Miss Originality's Blog » Gardening

Gilly’s 24 hour crock pickles

gina — Wed, 19 Aug 2009 14:54:17 +0000

These are quick, delicious and keep well in the fridge.

1/2 gal water

1 pint cider vinegar

1/2 cup pickling salt

Bring the brine to a boil in a stainless steel pot.

In a 2 gallon crock, place a few cloves of garlic, peeled, a hot pepper or 2 if you want the heat, and several heads of dill, like 4-5, with leaves attached. Place cucumbers on top of spices. Pour hot brine over cucs. Cover with a plate or something that will fit inside your crock to keep the cucs from floating above the surface. Leave on the kitchen counter for 24 hours. After that, I place them into clean jars with a lid and store in the refrigerator. I also have just put the whole crock in the fridge since we eat them so fast.

Variations: Slice cucs, add 1/2 cup of sugar, mustard seeds, turmeric, onion etc. (omit garlic). This will be more like a bread and butter pickle. These don’t keep quite as long, 6 months instead of 12 so maybe cut the batch in half.

I Love The Farmer's Market

missoriginality — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 18:03:18 +0000

My yard is way too shady to grow most veggies. I have a few tomatoes in buckets behind the garage and I usually stick a few basil plants in between the perennials. But for the most part, I get the good stuff at the West Allis Farmer’s Market.

I expect at this time of the year to find a wide assortment of greens, radishes, peas, plants, rhubarb, herbs, maybe some early strawberries. I love to go and see what’s there and then decide what to cook for dinner.

Now Scott, my hubby, is not a huge fan of vegetables. Or salad, for that matter. He eats it if I make it. But if I ask him if he wants a salad, he says no. And some veggies are never going to cross his lips. Beets for one (I love beets). So it’s up to me to make them anyway and present them in a way that gets him to eat them. I guess that’s part of my job description as housewife. Good thing I’m up to the challenge!

So here’s what I got today…Baby beets (for me including fried greens), swiss chard (also for me), a beautiful salad mix, asparagus, 3 boxes of strawberries and a still warm loaf of Asiago bread.

I am having beets and chard for lunch, probably with an angel hair pasta. For dinner we are having a marinated/grilled shrimp in salad. I will grill the asparagus as well. I’ll probably make a lemon vinaigrette dressing. The bread will be good on the side if I don’t eat it all before he gets home!

Then we have the strawberries. Why did I buy 3 boxes? That’s way more than I really need. You see…I just can’t pass up the cute kids that come with their Mom’s to sell their berries. One little squirt, about 4, like my Rory, had the evidence of how good her product really is all around her mouth!

So I guess I’m making shortcake, which is one of Scott’s favorite desserts anyway (I’ll post this recipe asap). And they will be great stirred into the tapioca I had planned. Yesterdays batch was a miserable failure (scrambled tapioca, YUK).

I probably should have gotten some snap peas. I saw them there. But my bag was already quite full. Then I spotted my favorite farmer. He’s an “old” guy. I don’t know his name. But he is always ready to gab a bit about whatever. He grows the best bedding plants. I could not pass up a flat of sweet allysum. I like the mixed purple and white ones.

There was another “old timer” there yakking at him. I joined the conversation. They were talking about the friend who had passed recently. It went something like this…”He was fine one day and the next, boom, dead as a doornail. Nice funeral though. Lots of flowers. All the people from the old neighborhood were there.” (And I commiserate, that’s nice, etc.) “Great food. Those church ladies sure can cook. Lots to drink too. Joe could always hold his Wild Turkey. Got bad though. Had to close the casket. His brother-in-law puked right in there.” And then I got the sideways look. Is she really buying this load? I nudged the old fart on the shoulder, “You BS-er you” . They got a huge laugh out of that.

Off I went with my flat of pure perfume, way too many strawberries and a big grin. I love the Farmer’s Market.

The Smell of Morning in the Summer

missoriginality — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 13:26:51 +0000

I’m not a “morning person”. I’d rather sleep until at least 9am. But in the summer…the fresh air…well, it’s worth it to get up early.

I live in a medium-sized midwest city. Kinda in the ‘burbs. I have a lawn, garden, trees, a quiet street. It’s about as close to living in the country as we can get and still have my hubby be only 5 miles from work.

This morning I sit at my desk. It is under a window that faces west. There is a slight breeze. Just enough to move the curtains. I catch an olfactory glimpse of peony, rose, verbena, fresh cut grass, dew, earth, and bacon. It’s cool, just above 60 degrees. There is a heaviness in the air. 80% humidity. These conditions are perfect for the fragrances to carry but not suffocate.

