Rain

I've been digging in the gardens for weeks.  Because of the drought, the soil is like cement, but I persevere.  The worst of the lack of rain is that I have to water the new plantings, and the ones in the terrace strip on the front of the property have been too far to reach with a hose.  That means carrying water buckets to keep everything growing.  That includes pots of geraniums, impatiens and dianthus as well.  It is a very tiring process.  I drop into bed at the end of the day and sleep through the worst of the back pain.

Today, with rain forecast, I transplanted vinca.  This meant digging up the weeds on the terrace strip, pounding into the dry soil with shovel, garden claw, and rake to break up the ground, then dig holes. I went to the vinca patch, and dug up the plants, pounding in the soil with the shovel, tearing away bits of creeping Charlie and Jerusalem artichoke that clung to the roots, and carrying the vinca to the terrace strip to put in the holes I had drug.

The next step was to water everything.  I was just carrying a bucket out of the house when it began to sprinkle. I set the water bucket down.  Let rain do the job, I thought.  I threw on a rain jacket and headed out for some exercise.  I was a few blocks away when the rain stopped. When I got home, I found out the rain had stopped over my house right after I left.

Gary and I went shopping at a garden center for blocks for the path he's building. I found some soapwort and rock cress, two more ground covers.  I came home and put the soapwort in one spot I hadn't filled and the rock cress in another where seeds had failed to sprout.    

There was still watering to do, but Gary thought he knew where there was another hose.  While I took a nap, he worked on the problem.  When I woke up there it was, a lovely sprinkling attachment with three long hoses that took me to every part of the yard.

As I began to spray the terrace strip, it began to rain.  I turned off the hose.  The rain stopped.  I began to water the plants again.  The rain began.

Finally, I just watered every inch of the garden while standing in the rain.  Crazy, but after weeks, the plants are watered properly.  

All I need to do now is put in some Bishop's weed and the terrace strip is done.  It will be filled with over a dozen ground covers that in time will duke it out between them for supremacy.   Some will work out, some will be transplanted elsewhere.

Then to start the next gardening project, extending the vegetable bed.  

Two Books

A couple of weeks ago, I finally got around to reading President Barack Obama's second book, The Audacity of Hope.   I came to two conclusions:  first, our President is a very good writer; second, people who accused the President of naivety in his first term never read the book.  

Obama wrote the book during his short time as a junior Senator from Illinois. He wrote about almost every issue that has come before him as President, delineating the arguments on both side.  He discusses almost every issue, domestic and international.  The one problem he did not foresee was the economic crisis he was confronted with on his first day in office.

Obama taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago, an impressive credential, so he comes back to the Constitution again and again, looking at every issue from that standpoint.  Have we ever had a President who understood government as well?

Right now, I'm reading My Two Moms; Lessons of Love, Strength, and What Makes a Family, by Zach Wahls.  Wahls reached international notoriety through a You Tube video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSQQK2Vuf9Q when he argued against a ban against gay marriage in Iowa before the House Judiciary Committee. He was raised by a lesbian couple and wanted the committee to understand his life.  Now he has expanded his three minute statement into a book about his two mothers and how they helped him to lead an exemplary life.

Two books, tied together by the recent announcement of the President Obama that he is now in favor of gay marriage. Six states now have gay marriage:  New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Iowa, Vermont, and New Hampshire.

The times are changing, and in some ways they get better.

What Happens Next

Gary and I will go camping on Sunday with the idea of being away from what we call civilization during the election next Tuesday.  We'll find out how it all turned out when we come back  We turned in our absentee ballots last week so there's no point in politicians talking at us.

Last year, I was gone most of the summer, but I've decided that this year, I'd better be home at least half the time.  There are things to consider.

There's the garden.  I was hoping to have it cleared and in order by today, but the job was too enormous, with the accumulation of three years of weeds and overgrowth.  I work at it every day yet I am only a little over half through the job.  Weather permitting, I'll spend half the day doing manual labor while I am here.

There's the writing I must do.  No matter where I am, I need to write a short story every other week for Black Coffee Fiction.   I want to continue with the novel and re-work a previous one.  Then there's editing for the short story collection we want to publish by September.

Rascal, our old black and white cat is nineteen years old this summer.  His arthritis is getting worse and he isn't hitting the kitty litter the way he should.  He needs a lap to sit on.  He is unhappy with the strangers that come to feed him.  He wants his people.

My decision is that I will let Gary camp almost full time this summer and I will join him at the campgrounds, three or four days at a time, except for the ten days we'll be circling Lake Superior in July.

The rest of the time I will be here, taking care of business.

Tomatoes

I started tomato plants inside my house at the end of January.  It was too early, I knew that but tomatoes say "Summer" to me and I needed to think about that through my annual Seasonal Affective Disorder.

I started a second batch at the end of February.

By mid-March, we had unusually warm weather, so I put some of the earliest seedlings into pots and put them out on the back deck to warm in the sun.  I tenderly watered them and brought them in each night.  Then one day, while I was away on some errand, a windstorm came up and they blew over.

Oh well, I still had February's plants.  By the end of April, I was taking them out for airings. By mid-May they were on the deck in pots.  Wind storms came through again, but they survived, though a little bent.

