Return of the potato specialist: Abdoulaye of Mali

Clap your hands and cheer: Abdoulaye has returned! Yes, my favorite potato specialist from sub-Saharan Africa is back in town. I know I already posted one photo of him dancing with my mother-in-law, but it seems to me a topic worth revisiting.

In the summer of 2005 my husband told me he'd seen a poster on campus: housing was needed for visiting scientists from Mali; did I want to do it? Sure, I said, (thinking, Mali? Mali? Where the heck is Mali?) The kids concurred, so we signed up. I chose a moment when I was alone in the house to get out the atlas: there was Mali, one country inland from Senegal, in Africa's big bulge into the Atlantic, with the Congo--the Congo River!--curving through its southern half and Timbuktu--Timbuktu!!--up there in the north, just south of the Sahara.

Please welcome--my new knee.

All right, I admit it: I have not been entirely straightforward with you. In the midst of this long hiatus, I had knee surgery. Total joint replacement, in fact, the fringe benefits for which included going to total joint replacement “camp,” a two hour meeting which was, thank goodness, far more useful than its chirpy literature, strewn with exclamation marks. Nothing makes me feel more curmudgeonly than being told that I will be prepared! and that everyone is going to work together to make sure that my experience is top notch! Grrr.

Fortunately, everyone did work together, though when they were all doing so in my room at the same time, most of the work involved pushing through the crowd: the nutritionist, the physical therapist, the occupational therapist, the case manager, the pulmonary expert, the phlebotimist, the anesthesiologist, the hospital nurse, the surgeon’s nurse, the surgeon herself--it’s extraordinary how many people were involved. On several occasions one of them sent others away because the oxygen levels in the room had dropped dangerously due to overcrowding.

All went well, and after four days I came home, where I am strictly forbidden to vacuum or cook. However, no one forbade my turning a compost pile, and the stool I use for showering works great in the greenhouse. So you can guess what I’ve been up to.

Blogging pause

Friends and readers all,

You may have noticed that posts have been erratic in recent weeks. This makes it official: expect more of the same. Planning my sister’s memorial has taken most of my emotional energy, and working the gardens most of my time, to say nothing of my physical energy; between the two there’s not much left. Yesterday I arrived in Toronto, and tomorrow I start driving my parents to Maine for the gathering. I may not manage to post anything until after I return, in about two weeks.

I’ve also been a lousy blogging buddy recently, my visits to others’ blogs having dropped catastrophically. Don’t break out the champagne yet, though; I miss you all and promise I’ll be back to plague you in the near future.

Be well, and may your gardens thrive. See you all in a couple of weeks.

--Kate

Ups and Downs

A couple of weeks ago I stopped by Planet Natural* for some manure, and look what happened. The place is dangerous. (I did get the manure, but it was too heavy to haul onto the lawn for a photo.) The bamboo compost bucket (as seen on ComposterConnection!) was a gift from Eric, bless him, who kept pressing me to buy a bigger basket.

Him: It’s for a good cause!
Me: I don’t need a bigger basket.
Him: The proceeds buy eyeglasses for blind Indians in Arizona! Or something.
Me: Blind people don’t need eyeglasses, Eric.
Him: You know what I mean.
Me: I don’t need a bigger basket!
Him: Oh, all right.

As he went off he may have been muttering something about how I shouldn’t blame him if my conscience bothered me, but I wasn’t sure.

Belated birthday post

I just discovered that I never posted this. Oops. Got caught up in the contest stuff. Post your entries on the Pages in the right sidebar.

My birthday on Sunday was all one could wish for, thanks in part to all the good wishes from blogging buddies near and far. Thank you.

Now that I am one year older, I expect all of you to treat me with the respect due my advanced years. Respect, do you hear? QUIET DOWN AND—oh, never mind.

The day started around noon (as all should, in the opinion of this dedicated sleeper-inner) with waffles and all the trimmings: fresh strawberries, toasted pecans, whipped cream, and of course maple syrup. My parents most courteously waited until we were done before calling to sing Happy Birthday in harmony.

It takes a while to recover from a meal like that, but when I could breath again, I put in three hours in the greenhouse, where I’m trying to finish last autumn’s interrupted preparation of planting beds. All that heavy digging was perfect for clearing my arteries, which I knew were due for another cholesterol-ladden assault that evening.

Spring? You've got to be kidding!

What is all this nonesense about spring? I spend a few minutes looking around at other blogs, and I’m about ready to sell my house (as if anyone could do that these days!) and move south.

Mr. McGregor’s Daughter has a post titled “It Really Is Spring;” Always Growing has one called “Happy for Warm Days;” Benjamin of The Deep Middle announces that the "Sandhill Cranes Are Here," The Giraffe Head Tree has a "New Look for Spring." and the Heirloom Gardener is blithely (rashly, if she could see my scowl) writing about "The First Tree to Flower in the Garden," the witchhazel. Even though Gotta Garden has a post titled "Snow Flowers," the snow gets short shrift and the flowers are many and lovely.