The icing on this cake is the birds. They start at about 4:15am (at that hour I want to throw rocks at them and tell them to “shut up!”). But it’s already after 8:00 and now I can appreciate them. I’ve had a cup of coffee. I hear a male cardinal, a robin, and sparrows. Farther away I hear a mourning dove pair calling to each other. There is a bee of some sort buzzing just outside the screen. It’s low whirrrr is peaceful and comforting. It resonates with my inner tone.

My thoughts drift from these simple pleasures to my “to do” list for the day. But the breeze carries me off… What are my children doing today? Is my granddaughter up and having breakfast? Did my hubby have a pleasant drive to work?

So many of us start our day with a screaming alarm clock. We jump out of bed and begin without a thought to the gifts that are under our noses. Take a minute. Stretch and breath. Listen. My wish is that everyone have such a glorious start to their day. It is yoga for the soul.

What's for dinner?

missoriginality — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 22:12:52 +0000

I love to cook. No wait…I LOVE TO COOK! I also love to have a willing and open-minded audience. When I cook it is usually a surprise, even to me, what the end result will be. I must admit that I don’t take criticism very well. But I am getting less sensitive. Personal room to grow!

One of my favorite places and audiences to cook for is my friend Julie’s and her family. I’ve mentioned Julie before, AKA Lucy. 4 kids and hubby. Kids are 8-1.5 years old. A good age to experiment on because “Taste it or no dessert” still works.

Julie has a nice big kitchen with a wonderful island for prep work. She also has all the toys a cook could want. A grain grinder, a kick-butt mixer, a mandolin, a dehydrator, a sucker-upper, (Food Saver/Seal-a-Meal thingy), good knives, a pizza peel and stone. I have been accused of buying her nice pans so I can go there and use them. She was teasing.

Another fun thing, Julie buys ingredients I don’t usually buy. Or they forage for greens or wild mushrooms in their back yard. Really!

So last week when I was there, she says, “We have frozen shrimp, pasta, various cheeses, etc.”. Easy! We marinated and grilled the shrimp, then added it to pasta that had a creamy Alfredo-like sauce on it. We had sauteed some wild greens to go in the sauce. YUMMY! I love the collaboration that happens there. Her husband likes to help too.

The next day she says, “How about doing something with this tilapia and the oyster mushrooms we picked last night?” I had never cooked with oyster mushrooms, but they smelled anise-y. I made a pilaf of brown and wild rice with leeks. I later added the mushrooms and some mild Parmesan to some of it along with a drizzle of truffle oil. We folded that into little phyllo pastries. This was her stroke of genius. The tilapia was breaded in ground corn and millet. I added fresh parsley to this and miscellaneous herbs that I don’t remember (that’s the trouble with “winging” it). I baked the fish in a lightly buttered pan. The kids really liked it. Julie made dessert pastries with leftover phyllo, cream cheese and some homemade jam.

The next night we had chicken. Legs and thighs, bone in. I breaded them in herbed flour, placed them skin-side down in a lightly buttered baking dish, and put them in the oven. While those began baking I made a baste of butter, lemon juice, Bragg’s Liquid Amino Acids, parsley and other stuff in the fridge that looked good. The baste gets put on after you turn them, about a half hour into a 1 hour bake. In the meantime, I made a salad with more wild greens and salad thinnings from the garden. To this I added the leftover pilaf of brown rice, wild rice and leeks. The dressing was a simple vinaigrette of flax seed oil and lemon juice with salt and pepper.

The next night we ordered pizza! We were so busy gardening that we didn’t take time to make the quiche we had planned. Oh well. Good pizza!

So whenever I go to Julie’s I come home inspired all over again to create in the kitchen. It’s difficult to adjust to cooking for 2 from 7. I was raised cooking for a large family. But I am getting better at that. I shopped this weekend and came home with lots of interesting ingredients that I thought Julie might buy.

Tonight we are having grilled pork tenderloin with sweet potato wedges. So far, the pork is marinated in rice vinegar, honey, ground caraway, ground allspice, cumin, sea salt, black pepper, cayenne pepper and a drizzle of corn oil. I am grilling it over charcoal, a skill I have yet to get good at. I pre-cooked the sweet potatoes. I am going to wedge these, oil and herb them and grill them also. They will have honey, caraway, and butter on them. I’ll let my hubby tell you how it was. I’d better go start the grill. It’s 5 and I’m starving.

