through time and space

So I got an email from my Uncle Mike yesterday.  Uncle Mike has shown up here on Oliveknitting before.  You might remember he's the one who has a nose that resembles my dog, Q.  Mike and I don't always see eye to eye on everything (maybe because I compare his facial features to that of my dog?) but that's ok because as of the past few years, we've found our common ground.  Quite literally.  We've bonded over our vegetable gardens.

Uncle Mike is the only one of my grandma's 4 children who seems to have inherited her love of growing food.*  Actually, I don't know if my grandma really loved gardening.  She did it because that's what one does - one has land, one uses it to grow food.  Particularly when one is newly married, in the 1930's and one's husband has been laid off.  It's just what one does.

I have really fond memories of helping grandma pick beans and then sitting on her porch for hours snapping the ends off of them (ok, it probably wasn't hours, but when you're 8 it feels that way).  And I don't know what grandma did to her swiss chard but that shit was GOOD!  It was probably the oregano.  That also came from her garden.  I don't remember the oregano but according to Uncle Mike she had a particular variety (that can't be found any more...at least not by Uncle Mike) that she had planted who-knows-when-ago and that just kept coming back every year.  Mike harvested the seeds for his own garden.  This is his harvest this year drying in his garage.

In his email, Mike asked me if I'd like some of seeds from this oregano next year for my orto.  Are you kidding?!  F*#& YEAH!  Grandma and Grandpa are sadly gone.  The little house they shared for like 80 years has been sold.  But through time and space the oregano lives on.  

I'd like to suggest to all my Serpe relatives that we get some seeds from Mike so we can expand grandma and grandpa's garden to Elkhorn, Lake Geneva, Hampshire, Atlanta, D.C, Seattle, Maberga.  That's a nice thought, no?

*No disrespect to your garden, Dad.  I'm sure both those tomato plants you have are looking beautiful.

Italian Boy Toy

Yeah, ok.  That title is only a teaser.  I just wanted to see if I could increase traffic on the blog.   I suppose I could also do that by writing on the blog more, but I digress.

Getting back to the title of this post... David has purchased a new toy.

Yeah yeah yeah, David, I hear you.  "It's not a toy, it's a tool" like the weed whacker and the chain saw...yes yes yes, I get it.

Maybe guys are different from women.  It's possible.  I just know that when all my girl friends get really excited about something I'm talking about buying, and they then goad me on by saying "you HAVE TO have that!" or "at THAT price it's a steal!", that shit is a toy.  I'm not saying it's not a useful toy, like 20 skeins of pink yarn, for example.  Or a nice pair of stilettos.  It's just probably something you can do without in your life.  Or, it's just for fun, like a toy.

SOoooo, thank you Augusto, Franco and Gino for the goading sage advice.  You guys were definitely right.  We HAD to have this and it was a STEAL.

Excuse me now, I'm going to buy some pink yarn.


PS.  David and all you men reading this, who totally understand why we NEED a roto tiller in our lives when I thought our lives were moving along swimmingly without one can remind me of this blog post next year when I'm bragging about our onion harvest which will be coming from here

right after that land has been tilled.

PSS.  Don't worry Bump and Dong, the Lane/Averkamp olive trees you see there are staying.