Paschal melody

It's Spring!!! Flowers are blooming, birds are singing, my wife and I are out in the garden pulling weeds and fertilizing flowers.

It was a long and somewhat dreary winter. We are rejoicing in the beauty that comes with the season, yet always surprises me.

Just scroll down from this dandelion which was growing between the cracks in one of our walks. As an aside, the dandelion was chosen by my granddaughter's graduating class as their flower of choice. It blooms under the worst of conditions, has several pretty phases and persists.

Vinca minor growing in the tiny wood beside our house.

The two surviving tulips of the dozen we planted last Spring. Tulips in Little Rock are mostly annuals. Our Summer comes on too fast for them to grow their bulbs back before the heat wilts them.

These are hellebore (Lenten rose). For a change, they are actually blooming during Lent.

Usually, these beauties bloom earlier. Our seasons are somewhat ahead of the European ones that gave them their name.

These are the daffodils that a neighbor brought from her home in Italy. Not only do they look different from the native daffodils in Arkansas, but their perfume is quite different.

Muscari or grape hyacinth. After they bloom, the flowers fade and they form a grass-like cover under our Japanese maple.

We had a serious erosion problem due to the slope of this hill. We built terraced beds and filled them with plants we like to slow the drainage. The tall yellow are Forsythia. The smaller yellow are daffodils. The pink that you can barely see between the Forsythia bushes are Texas flowering quince.

This is our camelia. We stuck daffodil bulbs in front of it. The two scents combine into a wonderful perfume while we weed in that spot.

Last picture. These bleeding heart flowers are in a bed of Japanese anemone. The anemone are fall bloomers.

As you can see, I have some leaf removal ahead of me and I'll harvest the dead anemone stems for mulch.

Thank you for touring our little gardens.

Welsh pasties

Despite the name, we found our first sample of this marvelous "pocket sandwich" in Reading, England. It is sold in the railway station there, to be exact. But there is a restaurant in town that serves nothing but pasties of every imaginable flavor and combination of ingredients. Whoever said that the English don't know how to cook was wrong.

I recently received a couple of requests for my recipe. I tried to post it on Facebook (where the requests were made) but I guess it exceeded their size limit so it never appeared. That recipe is below. You can use ground meat or meat that is diced into pieces about a half inch (1 cm) or less in size.

WELSH PASTIES

Ingredients:

crust --

1 1/2 cups flour

4 Tbs shortening or lard (not butter)

1/2 tsp salt

a little cold water

filling--

1 Lb ground beef

1/2 Lb ground pork

1 Lb ground lamb or mutton (even venison can be used)

2 cups diced potatoes

1 cup diced carrots

1 small turnip

1 medium onion

1 Tbs flour

salt and pepper

optional --

1 egg

1 Tbs water

Directions:

Begin with the crust. Cut the shortening into the mixed flour and salt. I usually mix them be sifting them together. Mix in cold water a tablespoon full at a time until the dough is barely workable. Drier is better than wet.

Roll the dough out to about a quarter inch (5 mm) thick on a floured surface. Don't forget to dust the roller with flour to keep the dough from sticking. Cut the dough into circles about six inches (15 mm) in diameter. When you have cut out as many circles as you can, roll the leftover dough again and repeat until there isn't enough dough left to make another circle.

Now the filling; peel and dice the onion and turnip (potato and carrot too if you haven't already). In a large bowl, mix together with meat, flour, salt and pepper. I use the "meatloaf" method for mixing. That is, I dump the ingredients into the bowl and mix them with my hands, squeezing until I'm either tired or convinced that everything is pretty well blended.

To put the pastie together, spoon a couple of tablespoons of filling into the center of each dough circle. Moisten the perimeter of the circle with water and fold the circle in half. Use your fingers to crimp the edge of the now half circle together.

Place the raw pasties on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Here's the optional; mix the egg and water together. Brush the top of each pastie with the mixture. This will make the finished product a little browner and give a shinier appearance to the crust.

Bake pasties at 450 degrees Fahrenheit (230 C) for fifteen minutes. Reduce the oven heat to 350 F (175 C) and continue baking for 45 minutes, until the pasties are a golden brown. Remove from oven and cool before eating.

