Eat My Yard

I'm Doing This and So Should You

My friends Camille and Greg run this awesome film festival called The Three Minute Picture Show. This year there is a Portland branch and both K and I are making films. Mine is going to be a time lapse video of a banana peel composting. Ha Ha just kidding, I don’t know how to do that. I wrote a piece for festival’s website about some of my other ideas though so you should glide on over there and check it out. And, I think every single 26 of you who read my blog should make a film too. Get crackin’!

I am not Cheerful

The above represents little pieces of summer I am letting bloom and die in their pots. I do not feel like planting them in the wet soggy earth for I am seething with resentment and cannot appreciate the beauty of slate gray days, gently falling rain, and FUCKING 57 DEGREES IN JUNE. See, if I were to loosen them from their pots today I wouldn’t be able to carefully untangle the bound roots. I would end up ripping them out and then stuffing them carelessly in ill prepared holes randomly throughout the yard, all the while humming a frantic tune of rage. Then I would FLING down my trowel and either start to cry or say “fuck” a lot, possibly both. That is why I am inside drinking a Father’s Day snifter of barenjager and not planting those plants today.

I have, however, taken stock of the yard and what the wettest, coldest June on record has meant for it. The cherries are a bust. Most of them were blown down in various stages of unripeness during one of the many hurricane force winds that have blown through here bringing pestilence and ill will. To be fair, I seem to be the only one suffering from ill will, but I’m fairly certain that last storm had a “Something Wicked This Way Comes” feel to it. The goumi appears unscathed and the boys have been scarfing them down, but sadly the stinging nettle patch I planted in it’s vicinity makes getting to some of the berries perilous. The strawberries in the official strawberry bed are doing nothing but fattening up my slug crop. Slugs, I suspect are a fine source of protein and mine are all free range, organic, and taste sweet like strawberries. The wild strawberries which I planted as a ground cover seem unfazed by the rough weather. They are the tough little mustangs of the fragaria clan and I love them to pieces. The blueberries aren’t ripe yet but the main bush looks nice and full and another that I planted a million billion years ago is set to produce for the first time. The raspberries are coming on and their flavor is divine this year.

I really have no idea what effect this prolonged rainy Spring will have on summer crops like tomatoes. I suppose they will ripen later. Personally, although I recognize this is a nice opportunity to practice a Zen-like acceptance of that which I cannot change, I have been rather pissed off about the whole thing. In fact, something, perhaps the barenjager, has prompted me to realize that the situation has become so dire that I’m going to have to devote the whole rest of the month to cheering myself up. I may need to get some Indian Runner ducks.

The Soggiest May on Record

I keep a running tally in my head of the soggiest Mays and I can assure you this one is it. I don’t know when the last completely dry day was. Drizzle is the new sunshine, cold is the new warm, and sitting on the couch is the new taking a walk. It’s a topsy turvy world out there, I tell you. At least that’s what I hear. I’ve been inside taking a walk.

It’s hard to believe May is almost over. I feel like I’ve squandered it but in reality I’ve spent the past month working, playing the piano, and blowing my nose. What I haven’t been doing is gardening. Not even a little bit. Today I finally realized that it’s not going to stop raining, not ever, so I might as well go outside and have a looksee at the bog. As you can see from above, my house is being engulfed by camellia bushes. It’s a good thing I came out when I did because a couple more weeks of this and I would have had to send for help. It turns out the yard has been going CRAZY.

I thought maybe we were both taking a break but a columbine jungle has sprung up right where I planted one of my baby artichokes. Those beautiful fuckers totally stunted it and now it’s being eaten by slugs. The akebia has the plum tree in a chokehold and the sidewalk is 1/3 smaller than it used to be in front of my house, which in past years has caused a city official to pop by. Hopefully one has already been deployed, but unable to locate the house, has returned to her superiors with a tale of a wonderful vacant lot full of fruit trees and flowers causing absolutely no problems whatsoever. Then the lot is designated a butterfly refuge and all city employees are instructed to leave it unmolested forever and ever, in perpetuity, ad infinitum. This is probably what has happened.

These I Want

Here is a handy link to the Etsy shop where they may be purchased. I think Bagpipe Man might want to buy them for me because the other day I put the underwear that he left in the middle of the bathroom floor in the hamper for him. Also this morning at 5:18 I got up and cleaned partially digested sticks and chicken feces off the floor where a dog had vomited, and while this wasn’t his fault I still believe I deserve some sort of prize for taking care of the grossness and let’s face it, the dog isn’t going to buy them for me.

This Grey Weather Is An Effrontery

Everyday it is cloudy. Everyday it rains at some point. Everyday the sun comes out for a moment and then dashes away before I can even get my shoes on. The yard is muddy. I see that Monday we are only supposed to have 3 small slivers of cloud but I wouldn’t bet a picnic against it.

This is the weather where I used to live:

Now granted the summer will visit many many 100 plus degree days and 80 degree nights on those people and to be honest it is Hell. No amount of tubing on the Sacramento River or cheap pitchers of Sierra Nevada ever made up for the fact that to “sleep” I had to get underneath a cold (for a second) wet towel and fill my pillow case with ice cubes. The college squats all had swamp coolers moving hot moist air around rather than proper air conditioners and they smelled like wet hay and hangovers. And that shit starts in May! Still every Spring I miss Chico. I miss Chico when I’m stuffing my rain gear into my messenger bag even though the sun is out because I know in 15 minutes it could be pouring. I miss Chico when the sole of my boots crack and I have to throw them out before they whisk up water into my sock. In Chico I wore my shoes until they were flapping strips of leather. I miss Chico when it’s 52 degrees out and I realize I may never ever grow another watermelon. Today I miss Chico.