Category Archives: Garden

Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Politics, Seed Keepers

Dysphoria

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Mental energy. Physical energy. Emotional balance. Support. Driving. Agency. Diet. Mini-splits. Dr. Josy.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe:  The night sky

 

Kavannah: Wonder. Malchut. Seeing the aspen and the lodgepoles. Seeing Artemis.

Tarot: Four of Vessels, boredom. “…you may be overlooking new opportunities due to inward focus, fatigue, or dissatisfaction. It suggests a need to break routines and re-engage…” I have let fatigue and pain reshape, and narrow, my daily life.

One brief shining: Spring rising on the Great Wheel. Last Samhain–Summer’s End–I was still harvesting. A strong hint. Something’s wrong. Missed it in my joy over fresh tomatoes.

 

 

Samhain to Spring. My harvest extended well into November. I had planted late, in July, because Artemis took a while to finish. Seeing how the irrigation worked, tuning the heater and the exhaust fan for optimal tomato conditions, perhaps a chance to harvest some lettuce. That’s all I imagined.

The warm fall, which would extend into a warm, almost snowless winter, allowed the beets, spinach, kale, and tomatoes to continue growing, producing. I harvested these, plus a cucumber or two, until the nights grew too cold.

The garlic went in in early November, while I was still harvesting cherry tomatoes.

All of November, then December and January, now February and March I waited. To see snow fall among the lodgepoles. To have a quiet, white day. A fire in the fireplace.

Spring came nine days ago. Shadow Mountain went straight to summer. Wildfire risk: Extreme. Denver hit the nineties. I slept almost naked.

I have seventy-nine winters. None of them were like this one. Watching the snow fall. Sleeping in a cold bedroom. Bundling up to go out. Yes. Wearing a short sleeve shirt in March. No.

Time and the climate. Out of joint. We earn our spring through winter’s cold and ice. No contrast.

Lodgepole needles are brittle. Aspens, confused, push out buds. Elk herds have already started coming down to lower meadows. The Black Bears have been up and raiding garbage cans for a couple of weeks.

I asked Jackie, a fly fisherperson, whether she’d been out yet. “No,” she said, “The streams are too low.” Maxwell creek, in another year, would be deep and fast as the winter’s snow cover begins to melt. No snow to melt.

Trump says, “We’ll keep bombing our little hearts out.” I see my neighbors struggling to pay for gas and groceries.

I don’t recognize my own country.  Men I cannot trust; men who shame their friends and welcome autocrats. How have we let them in?

To be old and to have the fundaments of my world stripped away disorients me. Where am I?

I plant anyway.

Protest anyway.

I am here on Shadow Mountain.

 

 

 

 

Garden, Great Work, Greenhouse, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Hands in the Soil

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Wednesday gratefuls: Dr. Josy. Heirloom Tomato Farms. Pine. Artemis. Starting the day. Trash pickup. House cleaning. Rain.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Heirloom Tomatoes

 

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

Tarot: Nine of Stones. Tradition.    I find value in the Shema, teshuvah, tikkun, talmud Torah.

One brief shining: Set chatgpt to work on this query: I want to buy heirloom tomato plants. Can you find places? The first entry: Heirloom Tomato Farms specializes in them. Where is it? Pine, Colorado, about 20 minutes from here.

 

In Andover Kate and I grew exclusively heirloom vegetables: garlic, tomatoes, carrots. No pesticides. Careful attention to soil chemistry. Daily care.

We came to love heirloom tomatoes in particular: Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Black Krim. These plump, heavy tomatoes– some weigh more than a pound–had a meaty interior that shamed store bought tomatoes.  What tomatoes were like before industrial farming.

It gave me pleasure to imagine a nineteenth-century gardener weeding around these same varieties. Probably in a kitchen garden on a farm. Kate and I were their hands and feet in not only a different century, but a new millennium.

I’m drawn to Heirloom Tomato Farms. In fact, I sorta want to jump in Ruby and drive over there today. Just to see their operation. Online sales begin April 12th. It’d be nice to have already developed a relationship with them before then.

