Toughest challenge for gardeners in the NE?

My good friend from Sharon, MA tells a great story about living down South wnhen her husband was in the military. She went into a store asking for yarn (yahn) and the clerk was directing her to an iron (iahn). Of course this story is much funnier in audio.
Dave

LOL, GRENTHUMBS :) That's the FIRST thing I noticed when moving south - it's like they're all in slow motion!!! I used to get so antsy in the checkout lines at the grocery stores and Walmart, seemed like all the clerks were so darned slow! Another odd thing I noticed is that all their entry doors are backwards! Could it be that I'm "bass ackwards"? Maybe considering my French Canadian heritage :)

Oh, Dener! You aah wicked funny!

You know, we transplanted midwesterners can't figure out anything - it took me two years to find out what a packy was and why everyone was going there every weekend!

When we moved to Ct., I would ask everyone how long it took to feel comfortable here, how long before you were a real Yankee. They all said that you NEVER became a true New Englander!
So, a few years ago, this woman was standing in the door of the movie theater my DH and I were trying to enter. She was blabbing to some guy right in the middle of the glass doors leading into the lobby. There was no way anyone could squeeze through. A crowd of people was starting to form behind us so my DH sort of snuck in behind her, and I said "Excuse me" and walked in front of her. She started screaming at me, "You New Englanders are so rude! Can't you see I was talking? BlahBlahBlah....." I ran home that night and told my dad. It takes twenty years to become a rude New Englander!

Ivy, i think its pronounced New Englandah but yeah it sounds like you fit in now! Hurray for short tempered rudeness! (just kidding, I do not condone being a rotten person just to fit in)

rcn, I'm 1/4 Canook, myself. Could that be where I got my ability to tweek when someone isn't moving fast enough for me? I start getting bent then the 1/4 Italian comes out and I start talking with my hands, having to put what ever I was holding down, and while I am a New Englandah, born and raised, that one year I spent in FL., starts coming out of my mouth when I get angry, or spend more than a few minutes talking or listening to any one from down south. My husband thinks I have a personality disorder...poor guy...

Working was fun today, I nearly got hit by a car in the parking lot of Shaws, then I couldn't see to drive home cuz the sun was so bright on all the snow, the glare was so intense, it made me eyes water. Its so good to be home!

Hey- I hope I didn't just offend everyone on this thread by implying that all New Englanders are rude! I just thought it was funny that the non-New England lady was the rudist one of all, standing there blocking the doorway! And I am very proud to consider myself a "rude" New Englandah!

Dena- We visited my sis in California last year, and I gotta tell you that place is not for me. People are just take things very leisurely. And the freeway - AAAAAGGGHHH! Talk about slow... I couldn't stand the way people just line up on the road and wait. Made me appreciate all the back roads and shortcuts here.

As slow as other places are, they do have something we don't... they take the time to say "hi, how u doin". Around here I find that saying hello to a stranger gets me a dirty look, or the sideways glance. This area seems to be in such a rush, that folks forget how to be nice. I go out of my way to say hi to people, and be kind, possibly even helpful. I watch people alot and if you notice sometime when your out and about, every one is either so wrapped up in what they are doing, or they are looking at their shoes while manuvering through their lives. I refuse to miss an opportunity to meet an interesting plant, flower, or person just cuz someone MIGHT give me a funny look, judge me for having dirt under my fingernails, or because they may have noticed me talking to the lovely foliage plant in the flower section in the supermarket. I might scare people, then again I might make a new friend, either way, I'm not missing ANYTHING, just cuz SOME folks are suspicious, or are in to much of a hurry to bother. So in the end I have come to the conclution that slowing down a bit might be a good thing, however I still find myself on the side of in a hurry, and quick to get miffed if someone is moving much to slow when doing a task I could do twice as fast and that much better.

I think I scare a lot of people at the grocery store or at school because I can't keep from talking to them! I get a lot of people who give me that sidelong glance thinking I am a nut case! I always talk to someone who has a nice garden. My DH (a born Yankee) scurries off in embarassment as a strike up conversations.

I think your attitude is great!

Hee Hee, Thanx Ivy, I think you are WICKED COOL!

psst, HEY!
if you are a Dunkin Dounuts junkie like my self, and are into recycling.....
D&D makes a wonderful beverage called the ice latte, I get the med, with whipped cream on top, comes with this cool dome shaped lid, and while sipping this bit of heaven, it occured to me how much this cup looked like a teeny tiny green house, possibly good for starting seeds????

I am now the proud owner of an apple tree seedling growing nicely in this container.....note...one must put their own holes in the bottom of the cup...

just thought I would share.....

edit to say...my stupid is showing! Donuts

This message was edited Feb 13, 2006 4:29 PM

GRENTHUMBS, "1/4 Italian comes out and I start talking with my hands" - I thought that was the French in me!! LOL As for talking to strangers, my daughter used to get so embarassed in the grocery store when I'd strike up a conversation with someone, and if it happened to be a male, she'd accuse me of flirting -geez!!!

Dave, sorry, seems like we've hijacked your thread! Back to the subject at hand, I posted my comments about rocks, but the short growing season always killed me. We lived in a "hollow" where the last frost would usually occur around the first of June and the the first frost around Labor Day! Made it extremely difficult to grow tomatoes. I sure used to make alot of green tomato pickles :)

Ivy, GREN, I talk to strangers all the time. Usually 25 words of less. Get strange looks less often than you'd think.
I think it comes from living with a dog and not expecting a response. LOL
I don't talk to plants, though.
Andy P

Funny - no one ever knows where I come from. Seems I don't really have a New York [Yawk] accent, and I seem to pick up the slang where ever I am pretty quickly. I also don't have a problem understanding anyone - even non-americans with heavy accents. I always wind up being the translator. The only time I really speak fast is if I'm late or have to go to the bathroom real bad. My grandmother always taught me to smile and say hello, because you never know who's day you could brighten. I don't even beep the horn if the person in front of me doesn't go when the light turns green - unless they sit there for, like 5 minutes....

