Super-bakey

South End Open Studios is this weekend. I will be participating. I had planned to go down to our space on Monday and hang some kind of sculpture thing that I was going to make then and there. Instead I decided that the only honest thing to do would be to make meringues and chocolate éclairs and give them to people who come to our gallery.

I was partially inspired to do this by the random stuff being discussed on Facebook right now. I won't spell those things out as no doubt equally random things are being discussed on Facebook as you read this (unless no one Facebooks anymore and everyone's moved on to the next thing by the time you read this.) I was partially inspired by this guy, Tee Major. How did I get from a guy displaying his EXTREME fitness skills to making meringues and chocolate éclairs? Hmmm...

Long story short, nothing makes sense. The wonders of the world. All the bizarre and random things that happen every day, all the time. When nothing makes sense you can only do what makes the most sense to you. For Tee Major it makes TONS of sense to work out for thousands of hours so he can support his body weight on the tips of his fingers and do pushups during which he spins around in midair. I would say the vast majority of humans on this planet would have no need to use those skills but Tee Major WENT FOR IT. Dedication, determination, drive, practice, focus for hours and hours and hours. He can do Superman Push Ups. It's amazing. That makes sense to him and I respect and admire that.

On Monday I saw no difference between his drive to learn to master his body in that way and my desire to master making éclairs and meringues. You have to do what makes sense to YOU. That made sense to me. 

SO...

I couldn't believe it was actually working! The batter was rising!

Would you look at that - they're browning and look like real éclairs!

Naked without their chocolate ganache.

Éclair pastry turns out to be pretty easy to make. You use a saucepan, a mixing bowl, and a wooden spoon. The batter is made of butter, water, sugar, salt, a little flour, and four beaten eggs.  you heat the first four ingredients in the pan until the butter melts. You dump the flour in all at once and stir over the heat until the batter clumps into a dough and begins to leave a film on the bottom of the pan. Then you dump the dough into the mixing bowl and stir it to cool it for a minute or two. Then you add the beaten eggs in four parts, stirring well with your wooden spoon after each part. Bang - you got éclair dough. So simple no wonder I was surprised it worked. You can also make cream puffs and cheese poufs called "gougères" with this same dough. And believe me I will. Easy and like magic therefore fun.

Now the meringues. I used to make meringues all the time when I was a kid. Once our housekeeper, Sarah (who saved my life so many times in so many ways) showed me how to do it I never had a problem. Until this Monday (of course the last time I tried was possibly 38 years ago) Four disastrous batches before I got a passable one. Then these happened:

I might be able to use these failures for something.

These look horrible but they taste good. I used a recipe that suggested heating the sugar in the oven before you mix it into the egg whites to help it dissolve more quickly. I might try that again sometime.

Making my own superfine sugar.

The best way to have the sugar dissolve nicely is to use superfine sugar. I couldn't find any at the three markets I looked in so I tried making my own. It seemed to work. I never used superfine sugar when I was a kit though. Just normal eggs, normal sugar, and a normal handheld mixer.

One problem may have been that I tried using a carton of egg whites. You can buy a carton of just the whites. Don't do that for meringues. It's unreliable. The last batch I made with those whipped up beautifully. Nice and stiff until about two-thirds of the way through adding the sugar when the whole thing suddenly turned into soup. My worst batch yet. Down the sink.

Finally I did everything as super-right as I could. I separated my own whites (which I don't like to do because then you have yolks you have to do something with) let them come to room temperature, wiped down everything that was going to come in contact with the whites with white vinegar to eliminate any possible trace of grease (grease prevents the whites from whipping up) added cream of tartar, used brand new sugar out of a fresh box rather than the sugar I store my vanilla beans in (just in case there's vanilla bean oil?) and it worked perfectly. I don't remember having to be so fussy when I was a kid.

SUCCESS! This batch was a monster! It tried to escape from the bowl! Look at that glorious texture though!

