First Tomato of Summer

 Forgot to take a picture, but for the record, a "July 4th" tomato was ripe and ready on July 8th. Let the caprese begin! 

Tomatoes In Ground! 2026

 May 19th,  97F, laid in the following plants. 

• one volunteer seeded itself; wonder what it is? 
• 1 early girl (bc: early) 
• 2 lemon boys (yellow seems to fool the birds and squirrels, at least so far) 
• 1 "black prince" (bc: who could resist that name?) 
• Something else red & beefsteaky I can't recall. 

Plus an eggplant for good measure. 

[Already growing as cold season crops: 

• radishes (mostly harvested, a few to go) 
• carrots 
• various lettuces 
• various herbs
• marigolds 
• mar de bois stawberries, finally mature after three seasons 
• blueberries
• peas, but they aren't doing well; too shady
• asparagus (can't pick this year; next year) ] 

Books Read, 2025

This is a post to aid the organic hard drive and not truly for public consumption.  Hard year, light on good reading. 

Scripture 
Matthew
Luke
Virtually the entire Bible for a class  

Popery 
Dilexi te

Shakespeare 

Merry Wives of Windsor

Devotional & Professional 
Adventure Awaits! 
Be Good Bankers 
Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, vol. 2 
Hannah's Children 
Spirit of Democratic Capitalism 

Book Club[s]
Billy Budd 
The Boys in the Boat
The Bridge of San Luis Rey 
Ethan Frome 
The Feast
Herodotus' Histories (Books 7-10) 
My Name is Asher Lev
The Odyssey (2x -- Lattimore & Sachs translations) 

Just Felt Like It 
I Cheerfully Refuse
Jeeves & Wooster Short Stories
A Song of Comfortable Chairs 
They Flew 

Make Our Hearts Like Yours 

The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola: With Points for Personal Prayer From Jesuit Spiritual Masters

Undaunted Joy

Merry Christmas, Day 7, St. Sylvester

Image credit: Flight into Egypt, Lu Hungrian (or so says Google Images)

New Year's Eve. This has been the strangest Advent-into-Christmas I can recall.  December has been a steady stream of passings: not tragic deaths, because most of those who succumbed were believers who lived long lives and died well and I reconnected with a lot of people who mean something to me but whom I never see (like that Lyle Lovett song).  But I mean a steady stream --three funerals the week before Christmas alone, and we had to put our old dog down, which hurts more than I feel it should, and I couldn't even tell anyone because they were all burying their spouses or parents, so what was I going to say?  Yesterday morning came word of two more passings: a friend, and a friend's spouse. Both probably mercies given the degree of suffering in illness, but still....  I have several friends battling aggressive cancers right now. Even my favorite commentators on the news are seemingly all in health crises!  We do not mourn as those who have no faith, and there is a terrible beauty in death: what is more sad, noble, and hopeful than Ben Sasse's attitude towards his impending death? 

Nevertheless, I keep trying to rejoice, or at least not stand in the way of others doing so -- willed the sad carcass through the decorating and baking and cooking, compelled myself to go caroling with the parish, have put in appearances at anniversary parties. These things help: welcome little moments of grace and reprieve. But Sister Death keeps breaking in to take over the conversation and reduce all reflection to silence and one realization:  death is a violation of the natural order and I really need a Savior. 

It seems as if other people are feeling this too: Did you know Niall Ferguson has become Christian? I keep running across these surprising conversions, and they all have this flavor of: I really need a Savior. 

Odds and Ends

A little Ratzinger Reflection on New Year's Eve helps. 

Today is the anniversary of BXVI's passing. Listen to Card. Mueller's homily on a mass for the occasion (English!). 

And a funny little moment with BXVI. 

Pope Leo recommends a thorough examination of conscience and Te Deum to end the year. 

Amy Welborn on the Te Deum. 

