83 bar falls 29.97 4mph NE dew-point 64 sunrise 6:21 sunset 8:11 Lughnasa
Waning Gibbous Corn Moon
Took Kate out to lunch at Bennigans to say thanks for cooking Monday night. While there we watched a group of wheel chair bound residents of the Anoka Care Center load onto a transit bus after lunch. A reminder of the ravages aging can create. A good prod to exercise and healthy diet.
Didn’t get outside yet today and I have to get those daylilies moved so I can move the iris.
73 bar rises 29.90 0mph NNE dew-point 64 sunrise 6:20 sunset 8:14
Full Corn Moon
The Woollies went home about 30 minutes ago. “A feast.” “You’ve set a new standard.” “Can we come back here next month.” All these compliments were the direct result of Kate’s skill as a cook. She assembles recipes, parcels out work, gets stuff done. Her food is delicious and fresh. Much of our meal came from the garden.
We sang When You’re Sixty-Four to Kate over dinner and sang her happy birthday just before every left. As she said, “It was a Norwegian birthday.” Meaning she worked a lot.
Folks liked the garden viewed from the upstairs deck. Bill and Tom and Scott commented on the vegetable garden and the fire pit. We don’t get that many people through here in the course of a year so it was nice to have other’s reaction to what we do. The Woollies also liked the renovation project Kate headed up. A talented gal and I’m lucky to have her in my life. As I have felt since I got to know her 20 years ago.
The topic for the meeting focused on American identity. More on this tomorrow when I’m not so fried. Having people up drains me.
70 bar steady 30.13 0mpn SSE dew-point 62 sunrise 6:16 sunset 8:17 Lughnasa
Full Corn Moon moonrise 2014 moonset 0554
“Mistakes are at the very base of human thought … feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done.” – Lewis Thomas
Had to call the generator guys yesterday. Our Kohler should exercise itself every two weeks, Tuesdays at 11:00 AM. It has not done that since installation. It works, we know that because it turned on during a power outage in June. The exercise cycle, however, is how we know it works in between storms. A fail safe. They had a reason this time, like they had the last time. This time use during an outage kicks it off the exercise cycle, “A problem Kohler refuses to recognize.” The first time it was air in the gas line. Maybe so both times, but I want it to do what we paid a hefty sum to do and that includes letting us know it works, all the time. Otherwise, come an outage we may have no power and an expensive lump of metal and wires to help us enjoy the darkness and the heat.
Today and tomorrow and Monday are prep days for the herds migration out to our place. Groceries. Garden spruce up. Hydroponics restart. Decluttering the living room and kitchen. That sort of thing.
Kate’s last two years of medicine are not the gentle glide down to a soft landing and out I wish they could be. Her style of practice and the newer, corporate style do not mesh; the gears grind and jump. It means she’s under pressure to see more patients, see more adults and smile doing it. She needs a union, at best she will get out with her dignity intact.
We have, however, set ourselves on a pleasant and substantial path here at home. We have expanded food production here this year and will expand again next year and possibly the year after that. There are energy capture projects I have in mind and much more to learn from the disciplines of permaculture and horticulture. She has her sewing and quilting; I have writing and politics. Together, too, we have the kids, the grandkids and the dogs. She will be here longer than she will be at work.
61 bar steady 30.14 0mph N dew-point 57 sunrise 6:16 sunset 8:19
Full Corn Moon moonrise 2014 moonset 0554
Whoa. Did you see the 7th gold medal race for Phelps? His long, long arms came out of an arcing stroke, reached for the touch pad and, by .01 of a second, arrived ahead of the silver medalist. To the naked eye it looked like Phelps did not make it. A later interview with Mark Spitz, also winner of 7 gold medals, showed Phelps a humble and more realistic viewer of his own accomplishments than others. Others wanted to make him the greatest Olympian; he said he was happy to be among the ones considered great, like Jesse Owens. All this and modesty, too? A great American to represent us in a country which understands the value of modesty.
With the Woollies here on Monday Kate and I have begun to get into preparation mode. We don’t entertain often, hardly at all, but fortunately she’s an experienced suburbanite. She can throw a party. Best of all, she’s doing it on her birthday. I’m lucky and the Woolly palate will be lucky.
