Asparagus part 2

Back in 2008 I blogged about planting my first asparagus plants at the farmhouse. I followed the instructions in my father's copy of "Sprockett's Victory Garden" but only 3 of the plants came up that first year. I had to fill in the trench when I left (around the end of July) even though only those 3 plants had sprouted.

When I got back the next summer, only 2 of the asparagus plants had survived. Incredibly disappointing, considering all the work it took three of us to dig a trench 10' long, 18" wide, and 12" deep. I'm not sure exactly what went wrong. I have a feeling that I planted too deep--6" of dirt over those original roots.

This summer was my first harvest from those 2 surviving asparagus plants. it was small.


(cereal bowl included to show scale, and because it was morning)

So this summer I decided to try again, and had much better results. I planted a different variety, Jersey Giant in '08 and Martha Washington this time. I have no idea if that made a difference.

I was fairly certain that last time I had planted too deep, and filled in too much too soon. I think I followed the instructions in The Victory Garden book, but it was my dad's and I didn't have it with me, so I may also have remembered wrong. That time I planted 12" deep and initially refilled the trench with 6" of dirt. Since then I've checked more gardening books and websites and none of them say to go that deep. So this summer I followed the directions that came with my asparagus roots and re-dug most of the trench to 6" deep total, filling in with 3" of dirt until the shoots emerged.

That was successful. By the middle of July, every single root had produced a tiny fern, tall enough that I could return the last 3" of dirt to the trench, bringing it back to level with the rest of the garden.



The tall ferns at the far end of the photo are the 2 original Jersey Giants, the rest are the 10 Martha Washington asparagus I planted this year.

If all goes well I'll have all the asparagus I can eat in the spring of 2013.

Working at the Festival

This is a great overview of what we're doing at Glimmerglass at the moment. There's a quick shot of me cutting at my table, and of course lots of my co-workers are featured too. Only 8 days until the first opera opens--eeek!!!

blooming

This iris opened outside my window at the opera over the course of my workday.

I Did It!

I finally finished James Joyce's Ulysses. I had started reading it for the first time right after college but only got about a quarter of the way into it before setting it down and not picking it up again. I finally downloaded the audio book about a month ago and read the whole thing right through. The reader, Jim Norton, was great. I can't imagine the work it took to be able to read that book out loud and make sense out of who is talking at every moment. The book is written to cover 24hrs of time, mostly following Leopold Bloom through Dublin on June 16th, 1904. Once he falls asleep in the wee hours of the morning of the 17th, the narration is taken up by his wife Molly, who lays awake after being woken by Bloom crawling into bed. The funny thing is that it takes over 28 hrs to read. I guess that's to cover the extra time we spend with Stephen Dedalus before he meets Bloom.



I was going to say that next time I go to a bookstore I will be looking for a good study guide to see what they have to say, now that I have read the book for myself, but as I checked back at audible for the reader's name, etc, I just discovered that they have a companion study guide available for download for free. Have I mentioned that I love audible?

I'm thrilled that I finally read this book. In the long run, I think I benefited from stopping when I did, and picking it up again in my mid-thirties. Having now read so many more Irish books and plays, and generally having read and experienced more over the intervening 15 years, I understood so many more of Joyce's references, and of the general attitude of the characters.

There have been several accusations against the book as obscene. It was banned in the US in the early twenties. That ban was overruled in the 30's by Judge John M. Woolsey who declared that the book was not pornographic and therefore not obscene.

I'm just as awkward talking about or defining obscenity as many judges are. There are, of course, the famous statements about how ducks look and walk and quack, and after stating that he may not be able to define pornography, Supreme court Justice Potter Stewart went on to famously say, "but I know it when I see it."

It seems to me that there is an element of easy thrill to pornography. It's supposed to be a short-cut. If getting a thrill takes as much work as leaving the house, meeting someone, getting to know them, romancing them and putting real effort into treating them properly and prioritizing their well-being, for as long as it takes until it is appropriate for the relationship to be fully consummated, then you could have just gone out and done that. To me, that fact that the book is 28hrs long, and the dirty bits might cover an hour or 2 of that time total, is proof enough that the book is literature and not obscenity. It take way too much work to get all the way to Molly's soliloquy at the end, when she contemplates past lovers and considers future candidates. More time and effort than some modern relationships, or so I've learned from television.

That said, there were several points when I thought, "Wait, when was this written?" as the particular language which judge Woolsey described as "Saxon" is more blunt and coarse than I expected. Apparently I have been guilty of nostalgia,and have re-painted the past in gauzy white. Not only did my generation not invent sex or drugs, we also didn't invent those words I first heard on the bus or on the playground. Even so, when compared to the other literature of the 20's and earlier, it must have been a real shock to read those words in a novel. I was startled a hundred years later.

The novel was a lot of work, and I am now plunging into a study guide, and an audio download of a "Bloomsday" performance from a few years ago, but it was worth the work. I can see why it is often heralded as the first modern novel, or the first novel of the twentieth century.

