What I did on my summer vacation

Does the time get away from you like it does for me? People say "what have you been up to?" and I never know what to answer - just puttering around, in my own little universe, would be the proper answer I suppose. I guess I could say I became fascinated by tincturing bitters last year after a herb walk led by Jim McDonald last fall at the Ecology Center in Oxford. Then I could tell about how I made a large herbal wall hanging after Robin Mickiewicz demonstrated the craft at Crossroads Village this summer. I made a nice wreath from Silver King Artemisia and Costmary blossoms which was sold at the GCHS tea. And how I began collecting and gluing together junque glass into garden totems after seeing some at a craft show. I need to post a few more photos of them.
But as to what I've been up to? I dunno ... puttering around, as usual. How about You?

I'm posting the following overly long list of my 2010 herbal adventures which I began keeping track of as of June 22, although some of it was remembered and added from earlier this year (and which I may add to as the year goes on, just to keep it all in one place):

Over the summer I made 2 versions herbal tea, which I like to drink sweetened with a little of my home grown stevia or some local honey from the farmers' market:
1. "summer" blossoms:
red clover, german chamomile, primrose, thyme, oregano, savory, ironweed, Baikal scullcap
2. Lemon herbs and flowers for digestive, sedative, headache relief, tonic and nervine
rose petals, lemon verbena, lemon balm, lemon basil, lemon thyme, calendula, rosemary, mint

I made a bug repellent  tincture which I'll dilute with witch hazel:
Catnip (fresh) flowers and leaves, pennyroyal (fresh) tops, a few (fresh) tansy leaves, and dry yarrow leaves.
This, after reading the label of a verry expensive ($9.00 for 2 ounces) "natural" insect repellent that Herb bought for golfing. Its list of ingredients: lemongrass, patchouli, peppermint, catnip, and Neem, in witch hazel.

I've been harvesting like crazy:
dandelion roots and crowns (screen dry and zipbagged)
kale leaves (dehydrated and zipbagged)
hawthorn leaves (May) and fruit (Sept-Oct) (screen dry, zipbagged leaves)
mugwort leaves (screen dry) (made sleep pillow with hops) (may still make tincture, oil, moxa floss)
hops "cones" (screen dry) (see mugwort)
monarda flowers and top leaves (hang dry and zipbagged)
Greek oregano leaves (hang dry, screened and bottled)
sage leaves (hang dry and bottled)
thyme leaves (screen dry and bottled)
bay leaves (screen dry)
lavender stems with blossoms (hang dry, zipbagged and bundled)
blue vervain "Simpler's Joy" tops (hang dry and zipbagged)
oenothera (evening primrose) (hang drying whole plant)
lythrum (loosestrife) tops (hang dry)
calendula tops and petals (screen dry)
veronica tops (hang dry)
motherwort leaves (screen dry)
heal-all leaves and flowers (screen dry)
borage leaves and flowers (screen dry, bottled)
southernwood branches, Silver King artemisia tops (hang dry)
red clover flowers (screen dry)
goldenrod tops (hang dry)
purple aster tops (screen dry)
sweet annie (Artemisia annua) branches, hang dry
sassafras leaves (from Ludington), hang dry, zipbagged
castor beans
pineapple sage leaves
mullein root and leaves from first year plant dug in October, hang dry
violet jelly (picked flowers with Aubrey) (gave some to Theresa, Ashley on Mother's Day, and Lois M. )

rose petal jelly (Tuscany and Mme Isaac Periere? check FB) (gave some to Tree and Ash on Father's Day) (gave some to Norma, Ulrike, and Lois)
rose petal honey (some for me, and tiny jars with Kayla and Aubrey) Red/Pinks Tuscany, Mundi, and Mme. I.P.
rose petal elixir ( a.k.a.preFB "rose petal cordial") Red/Pinks
rose petal infused oil - Red/Pinks - Mundi and Mme IP
rose petal vinegar - Reds/Pinks - in homemade organic cider vinegar
rose petal beads - You can use pale pink and white blossoms - it will turn black anyways! (still in progress)
rose petals (screen dry and bottled) for tea and other uses