Tomatoes do well in Artemis. As she proved last year. Night time warmth. Daytime temperature control by exhaust fan. I’ll have to restrain myself, not purchase more plants than I need.

I do plan to order at least two heirloom cherry tomato plants since I have all these sheetpan meals in my repertoire. We never grew them in Andover.

Soil. Hands in the soil. Seeds planted in the soil. Heirloom tomato plants. Transplanted in the soil. Water. Sun. Time. Yield: nourishment, excellent taste, abundance.

I saw a youtube video on the release of 5,000 bison on a 150,000 acre reserve of Texas panhandle scrubland. I watched twenty minutes of it, fascinated by the multiple effects a bison herd could have on that much land.

I wanted it to be true. It wasn’t. Yellowstone has a four thousand plus bison herd, by far the largest in the U.S. I don’t know why people would make such a video, but I do know this: My heart wanted it to be real.

My passion. Visionary projects. I have a list of those projects I support,* but Artemis says I’m in it, too. To plant my own seeds. Reap a local harvest. Stay in the tradition of those nineteenth-century kitchen gardens.

The Andover years put Kate and me in that tradition. With a bad back and limited stamina Artemis gives me a chance to offer an echo of them, but a real echo nonetheless.

We had a no snow winter on Shadow Mountain. My neighbors have built chicken coops and greenhouses. I’m growing heirloom vegetables. Artemis.

I have a passion for radical solutions like perennial grains; but I also have a passion for the wisdom of gardeners past, for the solutions of yesterday.

Artemis.
Hands.
In the soil.

 

*The Land Institute and its search for perennial grains. The American Prairie, creating a large, contiguous prairie restoration where, someday, bison herds might roam. Regenerative agriculture. Restoring the chinampas in Xochimilco.

Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Holidays, Judaism, Paganism, Plants

Muscular

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Spring and the Moon of Liberation

Sunday gratefuls: Exercise. Artemis. Planting today. Tomatoes. Carrots. Beets. Check garlic. Fantasy. Writing. AI. Medical Alert.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Parsha

Kavannah: Areyvut. Mutual responsibility.  All humans are accountable one to another.

 

Tarot: Queen of Stones, Bear. Strength rooted in Mother Earth. I know mortality in decay, in cancer, in Kate. I choose to live because of these, not in spite of them.

 

One brief shining: Artemis has been through her first winter–what passed for winter this year. Her Japanese lanterns glow at night. Ten bulbs of garlic have wintered in her west-facing raised bed. I will plant carrots and beets in that bed today, check the garlic. Prep the tomato bed, plant the seeds. Flowers of memory in the east-facing bed: gladiolus and stargazer lilies for Jon, purple iris for Kate.

 

Nowruz. The Persian New Year. Passover, the annual reliving of liberation from oppression. Easter, the annual celebration of life’s ongoingness. Spring.

If our Shadow Mountain April has no snow, it will be our cruelest month. Letting us slide into summer with little moisture for lodgepoles and aspens, grasses, dogwood, willows.

Spring holidays acknowledge our deepest fears. Easter. Is death the enemy? Passover. Are we enslaved in our narrow places, with no hope of liberation?

Nowruz. Will the growing season begin well?

Artemis. My nod to Nowruz. Planting in expectation of blood-red beet salads, carrots cooked in butter and brown sugar.

Gardening. A ritual of confidence. A collaboration. Hands, seeds, soil, and sun. I love taking the prickly beet seeds in my palm, pinching one between thumb and finger. Planting it, pressing the soil down around it. Tucking it in. Spring.

Fourth phase. In May of 2015 prostate cancer showed up, death knocking, no longer an abstraction but presence. A shock, yes. Yet not a shock either. Mortality begins at birth.

Health? My body equilibrated, functioning well. What health isn’t: a permanent state. Even for those seeking life extension.

I remember sunrise services, a melding of Christian yearning to defeat death and pagan confidence in the sun. Transform the fallow season into the growing season. Once again. Life after death.

Tara invited me again to her Passover.

