Sow There!

I had the unfortune of too much time on my hands this weekend. My best friend next door was out of town. Tommy had to work on the road and most other friends were occupied doing glamorous things that involved multiple stops at gas stations and fighting traffic.
I must be reading too many women’s magazines lately because I decided to turn my humble abode into a personal mini-spa. I took a bath, dead-headed roses and walked around shoeless.
There was an idle moment when I contemplated washing the outside of the windows or turning the compost bin, but those thoughts were fleeting.
Instead, I combed through the medicine cabinet and found this really cool facial mask a co-worker named Eleanor got me for a birthday present about three years ago. It’s called Green Goddess and is a powder form and cakes up on your face.
Scary. When you have a caked-up facial mask on, and it gets to that dry point, you can see every wrinkle and every pore in your face. I had too much time on my hands so I was smiling into the mirror, just to accentuate every last crow’s foot around my eyes.
The tears did, however, help to wash the green monstrosity off my cheeks.

More self torture
Next I decided it was time to touch up the roots of my hair with the frost and tip.
Needless to say, there’s a reason people pay professionals to fuss with their hair.
I’ve been lightening my hair since I was 14, so I really don’t know what color it would be naturally. Last time I lightened it I didn’t leave the gook in long enough and really didn’t notice any difference.
So this time I decided to error on the side of danger.
Again, this is what happens when a woman reads too many women’s magazines and has too much time on her hands (and too much time on her hair).

Feeling freaky
I called Shelley tearfully after I had rinsed out the toxicants. She comforted me a little by telling me that all the young girls have freakish streaks in their hair nowadays. Hey, it’s actually fashionable, she said while pretending to cough as she laughed uncontrollably into her elbow.
Of course, I didn’t stop there.
Periodically my sister will clean out her cupboards in the bathroom. You know, when a girlfriend or sibling gives you some used eyeshadow or leftover lotion and you accept it because you might want to try out a new product? Invariably, the girlfriend didn’t like it and that’s why it’s in a white plastic bag by her front porch.
Note to self: Do not accept partially used beauty products that have a thick layer of dust on them.
This time it was tanning lotion.
Oy vey.
I recently used some “natural glow” product that worked fairly well to take my pasty white skin into a glowing goddess new hue. However, it was kinda spendy.
When I dipped into my sister’s leftover self-tanning lotion, I thought it would be similar.
The first application didn’t show much effect, and the bottle said to wait 8 hours before trying again.
Second time is the charm, turns out. Now I look like an Oompa Loompa. Tommy pretended not to notice, but there are orange streaks all down my calves. Needless to say, despite the fact that it was 85 degrees Thursday, I was wearing long pants.
Feeling a little devastated by my lack of girlie-girl prowess, Tommy tried to cheer me up by painting my toenails. Just to make fun of myself, I had him paint each toe a different color.
The gardening is going well, as would be expected after all the work that has been put into the ground.
Goatman stopped by this week and had another set of drip sprinklers as a gift to the household. I wish I had known he was coming because I would have had something to offer him, such as dinner or lemonade. However, I like having the type of house where people feel comfortable stopping by when they think of it.
He was kind and did not mention that he could notice that my calves were streaked in orange.

Garden glory
Thanks to readers who have sent their garden photos. There’s beginning to be quite a collection on the Sow There! official World Headquarters Web site. Bring it on.
For more inane prattle, check out my blog at www.norcalblogs.com/sowthere. For feedback, send to P.O. Box 9, Chico CA 95927 or hhacking@chicoer.com.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

During some important research about the orange effects of fake tanning lotion, I came across this video which totally cracked me up. I have no idea who these two kids are, but they appear to be having good, clean fun, the kind of fun that 14-year-olds should be having.

Oopma Loompa

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Song: Oompa Loompa Lyrics
Oompa Loompas:
Oompa Loompa doompadee doo
I've got another puzzle for you
Oompa Loompa doompadah dee
If you are wise you'll listen to me

What do you get from a glut of TV?
A pain in the neck and an IQ of three
Why don't you try simply reading a book?
Or could you just not bear to look?

