Hiatus

The official meaning of hiatus is "a pause or gap in a sequence, series, or process." I've been on an extended hiatus from gardening. Perhaps there's a word for this extension (forced vacation? jail sentence?), which I need, since I'd say this winter has been much more than a pause or gap. It's a yawning chasm, not a gap!

Right now I'm doing my best to ignore all the snow outside my door. Those big drifts have compacted downwards quite a bit. The scratching noise from the lilac tree outside our bedroom has finally ceased. The branches are still bowed low under their load of snow, though. But there are some demented birds offering up songs out there.

I can actually see some ground in the flowerbed off the southeast corner of the house. Well, what I see is a lot of dirt that was blown in atop the snow before it melted out from under the dirt. It's not very pretty now, but eventually there will be daylillies there. I hope.

I'm starting some vines to go in my outdoor flowerpots. There's an ivy I have no name for but which makes a great filler. It always looks great outside; not so much inside over the winter. At the moment it's leggy and thin. It drops a lot of dried up leaves inside, but I put up with that just so I can get the starters from it each spring. I also have a Swedish ivy that I use for filler.

My shooting star Hoya is still blooming, and is starting three new bud branches. The blooms come in groups. The current blooms are oozing a clear sap that's sticky. One of the new bud groups is coming where a previous attempt at blooming had dried up, so I guess I won't cut off those areas. I'd promised a start from my Hoya carnosa to a friend, so I have three slips rooting in a homemade starter bottle. (I cut the top couple inches off a water bottle, and inverted that into the base, then filled it with water. The top then keeps the slip of vine from sinking into the water.)

Since I can't garden yet, I'll share a salad recipe. This one sounds great, but since I don't grill over open fires, I'm modifying it a bit. First up will be as the recipe is written, then I'll give you my (slight) modifications.

Green Salad with Grilled Apples

Dressing: 1/4 C canola oil, 3 Tbl cider vinegar, 3 Tbl apple juice, 1 Tbl honey, and 1/4 tsp salt whisked together. Set aside.

Salad:

1 large crunchy apply, unpeeled

3 Tbl butter, melted

1/8 tsp salt

4 C chopped romaine

1/2 C walnut OR pecan halves

1/4 C feta OR bleu cheese, crumbled

Grapes or clementine sections, optional

Slice apple in quarters, remove core, cut in half again. Toss with the butter, sprinkle with salt. Grill over hot fire, 3 minutes per side. Let cool. Put lettuce in a large bowl, toss with nuts and cheese. Shake dressing well then drizzle over salad. Top with warm apples. Garnish with grapes or clementines.

My modified version uses the dressing as written. Sometimes I'll use orange juice instead of apple juice. I opted for pecan halves, feta, fresh clementines (or tangerines), and baby spinach rather than romaine. Cut the cored apple into bite-sized chunks. Fry it in the butter a couple minutes, stirring, over medium high heat in a sauté pan. Add in the nuts and fry another minute or two. Remove from heat and let cool before adding to the torn spinach leaves. Toss with the feta, then drizzle with the dressing. Top with the warm apple/nut mix, then garnish with clementine section cut in half.

If you'd like this salad to be a complete meal, you could add chicken, ham, gyro meat, tuna, and/or hard-boiled egg. Having a beautiful salad like this will help you pretend it's really spring. Eventually we won't have to pretend. Again, I hope.