Forty Years

                                                                                                                                                                           

Our little south-facing shed greenhouse has been an ongoing pleasure. It's been used mainly to overwinter things like lavender, rosemary, and bay, as well as various tender potted plants.

                                                                                     

In the early years, we attempted to grow tomatoes out of season but the results were pretty tasteless. For several years I grew Japanese cucumbers on trellises and they did quite well--till the year that something ate all the seedlings.  

                                                                                      

 

Now the deep soil bed is home to a Brown Turkey fig tree that seems to like its environment very well--I had to prune it back severely last fall to keep it from global domination.

Last fall I brought in a pot of dill and, to my surprise, it did well and provided me with fresh dill weed for my scrambled eggs etc. all through the winter and spring. It's looking kinda sad now, but I have two pots of dill on the porch, waiting to come inside in the fall.

When we first began to talk about adding a greenhouse using sliding glass door panels for glazing, a friend scoffed. All the homemade greenhouses he'd seen, he advised us, tended to self-destruct after about five years.

Well, it's true the little ventilation windows are getting a bit funky. (A fall project for John in the workshop.) But the date of construction, according to the record etched in concrete inside, is 1984. Forty years! 

(Bozozo Construction was the name of John's short-lived, ad hoc construction company that was hired to remodel a restaurant into a health clinic. Bozozo was what a very young Ethan called bulldozers. And the motto of the company was We're All Bozos on This Bus (cue Firesign Theater.)

Delight in Small Pleasures

After last week's political unpleasantness, I'm paying even closer attention to the little things that enrich my life . . . the fig tree in our green house that continues to bear . . .

The two tomato vines growing up that fig tree (offspring of a couple of store-bought grape tomatoes I stuck in the soil at the fig's base to see what would happen) are making little tomatoes!

And the cucumber seeds I planted in the greenhouse back in July have been providing cukes for a couple of months and seem to be determined to keep on. The garden cukes are long gone, victims of bugs and powdery mildew.

And speaking of little things -- Josie is finding her way with words. She's been relying on a bit of sign language and a forceful personality to make her wishes known, but in the past week, she has added to her core vocabulary of Mama, Dada, Uh huh! Moo, Meow, and Yeah.

Now we're hearing (B)anana, Uh oh! and (a new favorite) More (pronounce Moah.) And we think we heard her say Moah mango . . . but her mouth was full of mango and we can't be sure.  Her staff is enchanted, needless to say.

And this tickled me. A few days ago while she was having her lunch, she noticed the book I'd been reading -- Live Wire by Harlan Coben. She seemed fascinated by the author's photo and when she made the sound she uses for What's that?

I said Harlan Coben. Something about the name captivated her and she spent most of her lunchtime looking at Harlan Coben. Later on she got up close and personal and gave Harlan Coben a kiss. Several times.

I've been a fan of Coben since I saw him at my first mystery convention and I just figured that Josie has good taste. So I was a little disappointed when Justin and Claui pointed out later that Claui's dad also sports a shaved head and Josie may have thought that was a picture of her Grandpa.

Maybe so. But she definitely reacted to the sound of the words Harlan Coben. Maybe she just figured Meema was trying to pull a fast one.