LAKE MACBRIDE— Taking photographs of spring flowers isn’t necessary. Nor does it record the pink, blue, red, white and violet petals in a way that persists like the collective memories of 20 years of spring in this place.
The Red Delicious apple tree has an abundance of blooms, just like last year. I thought 2014 would be apple bust because there were so many last year. It is very exciting to see blooms on two apple trees and on the pear tree.
I am lagging behind the neighborhood on making the first cut of lawn. I saw bumble bees in the dandelions— a hopeful sign. I want to give them as many pollinating opportunities as possible. We have a light carpet of violets among the blades of grass. I don’t want to cut until I need to mulch the tomatoes and peppers. It won’t be long, but not today.
The scents of the flowers are intoxicating. Anyone who doesn’t know what I mean should get outside more— now. The varied fragrances last so short a while, but we drink in their liquor like hikers after following the trace of Dillon’s Furrow from the city.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Sound sleep and dreams populated the last two nights as physical labor dominated much of my time this week.
Yesterday was a three job day, which made things easier and harder. Easier because the schedule drove everything, requiring less thinking. Harder because of the long hours and limited flexibility. I crashed into bed before the sun set.
Tuesday was also a full day: farm work, finance, gardening, and a long dinner meeting with the board of directors of a national NGO based in Washington, D.C. I had quinoa stir fry— my first time to eat the high protein vegetable— and decided to continue my moratorium on buying it for the time being. It is not good enough to cause trouble for indigenous people in South America who rely upon it.
I’ve been neighboring. Folks next door asked where they could get some bales of hay to use in landscaping. A friend raises livestock, so I delivered four bales with my Subaru Outback after making seed planting trays in the germination shed. No one was home when I arrived, so I left them under the garage eaves and they left a check wedged in the brick work of our front yard planting area. The transaction was positive all around.
There is a sense that Spring is slipping away before everything can get done: making less time for Internet activities, and a web of opportunities elsewhere.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The apple trees are in pink, which means the blooms will soon follow. Because my trees were not properly pruned until last winter, the number of blossoms will be low. Last year was the best ever for fruit, and 2014 tree energy is likely to be devoted to forming next year’s buds. Hopefully pruning cleared enough space for sunlight to encourage the fruit that does form.
Neighbors are out mowing lawns, and I am usually the last to make the first cut. I stopped trying to get an even and lush green lawn, eschewing chemical applications ten or more years ago. I bag my Spring clippings to use as mulch in the garden. A former neighbor once told me I should leave it to mulch the grass, but why waste it?
Two years of drought have thinned the grass, leaving a patchy mess before cutting. Where deer droppings fell are mountains of green. Once I mow, it will all even out… at least enough to stay out of the neighbors’ attention.
After a shift at a farm I hope to spend a few hours in the garden fencing the recently germinated spring vegetables. There is a burn pile on top of a tree stump. If winds are calm, I’ll burn it, hopefully taking the stump with it. I bought a bag of “natural charcoal” to use as a stump remover. If the burn pile doesn’t take this stump out, charcoal will be next.
More than 1,000 seedlings are growing in our bedroom, way more than usual. I am re-thinking how to plant everything. Maybe two full plots of tomatoes if we can afford the new cages. With all the varieties, this may be the year to make the most of it. I also want to plant all the germinated bell pepper seedlings to increase yield. Peppers don’t grow uniformly and the more plants, the more chances for decently formed vegetables. The celery is developing, but at this stage looks very delicate. I’m thinking about cucumbers and squash, but I want to wait a bit before planting them until after the squash beetle eggs.
Here’s hoping for some time in the garden and yard squeezed in between paid job in this complicated schedule of a life on the prairie.
Asian Greens in Scrambled Eggs with Vermont Cheese and Pickled Bits and Pieces
LAKE MACBRIDE— The first share from the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm was ready yesterday— asparagus, lettuce, baby bok choy and Asian greens. Anticipation over spring and summer cooking is building, even if living on bits and pieces from the pantry will continue until the full flow of local produce is unleashed. Picking up the share at the farm was a fine beginning.
We had more than two inches of rain since Earth Day, so outdoor plants are growing. The garden is too wet to work, although as soon as the soil dries, seedlings are ready to go into the ground. Meanwhile I will go on living in society, and that is today’s topic.
The phrase “in society” has a particular usage here. It is part of a spectrum of relationships with people that contrasts with “chez nous,” the French term that refers to “at home” or “with us.” Maybe there is something else on this jumping green sphere (thanks Lord Buckley for this phrase), “outside society” or “foreign,” but most of our lives are spent chez nous or in society. My tag “homelife” could be changed to “chez nous” and sustain the meaning.