I cannot tell you how exhilarating it was when the super-stiff egg and sugar batter started fighting me back! A delightful, white, fluffy monster! Trying to wrest the beater from my hands and to fling itself out of the bowl and all over the kitchen! So exciting! Maybe one day I'll figure out a way to just bake it all whipped in the bowl. Look how gorgeous that is!

Successful batch number two (out of maybe eight batches total) is pictured below.

Freeform

Piped

I wanted to make odd shapes and sizes. I made some big ones, maybe the size of a croissant, but I think I can do better with those so no photos. I want to make huge ones and ones in different colors. Pristine white was what I went for this time.

Now I'm absolutely exhausted and I'm going to bed late and I have to get up early so I can do more set-up stuff for this show. I still don't know how I'm going to display all this stuff or how I'm going to assemble the éclairs and get them down to the gallery on Saturday. 

I'm not even sure this was a good idea or that I fully understand now what I was thinking when I chose this course of action. Gonna have to cross that bridge when I get to it. That is how I like to make art. It usually works out okay.

I have to say that I have never had this much trouble in the kitchen in my life. Never! 

Inanimate Identification

I was meditating today when it occurred to me that I feel pretty strong. In fact, I feel like the Empire State Building. I feel like the Empire State Building with King Kong climbing up me and airplanes zooming around shooting everything up. I feel like there's a TON of bizarre activity going on all over and around me that I have strong opinions about but no way of influencing. So I just have to stand tall here and watch it all play out. I know that in time, once King Kong is done, Loki and the Avengers will be along to blow big holes in me and break my windows. That's just life in the big city. 

I'm Gonna Be Late For Work. Sorry Bob.

What's going to happen today?

It's supposed to be very windy out today. I LOVE wind.

It's also November first, the first day of NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo, neither of which I have signed up for. Words! Glorious, luxurious words! I want to cocoon myself in words, sweep them around me like a cape on this blustery day! I want to dive in and swim in a warm sea of words! Everything sounds like a stinkin' overwrought cliche though. Oh well.

So I'll move on to pictures.

All that's left of Mr. Loaf: the scalp. I'll have that for lunch at work today. With a salad, of course.

Halloween party pictures of people you don't know:

Steffi and Yukari being photobombed by Selena and Nate

Vampire Melvis

Random Yukari, Quinner and George

Jill, Jim and Jamie with a sneak Quinner in the background

Standard Halloween party photo

Hijinks with Steffi and Angela

Insufferable Preppy Bastard and crew

Jeff and Melvis being photobombed by vampire Nate

John, Linda and Alma

Aftermathish

The party went pretty well. The Red Sox won the World Series. The meatloaf was tasty, as were the pickled beets. No one had a martini but me though.

Party tip: Cheetos really brighten up a dreary bread plate.

I think I'll wear a dress today (with tights) so it can blow around in the wind.

Fun! I Had Fun!

Halloween party preparations! I forgot how fun it is to make weird stuff!

Like these heart-shaped pickled beets I made to garnish spooky Bleeding Heart Martinis:

So fun to carve them into heart shapes. I don't remember ever making cooked pickles before so that was fun too. I hope they taste good! They're supposed to leach creepy red tendrils through the martini.

The BEST thing is the horrific mummy meatloaf I made. I can't even believe how well it came out. I have to show you the before and after shots so you can see that it really is a meatloaf and not a war atrocity.

See - bacon wraps. Onion eyes and teeth and tomato sauce glaze for an extra charred flesh effect.

The results:

True Terror! What a horrible nightmare! Complete, resounding success! Will anyone dare to eat this wretched thing? It's almost insensitive.

I put a ton of work into making these ridiculous, meaningless things. It was so much fun! Clearly I need to do even more stupid, meaningless things!

A Favorite Thing

One of my favorite things that anyone's ever said about me is, "Daddy! That lady's a witch!" Perceptive kid.

