Skip to main content

bit more on Three Little Birds

While walking the dogs I thought about what the world would look like if our President had my schedule.

8:00 am make coffee
8:05 am drink coffee and read emails and various websites make note to ask how to unsubscribe from Reason magazine (how did they get my email?)
9:00 am walk dogs
9:30 am check investments online and try to get an answer about why gold isn't      $10,000/oz considering the debt and everything else.
10:00 go to gym try to get up to 7 miles on the bike and burn off 12 calories to make up for that whole pizza you ate last night (why did Melania just have one piece didn't she know I'd finish it?) hit steam room you deserve it!
11:00 play a bit of Civilization Call to Power (original version) as a reward for going to gym. (try to figure out how to sneak up on the Vikings - maybe check with DOD on thoughts)
12:00 weed garden. Call Michelle ask her if she had problems with that area where the arugula is planted also check with NSA see if they have any thoughts on that spot? Email ICE ask whats holding up the visa for the gardener (last guy didn't have to pull his own weeds!)
1:00 drink ice tea and read some of that book on relationships Melania wants you to read.
1:05 finish ice tea and think about building a new wall for the asparagus.
1:30 clean up dog poop in the rose garden - mow roses down!
2:00 play a bit more Civilization Call to Power as a reward for not mowing roses down and instead trimming out the dead.  call Surgeon General to see about getting more neosporin for 'rose wounds'.
3:00 start pizza dough in bread machine for State dinner with Italians. (check with State Dept. how many people again?)
4:00 clean West Wing and Kitchen
5:00 Play a little more Civilization Call to Power as reward for clearing your to do list. (finish before Melania gets home!)
5:30 watch news call Rachael Maddow to see if she wants to get lunch tomorrow (Clear with Melania!)
6:30 see whats on TV
8:00ish Greet Melania and ask her how work was (remind her of State dinner with Italians ask her if she thinks a salad would be a good idea)
10:00 State dinner (damn they eat late!)
try to get Kimmel to send you his monologue on VHS if dinner goes long. Call Ivanka see if she can set up Tivo(sp?)
11:00 ish  go to bed. dream about conquering world (on Call to Power!;~)
  

Comments

  1. I actually did build an asparagus wall last year. It was made with some 3-foot tall fencing, in the same manner as those gabion rock walls. Except there are no rocks in my asparagus wall. This fencing wall encloses all my dead corn stalks and other assorted compost. The asparagus wall is on the north side of my asparagus bed, right up against the stalks and over the roots. The idea is that as the corn stalks and other compost material gradually and naturally break down, it feeds the asparagus. That wall also defines the north side of the asparagus wall, and smothers weeds on that side. I now only weed the south side of the asparagus bed. Actually before the wall made of fencing, I had an asparagus wall that was defined by bales of straw. The straw wall held up nicely for a couple years as it decomposed in place. That straw wall inspired me to build an improved asparagus wall last year.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Kelly thanks for reading and commenting. I had to look up gabion walls to be sure I knew what they were, thanks for putting a name on them for me! Part of what I like about gardening and perhaps a topic for a future blog is the creative people like yourself. This seems an especially creative use of slow to compost material like corn stalks. Doing the right thing at the right time is gardening doing it so as to get multiple benefits from the same action approaches art.
      Largest gabion wall I every saw being built was years ago in Costa Rica. In essentially the middle of nowhere there were these 3 guys tossing rocks the size of your head one to the next. The top guy was dropping them into a heavy wire cage. The cage was being built alongside the road as a giant retaining wall for a section of the mountain that had obviously been a landslide problem in the past. Since watching that day I've no need to ever speculate (like you see on TV) about how the Mayans built their temples and walls. My brother calls it Mayan construction AKA bloody hard physical work done without complaint 'cause that is simple what needs to be done.