Throw-back to what I think is the first year I did these 12 Days observances -- how can it be twenty years ago? Optional Memorial of Pope St. Sylvester: if it's cold enough, make his punch.

Possible palate cleanser:  this reflection on Miracle on 34th St. 

Books Read, 2024

Scripture 

Matthew  
The Bible (following the Ascension Press Bible in a year reading plan) 

Popery 

Dilexit Nos

Professional & Devotional 

The Anxious Generation

These Beautiful Bones

Black Liberation Through the Marketplace 

Chastity: Reconciliation of the Senses 
Fire of Mercy, Heart of the Word, vol 1 

How to Stay Married 

St. Francis of Assisi

The Political Theory of the American Founding 

The Shattering of Loneliness

The Lamb's Supper

Thirty-three Days to Morning Glory 

Under the Shadow of His Wings 

Unreasonable Hospitality 

We Are All Bankers Now (pre-publication version) 

Book Club[s]

The Anabasis of Cyrus

Herodotus: Histories , Greene trans. (well, through book V) 
In This House of Brede 

One Poor Scruple 

Remarkably Bright Creatures 

Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor 
State of Wonder 

Just Felt Like It 

The Boys in the Boat 

Death in Black & White

Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day 

The Department of Sensitive Crimes 

The Dry Wood 

Erasure 

Kim

An Orchestra of Minorities 

Shakespeare 

The Comedy of Errors
The Winter's Tale

Books Read, 2023

 Scripture 

The whole thing! The Catholic version, so maximum books!  (Using Bible in a Year reading plan) 

Popery 

Catechism of the Catholic Church 

Professional & Devotional 

• Benedict XVI, Defender of the Faith
• Benedict XVI, A Life, Vol. 1 
• Fire of Mercy, Vol. 1, about half-way through
• Spirit of the Liturgy 
• Unreasonable Hospitality 
• The Wisdom of the Poor One of Assisi

Book Club

• A Man Called Ove 
• Anthony & Cleopatra
• Coriolanus
• Julius Caesar
• The Laws (Plato)
• Master & Commander  
• My Father's House
• Tempest
• So Brave, Young & Handsome 
• This Is My Body 
• Works of Mercy 

Just Felt Like It 

• Adrift 
• The Aviator 
• The Narrow Passage 
• The Time In Between

Shakespeare 

(four of these are also mentioned above in two different book clubs) 

• Antony & Cleopatra
• As You Like It 
• Coriolanus
• Julius Caesar
• Tempest
• Winter's Tale 

Happy Easter, Year of our Lord 2023

Image: icon of the Resurrection

When the kids were little, I never bought sugary cereals exceot during the octaves of Christmas and Easter. Accordingly, as soon as we got home from midnight Mass or Easter Vigil, the kids would tear into a bowl of Super Sugar Bombs.

In college, our sons have become evangelists of this tradition. First they welcome friends into the Church at Easter Vigil (more than 30 were received last night!), and then everyone celebrates with a sugar cereal party. They sent me a wonderful photo of more than 25 kids eating a selection of diabetes-inducing cereals.

Maybe nothing else I did or said will last, but that will.

Happy Easter! Nothing sweeter than the joy of having a Savior.  

 

Books Read, 2022

Move it along, nothing to see here, this is just for personal records. 

Popery

The Bible (using the schedule from Fr. Mike Schmitz' Bible-in-a-year program)

Spe Salvi  (BXVI)

Professional & Devotional

The Art of Principled Entrepreneurship (Widmer)

The Art of Dying Well (St. Robert Bellarmine)

Business as a Calling (Novak)

Charles de Foucauld: Writings
Diary of St. Faustina 

Into Your Hands, Father (Stinissen)

Lessons from the Workshop of St. Joseph (Brandenberg) 

The Mind's Ascent to God by the Ladder of Created Things (Bellarmine) 

The Economics of the Parables (Sirico) 

Go! (Bartunek) 

Spirit of Democratic Capitalism (Novak)

