It Can't Be Beet

I grocery shop online every 16 days and have it delivered; today's delivery surprised me with vanilla yogurt instead of plain; a carton of 18 eggs rather than 12; and strangest, a bunch of fresh beets in place of a radish bunch.

How'd that happen? Indeed the illustration of the radish bunch on the order form might have looked a lot like fresh beets to the Middle Eastern middle-aged man who shopped and delivered today. He bypassed the house and I had to trot 100 yards after him to say, "I'm the first house. It says on my note, it's the first house you see." "Ho, sorry," he said, while I fled indoors; he wasn't masked like the other delivery people, and was long gone before I unpacked the groceries. The packaging and bags stank of cigarette smoke, and I thought: This time I ought to call the bosses and complain. His unusual name -- I looked it up -- is Arabic for "generous."

Annoyed, I washed and cooked the beets, which bled all over, meanwhile wondering who was this man, and where from? Syria? I happen to love beet greens and beet roots; radishes are the spartan, bloodless version, not so tasty but easier to clean up. Complain because there were 18 eggs and not 12? Divine, have you yourself ever made a mistake? (Yes.) Were folks tolerant and kind when you messed up on the job? (Mostly, and I thank them from the bottom of my heart.) Divine, you smoked for years; did people complain about the cloud of reek hanging about you? (Only once.) Could you go into a Middle Eastern supermarket with a list made of pictures and get everything just right? (No.) His job is one no one wants unless they really, really need the money. I wondered whom he is supporting. Like everybody, he's doing the best he can. I didn't call.

Janitor of Eden

After two weeks away, the first thing to do is empty the mousetraps. Very fortunately there was only one mouse cadaver, fresh thank God, because had it been two weeks old it'd be stuck to the floor. I'd left May 20, just when there's so much to do to ensure a good summer here. Like:

• repair the porch screen. My sworn enemies, the squirrels, chewed through it and gnawed the plastic gasket from the metal step-can I store those delicious sunflower seeds in -- but failed to get to the seeds. Nyah, nyah.
• buy basil and dill plants and soil for repotting into the pots they'll occupy all summer, pots carried into full sun every morning and sheltered next to the house at nightfall, because otherwise the squirrels overturn and uproot them out of pure spite.
• clean and refill hummingbird feeders. I almost didn't want to leave for two weeks because the empty feeders would disappoint the hummingbirds, but I'm hoping my extra-sweet nectar recipe will persuade them to return and trust me; I don't intend to leave them again.
• retrieve the seed feeder from the underbrush where raccoons had dragged and left it; soap and rinse it, dry it in the sun. Acquire a poison-ivy hickey on my left leg.
• greet new young turtles and rabbits who have no idea I live here too.
• witness a high-speed chase: Miss Turkey in hot pursuit of a hefty blacksnake sidewinding itself across the grass at top speed and beneath the propane tank, thus winning that round.
• pull and dry the spring onions before they form heads.
• refill those clever little outdoor mouse-poison dispensers with green-turquoise blocks of mouse poison. They work; they've cut the indoor mouse war by 75 percent.
• approach the bluebird box to clean it. Yes, one must clean one's bluebird box. I didn't want to. Last time I looked, the nest held three baby chickadees and a baby bluebird. This is unusual. I feared finding the nest holding one or more dead. With gloved hands I unhooked the box and pulled out the nest. It was empty. Everyone had fledged! I was overjoyed.
• inspect the forest floor where the summer mushrooms grow. Despite an inch of rain, found nothing. It's still quite early in the season. On the way, saw butterflies enjoying the blossoming milkweed.
• check blackberry brambles for incipient blackberries, due in about three weeks. There are indeed little blackberry bullets. Last year's drought meant we had no crop. This year I hope for better.
• buy at the fruit and vegetable stand every sort of fresh tasty thing: beets, apples, tomatoes, sweet potatoes, kale, berries, mushrooms, red onion, bananas, peppers, grapefruit, romaine -- to refill the fridge and to purify myself after two weeks away. And oh, yes, buy a bottle of wine, a rose, but I won't admit to that.
• clean the picnic table; apply a tablecloth.

All this activity was joyful. Give me a new computer stand and I'm in Eden! I'm so glad to be home, among the plants and creatures.

Making Kale Chips in the Microwave

Crisp and ready to salt and eat.

This is an easy way to eat your kale. Wash the kale, tear it into bite-sized pieces and let it dry thoroughly, as thoroughly as you'd dry lettuce. Then toss the leaves with a small spoonful of olive oil until each leaf is oiled and shines. Now arrange them on a plate, with some space between each leaf. Then microwave on High for three minutes. Only 3 minutes, that's right! They will shrink but are now finished and crisp. Salt them to your taste.

Oiled and plated for cooking.

After microwaving.

Lazy Vegetable Planting

Collards, one of my favorite greens, thrive in extreme weather, especially the extreme Missouri summer heat, and I bought what I thought was four plugs of them but it was six and I let them sit in their tray for a week not knowing how I was going to get the muscle and vertebrae to weed and turn over a patch of soil big enough to plant them 18 to 24 inches apart. It seemed impossible. The little plants' leaves began turning yellow. I had to act or throw them away. I asked the powers that be to solve my problem.

