Rhubarb

Yes, it is May and my two lovely rhubarb plants are bursting forth. One is a smallish, red one that lives in the flower border in the back yard. It is truly beautiful. The other rhubarb plant is out in a corner of the yard near the kitty cat cemetary. That one is huge; you could float a baby down the river on one of its huge leaves. I always fantasize about doing that but there are no babies around here, not to mention no river.

On Saturday, I had picked enough rhubarb to make two pies. I used my antique "New England Flaky Crust--Mother's Only Rival" pans with the holes in the bottom. Apparently, at one time you could buy pies which came in these tins. The holes were there for...well, I am not sure but maybe to keep the crust from being soggy? I can tell you it didn't work for the rhubarb but rhubarb is very juicy stuff.

Two eight inch pies; not huge, just right for a small household like ours. I gave one of the pies to my neighbor up the street, who really likes rhubarb. Charlie lives alone now because his wife Barbara has Alzheimer's and is in a nursing home. I feel sad for them. He had only been retired a for few years before she began to show the symptoms. She is not very old--in her late 60s. They have children and grandchildren. Charlie says that most of the time, Barbara is in very good spirits but doesn't remember things (or sometimes, her own family) from moment to moment. So the pie is one little thing I can do for him. I make a rhubarb pie for Charlie every Spring.

Garlic shoots

Finally. Finally, we are getting around to some much needed house renovation. The bathroom upstairs (and the only full bath) is a micro-tiled horror from the 1960's. The blue fixtures are wearing out fast. I would like to find the person who came up with the idea of adding much more grout to the square foot by making the tiles tiny. Then I would throttle him/her. Everyone assures me that grout is much more stable and easy to clean these days but I don't know...

We have arranged to have two different contractors come over early next week to look at the house. Our intention is to cut a very big slab of the roof on the north side and lift it up, thus making a dormer, which will give us more space. The space will be converted to a walk-in closet behind the bedroom that connects to the rear of the expanded bathroom. We have lots of ideas and no experience with this kind of thing--should be interesting.

More about all this next week.

Meanwhile, the garlic bulbs that I planted last Fall are sprouting and working their way through the cover of leaves we put there to protect them from extreme cold. I suppose we could still get a hard frost or two, but I am tempted to remove most of the leaves to give those little green guys a chance to have more sun.

Ray just pulled into the driveway. I can tell without looking because his muffler is losing its...muffle. Time for me to get back to cleaning house!

I start with a cat widget, of course.