Spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Flower Moon<\/p>\n
The new dog food must be a mistake.\u00a0 The whippets did not eat at all this morning, the big dogs ate little.\u00a0 Hilo (our smallest whippet) is in her crate with what I take to be a belly ache since she doesn’t look seriously ill.\u00a0 How do I know?\u00a0 Well, I don’t really, but I’ve seen multiple dogs in extremis over the years and she just doesn’t look like one.\u00a0 I diagnose it to be a tummy revolt against the salmon and sweet potato I found so alluring.\u00a0 I bought six bags at 35 pounds a bag.<\/p>\n
As any good chef, if the public refuses to eat the food I’ve chosen, I have to have a different menu selection.\u00a0 In this case it will be food they’ve always liked.\u00a0 Off to Costco.\u00a0 Oh, and I can get that salt for the water softener, too.<\/p>\n
Leeks, basil, thyme, fennel, marigolds, lettuce and oregano starts sit in the front yard right now, still in the cardbox carriers Mother Earth Gardens gave me for them.\u00a0 Later today, in the mid-afternoon, when it warms up into the high 50’s, I’ll continue planting this year’s garden.<\/p>\n
The leeks especially excite me because I want to learn how to grow this delectable vegetable.\u00a0 It is, after all, the crown vegetable of Wales.\u00a0 By that I mean Welsh soldiers would often wear a leek stuck in their hats.\u00a0 No, I don’t know why, but the leek and Wales have a long standing relationship.\u00a0 The ancestry I can trace most clearly is Welsh; I can put us in 17th century Denbigh, so I gotta learn how to grow leeks.\u00a0 Besides, I really like them.\u00a0 Their delicate onion like flavor is great in soups and wonderful as an addition to vegetable dishes, too.<\/p>\n
Welsh Leek on Reverse of 2008 Proof Gold One Pound Coin The time while Kate’s been gone has been busy even adventure packed, though all the adventures were domestic in nature:\u00a0 hiving bees, doing the complete reversal on the over-wintered colony, buying vegetables and herbs, dogs and their diet and today–the garden.<\/p>\n Forgot to mention something that warmed my heart yesterday.\u00a0 I called Kate yesterday and she put Ruth (granddaughter) on the phone.\u00a0 Ruth told me she was about to go gymnastics and a few other things even Grandpop’s good ear couldn’t grasp through cell phone reception and voice quality.\u00a0 When she gave the phone back to Kate unexpectedly, I told Kate to tell Ruth I loved her.\u00a0 Kate told her.\u00a0 Over the phone came a loud and confident, “I know.”\u00a0 Gossh.<\/p>\n Also, while on the drive out to Nature’s Nectar yesterday I began to analyze my feelings when I get under pressure.\u00a0 I had a bit of those feelings then and noticed a faint, dull ache in my lower left abdomen.\u00a0 To make it feel better I could tell my body wanted to lean forward and down, then to bow my head.\u00a0 Oh.\u00a0 Shame.\u00a0 Explained a lot.\u00a0 Somehow either pressure triggered shame or shame triggered pressure, perhaps both.\u00a0 So, when did I remember shame and pressure together?<\/p>\n When I was maybe 12 or 13, the Ellis family had moved from rental quarters on East Monroe Street into our first home purchased with a mortgage, and our last for that matter.\u00a0 This house, 419 N. Canal, has that magical valence that home has.\u00a0 It also had a basement that flooded during heavy rains.<\/p>\n Dad was not a handy man, if anything, he was the anti-handy man.\u00a0 When the basement flooded, his solution was to bail it out with buckets.\u00a0 Yeah, I know, but I’m sure it was the best he could think of at the time or else he considered other solutions too expensive.\u00a0 I don’t know, but I do know I had to join him often at night\u00a0 in the damp to carry buckets of water up from the basement to dump outside.\u00a0 I didn’t like it, hated it in fact.<\/p>\n I couldn’t get away from it though and I remember having more than one fight with him over doing it.\u00a0 That’s the memory I have, the one that came up when I thought about pressure and shame.\u00a0 It was the perfect metaphor, too.\u00a0 Bailing out a flooded basement is what my defensiveness and short-temper try to do when I sense myself backed into a corner.\u00a0 Too much in the id, the just below the mainfloor area in my psyche, needs to get taken out somehow, but I still don’t like the work.<\/p>\n One solution to this, if I can remember it when pressure hits again, is to stand up.\u00a0 I’m an adult now, not a 12 year old and I can make my own choices about bailing the basement.\u00a0 I can choose another option, like, buy a sump pump, put in a drain field, landscape the area around the house so that it slopes away from the foundation.\u00a0 Lots of options. I don’t have to bend over, bow down and be conflicted.<\/p>\n Just to be clear.\u00a0 This is not Dad’s fault. It was the way I responded to what he thought was the best way to handle a difficult situation.\u00a0 One that probably caused him pain and shame, too.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Spring\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Waxing Flower Moon The new dog food must be a mistake.\u00a0 The whippets did not eat at all this morning, the big dogs ate little.\u00a0 Hilo (our smallest whippet) is in her crate with what I take to be a belly ache since she doesn’t look seriously ill.\u00a0 How do I know?\u00a0 Well, I … Continue reading Leeks, Shame and Ancestry<\/span>
\nAlso Used in 1985 & 1990 <\/strong><\/p>\n