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Category: Gardening heaven forbid

House update: Not exactly new shed

I haven’t done a house-project update in a while. Partly that’s because there’s been little to show. Between my travels and The Wandering Monk trying to get out of the construction trade, projects have been few. I remember a lot of you said you like watching Ye Olde Wreck progressing over the years into Mo Saoirse Hermitage. So here’s something that’s not exactly new but is suddenly making summer progress. And it was pretty cool when it was new — last October. I didn’t tell you about this then because … well, I blush. It was one of the few…

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Spring has sprung, the grass has riz

(… and if you don’t know what the title’s about, here ’tis.) —– I’m housebound today awaiting a delivery that requires what they still anachronistically call a “signature,” even though in these crazy COVID days it merely means the driver is required to catch a distant glimpse of whatever small portion of my face I’m allowed to reveal in her presence (as shockingly as a Victorian lady might reveal a glimpse of her stockinged ankle). FedEx being FedEx, they’ll probably turn up around sunset. In the meantime the dispatchers and customer service mavens will have absolutely zero idea where the…

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A brief retreat to the peace of Mo Saoirce Hermitage

With all the crazy in the world — you know, the destruction of Western Civilization and all that — I thought it was time for a brief blogging retreat to the former Ye Olde Wreck, now known as Mo Saoirce (My Freedom) Hermitage. So here are some moments of peace and beauty for you. The hermitage in morning light and shadow The light gray gravel heaped beside the driveway will soon go on the top of the slope in front of the house as part of my nefarious campaign to rid the world (at least my world) of lawns. It’s…

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One small moment of Sunday sanity

Away from the constant drumbeat of scare stories about the new black plague … lies the real world. In case any of you remember last year’s laborious rock-wall project and wondered how the succulent plantings survived the winter: The pictures don’t do justice. While the yellow jumped out into the camera, there’s also quite a lot of dark red that doesn’t show well. I couldn’t get it to pop even with a color-balance and hue-saturation adjustment. Take my word for how colorful it really is. 🙂 The main thing is that the sedum not only survived the winter but is…

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Anger and madness

I dreamed last night that I was in Portland with a dozen or so blog friends when The Big One hit. We had gone to the city searching for Covid-19 supplies, which was tough enough. But now we were trapped by Mother Nature — in a world where people had been ordered to fear and avoid each other. In a world where natural instincts to help had been crushed. For some reason, I had a large collection of books with me, which two of my friends quickly “borrowed” without permission. I knew they immagined my collection would be loaded with…

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The Great Neighborhood Garden Project

So I received a text from Neighbor J two days ago: Would you like to participate in a community garden? X says we can use his fenced area; it’s full of raised beds. Every year since the truly heavy DIY work on the former Ye Olde Wreck (now Mo Saoirce Hermitage) was finished, I’ve been promising that this will be the year I build raised beds and plant a veggie garden. Every year, the expense of the project plus the fact that I’m a really, truly, terribly awful black-thumbed gardener means I put on my guilt and put off the…

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Computers have arrived! (And other, smaller events of the day.)

We may be an awesome species, but there are moments that make one want to quit the human race. This morning I was YouTubing instructions on how to dance the waltz (don’t ask). At the end of a video that showed no more than the basic 1-2-3-1-2-3 box step, there came a warning: Do not try this without supervision, specialized equipment, and further training. Fortunately there was no caution about the waltz being known to cause cancer in the state of California. But really, people. Really??? —– Back on the good, even grand, side of human nature … The White…

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Tuesday ramble: Computers, apples, computers, tomatoes

Last Saturday I thought I might gather some links for you. I’d been using the library’s computers all week, but mostly visiting “friendly” sites. I hadn’t done any general surfing. And OMG, when I ventured into the nooz world, I had to flee after a few minutes. The library keeps its computers muted by default, but apparently they have no defenses anywhere. Pop-ups pop, and pop again, sometimes four or five times on a site. Banners wave and zoom and flip and flash, and change color and generally demand more attention than a petulant two-year-old. Videos play by themselves as…

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Behinder and behinder …

I apologize to all the people to whom I owe either thank yous or emails in general. In the best of times, I can be a slow correspondent, but right now a lot of Life is happening. Nothing bad, I promise. On the contrary. But extracurricular writing is taking up hours upon hours (surprising and pleasant hours) of my time. In between writings, The Wandering Monk and I have been working like hell to turn a quarter acre of weeds and trash into something resembling a real lawn. The Monk has been great, especially considering he’s laboring for free and…

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Small-town vignettes

I check my rock garden plantings and find them still alive after five days. If I squint hard I can even imagine the little sedums and Alyssiums are actually growing. Definitely none are gasping their last. It’s a miracle! Life in these fecund boonies might make a gardener of my black-thumbed self yet. Even my one dry, brown, bedraggled clearance-sale tomato plant has exploded into a giant green wonder, filled with new blooms and one actual fruit (after deer or some other critter tiptoed through in the night and stole all the original ones). I’ve lopped stray branches from skinny…

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