Country Gentleman with Corn Rows

May 13, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

61 bar steady 29.69 0mph WSW dewpoint 47 Beltane cloudy, cool

First Quarter of the Hare Moon

“When a stupid man is doing something he is ashamed of, he always declares that it is his duty.” – George Bernard Shaw

Love it, or leave it the bumper stickers used to say. I bleed red, white and blue. These colors don’t run. WWJD? George Bush and Dick Cheney keeping the world safe for democracy. Shaw is a genuine prophet, witty and ascerbic. We don’t have his equal today, at least none that I know.

The Country Gentleman corn fit neatly into three rows, three feet apart, running east and west. All the little onions are now in a bed by themselves, tucked in for the growing season. The garlic looks great. It’s a strange crop. Sow it in the fall, reap in mid-summer. We have peppers, tomatoes, onions, corn and beans planted. A perfect garden for mexican cuisine. We also have some beets and carrots.

I like these day where we work in the garden in the morning, then it rains in the afternoon. Perfect.

Garden

The Gardening Curve

May 12, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

64 bar steep fall 29.75 2mph W dewpoint 37 Beltane Sunny

First Quarter of the Hare Moon

Painted brush-b-gone on the stump of a honeysuckle. I foolishly planted it where it blocked two beds from the sun. It will not return now, as it has in the past, a Lazarus plant that would not stay dead. Planted Guatemalan Blue and Table Queen squash along the fenceline.

Tomorrow onions go in and I’ll get started on moving daylilies yet again, though I believe this time their movement is final. I’m taking them out of the garden environment and putting them along fences and at places where I need a friendly plant barrier to invasive wild species. I’ve discovered, at last, the proper place in our landscape for these hardy specimens.

I’m a Celt and a Teuton. I inherited the Teutonic love of scholarship and the Celtic imagination. I also inherited a Celtic skin. Being outside for very long leaves me a little woozy. I also take a couple of medications that create photosensitivity. Another reason to work in the garden in the early morning, a couple of hours at a whack.

We are ahead of the gardening curve for the most part. A little late on some vegetables, a little early on others. May is a busy month with clean up and planting, bed preparation. I’m lucky Kate’s got a week off now and can help. She’s a sturdy, stay at it gal.

The dogs love gardening. They come out where we’re working, flop down on the grass and watch. When that gets too tough, they go to sleep.

Family, Garden

Hidden Gardens

May 12, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

60 bar falls 29.93 3mph S dewpoint 33 Beltane sunny and windy

First Quarter of the Hare Moon

The new bed for corn has a bag of composted manure mixed into the soil. Debarked elm trunks went around three sides to bolster rotting logs from the creation of this bed 10 or so years ago. The only plants remaining are a few stray Siberian Iris. I like them and I don’t think the corn will mind having them there.

Kate and I went into the woods and settled on a place to put the playhouse for the grandkids. It will face the firepit, midden heap park that I’m currently constructing. I’ll have to clear buckthorn. A few smaller oaks need to come out anyhow for thinning. After that we’ll level the site and begin putting the structure together. We plan to add a small deck and a fence. I’ll plant a shade garden and native understory shrubs around it to blend it into the woods. Kate also wants to string lights in the trees, a magical spot.

Black landscape cloth now covers a large arc of ground underneath the three oaks that stand beside the near garden shed. The idea is to kill off the nettles underneath, which will prepare the way for a hosta, fern, and other shade lovers garden there. It’s not too visible, but I like the idea of hidden, pocket gardens around the landscape.

All this outdoor work wears me out. Off to a nap, then perhaps some more work outside.

Friends, Travel, Woolly Mammoths

The Quiet American

May 12, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

53 bar falls 29.88 4mph NE dewpoint 33 Beltane sunny

First Quarter of the Hare Moon

The Quiet American

Here’s my buddy, Mark Odegard in Thailand. I can’t tell if this is the palace grounds or not, but I do remember just this sign. It made me stop and think, too. He’s just finishing up a safe sex exhibit for UNESCO and says he has come to love Thailand.

Southeast Asia has a fascinating pull. Mark and Mary succumbed to it years ago and have spent much of their adult lives there. I’ve visited only once, but the memories are fresh and pull me back. Part of the allure, of course, is the unfamiliar. Southeast Asia as a place has figured little in American thought and history with the notable exception of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. In those instances subjugation, not understanding was our goal, so the cultures and the people there remained opaque.

