Drying Mint

Today's plans, besides general tidy up of patio area and some weeding (must be done today because it is supposed to rain for a couple of days midweek), are harvesting and drying mint.

Supplies needed (I don't have anything fancy and my house is in such a state of cluttery chaos, just gathering these things might be problematic!):

• scissors or clippers to clip the mint
• a paper bag with holes punched in it to dry the sprigs of mint in
• something to bind the sprigs together - like a twisty tie or rubber band (all my rubber bands have mysteriously disappeared though, even though we had a dozen of them wrapped around the knob over the sink just a few days ago.  What happened?  Who took them?)
• A dry, warm place to hang them.  The study is pretty warm and dry, maybe I can hang from the bakers rack that is in there?

We'll see what we accomplish today!

Garden Goals for 6/14/20-6/20/20

Two years ago (only that long?) we hired a permaculture, organic garden company (consisting of one guy and 3 or 4 assistants) to put in a garden for us.  I had incredibly grand plans and we only implemented part of them, which is good because I immediately got overwhelmed.  Gardening, especially if you are doing it in a permaculture way, is incredibly interesting, rich and complex. I still don't remember all the plants he put in and I don't know if I like all of them or if I like their placement.

I tried to weed and take care of maintenance but it soon became obvious that my arthritis (and my inconsistent energy levels) were going to rebel.  I have an especially arthritic knee (thanks Dad!  I must have gotten that from you!) and it goes into full rebellion.  So we hired the same gardening company to come by six times a year for maintenance.  I piddle around gently doing whatever I can (which is wholly inadequate) and occasionally I get other members of this household to help me.

I am slowly learning, but because I am easily distracted and because I am overwhelmed, sometimes, unfortunately, I put off dealing with it.  This is crazy because I love my garden so much.  It gives me so much pleasure.  I am thrilled by it!  And it is even a religious thing to me.  Gardening has deepened my faith and is a way of expressing gratitude and praise to my Creator.  I had not expected that!  Thank you, Jesus!

So I am intentionally making this blog more about gardening so that I can really keep a journal to help me along in both organizing and recording information. 

Mint truly is the easiest thing to grow!  It smells wonderful!

GOALS FOR THIS WEEK:
1.  Mint - I planted an old planter with mint last year and it has come back with abundance.  I want to try drying mint the old fashioned way.
2.  Protecting the blueberries.  My blueberry bushes are beginning to ripen.  There do not seem to be as many blueberries as last year, as I recall.  The birds have definitely discovered our garden (also squirrels and chipmunks) and so I want to figure out how to use bird netting.  I bought some but haven't put it out to protect anything.
3.  Continue weeding here and there where it looks the worst.  I plan to employ cardboard a lot to smother the weeds.
4.  Weed and prep veggie beds.  These need a lot of tender care.  I am late dealing with this due to covid 19.  I need to try to see if any seedling/starts are available.  I only have three tomato and one red bell pepper in, 3 sunflowers (from last year), potatoes planted from grocer store ones going to seed) which need some care, garlic which I am not sure when to harvest.  My lettuces have completely bolted and look wild and beautiful but are no longer edible.  I may also plant some seeds I have.  It's a bit late but better late than never.  I may need help with planting.
5.  FATHER"S DAY GIFT! - R is impossible to buy for but this year he actually requested this fancy new grill.  Very expensive - a purchase for a lifetime.  It's being delivered Wednesday.  So we need to dejunk and tidy up the patio area.  We have some leftover flagstones that I want to lay down in certain spots to increase the patio area.  It's just a bit too small for use. 

We don't have a lot of blueberries.  This little bush is the most promising out of the 7 we have.

These tasks may roll over to next and beyond. 

To be continued!

Changing Up This Blog

I have decided to change the name of this blog to one that reflects my two great hobbies as of right now, reading and gardening.  The quote from Cicero feels appropriate too, because  along with reading and gardening, I also love to study Latin, read classics, and tend towards (Christian) stoicism and (Christian) humanism and Cicero fits well there too for me.

I am excited to continue to journal my reading adventures here, but also to include much more about my gardening adventures as well.

