Rub

She relishes a good rub-down.

Another Monday off, first one sick, then one holiday, tomorrow low census and a trade to work Wednesday. Not eager to do for 10 hour shifts in a row, but better than losing the hours completely. No more holidays until Labor Day.

Seventh day in a row over 100˚F. Worse, that we are hitting record high overnight low temps. I suspect this is what is stressing my tomatoes and strawberries.

I'm drinking most of my tea cold. Not iced, just letting it fall to room temp. Strange how we feel the effects of the heat even though it's kept cool in the house. Well, 78˚F which is sufficient.

Augustine

String of days over 100˚F, longer still of no rain, and the garden is already August dry.



Moby insists on going out for the heat. Wildflowers past their flowering. Jalapenos forming, sunflowers still in bloom and bust cycle. The verge sunflower forest is a bit meagre. I may let it re-seed next year, if only for the sake of better soil. Another season to heal, if that's what it needs. Either way, keeps the house cooler by being green and alive.

We had lunch with Dylan's parents. They got a better than asked for offer on their house. Now they have to find a condo quickly. They are deeply stressed, but moving forward. I've been enlisted to help them sort the kitchen cupboards sometime soon, which is fine. Well within my capabilities.

Getting dark, winds whipping up, brief rain - no less welcome. There may be more. Better than those storms that whoosh through, not even getting moisture to the ground.

Clover

A while back, a Kind Commenter stopped by. Since she didn't have her own blog, I offered her a guest post here. Please welcome Kathleen. She writes as I only wish I could.

Clover

I’m in clover.

You don’t often hear this phrase nowadays. It means enjoying luxury or comfort, or being relatively well off. I do, and am, so my opening statement is true.

The expression comes from agricultural life and animal husbandry, as clover is an excellent forage crop and also enriches the soil it grows in by fixing nitrogen, so it is often used in rotational planting.

But I really am in clover.

Two hundred dense green square metres of Red Clover (Triflolium pratense – literally, ‘three-leafed meadow plant’), to be precise, covering a longish area of my garden.

It’s set off on three sides with elegant black ‘Cheshire’ fencing and on the fourth by a gently curving gravelled path. Three upright granite rocks stand, henge fashion, somewhat off centre. Beyond the fence is green pasture, often occupied by cows.






The clover is about 40 centimetres high and in full bloom. The flower heads are a soft purplish pink. I think the ‘red’ in the name must come from the dark red sheaths on the stalks below the leaves. Bees love clover and the whole area is abuzz.

Sounds wonderful, don’t you think? Doing my bit against the world-wide and local threat to bees. A senseless act of beauty.

Instead of filling me with delight, however, this gorgeous clover has been keeping me awake at night, scouring the internet for help. The internet assumes that if I am looking for help with clover I must be a farmer, and all its advice is focused on crop management and maximisation. No advice anywhere on how to minimise it.

It shouldn’t be there.

Underneath all that clover is my wildflower meadow. Here and there something that isn’t clover pokes its head up through the dark green canopy.

Two or three Borage plants hung with delicate blue stars over in one corner...



A scattering of Corn Cockles. A Corn Chamomile and a sprinkling of blue Cornflowers on the edge of the gravel path. Some bright red Poppies...



A few crowded out hangers-on of various sorts along the fence. I see a single very fine Hedge Mustard.

When we came to this former farmyard two and a half years ago, nothing had grown here for many decades. We set about creating a new garden in the two-thirds of an acre of bare soil that surrounded our half of a converted old hay barn. We have no special qualification for this task and are rather fair weather and decidedly amateur gardeners, with ideas that may be a bit big for us. We’d only ever had a moderately sized suburban garden before.

We thought it would be brilliant to include a wildflower meadow in our new garden. And where better to put it than across the top of the 600 metres of ground source heat collection pipes that supply our central heating and hot water, where we can’t plant anything big?

The first year we were advised to plant just an annual mix, to have a quick show of colour, deplete any nutrients in the soil, and see what else would come up. Even though nothing had grown there for so long, the removal of the farmyard’s old concrete-base silage pits and the upheaval caused by the land remediation and the installation of the GSHP pipes liberated thousands of seeds whose time had come. Some are welcome, others not, and the latter had to be identified and removed. The annuals all flowered and the result was astonishingly beautiful – much better than I expected for our very first attempt. People passing along our lane stopped to gaze. I spent hours and hours pulling up dock and thistle and plantain and other undesirables. The bees came. The butterflies came. Deeply satisfying.



The next spring we cut down what remained of the annuals, removed everything and started again. This time we sowed both an annual and a perennial mix. The show was even better than before.




Some of the perennials, like the starry Borage, flowered in their first season. And the Red Clover.

