Flash, Boom, Ow!

I think there are 3 major reasons to get out of bed in the morning. Our cat (Maisie) demonstrated the 3rd, fear. The storm last night gave us some cool relief and an open bedroom window. A close clap of thunder from the storm sent Maisie from warmly snuggling with Deb to rocketing out of the room. She used my, thankfully closed, eye as a launching pad from the bed to the door. I'm just glad 80# Cooper doesn't sleep on the bed!

The #1 reason I get up in the morning I'll leave to your imagination. #2 is hope, excitement, I get to, or any of a thousand other names for having a purpose for the day. Sure the purpose can be as contrived as I've gotta walk the dogs or I gotta check see if there is a mouse in the live trap. If before my feet touch the floor I can change that "gotta" into "I get to..." it's usually a good day.

In money matters purpose or motivation is usually boiled down to an essence of fear or greed. With fear considered to be twice as strong of a motivator. In politics it's expressed as negative ads and vision for the future. I'm not sure of the power equation between those two but I wouldn't be surprised if it was also 2 to 1. I suppose in gardening a "severe storm warning" elicits some version of this cortisol/dopamine cocktail. The storm warning wasn't a guarantee of anything, just a guess at the future. A guess on a small screen with swirls of red and purple passing over an equally small map. Zoom in and replay as many times as you want you still end up guessing the impact on the garden.

For me the first step is pick everything I normally would. Next, move the potted plants under cover. No big decisions there - nothing you can't reverse. Now the guess work. Fall could last a week or two more months. - A ton of green peppers that I'd like to sweeten to red but might be wiped out by hail. No easy way to cover the beans or the trees. What about the basil?! Time and Mother Nature will likely make a fool of whatever decisions you make so accept reality and move on. The severe weather warning and the storm itself will last through today, so I'll let you know how brilliant or foolish I was in the next blog. Sadly, these last few weeks if not these last few years have not had the cortisol/dopamine system on overload for beans or basil. That job has been left to money and what we consider politics. Doug A.

I'll leave you with the words of Joni Mitchell's Woodstock

... And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden.....

Well maybe it's the time of year

Or maybe it's the time of man

I don't know who I am

But you know life is for learning

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the garden

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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 ...

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...

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'...

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...

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...

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...

small gardens & small government

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