Just came in from digging the kitchen scraps into the latest raised bed. The soil is essentially non-existent merely a fill of leaves, a tiny amount of grass clippings, and some wonderful chicken coop material Deb's sister had saved aside for me. The chicken poop has already started heating the pile after watering it yesterday. All very hopeful, that it might burn down into something plant-able by spring. Adding to the hope a light drizzle has begun with rain expected through the afternoon and evening. Yeah I know chicken poop and compost are kinda out there on the garden nerd spectrum.
The rain is the perfect accompaniment to the blues on the stereo. The weather outside gray and more invigorating than cold. Inside a mug of tea and a combo of Fats Waller, Howlin' Wolf and best of all the Alligator Records' 20th Anniversary Collection. The enclosed notes in the Alligator two CD edition are the story of legends of the blues. The talent list is a powerhouse going from Pinetop Perkins, Junior Wells, Koko Taylor, to Delbert McClinton and Stevie Ray Vaughan, just too much.
The latest raised bed might not rise to the level of excellence of the music but it's actually quite nice. Part of that nice rating is the price. If you've ever bought stone you know it's not 'dirt cheap'. A few blocks away a developer is building. In having to trench for various infrastructure he has hit the same layer of limestone that causes me to have to build raised beds. I had gleaned his site for stones once to add a nice retaining wall of sorts around our maple tree. He trenched more, I gleaned more. Voila, a pretty little bed rose next to the retaining wall. The stone combo is not in a prime planting area but offer the extra benefit of defining something of a sitting area in our south corner of the yard.
The purpose of my garden is to grow veggies to feed Deb and me but it is our backyard. As I build I am intent that it also be a beautiful and a peaceful refuge. Hopefully inspirational but the type of inspiration of sitting with some tea. (sweet in the summer and the shade and pippin' hot in the sun when the days are short and cool.) I hope someday you'll be able to join me, resting your tea on a little stone wall while we listen to the blues and I point out this or that which did so well that year. That, that is the double purpose of a garden - resilience, beauty and peace.
Purpose is a funny thing. In the garden my purpose is to pick a nice vine ripe tomato, no matter what is going on in the world, and enjoy the beauty and peace. Thing is it's late fall soon to be winter. It's not tomato pickin' season. It is leaf season. I can meet neighbors and easily gather bags of leaves. I can make a contractor happy by clearing his stone. Most importantly I can get out of the wife's hair and spend a couple days in the backyard with the dog putting together a stone jigsaw puzzle. None of that is picking a tomato but it is what I can do now. The drunks put it another way they say ... just do the next good thing and wait for the miracle.
Just as I hope you'll join me someday in my garden, I hope you'll grow your own. I've no desire to live in a world where I can't buy what I want from the local grocer. But we've recently had a small and thankfully brief sojourn into that dystopian world. A garden offers resilience to the downside. In a world with more than a bit of political upheaval (and thus economic upheaval) eating is a solid check that box thing. The ancillary benefits of eating healthy, getting a bit of exercise, and sipping a bit of tea amongst some beauty you created, that's just a bonus.
Forgive a tangent as I expand on the point that political is economic upheaval. Once upon a time this was not the case in the United States. 'course once upon a time we decide a small government republic was superior to a king, so.... It was not too long ago that government was not a major factor in computing the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Now, I understand that something north of 40% of the GDP is government. Once, if the government wanted to stimulate the economy a dollar borrowed and injected raised GDP by a multiple of that dollar (I've heard various numbers like 6 or 8x). Now in a Keynesian nightmare that same dollar borrowed and injected as 'stimulus' decreases GDP. We are over $33,000,000,000,000 in debt with interest rates rising (as lenders become scared) and interest payments on that debt become a burden all it's own. We are like the family that has overspent to the point that they are trying to figure out if they can put the car payment on a credit card that is maxed out so they can pay the mortgage that is overdue. We as a country are hoping for a miracle. That miracle can no longer come from the political class injecting stimulus. The miracle can for a brief time, and has, come from simple 'printing' currency but that always leads to inflation. Inflation lands squarely on the back of that very real family desperately juggling their own budget of mortgage, car payments, and groceries. In a doubly evil effect it it also wipes out the middle class and creates billionaires with assets that appreciate and the others with debts that enslave them. Thus the only miracle can come not from politics but that which you can create yourself. Ah, but politics doesn't go away.
My little knowledge of the news tells me the Israel/Hamas war is at least in a truce. I also hear Charlie Munger, Henry Kissinger, and Rosalyn Carter have died. Each was at or close to 100. I also recently learned my youngest sister's mother in law died. She was of the same generation and came from a tumultuous piece of Europe in a tumultuous time. The math of jumping back a hundred years is easy enough. The history of that hundred years and the lives and times they became young adults in is something of a wow. Imagine coming of age in The Great Depression and World war II. Oh and then just go on pick up the pieces and raise your family, ez peezie.
The Fourth Turning postulates that like the seasons of the year in the garden we humans have 4 seasons. As the oldest to remember a time die we rhythmically repeat that piece of history. Is it just some silly theory? Is it hardwired into the nature of man? Is it written by God or the universe? I have no earthly idea of the truth. Nor do I have any idea what lessons to draw from such a disparate group of centenarians lives. Some I liked and admired some not so much. I would guess a hundred years from now it will be simple enough to look back and judge these times and our lives.
Now the fog of the present obscures the 'right' path and we have to guess. I guess that's why I like hedging my bets on the future. If I can create something which in the worst case might make that worst case a bit less 'worse' and in the best case 'only' provides beauty and peace. Heck, that's a heads I win, tails I don't lose too much dhandho scenario. That is a solid bet. If you can look at the 8 forms of capital and create for each a dhandho bet it doesn't guarantee you'll live to a hundred, find happiness here on earth, or any measure of a meaningful life but it is a pretty good map in the fog. Doug A.
P.S. I don't know if I'll continue this Small Garden and Small Government blog. Some things grow, some morph into different projects and some should just be allowed to reach their end (and of course be composted;~). More than a few indicators suggest to me we are at a time when the advice of become more self sufficient - grow a garden is past.
The fog of the present is a very real constraint. I don't know what the future holds. I am merely attempting to peer through that fog and suggest and follow a path that may be nonsense but is at least not dangerous and hopefully pleasant and peaceful.
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