I have broken ground for my new garden. I've been dreaming of gardening since the season ended in Pennsylvania a year ago, so I decided not to let a little winter get in my way. Yes - I will sing greenery forth from the soil no matter the season. And so, five days ago I brought six burlap sacks of mule and zorse manure home from the stable and attempted to turn the ground in my back lawn with a pitchfork only to find it was packed solid as concrete.
Four days ago my friend Kirk lent me his pick-ax and planks to frame in a raised bed. Three days ago I broke ground with the pickax and began double digging a raised bed 3 1/2 feet wide, 18 feet long, 1 1/2 feet deep, and 1 foot high. Two mornings of digging brought me halfway across the garden bed and about two degrees of pain away from hiring a masseuse and chiropractor. I considered borrowing a rototiller but concluded a jackhammer would be a more appropriate choice. Amazingly, I found seven worms in the ground (I expected to find none).
The neighbors seem to appreciate my efforts: several come out to sit on their steps and watch my progress each morning.
"That's a big hole you're digging," says one.
"You sure know how to swing that ax," says another, "where'd you learn to work so hard?"
"I guess I grew up in the country," I say, unsure how I am supposed to respond.
"What are you gonna plant in there?" asks the young man from across the lawn each day.
"Brassicas," I answer each time, "and lots of greens. Maybe some carrots."
"I'm thinking of putting a garden in my yard," he says one morning, surprising me, "I'm thinking of putting it right here." He motions to a grassy spot beneath a tree.
"Not there," yells his mother from inside the house, "I don't want it there, I want it on the other side."
"Hmmm..." I say as I keep chipping away at the crusty soil.
"You know, I could cut your hair," says the young man, eyeing me.
"Hmmm..." I say again, swinging the pick-ax. The truth is, I haven't gotten a haircut or even a trim since I walked into a
cuttery on the main street of Vergennes, Vermont, in early January and gave them full liberty. My hair was fairly short back then, and the months since have been rife with the embarassment of a persistent mullet and shaggy bangs. I've been wanting a haircut for months but have had neither enough money to pay a stylist nor enough faith to employ a friend.
"I can do weaves and perms, too, or just a trim." I raise my eyebrows and swing the pick down. Is my hair really that bad?
"I could help you with that," says the young man, coming to stand on the opposite side of the garden bed. I'm not sure what he means at first, but then I look up and see him gesturing at the pick-ax. The weather has been rainy lately, and the turf around the bed is caked with mud. He's wearing pure white loose-laced tennis shoes and has a ciggarette stub dangling from his fingers.
"That's okay," I say.
"I'm serious," he persists, "I'm really good at that." I offer a weak chuckle and decline again.
"Well, don't say I didn't offer," he says, "I like to pull my weight around here." I'm not sure what he's referring to, but I nod understandingly and turn back to the soil, which seems to be loosening a little in the wet weather. The neighbor adds a few last attempts at conversation, but I'm too absorbed in my quiet time and eventually he leaves on his bicycle to pick up a carton of cigarettes and I'm left to myself again.
I find a broom in the garage and walk to the park across the street. Yellow leaves have blown into wet drifts along the gutters. I brush them into piles and sweep them into an empty burlap sack I've laid out. A group of skateboarders watch me skeptically from the swingset. When the sack is full I carry it back to my garden and dump half of it in the bottom of the trench I've excavated. I pour some manure on top, layer it with soil, and then stir it all up with my shovel. I imagine broccoli roots spidering out in all directions through the loose soil. I imagine dense stands of bright chard and feathery sprays of spring carrot greens. Oh, the life I will coax out of this soil once I'm through with it! I can hardly stand the waiting.
~April
Monday, October 6, 2008
Sunday, October 5, 2008
The Bookstore
My new job. Shortly after arriving in Corvallis I was hired in a small independent bookstore downtown. The bookstore is owned and run by a married couple who are kind as kin. The manager and staff are as dear as the owners. I have such tremendously wonderful luck with employment! I'm really delighted to be surrounded by books and people who love to read, though admittedly, it's changed the routine of my life quite dramatically.
I haven't been reabsorbed into society so completely as to require an alarm clock or a wristwatch yet, but I feel such developments are immanent. Working in the afternoons means hurrying to the stable in the mornings to care for the mules and then hurrying back into town to pack my lunch and change attire from hay-covered sweatshirts and mud-spattered jeans to dangly earrings and blouses and skirts. My wards transform, too, from long-eared hay browsers to inquisitive book browsers. Ah, the lives possible on this earth!
