The Mint Patch Monologue

Contributions Dedicated to

Preserving the Timeless Writing

of Gladys Bagg Taber for

Future Generations

The Mint Patch Monologue is meant to welcome any reader to enter a quiet space, to celebrate life’s simple pleasures, and to find encouragement. Inspired by the late Gladys Bagg Taber (1899-1980) my writing is dedicated to preserving her legacy. She was the author of 59 books, including the Stillmeadow books, and columnist for Ladies’ Home Journal and Family Circle. Her warm and friendly spirit lives on in her every page, this blog is a bridge to that comfort, may we all still experience it. I choose to follow her lead in life- to regard community and neighborliness, to have an earnest relationship with the natural world, to remain full-hearted in the face of grief, to give any curious recipe the chance for success but the acceptance of defeat, and to sit under the stars at the end of a long summer day with a grateful sincerity.

  • The High Today

    I’ve been checking the 7-day weather forecast religiously, in anticipation for the last frost. I know, we’re all supposed to wait until after Mother’s Day but “oh well” is all I have this evening, my garden has been planted. The cucumbers vined in the house, grabbed ahold of a large zucchini leaf, and just about strangled it to death; and death comes easy anyways for tender plants. I pried the little sticky hands away from its almost-victim and declared it time for everyone to move outside. The two week forecast says the lowest prediction is 50 degrees, and most every day’s high is in between 60 and 80 degrees. With the decision to run a little risk, of course there’s a back up plan that involves maneuvering lots of tarps, while panicked, sometime after dark. For now I’m just staring out the window into the backyard, cheering on little pepper plants, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, watermelon, basil, spinach, carrot, and pea plants. I forgot about the onion sets I purchased at the grocery store, they’ll have to wait until tomorrow as I’ve already scrubbed my hands and am ready for a proper Friday night dinner of sushi and sake.

    The grass is cut, the mint is getting tall, and my husband is prepping the front yard flower box. The dried mums were removed, finally, and life is beginning again. We live in town, and curb appeal is always a fun thing to participate in. To share beauty with the community is special, I find it akin to a heartfelt wave every time someone drives past the house. “What should we plant in the flower box this year?” he asks, and I know that if left un-answered, he will make the better choices without me. His vision for beauty is keen, so I look forward to leaving the artist to his own creation, and sitting back to enjoy his work. By the looks of the outdoors now, it’s hard to believe that only weeks ago everything outside was dead, dormant, grey, still. There is a full blown symphony of activity now, including the carpenter bees that are drilling deep into my pergola and leaving little fragile pyramids of wood shavings behind, the birds are absolutely wailing too, and lawn mowers and weed eaters can be heard humming away for miles. The wind is leaving no gaps for stillness, and the rain is swirling all of the new colors into a blur in preparation for the summer months ahead.

    This time of year has me craving the snap of asparagus on the plate, little deviled eggs with an herb garnish, radishes and arugula. A dream day for me in April would be to head out into the woods, basket in hand, to forage a patch of wild ramps, and then to find a haul of morel mushrooms. With greens and mushrooms in tow, next would be hours of trout fishing from the bank with a packed lunch of bread, and cheese, and lots of wine. I’d pull in nice, large fish and clean them proper to bring home for a perfect springtime dinner. To cook the trout I’d keep things simple as I have before, pan fried in butter with a squeeze of lemon to finish. Picking around the bones has never bothered me, for a special dinner must be taken slow, savored. Satisfied from the meal, I’d finish the day fireside to dry the mud from my feet and to reflect on how whole it can feel to exist alongside the natural world. I think Gladys would approve.

