I'm enjoying a Zac Brown's song Toes. One of the refrains (can a song have multiple refrains?) in the song is "Life is good today!" That had to describe the feeling last night as Deb and I sat in our backyard. Yeah, yeah plenty of things to worry about but there we were in the cool of the evening watching the robin parents bring the last worms of the day to their hatchlings in our grape arbor. They had lost one of the eggs to a raid by grackles last week but had two hungry mouths to feed this night. Our own dinner was finished with the dishes stacked in the sink, a delicious salad from the garden and a salmon burger with a side of peas also from the garden. Some like worms, for me give me fresh peas with butter and salt, a cool late June evening, and my wife at my side - yeah, life is good today!
Our June has been a collection of 90° days with very little rain. After a reasonable snow pack this winter in the mountains a good portion of the state has slipped into drought and we teeter on the cusp. So yeah one more thing to worry about. Pandemics, riots and drought, Oh my! Sounds like a line from the Wizard of Oz. Thing is, mother nature asks us to choose our focus each moment. It's a question of focus 'cause I was as peaceful and happy last night in the garden as I've ever been.
I thought I was being quite good with my watering and keeping up with the dryness, till the grackles showed up. As I've described in the past the grackles show up just before the onions are ready to pull and dry. One will peck, at the onion stems and bulbs, quickly followed by a few hundred of his closest friends. I thought I'd out clevered them by allowing the Larkspur to go wild and camouflage the onion patches with beautiful displays of blue, white, and pink blooms. I figured whatever growth the onions lost to a bit less sun would be made up by less loss to the grackles. I was watering with an oscillating garden sprinkler and the flowers look spectacular so I was pretty sure I'd nailed it.
Then of course there was the morning I spied a few grackles in the grass next to the onions. No biggie, I sicced Cooper on 'em. As he full tilt ran towards the birds a huge flock rose out of the Larkspur. Oh, guess not! After a couple of days of futile human scarecrow I started pulling out the Larkspur to get to whatever remained of the onions. Thing is the ground was bone dry and almost impossible to pull the Larkspur roots - so I started clipping them. With a pile of beautiful blooming flowers quickly filling the compost piles I decided to get some bonus points with the wife and filled some large vases. Now one of the vases was clear glass and quite large so that evening when we were eating dinner I was able to notice the water all but gone. Near as I can tell the Larkspur were drinking about a 1/2 gallon of water in that one vase - everyday! So to recap Larkspur are lousy camouflage and water pigs and it was a lousy year for the onions.
The strawberries share the patch with the onions. They hit June running with strawberry pancakes, a few for salads, and topping some vanilla ice cream -Mmmm! I was feeling pretty smart but they pulled up short after one bumper harvest. There are two types of strawberries - June bearing and everbearing. I don't know for a fact as these were a gift but had from past performance assumed these were everbearing, meaning they should give a steady amount of fruit through the summer. I had assumed the big first flush would be followed by a summer of strawberries and as I said feeling pretty smart. I'm guessing clipping the Larkspur and getting them more water will turn the trick but like so much of my gardening I'm just the proverbial blind squirrel.
While admitting my skills, I might as well admit my lettuce has been virtually all volunteer. In a pandemic driven mode of fear I had for the first time ever started some lettuce indoors. I planted it out early and protected it with Wall O Water from the early freezes. All that extra effort produced a couple of heads for salads. Meanwhile, mother nature had randomly scattered some seed here and there from last years crop. We've been eating a steady supply of salads from these volunteers to the point that I saw no need to put out any seed. Well, to be clear I did plant some seed from a late season Romaine.
Romaine is my lettuce of choice when I buy lettuce at the store, but I'd never grown it. In the seeds Shawn's Mom passed on to me after his death there was an old packet of Paris Island Romaine. Lettuce seed shouldn't be viable more than 2 maybe 3 years, this was for 2017. Not needing the space for my usual early Yugoslavia Red and and a mid season Oakleaf style I scratched a few seeds in the ground. They're still small but looking quite good. It will be nice to have some lettuce that I grew when the tomatoes start kicking out their bounty.
Tomatillos, not tomatoes, is something else I'm trying on a lark and for the first time. As the seed packet said they need 100 days I started them inside also and planted them out late. The starts, when I finally put them out, looked a bit like I did in Junior High - all legs and a 26" waist. I figured I'd just stick 'em in "Oh just here" and see. No fruit yet but lots of flowers and good sturdy looking plants - we'll see!
