Puzzle Prep?

Today's project--FULL of sea glass!

Happy purple bromeliad on a new table

Before Sudoku, before the Rubik's Cube, before Space Invaders, there were these little puzzles with plastic tiles in a plastic frame & they would slide in only 2 directions (evidently diagonal hadn't yet been invented in the late 60's). I don't remember the object but my fingertips have a memory of how the puzzle felt in my hands as I pushed the tiles up, down, left, right. It was really rudimentary.

Who knew I was learning such a useful life skill?  In a small house with a lot of stuff I spend a lot of time trying to create, improve or relocate some mode of storage. 

Today's project was to paint gigantic clay pots bright green & fill them with the sheer tonnage of sea glass I've collected here over the years & have been storing in tarp-covered under-bed chests on my porch. Once full, I covered the pots with sheets of plexiglass & placed some of my many plants on them. They make wonderful side tables & plant stands & they aren't about to blow anywhere in a storm. And now I can get rid of those ugly plastic chests. I used 3 med-lg & one enormous pot today & offloaded the contents of one large & almost 2 medium plastic chests. It worked so well I'll be back at Home Depot tomorrow buying 4 more pots & four more sheets of plexi. I have enough paint. 

I know these numbers will be enough to hold the contents of the remaining 3 chests because in the 70's & 80's I learned another outmoded skill: Algebra. My favorite formula is 'this is to that as that is to 'x'.   When you live in a compact home, you use that one a lot.  

Oh, & the final result of all this puzzling & calculating should be a cleaner looking porch with more usable, non-plant-covered tables. Drinks will have a place to rest, & there will be room to serve dinner for 6.  And when I'm ready to sort sea glass for my next batch of angels, jellyfish, crabs or Jumbies, I'll have a lovely & practical way to do that....and more time to play Scrabble!

I Have the Need...for Seed, by Lea Ann Robson

Blooming Pineapple

Every year at this time peoples’ fancies (whatever that means) turn to Spring cleaning, & despite the lack of a temperature variant here in St. Croix, I’m not exempt.  My urge is also propelled by the fact my Mom finally succumbs to my pleas to visit around Mothers’ Day, thus making my usually benevolent view of my piles of stuff a little more critical.

 



Bumper Pineapple Crop!

I frequently joke that I have ADD, as in Artistic Deficit Disorder.  I have a zillion ideas, most of which I start in some format or fashion…& abandon for some other newer, better idea shortly thereafter.  Fortunately or unfortunately (perspective?), I have materials for nearly everything I think of…SOMEWHERE.  So in addition to the piles of half finished projects, there is always the trail of unrelated stuff I had to unearth to find those materials. At 51, I know myself well enough to realize that if I stopped to put away everything I dragged out, I’d lose momentum & never even start the project before grinding to an unsatisfying, overwhelmed halt. The difference between 51 & 21 is that you recognize that trait in yourself & are more forgiving of the resultant piles of ‘potential’ strewn everywhere. 

 

Potential is alternately my absolute favorite & most despised word.  The other day it caused me to decide the strangler fig vines my friends were pulling out of the Botanical Garden & heaping up to discard MUST BE RESCUED from that fate & stuffed in the hatch of my car so I could take them home & MAKE Baskets & trellises, & furniture & EVERYTHING!  (Sorry, the manic phase frequently comes out in all caps…no control over that).  When I got home, despite the fact it was misting rain, I was so enthused about the project I sat right down on my stoop in the rain & started a basket…at least I think it was a basket…like Holly Golightly in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, I fear I may have switched the plans & been ‘knitting a Brazillian ranch house instead of a sweater.’ 

 

After I spent about 45 minutes & had a respectable start, it was quite dark out & had begun to seriously rain…& I hadn’t eaten in hours.  You can guess the rest.  Five days later I got sick of tripping over the pile of vines & the basket nubbin, & hucked it into a nearby bush so I could continue later…who knows when?