My day at the bookstore usually ends with a visit to the library where I check out all of the new books I've decided to read. I have no less than nine books on my nightstand tonight, including books from the poetry, psychology, fiction, science, and nonfiction genres. I cook a late dinner once home and then fall into bed to read a few chapters and then write until I can't keep my eyes open any longer.
Love,
~April
I haven't been reabsorbed into society so completely as to require an alarm clock or a wristwatch yet, but I feel such developments are immanent. Working in the afternoons means hurrying to the stable in the mornings to care for the mules and then hurrying back into town to pack my lunch and change attire from hay-covered sweatshirts and mud-spattered jeans to dangly earrings and blouses and skirts. My wards transform, too, from long-eared hay browsers to inquisitive book browsers. Ah, the lives possible on this earth!
My day at the bookstore usually ends with a visit to the library where I check out all of the new books I've decided to read. I have no less than nine books on my nightstand tonight, including books from the poetry, psychology, fiction, science, and nonfiction genres. I cook a late dinner once home and then fall into bed to read a few chapters and then write until I can't keep my eyes open any longer.
Love,
~April
Saturday, October 4, 2008
Thursday, October 2, 2008
New Home, New Job
I settled into my new home last week -- a sweet little house in downtown Corvallis just five blocks from my new job and a one-minute walk through Central Park from the city library. The house has three sweet bedrooms (small by modern standards but more than adequate by mine), a kitchen, living room, bathroom, and basement. Five of us are packed in here, so the rent is cheap and the spirit is high. I love it! The inside of the refrigerator seems to be the only spot where space is tight, but unless we keep acquiring food and quit eating it, it shouldn't become a problem.
My room is a lovely little niche with hardwood floors, white walls that angle in towards the ceiling four feet off the ground, and a sunny window with more than satisfactory privacy for town living. A closet and three-drawer bureau are both built into the walls of my room, eliminating the need for much acquired furniture. Within a few hours of moving in, however, my housemates presented me with both a nightstand and a small bookshelf. I've since acquired the top half of a desk that was set out for free on the sidewalk earlier this week. If I can find a small stool just a foot or so high, the new piece should make a very decent, if not shallow, writing desk.
Most wonderfully, and a bit luxuriously, I've been gifted with a mattress to sleep on. When I moved into the house, I was fully intending to sleep on my sleeping bag and saddle blanket as I've been doing these past four months. I remembered the many fruitless hours I invested in trying to find a bed while living in Vermont, and decided I wasn't even going to waste time thinking about such things. I'd completely let go of the idea and was even looking forward to spending my next sedentery phase entirely bedless (save my bag and saddle blanket) -- "what a simple way to sleep!" I thought, "no bed to make -- just a sleeping bag to smooth. And it's entirely mobile and totally free."
I hadn't been in the house for five minutes when I'd been offered my choice of a mattress or futon! I ended up with a very cushy and new-looking double mattress scrounged up from the basement. I'd been excited at the prospect of avoiding the purchase of bedsheets, but I compromised with myself and found an attractive pair of mismatched flat sheets at Good Will the next day. One is olive green and the other is dusty rose and neither is form-fitted so I do, indeed, spend too much time carefully remaking my bed each morning (I like to leave my things in order). I have not decided yet whether or not I will try to acquire a blanket. Practically, I'm taken care of because I'm able to unzip my sleeping bad and use it as a blanket. Aesthetically, my sleeping bag is mummy-shaped and doesn't contribute to my perceived feng shui of the room.
This unintentioned mattress acquisition, however, is a perfect example of the wonders I've been experiencing of late. It seems the less I try to snatch at things, the more easily they come. What a relief! Meeting one's needs takes a lot of energy -- it's a lot easier not to need!
Let me talk about food now, because food is a real and totally valid need, assuming you're neither a sungazer nor set upon starving to death. Food is one thing I worry about and often (irrationally) wonder if I have enough of. I think I've already written about the wonderful bounty of blackberries and apples I had access to while staying with my muley out at the stable. I was a little concerned that moving into town would entail giving up my free food supply. Quite the contrary! Corvallis is the most food-full city I've ever experienced! There must be at least one house on every block with at least a tomato plant in the front yard, if not a full blown orchard, vegetable garden, or livestock operation. Just within several blocks of my house I have access to apples, grapes, pears, and honey, and have scouted out plums and chickens, too! There's even a bakery a few blocks away that puts left-over bread loaves in bins behind the store in the evenings -- I patronized that alley last week and came away with a very nice baguette. On top of the food grown right in town, one of my housemates is the assistant chef at a large CSA outside of town. She seems to bring home a new surprise every day... carrots, grapes, freshly baked sourdough bread. Quite delightfully, I borrowed a canner and was also offered the use of a cider press, so next week will be a busy one.
