(More) Tales of a Reluctant Gardener

That shriek you heard all throughout the neighborhood on the afternoon

of Memorial Day was me being startled by a deer fawn which was very

close to our front door.  I am fairly sure it was as startled as I was. 

This was toward the end of a 60-minute weeding stint of our “mailbox garden”.  After shrieking briefly, grumpy old lady thoughts of “Youths, stay off my lawn!” entered my mind.

Actually I would love it if the human youth who showed up last week asking to be hired to mow our lawn would show up soon to plant some flahrs.

There are only 5 or 6
balloon flower plants left.

Last year at this time, this 4 x 4 plot was riotous with balloon flower plants.  There are hardly any this year.  I know that in spring and summer 2024 there was no gardening done in this household.  I was too busy trying to fight off autocracy / Project 2025 / whatever you want to call this Big Mistake America has entered into.    I still sob internally at the outcome of my efforts.   This is where my thoughts go on this Memorial Day – those who gave their lives for our country – is this what they fought for?

The plant on the upper right is 
definitely balloon flower.  Not so
sure about the other foliage.

I found it difficult to distinguish some plants.  The small leaves (on the left

in the photo) are being eaten by some insect, while the definite balloon

flower leaves (on the upper right) are not.

 

But maybe the ones on the left are just baby balloon flower leaves?  No

matter; those smaller plants are no more.  I pulled them all out.

I planted the bulbs from the teeny but tall daffodils-in-a-pot we bought at

Trader Joe’s in April.  In a fit of dubious gardening daring, I put them at

the foot of our Kwanzan cherry tree.  We will find out in a year if this too

is a Big Mistake.

Big Mistake?

We also went to our local county park.  And so did everyone else, although you can’t

tell from my photos.  It was a lovely day with perfect weather.

A family of ducks

A rare blue sky and perfect temperature

Remembering and honoring
those who died for our country.
May their sacrifice not be in vain.

More from the Reluctant Gardener:

Shallow Thoughts of the Reluctant Gardener (July 2013)

Perils in Suburbia (June 2010)

The Fake Isle of Suburbia (October 2008)

Surefire way to get that book

Einstein and Lady Liberty 
on top of a Worm Bin.  
This photo has nothing to do with this post,
but everything to do with the world in 2025.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is no surer way to receive a book on hold than to download a truckload of “available now” library kindle books.

This is probably not of interest to anyone, but it is healing to me to write something, and I can’t bear to compose another letter to my #$&*# Senators right now.  I am avoiding that right now, for my mental health.

Here are the titles of the six books I downloaded (at my son’s apartment) last week while waiting for 

a) one of the seven books I had on hold, and  

b) the electricity at our house to be turned back on.  

• Knock, Knock, You’re Dead! By M.C. Beaton (A Hamish Macbeth Short Story).  2016.

• Death of a Liar, by M.C. Beaton   (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries Book 30). 2015.

• Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village, by Maureen Johnson, Illustrated by Jay Cooper. 2021.

• Look for Me There, by Luke Russert. 2023.

• The Thrifty Guide to Ancient Rome, by Jonathan W. Stokes (middle-grade). 2018.

• Gargantua and Pantagruel, by Francois Rabelais.  1564.

In desperation I first downloaded the two M.C. Beatons, but haven’t started reading either.  Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village showed up in my search, and that seemed important, AND it is ultra short.  

Then I looked for travel memoirs and found Look for Me There which promises to be good – it’s the author’s memoir about his father, journalist Tim Russert.  I am missing my parents a great deal these days, so I think I will appreciate this book.  Also showing up in my search for travel memoirs was The Thrifty Guide to Ancient Rome, for kids.  Ancient Rome was a cruel and gruesome place.  I am not in the mood for it.  I made it to page 37 (of 127 total pages) before abandoning it.

Gargantua and Pantagruel - I actually wanted to read Eugénie Grandet by Honoré de Balzac. But the library only has it on kindle in (!!) Spanish.  (It was originally written in French).  Thinking of Balzac made me think of The Music Man and the line “Chaucer!  Rabelais!  Balzac” in the song “Pick-a-little, Talk-a-little.”  And I landed on Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel. I may have read portions of it in college.  Although it is supposed to be bawdy and satirical, something we need right now, it is unlikely I will read any of the 1,041 pages.  