 

The rain continued all day Saturday, a beautiful, tropical, straight down I mean business Spring rain that thrilled my pineapple plants & banana trees, overflowed my rainbarrel & impelled me to run out in the downpour with every container I could grab, catching the gushing cistern overflow & putting it aside to water plants when the dry season comes.  My normally much more sensible dog Mu even decided there must be some reason I stood in streaming water, so she came out & got completely waterlogged watching me.  No doubt she was trying to figure out how to protect me from my feeble-minded self. 

 



Waterlemon Bloom

It was only later that I remembered the seeds I had planted in containers a few nights prior, no doubt getting the hoo-hingus beat out of them & most probably sloshing right out of their pots in the downpours.  I had planted several varieties of dwarf sunflowers, basils & zinnias, 3 heirlooms plus one yellow pear tomato variety, cucumbers, green cantaloupe, & no doubt something else I forgot in several planters & small pots.  It is probably quite telling that all the seed packets denoted the contents were packed for 2012 planting.  Yes, I got distracted last year & didn’t get them in the ground when I should have…no doubt because I started some other project midstream.

 

This morning I noticed several different varieties of seed sprouting in odd clumps, not where I had planted them but instead where they washed to.  I’m still heartened by  the sight of sprouts—the epitome of potential.

 

This weekend I made a pendant light by adding a fringe of gem drops to a boring linen shade cylinder.  I actually finished this project & followed all the way through to getting out my cordless drill & mounting hanging hooks.  The light looks very warm, glowy & inviting as I had hoped. 

 

For those keeping score, that is one project completed for the 278 started this year.   

 

I might up that ratio this week when I (possibly) finish a fun cigar box purse I’m working on.  It is actually the product of some past potential idea, wherein I had embroidered an orchid on an old jeans leg I thought I’d use as a panel in a cloth purse I was going to make.  I found the panel when I was digging for hat patterns (don’t ask!) & decided it was pretty cute.  It also coordinated with the hand-painted plaid I had done on the other side of the box.  So I cut a square of batting from some other abandoned project, used my staple gun & upholstered the 2^nd side of the cigar box.  I have an upcycled denim belt I’ll apply as the strap, & some coordinating vintage fabric to line the interior & after I apply trim around the edges, I may actually have something else finished…maybe.

 

At least no one can say I don’t live up to my potential…more like I hope to live long enough to realize all the potential I’ve started!

 

Happy Spring!    

Zone Envy by Lea Ann Robson

Pineapple w/limb full of mangos

I’ve been outside, gleefully planting in the mud.    My genetic clock refuses to be reset, despite 21 years away from the West Virginia hometown where these seasonal markers make sense.  It has to be some hindbrain function, as completely entrenched & unreachable as the tap-rooted weeds popping up through my stone patio. 

Ground Orchid cluster

At 2am, I was pounding a Phillips head screwdriver into my yard & wiggling it to make spaces for my new solar lights.  After that I planted hot pink, crimson & scarlet Kalanchoes in my yellow planters…because in spring we plant flowers…no matter how many are already blooming year-round in the tropics.  Lately Home Depot (oh, my beloved Home Depot) is chock full of continentals (stateside transplants), mostly women close to my age, filling carts with anachronistic bedding plants & bags of soil, in some knee-jerk reaction to Spring.  If our brainwave activity had a verbal interpretation, it would read “MUST DIG & PLANT…MUST DIG & PLANT,” like some Cro-Magnon tickertape printout. 

External cues are so different here.  Spring’s rays of light are of the longer, golden variety reserved for autumn in the continental states.  Mahogany trees actually drop their shiny leaves in the spring, with each breeze initiating an insane leaf dance that is at once graceful & leathery…& confusing. 

And yet these tropical tricks don’t still the impulse to add more flowers, plant herbs & vegetables, & to start over. 

Waterlemon (passion fruit family) bloom

The do-over is a common thread here.  Many of us came to St. Croix because something wasn’t working, wasn’t quite right where we were & we hoped this big leap of locale would hit our reset switch, knock us out of the groove we were wearing in our lives, & give us the new perspective we sought.  For many of us, it worked spectacularly.  For others, not so much. 

Even for the successful transplants, certain ingrained behaviors were either hard to shake, or reappeared after we had initially overcome them.   Though I’ve long since abandoned stockings & heels, I still tend to overdress in defiance of the casual chic vibe here.  It was part of the identity I wasn’t willing to jettison, regardless of the impracticality in this environment. 

