first harvest

small radishes, from the yard: crisp and slightly spicy, toddler x greatly enjoyed plucking them from the ground.

a friend in the yard

much to the delight of everyone, the baron found this toad under the water hose.  later in the week, on a pre-dawn morning, the husband found him sitting on the back stoop.  it's been decided: he's a friend, possibly a prince, and worth keeping an eye out for.

dandelion day

sunday morning on the lawn

some hedge trimming, some sun shining, some seeds sprouting...

outside in the springtime

scenes from a life

there was a time when this scene would have horrified the baron.  those days are long past.

in with the new

happy new year, reader. the baron can hardly believe it's 2010. it seems to her that only very recently was she worried about y2k viruses and the like, but alas: time, she passes.

the baron, as a university employee, enjoyed a pretty hefty chunk of time away from work, from a few days before christmas to a few days after new year's day. in the months running up to this break she had in her brain half-formed plans about what she'd do with the spare time. for instance, she thought she might make two more roman shades for the sun room, and finish a floral quilt begun sometime early last summer. she imagined, too, that she'd spend some time making baby-centric lists and rearranging the office into a nursery.

ahem. the best laid half-formed plans, eh?

in the days immediately before christmas, the baron baked and cooked and grocery shopped and raided the advent calendar. they were good days. christmas itself was a good day too - the baron and the husband slept in and had a lazy morning of pancakes and coffee (decaf for the baron).

the day after christmas was horrible. and the one after that. and the next one too.

on december 26, the baron lolled about in bed, ready to dive deeply into one of her christmas gifts (reader, the best thing the baron has read in a long, long time). the husband murmured something about packing up a few boxes of books or something like it. the baron, half listening, took this to mean, "the baron, i will be making slow progress in the office, taking my sweet time packing up our books - THE VESTIGES OF OUR FORMER, PRE-PREGNANCY LIVES - into boxes. this is a tragic and difficult process. sigh."

ahem.

the husband actually meant, "the baron, you stay here and read. i will ruthlessly pack away ALL of our books and dismantle the bookshelves to boot. don't worry; we won't need books where we're going."

ahem. that might be an overstatement, reader, but that is certainly how the baron felt when she stumbled out of bed three hours later to find the office in a shambles, books gone, bookcases dusty and waiting for transport to elsewhere. to use technical language, the baron, seeing the office laid waste in front of her, lost her shit. all over the place. see, she expected to find a few empty shelves, not a newly emptied room - it was jarring! the husband, excited about the baby and deep into the packing-things-away groove, saw nothing wrong with what he'd done. sigh. such is cohabitation, such is married life.

from there, the situation devolved into clipped barbs, to shouting, to pouting, and back again: where will the desk go? and the computer? why can't we get estimates for built in bookcases? just estimates! what seating would go into the baby's room? what color would it be? when sanding and painting, doesn't a drop cloth make sense so things don't, you know, filter into the basement? does everything have to be staged in the living room? why is there no room in the basement? why? why? why? reader, it was a lousy series of days. the mess, the rearranged furniture, the living in semi-squalor, the faint smell of paint lingering for days and days... really, really lousy.

see, it wasn't just the books being gone. it was also that the room needed to be painted. it was also that the husband's sister gifted to them a LITERAL metric ton of baby stuff; clothes and swaddling cloths and in-car bottle warmers and books and mobiles and five pairs of the tiniest shoes you've ever seen. it was also that the baron was - and remains - overwhelmed by these things.

but. the baron learned something, something she had known but momentarily forgot.

the baron is slow to take to change. she likes her change meted out in small doses.

the husband likes movement. movement, to him, is akin to progress.

so, while the baron was lamenting the slow death of their lives together - after all, the baron is a complicated woman who is capable of experiencing excitement about the baby coming while simultaneously experiencing sadness about the end of her family of two - the husband was delighting in the arrival of someone new.

she'll get there too, eventually, even though her steps? they are very, very small.

it seemed such a good idea

reader, as you may know, the baron and the husband are very, VERY keen gardeners. every year, they wait impatiently for the last frost to come and go so that they might get their newly sprouted seedlings into the ground.

