Real rabbit rotten luck

Posted in Gardening, Health, Holidays, Humor, mothers by Shelley Sackier

There were plenty of lessons my mother taught me as I was growing up. Some of the most important were:

Be kind. (check)

Be clean. (check)

Be prepared. (double check)

Be on time. (screeeech … okay, this one was put in purely for the enjoyment of anyone who knows my mother so we could all have a hearty belly laugh and exercise our eyes skyward.)

Let’s just cross off that last one and get one with it.

My son showed me a diagram a couple of days ago where he made a triangle and inserted three words—one by each point. The topic was food and his first word said CHEAP, the second one written said HEALTHY and the final one was DELICIOUS. His argument was that you could currently have two, but never three of each word working in harmony and available altogether.

Well I disagreed, and wrote the word GARDEN in the middle of his triangle—which did nothing to further the precarious goodwill I occasionally see from my fifteen-year old. Ah well.

But it got me thinking about that list of things my mother taught me. And although I have spent a lifetime striving to showcase the first three learned behaviors in concert with one another, there was one time where attempting to do so probably left an indelible scar upon my soul. For to this day, I have regrets as to how I acted.

I was five—or six. Old enough to remember, but young enough to now find the memory foggy. It was Easter morning and I was in bed. The doorbell rang, and as my room was located directly above the front door, the chimes were crystal clear, as was the boisterous greeting to follow. Knowing what day it was, I sprung out of bed as only a six-year old with shiny, new and undamaged joints can. In front of me though was my brother, whose reflexes were a year fresher than mine, so he zipped out the door first. And that tiny delay was enough to see the blurred reflection of myself in the mirror as I lurched for the door.

All I really cared about was an Easter basket full of unnaturally colored, sugar-laden, cavity causing oral amusements. This was one of the greatest feast days of the year on the calendar of all things sacred to children. But at precisely the same time that I saw my mirrored likeness, I also heard my dad’s voice raised to an abnormally loud pitch … GREETING THE EASTER BUNNY!

As I was already marinating in the female messages surreptitiously sent by my girl gang of Barbies, there was no way in hell the Easter Bunny was going to see me with bed head.

One hundred strokes—and hurry!

I heard the eager footfalls of my siblings racing down the steps. I heard the squeals of delight below me. I heard my Dad speaking to a creature standing at the entrance to my house that I could only envision through Beatrix Potter illustrations and elementary school coloring books.

There was a talking animal at my front door!

One last pull of my pink, bristly brush through my toe head-colored hair and I was off.

I flew down the steps—clean and prepared—ready to kindly greet the bringer of bountiful baskets, a Disney cartoon come alive, the stuff of afternoon matinees and bedtime tales.

Except just as I skidded to a halt in the foyer, my dad shouted through the crack of the front door, “Okay, thanks buddy. Buh bye!”

The devastation produced by a somewhat overly dramatic six-year old can, if gone unchecked, reach unprecedented proportions. It might be noted here that allowing the all-consuming anguish to flow freely and expire of its own accord might have saved the now fully grown woman years of psychotherapy. But emotion was stifled in lieu of acting “kindly” by accepting the bunny’s hand-delivered tokens of affection.

To this day I suffer.

To this day, the years of grief, outrage and bitter displeasure at missing out have festered away in the back of my mind and the pit of my belly.

To this day I seek revenge.

And since spring is busting out all over in my neck of the woods, and since the garden is blooming beautifully, I shall use my cheap, healthy and delicious veggie patch as my tasty trap.

I shall be KIND—and offer the most flavorsome of micro greens. I shall be CLEAN—with a quick aim and one sharp shot between the eyes. And I shall be PREPARED—with the stewpot eager and ready.

Finally, the trio works en masse. Thank you, Mom.

Eegads! Sorry ‘bout that. No worries. I’ve got it all under control. I’ve found my medication.

Jellybean, anybody?

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what we’re cookin’ in the Scullery and what we all talked about down in the pub. Plus, you can see more of Robin Gott‘s humor–all from the only pen carved from a human funny bone.

25Aug2013

A fairly faithful fairy tale

Posted in England, Gardening, Humor, Mountain life, Nature, Virginia by Shelley Sackier

For the last two months I’ve been feeling like I belong in a Beatrix Potter tale. Maybe lodged somewhere in the index between The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin and The Tale of Two Bad Mice. In fact, there are days where I’m so prickly from doing endless loads of laundry that I actually see the bristly, Scottish hedgehog Potter penned into the role of Animal Laundress of the Lake District gazing questioningly back at me from the mirror above my bathroom sink.