Hobgoblin

Pete and I encountered this guy last night. He's a charming fellow.

Crap Drawing

A not 100% shitty drawing

One of the things I need to do for this vast project I'm working on is think up a good name for it. Okay, also I have to do a lot of the kind of drawing that I suck at.

I am a shit cartoonist. I'm pretty good at drawing the things I see. Particularly portraits. I love faces. That's neither here nor there. We're talking about what I suck at.

I suck at trying to draw faces and bodies from my head. But I want to put out a comic.

At first I thought I could take photos of myself in costumes and sets doing the things I want my characters to do and then make drawing from those. That might be cool. I could still do that. I've been thinking about doing that for over a year and still haven't taken one photograph.

I have also been completely unsuccessful at getting myself to buckle the hell down and just do sheaves and sheaves of shitty drawings until I get better at it. Is practice the easy way? I mean, wouldn't it be easier to just draw until I came up with something I could live with?

But is making art about easy? No. Duh. It's about learning, exploring, trying something new. It's about being willing to fail and keep going until you get something you can use.

Failure is so much easier to stomach when you're in good company and maybe over a couple of beers. So I'm thinking I should get a few friends together and have a shitty drawing party. Or maybe meet at a pub and have an informal shitty drawing event.

Brilliant! Problem solved! I wonder if I could get anyone to go?

Painfully horrid and embarrassing

Stiff and awkward but I don't completely hate it 

November First Friday Show

Well that was really fun. We had a number of surprise visitors and there was a lot of traffic. The gallery was very crowded at some points. Pete sold a photo and there were some nibbles at this guy:

He's the Don't Bother To Dream Monster, the first show-ready monster from my new monster drawing series. He's about four feet tall. The paper he's drawn on is about six feet by four feet. I think he got a lot of people to think about my work who normally wouldn't have. People often dismiss things they don't immediately perceive as serious. Putting this guy next to the giant strawberry painting seemed to make them think twice. I got a lot of thoughtful questions and comments on my work. Very encouraging. 

The whole night made me excited about the work that I know is coming. I make the work that I'm called to make regardless of whether I think others can connect with it or not. Still, nothing like getting a positive response to what you're doing.

HUGE WHITE SPIDER!!!

Starting the day after tomorrow I'm going to have time to think. I know - can you believe it? Hopefully this will lead to some very inspired blog posts. Fingers crossed.

Today, however, will be all about wildlife. I found this spider in our vestibule, hanging over the front door. I wonder how many times we've passed below it without knowing it was there?

The face on its back looks pretty friendly.

I'm very glad that no one at our house has arachnophobia. We'd probably need to move. Actually, when you think of all the spiders that routinely live in our house this one wouldn't be an issue - we'd have moved already.

Update: Our friend and wildlife expert, Don, says he thinks this is a Barn spider. So exotic. It's latin name is Araneus cavaticus (slightly more exotic) According to wikipedia, it is the same kind of spider as Charlotte in Charlotte's Web.

My Lexicon Of Rocks And How To Dig Them

I'm a little over half-way through planting all those roses. I absolutely have to finish planting them today but at the moment it's way too hot outside. Instead I will tell you all about the rocks I routinely dig up.

They are called, from left to right, top to bottom, flats, heads, potatoes and bibles. 

Obviously, when you're gardening you have to dig holes in which to put your plants. Small plants need smaller holes, larger plants need larger holes. The roses I ordered turned out to be extremely high quality and as such have massive roots and require really deep holes. To plant them perfectly, with their roots un-bent and their bud unions* four inches under the soil line, I'd have to dig a hole about three feet deep.

As everyone who had to take U.S. history knows, the soil in New England is rocky. When I first started gardening I was lucky enough to try to purchase my first garden spade from a kindly shop keeper who was an experienced New England gardener. He steered me to the garden fork instead. It's much easier to tell what's dirt and what's rock when you're using tines instead of a single blade. When you hit a rock, the tines that hit dirt will keep going into the ground when a blade would just stop. That makes it much easier to find the edges of the rock(s) you just dug into than if you were using a spade.

