Food . Gardening . Nostalgia
Strawberries are Here!
On June 27, 2022 by Speranza
Every year I really look forward to the changing seasons and enjoying certain foods at their peak, in-season best. Asparagus and rhubarb herald the beginning of spring of course and provide some much-needed colour and hope, but for me, nothing compares to the luscious, once-a-year taste of fresh strawberries.
Like tomatoes, I used to forget each year how desperately terrible a January strawberry is going to be. Tumbling across the miles in order to garnish a dessert plate (which already makes me feel like a privileged brat), these ruby-faced imposters, often unyielding to the teeth, taste like tiny turnips (or worse, nothing at all) and are eerily white at their inner core.
So for many years now, this has culminated in a no (fresh) strawberries edict here, once the season is over.
Gardening . Getting Older . Introspection
In My Salad Days
On May 30, 2021 by Speranza
When I am working in the garden, I tend to go into a meditative state. All kinds of memories and thoughts rush through my head like water in a colander and I try very hard not to ruminate about why these things are presenting themselves today.
As I was on my knees pulling at a gnarled root, I suddenly recalled from many years ago, an older gentleman who was always working in his garden as we drove by at 7:30 am on our way to work. One morning he was toting a kettle, still steaming in the morning chill and carefully doused all the tough, roots-of-iron weeds that lurked between the sidewalk cracks.
“God, what a loser. Talk about having no life,” my Starter-Husband commented, shaking his sleek head still damp from the shower. “Take me, I’m done.”
I’m sure that I laughed in agreement, probably applying lipstick in the pull down mirror of our Subaru as I watched the little man in his tweeds disappearing slowly from view as we sped away. Starter Husband and myself were both in our twenties at the time: we attended designer gym classes with a personal trainer; we were well acquainted with Clinique’s 3-Step cleansing program and apparently, smugly incapable of reading that man’s situation in any other, more complex way. I am deeply ashamed and tearful when I think of that old man now.
Divorce . Gardening . Retirement . The General
Nine to Five No More
On May 28, 2019 by Speranza
It’s been almost two months to the day since I cleared out my desk and began my (super early) retirement. I have purposefully not shared this information here because it is has been such a churning and peculiar adjustment, full of highs and lows, more than a few bracing 3 am walks around the hardwood floors but mostly, because I fear being judged as old and irrelevant, there I said it.
Gardening . Nature . The General
Room for Wrent
On August 6, 2016 by Speranza
I bought a bright red petunia in a hanging basket earlier this summer and noticed recently that a tiny nest had appeared in between the blooms – it looked just like an upturned half coconut.
Shortly before making this exciting (to me) discovery, I had already heard a feisty, stripey little bird singing his heart out every morning (and throughout the day) in three distinct places; the highest peak of the garage, the fence, and just beside this plant. I consider myself a bird enthusiast only so I had to look at him very closely and do a bit of googling to identify him as a Marsh or more likely, House Wren.
Being A Mum . Gardening . Wildlife
Grounded
On May 26, 2016 by Speranza
Just coming out of a little clutch of some time off work.
I purposefully arrange this every year as a treat for myself so that every month that has a long weekend, I take a few days off to extend the break.
And, to get a LOT of things done.
Strangely though, although I was very happy for much of the time as I worked away, digging, sifting soil, dragging my gloved hand across my eyes, I did begin to see vignettes from my past garden till suddenly everywhere I looked there was another memory, still bright and shiny and full of remarkable detail: the dimples across the knuckles of my sons’ chubby hands, the slim, pink radishes we slid out of the soil and ate at once, squat, brown toads unearthed, blinking from beneath the darkness of a plank, a little snake dry and ribbon-like in my hand that makes Frasier gasp: “OH! Look how he’s breathing! He must be so scared!” and trying to fathom how it can be that I am the age I am, in Earth years, and how so much time can have passed by? Passed me by, especially.