"Man....this is the LAST summer I'm going without a drip system in the yard. I AM the drip system!" I mutter this to myself on an almost daily basis as I walk around the entire front and back yards, dragging the hose to each plant along the perimeter beds and through each raised garden box. It takes me over an hour to ensure each plant gets sufficient water. With the severe drought and heat conditions we've had all summer, I'm also keenly aware that if I'm not diligent, it wouldn't take long for certain plants to meet an untimely demise.
Several weeks ago I injured my foot. I tried to ignore it and "positive mental attitude" myself into being healed and refused to change my activity or exercise levels. But the painful feeling of an icepick stabbing into my heel was not only making me limp during the day, it was waking me in the night. Plantar fasciitis. Super un-fun. Highly do not recommend. Dave, who had experienced this same injury a few years ago, kept warning me to take it easy and give it the time it needed to heal. Fine. I quit my gym classes. Quit my evening walks. No hiking. I turned to the yard and gardens for distraction and solace.
Being in the yard is a two-edged sword of sorts. While there is quiet and peace, birds in the bird-bath, bees in the herb garden, worms in the compost all quietly doing their work; there is an endless and ever-growing list forming in my mind of projects that need attention. The shed needs repainting, and what is killing patches of grass in the back?, weeding, pulling grass out of the beds, trees that need pruning, compost to stir and sift, and yes....watering. The never-ending task of making sure nothing goes un-watered, including the bird baths that dry up by the end of the day in this heat.
I used to hurry from plant to plant so I could get going on my walk before dark, or make it to the gym before my class started. Just slow down. Let my foot heal. I turn the flow of water down on the spigot just a bit. I take time to lean over each plant to see if there are unwanted critters hanging out on its leaves, or to see if bind-weed has crept up onto its stems, potentially strangling it; to pull weeds and grass that compete for the precious commodity of water to its roots. I get to the rhubarb plant. Mama planted that the first summer we moved into this house together. "Let's plant some rhubarb! It's cheap, has has beautiful foliage and your Daddy loves rhubarb-strawberry pie!" To know Jill Ayers is to know she made the. best. pies. We should have planted several plants. I stop to water it and inspect its leaves. Some sort of insect is nibbling at the center of a couple of them. But the stalks look healthy enough, although a bit skinny, and I pick the ones that are the proper length for harvesting.
I trim the leaves, hose off the stalks and bring them into the house. "I'll make rhubarb/berry pie this Sunday" and place the skinny stalks into the produce drawer of the fridge. Back to watering I try to remember where I last placed my "Betty Crocker Cook-book". That's the only place I can remember I could find Mama's pie-crust recipe. And if I can't find that recipe than there isn't even any point in making the pie! I finally make my way over to the potted flower pots on the front porch, by now being on my foot a little too long, I'm wondering if the rivulet of sweat running down the small of my back is from the heat, or from the pain. Maybe both. I'll figure out the crust recipe later. For now I just need to go get a drink of ice-water and prop up my foot.
Throughout the week-days I make all sorts of grand plans about how I'll spend my Sunday. After church I'll organize my closet, I'll work on family history, or I'll catch up on all the reading I swear I intend to do when I have time. But inevitably each Sunday rolls around, and it's the same thing each time. I end up in the kitchen with some sort of music playing a bit too loud on the speakers. My Sunday play-list has changed since Mama passed as many of the songs trigger such deep emotion that I would be little puddle of tears on the kitchen floor. So for now, it's a lot of Johnny Cash and other old country gospel songs. Baking feeds my people, and feeds my soul.
Unable to locate my recipe book, but seeing that my neglected skinny rhubarb is getting ever thinner by the day in the fridge drawer, I turn to Pinterest and click on the first recipe that seems the most familiar. When we were growing up, Mama always used Crisco in her crust. I am more of a butter type of gal, and so I just traded one for the other. Her crust had better texture, but mine had that unmistakable real butter flavor. She always said she liked the taste of mine better, but hers was easier to work with.
As I trim the edges of dough from around the pie plate, I remember sitting on the counter with her as she crimped the edges to form the decorative fluting, tearing off a little piece for me to eat. And the day that I was old enough that she taught me how to hold my left thumb and fore-finger together while pressing my right fore-finger into the dough, indenting just enough but not pressing too hard to make the dough so thin that it would burn while baking, then letting me take the tip of a tiny sharp knife and mark little "birds-feet" holes across the top of the pie. And always, with each pie she would bake, she would gather the leftover scraps of dough, re-roll them, slide a butter knife through them one way a few times and then the other way, making little squares, sprinkle them with cinnamon and sugar and bake before putting the pie in the oven. A little pre-dessert, dessert. The house would smell like buttery, sugary heaven, and we knew dessert was going to be delicious even if dinner might be liver and onions, or lentil burgers, or canned-corned-beef and eggs. But that's for another story another time. I baked my rhubarb/berry pie on one of the hottest days of the year. Ironic that rhubarb can really only be eaten cooked and yet it comes into season when it's so warm outside.
Today as I did my evening harvesting of green beans, squash, and tomatoes, and of course, performed my endless watering duties, I worked my way around front to the rhubarb plant. It's growing some new stalks. They might even be ready to harvest by this week-end. The leaves still look like some tiny creature is dining on them. If I don't figure it out this Summer, I'll try to next Summer. And maybe, just maybe I'll have a drip-system. As for my heel....it's healing.
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