Getting Stuff Done

As most of you know or have gathered, I work a full time day job (yay!) and then write, design books, garden, do light physical training, create cover art, and teach myself various business-related skills like web page design, tax accounting, graphic design, typography, and how to maintain my delicate facade of calm and competence when in fact I'm constantly overwhelmed by work and dreaming crazy dreams.

Lately I've been more overwhelmed than usual (!) with stuff that needs to get done by various deadlines. This is what I do when I have so much crap to accomplish that I don't want to do anything at all. It might work for you too.

I separate daylight and after dark activities. It really doesn't work to garden after dark, though I've done it. Ditto for trimming goat hooves, mowing, taking the dogs for a walk, staining the deck, carpentry, etc. So if I plan to make headway on one of those sorts of things, I prioritize my time accordingly.

I separate heat-of-day activities from cool temperature activities. I might get away with staining the deck, washing a car, giving the dogs baths, or even pulling tansy during the heat of the day, but mowing during the heat of the day, or rototilling, or digging up a huge plant and moving it to the opposite end of the garden might be best for before noon or after 6pm.

I give myself an hour or so playing dithering games. Those vary from the obvious, like playing endless rounds of Bejeweled, to weird, like deciding to reorganize my underwear drawer. I could try to not do those sorts of things at all, but I find that if I don't give in at least for a little while, I can't seem to focus and I end up puttering and not getting much done ... basically I dither by default. Once that hour (or so) is up, I have to stop and work on one of my real goals. Something about the time restriction, and allowing myself to waste time on my own terms, helps put me in a good working headspace.

Then I get to work, dividing my time between two or three things over the course of the day so that I don't get mush brain and start to make mistakes. I listed this last, but I seem to do much, much better if I decide in advance which two or three things on my long to-do list I'm going to work on on a given day.

When I start to hesitate, or realize that I don't have all the stuff I need to finish, or my eyes start to cross and I lose track of what goes where and whose eyes are green, I stop, dither a while, tank up on food and water, and do something different, whatever is next on the day's list.

This system has been working really, really well for me. And the more I practice it, the more I seem to accomplish.  Pretty soon I hope to announce the completion of a big project I've been working on for years. I'm very, very close to getting there. Because I'm a typical, self-sabotaging creative type I of course didn't want to put the finishing touches on this project as soon as I got home from the day job, and instead watered my garden, played Bejeweled, weeded around some of my roses, trimmed oregano back from a garden path, and made snide comments about a really, really bad movie playing in the background while I played Bejeweled. Well, I've had my fun now. According to my rule, I need to put some time into real work now, so it's off to copyedit a few more chapters in my book, and then bedtime. Who knows? Maybe if I get on a roll, I might even finish tonight. That would be awesome.

Junk

I tried to find something today. It was a fairly important thing that at the time I thought we would need today, ASAP.  Turned out that we didn't, but, I spent about an hour looking for it.

I found:

Boxes of paperwork intended for burning.
Spiderwebs larger than my head.
Enough dust bunnies that they could probably be felted into a fine and substantial hat.
Old CDs I'd burned for bellydance classes that I haven't held in many years.
That although the floor had been recently swept in my office, there was enough accumulated cat litter tracked out of the cat box now that it's extremely unpleasant to walk in there barefooted.
Paycheck stubs from years ago waiting to be filed, along with a huge stack of other to-be-filed material.
That we have an impressive colony of the spiders I loathe and fear the most in our downstairs.

And much, much more.

I'm inspired to get some of this stuff organized, cleaned out, and whatever is junk, thrown away. I would also like the spiders to magically disappear as if they've never existed, and I will pretend that they were all nicely let outside where they belong and will lead their happy, long, creepy spider lives elsewhere.

And I would really, really like to find the disk we were looking for. We found the box, the instructions, the legalese ... but not the disk. Argh. We don't need it, but in case we do, I don't want to search through all that junk again.

Because, seriously. That was scary, and gross.

Rose Rosette Disease

Rose Rosette Disease.

I've been out of the horticulture world for a while. I garden a lot, I learned a bit of plant taxonomy, took classes in plant propagation, helped build a greenhouse, toured nurseries around the northwest corner of Oregon, and drove my husband crazy by collecting plant samples and drying them in weird places in the house and spewing Latin names as we drove through neighborhoods while studying for exams.

This disease was never mentioned in class. It snuck up on me.

Part of the reason is because it hasn't officially blipped on the radar in this area. Part of it is because thanks to a newly-developed test and the devastating loss of some important rose gardens, in 2011 RRD and the rose rosette virus have gained new attention.

It has no cure. Roses that have the disease have to be destroyed, and no new rose may be planted in its place, as the roots remaining in the ground may transmit the virus to the new rose. This disease has destroyed a huge number of wild roses, and many healthy wild roses are destroyed in an effort to restrict the spread of this disease.

The primary vector appears to be a particular sort of wingless mite that doesn't appear to live in this area, and so it may be that my other roses won't be affected, but it may also be true that they're already infected, and I'll lose them all. As symptoms arise, I'll destroy plants, and in their place put lavender and rosemary and peonies and try not to think about how much I loved the scent of all those blossoms in the early morning as I walked down my favorite paths.

