Category Archives: Our Land and Home

Bees, Garden, Our Land and Home, permaculture

Over the Years

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Beltane                                                                     New (Early Growth) Moon

“When you recover or discover something that nourishes your soul and brings joy, care enough about yourself to make room for it in your life.”

— Jean Shinoda Bolen 

A nice rain, drizzly and over a few hours.  The irrigation folks are coming out on Monday to start up our system.  We’re under way for year 19 at Artemis Hives and Gardens.  We’ve never aspired to large scale production or to garden beautiful flower gardening, but we’ve kept at improving our property over the years, starting when we hired a landscape architect and Otten Brothers Nursery to give us key features even before we moved into this house.

They graded, installed beds, planted trees, shrubs and some flowers, created the terraced garden in the back and laid in the boulder walls.  Over the course of the next year or two I cut down the scrub black locust trees to clear a large area in our back, an area that would eventually become our orchard, our vegetable garden and a general purpose back yard with the grandkids playhouse, a machine shed and a garden shed.

Later we had the permaculture folks, Ecological Gardens, put in our orchard, then they added plantings to our vegetable garden.  We’ve done a good deal with our land over the years, adding value incrementally.  The bees came along five years ago with the assistance of a friend of Kate’s from her work.

With each addition we’ve increased the level of our interaction with the land here in Andover, on the Great Anoka Sand Plain.  We added first vegetable production that Kate put in, then much more with our raised beds and finally the fruit trees, blueberry and raspberry and elderberry and currant and sand cherry bushes.  Each year we also take wild grapes from the vines native to our small woods.

It’s a good bit of work from May to October, but not overwhelming–except for that time period with the back–and it gives us part of our own food supply.  In the fall we harvest the honey, then Kate cans, freezes and dries.

Not to mention all the beautiful flowers we have all year.

 

Feelings, Minnesota, Our Land and Home, Politics, Travel, US History

Another Country

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Spring                                                               Bloodroot Moon

A few pictures from my trip to Mt. Vernon.

Before the pictures though.  Here in Washington and at Mt. Vernon the early history of our nation has a presence on the street, among the documents, in the traditions, and by shaping the forms of architecture from government buildings to residential homes: the brick homes, the limestone greco-roman revival government buildings and monuments and the cobblestone street in Alexandria, Virginia.  The constitution and the declaration of independence lie entombed in the Archives not far from where I write this.

Each place you go some element of our history peeks around the corner, waves. Says, “Psst, want to see some history, kid?”  I remember the same sense when I was on the Capitol, the sleeper train that runs between Chicago and Washington.  Once we got into central Pennsylvania the architecture changed.  We passed places I knew mostly from history books.

Here’s the thing.  I’m a Midwestern guy born, raised and never left.  A heartlander.  This does not feel like my country here on the east coast.  When I think of Minnesota from here, it feels far away, up north and filled with pine trees and lakes.  Which, of course, as most of you know who read this, it is.  Pine trees and lakes are in a large part of the state and they do define our identity as Minnesotans.

This feels like the old world, Europe to our heartland new world.  A place so built up and fought over and crusted up with money and power that it has a different tone entirely from the one at home.

Sure, we’re all subject to the same government and fly the same flag, speak the same language and send our kids off to the same military.  True.  But the east coast, like the south, the West and the Left Coast are different enough to be different countries in Europe or Southeast Asia or Africa.  You know this, I’m sure, but I’m experiencing it right now and it unsettles me in some way.

Here are the pictures.

Commentary on Religion, Latin, Myth and Story, Our Land and Home, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

A Solid Day

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Imbolc                                                                                 Bloodroot Moon

Missing in the a.m.  About 1/6th done.  As I read, it’s hard not to jump in, start line editing, but getting the story and the transitions and the big picture clear is necessary.  I have to reenter the story when I begin this 3rd rewrite, reenter the story in order to change it.  Only by having it again in mind will I be able to do that.  I can already see the value of this approach.

I have a list of characters, things and places that I’m writing down as I read.  The first time a character appears or a place gets mentioned or a thing like a particular sword gets used.  A long list and I’m only a little ways in.

Translating today went well, two sentences, about 6 verses.

The mechanical inspector came to examine our new furnace.  A cursory look.  “Fine.”  And he was on his way out.  To show though the things you do not know.  He stopped at Kate’s long arm quilter.  “My wife just died.  She was a quilter, left me with a lot of quilting things.”  Then, he buttoned up and left.

