small gardens & small government

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...

 I had to do it! Ya gotta understand it really wasn't a choice it was an explosion. That's the way it is with passion. Doesn't matter if it's music, art, or the pretty new girl at school. That's the way it was yesterday for me and the garden. Denver can tease you for weeks with spring weather to the point you start thinking I should have planted a few things out in February. Heck, I'm not early I'm late!  March and April are our best months for rain and snow. This March has been dry as was February and the winter as a whole. Yesterday was 70 and sunny with a promise of rain in the evening. Thus with St Pat's day still a couple of days away it was time to start tomatoes indoors and peas outside.   Speaking of St Pat's you'd assume that I'd be cranking the Irish music as I tap out this blog. Ah, but wrong moosebreathe!  I've decided to go musicologist and spin backwards to a Saturday of bagpipes, Real McKenzies, and Irish rebel tunes. I...

 Hey all, long time no write. Cooper will play the role of Puck in this version of A Mid Winters Night's Dream. Six happy weeks brings in another season. But oh, methinks how slow this old season does wane.   The music is Big Al Carson and The Blues Masters  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C00JmxMYv1U The version I'm listening to started with 'Members only" as solid and sad a modern blues tune as one could write. Perhaps you can find it I couldn't and didn't want to slow the burst of desire to write down with a deeper search of Youtube. The blues is really just a leftover stack of CDs from yesterday. I was going to change it to some Billy Joel for reasons I'll describe later, but Aretha Franklin hadn't played yet and that would be just wrong to not listen to the queen.   It's Colorado, so winter yesterday meant I was in the backyard in a tee shirt trying to build a dry stack stone wall for the garden. Today is a heavy white snow rapidly piling up...

The morning is mellow, Cooper's at my side expecting more than the bite of my breakfast he just had. The music is a bit of a cheat with a Youtube link to Reina del Sid.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aqq9yXmgils I was listening to her this morning courtesy of her Sunday morning connection she sends out to her Youtube subscribers.  Youtube morphed that over to a young Emmylou Harris and a beautiful Cajun riff and then on to a duet between Emmylou and Dwight Yoakam.  Country music should be required (Department of Country Music - DoCM anyone!) to have either a peddle steel guitar, a fiddle, or a distinctive voice like Dwight's.  The path Youtube lead me down was so pleasant I had a hard time breaking away to walk the dogs. I'm glad I did as the quiet of the morning was even better than the music. I even stopped myself from whistling to enjoy it. I don't know if the quiet was a real thing with our cold snap causing my neighbors to stay snuggled under the covers on t...

 The Very Best of Harry Belafonte  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O98x7Zpjx4M is actually striking a good note to plink a few notes on the keyboard. We'll have to see if the rest of my choices for music blend or are distractions.   Last week's sinuses weeping from the smoke devolved quickly into an ugly little cold. Besides making the owners of Kleenex and NyQuil wealthy I've accomplished very little. I can best describe it without getting gross as feeling like someone shoved a large pizza up my nose. Oddly, there are moments within a cold when you feel wildly manic and think "jeez let's just get caught up right now".  Two minutes later your swaying and thinking "ooow going down". Certainly not conducive to running that heavy equipment they always warn you about - but that wasn't really on the agenda anyway so.   The garden has kindly provided this week without demanding too much.  The recently planted arugula is going great guns and gave Deb...

    I'm up early this morning so the music is to be dictated by Youtube with a modicum of direction by me. The blue tooth speaker (connected to the stereo) I have is just that a speaker with no connection for headphones. With Deb still sleeping headphones are .. well just a good way to stay married. OK how 'bout a gentle start to the day Alison Krauss  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swOLCLrqBn8 .    The early start on the day really has to be blamed on wildfires.  Thankfully the fires are not real close but spread all over the West.  The closest is in northwestern Colorado Steamboat Springs. I've heard one in Montana is over a million acres. A million is one of those numbers that sticks in your head, but honestly I can't visualize it nor do I have any clue how many millions of acres are in Montana. I've been to Montana tho' so I'm guessing it's not quite the whole state burning.  That all said it's the smoke. The smoke from most of the forest f...

  Some years back my brother Glen and our families owned some apartments in Houston. Perhaps to get me out of his hair Glen sent me off looking for some now forgotten something on the other side of Houston. People for some reason don't think of Houston as the 4th largest City in the US. That's by population drive around it and it's bigger. Like all things in Texas their traffic jams are bigger. So I'm sweating my brains out (In Houston you begin sweating when you step out of the shower in the morning -Just saying!) in a truck with no A/C, in a construction zone with the street going from 3 lanes to one and people fighting for the next inch like it's the last food on earth. The street is completely gone, just orange cones and caliche potholes filled with water. Needless to say I'm cursing my brother, God, and the guy in front of me. I mean I'm a good person why oh why God must I suffer so... 'course just then I see a guy in a wheelchair stumps for legs tr...