I suspect that the rose was infected when I bought it, probably through root stock or a graft purchased from a nursery in an infected region. Last fall, the rose sent up a bizarre shoot. I thought it might be just a weird sport, and wondered if it would bloom. It did, beautifully. The stem remained red, as did all the leaves, and the stem was covered almost completely in thorns. It grew so tall and thick and fast that it easily broke in the next strong wind. Very short side shoots developed, with more rose buds, and one more bloomed. None of the side stems grew more than a couple of inches--unusual for a knocked down branch that bothers to grow side shoots.

In the spring, my husband accidentally mowed it where it lay. The grass had covered it up. I snipped it and forgot about it.

While surfing I ran across an article about the disease, and my heart sank. The stem covered in thorns, the red foliage that didn't mature to green, the very lush, brittle growth ... I had everything except the witch's brooms, elongated and twisted leaves and short stems growing in profusion from a single node, eventually forming 'brooms'. The next morning I went out. That weird stem was long gone, of course, but I had the rest of the plant to look at. It looked normal, except ... the red leaves at the growing tips looked twisted and puckered. No more stems covered in thorns, but .... I emailed our county master gardener program. They concurred with my assessment. Dig it up, burn it. Don't wait for more symptoms. Even if the rest of the rose isn't blaring signs of the disease, even though those leaves might be twisting for other reasons, even though the leaves may eventually turn green, because the rose was probably infected via a graft or root stock, because there's no cure ... there wasn't much point in waiting to see if the rose might not be okay. It wouldn't be.

I may have unwittingly spread the disease. I didn't disinfect the clippers after I clipped off what I thought was a weird sport. I don't have a lot of problems with powdery mildew, and black spot is endemic ... all my roses have at least a little black spot, and so I don't worry about making that worse.

That lack of foresight and basic sanitary practice may have cost me my rose garden. There are always diseases, known and unknown, ready to arise in all our gardens that could kill living things that we prize and that rely on us for their survival. Sloppiness, laziness ... it's easy, but it's risky. I gambled. We'll see how much I lost. Maybe nothing. Maybe just the one rose, a rose I didn't infect, a rose that came infected, that was dying, though neither of us knew it. I surely hope so. Because I have some great roses, and I'd like them to stick around a long, long time.

Cat up a Tree, and Down Again

It's been one of those weeks.

The two main things are near and perhaps impending badness.

First, Wizard got stuck in a tree. I have no idea how he got up there. All I know is that the dogs went bananas, and then I heard people talking, and saw a pickup truck. And then I heard yowling. You know how a cat sounds like your cat, but not, because it's making a weird, not-usual sound? Yeah. So I head up there, terrified that he got hit by a car, and I'm a little grateful that someone pulled over because most people when they hit an animal keep going or worse, slow down, decide that they can't cope and jet away ....

But, he's not at the side of the road, bleeding. He's about 25 feet up a Douglas fir. I couldn't find my big ladder, and the folks that stopped (I still don't know if they hit him--thanks to today's sue-happy society, I'm sure they'd be terrified to admit they did, even though they wouldn't be liable for anything) and 'noticed him' stuck up there, had to go but they promised to come back and check on him. Right after they left, of course then I found my big extension ladder. I flagged down one of the folks that use our road as a bicycle training hill, and he held the ladder steady while I climbed up there.

For my family's sanity, I won't describe what it took to get a terrified cat, who has four clawed feet, off of a tree branch that he doesn't want to leave, while perched close to the top of a tall extension ladder set up in the back of my pickup truck because the ladder wasn't tall enough set up on the ground.

Wizard had a very, very bad limp when I got back to the house, so I took him to the vet. Right now he's still on major kitty pain killers. The vet suggested that if he's still walking funny with his elbow tucked in under his ribs in seven days that I should get him x-rayed. I'll keep all y'all updated. In the meantime his limp has all but disappeared, and he seems happy, although a bit confused about why I won't let him or Huntress outside anymore.

Reason being, if it wasn't a truck that scared him badly enough to chase him up a tree, it was probably a coyote, or a bobcat, or some other critter bent on eating him. Neither cat is going out right now, and quite possibly ever again. Both our remaining kitties are older animals now, and it's simply too dangerous for them out there. I had no idea Wizard got that close to the road (assuming he wasn't chased across the road, of course) and the traffic is too ugly there, too. So, it's just best all around if they don't go out anymore.

The other news has to do with my roses. That'll be a long-ish post with pics and links, so that'll wait until next time. The gist is, I may lose some, or all of my roses over the next couple of years to a viral disease. You might too, so if you have roses, be sure to check in and I'll give you the skinny on rose rosette disease, or RRD, caused by the rose rosette virus or RRV. If you can't wait, Google a bit and prepare to be alarmed.

More About Work

Not everyone gets to work at a job they love. I wonder sometimes if the vast, overwhelming number of people actually actively hate their jobs.

I think the world would be a better place if everyone loved their job, but that's sort of like wishing that diseases didn't exist. It's a nice sentiment, but it's not gonna happen.