Seriously! Even though they smell wonderful, oven temperature will burn your mouth if you try to eat them right away. Be strong. Resist temptation. Remember, "Hunger is the best pickle." Benjamin Franklin

Rugby football

Last June, Fran and I went to Ireland with the Los Alamos Women's Rugby Team. We were unfamiliar with the sport. Very soon, it became an exciting one to watch.

To the uninitiated, Rugby looks like confused, mass mayhem. It isn't. But it is vastly different from most of the sports played in the United States.

To begin, there are three types of Rugby Football, union, league and sevens. The last refers to the number of players each team fields. The other two types field teams of fifteen. The ladies were playing league.

Most sports have rules. Rugby has LAWS. Rugby is a rough sport. Bruises and scrapes are normal. Padding is forbidden by the laws. Protection is allowed for the ears. Some players wear what looks like a shower cap for this. Unlike American football (hereinafter referred to as football), rugby does not permit a forward pass. If you watch a rugby match, you will see that most of the players carry the ball in a two handed grip in front of them. This allows them to pass the ball to a team mate beside or behind them if they are about to be or are being tackled.

The rugby pitch (field) is similar in size to a football field. It is 100 meters (a little more than 109 yards) long and 69 meters (a little more than 75 yards) wide. The goals are also similar to those in football. Another difference is the goals are set on the touch line (goal line) instead of behind it.

The game starts with the traditional coin toss to determine the receiving team and kick off. Difference: the ball is laid on the ground, no holder. Any player on the team may kick the ball on kick off. The kick has to travel at least 10 meters (about 11 yards) and remain in bounds. The kicking can, if their forwards are fast enough, grab the ball after it grounds and it remains in play. If the receiving team gets the ball, it also remain

s in play.

There are very few stops to a rugby match. The action is more or less continuous and the players cover a lot of ground. When the action stops, there is usually a line out or a scrum. A scrum is the photo on the upper right. The one below is a throw in after a line out (out of bounds). The ball is thrown in by one of the team's hookers (one of the rugby team positions) and both teams try to catch it. In some cases the receivers will jump for the ball. But lifting them to gain advantage of height is permitted.

The scrum occurs after a player loses the ball, usually by being tackled. If the opposing team recovers the ball, play continues. If not, the referee calls a scrum. In the scrum, the opposing forwards line up literally head to head. The ball is rolled between them and they push each other while team mates try to get the ball and pass it back to someone with room to run.

A goal is called a try. The ball must be grounded behind the touch line while it is in possession of the scoring team. A touch is five points. There is a conversion kick worth two points.

Why am I nattering on about this? Because the Olympics have decided to make Rugby Seven part of the 2016 Olympic Games. Both men's and women's teams will play for the gold. Rugby has been dominated by the United Kingdom and its former colonies. But there are nations that are up and coming. Tonga is one and Japan another. Both have had teams qualify for the World Cup. So has Argentina.

I am hoping to see a team from the United States in the 2016 competition.

If you have not seen a rugby game, they are fairly easy to find. Most large cities have several. Ask around. I think that Los Alamos proves that you do not have to be a large city to field a pretty respectable rugby team. The New Mexico ladies were undefeated in Ireland.

Last weekend was the time for the Arkansas Flower and Garden show. We had two themes this year, g

ardeni

ng around the world and the magic of gardening. The arrangement on the left is the keynote for the magic part of the show.

That consisted of horticulture ex

hibits and flower arranging contests.

The horticulture part is examples of plants and flowers growing in people's houses and gardens. The weather did not cooperate so therewere not as many exhibits as usual. But it seems there were enough.

The flower arrangements were very interesting. Most of them utilized lots of vertical space and were quite severe on the use of flowers. I think that Japanese flower

arranging has had a large impact on our flower show people.

The other display gardens were done by professional landscapers. The hummingbird and owl are parts of Garvan Gardens' display. They contrived to make a lovely garden using only the things that are growing now.

The rest of this is notes that I took during the show:

The smell of the roasting, coated nuts sold by the charity auction is irrestable. Combine that with the garlic coming from the grater demos, the smoothie stand, honey drinks from the bee keepers and samples from various food stands and I could gain weight just by walking around.

