small gardens & small government

  "I am the captain of my ship!"   So said the ant as he stood on the cork bobbing in the middle of the Pacific ocean.  "I've done my exercises, harvested that seaweed, and prayed my Rosary. The weather is calm, and I skirted that storm. I am indeed healthy wealthy and wise." Slowly, the camera pulled back to a satellite like perspective. First revealing 8 billion other ants  scattered on bits of flotsam and debris. Slowly opening to continents and a planet and finally a solar system  and our Universe.    The death of my niece Lisa has left me feeling a bit small. The YouTube videos I linked above left me feeling a bit like that ant, captain of my ship but master of oh so little. Lisa died after a long battle with cancer. I have no great wisdom about death or Lisa's life. I know intellectually that death will come to all of us. I admire Lisa for either accepting or ignoring that reality and in her final year marrying a good man, Ira, and getting some o...

I don't know! Really, I don't know! My tomato starts are horribly small. That may be a comparative thing having seen the size and vigor of the local farm stores $1 tomato plants. Additionally, the local Master Gardener's sale is coming up, again, $1 beautiful plants. I've tried over the years to be more self-sufficient by growing and even selling my own starts along with growing heirloom varieties so the seeds would be true to type. I blame the soil for my lousy starts but.... In my Denver garden I was able to simply fill pots with some of my compost add the seeds and cover them with a 1/4 inch of commercial organic seed starting mix. Since moving   here I've been busy terracing the south-side of our house with raised beds and filling them with anything that vaguely resembled soil. When time came to start seeds there wasn't even a smidge of half finished compost to be had. Yup, I admit it I bought a bag of that crap they sell at Lowes. Or in my best Clintonesque...

  Walking in Memphis by Marc Cohn is to my mind among the finest pieces of music and evocative songs ever created. It's playing on the stereo as I begin typing. A mellow start to a day that began way too abrupt and early. You can't startle awake at 4 am on Valentines Day, crank the stereo and start banging pans in the kitchen. Thus I grabbed the dogs and went for a good long walk in the light mist and predawn street lights. Peaceful!   Less peaceful has been the world in which we live. You can make up a litany, as good as I can, of world events that by themselves would be the talk of the proverbial water cooler. Lately a scan of my various electronic water cooler stories have been something of a tsunami. I think it's a time to step back.   As a person who has long expected a zombie apocalypse I have to say I think we are in the storm now, at least the financial and political pieces of that expectation. I don't think the nature of this time in the storm makes it possibl...

   I had never met Michael Cloud in person. I was waiting for him, beside the Harry Browne for President table at the Colorado Libertarian convention. While I waited I neatly fanned out the brochures and other material Michael had sent. A short ugly little man started to rifle the items on the table. As the only volunteer near enough to protect these items I stepped forward and challenged him with a "HI!" Just to let him know he was being watched. It was of course Michael.    Michael is a world class salesman, a beautiful human, and a fine looking man. Yeah, like many of us he packed himself a knapsack full of rocks to carry on this march through life. Of course, who but a masochist would create for themselves the job of teaching Libertarians to "let the nice people take the brochures - we're trying to give away"! I credit Michael, Joe Johnson and a few other wise souls with teaching me to sometimes, just sometimes, shut up and take yes for an answer.    L...

   I started this morning in the usual way and the not usual way. Yeah I walked the dogs. Well actually the dog, just Cooper. Carrie, our youngest, was quite clear she didn't want to go. It was cold so hopefully that was it. Could have been, heck, I don't know! Coop and I had a nice normal walk around the neighborhood. Him marking everything and me picking up trash. Yesterday's wind had blown quite a bit into the woods along our path. I long ago decided that seeing trash on my walks harshes my mellow. As I go similar routes on my walks with the dogs, if I leave the trash there it will be there tomorrow and again and again. Picking it up is a minor hassle but future me will be happier.   In addition to figuring this bit out about happiness I had a thought about what I'll have to call cause and effect. That's not the exact phrase but it will do for now! The wind causes trash to blow but cause and effect has something of a backflow valve intrinsic to it. More exactly m...

  In the forward to his book TALKING TO THE MOON, John Joseph Mathews' widow describes the book as his Walden. I wouldn't know as every time I tried to read Walden I gave up. Too dense, too deep, too flowery and poetic to read. Perhaps I'll have to try again as this morning I finished Mathews' book about the Osage. At about 5 this morning alone in the family room reading the penultimate chapter, I got it. Mathews had made me struggle for literal weeks on end through enough renewals that I was sure the library was going to say - no more! I struggled both because there were bits of prose that were inspired but also out of a sense of duty. You should know about where you live. A native seed sprouts when the time is right. I've transplanted myself to NE Oklahoma, the Osage, and thus have to dig a hole for my roots. With a little nurturing and time I'll grow beyond that hole.   I thought it appropriate that I "got it" and finished as a storm wa...