Funny though - I do notice some of the quirks about native New Yawkers -
1- 'These are mines, not yoorz'
2- Samantha is 'Samanta'
3- 'Whatz amatta?'
4- Of course everything is F-in this..etc
5- AY! Wuddya doin?

..just a few that came to mind.

i commit #3
and #5 blame it on the kids, they make my Italian come out. : )

LOL

rcn, hijack away! I'm having a blast following this thread.
I grew up in East Haven, Ct. People don't sound New Englandy that close to New Haven. In fact, its more like a slice of the Bronx. (eg: "use tree don't know nuttin" or you 3 guys don't know anything). People are Yankee fans (probably because they had so many Italian players). And the word for people who are 1/4 Italian is "Irish"

Maybe we can consider overcoming accents as one of the challenges to gardening in New England.

Dave, maybe that's why I slip into "Youz Guize" now and then.
Before I moved to West Haven, I lived in Norwalk. Late '60s.
I grew up in New Hampshire and never picked up the "Cahh in the Pahhk".
Andy P

Edited to say:
I think the "Cahh in the Pahhk" thing is limited to Eastern MA and RI.

This message was edited Feb 13, 2006 7:14 PM

i would have to agree Andy, seems as though it stuck to MA & RI.

I'm not Irish, but the other 1/2 I haven't shared with youz guyz is split up like this, 1/4 Scottish and 1/4 English, I'm very mixed up.....

a real mutt, eh? I, on the other hand am pure German. Probably explains my stubborn streak..and my mother doesn't understand why I didn't get the obsessive cleaning gene...

woof!

I'm French/Canadian. Had to learn English when I started school.
French was spoken all the time.
Andy P

My Grammy gram speaks French at me when I get her going, shes funny cuz after a few minutes she realizes I'm giggling at her and hardly understand what she is saying

she says something sounds like.....tate a piush


edit to say, i hope thats thick head and not sh*t head

This message was edited Feb 13, 2006 7:54 PM

I'm sure she says it in a loving way........
Crack me up, Are you "hard headed"?
Andy P

I looked it up . tête épaisse is definitely thick head. Fun website as an international reference. http://www.freetranslation.com/

okay --- I'll join in. Far as I know, I'm French Cannuk and Native American. (just wish I knew which tribes). Both pairs of great grandparents came here from Quebec, but one of my grandparents (mother's father) was "born out of wedlock", so it gets kind of hard trying to trace the family tree. On top of that, my great grandmother ran a speak-easy (and possibly a brothel) so who knows where I came from? (Lest you get the wrong idea, I think it's a hoot! No problem for me to talk about it. I'd much rather my ancester be a madam than a horse thief.)

ah, so I was correct...umm yes Andy I can be, just as she is.
I can also understand her when she asks for toast and a cup of tea.
And when she asks me to pick her some cucumbers and a few other things from her garden. And when she yells at me for useing a cake mix and frosting from the store instead of making my own...

She frequently tells me to shut up
and one other thing she says something sounds like...moodsie then grumbles something I never get

I miss my grandmother..she let me get away with everything, made me cookies and called me Schatzie all the time. She would always slip me $5 and say it was for stockings.

GREN, "moodsie" is a word that is not allowed on DG........ LOL
My older sister still says that.
Andy P

OH NO!!!!!
SORRY!!!!


Oh, my Gram is gonna love this....wait till i tell her I swore cuz I was repeating somthing she said, she will have to go to the bathroom and glue her dentures back in.

GREN, Stop that!!! You're killing me.....

McCool, I love the old stories.
My dad would tell me that there was a minor Pirate in his ancestors, while my mom would shake her head, no.

Anita, Obviously your grams was not French Canadian. She sounds too nice.

This is fun.

Andy P

nope she was German - remember..I'm ..ahem...purebred... :-)

careful Anita, some of those pet people will hear you say that, groom you and stick you in a show....

LOL!!

How did you fare the snow Dena?

eww, snow

Is it me - or has the weather been very unpredictable and never the same from one year to the next?

Back from watching Uconn lose.
Anita, I'm also a thoroughbred. Italian in my case (we can go to war together!)
Also rhumors of a pirate in my family but best I can tell, my great -grandfather was a privateer. Surprisingly, he sailed under the authority the British flag. They would take ships and give the bounty to the King but keep a cut. Anyway, my little Italian grandma knew English when she got here because of the time they spent in England. Her husband was an "orphan" who chose his own last name.
Andy, I forgot you know something of 'Staven. East or West, they always seemed pretty similar to me.

Dave - as long as we fight together!!!

My grandmother learned english by watching her 'stories' - the soap operas..I grew up on them.

Pirates...ooohh..way cool! My family were all farmers. The first time I went to Germany I was 16 - the farm was still active. I loved getting up early and tending to the cows in the barn. It's amazing how the you nose adjusts to the aroma of the barn.....

I love family history stuff. Seems you never have to dig too deep to find a scandle.
One of my few regrets is not having learned more about my father's family. Now there was a colorful bunch!

I know alot of history of my father's family - but sadly, we don't have contact with my mother's family any longer - haven't in many years.

Was it your father's family that were privateers - or were they more colorful than that?

All the stories I have are from my Mom's side.