Now if you visit my garden, I'd be happy to offer you a seat, but I don't know if you'd want to accept the offer, and there sure wouldn't be any flowers to admire, as the photograph above demonstrates.

Bozeman Explosion: this is not a metaphor

I've removed the slide show (put together by local news stationn KBZK) that used to be at the end of this post, as it was making everything else run ver-ry s-l-o-w-l-y. You can link to it here, though.


 

I was going to write a post celebrating the big snowfall we had last night, but given that a big chunk of Main Street blew up this morning, that seemed a little crass. Six inches of heavy, wet snow can’t be making things any easier for the dozens and dozens of emergency personnel trying to put out a gas-main fire, figure out if anyone was in the three buildings destroyed, and rescue them if the answer turns out to be “yes.”

I was driving to a doctor’s appointment around ten this morning when I saw the big, dirty plume stretching across the sky from—where? Somewhere downtown? Further west? I couldn’t tell. But something big must be burning. At the office one of the staff, who was following the story online and on the radio, told me that “Boodles exploded.”

MS flare-up lays the Manic low

(Scroll to to bottom for a clip from the great Nina Simon, today's featured artist in honor of Black History Month.)

   Since I have the world’s lightest case of Multiple Sclerosis, it took me a while to figure out what the incredible fatigue that hit Wednesday morning reminded me of—not the flu, because there was no achiness, no pain with movement—just the fatigue. It was sort of like one of the blizzards in Laura Ingalls Wilder’s The Hard Winter: clear sky and then whump, whirling snow, screaming winds, but that analogy was not going to help me identify what was going on now.
   One minute you’re doing your morning exercises, and the next you get up to find one of your thighs going brrrrrr-r-r-r-r-r, not just shaking but actually quivering, and as the morning continues through the breakfast that you eat and the tea that you drink because it seems smartest to do what you usually do, and you finally make the phone-calls to husband and doctor, the fatigue mounts from legs through the body until you’re drowning in it, there’s nothing left to do but lie down and surrender.

Elizabeth: a close call

 
Elizabeth dancing with Abdoulaye, ~2006, when she was 74. She loved to dance.

I plan to go here at some length about things that have nothing to do with gardens, so feel free to bail. We almost lost husband Steve’s mother just after Christmas, though, and I wanted to say more than a word or two about her here.

I don’t think I’ve mentioned Elizabeth before, but I’ve got more than one half-finished post on the topic. She has Alzheimer’s, and moved here to Bozeman (after major prodding and pleading) maybe four and a half years ago. For several years she was in her own house just two blocks away, with increasing amounts of outside help, plus lots from us. We would garden together at her house, she and I, though I learned to store new plants at my house; they tended to disappear when they were at hers.

the return of the manic

Well, that didn't go quite as planned. I'll take a day or two off from the blog, I thought, and polish off this article; no biggie. Right. That was what, two or three weeks ago? And why is this? I'll tell you: I'm constitutionally incapable of doing more than one thing at a time. Walk and chew gum? Are you kidding? I'd either fall on my head or swallow the gum. But not both. That would require too much co-ordination.

Once I really focused on the compost article--as in, really focused--everything else sort of dropped away, including the blog. It's a good thing it was Christmas time, or I might have forgotten I had a family. As it is, we did all the normal things, including a tree and presents and skating and our own family traditions, which include lots of pastries on Christmas morning.

This is a hangover from the days when the kids couldn't possibly wait until after breakfast to open presents, so we'd just make a pot of coffee, warm up some home-made goodies, and start handing round the presents. This year, even the pastry list got short shrift: orange rolls, pecan rolls, and madeleines, and husband Steve made the madeleines.

After the prolonged absence, there was the perceived need to return with something particularly wise--something deep and incisive and apt and timeless and, of course, quiet and concise. This led to late nights pacing the floor, a dangerous undertaking, as the floor was covered with discarded drafts, broken pens, empty coffee cups, and as time went on, empty wine bottles as well as the occasional banana peel and apple core. The clutter barely obtruded upon my consciousness when it was merely knee-high, but plowing through it once it reached my waist became an arduous task, and at length I said, to hell with it.

Just get back in the saddle and type something. You can be wise tomorrow.

All this reminds me of that first kiss in Annie Hall when Woody Allen and Diane Keaton are walking along the street and Woody Allen says, Let's kiss now, so it's done, and the nerve-wracking anticipation can dissipate. Nothing special, nothing heavy; just a recognition of the intimacy to come, and a way to make all things possible. Wisdom can wait.