The tomatoes are a mixed bag both in varieties and growth. The Black Krim are looking like they'll win 1st tomato honors. They might be beat out by the Silver Fir. It's a yellow from Travis' family in Siberia that have given me every problem possible over the years but won my favor with their flavor and sweetness. A new tomato for me this year is Cuore Di Bue (Italian for Ox Heart). So far it's the sucker champion but no fruit. In reading reviews it sounded quite delicious and beautiful and I was warned it was a slow starter. Perhaps not everything is a race.
There are a dozen other things going on in the garden but I don't want to go long so I'll finish up with a thought that is as close as I'll come to politics and self -government today. It was a thought that occurred to me the other day while watering my peas with water from my rain barrel. My neighbor had just gotten his water bill and shared that he'd heard Denver Water was raising prices this fall and of course our local water company was passing on not only that charge but was also raising their service fee. The thought germinated as "Boy I really need to get all my gutters hooked up to rain barrels with back ups that can store the winter precipitation". The thought really fattened up when I thought controlling your own water really is a form of wealth. A night of restless sleep fattened it up even more.
John Kenneth Galbraith was a very non libertarian economist (Harvard go figure;~). One of his theories was that time is a form of wealth. It was the underpinning of Sweden's early experiments with socialism. I won't and don't have the depth of knowledge to argue for or against that theory. But water, if mother nature doesn't give me water when and where I need it - my garden is poorer. If Denver Water really jacks the rates or our service provider builds it's new office and also jacks the fee it charges, I am again, poorer. If I've saved up a store of water I am resilient. If I control water it is a form of wealth, an asset. Just as buying a lot of spaghetti a year ago when the brand had a label change and a coupon (they were literally giving it away) is wealth in money I don't have to spend today. Wealth could be described as the power to make choices for your life. Money like some forms of wealth can be stored or saved. Currency is just an aid in some transactions.
Here tho' is where it got deeper than my little brain could think. Deb turned me on to a daily calendar of Stoic thoughts. My restless night's sleep gave way to my morning ritual of reading the daily thought. This little fortune cookie was June 18th's:
“Let Fate find us prepared and active. Here is the great soul—the one who surrenders to Fate.
The opposite is the weak and degenerate one, who struggles with and has a poor regard for the
order of the world, and seeks to correct the faults of the gods rather than their own.”
—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 107.12
Wait now, "surrender to Fate" that will make me richer! Mother nature offers me the fate of a drought and heat. Certainly that ain't gonna make my garden richer. So too the water buffaloes of Denver Water who surely see themselves as at least demi-gods, me surrender? They would order the world such that a couple of developers get the water and I get the bill increase, surrender ha!
It took Cooper and me more than a few walks to piece this one out. Here's what I've come up with, and feel free to set me straight in the comments. The garden feeds me and thus is an asset, a form of wealth. I don't control the rain and no one controls the Denver Water Board and merely to guide it is a quick way to spend a lot of money. So forget shaking my fist at fate. But like most forms of wealth there are aspects of water that I do control. I can and do conserve my use. I can and do choose my uses. With water barrels I can and do put aside for the proverbial non rainy days. Not a perfect solution and not as pleasant as winning the lottery but a more sure road to wealth - one that I control.
It is that element of control that I think is an essential element to all forms of wealth. I recall Robert Kiyosaki in his book Rich Dad Poor Dad spoke of his dislike of investing in the stock market. He said it was like driving a car with no steering wheel. You have no control over will the stock market go up in value, pay a dividend, or crash and bankrupt you. Sure you can play with the gas pedal and the brake but no steering wheel!
If good health is a form of wealth (and bad health will certainly steal your wealth!) you certainly don't control a lot. You, me, we're all going to die. We don't control our genetics and you can shake your fist at God and your parents but that won't change anything. You do control some aspects of your health. Do you exercise, smoke, drink, eat heavily processed food or fresh organic straight from your garden (had to throw that one in;~). I read that the biggest co factors to death from the virus are, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. I'm not sure where age stood in that hit parade but not even a good plastic surgeon can change that piece of the puzzle.
I'm learning a lot from my garden. Sometimes it's rain barrels teaching me about wealth. Sometimes it's watching robins on a cool June evening teaching me about focus. Or as I read in another little Stoic fortune cookie.
