BLOOMING AND READING AND BLOOMING

Many bulbs are sprouting as the rain keeps coming down.  I sneak out in between the downpours and gusty winds and try to get pictures.  These are the tiniest of grape hyacinths and I love how faithfully they come up every year.  Just this tiny bunch I planted many many years ago.  Every year I vow to plant more, to have a nice size planting, and then I forget.   I have more than one garden diary, it all just gets so jumbled; the planning, buying or dividing, planting, mulching, fertilizing.    Who can remember to write it all down?  It's never simple.

Can you see the little stone pig with wings behind the hyacinths?  I found this in Asheville a few years ago and I have a few other variations on the theme here and there.  I identify with the whole ideology. When pigs fly. 

This is the bulb bed as of Saturday.  It was gloomy and rainy and the tulips refused to open up.  They only do so in the sun, stubborn creatures that they are.  And they close religiously every evening.  Everything was rain spattered and droopy. Still, I love it.  More tulip bulbs to be planted next fall.  Check. Check.  It's so important to let the leaves dry up on their own, never cut them down.  This is their energy source for next year.  I have heard of gardeners gently folding the leaves over and down and securing them with a twist tie or some twine.  It looks neater and you have room to see where you want to plant other flowers. 

I managed to get enough for a simple bouquet in a Mason jar with some raffia tied around the neck.  Everyone here is so used to seeing flowers that they don't always notice.  Sort of sad. 

I've been busy as I predicted in my last post.  I had a hair appointment on Tuesday.  I got to see my little Elsie as Mary Clare was off work early (I have my hair done by her sister, Katie at her mom's house for those that don't know).  It's always so fun with Elsie and Katie's little baby, Margot, six months now...so lively and happy.  

Wednesday I had a doctor's appointment.  It was so crappy out...rainy and blustery.  He asked me if it was still that way when I showed up at 1:00 p.m.  I said yes, but isn't this the norm for April?  We laughed.  Yes, it is.  We are so silly to think that this is unusual after a brief warm up.  We've had some below freezing temps at night and I lug my big pot of pansies off the porch into the house, but otherwise I'm good.  I never plant anything until after Mother's Day.  That's sort of a rule of thumb in our area. 

 

I follow a great blog, Back Road Journals, and this lady not only knows the local back roads, she's a world traveler and has the best recipes.  She posted a recipe for Chicken Avocado Suiza.  I happened to have all of the ingredients on hand and what wonderful meal it turned out to be,  My picture doesn't do it justice.  You can find the recipe here.  The only adjustments I made were to use a jar of tomatillo sauce by Rick Bayless of Frontera Grill (You can find it in your grocery store near the tortilla chips, I'm sure).  And I did everything in a skillet.  That's it.  Thanks, Karen!  Get the recipe, you'll love it.

I'm amazed that this little bed of tulips looks so beautiful.  As I said, the pretty little things only open in the sunshine and when we went to our favorite little Mexican restaurant Saturday night, I couldn't help but take a snap. You can only imagine how pretty they look on a sunny day. 

We found ourselves at Cine again, a modern Mexican Taqueria that we found on our last venture in exploring new towns.  We have to find a new name for this sort of venture The Husband and I do on various weekends.  How about Exploring New Towns?  Sounds good to me.  Isn't this a colorful appetizer?  The sauce in the forefront is a pineapple sort of thing, the middle one had us perplexed and we forgot to ask, and I guess the same for that last one.  Ha!  They were all good and The Husband demolished them.  I try to stay away from carbs, as in the chips, and I had a chicken tortilla soup coming so I wasn't going to spoil my appetite or use up the carbs.  It's just a really fun place and we will be back a lot I'm sure.

While we actually had plans to do our Exploring New Towns on Saturday morning in a totally new town, we knew on Friday night that rain and cold and winds were predicted.  Ever the optimistic, I said, "Let's just dress warm and have our umbrellas. We can duck into shops and hang out under awnings."   It sounded very reasonable at the time.  Not so much the next day when the weather people were spot on and it was raining and nasty chilly.  Oddly, I awoke about 5 a.m. with the rain splattering loudly against the windows.  I couldn't fall back asleep despite the two Diet Pepsi's I downed, so I crawled back in bed and grabbed my Nook.  I decided to finally stop my habit in getting a quick fix of reading magazines and just get involved in a novel.  I had quite a selection in my library and I chose this.  Oh. My. Goodness.  Just read it.  Get it and read it.  Schedule uninterrupted time to just devour it.  Lock yourself in a bathroom or closet if you have to.  As you can see, I'm absolutely no good at book reviews.  I seriously didn't push to do the Exploring New Towns  because I secretly wanted to read more of this book.  And I awoke Sunday morning to finish the last 88 pages.  

  “Gone Girl fans will devour this psychological thriller.”—People“   

Like its train, the story blasts through the stagnation of these lives in suburban London and the reader cannot help but turn pages.”—The Boston Globe

 

Enough.  Just read it.  

And I started another...Little Bee.  It's older and maybe many of you have read it.  It's new to me and again, I'm letting dinner burn and laundry languish as I lose myself in this amazing story.  Forget those magazines.  I'm on a roll.

 The lives of a sixteen-year-old Nigerian orphan and a well-off British woman collide in this page-turning #1 New York Times bestseller and book club favorite from Chris Cleave.

See you soon.  Or not.  I have a library wanting attention. :)