A full Haggadah with afikomen hidden, questions about plagues, conversation about contemporary mitzrayim: in society, in ourselves. Mitzrayim. A narrow place of bondage. Egypt.

Ancient myth as contemporary history. Our story of liberation from slavery. Of the heroes and heroines who led us out of Egypt, across the Reed Sea, and into freedom.

What is the evanescence of health against these muscular affirmations: life lived through fallow seasons, life confronting and transforming death, oppression changed into freedom, into a tribe?

Sun.
Soil.
Seeds.
Spring.

Fourth Phase, Garden, Judaism, Minnesota, Paganism, Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

I flew with hawks

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Imbolc and the Moon of Deep Friendship

Thursday gratefuls: Tom and Paul. Tara. Dr. Bupathi. Shadow and her doughnut. Clergy. My time in the ministry. A life lived in pursuit of love and justice.

Rene Good. Alex Pretti. Say their names.

 

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Religion

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Gratitude.

I chose this because Tom and Paul are coming. Ruth, too. And, my 79th birthday. And, for life, my precious.

 

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Tarot: Five of Bows, Empowerment

“By facing and defeating our greatest fears, we empower ourselves and grow more resilient and effective against adversity…The empowered individual ultimately has the capability to influence and affect the outcome of events and change perceptions.” Parting the Mist

One brief shining: In 1976 I wore a monk’s robe, a child’s wooden necklace with a cross around my neck. I knelt and a crowd of clergy and elders lay on hands until the hands of those closest to me rested on my head. From layperson to ordained clergy.

 

Those hands felt heavy. I could feel a charge pass from them to me. The laying on of hands. Ancient. Primal.

Political radical. Warrior and priest. I stood with the people of Stevens Square and with the descendants of John Calvin.

An out of body experience: Reverend Buckman-Ellis. “If clergy are usually more priest or more prophet…” I was more prophet.

Yet I prayed. Led worship. Served communion. Baptized my son and his close friend Alex. Studied the scripture.

Until I couldn’t. That day when my spiritual director said, “Charlie, I think you’re a Druid!” I wasn’t. I crossed over from Christian to pagan. Mother Earth my altar and sanctuary.

Kate. Radical Kate. She let me retire from the ministry with dignity. Falling into her life, she was my dear and glorious physician. A synchronicity.

With dogs and vegetables, flowers and honey, our life went against the grain. She my weeding ninja. Me, her gardener. No need for a robe, a title. A spade and a trowel, yes.

Yet I also wandered the natural places of Anoka County. Honing a pagan’s blurring of the lines between creature and plant and landscape. I flew with hawks. Bloomed along the Rum River. Religious.

Until late in my journey, I decided to blend my pagan life with those who escaped from Egypt, who wandered in the desert. Immersed three times in warm mikveh waters. Came out a Jew.

At last. With my Hebrew name, Israel, I became what I always was. A god wrestler. Uneasy with answers. Kate’s path. Then mine. Now one.

 

Garden, Greenhouse

Go now, the growing season has ended

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Sunday gratefuls: The Trail. Ancientrails. The Abyss Trail. Burning Bear Creek Trail. The Kalalau Trail. The trail into the Haleakala Caldera. The trail in Waimea Canyon State Park where I almost died. The trail along the Rum River where I used to exercise. The trail in the Woods behind the Andover Library where I snowshoed. The trails in Turkey Creek State Park where I ran out my grief. Upper Maxwell Creek and Lower Maxwell Creek trails.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shrimp Broil

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Chesed.  Loving Kindness.  “Kindness is the language the deaf can hear and the blind see.”  Mark Twain

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

Before the Fall

One brief shining: Picked up my new garden shears, an old favorite style from the Andover days, released their spring, and started cutting the thick stalks of now withered Tomato Plants after I severed the twine holding them up; a few frozen Roma and Cherry Tomatoes, most red but a few green still clung to their branches, snip, snip, snip, snip then with gloves on I began to pull, the interlaced Branches making the task of removing all of them easier, a few Tomatoes fell off, but I piled up the Plants outside, went back inside and picked them up, one smashed by my foot, its Seeds spilled on the greenhouse floor, tossed them on the pile and Artemis’ first year had ended. Almost.

