Dear Squirrel;
It’s not an even trade. I’m sure you meant well, leaving something behind for me when you nibbled on my garlic scapes, but it wasn’t enough. The little token you left in the basket isn’t edible. I can’t plant it. It’s not even picturesque, but I took a picture anyway.
Ahem.
So hear me now, loud and clear. You, small furry creature, I’m talking to you.
Get out of my garlic, punk.
This area no longer exists. About two thirds of it is now garage (concrete slab, at the moment) and the rest is a huge pile of dirt, er, soil. I salvaged enough raspberry canes to start over, but there won’t be a lot of room. Fortunately, Chuck expanded the raised beds for me last year, and I’ve been playing around with container gardening on the deck and around the house. Enjoy the look back.
>A few weeks ago, my garden was just a deep brown color, waiting for seeds and seedlings. Now it has little hints of green here and there.
Peas and beans! The peas already look healthier than they did a year ago.
Cauliflower and (maybe) broccoli emerge, seeking sun and water.
But the bunny food section? I must get those maple tree seeds out of this area. It’s a lettuce bed, not a helicopter pad!
You saw the garage falling down with a little help from a big machine.
You saw the concrete slab waiting for more.
Before the concrete came in, our neighbors loaned us a metal detector. We didn’t find anything valuable, but we did find a few fun artifacts.
Let’s start with the little bottle. We think it might be an old medicine bottle. It’s thick glass, and it stands about two inches tall. It’s very cute. You also see *to the left and behind the bottle) part of a clay pipe. We’re not sure exactly why the pipe was there or what it did. Then there are two blocks of cement (from two different eras), and a few interesting rocks. That’s all.
Yellow Brick Road remains?
We found shards of yellow brick, mostly fragile (limestone or sandstone based?), but not enough to indicate an outbuilding or driveway made of the stuff.
That’s Chuck’s feet and my shadow, by the way.
All the scraps and shards ended up in my rock garden. Whoever told me the rock garden wouldn’t grow? they were wrong. It grows every year.
Here it is, or was, the day of the demo crew. They said it came down easily. We weren’t surprised.
Timber!!
That was the view from the kitchen during demolition. It was rather fascinating. The process is very methodical and planned.
garage slab
Now you can get an idea of how big the garage will be. I know we will love it (I keep telling myself) because of the additional space. But do you see what’s behind the garage-to-be?
Behind The Slab
The firewood isn’t mine. Don’t worry about that. It’s the Big Pile of Dirt. I knew we’d have soil left over. In fact, I planned on it. But whoa, baby, that’s a lot of topsoil that needs to be moved to my raised bed. It’ll get done. I just hope I can get it done before planting time.
This is embarrassing. I took pictures of the “before” status and then…and then…I didn’t do anything to fix the problem. Not yet. I will! Hold me to it, folks. I will rearrange the shelves that hold my random containers.
This
Top Shelf
This is one of three shelves that holds containers in random sizes and shapes. It’s overflowing now because it’s spring! In August, these containers would be full and in the freezer. Right now, the freezers have empty space (I sense a defrost project in my future), but the cupboard in the basement is a mess.
Shelf in the middle
This one is so full I can’t put any more containers on it. I have a stack sitting on my planting table.
Lowest shelf
There must be a better home for these pieces. My food mill, an extra silverware holder, a few nice holiday plates…these don’t even belong together.
My goal: move what I can to better locations, find a bin or bucket for the oddest and smallest pieces, and then sort and stack those that work together. Eventually. I’ll get back to you, readers.
First posted in August of 2013 just after tornadoes came through the area.
The Living Room
They called it their temporary living room.
Chairs, table, phone
Really, what more did they need?
Ye Olde Rotary Phone
Someone discovered that a rotary phone worked while the up to date touch tones didn’t. Without Internet access, the old fashioned phone book came in handy.
Camp stove and tea kettle
Camp stove plus tea kettle for boiling water equals coffee and social time!
It wasn’t the most beautiful day in the neighborhood, though. At the other end of the driveway, the next door neighbors’ house looked like this. They were still gracious and friendly shared their hot water with me every morning. Thank heavens for good neighbors.
‘Nuff said.
I haven’t decided if it’s a tragedy, comedy, or just straight up entertainment, but the replacement of our garage has not been uneventful.
I came home from school on Thursday, introduced myself to the worker who was carefully taking down the garage door to be reused later, and I am not making this up this conversation.
Worker Dude: Do you own the house?
Me: Yes.
Worker Dude: How long have you lived here?
Me: About 20 years (it’s really 19, but I rounded up).
Worker Dude: Really? ‘Cause I used to live in this house.
Whoa! He lived at this address about 30 years ago. My next door neighbors (the wife is the fourth generation of her family to live in that house) remember the guy.
The next day I watched the demolition crew destroying the remains of the garage sides and roof. One commented that it went down “easier than expected”. Um, yes, people. There’s a reason we’re having this done.
Then the contractor came to the door and told us he’d run into a snag. Any project in a house of this vintage (1890) is unlikely to run smoothly. They had encountered a second slab of concrete under the main one. Since this would increase the weight of the waste, which would increase the cost of dumping, this discovery required a signed change order. No problem, except we were climbing into the car to attend my stepfather’s funeral. Chuck took a minute, signed the change order, and we still made it to the church on time.
So on we go. Over the weekend, we dug up a few of what I call “fun rocks” – souvenirs that may not have value, but might have history. I might be able to guess at the history, or I might not, but these pieces make my rock garden more interesting. Pictures and stories to follow – sooner or later.
