve begun yard maintenance in earnest.  I refer to the lawn and ornamentals.  The end of the week seems a good time to approach the back garden.  Thursday evening the waste disposal containers are put out, and Friday morning they are taken back inside the gate.  Time in the backyard organizing disposal can coincide with watering, weeding and trimming the lawn and ornamentals.  Saturday I plan to mow the lawn, finish watering, and prune, the latter perhaps with help from a certain snazzy Englishman, if he is not otherwise occupied. –MJH

This one is for anyone who craves black currants in a crumble with a sparkling taste and simple ingredients.  The topping is economical and multi-purpose.  Use it for any fruit crumble and for Dutch apple pie.  This recipe serves eight, but the ingredients lend themselves to smaller batches.

Oven: 375 degrees, f.

Topping:

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup butter or solid margarine

Filling:

• 4 cups fresh black currants
• 1/4 cup water
• 2 T. cornstarch
• 2/3 to 1 cup sugar*

Prepare the topping by cutting the topping ingredients together with pastry fork.  Set aside.  Wash, drain, and tail and top the currants, and set them aside.  Mix the cornstarch and water together until very smooth.  Stir the sugar into the cornstarch mixture.  Gently  stir the mixture into the prepared berries and set aside to rest 15 minutes in an oven-proof dish.  Sprinkle the topping over the currant mixture and pat the topping down lightly.  Bake in a pre-heated oven until the crumble is golden and bubbly.

*The lesser amount of sugar makes a tart crumble, the kind we like.  We recommend using the lesser amount the first time you try the recipe– and go from there.

Chinese.

Expected germination: 15-20 days.

Approximately 24 seeds.

07/09: Planted approximately 2 seeds per cell in 12 cells.

07/21: Noted first seedlings.

–MJH