(March) honey sweetened rose hip tincture with ginger honey from '09 dried rose hips, and (September '10) rose hip tincture from R. eglantina
and tinctured purchased dried elderberries with honey to make cough syrup

elderflowers (4 from my 3 2 yr old plants), fresh, tinctured
StJW tops, fresh, tinctured (began collecting on summer Solstice)
St. J's Wort tops, fresh, oil
holy basil tops, fresh, tinctured
Solomon's seal root, fresh, tinctured
purple aster tops, fresh, tinctured
juniper berries (from beach lot), fresh, tinctured in gin (what the heck?)
quince fruit, fresh. tinctured (for "ratatifa"?)

meadowsweet - dried 2 flower heads in full color (they dry out in the yard as the beetles attack them and they go to seed) as an experiment. Next year I will fresh tincture some.
peonies and sea oats -dried for arrangements

FRESH USE:
mixed flower bouquets, of course!
dandelion greens - cooked
rhubarb
asparagus
strawberries and alpine strawberries
chives
mixed lettuce salads spring and fall
basil leaves fresh as sandwich greens, cooked in pasta sauce, in tomato salad, in bruschetta, in pesto, froze pesto cubes (trying to be more conservative this year, I planted Genovese, regular sweet, lemon, holy, and 'Siam Queen' Thai)
parsley, part of my pesto recipe
dillweed in dill sauce on fish
lemon balm, purple aster herbal teas
garlic scapes - green dip
rosemary, oregano, marjoram, used cooked in pasta sauce, chili, oven roasted veggies, and so on
tomatoes, peppers (Herb made lots of fresh salsa),the freezer is full
garlic and shallots: dug on July 26 (big this year), replanted 30 cloves on September 30
Jerusalem artichokes to roast with a roast beef

I have Plans for:
comfrey - oil? dry some

marshmallow root and maybe the leaves
always more thyme!
anise hyssop - just planted a new one after having been without for a few years
feverfew? angelica? (there weren't as many seedlings this year as usual)

southernwood, absinthe (wormwood)
ginkgo leaves
Solomon's seal root, and false solomon's seal
rose hips

European betony (Stachys betonica or Stachys officinalis)
Baikal skullcap (the Chinese plant, not the native that all the herbalists are talking about)

and, when the plants are ready:
gogi berries (or wolfberry) from the plant I started from seed last year
elderberries from the plants I started last year
New Jersey  tea from the seedling I transplanted this year.


What I missed so far and will try to use/make next year:
hawthorn flowers, lily of the valley flowers, lilac flowers, dianthus and apple blossoms, meadowsweet blossoms, and chamomile (pick with Aubrey to make Peter Rabbit Tea)
Rosa englatina leaf for tinctures
chervil, sweet cicely, valerian blossoms

sell one loaf and buy hyacinths

How did that ancient Persian saying go ... to paraphrase, if you are fortunate enough to have two loaves of bread, sell one and buy hyacinths to feed your soul. Something to think about.
Persia, isn't that Iran?
I was just thinking yesterday while I was yanking out the tall purple verbena (bonariensis) about what I had written about my various plant collecting manias.
I had simply forgotten the grasses. I've grown over thirty ornamental grasses, most before they became popular. By the time Art Cameron was giving his grass talks I was winding down.
Not that I could ever afford to do it (collecting) right, but I used to hit every plant sale, plant exchange, wild plant rescue, plant clearance, and seed exchange I ran across.
I was the quintessential coupon clutching mom who finagled the food budget to cover the annuals and the bulbs.
Adding a bag or two of scilla or crocus to the shopping cart every week while doing the food shopping adds up when you figure the spring bulbs start showing up in the bins in late August. This week I finally broke down (they were half off) (I'd just been exposed last week to another mad bulb planter's powerpoint at our Master Gardener meeting) (it's tradition, TRADITION! - she said in her Fiddler on the Roof voice) and added two bags of pink hyacinths to my grocery cart. Life goes on.

