The Single Woman's Daybook: Day 3

There were many things I had intended to do with my week home alone, but so far the only thing I've managed to accomplish is puttering around in the garden, like some little old lady. Yesterday, I finished planting out my new perennials--with two months left before the ground freezes solid, they should have time to set out roots. I replaced the sad, stringy petunias in my urns with some perky maroon mums. And I finally admitted to myself that my beautiful blue cabbages were fatally afflicted with cabbage fly and that all of those "squash" I thought I was cultivating are actually weeds, so I did a thorough housecleaning in the vegetable beds. Nothing was spared.

Although the general consensus is that it has been a "bad summer"--too cold, too wet--my garden has produced a few tasty dishes. I've had a robust crop of rhubarb, chard and lettuce (but then they always do well here). A fair crop of raspberries (the strawberries, sadly rotted in the rain). And even some peas and beans--but they ripened when I was on deadline at work, and so I never got to harvest them.


Then today I harvested my first crop of carrots, and they were so sweet and orange and crisp, that I can't imagine using the grocery store variety for anything other than soups in the future. The tomatoes are still green on the vine, but in my defense, so are everyone else's. To my credit the plants are laden with fruit. Hopefully September will bring a few weeks of Indian Summer, so that they'll ripen and I can try that canning I've been dreaming about*.

Naturally, all of this puttering in the garden made me a little hungry, so tonight I broke my vow of not cooking while the boys are away and made myself a chard-and-tomato quiche (with tomatoes from the farmers' market--thank God for the farmers' market) and a true "garden salad" from the last of my Marveilles des quatre Saisons lettuce, my carrots and whatever herbs I could find in the flowerbeds: cilantro, parsley, a little dill. It was a delightful meal. The only drawback was that I had no one to share it with.


Instead, I brought Francine Raymond to dinner with me for company. I've been a fan of her books, particularly All My Eggs in One Basket, for some time and tend to pull it down from the shelf whenever the seasons change, searching for seasonal recipes to try in my own kitchen and salivating over a few exotic ones that I couldn't possibly reproduce here--like Sloe Gin or Bottled Quinces. Reading about Francine's productive small holding in Suffolk always makes me want to start canning and get my own little backyard laying flock of Buff Orpingtons, but that will have to wait until Kevin and I move to a more hospitable climate. I can't image venturing outside when it's negative twenty to break the ice off the water dish or rub Vaseline on their frozen feet and combs.

I see from Francine's website that she's decided to sell her edenic Kitchen Garden. If only Kevin and I had the wherewithall to relocate to Bury-St. Edmunds, I'd buy it in a minute. But as it is, I'll have to make do with my own tiny, soggy raised beds and dreams of peach-coloured poultry. Perhaps when I'm a little old lady, I, too, can have my own half-acre of British countryside and can putter around in my garden any old time--and not just when the boys are out-of-town.

*Even though I haven't been able to do any canning of my own, I've enjoyed gifts from friends' larders. Thanks for the pin-cherry jelly, Nancy. It was delicious!

A Single Woman's Daybook: Day 2

Headed out the door. A single woman is always on-the-go, I guess.

I woke up at 9:30 this morning. That was the latest I have slept in at least 19 months--but probably even longer, since during those last few months of pregnancy you don't sleep very well. Let's call it an even two years then, shall we?

I was so disoriented, upon waking up with the sun streaming down on my face, that I didn't know who or where I was. Fortunately, I woke up because the phone was ringing, and Kevin's voice on the other end quickly brought me back to reality. He and Colin were doing fine. Colin slept during the entire three-hour flight to Toronto, and he'd spent all Saturday playing with a box of Daddy's old Tonka trucks and Happy Meal prizes that his Nan had been saving for him. I could even hear my little boy squealing with delight in the background. All was well with the world.

