The Apple of My Eye

Greetings!

Well, September is certainly flying along, isn't it?  I've been a busy little bee and even did some traveling in early September.  I went down to the Mother Land (aka Texas) to place my mom's ashes next to my dad's in the Ft. Bliss National Cemetery in El Paso.

It was a beautiful "ceremony," with just the four siblings, my brother's ex-wife (who I think of as a sister) and my significant other.  Each of us took a handful of dirt from the shovel and sprinkled it into the grave, then watched as they covered it up and raked the red gravel back into place.   Those of us who wanted to, said our goodbyes, shed lots of tears and went back to the hotel for a swim and to relax for a bit before heading out for a late lunch at L&J's Cafe (best Mexican food in El Paso, in my opinion) and some sightseeing.

El Paso is an interesting place, full of western history and one of the places we visited was Concordia cemetery.  John Wesley Hardin is buried there, but there is also a section for some of the Buffalo soldiers.  JWH was an unsavory character for sure, and met his end in much the same way as he meted out his peculiar form of "justice" - with bullets.

We also took a trip to Mesilla, New Mexico for dinner at La Posta on Thursday night.  Mostly for old times sake, since the food certainly was "eh" at best.  Still, it was fun being back there and seeing how much of a tourist destination Mesilla has become.  The best part of the meal were the sopapillas. Perfection.   Billy the Kid was captured in Mesilla, but apparently got away before they could dispatch him properly.

Dinner the next night was at Cattleman's Steakhouse.  It's a dude ranch and is as tacky as you would expect, but the steaks were awesome and the sunset was just breathtaking.

Back home again with lots to deal with.  We cleaned out my mom's house so that our tenant can move in on the 15th and put everything into storage.  We will have to deal with all of that when we have a bit more money to do so.

Next on the agenda was dealing with my garden.  I have to say over all, most of it was a bust.  Not sure what happened to my tomatoes.  They were off to such a great start, but petered out and I didn't get nearly as many tomatoes as I had hoped.  I ended up buying tomatoes to make sauce and spaghetti sauce.  There is a pot of homemade ketchup simmering on the stove as I write this and man, does it smell good!

The potatoes did okay.  I did get some nice ones, but it was kind of silly.  I planted three seed potatoes in each pot and most of them yielded three or four potatoes.  Not exactly cost effective.  I think next year, I am going to plant them in 55 gallon trash cans and see if I get a better crop.  They were really tasty, though.

Green beans did pretty well - but again, not nearly what I had hoped for.  I did end up with some for the freezer, but mostly we just ate what I picked.  The real bust was the peppers and squash.  They just sat there.  I think they are all pretty much the same size as when I planted them.  It's pretty weird.
The sweet potatoes are still going.  I did harvest the smaller container and there were a lot of tubers in it, but I should have let it go for another month because they are all real skinny.  I think they would have fattened up nicely if I had let them go until the first frost.  Now I know and I will surely let the big container sit until the end of October or the first frost, which ever comes first.

The big surprise and star of the show was the apple tree, which is a McIntosh.  Usually, it has a crop of inedible apples and early drop takes most of them.  Scab and insect damage galore took care of the rest.  Last fall, I dumped a whole bunch of cow manure, sprinkled in a couple cups of epsom salts around it and added a thick layer of mulch.  I also was religious about raking up and disposing of the leaves, as scab over winters there.  The tree has rewarded me this year with an amazing crop of beautiful apples.  There's still some insect damage and Jordan, if you're reading this, you should stop now.  I looked it up and it appears to be wasp damage.  Next year, I will place plenty of traps out for them and negate some of that too.

So far, I have four bags of quartered apples in the freezer which I will take down to my SO's place because he has a fruit press and come home with cider.  I also have 8 half pints of apple butter and six half pints of apple sauce put up already.  This was this morning's harvest for which I had to crawl out of my daughter's bedroom window and pick them from the porch roof because I don't have a ladder tall enough to reach even with the fruit harvester's telescoping handle.

