After The Rain- Percy Warner Park

Five inches of rain yesterday and through the night, and then a clear, bright morning to be followed by more rain.

My Shih Tzu, who went on a hunger strike and hid for hours in the closet because he heard thunder, came out when he heard me taking down the leashes and pocketing the car keys. Percy Warner Park was our destination. It had to be, for our usual walks at Edwin Warner Park were under the Harpeth River, which was 5 feet over flood stage.

We walked the Main Drive on the hill above the steeplechase course, and as we walked into the woods I heard a sound that is rare here- the sound of small waters in overnight brooks and rivulets, rushing and seeping off the stone walls and hills into minor lakes and sloughs beside the road.

In his poem "Hyla Brook", Robert Frost writes:

"By June our brook's run out of song and speed".

Frost's New Hampshire brooks were those of my youth in North Charlestown, New Hampshire. These were brooks that came from springs and snow melt, and they lasted for the season. Not so the Percy Warner brooks, which will be gone until the next 5 inch rain.

Yesterday, the waters were more violent, for I saw stones from the walls along the road that had been undermined, and that had tumbled down into the ditches. Water is powerful when it is on the move. Four years ago, when we had 20 inches of rain in three days, hillsides at the park collapsed in mudslides.

But today I heard only gentle gurgling and dripping.

When we turned back I listened for other sounds. Perhaps I would hear a Woodthrush, or even the Swainson's Thrush.

Neither were singing. But the Indigo Bunting was back, and there he was, inspecting a Hackberry tree.

There were a few other humans out this morning. The Park Grounds crew drove past in their little white truck, for the Iroquois Steeplechase is a week from this coming Saturday, and there are fields to be groomed and trimmed.

The view from the road above the steeplechase course is panoramic. My sister once told me it reminded her of Italy.

Yet how often it is walked, or cycled, or driven by by the oblivious. Today there was a young woman sitting on a stone bench. She was bent over her laptop computer. Another girl, taking a break from her morning run, was on her phone, though whether she was getting or sending messages, I do not know.

This is the generation that will replace us, and to whom not much is real until they have confirmed it on a screen.

Hypertrophied Thumbs and Silicon souls.

Not a people interested in the sound of a brook going downhill or the sound of a thrush singing.

The Newspaper of Whose Record?

I have read that the New York Times is America's "Newspaper of Record". I have been reading it off and on for the last 50 years, and I now have a question.

Whose America is it recording and reporting for?

When I was thirteen, Mr Clay, my Social Studies teacher at the Charlestown, N.H.
Junior High School, arranged for those of us who wanted it to subscribe to the daily Times. My parents agreed to pay. My mother told me that she had heard that anyone who read the New York Times faithfully( for I forget how many years )received the equivalent of a college education.

My father always bought the Sunday edition, and I remember so well the Book Review. How substantial it was! Pages and pages in the era of Mailer, and Roth, and Cheever, and Heller. Mary McCarthy. Robert Lowell. Sylvia Plath.

But that was 50 years ago, when the best seller list was in the back, and it merited only one page.

For a while this past winter, I drove to Kroger on Sunday morning to pick up the Sunday Times, even though it set me back $6.00 a week, $24 dollars a month.

$24 dollars buys me a week's worth of gas if I don't stray far. It buys two big bags of primo catfood, which is the only kind my porch cats will eat. But I loved the idea of the Sunday Times, and one morning after buying it I felt so buoyant that I went in to the Starbucks for only the third time in my life and spent more money on a pastry and a big Cappuchino.

Truly this was living again! Here I was, an Intelligent Citizen, no longer an impecunious peon, about to spend my Sunday inhaling Civilization and Culture. A Wallace Stevens morning-

"Complacencies of the peignoir and late

Coffee and oranges in a sunny chair".


The big review of the week was Cynthia Ozick's of the Library of America's publication of Bernard Malamud's novels. I read the first two pages, then went looking for the rest.

But there was no rest. The Times, eager to include 5 pages of Best Seller lists, had forgotten the rest of Cynthia Ozick.

In subsequent weeks I found a few things to enjoy, but none worth $6. There was an article about a group of Steampunkers aboard a cruise ship, and for a few minutes I forgot myself and wished that I could be a Steampunker too, for I admire people who stay playful in adulthood and who do not let their imaginations atrophy and die.

Yet how puny were the Editorial pages and the Book Review.

How fat were the Style Section and the "T" Magazine.