Spiritual Direction of St. Claude de la Colombiere 

Book Clubs

As Earth Without Water (Carl) 

The Brothers K (David James Duncan) 
Cold Sassy Tree (Burns)

The Help (Stockett)

Hipparchus (Plato) 

Laws (Plato) (Books 1-6)

The Lincoln Highway (Towles) 

Lord of the World (Benson)

Minos (Plato)

Oeconomicus (Xenophon)

The Painted Veil (Maugham) 

The Question Concerning Technology (Heidegger) 

Scoop (Waugh) 

Just Felt Like It 

In Pieces (Ortiz) 

The Color Purple (Walker)  

The Path Between the Seas (McCullough) 

She Loves Me Not ~ not quite finished every story (Hansen) 

Small Things Like These (Keegan) 

Your Inner Hedgehog (McCall Smith) 

Shakespeare

King Lear 

Tempest

Just Like That, I'm In the Mood for a Road Trip

Image credit:  "Gas Station," 1940, Edward Hopper 

University is about to be in session, it's going to be a packed year, and I'm basically ready for it (now that the boys have left for university and the house feels abandoned). But, man, one look at this painting and I could do another road trip. 

 

God's In His Heaven...

This is how I know God loves me and wants me to be happy. 
 

Sweet Land of Liberty

Image credit: Independence Day, Andrew Wyeth, shamelessly pinched from here. 

The first post-Roe Independence Day, and I'm feeling more hopeful than I have in a while. Not optimistic, mind you, but hopeful! If that great and wicked spell can be broken, so can others. 

I'm not sure why I'm telling you this because I don't expect anyone to understand,  but yesterday at Mass, our genuinely beautiful choir sang America the Beautiful as one of the post-communion hymns. As I've confessed previously, I can't sing that song, especially the later verses, without tearing up, so when it happened it didn't take me by surprise. 

But I was completely overcome with unexpected weeping when we sang the Battle Hymn of the Republic as our recessional hymn. I'm not positive this meaning was intended (though knowing the choir director I think it was), but it felt like a comment on the Dobbs decision, and in an instant, every bit of joy at finally attaining the long-awaited destruction of that wicked legal fiction, every bittersweet memory of all the heroes of the movement who didn't live to see the day, all the sense of alienation from pastors and erstwhile pro-lifers who couldn't muster a bit of happiness or gratitude for the decision came pouring out. I couldn't stop. It was embarrassing! But cathartic. 

Spent yesterday with some old political philosophers and patriots in a small town on the water where they had a great parade and fireworks, and that was also good for the soul. 

For your Independence Day reading: 

Patriotism as A Virtue.  "John Adams calls us to celebrate our country by prayer, parades, and pyrotechnics. I’m with Adams."

My now-perennial posting of Peter Schramm's Born American, but in the Wrong Place. 

Irving Berlin singing God Bless America. 

Oh, and: the first tomato of summer!  Just a cherry tomato, but the promise of things to come! 

 

 

Meek & Humble of Heart

 

Image credit: Personal photo, Sacred Heart of Jesus, in a side chapel of Santi Vicenzo e Anastasio in Rome (same piazza as Trevi Fountain) 

Mr. W. & I were in Rome last week, so I had opportunity to play more rounds of my version of PokemonGo. Only instead of collecting cartoon characters I don't understand, I collect images of the Sacred Heart.  

Last year people seemed to like my "visual novena" to the Sacred Heart, and I intend to repeat it this year. But I wonder if I have collected 30 images of the Sacred Heart from different places?  I might try to post one/ day to see how far I get.  The impetus for this desire to go All Sacred Heart All the Time during June came a couple of years ago. In the course of some research I came across a graphic of the promises of the Sacred Heart to St. Margaret Mary.