And may I say again, I DID IT!

One of the big parts of my job is making patterns for the costumes. The pattern making is what I get the most enjoyment out of, and find the most fulfilling. Of course, like most things in life, it's only about 10% of the work of making a costume, but luckily the work flows quickly, so I get to go back to pattern making once every 2 months or so.

While working on the dance concert over the past few months, it occurred to me that I had a really good illustration of the range of what pattern making is. I could get into details and try to explain the advantages/disadvantages of draping on a dress form vs. drafting using measurements and rulers, but that would bore you.

Instead I have pictures.



Even if you've never sewn before, it's probably pretty clear that this is the pattern for some kind of shirt. A simple tunic to be precise.

But this?



This is a dress. And to get a sense of scale, I should say that each of those 8 pieces is nearly as big as I am, and that in order to show the whole pattern I had to lay it out on the stage floor and then photograph it from up in the catwalks above the audience.

The Dot and the Line

Have a Rabbit? Getting a Rabbit?

If you have a rabbit, or are thinking about getting one, this is a great event coming this Thursday. The woman giving the presentation is a vet tech who specifically works with rabbit vets. She is great! I will be there to help, but I'm sure I'll learn lots too.

The event is completely free and there is no catch. All you need to do is call to make your reservation before Thursday and then come to the SPCA that night.

(if you click on the image you should be able to see it a little bigger and a little clearer)

Birth/Rebirth

The snow receded some at the end of last week. On Sunday afternoon I found signs of new life.





This snow drop has barely lifted its head out of the snow:



Last year my first snow drops emerged in mid-March, so despite the intense cold these are 3 or 4 weeks earlier. Maybe that silly groundhog was on to something.

Also, finished but for the buttons is the "baby sweater on two needles" known to most knitters as the February baby.



I highly recommend this sweater. It was great fun to knit. It's quite easy, and every part of it fits together in that perfect way that Elizabeth Zimmerman sweaters do, thanks to her various percentage systems. I did change it to be completely seamless by knitting the body first, slipping stitches to holders for the sleeves and then casting on again across the held stitches so I could continue the body in one piece. I then picked up the sleeve stitches and knit them in the round on circular needles. I also changed the bottom edge just slightly. I always found the original garter stitch border clunky. I prefer lace patterns that provide their own edge with just a little adjustment, so when I got to the bottom edge I did not decrease as Elizabeth calls for, and I stayed in pattern, but changed the wrong side rows to plain knit instead of plain purl.

In The Knitter's Almanac the sweater is pictured with a matching bonnet, for which no pattern is given. As far as I know, EZ didn't publish that pattern, instead she describes how to add an extension onto the bonnet pattern you (of course) already have to keep the baby's neck and chest warm.

There don't seems to be all that many bonnet patterns to be had now, but this very girly sweater cried out for a bonnet, so I greatly modified the one that I have to make a matching bonnet. If it fits, and I can figure out what age of baby it fits, I will post simple directions.

Age and Babies

So far, I feel I’ve spent my first 36 years being told that I’m too young. I remember a point in elementary school when a friend two years older than me used the phrase “shake it don’t break it.” When I asked, “What does that mean, anyway?” she replied, “I’ll tell you when you’re older.” It’s amazing how much a ten year old has to lord over an eight year old. It became clear to me when I was older that her answer was really an indication that she didn’t know any more than I did. I still have no idea what that strange idiomatic phrase is supposed to mean.

When Cherie Brown, founder and executive director of the National Coalition Building Institute came to the university at which I work, she began talking about diversity by recognizing everyone in the audience for all the things about each of us that make us part of specific groups, whether they are groups that are classically thought of as oppressors or as oppressed. It was a great exercise. When each group was called, those who fit into it stood, and everyone else applauded. So for instance, I got to stand for categories like female, protestant, white, heterosexual, German (which may have been part of a group of northern European countries, I don’t remember) etc. When she got to age, Ms. Brown said, “It seems like we spend the first half of our lives wishing we were older, and the second half wishing we were younger.” How true it is!

I’ve mostly glided through life not worrying too much about my age. I think part of why I’m always being told I’m young is that I tend to hang out with people older than me, and I’ve always preferred to date a few years older. So several of my close friends are grandmothers, and my husband has half a decade on me. Of course I attribute my tendency to have older friends to my advanced intelligence and maturity; you may draw your own conclusions.

It’s at my university that I feel a bit persecuted for my allegedly young age. Not so much in my own department, but it is whenever I meet with faculty from other departments, or visit another department’s office, that I am asked “are you a student or a faculty member?” Or even worse, faculty members wheedle a number out of me and point out that their children are the same age, or a little older. I think someone in the fashion department actually said, “Well, I could be your mother.” I may be reading too much into it, but I really think this is a power play of some sort on their part. Maybe the ranking of grades and degrees in academia puts too much of an emphasis on the time put in, and not enough on the accomplishments.