Oh, back to the grasses ... a little pointer to folks who are just beginning and may recognise yourself in what I've described: if your budget is tight and you need to buy small good plants just to get the start of a collection, try Bluestone Perennials Nursery mail order catalogue.
And promise me you'll recycle the packing peanuts.

facing the autumn with grace

The ginkgos are yellow, the serviceberries are orange, the maples are a little dry and crispy leaves are flying everywhere. The unusually nice weather has given me time to do a good job of gathering and 'putting by' my garden's harvest. Not that there isn't a lot more to be done, in putting the yard to bed. You'd think I had forty acres (and a mule) by the way I talk, but it is only a small suburban lot.

I'd love to have some 'real land' (she said in her lumberjack voice) to work with, but I have borrowed views to enjoy, and I know my familiar soil, and it is all already so ever much to do, and the older I get the more I understand that someday it will all have to come to an end. Toward this, ahem, end, I'm severely limiting my plant collecting impulse and consciously not replacing things that I lose. The lost years of the fragrant dianthus collection, the colorful irises, the tropicals and the spring bulbs, the daylilies, the old garden roses, the varieties of daisies and veronicas and achilleas and campanulas and agastaches (I used to get the little catalogue from J.L.Hudson, Seedman, if that tells you anything) and especially the seed starting mania will have to be beautiful memories to entertain my mind when I can't garden any more.
And the herbs. Don't let me forget the herbs.

And the critters. There is such joy in the strangeness of other species of animals. I've seen animals in books and on film, and in 3-d reality in zoos, but there is something above wonderful about seeing mother nature's other children out in the open, living and surviving on their own. (Yes, Marion, Nature does too exist.)

On that note, I was out in the garden yesterday picking more peppers (almost finished for the year) for cooking and freezing and dehydrating when a literal crashing through the brush behind the shed brought me up from my task and there manifested three young deer, standing right there in a clearing among the scrubby shrubs with their bright eyes and huge ears and lovely velvety noses at attention.
I understand it's bow hunting season, and they move in response to the hunters' disturbing of their domain but I've never actually seen a deer in my yard before.
I have seen tracks and found some damage (blueberry), but the rabbits are the real culprits around here with their shrub girdling winter hunger. What a treat though, to see these three deer up close and personal.
They stood as mesmerized as I was for a few moments and took off leaping right back into the field. In one fortunate moment of grace I had collected a memory for the winter, undeserved, appreciated.

In the Garden of My Life

Copied from a garden bulletin board about 5 years ago. If you know more about the source, let me know:

In the Garden of My Life
by Jeanne P. Maack

I ponder my existence in the garden of my life. I reflect upon the purpose for which I came to be. I commune with my Creator as I experience the wonders of His creation. The birds overhead surround me with their simple symphony. The bees buzz to and fro adding their voices to the birds' sweet melodies and suddenly there is a harmony of voices surpassed only by the choir of angels in the heavens above.

The flowers fill my garden with their colorful splendor and sweet fragrances. Even the rich black soil serves its purpose by providing a neutral background to all these gorgeous colors and shapes. The butterflies flit from flower to flower; their wings so colorful that the flowers seem jealous and at times pale in comparison.

The herbs add variety to a dull menu and the many varieties are so different just as humans are. No two flowers, no two plants, are exactly identical, similar but different as we are. I love to watch the wind rustle through my plants. They seem to dance to their own tune. The swing back and forth and sometimes even bow in honor of their Creator.

A popular little saying in the sixties told us to "take time to smell the roses"... a simple reminder to enjoy life; enjoy the beauty of nature around us. Another sixties slogan told us "bloom where you are planted"... reminding us to use what has been given to us and do our very best in the gardens of our lives. There is a harmony in nature that shows us how to live in peace and enjoy the simpler things in life.

My garden is a kaleidoscope of colors and textures, shapes and forms. Even the green stems and leaves are a multitude of hues and shades adding to its richness. If I had my way, I would sit for hours and hours just drinking in its beauty but alas, I only have a limited amount of free time to contemplate and meditate upon its rich diversity. It has been said that "one who plants is close to the heart of God".

