Quick “editor's note” before we begin – I am really enjoying compiling this newsletter and have created an archive that I will continue to update right here. My goal is to drop into your inbox at the end of each month. Here is my commitment to myself and to you: this newsletter will never direct you to Amazon, use AI or post filtered photos. Thanks for being here.
I am growing six types of sunflowers this year and I have hundreds in the garden right now. All of them are from the ProCut series. They produce a single-stem, pollen-less sunflower and I cut them just as they are starting to open for the longest vase life. My favorites last year were the Gold Lite and White Lite varieties. I will be cutting and replanting these all summer long.
For Mother's Day I asked to go to the Wayne Thiebaud exhibit at the Legion of Honor in San Francisco. Thiebaud is a Sacramento artist who taught for decades at UC Davis. His art is colorful and joyful and so wide ranging. Prior to this exhibit, I knew him for his cake paintings. It was so fun to see so many portraits, nudes, flowers and landscapes in his archive. Thiebaud believed that “art comes from art” and said “I steal from every artist around the world… I don't want to copy them. It's just that their works come with a useful tool of generating possibilities as a painter.” Thiebaud was self-taught but studied other artists' finished work (sometimes in museums but mostly in books) and this show leaned into that by featuring the original inspiration next to his paintings. It was deeply inspiring. I left with a beautiful book and my mind spinning.
Speaking of art, I have been using oil pastels to draw my semi-weekly garden bouquets. It feels like a great way to “save” my arrangements while practicing drawing. Currently using pastels by Sennelier and the pigments are excellent.
I have had great success the past two years growing Green Beauty snow peas. I planted them in early February this year (I am in growing zone 9b) and they climbed my garden archway by early May. In mid-May they had peaked and now I have everything harvested and the plants pulled. The goal is to get tomatoes and tomatillos to fill the arch now. (My arches are made from 16' livestock panels turned on their short side and attached to t-posts with heavy duty zip-ties.)
In early May this article (that's a NY Times gift link – no paywall to read) stopped my morning news scroll. It's about a guy in Wisconsin who, over 18 years, dosed himself 650 times with venom from various poisonous snakes and built up an immunity. His odd hobby caught the attention of a scientist and now antibodies in his blood could result in a universal antivenom for snake bites which currently kill over 120,000 people a year worldwide. Absolutely wild.
Okay, it's May, so I have one more garden related thing. Thirteen years into my gardening journey I have finally tried propagating my tomato plants. I have been pruning my suckers (the new growth that sprouts at the leaf branch), putting them in water for a week until they grow fresh white roots, then potting and eventually transplanting into my garden. The tomato harvests will be bonkers this year.
I'm always looking for audio non-fiction that reads like a novel and this month found Hidden Valley Road by Robert Kolker. Mimi and Don Galvin had 12 children over 20 years (from 1945-1965; perfectly spanning the baby-boom). One after another, six of their 10 boys were diagnosed with schizophrenia. The author weaves their family's sprawling story with the medical study of mental health over the past century. Oprah gives a great blurb: “Hidden Valley Road is a riveting true story of an American family that reads like a medical detective journey and sheds light on a topic so many of us face: mental illness.” Correct.
In January I finished a short sleeve Nebula sweater in a purple wool/silk blend with mohair. It turned out great. This month, while going through my closet, I decided to make another, this time in a cream wool. The yarn has a decent amount of texture and I think (hope?) it's going to knit up well into something that I want to reach for often. It feels nice to have my needles clacking again and I hope this one comes together quick.
I get compliments every time I wear these jeans. Currently well-priced and stocked in five different washes. (I am 5'3" and am wearing the regular inseam medium wash.)
