Tom Stock

I love spinach and grow it. A pile of steamed spinach with pat of butter sends me into convulsions.

I never seem to be able to plant enough spinach seeds. Once harvested, a huge number of leaves are necessary for a good sized portion.
I plant spinach twice a year, spring and fall. Spinach bolts in hot weather. It is a cold weather crop. But, I can carry this to the extreme and grow and harvest in winter as well.

The spring crop is slow to start. This is because it puts most of its energy into growing deep taproots. It relies on a water supply below the ground surface.
I like the Cookabura variety because it is savoyed. Savoy means crinkly leaves. The spinach leaves have texture which is gone after ten minutes of steaming. IRThis is because spinach is 85% water. It takes a lot of plants to supply enough for my wife and I. each plant has a rosette of leaves. I always clip (don’t pluck) the two biggest leaves which allows for more growth. I can harvest leaves for two months in spring, and again two months in fall.

I start in spring when the soil is loose and cold. As the seeds sprout and growth starts, the progress slowly speeds up. Being impatient, I inspect my spinach every day and water and weed. I like Johnny’s Seed Company. There are ten varieties to choose from.

I protect the plants in winter by putting mini-greenhouses over the plants. Any clear plastic container works. I cut the bottoms off quart seltzer bottles and pop them over the plants.

Today, January 15th 2017, I harvested enough leaves for two small portions. Growth is slow but none of the plants have died despite sub freezing temperatures. Although it is considered a tender leaf crop, my spinach, with their life-saving bubble green houses will produce all winter long. Although considered an annual, my spinach keeps on going. It is my vitamin A and C. it is loaded with minerals. The best way to absorb its minerals is by juicing. Once I’ve harvested, I have lots of recipes to choose from. But, for me, steaming for ten minutes and boom on the plate, over my taste buds and into Tom’s tummy.

BIRDS

In one of the glass cases at Dublin’s Natural History Museum, I saw a  bird with a red breast labeled “Robin.” It is half the size of our American Robin I saw this bird on a shrub in the ancient cemetery in Glendalough. The stuffed magpie and jackdaw were new to me. At Rock of Cashel ruins, we heard the calls of jackdaws who flew about and nested in small square openings in the rock wall. The jackdaw is in the crow family.

The first floor of the museum is a long 70 foot hall filled with taxidermy. Most animals had no connected habitat. A huge skeleton of a Right Whale hung from the ceiling. The stuffed rhino’s glass eyes stared like security camera. One tiny specimen, the least shrew, could fit into a teaspoon, “the smallest mammal” on the label. The wood floors creaked and on the walls, many antlers from the Giant Red Irish Deer. On both ends of the hall, iron grill work and mosaic tiles caught my eye. I made a rubbing and captured three different designs.

FULFILLED DREAMS

I imagined two things I wanted to do in Ireland…see flocks of sheep on broad, green pastures; and listen to Irish music in a pub. We did both.  Driving along the Irish Sea coast, a flock of huge black-headed sheep grazed along the roadside. Hedgerows prevent drivers from pulling over out of traffic. We found a pullout, and had a rare opportunity to linger and photograph. These sheep were the largest I’ve seen. Some looked the size of a pony. The sheep are raised for meat, not wool.  We had lamb stew in the restaurant in the Hunt Museum and loved it. We had great views of the Shannon River in this charming café during our first whole day in Ireland. The castles, the museums, and the cathedrals were astounding.

Our last night was spent in the Old Ground Hotel in Ennis near where we would depart next morning. I asked the clerk at the registration desk if there was pub that featured Irish music. “Cruise’s,” she said. We had dinner in a small room with a fire blazing. Its fuel was peat, which doesn’t crackle like wood. I wanted to visit a peat bog. This desire in and of itself will require another visit to Ireland. Nancy and I decided that Ennis was the town we’d stay in to tour the west coast on our next trip. Ennis is a portal for tourists that visit the scenic towns and cliffs. We walked the town and decided this was the next destination.

Three musicians set up in front of a fireplace, a bagpiper, banjo, and flute players. After sipping pints of tangy Irish brew, then began to play in 4/4 time, a foot-stomping pace that quickly penetrates everybody. Nancy started to dance a reel. The musicians blended with shrill pipe notes, the sharp plunks of the banjo, and whistle tones from the flute. The waitress said “Come in August for the festival. There are 400,000 people here!” Nancy and I chose January for our trip for the lower overnight rates and in between time as Nancy returns to her MFA writing program soon after we return.

Nancy has an Irish passport and is ¾ Irish. One of her goals was to return to her grandfather’s farm in Rosenallis which is in the midlands. The other goal was to reconnect with her second cousins, Betty and Polly in Dublin and Wicklow. She thinks she recognizes the place after several trips up and down narrow roads with hedgerows that block peripheral viewing. But a new stockade fence blocks the courtyard. Later we learn the old house has passed out of the family.

Read More

Nancy and I enjoy visiting Babylon Overlook Beach for lunch in the car in the winter. If the wind and temperature aren’t too bad, we take large plastic bags and walk the beach looking for litter.

Today, the tide was dead low. We could see the flood tides’ aftermath with flotsam right up to the base of the dunes. We walk west and stoop and pick and stoop and pick until our bags are too heavy to continue. We are getting exercise, view great expansive scenery, and leave the beach cleaner. Every time we visit, there’s new litter attesting to the fact that our Atlantic Ocean is fouled continuously. We also do it because without fail, we find something interesting.

Read More

Where do the pixels go

After you press delete?

Where do emotions go

Once emoted?

Where does the wind go

Once it blows itself out?

What about shadows

Once they are gone?

Is there a giant shadow box?

Everything goes some place

Where?

Is there a cloud old pixels?

I suppose emotions

Tuck themselves back

Where they came from.

Or end up in another being.

Wind, has to goes someplace.

Doesn’t it visit the wait in

The big waiting room for old weather?

Where does all our talking end up

Once it leaves the talker?

Is there a storage place

For used words?

And love?

That has to go to some special place

Is it the love garage, locker, shed?

And time? That’s the ultimate question

Are there second safe deposit boxes?

Freedom? Racism? Hatred?

Are all these places us?

Are we the grand savings banks

Of all the invisible stuff

That we can’t see?

Which brings up the theory of place

Place is where everything ends up

Like the thoughts behind this poem.

Tom Stock

(Who looses stuff)