Disliking or actively hating a job can damage a lot of stuff. There's that sense of time being wasted or lost, and we all have limited time, whether we like to think about that or not. Because most of us need to eat and like to have a roof over our heads and electricity and telephones and stuff, we're forced to endure the unpleasantness of work. Even really good, fun jobs can be boring or stressful at times. Unless you're independently wealthy, you just gotta power through.

That stuff is not that big a deal, and it's certainly not a revelation. Everyone pretty well does that every day without needing someone to remind them.

What I have been thinking about lately is how hatred of a job, of some aspect of a job, can twist and scar morality and spirituality. You may consider yourself a kind person, but be rude to someone who doesn't deserve it because the person before irritated you. You may consider yourself honest, but lie (or stretch the truth) to get out of doing something. Maybe, over time, core values get so worn away that the kindness that was once all yours to claim divorces you and moves away and you become bitter. The job did it to you.

Or did you do it to yourself?

I think I'm going to pay special attention at work today, to see if I'm upholding my work ethic, and to make sure I'm being myself, the self I want to be. I don't hate my job, but I certainly don't love it (though most of my coworkers and customers are great.) Sometimes it's stressful or boring (or both ... it's a bit mind-bending but it does happen) and because I'm there for such a great proportion of my overall waking time, I know my work shapes me. I think it's a good idea to periodically check and make sure that any changes are changes I want to see in myself.

And if I really want to be proactive, maybe I should think about ways I can change my work, or my attitude toward my work, to make sure I behave the way I want to be. In the end, I can't really blame my work for turning me into something I don't like. I'm the one living my life. My work isn't living my life for me. It can't. It's inanimate, unless I animate it. I have the power to work in a way that reflects my ethics, morality, spirituality, and creativity.  I may not choose when to work or what my work is, but I choose how to work, and how I work is what builds my character and shapes my soul. I choose.

I choose.

The Work of a Lifetime

I've written about work and keeping busy before, but it seems to, like history, keep repeating itself every day.

Customers that come into the store where I work all have work lives that wrap around them like clothes. Sometimes its invisible, but most of the time it's clear ... not necessarily what they do, but how they do it, and how passionately they do it.

A friend of mine at work that recently retired always worked quickly, efficiently and with great attention to detail. She's busier than ever. She and I sometimes had a quick chat (no time to dawdle and talk at work!) about the work we had at home and how it never seemed to get done. Even with her day job behind her, she never gets done with all the things she wants to accomplish. I know it'll be the same for me. There's always something else that I'd like to achieve, whether it's to move the appliances and scrub the entire kitchen floor, weed out an ornamental garden bed, rough in another book cover, or finish the front porch (argh, there's so much to do!!) When my friend shops she's a woman on a mission. She's got to get back to work. Time is slippery, and we all have only so much.

But not everyone's life is like that. People shuffle in, bored, and roam the aisles looking for something to divert themselves. Sometimes it's just that they're exhausted and shopping is a vacation from the daily slog. But that in and of itself is telling. They slog, not just one day but every day. I have a beloved customer that always teases me when he comes in. He never seems to find anything to do. He shops out of boredom, often more than once a day, and more often than not leaves without getting anything because he can't find anything he wants. He's my opposite.

There are shopping explorers where everything is an adventure and fun and they're looking for something new to add to their homes or their hobby stuff. There are distracted people who can't pull their gazes away from their telephones or their conversations long enough to notice what they're doing. People who devote the vast majority of their time interacting with their children. People who come in with children and spend the vast majority of their time ignoring them or demanding that the children behave in such a way that they're easier to ignore.

It's just one shopping trip, but it's one of many that build into a pattern. I see the same people every day, week, month and watch them build this pattern. It's just one hour, of one day, of a lifetime. But the days form an architecture. Brick by brick, everyone builds their lives, and it's amazing and humbling to notice the ones that live in stark, empty rooms that they circle in restlessly with little to do, and those that have tidy homes and tidy gardens where they find enjoyment in the art and order, and those that beat trails through jungles, and those that build villages, or huge cities with all that they do and create ....

We are all of us, every day, contributing to the work of a lifetime, a masterpiece. It's not always beautiful or awe-inspiring, but it is who we are. Some feel like they're forced, some choose what they do, but we all do it just by managing our days. I find that endlessly fascinating.

Soul in the Words

After, my pagan afterlife novel, is almost ready. I've had other projects take over my spare time recently, so that book has been set back by a couple of weeks, but it's close.

Or maybe I'll finish producing it this weekend. It all depends on how quickly the other projects come together. 

A long while ago now I posted on facebook that this book could have far-reaching repercussions in my life. I didn't want to go into details, which worried some people. The kind support warmed my heart. Whatever happens with After, it was and is my choice to publish it, and I'll live with the consequences, whether they're negative, positive or a mix of both at the same time. Chances are that the people who might object in a way that could make my life miserable won't ever read it. That won't necessarily keep them from passing judgement, I suppose, but unless they hear about it in some way, they shouldn't feel a need to.

I don't make a secret of my beliefs, but I don't talk about them much either, especially lately. When I was young, I think I spoke more about them because I wanted to share my experiences. Subconsciously I may have also been testing society to see where I fit in and how it would react as a whole. That openness helped me connect with other like-minded people, and I even spent a short time with a coven. I miss them ....