How pretty it is! I thought. What a lot of it there is! Maybe it’s meant to be like this, I thought...



Alarm began to set in as autumn came in and we prepared for winter. We cut the meadow down to three inches or so, let the cuttings lie for a few days, and then cleared them off. When mowed down, the clover stalks are pale green spikey stars flat against the night sky of the soil. And they were everywhere. A whole constellation of clover stalks.






By November, the clover was already growing back strongly, while everything else appeared dormant.





The winter was relatively mild, and as spring came on this year the clover capitalised on its head start and went full steam ahead. Now it dominates the entire area.

The label on the seed mix packet says that three per cent of the mix is Red Clover, so this explosion was something of a mystery. We speculated that the mix had not been properly checked by the supplier who prepares them. But there’s nothing to be done about that. Here they are, and what are we going to do about it? The balance of the meadow is overthrown before it’s fully established and a whole lot of nitrogen is going back into the soil, making it rather too rich for wildflowers, which do better on poor soil.

I found myself curiously conflicted about this situation. To the eye, it’s a scene of loveliness. The deep dark green of the clover contrasts with the black fencing and the granite rocks, and creates a strong background for the carefully arranged curved rows of Purple Moor Grass we have set in the gravel, which is just beginning to establish itself. While relishing how it looks, I’ve agonised about what to do, and felt that I have gone wrong somewhere, in spite of studiously following the advice I was originally given. I know it’s silly to blame myself or feel I’ve ‘failed’, but I do. I’m amazed by how upset I felt about it. Nothing is wrong, nobody died, it’s only plants, we can always start again if necessary, it’s only one part of the garden.

The Buddha seems unconcerned...

In desperation, and not really expecting anything to come of it, I contacted the original seed supplier and told them of our plight. And I got a reply!

They said it was possible that the top soil brought in at the time of the land remediation was particularly conducive to clover and that this might explain why it had proliferated so very vigorously. And at last I was given a really useful piece of information. Although clover is a perennial, it’s not a long-lasting one. After about three years, it will die back. This means, the helpful man explained, that we don’t have to cut it all down and start again. We can wait it out. Gradually the other plants will get their chance. We can oversow with seeds we want to encourage. It will take longer for our meadow to get into balance, but what’s the rush?

I’m happy with that.

So there you have it. I’m in clover. For now.

Heaven

Battling the Tree of Heaven. Digging up every sprouting down to it's damned roots. Just took down some of the ones in the neighbor's back space. It keeps coming back, but with less vigor each year, and although I'm never going to win, I will beat it back so long as I live.

I don't believe in Heaven, save the one we make during our own lives now.


And the weedy trees that keep showing up. There was one at the back end of my parent's yard, beside the garage, growing from the neighbor's side of the property line. Stank, and made a mess all year. Very hard to get rid of. Poisonous things.

Vote

Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes.

- Robert Watson-Watt


Ok, this makes me feel better about one thing. Yes, it's a parody. No, I'm still not a big fan of the presidential nominee. But I do feel a bit better. I like that she has an anger translator on the job now.

Sat out with Moby last evening, letting him bask. The garden keeps it tolerable for me, as I read Dr. Janina Ramirez's book. Neighborhood kids stopped by to look at the flowers. One boy tells me I need to water, since so many of them are drooping. I tell him they are fine, just done blooming and starting to form seeds. He then asks me if I'm "a boy or a girl. Oh, girl. Right?" I agree, I am a girl. No sense telling a 5 or 6 year old about the non-binary nature of gender. I took it in good part. Then they asked about Moby. I told them their trikes would scare him, but if they came up very slowly, he might let them pet him. He tolerated a quick stroke from each. I warned them he was an old cat, and that was enough for him. They left, thanking me, and me them. Moby settled up further on the porch for a while, only slightly ruffled. He's pretty tolerant of children.

A funny moment. They are nice young neighbors, and they are welcome to the garden. And he did ask a valid question, honestly and without malice. I do wear mens' clothing, come off as rather androgynous, moreso as I get older, not at all girly.

Ah, well.

All in all, holding on.

26 Jul 5:20 pm 104F Dewpoint 23 %6 humidity.

Third day over 100˚F. 38C.

Touring

The tomatoes selected for local growing have all split and rotted. All four so far, as they begin to ripen, are already inedible.



Moby doing the full tour.



The weedy potatoes.



"Let's go."


Behind the compost.



Then a warm-up in the driveway. He's been over licking his paws again. Poor kitty.



Everything this time of year looks dry and worn. The back isn't looking great, but it really is much improved from when we moved in. I have to remind myself the progress I've made, especially at the stages when it doesn't show, looks worse. Keep digging up tree of heaven sprouts, down at the roots now. Still no appreciable rain since 13 June.

Dreaming of next spring, prickly pear cactus, grapes and roses.

