Mulberry Time!

The shortlived mulberry season has begun, and they are raining down by the hundreds while the dogs walk slowly around the tree trunks, hoovering them up. The backyard has both fruitless and fruiting mulberry trees, and, a bit rare, pale white mulberries that are especially sweet and taste far better than the dark berries. They are the last to ripen; the dark purplish-black berries ripen first. 

Mulberries don't pull cleanly from the stem. The stem, a few millimenters long, stays with the berry. I just eat them, stem and all.

Mulberries have a bland sweetness without a distinct flavor, but they are fun to eat fresh off the branches. 

When I was young, I would use berries to stain my lips, like a lipstick. I think most young girls do that! With mulberries, they get stained unintentionally. The berries are very soft and are dewed with juice.

Besides using berries as lipstick, I remember making clover chains and dandelion crowns for "jewelry." We'd also use the dandelion blooms as "powder puffs" and powder our noses with the pollen. We would light matches and then blow them out, using the burnt ends as "kohl" around our eyes.

Sometimes, we'd smooth a patch of damp dirt, and pack it down tightly by bumping it with the heels of our hands. Then we'd scratch a "floorplan" into the dirt with a small stick. We'd get various blossoms and use them as the inhabitants of the "house" and play for hours, moving them here and there and chattering together as the story of the Flower Family would unfold. Sweet times!

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

In the Hall of the Texas Mountain Laurel King

I used to like some of Grieg's Peer Gynt music, especially "In the Hall of the Mountain King." Insofar as classical music goes, or really any music, I am a peasant, munching on a piece of black bread, soon satisfied. I like a bit of this, a bit of that, now and again. Things that bring finer sensibilities to tears somehow hold no interest for me. I would say my favorite music is the soundtracks of A Charlie Brown Christmas, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown, and White Christmas. Fie! I am not very interested in music old or new, but I like to hear church bells ring and birdies sing and rain hit the windows in bursts. And I love to hear old-time "declaiming," much as depicted in the Anne of Green Gables novels. 

Has anyone else tried to watch the newest "Anne of Green Gables" series? I couldn't. It was so strange and coarse and had a strange social agenda, I felt. 

When I was young, it was quite falling out of fashion, but you could still enjoy hearing someone declaim - not sing - a favorite poem or passage as part of an evening's entertainment. I think sixth grade was the last time we were taught to declaim a poem.

At church, I can't stand the singing. Oh, how horrible of me! But I can't. Hymns set my teeth on edge. The guitar player and his earnest singing make me bite my knuckle so that I don't howl along. 

We have a very old Italian priest who sometimes acts as concelebrant at Mass. Not only does he look like an ancient tom turkey, but his voice reminds me of what a lovelorn old tom might sound like, too, warbling up and down the scales and teetering on the edge of the black keys, and never making the leap over to the whites, but falling perpetually into the cracks between them. His voice is a turkey gobble spliced into the sound of a rubber-soled shoe on a gym floor plus the honk of a rubber-ended tricycle horn, all at once; zusammen. And I like HIS voice as he brokenly chants the litany a thousand times better than the sound of the choir or the solo soprano's lilting tones.

What in the world has this post to do with Grieg's music? Well, we have a lovely small tree out here called a Texas Mountain Laurel, and I took that photo to share. And then my mind started up with its loose associations. The name Texas Mountain Laurel conjured up the dwarves in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings and their King Under the Mountain story, and then Grieg's music "In the Hall of the Mountain King." 

The blooms of the Texas Mountain Laurel remind me of wisteria, with a similar scent but with a strong overlay of grape Kool-aid. They are about done for the year. From one week to the next, they are there, and then they are gone.

Koolaid! When I was young, we drank "Cherri-Aid," from Ann Page, better known as the dreadful A&P house brand. Oh, it was foul stuff. Once my mother accidentally bought a packet of Kool-Aid, and after tasting the difference, she just couldn't go back to Cherri-Aid. If I recall ko-reck-ly, Kool-Aid was 5 cents a package, and Cherri-Aid was 3 cents, but my father shouted that the extravagance of the 5-cent Kool-Aid was going to put us "in the poorhouse." Oh, he was so mad, for years. The Depression severely wounded some people.

