Styling slightly north of Tulsa

It probably depends on how you define 'the apocalypse'. It was a brief walk with the dogs this morning. Cooper's shoulder seemed to be bugging him a couple of days ago - so light duty for all! Thus I had simply slipped on a pair of garden Crocks and headed out. While Cooper & Carrie sniffed and peed on a mailbox my mind wandered to it being Friday the 13th, Riots planned for Trump's birthday, and Israel's attack on Iran. If a nuclear bomb landed on Tulsa could I really run in Crocks? Would there be time to change into my serious hiking shoes with the arch supports? What about the the shorts? - Do you wanna be the guy in the Mickey Mouse tee shirt, shorts and Crocks describing to the reporter gal "Well I was walking the dogs and just over those trees there I saw the mushroom cloud and I said to myself, guys, I don't think that's rain!" Heck no you wanna be the guy in camo, minimum. Preferably with the fully loaded Jeep, solar water still and generator strapped to the roof with Deb yelling "Honey talk to her later we gotta make it to the mountains by dawn!" I mean ya wanna at least look like you're taking it serious. Course if it's The Rapture Crocks could work. They go with everything. Not good for walking but I understand there isn't a whole lot required. Add in a nice white robe some rosary beads while Googling how to say the Rosary on your phone - you're covered. Or at least the doorman won't turn you away on sight. Financial apocalypse/reset I don't know perhaps a business suit and sensible shoes?! (I like "reset" it sounds so nice and cas - "Oh, just burn those dollar thingies we're using bottle caps now!") Thankfully the dogs didn't take advantage of my distraction. There were cookies at home for good dogs and they hadn't heard of the tariffs and shrinking box size - yet.

I guess I think about these things at this level because it's what I grew up with. As a boomer I grew up with mom bemoaning that "white bread was no longer a dime but nineteen cents! Not the good Wonder Bread but the store brand!! Why it's almost cheaper to give the kids each a quarter for the school lunch!!!" (Yea, pizza Friday!) Nuclear attack drills, we never did those at my schools but we had the Soviets and you had to watch the evening news before the good shows came on TV. There was Vietnam and Israel was certainly fighting with somebody - I honestly forget who. Rapture, well we were Catholic and I was a kid so my theological depth was knowing when to stand, when to kneel and when to pretend I was singing. Now don't get my casual demeanor wrong. You should be growing a garden!

A garden, if say we all start wearing masks again, will feed your soul as well as your belly. The food aspect is core but picking your neighbors apple tree and making apple butter bonds you with those neighbors. You may have no control over bombs or riots but you damned sure can decide that the volunteer cucumber plant that is strangling the peppers has got to go. Kennedy may be threatening the red dye in your large bag of M&Ms but he's OK with those tomatoes, and who knows maybe he's right. Growing a garden isn't cheap but much of that expense does shift the cost of food from the liability side of the balance sheet to the asset side. Good soil is definitely an investment. Perhaps most importantly you can definitely wear Crocks in a garden.

Doug A.

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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 ...

After the Garden

Those of you who know me know I hover somewhere between Catholic and agnostic. Thus when I say there are surprisingly few words about Adam in the Bible, you know I had to look to check. If you need to check it yourself go ahead you'll see. A little about how he came to be, a touch about Eve, a bit about that garden thing and then on to what the kids did. Really, I expected a lot more! I mean what about that day Adam was sitting outside the garden fence thwacking a stick against a tree?! He was just thinking, I don't want any more sadness God. Yeah, yeah I know it's your plan and I'm not supposed to question it but your plan sucks! He flipped his middle finger towards heaven. As he did a hummingbird who had become blind landed on it. Yeah, see that's what I mean God. How am I supposed to fix this? Sure I can name it and that's fun but how can I fix the pain in the world? Look at the old garden! It's an overgrown jungle. I need pruners, saws and a shovel...

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...

A Fog

If you've never been in a fog so thick that you can't see where to go, to read it sounds like a flight of fancy. I've been in such a fog as a young man driving home. You're creeping along a highway hoping what you're taking for a white line means something. Simultaneously, you're desperately eyes locked on the road ahead and fearing what might be coming up behind you. For some reason you feel compelled to get to the safety of home. Adam was in such a fog. Adam had walked most of the way to Nod with his son Cain. To lose one son was a misery too great to bear. To never see the other again made it a journey he'd had to take. That was days ago and he'd been following the sun and the stars West back to Eve, his garden, and his dogs. The fog had begun lightly that morning with the path closed in but clear. Now he was on his knees looking as the path clearly split. Perhaps the Y would rejoin itself just a bit down the way. Perhaps one simply ended beyond w...

Atlas Pooped!

Adam sat with his back to 'The Garden' fence and looked up at the predawn moon. He saw Sirius (the dog constellation) plainly but what was the name of that next constellation? Eve had named it and traced with her finger the bow and the belt. The belt, yeah, yeah, Orion! Orion walked with his Sirius on cold mornings as he had with his own dogs. He'd have to get home soon and walk 'em. A cool wind rang The Garden chimes urging him to move. The peace and the beauty begged him to stay. He'd dally. The new garden was slowly coming together. The raised beds were laid out some with permanent stone walls some with whatever was available. Soil had been scarce or more exactly worms and bugs were scarce. They'd come and were slowly showing up, 'tho not always the good ones first! Thus what he'd planted was thin and haphazard. Better something to eat than nothing. A couple of pears, a nectarine, and a fig, with hope for the future but nothing for tonight'...

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...

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...

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...

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...

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 ...

small gardens & small government

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