This past week, all the seedlings were planted.  I have three varieties:  beefsteak for BLTs, Romas for soup, and Rutgers for salads.  Some of the plants are a foot tall. I should have tomatoes on our table by mid-July.

I was proud to have plants in the ground so early and doing so well, until....I walked to the grocery store, and passed a house on Lincoln Street with three foot plants already bearing tomatoes.

How did they do that?

Perhaps next year, I'll start my tomatoes on New Year's Day, get grow lights, and fertilize the heck out of them.

Experiences

I spent the day gardening on a beautiful day, but all the while I was thinking, thinking, thinking.  I have to have another story written for Black Coffee Fiction http://blackcoffeefiction.blogspot.com in rough draft by tomorrow night for my critique group and finalize it by Friday morning.

I always have had a general idea about the story, "Love in the New Millennium", but I needed a new love for Sheila, the character who has come to life since "Love in the Sixties".  She is in her fifties,divorced, and lonely now.  What kind of man should I introduce her to?

So much of the fiction I write is based on my own life. Certainly Gary is a wonderful man, but I wanted someone just a little different, so I must design Sheila's new love.

Tonight, I took a long walk and pondered the problem, and started a mental list of the men in my life, and a pleasant list it was, for the most part.  I finally settled on a boyfriend from my Chicago days.  He showed up much later in my life in an odd way and that is the story I will tell though I will probably use some of Gary, too. I can take the best of all the men I've known and turn out a perfect male, with only a minimum of training. Isn't that what every woman wants?

Sometimes, I talk to young writers who spend time discussing how they find ideas.  Too often they look to television and movies but those aren't their own ideas, just reflections of someone else's imagination.

"Have experiences!" I tell them. "Travel.  Meet interesting people.  Get into trouble. Learn to get out of trouble. Write it all down."

After a long life of adventures, all I need to write a short story is a long walk and memories.

Small Towns

My friend Norma was here today, along with her sister Linda and her husband Dan.  Norma lives in Chicago, Linda and Dan in Oshkosh.   During our time together, I mentioned that I never expected to wind up back in my home town.  I'd lived at so many places after I left Seymour at 18, places like Los Angeles and Chicago. It wasn't until I was 35 that I returned here to raise my son.  

Gary sometimes suggests there are better places.  He would like to live next to a lake in the northern woods.  But could I go swimming year round?  I can in Seymour at our aquatic center.  Would there be a fitness center nearby?  There's one here, at the high school, only three blocks away.  

What if we got sick in our lakeside paradise?  Who would get us out during winter storms?  Seymour is fifteen miles from the nearby hospital and there's an efficient EMT squad here.  

We have a good library system, wi fi, a grocery store, and a discount store, all within walking distance.  

One thing you don't have in small towns is privacy, and that is not always a bad thing. 

Decades ago, my brother, then about twelve, sent a picture postcard to my parents from his Lutheran summer camp, saying something about having a wonderful time and "Love, Carl"  What he forgot was to finish the address.  All he had written was "Seymour, Wisconsin".  My parents got it anyhow, because everyone down at the post office knew that Carl was at camp.   

Things haven't changed all that much.  I had a phone call this afternoon from the service station.  "Isn't Gary Harms your boy friend?" 

"Yes? What did he do now?" 

"He left his credit card here." 

Gary left town on Friday to visit his aunt in Dixon, so why did it take so long to report they had the card?  Because the weekend crew is made up of kids.  The card had to wait until the adult workers came, the ones that like to gossip and keep track of everyone.  

I went over, answered one question to prove I knew Gary, identified his card, and brought it home. 

Seymour has its faults.  It is far too conservative for people like Gary and me, but some day, when our minds are addled with dementia, there will be townspeople to steer us home.  

And maybe call the EMT squad.   

Clearing

Last year, the city decided I could not have flowers in the the terrace strip, the area that lays between the street and the sidewalk.  So I invited everyone I knew to take any plants they wanted. In one week, the plants were gone and Gary tilled the plot up.  A year later, many of the plants were back, in a messy sort of way.  Poppies especially were prolific. 

Gary offered to till up the soil again, but cutting up poppy roots just leads to many more poppies.  It has to be done manually.  So I've set to work digging up roots, tilling, and planting ground cover.  I'm about a quarter of the way through the project.  The ground was like cement until today.  Last night's rain softened the soil so I made more progress.  

The same problem exists in the back yard in the vegetable bed. Some years ago, I made this area a mulch pile. That proved to be another mistake.  Some of the yard waste I threw in there took root.  Now it is a jungle mix of lamium, multiflora rose, grape vine, and Virginia creeper.  All of this has to be cleared. 

I'm going at it a bit day by day, planting the vegetables on cleared ground.  Two days ago, it was tomatoes.  The day before that it was bush beans.  Today, I managed to clear out the old ornamental windmill, to which I attached string for climbing pole beans.     

The windmill didn't last long as a decoration, it was blown over in a windstorm and the blades broke, but it is perfect for growing beans.  

It will take the entire summer to clear the yard at the rate I am going but I am enjoying myself.  Mowing lawn is work.  Growing things is a creative hobby.