Hellebores

Not all my Niger develop this color so I'm happy to see more and more seedlings that do.

Thank You Salter

My old Salter kitchen scales (an older version of this model) had been behaving erratically for some time when I finally tried to beat it into submission. After that, all it displayed was "E".

I still had the box and the instructions but no receipt to determine if it was still covered by the ten year warranty. Regardless I was willing to pay to have it repaired rather than throw it away so I called Taylor/Salter in Las Cruces, New Mexico, of all places.

A lovely woman assured me that I could send my old scales to Las Cruces and they would send me a replacement. She told me they were no longer making my model and they would send whatever model I wanted if I put a note in with the old scales.

So now I have a fabulous new set of scales with several advantages over the old one, primarily sealed buttons where dust and dirt can't collect.

Thank you, thank you Salter. Friends and family should be warned they will getting Salter scales whenever the occasion merits.

Yes!

I can coexist with deer, rabbits, skunks, foxes, snakes or just about any critter that comes around but not groundhogs. They are just too destructive and can do too much damage in no time at all. We've relocated a lot of nasty, messy, smelly groundhogs over the years but this one was by far the most mild mannered of them all, a perfect passenger on the trip out to one of the more remote canal parks.

NO!

Spring Tonic

A lovely box of fresh ramps from a friend in West Virgina arrived yesterday and I cooked some right away. Delish. Thank you C.

Il Orto

MAIN SEASON 2009

LATE PLANTING 2009

Even I can manage a bit of optimism in spring, plotting three plantings for the fenced garden, il orto, with the garden hogs, the melons and the winter squash, in another area. I rarely get everything in as I plan but I doubt I would do as much as I do if I didn't have all the options laid out early on.

And So It Begins

1ST PLANTING 2009

I got the tomato, pepper & eggplant seeds sown yesterday. I've seen a lot of photos of lovely seedlings posted in various blogs the past week or so but here I wait until April 1 to open the porch and set up the nursery.

I used to start the season earlier but the tomatoes would grow into trees until our nighttime temps finally got over 50º/10º and the fruit would set. It just made for a lot of extra pruning.

With a heat mat and florescent lights the seeds take off quickly and are ready to move outside by the end of May. The cherry tomatoes that grow in pots on the stone patio on the south side of the house usually have ripe fruit by the end of July.

Tomato: Brandywine, Black Krim, Costoluto Fiorentino & Carmello (slicing), Bella Rosa & Lyn's Mahogany Garnet (two new determinate varieties), San Marzano 3 & Golden Mama (paste), Sugar Sweetie, Mirabelle, Black Pearl, Super Snow White, Italian Ice, Green Grape,
Sundrop & Isis Candy (cherry)
Eggplant: Nadia, Biatrice, Rosa Bianca, Purple Rain
Sweet Pepper: California Wonder, Islander
Cardoon: Pieno Inerme

The first rows of mesclun and radish have been sown in the orto but I'm holding off on the fava & rapa for another week since they took so long to germinate last year. Flats of escarole (Mentoponto, Cornetto di Bordeaux, Sugarloaf & Broadleaf Batavian), onion (Rossa Lunga di Firenze & Italian Torpedo), Baby Lincoln leeks and pots of podding radish have been sown outdoors on the patio along with a variety of perennials.

Spring Temps

There's a rather narrow temperature range that I consider to be ideal spring weather but yesterday was spot on and I spent over three hours at the park. The ramps are up about an inch and the bluebirds and the white throated sparrows are in good voice.

Erin Go Bragh

Poor Ireland. I guess they're really takin' it in the shins after being caught up in the financial smoke & mirrors of the past decade. I myself got a warning lesson from the old country when I returned a sweater to Cash's a few days before Waterford announced it was going into receivership. Now I guess I'm at the end of a very long list of creditors but I remember that every time I consider buying something else.

In honor of St. Paddy's Day I made soda bread with an adapted version of the Landmark Tavern recipe. The Landmark was a great place to eat when we lived in NJ and used to take the ferry from Weehawken to NYC especially when we took out-of- town guests on the Circle Line tour. We used to eat so much bread that we couldn't finish our meals.