For here is where the heart and soul of the Times are now. Forget the occasional expose of the scandalous cost of Asthma care in this country, the real story now is the story of our Financial Overlords, who spend 30 Grand a month to vacation in places you and I would never be allowed into. They buy "Ricky" bags and six hundred dollar shoes, never having to worry as we do that we might need $600 for a new timing belt in our 14 year old cars.

I do not buy the Sunday Times now. If I see an article I want to read, I go to Google, and I sneak around the Paywall.

Probably a misdemeanor in our New Republic of Pleonexia,whose house organ is "T" magazine .

Government of Goldman Sachs by Goldman Sachs for Goldman Sachs.

Somewhere out there a re-born Madame Defarge is knitting. But you will never hear about it in the Sunday New York Times.

Blue Grosbeaks in Nashville

The Blue Grosbeaks have returned to the fields behind the Ensworth School in Bellevue. Look for them along the paved Harpeth River Greenway near the iron foot bridge. There are Northern Yellowthroats along in these fields as well-

My Garden Blog

My garden blog, "Tales of a Nashville Gardener" is up and running for another season. Anyone interested in gardening and in gardening with Southern heirloom plants can go to Tales of a Nashville Gardener at wordpress.

Porch Diner Etiquette- Why Can't We All Just Get Along?

This possum is "Big Head". I have not seen it in a awhile, and thought it might have met the common fate of possums, which is to be run over by a car. But perhaps "it" is a "she", and she may have been otherwise occupied. The raccoon is Mr Usual, and he is out there all night waiting for the buffet to be replenished. He is also partial to day old donuts-

Scenes from My Porch Diner-After Hours

"Tender Centers" catfood was on the menu tonight, as well as day old cheese bread from Kroger.

As you can see this is a Peaceable Kingdom. The feline is Kitten Cat, who lives on the porch along with two of her cousins and her mother Shaky Cat. I am their servant, and provide them with concierge service.

The Masked One does not have a name, but he or she has an appetite, and several others of her tribe show up as well, along with a pair of possums, and several other very shy feral cats

Lamb Meatloaf with Cumin, Pine Nuts, and Two Onions

As the first photo shows, there is nothing more mundane looking than a meatloaf, especially when it is not covered by what I would call a catsup bandage.

Meatloaf is a mid-week meal, a slab of hamburger-in- hiding with the bun hidden inside in the white bread crumbs added by cooks desperate to keep the loaf moist. Meatloaf is a Protein Delivery System for teenage boys and husbands who will eat anything as long as it is covered with barbecue sauce and comes with potatoes on the side.

Most American meatloaf recipes call for ground beef that may or may not be mixed with other ground meats. All recipes require an egg, a little milk, and a starch, be it bread, rolled oats, or crumbled cornflakes. A small onion,diced and untreated, is also tossed in in the hopes that it will not still taste raw after 45 minutes at 350 degrees. And some cooks cover the loaf with strips of thin bacon.


My Lamb Meatloaf would be ruined by lava flows of catsup dripping off the sides, but it goes beautifully with the Roast Pepper and Tomato Soup of my previous post, a soup that is not watery, but stew-like.

My meatloaf is spiced with cumin and a little Kefta mix and 7 spice powder, and while I gave the nod to starch by adding Panko crumbs, its main filler is the two onions-one white and one red- that I use as a moist filler.

*(Those who cannot find Kefta or 7 Spice could add a pinch of cinnamon, ground ginger, and ground cardomom.)


The treatment of the white and Bermuda onions is key. They must be grated, and this is best done with the shredder disc of the food processor. This produces a mound of very moist onion bits that you will steam to softness in a saute pan that has olive oil in it. Saute over medium heat after adding some cumin and sea salt to taste. Stir to prevent sticking and do not brown the onions. You want them soft and tasty, not caramelized. Keep tasting and when the onions are soft and cooked through, they are ready.


1 pound ground lamb

2 garlic cloves, crushed in a press

Sea Salt

Olive oil

1 red onion medium sized and 1 medium white onion

1/3 cup pine nuts (Inexpensive if you can find them at Trader Joe's)

1/2 cup Panko crumbs

1 big egg

1/3 to 1/2 cup milk or cream

Sauteed onion-all of it- as described previously.

Cumin to taste for onions, and more added to the meat mixture- perhaps 1/2 tsp

Spices as described above.


Throw everything into a bowl and mix well. Then spoon mixture into a greased loaf pan and bake at 350 for 40-45 minutes.

Serves 4, perhaps. Dress with Red Pepper and Tomato Sauce/stew.

Note the side dish- Peeled and dice purple mini potatoes tossed with olive oil and sea salt, studded with garlic slivers and roasted.

This dish is also good cold.