The garden will get a spruce up. I’ll dead-head all the day lilies and pull the obvious weeds if there are any. The weeds growing up between the patio bricks will come out, too. They could have come out a while ago, but we’ve had other matters. The fire-pit can hold a fire, though its not pretty, nor finished, but the pit itself exists. A bit of shuffling papers upstairs, some art to the living room, turning furniture in a group friendly circle and we’ll be ready. I’m looking forward to having the guys over and discussing what it means to be an America.
Kobe Bryant tonight on TV said he was proud to have USA on his team jersey. We’re the best, he said. Not sure what that means, but that’s the question for Monday.
Apropos of none of the above is a story from the last Sierra Club political committee meeting. We decided the three Minnesota house races we would target and a male committee member looked at the list after we’d congratulated ourselves on sorting out a complicated task, “Yeah, except we picked all the guys.” There had been six races, three with men and three with women.
As his comment settled on the group, Katarina, the Sierra Club intern from Lentz, Germany looked up, smiled, and said, “That’s all right. Men always need help anyway.” Ooofff.
74 bar steady 29.92 6mph NE dew-point 63 sunrise 6:14 sunset 8:20
Waxing Gibbous Corn Moon moonrise 1926 moonset 0334
When I was young, I used to read about the decline of Western civilization and I decided it was something I would like to make a contribution to. George Carlin, RIP
Gathered up dried onions and put them in Clementine and old Amazon boxes. Our crop now rests on two shelves of book-case in the utility room. A cool morning and clouds made the harvest very present to me. We gather inside the fruits the earth has given us.
The Arcosanti bell rings with its rich, deep tone in the winds occasioned by the shifts in barometric pressure.
Kate’s back to exercising. Good to see.
Politics will, once again, absorb more and more of my time. The web has many tools for the nascent citizen lobbyist. I’ve located a few that are helpful. This blog now has them added to the links.
74 bar falls 29.85 0mph NNW dew-point 56 sunrise 6:11 sunset 8:25 Lughnasa
Waxing Gibbous Corn Moon
The punk hairdos of our Country Gentlemen corn now resemble pubic hair, albiet a dark purple. Sex and the country gentlemen. Though I’ve seen corn grown all my life, I’ve never done it myself. The simple, elegant sexuality of these green giants intrigues me. The tassel pops out of the top, spreads its stamens. The developing ears–seed pods–push out this delicate female part, the silk, to receive the pollen which falls down as wind rustles the tassel. Each seed on the ear has a silk that runs straight to it. A gravity based system. One of the tiny miracles in a garden of major miracles.
There is nothing on the planet so miraculous as the photosynthetic driven production of carbohydrates. Without this marvel the food chain has no beginning link. No beginning link, no chain at all. It would not be out of place to stop by a plant tonight or tomorrow, put your hands together, bow a bit and say Namaste. A gracias, too, perhaps.
Kate’s home. She had fun with the grandkids. She’s really become a grandma and a good one. A pleasure to see. She cooked tonight. Spaghetti squash, tomato cucumber and onion salad, fish. All but the fish from our place.
This evening I plucked bubils from the leaf junctions of three of my lilium. After dipping them in some root hormone, I took a pair of pick-ups and slotted them into soil pellets. The pellets went into small plastic six packs. The whole went out to the garden to receive water and sun. After they’ve grown a bit, I’ll transplant them to the second tier bed down by the patio. I’ve never tried propagating lilies this way before, but it was common in the 19th century according to my lily culture book.
62 bar steep rise 29.98 3mph NEE dew-point 47 sunrise 6:08 sunset 8:28 Lughnasa
First Quarter of the Corn Moon moonrise 1533 moonset 2334
Kate’s been gone since Thursday morning. I miss her. There’s always a certain frisson being home alone, for a bit, but it fades and then missing her kicks in. We talk things out, watch each others backs, fill in each others life. Happily married, I’m happy to say, 18+ years and counting.
Bumped the irrigation system up to 150%. The rain has been scarce to none. We’re in a severely dry period. The grass has begun to turn brown, even with regular watering. The crops need water now because many of them come to maturation in the month of August and early September. Having our own well is a blessing when it comes to irrigation, it means we don’t have to worry about drawing down the city wells or abiding by their sprinkler rules. Even so, I wonder about the water table and if our use of the sprinklers and our neighbors affects the city as a whole. Don’t know enough about hydrology to know.