In complete candor, I never think about these promises at all nor have they usually meant that much to me; in my own prayer I just think of Jesus' heart as the embodiment of all the things I feel called to live: charity, zeal for souls, evangelizing mission, etc., and I just try to love Him with a love that's personal, passionate, faithful, and concrete. I'm not someone much drawn to private revelation on the whole. But for whatever reason the promises caught my eye, especially #11, "I will bless every place in which an image of my heart is exposed and honored."

I got to thinking, "including the internet"? And then I thought about Christ's promise, "If I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto me." And I thought, what if we flood the internet, so full of the lewd and crass, with a visual antidote? No commentary necessary, no opposition, no lectures. Just a different image, one which the Lord himself has promised has power? I figure it couldn't hurt. 

Most Sacred Heart of Jesus, Have Mercy on us! 

Feast of the Visitation, 2022

Image Credit: Magnificat, Maurice Denis, 1909

Mr. W. & I are just back from a week in Rome. In recovery from the travel at present, but perhaps will download some observations and accounts of particular graces received over the next few days. Meanwhile, Happy Feast Day. I'd not seen this lovely image before today. 

And --why not?-- some Hopkins for the occasion: "May Magnificat."

MAY is Mary’s month, and I
Muse at that and wonder why:
Her feasts follow reason,
Dated due to season—
Candlemas, Lady Day;
But the Lady Month, May,
Why fasten that upon her,
With a feasting in her honour?
Is it only its being brighter
Than the most are must delight her?
Is it opportunest
And flowers finds soonest?
Ask of her, the mighty mother:
Her reply puts this other
Question: What is Spring?—
Growth in every thing—
Flesh and fleece, fur and feather,
Grass and greenworld all together;
Star-eyed strawberry-breasted
Throstle above her nested
Cluster of bugle blue eggs thin
Forms and warms the life within;
And bird and blossom swell
In sod or sheath or shell.
All things rising, all things sizing
Mary sees, sympathising
With that world of good,
Nature’s motherhood.
Their magnifying of each its kind
With delight calls to mind
How she did in her stored
Magnify the Lord.
Well but there was more than this:
Spring’s universal bliss
Much, had much to say
To offering Mary May.
When drop-of-blood-and-foam-dapple
Bloom lights the orchard-apple
And thicket and thorp are merry
With silver-surfèd cherry
And azuring-over greybell makes
Wood banks and brakes wash wet like lakes
And magic cuckoocall
Caps, clears, and clinches all—
This ecstasy all through mothering earth
Tells Mary her mirth till Christ’s birth
To remember and exultation
In God who was her salvation.

 

Tomatoes in Ground, 2022

I hope I don't regret planting early, as Spring keeps advancing and then retreating this season, but as the last half of the month will be busy and this week is nice, I took the day off and put the garden in.  Lots of veggies and herbs this year, but only the tomatoes require commentary. 

Planted five varieties: 3 heirlooms and two sure-things, including some yellow cherry tomatoes. Usually I don't plant cherries b/c Mr. Weed doesn't like them. But today it occurred to me that I don't have to serve them to him, and could still eat them myself.  

The ground was full of worms everywhere I dug, which is a very good sign my efforts to build up the soil over the years are working. 

Fingers crossed! Cuz I sure ain't paying inflationary prices for no cellophane, colorless, store-bought tomato! 

May 9, 2022 

Books Read, 2021

 Just for my own record-keeping purposes.

Popery
The Bible (using the schedule from Fr. Mike Schmitz' Bible-in-a-year program)

Professional & Devotional

The Art of Principled Entrepreneurship (forthcoming)

Autobiography of St. Ignatius 

Believe in People 

Business as a Calling 

Discernment: Acquiring the Heart of God

The Friendship of Christ

Journey of the Mind to God

Mary's Voice in the Gospel of John

Paul: A Biography 

Searching For & Maintaining Peace

The Soul of Politics

Wanting

Book Clubs

The Brothers K 

Crime and Punishment 

On Tyranny

Spirit of Democratic Capitalism

Statesman 

A Severe Mercy 

Xenophon, The Shorter Writings

Just Felt Like It 

Aloysius Schwartz, Priest and Beggar

Laurus

War and Peace 

Shakespeare

Richard II
Henry V
Henry VI parts 1, 2, 3

Richard III 

Much Ado About Nothing 
Taming of the Shrew 

 

Happy New Year 2022!