As I get older, the more private I become. It's not fear. I know where I fit in. I don't feel a need for everyone around me to know me well enough to share in the knowledge of my connection with the wider, spiritual world. And if my friends want to know, they can ask. (That's permission right there if any of you are curious but are shy or worried that you might be crossing a line.) As for the confidence ... I'm not. I'm absolutely confident about what I experienced first hand. I even believe most of what I've heard and read, though I now listen with a keen awareness of how experiences and beliefs can be rewritten in the person's own mind and heart to fit with what they expect and want.

Ultimately, it's that expectation and desire for my experiences and understanding of the physical-spiritual world to fit into something easy and comforting that has silenced me. The older I get, the more I realize that it's more important for me to learn something true and experience something real than to have a religion that almost-but-not-quite fits with what I believe. That much as I want to be part of a larger community, my religious experiences keep pushing me out into solitary expression and study.

I wrote After as a work of fiction, not as a religious text. There's a lot in there that's meant to be story, not parable. The book is about KJ, not me, and it's about her growth beyond the life that both nourished and confined her. My childhood and marriage were and are radically different from KJ's, though on paper we appear to share minor elements. I didn't write After as therapy. I don't need any. 

But I did want to write a work of fiction that had a pagan aesthetic closer to my own, rather than the more mainstream pagan culture, if there really is such a thing. Measuring against that bar, I succeeded. Today I would probably write a different book. But at the time that I wrote After, I wanted, maybe needed to reveal little pieces of my heart and I hid them away in the words on the pages of that book. There's no need to go looking for them. Chances are that if people go looking for them, unless they know me very well, they'll only find themselves.

I'd count myself most fortunate if they did find themselves. I couldn't ask for anything better than that.

Publishing Company News

Today I read about two individuals who are leaving traditional publishing houses to start up literary agencies.

I sincerely wish them both well and good luck with their ventures. Having said that, a thousand questions popped into my mind. These are things that should enter any writer's mind before they shop for a literary agent, so I'll go ahead and list a couple of them here. If you don't like the answers a given literary agency gives you, don't sign up with them. In fact, if they post their terms on their page and those terms don't make sense from the writer's point of view, I wouldn't contact them at all.

What percent? Historically, agents received 10% of the writer's paycheck from the publisher (both the advance and royalties.) This has crept up to 15% and stuck. Most folks would, perhaps rightly, contend that an agent will get them a bigger advance than they would on their own. But the royalties? For all time? Where is the justification for 15% there? Not arguing, just asking. What would be the added benefit of having an agent over, say, a literary contract lawyer, who actually fully and completely understands contract law from his client's perspective, not from the publisher's perspective? A literary contract lawyer will charge a one time fee, based on how much time and trouble it is for her/him. And then s/he's gone. If s/he charges $800 to vet a contract for you, it won't matter if you're negotiating a $5000 advance or a $750,000 advance. And then you get all the royalties from your work. Forever.

I have to admit, I did cringe a bit when I heard the news. One of the reasons I cringed is that I have heard many stories about agents and editors settling on a contract with a writer that was actually worse than the worst-terms boilerplate for the publisher. With an agent on your side, you wouldn't think that it would happen, but it does. Editors mainly edit. They don't practice law. Having an editor leave the editing business and go into agenting ... well, I have my doubts.

Next question:  Will they ask for rewrites before they're willing to send your work out? In this case, if the editor was very good at their job, I'm more comfortable with that than I would be with an agent whose history and education I have no clue about. Having said that, I'm wary of anyone who would take on a writer because of that writer's compelling writing who then turns around and asks for a major rewrite. Little stuff, oh yeah. Bring it on! If I change the character's name in the middle of the story, let's go ahead and fix that and save us both some embarrassment. But I don't want to go with an agent who is trying to groom me into becoming the sort of writer s/he believes will sell better (or who will write like s/he would like to write themselves.) That says that they see potential, but won't work with me until I'm better. I'd rather get better on my own, with my own learning process, than under the direction of someone who is supposed to be selling manuscripts to publishers, not reading and critiquing almost-there manuscripts for their stable of writers. Seriously. I've heard of agents bad-mouthing their authors to publishers, calling their work commercial dreck, smut, etc. If an agent doesn't love, really love, my work, I don't want to have them represent me. And if they're asking for extensive rewrites, especially with the idea to make it more commercial, they don't love my work. End of story.

Stuff to think about before signing on with an agent. There's lots more questions. I hope that writers who see two new literary agencies on the horizon don't start setting up their submission packages before they've settled these and other questions in their minds.

When the Coyotes Sing

Misread of the day: Urban Wine, for a second, looked like Urine Wine and I thought, ew, what?!

A long-haired, pure black (doesn't have any sun-faded brown areas even!) kitty has been dumped in our neighborhood. It's not feral. I can't get close to it, but it understands domesticated kitty concepts like food comes from houses. It's also been in our house (I think) eating from the kitty food bowl.

Here's another plea that will not reach the right ears. Please don't dump your kitties in the countryside! Yes, most of us will feed these animals but our own cats will fight with them, and if they get injured, there's no way to get them to the vet. Also because they're so skittish and scared, we can't take them inside at night and they will inevitably be eaten by coyotes.