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Eat Pray Love

    Adam woke, to a sense of clarity. He felt like the the threads of the universe were connecting through his body. Every bird was sitting while he identified their call. Every word that he read fit like a puzzle piece in his mind. The air itself seemed more, more right. A manic morning and a time to avoid sharp tools? The pleasant hangover of a evening alone with Eve? Inhale deeply the morning air but tread lightly. The future was not mans to know! He no longer lived in The Garden. Yet he felt he could touch it. His arm, almost not his, reaching through a gossamer veil touching... Not the future, not truth, not any word that small more - je ne sais pas... more.   The peas were popping and the garlic and onions were reviving from their winter trials. So it was spring or perhaps a false spring as tomorrow would allow March to announce itself as either a lamb or a lion. But what would a wise man do on a perfect spring day. On a day when he could feel the universe coursing...

Eating hope

 Adam sat in the sun huddled under a blanket Eve had knitted. Scattered to his right and left a sketch of his new garden and a half dozen seed catalogs. Eve called these his garden porn. To grow a garden you have to guess the future and act in the present. Importantly, that begins with a guess. Some parts were clear; the average last frost, which plants could survive frost, the needed indoor start time for those and the later plants. That schedule had to be married to the best guess of what he wanted to grow and what might grow, again a guess. Once past the guessing a brief bit of pleasure gathering the seeds and ordering what was missing.   Adam looked at the sketch and knew from past experience this was about as good as his garden would look. Sure there might be some unexpected wins, a seed or plant that surprised. The unexpected wins would be more than offset by bad weather, pests, or just hopes that never blossomed. Poppies make heroin. Hope is like heroin. Last year ...

Bad Boys

The Buddhist monk Thicht Nat Han offers a mindfulness meditation using breathing. Like most things I've bastardized it to the point that I'd hate to have to tell him I got it from him as he might raise a skeptical eyebrow. While walking the dogs I try to take a deep breathes in and remind myself that I am receiving good from the world around me. Than I breathe out and try to remind myself that I give good to the world. Some days my sinuses are acting up and I don't breathe so well. Today is one of those days!    The weather is heavy gray with a steady wet spring snow coming down. We need the moisture so intellectually I'm happy but my mood is as gray as the clouds. The locus of the funk is politics but I'm smart enough to know that the root is firmly sprouted from a compost of life's little detritus. I'm surrounded by sickness and poor health. I love my dogs. Thus Callie's showing her age is a little nibble at my psyche. On Deb's recent trip to visi...

Bleeping grackles

 I've just spent the last 15 minutes searching bird guides on-line and on paper to try to figure out what is nesting in the grape arbor.  It looks like a nuthatch or wren that has dressed to go to work for UPS.  It's incredibly tiny and quite cute but clearly not one to be pushed around.  When I first saw it at the beginning of summer it was trying to take over a bird house I had created out of an old boot.  Some chickadees had moved in and I was thrilled to see the house used.  The chickadees had dutifully carried a boots worth of material from the yard to their nest.  At a moment when both the male and female were out collecting material my little UPS bird 'discovered' the boot.  He sat at the hole pulling material out.  Clearly their tastes in furnishings were different you could almost see him (her?) shaking his head "this straw with those drapes - come on!".  The chickadees returned and a battle royal ensued with it ending with two ...

The tomatoes are red the gardener is blue

 I'm stuck in a loop. I think that's what software programmers call it. I know the roots of this hopelessness are firmly planted in the utter destruction of our cabin and property in the forest fire that I alluded to in the last blog's prologue. Knowing the source of a polluted stream doesn't really help if your just wallowing in it. It's the wallowing that is the loop. A sporadic series of should haves and could haves that leave you so second guessed out that I've got little mental energy to accomplish all but the littlest things. Musically speaking I got da blues!   The music is Billie Holiday - Lady in Autumn.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Npoe5XeeMYE&list=PLbYb5_Imn1rsDMoIU38jxi_O0aRaYj4CG 'cause given my mood - well, it was the obvious choice.   If you're a libertarian like me it's hard not to on occasion reflect on a woman who's life included heroin abuse, alcohol abuse, abusive relationships and died at 44. The line between libert...

