Easter Bells And Other Things That Make Me Happy

I treated myself to a bunch of daffodils for Easter. They were only a couple of bucks - okay, $2.50 maybe - and they're so cheerful. Osterglocken, they're called in German, Easter Bells. I love Easter Bells, both the flowers and the items that toll in church towers. Hearing church bells is one of the things I miss about Europe. Every Sunday morning you hear them, and in many places every day at noon, to pray an "Our Father" and take your lunch break, and again at six or seven for quitting time, Feierabend - "celebration evening". There really is something festive about the sound of bells.

Church bells are impressive items. They're huge, for one, often as tall as an adult human, and they weigh a ton - literally. And up close, they're so loud they can kill you; at least that's what Dorothy L. Sayers says in The Nine Tailors, where Lord Peter barely escapes with his life when he is accidentally caught in a church tower while the bells are tolling. I believe her - I was on top of a church tower once when the bell struck the hour, and even though we were a floor or two above the bell (or below, I can't remember), we all stood there with our hands pressed over our ears, the noise was so painful. But bells have to be that loud, so they can be heard in the whole town. Else how would you know when it's time to go to church or take your lunch break, or when someone is getting married or buried or christened or anything else important happens? Church bells were the Twitter and Google Calendar of pre-technology days.

My lovage doing its spring thing

Over here in the New World, church bells are few and far between; I have never lived within the sound of bells here. But I do get to have the flower kind of Easter Bells, and they make me happy.

And on that note, some other things that make me happy are rhubarb, lovage, and chives - the first food crops that start poking their heads out of the ground. I love snow drops and crocuses, because they say that winter is nearly over and spring is here, but it's those green needles of the chive shoots and the red bump of sprouting rhubarb that put the full stop behind that statement. Winter is done. Now when I make soup I don't have to stint on dried lovage any more in order to avoid running out - the new crop is growing, and within a few months that lovage bush is going to be taller than I am and I'll be hacking back the celery-flavoured greenery to keep it from choking out its neighbours in the vegetable bed.

Rhubarb rhubarbing

Oh, and those of you who are still buried under ice and snow, thumb your nose at winter - he's had it. My rhubarb says so.

Life, the Universe, Easter Bells and Things That Make Me Happy. Have a wonderful spring!

Scarborough Fair

I just gave my herb bed its autumn haircut, bringing in the last of the herbs that I was going to preserve. Here's a lovely Scarborough Fair basket, filled with parsley, sage, rosemary and thyme. The last three are now hanging in bundles above the wood stove to dry; the parsley was chopped and frozen, as it doesn't dry well.

I also couldn't resist picking a few more heads of calendula (English marigolds), which were still blooming, and putting them on an old dehydrator rack in the workshop to dry. Poor Man's Saffron, dontcha know. Not that I ever use saffron, really, or calendula petals, for that matter, but I just like having it. I suppose it's like some women and shoes; I always like having yet another herb plant in the garden, or spice in the cupboard. Some of the herbs I don't even bother preserving, as I'd definitely never will use them; I just like growing them.

Southernwood is one of them; I don't even know what it's good for, really. I read somewhere that you could put it, sparingly, in pork dishes; but otherwise the only uses for it I heard of is as a strewing herb, and as part of a bouquet of aromatic herbs that judges in Ye Olden Days put on their bench in the court room in order to ward off jail fever which the prisoners would bring with them into the dock (the inconsiderate wretches). Neither one of those is any good to me, seeing as I'm neither a Victorian judge (or a judge of Victoriana, for that matter), and don't have my floors covered in rushes (hardwood or carpeting is nicer, I find, but if you want to put straw on your floors, more power to you. I can let you have some southernwood to keep it nice-smelling). Apparently southernwood is related to wormwood (as in, "bitter gall and -"), which used to be the flavour in absinthe (the drink Van Gogh & Co fried their brains with); its toxicity is the reason that you can't get absinthe any more.

Another herb I like to have in my garden, just to have it, is tarragon. I know you can make lovely tarragon vinegar, and there's lovely recipes for tarragon chicken, and it's a lovely part of a lovely bouquet garni, but really, I don't actually like the flavour. Any of those anise-like flavours, I'm not particularly fond of to eat - anise, tarragon, licorice, even basil... And I'd grow them all, if I could. (Hey, can you grow licorice on the 50th latitude? Or is that a tropical? Hmm, she says, with an avaricious gleam in the eye...) But, anyway, tarragon has one quality that makes it rather vital to have in one's garden: tarragon's other name is Dragonsbane. Truly, it wards off dragons! I haven't seen a single one in my garden since I planted it.

Life, the Universe, and Herb Collections. I think I'll go listen to Scarborough Fair now.

Yorick

May I introduce Yorick? Everyone, Yorick; Yorick, Everyone. My youngest son gave him to me for my birthday, and my oldest son, when contemplating the naming of this new addition to my menagerie, said "You should call him Yorick!" Of course, he was absolutely correct. So now that you've been introduced, when someone mentions the name Yorick, you can say: "Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio." But that's only if you have a friend named Horatio, and he happens to be around at that moment.

It's the third Day of Christmas as I write this, and I can't remember what my true love is meant to have given me to go with the partridge in the pear tree and whatever-it-is that comes on Day Two, neither of which I received in my stocking. But that's okay. He probably wouldn't like roast partridge, anyway, and while a pear tree would be really neat to have, around here, we'd have to spray it for codling moth, which is inconvenient. (I just found out that where I live, if you have fruit trees and you're not certified as an organic grower, you're legally obligated to spray your trees. If you don't, the fruit tree police can come and chop them down and send you the bill. Ugh. I guess it makes sense, in a way- but it still rather destroys the illusion of the healthy and natural country life.) Oh, and no, I wouldn't keep the partridge as a pet, either; I believe they're about as intelligent as quail. And I have a hard enough time keeping the cats under control in the house as is; one is trying to climb on my keyboard as I type - a partridge added to the mix doesn't bear thinking of.

So now that the Christmas festivities are past, and we're all laying about, groaning from having overeaten turkey, and still overeating chocolate and brownies and cookies and pie, it's time to start thinking of the new year. I have this fantasy that I'm going to do all kinds of fascinating and productive activities in 2011 - more gardening, say. I long ago learned that most of the green-thumb genes that came from my grandmothers went to my sister, with not much left for me (another illusion down the drains). But I still enjoy grubbing around in the dirt, even if the resulting harvest is less than spectacular. And my favourites are my herbs. There is something incredibly satisfying in running out the back door while the spaghetti sauce bubbles on the stove and quickly grabbing a few sprigs of oregano, thyme, parsley and chives to add to the blend; the flavour of fresh herbs is incomparable. The turkey stuffing this year contained fresh-picked sage, and the parsley I had to dig out from under the snow where it was nicely pre-frozen.

Life, the Universe, Yorick and Parsley. Enjoy the twelve days of Christmas!