“Don’t let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you. Don’t fill your mind with all the
bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it’s
so unbearable and can’t be survived.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.36
Or as a musical philosopher said Life is good today! Go hang out in your garden. Doug A.
Our June has been a collection of 90° days with very little rain. After a reasonable snow pack this winter in the mountains a good portion of the state has slipped into drought and we teeter on the cusp. So yeah one more thing to worry about. Pandemics, riots and drought, Oh my! Sounds like a line from the Wizard of Oz. Thing is, mother nature asks us to choose our focus each moment. It's a question of focus 'cause I was as peaceful and happy last night in the garden as I've ever been.
I thought I was being quite good with my watering and keeping up with the dryness, till the grackles showed up. As I've described in the past the grackles show up just before the onions are ready to pull and dry. One will peck, at the onion stems and bulbs, quickly followed by a few hundred of his closest friends. I thought I'd out clevered them by allowing the Larkspur to go wild and camouflage the onion patches with beautiful displays of blue, white, and pink blooms. I figured whatever growth the onions lost to a bit less sun would be made up by less loss to the grackles. I was watering with an oscillating garden sprinkler and the flowers look spectacular so I was pretty sure I'd nailed it.
Then of course there was the morning I spied a few grackles in the grass next to the onions. No biggie, I sicced Cooper on 'em. As he full tilt ran towards the birds a huge flock rose out of the Larkspur. Oh, guess not! After a couple of days of futile human scarecrow I started pulling out the Larkspur to get to whatever remained of the onions. Thing is the ground was bone dry and almost impossible to pull the Larkspur roots - so I started clipping them. With a pile of beautiful blooming flowers quickly filling the compost piles I decided to get some bonus points with the wife and filled some large vases. Now one of the vases was clear glass and quite large so that evening when we were eating dinner I was able to notice the water all but gone. Near as I can tell the Larkspur were drinking about a 1/2 gallon of water in that one vase - everyday! So to recap Larkspur are lousy camouflage and water pigs and it was a lousy year for the onions.
The strawberries share the patch with the onions. They hit June running with strawberry pancakes, a few for salads, and topping some vanilla ice cream -Mmmm! I was feeling pretty smart but they pulled up short after one bumper harvest. There are two types of strawberries - June bearing and everbearing. I don't know for a fact as these were a gift but had from past performance assumed these were everbearing, meaning they should give a steady amount of fruit through the summer. I had assumed the big first flush would be followed by a summer of strawberries and as I said feeling pretty smart. I'm guessing clipping the Larkspur and getting them more water will turn the trick but like so much of my gardening I'm just the proverbial blind squirrel.
While admitting my skills, I might as well admit my lettuce has been virtually all volunteer. In a pandemic driven mode of fear I had for the first time ever started some lettuce indoors. I planted it out early and protected it with Wall O Water from the early freezes. All that extra effort produced a couple of heads for salads. Meanwhile, mother nature had randomly scattered some seed here and there from last years crop. We've been eating a steady supply of salads from these volunteers to the point that I saw no need to put out any seed. Well, to be clear I did plant some seed from a late season Romaine.
Romaine is my lettuce of choice when I buy lettuce at the store, but I'd never grown it. In the seeds Shawn's Mom passed on to me after his death there was an old packet of Paris Island Romaine. Lettuce seed shouldn't be viable more than 2 maybe 3 years, this was for 2017. Not needing the space for my usual early Yugoslavia Red and and a mid season Oakleaf style I scratched a few seeds in the ground. They're still small but looking quite good. It will be nice to have some lettuce that I grew when the tomatoes start kicking out their bounty.
Tomatillos, not tomatoes, is something else I'm trying on a lark and for the first time. As the seed packet said they need 100 days I started them inside also and planted them out late. The starts, when I finally put them out, looked a bit like I did in Junior High - all legs and a 26" waist. I figured I'd just stick 'em in "Oh just here" and see. No fruit yet but lots of flowers and good sturdy looking plants - we'll see!
The tomatoes are a mixed bag both in varieties and growth. The Black Krim are looking like they'll win 1st tomato honors. They might be beat out by the Silver Fir. It's a yellow from Travis' family in Siberia that have given me every problem possible over the years but won my favor with their flavor and sweetness. A new tomato for me this year is Cuore Di Bue (Italian for Ox Heart). So far it's the sucker champion but no fruit. In reading reviews it sounded quite delicious and beautiful and I was warned it was a slow starter. Perhaps not everything is a race.