Still reading the competition.  Percy Jackson and the Olympians.

And, hey!  How about that Pope.  Argentina, eh?  But, from a good Italian family.  And a Jesuit?  Interesting though.  Look at a graphic  that shows Catholic strength by world region and you will see that it has bulged for some time in the Southern Hemisphere.  As the West has gotten more secular, Africa and Latin America have grown more Christian.  And more conservative.  It will be a while before we can see what this means.

Our Land and Home

Installed

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Imbolc                                                              Valentine Moon

The furnace, the new one, clocks in at 98.2% efficiency.  Higher than advertised because there are fewer bends in the new exhaust.  This is a dual stage furnace with a low, always on setting, and a high setting that comes on when the thermostat calls for more heat.  The fan runs with a variable speed motor that is so much more efficient than our old one that its savings on the electric bill will pay for the higher cost of the whole furnace.  Feels good to have it installed.

(this guy no longer works here.)

Now, one month at a time, for 12 months interest free, we’ll pay it off with a combination of the increased draw from our IRA (thank you stock market) and diverting our monthly allowance for mutual travel.  A year from now we’ll own it and have made roughly $270 dollars in appreciation in our cash bank, a Vanguard mutual fund, since the money for the furnace will not have to be withdrawn.  Pretty slick.

As he who talks with tradesmen (and women, too, but there aren’t any I’ve met in the heating and cooling trades), I dutifully went up and down stairs on various occasions, conversing with the guys.  Like I knew what I was talking about.  Yeah, right.

A snowy day with a hot new furnace installed.  A good Friday.

Our Land and Home

The Sounds of Furnace (installation)

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Imbolc                                                             Valentine Moon

Clanking and whacking.  Sheet metal tortured and screaming.  Saws whining.  Dogs barking.  Ah, the sounds of furnace installation.

Snowing today and the temps are in an upswing, but we still have some heating season left to get familiar with the new furnace.

Dogs, Health, Our Land and Home, Travel

Out of the Salt Mines and On to the Treadmill

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Imbolc                                                                 Valentine Moon

Well, I’m close, but not finished.  As the books got shelved, the remaining space seems to be inadequate for what I have left.  Probably a way around it, I’ll find it tomorrow.  Right now.  Tired again.

(a salt mine cathedral in Colombia outside Bogota.  I visited in 1987.)

Just brought in more bags of feed for the animals.  40 pounds at a time.  Then salt for the water softener, 50 pounds a bag.  But.  They have nice plastic handles.  Working in the salt mines doesn’t mean what it used to.

Discovered that my glucometer needed calibration.  Once calibrated it told me a story I was glad to hear.  At least by today’s reading my low carb diet has lowered my blood glucose level.  And, I’ve lost a bit of weight, too.  All in all a good thing.  Though Kate, a carb lover of some note, has expressed some dissatisfaction.  No pasta, no breads, no cakes or pies.  We’re figuring out now how to add carbs back into her diet without creating a cook two meals at a time situation.  We’ll figure it out.

Right now I’m getting on the treadmill.  Which, for that matter, doesn’t mean what it used to either.

This is a Landice treadmill, the brand and model I’m about get on.

 

Our Land and Home

A Big Day

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Imbolc                                                                              Valentine Moon

Barring setbacks and further challenges today should be the day when each book has, at least for this moment in time, either a place on a bookshelf, a bin for storage or a box in which it will leave the house for good.  This will be a big day for a number of reasons.

1.  The daily drain of things out of place will change into the brisk, ordered feeling of a working library.

2.  Skimmed off and discarded will be the material no longer germane to my current work.

3.  This task will get ticked off the list of things to do.

4.  It will mark my return to serious labor.  Also fun, enriching and potentially gainful.

Art and Culture, Our Land and Home, Writing

Simplify, Declutter, Reorganize

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Imbolc                                                                   Valentine Day

If these impulses have begun, can spring be far behind?

A day, two in fact, devoted to finishing the reorganization of my writing room and the garden study.  The garden study will become the central location for all of my art related books, files and folders.  The writing room will have material supportive of novels, short stories, marketing.  I’ve drug my feet on getting this done, focusing on the more immediate Latin or writing tasks I’ve had, but I need to get this work finished so I can settle into a long bout of revising and writing.

