Learning to drive

The first car I have a faint memory of was a '41Ford Coupe. Then maybe the Plymouth... But I didn't pay much attention to our car until I learned to drive. That was in a '53 Ford with a three-speed column shift and overdrive.

  It had wide bench seats, a decent radio and was pleasant enough to drive. Whenever I see one, I want to stick my head in the window and take a deep breath to see if it has that musty old-cloth-upholstery-and-cigarette-smoke aroma I remember.

My parents had a series of other cars: I recall a Pontiac Tempest and a Plymouth Barracuda (in which my friend Pat and I tilted the back seats to enjoy the view of the sky, slightly stoned).

After I left home, I didn't really drive again until a tall, dark, handsome man showed me that driving could be a sport ("A car is but a toy; life is just a game!"). He drove cars that could do things that were lots of fun, and some that were clearly illegal. His father, mother, sister, and brother drove sports cars with such delight (and skill) that I had to play, too - especially when our wedding present was a BMW2002.

Unfortunately, that was our last new car for 25 years. Can you believe we sold it to buy a well-used 3/4-ton pickup and a camper? But is was our snug home for several long stretches, and a handy "guest cottage" when we were posted on fire lookouts. Winter in Vermont turned out to be delightful,  too.

From then on, Bill honed his mechanic skills on a series of fixer-uppers, and it taught me the value of having a AAA card. There was the Volvo whose hood flew up effectively blinding us, after which we had to pin the hood. We made stately progress in the '58 Mercedes - as did the rust eating away its body. We sold it because there were no seatbelts and we were in a carpool with neighbor children.

The diesel Peugeot had the best seats I've ever sat in, which almost offset the aggravation of waiting 5 minutes for the glo-plugs in the winter. Oh, and then there was the time the wiring harness burned up in a parking lot with the two girls who didn't much want to ride in the tow truck with Mr. Sketchy...

Finally, I was stranded once too often, and we traded in European (over)engineering for a Subaru Loyale wagon.  For the next decade, Subaru wagons got me everywhere, every time, in all weather.

Unfortunately, our leap to (used) Legacy luxury was short-lived. The transmission blew up one morning on I-5, scaring the hell out of me.

           
Next, I was besotted with a 2003 Honda Element, which got us there with everything we wanted to haul along, and a number of things that should have been left behind. We tried to ignore the fact that it sullenly refused to give us more than 20 miles to the gallon.

In time, performance and dependability were no longer enough. We needed good karma, too. Fuel economy above all. So there were a series of Priuses that got 48-52 mpg.

They must have been engineered by 18th-century schoolmarms, because we were assaulted with "Right door is OPEN", and an assortment of loud bongs and beeps. So in 2018 we made the leap to an all-electric Nissal Leaf and wondered why all cars aren't this much fun to drive.

I wonder what's next?!

We got married!

I just found this entry I wrote several years ago... I updated the ending.

Late this spring he said, "We should get some wedding rings," and I said, "OK." So, we did.

Toby Pomeroy made us rings for our wedding in 1969, but first Bill, and then I, lost them somewhere around the farm. I always took them off to do lambing, stuffing them hastily in my jeans (the rings, not the lambs). Bill did too, and when he worked on equipment or welded or...

His rings disappeared first, some time in our first five years of marriage. Mine lasted another five or six years and went to join my opal ring and the other detritus of the ages. Given how much interesting stuff we've dug up here over the years, I wouldn't be surprised to find the rings one day. They're here; we just have to notice them.

The jeweler was a little confused by our order. I don't remember how we came up with it, but the original design was two bands each - a slim one to represent me and a more substantial one to represent him (which is exactly backwards, I know). When we tried the new ones on, I remembered to put "his" ring on first. It feels right.

It's nice to be married again, and good to see our rings lose the perfect shiny newness and begin to reflect the bumps and dings of living and working together.

Late note: Bill lost his again; I'm still wearing mine. Rings or no, we just celebrated our 48th anniversary.

Hiatus!

It's been a loooooong time since I've posted anything, but I'm back! Not that I have anything to say...