Hanging the Mezuzah on Artemis: Irv, Marilyn, Gabe, Tara, Me, Rabbi Jamie

Artemis: Go now, the growing season has ended. Not quite though. Nantes Carrots still grow in the east facing raised bed. Probably should say they were still growing yesterday. 17 degrees right now. That might end them though Carrots can survive a lot of chill, becoming sweeter as they do. They are the last with the exception of that Russian Garlic I planted over a week ago in the west facing bed.

May plant Lettuce, Arugula, Kale, and Chard where the Tomatoes grew. Need for Nathan to install the insulation panels before that makes sense. Also need to procure a better heater, probably propane.

Even with good temperature control it’s possible winter crops will be hard to grow given the weaker light of Great Sol. Learning. I love having all these problems to solve, things I understand. A real hobby.

Which reminds me of my painting I’ve not gotten back to. And cooking. Which I also enjoy. I’m hopeful that the nerve ablations, when they happen (still unscheduled), will free up some energy, some stamina for both of them.

Stamina becomes an issue because pain in my lower back does not take long to wear me out. I had ten Garlic Cloves to plant, for example. After digging their holes, putting in the fertilizer, placing the Clove, and covering each one with Soil, then more potting Soil, I had to stop at six, come in and rest my back before I could finish. Same with removing the Tomato Plants. Took two sessions.

Working with Plants, with Soil, with the raised beds, the greenhouse, painting, and cooking all require standing. Which taxes me. A lot.

Cooking, Dogs, Garden, Greenhouse, Plants, Sport

Maybe…

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Samain and the Summer’s End Moon

Monday gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Planting Garlic. Putting the Garden to bed. Solving Garden problems. Dead Cucumber Vines and Nasturtiums. Frost, hard Freeze. Mother Nature, time to slow down. Shadow and the time change. New electric blanket. Working with the Soil. Winter is coming.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Planting in November

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Histapkot.  Contentment. Acceptance.                       I’m comfortable with who I am and with what I have.

Tarot: Being a metaPhysician

One brief shining: A splendid day yesterday, blue Sky, a few clouds, temperature in the mid-sixties, so I got out the trowel, dug ten medium holes in the west raised bed, dropped a bit of organic fertilizer in the bottom, covered that with Soil, placed a Garlic Clove in with care, filled the hole with Soil, repeated this ten times, and after put two inches of soil over the now resting below Ground Cloves, followed that with six inches of Hay from Tara. Now we wait until next spring.

 

Dog diary: Each morning I let Shadow out. She runs about fifteen feet from the house, then stops. Her head swivels from left to right, checking her territory, seeing what should occupy her first. From that spot she often runs to the back fence where she sometimes finds Mule Deer or other Dogs, further away.

Her job is to know every inch of the yard and as far as she can see in any direction. Later in the morning as some neighbors walk their Dogs, she has responsibilities along the front fence, barking at these maybe invaders first from one side of the house, then running quickly to do the same at the other side of the house, being sure they stay on the other side of her domain.

A happily busy girl, my Shadow.

It occurred to me that we might sell permanent standard time, not for humans, but for Dogs. So many dog owners. So many confused and unhappy Dogs. We all love Dogs, right? Even if it strains us to love our fellow Americans. Just a thought.

 

Cooking: I ordered all the ingredients for two sheet pan meals: a Shrimp Boil and Roasted Cabbage and Butter Beans. This may be the trick I’ve been looking for to bring more Vegetables into my diet. Each recipe serves 4 which means I can get three to four meals out of each one. They’re also easy to assemble and cook. We’ll see over the next few weeks.

 

Sport: I know. So, so, male? Right? Well, never said I wasn’t a guy. (and, yes, before you say, I know there many rabid fans across genders and gender preferences.)