Purgatory by Dante - Classics Spin

I am a week late with this post.  I didn't quite finish my Classics Spin in time.  I was a day late (first time!), but I did get it read.  And I am glad I did.  I feel slightly more educated.  I have heard about Dante's Divine Comedy for ages and ages and now I have officially read the first two books, Inferno and Purgatio.  Maybe one day I'll get to Paridisio as well!

I mostly read Anthony Esolen's translation for its ease and clarity; a real pleasure to read.  I found his notes very helpful.  However, I also would dip into Dorothy L. Sayers translation which I also enjoyed.  But what makes her edition so powerful for me were her extensive, clear and masterfully done notes to explain all that was going on in the text.  Really, her brilliance shone through her explanations and she made my enjoyment and comprehension of the story so much deeper.  I think her take on the masterpiece is a masterpiece in and of itself. 

There is so much going on in this story.  Dante was brilliant. He combines references to ancient Greek and Roman literature and history, Scripture and Catholic liturgy, contemporary (to him) literature and politics, (even science!) as well as a deep exploration of theology sometimes orthodox (like relying on Thomas Aquinas) and sometimes a little heterodox (his own sort of theological meanderings). All this written in a particular poetic style that employed so many clever devices such as acrostics, number play, plays on words, etc.

I only glanced the surface.  But what I saw was illuminating and admirable.  I so appreciate the Classics Club because at long, long last I am getting around to reading great literature I've heard about all my life and didn't get to in my years of formal education.

Catching Up on Reading

I really am into my booktube channel now.  So I guess I can only do some much social media at once.  This blog is dying a slow death.  But to prolong the agony, I will post what I've read since my last post way back in April.

The Marriage of Katherine by D. E. Stevenson.  A gentle novel in a trilogy perhaps? (I think this one is the second book, but it works as a stand alone as well).  Very pleasant escape.  Made me want to go to Scotland!

The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey.  A disappointment for me.  I have been wanting to read it for ages but found a lot of it annoying.  I did a video on it here.

Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan.  This is a classic I've heard about all my life.  My interest in it renewed when I reread Little Women recently which references it a bit.  I did a buddy read for this one which really increased both my discipline in sticking to it and my enjoyment of it.  I actually found it an interesting read.  I am glad I read it.  The language is antiquated but the story line is simple and fairy tale like.  The underlying theology though gets a bit arcane at times.

Rose In Bloom by Louisa May Alcott.  This was April's read for the A Year With Louisa May 2020 challenge.  I enjoyed it but reading too much Louisa May Alcott is getting a tiny bit old for me, unfortunately.

Eagle Against the Sun by Ronald Spector.  This was a big survey of the Pacific Theater in World War II.  Very well written but chock full of facts and numbers and military stuff.  I don't know how much I retained, but I was rather ignorant of a lot of what went on in the Pacific at this time.  I read this because I wanted to know more about my father's experience as a fighter pilot in the Navy during WWII.  He fought at Iwo Jima and Okinawa.  It took me 2.5 months to work through this book, but I am really glad I did!  Worthwhile.

Radical Prunings by Bonnie Thomas Abbott  This is an odd but very funny novel in the guise of a collection of a gardening columns.  Sometimes scathingly funny, sometimes sweet, sometimes absurd, sometimes actually giving good gardening advice, it was a fun, light romp.  I enjoyed it.

Hospital Sketches by Louisa May Alcott.  Alcott poses as Nurse Periwinkle here but it really is a memoir of her time working as a nurse in a Civil War hospital in Washington DC.  She tells her story with a lot of humor, wisdom and pathos.  It's as if Jo March were talking.  She doesn't dwell on the fact that she got really ill while working at the hospital and that the doctors treated her with mercury which caused lifelong health issues that eventually led to her premature death.  I guess when she wrote this she wasn't aware of the damage done though she did experience insanity for a bit after getting home, probably the mercury poisoning.  Anyway, none of that is in this book, but it does give a good sense of how they did things during the war.  It was a break from the type of novels I've been reading by her this year (Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, Eight Cousins and Rose in Bloom) and I appreciated the different flavor!

