notes from the bunker

Read any good books lately? I'd offer two that are on my mind. Atomic Habits by James Clear and Antifragile by Nassim Taleb.
  Atomic Habits is essentially a how to book on getting rid of bad habits and making good habits easier to acquire. It's brain hacking to get you from "I have to" to "I get to". Like most how to books it is more something to practice. Thus while I read it from the library Deb is getting me two copies (let me know if you want to borrow one.) and I signed up for his free website. I have a few bad habits I should ditch and a few good ones I need to add. Perhaps you do also.
  Antifragile is more a hm-mm thinking philosophic book. It's philosophy has some real connections to our current Corona virus world. Mr Taleb divides 'things' into three categories, fragile, resilient, and anti fragile. Fragile things break when they get impacted (think eggs being dropped). Resilient things absorb a shock and bounce back (think rubber tires) Anti-fragile things actually benefit from being jostled or impacted (think - OH heck just read the book and don't try to cheat and get the cliffs notes version. It's worth the brain cells!)
  Just as I begin some rain is moving in. I'm taking a short break to bring in some early plant starts I'm hardening off.   Also putting down the plastic on a little row cover I built the other day. It is way too early to be gardening here but a combination of Colorado's fine weather and perhaps a bit of Corona mania has bewitched me.
  Nothing too crazy out in the garden just yet. Some garlic poking their noses up along with a few fall planted onions. But with rain and a full moon tonight and tomorrow I did plant some snow peas. I also expanded these just a bit further down my fence with the hope for a bigger crop. During my last shopping trip I stocked up on veggies, just in case, but realized fresh veggies don't last. Thus I was inspired to start in our sunroom a mix of cold hardy greens, mizuna, spinach, arugula, and lettuce. I'd never in the past done more with these than put the seeds out and let 'em sprout when they knew it was their time. Gardening shouldn't be a battle with nature it should be a dance, but a dance with a purpose. With it coming up on time to start my tomatoes and a host of other plants in our sunroom space is tight. These early greens needed to go outside. Thus a few old political yardsign frames, a scrap of plastic hiding in the garage, and a few bricks will be their home till we see how March progresses.  

Bob Marley's Three Little Birds is playing. I went with Reggae to ease my writing fingers back into practice but also as a reminder I'll tie in below.

  So far March has come in like the proverbial lamb. Deb and I just got back from a walk with Cooper (our dog) along Bear Creek. It was a gorgeous Sunday morning capping a week of each more beautiful days. With the rain expected this afternoon a walk was a minimum requirement for a Coloradan. Coop and I had hit the same walk yesterday a bit later in the day it was every bit as beautiful but had a few 'Colorado trail jams'. A trail jam is when every Coloradan worth their sneakers is walking the dog, jogging, running, hiking or biking and you all meet at a small bridge. Worse than the loss of social distancing we're all supposed to be practicing is the loss of that feeling of the world is all mine. Ah yes, I remember people, society, politeness,"No, no after you!". Not saying I can't color within those lines but there is a personal creative space that is needed - to be. If only for a bit, it's nice when those lines don't exist.
  Last time I used Marley's Three Little Birds in a piece was a when a nasty hail storm had wiped out my spring garden. As I was motivated to write by the world's current little Corona storm I thought it would be a good look back. I originally conceived today's piece in my head after turning down a social opportunity by glibly stating that I "had closed the hatch door on the bunker". That remark blossomed into a vision of Deb and I hunkered down in our old 1980's 20 ft RV high in the Colorado Rockies. Deb would be melting snow in a big pot. I'd be jabbering on the CB radio with some other band of survivors. Cooper would be wondering when lunch was and the cat would no doubt be trying to decide who should be eaten first if she 'had to'. The perfect little post apocalyptic family. Heck in my vision the Allman Bros were even looping on the 8 track.
 The thought of the 8 track got a laughing snort out of me and I had to come back to reality. The RV was now a little piece of garden art of melted aluminum. Literally melted in the fire that took our cabin and a couple of counties of Colorado forest. I'd have to ride out this storm in the 'burbs. Doesn't have quite the cachet or likelihood of being turned into a Netflix series.
 With Netflix likely off the table I thought a good comedy routine poking fun at all things Corona related was an obvious possibility. This also was quickly nipped when a local very liberal Denver City Council woman tweeted that if she got the virus she was going to a MAGA rally. I laughed, having said much worse, (thankfully before tweeting existed!) but the local liberal-lite media was horrified. Clearly, we were supposed to be freaked out not laughing. Ya gotta read the crowd!  So nix also on the N-95 masks with the the Colorado flag on 'em. (show your Colorado pride even though your license plate says California!) But, damn it I'm holding the line at Halloween! The first kid that comes to the door in a Corona virus costume gets the whole bowl of candy.
 Laughter is the best medicine. Better still if it's mixed with a bit of memory and perspective, and yeah a lot easier to laugh if you did some prepping. The time to be out in a crowd literally rubbing elbows looking for hand sanitizer is past. Preparing is something you do in advance. It's kinda part of the etymology of the word.
 The memory and perspective parts are easy to use as excuses to not prepare or deny that anything bad could happen. Deb and I have had our share of storms to weather and we've also had our share and perhaps more of sunny beautiful days. I'm sure if you look at your life you'll likely find a similar balance.  BUT I have no memory or perspective of the 1918 flu or how I should compare it to say the annual flu. I could tell you some things you should do if you own a cabin in the woods in a record drought. I can tell you about how to be resilient as a gardener in a place which has hail. Thus memory can only take you so far in being resilient. The Stoics would offer the perspective - we're all going to die. The sooner you move beyond that the better you can enjoy the moment. Yet those same Stoics who would tell you not to worry about what you can't control would remind you of what you do control. Thus so to perspective can only take you so far in being resilient.
 Actually, I think perhaps most of our ability to be resilient is a looking back in different ways. If your ancestors were killed and pogrom-ed out of their homes multiple times, you'd likely value easily portable wealth like education. A person who has survived a violent attack is more likely to learn self defense or carry a gun. Have your cabin burn down without insurance and you'll be on the phone with your somewhat confused agent demanding that they raise your home coverage.  Garden gets nailed by a hail storm and you'll be pricing and comparing covers and greenhouses. After the fact we're all quite good at thinking "it's not silly it's just good sense". Reading the tea leaves of the future, that's hard.
 It's hard because there is essentially none of the positive feedback that's needed to reinforce a habit. Go to McDonald's drive thru and they'll hand you a bag filled with genetically encoded positive feedback.  Go to the gym to prepare your good health and you get a few atta boys before you get hit by the bus. A year ago prepare a deep pantry to weather a possible quarantine from a pandemic and you're standing over in the tinfoil hat corner of the cocktail party.
 That I guess is part of why gardening appeals to me. Jack Nicholson's character in As Good As It Gets overcomes Helen Hunt's characters reticence about going out to walk at the crack of dawn. He says, I saw a bakery down the street they should be opening soon. We could just be two people who like warm rolls. Gardening is "warm rolls" it's a bridge between wearing a tinfoil hat and social acceptable preparing for a possibility.
  My fear is that as we come out of whatever this current future is we'll 'learn' that no one could possibly prepare for 'that' except government. That would quickly allow those who want to give us a McDonald's bag of security to take our money and our civil liberties.  My hope is that we will look at our own resilience and say "I could do better". Decide to control that which we can control and have some real money put aside, some health in the bank, some just in case food in the pantry, and a garden in the backyard. Nope won't make you rich and won't protect you against all the possibilities that could come. That is a journey from resilient to anti-fragile and perhaps a bridge too far to hope for. Let's just remember resilience is mostly within our control.