Our Vacation

Posted on 08/03/2021 by chick

We brought some of our family games with us. My father even played a few rounds of Stinker and Five Crowns with us, which was awesome, because normally he’s not a big one for games, particularly not in the evening when he is tired. He was just as good at Stinker as I had thought he’d be. But, it was my husband’s entry for the category of breakfast cereal slogans that was the most memorable. It was “Doo doo that sunrise!” After that round, every player who had the same selection of letters also incorporated “doo doo” into their answer.

We picked blueberries at a little farm on a hill. My dad made blueberry pancakes for us the next day. We had a lot of blueberries left over, and we brought them home with us. Later my husband and I made them into a blueberry pie. Yum.

We took a lot of walks. We walked around the neighborhood, down the shore, and over to the local memorial park, among other places. My dad took me and the kids down a local nature trail. He and I also found a nice area of sandy shore that was open to the public but not much frequented, as it was sort of hidden away. We brought my husband and kids back there the next day. It turned out to be a great shell-collecting site, plus there were little fishes, mussels, and shrimp in the water, and wildflowers along the edges. We had the beach to ourselves while we were there. It was pretty much perfect.

There is a deer that browses in the neighborhood. My parents have named her Flora. She got very close to the house one day. We watched her from the window for a while, then Livia and I went outside and took selfies with her in the background. Flora was remarkably chill about us being in the yard with her.

I chitchatted a lot with my parents. It was great.

We went to a maple syrup store where we sampled four types of syrup (light, medium, and dark, plus bourbon-infused). The owner poured out samples for himself, too. If it’s possible to be addicted to syrup, he’s gotta be, because I’ve never seen anyone happier to taste maple syrup. It was a novel experience for me to drink syrup, though my mom tells me that it’s a popular thing in Vermont, which explains the guy’s addiction, I guess. We spent a veritable fortune, buying three kinds of syrup, plus maple kettle corn, maple cotton candy, and maple candy. But, to our surprise, grandpa picked up the bill, so all that yumminess was free, free, deliciously free. Thanks, Grandpa!

The running joke during our stay was that every outbuilding that the kids saw, from the smallest shed to the biggest barn, was a “writer’s haven” (a place where a writer can get away from the world and write in solitude–my husband is planning to build one for me). The more dilapidated and/or less suitable the building was for writing, the funnier it was.

“Look, a writer’s haven!
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Back Home

Posted on 08/02/2021 by chick

Last week we finally visited my parents. We went up on Tuesday and returned on Saturday. It was a short visit, mostly because we didn’t want to leave our pet rats by themselves for longer without knowing how they’d fare. But, three days is pretty much the ideal visit time, so the rats might have done us a favor by forcing our return before we had overstayed our welcome. Impressions:

  • It was good to see my parents. The last year-and-a-half took its toll on all of us, but on some more noticeably than others. Going forward we need to get together more often, even if COVID-19 gets bad again.
  • I’m planning to visit again soon. I may take the kids up there myself and leave my husband at home (but only if he wants to stay home–a little time alone might be nice for him, but then again, maybe he’d like to relax up in VT, too).
  • Vermont is full of wildflowers. I took some pictures, but not as may as I would have liked. I hope to find more time for that on my next visit.
  • TBH, I do not love the lake that my parents live near, particularly because it’s so far away. But, there are a lot of positives. The house is pretty, comfortable, and conveniently located. There are restaurants, a grocery store, and a weekly farmer’s market within walking distance, plus plenty of scenic places to walk. The children enjoy collecting shells on the beach, and there’s a boat landing nearby with an excellent view of the sunset.
  • It’s good to be home. We hadn’t done a ton of cleaning before we left, but our bed was made, the dishes done, the kitchen counter clear, and my office neat. All of those things helped to make our return comfortable rather than anxious. The older I get, the more any disorder in my immediate surroundings affects me, so I am grateful to Me-Last-Week for getting those things done.
  • The rats were physically fine when we returned and seemed to be in good spirits. They still had food and water left. So, if we need to leave them home alone again, we can feel comfortable doing so.
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SITY: Fifth Clover

Posted on 07/31/2021 by chick

Earlier this year I found that black medic had spread into the side yard. I was amazed first by how well established it already was and second by how big the plants were. They were much larger than the ones along the driveway. It wasn’t until they started to go to seed that I realized why. They were not black medic. They were hop clovers.

Hop Clover
Hop Clover Going to Seed

I’m not sure exactly which type of hop clover they are. There are three types (Trifoleum aureum, Trifoleum campestre, and Trifoleum dubium). For my current purposes, “hop clover” is good enough.

So, I finally found my fifth clover. I am literally in clover. Plus, there is another tall clover-y plant now growing in the side yard that has miraculously escaped the mower. I think that it’s probably slender bush clover. If my guess turns out to be right, then I’ll have all five identified clovers in my yard–a complete clover collection!

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Because What If?