A few of the Olympic events were on TV, but women’s soccer, the early rounds, and volleyball do not draw me. The sports I enjoy are the track and field events. Even there, the participants are, for the most part, unknown and will not become visible again until the next Olympics. I suspect I’m not the only one who does not enjoy sports where the narrative line has no visibility most of the time. One of the things I enjoy about football is the back story I know from years of paying attention. Almost none with the Olympics.
Up too late. Again.
66 bar falls 29.87 0mph S dew-point 59 sunrise 6:07 sunset 8:30 Lughnasa
First Quarter of the Corn Moon moonrise 1326 moonset 2226
The Vikings. Tavaris Jackson looked improved, just as the pre-season hype has it. The first string defense failed to impress, though Jaren Allen showed his quickness. Pat Williams did not play tonight, so that made the run defense a lot weaker. Berrian, Wade and Rice showed some promise as receivers and Maurice Hicks as a running back. It’s true. I can’t hide it. I enjoy watching football. There, I said it.
Talked to Kate. She had Gabe and he cooed over the phone. Ruthie was asleep. Humphrey, as Ruth calls her, had a lump, had it biopsied and it came back cancerous. That meant oncologists and surgeons today, so Kate got to watch Gabe and Ruth while the daycare lady went to the hospital. Kate was ready.
78 bar rises 29.99 4mph N dew-point 56 sunrise 6:03 sunset 8:34 Lughnasa
Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon
“The rest of the beans will dry on the plants!” Kate said yesterday, her brow perspiring from work over a hot pressure canner. Yes, the beans produce and produce and produce. Canned green beans now stock our larder, companions to the tomatoes, pickles, jams and assorted other 19th century farm food self lay-bys she has made. The beans which dry on the plant will get picked after the plant itself dies and the pods begin to crack open a bit.
Later, as the snow flies, we’ll take those pods and thresh them, pick out the dried beans and pop them in hermetic glass jars. Soups and other bean dishes to follow.
With the first harvest festival already past the garden goes into overdrive, testing the patience of even Kate, a long time canner and freezer. Tomatoes and cucumbers have begun to pop out and ripen, the spaghetti squash has several fruits on the way, the peppers have begun the slow process of maturation and a second crop of beets has about six inches of greens up already. This is when the sweat and the soil preparation and the weeding and pruning all begin to yield results. A good time.
The hemerocallis, likewise, are in their glory: many shades of purple in the front, orange and reds and yellows in the back and in the park. Of course, I wonder how the garden will look when the Woollies come in two weeks. I can’t recall that week from years past, but I imagine the daylilies will still be blooming and perhaps the clematis bushes will have begun to flower. I forget to mention here the begonias and geraniums, the sturdy plants that overwinter in the basement, moving happily outside after the last frost. They add color and texture to the garden.
Up late today, so I’ve got to get to Heresy Moves West. Bye for now.
71 bar steady 29.87 0mph ENE dew-point 62 Summer, wonderful
Full Thunder Moon
The color: deep red, pale yellow, pink, mauve, orange, red, virgin white, flame pink with a burnt orange throat,white with a pink throat. Scents ethereal as they are ephemeral. The true lilies and the day lilies are in bloom. A chaos of color.
The true lilies have a bloom architecture clean, sweeping, grand. They have colors with hues so intense they can make the heart dance. These are the regnant plants of this garden and this is their time.
Here’s the problem with putting stuff in writing:
“We will also finish creation of a fire-pit, family gathering area begun last fall. These will be finished by the August date of my meeting.” from my Woolly project notes.
Kate dug this up yesterday and reminded me of this commitment. Sigh. The one aspect of gardening that seems always to drain from consciousness is the July slump. Not much gardening gets done by me in this month. It’s too hot, too many bugs and I’ve usually worked way more than I intended in May and June.
In July I begin to need indoor time, book time and writing time. By August things have become marginally cooler, I’ve satisfied the reading itch though probably not the writing and the bugs become tolerable. August and September, sometimes in to mid-October can be intense gardening, too.
All this means I sometimes (always) project more completion than I will realize. Even so, I want to finish the fire-pit, family gathering area, too. I have not told Kate that I intend to rent the stump grinder this Wednesday, but I do. That will clear out the roots I found lacing the fire pit hole last fall as I dug. After some weeding, moving some sand and rock and cutting up a few logs for seats around the fire, the fire pit will be done by August 18th. That’s the date of my Woolly meeting and Kate’s 64th birthday.
Maybe I’ll go out there right now and start pulling weeds. Even though it’s still July.