Occasionally my mother would serve shit on a shingle for dinner. Despite the name, I always liked it although I haven’t had it in years and years. Do they even sell dried beef anymore?

You are Fish ‘Tacos.’ You might think you’re
exotic and worldly-wise, but in reality you’re
just a bunch of crap on toast. Repeat after
me: ‘just because you put something in
quotation marks doesn’t make it so.’ And
‘taco’ isn’t Spanish for ‘toast.’

What Weight Watchers recipe card from 1974 are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Julia of Knitting History is hanging up her hat.  Julia was one of my very first blogging buddies.  Her life has become too busy – as we all know, blogging is a huge time investment and Julia has a dissertation to write.  Her site focused not only on her own projects, but on the history of knitting.  Julia’s sidebar is a wealth of historical knitting pattern links.  If you have an interest, get over there and bookmark them, she will be taking her site down and that info will be gone.  Anyway, my best wishes go with her and I certainly hope she checks in every now and again.   ~sniff~

I am using Typepad’s delayed posting feature.  Tomorrow morning I will be stuck in rush hour traffic on my way to work.  I have been teaching a knitting class at a Wellness Center on Thursday mornings.  The class runs for an hour and a half.  As ridiculous as this is – in the morning, it takes me an hour to get there!  In fact this drive should take approximately 25 minutes, but such is the nature of the Long Island Expressway at 8:00 a.m.

I have been thoroughly enjoying this little job of mine.  Everyone I have met is so enthusiastic.  Many of them really don’t need a knitting class — they just need a small dose of confidence and the ability to correct mistakes.  Somehow, learning to pick up a dropped stitch is a turning point.  If you know you can fix it, then you aren’t afraid to make the mistake and it frees you.  You can relax and enjoy.

Do you remember that magic moment?  the moment when it hit you – that you can simply pick up that stitch.  that you didn’t need to panic and run screaming to your LYS, or in my case call your Grandmother long distance and lash out at her in unattractive ways?

thank God that woman loved me enough to put up with that shit …. and I did call back and apologize – I may have been cranky, but I wasn’t a complete ass.  And I was always her favorite, so she must have forgiven me …..

Mary, Mary quite contrary, how does your garden grow? 

our favorite rebel, Kathleen has proposed we post pictures of why our gardens are such a wreck. 

At the moment, here in the beginning of the growing season, my gardens are looking fairly decent.  After the long and harsh winter, anything green looks good.

Give it time.

As the summer wears on and on and on and the dog days are upon me the gardens will not look so verdant.  They will take on a seen-better-days look. 

Ever get so drunk at a party, wake up in some strange place the next morning and have to find your way home? 

No? 

me neither.  But anyway, that’s how the gardens will look come August.  Like someone who drank too much the night before and now the harsh light of 11:00 a.m. is shining.  And that smudgy mascara that looked so smoky and sexy the night before is making you look like a train wreck now.

what?  oh, yeah —- why my gardens will look like shit before you know it …..

Exhibit A and Exhibit B

besides all the neglect that I heap upon the plants, these two will make sure that everything goes to hell in a hand basket.  On hot and humid days Exhibit A likes nothing better than to lay in a bed of hosta.  Forget the cool brick patio, the air conditioning indoors.  Nothing says arctic blast for Lucy like a nice clump of hosta.  Hosta which will never recover and will spend the rest of the season looking like a giant unmade bed.

Then there is Exhibit B.  Although we have not been through a summer season with Mr. Poe, if we follow his trajectory we can see where it will lead.  Mr. Poe finds the best spot to empty his bladder is in the pachysandra.  I am just happy he’s doing the nasty outdoors.  I can imagine that the pachysandra will not feel the same way about it that I do.

I don’t have a slug problem as much as I have a pug problem.  shall I try sprinkling salt on them?

We are all aware of our LYS – our local shop and the need to promote it.  Not only do these stores offer yarns and notions, they offer something that online ordering cannot — support.  A friendly face (hopefully!) that is willing to help with knitting questions. 

Such neighborhood shops are not limited to yarn.  Shocking, I know!  How about your local hardware store?  Do you even have one left or has Home Depot driven them out?

Today I would like to introduce you to a gem in my neighborhood.  If you live on Long Island, this place is worth a visit.  It is Fox Hollow Farm, a family run nursery/farm.  If you take a look at their website, you will see that they are not a garden center.  It is a family run farm that propogates most, if not all, of what they sell with an emphasis on hosta and daylily varieties. The family home is on the grounds and you are free to tour the gardens.

I first became aware of this place when I took the Master Gardening program and met the matriarch of this family, Dinah Foglia.  She is an unwavering supporter of the MG Program and is involved in all of their volunteer activities.  She is also a wealth of knowledge – especially when it comes to shade plants.

Much to my shame, it has been a number of years since I have been involved with the MG efforts – somehow family and other volunteering activities got in the way.  I stopped by Fox Hollow Farm the other day and had a nice visit with Dinah.  She didn’t exactly remember me, but was happy to show me around and share her delight with her plants.  On the left is a picture of Dinah’s sequoia – she planted it 50 years ago.  On the right is a sequoia transplant she gave me. 

This is one of my favorite parts of gardening – the sharing and history.  In one of my gardens I have daffodils and lily-of-the-valley that came from my parent’s backyard.  My mother got her original plants from her own mother’s yard. 

Hopefully someday, I will be able to share a transplant and tell someone the story of how a sequoia arrived in my yard.