Posted on 07/28/2021 by chick

Marshall got his first dose of Coronavirus vaccine a few days after he became eligible and he got his his second dose in due course. We had, I think, always assumed that we would vaccinate him, but we still gave it a great deal of thought and worried occasionally over the decision before all was said and done. Because it’s an experimental vaccine for a virus that is generally not as hard on youngsters as it is on adults, it was hard to say yes to the vaccine, because what if? But it was also hard to say no, because what if? And it’s hard having a kid who is still too young to be vaccinated, because what if? I am so sick of the what-ifs! Life is so much harder when it seems like every decision is fraught with peril.

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Random 7/27/2021

Posted on 07/27/2021 by chick
  • I don’t know if I mentioned this on my blog earlier, but I got a tetanus shot at my annual physical in June of 2021. Not that the world needs to know this. It’s just that by writing the date down here, I’ll be able to find the information later if I need it.
  • A mouse ran across my office floor one night. I screamed a tiny scream. So cliche.
  • We recently learned a new game for Family Game Night. It is called Five Crowns, and it’s sort of like gin rummy on steroids. (I wrote that and then looked at some reviews online, one of which also said it was like “rummy on steroids.” There I go being cliche again!)
  • I combined chocolate with cherry jelly on a pancake, and Livia said, “Black Forest, yum.” It’s kind of amazing that she knows what that combo is called. The Great British Baking Show has really educated her. I doubt she knows where the Black Forest is, though, which is why we can’t depend on TV for educating our kids. 😉
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Monday Ramblings

Posted on 07/26/2021 by chick
  • I cleaned my office on Saturday. I dusted and vacuumed. I organized the stuff on the desk and in the drawers. I took out a whole bag of trash, two boxes of old magazines to be disposed of in various ways, and a bag of books for donation. That’s progress.
  • The Pandemic is flaring up again here in the U.S. Delta is now the dominant variant, and who knows what other variants might arise as it spreads. On the bright side, if we pay attention to the names of the variants, we could all finally learn the Greek alphabet. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, . . . . I think we’re up to Lambda now.
  • Yeah, that wasn’t much of a bright side. I’m grasping at straws, sad and scared that the numbers are going back up, angry at the people who refuse to get vaccinated.
  • I have decided that all plants and plant parts that I bring inside will be referred to as “botanical samples,” because that sounds way cooler than it actually is.
  • The sweet pepperbush is blooming. It smells so good. This time of year may be unpleasantly hot and incessantly mosquito-ridden, but the blooming of the sweet pepperbush makes it one of my favorite times of year.
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SITY: Secret of the Violets

Posted on 07/25/2021 by chick

One late-August day, many years ago, I decided to do a little weeding, and I pulled up a big violet plant that was growing somewhere that it didn’t belong.

Big Violet Plant

Near the base of the plant were what appeared to be seed pods. I opened a pod up, and sure enough, there were seeds inside.

Violet Seeds

That was odd. Why would a plant that flowers in early spring still have seed pods in late August? And why would the seed pods be so low on the plant when the flowers typically grow so much higher? That’s when I realized that the violet had a secret, though I didn’t understand what it was.

This year I kept a closer eye on the violets after they peaked. There were some downy violets growing in conspicuous places, where I could easily watch the seed pods develop. There was no delay in development. The pods formed before the petals had even faded away completely.

Downy Violet Going to Seed
(May 3, 2021)

In June I found a lot of empty seed pods in the yard, but also fresh ones. The fresh ones were a colorful mix of green and purple. I’m not sure what caused the color variations. It may have been a random thing, or possibly it had something to do with the specific violet type or the age of the pod.

Fresh June Seed Pods
I put a bunch of the old and new seed pods together in a bouquet, because they were pretty, almost like a second bloom.

During one of the worst parts of the Pandemic, I decided that I desperately needed some violet-related reading, so I searched for books with the word “violet” in the title. I found one called Wily Violets and Underground Orchids by Peter Bernhardt. The title was intriguing, so I acquired a copy of the book. I read the chapter about violets, and it was there that I finally discovered the secret of the seed pods.

The secret is that not only do violets have a figurative second bloom of colorful pods, but they also have a literal second bloom of cleistogamous flowers. Though I had already learned that some plants had flowers that never open and are self-pollinating (jewelweed, for example, and Venus’s looking glass), I didn’t realize that the violet was one of them.

As Bernhardt describes it,

During the first warm weeks of spring these violets offer their showy flowers for cross-pollination. As the season progresses, however, the plants send up increasingly shorter stalks and allocate fewer resources to the production of colored and scented petals. By late spring, or the first days of summer, the violet plant may still be manufacturing flowers, but these blooms resemble fat, green buds that never open. These are the cryptic, or cleistogamous flowers, which can be found only by pushing aside the leaves and searching for these dwarfed stems toward the base of the plant. Cleistogamy means “closed marriage” . . . . The bud remains closed throughout the floral life span. . . . These cryptic flowers always self-pollinate to produce viable seeds, which, of course, are almost genetically identical to their single parent.