So for 21 years, when March, April, & May roll around & despite the fact I have to concentrate hard every morning to even determine what month it is (our temperature only varies 5-10 degrees, year round), my brain says plant, & so plant I do. 

Some of us long to be able to grow things they left behind, & Home Depot’s packing policy fuels that nostalgia.  When they have room in garden supply containers bound for our islands, Home Depot packs empty spaces with whatever plants they have in abundance, regardless of their zonal incompatibility.  The latest is one of my favorites, Hydrangeas.  I love the shape of their leaves, their flower colors, & the fact they’re a living science experiment with flower hues indicating the acidity of the soil.  HD’s massed displays of the short shrubs are so tempting, even knowing what I know about how miserable they will be here.  Like dieting, frequently that denial of what we instinctually crave causes a pendulum swing & a binge the other direction.

Kalanchoes

So I planted Kalanchoes instead.   Lots of Kalanchoes.  Everywhere.

The subverted need to plant tomatoes popped out the other side & I planted instead the local substitute for cilantro—Recao.  It has a broader, long leaf with serrated edges, & when a shower hits them after a day of sun, the scent released is fresh & clean.  I also grow lots of lemongrass & several varieties of basil.  The lemongrass blob is huge & clippings infuse most everything I cook, most of the year.  I steep it with basmati rice, steam it with asparagus spears (imports, I’m sad to say) & Brussels sprouts (they grow here as do most cruciferous veggies—leggy but functional).   

I pound the base of the lemongrass stalks & steep them with lemon bay rum leaves, peppermint tea bags & a generous amount of Lipton bags to make a fragrant iced tea & a wonderful smelling house. 

A note here about tomatoes:  I have successfully grown heirloom varieties here, if you accept success as smaller & more sparse fruit that tastes pretty wonderful anyway.  A couple of their small, peppery slices on a sandwich with whole wheat bread quell any longing for pretty much anything.  And of course the season is almost here for mangos, Surinam cherries & my favorite pineapples, along with bananas… bananas… bananas (not a complaint, merely a statement of plenty).

Dendrobium Andree Millar
 

So as soon as the rain slacks a bit I’ll be back outside, drilling drain holes in planters, flopping big bags of soil from place to place & planting sunflowers, zinnias…& heirloom tomatoes.  (That sandwich sounded too good to pass up.) 

Happy Spring, regardless of what zone you’re in!

Frog Blog, by Lea Ann Robson

One of the orchids on my porch

How many times in your life have you cut a corner, knowing the probable outcome but somehow feeling you’ll be exempt…because you’re a good person?  You answer your cell while you’re driving…or you wear heels in weather only suited for boots.  You rock back on two legs of a chair…or you floor it to catch an orange light (yellow that changes to red while you’re under it).  You write a check to pay a bill, hoping the one you deposited has cleared & you’ll have funds to cover it. 

 

Just as it is human nature to tempt fate, we try to distance ourselves from preventable disaster…after the fact.  We pass a fender bender & think somebody involved did something WRONG (in all caps, whereas we never do anything more than wrong, all lower case).   You slip & fall flat of your arse in a snow bank, those impractical heels sticking out like an inverted turtle’s flippers.  You NEVER saw it coming…except of course you did.

 

Last night I awoke from a sofacoma, & dragged my still half asleep body around the house setting things up for my early morning today.  I washed the dinner dishes I had left in the sink, squinting to read the time on the microwave display:  3:20am.  Ugh. I set up the coffee maker, getting a short-lived boost from sniffing the freshly ground espresso roast.  I filled my dog’s food & water bowls.  I picked an outfit.  I was stepping into the shower when it hit me—I had forgotten to water the plants on the porch.  Most are orchids & several have buds, & long & short, I couldn’t ignore them.  So, clothes back on & out I went. 