We reap what we sow. If we sow love, we reap love. If we sow the seeds of neglect and apathy, we are alone and bitter. I am in awe that we simply take a dead seed and with proper nurturing give it new life which returns to us one hundred-fold. We cannot forget the sunshine in our garden which warms our earth and helps bring the seeds to life and helps them develop as they were meant to. We, too, need the "sunshine" of our family and friends to enrich our lives.

Take two minutes each day and go into your garden. Put all your troubles on hold. Use one minute to thank God for allowing us to experience the garden of our lives. Use the other minute to simply take it all in.

Some broccoli !

Don't know how far back I copied this little garden-inspired sermonette, or where I found it.

SOME BROCCOLI!
By Jim Rawdon

When we bought our first house, I rototilled a plot and planted a garden. Saturday morning at the farmers' market, I bought various vegetable sets including broccoli, which we really like.

After I placed the vegetables in rows in the ground, I had one broccoli plant left. I put it in at the back of the plot. My garden thrived except for that broccoli at the back. It produced nothing except leaves that curled and wrinkled like a sick plant.

Why? Maybe it needs more fertilizer, water or spray for pests, I thought. But nothing helped.

Then it occurred to me: Perhaps I had it backward. Am I watering fertilizing and spraying too much? So one-by-one I quit watering, fertilizing, weeding and applying pesticides. But the broccoli didn't improve, so I gave up. I had lots else to do - work, kids, chores.

When summer ended, like a good gardener I pulled up dried-up okra stalks and tomato vines. When I'd worked my way to the back of the garden, I saw that broccoli - covered with Brussels sprouts!

Somehow at the farmers' market a Brussels sprout plant got mixed in with the broccoli sets.

All summer long I'd thought something was wrong with the plant at the back of the garden. But those leaves wrinkled and rolled up because that's what Brussels sprouts do.

I'd done everything trying to stop the plant from becoming what it was - Brussels sprouts. I tried to do what only God can do, change its basic nature.

Remembering that "broccoli" makes me wonder: Do I ever make wrong assumption about people or circumstances?

Do I ever try to change individuals or situations from what God intended, instead of trying to be "an instrument for noble purposes, made holy, useful to the Master" (2 Timothy 2:21)?

Do I do the good thing when what's needed is the right thing?

- Jim Rawdon started gardening 50 years ago, helping his grandfather. He is a pastor retired on disability following a cycling accident, he lives and writes in Kansas City, Kansas.

If it were not for the cracked pots

An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it that caused it to leak, while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water.
At the end of the long walk from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water.
Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.
After 2 years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house."
The old woman smiled, "Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them."
"For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house."
Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it's the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them.
To all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers. And remember...........all of us aren't perfect.

garden therapy

I read this excellent post yesterday, and knew EXACTLY what the writer is saying. You may not agree with our politics, but you can probably recall a time when you just had to leave it all behind and get a little garden therapy, too.
As Joni Mitchell sang "...and we've got to get ourselves back to the garden..."

Dick Cheney Helped Me Till My Garden
by Bob Higgins
on Sat 06 May 2006

I had intended to write a piece on Cheney’s speech in Vilnius yesterday and wrestled with the idea all afternoon and through the evening, at last too tired, too disinterested in the bastard to finish reading his painfully pompous and threatening remarks much less write about it I gave up.
Finally, I posted the whole sorry thing on my blog under the title "Cheney Lets Mouth Overload Ass, Full Text" and went to bed. To sleep, perchance to wake inspired.

No Dice. This morning over coffee and in the early light of a new day, Cheney’s snoratory was just as ugly and uninspired, just as threatening and bullyish and just as arrogant as it had been the night before. The smug son of a bitch spoke for a half hour, over four thousand words and left nothing to edify, to stir the better natures of his listeners, he delivered only empty platitudes and chest thumping, self serving bombast.

I still couldn't do it, the morning was beautiful and promised only to improve with time and personal attention so I decided that I would not share this lovely day with a bloodless cyborg so I finished my coffee and went out to till my garden.

