One Wild and Precious Life

The Mystified Gardener: Spring Fever

How can it be that I missed the first day of spring?  I'll tell you how -- I was outside, working hard, and didn't give the day a thought!  I love spring, love, love, LOVE.  Spring and fall are my two favorite seasons, and probably spring the most, though in this State (Tennessee) of hot, humid summers, seeing summer finally break is also a treat.  I've done my first gardening, and am seeing the results.  Look:

It's two of my first three rows of spinach, sprouting!  I've never had spinach sprout!  I think I always planted it too late -- it's definitely a cool-weather crop, and needs to be sown here very early.  I know, you can see that the soil is dry.  I thought I might hold out for rain, but I promise that tomorrow I will water it by hand, with tender loving care, even though it's supposed to rain on Wednesday.  I'm not going to risk it.  I should have done it sooner, even.  But I'm so thrilled to see it coming up!  While I'm out there, I'm going to till soil and plant 3 more short rows, as well as some lettuce and peas.  I'm planting things that don't grow high in the bed near the fence, because last year my green beans were decimated by deer!  I don't think they can reach in far enough to get to spinach and lettuce in this bed.  I'm also going to hang shiny CDs to startle them away.  People advocate smelly and even toxic repellants, but I just can't.  I'll try the old-fashioned stuff first.  I asked for those disposable aluminum pie tins on Freecycle, but nobody responded.  So I think shiny CDs (I have tons from AOL, otherwise known as AO-Hell) hung at frequent intervals might provide a deterrant.  We'll see.

Here's one more veggie garden shot: 

The rhubarb is up -- all 3 crowns of it!  I see some little pest has been at it already on one leaf -- but we don't eat the leaves anyway!  Now I've just got to get some compost and manure on it, as well as seeing to the grapevines, raspberries, strawberries, perennial herbs (rosemary and thyme, and sage in the front perennial bed), and especially the asparagus crowns.  The garden is way full of suspicious and menacing little holes in those beds -- maybe my fence didn't sink deep enough?  Hmmm.  Lots of work to be done there.

But this spring, I have a new love.  Yes, I've spent some time cutting brush and also thorny locust sprouts from the fencerow and the only growth that separates me from a fairly major highway.  And I've enjoyed that.  Some regular attention to these spaces could enhance my quality of life, seriously.  I'm very close to US (not Interstate) 70, which runs from who knows where to Nashville, and beyond.  Lots of traffic, except for the very wee hours of the morning (let's say from 2 till 5 am).  What I really would like is some kind of tall, soundproof barrier, like they use on the Interstates.  That's not going to happen.  So instead of the wild assortment of wild rose, locust suckers, hickory and oak starters from nuts the squirrels have buried, and those low plants with pointy leaves whose name currently escapes me (not agave -- what?), and poison ivy -- I'd like to cultivate a tall privet hedge from the privet that grows wild and invasively here.  The oak and hickory trees are fine, but I don't like the other stuff.  Some privet is coming up already, and all I need to do is let it grow.  Eventually someone could cut it down every 5 years or so, and it would grow tall and thick and give me privacy, at least, if not a bit of a sound barrier.  Also, out there in front, something is killing my hemlocks.  Since I refuse to use any kind of poison, my guess is that it's some pest, and they will all die eventually.  I'd love it if this strong and essentially evergreen privet would grow thick instead.

But I haven't told you about my new love yet.  It's a labyrinth.  For years, I've dreamed that this parish might fund and create a labyrinth on its grounds.  We have 18.8 acres, and about an acre of cleared space behind the church (partly for parking, partly just a clearing, but all underlaid with gravel, so not "getting stuck in mud" territory).  I dreamed of a labyrinth that might attract anyone on a spiritual journey in all of Cumberland County.  Well, no-go.  Before this year, people didn't have the knowledge, energy, or interest.  This year, nobody has the funds, either.  Within the last few months, I've walked a couple of simple, non-fussy labyrinths, one in the backyard of a colleague.  I've decided that I can do this.  I've researched patterns on-line.  I got an easy-to-construct, 7-circuit classical labyrinth.  Then, as I ran with my dogs one day, I found a nearly endless source of stone.  I have a clearing in my own backyard, in the wooded area behind the lawn, where I could construct this thing.  I decided to build myself a personal labyrinth, that I will happily share with all parishioners.  It's in my back yard -- well, in the woods right behind my back yard.  Here it is:

So far, so good.  It has really been fun.  I found the pattern from the internet, and I found a really good source of stone (a subdivision under development -- every time  you move earth on a mountaintop, you get lots of stone!).  You can see that I'm already running into "tree issues."  I'll eventually mulch the path with a variety of things -- wood chips, pine needles, whatever comes along.  But I've only laid out maybe half of it, maybe not even that, since the circuits get bigger each time around.  That's still lots of stone to gather and lay!  The paths are two feet wide, and I started out with an 8-foot diameter "seed pattern."  I'm loving it.

