Chickenminnie’s Weblog

Work on the barn is moving along at a pretty good clip, and the three day weekend last week was just what we needed to get the majority of the work done. A few weeks ago our little barn was just a platform….

Then it was a skeleton….

And now it is something resembling a barn!

There is still a fair amount to do. The overhang for the potting bench needs to be built, and the windows and doors need to be installed, but I’m very excited about what we have managed to accomplish so far.

After living here for eight years and hating my two rusty tin Sears sheds for all eight of those years, I am finally building a barn; it’s a small barn, but a barn all the same. The plan has been formulating for years in my head with regard to size and shape, and I decided on a 10×16 saltbox with a sliding barn door, tin roof and rough cut board & batten siding. Hopefully that should be enough room to house the detritus of our outdoor lifestyle; the riding mower, three kayaks, a snowblower, a rototiller, numerous garden tools and two bicycles. Since we are do-it-yourselfers, the professor and I have been collaborating on the project, and he came up with a lovely drawing of what it would look like. He even added a little extension on one end for a potting bench which is very exciting for the gardener in me.

With the building permit secured, last weekend was the pouring of the concrete footings; nine sonotubes buried 42″ in the ground. Surprisingly, that’s a fair amount of ready-mix… sixteen 80 lb. bags in all. Ken borrowed a cement mixer from a friend and I was quickly reminded of what a messy job pouring concrete is. Having done some of that kind of work in a previous life I knew what I was in for, but it’s been a while. I forgot that no matter how far you try to stand behind the wheelbarrow, you’re going to get splattered in a big way. And a wheelbarrow loaded with cement is a very heavy item; my dinky little homeowner wheelbarrow was visibly unhappy about this task and looked ready to collapse at any moment.

After about three hours the job was complete, and we were both sweaty, filthy and exhausted. There may be a little masochist hiding in me, but one of the best feelings in the world is being totally drained after a day of hard, physical work. The bonus in labor like that is almost always tangible; a completed garden, a freshly painted house or a forest of cement piers ready for a deck. It’s productivity at its very best, and always makes me feel as if I have earned my space on earth.

The month of July is a nice time to be a gardener because most of the real heavy work is done, but there is still some anticipation of things to come. The first flush of roses has come and gone, but the dahlia blossoms are fat little buds of promise waiting for the heat of summer. The asiatic lilies liberally sprinkled throughout the garden are displaying their gigantic waxy blooms, and vegetables are starting to arrive signaling the start of what must surely be the origin of “salad days”.  (I can’t take credit for the vegetable bounty; that is the sole domain of the Professor who has two small vegetable gardens which keep us supplied all summer.)

July is also a good month to take stock of how well things are working (or not working) in the garden.  My first notes about things that need to be changed are made this month, scribbled in my gardening notebook for later reference.  One of my worst gardening habits is that I always plant things too closely together, so by July it’s quite apparent what things need to be moved.  It’s also a good time to take notes about what things just aren’t doing well and make a decision about whether or not the plant should be moved or deaccessioned.

My garden is constantly undergoing this kind of editing, and an awful lot of the time it’s due to some force I have no control over.  For example, my neighbor removed a very large oak tree from his front yard last fall which completely changed the sunlight patterns on the west side of my yard, necessitating the move of several plants which could not tolerate this sudden onslaught of sunlight.  Conversely, I now have areas of shade in my yard that I didn’t have during the preceding three years because of the massive worm damage which partially defoliated several of my trees.

It’s always something in the garden world; I like to call this “hobby security”.

Last night, while looking for something else entirely, I discovered a box in my sewing room marked DRESSES.  I couldn’t imagine what it could be since all of my clothing storage consists of summer or winter, and the off season stuff is always stowed under my bed.  Mystified, I opened the box to discover some gorgeous old dresses that had belonged to my grandmother, mother and aunts. I have no recollection of stowing them there and thought they had been thrown away, so I was very happy to see them.

