Something new on the She Shed! Too cold to plant any flowers in the window box yet, however.
Category: blog
A Beautiful Easter Day!
The sun is shinning and although it’s a bit cool, it’s a beautiful Easter Day. This morning I drove to Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, MA to put a lovely big pot of “citrus” pansies (yellow, orange and white) on Alfred’s grave. I added about a dozen pussy willow stalks to it so it really looked spiffy! I then drove through the cemetery (Mount Auburn is the country’s oldest garden cemetery) looking at the plantings as I’m going to have small bushes planted on either side of the stone marker. Have decided on dwarf red twig dogwoods as the red twigs will provide color against the snow in the winter.. The Director of Horticulture told me they would be extending the shrub hedge behind the grave and I get to pick out which shrubs! I pay for the shrubs and they do the planting and maintenance. Sounds like a good deal to me!
I then splurged and went out for a late br4eakfast – poached eggs over crab cakes and English muffins topped with Hollandaise sauce! VERY calorific, but as I’ve lost 20 pounds I decided I could treat myself today! Wouldn’t you agree?
Stopped by the local nursery and bought a second baffle for one of my pole bird feeders as the squirrels and raccoons are going right over the existing baffle! Also bought a very cute ground-level bird bath with two cement birds attached. I think some of the ground-feeding birds will like that. I thought about planting pansies around it but frankly so many plants are popping out of the garden now I don’t know what is going to come up where! Read the paper while watching the Blue Birds coming to the meal worm feeder. Will put out grape jelly once the Orioles and Catbirds return.
Talked to two members of my family in Minnesota and had an email exchange with another, so all in all, a lovely day.
Looking forward to puttering in the garden this week as no rain is forecasted, In fact, my two new yews are saying “We need a drink” as we’ve had very little rain this year so far and we didn’t get a lot of snow. Now if I’d just start to see some migrating birds return, it would really feel like spring was here!
Oh, and tomorrow, an update on my “she shed!”
Every Woman Should Have a “She Shed!”
A few years ago I had a significant birthday coming up and my husband asked what I would like to mark the occasion. I knew immediately what I wanted, but it was a bit pricey.. Still I thought I’d ask! He thought it amusing, but agreed it would be appropriate.
I wanted a tool shed only I planned to make it my garden shed. Nowadays, according to the television commercials, it would be called a “She Shed.” I went on line to Reeds Ferry Sheds and picked out the design I liked informing the company that I would also like to add a work bench for potting plants and other such garden endeavors. I picked out a design with a pretty little window and screen and a window box. When the truck arrived, they took away the tired old critter that had been there when we bought the house and installed my pretty little shed. I quickly set about putting up nails and peg board to hang my tools, and began “playing house” in my little She Shed. I brought out a radio, plugged it in, sat down on a garden chair and had a cup of coffee while I made plans for my spring plantings.
That little shed has become my little home away from home where I putter and plan, pot and repot. Last week we had a beautiful spring day and I took advantage of it to go to my shed and survey what needed to be done. It was obvious I needed to give it a good sweeping and clean some pots I’d neglected to clean last fall. But wanting to walk the dogs, survey the garden and add pussy willows to my winter planter, I decided I’d wait until the weekend. Well, the weekend came and with it high winds and snow squalls! This morning the wind chill was below zero. My She Shed still beckons, but it will have to wait as the Ides of March are upon us and apparently will stay with us all week. Still, like the daffodils starting to poke their leaves up through the ground, I know the day will come sooner rather than later when I can venture out, open the window, turn on the radio to our classical music station, enjoy a thermos of coffee and design and dream to my heart’s content. Men have “Man Caves,” but I firmly believe every woman should have a She Shed for whatever purpose she intends to use it Mine is like a friends waiting for me to come sit and visit. Now all I need is for Mother Nature to provide the opportunity.
I have Succumbed….
The temptations came, day after day, week after week and I ignored them. But today I gave in and succumbed to their allure. I’m speaking of the spring flower catalogs.
They offer such tempting photos and promises – how can one resist! They say they will bloom profusely for me. Dare I hope they will? I have a shade garden that offers only about 3-4 hours of full sun and I have to place those perennials saying “sun to light shade” carefully. Alfred used to always say the definition of a gardener is one who moves plants from one place to another and that’s rather true. If a plant tells me by its actions that it is not happy where it is, I move it! And I move many plants.
When we cut two trees down – two tall oaks – I had hostas “panting in the sun” clearly telling me they were not happy. Of course, I moved them and they once again flourished. I have many shady nooks for shade plants, but having only 3-4 hours of full sun in just one section of my garden, I have to be very careful how many plants I can cram in there! Nonetheless, today I succumbed to Viva La Vida Lily, Calico Jack Daylily, White Feather Hosta, Alexander’s Great Siberian Bugloss, Glad Rags Hosta, Isabel Maraffi Day Lily and a Chinese Ground Orchid. Now if they are all as magnificent as their names and pictures, they will be great additions to my summer garden.