I think it’s almost comical that at 36 these folks are trying to make me feel too young. In truth, I am too old to become a cop, too old to audition for American Idol, about twice as old as a retiring gymnast or figure skater, too old to have a first baby without very careful attention from doctors, and just recently, the proud owner of one pair of prescription bifocals, and one pair of pharmacy reading glasses. And yet, I got carded at a university event by someone at least 10 years younger than me. Yes, we have a lot of non-traditional students, so the average age probably trends a little high compared to the average, but still. My stepson is the same age as most of my sophomores. And yes, I am too young to have a kid his age, but see the earlier paragraph about the slightly older husband.

And so I am battling for some respect and recognition at work even thought I am “too young” and battling increasing age in the guise of weight gain and gravity and declining optical lens flexibility. The CDC says the average American life expectancy is 77.9 years. I’m nearly half way. Given that, plus the fact that I can’t wear a bikini anymore, I’d really like some recognition for everything I can do now that I couldn’t do back when I could still wear that two piece.

In an effort to garner some age-based respect, I’ve been practicing perching my new tiger striped reading glasses on the end of my nose. Now I look like Janine from Ghostbusters.

So I’m dipping my toes into middle age, and we’re all careening towards old age, but what I’m actually trying to come around to is the very youngest: babies. I don’t have much use for babies myself, they’re like needy potatoes with messy diapers, but people who have them seem very keen on them. My stepson and I met at the perfect time. He was 5, old enough to tell really good stories, especially since he was still too young to fully “get” the distinction between experienced events and imagined ones. He was cute and smart, could communicate, and could go to the bathroom on his own. Perfect. I was 22. Old enough to be legitimately interested in kids and young enough to dive into a relationship with him and his father without thinking ahead to how hard it is to have a teenager while still in one’s twenties. Perfect.

Now, I don’t mean to bad mouth the whole breeding thing. Yes, self-righteous stay-at-home moms who spend all their time lecturing everyone else on the internet (while their unsupervised children set the cat on fire) are annoying, but lots of people I know and respect really love babies. The day your child is born is momentous. The fact that they start out as a baby is immaterial compared to the importance of that day, the day they come fully into life and you come fully into parenthood. I didn’t get this back when I was younger, or was distracted or something, but for the last 5 or 10 years I’ve tried to really focus on being part of the community rituals that surround and celebrate the birth of a child. Births, weddings, graduations/confirmations/bar mitzvahs/coming of age, and deaths are the really major parts of life, epic and bigger than the work-a-day world. They are the framework, and the basis for much or our crucial spiritual moments. They are also the times when family and community mobilize, and are at their very best, fulfilling their most fundamental functions. I want to be part of that for my friends and family.

And so (you knew this was coming) I knit. I don’t seem to knit as many wedding presents, and I should get back to knitting prayer shawls for those in crisis, but at this point I do try to knit for everyone I know who is having a baby. It’s funny, now that I’m past childbearing age, and even thought I claim to have mostly older friends, I seem to know a ton of people having babies right now. It’s been that way for a few years.

A few months ago I sent out this great, colorful blanket to a friend. She says the baby grabbed it right away and loved sticking her little fingers through the holes in the lace pattern. My friend Ann is great about knitting blankets for the babies in her life, and it was her great idea to make the little version, as something for the baby/toddler to hold onto while the big blankie is in the wash, or when the big blankie is too much to carry along on this particular trip to the grocery store, etc.

There are so many babies on the way right now, I had to make a list of who’s having the baby, boy or girl (if known) and what I plan to knit for them. Finished except for the buttons is this baby surprise for a baby of not-yet-known gender.

I love this pattern. This is at least the third time I’ve done one and it charms and amazes me every time. I love the way it looks with stripes, and I have no idea how Elizabeth Zimmerman ever thought her way around a garment in this direction. Just the fact that her line of shaping (decreases then increases) move from the back cuff, under the arm and onward to the bottom front hem is amazing to behold.

This is a great combination of things. I was on a friend’s Ravelry page, looking at these great robot mittens she had made, when Chris leaned over and said, “You should make a baby sweater like that for X’s baby, she’d love that kind of thing.” Thus I bought Kathryn Ivy’s Love Bytes mitten pattern and used her wonderful charts and a modification of a seventies baby sweater pattern to make this really delightful baby sweater full of robots and hearts. I totally love her pun, and the really blocky mid-twentieth century robots, and the idea of robots in love. This aesthetic is the same thing I love about the robots in Futurama—they’ve appropriate an older, dated, view of future technology, so it is both primitive/nostalgic and futuristic to our modern eye. Like the giant super computers in classic trek that take up a whole room and break down when Kirk tells them “everything I say is a lie, including that.” Actually, I think Kirk broke a sexy false eye-lashed female robot with that particular tautology, but you get the picture. I predict that ‘50s robots made out of cardboard boxes will be the next big thing after steam punk. And babies will be the recipients of my next 5 knitting projects.