Back here in Edmonton, however, I had overdone it a bit. For my first day as a free woman, I had tried to pack in as many things as I could--too many in fact. I was sore and felt hungover, even though I hadn't been drinking on my Saturday night-on-the-town. After dropping the boys off at the airport, breakfast on the deck, and a long walk with the dog, I went to my regular Saturday morning yoga class, where I really pushed it--well, as much as one can push it in a class called "Gentle Hatha Yoga and Meditation."

Anyway, I had hardly said Nameste before I was off again (I know, not very Zen of me)--this time to the farmers' market to buy a few pre-prepared meals for the week. I normally only buy raw ingredients at the farmers' market, but my goal for this week--at least while the boys are out of town--is to not cook a single meal and not go to the grocery store once. So, I stocked up on homemade pita and hummus and tapenade, chicken fajitas, a brick of spicy cheddar, and someone else's homemade bread.


I barely had time to make a tiny meal of all of this before I was back in the car and driving out to Devon to visit the plant nursery. The drive to Devon was beautiful. The sun had finally peeked out from behind the clouds, the wheat was golden, and the corn was standing tall in the fields. It was the perfect setting for a little Lucinda Williams, and I belted out "Car Wheels on a Gravel Road" with such enthusiasm, that I missed my exit.

Of course, I let my enthusiasm get the better of me and left the nursery with far too many perennials. (They were half-off, it was easy to do.) So I spent all afternoon trying to rearrange my front flowerbeds to accommodate all the new peonies, phlox, purple cone flowers, heliopsis, delphiniums and globe thistles. Before I knew it, it was 6:00, and I barely had time to shower and get the dirt out from under my fingernails before I was due to meet a couple of girlfriends' for a planned night out-on-the-town.

The nursery beckons me with its siren's call of half-priced perennials.

I know, I know. This is never going to fit.

Although it was just dinner and drinks, by 11:00 p.m. we all decided to call it a night. We're all moms after all--one of us the mom of the newborn. But even though I had no round-the-clock feedings to face, I think I was probably the tiredest mama of all. Turns out, being a carefree single gal is pretty exhausting. Today, I plan to take things much more easily: just brunch with a friend, and curling up with a book on the couch. Oh, and more planting, prunning, watering and mowing.

The Single Woman's Daybook: Day 1

Early this morning, before the sun was even a fingernail's-breadth in the sky, I dropped Kevin and Colin off at the airport for their week-long visit to the grandparents in Toronto. It won't be the first time that I've been away from Colin for a week, but it's the first time that the two of them will have travelled without me, leaving me at home alone.

I'm not afraid of being alone--in fact, I'm kind of relishing the opportunity--I'm just afraid of their not coming back. So after saying a quick prayer for safe travel and waving good-bye one more time, I got into my car alone and drove home, listening to Iron & Wine and watching the sun rise over the Prairies.

Rather than focus on the emptiness of the house this week, and how I can't hold my boy or curl up on the couch next to my husband, I'm choosing to focus on all of the things I can do. Like this morning: After I got home, I took the dog for a long walk, and we stalked the jackrabbits and neighbourhood cats still sleeping in the hedgerows. Then I wrapped myself up in a warm blanket and took my breakfast out on the deck to watch the sun stretch its "rosy fingers" across the backyard. It occurred to me that I've never actually seen the yard at this hour in the morning, which is a shame, because it was quite beautiful: a pale, pale gold. And now it is getting much too cold to do it many more times this year.

Fall has definitely come to Edmonton, which seems a shame since we barely had a summer. There are little golden leaves collecting in drifts around my vegetable beds--even though my tomatoes have not yet ripened nor my sunflowers opened up. Still, Fall is one of my favourite seasons: there's an air of energy and excitement and possibility in its crisp mornings. In Germany, Fall smelled like chocolate because of all the bullrushes along the river. In Boston, it smelled spicey and crisp like apples studded with cloves--but that's probably because to me, Fall in Boston is synonymous apple-picking and apple cider and apples pies. I don't know what Edmonton's Fall smells like, but this year I'm going to try to find out.

Now, off to begin my first day as a single woman again.