Soaker
Send your happy thoughts this way today, please. They tell is it’s going to RAIN, for the first time in weeks. This part of the country is currently under “exceptional” drought conditions — the only part of the country that is. Our Secretary of Agriculture has already petitioned for seventeen counties here to be declared disaster areas.
It’s dry as hell.
Every day driving from Smallville to Huntsville and back I pass field after field of stunted corn and cotton. The corn’s new this year, planted with the thoughts of converting it to ethanol for higher profits than soybean or cotton, but it’s turning into a huge failure because we’ve had no rain in so long. Most of the corn I see is about knee-high (for reference, the corn in my garden, where there’s plenty of water, is between 5 and 7 feet tall and loaded with ears) and very spindly. The cotton is even shorter, maybe five inches tall. It’s terrible.
But they say it’s going to rain today, for most of the day, so please, send some positive thoughts towards north Alabama if you would.
I’ve lived in Smallville for about six weeks now, and sometimes I feel like I’m swimming in mud. During the week, every day after work I hit the ground running at home and don’t stop until around 7:30. On Saturday and Sunday, I work around the house from 7:00 or 8:00 until about 8:00 in the evening.
Weeding, hoeing, watering, painting, building, repairing, switching, picking, mowing, raking, prying, tilling, hanging, climbing, crawling, scraping, digging, wiring.
This past weekend, I: mowed about an acre, ran an electric zapper fence (including crawling around under the house for an eternity) for the cats, built a frame for a cat house for my mom, did some painting on our shed/shop, weeded in the garden more than once, replaced the screen door, picked green beans (trust me, that’s time-consuming), made sure the garden got watered (using a soaker hose, which involves getting the hose under every plant), and went to Lowe’s twice.
I feel like I’m forgetting something in that list, but you get the idea.
I enjoy what I’m doing, but sometimes it seems a little overwhelming. For every item I check off that mental list in my head, I seem to add two or three more. I’m not used to having so much to do, and I’m too close to having OCD to just let some of it go. All I can do is prioritize it, I guess. There’s no way I can do it all, or at least not all at once. God knows I throw myself into things 100% when they catch my interest (see: hiking, jigsaws, sudoku, roses, kayaking, etc).
You didn’t think I realized that about myself, did you?
Sunday afternoon it kind of came to a head. I was working on the cat house frame for my mom and I bonked, hard. For a little while, I thought I was going to pass out, sitting out there on the tailgate of Jezebel screwing pieces of wood together. Fortunately, I’m smart enough to stop when things like that happen, and I immediately put everything away and went inside for a nap.
Everything managed to survive without me for the rest of the day. I spent the afternoon lounging around, reading and surfing.
I have a hell of a time getting out of bed these days. Back when I did nothing but work out first thing in the morning and spend the rest of the day sitting around (with the occasional hike), getting up was a piece of cake. Now, I have to force myself to get up at 4:40 during the week. Well, Tuesday through Friday, anyway. I’ve altered my workouts a lot in the last few weeks. For one, I don’t work out on Saturday or Sunday, figuring I’ll get enough activity in during the day. Monday is my official “rest” day, even though I generally do a lot after work.
Most nights I sleep like a rock for about five hours, which kicks ass. I also have a pretty stunning farmer’s tan, since I spend hours outside every day.
What kills me is that I feel like I’m far more tired than I should be. No, I’m not sick, and ever since I lost weight I haven’t needed a lot of sleep. It’s just, from a mental standpoint, things like weeding (crawling down a 75-foot row pulling, then coming back along with a scuffle hoe between the rows) don’t seem like they should take a lot out of me, but they do. Maybe it’s the heat. Hell, maybe it’s my old age. I’m not complaining, I’m just not used to it.
Come to think of it, maybe my body’s reacting to all these vegetables.
I asked Robyn the other day if she thought Smallville was my mid-life crisis. New house, new boy toys, a desire to accomplish something tangible, and a whole flock of young women following me around — all the classic symptoms are there.
She said that if it is, it’s a good one so far.
If you’d told me one year ago that I would enjoy crawling around in the dirt, running my hands through plants in search of food and weeds, I wouldn’t have believed you.
But I do.
It’s very peaceful out there in the garden. There’s a constant rustling from the corn, waving gently in the breeze. Over by the squash and melons, the drone of honeybees sets the world abuzz. Each new thing I find is a treat, from a hidden bunch of green beans to the pretty little okra pod to the perfect little purple eggplants (we have five now) to the first zucchini I found yesterday, every day is like a treasure hunt.
If you’ve never grown any food for yourself, consider giving it a try. It’s pretty damn rewarding.
Tidbit of information for the week: I found out over the weekend that green beans are so named because of their state of ripeness, not their color. What this means is that the black beans I thought were green beans really ARE black beans. I was just picking them while they were green. All I need to do is let them ripen, and we should have black beans, just like I intended.
Black beans make for some really stringy green beans.
All green beans can be allowed to ripen and then be shelled for the beans, which may be anything from pinto to navy to whatever. I never knew that, but it makes perfect sense.
Tom Cullen loves flirting with the girls. He thinks he’s one of them.
“Part of your wooooooorld”
Bawk!
Here’s how the garden grows today:
Lots of flowers, no little cantaloupes yet
The watermelon flowers close up early, so they’re hard to see.
Happy plants, but no fruits yet.
Scalloped (Patty Pan) squash are awesome; we’ll be planting a lot more next year.
Our first zucchini, blending in (in the middle of the picture).
Happy squash and zucchini. I didn’t know they’d get so big.
In the back is more squash, planted later and probably not going to grow much
more because of the heat. There’s also a half-row of okra back there.
The pepper plants are happy, but not as big as I’d like.
The black-eyed peas (left) are VERY happy. Hopefully they’ll start blooming soon.
The tomatoes are happy, but I’m fighting blossom end rot because (I think) the ground was
too cold when I planted them. If that’s the case, it should work itself out.
Green beans (both bush beans and pole beans) are on the left.
That’s okra in the front (right), and black beans back behind them.
The corn’s mostly happy.
It’s the weediest part of the garden because we discovered quickly that
pulling up the weeds around the stalks makes them fall over. Wimpy plant, that corn.
I like to walk down between the two rows. It’s very solitary there.
Is it wrong that I have an immense sense of pride that our garden looks about 10 times better than anyone else’s? It’s bigger, greener, and happier, probably because it’s my second full-time job (plus all the time Robyn spends in the mornings on the weeds). The fact that I don’t know what I’m doing (or didn’t when I started, other than book smarts) and yet had it turn out well thrills me.
I started working on the shed last week. First, I removed the rotted boards.
Fortunately, there were only four, all in the same area.
I went to the 1876 house across the street and took five boards for the repair work.
I was right, the boards matched perfectly, and I’m thankful the owner of the house
told me I could have the ten I asked for. I’m even gladder I only needed to take five.
Front, before
And after. I need to tape the glass on the door and paint around it still.
Back during
And after. I need to do a second coat at some point, but it looks a LOT better.
I also need to climb my happy ass up to the top and paint the fascia on this side.