The urge to get cracking on the actual writing of Loki’s Children has begun to build and I’ve got all the Missing feedback from beta readers save one.  That means revising Missing will occupy large parts of my working time as well.  Need a space arranged to make that easy, both from a retrieval of information perspective and a non-cluttered, beautiful space perspective as well.

The question of what do with my passion for art post-MIA still occupies me.  I’ve come up with a few ideas, but none of them really click.  The trick may be that I really want to deepen my engagement with particular artworks, artists, styles, periods, movements.  That is, stop researching objects just enough to get six talking points, but go into historical and formal analysis with pieces, spending more focused time on fewer works.  That sounds like what I really want to accomplish now.

In a small way perhaps become an expert on something, like Symbolists, or pre-Raphaelites or contemporary art theory or Kandinsky or Beckmann.  This does help me think it through actually.  I’m yearning for a richer experience, an experience grounded in significant time with the art and its analysis.  How to do that?  I don’t know quite yet.

Aging, Dreams, Family, Garden, Latin, Our Land and Home, Third Phase, Translating Metamorphoses, Writing

The Life Ahead

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Imbolc                                                                Valentine Moon

So.  66.  Tomorrow.  How that long-haired, green book bag carrying, dope smoking political radical could be turning 66 is, I admit, a puzzle.  Yes, he looks a bit different in the mirror.  Well, ok, quite a bit different.  Instead of long hair, little hair.  Instead of the book bag, a kindle.  Not smoking at all.  Hmmm, still a radical though.  Guess the other stuff is detritus of past fashion.

After passing the last great social milestone before the final one, that is, signing up for Medicare, my life has taken on a new cast.  I’ve written about it here, a change that came gradually but with a strange persistence.  That new cast has home, writing, Latin and friends as its core.  It entails reduced traveling into the city, a much lower profile in terms of volunteer work in either politics or the arts.  A word that sums it for me is, quieter.

Quieter does not mean less energetic or engaged, rather it signals a shift in focus toward quieter pursuits:  more reading, more writing, more scholarship, more time with domestic life.  Unlike the pope I do not intend to give up my beloved theological writing. (Kate believes he’s suffering from dementia.)  I intend rather a full-on pursuit of the writing life, novels and short stories, a text on Reimagining Faith.  This full-on pursuit means active and vigorous attention to marketing.

The primary age related driver in this change is greater awareness of a compressed time horizon, not any infirmity.  How many healthy years will I have?  Unknown, though I do actively care for myself.  Still, the years will not be kind, no matter what I do.  So, I had best get my licks in now, while I can still work at my optimum.

So, the man turning 66 has a different life ahead of him than did the man turning 65.   An exciting and challenging life.

 

Garden, GeekWorld, Great Work, Holidays, Our Land and Home

Pruning Weather

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Imbolc                                                                   Valentine Moon

Last of the furnace vendors.  Get your hot one, right here!  Red hot and cozy!  Discounted. Tax credited.  Rebate worthy.

We’ve made a decision.  We’ll go with Centerpoint, a dual-stage, variable speed motor operating at 95% or 96.5% efficiency.  A bit more with these options but they optimize the conservation of both natural gas and electricity.  Once we get it in that’s one less matter we’ll have to worry about over the next few years.  A good thing.

After Brad left, an interesting guy, knowledgeable about food as a former catering manager for Lunds, we put on our winter gear.  I got out the Sorel’s and clapped my work gloves on, wool hat and down vest.  Kate got ready.  She has less stringent requirements for work in the cold than I do.

Outside in the deep snow, bright with a clear day’s sun, we first cut back to the ground all the raspberries.  In clearing the snow with a coal shovel, I discovered that I could clear snow and prune in the same motion.  Kate went in afterward and cleaned up.

When I finished in the raspberries, I went to the tangle of grapevines that have grown on our front 6-foot chain link fence.  Originally a Celt (our first and dearest Irish Wolfhound) escape prevent barrier, it now serves mainly to give us an ample supply of wild grapes in the fall thanks to the volunteer vines.  Last summer though there were few grapes.

Lots of leaves and vine, not many fruit.  We’d never pruned it before, or if we did, it was a while ago, so it had overgrown.  I whacked away at the orchard side today;  I’ll finish it tomorrow.  Kate got after the bittersweet.  It was a good day for this work.

Back inside I had a snack of bacon and blue cheese with chestnut flower honey, the first installment in my birthday gift, a monthly specialty bacon club.  How cool is that?  Thanks, Kate.