From Sunday through Tuesday last week we ended up getting a foot of snow! We had a break from the snow Monday during which we got an inch of rain. While the snow was not appreciated, the moisture was. There was so much that we went from being in moderate drought to abnormally dry. It’s hard to say whether this might be the beginning of a change in the weather pattern that will bring us back to regular precipitation, but I hope it is. And, I hope that near-future water doesn’t fall as snow. I need spring to truly be here now!

Because I work at a Catholic university, I have been enjoying a four-day holiday weekend even though I am neither Catholic, nor do I celebrate Easter. Still, the extra time off is much appreciated. My birthday is coming up on Thursday this week and I will be working on that day for the first time in a long time. I usually take it off but decided not to this year since the following week I am going to be away for several days visiting my mom in southern California. All that to say, I decided to celebrate my birthday during my long weekend!

Celebrating birthdays in midlife is no longer a present laden affair. It’s all about food and being lazy, having the free time to do whatever I feel like doing. And since the weather at the beginning of April in Minnesota is rarely outdoor fun time, my birthday generally is spent indoors. James managed to have the day off Friday with me which made for a pretty good present in itself.

He made me a chocolate cake, though it was not the one I requested. He looked up the wrong recipe and realized it about 3/4 of the way through, took a hard turn to the correct recipe, and ended up making a hybrid chocolate cake. I’m not complaining, it was really delicious and I’m full up on cake until his birthday rolls around at the end of July! James did make the requested ice cream to go along with the cake—banana with a hint of peanut butter.

My requested special meal was his homemade vegan hot dogs with homemade sauerkraut and fries. The homemade hot dog buns weren’t quite fluffy buns, but the meal tasted fantastic nonetheless. I am forever grateful for the gift of James’s kitchen wizardry!

While the snow melted outdoors, I spent some time working on my garden planting plan. It will be all sorted out until I actually begin planting when, inevitably, revisions will be made on the fly. I can never seem to properly account for scale so some plants end up needing more room than I give them in the planting scheme and others need far less room. But that’s all part of the fun of it.

I also spent time winnowing down my enormous plant sale list to one that is much more reasonable. Then I pared it down even further. I’m pretty sure I have the final list now. I took off some plants I really wanted but wasn’t certain about where to plant them, or if I did know where I wanted to plant them, that location was going to take some preparation and I wasn’t certain I’d have the time for it. And then there were the plants that go on the list every year that I really would love to grow, but have no reasonable chance of either fitting in or surviving the conditions of my garden—I’m looking at your Joe Pye Weed! 

And of course, since we now shop the sale by bike, I can only bring home as many plants as will fit in James’s front basket and my front basket and rear panniers. It’s a surprising amount, given the size of most of the pots is small, but it is a limiting factor for better or worse. Actually, if I’m being honest, it’s for the better. There have been too many sales when I brought home so many plants they didn’t all get planted until the middle of June or they died in their little pots after a days-long heatwave because no one was home to water them several times a day. Carrying everything on our bikes ensures that the number is small enough to get everything planted within an hour or two.

The indoor seed starting continues. All the tiny perennial seeds I planted last weekend are beginning to sprout. Except for the goji berry. No sprouts there yet. The catmint is just pushing tiny sprouts to the surface as of this morning, so hopefully the goji berry just takes a bit longer to germinate. Since they had to be soaked overnight before planting, that generally asks for some extra patience. The onions continue to amaze me. The peppers are starting to get second leaves. The tomatoes are looking strong. And I haven’t killed anything by overwatering it or not watering enough. Yesterday I seeded pots with Kapoor Sacred Basil, Genovese Basil, Fennel (the seed kind not the bulbing kind), and Tithonia variety “torch”.

In non-gardening project news, I finally finished weaving my kitchen towels! Just finished today. They are my first project designed and planned out by me since the weaving class I took last August. I really enjoy the process of weaving. Now I need to finish them. While I love the details of making, I don’t at all enjoy the details of finishing, which is probably why I have so many bags of unfinished knitting projects stashed in the closet! In order to finish the towels I need to hem stitch the short edges, wet finish them and clip off all the strings where I changed colors. 

I have the hems folded and pinned and was extra careful to make sure I folded the hem on each end in the same direction, unlike my weaving class placemat when I wasn’t paying attention and hemmed each end on a different side so the mat is always right side up and upside down all at once! Hems are easy enough to pick up and put down in odd moments, so I will work on them throughout the week. I plan to do the rest of the finishing on the weekend and then James can start using them in the kitchen. 

There is still a lot of yarn left on the cones, enough to probably make two more towels. I have ideas! But between my trip to see my mom followed soon after by a short visit from James’s brother and sister-in-law, and immediately after that outdoor gardening season getting real, I won’t have time to warp a new project on the loom probably until the end of May. In the meantime, I hope to pick up my drop spindle spinning again, and also start working on processing all the dried nettle stalks I’ve saved over the last couple years. I need to acquire some hand carders for that. And also, an old fashioned washboard because removing the dry plant bits with vigorous rubbing between my hands is exhausting, and nettle fibers are too fragile for scutching like flax I got the idea to try a washboard after seeing a video from a woman in Europe using a washboard for the purpose of cleaning the fibers, and since she just published a book on nettle fibers I figure she knows what she’s about. It looks like it works really well. And if it turns out it doesn’t, I’ll have a nice washboard to help me scrub my garden clothes.

Reading

• Book: Aednan: An Epic by Linnea Axelsson, translated from Swedish by Saskia Vogel. This is a multi-generational novel in verse about a Sámi family in Sweden. It begins in the early 1900s when their traditional nomadic way of life is taken away from them by the Swedish and Finnish governments. The children are taken away from their families and put in boarding schools, not allowed to speak their language or practice their culture. The story ends around 2016 with the grandchildren and great-grandchildren trying to relearn their language and culture and demanding rights and reparations from the Swedish government. The verses are short and there is a lot of white space like snow. Like silence and missing pieces. 
• Article: ‘Everybody has a breaking point’ how the climate crisis affects our brains. All the stress and worry and disaster comes with consequences.
• Essay: You’re wrong about these common book ban myths by Kelly Jensen. Jensen pokes holes in common book banning beliefs like “book bans make kids read more books,” “authors benefit financially from book bans,” and “book bans only impact school classrooms and libraries.”

Listening

• Podcast: Movement Memos: Work isn’t fulfilling because capitalism is a death march. Host Kelly Hayes speaks with Sarah Jaffe, author of Necessary Trouble and Work Won’t Love you Back. “We live in a system that conditions us to celebrate each other for sacrificing ourselves to work.”
• Podcast: Planet Critical: The origins of Hell on Earth with Carl Safina. Host Rachel Donald talks with author Carl Safina about how Plato’s philosophy about ideal forms “out there” has led the west down the road of separating ourselves from nature and believing paradise is somewhere else, not on Earth.

Watching

• Series: Mrs. Davis. We finally finished watching Mrs. Davis and what fun it was too. It took some surprising and delightful turns with plenty of humor and some touching moments as well.

Quote

Isn’t it about time
that their children
also learn to hear
the voices

of our shared
history

—

You Nordic children
who have gone forth
so lightly

As if you were
entirely without power
without past

—

Those who have
gone before you
apparently
forgot

to pack your baggage

Aednan, by Linnea Axelsson, page 316

James’s Kitchen Wizardy

I asked for a mocha cake, James started making a different chocolate cake, realized his error over halfway through and I ended up with a really tasty cake that was neither one nor the other

Homemade vegan hot dogs of James’s personal recipe design