And then, OF COURSE, one day later, one of my books on hold arrived.  How to Age Disgracefully, by Clare Pooley (2024).  I am less than thrilled with it so far, but it is quite funny in places and the characters are growing on me.

First Lines: April 2025 edition

Redbud

 

April, as we know, is the cruelest month.  It was truly exhausting, capped at the end by a 20-minute storm that caused a two-day-seemed-like-fifty-days power outage.  The power outage broke the camel’s back – the schedule I was hurtling through came to a screeching halt.  For several days now I haven’t been able to concentrate on reading any book.

There were some good things about April.  I was cheered/challenged to be able to sing in two worship services for Holy Week.  Our Passover seder was wonderful - our son invited several friends, and our daughter and son-in-law were there too.  The pastor preached her sunrise service Easter sermon -- about birds -- as the birds chirped around us. The local grassroots groups had a well-attended Empty Seat Town Hall, and our own grassroots group held a successful and joy-producing sidewalk rally, on my dear departed aunt’s birthday.  But all along there is the fascist shit show, and then the power outage just depleted me.  

Thank goodness for cozy mysteries and short books.   There were also two DNFs but I forgot to record the opening lines.

The opening lines, without further ado:

 

Book 1

“Give it back,” muttered Isabel Dalhousie.

 

 

Book 2

December 1981 

I stood on the lacquered floor—a small woman in black with a rectangular name badge on my chest.

 

 

Book 3

The green school bus shuddered while it  hugged the curve leading to the main entrance of The Abbey: Senior Living.

 

 

Book 4

More and more people each year are going abroad for Christmas.  To celebrate the season of goodwill towards men, British Airways slams an extra one hundred and four pounds on each air ticket.  But the airports are still jammed.

 

The titles and authors revealed:

 

 

Book 1

The Novel Habits of Happiness (Isabel Dalhousie #10)

Alexander McCall Smith

272 pages • first pub 2015

fiction mystery philosophy

 

 

Book 2

The Lion Women of Tehran

Marjan Kamali

327 pages • first pub 2024

fiction historical literary

I rated this as “very good” although the reading of it was fraught with anxiety.  Everything that happens in this book to these Iranian women seems possible now in the US. It is not a spoiler to say that it’s mostly not positive.  I kept reading because the characters and the plot are lively and realistic, as real as I can imagine them from my American point of view.  This book is very popular - it took ages for the Kindle version from the library to be available. All kinds of content warnings - rape, sexual abuse, sex discrimination, and more.  I read it for book club at the end of April.

 

 

Book 3

Old Habits Die Hard (Nun the Wiser Mysteries Book 1)

By Melissa Westemeier

Great characters, fun to read.  Review here.

 

 

Book 4

A Highland Christmas (Hamish Macbeth Mysteries, No. 16)

By M.C. Beaton

160 pages • first pub 1999

fiction mystery

I decided to give M.C. Beaton’s Hamish Macbeth series another try, choosing an earlier book in the series.  This one is quite short, which was just what I needed.  This is the second book I have read this year containing a character named Morag, a name I am not sure how to pronounce.  And I just realized that both books are by M.C. Beaton. The mysteries in this book involved stolen Christmas lights and a missing cat.  Charming and light.

 

 

DNF #1

Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne

by Wilda C. Gafney

302 Print Pages.  2017

Presbyterian Publishing Corporation

More difficult to read than I had imagined it would be.  It’s a scholarly work.  But I loved the opening!  Which you can’t read because I forgot to note it down.

 

 

DNF #2

 The Guncle (The Guncle #1)

By Steven Rowley

326 pages • first pub 2021

fiction contemporary lgbtqia+

I got a third of the way through before the library snatched back the kindle version.  But I was not that interested, tbh.  A lot of talk about show business.  I liked the portrayal of relationships lost, but couldn’t keep track of who was whose sibling.  That is probably more me than the writing.