I've been in a funk lately. And I've been unable to decide whether to be
in denial about this funk or if I should wallow in it. Which means, I
guess, that I've been in a funk within a funk. No wonder I can't get out!
For the last month and a half I have been raking leaves. This is
California - my leaves are little piles that take about an hour per week of
my time. Hardly enough to complain about, I know. Up until this week, I
had leaf-raking duties without the benefit of fall color, but last weekend,
my neighbor's tree of heaven turned a flaming orange. I can see it
out of my office window. It's divine. haha.
We had rain. What happens to a large expanse of dirt when it rains? Well,
I'll tell you. It turns into mud. Now that I am a bicycle commuter and I
park my bike under the shelter of my canoe, which is placed on two
sawhorses set on the dirt, mud-tracker is my middle name. Funk number 14
in my month-and-a-half-long series was what to do about the regular mud
contact. Buy gravel? Stepping stones? I settled for the cheap and
instant-gratification alternative of spreading leaves and grass clippings
all over the heavily-trafficked (by me) dirt/mud area. It's working out
pretty well.
Now that it has rained a few times, the expanse of mud has turned into an
expanse of dandelion seedlings. Nothing sprouted after the first rain and
I thought for sure that my soil was too inhospitable even for weeds. I'm
not sure whether to be happy or not about the evidence to the contrary
(funk # 26).
I haven't planted my vegetable patch yet. Nighttime temperatures are still
above 40 degrees and daytime temperatures are around 70. There's still
time. (This is my mantra.) I was kind of waiting to buy some manure
before planting. After the first rain, I turned over the soil in the patch
again, and it looked like concrete - dry and light grey below the moisture
horizon. I laughed at it - "HA! You can't scare me!" I had seen dirt
like that before but three years and three truckloads of horseshit later
that soil was the finest you've ever seen. I've done it once, I can do it
again! That is... if I don't end up being lazy... (funk # 31).
I planted a row of Achillea millefolia (yarrow) and
daisies by the side of the house in September. The daisies
got kind of burned with the hot weather we were still having then, but
they're recovering now and the Achillea is looking fantastic
- it has doubled in size from when I planted it. It's a small gardening
triumph to spur me on!
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