Baseball: I was a Dodger fan when I was a boy. Sandy Koufax, Don Drysdale, Maury Wills. They won it all in 1955, 1959, 1963, and 1965, the year I graduated from high school. I listened to games on my transistor radio as I delivered newspapers. Yes, still a fan and a happy one.

Football: Oh, that, too. Da Vikes. Perennial hope dashed always. Yet. Did we see a glimmer-again-of what could be? Vikings 27-Lions 24. McCarthy looked good. Maybe…

 

Dogs, Friends, Garden, Greenhouse, Plants, Shadow Mountain

Did He Really Say That?

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Thursday gratefuls: Tarot. Tara. Eleanor. Hay for the Garlic. Harvesting Kale, Spinach, and Beets. Joe. Joanne. Marilyn. Ric. Luke and Leo. Heather. Ginny and Janice. Cold morning. Sheet Pan meals. Alan. Kongs. Nylabones. Gonoughts. Tires. Doggie puzzles. Sit. Down. Touch. Come. Dodgers and Blue Jays.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The World Series

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1   Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Reading with Tara

One brief shining: Kitchen scissors did not substitute well for garden shears as I cut Stalks of Kale, Leaves of Spinach, pinching my fingers; I did leave their roots  to nourish next year’s crop, and gently rocked Beet Roots back and forth to pull them from their home deep in the soil of Artemis’ western raised bed.

 

Dog Diary: I watched Eleanor and Shadow play. Shadow pawed up toward Eleanor’s head. Eleanor draped a long black Leg over Shadow’s back. Shadow reached up, gave her a nip. Friends in an intimate moment.

Whenever Tara opened the back door, the two of them rushed in, bouncing, smiling, jumping up, bringing the happy chaos of young animals enjoying themselves, each other, us. Infectious. Joyous. In the present.

A word for Gracie, Anne’s Blue Heeler, who died a few months ago. A calm and pleasant Dog who enjoyed lying in the Light of Great Sol as it streamed through the tall windows of the synagogue’s social hall. Humans sitting around a table trying to figure out how to be more like Dogs. Kind. Loving to all. Compassionate.

 

Artemis: Harvested a gallon Ziploc bag full of Kale and another of Spinach. Pulled up eight Beets, two small but fully round, the others longer, less filled out, all with tiny white roots reaching out from the main, spilled blood red.

Proof of concept. More, much more, than I expected. Today I will harvest Rainbow Chard and plant Garlic. I disconnected the drip irrigation from the hose and shut down the heater in the greenhouse. Without the insulation Nathan has yet to install it can’t hold back the outside temps when they plunge well below freezing.

Ordered a pair of my favorite garden shears from Amazon. They would have been useful yesterday with the Kale and the Spinach, but they’ll be necessary for cutting down my Tomato Plants. Once I get a propane heater for the greenhouse I plan to plant Lettuce, Arugula, and herbs, other plants ok with cold weather.

The Carrots will continue to grow in the cold frame of the east raised bed for a while, though I’ll have to water them now that the irrigation has gone quiet. Next spring I plan to devote that bed to memorial Flowers for Jon and Kate: Iris, Gladiolus, Canna Lilies.

A successful first season. And, a great boon to my daily life.

 

Just a moment: Oh, Jesus. Did he really say “Because of other countries testing programs, I have instructed the Department of War to start testing our Nuclear Weapons on an equal basis,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social, his social media site, saying the process would begin immediately. quote from NYT, 10/30/25.

Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Holidays, Mountains, Plants, Shadow Mountain, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

Coming to Summer’s End

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Marilyn and Irv. Big O. Closing up the cold frames. 19 degrees this morning. A cold Rain. 23 in the greenhouse. Bye, bye Tomatoes. The Diplomat. High quality TV. Joanne, coming home today. Aspen Perks. Maddie, coming today. CBE bridge this afternoon. Red Tie Guy trying to make nice with fellow tyrant, Kim Jong Un.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Snow Tires

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hochmah.  Wisdom.   “Who is wise? The one who learns from every person.”  Perkei Avot: 4:1   Making medical decisions this week.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Shifted waiting room chairs after Great Sol heated me up, found a shaded one as customers came in, spoke with front desk clerks about brakes, a steering wheel that wobbled at forty miles per hour, which winter tire to buy while I laughed out loud, often, reading Carl Hiaasen’s Beach Fever on the Kindle app of my Samsung phone.