I started wondering about these prices I remembered so easily. And that led to this screenshot of an old ad. Yes, I was right. My long-term memory is perfecto. My short-term, no bueno.

Told you!

Some bloggie friends wanted to see the "nature table" I put up at school, so I have some photos, below. I have some seeds of the Texas Mountain Laurel on the table, but out of the reach of the kindergarteners. At work, I am morphing more and more into being what I call "the permanent substitute," seeing me subbing for several hours each day while the regular teachers do this or that or run errands or cry into their lattes because they are Young Tender Things and their husbands or boyfriends are So Mean. I have absolutely no interest in teaching again, and that is falling on deaf ears. What? Deaf ears! WHAT? DEAF EARS! WHAT??? DEAF EARS, I SAID!

So, we shall see what we shall see! 

I hope this Friday finds you as fit as a fiddle and ready for a riddle -- also from The Hobbit:

"A box without hinges, key, or lid, yet golden treasure inside is hid."

And what is it? Oh, you guessed it! An egg! Well, of course you would, because you are all good eggs!

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

Go with the Floe

My ice plants are being a bit naughty in the garden. They are growing and growing and already spreading like crazy, squeezing out the other plants. To make matters worse, I bought a new kind of iceplant, and put it in the new fire ring in the courtyard. 

Now I'm afaid I've set into motion some kind of upcoming end-of-summer gladiator battle between the pale tangerine ice plants and the new red-ringed ice plants. The tangerine ice plants are fierce tigery plants, hale and hearty with extra-juicy "leaves." The more delicate red-and-yellow-blooming ice plants have little kitty-toe leaves. Well, I must protect the underdog, or in this case, the undercat! 

Now, my ice plants have just put forth a few puny blossoms so far. When they hit their stride, in about two months or so, the entire plant will be covered with blooms, like so, or even moreso:

But for now, the single blooms here and there are the jewels of the garden!

That last photo is taken, literally, on the "nature table" by my courtyard window ("There she goes again, talking about her closet-sized courtyard, yap yap yap, aw shaddup."). I took all the things and the tin display pedestals I had on my nature table and put them on a table in the school's lobby yesterday. 

We are preparing for an accreditation visit, and every private school I've seen or worked in has had a nature table. The administrators were a bit doubtful, but when the students saw it, they went wild, predictably wanting to spend most of their time looking through the magnifying glasses at the wasp's nest and the mummified geckos and lizards. I had a wonderful mummified baby rattler, but a moment's inattention and there was a crunch and a half-barfing gulp and a guilty-but-proud look on the face of my chiweenie. He may have only three good legs, but he is as fast as lightning when anything foodish is involved.

I put a print of the toad I found in our garden plot, on the table, too. And just wanted to knock the two sisters' heads together when BOTH claimed they never heard of the "Toad Catcher" game mentioned in the last post. REALLY, LADIES? You argued about it for ten minutes right behind my chair! TOAD CATCHER, TOAD CATCHER! 

I also put some potted orange mint on the table, with instructions to pinch a leaf and then smell. I love to grow pot plants! Oh, that didn't come out right. No, plants in pots, I better say! Not the other!

It was strange to see the kids trying to smell the mint through their masks. What times we live in, yes?

I would look at the seeds on display with the magnifier. I have dozens of unusual seeds to examine. Would you look at the seeds, the hummingbird nest, the wasp nest, or the "mummies"? 

Let's Play "That One Game"

 

I don't know. It may be the Cajun in me. Cajuns tend to be very nosey. Maybe in the swamp, they had to be nosey. "Is that a gator snout sticking out from under that car, or is that just the neighbor doing some engine repair?" "Are the kids playing with a soaker hose, or a water moccasin?" "Is that a shrimp or a crawfish? Never mind, pass me some hot sauce." 

Maybe because I'm always writing a portion of "a book" mentally, collecting the things I hear to throw into it, but I tend to remember passing remarks. While my short-term memory is usually shot, things like this get stuck in it, taking up valuable and scarce room.