One of the orchids on the porch

 

I didn’t bother to flip the switch for the porch light, thinking the less my neighbors could see of my hasty dressing job, the better.  I was happy to find my watering can full.  When I finished with the can, I uncovered the bucket of water I keep to dunk the beautiful cascading orchid that was a birthday gift for my 50^th from my best friend.  The makeshift lid doesn’t really cover the top of the bucket entirely, but I did it to discourage the frogs from setting up housekeeping & having babies in there. 

 

I have NOTHING against normal frogs.  I’m grateful they eat mosquitoes.  I even make ‘Christmas Coqui’ ornaments—styled to look like Puerto Rico’s beloved frog mascots.  Unfortunately, we don’t have normal frogs, and I’m not alone in my disdain for them. 

 

We have light sandy-white colored frogs that burrow in potting soil around your plants, or hide atop the roof support pillars of your house.   That isn’t so bad, but couple it with their attitude, & you’ve got an evil reptile.  When startled, our frogs spray liquid at you with the zeal of a department store perfume girl, trying to meet a quota.  I won’t go into what frogs spray, but trust me it isn’t perfume, & it stains. (Pause for inevitable “ICK.”)  

 

And so last night, just like the caution-light runner, or in-car texter, or inadvertent ice dancer, I pulled the lid off the bucket in the dark, knowing what might happen, but believing somehow that it wouldn’t…couldn’t…and then there was a frog on my face.  He landed with a wet, suctiony ‘SCHWAP’ on my right cheek as I slung my head violently to send him sailing off the porch & into the bougainvillea.

 

Fortunately, I didn’t think he had time to squirt at me (no doubt because I am a good person).

 

I ran back inside, dropped my clothes in a pile & stepped into the shower.

And then the power went off.

Bounty (No Threat of Mutiny), by Lea Ann Robson

My sink, brimful of mangos...again

This morning, like most mornings here in St. Croix, produced much for which I’m thankful.  Regardless of my GPS locale, I’m still an American & so I’ll make a short list (because that’s what we do).  I am thankful for, & in no particular order:

FAMILY, both by birth & by choice.  For my Mom & Dennis in Florida, & my other ‘chosen’ family here on the island (& in Texas for the moment—fill up on turkey & tortillas & get your tuchas home!), I am grateful beyond words…all evidence to the contrary!  I know how lucky I am to be surrounded (near & far) by people who ‘get it,’ & who make every day interesting & goofy & worthy of a little sappy sentiment, so there!  Living this far from the mainland for two decades means I get to ‘choose’ my island family, & I’m fortunate to surround myself with a fascinating group of kindred souls with divergent interests.  We get called down in restaurants for having too much fun, & manage to make mundane tasks like shopping into events simply by going together.  We bob around in the surf & show each other our finds like big kids on a treasure hunt.   IMPORTANT NOTE here:  I’ve been verbally groveling to my much loved real family, my Mom, trying to squeeze a visit out of her.  Maybe if I write it here, she’ll consider it?  (Shameless huckstering acknowledged.)



Mu, pondering her yard

If you’ve met me, you know I also count among my ‘family’ my delightful Tasmanian devil of a dog, Mu.  And you know how grateful I am for how she improves every day of life, as all our mutts do for all of us. 

 

I am thankful for the ridiculous bounty of nature here on the island & more particularly in my yard.  I was filling my watering cans from the overflowing cistern this morning (rain barrel is already brimming) & tromped around the wet grass to check produce progress.  Both little Carambola (starfruit) trees are chock full of waxy fruit in hues from chartreuse to pumpkiny orange.  The one that produces larger fruit also supports a water lemon vine (passion fruit family, small fuzzy fruit that look like lemons wearing scalloped green ‘hats’ (sepals or calyx?).  The pineapple plants are growing by leaps & bounds & the ones in the ‘nursery’ (potted, but not in the ground) are begging to be planted.  Four big bunches of various types of bananas & plantains are hanging, fat & happy & growing by the day.  And the Julie mango tree has a stray, off-season mango hanging there ripening (& no doubt beaconing stray horses that will hang over my fence & try to ‘prig’it, ie. grab & run). 