Nothing more to do today, our local holiday. We got legs on the salvaged kitchen island soon-to-be worktable. Gathering tools and stuff to organize it all. Going very slowly.

Reds

Tomatoes. Finches. Fire.

Xeriscape

Ok, my garden, especially in front, is a dry garden. Very little water used to maintain. I water the fruiting plants, establishing plants, and that's it. Xeri means Dry.

My in-laws' home is on the market. Their yard is largely builder's debris covered by a thin layer of dirt. Not much grows. In the description of the property is the term "zero-scape." Dylan looked at that, I looked exasperated, he shrugs a "well?" It may not be what is meant, but it's closer to the truth.

It is not landscaped. Zero-scaping.

Ok, fair enough.


Cat reminded me of the Mt. Washington Observatory cats.

Antelope

We hit a few yard sales this morning, met a nice dog at one. A few small useful items found. Like that cloth on the bed. A small round table, wool laptop cover.

Smoke from a nearby wildfire on Antelope Island. Lightning, not arson. Western horizon a murky orange.




We live right about where the L of Salt Lake is on the map. If we could drive straight there, freeway, we'd be about a half hour away. Less, about 20-25 miles crow-flies.



Days of '47 children's parade a block away from us, lots of folks walking by.

Catfish

Eleanor staying very close to Moby, who is tolerating her presence. He let us have half the sofa, and Eleanor, after several circuits, next to him, over our laps, down, finally settled on the back beside Moby. She has been nosing him all afternoon before this.

A bit of stormage, before I got out of work sadly. Took the temp 10˚ down from 100˚+, for a while. Which I also missed. As well as most of the post rain humidity, which didn't last long.

Figured out what I did wrong with the potatoes. The long dry and heat killed them, before they could flower, so there are no appreciable potatoes underneath. I tried digging up a small section where the tops had already withered, and found less than I'd planted in the first place. Should have put them in late summer, for the fall. Ah, well, perhaps next year. And maybe letting them do what they want into the fall, they will try to grow again.

Trial and error and error and error.

The roma tomatoes are doing well. The Hamsons are all cracked on top, and not ripe. May be salvageable, may not. Russian Stripes are starting to form. Which is better than many of my cow-orkers' gardens, so they tell me. Hot days are fine, it's the record hot nights, and utter lack of real rain, making it a tough go.

Remembering visiting Uncle Al's cottage as a kid. Not my own uncle, but Aunt Alma's brother. Michigan has these lakes with canals off of them, lots of little vacation homes, some of which turn into permanent retirement homes. The water could be a bit weedy and muddy, which freaked me out as a squeamish child. The tadpoles and tiny fish in the shallow water at their boat launch were features of my young nightmares. Informed by nature shows about piranha, I dreamed they ate off my toes, over and over. Still, I loved the place, and catching catfish, paddling about in rowboats. There were older boys who would bait my hook, but otherwise ignore me generally.

My only taste of really fresh fish ever, one I caught, and it was amazing. Aunt... oh, no I can't recall her name, cooked it for me, and delighted in my delight. My mother made a point to tell me that she did not like children, and I was not to pester her. But later, was also told that she did like me, much to my mother's amazement. Again, not a relation, but my father's brother's wife's brother's wife. Still, I rather liked her quiet, and respected an adult who was fine not coddling children. Betty? Peggy? seems like she had the same name as one of my official aunts, but that's a hazy memory.

At some point, they all fell out of my life, for reasons I was never given, nor ever wondered over. Childhood is so porous around the edges, so many bits fall off, and we don't think to question most of it until it's too late to ask. My brothers might recall, not asking them though.

You never know who will hold you in their heart, what kindness you do for a child that they keep all their life. Even though your name is lost on the way.

Punk

Vivien Goldman story today, and this song.


Private Armies.

I only brushed past punk on it's first pass through my life. Liked it, fascinated by the style, but distracted by more practical concerns. No money for clubs or tapes, not daring enough to find it anyway. How little I'd begun to become myself.

Since then, I've gone back, as more of everything is available. Love the raw edges of punk and ska. Rhythms complex, or at least driving. Made up as they go along quality.

Which says much about my garden, my house projects, taste in art, life. Perfection seems to me both impossible, and undesirable. Slick shine is a cheat, repellant, needless. Pretense, not real. High quality should have enough confidence to be aware of it's deficits. Because the appearance of perfect and ideal is a lie. It's all a botch, an approximation, with a margin of error. This is an advantage, this allows it to live and breathe.

Punk seems to embody this. Too bad I couldn't see this when I was 20.

