There’s this place in the back of my head where the empty space is. There’s a kind of awareness around that space that every thing is belief. Who believes? What believes? I don’t care. It’s just my belief and it doesn’t matter.
My husband posted a link to this on his Tumblr: http://www.rebellesociety.com/2012/10/22/writing-lab-advice-from-charles-bukowski/. I believe it applies to life as well as writing.
I swear I never feel as ADD as when I do yard work.
I went out to finish getting that last piece of grass dug to straighten out that flowerbed. Dumped one cart of grass chunks in the back and, before I got started on the last section, I spotted a blossom on the wild geranium that was about to be swallowed by the spearmint.
So, I freed the geranium first. And in the process I pulled up a piece of the the canna lily that is in that area.
There’s an empty place in front of the shed that needed something colorful and it occurred to me that the canna would be lovely there. But, there were wild plantains overgrowing that bare spot, so I had to dig them out before I could plant the canna. And cannas tend to like richer soil than our clay, so I needed to put some compost down there, too. Which I did.
So, the last 30 minutes of labor that has me winded and catching my breath has made an improvement, but I still have that chunk of gravelly grass laughing at me.
We missed tasting the reds because we thought an hour and a half would be plenty of time to taste and see the exhibition. We were wrong. At $35 each for 10 wines and nibbles, they poured heavy. We couldn’t have tasted all 10 and gotten safely home if we had time anyway. The wines were provided by The Country Vintner.
The whites were:
La Folie Rully Blanc, Close-St. Jacques, France, 2010. @$20-$35, depending on where you find it. Oaked and delicious.
Ken Forrester Reserve Chenin Blanc, Stellenbosch South Africa, 2011. @$13, Beautiful nose, with a grassiness reminiscent of Marlborough Sauvignon blancs.
Macrostie Wildcat Mountain Chardonnay, Sonoma Coast, California, 2008. @$33, knocked our socks off. No wonder.
The sparklings were:
Antech Cuvee Emotion Brut Rose, Cremant di Limoux, France, 2010, @$15 It had a very light blush from pinot noir grapes. Nice enough. I liked the cava better.
Mont Marcal Brut Reserva, Cava, Spain, 2009, @$12, It has a much greater complexity than other cavas we’ve had.
Untasted reds were:
Domaine Paul Autard Rouge, Cotes du Rhone, France, 2011, Thelema Mountain Red, Western Cape, South Africa, 2009, Keenan Merlot, Napa Valley, 2009, Bodega Wienert Caves de Weinert, Lujan de Cuyo, Agentina, 2004, and Dehesa Granja Seleccion Red, Zamora, Spain, 2000.
I have been expanding the flower beds ever since I moved in here.
Last year, I extended the beds along the fence on the driveway side of the house some. On the front yard side of the fence, I hit a buried patch of gravel. I have a gravel driveway; that isn’t totally out of the realm of reasonablity. Because I ran out of time and steam, that bed has been curved.
This year, when I created the beds on the far side of the house, I stole the edgers from the driveway side to delineate and hold back the mulch. I figured that would also make it easy to know how many new edgers I need; I could just count how many I moved.
THEN, looking at where they need to be returned, I was inspired to straighten out the line of the bed. That is easier this time around since I figured out a method of grass digging that worked for me last year. And since I have gone to the Baylor shift, I have more yard work time. (That having been a large part of why I wanted to work weekends.)
I have hit the gravel, again. MUCH further out than I expected.
I think that grass has overgrown the “parking pad” at the end of the driveway.
It’s bad enough pulling out the quartz that grows here, but this feels like I’ve sabotaged myself. I can’t decide if I’d rather kick my feet and scream or burst into tears. So, instead of doing either, I’ll just write a long ranty post and hit “publish.”
About 5 years ago, I learned that Camellia Forest Nursery in Chapel Hill sells tea bushes. And I developed a longing to grow-my-own. Last year, I finally bought some bushes and planted them in the front yard.
Tea is made from the leaves of Camellia sinensis. “Herbal teas” are correctly called tisanes. I got 4 2-quart plants (3 small leaf and one pink), made a beautiful bed with lots of compost, vermiculite and mulch and made sure they got watered when it was particularly dry. I pinched them once to encourage bushiness, but haven’t really tried to harvest anything.
I tend to buy small plants and let them grow. I figure they may as well spend the time growing in my yard as at the nursery that got them started.
Three made it through the winter.
I am saving the instruction sheet I got from Camellia Forest here, so that when I clean it up and throw it away, as I tend to do, I’ll still have the information.
I am the Audience 