To Be is To Do, To Do is To Be

Do Be Do Be Do!

Long ago, when Amigo was a baby, I had a sweatshirt that proclaimed to the world:

shirt

 

Mine was white, not black, and credited Plato rather than Sartre with the second form of To Be. And so it goes as I give away the source for my latest posts announcing what’s done and what’s still To Do (be do be do).

With the help of a rake and a light rain, I managed to get the stepping stones a.k.a. old boards out of the garden. Now I can turn the soil, if the weather will ever cooperate. If not, it may be another year to plant no-till style.

Boards!

Boards!

More Boards!

More Boards!

Then the seeds will go in, and hopefully the seedlings will follow sooner rather than later.

Those patches of brown may look more like patches of growth soon.

 

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Save the Trees! Not.

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but I don’t think our dear city council members would like the words my tree would say. Remember the Save the Trees movement? The Lorax reincarnated as my powerful neighbor panicked at the thought of losing the trees closest to the road. The alternative was narrowing the street and “saving” the trees.

People, you know I’m as green as green can be. I know the benefits of trees from both the aesthetic and scientific perspectives. I see my rain barrels as half full, not half empty. I make my own compost, for heaven’s sake! In addition:

  • I recognize that trees have a finite lifespan.
  • I know from my own classes and research that trees close to a street or (gulp) in a median strip live a severely shortened lifetime.
  • I know, and I told the Council, that the road work itself will damage the tree roots beyond repair. “Saving” is all rhetorical here. Hypothetical? Figurative? It’s sure not literal.

Off soapbox now. I’ll share the photo evidence with all who wish to see it. I must warn you; it’s not pretty. Do not let any baby trees see this.

This is what saving looks like?

This is what saving looks like?

a little closer, perhaps

a little closer, perhaps

Completely disconnected from the root system

Completely disconnected from the root syste

Sidewalk replacement starts later this week.

Guess what: that’s not sidewalk art by the neighborhood kids.

Sidewalks get repaired later this week.

 

 

 

 

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To Do is To Be, To Be is To Do

And I still have a lot to do to call the patches of dirt “Garden.”

The soon to be asparagus patch looks lovely in its shades of brown: peat and topsoil. I hope this will do double duty by supporting asparagus plants and assisting the rest of the yard in absorbing water, therefore preventing the OkayByMe Swamp from turning into Lake OkayByMe.

Shades of Brown - so pretty.

Shades of Brown – so pretty.

It wasn’t easy to get this set up. We bought the peat and topsoil from a local place and brought both home. I felt rushed because our street was about to be torn up, and I wanted to get the materials while the minivan could still get in the driveway. Poor old mini: with ten bags of topsoil in the back, we feared it might try doing wheelies before we got it home.

Then there was the surprise. Most of the bags were that wonderful deep brown color, almost black. One, however, had been exposed to a little too much – heat? humidity?

Terrarium in a bag!

Terrarium in a bag!

Chuck asked, “Should we return it?” I said, “Nah. We have a compost bin.” There really wasn’t much wasted. After I tossed a few handfuls of moss, etc., into the compost, most of the topsoil remained ready to use.

So here it is, folks. The next step on my To Do List: plant the asparagus crowns. Then: wait. Two years, perhaps three, until the asparagus matures enough to harvest. But then, when it’s ready, I’ll have fresh asparagus every spring. Yum.

And I still think shades of brown are prettier than any number of shades of gray.

Soon to be Home to Asparagus

Soon to be Home to Asparagus

 

 

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Entertainment, captioned

It was a sunny afternoon and the Milwaukee Brewers were – losing. Big time. But the game  offered some fun in the form of closed captioning errors.

Ryan Braun retched first on a base hit. Retched? He’s tossing bases now instead of cookies? Ouch.

Later, Gomez got up to bat and the ballet slipped out of his grip. Yep, he threw the ballet. I know professional baseball is an art, and I understand that these young men are quite graceful at times. But when did the bat become a dance?

So I went to school the next day and let go of baseball and its lingo. It wasn’t long, though, before I was looking over information on a literacy grant and – oh, readers, you’re way ahead of me. Here it is. Put down your beverage.

We also will consider grant requests from organizations and programs that support children, families, and animals that are not easily categorized.
Animals that are not easily categorized? Like a rabbit that looks like a cow?
an animal that is not easily categorized

— an animal that is not easily categorized

 

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Fortune or Misfortune?

I had to look at this one a few times. I wondered if I’d stumbled across someone else’s fortune. After all, I enjoy both my work and my job.

Who, me?

Who, me?

Shortly after this cookie broke open, I got the news that I am likely to be teaching summer school. Yea! There may be enough demand for expanding the new music courses, which in turn keeps my workload steady.

