A Matter of Ancestory

Today became other than I planned; my to-do list is largely unchecked, but I watched loads of British Period Drama and held my three-month-old niece for hours. I would say these were changes for the better.
Babies & BBC > Housework. Everyday.

Today also included a few minutes of definite hausfrau-ness. I'm all for feeling my UK heritage every chance I get, especially when those chances involve shortbread. But when you're out striding through fallen leaves in a pair of rubber boots, breathing deep lung-fulls of crisp air, headed to the late-producing vegetable patch to harvest some carrots and greens... well, that isn't a time for dainty dreams of English tea parties. That, my dear friends, is when you pretend your name is Marta Frieda Berta and you hike up your imaginary skirts with your work-worn hands and attack vork vit many vigors.

It's great to be German on a fall morning.
Just ask these Ruffer girls.

You have never seen a prim little Anglo-Saxon girl tackle a spread of leaves with the enthusiasm mustered by these daughters of the Deutschland.  
I know it looks like the girl in the polka-dots was about to assail her cousin and sister with that rake, but please accept my assurances that I would never have merely taken pictures while that happened. I know the powerful swing of which this Germanic kinder is capable.  She looks like she was turning her plowshare rake into a sword club, but I do not think that was the case...

Of course, I'm not too sure, as immediately after snapping these photos I was reminded by the infant cradled in my [non-camera] arm that we had an appointment with some rather stuffy characters in long skirts and veiled hats. And there was also some shortbread hidden in the cupboard...
One can only handle so much hausfrau in one's life. Eventually, one must stop play-acting.  One must listen to the British accented voice in one's head. In the end, one does have roots beyond the sort in the vegetable patch, and afternoons (of any season) are made better by ancestors of the British Isles.


Let us not lose sight of who was on the winning and losing sides of both World Wars.

Winter Thoughts

There is a difference between dormant and dead.
There may be no green stems, no unfurling leaves, no stretching out towards the sun, no fruit-bearing.
But that doesn't mean there is no life.

Even seeds aren't dead. (Well, unless you roast and salt them. Then they're just food. And food should mostly be dead.)
They are just sleeping.
Waiting.

Trying to maintain color out of season is unnatural. (Everyone has a great-aunt or two whose hair color attests to this fact.)
And a waste of photosynthesis.
And a waste of transpiration. (Yes. I do know what transpiration is. Do you?)
Color out of season is draining on a plant.

Maybe your brightness is past. Maybe your fruit has shriveled on its stem.
(OK. The fact that I just typed that shriveled fruit sentence makes me laugh on the inside [LOitI]. The fact that I am leaving it ensures that my mother will call me tomorrow and revisit our conversation about sharing too much information [TMI] publicly.)
(The fact that I am making fun of over-used acronyms makes me hope my sister Amy reads this and appreciates it.)
(The fact that I used the word publicly makes me miss my sister Isabel.)
(The fact that I just alluded to a couple of inside jokes makes me wince.)

Be patient.
You are not dead yet.
Maybe it is just winter.
The long sleepy time for gardens.
The perfect time to recharge your mind.

(I did not place this banana sticker on her head. I merely took a picture of it.)
Also the perfect time to cozy up with a cup of hot chocolate.

(She was trying to be Downton Abbey-ish - her words. I did not have the heart to tell her that ripped jeans were not early twentieth century, but late. I appreciated the attitude and the effort to sit up straight on the edge of her chair.)

Or enjoy a bit of silliness.

Or indulge in a bit of over-reaching introspection and wordiness. (The pictures made me do it.)

It's All Over Now

A few days ago my older brother celebrated his birthday.  We're grown-ups and apparently the rules say that grown-ups aren't allowed to make a big deal about any birthday not ending in zero, so we don't often celebrate our birthdays together.  Still, I have always marked his birthday as the end of my summer, just as my birthday (in mid-May) begins summer for me.  When we were children, my birthday meant that I could spend four months saying I was only a year younger than he. But his birthday shoved me further back into the "little sister" area.  That bothered me then.

 

Happy Birthday, Mokey Doo-Dah. 

Sorry about you being so old.

If you want, I can start keeping track of our age differences correctly from now on.

Love,
Honour

P.S. Could you somehow communicate to Corey's garden that summer is over? It seems to think that it's allowed to go on and on indefinitely.

Love in the Garden

Dear Husband Of Mine:

When I saw these weird carrots you grew in your garden, I thought of us.

We are growing together.

If separated one from the other, we would no longer look the way we're meant to.

 We nourish others.

 

I realize that it might be an indication of my slipping mental state that I am once again seeing people in vegetables, and I will now trot back to the kitchen and finish peeling and wedging carrots into sticks for our children's lunch.  Good news: unlike our carrot counterparts, no one has plans to skin and eat us.  Although GBaby has been given me some strange looks this morning.

Little Seedlings

Last night it was time to dig up the potatoes so we could use their garden space for other plants.

Quite honestly, the potato plants weren't doing all that well. This is all that one row yielded; completely below the quota we had set. We're heartless when it comes to unproductive plants.  But then, the plants are pretty heartless too.  And bloodless. And spineless. And brainless. And...

 So we set out a bunch of little broccoli seedlings.  Our own little seedlings helped out.

Well, mostly they helped out.

Some of them were downright unhelpful.

And some of them were just there for the entertainment.

And some little Ruffer seedlings were just there to melt their mother's heart.

Ok. All together now: "Awwww." I don't know what I love more, her helpful attitude or her lovely tiara.

Been Busy Much?

Life has continued to move along since I last updated my little spread here. Anecdotes and witticisms worthy of sharing with the World Wide Web are constantly popping into my brain, but time is not free around here. I know, I know; you make time to do what you want to do. This is slightly true.
Only slightly.
Some of us are busy enough making time for what we must do right now (can or freeze the produce that is ready right now and will not be available next week) that what we would really like to do (sleep, read, write, socialize) is put on layaway.
Do stores do layaway anymore? Or does everyone just use credit cards?

So maybe later this week I will write.

Or maybe in the winter. When the garden is not bursting with tomatoes.

Picking and Choosing.

It is a beautiful Saturday, with a clean kitchen. Our typical Big Breakfast was exchanged for a visit to the bakery. So without my usual clean-up to do, shall I craft or garden? Both tasks sound gratifying, and both promise to be oft-interrupted!