Little Babby Friend
Yesterday our little cat Babs had to go to the vet, and I was really worried about her. I was so glad when she got home all right, and I fêted her with catnip and treats and a can of Fancy Feast. …
Author: Leslie Kimel
Easter Egg-Dyeing Party
On Friday evening, we all went over to Mom’s house to dye eggs for Easter. Bun and I rode over to Mom’s together, and when we arrived, only Jake was there. The first thing he did (before even saying hello) was tag me. …
Another Flowery, Cat-y Weekend
Swiss chard amid the wisteria and Indian pinks
When it’s not the weekend, I can’t believe it ever was the weekend, that I really had my own free time. It just seems too marvelous, too wonderful, beyond comprehension.
This weekend was great, of course. I popped popcorn and played with the cats. I got up really early and gardened in the dew. There was so much blooming in the yard, so much to see: native wisteria, Indian pinks, coreopsis, oxeye sunflower, wild indigo, false indigo, coral honeysuckle, the Mutabilis rose. . . .
On Saturday we repainted our picnic table near the pond. We used a nice brick red stain that perfectly matched the Juicy Fruit-scented flowers on the sweetshrub growing by the gate. We were painting when Rob announced, “I’ve come up with a theme song for a new TV show starring Carl as a superhero.” And then he broke into song:
Super Powie, he’s got super powers
Super Powie, he’s got super powers
Super Powie, he’s got super powers
. . . And one of those powers is being cute!
I guess I should explain that Rob calls our cat Carl “Powie” most of the time. I call him “Pops” or “Popper.” We think he is ridiculously, amazingly cute—maddeningly cute. I say he’s as cute as Timothy Olyphant on Justified. Anyway, Rob had developed a great new show to serve as Carl’s star vehicle.
“You see, Carl is a superhero, battling crime,” he said. “And you’re his sidekick. His arch-nemesis is the evil Madame Boobaloo, played by Buntin; she’s always doing things like stealing nuclear warheads just to get attention. Because, of course, Madame Boobaloo is secretly in love with Super Powie, but she’s too proud to admit it.”
(Buntin is our temperamental tortie. She hates every cat in the world except for Carl. She loves Carl and always wants to groom him and give him little love bites, but he will seldom hold still for it.)
Madame Boobaloo
By the time we finished painting, the picnic table looked really sharp—and Rob and I were both singing the Super Powie song. For my next project, I planted six more Indian pinks and four purple coneflowers under the big water oak behind the vegetable garden. And then we planted a huge number of sweet potatoes around the barn and under the bedroom windows—49 Beauregard sweet potatoes and 25 Centennial. We also planted a bunch of black-eyed peas around our bamboo teepees.
We had a wonderfully fatty, carb-y, sugary lunch at Burger King (my meal included a cherry icee), and when we got back we worked on mulching the pond garden again. We’re still not done, but we used up our entire pile of wood mulch, so now I’ll have to order another load. The pond garden is the biggest bed we’ve made thus far. Even though it’s still half empty, it contains dozens of wild azaleas, needle palms, Shi-Shi Gashira sasanquas, and Florida anises.
On Sunday we made a fabulous vegan meal—rosemary drop biscuits, chard pie (with a tofu-cashew crust), pan-fried kale, sweet potato casserole, fried seitan sticks, mashed potatoes, and limeade. It took us hours to make and five seconds to eat. Afterwards, I felt so sleepy. The breezeway always makes me drowsy, with its warm air and yellow sunbeams. The cats were lazing about on the various gliders and rocking chairs, and a light dusting of catnip covered the floor.
Biscuits in the blue-eyed grass
We spent Sunday afternoon mowing, edging, and weeding. I couldn’t believe how beautiful the yard looked when we were finished, the neat grass paths winding through lush, wild beds of sumac and palmettos, coreopsis and mountainmint. There were little bird flutters everywhere, and I saw my first box turtle of the spring.
I was trying to capture the beauty of our climbing pea plants. I will try again.
The Landing and Other Stuff
This weekend was crazy busy. Rob and I cleaned the house, did tons of laundry, prepared our taxes, weeded for hours, watered three acres of thirsty plants, swept our porches and garden paths, and cut down a bunch of invasive nandina …
A Good Teacher
One day I was talking to Rob about Maggie, our beautiful silver tabby. I was saying how much she has taught me about forgiveness–because we were very cruel to her in the beginning and she hasn’t held that against us. …
Spring Gardening Fun
Maggie loves to follow me around when I’m weeding.