You'll get no
You'll get no
You'll get no
You'll get no
You'll get no commercials

Oompa Loompa Doompadee Dah
If you're not greedy you will go far
You will live in happiness too
Like the Oompa
Oompa Loompa doompadee do

Posted by Heather Hacking at 04:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I asked recently for readers to send in their garden photos.

Thanks guys. It's fun to visit your gardens.
Photos below:

Posted by Heather Hacking at 02:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

A reader sent an e-mail this week after reading my column about scattering old seeds all over the yard and seeing if any of them sprout.

By the way, I forgot to mention in that article that my friend Fabulous Phil heard that germination rates decrease if the seed packets are old. However, he said they only decrease about 10 percent a year. So even if you had seed packets that were years old, you might as well stick them in the ground and give them a chance to grow.

Reader Mario shared a quaint story. He loves to garden but has limited space at his home. He also thinks its important that his kids enjoy it as well.
When his daughter Amy was about three (she’s six now) she watched her dad applying fertilizer to his grass with a hand-held spreader.
Amy decided to “help out” and dumped about 20-30 packets of vegetable seeds into the spreader.
You can guess where this is going.
Mario spread his fertilizer and planted oodles of vegetables throughout his lawn.
He said if he didn’t live “in the middle of suburbia” he might have let them grow.

I’ve actually seen some yards where the people were so adamant to grow veggies that they did so right in the front yard, even taking over that strip of turf between the curb and the sidewalk for plants like tomatoes. However, the likelihood of passers by just helping themselves to your harvest would be high, not to mention a little extra fertilizer from people walking their dogs.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 02:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

It’s fun to have friends who share your passion — be it roller derby, bargain-hunting, wild-game hunting or gardening.
Sally at work and I have bonded via our green thumbs and a few weeks ago she brought in a batch of old seed packets. They were dated 2005 and 2006, but I was delighted. I considered it a birthday gift for both this year and next.
I don’t know how other gardeners feel, but sometimes I just get itchy. I want to put something new in the ground, just to see if it grows. These seed packets were the perfect excuse.
I walked around the relatively small yard looking for places to “stick things in the ground.”
With seed packets from a friend, particularly ones that are years old, who cares?

I placed seeds in gravel piles. Only one cucumber sprouted from a month ago (and those were new seeds, mind you!) So I planted a whole seed packet from 2005. Now I have 20 sprouts and must make that grueling decision about what babies will survive my yanking.
It’s very fun, however, the mystery of it all. What will survive?
I called my friend Fabulous Phil, the eclectic banjo player who has been an inspiration so many times for this column.
He had a funny story.
This January he went to one of those big-box stores to buy something. His wife Dody lost him, of course. He was in the little gardening aisle.
They had seed packets on sale for 10 cents each.
I can just envision Phil’s face as he came across this bounty.
Phil claimed he “just happened to go down that aisle,” but Dody and I know better. He went to that aisle like a politician goes to money.
With considerable exuberance on the phone, he recounted how he went and grabbed one of those plastic baskets to pile up on the bargains.
At the end, he had 110 seed packets. Similar to me, he didn’t really care if they sprouted — not at 10 cents a pop.
Fabulous Phil took the seed packets up to the counter and sadly there was a line behind him. He tried to tell the “kid” at the register that he had 110 packets.
“I’m telling you, Heather, I took one or two of every seed packet they had.”
But the clerk insisted it was policy to run each and every seed packet through the electronic system. At the end he was charged $11 and some change for tax.
Phil said he felt badly for the people behind him who were just trying to buy some embarrassing ointment or hair dye.
Gardeners and good friends often think alike. Phil sprinkled the seeds all over his yard, not caring if they came up. Now he’s growing some things he never thought he would.
He has sprouts of collard greens and beets in addition to all the usuals he grows, including fruit trees and vegetables.
But the shocker was that Phil and Dody didn’t plant many tomatoes this year. I was shocked and amazed as Phil has been an annual staple for me to visit, shamelessly, for the reason of claiming vegetables with which to make salsa.
Phil, being shameless himself, said he had read in my column that we had 15 tomato plants in the yard so this year he was relying on me to provide him with HIS salsa needs.
Hmmmm.
I guess it’s only fair.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 02:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Cats in the cradle