Like my relatives, these gowns had been quite fabulous in their day.  The first gown I pulled out was worn by my grandmother Alice to her daughter Sally’s wedding.  It is a pale aqua blue peau de soie gown with pleating under the bust, a sequined neckline and spaghetti straps.  I remember seeing photos of her in that dress with her hair done up, opera length gloves and a mink stole.  She was married to one of the most prominent area surgeons of the day, and totally dressed the part.

The next dress was an off-the-shoulder silk taffeta tea length dress in a color resembling cafe au lait.  Like many of the fancier dresses of the day it had a wide band of beading around the neck and the waistline looked ridiculously small.  My mother told me once that the fashion was to put your belt around your head, mark the location of the buckle and use that measurement for your ideal waist size.  Apparently societal body issues began way before Twiggy.

Under the taffeta was a dramatic dress the color of eggplant which would have been called aubergine back then.  I think this dress belonged to my aunt Sally.  It is a strapless silk with an asymmetrical top band (beaded, of course) and a dramatic scarf arrangement attached to it.  It had several pieces of twill tape sewn to the back of it because it had a small train, and I remember using this dress in my dressmaking days to work on my bustling technique.

In the bottom of the box were various fashion accoutrements of the day; a pink french net petticoat, a tulle sash and a few pairs of kid gloves, all impossibly small.  It was fun to look at these reminders of a more genteel era, and it brought back a lot of the stories I had heard as a young person about dances and parties at the Albany Country Club which my grandparents belonged to.  I guess they would be called “vintage” now!

There’s nothing quite like coming home after a long trip. Being an unrepentant homebody, I don’t travel well and vacations are often more stressful than fun. You can imagine how happy I was to land in Smallbany.

One notable thing about the Seattle-Tacoma area is the traffic! I have done my share of complaining about Albany rush hour, but after spending a week on the left coast Albany traffic is a day at the beach. They have all kinds of devices out there to control their crazy commute and their television traffic reports include such oddities as minutes extra between exits. All the freeways have a carpool lane which means you must have two or more people in the car in order to use it. There is an exception; if you buy a special sensor you can use the carpool lane with one person, but the rate is metered depending on how heavy the traffic is. This rate can be anywhere from fifty cents to $35.00! I saw it as high as $15.50 on the day we took the bus to Seattle.

There are also metered ramps during rush hour. This means that at certain times of the day you cannot simply get on the freeway; there is a traffic light on the ramp and one can only merge on a green. I have seen metered ramps in Denver where they also have major amounts of traffic. I’m glad Albany traffic is not this bad yet, although if they don’t start paying attention it’s going to get this way.

The next time I complain about Albany’s rush hour someone kick me. Hard.

May is a great time to be in the Pacific Northwest because the infamous rainy season is on something of a hiatus, and everything is blooming like mad. The first thing you notice is the rhododendrons which are the state flower…for good reason. Forget the wimpy rhodos we have in New York; these are massive, often tree-like plants which produce enormous clusters of bloom in dozens of colors. Being a garden aficionado I couldn’t resist a visit to the Washington Park Arboretum with its thousands of plant species. The rhododendrons and azaleas were in riotous bloom and we spent a few hours walking the 230 acre park. Washington is also noted for its numerous conifer varieties and this was evident at the arboretum; there were conifers of every description. Some had fluffy little tufts all along their branches, some were weeping varieties and of course there was my favorite, the monkey tree.

At the end of the arboretum was the most spectacular little Japanese garden. It had all the elements one looks for in a great Japanese Garden; a koi pond with some of the biggest koi I have ever seen, meandering gravel paths and fabulous little tea house. It was very peaceful and serene, and I took a lot of pictures which I will try to get posted soon.