After I noticed it around for a few days the kitty, which I believe is female, disappeared for a couple of weeks and I thought damn, I guess that's it. But now she's back. My son is calling her Oops for the moment.

The coyotes sing at every sunset very near our house. And often during the night they yip and cry while they tear apart and share whatever kills they've managed to snag. One of these times, it will be Oops.

Every morning now I wake up and wonder if Oops will come up to the deck to snatch a quick meal, or if we'll never see her again.

Sigh.

Long Grass

Lack of gardening continues unabated.

It's been wet, cold and rainy, so gardening amounts to walking through during a break in the rain so I can evaluate what's going on, and applying slug bait.

These are actually really important things to do. I have seedlings hanging out waiting for a spot to open up. If a zucchini is destroyed by slugs (happened) or if a tomato is broken off by wind (might happen today--wowza is the wind rockin' and rollin'!) I can replace them without having my garden set back. It might not be the same sort of plant (tomato it will be--in the case of the zucchini, I'm going to stick a cucumber in its place) but the space won't be empty. Which reminds me--those seedlings need to come inside today, not because it's too cold, but too windy for them.

Slug baiting right now is super important, with frequent re-applications needed. This is prime crawling, eating and breeding time for slugs, and newborn baby slugs are really hungry. They also have this nasty habit of eating their way down into the crown of a plant and destroying it beyond any hope of recovery without ever being exposed to future applications of slug bait or pesticides. So, best not to let them have the opportunity. Early and often, folks. Early and often.

BTW if you haven't pruned off spent peony heads, do that now. Don't take any leaves off. The more stem and leaf you leave on, the better. Next year's blooms will thank you for it, and you'll take some weight off of the plant so that spring storms aren't as likely to snap off a stem or twig and make you cry.

I guess there's stuff to do in the garden after all.

Waiting for the next break in the rain, while the grass grows longer and longer ....

It's that tender root time of year

I've got almost my whole garden planted. It's really hard to say what the growing season will look like, but so far it looks promising. I'm a little worried that the tomatoes aren't growing lots of new green yet. That's probably due to the temperatures. We've had some low lows (one night below 40 degrees, very chilly for tropicals) and it may have set the tomatoes back. Once they're set back, they don't like to get going again.

But, they're still alive.

Also, there's a lot going on with plants that we can't see, mainly, root development. It's easy to focus on the leaves. Why aren't my leaves bigger? Why isn't the plant taller and more full? What are all those yellow spots and purple patches? Oh noes, there are little holes in the leaves! But these things, though they may signal something like flea beetle damage, aren't that big of a deal in the grand scheme of things. As long as the plant has enough surface area on the leaves to get sugar to the roots which can then fuel the development of new healthy leaves, ultimately the plant can be okay. It's much harder for the plant to recover from bad stuff going on with the roots.

For best root health:

Drainage, drainage and drainage. Here in the Pac NW it's easy for plants to get cold and waterlogged from chilly spring rains.

Mulch. It brings good soil organisms closer to the surface where they'll help aerate and fertilize soil that's closest to those young seedlings whose roots don't go very deep. Also, it keeps competing weeds down and helps warm the soil from the previously mentioned shivery rains.

Don't go too crazy with pulling weeds, especially if you use tools. You may be inadvertently damaging your plant's roots. Especially when the plant is very young and vulnerable, it's better to snip weeds that are growing very close to your plant, and to gently rub out tiny seedlings rather than using a hand rake on them.

Happy gardening!

More Garden Geekery

Did something today I haven't done in a long time. I cut flowers for my table.

Also, I was very bad and bought a tree peony, Golden Experience. They say I can hybridize using the pollen from this plant. I'm not sure if the other peonies I have are able to do this, but hey, it's worth a try, right? I have two other tree peonies that I'd love love love to cross with this beautiful plant. And who knows? I might help create an incredible new peony. That would really be something. Of course I won't find out what the offspring will look like for ten years or more after planting the seeds ....

Which makes me want to play with roses, which have a similar seed-to-flower span.

Yes, it's a long time for payoff. But people who do this sort of stuff don't think like that. They don't think about payoff so much as love. I didn't raise my children for a payoff. There's no time at which point I'll feel like I've gotten something in return for my time and effort.

I can plant a seed, and help it grow. I can appreciate what it becomes. The pollen, seeds, plants--they do the actual work. I provide a nurturing environment and occasional guidance. That's it.

So, maybe if I remember, this year it'll be roses. Next year, peonies. It'll be a whole new adventure.

If you would like to give it a go, do some reading first to save yourself some trouble. First of all, not all blossoms have viable pollen and seed production capacity. Second, to control pollination, bag the blossoms before they open (careful to make sure there aren't any bugs first) and then mingle the pollens after the stamens after the flower has opened into full bloom. To prevent fungal issues do this only in dry weather and use paper bags. To figure out when the buds have opened into full bloom, mark buds on the same bush that are at the same stage as the ones you're using. Mark on the bag who the daddy is. And keep records someplace easy to find--on your computer is okay, but it's actually better to have a easy-to-find gardening book that you make entries into on a regular basis.

