Bread, the Staff of Life

A friend gifted me with the most sumptuous and scrumptious loaf of bread that I have ever had. Here are some pictures.

My bread never rises this high! I need lessons, or maybe I just need more patience.

My friend, who is a busy, busy person, said that she has found the time to work bread making into her schedule because the cost of bread has risen so much! I have seen this in my own grocery shopping. It is a comment on the bad state of our economy, I think when something so basic as bread becomes unaffordable.

On the other hand, it is good to regain control of something so basic as the bread that we put into our mouths by making it ourselves. Somehow, I think we need a revolution in this country to regain our time and do for ourselves the things we have allowed big companies to take over for us. So I will be making bread again.

First, though I want to know how my friend gets her bread to rise so much. Oh, and it tasted every bit as good as it looks!

I am grateful for bread, for the time to make it, for the friend who shared it and for friends to break it with.

Biggest Strawberries Ever

Friday, my friend who joins me for lunch on Fridays, brought these giant berries. We meant to weight them as well as take their pictures, but got caught up in conversation.




Each of them was equal to four or five ordinary berries. What was truly amazing was that they were delicious and juicy.

Today was a day of true rain, not drizzles but downpours. Perhaps the drought really is truly over.

I am grateful for these remarkable berries and for the rain. Most especially grateful for my friend who shares lunch with me weekly. We have known each other since we were in our twenties--longer now than we have not known each other and he is truly my brother in spirit. Grateful tonight for life.

Easter Week

Easter was truly a blessing. I watched part of the Holy Saturday, Easter Vigil from the Vatican and then spent a sunny Sunday enjoying flowers that friends had brought for me. Several months ago I found a scrumptious sounding Chocolate Pound Cake on the King Arthur Flour website and it seemed the perfect celebratory goodie for Easter. (I haven't quite finished it yet.) During the hour and a half that it took to bake, I finished reading The Moral Measure of the Economy. A perfect and beautiful Sunday afternoon.

Monday a dear friend delighted me with a surprise visit and she put up with my singing of "And very early on the First day of the week, they went unto the Sepulcher and found it lying empty, Alleluia." Matins for Easter morning, which is the conclusion of our community's traditional Easter Vigil. I love it so much and miss singing it. It has always touched me that it was the women who bore first witness to the Resurrection.

While the weather has turned chilly the sun is still shining and Easter week is progressing as a time of joy and blessing. Here are some of the flowers.






The purple sweet peas are the most stunning of all because of their color. I am so grateful for this bounty of friendship and flowers during Easter week.

Gardening with the Best Assistance--Friends

Yesterday and today I played with my plants. Yesterday I dug in the dirt--a big bag of potting soil, but it is real dirt nonetheless. I have dirt under the fingernails to prove it! A small bag is residing on the porch waiting to fill pots for various transplants and will be refilled so that I can pot up new bulbs that came from American Meadows two weeks ago--tulips, King Alfred Daffodils, the fragrant ones, white daffodils and a new Amaryllis bulb, big Amaryllis bulb. I can hardly wait.

Today I messed about with moving pots and moving plants--at one point I was enmeshed or maybe ensnarled in potted rose bushes and trying to move a tomato plant by myself was a mistake. It did more damage to the plant than me, but there was a moment there when I wondered what I was going to next. Then I carefully grabbed one rose, between the thorns, and extricated it from me and the wheelchair. Next I did the same with the other. Then I admonished them to stay in their places. (Yes, I talk to my plants.)

My friend L came and expertly, patiently staked the remaining tomato plants before moving them. They are nicely in a row farther down in the patio from where they had been, getting more sun. They have tomatoes growing on them, so now we are hoping for ripening--and they need more water than I have been giving them for the grow bags were so much lighter than I thought they would be.

I smell of tomatoes and basil and dirt and wish my house could be equipped with a handicap accessible bathroom and shower. Someday, perhaps. I dream and dream also of the garden that will grow in the next season.

I am grateful for the exercise and sunshine, the warmth of the Fall day and the friendship of L who is home, all too briefly, from the sea.

Gardening with the Best Assistance--Friends

Today my dear friend who has adopted my yard work came and moved piles of pavers around so that the plants can be put on top of them. I now have a sort of rose arbor going down my ramp and the big, Mr. Lincoln is spotted where it will get more sun. The tomatoes and one basil are in 9 gallon grow bags, which I bought from Plant-It-Earth a few weeks ago. These look like they are going to work. The basil was just transplanted three weeks ago and was already root-bound. I would like to have this basil again next year and plant it in something deep--an old trash can comes to mind--to see how big it would become. Basil tree, anyone?