Sandcastles

  Hey all, I am literally surrounded by life. The window in front of my desk looks out to my garden. The garden is lush green with knee high garlic and potato-onions, flowering arugula and crimson clover, along with second runs of spinach and cilantro getting ready to pick. Beside me under a grow light is a tray of tiny tomatoes, eggplant, peppers, sage, melons and squash. Lord the squash! Thinking the seed was old I heavily over seeded the little pots. I should be so vigorous in my old age. The thinning will be a problem but that is for another day. For now I needed to clear the pile of seed packets off the laptop and write. Write while Deb pulls dinner and a batch of cookies together in the kitchen and the dogs settle from our walk.  Yup, surrounded by life but on a maudlin day. Last night and this morning was strong rain and the rest of the day has been a heavy grey overcast. It is the day before Easter which by Christian tradition is a day of joy. The Gospel accounts which...

Place your bets

  Adam was filling his water tank. More exactly, Adam was draining his water tank onto the compost pile while the rain was filling it and threatening to overflow the tank. Spring is a complicated time. Early spring is a dance with winter. Plant out too early and the plants will die or go into shock and actually take longer to grow. The spinach which poked up is great for an evening salad but it might stunt the onions it surrounds if allowed to grow too much. Leave the water tank to fill and overflow and the adjacent wood chips will wash down the hill. Leave the the drain open you capture no water for the dry weeks ahead. - Time to check the tank level. He put his hat on and walk in the rain.    The rain had been gentle and steady. Even with the drain open there was some overflow but nothing disastrous. Adam thought of the line from that sitcom long in the future, Mad About You. The wife is trying to get the husband to admit he was wrong. After many iterations he finally s...

Tommy the Turtle tours Tulsa

  As I slowed for the stoplight on the 4 lane I was inspired. The gym had been drudgery. To be done and now done. The library didn't have the book I was looking for but I grabbed some others. But there, there at the edge of the lane, making one of those comical steps that turtles make, was a small turtle raising his foot to triumphantly step on the white finish-line. I broke into a smile sharing in his Olympic moment. As traffic started to move I thought about jumping out to move him to the grass on the shoulder. But would that confuse him and cause him to turn around?! I looked in the mirror as I drove away. No one was being an idiot and driving over the line. The little guy was trudging off no fist pumps or premature celebrations for him just steady doing it. Me, I drove the rest of the way home smiling and thinking Yeah, just yeah!  This morning he came by the house. Or at least I think it was him, tough to tell with turtles. I did the math we're a good bit from the proverb...

Three Little Birds

  It's Saturday the day before Mother's day so I'll start with a little eye candy for the ladies.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8nm_jvE_Xs   Jake is essentially the MSNBC (vs say Fox) version of the youtube movie I shared last time "Back to Eden" which emphasizes wood chip based gardening.  While the whole video is worth watching I especially liked his gardening philosophy which he touches on around the 10 minute mark.   Got to jump off topic (quelle surprise!) Jimmy Cliff has me boogieing to Let Your Yeah Be Yeah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDp_7kSli0w   Jake's 'just start making mistakes' philosophy is akin to my own.  I can't tell you how many gardening books (Permaculture books are the worst) devote chapter after chapter to 'creating your plan'.  Yeah I would have killed a lot fewer plants and my fruit trees would have been planted years ago not to mention a quality watering system.  No doubt people with 5 year life plans ...

We'll see

Hi all, just finished walking the dogs, Deb's off to work, and the cat is chasing a cat toy up and down the hall.  While walking the dogs I was put in a mood for James Taylor's Sweet Baby James.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXVg07t1HCE The line in the song "the Berkshires seemed dreamlike on account of that frosting" matched the mood of a gentle walk after the snow.  Green Mountain (the hill just to our west) looked like you could ski it, and the real mountains further to the west were well...dreamlike on account of that frosting.  It was brisk and sunny with all the promise of spring in the smell of the air.  Just snuck away for a moment to take the frost blankets off of the new cherry tree and concord grape.  I had taken the covers off the strawberry plants early this morning but the cherry and grape are shaded a bit so it seemed to make sense to wait till the sun warmed things up a bit. I'll put the tomatoes out in another hour to continue hardening...