Of all the gardening things I do, it sounds easy-peasy compared to digging out new beds or weeding!

Baby Roots

Sorry about the long break between posts.

I came home yesterday from work with the intention to go working out. I just had to do one thing 'real quick' in the garden.

Two hours later I had my 'real quick' thing done. The pumpkin and squash starts that absolutely, positively had to go in the ground or else went in. There were several that probably won't make it, or will be so stunted that it wasn't worth starting them in advance.

The thing about squashes, pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchinis, melons, etc. is that they hate having their roots messed with, especially when they're wee. Retailers sell them at nurseries and grocery stores but honestly, I would save my money. Except, that we're in a short season area for them. Long season for just about everything else. It's just that for crops that really need hot weather to get going, we don't get that hot weather, not for long. So although my roses are in full bloom and happy, the tomatoes are still shivering.

If you must buy pumpkins, cucumbers, zucchinis, melons, etc. at the store and take them home to plant, this is what I'd do if I was doing as I say instead of as I do (which is plant my own in peat pots and then wait too long):

Don't buy any where the root is coming out the bottom. At all. Peat pots are better than the plastic.
Plant them ASAP, preferably as soon as you get them home.
When you do plant them:
Prepare your area very carefully first. Weed, dig around to make the dirt soft, and make a little hole that's almost exactly the right size. Just make the hole a bit deeper (1/2 inch to an inch, depending on the size of the starter pot.) Use the pot to make sure the hole is the right size. Stick it in the ground, gently compress the dirt around it so that the hole doesn't collapse, and pull the pot back out. Don't worry if it does collapse, you'll be fine if you made it deep enough that a little extra in the bottom won't matter. Get scissors and (very carefully!) cut an x in the bottom of the pot--

Unless it's a peat pot!

Just trim the peat pot (with scissors, don't tear because you might tear down to the roots) down to the soil level if there's a rim, which there usually is. Put some water in the bottom of the hole and then plant the peat pot. (Make a shallow well around the plant and make sure the whole peat pot is covered.)

If it's not a peat pot, proceed to cut from the x up onto the sides a little bit so that you have a guide. Set the pot in the hole you made, make sure again that it's deep enough, and add water. Then cut down the sides down to the lines you cut on the bottom. Gently, gradually remove the pot from the plant, cutting wherever necessary, filling in and gently compressing the dirt as you go so the roots are disturbed as little as possible. Make a shallow well so that water will tend to pool around the plant, but dirt doesn't drift toward the stem when you do water.

You're done!

Sadly I've been too busy to deal with my starts so about half of them had roots poking out the bottom. Sigh. But, I also planted seeds directly in the ground a few days ago. With a little luck, between the two I should have something to show for my trouble come autumn. I will say that although it's a lot of trouble, it's very worth it to grow your own vining broadleaf hot weather plants. Try using them as ornamentals, and even the heavy-fruited ones can climb, though I wouldn't let a pumpkin climb up enough that its fruit won't touch the ground or have some support when it develops past the 10" size.

Garden hour(s)

I got a whole bunch of gardening stuff done today.

It's too early to plant tomatoes, and definitely too early for peppers, but I did it anyway. We've had unusually good weather, and it's very close to tomato time here (Mother's Day for the lower elevations, June 1 for me) so I went for it. I'm holding back my main tomato plants, though. I mulched heavily on the tomato and pepper rows this time, which will hopefully generate a lot of heat and keep those plant roots warm. This is the origin of the term hot bed. Farmers would lay down partially rotted compost with a layer of mulch and heat up the soil for tender seedlings. It is possible to make it so hot that it will kill the seedlings and seeds, so it's not a place/method in which to put your one prize (fill in name of special plant.) These are sacrificial plants that, if they survive, provide a jump on the season and yet aren't a catastrophic loss if they all die or are set back so far that you may as well have planted them at the proper time.

Planted my fuschia starts in their hanging baskets. It's easy to develop feelings of inadequacy when I see the huge baskets of blooming fuschias for sale at most stores right now, but I take comfort in the fact that I didn't spend $60 on the three of them. Having said that, yes, I did buy two hanging baskets, one for sun, and one for shade, to cheer things up in the garden. They were part one of my Mother's Day gift, gotten early and enjoyed fully in the meantime.

Against my better judgement I transplanted two orchids that were in full bloom. I couldn't handle seeing them crammed in their thimble-sized plastic cups with the roots bound tightly around a couple of teaspoons worth of icky old moss. Hopefully they won't keel over from the stress. I got them very inexpensively, which is usually a red flag when buying plants, but Mother's Day is coming up ... the nicer one will go to my mommy, and the smaller one will stay with me as my Mother's Day part II.

Also against my better judgement, I transplanted a poinsettia a friend of mine gave me when she was done with it oh, around mid-January. It's producing new leaves and is still technically in bloom. It would have been better to wait until we were at the other side of summer, but I already had all my transplanting stuff out, and ... yeah. I'll fess up if it dies so y'all will know not to do as I do, only as I say.