    “It is wonderful to have as a gift from nature a garden you can cultivate; but there are other gifts too -wild strawberries, which taste sweeter; wild grapes, which make the best jelly, morel mushroom, which we used topick in the old apple orchard. The morels have gone, but I keep hoping that they will reappear as mysteriously as they went. These delicious mushrooms are shaped like spongy trees and grow to be as much as two inches high. Sliced lengthwise and broiled in butter, morels are gourmet fare.” -Gladys Taber

    Mysterious is a good description of the these elusive little treasures, I must admit to you, I’ve never had the good fortune of finding any morels, and not because I haven’t spent time looking. During the pandemic my husband and I went out almost everyday for weeks of peak season to hunt the woods in our county, and surrounding counties. The confusion and uncertainty of the virus and politics drove us outdoors, sometimes I wonder if we were really searching for mushrooms or something else within ourselves to navigate being in quarantine. We mapped hillsides, searched for elms, ash, and tulip poplars, south-facing slopes, and may apples. We found all of those, but never once a single morel. We also found ourselves asking more questions about life and the future than we’d every considered before. Looking back now, I don’t think we were looking for mushrooms at all, we just knew the act of searching was needed.

    Nature and I are left to nurture together, now that my seedlings have been set in the ground. Hopefully these little pale thumbs will turn a shade darker this year and 3 months from now I’ll be writing about drowning in tomatoes. Tomorrow I will run outside early to spend the morning staring at every detail in the paper thin leaves I’m to raise. Tonight I can only solicit the watchfulness of the moon and stars to get them through their first hours of darkness.

    As always, I do love to chat so drop me a line!

    justicesarah67@yahoo.com

  • Out like a Lamb

    Sincerest of gratitude to you, the reader, for coming back for more (I’m usually never short of things to say) so lets get into it. I spent last weekend in Boone North Carolina, attending a writing workshop hosted by Cheryl Strayed, at the Art Of Living Retreat Center. It was an easy drive, I took route 23 (the country music highway) straight south. I stepped over Virginia, Tennessee, and finally made it into North Carolina. What a truly wonderful drive it was, 55 miles an hour the whole way, light traffic, and mountains, the Blue Ridge Mountains. In spite of the rising temperatures I still enjoyed the views of snow caped ridge lines, up against the tender greens of budding weeping willows along the roadside, it was breathtaking. Spring, what we call the transition from winter to summer is short (always) but so sweet. My first bee sighting was on March 14, and the first mourning dove cry was heard on March 11, nature’s resurrection.  Witnessing the bloom of an ornamental pear tree isn’t a feeling you can recall throughout the year, it can only be experienced in the moments you stand before it and take it all in.

    My arugula has made a fierce return, it is unstoppable. These plants are my teachers, to endure the harshness of winter and to spite months of neglect they grow stronger every year. That is an experience we can all  consider when our own environments toughen up. My seedlings are enjoying the comfort of the indoors for now, thriving brightly under lights and nestled together. Once again I’ve started too many seeds, so the decisions to choose the stronger looking plants might not be necessary if I can find homes for the extra seedlings over the next several weeks. So far I have thriving: 3 types of tomatoes, Wapsipinicon peach, rosella cherries, and a variety called “bread and salt.” Among the tomatoes are peppers, watermelon, cucumbers, broccoli, cabbage, spinach, and zucchini. Carrot and pea seeds will be sown later this week, and my grocery store is selling little onion bulbs by the scoopful. There is nothing better than pickling your own red onions at home. I chop them thinly, and add them to a jar filled mostly of white vinegar topped off with water; a pinch of sugar and a pinch of salt is all you need after that, but jars are for creativity and improvisation, concoctions. You can add mustard seeds, black peppercorns, any herb you like. When something is going into a jar in my house, it’s typically an experiment, and experiments often yield pleasant surprises.

    March is a reminder to listen, as Julius Caesar should have done when warned “beware the ides of March.” The ides are a tricky time for us all, especially the birds, but when the daffodils appear my soul is once again nourished with the knowledge of nature’s consistency, it’s intelligence. The awareness of violets and dandelions to bloom on time instills in me that the only thing we can trust sometimes, is the natural world. I am soothed to remember each spring that just as the grass returns to it’s vibrant self, so can I when life gets hard to navigate. Thriving can missed without the dry and dull moments. I hope you are thriving in some way, and can take a moment to enjoy the sights and songs of a plump, red robin.

    As always, write me sometime, because I do love to chat!

    justicesarah67@yahoo.com