Tomorrow is some kind of quiche. Julie sent me home with 6 dozen eggs from their hens. They are sooo delicious!

It's Terminal (but there is always hope somewhere)

missoriginality — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:31:50 +0000

One of the things that sold me on this house when we bought it in ’04, was the Catalpa tree. I have loved these interesting trees since we lived in Minnesota. They have huge heart shaped leaves, incredibly fragrant flowers, and long slender pods that form in late summer. Ours is probably 40 feet tall and the trunk is more than 2 feet diameter. It has the perfect branch for a swing for our Granddaughter.

Now, I knew that the poor thing was located way too close to the house. It is literally 2 feet from the back corner. I think what happened is this. When the previous owners and builders of this house moved in back in ’55, they planted the Catalpa in the backyard. At that time it was 20 feet from the corner of the house. As time went on and their family grew to 5 kids, they built an addition…right up to the Catalpa tree. I’m sure many main roots were cut to accommodate the foundation. Then they placed a paver in sand type patio around it and life went on.

So here we are 54 years later, and the poor thing is dying. I have sought the opinions of a professional arborist. There is no hope. It may have a year, maybe 2. In any case, it looks terrible. The leaves that it has are small, by catalpa standards. There is a lot of dead branches. It is struggling to make a few flowers. The worst part: the ants have moved in.

Carpenter ants. I have seen many outside. They are all over the tree. More so at night. There is a large crack in the bark, up high, that they are going in and out of. I know that these are a symptom and not what is killing the tree. To make matters worse, the ants are now in the house. I was hoping to squeeze a little time out of our catalpa before footing $1000 to have it taken down. But with the ants in the house, can I risk the wait? I don’t think so. In the meantime, I’m trying ant traps.

We will be losing our only source of shade on our patio. I am going to have to come up with something clever. I can’t imagine what a loss this is to our property value. There really is no room or excuse to put another tree in an already crowded space.

I do have a glimmer of a silver lining here. A few years ago I gave my sister and brother-in-law a seedling catalpa that had helped itself in the perennial bed. They planted it in a rather wide open place on their couple of acres. It is doing well, I’m told. Oh Mother Nature, you are so wise.

What's a pest? What's a weed?

missoriginality — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:22:31 +0000

I live on a corner lot in the city. We’ve been here for 5 years now. I like it. It’s manageable. My husband detests yard work. I love it. Opposites attract! We don’t completely agree on the question I pose in this title.

The second year we were here, we had a big old silver maple taken down. It was a difficult decision. Kill an old tree? Husband wasn’t too happy. But the entire area leading from the driveway to the backdoor was a mine field of roots, buckled concrete, rotten railroad ties and debris from a tree that never would quit making a mess. Silver maples are notorious for always shedding something. So part of that project was to redo the sidewalks, make a nice patio and landscape everything else.

mixed bed at patio edge

We enjoy the wildlife in our yard. I planted things that would attract them. We have rabbits, squirrels, and lots of birds. I have seen a coyote a few times. I know there are raccoons too. There is a chipmunk that lives under the back porch and I’ve seen a few moles. I wish I could attract a toad or two. I know with some of these animals I am running a risk of them becoming a problem. I don’t feed them, but I can’t trap or kill them either. I just can’t bring myself to do it. My husband also takes the side of the animals right to be here. His compassion for nature is one of my favorite things about him. I have a picture of him somewhere, going down the side walk, in his suit dressed for work. It had rained and the sidewalk was full of earth worms. I think he “saved” every one on his way to the car. I “saved” a June bug that appeared to be stuck on his back this morning. These are the adult stage of a grub that can devastate a lawn.

Every winter the rabbits chew the spirea almost to the ground. They never flower due to this vigorous pruning. I was weeding yesterday and was wondering what was wrong with the normally vigorous yarrow. Upon further inspection I discovered a rabbit nest in the middle of it. Only 1 baby. About 3 inches long. Eyes still shut. I could easily have disposed of it, saving my spirea a few branches. Instead, I carefully covered it back up and stepped away, hoping that my scent wouldn’t cause the mother to abandon her offspring. I figure the odds are stacked against this little creature enough without me butting in. We have a good population of red tailed hawks around and I’ve seen crows carry off baby rabbits. Not to mention the outside cats that our neighbors let roam. So I left it up to Mother Nature. I know she really does know best. This fall I will cover the spirea with a fortress of chicken wire and burlap just in case Mother Nature is busy.

cute!