Following Alan’s plan from last year, I had my Snow tires put on a bit early, beating the November scrum that often finds appointments out past Thanksgiving. Big O, not Stevenson Toyota. Cheaper and closer. An 8:30 am drive down Black Mountain/Brook Forest Drive listening to Hard Fork, the New York Times podcast about tech with a focus on AI.

Aspens in sheltered places remain the grand golden torches of the late Fall Forest though most have lost their leaves to Wind and Rain. This is a delicate moment between our bicolored Fall and the bitter weather leading toward Thanksgiving. No Snow here yet, though Black Mountain’s ski runs did collect Snow a week ago.

Elk Cows gathered along Maxwell Creek where it turns and flows through Evergreen, their horned Patriarch lounging as the Cows ate Grass and drank from the cold Waters of this Mountain Stream. Evergreen Lake had no paddle boarders, no kayakers.

A quiet anticipation. Black Bears nearing the end of hyperphagia, hunting for or returning to dens to sleep away the fallow time. Elk Cows and Mule Deer Does quickening with Calves and Fawns.

Humans have on their hoodies, fleece. Most have on long pants though I saw a  man yesterday in bright yellow down vest, shorts, and sandals. Temperatures vary a lot between Sun and Shade, between early morning and midday making what to wear solved only by layers.

10 foot tall skeletons, ghosts made of used sheets, orange trash bags filled with leaves sport pumpkin faces. The increasing and earlier decorations for All Hallow’s Eve, or the feast of Summer’s End, Samain.

Summer has not fully fled with Denver hitting seventy-five this week. A few 60’s in our highs for Shadow Mountain.

We hang here between the final harvests of late fall gardens and the full stop of the growing season. Life in my late seventies mirrors this time. How long until l come to an end of my growing season? Words begin to disappear. The body becoming a brown husk, its seed long harvested, waiting for that first heavy Snow.

Garden, Politics, Sport

Immigrants and a Foreign Country. In Baseball!

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Mabon and the Samain Moon

Wednesday gratefuls: Ruth. Two years sober. Sushi Win, jr. International Wombat Day. Shadow letting me sleep. Cold Air. MRI with anesthesia. Radiation. Gabe, at a friend’s on Thanksgiving. Evoke 1923.  Ruth, skiing on Thanksgiving. Trash pick up. The last Aspen golden torches of the Fall. Garlic in the house. Final harvest for Kale, Spinach, Beets. Then, planting the Garlic.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth, her empathy

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Ometz Lev.  Courage of the heart.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: On these crisp afternoons Shadow jumps up on the window nearest my chair, she wants me to come outside and play, so I pick up a handful of treats and we roam the yard together, an occasional sit, down, touch punctuated by such a good girl and treats dropped behind me, her tail wagging, wagging, a smile on my face.

 

Artemis: Garlic, the contrarian of the Vegetable world. Plant it in the fall, harvest in June. I love to plant it for that reason alone. Oh, I’ll use the Garlic, sure, but the fun of planting something when everything else has finished its run? Priceless.

In Andover Kate and I would braid the soft necked Garlic stalks and hang them in the shed Jon built, where their fellow Alliums red, white, and yellow onions dried on a large screen the fall before. The Scapes of the hard necked Garlic would get cooked in stir fries or omelets.

 

Sports: Baseball, that most American of games. Beloved by blue collar workers and knowledge workers from Brooklyn to L.A. I’m not a huge baseball fan though my son is, tossing around stats and how to rebuild his sad home team with ease and excitement.

However. This year. This 2025 Fall classic. This World Series for this Yankee Doodle game? I’m loving the irony. On the Dodgers we have two starting pitchers from Japan: Yoshinobu Yamamoto and the spectacular Shohei Otani. The word used by many sportswriters to describe Otani? The unicorn. A singular talent, once in a lifetime, probably once in all of baseball history. He pitches. Hits homeruns. Steals bases.

