I am the Audience

Bonsai is slow and so am I

March 30, 2018

bonsai

I finally got a new pot for my juniper. My mother took me to B. B. Barnes Garden Center in Asheville and they had a nice selection of inexpensive bonsai pots. This one is slightly larger than the one this tree was already in.

I put the tree in a bucket of water while I got planting medium from the shed. (I was a amused to find a hazelnut buried in the third scoop.) By the time I was ready for the tree, all the “soil” had fallen out and it was free to settle in.

I haven’t done anything with the cedar, yet. I’m starting to see a shape, though. So, it’s probably time to start looking for another pot. The maple is going to be a while taking shape.
More blueberries!

February 28, 2018

We decided the dismantle the labyrinth because it was a pain in the ass to maintain and it almost never got any use. In the entire time it was here, I don’t think 25 people have walked it. But, we couldn’t just take up the rocks and let it go back to lawn because it has a hazelnut hedge around 2/3 of the outside.

Since there is going to be a circle in the middle of the back yard one way or the other, we decided to make it a bull’s-eye. The center will still be mulched and keep the benches. The first ring will get the herbs from the disassembled herb bed and whatever flowers I want that flourish in blistering sun like lilies, irises, foxgloves, crocosmia. I don’t know what else. The next ring will be low maintenance clover. And then, the hedge.

We decided that we really don’t need more hazelnuts, even though that means the circle of the hedge will be uneven. So, today, we added 5 new blueberry bushes. Like the hazelnuts, they will be naked in the winter. And we look forward to the fruit. (We’ve never had too many berries in life.)

We found one variety of blueberries at Lowe’s and 3 at Mebane Shrubbery. We already had one of those (Climax) by the fence. So, we have 3 Brightwells, a Powder Blue and a Tifblue.
Purpose

January 25, 2018

a day in this life

“Things don’t have purposes, as if the universe were a machine, where every part has a useful function. What’s the function of a galaxy? I don’t know if our life has a purpose and I don’t see that it matters. What does matter is that we’re a part. Like a thread in a cloth or a grass-blade in a field. It is and we are. What we do is like wind blowing on the grass.”
― Ursula K. Le Guin, The Lathe of Heaven

(Michelle posted this and I stole it because it is correct.)
Labels

December 13, 2017

dancing in the field of dreams

My dad told me, once, that if you believe what the Nazarene taught, you are a Xian. Church doctrine isn’t what determines that.

I found some comfort in that, at the time, because peeling that label off was hard. I grew up believing that God loved me and that Jesus did, too. It was hard coming to grips with the belief that the loving god I was taught about had to be as much a myth as Zeus and Odin. All those stories are interesting, culturally, and are useful to see how people have tried to explain a confusing world. But, none of them have any more significance than that for me.

I don’t like to use the labels “agnostic” or “atheist,” though. They come with their own baggage that I don’t care to wear, either.
Along the Carroll Park Canal

December 13, 2017

art, Beautiful, dancing in the field of dreams

There is a Linear Park in Frederick, Maryland with a canal running through it. There is a bridge over it that has been completely transformed by trompe l’oeil stones, insets and a duck.

She was looking for koi and didn’t see the duck until we pointed it out to her because it is flat. She was as charmed to notice it as we were.

Bonsai is slow and so am I

More blueberries!

Purpose

Labels

Along the Carroll Park Canal