The week ahead is looking good in CNY; we've had several days of sunny, dry weather and there's only a modest chance of precip in the forecast. I should be able to get some fava beans sowed before the end of the month and a bed of mesclun started under cover.

Old Jars

I spent some time last week visiting my mother in Ohio.

My mother has a new tablemate, a woman in her early 90's who was living in her own home until she moved into my mother's assisted living facility a week ago. Apparently she and her daughter and son-in-law are just beginning the process of emptying the contents of the house including a collection of canning jars. They've suggested I can pick up the jars on my next trip.

I'm not sure what to do. I've seen a lot of old canning jars in a lot of old cellars and most of them are unusable. I guess if they're still available in May I'll take them; Ohio still doesn't do much recycling.

Still Winter

So the week here starts with shoveling at least 6" of lake effect snow today and some good snowshoeing tomorrow.

It seems whenever I try to focus on planning the garden and finishing the seed orders, we get hit with another snow storm. That and the fact that I feel like I just finished putting up last season's harvest.

Genie's Bluebird

Little Stinker

I'm at the kitchen sink looking out the window. I see a little dark something in the snow covering the driveway, about a foot from the edge of the asphalt. It's the head of a chipmunk. It's eyes are blinking, blinking, blinking, adjusting to the sunlight. Finally it emerges from it's tunnel which now apparently will serve to further the deterioration of the driveway. Great.

The Kitchen Sink

Other than trips to the park, my life these days is pretty much played out on graph paper planning changes in the kitchen and the garden plantings. I love graph paper. I wonder who invented it.

It took a long time but I've finally come up with a way to use almost all of the old kitchen cabinetry including the 42"hanging cupboard currently stored in the attic. We'll only need a few new pieces on which we'll be using old doors and an old drawer.

The sink base has some water damage but I'm going to make due with a stainless tray for the bottom. Since the 20 pound Kohler faucet I bought over fifteen years ago has never been installed, all I need now is the new sink and a new countertop and we should be able to get the messiest, most pressing project done before it's time to set out the tomatoes.


I was really, really lucky that this house had such handsome kitchen cabinetry and so much of it. The cabinets were installed in 1965 and in the more than twenty years that I've lived with them I've never tired of them. The design is perfectly timeless (or would be if I chose to change the hardware) and Wood-Mode will still make it even though it's not considered a current style.

White Winged Crossbills

First I saw a female. I'd heard reports that some birds were dropping further south presumably because of the unusually cold temperatures so I'd been keeping an eye out for siskins, grosbeaks and such. When I got my binoculars I knew this bird wasn't one I'd seen before and I actually had to pull out a field book to identify the small flock as white winged crossbills.

I couldn't get any decent photos myself because (#1) they were moving around so much, (#2) it was 13 freakin' degrees and (#3) I still don't really know how to use the camera. Thank you Cornell Lab; they didn't stay long so I'm glad to have access to these photos.

A More Positive Note

I made my first marshmallows yesterday while listening to mvyradio and I don't think I've had so much fun in the kitchen in a long time. I can't believe I've spent so much money on handmade marshmallows over the past few years when they're so easy to make. Actually I've made one really big marshmallow; I have yet to cut 'em...

Dug Out

We're momentarily dug out. Maybe if I'm lucky, no snow shoveling today and instead a chance to snowshoe at the park.

Digging Out

John Berry / The Syracuse Post-Standard

Lisette

January used to be a big birthday month in my family. We used to avoid any potential holiday letdown by anticipating one big party for all the family & friends who had January birthdays beginning with Lisette on the 1st and ending with my dad on the 31st. My dad's been gone for ten birthdays now but this is the first without Lisette.

Lisette would have been my godmother if my family had gone in for that sort of thing. She was a very pretty Belgian war bride who married one of the men in my parents' army unit and she laughed more than anyone at her language mix-ups. She was also the 'craftiest' person I've ever known and she made, among many things I treasure, my favorite throw.

Onion Goggles!

Brilliant.
And more attractive than the vapor mask I sometimes resort to.