“I understand that all art is good art just as long as it comes from the heart.” User AARN goodreads review, accessed May 13th, 2026.
An iris from Mimer! Look at all those weeds in the background.
My current goal of falling back in love with reading is going well. Having just finished ‘Gooseberries’, a short story written by Anton Chekov, I was jazzed up for another round of discovering a classic storyteller.
I moved on to a short tale by Henry James, ‘The Tree of Knowledge’. Considered one of the best short stories every written, high on the beauty scale.
Dear lord. Has this man ever heard of a sentence? He writes in overly complicated paragraphs.
Example below:
“There was luckily a certain independence, of the pecuniary sort, all round: the master would not have otherwise spent his wanderjahre in Florence and Rome, and continued by the Thames as well as by the Arno and the Tiber to add unpurchased group to group and model, for what was too apt to prove in the event mere love, fancy-heads of celebrities either too busy or too buried -too much of the age or too little of it- to sit.”
This is a random example. There are many. I read this sentence three times to understand it, my brain already fried from the previous three pages. Yes, three pages. I made it so far.
It was a straight up slog. In the cold mud, a miserable low crawl for a thousand wet rainy miles.
I abandoned the story after Lancelot went to Paris and received a fifty pound gift. Page 7 maybe? Abandonment was a gift to myself, a return of my time.
Has the internet and my increased need for that immediate screen-time dopamine hit dulled my ability to decipher language? Running to goodreads to get the point of the story, the reviews back up my opinion. Apparently, one of the “best” short story classics of the literary world, written in 1898, has a very modern three stars.
I don’t think it’s me. According to Oscar Wilde, “Mr. Henry writes fiction as if it were a painful duty”.
Too bad, as it is genuinely a gorgeous story. Would have flourished under a different author.
look at that unmowed lawn!
Finally, mid-May, we are finally planting in South Dakota. Yet another year of being time-poor, the chores are piling up, as are the plants on the deck, waiting quietly yet leggily in their bins.
Is a garden beautiful just because it grows beautiful things?
~
I am tending to my newly planted vine crops, providing my babies with a second watering in. We are in a drought and I spent a lot of time creating the perfect U-shaped hills to collect and distribute water to the roots.
the pits worked! The sticks are to prevent voles and bunnies from nibbling. Good thing this part of the garden is hidden from sidewalk.
I am happily watering in a private corner of my yard. Hearing voices from the other side of the cherry tree, I turn my attention to my fenceline, where I am trying to grow grass next to the sidewalk. It’s dog pee central. I have marked the area with little fences but there is a strange dog there, walking all over it, unleashed. One of the dog’s two shabbily dressed owners is looking at my lawn, shaking her head, lips pursed, with far too much disapproval for such a warm breezy afternoon. The whole length of her pass, her ire contaminating my happy space.
Yes, the grass IS longer than it should be, but not Cite Me length. The grass party is only in the back, the front yard is proper business length. Just haven’t gotten to it yet.
Suburbia man…the insistence on a gorgeous lawn irritates me.
adore the morphology of an iris bloom
When it comes to Henry James, should I see the beauty? It’s a short story, if one is curious. Online in multiple places. Read it. I’d love to be challenged on my opinion.
(more after poll)
Otherwise, it has been an eventful week.
This is the image of the first of two hail storms that hit our place on May 24th. The part of the storm in the background is the hail core that finished passing over a minute before, if anyone wonders what a hail core looks like.
The pale tinge of green is a dead giveaway, as is the fact I am showing the naughty storm what it just did to my yard. This hail ranged from large pea size to quarter size.
And a few hours later….
Storm two was around 11:30 PM. This hail was small pea to marble sized, smaller but more hail overall.
For those unfamiliar with hail, South Dakota has the record for the largest hailstone in the U.S. It was the size of a small football. We get hail often enough for it to be a worry every year. Also, the larger the hail, generally the amount of hail that falls will be far fewer. So interestingly, a heavy hailstorm of small hail (pea size) will decimate a crop more effectively than a few extra large hail stones, which hit or miss. Your car and roof, however, would prefer a coating of smaller hail.
melon damage from September 2022 hail storm
Largest hailstone I have ever seen, my yard 2022
Lost a few flowers, not as bad as I feared. My onions have not fully recovered, so definitely damage there and my brugmansia was almost completely stripped of her leaves. Poor baby. She was beginning to bud, but now we’ll need to wait for another month or two for her stunning blossoms. Damaged leaves everywhere else. Interestingly, no damage to any of my iris.
that might be cat mint
Regarding the title photo. A morning/MOURNING THANKS DHM dove decided to build her nest right over our patio door. Part of me loves so much that she feels so comfortable with myself and my garden that she will nurture her babies a few feet from where we sit and read and chat. Other part knows that bird shit and swooping right there will be a problem.
Menu this week:
Farmer’s Market Pizza
Breakfast for dinner, bourbon french toast again
Cajun pasta
Coconut Sheet Pan Chicken With Squash
Stuffed Shells
Purple Robed Locust blooms. There is a bee in the pic too.
Been a week y’all! My back issues have returned, bunnies, and a double hail storm. Additionally, I sadly confirmed that the hot April and cold May have indeed killed off many of the fruit (blossoms) we were hoping from this year. No blueberries, no honeyberries, no peaches. Significantly reduced apple harvest and raspberries.
Still Grateful for:
-RAIN!
-so many garden chores complete
-I can afford groceries, an unfortunate luxury for many
-there were three baby bunnies in my yard, now there are two
-The squirrel I drove off has not returned (yet)
-my iris! Every time I go outside I just bask in the prettiness
-having fun playing Balatro, I’ve beat 6 decks so far.
-while recording video of the purple robed locust bloom and all the enormous bees all over it, I saw a hummingbird! Very cool.
-Reading is going well. Most short stories I enjoy. Good thing there is only one Henry James
This iris is from Mimer! Hope she stops by to remind me the name of this stunner.
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