early this past spring, the husband built three vegetable boxes in the sunniest spot in the yard. in previous years, they had had some success with vegetables, but the bounty was not nearly enough, so the baron thought, to justify the time, effort and expense.

so.

it turns out that gardening by box is a really good idea. a really, REALLY good one. so good, in fact, that the baron should not have erred on the side of caution by planting multiples of everything. and, reader, it's not as though she planted a few of each... she actually planted, for instance, 10 green bean plants, 18 tomato plants, 10 okras... you get the idea.

her worst idea by far turns out to be 16 cucumber plants, planted in rows of four, all of which are bearing cucumbers at an alarming rate. the baron thought that she'd try her hand at canning this year (she loves pickles), but reader, it's getting kind of ridiculous. she's spent the past two weekends a fixture in the kitchen, sterilizing jars and lids, mixing vinegar and water and pickling salt, trying to find a way to fit one. more. cucumber. slice. into a pint jar. it's been harrowing.

but.

she's still enjoying it. except.

after her last afternoon spent pickling, she now has a total of 16 pint jars and 3 quart jars of pickles; so, a lot of pickles. and there are still so very many flowers on the cucumber vines. AND the tomatoes (18 plants, remember?) have only just begun to ripen. sigh.

screen on the green, or, really? a movie on the lawn?

the other evening - an uncharacteristically cool and low-humidity one - the baron and the husband had small group of friends over to watch a movie. outside. projected onto an old, white bed sheet.

the baron, being rather more fond of indoor activities than outdoor ones, had reservations about the entire enterprise. however, in the end, all in attendance seemed to enjoy the night, and the baron was pleasantly surprised to find that:

-'back to the future' holds up pretty well
-citronella candles actually keep mosquitoes at bay
-everyone loves nerds and
-riesling is just fine to take the edge off

as it was a movie, the baron felt strongly that a concessions stand was in order (thanks to k for the popcorn)...


but harlan and dexter felt strongly that said concessions stand should be guarded...


while baron, ever the suspicious one, kept an eye out for the equipment.


the long view, to the bedsheet. the baron knows it seems a little hokey, reader, but trust her: it was actually quite fun! next up in the screen on the green queue? 'indiana jones and the raiders of the lost ark' - woot!

a new place to sew

the baron and the husband were recently given a set of china that once belonged to the husband's mother. it's lovely, and the baron is VERY GLAD to have it.

but.

the arrival of this china, though welcome, is problematic because:

the baron and the husband live in a teeny, tiny house. their dining room, miraculously, has room for a 4 ft. round dining room table, a credenza, sideboard, and an arty looking (though functionally useless) table (one the husband zeroed in on at restoration hardware a long time ago and HAD TO HAVE). the dining room has also, for the past almost-three years, housed the baron's sewing table; it's tucked unobtrusively into an corner near the radiator. this is a small table, 3ft x 2ft at most, and when the baron wants to sew, she just moves the table over one room, poaches a chair from the dining room table, and sets herself up in front of the television.

the sideboard currently acts as liquor cabinet, bar glassware holder, and wine caddy. the credenza currently acts as bookcase for the baron's cookbook collection, and houses assorted other items (dinner trays and woven baskets mostly). the arty table? it holds a coffee mug full of wine corks, a white ceramic pitcher, and a really beautiful sculpture of an octopus.

back to the china. there's no room for it. currently, it's stacked on top of the sideboard, gathering dust.

but.

the baron has devised a solution to this issue. she moved her sewing table into the sunroom, into a spot she is forcefully calling a 'sewing nook'. this frees up one corner of the dining room, making space for maybe a moderately-sized china hutch?

finding a china hutch to fit the specs of this particular dining room corner will certainly be a long process.

but, in the meantime, see the baron's new sewing nook!

from the yard in may

reader, you may remember - from about this time last year - that the baron and the husband are big BIG fans of working and playing in the garden. in previous years, they pulled out vegetable garden seeds and flats, to start seedlings inside well before the last frost date. this year, however, they were late seemed to make a tacit agreement NOT to do things that way. instead, around the last week of april, after the husband and built three very sturdy vegetable boxes, they direct sowed their vegetable seeds into the soil. below, the cucumber is making its way - so slowly - toward a chicken wire support structure.