Honeychild is happy as ever. I sure miss her since I moved into town, though! I bike out to the stable almost every day to feed the mules and scratch Honeychild's withers. I'm going to try to borrow some driving lines soon so I can practice ground driving her some more. I've been thinking a lot about draft work and recently subscribed to the Small Farmers Journal which lends much space to discussion of draft power. Honeychild has been contributing to my urban gardening project, too -- yesterday I scooped two bins and four burlap feed sacks full of her manure. I brought it into town and will be using it in my new raised beds I'm building. My good friends in Corvallis are offering me lots of support in this new endeavor of mine -- my first winter garden! The ground in our back yard is hard as rock, but I've been loaned a pick, so I should be able to get it churned up, inch by inch.
More later, my sleeping bag calls...
~April
My room is a lovely little niche with hardwood floors, white walls that angle in towards the ceiling four feet off the ground, and a sunny window with more than satisfactory privacy for town living. A closet and three-drawer bureau are both built into the walls of my room, eliminating the need for much acquired furniture. Within a few hours of moving in, however, my housemates presented me with both a nightstand and a small bookshelf. I've since acquired the top half of a desk that was set out for free on the sidewalk earlier this week. If I can find a small stool just a foot or so high, the new piece should make a very decent, if not shallow, writing desk.
Most wonderfully, and a bit luxuriously, I've been gifted with a mattress to sleep on. When I moved into the house, I was fully intending to sleep on my sleeping bag and saddle blanket as I've been doing these past four months. I remembered the many fruitless hours I invested in trying to find a bed while living in Vermont, and decided I wasn't even going to waste time thinking about such things. I'd completely let go of the idea and was even looking forward to spending my next sedentery phase entirely bedless (save my bag and saddle blanket) -- "what a simple way to sleep!" I thought, "no bed to make -- just a sleeping bag to smooth. And it's entirely mobile and totally free."
I hadn't been in the house for five minutes when I'd been offered my choice of a mattress or futon! I ended up with a very cushy and new-looking double mattress scrounged up from the basement. I'd been excited at the prospect of avoiding the purchase of bedsheets, but I compromised with myself and found an attractive pair of mismatched flat sheets at Good Will the next day. One is olive green and the other is dusty rose and neither is form-fitted so I do, indeed, spend too much time carefully remaking my bed each morning (I like to leave my things in order). I have not decided yet whether or not I will try to acquire a blanket. Practically, I'm taken care of because I'm able to unzip my sleeping bad and use it as a blanket. Aesthetically, my sleeping bag is mummy-shaped and doesn't contribute to my perceived feng shui of the room.
This unintentioned mattress acquisition, however, is a perfect example of the wonders I've been experiencing of late. It seems the less I try to snatch at things, the more easily they come. What a relief! Meeting one's needs takes a lot of energy -- it's a lot easier not to need!
Let me talk about food now, because food is a real and totally valid need, assuming you're neither a sungazer nor set upon starving to death. Food is one thing I worry about and often (irrationally) wonder if I have enough of. I think I've already written about the wonderful bounty of blackberries and apples I had access to while staying with my muley out at the stable. I was a little concerned that moving into town would entail giving up my free food supply. Quite the contrary! Corvallis is the most food-full city I've ever experienced! There must be at least one house on every block with at least a tomato plant in the front yard, if not a full blown orchard, vegetable garden, or livestock operation. Just within several blocks of my house I have access to apples, grapes, pears, and honey, and have scouted out plums and chickens, too! There's even a bakery a few blocks away that puts left-over bread loaves in bins behind the store in the evenings -- I patronized that alley last week and came away with a very nice baguette. On top of the food grown right in town, one of my housemates is the assistant chef at a large CSA outside of town. She seems to bring home a new surprise every day... carrots, grapes, freshly baked sourdough bread. Quite delightfully, I borrowed a canner and was also offered the use of a cider press, so next week will be a busy one.
Honeychild is happy as ever. I sure miss her since I moved into town, though! I bike out to the stable almost every day to feed the mules and scratch Honeychild's withers. I'm going to try to borrow some driving lines soon so I can practice ground driving her some more. I've been thinking a lot about draft work and recently subscribed to the Small Farmers Journal which lends much space to discussion of draft power. Honeychild has been contributing to my urban gardening project, too -- yesterday I scooped two bins and four burlap feed sacks full of her manure. I brought it into town and will be using it in my new raised beds I'm building. My good friends in Corvallis are offering me lots of support in this new endeavor of mine -- my first winter garden! The ground in our back yard is hard as rock, but I've been loaned a pick, so I should be able to get it churned up, inch by inch.
More later, my sleeping bag calls...
~April
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)