While my friend and I chatted a hummingbird came to my bower, sipping first on a rose and then a purple malva and finally on the blooming basil flowers. I was going to cut those off, but now I realize that I will need to be sparing so that I do not deprive this lovely creature of scarce food. She was so close that I could see her markings and her feet drawn up under her and hear the clicking of her wings; so close that I could nearly have touched her and so small that I could nearly hold her in the palm of my hand. Exquisite and beautiful, she reminded me to come sit outside just for the joy of it.

My young friend who is going back to school tomorrow came by just long enough to tell me her plans and water my plants.

Yesterday I ordered bulbs online with the hope of having more flowers to photograph in the spring. If the bulbs come, if I get them planted, if the squirrels don't dig them up and eat them!

I can tell when I am playing in the dirt and even more when I am looking at gardening catalogs and web-sites that my ancestors where farmers! I can usually plan enough for at least an acre. I imagine what my ancestors with farms near Adrian, in Michigan and Huntington, in Indiana would make of the web with all the glorious pictures and too many choices, not to mention of me, gardening in the wheelchair with the help of friends.

I am grateful today and looking forward to the evening when it will be cooler.

Friendship and Flowers

My friend Linda, who is like another sister to me--she was even born in the same month as my sister--has embarked on a new life under sail for the next three months. Before she left she brought me two roses from her beautiful yellow rose bush. I can share the pictures that I have been taking, but there is no way to share the fragrance over the internet--yet. (When that time comes, the computer will be able to deliver dinner too--not just by ordering out, that it can already do.)




Linda will be gone for three months as she and Jim sail from Hawaii to the San Juan islands, around the San Juan islands, in and around Puget Sound and then finally home to the Bay Area. (Jim is already on his way in a sailing race that began ten days ago.) I have linked to her blog, sea-of-change, since she is sharing this adventure with her friends on-line. I am excited about having a vicarious adventure along with her as she shares.

Looking at the roses and smelling the beautiful fragrance has made me think of her even more than I would have without them. Flowers are one of the interests that we share, along with gardening, cooking and photography. I am looking forward to pictures of the sea and sea creatures that I know she is eagerly looking forward to taking.

Friendship and flowers have a number of things in common, I think. Beauty is in both of them and they are both treasures. Tending and respect are needed for both and love is part of them too. Flowers remind us of how fragile life is and of how we need to slow down to appreciate it more. Friendship is one of the best things to slow down for.

So Linda, this blog post is for you. Thank you for the treasure of your friendship, your time, sharing your mind and your laughter as well as your kindness. Thank you for caring for me and for bringing me flowers (as well as food from TJ's--our nearby Trader Joe's). I miss you and will think of you often. Good sailing, good wind and good weather go with you and Jim. Godspeed you back to home, friends, the cats and Little Bird. The Fall will come quickly, I know. Fun and adventure aplenty abound in the meantime. Stay well.

Disaster Preparedness, 3

And then the earth shook! Just after I inserted my flower Tuessday night a 5.6 earthquake rocked our area. Not at the epicenter--for which I am thankful--nonetheless it felt real and reminiscent of Loma Prieta. Earthquakes are scary and unexpected, harder to plan for than hurricanes, harder to prevent than firestorms.

They remind us that we are not in charge. God holds us in His hands. I am particularly aware of this, since the thing that I fear most about an earthquake is walking around on my crutches as I do every day. Whil.e most people see me as being in a wheelchair, the fact is that I frequently stand up and move on my crutches through my hosue. I could not care for myself if I did not. I am no longer confident ehought to simply walk around the house for exercise though, because I am so scared of being knocked off my feet by a quake.

What is merely conversation material for most people could be a serious disaster for me. While I check the check-lists of preparedness for the "big one" I need to remind friends that even a small one could land me in the hospital, or worse, nursing home. Check on me, please. I value independent living, but am not so independent that I don't need you.

So the checklist for a disabled person has got to include a support system that will designate someone who calls, and who then stops over if there is no answer. Someone has to have an emergency key too, to be able to enter to offer help. These things are never included in the standard checklists.

Perhaps a checklist for independent living would be a useful addendum in emergency preparedness kits and sites. There are many things that neighbors can do--but they need to be alerted and educated in order to do so. Only one friend called on Tuesday night to ask if I was all right. Another called the next day and then she said, "I should have called sooner." Look around you and see who in your neighborhood is a fragile, elderly or disabled person who might need a check-in after an earthquake, even a little one. Be there for that person.

Adopt a neighbor so that if you were to be turning off your own gas and electricity you would help that neighbor at the same time. Little things matter. Establish a relationship of kindness by bringing in the garbage can that has been left out, picking up the junk litter of free fliers and newsletters, mowing the grass or raking the leaves (especially if they are falling from your own tree). Then when the disaster strikes your neighbor will be comfortable with your offer of aid and you will remember to help. Who knows you may save life. Even more importantly, you may make a friend.