But the surprise of the morning was cherries!  I have been busy making jewelry & ornaments & obviously wasn’t paying attention to the giant Surinam Cherry bush below my porch.  I vaguely remember smelling some sweet something on the breeze one night when I was watering the orchids, but the source didn’t register at the time.  So there they were this morning, looking like little squishy red pumpkins.  One fell off in my hand as I was inspecting it, which is the test for ripeness.  If you have to tug to get the fruit free, it isn’t ready & for the most part isn’t edible.  Like a lot of tropical fruit, Surinam cherry has an acrid taste that only dissipates when the sugars overwhelm it, ie. when it is almost overripe.  The cherry bush is taller than I am & willowy, with an appearance a lot like what we called Bridal Wreath bush back in Maryland & West Virginia.  The white bloom isn’t as showy as Bridal Wreath, but the cherries are stunners.  The first one lived up to its promise, too, dissolving on my tongue with that unique flavor somewhere between that of a cherry & a cherry tomato.  Bliss!

After checking all the fruit, I looked at the ornamentals.  Three different white orchids with magenta throats are blooming in the frangipani & sugar apple trees.  Each presents a long spray with parallel rows of big blooms, like a white-gloved sommelier offering a great vintage.  It is even more wonderful when you realize these plants were ‘goners,’ & would surely have croaked if my friend hadn’t advised me to tie them in trees.  He says when an orchid is showing signs of stress it is time to give it what it really wants, which is to live in a tree.  (Wonder if that would work with people?)

And the last oomph from the yard as I got in my car & headed for my other job was that in addition to their usual prolific periwinkle trumpets of bloom, the other variety of Thunbergia against my kitchen door was in full glory.  Three enormous white flowers against the steroid-looking (all natural though, as I don’t water or fertilize those plants at all) giant dark green leaves on the vines.  Obviously those plants are as happy & well-suited to where they are planted as I am, & for that I remain, truly thankful.    

Technicolor Adaptation, by Lea Ann Robson

Aptly named Flambouyant

As a kid I vacationed with my folks on Sanibel Island, & I recall being completely enthralled with the improbable-looking flora there.  The plants had almost surreal adaptations designed to retain water in drought & salt conditions.  Then there were the sea grapes with their lilly pad-like leaves, purple to crimson veining & shiny chartreuse new leaf faces.  I marveled at how the red blooms on the crown of thorns formed perfect rows within a tidy grid.  They didn’t look real, not in the random way nature looked in West Virginia.

Mary Robson's (my Mom) pic of frangipani

Colors & shapes were bolder & flashier, too.  Spring in West Virginia & Maryland is a game of hide-&-seek, with spring beauties, trillium & may-apple, daffodils & crocus all getting their start under piles of winter compost, peeking out slowly lest they get stopped in their tracks by a late frost.  Tropical plants are fearless by comparison.  They have big bold leaves, incredibly saturated hues, & they seem unapologetically flamboyant.  We even have gorgeous red-orange blooming trees called Flambouyants (or Royal Poinciana, if you really like over-the-top).  There are other exotic names—Frangipani, bougainvillea, bird of paradise, jasmine, monsterra.  Tulip & Violet can hardly compete.  (Not to dis violets.  I still remember the joy of finding a carpet of them, & looking for the white ones in all that velvety purple.)

Thunbergia vining through bromeliads

When I look at my little house on Google Earth (two-dimensionally because no one has taken street views here yet) I can pick it out immediately by the magenta hedge of bougainvillea lining the front of my porch.  So bright you can almost literally see it from space!  I just painted the porch railing behind it a color between celadon & Tiffany blue (very close to capturing the color of the sea off our Frederiksted beaches), & the effect of the bougainvillea in front of that is arresting.  I have huge mounds of periwinkle blue thunbergia against my creamy Danish yellow house & despite friends’ warnings that I have to keep the aggressive vine in check or risk being housebound as it furls around my doors, I love it as it is (& I have a machete in case I get trapped inside).    

In the morning, I pass a house recently painted key lime with white trim.  It is a modest house within an area of similar houses, but that green has distinguished it & made it fresh & inviting.  I can’t imagine that color or the colors of my house in Maryland or West Virginia.  They are an adaptation to the tropics, like those bulges & bumps full of water on our tropical foliage.