Living in society is that set of relationships which sustains a life on the plains. It includes friends, family, neighbors, workplaces, institutions, retail establishments, and organizations with which we associate or interact. The relationships are interpersonal, that is, specific people are associated with each part of society— it is not an abstraction.
When young, we don’t see our life in society this way. We had an ability to live in the moment without a history of interpersonal relationships, anchoring us into something else. As we age, we are more like a character in a William Faulkner novel that must work to suppress the endless flow of memory.
If experience connects us, the way we live in society is based on thousands of previous interactions. For example, someone ran for the U.S. Senate after a long, productive life. If I saw him today in any of a number of settings— at a retail store, at the retirement village, at a literature reading, at a veterans meeting, at a public demonstration— I would think of the courage he displayed by taking on personal debt to challenge an entrenched incumbent politician who would otherwise have run unopposed. I would also think of our many conversations over a period of years. Our relationship is driven by my respect for his courage, and I picture him when I think about the associations we share. When I use the phrase “in society,” it might be referring to an interaction we had, or one like it with someone else.
My usage of the phrase “in society” may have been explained by others who are smarter, but because it is organic there is a peculiar sense to it on this blog. It is personal, but not really, because is it also public.
I am entering one of the richest periods of personal interaction in life. Old enough to have had experience, and young enough to gain new ones. Each day’s potential is vast midst the galaxy of people with whom I interact. Favoring the phrase “in society” enables me to talk about them without revealing where the specific interaction may have occurred. This protects people from unwanted intrusion into their lives, and enables the writing I do for a couple of hours each day.
Chez nous, we would have had breakfast of Asian greens mixed with scrambled eggs, Vermont cheddar cheese and pickled veggies from last season. In society I am part of the local food movement and post photos of my breakfast. Maybe I am drawing a fine line, but it is an important one for a writer.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Today I planted seeds outside. Rover F1 Hybrid Round Radishes; French Breakfast Radishes; Purple Top White Globe Turnips; White Globe Radishes; Nelson F1 Hybrid Early Carrots; Bloomsdale Long-Standing Spinach; Razzle Dazzle Hybrid Spinach; and Dwarf Blue Scotch Curled Kale.
LAKE MACBRIDE— Easter was the biggest holiday after Christmas while I was growing up, although its importance diminished when I left home at age 18. This photo of my maternal grandmother’s parents— my great grandparents— typified the gatherings of an era that is gone.
Things are more casual today, and seldom do we gather on the lawn for a photo. If we did, our small family wouldn’t have many people in the image. A sign of the times and choices made when we were young.
Our next door neighbor gave birth to her third child on April 10 and yesterday she carried the baby in the yard while we talked about our shared lot line. The baby, swaddled in a blanket, didn’t make a sound. We walked the length of the line, discussing the easement and placement of gardens, hers and mine. The two younger children and her husband joined us. It was a pleasant moment in a life of neighboring.
The lettuce is not up in the garden. In fact the surface looks pretty dry. After the newspaper proof reading, I plan to spend the balance of the day preparing a bed for spring vegetables and working in the yard and garden. There is a lot to be done.
Lingering in the pre-dawn darkness, there is an hour to write, read and think before the rising sun of Easter morning.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The soil is ready. If there was ice in it a few days ago, it is now mellow from recently departed frost and dry weather. Rich and soft and easy to work. I’ll turn over a plot after work at the warehouse. What to plant next?
I have become a buyer of beets, cabbage, potatoes, kohlrabi, and other common vegetables. Eschewing those, the first plot will add carrots, spinach, turnips and radishes to the lettuce broadcast there this week. I’ll time the radish planting to provide a continuous harvest through the end of spring. Too, I’ll leave space to transplant lettuce started indoors when the weather warms. Once the spring vegetables finish, the space will be used for something else.
April has been a very busy month. The late spring, coupled with four public speaking events in the next two weeks, many jobs, and yard and garden work, filled my calendar to overflowing. I’m not complaining. Just sayin’.
The whirlwind between now and Memorial Day weekend has begun.
LAKE MACBRIDE— The ground turned over, just moist enough and no ice below the surface. I planted the leftover lettuce seeds from last year and it started sprinkling rain.
Despite the branch busting apple crop last year, there are a lot of flower buds forming. Garlic is up and the spring bulbs outside my library window are pushing through the mulch piled on them last fall.
The last seed tray has been planted with hot peppers, and just in time, as not only lettuce, but spinach, arugula, turnips and radishes all need planting.
One never knows, but there is a good feeling about this spring, even with the late arrival. Here’s hoping all the work gets done.
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