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad
You know I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had a death in the family.
At age 38, I guess this isn’t something I shouldn’t expect, but it’s still jarring. My Auntie Sandy died in her sleep. She had her birthday in April, and we didn’t make it down to the Bay Area, and I forgot to call her or send a card. Dad had invited us down for her birthday party, but we didn’t make it, as usual.
I was sad when I heard the news, of course, but also had this strong sense of guilt.
I’m partially consoled that in recent months my Auntie Sandy and I had been sending letters to each other (she didn’t have e-mail) and I phoned a couple of times.
She would cut out photos of beautiful gardens she spotted in magazine articles and send me words that rhyme with Heather. Like the rest of the family, she was a bit quirky.
Death creates strange reverberations.

I phoned my aunt’s sister, Auntie Pat, and had one of the best conversations I’ve had with her in a long time.
You know how it is at holidays. There are so many people who you want to “connect” with in a large family, but you end up having just short conversations with a lot of people, often about how good the bean dip is or whether you like a certain type of cheese.

More reminders
Coincidentally, my friend Brian called from the Los Angeles area. He was distraught because his father died. He hadn’t talked to his dad in something like 10 years.
It was late at night when Brian called. He had left a couple of messages on my cell phone, but I didn’t know that it was so important to call him back immediately.
When we finally hooked up via phone, Brian wanted to talk with Tommy. For some reason (ummm ... being at the bar for a few hours) Brian wanted to talk to Tommy for a man’s perspective.
We had a barbecue the night Auntie Sandy died. The table was set with candles and we were sitting around the plastic table outside with the 9-year-old and my best friend next door.
We don’t say a prayer every time we have a barbecue but I felt I wanted to say something to remind us all that it’s important to cherish people we care about and realize that they will not always be there.
I think the 9-year-old understood when I got a little teary. We did the hippy-dippy prayer where you all hold hands and one person squeezes to the left and then you squeeze hands in succession around the circle.
The 9-year-old likes that part of the prayer.
There’s a couple of other things that have been going on lately, like a health scare with Tommy.
This all really affected me. I didn’t know it at the time but one day this week I just started spontaneously crying. It happened just a bit at the time and I knew I had to keep it together because I had work to do, but I found myself going to a quiet place in the building to shed a few tears.
The tears just kept squeezing out intermittently like some sort of leaky faucet.
I e-mailed and called a bunch of people just to remind them that I loved them, and told my boss I was a dork and couldn’t stop crying every half hour. Of course, the boss told me to go home and co-workers were especially nice.
The good news is that it indeed made me closer to some people I really care about and reminded me of the beauty and temporal nature of life.

Music and moods
I made the mistake of looking up the lyrics of Harry Chapin’s “Cats in the Cradle” online and had it humming in my head all day. I thought about how many more times I should visit my mom and dad. (Lyrics are posted on my blog; see shameless plug below).

Share the wealth — blog style
My three Internet fans and family know I have an Internet blog. A few days ago I took the digital camera home because I had an assignment in the morning and needed to take some photographs.
When I did the garden tour in the morning I snapped a few photos and posted them on the Web site. Since then, a couple of my fans (OK, one is my sister, so that doesn’t count) sent in photos of their gardens.
I’m trying to encourage readers to send e-mail photos so we can all “virtually” visit each other’s gardens.
Gardening does build community.

In other garden news:
Our first tomato has “set.”
I planted four varieties in peat pellets in January, but didn’t keep the labels when I transplanted them to peat pots. So now we don’t know which ones are which.
Tommy thinks the first fruit set is a cherry tomato, which is one of my favorites. While I love the big, fat tomatoes for salsa, the cherry tomatoes are my favorite because you can go out in the morning and just snatch them off the plant.
We’ve been tickling the stems where the flowers have bloomed and are excited about the upcoming summer season of vegetables.
Bonnie next door took a pumpkin last fall and just threw a handful of seeds into the ground and buried them slightly and now she has a vine starting outside her door.
Lazy gardening should not be overlooked.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 02:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

These are photos from my sister's yard in Paradise. She has a hard time gardening because her brain must emit a high frequency undetectable by humans, but heard by deer. (See photos below). So hardly any plants can make it through a year. However, this rose bush is doing grand.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 06:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We had a couple of fun events recently with the 9-year-old next door. He’s getting to that age where we can tell he’s just at the edge of beginning to hate us. I’m not an expert on kids but I thought they waited until they were about 13 to realize that their auntie and family is way less cool than anyone else on the planet.