The garden was an instant cure, balm for a frustrated soul, as the tiller growled and turned the loamy soil I felt myself unwind. At the end of each pass as I turned the machine around there were robins in my earthy wake happily plundering the bounty the tiller had exposed. The breeze freshened each time the clouds eclipsed the morning sun and subsided with each clearing, stilling for a moment the music of the leaves.

I worked through the morning and into the early afternoon hoeing and raking, enjoying the aroma of the rich soil and it’s promise of fat tomatoes and fiery peppers. I’ve been cautioned to take it easy so I paced myself and rested from time to time, something I would not have done a few short months ago. I discovered that I’m not able to be manic about physical labor anymore, I’ve grown old over this long winter. Life has found me out, has discovered my secret youth and carried it off forever.

In these unaccustomed breaks I heard the hundreds, no perhaps a thousand birds who shared my morning and saw and felt them cushioned on the breeze as if held aloft on a palm of wind and I felt the sun, it’s warmth, on my arms and on my neck a comfort of spring and peace, the peace of sounds and scents and sights of earth, and spring, and God himself.

I stopped for lunch and made a sandwich, a great noble sandwich. Out of sight of any physician I piled on the salami, the cheese and the peppers, the hearty basil and fragrant oil. I scorned the mortician as I ate this tour de force, this Kervorkian delight of a sandwich, I devoured it while sitting on the deck watching the birds enjoy my morning’s labor.

How good to work without madness, with calmness an enjoyment of the thing itself, I have to learn to do this as I write, I have to learn to feel the breeze.

Cheney will wait an hour, a day, or more, and a thousand dragon windmills will wait to feel the sting of my lance. I’ll meet them on the field, as a loyal legionnaire, I’ll answer the trumpets in my soul with the same determination as always, but today Dick Cheney’s awful speech in Vilnius has helped me till my garden.

Bob Higgins

Cultivating generosity, wisdom over the years

Something in this old "gardening" article spoke to me:

Cultivating generosity, wisdom over the years
By Charles Fenyvesi
Washington Post
April 2001

WASHINGTON -- In 19 years of filing a weekly garden column, I celebrated two kinds of gardeners. An exemplar of the first kind was Frank Santamour Jr. of the U.S. National Arboretum, author of numerous scholarly studies on trees, who died last year.
He concluded that the longevity of trees is related to their ability to compartmentalize wounds.

The second kind was an adventurous gardener, such as the late Charles Thomson, a pillar of the Men's Garden Club of Montgomery County (Md.), who credited the extraordinary vigor of his daffodils and tulips to his practice of putting the bulbs an inch deeper than called for by the instructions.

People devoted to cultivating plants tend to be naturally gregarious. Sharing their know-how and presenting their arguments, they invite visitors into their private domains beyond the palisades of conventional wisdom.

Santamour's theory about wound compartmentalization holds that once the damage is done, the tree reacts so the problem (which also could be an infection or an onslaught by pests) is isolated, spreads no farther and the plant returns to its usual enterprise of growth.

Although a strict rationalist, he did not object to the metaphor that at least some trees have a kind of central authority that evolved a system to cope with problems. He would not call it wisdom, and he would have hated to be taken for a druid.
Look at the empirical side, Santamour would emphasize: The mechanism for proper compartmentalization is in a narrow collar around a limb or a branch as it grows out of the trunk or another limb or branch. Therefore, we must not saw off a limb or a branch flush, but leave something like a clerical collar around the growth we remove.
Thomson's thinking also fitted into a larger vision of plant life. But he distrusted science as "only partial truth or truth-in-becoming." To him, the garden was not just a testing ground but reality itself. He was a whimsical gardener who loved the biblical story of a seemingly dead almond staff rooting itself in the soil and bursting into bud and bloom.
I think he accepted me as a friend when I cited an even wilder analogy: Moses turning his staff into a snake, and then making a point with the Pharaoh by having that snake devour the other snakes that the Pharaoh's magicians conjured up the same way.