Other good spring news is that lots of things are in bloom around here.  Daffodils and hyancinths are in full bloom, and the earliest ones are fading already.  The cherry tree and quince are starting.  The viburnum by the front door is fading fast, as are the witch hazels and (plentiful) Lenten roses.  I have a pretty little star magnolia that got terribly damaged in our April freeze two years ago.  We had to cut back dead wood severely, but it did survive:
 
It's a little lopsided and considerably smaller than it was 2 years ago, but it has survived!  I like survivors (like me).  Behind it you can see the veggie garden, and behind that the woodsy-brushy screen that conceals the labyrinth.

I love having this much space.  I love it that the magnolia is in bloom.  Within a week or so the pink one behind the potting shed will bloom.  A few weeks later, I'll get something from the dark one (almost maroon) outside my back door.  I've been watching the courtship at my bird feeder  outside the dining room window.  It's all such a pleasure.  It's nearly time to fill the hummingbird feeders.

There's more gardening work than I can ever do by myself -- ever, ever, ever.  But I've decided once again to enjoy myself.  As long as it's fun and soul-satisfying, I'll do it.  I'll take little stabs at it here and there, time after time.  Nothing will ever be perfect, but in the gentle course of time, everything will be better than it is now.  Having my hands in the dirt is something I expect I'll need for as long as I live -- at least a bit.  Maybe eventually a raised bed or window box will be enough, but the dirt literally "grounds" me.  Gotta do it.

I hope you all know the satisfaction of tending living things.  I hope you can have the experience of feeding people with what you've grown with your own hands.  God does love a garden.

The Mystified Gardener (Outside)

There's something really mystical, mysterious, mystifying about being outside at night.  Early this evening, taking advantage of the extra hour of daylight, I decided to burn my brush pile.  It's in the fire pit way back behind the garage, the one that I dug myself and circled with stones.  The pile of brush was really, really huge, especially after Friday, when I cut brush and picked up fallen branches from the little clearing in the woods behind my house.  It was overflowing before that, and something like gigantic afterward.  I don't know what I'll do when I move to a town with real restrictions about burning.  The fire department tells me that my brush-burning is considered a "backyard campfire," and perfectly legal anytime (though I don't do it when there are drought conditions).

A little kerosene starts it.  Kerosene burns very hot and is not volatile like gasoline.  It's probably comparable in fire-starting to charcoal lighter fluid, but it burns hotter.  It's always a little scary right at first, when I let the pile get as high as I did.  Every time I do this, I promise that next time, I won't let it get so high.  But sometimes it's too cold to stand outside and watch it, and then it rains, etc. etc. etc.  Anyway, when that first flame burns so high, and the slightest breeze carries it toward the woods or the pine trees on the east -- I am very alert, I tell you, watching very carefully, and can have my hose out there within five minutes, if the need arises.  But it never does.  After that first burn-off, it settles down to a medium-size, but still very hot fire that can, with a little tending, get rid of a huge pile of brush in a half-hour or so.  Of course, to really burn down every bit of it, it takes a little longer, a little more tending, a little more gazing.

How I love a campfire.  It brings back memories of camping with my family (my mother always told me that  I camped from the time I was 16 days old), and more recent memories of campfires with friends, complete with homemade clam chowder, heated over driftwood coals, or staying in a friend's fishing cabin and laughing late into the night around the fire.  And there's nothing as compelling as gazing into a flame, and then the coals that remain; I find it hypnotic.  Tonight the moon was very nearly full (Wednesday is the "official" full-moon night, but it looked pretty full to me), and she played hide-and-seek in the clouds that skipped along in the lovely breeze that kept my fire burning.  It was magical to glimpse moon and a swatch of stars, then bright moon behind the edge of a cloud, then moon again.  It was a celebration, in and of itself.  Oh, and I forgot to mention that it was in the high 60s, and I didn't even need a jacket.  That's a treat, too.  Welcome, Spring!

And yesterday I bought 6 bags of compost and manure, a bale of yellow straw for the strawberry bed, and planted 3 short rows of spinach (after much robust weeding, including dandelions with those deep roots).  I'm planting the lettuce and spinach in the long bed furthest west in my garden; last year I had green beans there, and the deer ate them all.  I don't think they can reach far enough over the fence to get the spinach and lettuce; I'll plant the beans on an interior bed.  Yay!  Gardening season is here!