I thought our coolness deficiency directly corresponded with the moment a kid got his first pimple.
But Leif is beginning to develop just the littlest hint of disdain.
He kinda makes a fuss recently when we ask him to take off his shoes and stand in the doorway of the kitchen so we can mark on the wall how much he has grown.

So it’s been important for us to linger as long as we can to his childhood.
Recently there was an open house at school and it was fun to see his classroom and the cool watercolor rendition of Monet at this desk. He also made a really cool diorama of the Harry Potter Quidditch match.

Then Tuesday he had a choral recital. I hadn’t even realized he was in chorus.
I think when we first walked into the school cafeteria and Leify saw us he was glad. But of course we couldn’t leave it at that.

Our neighbor Curious George is in the choir at Chico State so he came as well. Leif’s mom wanted photos of the event, so I volunteered to take the camera up to the front of the stage and click away.
Then there was the waving by Tommy and I while the kid performed. Leif pretended he didn’t notice.
When we stuck out our tongues and waved both hands by our ears, I’m sure his mind convinced him that we were invisible.

But then, Tommy took it over the top. When there was a silence in the room after the singing had stopped, Tommy yelled out “Way to go Leif.”
Mind you, we weren’t the only family members to yell out embarrassing praise. However, I do think we were the ones who started it.
And Leify is just lucky Tommy yelled out “Leif” and not “Leify.”
After the concert, when we got home, Leif wouldn’t talk to us. He said he was really, really mad at Tommy for embarrassing him.

At our house there’s really only one way to fight back when someone is being a pill, and that’s tickling.
It didn’t take long for Leif to forget he was mad.
Too bad all problems aren’t as easy to solve, and too bad the 9-year-old will someday get that pimple and officially hate us. Hopefully, however, he will always remember us as those crazy people who lived next door.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A little while ago I took some digital photos of my garden and posted them online. This was really fun. When friends come over for barbecues and whatnot I invariably force them to take a “garden tour.” It’s fun to show off your plants.
One of my three fans, Perrin, recently sent in some digital photos of her plants, which are blooming ridiculously right now.
I asked her if I could post them on my Internet blog.
Then I got the idea that it might be fun if other readers could send in digital photos and we could all “virtually” take garden tours of each others’ yards.
So please, send them in and we can chat about how fantabulous our yards are.

And this is really cool from P who has deer who like to hang out in her front yard. Check it out, they're having quite the social gathering.



Posted by Heather Hacking at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Well, here's the information I'm sure you've all been waiting for. I tracked down Syb, who is a totally hip gal I've known for years. She even has a cool British accent.

Syb was the one who had the recipe for the yummy mushrooms that Barbara and another member of the League of Women voters cooked up for the recent League wine tasting.

Here's the dish:

4lbs mushrooms
1lb butter
1 bottle Burgundy wine
1 1/2 Tbsp Worcestershire Sauce
1 tsp dill seed
1 tsp ground pepper
2 small cloves garlic, minced
2 cups of boiling water
3 beef bouillon cubes
3 chicken bouillon cubes

Combine all ingredients in large pan. Bring to aslow boil on medium heat; reduce to simmer.
Cook 5 hours with pot covered. Remove lid and cook until liquid barely covers mushrooms. Allow to cool.( Serve hot in a chaffing dish with toothpicks).
NOTE Mushrooms remain firm, but will turn very dark.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:18 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Another birthday has come and gone.
You know how it is when you’re adjusting to a new year and you forget and you write 2006 on your checks? It’s weird when people ask you how old you are and you think you’re 27, but you’re actually 38.
The day after the party in the park, we went to the League of Women Voters wine tasting. Tommy doesn’t drink wine but he was really happy to be able to grub out at the buffet. The members of the League really made an effort and there was maximum foodage.