Almost everything in the garden depends on the gardener, Thomson used to say, but first the soil must be made ready: deep dug and enriched constantly. His daffodil and tulip bulbs and their numerous offsets cradled in the deep earth would have choked for lack of oxygen or drowned when waterlogged if he had not added manure and compost to a depth of 2feet. The stalks seemed to rise out of his bulbs as effortlessly as if the medium had been soft, uniform sand rather than upgraded clay.
He much preferred to unlock what he believed were the treasures of clay, and he did not like the idea of adding to what he called the bottomless pit of nutrient-poor sand.

The garden is the space where the tangible and the metaphoric shift back and forth, and the demands of soil and soul, humdrum routine and magical exception run parallel and then intersect, again and again.

One secret I learned is to dig deeper and keep devising ways to improve the soil, the part of the world that is in our hands. And when the time comes for transplanting, we must make the new site even more hospitable than the old.

This was Charles Fenyvesi's final column for The Washington Post.

Happy May Day

Remember when kids used to make May Baskets out of construction paper to hang on neighbor's doors? Filling special baskets with dandelions, violets, and whatever garden flowers mom let us pick, we made a connection with Spring that kids seem to miss these days.
Linda P. sent me a message reminding me of a story that went around a few years ago, so here it is:

The Daffodil Principle

Several times my daughter had telephoned to say, "Mother, you must come see the daffodils before they are over." I wanted to go, but it was a two-hour drive from Laguna to Lake Arrowhead.
"I will come next Tuesday," I promised, a little reluctantly, on her third call.
Next Tuesday dawned cold and rainy. Still, I had promised, and so I drove there. When I finally walked into Carolyn's house and hugged and greeted my grandchildren, I said, "Forget the daffodils, Carolyn! The road is invisible in the clouds and fog, and there is nothing in the world except you and these children that I want to see bad enough to drive another inch!" My daughter smiled calmly and said, "We drive in this all the time, Mother."
"Well, you won't get me back on the road until it clears, and then I'm heading for home!" I assured her.
"I was hoping you'd take me over to the garage to pick up my car." "How far will we have to drive?" "Just a few blocks," Carolyn said. "I'll drive. I'm used to this." After several minutes, I had to ask, "Where are we going? This isn't the way to the garage!"
"We're going to my garage the long way," Carolyn smiled, "by way of the daffodils." "Carolyn," I said sternly, "please turn around." "It's all right, Mother, I promise. You will never forgive yourself if you miss this experience." After about twenty minutes,we turned onto a small gravel road and I saw a small church. On the far side of the church, I saw a hand lettered sign that read, "Daffodil Garden."
We got out of the car and each took a child's hand, and I followed Carolyn down the path. Then, we turned a corner of the path, and I looked up and gasped. Before me lay the most glorious sight. It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it down over the mountain peak and slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns great ribbons and swaths of deep orange, white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, saffron, and butter yellow.
Each different colored variety was planted as a group so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue.There were five acres of flowers. "But who has done this?" I asked Carolyn. "It's just one woman," Carolyn answered. "She lives on the property. That's her home." Carolyn pointed to a well kept A frame house that looked small and modest in the midst of all that glory. We walked up to the house. On the patio, we saw a poster.
"Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking" was the headline.
The first answer was a simple one. "50,000 bulbs," it read.
The second answer was, "One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and very little brain."
The third answer was, "Began in 1958."
There it was, The Daffodil Principle.
For me, that moment was a life-changing experience.
I thought of this woman whom I had never met, who, more than forty years before, had begun one bulb at a time-to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountain top. Still, just planting one bulb at a time, year after year, had changed the world.
This unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived.
She had created something of ineffable (indescribable) magnificence, beauty, and inspiration.
The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of celebration. That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time often just one baby step at a time-and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time.
When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.
"It makes me sad in a way," I admitted to Carolyn. "What might I have accomplished if I had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it 'one bulb at a time' through all those years. Just think what I might have been able to achieve!"
My daughter summed up the message of the day in her usual direct way.
"Start tomorrow," she said.