Money

Help me understand it.  I can't do it with a pencil and paper, but I'm not very mathematically astute.  I seem to have a lot of money -- for me.  I've always been a grasshopper, and not much of an ant.  Remember the fable?  The ant was careful and sober and conservative, always working for the future, always careful, always with an eye toward "storing things up for a rainy day."  The grasshopper was always a bit more like Tigger (in the Winnie the Pooh stories) -- always jumping around, always happy, always playing -- and not very concerned with being careful, and with what the future might hold.  It seems, reaching back into the depths of my memory, that the ant got his reward for his prudence, and the grasshopper had to pay, once winter came.  Well, I'm the grasshopper.  I have not saved.  I have not been careful with money.  I am prone to spend for short-term, whimsical things, rather than saving carefully for long-term gains.  I watch Suze Ormond every single Saturday night, and catch her on Oprah whenever I can.  I don't have anything approaching 8 months' emergency savings.  I have a lot of debt (that I pay regularly, including student loans).  I'm not a financial fraud, but I've also never been very good with money.  I go through cycles of being overwhelmed with credit card and other debt, and then buckling down and paying it off.  I've never, though, had anything over $5,000 of credit card debt, so I'm not one of those outrageous spenders; and my current credit card debt is about $600, and dwindling, because Suze says to pay it off, and I am.  On the other hand, I've never had anything over $5,000 in a savings account.  For a middle-aged woman, this sounds pathetic.

But there's this other thing.  I've become committed to saving; yes, I want a gorgeous emergency fund.  But I've also got this weird impression that money is for spending.  I doubt that I'll ever have 8 months of net income in an immediately available savings account.  But I'm also aware that I have enough now to take a trip to Italy this year, because I've set my mind to serious saving.  No, I don't have enough to finance the whole thing yet.  But I also know that if I buy a non-refundable air ticket, I will make the other part (lodging, transportation, and meals) happen before I go.  And afterward I'll have a pathetic savings account, nothing approaching 8 months' income, when I get home.

But maybe you all know how committed I am to seeing the black madonnas that are in Italy.  Over 25 of them, including on the floor of the duomo in Siena (I was there 4+ years ago -- how did I miss her???)  I am passionate about this research.  I really want to go for 3 weeks this year, and then for 3  months (my sabbatical) next year.  Maybe next year I could even see a little bit of France (there are literally hundreds of them there).  I don't know what it is about the black madonna that has entranced me, but she has.  Some of it is the work I do, helping folks with aging and ailing, failing and dying and grieving: that's the work of the black madonna, for sure.  And what I also know for sure, is that the more I immerse myself in the study of the black madonna, the more I'm able to immerse myself in the work I have to do, because it is her work.  It's a precious gift, a precious calling, one I have been prepared for my whole life.  I remember when I told my mother that I felt called to the priesthood, and she said, "I think your whole life has been getting you ready for this."

I've also got kidney disease; now is the time to do the things I want/need to do.

But the big part I don't exactly get is that my income hasn't really increased.  Yes, I paid off my car mid-year last year, so I have a bit more disposable income (which has mostly gone to debt repayment).  Yes, I quit getting manicures, pedicures, and massages a while ago.  But I have also committed to this black madonna work, both in an academic sense and in a visceral life sense.  And now there seems to be more money (yes, people are also giving me money) and more opportunity to go.  I also have these odd, early-morning creative ideas about how I might be able to go more cheaply.  Call me crazy -- but I believe that, if I'm doing God's will, things open up to me (and they seem to have).  They just do.  Help me track this.  I've already researched transportation costs, but still have work to do.  I could do this.  Send prayers and good wishes my way, OK?

I'll keep you posted.  It's pretty amazing.  But I'm pretty sure I'm supposed to go for a time this year.  Even though it makes no financial sense at all.  I'm sure Suze Ormond would say, "DENIED!"

Lenten Practices

It's nearly midnight for me, the end of the first week in Lent.  I told you before about my Lenten practice, and Sharon asked for details and updates.  So, very quickly, here's how it has gone.

I have 6  projects that I want to keep at the forefront during Lent.  These certainly do not encompass the full range of things I'm attending to, but  these are the ones that are on my playful little chart:  Planning a  trip to Italy, studying and taking notes on my black madonna research, sorting through the piles and boxes of papers that dominate my life, working in my yard, writing (primarily trying to make progress on my autobiography or memoir -- final decision on that to be made later),  and other reading and study to which I'm committed (book groups, personal interest).

I made myself a little chart:  in the columns would be the six projects I'm developing, and in the rows would be the weeks in Lent.  I painted it a too-intense shade of purple, for Lent.  It's on poster board.  After I finished it (including a coat of finishing medium), I had to retrace a lot of it in silver acrylic paint, so I could read it.  The silver Prang marker that I bought just didn't enhance the contrast enough  But here it is, as it stands.  In real life it looks much more purple than the blue that my camera captured:

You can see, roughly, the stickers (shamrocks) that I've attached this first week.  No yard work; too cold.  Only "other study" has exceeded my goal, and that's because I had to get ready for tomorrow night's class on prayer.  But I've got stickers in the ones I devoted time to.  It keeps me aware and vigilant.  I'm not proud that I didn't get 3+ stickers in every block, but it gives me some sense of what I did well on, and what I need to push for in the future.

Tomorrow I'll start on that 2nd row of blocks (2nd week in Lent).  Let's see how I do as I live into this wish for myself.

Call it silly if you will, but it's fun and motivating for me, and that's really all that counts -- if it somehow gets me closer to the stewardship of myself that I'm committed to.  Thanks, God, for this opportunity to focus and do.