At work, the school was established by a pair of sisters. They are still there, and work together as the administrators. Oh boy. Boy howdy. Howdy howdy howdy do. Big sis and little sis. Little Sis is as sweet as a bucket of syrup, and Big Sis is as sweet as a gallon of vinegar. About two feet behind me, they started up a conversation.

Little Sis: "Um, oh oh, um, ha ha, oh Dee-Dee, Dee-Dee, do you remember that funny game we used to play? That game?"

Big Sis: "WHAT? What game? What are you talking about? We need to be getting ready for the board meeting."

Little Sis: "Oh, that funny game. You know, the game? Oh, we loved to play it. That one. Oh gosh. Tee hee."

Big Sis: "WHAT? You're a lunatic. What game are you talking about? We didn't play any games. We played dolls."

Little Sis: "Uh-huh, yes we did. We did play games. Oh, I loved playing dolls. But that one. That one momma said, 'You stop playing that right now or you will get warts.'" 

Big Sis: "WHAT? Get warts?"

Little Sis: "Yes, she didn't want us to get warts, but we never got any, did we? We loved that game."

Big Sis: "WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?"

Little Sis: "That game, that one game, that toad game. Toad Catcher!" 

Big Sis: "Martha Ann, we played no such game. What are you even talking about? Toad Catcher."

Little Sis: "Yes we did! We did! We loved it! Toad Catcher! We would play with the toad, we would catch it, and then it would be the other one's turn! Yes we did! You loved it, we played it, you made it up!"

Big Sis: "I did not. I never heard of this in my life."

Little Sis: "Yes, yes yes yes you did! And if the toad peed on you, you lost, you had to hide your eyes! And the toad was the baby, it was the baby and we'd make it a house, too."

Big Sis: "You are crazy, Martha Ann. I never touched a toad in my life. I would never touch a toad. Never."

Little Sis: "Yes you did! We loved that game! You made it up! Yes, yes you did!"

This went on for quite some time. Now I'm left wondering, DID Dee-Dee make up the Toad Catcher game? Is Martha Ann right? How exactly was the game played? 

My husband and I went to check on our community garden plot today after a drive to take some photos of a wild shrub called Mexican Buckeye, that is finishing up blooming. You can spot last year's big pods and this year's immature ones on the same plant.

At the community garden, the wild morning glory (the kind that spreads on the ground, convovulvus) was just spreading and climbing up the sides of the plot, and I wanted to pull it back so that the boards were free of it and it couldn't clamber down into the bed itself. So, I started pulling weeds on my side, and my husband started pulling on his side.

Then, he said, "Whoa! A frog! A frog!" 

Southwestern Woodhouse Toad

I went over there, and there was a big, maybe four-inch long disgruntled-looking toad sitting, now visible with the weeds pulled away from his little house. I was astounded! A big, clearly an aged, toad, in the desert!

I took a few quick photos and we hastily put the weeds back on top of him or her, and then loaded some pine straw on top of that. There are lots of weeds around some of the unclaimed plots, so I hope he will be all right. I hope he stays by my plot, though. I did an image search on Google and found out that he or she is definitely a Southwestern Woodhouse Toad. And I wonder, is this how the game of Toad Catcher started?

Just A Quick Hi and Thoughts About Veterans and Verbena

Oh, I wish the photos could do justice to how vivid the new leaves of mesquite trees are. They look "alien green" and against the very dark bark of a mesquite tree they are stunning! I had to pick a few from our tree, along with a sprig of sand verbena, to put on my shrine. But first I took a few photos of them on my "nature table," along with an empty wasps' nest I found.

Both the mesquite and the sand verbena are very drought-tolerant. The sand verbena will bloom its head off with just a cup or so of water a week, but I like to give it more. It's that greediness for blooms again! More water means even more blooms. A single plant can spread about three feet square and have hundreds of blooms at once. The mesquite makes unremarkable small yellow flowers followed by loads of edible seed pods that are pretty messy on the ground, but really, anything that can live in the desert gets kudos from me. And bees just love the blooms.

