(no subject)

[elainegrey]

I've spent some obsessive time developing filters for my personal email. I had had filters, but many were made long enough ago that i didn't really know what they were doing. I tried to name these more clearly. Meanwhile, in my "miscellaneous" folder i had 200 journal comments i meant to reply to, some from a year ago. Um, not going to happen - i mean to reply, but i think it's better to work on going forward, not the past. So all those went into the archive and now i "only" have 100 emails lingering.

I'm making some effort to go through digital backlogs. It's not as easy to bring down the numbers in my "incoming" folder on Evernote as there isn't some large class of subject headings i can go through and say, "Keep but don't act on." I went through the remaining notes from the drive across country last night, so i'm down to 250 entries. The 247 files or folders in my downloads folder, 150+ in the other downloads folder, 1570 phone photos... Oy. Not to mention the piles of paper around my desk.... I';ve let some financial responsibilities get away from me, and i know the paperwork in in some of these piles. I can look at the forecast and try to stay inside and focus on this stuff although there are so many outside projects i want to take on. Of course, that's what's lead to the backlog.

Friday evening i took Carrie over to my folks so she could run in their pasture - and run she did. Mom committed her usual "here, take all this" but this time the book was one i remember dearly from childhood: Euell Gibbons' Stalking the Wald Asparagus. I didn't know until just now that he was a Quaker, but the resonance with my inclinations becomes more clear. I'm tickled.

Saturday was muggy. One drips working outside, even without much exertion. I planted my peanut and melon seedlings, moved marigolds from thick plantings to other areas, and dug  up the last of my Huckleberry potatoes. I will buy those again. Definitely a good producer! I hope for the marigolds to be deer deterrents: no nibbling on those. I'll check to see if the peanut starts made it through the night. I also planted melons -- "Minnesota midget" muskmelons -- but perhaps i should add some seeds as the article i just found said they don't transplant well.

I made a "potato salad" seasoned with lemon and mint, inspired by a NYTimes recipe. I tried to follow the pressure cooker recipe for cooking the potatoes: i think i could have cooked them less than the 7 minutes. Also, i wasn't thinking and vented the steam inside. Next time i'll carry the pot out and vent it outside. Despite the potatoes not holding shape, the flavors were a pleasant change from the usual mustard or mayo based potato salad preparations -- and, let me tell you, we do have plenty of mint.

I'm watching a pair of Carolina wrens build a nest in my "greenhouse" -- a rack of shelves for seedlings that comes with a clear plastic cover -- long since removed -- and is now covered with a sheet. I've mixed feelings about letting them nest there. It's tempting to watch them -- and let Edward watch them, but it is so close to comings and goings and i need to water those plants. But not so much the ones on the top where most of the nesting work is going on -- a seedling persimmon, some seedling button bushes.

We do have a go pro, we could be watching them....

Comments

[randomdreams]

I read 'asparagus' because it had a big effect on my parents.
One of my current favorite authors, John McPhee, also fell under its spell, so much so that his first published work was an account of calling up Gibbons and talking him into going out into the wilds of New Jersey and foraging for wild plants as their only source of food for three weeks, which Gibbons thought was a poor idea but somehow managed to accomplish anyway.

[elainegrey]

Ooo, i saw there was a copy of Asparagus that had McPhee as a co-author (i figured it was an intro to reissue). I'll need to look up that story. I seems it could sit near The Sea of Cortez in my mental bookshelf. McPhee's trilogy Annals of a Former World has the text that has most filled me with actual visceral fear -- his description of an earthquake to be. I'll need to read it again and see if it hits me the same way now that i'm on the east coast.

(The book was my parents', too.)

[randomdreams]

The McPhee piece was a very short story in one of his collections. I'm 90% sure it was not in 'irons in the fire', though. I'll see if I can find it.
His book "The Control Of Nature", specifically the middle section, specifically the part where they were driving bulldozers across flowing lava with guys with heat-resistant boots marching along on the flowing lava spraying each other and the bulldozers with hoses to keep everything from melting, never fails to make me stand up and start pacing around while reading it. That's some stirring nonfiction.

[elainegrey]

It's not Irons in the Fire, i've found. I did find the original publication date.

McPhee, John A. “A FORAGER.” The New Yorker, April 6, 1968. http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1968/04/06/a-forager.

Now if i can find someone with a New Yorker subscription! Unfortunately, my library only goes back to mid 90s for full text access.

[randomdreams]

Huh. I HAVE a NY subscription. Let me see if I can remember how to work it. If I can I'll swipe the article for you.

[zlabya]

Potato salad sounds lovely! And I hope you and the wrens can coexist with all the work you have to do around them.

[elainegrey]

I'm hoping the wrens are the same couple working on the nest in the hanging basket by the front door -- and that they choose that location. I'm not sure how large their territory is yet and whether it's likely that two pairs would be this close to each other.