 This is from the roof of my friend's house in Abuja, Nigeria, where it's 2022 already.

In my time zone, there's still time to pray the traditional Te Deum, while committing the outgoing year and its deeds to the Lord, and entering the new year with a clean slate. 

This Shall Not Stand

ninme, knowing that I left twitter months ago, sent me news of the final twitter indignity.  Barbarians are seizing "potpourri of popery" as if I hadn't put the lock on that phrase with ten years of updates. Fie! 

Tomatoes in Ground, 2020

The wifi went out Monday, which was fine by me because there were no snow days this semester and I've been weeks and weeks without a true day off.  The weather was gorgeous, and I bought plants, went for a walk with a friend, and then spent the rest of the day in the garden.

I almost planted everything on Palm Sunday, but it's been a cool Spring and I didn't feel confident we were past frost, so I held off until the first glorious, gorgeous May day.

But now they're saying it may snow on Friday? Yikes!  No snow in Jan-Feb, but snow in May? Skeptic though I am, that is some freaky climate change.


Or maybe not. On a lark I went and consulted the external memory drive and discovered this has actually been the pattern for a few years now. Snow would be novel, but cold and rainy all the way through May & June has been the new normal. Why is it that what happened when I was young trumps my memory of what has happened the last 5 years in a row?

To wit:

2015
2016
2017
2018

I might lose my four varieties of tomato, peppers, beans and various herbs. But the good news is, the spinach which I planted against reason since it's a cool-weather crop, may come up before Fall after all.

<googles tomato blankets>

Take that, Grey!

Just because it's kind of grey, chill, and gloomy in the Nation's Capitol on this 3rd Sunday of Easter in the time of Corona. 

Went to holy hour -- our pastor has been very generous in making Adoration available-- and on the way out the door noticed the yellow iris were suddenly in bloom. I'd forgotten they existed. I didn't notice them coming up, and I have loads of purple iris that were spent already weeks ago, so these were unexpected. Take that, grey!  Coming at you with yellow.  

Buttercups coming up in the unkempt lawn (if it stopped raining, we could mow it) are bonus. 

For Some Doll, A Twitter Take on Megxit

The Official Cartoonist of Wheat & Weeds & I amused ourselves on twitter last night. Gathering the results here.

With Apologies to Frank Loesser

Intro...[NICELY]

What's happening all over?
I'll tell you what's happening all over
Guy sitting home by a television set
That used to be something of a rover

That's what's happening all over
Love is the thing that has licked 'em
And it looks like Harry's just another victim

Verses: 

When you see a man Disrespecting his clan, Calling quits on the cushiest gig of all... Call it nuts, call it scary, but say goodbye to “Prince” Harry

Cuz the guy’s only doin' it for some doll.

When you see a gent Begging to pay the rent Paying back all those taxes he used to haul HRH isn’t smiling, but Meghan is so beguiling

And the guy’s only doin' it for some doll.

When you see a bloke Who is suddenly woke He'll renounce Buckingham palace for the mall Call it weak, call it simpy, or you simply might call it wimpy 

But the prince is only doin' it for some doll.

Bridge: 

When you see a Hal who has been a good egg
hop off one leg
as only a Hal could do for a Meg...

Verses: 

When you see a frail

Who can harpoon a Wale Even if it took the girl a second try Call her mean, call her callous, but the decision to leave the palace-- 

I bet she wan't doing it for her guy.

When the Duchess Megs Cuts her prince at the legs “Them or me” after hardly much at time at all Call it dumb, call it clever, Abdication’s forever! And the guy’s only doin' it for some doll.