Ummmm, Tommy grubbed out five times. (Mind you, there was no elbowing. This was an elegant affair).
We were sitting with Barbara, one of the League members, at a table out by the fake lake and chit-chatting. I was telling Barbara how great the food was, how it was as good as if it had been catered by one of those frou-frou caterers.
However, my main criticism was that whomever brought those sumptuous mushrooms was a (witch).
When Tommy had returned to the buffet table to fulfill my request for more mushrooms, all of the mushrooms were gone. The crowd had gobbled them up.
Barbara cracked up because she was one of the women who had made them.
Don’t worry — I’m getting the recipe and will share it with readers.

Action figures
Afterwards, I was rubbing my Buddha belly and dreaming about more mushrooms, when Tommy thought about where all the leftover food would end up. He went into the kitchen and asked the nice women and men where all the leftovers would end up. They were busy cleaning up.
Tommy offered to take the food to a local homeless shelter. When I wasn’t looking, he popped into the kitchen and asked the women if we could take the food to the shelter. They do this every year, but were glad to have someone else do the run this year, because they were busy cleaning up the food.
I was so proud of him for thinking of this.
We drove to the shelter and I admired him as he unloaded the food, with help from people who worked there and were staying there. There were Greek olives and deviled eggs and sandwiches with the crusts cut off.
Along the way, Tommy asked the women of the League if anyone was going to do anything with the flower centerpieces from the fundraiser.
It was the day after my birthday and he had intended to buy me a gaggle of flowers from the Saturday farmers’ market. I had previously told him that was a waste of money because we had roses in the garden.
During the food delivery deal, he made an arrangement to gather up all of the flower centerpieces.
These were obviously home-grown arrangements, because florists don’t usually carry flowers such as snapdragons and sweet peas. The roses (gorgeous) were large and not long-stemmed.
When we arrived at the homeless shelter with my friends, the men were unloading our cars and I snapped, “Those flowers are mine.”
I got my bouquets of flowers. They’re in vases and leftover mayonnaise jars. It’s a nice birthday present to have flowers around every turn of the house.
Thanks to the people who sent cards on my birthday. Several people sent donations for the Butte Humane Society walk on Mother’s Day (Mutter’s Day). It was a joy to come to work and look in my “in-box” and see donations to the Butte Humane Society. Keep them coming.

Orb Alert
On a last note: It will be a good Halloween.
Last October we made a barfing pumpkin with the 9-year-old. We put the rotting pumpkin carcass in the compost pile. This spring the pumpkin seeds have sprouted and we’ll just leave them there. It’s good to know that good things can come from rotting pumpkin flesh. Gardens are like that.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 02:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

11 p.m. Monday, birthday surprise.

Tommy’s my hero.

We were sitting in the living room and Tommy was on the couch and saw flames through the kitchen window.

It was in the dumpster behind the restaurant near our house.

He yelled for me to get off the Internet and I didn't do that fast enough but grabbed the cell phone and called 9-1-1.

We have fire station No. 2 about three blocks away. By the time I had found my lavender garden clogs and grabbed the cell phone, before I could even reach the dispatcher, Tommy had connected our 100-foot yellow garden hose in the back of the house and I watched as he vaulted over the six-foot wooden fence like some sort of Nigerian monkey.

He had the dumpster fuming with noxious gasses and steam and I calmly told the dispatcher that my boyfriend would likely have the fire out soon, but it would probably be good to have the fire guys come by and make sure the fire was out.

I was so proud and, ummm, impressed by him right then. What a birthday present. I get to see my action hero in action, and have firemen at my house!

There were two 50-gallon drums of grease next to the dumpster and the fire guys were impressed my action hero had known to douse them off.

I was peering over the fence into the restaurant parking lot and asked the 19-year-old firefighter if he would be willing to let Rob use the big hose. They said no, with a big smile.

Posted by Heather Hacking at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)