June 4, in retrospect

Once upon a time, in 2007, we were the kind of people who gardened. Boy, those were the days… we broke up the monotony of rainy winter mornings, having a good Sunday morning sit-down with a seed catalog and a cup of tea. Every year we got a kick out of planting something we hadn’t before — gorgeous yellow and brown pollen-less sunflowers, amaranth, garbanzo beans, and this one particular year, birdhouse gourds.

They were wildly successful… to the point where we were machete-hacking the vines back. They took over EVERYTHING! And they were a gorgeous, strong vine… and the sap just REEKED. It was horrible — they got their revenge for being cut back. We finally stopped trying to cut them back and simply re-routed them and strung them up — and stopped watering them. They dried out in late October, and we picked the gourds, most of which were slightly discolored by sun and dirt, and heavy. Thanks to the usual last blisteringly hot dog days of summer, a few weeks of curing them on the back porch was all it took to dry them out. They were hollow — still weird smelling — and ready for the next step.

D.’s power tools, which he sold before we moved, were quite handy for the finishing process. Gourds aren’t the lovely smooth things they appear to be in their final incarnation — they have warty exteriors, and they took a wire brush, two grades of sandpaper, and a lot of time to get them smooth and ready to be painted. We had a great time making posh birdhouses, though. The only drawback to these beautiful things is that they are fragile; a windstorm utterly destroyed one of them (the green one – the purple one is still with us) just a few weeks after it was made.

Like Buddhist sand sculptures, things you make out of natural materials are transient; someday we’ll again plant gourds (far, far, FAR away from everything else) and try again.

Did you know American pumpernickel bread has cocoa or coffee in it? We didn’t, either, until this bread recipe. We made it the German way… with rye and caraway, and a sourdough starter. It was dense and sourish, and probably genuine, but didn’t find as many fans among our bread tasters as it could have had.

2008, and we’d just moved into our tidy little church flat. We had more pillows than we knew what to do with, and ended up piling them on the guest bed. I think we piled them on the couch first to count them.

We were truly prepared to love that flat and stay there forever — even with its cramped, weirdly laid out kitchen, its dim lighting, privacy-free loft bedrooms – and with the hourly vibrating growl of the city lightrail going under the house, (which started at 5:30 a.m.). It was charmingly imperfect, and it was close to the library — what more could we want?

A lot more, it turns out. We probably stayed so long simply because it was a church. Someday, perhaps we’ll find a sanctuary in which to live without obnoxious neighbors in the basement…

Hard to believe that this time last summer we were zipping through the Italian countryside, scaring roosters (actually, more like being STALKED by roosters; that dude had spurs and looked like he wasn’t afraid to use them), stopping in random towns and riding trams up mountainsides to discover tucked-away restaurants and wonderful views, and carefully deciphering Italian signs to buy candy (and still managing to come away with some TRULY NASTY stuff). The marzipan “rock” candy was a particular favorite.

And this year, June 4 – we have guests coming soon, dental appointments (aargh!), and T’s last Little has moved beyond junior high and is now a rising freshman. Congratulations, JC!

-T