That's for the birds!

what are you doing here?

That brings me to the lawn. It’s full of weeds. Dandelion, chickweed, plantain, creeping charlie, buck thorn, escaped oregano…etc. I’m torn between being a “good neighbor” who sprays to create the coveted monoculture that is lawn, or being happy with the fact that it’s green. Much of the problem is compaction. This lawn is over 50 years old. Clay for sure, and probably many years of chemical treatments before I arrived. Water pretty much just runs off.

I have hired a service to aerate the lawn. My husband votes for the spray routine, applications of pesticides, herbicides and fertilizers 5 times a season. It really drives him nuts to see the dandelion stems, after their seeds have been released, standing straight up, 6 inches high, in the middle of everywhere. It does look messy. But the first thing our old dog Peachy does is eat grass when she goes out. And where will our Granddaughter play “kickety-kick” ball when she visits? Not to mention the fat little hand full of dandelions picked just for me.

After the aeration I am spreading peat. Then I am going to spread clover seed. Yes, I’m adding more “weeds”. Clover fixes nitrogen in the soil and makes it more available for the grasses. It also helps loosen. Those poor worms. Can you imagine their struggle? No wonder there are so few.

We are blessed with abundant water, being so close to Lake Michigan. Lawns here need several inches a week. Maybe a regular watering schedule is justified. I am aware of water issues all over the country. I am making a compromise. No chemicals running into the storm drain and thus into the lake, I can water once a week.

The thistle is where I draw the line. It is a WEED. I have been hitting them with a quick squirt of Roundup, but that leaves me with a dead mass of terrible dried up assault weapons just waiting for a tender foot of a grandchild to fall upon. So now I dig them. The package of thistle seed we buy for the finches says it is guaranteed not to sprout. I thinks that’s bologna. We didn’t have thistles until I hung up a bird feeder.

So it really comes down to a matter of opinion. One persons pest is another’s entertainment and representative of nature. Like everything else, there are limits. I will pull the dandelions and other invaders from the flower beds. And I will protect the shrubs with hardware barricades and deterrents like Liquid Fence. (an all natural, nasty smelling spray that makes the plants less palatable for the critters).

What’s a pest? What’s a weed? Think carefully before you decide.

[UPDATE] Hubby has been convinced to stay organic.

Grandma's Lilacs

missoriginality — Sun, 24 May 2009 14:24:10 +0000

I dozed in my chair today. Saturday afternoon naps are such a luxury. The window was open a little, and I awoke to the memory-jogging sweetness of lilacs.

My Dad’s parents owned a farm. Grandma Mary and Grandpa Iggy. She was Italian and he was Polish. That in itself made things interesting, and for some incredible holiday feasts.

Grandma loved to garden. She had mixed borders along the driveway, around the Madonna statue, and under the birdbath. She also had a bed that circled the hedge of lilacs. This hedge was huge. Probably 20 feet tall by 10 to 12 feet across and 50 feet long. I don’t know how many bushes were there to begin with, but the growing habit of lilacs created an almost continuous jungle of 6 inch diameter trunks with a dense canopy of heart shaped leaves and heavenly blooms.

We congregated there often. By “we” I mean my cousins and siblings. 9 girls (the boys were off doing other things). We would mill around the house for a while until some adult would say, “You kids go out and blow the stink off”! Aunt Sarah, Grandma’s sister, was famous for that line. We would groan and shuffle out, stand around on the patio for a bit and eventually end up playing somewhere.

There were lots of places to play. The barn was a favorite, the huge maple tree in the front yard, down by the creek…But in the spring we usually ended up in the lilac bushes. Each bush formed a clump. Trunks rising from an almost central point. They would lean out away from each other, creating a small room. Perfect for playing house. Each girl had their own clump. It was like a neighborhood. We would scrounge up old pans and pretend to cook, clean, hang laundry etc. Inevitably, one of our “children’ would have an emergency and we would all pull together in the imagined crisis. Hours flew by. The adults handed sandwiches and drinks through our “doors”. We would finally come in or go home after chasing fireflies and June bugs, or getting chewed by mosquitoes. Exhausted and grimy, we were all happy. Memories had been made and imaginations grown.

My daughter has some lilac bushes in her back yard. They aren’t as big or as old as Grandma’s, but next time I’m at her house I am going to show my granddaughter how to “blow the stink off”.

