The Last Throes of Spring

It's been a while since I've put up a wine post. Rest assured, we're still drinking but there haven't been many outstanding wines in the cue. It's hard to get up the energy to write up a wine that doesn't wow me, (even though I said I was going to.) Earlier this week we had a rosé syrah that I was excited about. I came up with what I thought was a good menu to match but it was merely ok. Honestly, I count my lucky stars that we get "ok" wine as often as we do when our price point is so very low. Times like these I miss working in the wine world.

The big news in our house is panties. Panties, panties, panties! We dance with panties, we sing about panties, we wash a lot of panties. We're trying to convince the toddler that panties really are the bees knees and it's worth giving up the uninterrupted play that diapers allow. It's a slow process but I think we're making progress. This morning she begged for a diaper but we're holding our ground. I imagine the toddler mood swings will work to our advantage and she'll be singing the praises of panties again within the hour.

[I'm sure some of y'all noticed the juxtaposition of pictures here. Puddin' has her potty training tools and Mama has a set of her own.]

In addition to all this we're finishing the school year - and have finally finished the "spring" planting. Summer doesn't officially start for another week so we're technically in the zone. The plants are harder to convince. Hopefully they'll get over the loss of their spring and be willing to grow anyway.

I feel somewhat similarly about Monkey & Peanut as they finish their school years. Hopefully they'll get over the losses and stresses of this year and grow stronger in spite of it all. It's been a rough school year for all of us. The loss of pets, the lack of friends, and scary new stages of growth. Summer brings familiar activities, childish fun, and time to step away from the stress, not to mention the chance to let the toddler run naked in the backyard. Who needs potty training?

Pruning

I am not a trained gardener. I have no skills to speak of and I'm usually pretty giddy when my plants don't die. I have great gardening heritage, though. Both my grandmothers kept beautiful gardens and could make just about anything blossom. I sometimes lean on that heritage and go with my gut. I throw seed in random places. I mix things willy-nilly. I rip up stuff I don’t like. As our yard currently shows, Chance doesn’t generally turn out very good results.

Stan's mom is also a fabulous gardener. Unlike me, Stan learned how to garden. He knows the right things to do to keep our plants in good shape long term. He understands which plants will fare will in our space. And what he doesn't already know he's patient enough to research. That's probably the biggest difference right there: patience. I want to go out and make beauty happen; Stan wants to cultivate it. Most of what looks good in our yard is a result of Stan’s hard work.

This week Chance did a little extra work in our yard. I walked out to the backyard this morning and found an extra bush blocking my path. On closer examination, it turned out to be a very large, very leafy tree branch. We’ve had some wind gusts and apparently one was big enough to take down a healthy limb from our tree. It’s a robust tree so losing one limb isn’t likely to have an impact, and the limb missed the house. So far, it’s a pretty neutral affair.

I had trouble moving the big bushy thing and realized that the fallen limb had gotten entangled with the rhododendron. Uh oh. The rhododendron is not our healthiest bush. It’s gotten bashed by fallen branches a few times and has struggled to come back. I’m rooting hard for the little darling so I was quite concerned. I reached in to gently pry fallen limb from the bush and found two newly broken rhododendron branches. Both branches were previously hit and had been struggling to regain life. Previously they seemed to be winning the slow battle so I wasn’t willing to prune them, even though I knew I should. Here, in one swift move, Chance did the pruning I couldn’t bring myself to do.

Our yard has a smaller, but much healthier rhododendron and I have another reason to continue my haphazard gardening ways. I’m going to really enjoy those blooms.

Chariot Gypsy

Last weekend was far too busy, just like most of the school year. On Tuesday I took a day off. I didn't leave my house all day and I didn't clean or straighten a darn thing.

I started my day outside with small bits of gardening. I potted some plants folks have given us over the past two years. [We really can be trusted with plants, I promise! and we're much better at tending to the kids.] I went after a few weeds. I put up a rock border on the flower bed. Then I attacked the ivy that has been choking our rhododendron and crowding my periwinkle. It felt amazingly good to bring order to my yard, and to put boundaries on my world. (It would be even more wonderful to do that with my internal world but I'll take the progress where I can get it.)

Around 5:00 I decided I was done. I grabbed a glass of wine for myself and a sippy cup of juice for Puddin'. Puddin' happily dug in her dirt pile and drew with chalk. I listened to the birds and reveled in the breeze. We rolled in the grass, played hop-scotch, blew bubbles, and did other giggly things. It was a wonderfully clear and relaxing afternoon. This wine perfectly matched the atmosphere.

Chariot Gypsy 2008 has plenty of jammy fruit, but is not overpoweringly sweet. Think dark cherry with hints of strawberry, very little wood or mineral flavor. It's tannic but not uncomfortably so. The alcohol content was a little high for the adult in charge but I sipped slowly and didn't operate any heavy machinery.

Stan came home to find us still on the carport sipping our drinks, with evidence of our relaxation strewn all around us. He grabbed a drink of his own and sat down to join us. A huge point in Gypsy's favor is that Stan didn't get a headache.

You can find your own bottle for about $5 at Trader Joe's. If you don't have a Trader Joe's, consider moving - or come to visit me since I'll be stocking up for the summer.

[For the record, I recently went on a cheap-wine-buying binge at Trader Joe's. You'll probably be hearing about a lot of these wines. It's hard to find cheap bottles with personality that don't give headaches. TJ's is the best source I know. Don't tell them though - I wouldn't want them to get a big head.]