The most common rocks are the flats. They're okay as long as they're not too big.  Flats are fairly light and easy to dig out and they can be useful around the garden for marking paths and propping up pots. The down side of a big flat is that you end up digging up a much broader hole than you might have planned to dig to get around them. They can also be a hassle if they extend under an established plant.

Potatoes are the next most common and the easiest to dig up since your fork slides around their sides and you can get under them easily. They are also good for marking paths.

Heads are a mixed bag. On the one hand they're big and really heavy. It's hard to find their edges and hard to get under them. Sometimes when you do get under them they just spin in the hole instead of coming out of the ground. On the other hand, once you do get them out of the hole much of your hole is already dug for you! Also, digging up a head can feel like a nice accomplishment. Of course sometimes you end up not being able to get them out. Yesterday I had to abandon a place where I was going to install a group of three rose bushes because I couldn't get the head out of one of the holes. Of course it was the third hole and I'd already dug out the first two. That was disappointing. I haven't figured out what to do with heads other than use them as little points of interest among the plants.

Last fall I dug up my first bible. Bibles are my least favorite rock to come across. They seem to be flats at first so you're psyched because you think "oh that'll be out in no time" but then you can't seem to get under them. They have the broad surface area of a flat so you have the nuisance of having to dig a wider hole but they're heavier than a flat and they go much deeper. Plus, finding a head sounds so much more gruesome than finding a bible. Bibles are no fun.

I should say that bibles are my second-to-least favorite rock to come across. The real worst kind of rock to come across when you're trying to dig a hole is ledge. Ledge isn't going anywhere. You hit ledge and that plant is going to have to go somewhere else.

When you're gardening it's generally a good idea to start by planting the larger plants and then fill in the smaller ones. That way you're less likely to accidentally dig up or step on something you wish you hadn't.

If you're working with an established garden, like I am here, you tend to end up trying to fit things in between plants of all sizes that have been growing there successfully for years. It can be difficult to find large enough spaces in which to put things like monster, high-quality bare-root roses. Sometimes You'll find a space that's just the right size and start your digging. Then you discover that nothing is growing in that space because there's a huge rock there. You have to start over and re-think and try to discover another place to put your plant.

I tell myself that if I were a good gardener I'd make a plan and stick to it instead of just buying whatever pretty thing catches my eye whenever I feel like it. The truth is that you can't know for sure where you're going to be able to plant something until you've got the hole dug. Maybe my gardening life would be more reasonable if I stuck to a plan but even then there are no guarantees.

*The bud union is where the top of a less-hardy rose is grafted to the roots of a stronger rose, making the less hardy rose more likely to survive where it wouldn't using it's own roots. Aaaaa! It's a Frankenstein!!! That graft point is probably the most vulnerable spot on the rose plant and needs to be buried in most areas of New England for its own protection. Bury the Frankenstein!!!!

Chocolate, CREEPY, Bacon

Today I made chocolate chip cookies for Pete.  I think I may have eaten six of them myself already.  BAD MEL!!!  Maybe it was only five?

Anyway, while I was doing the dishes I had VPR on (yes, I'm a member) and "Radiolab" was on.  They were discussing the Uncanny Valley effect.  This is what you get when someone attempts to make a facsimile of a human (say a robot or a CGI character) and they get pretty close but not close enough.  Anyone viewing the not-close-enough facsimile gets creeped out* and can't stand to keep looking at the thing.  They said a scientist tested the effect with monkeys and the monkeys all got creeped out too.

This completely explains my lifetime aversion to that Scientology guy who jumped on Oprah's couch.  (Ew.  I don't even like typing his name in my blog.  Ick!  I typed it but I had to change it!  Shudder)  Brad Pitt is headed that way too.  When the posters for the film of "The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button" were up everywhere I couldn't stand to look at them either.  CREEPY!!!  Giant photoshopped faces of Brad Pitt and Cate Blanchett.  Yeee!