These are destined for apple pies.  One for the freezer and one for dessert tonight.

In recap, the crops that did the best for me this year was the lettuce, which we enjoyed well into July, the green beans and the beets and carrots.  I planted a second crop of carrots and they are just about ready to harvest now.  The kale, collards, brussels sprouts, and cabbage were all victims of cabbage worms.  Next year, I will use row covers to negate that.

All in all, it has been a fun gardening season, even with the disappointments and I have plans for some improvements next year.  The little fruit trees I planted are all doing really well, as is the fig tree, so I have hopes that I might get a tiny crop from them next year.

That's it, folks - until next time!  Enjoy the season!

The Return

Greetings Gentle Readers,

I know it has been a while since I posted and... well, life.  Some of it is good and some of it is not.  You know that saying, "Time flies when you're having fun?"  Well, time also flies when you have tragedy.  You see, this year started out just like every other year in my life - with a lovely New Year's Day full of home cooked food (slow roasted pork shoulder, kale, home made bread, etc.) and progressed swimmingly towards my sister's birthday on the 8th of January.

Early on the morning of the 13th, we got a call that my mother had been rushed to the hospital in respiratory distress.  My mom's house is four hours away and before any of us could rush to be there, she was gone.  Just like that.  No warning, no chance to say goodbye or tell her how much we loved her.  Nothing but disbelief, shock and crushing sadness.  It will be five months on June 13th and I still have moments when I just can't believe she is gone.  It is as if a portion of my brain just doesn't want to cling to the reality of a world without her in it.

It is a strange thing, losing a parent.  We all know it is coming - it is the natural order of things.  Old people die.  We all know that, just as we know that one day we will be old and then we will die.  When both parents are gone we become unmoored, in a sense.  Suddenly, the only person that remembers our childhood is us.  Our parents take the memories of our first steps, our first words, and our first day of school with them when they go and we truly cease to be the child, literally and figuratively.  It is a strange feeling to be cut adrift in the vast sea of humanity without the parental shelter awaiting our return.  We are thrust into the role of reigning adult and are now the repository for the family history and lore.  

When my dad was sick with Alzheimer's, it was tough on all of us, losing him a little bit by bit and even sadder, he lost himself bit by bit.  In June 2013, as he neared the end of his life, we all gathered around him and after I kissed him on his forehead, I whispered to him, "It's okay, you can let go... we'll all be fine."  It was true too.  As much as we all loved him, watching him lose the essence of himself was, I thought worse than losing him all at once.  Alzheimer's is a horrible disease, robbing its victims of their families, their memories and finally, their dignity, so there was a sense of gratitude that he was no longer suffering.

In my mother's case though, there was no long goodbye.  She was there one day and gone the next.  No mental preparation, no sense of relief that she was released from suffering - just shock, pain and sadness.  

It's a human thing to play the "what if" game and especially when we have a sudden loss like this.  "What if she had listened to me and gone to the doctor the last time I talked to her?"  "What if I could have spoken with the ER doctor and said, Yes, please resuscitate her?"  But the biggest thing is always, "What if we knew that the last time we talked with ..... (fill in the blank), was the last time we were going to talk with them?"  What would we say?  What would we want them to know?  What was left unsaid?

For me, this at least carries no guilt.  I told her I loved her.  Every time.  Because I did.  She's gone now and carries a piece of my heart with her, but at least wherever she goes in her travels now, she knows that and that is the most important thing - to know we love and are loved.  

We will be taking her ashes back home in September.  Back to El Paso, where she came into being 84 years ago upon this earthly plane, to rest beside my dad, underneath the rocky shadows of the Franklin Mountains and the vast, impossibly blue sky of her desert home.

I'll be back tomorrow with a garden up date.  In the meantime, hug your parents, if you can.

Until then, gentle readers, Be Kind to each other.