But in addition to being Mrs. Tiggy-Winkle’s doppelgänger, I have, as of late, been boldly playing the role of Mr. McGregor.

He and I share the same love of growing veg, and the same dream of wrapping our soil-stained hands around as many fluffy bunnies as we can throw into a gunny sack.

Real nature lovers, he and I.

First thing in the morning, I am woken by the night patrol shift. Smudge, the charcoal colored streak of flying fur I see only at mealtimes, waits at my shoulder, staring intently at whichever eyelid she is closest to and waits for lift off (or lift up in this case). Now is when she announces, in a slightly bitter tone, that according to the always accurate clock in her belly, breakfast is late. Then, as she leaps from the bed, she throws a quick, “oh, and bee tee dubs, there are rabbits in the garden.”

Covers are jerked off, the back door is flung open, and I sprint in a “Why are my legs not working??” kind of brain fog to scare off those wascally wabbits.

I get there too late and see nothing but cotton ball tails scurry back to their safety zone of immunity in the woods, or the fields, or Russia.

Disgruntled, I trudge down to the sheep barn to further fatten two defunct lawnmowers with a couple handfuls of grain. And by defunct lawnmowers I mean both sheep have decided they do not like the taste of our meadow grass and refuse to eat any more of it. Period.

I have never met, nor ever seen sheep go on a grass strike. And I feel if I were to admit this to any other farmer I would see tears spring to their eyes, and be later billed for the small hernia operation I forced them to have because they split a gut laughing over my fiascos in the fields. Yes, I can hear everyone telling me that I’m further complicating the matter by giving into their demands, that if I refuse them their cereal they will eventually give in to hunger and start mowing again, but I have SEEN these guys hold their breath—and I have no doubt that they would pass out just to prove a point.

Replacing the lid on the grain bucket, I catch movement out of the corner of my vision and turn to see two black pearled eyes blinking back at me on a shelf beneath the barn window. A fat field mouse, pink nosed and whiskered, stands up to his jelly bellied middle, surrounded by tiny shreds of paper towel, pine shavings and my latest issue of The New Yorker. He has made himself a cozy bed in a pocket betwixt wall and shelf. His eyes go wide.

“What?” he says. “I smell winter.”

“Get out,” I poke a rake at his nest.

“Fine, but can you leave the lid off the grain bucket? Now that I have to relocate, it puts a dent in my foraging schedule.”

I sit on the bucket. “Out.”

I watch him scuttle away and my faithful hound and I finish mucking out the barn. As I’m making my way back up the hill to the house, Haggis turns to me and says, “You know there are rabbits in the garden, right?”

“What?” I look at him. “How do you know?”

“I saw them when we came down to feed the sheep.”

I am miffed. “Why did you not run after them?” I shout.

“I was helping you muck out the barn.”

“YOU WERE EATING SHEEP POO!”

“I was helping.”

I stab a finger in the air toward my vegetables. “Go. Run. Now!”

Haggis gives me one of his, You’ve gotta be kidding me looks and says, “I am way too full to run. I could get a cramp.”

Doubly miffed, I march into my garden to see what fresh new destruction has occurred while both my well-fed, well-watered, overly indifferent protectors of the potagé have been enjoying the posh life.

As we near the beds, crows scatter from the blackberry bushes, a mole buries himself beneath the mulched pathway having munched his way through an entire cantelope, and a spindly legged fawn leaps in surprise and springs in misdirected flight toward the trees, still clutching a bright red, juicy tomato in his tiny mouth.

I lean on my trowel and look at the crops.

I think about the endless nagging I do with my children to eat more fruits and vegetables. I write about making good food choices, trying to illuminate the spectacular flavors from the garden and benefits from natural food sources.

I sigh and take down my Peter Rabbit scarecrow and replace it with a Welcome to the Salad Bar sign.

How can I chase away the collective few who have been following my advice all along? It’s absurd, right? I finally have an audience who are all ears and eager to eat what will make them big and strong. It’s now crystal clear to me … my forest friends have been reading my writing.

Social media is amazing.

~Shelley

Don’t forget to check out what we’re cookin’ in the Scullery (here) and what we all talked about down in the pub (here). And to see more of Robin Gott‘s humor–all from the only pen carved from a human funny bone–click here.