Favorite Springtime Recipe

missoriginality — Fri, 22 May 2009 22:08:01 +0000

Rhubarb Surprise Pudding

this is categorized under Fiber as a joke…get it?

For an 8×8 pan… Preheat oven to 350

4 cups of rhubarb-chopped

¾ cup flour

1 teas baking powder

¼ teas salt

½ cup All Bran cereal

¾ cup sugar

½ cup milk

¼ cup soft butter

¾ cup sugar

1 tbls cornstarch

¼ teas salt

½ cup boiling water

Spread rhubarb in bottom of pan. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, All Bran, sugar, milk, and butter. Spread over rhubarb. Mix additional sugar, cornstarch, and salt. Sprinkle dry over batter. Pour boiling water over dry stuff (slowly to moisten all dry parts).

Bake at 350 for 1 hour. Serves 6-8 people who don’t love rhubarb. Serves 2 once you’ve tried it. Best served warm with vanilla ice cream.

Where did Mom learn to cook, Venus?

missoriginality — Fri, 22 May 2009 20:06:45 +0000

It’s almost suppertime again. Sigh. Why couldn’t Mom just make things that I like? You know, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (creamy Jiff only, grape jelly, not jam) with the crusts cut off. Or chicken ABC soup, no juice. Or how about a warm hard boiled egg with lemon pepper to dip it in? (McCormick’s brand only please).

She always makes these weird things like beef stew. Veggies and meat all mixed together with gravy…BLAHK! Sometimes she makes burritos. Yuk, melted cheese. Sometimes it’s things even I never heard of. Minestrone, what’s that? Pasta Primavera? Stroganoff? Where does she come up with this stuff? Where did she learn to cook, VENUS? They don’t serve that crud at McDonald’s.

The worst part about it is that the house rules say that I have to taste everything on my plate–and swallow it–before I can leave the table! Dad even thinks this rule is a good idea.

Tonight Mom made turkey in gravy over noodles all mixed up and green beans on the side. Why can’t I eat the turkey by itself? Dry, with lots of salt? I could hardly stand to look at it, so I turned around. Mom had put 2 noodles, some turkey and one bean on my plate. It smelled terrible. The bean was long and floppy. Kinda soggy. Dad was very happy about green beans. Mom had grown them in our garden. He was putting blue cheese on them! The noodles and turkey were kinda stuck together in a lump. How could they eat this stuff? I wanted a hamburger, no bun, cut up, with ketchup to dip it in. But no! I get turkey yuk-a-roni!

Sometimes when I make a face and ask Mom for something else she says I can have a cow pie, pigs feet and horse apples. There she goes with those names again! Where does she come up with this stuff?

My sister was smart. She had been doing this supper stuff for ages. She’s older than me, almost seven. She just tasted it quick and asked to be excused. Sometimes I think she just pretended to taste it when Mom wasn’t looking. Anyway, she was already watching TV and Mom and Dad were dishing their 3rd helping of glop. Time was running out. If I didn’t taste it before supper was over I had to go straight to bed.

I looked at the bean again. OOOhhhh…I touched it. Stone cold. I told Mom. She looked pretty tired. No way was that going to work. She told me to warm it up! I felt my lower lip sticking out. I wanted to cry. I took my plate with one soggy, floppy bean and a glop of turkey yuk-a-roni to the microwave. I don’t know why, but Mom thought this was hysterical. Dad helped me. Time cook 1, 10 seconds, start…brrrr, DING!

I brought my plate back to the table. Mom was trying not to laugh. I touched the bean again. “TOO HOT!”, I yelled. Mom cracked up again and had to leave the table. I guess she was done. Dad sat there while I took a bite of bean. He watched me chew–GULP. It was actually okay. But I didn’t tell Dad. He might want me to try blue cheese! (Isn’t cheese supposed to be orange?) Then I tried the yuk-a-roni. It was definitely yuk-a-roni!

That was it. I took my plate to the garbage and scraped this stuff where it should be anyways. Then I went to play.

I sure am hungry, but breakfast is usually safe. Unless Mom puts too many raisins on my Wheaties or makes oatmeal!

Gilly's boots

missoriginality — Sat, 16 May 2009 23:56:09 +0000

It’s kinda weird I guess. Most people have tokens of remembrance and heirlooms like jewelery, or photos, notes or cards, maybe a fishing pole and tackle box. I have Gilly’s boots.