My previous management style was managing by walking around, chatting with various divisions. For the show, it is management by frenzied scurrying. In any group of volunteers, there are people who for

one reason or another, just can do the job they agreed to. When there's time, most call. I arrange substitutes. But when they just don't show, as a couple always do, it's the same substitute drill along with worrying about the no show's health (my Master Gardeners are not the youngest kids in town) and their family worked into my concerns. Two of my volunteers called just before their shift began to let me know there was an emergency. A couple just never appeared.

The show floor is concrete, no carpet. By Saturday, some of the vendors began to talk about sore feet, sore backs and fantasy pedicures. It was even more prevalent among those who set up display gardens. Regular set up was Thursday. The display gardens were started Wednesday morn

ing. These folks worked all the way through the show, even doing tear down Sunday night. But their projects were worth it. I hope they feel the same. Doing a display garden is expensive, both in plant material and labor costs. Most of them worked until they had to leave for the judging.

The display gardens are beautiful. The contest arrangement are both neat and creative.

The "red hat ladies" put in an appearance at the show. They get a kick out of dressing up and going places. They add to whatever venue they choose.

Some of the gadgets being sold are original ideasfor uses of things some of us pitch. There is the usual spectrum of metal stuff, garden tools, pottery and wood furniture. At least part of my scurrying has been slow enough to glance at booths for something new.

This year, the show organizers set up a lounge area away from the show where vendors could relax and eat their lunches. Someone brought in a box of pastries Friday morning. They were gone in half an hour. There were

about 40 cases of snacks, junk food and candy. By noon everything except the ketchup, mustard, peanut butter and jelly were gone. I think that this is one of the few shows that does things lik

e that. But the vendors are our customers. We should keep them happy.

Most of the volunteers hung out in the office when they weren't working. There was a more or less continuous bull session in there. Subject varied with the population.

Sunday was by far the slowest day for the show and vendors. All that changed at four o'clock, when the last buyer was herded out and tear down began. In spite of all our efforts, there was a huge traffic jam at the truck entrance and at the loading docks. Understandable, these people wanted to load up, go home and put their aching feet up.

My wife tells me that I came home Sunday night and slept until Tuesday afternoon. I think that's an exaggeration. I must have gotten up to eat and potty. But otherwise, I kept to the cat's nap schedule.

Why pick on Toyota?

The news has been full of the "sudden acceleration" problem with some of the Toyota cars. Their president has been summoned to Congress and lambasted by any congress critter that wanted to make the local news back home.

Let's consider a moment. All of the US auto makers, GM, Ford, Chrysler have been plagued with the same problem. Leaving for a moment, the assessment of the National Transportation Safety group that most of these accidents were caused by the driver hitting the gas instead of the brake, what is it about Toyota that makes it the target of so much wrath? Is it because they have been the most successful car maker in the United States for a couple of years? Is it because they are Japanese owned?

People, myself included, were buying foreign due to the abysmal record of American car manufacturers in responding to buyer complaints. Even the line employees of these big three were warning friends not to buy cars made on Mondays or Fridays because the quality control simply disappeared then. How the devil could we know on which day the car we were buying was made?

Now think about how we have been treated by Japanese companies. When the battery on my Nissan froze solid one cold winter's day, the battery maker responded to my letter with an apology and a check for the cost of towing the car to the dealer. That worthy had replaced the battery at no charge, with no questions. How many of us have had anything close to that experience with one of our own?

It is almost axiomatic that any complaint about an American made car would be treated as cavalierly as a feather in the wind. So what prompts this avalanche of diatribe against Toyota?

I suspect that it has two root causes. First, Toyota has been the watch word of quality for the past ten years. We're disappointed that they are fallible. Next, we have watched our automobile industry sink the same way our steel makers did. Their executives concentrated on power and glamor and pretty much ignored quality. We're the home team. Finally, Toyota has been guilty for the past few years of ignoring complaints, treating them as incorrect or inconsequential. Those three things go a long way in changing our perception of a product.

As for me, I drive a hybrid. It gets excellent gas mileage for an SUV and has proved itself reliable over the past 75,000 miles. I have no intention of changing cars. And Toyota will be among the top contenders for my business when, at last, my present motor gives me more trouble than a new car is worth.