It so happens there are two eight-foot boards left in the lawn from a coldframe that was built around 2001, which I dismantled in 2011 except for those two boards I couldn't move and let lie there. Where the coldframe's vegetables were is now a tangle of wildflowers and weeds (see top left of photo). Yet over the years the boards rotted and weakened a bit and I jostled  one around, pulling it backward; and behold, beneath it was an eight-foot strip of fresh, rich, worm-happy, almost-weed-free, sun-facing soil just right for planting my collards 18 to 24 inches apart. No weeding, no digging, simply planting. How lucky! How great! How lazy! Divinely inspired.

The Carrot Box

This cheerful hand-painted wooden box was found at a Missouri antique mall some years ago and, charmed, I bought it, for, like, $12. Inside, it's just plain painted wood, no lining, no compartments, no decoration. I guessed it's for vegetables -- winter root vegetables that like darkness and room (not heaped on top of each other; onions or potatoes all heaped up will quickly go bad). I keep this "carrot box" or "carrot coffin" in the unheated laundry room that serves as my root cellar, and use it for onions. When the thermometer in there approaches freezing I save the onions from turning to acrid mush by moving the box into a heated room.

I looked up "carrot box" to see if such boxes were somehow traditional, and also learn the reason for their treasure-chest shape, but a "carrot box" today means a cardboard gift box in the shape of a long cone. Classic wooden vegetable bins hold a lot more vegetables and look nothing like this. This box, painted with 11 clean, idealized carrots, very witty, holds approximately 3 pounds of produce.

Explaining to the Aliens

I was whisked to another planet last night (that's okay; I wasn't working on deadline) and its inhabitants asked me to describe life on Earth. So I tried:

"Where I'm from, the whole world changes four times a year. There's a rainy time when the landscape is all greens and yellows, with pink flowering trees; then the days grow warm and sunny and colorful, and tiny glittering birds fly around randomly and drink from flowers, and Earthlings play, and plants extrude the most desirable kinds of foods: berries, tomatoes, scented herbs with all sorts of powers, some of them so secret that our scientists spend lifetimes studying them...

"Then fields and trees turn red and gold and orange, and vines bear grapes, which are little sweet meaty orbs in sheer skins, purple, red or green; and many kinds and shapes of squashes, hard-shelled and expressive like sculptures. Those sell for very cheap...Next comes a very quiet, chilly gray period when things, we call 'em snowflakes, weightless and no bigger than a nailhead, sometimes fall from the sky by the trillion and pile up in tons and tons and cover everything. And, get this, each one is a tiny six-sided geometrically perfect design and there are no two alike.

"And these four times repeat over and over, like magic; we just sit there, and the whole world changes all around us. The daylight changes, the constellations shift, and we have this huge perfectly spherical white rock floating in the sky called a moon, and everyone loves it, and it gives silver light and controls all the Earth's water..."

I Join The Local-Produce Co-op

The Current newspaper announced that the local-produce co-op, Community Helpings Co-op, was going to add Pacific to its list of every-two-weeks delivery points, and it needed 26 orders to make Pacific a regular stop. I've always wanted to join and support a co-op and local farms, so I signed up and paid online -- except I made a mistake. Instead of just one basket I ordered two "baskets" of produce by accident, and couldn't figure out how to cancel the extra order, so I got my new neighbor Sally to agree to take the extra bag off my hands for free.

So on a hot afternoon the refrigerated truck drives up to the picnic shelter and starts unloading, and people start distributing what ends up to be about 45 pounds of produce per order. Each order -- far bigger than any "basket" I've ever seen -- contained (contents differ with the seasons): 1 fresh pineapple, 3 big round red onions, 2 garlic heads, 6 huge peaches, broccoli head, plums and lemons galore, many fat homegrown tomatoes, a huge melon (I just measured mine: circumference 23 inches), 3 LARGE yellow summer squash, 1 large romaine head, buncha celery, 3 cucumbers, 6 kiwis, 7 ears fresh corn.

I'd brought just two small bags. I got some boxes for the overflow and people ("Why, that bag is just 'bout as big as yew are!") helped me stow it in my car.

When I got home I dragged one bag over to my neighbor: the "mistake" bag. She has a big family; she can use it.

I had also ordered from the co-op two optional items, just for me: dozen mangoes (beautiful!) and locally-made thin-pizza shells, thinking to make pizzas with produce and eat them for days. When I get into the house the phone rings. It is the co-op lady telling me I left one of my bags at the park and a kindly couple was coming to my address to bring it to me. I did not have time to say, "But wait; I think I got all my produce," because, omg, there they were pulling up at the house, dragging out yet another loaded blue co-cop bag. I gave them a bottle of port for their trouble, but now I had produce on every horizontal surface in my fridge, kitchen, dining room, and knee deep on the floor. Fortunately I have friends, and whatever they didn't take and I couldn't possibly use I set in a box down by the highway, and marked the box "FREE." Gone within minutes.

Wow, now I want to do that again! If you live in the area, check it out. If you don't, maybe there is a co-op near you.

On Your Honor

You are on your honor when you select, weigh, bag, and pay for your own tomatoes at this unattended (sometimes) tomato stand off Hwy FF. The sign points the way, and that's .75 per lb.