Today we decided to trek down to Pike Place Market in downtown Seattle because Ken has never seen it. After some consideration we opted to take the bus because the commuter train leaves less frequently leaving much less flexibility with regard to return time. There was some trepidation on my part because of my limited experiences with the CDTA system at home which is comprised of filthy buses full of really sketchy characters. I have to say I was pleasantly surprised.

One thing I did not realize is that when the buses near the Seattle city limits they go into a tunnel for buses only. There are numerous stops along the way and I was surprised by how nice the platforms were. They were clean, well lighted and it was easy to navigate to the escalator to the street. We walked three blocks to Pike Place Market and it was like being submerged into a different world.

It is immediately apparent that the Seattle grunge scene is very much alive and well and we saw a lot of spikes, mohawks and piercings on young and old alike. There were also a lot of homeless people wrapped in cardboard and sleeping under benches and trees; fortunately there was a lot less panhandling than we experienced in Pioneer Square.

The market is an amazing place. There are three levels with hundreds of little shops selling every imaginable item from hookahs to fresh fish. Every possible nationality is represented here; there are shops selling Mexican day-of-the-dead dolls and stalls selling Tibetan prayer flags and incense. The food shops were amazing as well; I saw French bakeries, pierogi stands and stalls of Vietnamese street food. And the fresh fruit, vegetable and flower markets were beautiful, rivaling any of those in New York City.

The general flavor in Seattle is much less frenetic than the Big Apple and I felt a lot safer there; it was busy but lacked the breathless and exhausting tension found in New York. It’s also substantially cleaner; I read somewhere that the frequent rains serve to wash away a lot of the city crud that tends to build up in the wake of humanity.

After hanging around downtown for several hours and having a nice meal in a funky little lunch place, we headed back to the underground bus stop. We spent a total of five bucks apiece to travel down to Pike Place which is an incredible deal when you consider the aggravation of driving there in the horrendous Seattle traffic and finding a place to park. We are thinking about going back.

The Professor and I arrived in Seattle a couple of days ago for a vacation and it has taken a few days to rid myself of the jet lag cobwebs and write something lucid. It has been five years since my last visit and since I have relatives living here, I thought it was time.

One reason I don’t travel more is because I hate to fly. I’m not afraid to fly or anything like that, but anyone who has flown in the last few years knows what I am talking about. Everything about it seems designed to bring out the absolute worst in humanity. The hassle starts at the security checkpoint and ends when you pick up your luggage from the carousel…if your luggage is indeed there. There are just so many reasons to hate flying that I consider it a minor miracle that people actually do it.

Fortunately our flight was not too bad. We had an equal number of takeoffs and landings, our luggage arrived intact and we didn’t have to put up with anyone too obnoxious on the plane. Our flight in Portland was canceled, but they were kind enough to rebook us on a flight leaving a half hour later. Not bad when you consider just how wrong this can go.

Our hotel ended up being a nice little surprise. It was recently renovated (their website wasn’t lying) and we have a nice room overlooking the Green River that no one seems to have smoked in. There is a great walking trail along the river which we have been using every morning, and we found a train station a block from the hotel which will take us to downtown Seattle for $2.50. Since parking in downtown Seattle is for masochists, this is an awfully good choice. The hotel has a decent free breakfast in the morning, internet access and free coffee all day….amazing.

On our first day we met up with my cousin who took us to a fabulous Chinese restaurant. Out here they are much more authentic; we were the only white people in the place and there was no fork to be found which is a sign that you are in a place that caters primarily to Chinese. The restaurant was part of a giant strip mall of Chinese shops of every description. We browsed through some of the shops after we ate dinner and it was fascinating; some of the oddest things I have ever seen were for sale. Every kind of live fish you can imagine was for sale, strange fruits and vegetables and all kinds of herbs in boxes with inscrutable characters I could not read. My cousin bought some fresh fish, and while we were standing in line at the checkout stand I saw bamboo ear spoons for sale! Their function is apparently just exactly what you might think…very strange. Maybe I’ll pick up one for Sean….