Things are happy because the sun is finally out. I love being in the shade when it is sunny. Riding bikes up to the grocery store for the first time. I love this time of year. Think I might make rhubarb custard pie later. Remember that poppyseed lemon cake I made for Martha? Cute, but it was a total brick. I've never made rhubarb pie before. Kind of excited. Wouldn't a rhubarb-colored dress be gorgeous?
I treated myself to a little pile of publications yesterday (this one and this one and this one). I've had a nice week, soaking up inspiration and getting my hands really dirty. I even have a sliver (proud). I don't think I mentioned that I used this cool web site to help me plan the beds. Not everything has gone in yet, but so far I have transplanted purchased organic starts for cabbages, garlic, onions, beets, leeks, potatoes, peas, and some herbs, planted seeds for lettuce, spinach, and carrots (and a hyacinth bean), and are waiting for warmer weather for tomatoes, butternut squash, basil, and eggplant (and those varieties might change from what I have listed on the plan). A little of everything. Some flowers will get in there somewhere, too. I found planting the seeds to be about fifty times more exciting than I expected.
The weather turned winter-cold and insistently wet, and I beat the retreat back into the house and dove into my quilt pile to watch every episode of River Cottage and Jamie at Home that I could find on YouTube (we get YouTube on our TVs). I also watched everything I could find of The Little Paris Kitchen and The Delicious Miss Dahl and French Food at Home. Cooking shows (especially when they include pretty kitchen gardens) are my pain reliever of choice. They flood my brain with endorphins. Yahhhhh. It was pretty awesome because every single muscle in my body was seriously aching, and I couldn't move, and I was freezing because we're almost out of oil for the season, but there was nothing else truly pressing for my attention. So I just piled on pets and down comforters and wool-filled quilts and made an Earl Grey latte (steep the tea in steaming hot milk — try it) and watched hours of beautiful potagers and steaming vegetable soups and incredibly gorgeous rustic kitchens flicker across screens, and was happy as a clam. Thank you for all of the sweet comments about our little garden project! I'm really looking forward to working on it. And I really think it will be so much fun to watch it evolve and grow up. (Also, for those that have asked, the willow edging like the stuff I used can be found here.)
The sun has come out a bit this morning. It's playing very hard to get, shining for five minutes, then changing its mind and disappearing into a cold cloud. I've had a lazy couple of days and should do some house chores and get some groceries and pay some bills and do some work and plan something more for dinner than buttered noodles. It's hard to make time for these silly things when you're a gardener, though, y'know?????
*The cup came from this Etsy shop, but it doesn't look like that seller's page is working anymore :-(.
And there it is, our little garden, two days old. So excited! So tired! More soon!
I forget: Photos look so cool when they are printed. Especially at big sizes, like 8" x 10". I've been going through my archives, especially since getting the Canon, and picking out lots of photos to turn into prints. They look good. I'm really pleased. That camera rocks. I ADORE the paper (Moab Lasal Photo Luster [now called Exhibition Luster]). It's kind of a matte/semi-gloss. It reminds me of honed Carrera marble. Technology. Awesome. Anyway, I have to admit that, content-wise, the photos look pretty cool together as a group. I think there's a story in them, somehow. The story of these days. Maybe pictures are more like a poem than a story. No linear plot. Little glimpses. Distilled (like a poem). I can't write it. I can print the colors of it on paper, and hold the pages in my hands. I look into them and see the details, sometimes the big picture. As if I could.
In the now-quiet house, the animals appear again, venturing back out into the center of the spaces. After a weekend of the most beautiful weather I've even seen in my entire life, yesterday dawned cloudy and cool, a welcome margin of gray into which we decided to fit some spring cleaning. I opened the newspaper and was excited to see that a recipe for pizza inspired by one I'd made last spring was included in an article about asparagus and pizza (thanks Deena!). We cleaned the fridge, got some groceries, made some dough, went to the lumber store to buy some cedar boards for our new raised beds, went back to the store to get more boards (naturally, we can't count), and spent the day puttering happily. Andy took the old roses out of the parkway (sorry old roses, but I know you were unhappy) and built one of the beds. There will be three total, each 4' x 8'. We'll plant vegetables and flowers. It's the only real sunny spot we have. Half of our neighbors came by while Andy was out there, one by one offering opinions and advice. Kind of funny. We just smile and do our thing. Whatever I dream up, he'll figure out how to make it work. I bring the plan (and the pizza); as long as he has his playlist, his puppers, and a decent IPA, he's off and running. I sit on the steps with a sketch pad and seed catalog, and study the light. Tulips blooming. Waylon Jennings. Potatoes, eggplant, lettuce, peas.
The best visit ever. Dear, sweet treasures in my life.
xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo
We are so lucky! Our friends are coming to visit us! The plane gets in this afternoon. My heart is bubbling over. So, so, so excited. So excited.
I finally finished tying the quilt shortly after I took this photo. It was all I could do not to take it out of the dryer (I always wash and dry my quilts [on warm] the minute I finish them), put my pajamas back on, and hop back into the bed. But instead I made a poppyseed lemon cake. I'll let you know how it turns out. How both turn out!
Rain rain go away. My dearest friend Martha and her baby girl Mila are coming to visit in two days and the forecast is rain all the way. I have the conversation circle all ready out back, but I have a feeling all conversations will be taking place at the table, or under quilts, or in front of the fireplace.
Before it started raining, though, Andy and I spent the weekend cleaning up the back yard, getting it ready for spring, and I really can't describe how good it feels to do that. This will be our first full spring and summer with the new kitchen door and the deck-dock and the walkway, and those things have been life-changing. No exaggeration at all. It took a long time, over ten years, before we were able to make it happen. But it was worth the wait. The connection to fresh air, wind, rain, sunshine, birds, slugs, and the natural life of this little piece of land (in the very middle of the city) is all right off the kitchen door now (instead of down a dark hallway where you get hit in the face with coats, down some little stairs where several tall people have hit their heads on the "ceiling" [including Andy Paulson who, within the first five minutes of us excitedly moving into the house, found himself lying flat on the hallway floor after smashing his forehead against the "ceiling — it was awful], through a warped old sticking wooden interior door [which used to be the house's original exterior back door], and through the tiny mudroom — a real rat maze — then out). Even in the rain, it's all right there, and I feel a greater sense of peace and . . . possibility . . . now that there is only one lovely little ridiculously functional new door between us. Yeah. That worked.
I feel like I should do an exuberant little song-and-dance number about it on the deck-dock stage.
I'll give you a better tour of the yard when it's not pouring!
Oh, and! Two things: The Winterwoods ABC sampler pattern is now available as a downloadable PDF. AND many people have asked me what the "O" in the sampler is. It's the cross-section of a tree trunk or a log! :-)
My name is Alicia Paulson
and I love to make things. I live with my husband and daughter in Portland, Oregon, and design sewing, embroidery, knitting, and crochet patterns. See more about me at aliciapaulson.com