Bad plastic surgery causes the same effect.  They'd better watch it out there in Hollywood.  I wish someone would fund arts education at least for the folks who decide which people we all have to look at in our popular culture.  Wabi-sabi everyone!  Please!

I'd better stop thinking about this because I'm giving myself the heebie-jeebies.

I will move on to state that tomorrow I plan to make another batch of chocolate chip cookies.  This time I will be putting fresh cooked bacon bits in with the chocolate chips and walnuts.  I need to find out if it works!!!

*becomes profoundly unnerved.  See, I don't have to talk like a hippie.

Wild Women

Pete, Marc and I went to see Neko Case on Thursday night.  She was excellent.

There was something about the crowd that surprised me though: it was packed with prim looking women and their suit-clad dates.  The women had perfect hair and tasteful cardigans and silk scarves knotted daintily at their throats.  This was not what I was expecting at all.

Maybe I was envious of their perfection but they made me want to be more messy and unruly. 

Neko Case is kind of a barely-contained force of nature.  She has thoughts and emotions she needs to GET OUT.  When she sings these thoughts and emotions are ejected right out of her body.  It's powerful and beautiful to see.

Watching her also made me want to be more messy and unruly. 

Overall the whole experience made me want to be worse.  By worse I mean I want to feel good about dropping balls, doing things wrong, not doing what I'm supposed to do, going out with bed head, basically exploiting my flaws.

I don't want to go overboard and start wearing a hipster homeless-Bjorn-Borg costume or anything.  I'm not going to invent new flaws for myself.  It's just that being comfortable inhabiting your entire self including the ways you fuck up has to be really powerful.

So I think I'm going to start taking it easy on my rougher edges.  Maybe I can talk myself into seeing my failures as successes.

EMERGENCY SHOE BLOG!!!!!

Goodbye bank account...

I just stumbled on the Irregular Choice website.  These are the tip of the iceberg.

Fay is really bored.  She's walking around the apartment looking for things to knock over and scratch at.  She wants me to get my attention so I'll give her food.

I think I might have to start bringing bribes on our walks again.  The last two times I've taken her out she just wants to come right back in again. At least she has to walk from the back door to the front door of the apartment building.  We go out the back door and it doesn't have a keyhole so we can't get back in that way.

I'm feeling slightly better today.  I'm beginning to be able to think a tiny bit.  I can't do math yet though.

This is the time of year when people tend to look back at the past and try to take a survey of what's happened.  I just turned 45 so I took a glance back over the last five years.

It seems like something happens to people in their forties and they can no longer evade the issues they were able to sidestep or ignore in their younger days.  All the shit hits the fan in your forties.

For example the alcoholics go hardcore and really wreak havoc in their lives and the lives of people who love them.  Long term couples split up, people start getting serious illnesses.  If you have demons you haven't done something about yet they will come and sit on your shoulders and bite you in the face.

Say you're twenty-something and you know you have some kind of problem.  You don't know what to do about it and there's a lot going on in your life so you think, "well I'll just look away and maybe it will get better on its own."  That's reasonable enough I guess.  What else can you do when you don't know what to do?

As you get older the problem persists and through life experience you begin to find out about ways you could address it.  You don't want to address it though.  It would be a big pain in the ass to address it.  You've gone on this long not having to acknowledge the problem.  Your life's manageable and you're having a good enough time.  Why shake things up?

Well here's why: now you're forty and you realize the damned problem hasn't gone away and it's not going to just go away and it's starting to creep into your daily life and kick the legs right out from under you.  It's starting to influence your closest relationships and it's interfering with even your most casual interactions with people.  It's standing in front of you and it won't get out of the way.  It's in the middle of your kitchen, screaming it's head off and threatening to set fire to your house.  If you don't do something it will set fire to your house and you'll be left with nothing.

