Wisconsin, Wisconsin, rhubarb, rhubarb, and...
During high school, our drama director - Jon Aceto, a handsome man just 10 years old than we sophomores (he was also my homeroom teacher), told us that during crowd scenes we should whisper “Wisconsin, Wisconsin, rhubarb, rubarb!” to each other, accentuating different syllables to create the illusion of more sounds. So of course, we did.
I thought of that as I was cutting the last stalk of my rhubarb yesterday, just before it all bolted. This was just my second stalk this season; it’s been unseasonably warm, and I wasn’t really expecting any rhubarb for a couple/three more months. The best way to eat rhubarb, in my humble opinion, is to stick one end of the stalk into a small bowl of sugar, chomp on it, spit out the strings (unless you had the foresight to pull them off first), and repeat.
As kids in Big Bend, we would run over to Mrs. McKenzie’s after she’d call Mom and tell us she had a lot of rhubarb. We ate bunches, but Mom also used it to make strawberry/rhubarb jam, which was fabulous. Strawberries aren’t “in” yet, so I wonder why rhubarb is. I don’t like to buy store produce if I or my neighbors are growing it - or if someone at the Farmers’ Market is selling it. I really think it’s too early for strawberries.
I was reminded by a friend’s email this morning that today is Earth Day. It’s been a while since I’ve participated in any kind of Earth Day celebration, but I do remember the very first one. I was in high school in Waukesha, Wisconsin. If the first Earth Day was in 1970, I was a senior. They let us out (not sure who “us” was - one class, or the whole senior class), loaded us in a school bus - and we went to a nearby park on the same Fox River that flowed south and curved to make a big bend around Big Bend. Our job was to pick up litter in the park. I remember well that there wasn’t a whole lot as far as litter goes, and it did occur to me that it was a well-maintained public park.
Across the river from the clean, grassy park, there were tall concrete towers belching grey smoke from the Wisconsin Centrifugal plant. I wondered why we were out there searching for imaginary litter instead of protesting air pollution. Maybe it was mostly harmless vapor…no telling.
Today, I was not thinking ahead about planting things on Earth Day; it was already on my schedule, such as it is. I’d been to Reems Creek Nursery and bought seeds for milkweed, hollyhock, and delphinium. I haven’t yet decided where those seeds will go, or if I should just scatter them with the wind in the back-back, cross my fingers, and hope for the best. I’ve had hollyhocks and poppies come back along the fences year after year, but less so lately.
A couple of years ago - before I knew the benefits of mullein for pollinators - I was at the Chamber when a town employee came by and squirted weed killer all around the building. Last year, I hired a young man to weed-whack in what I call “the people yard” (no dogs allowed). I had a mature mullein plant back there and unfortunately, I’d forgotten that most people regard mullein as a weed. Of course he whacked it down. It hasn’t yet come back.
Recently, I noticed that there were a couple more mullein plants growing out of the crack between the parking lot and stucco walls at the Chamber of Commerce. I dug them up and planted them in a concrete block in my garden, the hope being that the concrete block will keep them warm. Because I couldn’t dig much of the roots out, they’re struggling, but they’re not dead yet.
If you live around here, and see mullein some place you don’t want it, please call me and I’ll come take care of it. Here’s what the plant looks like:
I’ve stopped growing food in my garden, but am letting anything that birds, bees, butterflies, and other pollinators like to eat from. Did you know that dandelions are the first food bees can get in the springtime? I didn’t! My late aunt Alice used to have us come to her place and dig up dandelions. Not sure she paid us, but we sort of enjoyed it. When my Dad’s mother would come out to the country to visit us, we’d sometimes sit under the apple trees - she in a lawn chair, us on the grass. She’d say something about getting rid of the dandelions, because they’re weeds. “But they’re pretty weeds!” we’d counter.
Our backyard was flat and lush with grass. Dad had been a greenskeeper at a golf course when he and Mom and the first 5 or 6 kids spent the winter in Punta Gorda before the squatters in our Big Bend house left the next spring (at our neighbors’ urging, from what I hear). So he knew how to take care of our personal playground. As well kept as it was, it was still home to dandelions and fireflies. And I remember he (or someone) had sunk a tin can at one end, and we practiced whacking golf balls in the general vicinity. We also played softball out there, but if a batter or pitcher sent the ball past the cherry tree and down the bank to the trolley tracks, it was an automatic out.
I must say, we played well together…even board games. When we played Monopoly, our common goal was to break the bank, not each other’s fortunes. We had a roulette wheel, too. I can’t remember how to play it now, but we loved it. Grandma was visiting us once and played with us. She got tired of it all, and bet everything she had on 13, hoping to lose. Of course, the ball landed on 13, but we let her quit anyway - after we all had a good laugh. I miss Grandma. She had a great sense of humor. She’d say things like, “I had my hairs cut today - do you like them?” as she patted her hairdo. That was Dad’s mom. Mom’s mom was much more serious, but her husband more than made up for that. A story for another time…
Happy Earth Day - and remember to give me a holler, Burnsville folk, if you see some mullein I could rescue.
Lucy