I’ve kept a card file on my plants for 20 years now, noting what dies, what just disappears and how many blossoms I get on each individual day lily.. I have to have help planting now, but fortunately I have a couple of friends I can count on to help me. And how I LOVE sitting out in the garden watching the birds and chipmunks while having a morning cup of coffee or an afternoon glass of ice tea.
Of course at the moment, the garden is covered in snow with only a few bits of ginger showing their leaves and a few brown sticks of promises of things to come. But I could no longer resist the urge, so I whipped out my credit card and bought new plants. When it’s early March and the snow still abounds and the wind blows and the sun does little to warm you, you have to think and plan for spring. So I succumbed to temptation and I’ll not apologize for it! After THIS winter, I need to think of flowers and spring!
Chicken Paprika with Nockerln
A word about and a recipe for… Nockerln
Since the launching of my website and the announcement about my book, several people have asked me about Nockerln, given the fact that the word is part of the title of my book. “What is it,” I’ve been asked. Well, it’s an Austrian dish bigger than a German spaetzle and smaller than an American dumpling and usually served with a chicken or meat dish. It’s easy to make and leftovers are great with scrambled eggs the next morning! (a favorite of my husband.) I serve mine with Chicken Paprika, an Austro-Hungarian dish I was taught to make by my Mother-in-law. She also taught me how to make Nockerln. Of course, she taught me in the old-fashion way of “a handful of this and a bit of that” but I’ve “translated” it so you can make it too. Of course, my own recipe still says a “green scoop” of flour, but only I know how much flour my green scoop holds, so I’ve translated that as well.
In the last few days of his life, Alfred wasn’t eating much and I asked him what I could cook for him. When I suggested Nockerln and scrambled eggs he lit up, “THAT would be great,” he said, so I assured him I’d go right home and make nockerln. “You’re wonderful!” said he – and those ended up being the last words he spoke to me before his death five days later. I told the nursing home staff to hold lunch, drove home, made the Nockerln, drove back, met the cook at the kitchen door (observing COVID-19 protocols) and told her to heat them up with two scrambled eggs. Hence the book title, From Schnitzel to Nockerln And Everything That Happened In Between.
And now, here’s how you too can make Nockerln:
Mutti’s Nockerln:
Dump 1C flour into a bowl and add two eggs, add about ½ tsp salt mix together and enough milk to make the dough thick, but capable of being stirred.
Bring a pan of salted water to a boil. Place a bit of dough on a smooth surface and with a sharp knife, scrape about 2T at a time into the boiling water. Dip the knife into the water each time so the dough doesn’t stick. Work quickly so the Nockerln cook at about the same rate. Cook each batch about 5 minutes and set aside in a dish with ¼ pd. melted butter. If you think your Nockerln are coming up too big, push off less dough each time.
Since they go together so well, I’ll also share the recipe for Chicken Paprika.
Mutti’s Chicken Paprika
Chop up and brown two large onions
Saute 1 pd. chicken tenders with Spry and when brown
Add 2C water
Add 1 tsp marjoram, bay leaf , 2T tomato paste, 2T sweet paprika(use more or less to taste) and one chicken bouillon cube
Simmer until chicken is tender and add 1/4C sour cream just before serving. Serve with Nockerln.
Some Thoughts Along Life’s Road
As I read the morning newspaper, I was stuck by the number of articles detailing accommodations people have made to their lives in the wake of COVID-19. New Orleans has no Mardi Gras Parade, so some 3000 homes have been decorated to carry on the spirit and the tradition of the festival. Families are bringing elderly parents to their homes, taking them out of assisted living dwellings and hiring home health aides to help care for them – all in an effort to avoid exposing elderly relatives to the virus. Schools have become inventive and individual teaches amazingly creative finding ways to stimulate their pupils’ interests and lead their minds to horizons beyond the screen of a laptop. I thought about the ways I too had adapted. When I couldn’t visit my husband in the nursing home, I read our old travel diaries to him over the telephone. When COVID-19 took him from me, I converted half a century of memories to a book.
I thought about one of my favorite quotes in literature – a line Natasha says to Pierre in War and Peace, “You suffer, you show your wounds, but you stand.” I always took that as something of a motto to live by. No matter what life throws your way, find a way to go over or under, around or through, but move on toward your goal. So many of us have had to do that this past year and, by and large, I think we’ve done it rather well. That doesn’t mean there haven’t been challenges, days of discouragement, frustration and pain, but there have also been days of joyous success, a sense of pride and happiness with thoughts of a task accomplished, a job well done.
Today I read another newspaper article about how travel agents are trying to encourage people to think and plan for vacations once again. Oh, how I join in that thought! When will it be feasible? When will it be safe? I’ve had one vaccination and my second is coming up soon. Dare I too dream? Of course, that’s what we do. We dream, we contemplate, we act. Wisely, one hopes, but with hope itself leading us forward. It’s been a rough row to hoe in this unplowed new garden of rocky experiences, but we’ve learned and we’ve grown and we will continue to do so.