I planted out my Mother's Day part III gift, a You Me Forever hydrangea in pale lavender with green tones. It's in a spot that I'll be able to see it from the house, and where I'll be passing it every day that I go out to garden. The You Me Forever series of hydrangeas are exquisite. If you do well with them and have an open spot, I highly, highly recommend them.

My boxwood and chamaecyprus (I'm sure I just butchered the spelling) cuttings appear to be taking root. It will probably be fall before I put them out, but they'll need to be potted up in the meantime, probably in about a month, maybe sooner if I see roots starting to poke out the bottoms of the trays.

Geraniums went in the ground. Geraniums really, really don't like even the slightest cold weather. Mine are in a very sheltered spot, and I'll run out and cover them if the weather report warms me of a cold night in time. I should have waited, but the warm weather makes me dumb like that.

I put chicken wire around the new plantings and a purple rose that would make me cry if the deer ate it before it bloomed.

And lastly (actually, I did this firstly) I switched our back outdoor faucet into growing season mode. It now has a four-way split on it with a little gizmo that prevents water from siphoning back into the house from the icky hoses.

No hard physical labor today, but I'm pooped. I'm glad I had help from my daughter.  And now, bed.

After I set up to plant seeds tomorrow.
Because I'm crazy and I'll garden until after midnight.

What seeds, you ask?
Pumpkins, winter squashes, cantaloupe, cucumber and corn.
Yes, I know. I'm both too late, and too early. But not really. All these items detest transplantation, and need warm soil. By giving the pumpkin, cuke and squash seeds a head-start in the house, and planting in peat pots, if they make it I'll be ahead of the game. I'm also direct seeding all of these later on. As for the corn ... I've failed and failed and failed and finally I think I'm going to try to start them in trays and plant them out when they're really gotten going. Knee high by July is my goal.

I think that's everything for today. Tomorrow is another gardening day!

Cute and Fluffy

I found out today why the cats sometimes race up to the house all puffed up.

I feared it was coyotes.
I suspected that it was another feral cat roaming around nearby.
I also suspected it might be the neighbor's dog, a small, friendly sort that actually doesn't mind cats but our cats don't know that. All they know is that it smells bad.
I always looked and never saw anything.
I thought it was odd that it seemed to happen at all hours of the day, rather than just dusk and dawn, when most of the predators are out and about.

But today, while walking in the garden with The Poop, she got all puffed up and stared and I saw it.
A bunny.
An adorable, wee little bunny.
Turns out there was another bunny, too. It ran when I scared the first, terrifying bunny away after multiple coaxings for The Poop to 'go get it' did nothing but make her sit down with her back still mostly arched and her tail still completely puffed up. The second bunny, which she also hadn't noticed, took off after the first one and made The Poop retreat back toward the house.

Yes, I know that bunnies can actually be pretty fierce and that they have wicked claws (all the better with which to dig into your intestines, my dear) but still. Seriously? The bunny is half her size, and she's a very small kitty.

The one that really baffles me is that Wizard is scared of the bunnies too. He's like four or five bunnies-worth of muscle.

I guess they've watched Monty Python and the Holy Grail too many times.
Oh well. That just means that I have to put up a tighter fence around the garden.
I wonder if the bunnies laugh as the kittehs run away in terror ....

Dread Full

Why stores sometimes dread selling stuff to young people:

A. Their wives and/or husbands and/or parents come back to the store with the 'we don't really need this' face, and some of them try to say the item is defective, when it's not. It's okay, folks, the customer service people understand. Trust them. They don't judge. They just want to know if it's okay to put the item back on the shelf or not. Your domestic financial issues are of no concern to them (although if you out yourself, the customer service rep sometimes can't help but find your story hilarious and/or pitiful, so if you don't want that in their heads, just don't say anything beyond 'I don't want it.' That's good enough for them.)
B. They take it back an hour later because their friends are going to play (fill in the blank) and they want to play too, but can't unless they have the cash to buy (something else, fill in the blank.) And, of course, they have no receipt and no packaging and no instructions even if they bought it only an hour before because they're young and that stuff is all useless (until they need it, and they're not willing to dig in the trash for it. Which, in some cases, depending on what's in the trash, may be merciful.)
C. They break it within five seconds of toying with it and try to take it back with the claim that it broke because it's defective. (sigh)

There are lots of responsible young people out there, and most don't cause problems. But, generally speaking, if they're throwing footballs down the aisles, trying on makeup and perfume, chasing each other around the store, and are too busy on the phone to talk to the cashier to check out (especially if they give attitude when the cashier tells them the balance and they have to stop texting/talking/whatever to ask 'what?') then the dread tends to set in. And all too often, it's justified.

Important Writer's Workshop at Orycon

For the writers out there (and spread the word please):

Every year at Orycon there's a quiet little writer's workshop thing that goes on, usually with very few people hearing about it. This is a great workshop with almost but not quite one-on-one time with some great pros. The pros that participate change from year to year depending on who volunteers and who can make it. Anyway, usually there's two, maybe three people and two pros per session. That could always change, but so far there's been very personalized attention from people who really know their stuff.

