Ain't nothin' nobody could do about it!

I don't know! Really, I don't know! My tomato starts are horribly small. That may be a comparative thing having seen the size and vigor of the local farm stores $1 tomato plants. Additionally, the local Master Gardener's sale is coming up, again, $1 beautiful plants. I've tried over the years to be more self-sufficient by growing and even selling my own starts along with growing heirloom varieties so the seeds would be true to type. I blame the soil for my lousy starts but.... In my Denver garden I was able to simply fill pots with some of my compost add the seeds and cover them with a 1/4 inch of commercial organic seed starting mix. Since moving here I've been busy terracing the south-side of our house with raised beds and filling them with anything that vaguely resembled soil. When time came to start seeds there wasn't even a smidge of half finished compost to be had. Yup, I admit it I bought a bag of that crap they sell at Lowes. Or in my best Clintonesque - Mistakes were made!

So I don't know that the Lowes soil was the proximate cause. Having just come off a Lenten 'fast' that kicked my cocky butt, I'm not sure I know anything. I do know there might be a deeper cause, Hubris not Humus. I spent 40 years in Denver gradually acquiring local knowledge and skills. I went from growing a few spindly garlics to a fairly extensive garden that gave us a fair bit of our food. Yes, some of that knowledge can be built upon here. Soil and local knowledge take time. Owning what you think you know has to be...

My Lenten 'fast' was hardly epic. No, to most of the crap on my phone, especially YouTube. No crap food and once a week 24 hours without food. The moment I settled on those goals I became like the Iranians, Israelis, and Americans discussing peace. I mean certainly the pretzels were already open. It would be wasteful to leave them and besides just a handful! Ah, the self-negotiations, asterisks, and rationalizations were - epic. I binged like a drunk going to rehab both before and after Lent. I picked up my phone a hundred times to "check the weather" put it down and found myself standing in the kitchen. Oh, and gosh I drank a lot of tea and read a dozen books. I did a couple of times manage to get lost in working in the garden. That was nice but mostly it was not.

I'm at a pretty comfortably time and place in my life. Thus it is easy to start thinking I know things. It's even easier to notice the stupid things other people do. (The stupid things I do are quirks, yours are flaws!) So going 15 rounds with a fairly simple personal commitment was a good reminder. At least shut my mouth. The world has flaws, work on my quirks. I don't know how long this Zen will last. How long before I'm serving chipped beef at the soup kitchen yelling "get a job" or some other motivational bon mot. Rumor has it these Catholics do this once a year. I don't know, we'll see!

In the world of zombie apocalypses Ben Davidson seems to be flinging the chipped beef - Dude that previous live stream! Meanwhile the Fourth Turning does seem to be, more quietly, checking a lot of it's boxes. I guess you could view that many ways. We live in the present but can hope, and perhaps prepare for the future. Maybe this season will be shortened with my generation turning the reins over to a younger one soon. Spring does come. I'm gonna have to read that book again!

Doug A.

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Bad Boys

The Buddhist monk Thicht Nat Han offers a mindfulness meditation using breathing. Like most things I've bastardized it to the point that I'd hate to have to tell him I got it from him as he might raise a skeptical eyebrow. While walking the dogs I try to take a deep breathes in and remind myself that I am receiving good from the world around me. Than I breathe out and try to remind myself that I give good to the world. Some days my sinuses are acting up and I don't breathe so well. Today is one of those days! The weather is heavy gray with a steady wet spring snow coming down. We need the moisture so intellectually I'm happy but my mood is as gray as the clouds. The locus of the funk is politics but I'm smart enough to know that the root is firmly sprouted from a compost of life's little detritus. I'm surrounded by sickness and poor health. I love my dogs. Thus Callie's showing her age is a little nibble at my psyche. On Deb's recent trip to visi...

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...

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...

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...

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...

GARDENER ON THE ROOF

The two most important things in making pesto are, get a food processor and don't get caught licking the bowl. I'm trying to take the high road here. You know the one about it's not what happens to you but your reaction that matters. It's been a hot and humid spring into summer and August is days away. I might go down hugging my air conditioner but damn it, I will adapt. I don't have to have the shower 1st thing in the morning. I can get up earlier and nibble at the garden work. And yeah, cutting and freezing onions and making pesto aren't technically garden work. They are however garden adjacent, do need to be done and importantly inside work. Don't get me wrong. I am the luckiest man in the world and a piece of that is my garden. Even if I chose to move that garden a zone further south and a million percent higher humidity. I will adapt and acclimate. It just takes time. 'sides no matter where you live you're always making pesto in hot weat...

Three Little Birds

It's Saturday the day before Mother's day so I'll start with a little eye candy for the ladies. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8nm_jvE_Xs Jake is essentially the MSNBC (vs say Fox) version of the youtube movie I shared last time "Back to Eden" which emphasizes wood chip based gardening. While the whole video is worth watching I especially liked his gardening philosophy which he touches on around the 10 minute mark. Got to jump off topic (quelle surprise!) Jimmy Cliff has me boogieing to Let Your Yeah Be Yeah https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XDp_7kSli0w Jake's 'just start making mistakes' philosophy is akin to my own. I can't tell you how many gardening books (Permaculture books are the worst) devote chapter after chapter to 'creating your plan'. Yeah I would have killed a lot fewer plants and my fruit trees would have been planted years ago not to mention a quality watering system. No doubt people with 5 year life plans ...

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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