Our next door neighbors also loaned us their metal detector to search the area where the garage used to be. We found several nails, a few industrial staples, and a tiny glass bottle. I’ve gotten most of the dirt out of the bottle. Again, pictures to follow.
How will the drama play out next? Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of… wait, wrong script. Tragedy? Comedy? I know one thing for sure: it’s entertaining.
This is an encore from almost exactly a year ago. I had a close call, followed by a night in the Neurology Intermediate Care Unit (the next best thing to the ICU), and then a slow, steady recovery. A full year later, I can dig in the dirt successfully. Reviewing this post reminds me to take nothing for granted.
Planting a garden means believing in a future.
Didn’t I post a quote like that in the recent past? I’ll search the archives. When I ran a quick search for “garden future quotes” I found everything but this one, so I’m unable to source it quite yet.
Meanwhile, back at the O.K. Chorale, I am sitting still and resting, stretching my legs as much as I can tolerate, and keeping calm. Mostly.
The big bunny still takes her responsibilities seriously in the role of service animal. I took a half day at work, stayed home for the morning, and even though I’d gotten up to feed her at the normal time, she came in a little later and made sure I was up. First she thumped, loudly, and then she scrabbled and scratched the blankets hanging down from the bed. I gave in and got up, and then she sat watching closely while I checked my blood pressure — so closely that I almost expected her to stick a paw in the cuff and check her own.
I’m discouraged from anything resembling physical effort. Bending, lifting, twisting, and straining are all on the “no-no” lists. That means digging in the dirt, spreading topsoil, carrying pots of seedlings out to the deck, or wrestling with a rain barrel are all outlawed. For now, that makes sense. I am stiff and sore, and I tire easily. I don’t know how long the remnants of last week’s hematoma (look it up, and trust me, it hurt) will get in my way.
On the bright side (there’s a little resilient thinking) Mother Nature has delivered rain for most of this week. The weather hasn’t encouraged garden work, so I miss it a little less. But as soon as the sun peeks out from behind the clouds, I’m going to want to garden.
Gardening has always been an ingredient in my healing, a strong part of any recovery. Taking the time to start seeds indoors kept me looking forward after my hysterectomy. Now it’s almost May, and by the end of the month I hope to have my plants in the dirt.
That’s where the faith in the future really comes in. When it’s time to plant, and I’m looking around and envisioning the harvest, my belief in the future is at its strongest.
Dear Pharmacy that Shall Not be Named;
Once again, it’s the system, not the people. The staff was as bothered by the mix-up as we were. The exact same mix-up had happened at least once in the past. It wasn’t new.
I overheard someone checking into the computer saying, “It looks like both were ordered, but only one printed out.” So you’re saying it was the call-in system that messed up? Okay, I’ll take that explanation. But now let’s look at a true fix: how to prevent this from happening a third time or even more.
This is the toughest kind of problem to solve: the problem that doesn’t start with a human. Since it seems to be a systems error, there will have to be a solution that changes the system. In this case, someone at the top will need to call someone in IT and say, “Can you modify this code?”
Yeah, you’re right. I doubt it, too. And the Pharmacy That Shall Not be Named was doing so well. I haven’t written a Pharmacy post in ages. Their customer service has improved greatly. Now, the challenge rests with the folks who run the system. Pharmacy That Shall Not Be Named, can you fix the system? We’ll wait in suspense for the answer.
Once again I find myself feeling fortunate to live in the Great Lakes region. While California dries up to a dust bowl level or worse, it’s easy to feel smug for conserving water where I am. But then I realize – my own water-saving techniques would be a drop in the bucket in Southern California (pun unintended, sort of).
As soon as our new garage is built, I’ll set up the rain barrels to catch and collect rain water. Those rain barrels are wonderful. I have two, and they provide enough water to keep my garden growing. If I’m honest, however, these two big barrels collect enough water in a typical year. The south west region of the U.S. has had several years in a row that were anything but typical. A rain barrel is only good when rain falls.
I was feeling virtuous for reusing sink water. After washing a few dishes, I scooped up the soapy water and watered my tomato and pepper seedlings. Plants seem to thrive with this not-quite-pristine water. But then again – my water bills are fairly low because, well, because we live in the Great Lakes basin. There’s a lot of fresh water to go around. Even this sink full of the valuable liquid would boost my water bill in the hot sun of SoCal.
And that takes me back to an incident that soaked our front yard until it felt like a sponge or quicksand: the Water-Gas Leak Disaster. When an irresponsible worker drove a bobcat over the curb stop that directs water from the main into our home, that break flowed into the ground until it could hold no more. Then it sent gallons and gallons into our basement. The rest is history – bad memories, to be sure, but history.
I remember talking to a man from the water department who explained the damage to me. I reacted with an “Oh, no, will we be billed for this leak?” He assured me no, because it hadn’t reached the meter. Unfortunately, though, every ounce was treated water gone to waste. Treating water costs money, no matter who pays it.
When our curb stop was broken and the water flowed underground, our small front lawn became very, very muddy. If I lived in a drought stricken area, I’d be wise to not even have a lawn. A green grass lawn uses a lot of water just for basic maintenance.
If I’m to draw conclusions from this rambling, I guess I shouldn’t be feeling too smug about my own water conservation efforts, but I should keep doing what I’m doing. If I can expand those efforts, that might be even better.