This weekend was particularly satisfying because I got to spend most of it gardening. On Saturday Rob and I mowed and edged and ran the weedeater, which took up half the day but certainly resulted in a sharp-looking yard. I was on my hands and knees weeding most of the afternoon. (I like weeding because I can birdwatch at the same time . . . and dream about all the plants I still want to buy.) Near dark we planted a row of Silver Queen corn in our main vegetable bed and another row of cilantro behind the Nagami kumquat.
Our vegetables are doing great. The potato plants are so lush and bushy. We mulched them up high with leaves this weekend–so they have a kind of cozy look now. We have to make room for our zucchini seedlings, so we pulled out a few kale plants (behind the barn) and used the ruffly leaves to make kale chips. (They taste just like potato chips–except kale flavored.) The Swiss chard is still gorgeous with its hot pink stems, but our winter cilantro is really bolting now; it’s almost done. The Matt’s Wild Cherry tomatoes are growing like crazy; by summer they’ll get really viney and messy, so Rob built some bamboo trellises to help keep them in line.
I saw a good deal of the cats this weekend, which was awesome, of course. I doled out big piles of catnip to Maggie and Babs and Greg and watched them roll around and wrestle on the warm driveway (one of my favorite pastimes), and then I took a great picture of Greg with his tongue out. (He’d been cleaning himself, but then when he stopped he forgot to put his tongue away.)
Here’s what’s blooming in the yard right now: red buckeyes, blue-eyed grass, columbines, white wild indigo, crossvine, trumpet vine, golden ragwort, spiderwort, and pretty much all my heirloom roses (Rev d’Or, Marie Van Houtte, and Leonie Lamesch are standouts). The vine house (our little tin-roofed shelter at the edge of the driveway) is shrouded in heavy curtains of coral honeysuckle; the hummingbirds are in heaven.
Mom gave me this great owl statue for my birthday.
Here I am with my Katie Road Pink rose; it’s one of my favorites.
Hooray for Spring
I’m so glad it’s finally spring. Rob and I have been harvesting spinach and cabbage and planting peppers and tomatoes and reveling in the scent of wild azaleas. The picnic table is covered with pollen, and the columbine is blooming, and there are catbirds “meowing” …
Spunky Red Bean Dip
Our cilantro is so awesome right now; it seems to grow about a foot a week. We’ve been harvesting loads of cilantro lately. It’s delicious and so pretty out in the garden, so glossy and green. In the mornings I love to just look at …
A Funny Old Story
Sophie and Jake in 2008
I’m still reading my old journals (it’s one of my favorite pastimes), and today I found this funny story from the year Jake was four and Sophie was seven. As you’ll see, the kids were a real handful back then:
Monday, May 26, 2008
Yesterday Jake wanted to read Sophie’s diary. Keep in mind Sophie’s seven and can barely write, so it’s not like her diary contains any salacious material. I’ve read it before. It says things like, “I like my room.” And: “My cat’s name is Velvet.” It’s not all that private either. Kris has to help her spell most of the words.
Anyway, Jake wanted to read Sophie’s diary while Sophie was at school. Kris called me on the phone and told me about it. She said, “I tried to explain to Jake what a diary was, that it was secret, but he didn’t get it. He still said, ‘Can we read Sophie’s diary?’ And then he comes home from school and he’s made this diorama that he wants me to look at. He says, ‘Mommy, do you want to read my diary?’ And I’m like, ‘That’s not a diary; it’s a diorama.’ And he’s like, ‘Well, I’m going to call it a diary.’ I’m like, ‘Fine.’ So anyway, Sophie comes home from school and right away Jake tells her he’s read her diary, which is a total lie. So Sophie freaks out. She is such a drama queen. She goes from zero to 60 in like one second. She’s screaming and squeezing Jake’s head, and I’m like, ‘Sophie, he didn’t do it!’ And Sophie’s like, ‘He did!’ And I’m like, ‘Sophie, he didn’t. Think about it. Your diary is hidden, it’s locked, and Jake can’t read!’ She’s like, ‘Well, he said he did it!’ And I’m like, ‘Well, I’m pretty sure he didn’t.’ So like five minutes go by and Jake comes screaming down the hall. He’s totally sobbing. He’s screaming, ‘Mommy, Sophie readed my diary!’ Because she looked at his diorama. And I’m just like, ‘I am going to lose it.’ Phil doesn’t get why I’m a crazy person by the time he gets home at 7:30. I’m like, ‘You try dealing with them reading each other’s diaries!'”