It's so hard to make changes in life.  Hardly anybody can change without absolutely being forced to.  I can't.  Old habits die really hard.  Chances are that whatever you're dealing with you can still get some enjoyment out of your life, there is some comfort.  It's scary to even think about making a simple change that seems like it could blow everything up and make everything unfamiliar.  Then you'd have no bearings (at first) and where would you be?

Well maybe your kitchen wouldn't be on fire.  Or maybe you will have grabbed the matches and burned the place down yourself since you found out it was condemned.  At least you wouldn't have some lunatic screaming at you and threatening you anymore.

If you have some kind of issues - and of course everybody does - and you find out something you can do about them try to do it.  Read a book on the subject, see a professional, get regular exercise, take up yoga, talk to your friends.  Just accepting that you have difficulty with some things is a start.

If there's an alcoholic in your life it really helps to go to Al Anon.  Going to an Al Anon meeting isn't really that revolutionary.  You can just go and listen.  You don't have to change your life at all.  Afterwards you will not be required to go home and make demands of your alcoholic significant other.  If anyone sees you there well then, you see them too.  It's kind of nice to know that you have something in common with that lady you see at the market all the time.  Best of all, you find out all the stuff that you don't have to do and you find out that you're not alone.  It's really quite a load off.

If you possibly can, it's better to deal with things when you're young and flexible and when it doesn't involve your kids.  I you wait till you're forty everything is much harder and more complicated.

Fay Loves Grandma

I apologize for the writing quality of this post.  It turns out I'm over-caffeinated.  I'm also out of the habit of editing myself as I go from NaNoWriMo.  I'm a-cranking' out the words.

Fay likes to travel.  She especially loves to go to California.  Grandma's house in California is a sprawling one level.  We put plenty of yoga mats down on the wood floors so Fay can make it easily across the wood floors from our room into the kitchen.  Elsewhere there is carpeting.  But the key is that she can make it to the kitchen.

I think the thing she likes best about California is that there are more people here to mooch food from here than there are under normal circumstances.  I have a feeling that I've written that before.  Oh well.  Sorry.  Ish.

Grandma is a total sucker for Fay's charms so Fay's mooching is very successful.  Fortunately Fay also gets a lot of exercise running from the bedroom to the kitchen and back.  Still, when we flew back from here back in August they almost didn't let me on the plane with Fay.  She and her carrier are supposed to weigh less than twenty pounds.  They weighed twenty-three!

Yesterday Grandma was a little careless when she was giving Fay a piece of cheese.  You have to give Fay her treats horsey style, with a flat palm.  She can be very grabby.  She's so rude.

Tooth And Claw

The world is showing me its scary face today.  Or maybe I'm just agreeing to look today when I choose not to on other days.

Some days it seems like life really is a brutal struggle for survival - like on that nature series, "Planet Earth."  On those days my very first impulse is to make cupcakes.  Actually, my first impulse is to pull the covers over my head and stay in bed.  But if I do that I just think about how scared I am and I have to get up and distract myself somehow.

So I want to make cupcakes.  Small, cute, sweet, positive.

I was also thinking about the "attention to the moment" concept.  It does work.  It is calming.  At the moment I am having a nice cup of coffee with half and half and my belly is full from the scrambled eggs I made.  I even used truffle salt on them.  In a minute I'm going to get myself a cinnamon donut.  I'm sitting peacefully in my apartment, I don't have any itches, it's quiet, I have every expectation of tranquility and security.  Why worry ahead of time about things that may never happen?

I'm not even thinking about anything that might happen to me.  I'm thinking about horrible things that have happened to other people.

And despite the fact that I am quite comfortable I want to make cupcakes and buy nail polish and go to a book store and wear red shoes and do all of the things that make me think that life is stable and pleasant and not so bad after all.

