Patience. . .

In my mind, I can hear Axl Rose singing "All we need is just a little patience. . .just a little patience, yeah, yeah. . ." (What can I say?  I was a teenager in the '80s; the MTV generation.  And yes, I can still whistle along with the band in the appropriate parts, thank you!).

But really, patience is the name of the game in life.  This deep thought came to me last week as I was adding yeast to the dandelion wine I am making.  The wine I started making two days before adding the yeast; as the flower petals have to steep for two days before boiling and adding the rest of the ingredients.  Now it has to ferment for several weeks (or possibly months) until clear, then be racked into bottles, and allowed to age for a minimum of six months in the bottle.  Not a have-it-now beverage.  Wine making definitely requires patience.

Totally unappetizing looking beginnings of dandelion wine. 

The cloudiness must go away before bottling.

Gardening requires patience too.  Last fall I planted garlic, so that this summer I can harvest it, and then in the coming winter I can eat it. Two weeks ago I planted onions so that in August I can harvest them, and hopefully have 100 pounds or more to store and also make onion powder out of.  I also planted potatoes, with the same patient hope:  months from now, being able to taste the results of my effort.

Last week, I didn't get to plant anything; a deluge of rain made the (tilled) garden ankle-deep in mud, so it is off-limits until it dries out.  I am waiting not-so-patiently for that to happen.  I still have several hundred tomato and pepper seedlings to plant, not to mention corn, peas (that are very very late now), beans, etc, etc.  Patience is tough right now.

Meanwhile, I am chugging through the graduation preparation list for DS2: invites have been sent out, chairs and tables reserved, menu finalized, checked on the pig (the main dish) who is enjoying life at Mother-in-Law's and is projected to be about 200 pounds by the beginning of June. . .

Since the flowerbeds are higher and drier than the garden, I've also been working in them.  They are looking pretty good.  I divided a few perennials.  Aha!  That's another patience item: from time to time I buy a few small, ie. cheap, perennials, then after a few years when they have grown quite a bit, I divide them and fill in yet another empty spot in the flower beds.  Or occasionally I am offered the 'extras' from someone else's perennials--I acquired four chrysanthemums and a queen of the prairie that way earlier this month.  I have probably 1000 iris now from a couple hundred 'free' rhizomes dug about five years ago from the new house of a friend.

But I really, really want to be working in the garden.  It worries me that it's late May and I haven't even gotten the peas planted yet.  They don't like hot weather.  We like peas. We had eaten all of last year's crop by March; therefore I had planned to double the amount of peas grown this year. The peas need to get planted!!  So I've been working on being patient.

And I've watched my dandelion wine change color as it ferments.

Dandelion wine day 5 of fermentation.

Looks slightly less gross!