There are a dozen other things going on in the garden but I don't want to go long so I'll finish up with a thought that is as close as I'll come to politics and self -government today. It was a thought that occurred to me the other day while watering my peas with water from my rain barrel. My neighbor had just gotten his water bill and shared that he'd heard Denver Water was raising prices this fall and of course our local water company was passing on not only that charge but was also raising their service fee. The thought germinated as "Boy I really need to get all my gutters hooked up to rain barrels with back ups that can store the winter precipitation". The thought really fattened up when I thought controlling your own water really is a form of wealth. A night of restless sleep fattened it up even more.
John Kenneth Galbraith was a very non libertarian economist (Harvard go figure;~). One of his theories was that time is a form of wealth. It was the underpinning of Sweden's early experiments with socialism. I won't and don't have the depth of knowledge to argue for or against that theory. But water, if mother nature doesn't give me water when and where I need it - my garden is poorer. If Denver Water really jacks the rates or our service provider builds it's new office and also jacks the fee it charges, I am again, poorer. If I've saved up a store of water I am resilient. If I control water it is a form of wealth, an asset. Just as buying a lot of spaghetti a year ago when the brand had a label change and a coupon (they were literally giving it away) is wealth in money I don't have to spend today. Wealth could be described as the power to make choices for your life. Money like some forms of wealth can be stored or saved. Currency is just an aid in some transactions.
Here tho' is where it got deeper than my little brain could think. Deb turned me on to a daily calendar of Stoic thoughts. My restless night's sleep gave way to my morning ritual of reading the daily thought. This little fortune cookie was June 18th's:
“Let Fate find us prepared and active. Here is the great soul—the one who surrenders to Fate.
The opposite is the weak and degenerate one, who struggles with and has a poor regard for the
order of the world, and seeks to correct the faults of the gods rather than their own.”
—SENECA, MORAL LETTERS, 107.12
Wait now, "surrender to Fate" that will make me richer! Mother nature offers me the fate of a drought and heat. Certainly that ain't gonna make my garden richer. So too the water buffaloes of Denver Water who surely see themselves as at least demi-gods, me surrender? They would order the world such that a couple of developers get the water and I get the bill increase, surrender ha!
It took Cooper and me more than a few walks to piece this one out. Here's what I've come up with, and feel free to set me straight in the comments. The garden feeds me and thus is an asset, a form of wealth. I don't control the rain and no one controls the Denver Water Board and merely to guide it is a quick way to spend a lot of money. So forget shaking my fist at fate. But like most forms of wealth there are aspects of water that I do control. I can and do conserve my use. I can and do choose my uses. With water barrels I can and do put aside for the proverbial non rainy days. Not a perfect solution and not as pleasant as winning the lottery but a more sure road to wealth - one that I control.
It is that element of control that I think is an essential element to all forms of wealth. I recall Robert Kiyosaki in his book Rich Dad Poor Dad spoke of his dislike of investing in the stock market. He said it was like driving a car with no steering wheel. You have no control over will the stock market go up in value, pay a dividend, or crash and bankrupt you. Sure you can play with the gas pedal and the brake but no steering wheel!
If good health is a form of wealth (and bad health will certainly steal your wealth!) you certainly don't control a lot. You, me, we're all going to die. We don't control our genetics and you can shake your fist at God and your parents but that won't change anything. You do control some aspects of your health. Do you exercise, smoke, drink, eat heavily processed food or fresh organic straight from your garden (had to throw that one in;~). I read that the biggest co factors to death from the virus are, heart disease, diabetes, and obesity. I'm not sure where age stood in that hit parade but not even a good plastic surgeon can change that piece of the puzzle.
I'm learning a lot from my garden. Sometimes it's rain barrels teaching me about wealth. Sometimes it's watching robins on a cool June evening teaching me about focus. Or as I read in another little Stoic fortune cookie.
“Don’t let your reflection on the whole sweep of life crush you. Don’t fill your mind with all the
bad things that might still happen. Stay focused on the present situation and ask yourself why it’s
so unbearable and can’t be survived.”
—MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.36
Or as a musical philosopher said Life is good today! Go hang out in your garden. Doug A.
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