The students at school had a rare treat today, although they may not know this yet. A WWII veteran came by to speak of his years in the Navy during the war. Not only did he drive himself to school, at 100 years old, but he had all his wits and wisdom about him still. There are so few of these veterans left...he was in uniform, too, which billowed around him and tugged at my heart. Like my husband, he is all angles and sticks; his upper arm looked like it was about as big around as my wrist. You just don't see any overweight super-seniors. I unfortunately did not get to hear his talk, but did enjoy talking to him while he was waiting to speak to the students. He told me that our building used to be a kindergarten, long ago, and that his two children had attended it. Amazing!

And something else amazing: My husband has suddenly become very enthused about my community garden plot. But now I guess it's "our" plot or more realistically, HIS garden plot! He has timers and sprinklers and soaker hoses rigged up to water automatically, and he is pulling weeds (and yes, some seedlings, but hush!) and planting more seeds since I was worried my bush pumpkins hadn't appeared yet. He is fussing over the lemongrass clumps as if they were newborn pups! 

I hope your Friday is going well, and that the weekend will be a lovely one and a peaceful one. As always, I will light a Holy Candle for my blog friends when I visit the church after work. I love going into the dark church, lit only by the candles on the altar and in the votive banks. Thank'ee for stopping by!

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

The Thirsty Clematis

Evidently the word "thirsty" means something else now. I can't keep up. Perhaps I don't want to keep up. I love words, yet I balk at many new definitions of words. They seem short-lived at best, and silly, almost always with some naughty or cheap connotation. I'll stick with the olde words, thank'ee. 

But back to my dear bargain clematis! Last year, alone on a table at Lowe's, looking pathetic, this poor plant, in a purple plastic pot, unchosen as a Mother's Day present, was a withered three inches of vine priced at $1.50. I had to rescue it. During the past year, it put out four small leaves, and didn't budge, baking in the desert sun. Then winter hit and it disappeared into the ground.

But with the advent of spring, out it came, growing rapidly! It set five huge buds, and I waited for them to open. And waited. And waited. And then it hit me: It was thirsty. The small amounts of water dripped onto it by the irrigation system were only keeping it alive, not allowing it to flourish. So I "flood irrigated" the bed, and within minutes, the first flower unfurled! Within three hours, all were opening! 

I don't know why, but the blooms are a lot bluer in person, and bluer in the morning. 

I think I will do more flood irrigation now. I already flooded both sides of the courtyard again, and the brand new plants have set buds.

Ah, the courtyard. I am always talking about it. When it is revealed, you will be astounded. "Is that all? It's so small!" Yes, by the way I speak of it, you might be picturing something at Alhambra. It's more the size of a Master Bath. But when it's in full bloom, it is indeed pretty! I don't have it in me to have much in the way of landscaping anymore. Too old, too sore, too poor! But I enjoy my little courtyard garden.

I have been a bit exhausted by my new job, coming home, then doing the minimum, sometimes not even having the energy to eat dinner. Just straight to bed, no blogs, boo! I hope to catch up soon. I don't like to miss even one day of the blogging world! 

A Jug of Winecups, A Loaf of Bread, and Thou

I love the lyric poem known as The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, by the poet-astronomer of Persia. Edward Fitzgerald translated the most popular English version in 1859. I don't know how close it is to the original Persian thoughts, but his version is exceptionally beautiful. My title is a weak play on words; in one line of the poem (over 1,000 lines long!), the poet states, "A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and thou" to his love -- all that he needs.

Not only are my winecups blooming, but I bought another small pot of them and have them planted in my new fire-ring in the courtyard! Winecups are native perennials, very low-growing, but with the blooms held on wiry stems well above the dark, deeply lobed leaves. 

The hollyhock roots are planted, too. And the new lemongrass! I skulked through all the pots (do you do this, too?) until I found two that each had two plants growing, instead of just a single plant. Chuckling to myself (yes, I'm THAT crazy lady you see at the plant nursery), I put them into the cardboard tray along with the hollyhock packages.

Grrr, the local nursery is a very lightweight nursery, not like the old one, back in the old days, before I was old. The old one -- gee, it was only 30 years ago -- had it ALL. This one, no. I asked if they had Dutchman's Breeches. I want to be able to point to them in my courtyard and casually ask, "Do these Dutchman's Breeches make my butt look fat?" FOILED AGAIN.