besides the cucumber (of which they planted two varieties), the baron and the husband also planted: tomatoes (garden peach, cherry, black krim, pineapple, and mr. stripey (reader, how could the baron pass up a tomato called MR. STRIPEY!?!)); artichokes; asparagus; beans; watermelon; brussels sprouts; okra; two varieties of lettuce; mustard greens; and edamame. if everything goes to plan (though, really, how often does that happen?), the baron and the husband will be rich will the fruits (and vegetables) of their labors.

the baron's favorite type of plants are the ones that do something for her; her feeling is that - after putting time and work and water into something - there should be some kind of reward. in this way, the vegetable garden suits her well.

however.

there are some things in her yard that are even better. they are the fruit bearing plants that REQUIRE ALMOST NO WORK on the part of the baron.

for instance:

these blueberries - the baron has 6 plants of three different varieties - require nothing from her but mulch in the fall and water in the spring. and you know what, reader? if it rains, she doesn't even bother to water them.



also, here is a three year old blackberry bush, limbs heavy with fruit. and, it requires nothing of her. so far, the squirrels have not yet discovered it...


the dwarf peach tree, also very low maintenance. this year, the third that the tree has been in the ground, the baron and the husband decided to protect is from the yard's wildlife with netting. so far, no peaches have been ceded to squirrels.


a strawberry plant, in a strawberry pot, that miraculously survived winter and came back this spring. so far, it seems to require nothing but water and has so far yielded 3 tiny red berries... and below, it looks like 3 more will soon be ready for harvest!

no one wields a pair of garden clippers like the husband.

photo essay: things they did last weekend

though the weather was bad the first weekend of may, the baron and the husband and the dogs were able to spend some time outside. the husband mowed the lawn, while the baron took photos of their nascent gardens...


a white poppy, the first one to bloom this year.












lavender iris, the first one.




vegetable boxes, built by the husband during the week the baron was away.






arugula, seeded last weekend.






one of many ferns that survived the winter.





stairs to the not-yet-built-patio.










the 2009 christmas card... which still needs some work.

sew this!

reader, the baron is pretty excited about the holiday break coming up. because she works at a university, at a state university, the baron will be lucky enough to have a pretty good chunk of time away from the office - almost two weeks to be exact!

the baron already has plans for her time off... one big, long overdue plan.

she'll be making roman blinds for the sun room.

the sun room windows are currently shielded by horizontal blinds, really ugly ones that don't do much for keeping the cold out or the heat in this time of year.

to replace them, the baron picked the fabric below, which she will fortify with black out fabric. on the whole, the baron is pretty excited about this project, some two years in the making.

eat this!

the baron spent this past weekend in a flurry of sewing and wrapping.

actually, it wasn't so much a flurry as a sat-in-one-spot-on-the-couch-in-her-pajamas-for-two-days kind of experience. reader, she had a lot of work to do, and yes, she's feeling a little defensive about having worn flannel, elastic band pants for two days.

so.

the husband was very supportive of the baron, bringing her tea, and hot chocolate, and toast when she asked him to. also, he did the week's grocery shopping and meal planning for her... which kind of explains why their dinners for the week, in part, go a little something like this: pizza, macaroni and cheese and hot dogs, spaghetti and meatballs.

this meant that the baron spent part of her sunday, still in her pjs, prepping for the week's meals.

this macaroni and cheese and hot dogs? currently chilling in the refrigerator, but totally ready for the oven at a moment's notice. and see? she made two sing serving dishes - cute, right?


these meatballs? currently sharing real estate with the macaroni and cheese and hot dogs; waiting for their saucy, noodle-y bath.

outside living, on hold

it occurred to the baron that she never completed her thought regarding the newest of the new retaining walls. reader, the wall is done, though the project is not... the patio, shed, and formal garden will wait until spring. the baron and the husband have run out of time (highs in the low 50s this week!) and money (their rental house is recently vacated, which means the baron and the husband get to carry two mortgages until the house is occupied... yay!), so the back of the yard will just keep looking like this until the spring thaw:

this latest wall taught the baron and the husband a couple of lessons:
1) don't start a MASSIVE yard project with winter just around the corner
2) masonry saw blades are a real and helpful thing: see the corner, below

and the closeup (see those cut pieces? pretty nice, right?)