Tarka the Otter by Henry Williamson.  This is a classic of nature writing.  Williamson, a veteran from WWI, wrote it between the wars.  He moved to Devon which he loved.  He studied the natural world there.  Tarka isn't a children's book at all.   It is not sentimental but a dark and beautifully written book about the sheer joy of existence and the brutality of survival and death as told through the eyes of an otter.

Classics Spin #23 - my list

This is an adjusted list of the classics that I want to read.  This year I am doing the #Yearofreadingonesown challenge, which is a challenge to not buy any books this year but to spend it reading all the unread books on my various shelves at home.    The exceptions to this were the Louisa May Alcott books I didn't own already because I also am doing the #LouisaMay2020 challenge which is to read one book by her a month. (April is Rose in Bloom and May is Hospital Sketches)  Those I am trying to find for free on my Kindle. Or I may be able to get them out of the library via ebooks.  I haven't quite figured out how to do ebooks with the library, so that may or may not happen.  Anyway, I did a search through the house and here are the 20 books I came up with.  A few of them are rereads and a couple are books I had planned to read anyway (or in truth, have started reading already).

Classics Spin #23

1) Odes - Horace
2)  Democracy in America by Tocqueville (this one is long so I might just read excerpts)
3)  The Daughter of Time by Josephine Tey (Already started reading)
4)  Utopia by Thomas More (I know I own this but couldn't find my copy)
5)  Out of Africa by Isaak Dinesen (reread)
6)  Purgatorio by Dante
7)  Mythology by Edith Hamilton
8)  Short Stories of Flannery O'Conner
9)  Short Stories of Pushkin
10)  Favorite Tales of Sholom Eleichem (started reading)
11)  Four Quartets by T. S. Eliot
12)  The Marble Faun by Nathaniel Hawthorne
13)  Bleak House by Dickens
14)  The Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas (pretty sure I read this already but maybe not!)
15)  Civilization by Kenneth Clark
16) Till We have Faces by C. S. Lewis (reread)
17)  Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (already started reading)
18)  The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov (reread)
19)  The Leopard by Lampedusa
20)  King Solomon's Ring by Konrad Lorenz

Reading Catch Up!

I don't know why I suddenly stopped blogging.  You would think with this quarantine thing, I'd have the time, but I tend to take what free time I do have (keep in mind I am quarantining with 6 other people!) to do my booktube channel or I take the time to . . . . READ!

My reading in March was influenced by several things.  First, I am doing a 2020 challenge called Year of Reading One's Own which is a challenge to not buy books but to read those unread books gathering dust on your shelves!  March was also the Middle Grade March book challenge, so all these books are Middle Grade level.  Also Lent and St. Patrick's Day played a part in inspiring reading choices in March.  Here's what I have been reading:

The Bronze Bow by Elizabeth George Speare - a reread, still excellent!  About a young man chaffing under the Roman occupation who encounters Jesus.  Good Lenten read!

Black Potatoes; The Story of the Great Irish Famine 1845-850 by Susan Campbell Bartoletti.  This book has been sitting on my shelf for years.  I did read parts of it when I first bought it, but not cover to cover.  Excellent addressing of the topic; just the right tone and level of detail for middle grade students.  I found the illustrations (from actual newspaper articles at the time) really interesting and compelling.

So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins.  This is an unusual story in that it is a  childhood memoir of the daughter of the occupying Japanese in Korea during World War II.  When the Japanese control collapses in 1945, her family must flee for their lives.  Harrowing and I think a bit adult for middle grade, but absolutely riveting!  I bought this book years ago at a library sale and I don't think anyone had read it until now!

Homesick; My Own Story by Jean Fritz - This is another book that sat on our shelves and I don't think anyone read it, even though we loved Jean Fritz's history books.  Well, it was excellent!  Highly recommend!  It tells the story of her childhood living in China during the year 1927 when they had to flee the Communists.  Her father ran the YMCA in a city in China.

Eight Cousins by Louisa May Alcott.  The story of a girl named Rose who has been recently orphaned and goes to live with and get to know her extended family.  Her new guardian is Uncle Alec, a ship's doctor, and she also gets to know her aunts and her seven lively boy cousins.  Lovely, cozy read.  Quintessential Alcott!  This was both Middle Grade and part of my #LouisaMay2020 challenge.

For more book reviews go to Read 52 Books in 52 Weeks.