Now, when you go to the garden center, use my other trick, too. Always heft the packs of roots or bulbs that are opaque. The packages are opaque so that light doesn't prematurely trigger the plants to grow, but it prevents being able to see the size of the roots, bulbs, or tubers. So, go by weight. You want the heaviest ones! 

And speaking of that...'ear ye, 'ear ye...in the grocery store, choose your corn and your artichokes that way. BY THE HEFT. Get the heaviest ones. I guarantee, you will never be disappointed in the ears of corn again.

Now, add an extra step for the artichokes. Put it next to your ear, and give it a squeeze. It must squeak. No, I am not pulling your leg. Make sure it squeaks. Squeak = fresh. Get the heaviest, squeakiest ones. You are most welcome.

"Class, what are some facts we have learned from today's post?" 

"Olde Dame Holly, we have learned about choosing double-planted pots, and heavy corn-on-the-cob, and heavy squeaking artichokes. And we have been reminded about The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. And we have learned you're a little crazy, but we knew that, really."

Class dismissed! And as always, thank'ee for stopping by.

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

Wilkommen, Amigas

Do others do this? Make their dogs "talk" by speaking for them? I know one person who has made many thousands on Facebook with this -- the owner of Moonpie, a little mini dachshund, whom she makes "talk" in some kind of altered videos. The owner talks, Moonpie answers, and cha-ching, moola galore.

I have conversations with my dogs, too, where I supply both my remarks and theirs. Every dog I have had, has his or her own voice and accent. Some have been rednecks, some made their remarks in lofty tones dripping with sarcasm, and some got stuck with babyfied talk. For some reason, my little "tom-girl" dog, Sophie, "talks" in a babyfied way combined with Uff-da-isms. I think it's because she is often mistaken for a puppy. She has that little puppy-face even though she is almost eight years old. I don't know how the Norwegian got in there, though. 

All of that preamble for this! Sophie says, "Yook! The yapple twees ish bwooming!" Her loyal "luff-tenant" is Champie, and he has a West Texas drawl mixed with a touch of German and Spanish, as befits a chiweenie. Champie likes to say things like "I vill bite you, mañana. Und ze apples are MINE, amigo." 

Both Champie and Sophie are rescues. Champie bears the physical scars of his ordeal, yet is extremely sweet. Sophie is physically sound, yet has the emotional scars.

Champie loves Sophie. Sophie does not love Champie.

Good gravy, is anyone still reading this drivel? Well, I thank you! 

We have several apple orchards in this area, and a lone apple growing by the old blacktop in a somewhat bad part of the county in the shadow of the Interstate highway. I really wanted to break off a branch and bring it home, but I just couldn't. The bees struggle to find blooms here. I can't rob them of this early food.

Well, as Sophie would say, "T'ank 'oo fer stoppin' by, yoo betcha!" 

Champie adds, "Y'all come back, ja?"

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

A Little Shrine to Mary

Some blog friends have asked about my little wall shrine dedicated to Mary, so here are some photos of it. 

The little vintage statue is from Italy. I think the statue has a very sweet face. The round crown tells us this is a depiction of Mary at Fatima. As a child, I got the Jiffy Pop inflated popcorn container a bit confused with Mary's Fatima crown. 

I very much wanted my mother to buy a Jiffy Pop! I was just fascinated by it. We made our popcorn in a large saucepan. It involved a lot of wiggling of the pan on the burner, an occasional lift and shake with the lid firmly held, and then quickly getting it back onto the burner for more wiggling and sliding. There was always some scorching involved.

I do think that popcorn popped the old hard way tastes better than microwaved popcorn, though, or air-popped popcorn. 

I am at the rock-collecting, tile-collecting, and wood-buying stage of my outdoor shrine. In the meantime, I enjoy switching out the decor on the shelf shrine. The candle to the right was just added from the Easter Vigil this year. The loyal tigers are always present, however. They think they are guarding her, but shhhh...she is guarding them!

Note to my non-Catholic friends: We are not worshipping Mary. We are venerating her.

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly

As Evening Falls on Easter

I have not been around the blogosphere today yet. That is my treat for this evening! It has been very active at church, and I was there since Holy Saturday at 7 p.m., with a trip back home to check on husband and pets and shower and drink something since I got very dehydrated. I wanted to attend as many Masses as possible, the Easter Vigil, and the special Rosaries we were saying long after midnight. 

