37 heads of garlic

Our garlic crop was an experiment last summer.  But when our harvest turned out to look and taste just like garlic, we were hooked.  THIS summer, Chris put a lot of cloves in the ground and yesterday we both gasped when thirty-seven big, beautiful, wonderful heads of garlic came out.  We are addicted to growing garlic, thrilled by it actually.

You should see the beets!

Piles of green

In April I do not believe it's possible to have too many greens in the garden...or that we couldn't feasibly handle EATING all of greens in our garden.  And then May hits.  We are drowning in greens!!!  Spinach, swiss chard, kale!  (My list fails to account for the arugula and mustard greens already gone to seed.)  Yesterday I cut half of our spinach down, filled two big bags, AND turned all of it into one relatively small quartsize bag of sauteed green--now frozen and ready for lasagne or soup come whenever we should need frozen spinach again.

The semester is over too--I'm deeply happy to have space in my head again for posting.

Azaleas

Our home is surrounded by many, many, many azalea bushes--of all colors and sizes.  They are in bloom now, and so we are awash in pink and white and magenta.  Every bush is a fuzzy mound of colored texture.
I love the moment just before they bloom too--each bush portends much.  The above photo was taken April 5th.

Ferns on the way to my studio--

I love ferns of all kinds--my childhood home was full of them!  These ferns are small and the best bright green--I am tempted to take a clipping home so I can enjoy them in North Carolina.

Notable Methods of Order (as panoply of line)

This pencil cactus sits just outside my studio. Today, in an inimitably wonderful world-looking-like-the-studio/studio-looking-like-the-world moment, I found myself staring at its haphazard construction, believing I most certainly buried its tendencies deep in my visual unconscious at some point...and here, now, these past few weeks it's all coming out on the walls.

The correlation is not exacting, or even huge, but partial--and so significant.

Zucchini and Cucumbers

I've so much to say about our recent trip to Memphis. We had three days full of art, studio visits with inspiring painters, and really, really great food. Thank you Hamlett--host extraordinaire!

BUT we came home to an overflowing garden, and so the race was on...I've been pickling and preserving much of today.

Shape and Color (2)

My husband left yesterday for a beautiful and wonderful residency in North Georgia. While he's spending his time working in the studio, hiking the many trails on the surrounding land, meeting new artists and writers, AND enjoying an amazing vegetarian feast each evening (I'm off to Hambidge myself in late October so no that isn't envy you are hearing in my words but a plug for Hambidge, urging YOU to go too...) Alexander and I are holding down the fort at home.

Of top priority is the vegetable garden which is putting forth yellow squash after yellow squash, soon zucchini and tomorrow (I think) the heavenly sun-gold tomato. Today, while watering (and subsequently musing) I marveled at the size of our zucchini plant leaves--and their color. I think the possibility of being swallowed up by zucchini leaves is not as improbable as one might imagine; these gain new girth each day!

We've spent today constructing "a world of pillows", making up new versions of mankala, eating our fair share of popsicles, and counting down the days until we head to the sea with Nana and Grandad.

Now I'm exhausted and off to an evening of reading and drawing and perhaps watching a movie.

Dirt

Just this afternoon we witnessed a scaled-down, much less theorized version of Robert Smithson's Asphalt Rundown--a big, blue dump truck let loose a massive amount of dark, dark, beautiful dirt--the key ingredient for our in-progress vegetable garden. As far as aesthetic experiences go, this one was thrillingly engaging.

And now we have a mountain of dirt.