As you probably already know, violets can also spread underground by rhizome. So, they have a total of three ways to propagate themselves. Thank goodness I love these wily flowers so much. Can you imagine the battle I’d have on my hands if I didn’t?

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Different Today

Posted on 07/20/2021 by chick

What made today different from other days?

  • I saw a cardinal.
  • I took a walk on the road. I don’t do that often, so it was different. But the experience reminded me of why I so rarely do that. And I have a message for the people who call to or holler at women who are walking on the side of the road, and that message is “You suck.”
  • Marshall got his second dose of Covid vaccine. Now he’s just two weeks away from immunity.
  • I let Livia make dinner. She declared that she wanted to cook. And if someone wants to cook, they ought to cook, I say.
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Random 7/19/2021

Posted on 07/19/2021 by chick
  • It’s summer now and the stress is low, but soon I will have to rise early in the morning and send the children back to school as if I were a capable adult and as if the world had returned to normal. Only I’m not and it hasn’t. Eek.
  • Today as I was going through the piles on my desk, I found a note that I had written down on a piece of paper. It said, “When you think about where you plan to be in twelve months from now–how imaginative is it?” I don’t know if this was a quote or if I was asking myself that question, or both. It seems like a question worth answering, but my answer is not very promising, which was perhaps the point of writing down the question to begin with. I rarely think about what my life will be like in a year, but when I do, it looks the same as now except the kids are bigger. Totally lacking imagination. That needs to change. So too does my bad habit of leaving cryptic notes on my desk.
  • It amazes me how nearly every time I encounter a new word and investigate its meaning, I will then encounter the word again almost immediately. Today’s word was “transhumanism.” I heard it first in a video clip of a speech by a religious nutjob. I encountered it later in an article in The New Yorker. What are the odds of that happening? Pretty small, I would think. I will take this as a Sign from the Universe that I am meant to know the word.
  • No, I don’t actually believe in Signs from the Universe. I just like the idea of them. So I pretend they’re real. And maybe in doing so I make them real. Or not. Who knows?
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Goldenrod Tea

Posted on 07/18/2021 by chick

I’m a chicken when it comes to foraging, but I am genuinely interested in trying some of the edible wild plants that I’ve been learning about. I am working up my courage to try them while I expand my knowledge about them. When I read recently that goldenrod flowers and leaves can be made into a decent herbal tea, I decided to investigate further, because goldenrods are flowers with which I have some familiarity. I feel safer with them than I do with other plants that I’ve only recently identified.

There’s also a fun and historical story behind goldenrod tea. After the Boston Tea Party, colonists starting making “Liberty Tea,” which was the name they gave to various teas concocted from local plants, including goldenrod. Liberty Tea was even exported to other countries.

There is some disagreement about which goldenrods are good for tea-making. It seems to depend on what you want from the tea. If you want good flavor, sweet goldenrod is the best, and perhaps only, way to go. Most of my edible-plant guides mention that variety and that variety alone. Sweet goldenrod is said to have an anise-like flavor, which might not be everybody’s “cup of tea.” I have had anise tea, though, and liked it, so it stands to reason that I’d like sweet goldenrod tea, too.

Online sources are less discriminating about the type of goldenrod used, and for the so-called “medicinal properties,” then perhaps any variety would do. In The Neighborhood Forager, author Robert K. Henderson states, “Where sweet goldenrod is unavailable, the less aromatic flowering tops of other tall species can be used. Canada goldenrod (S. canadensis), western goldenrod (S. occidentalis), smooth goldenrod (S. gigantea), tall goldenrod (S. altissima), or fragrant, white-flowering silverrod (S. nemoralis) can all be infused. Few have sweet goldenrod’s flavor, however, so they are more useful for medicinal than beverage tea.” Goldenrod is said to be a diuretic, which sounds believable to me. As for other health claims made by herbalists, I am skeptical.

If I were to use goldenrod for tea, it would be for the flavor (foraging is one thing, and alternative medicine is quite another). Obviously, to make a good-tasting cup of tea you need something aromatic. So, as a quick and easy first step, the other day I picked a bunch of goldenrod leaves (well, leaves of plants that I was pretty sure were goldenrods–none of them have bloomed yet). I tore the leaves and gave them a sniff. Some of them had no discernible scent. Others were grassy with an unpleasant hint of something menthol-like. They didn’t seem like good tea-making leaves to me.

I was a little disappointed, but it’s early for goldenrods. There are many varieties, some of which don’t bloom until fall, and I won’t be able to identify them until they’re blooming. Maybe I’ll find some tea-worthy types later in the season. I will search for them, even if that means making a spectacle of myself. I suspect that I already look crazy to passers-by as I stop to take pictures of every other thing along the side of whatever path I’m on, and no doubt I will look crazier yet picking and sniffing at random leaves, but it will be fun. Expect to see more goldenrod posts as the year progresses.

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