Outside the building, wisteria is beginning to bloom! Its unmistakable scent mingled with the incense last night at the bonfire, and so today I went looking for it after noon Mass. 

As to our bonfire, even though it was very scaled down due to the wind, we got terrified for our Bishop, although he seemed unaware of his danger. But our padres, our altar servers, and our deacons kept him safe, each one grabbing at his loose vestments as the wind whipped them around near the flames. At one point a bunch of sparks flew out and hit him right in the chest, and we all cried out, "Wooooooo," and "Ooooo" and "Noooo!" but he continued on, unperturbed. 

The wisteria was around the side of the church, climbing on a screen built to shield the air conditioners from sight. There was a huge golden bumblebee trundling about on the wisteria. It made me think of children finding the golden egg at Easter egg hunts. This golden bee was guzzling nectar and maybe loading up on nature's golden treat, pollen. I was so pleased to find this fine, fat bee, and the reason is at the end of the post!

I hope everyone has had a peaceful Easter. As I get older, that is my favorite wish for others: Peace in their hearts. I like to sit in the church when it's dark, and just feel the peace wash over me. The banks of votive candles shimmer in the gloom, and the sanctuary lamp (red tabernacle candle) burns steadily. Our cathedral is the only one in the area still open 24/7, a point of joy for our priests. 

A few days ago, one of the priests mentioned to me that he thought a yellow dress would suit me for Easter. I was very surprised, but tickled at his idea. Yellow, shall we say, does not suit everyone, and I wondered where in the world he got that idea, as his color sense seems to be zero. I looked in vain for a modest yellow dress, locally and then online. But I found a pretty yellow blouse and paired it with a black skirt, and felt it made me look like a bee, ready for spring!

Kind regards,

Olde Dame Holly 

Maundy Thursday

Above: A photo of a bit of the stained glass windows at church. The pieces of glass are about an inch-and-one-half thick! I hadn't realized stained glass was that thick. Since it's spring, I tried to capture mainly the pastel tones. The church is dark and somber during Holy Week, making the windows even more striking than usual. Today is Maundy Thursday. The birds are valentining, the buds bursting, but within, all is very still and quiet.

I love to roll out obscure words, and my everyday speech is peppered with them. I know it's odd, and that I'm odd, but to quote that wonderful philosopher of the ages, Popeye, "I yam what I yam." I told something my father used to say to me in an earlier post. Now I will tell a very quick story that my mother told about me: When I was three, she rebuked me for something I did, some behavioral misstep. And she said I looked at her and said, "I am what I am." The End.

I must have heard that on Popeye. But I didn't like cartoons as a child; the way the characters were drawn, defying the laws of physics, always upset me. I can remember trying to get my legs to spin around as depicted on many cartoons, and trying to get my hair to move in that strange, undulating way of a Disney cartoon princess's hair. And to this day, Gumby makes me feel ill, off-balance.

Anyhoo, my love of archaic terms - well, that's why I always use the old terms for many things, especially holidays. Today is "Maundy Thursday," or Holy Thursday, the day of the Last Supper, the day that Christ gave us The Lord's Prayer, and so much, much more. 

I am always moving things around on my indoor shrine. I like to move some pieces to a little nook at the corner of my bedroom window. My shrine is to Mary. I have a very old statue of her that is guarded by a fierce-looking china tiger family (told you I was strange). I keep the statue guarded, but the Holy Cards I like to rearrange. This is the "nook shrine" today, with one of my favorite Holy Cards and some sand verbena in a Cracker Barrel restaurant maple syrup bottle. Reduce, reuse, recycle! I will dust the shrine nicely and show it off in a future post.

But THIS I will show off now! This is the incredible giveaway I won from Rugs and Pugs <---Link!. If you haven't visited that delightful blog, you are missing out. Rug hooking (wool!), cross-stitching, pug-loving, wit, wisdom, and beauty, it has it ALL. Go ahead, click that link, go see! 

Wherever you are and whatever your beliefs, if any, I hope you are having a lovely Maundy Thursday!