My darlings….my apologies for bailing on youlast week. I couldn’t even TELL you I was bailing because. Hooterville. Downed Internet Service. Hooterville. That means there’s not ‘oh, well. Let’s just walk down to Starbucks, grab a latte and write the post’. When the Internets iz down here, it’s DOWN. So…sorry! It came back online about 4 hours later but by that time it was 11p and I was wiped and ….Hooterville.
And I had so much to tell you, too! Let’s start with CANNING! The tomato harvest came in hard and fast and I needed to get those dawgs canned UP! I remember my first year canning. I was sooo scared. Visions of people turning green and exploding on the floor of the ER danced in my head. Experienced canners told me to get over myself and get that stuff in the jars. So I did. And it was good! Now I’m going to learn how to pressure can green beans. My friend Mary, who has been canning since she was a little sprout (ha!) is teaching me – I figure she’s canned for 30 years, nobody on her watch has kicked the bucket….so I should be in Very Good Hands. I want to dill some of the beans and garlic some and plain can some – green beans lend themselves to so many flavors, don’t they? And sauerkraut! I don’t even like sauerkraut! But …c’mon! It’s one of those skills I feel I should have, like Tim Cahill and the flying lessons. Ya nebber know…you could be on the run from zombies and come across a cabbage or two…..
Tetanus. I haz it. Well, okay…I don’t. But..you won’t believe this. So I spent 12 hours in my garden on Sunday, doing perilous-type things involving sawing/hammering/digging/hoeing/stapling….So…7p rolls around and I’m closing up the garden…walk over to the gate..and step on an old roofing nail! I’d been on that narrow path at least 9000000 times that day! My foot is fine..as I told a friend, the shriekage was more for the sheer ‘WTF’ery of it all. There was a puncture – not deep. But good grief! A rusty nail? Could it get any more cliche? And it’s been 13 yrs since I last tetanused-up. And Cliche. So The Big Poke is tomorrow. I hate tetanus shots. They’re like cholera shots. Like someone is injecting pudding into your arm. Pudding laced with acid and live wasps. In a Victorian-era Torture syringe, wielded by a sadistic T-Rex. I ain’t happy about it.
this is gonna hurt!
Nails aside, working in the garden has been fun and brought forth a lot of smells. It’s been a rollercoaster ride, weatherwise, veering from 90F to 55F to rain to drought…and that seems like it’s all in a day! (I’ve changed my clothes twice today – sweater this rainy morning and sundress this 90F afternoon. Sigh). Weeds galore – but also some fun stuff! I have a patchouli plant! Patchouli is one of those scents I have never given much thought to (big surprise there!). I never even considered where patchouli comes from. For all I knew it was just born, fully distilled, in those little amber bottles at the health-food store! Wrong! It’s really a lovely little plant and the leaves are hippie-dippy-heavenly! As the weather cools I’ll take cuttings so I can repot for next spring. Mint, too! I have tons of mint drying on the drying rack but there is something especially decadent about pouring over fresh mint leaves, in the dead of winter…oh, bliss. So it’s time to start taking cuttings of that as well. My dill weed has exploded all over my garden, just as I hoped it would, which means the whole place is alight with that weird, wonderful smell.
Lemon verbena. This is another rooting but it’s more ‘just in case’ since I have a gorgeous plant in a gorgeous pot and I hope it sticks with me for a good many years. Lemon verbena is one of the most wonderful scents in all of Scentdom – and I rarely find a scent that captures the true essence of the plant. Too often they veer into that laundry soap/lemon cleaner arena. To be honest, it’s easier to just go out and rub a leaf on my wrists! LOL! It’s so fresh and sunshine-y and pretty! My pal Joe suggested I wear Delrae Wit over the lemon verbena. What a great combo! Patty did a rollicking review of it here and she’s spot-on! The lemon verbena amps the ‘green-y’ aspects of Wit and keeps it from toppling over into that rotty phase that I can easily do without, especially as my nerves are still frayed to the snapping point as it is. I am not looking for any challenging scents right now. If folks want to smell like the unwashed panties of a perimenopausal velociraptor, go right ahead. I’ll stick with the pretty, thank you.
Speaking of teh pretty….I have a couple of rose scents I’ve been testing out, since the weather has been so odd. Rose, especially the lighter, ‘truer’ roses, is one of those notes that can so easily go sour – and too often do. But there are a couple of lighter scents that are gorgeous, holding their own in the transitional weather and staying true to their gorgeous creation. What are they? Well, stay tuned…I’m going to tell you all about them next week. In the meantime, I’m going to reward you for reading this ramble-licious post. Two of you will win some samples from the Messy Armoire if you drop me a comment, letting me know what kind of weird weather you’re having – and what are you wearing in it?
Enjoyed reading about all that you have been doing, and as always, your humor really made me chuckle. Hope the tetanus shot won't be too unpleasant. And I never even thought about looking for a patchouli plant to grow in the garden. I am in MN and we've had a nice summer here - not too hot. At least, that's the way I like it. I think we are in for a few hot humid days, though. I've been wearing light flower scents like Byredo La Tulipe and L'Essence de Mastenbroek Eau de Polder, which has a nice wildflower kind of smell. I had on Oliver & Co. Dunard yesterday and that smelled particularly nice, too. You will appreciate the canned tomatoes when winter is here. And you could put the sauerkraut in reuben sandwiches, if you eat them.