Gilly was my grandma. Mom’s mom. Her name was Gilda, but I called her Grandma Gilly from the get-go. One of 10 kids raised on a farm. Descendant of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. Yes, from the Mayflower. A WWII wife of a navy man. She had 2 daughters, the oldest being my mother.

Gilly was a tiny woman (5’2″ I think) although she called herself the tall one in the family since she was a bit taller than both her daughters. She weighed around 100 lbs after a big meal (you should have seen her eat spaghetti, or ice cream…vanilla). Gilly was beautiful, feminine, and quite a character. She loved to be pretty. She loved makeup and jewelery (my sister Suzanne found this especially hard to resist when young.) And we always got to dab a bit of Taboo perfume when we were there. She was always in fashion, all the way to the end of her life at 83. Gilly was the original Martha Sterwart as far as homemaking, gardening, and cooking were concerned. She was graceful and very much a “lady”. Very Grace Kelly.

But, being born under the sign of Gemini, she had another side to her. She was strong. Strong in character. Comfortable with who she was and what she could do. She compromised and sacrificed just like all mothers and wives, but she never let that interfere with the example she was busy setting for me and my siblings and cousins.

Grandpa liked to buy and sell travel trailers. Airstreams mostly but anything was fair game. Trader Jack was a good nickname for him. I’m sure he always made money on the deal. The thing is, that while he went to work during the day, road construction, Gilly would scrub, polish, remodel and recondition those trailers. I remember her making new upholstery and curtains. I remember finding her on a tall ladder caulking around vents etc. on the roof. I remember her underneath with rust proofing tar. She did it all. She usually managed to keep her nails nice in the process. Pink.

They took an Airstream to Florida every winter while Grandpa was laid off. They fished. Big largemouth bass. On Lake Okeechobee. Yes, she did fish too and there is documented proof of her winning the fishing derby over all the men in camp. I think her bass was a 12 pounder. They took a picture of her pointing to it on the board. All the men’s fish looking tiny in comparison. It seemed as long as she was tall! She had on a cute navy and white polka dot sleeveless blouse, red jeans, and a big wide brimmed white hat. Then they ate it, the fish. Grandpa’s got mounted. It wasn’t nearly as big though.

I have clear memories of her somewhere in the middle 70′s, so she would have been in her 50′s, completely involved in remodeling the “little house” on the farm she grew up on. We drove up one day and there she was, jeans, toolbelt, chambray shirt, sleeves rolled up, cute earrings dangling from under her crazy red hair, and the boots. Redwings. Hightops. I’m sure Grandpa made her get them. It’s prudent to take care of your feet and have the right tools and clothes for any given job. He was very practical…at least outwardly.

The message all along, women can do anything. She wasn’t a women’s libber though. She showed us how to make a marriage work, even when he could be an ass. She could do it all…”bring home the bacon, fry it up in a pan…and never never never”…etc. The Enjoli perfume jingle from the era.

So, I grew up being a tomboy that also liked to cook and craft and garden, etc. I had a very strong sense of self confidence from all of the women in my life. I could do anything. When my husband and I decided to build our own house on the 5 acres we had purchased, Gilly showed up with a wonderful gift. The boots. I was thrilled! She was passing the torch! Although she had given me her boots, she would show up occasionally to help. They painted and stained, hammered and sanded and enjoyed my kids company.

Fast forward a few years, like 20, and I am here still doing all the things that she taught me to do and love. This spring, as I began my gardening projects, I went to get the boots. I oil them every year, and as a testimony for Redwing, they are still in great shape. But this year, I couldn’t find them! I had some crazy recollection of cleaning and throwing them away! I asked my husband and he agreed, I had thrown them away. How could he let me do such a thing? Didn’t he know how important they were? He said he thought I was crazy at the time, but did he stop me? NO!

I was crushed. Depressed even. What had I done? In a crazy phase of less is more, I had lost a treasure. Gardening would not be the same. Gilly would not be with me in my most creative activities. But of course, that’s not true. She is always with me, boots or no boots.

As we go through the garage preparing for my son’s move to his own apartment, what do I find? YES, the BOOTS. They are on the shelf in the garage. Safe and sound and waiting for me like Gilly always was when I would visit.

I have oiled them, they look great. But I think it’s time to retire them and elevate them to a new level. Gilly would have used them as a planter or vase. Maybe a napkin/silverware holder on the picnic table. I will reflect on this. They will tell me what they want to be. Or she will. I will be listening. And I will get a new pair so my granddaughter Rory will have them to treasure when she grows up to be a strong woman who can do anything.