the long shot: if you squint, reader, you can see the wall at the back of the yard.

goodbye for now, bananas

every march, the baron and the husband get impatient for the last frost to arrive, after which they can put out their seedlings and bring all manner of tropical plants up out of their basement.

the husband, you see, is a BIG fan of tropical plants. in their yard, in the warmer months, you can find ferns, pineapple plants, a coffee plant, pencil (and other types of) cactus, a papaya, and this one weird, allegedly psychotropic plant gifted to the husband by a couple who have since moved overseas. every fall, right around this time, the husband packs them all up into clay pots and drags them into the basement, where they will pass the next 4 months or so eking out an existence by the light of many sunlamps.

next to the cactus (which are plentiful, reader, plentiful), the plant the husband has the most of is banana. from two small corms given to him by his mother have grown a multitude of banana plants - the largest this year stretched 20 feet into the air. bananas, being warm weather things, can't stomach a maryland winter... so, up they come from ground, where the husband will cut them down to about 3 feet, wrap them in newspaper, and stash them in the basement. next spring, they'll be replanted, and - miraculously - will reach 20 feet again.

below, the husband shows the bananas who's boss.

the last of the warmish days

readers, it's getting cold where the baron lives. summer - and those really warm, wear-only-shorts-and-tank-tops-and-flip-flops-days - is long gone, so now she's trying to trick herself into believing that 60 degrees can pass for a mild day. it's not really working, sigh. sometimes, though, she sits on the wall at the top of the yard and looks out at the green expanse of the lawn. in the shade of the old oak tree, in her jeans and sweatshirt, she can almost feel a hint of summer.

pumpkins

halloween's a-comin'! this fact excites the baron very, VERY much, both for the sense of community spirit invoked by the holiday, and - frankly - for the candy. the baron and the husband carve pumpkins every year. below, their 2008 entries:



a friend of theirs couldn't tell who had carved what. the baron was offended at that... and knows that you , reader, can tell which is her handiwork, right?

outside living, when will it end?

reader, the baron is tired of outside living. it used to be, outside living actually meant 'outside lounging'. the baron could take a book or a magazine, along with a cup of something tasty, to either of the yard's two sitting areas. sometimes, she would dispense with the book and/or magazine entirely, sitting outside for the sheer enjoyment of nature and bird song.

lately, though, outside living has come to mean 'outside working', or actually, 'outside slaving away WHEN WILL IT BE FINISHED?'

'oh, little the baron', says the husband, 'it will be finished when home depot restocks the wall stones we cleaned out last weekend.'

but you know what, reader? it won't really be finished then. because after the wall is done, they'll have to lay a patio, then some sod, then buy and erect a shed, then buy and erect a fence (to go around the formal garden that seemed like such a good idea earlier this year when the baron was all like 'YES! a formal garden, like at versailles! with pebbled walkways and a gate and a place for a bistro set! YES!' ahem), then frame and plant the garden, then lay the garden's pebbles.

then, only then, will the baron and the husband be able to relax. of course, buy 'then' it will be 2010 and they'll be on the i-10 west to california, but whatever.

see progress, however slow, below. all four photos are from the very back of the yard. these two are from the same angle, the first taken sometime in mid-august, the second taken last weekend.

these last two are from approximately the same perspective. the first one was taken in early august (notice the trees apparent in this one that are missing from the very first photo, above). the second one, also last weekend.

*sigh*.

the first quilt

reader, you may remember that the baron had recently been working on a quilt (one she began calling the-quilt-of-no-completion, given the amount of time it took to finish). well, happy days are here now (!), because that quilt is DONE!!

here's a long shot of the quilt, on the baron's bed... the quilt does a really nice job of keeping her and the husband warm at night.

here's a closeup of some of the squares, and a little peek of the backside. the baron's blog seems chronically afflicted with 'low light-itis', and these photos are no exception... apologies.

here's the baron's signature and the date of completion... more than one person recommended she sign and date her quilt and, with the help of a fabric pen (one of the best inventions ever), she did. because the final product is so PRETTY, and because the memory of her impatience with the-quilt-of-no-completion is receding with the passage of time, the baron is now optimistically thinking of this one as 'the first quilt'.