My Oldest Son and the Grape Arbor

This is my 21 y/o. He asked me, "What is that thing for?" I told him it was the grape arbor. He said, "How come the boards are just laying on top of the posts?" I told him, "Because nobody has nailed them on yet." He said, "That's like a simple job, right? It would only take 15 minutes." I told him that simple jobs were more complicated than he thought. So he set out to prove me wrong, except that he found out that I was right. But my grape arbor is yet more put-together. It has been 3 years since we bought those treated posts. They laid on the ground for one year. Then Bruce and I put 3 of them in. The other 3 went in this spring, and I bought the 2x4's. The garden is right next to the arbor. You'd think with all that time weeding, some time would have been made for the arbor. The goats have eaten most of the leaves off the grape vines for the past 5 summers. It is amazing they are still alive.

My great-grandmother planted those Concord grape vines. I hope to train them to the top of this arbor where the goats will have much more difficulty eating the leaves. This was a memorable day.

The Garden on June 20th

I was taking a picture of the Job's tears, which were just weeded and are between the two row markers. But you can't see them very well. They look now like a cross between corn and grass. They are between the green pole beans (to the left) and the brussel sprouts which are just next to the beets. Out at the end, you can see the pumpkin plants have begun spreading, and you can see the corn peeping up behind the horseradish.

Oh, I have horseradish all over my garden. We let it grow where ever it sprouts. When the garden is tilled or plowed, each little bit that gets cut off tends to sprout and form new crowns. I dig it up with a garden fork and make grated horseradish often enough that I we try to confine it to certain parts of the garden, but it is growing out by the chicken house somehow.

There is a row of large Spanish onions next to the beans. I started the onions from seeds and transplanted them, and they are teenie tiny, so you can't see them in this picture at all. The blue pan off to the left is where I ended the green pepper row, and there are two rows of tomatoes further left of that. Then there is a row of herbs and tomatillos, then yellow summer squash, and then sunflowers which either never came up or got eaten by something. I am having a problem with ducks, chickens and groundhogs.

Brussel Sprouts and Pumpkins and Blue Corn

I took these pictures on May 31st also. The first picture is my brussel sprouts. The second is the pumpkins just peeping up, and the corn that I planted directly in the manure we put on the garden last fall, that Bruce dug the weeds out of and spread around a little.

The Garden on May 31

Finally, it loaded!! Now this is June 22, and it looks quite a bit different than this. But here is that picture of May 31st. You can clearly see the Bull's Blood beets, two rows. Next to them is a row of carrots; and then the kolarabi, and then the red-leaf lettuce the geese at off.

You can't see in this picture well, but in the back, in the manure, the corn and the pumpkins and squash are just coming up. To the left of the beets is a row of broccoli; then a half row of Job's tears.

And interspersed is horseradish that I let grow.

What Comes Down

I rarely tire of listening to rain falling. This makes me feel a little guilty when it has been raining for some time, and there is flooding. But I love to listen to the rain.

Simple pleasures have been more difficult to come by. I still take the time to make myself notice them. Several things have been sort of eating at me for a few years, and try as I might to let go of them, they bother me at times.

These things have changed the way I live my life and conduct myself. They have ruined simple pleasures that formerly I gave little thought to. They have also tainted my reputation in certain crowds, and although they are false or misleading, I have no way to redress them. There is no way things can go back to the way they were before these things happened. There is no way for me to fix the damage they've done in my extended family and extended community. I have retreated from being involved in many events I used to be involved in because of them. I used to have a little more fight, but pain after pain has me at home, excercising my feel-better muscles, and building a more solid base in other communities than those I was once so connected to.

But I see it as sort of a grounding time of my life. I am finding other simple pleasures to take the place of those ones and little by little, finding some peace. I have been re-evaluating who my friends are and what is important. Who I really am - who I know I am - hasn't been changed by the impressions of others. No honorable path is a simple one.

I have taken the time and am taking the time to let go so that I don't become vindictive or vengeful, and have attempted to send some sort of good will their way.