Cyanobacteria

A Few Clouds
100°F
38°C
Humidity 9%
Wind Speed SSE 12 MPH
Barometer 30.05 in (1010.4 mb)
Dewpoint 32°F (0°C)
Visibility 10.00 mi
Heat Index 95°F (35°C)
Last update 20 Jul 3:50 pm MDT

Not just heat, but cyanobacteria blooms in local waterways. Our water supply is fine for the moment, only because it comes from a different watershed. Our low last night was a record breaking 81˚F. Yes, low.

Garden pretty much dead, aside from sunflowers and tomatoes. Getting a couple of romas each day, ripening on the window sill. More of the Hamson getting close. Jalpenos are forming nicely, they'll come later and all at once. Potatoes not looking so good, giving them a good soak today.

Solar panels looking really smart at the moment.

No rain.

Ill over the weekend, gut issues. Doing fine now, though. Trying again to cook whole fennel. Planning on a white pizza for dinner.

Feeling very valued at work. Getting both a market adjustment raise, and a merit increase. Manager is lovely and bright, and much happier since she is also getting the unit assistant she needed when the last one quit out of the blue. New one seems to be capable and useful.

So much fun riding out weeks of sweaty hot flashes when the weather is hot all by itself.

Listen

Chaos

Fearing my own hands,
Broken shaking chaotic,
boiling ice puddle.

Pear

So, I read that prickly pear cactus grows in my part of the world. Hardy even, in my zone. So, I have my plan for next spring. Grapes, roses and cactus. Aunt Evelyn would be so proud.


Eventually, a bit of these. More or less.



A glass broke in the dishwasher overnight. I went searching for the missing bit of glass, and found bits of plastic, and fibers stuck in the bottom. Wound up disassembling the whole arm and screen bits, washed out all the debris that stuck there. I deeply suspect some of it is dog hair from previous owners, based on color and texture. Well, from their dogs, to be clear. No wonder the dishes have been suffering from soap granules, just not working properly. Hopefully this will solve the issue. And I feel really good about figuring out how to do this. Accomplishment is very satisfying.

I think I even got the glass shard out.

I don't even mind losing the glass, considering.

All

Not sure how fast bee balm is expected to grow, but this seems meagre. Still, it's alive, maybe next year, or the year after, it will take over the whole patch.

It really is all about the bees.



Thinking small, trying to stay focused on the small joys. However dark, we must keep our sparking lights alit. Never allow the fear or anger to win, give it no foothold in our hearts. Respond with love and kindness, compassion and courage. The horrors leave their mark, but dwindle against the bright joys. They are big and scary, but they aren't important. Turn your back on them, as on a jumping dog. Take care of each other. Pour out more love into the world. Keep pouring.

Go on, tell me what you love.

Ambivalence

Went to talk tires this morning. They didn't have in stock what we needed, but we can get them my next day off, Saturday. Cars need new tires now and again. The last time I tried to figure out tires by phone, it was a long, frustrating and fruitless ordeal. So, worth the drive to get face to face information.

Moved PILs boxes to the basement, after a bit of actual packing and some tape. Nice folks, but they cannot pack a box for shit. Nor can their son. Or maybe I've just played a bit too much tetris and welltris. I have certainly packed way too many boxes and moved way too many times. Still. It's not rocket surgery, people.

More or less finished cleaning the copper kettle. Feeling very ambivalent about what to do with it now. I have an electric kettle, and a little stove top stainless number. It's pretty, but... Fraught, is perhaps the word I'm looking for. My mother finally got her copper kettle, kept the outside clean and shiny. Never boiled vinegar inside, affecting the taste, no doubt encrusted in lime. A problem I worked out when I was on my own a while, with my own kettles. This kettle was sadly in need of a great deal of tlc, for the solidified sediment on it's inner bottom. Which it got. I may have to find it a good home. Fostering kettles.

The kitchen sink is draining beautifully.

Four tomatoes ripening on the front sill.

Catsoup cooking.

No rain in sight.

Unsaid

Listening to two of my young cow-orkers talking about their hair stylists and the cost of a dyejob for said hair. Remembering my mother springing for my perms when I was in my teens.

I did not say to these lovely young women that my biggest regret was the amount of money I spent on my hair at that age and over the years. The frustration of getting anyone to actually cut it short enough, the perms, the neck pain at the salon sinks.

And suddenly thought, and that my mother always had money for her hair, but getting fresh vegetables, or even frozen vegetables, was too fucking expensive. She would pay $50 for my perm, but get all stingy about fresh fruit.

My hair would have been a lot healthier if I'd had decent nutrition.

These are the occasional blobs that float to the surface, unannounced and stinking of deep clogged grease.

Simulacrum

A smile in my kitchen?



Tomatoes starting to ripen.



Much cleaned kettle, not quite done. Made in Portugal, so it reads on the bottom.

Thinking I'd like to visit Montreal.