This year, as most years, there's a $10 fee, plus you have to have an Orycon membership. Considering all the writing-related panels Orycon puts on, this is a serious bargain for anyone who wants to pick up good advice on writing techniques and the publishing industry. Plus! Anne Bishop (author)! Larry Elmore (artist)! Liz Gorinsky (editor at Tor Books)!

For more information see this announcement here put up by the organizer, and the Orycon website. If you buy your membership now, you'll save considerably over the at-the-door membership charge.

A neat patch amid the chaos

The sun is shining, the birds are singing, the flowers are blooming, the cats are lounging around on the deck with their eyes half-open ....
And I have to mow the grass. A lot.
I love this weather. Yesterday, drivers zooming by had the dubious privilege of seeing me in spandex wearing a Celtic knotwork silk scarf and a white headband (this would have been a lot more awesome if I was in decent shape) pushing a lawn mower back and forth across a lot of grass. At one point while I was messing around with the lawnmower (this was before I got it actually running) our garbage truck driver pulled up and commented on the gorgeous sunshine.
"Yeah, if I can get this lawnmower started, it's the perfect time to get this mowing done." I gestured to the orchard and the field beside it.
"You're going to do all that with that little push mower?" He laughed good-naturedly and stared with disbelief at the half-acre or whatever the heck it is.
I had to laugh too. "Yeah, well, our ride-on lawnmower isn't working, and probably won't have a chance of working for at least two weeks, so this has to get done."
He shook his head and drove off. I got the lawnmower started not long after that.
And you know, I don't pay our son enough for that damned job. Holy crud. My DH offered to pay me $20 for it. I think I'm going to keep my day job. Of course, it only took about two hours. It was just a really, really long two hours. In fact, I'm still feeling that two hours in my shoulders, hands and legs. When I woke up this morning, my thumb and pointer finger were twitching.
Fortunately, the rest of the grass is in smaller patches and not as important to get done. I have paths to where I need to get without getting soaked up to the knees on those early, dewy mornings. "But Kami, it won't look nice with all that long grass ...."
Um, yeah, I know, but considering the state of my garden ... no one is going to notice the really long grass. Trust me. It's everywhere. Having a tidy lawn-looking thing here would be a lot like having a tiny patch of lawn in the middle of a corn field. No one's gonna notice, trust me. Or, if they do, they'll have a little laugh like our garbage truck driver did.
The boy is coming over today to help me out over the weekend. I think I'm going to have him do some more mowing.  :-)

Can there be justice for Boston?

I was going to post about badly behaved people, but then someone decided to blow up what was supposed to be a life-affirming expression of human endurance and accomplishment.

Unfortunately it's very likely that whoever perpetrated this is enjoying the media exposure, indifferent to or excited by the anger and grief, and is perhaps comparing the tally to other monsters who do this sort of thing.

It's become popular over the years to place motivations, histories, abuses and justifications upon individuals and groups who do this sort of thing. They've been downtrodden/poorly socialized/minimized/suffer from mental illness, etc. Some of that is valid, but most of the time the people who are doing the analysis are trying to make sense in terms of what they would do and what would drive them to do something like this.

I find it strange that often the very people who wish to embrace diversity are very resistant to the idea of diversity of emotional capacity, mental makeup, and diversity in not only intelligence in general but types of intelligence. They may be comfortable saying, well, so and so has trouble reading, but they're really good with their hands, but would be uncomfortable with saying this person has no compassion and is really good at torturing people emotionally and physically. The lack of redeeming quality becomes too judgmental, I guess, and makes them feel bad for not seeing the bright or positive side of grim or negative people. Yet we all have met, if not intimately know, people with no regard for anyone except themselves and view the world as either an irritation or a playground in which to do whatever they want without consideration for consequences other than which impede their play.

As much as I appreciate our legal system, often they give what certain sorts of people crave, so if the bomber(s) are ever brought to justice, they will be most pleased, I believe, to receive as much condemnation from the public as possible. After all, the goal is most likely to make as much of a splash as possible in an effort to either outdo or pay homage to similar sorts. And until they get caught, they get to collect magazine and news articles, and watch the drama unfold on television and radio along with the rest of us. Maybe they're gleeful, or maybe they're keeping some sort of tally, attempting to be the best (worst) of their kind.

It may be that whoever did this is what we might politely term deeply disturbed. But regardless of the reasons we may try to place into the background and psyche of a bomber, or rapist, or pedophile, ultimately, it does not change them, or help us. What it often does, unfortunately, is give them legal, moral and ethical weasel room to extend the pleasure that their act gave them.

And Boston suffers like any victim of a crime, wondering how justice can ever be done.

Color Addiction

I have a new addiction. An art addiction. A color addiction.
ColourLovers hooked me up and now I can't stop. I don't want to stop. I feel alive, I feel free, I feel a little crazy and it's oh so good. I got to name some colors! It makes my little heart go pitter pat.


In all seriousness, just when I thought I had things figured out, I realized I was in the dark. Again. Still. So even though I've read all kinds of stuff about color theory, apparently I don't know jack and I need to get up to speed. This website is going to help me.

I hope.

Anyway, it's really fun, and I'm learning a lot. Be careful if you visit, though. You might stay, and start chasing the dragon's colorful scales just like me.



Color by COLOURlovers