That works. I’m not changing jobs, but my work is shifting back to my roots in teaching music.

Well, I didn’t think the fortune was referring to the rummage sale coming up in June.

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In Which Daisy’s Green Thumb Turns Brown

It was a gift – a gift from a generous and appreciative parent of a student. It’s a nice plant, supposedly one of the impossible to kill varieties. You guessed it, readers. I’m good at growing outdoors, but indoor plants tend to fade on me – fade to brown, not black. This one started looking really sad on its cubicle shelf, so I brought it home for some TLC.

This is embarrassing.

This is embarrassing.

It didn’t take long. A good watering, a little time with real sunshine, and there is recovery in the air – er, in the pot.

Now that's better.

Now that’s better.

The tiny tomato seedlings weren’t so lucky. Transplant shock plus a sudden transition to outdoors and the Romas and and a few Beefsteaks choked. I guess I’ll be a customer at the Memorial Gardens’ heirloom variety sale again.

RIP, tomatoes.

RIP, tomatoes. We hardly knew ye.

The pepper plants still look good. We’ll have a good variety of peppers, sweet and spicy, come September.

Peppers!

Peppers!

The scallions, on the other hand, have never really picked up. They are thin as embroidery thread and starting to lie down in their dirt.

Scallions - not stallions

Scallions – not stallions

I guess I should stick with what works – and that’s the wild walking onion crop that is already going strong.

These onions were made for walking!

These onions were made for walking!

As for the rest, it will wait until I’m a little more certain that spring is really here.

 

 

 

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Creative Cookies

We call it the Clounge or the coffee closet. It’s a storage closet in the school offices, a narrow closet that houses spare books and curriculum resources and the huge lock boxes that keep our state tests secure. On the other side we have a long, narrow table and small cabinet that support two microwaves, a toaster, and the coffeepot. Closet + Lounge gives us Clounge, and coffee closet is self-explanatory.

This Clounge is narrow – narrow enough that only one person can stand in between the table and storage shelves. At lunch time, there’s a lot of “Excuse me. Can I get past you to the water cooler? The refrigerator? Or maybe could you just hand me my yogurt?” as we maneuver around to get what we need.

But once in a while, someone brings in a treat. This one came from a long-term substitute to say Thanks on her last day with us.

Cute, aren't they?

Cute, aren’t they?

We had some fun discussions, trying to figure out who ate the head from the turtle but left its shell, wondering why everyone left the smilies for last. One thing was simple; that frog was calling my name. It was great with coffee.

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The New To-Do in the Dirt List

To do is to be. 

To be is to do. 

Done:

  • Rock garden has its fun rocks (the big ones) in it again
  • Mock cherry tree suckers lopped off
  • Dead mums from last fall cut down (they are so hardy it’s snowing before they die)
  • Peat covers the area destined for asparagus
  • The mess near the small compost bin has been raked and redeposited in the other compost bin (dang raccoon)
  • Tiny tomato seedlings are in better pots now
  • Tiny tomato seedlings suffered transplant shock and too-cool windy weather. Thank goodness, the peppers are fine.
  • Mini greenhouse shelves are on deck (that means they’re outside, people, not waiting to bat)
  • Mini greenhouse shelves are still on the deck, but all the little seedlings are in the house until the risk of snow goes away. Really.
  • Found the box of fossil samples and distributed them artistically in the rock garden!

To Do:

  • Turn soil
  • Mix in suitable compost  I might wait until fall for these two. When the weather is finally suitable, going no-till might be a better use of my time.
  • Spread topsoil over peat for asparagus
  • Pick up boards-slash-stepping stone paths and re-arrange them
  • Create the new “floor plan!”
  • Find any stray rock collections in the basement (I know of at least one box) and add to rock garden. See above.

Do-be-do-be-do! And on we go! 

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To Do in the Dirt

To do is to be. 

To be is to do. 

Done:

  • Rock garden has its fun rocks (the big ones) in it again
  • Mock cherry tree suckers lopped off
  • Dead mums from last fall cut down (they are so hardy it’s snowing before they die)
  • Peat covers the area destined for asparagus
  • The mess near the small compost bin has been raked and redeposited in the other compost bin (dang raccoon)
  • Tiny tomato seedlings are in better pots now
  • Mini greenhouse shelves are on deck (that means they’re outside, people, not waiting to bat)

To Do:

  • Turn soil
  • Mix in suitable compost
  • Spread topsoil over peat for asparagus
  • Pick up boards-slash-stepping stone paths and re-arrange them
  • Create the new “floor plan!”
  • Find any stray rock collections in the basement (I know of at least one box) and add to rock garden

Do-be-do-be-do! And this is only the beginning!

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