Raspberries, A Walk In The Park

No saga today.

I realized that I didn't have it in me to dig a huge trench and have a pitched battle.  Today I was going to just dig a good sized hole for each plant and stick them in.  If they had to fight with SATAN'S SPAWN I'd deal with that later.

Fortunately the second location, across a path, about five feet from the first, was much easier.  This spot is a little shadier than the first so it may not be as good for the raspberries.  It's certainly less friendly to SATAN'S SPAWN - I didn't find any at all.

There they are, all tucked in, mulched and cozy.

Now here's a photo of the cherry tree:

The cherry tree pretty much was plug 'n' play.

I promise that all of these tales are true and I didn't just stick sticks in the ground and make up dramatic stories about it.

Gothic Gardening

Boy, am I pooped.

I set out yesterday to plant my nine raspberry bushes.  They're bare root plants so you have to soak them "for several hours" before you put them out.  When I re-opened the box they came in, unwrapped them all and put them in the bucket to soak I discovered that - thank heaven - I really only had six plants.  PHEW!

My plan yesterday was to get 'em soaking while I prepared the spots I'd figured out to plant them in and actually plant them today.  Well, the spots I'd picked didn't work at all.  Finally I decided on a spot in the vegetable/flower garden that Michaela and I had prepared last fall.  I had myself a Guinness and pondered how much easier an already prepared spot would be.

I was feeling very optimistic today.  Only six plants and a prepared bed to put them in.  Plug 'n' play.  Ha ha ha ha ha!  What I riot I am.  I should have known better.

For you see, in my gardening this week I've been doing hand to root combat with SATAN'S SPAWN.  I knew this.

SATAN'S SPAWN is a particular kind of grass.  It looks like this:

Notice the robust pink color of the roots?  I find the color unspeakably chilling.  It is the sign of a grass root that can tunnel deep under your favorite sensitive shrub then burrow up  and entwine itself snugly into your shrub's root system.  You might, at first, admire the blushingly healthful appearance of the root until you go to yank it out and it's head snaps off in your fingers.  Congratulations!  You just made it stronger!  

These roots are total mo-fos.  To really get rid of this stuff you have to carefully dig up each tender root.  Any segment of root that you accidentally broke off and neglected to pick out produces another evil beast of a plant.  What's more, these roots are very good at appearing to be blackened and dead when in fact they are in fine working condition.

If you are (or are friendly with) a horror writer who is stuck for a good idea for a monster I strongly suggest spending about half an hour weeding grass roots out of a garden.  Different grasses have different alarming features.  That may be another story for another day.

Back to SATAN'S SPAWN.

Last fall Michaela and I did a buttload of hard work, spraying organic herbicide on the weeds then smothering them with cardboard and mulch.  The approach proved fatal to the majority of weeds that received this treatment but not to SATAN'S SPAWN.

So, today, out comes the shovel, up comes the mulch and the cardboard, open pops my mouth in alarm.  You guessed it - SATAN'S SPAWN.  No plug 'n' play for me.  Instead it was trench digging and hauling large clumps of root-infested soil up to a tarp I set out on the lawn.  

SATAN'S SPAWN must be killed, like a vampire, by exposing the root to plenty of sun.

Of course all of this took much more time and effort than I had planned.  I only got in half of the raspberries today.  I'm frightened for tomorrow.

Despite all of that this location for the raspberries is still better than the ones I was thinking of yesterday.  If I'd gone with one of those I would have had to remove a section of lawn about twenty feet long.  Then I would have had to remove rocks from and incorporate plenty of compost into the soil beneath the lawn.  At least this way I didn't have quite as many rocks to move.

My final horror for the gardening day occurred at the compost heap when I went to stab my shovel in and noticed a Spotted Salamander peeking out through the dirt.  I don't know what I would have done if I'd found salamander parts in the wheelbarrow.

I think I'll wait until next year to put in strawberries.