Sunday, May 3, 2009

holy crap am I tired.

I remember now why I didn't manage to post much during last year's growing season...

First of all it's more or less impossible to keep up with blogging about doing things when actually doing them. Secondly you have no idea how much time it can take to just find enough stakes for 50 trees, much less 100 or more. Thirdly where the hell are all the shovels? Fourthly why can't I find any colored yarn or string or the box of curling ribbon which I so conveniently labeled and stored with all the other Christmas crap in the upstairs bedroom so that I can color code the stakes for all these fucking trees since we didn't think ahead of time about just buying some of those little wired plastic flags and they don't sell them at either of the local hardware stores or lumber yard? Fifthly I'm tired already and what time is it? We're never going to get this done.

(By the way there's a reason no one ever gets to fifthly. It's hard enough just to look at it.)

A lot happened yesterday and today, including but not limited to: seeing my niece in her first feature role in a full-length play; planning and staking and planting a windbreak of more than one hundred trees behind (to the West and North) of the back garden; watching pairs of bluebirds and swallows negotiate for housing on the back fence; taking in the sound of frog songs in the background all day (even now I still hear them...); working shirtless, getting sunburned; tying one hundred little ribbons; sharing a delicious dinner of chickens, potatoes, broccoli, green beans and butter, all grown within a 5 mile radius; working til sundown with beer in hand; planting a (privacy) screen between the yet unfinished but oh-so-enticing sauna and the road to the East; walking out back after sundown to the sound of redwing blackbirds chattering madly around the pond; staying up late, admiring the moon; getting up late, avoiding the sun; getting all pissy for no good reason; planting a grove of sugar maples in the SE corner of the orchard; counting and recounting and counting again how many we have left of what; filling in spaces in the Southern fencerow with the remainder of 250 trees of different 10 varieties purchased from the local Soil & Water Conservation Districts; being a witchy bitchy nasty hateful harpy (oh yes, I suck); finding old nettles in the new raspberry patch; finding more space for more trees; gazing in awe at the grace and beauty of sandhill cranes flying low overhead, and their shadows below; getting really tired of making decisions about trees; venting all the way home; starting a flat of basil & parsley, some elecampane and two flats of melons, along with a couple unusual cucumbers; eating last year's nettle soup for dinner (so implausably green, so inconceivably good); sitting down for hours...


(digging action)

(looking up, sandhill crane)


Overall it was just an amazingly beautiful weekend and perfect weather for the work there was to do. Many hands pitched in and we managed to get the better part of all those trees in the ground, and I'm very grateful to all and to everything for that. I wish I had the energy to do some decent writing because there are so many many things I've left out, but I'm ready to drop... The sun looks good on me, though, and does a pretty nice job of hiding the bags under my eyes. I'm about ready for it now.


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