Second irony. The Dodgers’ opponent this year. The Toronto Blue Jays. A Canadian team playing for all the marbles in the World Series. I wish they could win, just to add a Maple Leaf finger to this xenophobic administration, but I doubt anyone can beat this Dodger team.

Even so, their presence in the World Series speaks to all that is good and true about my America. Immigrants excelling, living the Cooperstown dream, and our closest ally engaged in friendly competition with them. In baseball!

Take that you narrow minded twats!

Just a moment: Speaking of narrow minds. Did you see the backhoe tearing into the East Wing facade? With no advance warning. Casual violence against the People’s house. All to build a ballroom? Like Mar-a-Lago?

It will probably be the best ballroom in all the world. I doubt it, check Vienna, Versailles, St. Petersburg, but even if it is? So what? Did it cure, say, measles? Feed hungry people in Chicago or San Antonio? No, it did not.

Friends, Garden, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Judaism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate

Nathan and Lizzy

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Mabon and the Harvest Moon

Monday gratefuls: The Ancient Brothers. The Night. A cool, very cool Night. 35 right now. Shadow curled, nose to tail. Tom. Roxann. Ode. Elizabeth. The Northshore. Lake Superior. Grand Marais. The Poplar River. Lutsen. Wolves. Moose. The Boundary Waters. My new Pendleton Blanket with the Aurora Borealis. Electric blankets.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Nathan and Lizzy

Life Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah:  Yesod.  Groundedness. Foundation.

Tarot: Paused

One brief shining: Rain saturates the red cinder blocks making up my small patio, indoor light reflects off them as I open the door, outside for Shadow into the early morning darkness, eager, tail high, wet cold air seeps inside. I shut the door.

 

Hanging the Mezuzah on Artemis: Irv, Marilyn, Gabe, Tara, Me, Rabbi Jamie. Nathan took the photograph rendered here in the style of Thomas Benton.

Nathan and Lizzy: I love developing relationships. When they happen naturally. Yes, I’m an introvert, proud of my solitude and nourished by it. Yes. But I’m far from a misanthrope. The world has so many amazing people, kind and skilled and offering a perspective only they have. Can have.

I’ve gotten to know Nathan over the construction of Artemis, from rough idea to frame up to raised beds filled with soil and now plants. He’s a young guy, maybe early thirties. A man of business. A handyman. A trucking company. Colorado Coop and Garden.

He has plans. Emulate Tuff Shed. A Colorado firm that started out building sheds, then went to making kits that they ship all over the country. Next year he’s renting a shop where he can work regular hours, make kits for greenhouses and chicken coops, market them to the nation.

Lizzy, his partner, whom I met yesterday, runs a pet sitting business. She has larger ambitions, too. She’s a beautiful, high energy lady with a sweet soul. And, she loved Shadow. Ah, a way to care for Shadow if I get well enough to travel. Quirky dogs are her and a few of her employees special interest. Even better.

May they live long and prosper.

 

Artemis: I planted in late July. The average first frost at my elevation has come in early September, some years late August. It’s October 6th and still no frost. My Carrots, Beets, Spinach, and Kale are all cool weather crops, can withstand low temperatures, even light frosts. Especially the Beets and Carrots improve with the cooler weather, get sweeter.

The Tomatoes, my inside the greenhouse crop, do not like the cold. I’ve gotten a great first year crop with them, but if I could have had them in a month earlier, I would have had a huge crop. For a tiny greenhouse.

Nathan and Lizzy came by yesterday so Lizzy could see the almost finished Artemis and Nathan could install hooks for my cold frame tops. With the cold frame tops I can enclose the outdoor beds so they still receive Great Sol, yet remain above freezing. Extending my growing season on the outside of the greenhouse.

Once Nathan puts hard foam insulation panels-with handles-inside Artemis I should be able to grow Kale, Lettuce, Arugula over the winter. I should also be able to grow my own starter plants as winter begins to let go.

Good for my soul.