Covered Porches and Wooden Screen Doors

I got my garden planted yesterday. Tomatoes, peppers and all the seeds I have purchased are now in the ground. The garden isn’t beautiful yet. The fence needs weeding the perennials need grooming and the section for herbs isn’t complete. I lost several herbs from last year. The winters are hard on everything in the U.P., but the parsley and oregano survived. I’ve purchased more lavender, thyme and rosemary. The picture below is of my garden gate. People often ask about the mailbox. I keep my garden gloves, twine, and hand shovel in there. There is also small bottle of bug spray and garden scissors. The mailbox keeps things dry and handy. How many times have you gone out to the garden and forgotten something?

My Mom thinks the Internet is the Anti-Christ. Ever since the cult with the purple tennis shoes did their thing she considers the Internet evil. We talk on the telephone 3 or 4 times a weeks, but we still write letters the old fashioned way. She always tells me that when she hangs up the phone I’m gone, but if she has a letter, she can read it over and over again. When she sees my handwriting—she knows it’s me.

It’s kind of like those computerized recipe programs where you can type your recipes and store them on the computer. My husband encouraged me to upgrade to this century. I tried it. I was enchanted. I typed a recipe box full into the software. It was handy to look up something, but I kept the originals too. There’s just something about seeing your Grandma’s handwriting, and like a friend once asked me: ‘ Is it really a recipe if there’s not that speck of flour on the corner from fingers touching it over and over again?’ And God Forbid, my marriage almost ended when the hard drive crashed on the computer.

So there are great advantages to technology….but every once in a while there’s something to be said for the old fashioned way—recipes and letters to your mother…

Until tomorrow--