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

In harmony with global warming, we pushed Spring vigorously. Vegetables in the ground in early April: kale, leeks, cauliflower, broccoli, lettuce, spinach, chard, Italian parsley and basil. Were we mad? Off our rockers? In some instances, probably yes. The first week of April was really too early to put the poor little kale plants out, and they certainly sulked, but are lively as all get out now. The cauliflower had eight plants in a 4-pack and didn't appreciate being disentangled, but is lovely today. Get over it or croak is my motto - tender sentiments, don't you think? The leeks certainly seemed happy from the start; maybe they cheered up the other guys.


The chard, broccoli and Italian parsley went into a raised bed, which was quite a bit warmer than the not-so-raised bed. They didn't seem to even notice being transplanted. And the rest of the veg are in really fine shape because we now have a glorious, big, marvelous, wonderful

custom made while I was safely out of town (and his hair). We're messing a with temperature-activated opener so it will vent when it gets too hot. So that's where the basil, lettuce and spinach are growing. Oh, and tarragon, which hasn't been doing particularly well in the ground, so it's getting a trial in the spa as well.


We also used the frame for growing on the tomatoes until it was settled enough to move them "outdoors". Then we loaded the frame up with peppers and Asian eggplant, to maybe get ripe ones before October for a change... In the ground, we have onions, potatoes, 6 kinds of squash and two of beans. The raised beds also got carrots, basil, cabbage and more lettuce. 


So, our gamble paid off - this time. We pushed the season, and have been eating lettuce and spinach for a month or more. But we aren't kidding ourselves that it couldn't have gone wrong in about 73 ways. And every bite of veg tastes better for it...

Lion & tigers & bears? No, no...

It's more like, tomatoes & eggplant & basil, oh my!

I've been in a tizzy picking, freezing, drying, cooking this wonderful, glorious produce!

Not to mention zucchini, apples and blueberries, oh my.

Next week will be peaches - a good crop Clyde says. And the last messy project is applesauce. It's been so much easier doing these sloppy, drippy foods outside, since we picked up a free picnic table at a neighborhood "estate" sale. And the food dryer can just be out there, too. I love cleaning up with a HOSE! I do have qualms about the dehydrator, but feel better since I ordered an adapter for the vacuum sealer that will do mason jars - no more plastic bags!


I don't fuss about the squash,

because all they ask is a cool corner to nap in until dinner time. But where will we store the potatoes? Hmmmm.....


Kudos maximos to Emily for recommending the Alton Brown tomato sauce recipe. That's, hand's down, the best sauce we've ever had. I couldn't quit tasting it while we waited for the pasta, and could probably eat a bowl of it all by itself.

Will I have time to roast enough tomatoes to free us from tin cans? Tune in next time...

Ass Over Teakettle

So, in an amazingly inept move, I stumbled over the doorstop in the woodshed and while my body pitched hard right, my foot stayed put. I went down like a glacier calving. Except I didn't splash. Oh, and I didn't break into a million pieces.

Fortunately, there was no one home, because I turned the air midnight blue. Yes, it DID amaze the cats; they were curious as... well, you know ... walking around me with wide eyes and switching tails. Hmmmm, now I wonder if they were circling for the kill...

I'm pretty good at falling, due to lots of practice. I'm not clumsy; I just don't always remember to tell my feet where my head is going next and then we have to sit down, have a meeting, and try again.

This time, we got to sit down for a nice looong time. One part of my brain was shrieking that I'd never walk again, and then there was the part that was shouting profanities out loud, so it took a while for the rest of us to restore order. That done, All the King's Horses and All the King's Men (the rational part of my brain) quietly suggested ice, ibuprofen and elevation, which had me only muttering intermittently by the time Bill got home.

Today? A little swelling, a little tenderness, and a new respect for our doorstop.

Spring madness

Reading E's rant about hormone-drunk birds' attacking her house made me think happily about the dear boys, whose behavior is amazingly decorous for three-year-old male cats. They don't fight; they rarely speak; they walk in single-file to the door when we tell them it's time to go out... You get the picture. But they aren't wind-up cats; once in a while they surprise us.

Last Fall, we turned our compost pile and now have another 170 sq. ft. of vegetable garden. (We don't turn the pile very often, obviously!) The boys were happy to have a new, larger litterbox until we covered it with old alfalfa. But when they noticed great dingy poufs of aged wool we'd picked up with the hay... Oh, joy!

They roll; they root; they loll on their backs, clutching a tattered wad, in ecstatic trances.




I guess, sometimes they are just little boys who need their loveys.