Another part of the attraction is the sense of confidence in their culture that these small countries have. Thailand has not been conquered since the Angkor days of Khmer invasions. Cambodia, though pummeled and ruined by first the U.S., then the Khmer Rouge, has a sweet, ancient flavor that overcomes even those dismal moments. Singapore is a confident, bustling country, Asia lite as my sister says. Malaysia has an old culture, too, layered over now with Islam, but still retaining a rotating monarchy and other traditional customs. Burma remains largely the old days when the flying fishes went to play in far off Mandalay. It retains a more traditional cast because the ruling junta has placed an umbrella over the country, blocking out the light and keeping the people subservient. Indonesia has a huge population and much diversity with its many islands, but its Indonesian reality seems strong to me.

It is also cheap, easy for Americans to navigate financially and in that regard much more appealing than the Euro dominated Europe.

Since I travel often to become a stranger, an outsider, a foreigner, Southeast Asia fulfilled my need at each stop, but each time in a different way: food, ruins, people, cities, colors, art.

Someday I will return

Art and Culture, Cinema and Television

Deerslayer

May 11, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

56 bar steady 29.85 9mph N dewpoint 31 Beltane sunny

First Quarter of the Hare Moon

3 hours at the museum today answering questions, instigating conversations about Chinese bronzes. It was a fun time with children and adults, variously interested. I set out at the beginning, before people started showing up, to learn the vessel shapes. I looked at the shape, memorized the name and then scanned the collection for examples. I kept that up until I’d been through all the vessel shapes. While doing it, it struck me that it would be useful to put these shapes and their names into SuperMemo. A perfect fit.

I did go through the Supermemo cycle this morning while waiting for the steamroom to heat up. It will take awhile to become facile with it, but once I do, it will become an important part of my learning environment.

Finished Last of the Mohicans. I love costume dramas, especially early American and this one hits the bullseye on all fronts. It has stimulated me to order the whole Deerslayer series, five novels.

Art and Culture, Politics

He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins?

May 9, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

62 bar falls 29.85 3mph NNW dewpoint 29 Beltane

Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

“The capitalist bookkeepers’ theoretician was German sociologist Max Weber, whose 1910 book The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism argued that the key feature of capitalism was that making money becomes ‘a calling’, an end in itself. The bourgeois worked for the sake of work, denying himself the fruits of his labour. The pre-modern man would have been flummoxed by this, says Weber: what is the point of this, ‘to sink into the grave weighed down with a great material load of money and goods’? ” from an article in Spiked

I love this quote from Weber. What is, after all, the point of sinking into the grave weighed down with a great material load of money and goods? None, as far I can see.

I disagree with Weber though about the state of pre-modern people. Many, many cultures not only thought this was a good thing, but literally did it. Those wealthy or high born enough took servants, food, furniture, money, painting, all manner of things to the grave.

Two tours today. Winnipeg kids on a band tour. They had been to the Mall of America and Bubblegum, a restaurant there and had lots of other places to visit. They didn’t think the Days Inn where they were staying were showing them very good hospitality, though they did admit that having that many teenagers in one place created a lot of ruckus. This was a bright, attentive and thoughtful group. We saw the installation with the children’s photos, Frank, Magritte, Van Gogh and Goya. They were talkative and had many ideas.

The Weber tour had three people, a couple and Stacy Pydych. Stacy had to leave early, but the couple stayed on for the whole tour. He had been to Japan when he was 24 years old and a serviceman. They, too, were attentive and talkative. We saw most of the exhibit because I skipped part of my usual tour in teaware and Tale of Genji. They thought I was a professor of Japanese history. I assured them the museum taught us what we needed to know.

Got a thank-you card today from Robbinsdale Japanese language students. The teacher wrote a nice note and each kid signed it and some offered comments. Amazing, when you consider these are high school students.

Art and Culture, Garden

I Am Still Learning

May 9, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

52 bar rises 29.91 6mph dewpoint 33 Beltane

Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

Short note. Checked on the hydroponic grown tomato plants after their first night outside in mother earth. They look ok, though the first one I transplanted might be a little droopy. When I moved it out of the pot filled with lava pellets, I sheared off the long root system below the pot. On the other two I used a different method and maintained the root structure intact. The better way, I learned.

Hate missing the cool morning for work outside, though I have two tours today that should be fun. A group from Winnipeg for a highlights tour and another Weber public tour. Gotta be off for those.

Great Wheel, Politics

Obama By Five Percentage Points

May 8, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

52 bar rises 29.84 0mph NW dewpoint 30 Beltane

Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

The Hare moon stands in the west, just above the treeline a ways off our deck. The night is misty and the crescent has a faded glow around it. These nights, still cool, and days that don’t get too hot, ideal. I like the cool days for garden work. Today I stayed out in the sun too long and got a little woozy. Just because the air is cool doesn’t mean the sun isn’t out to get ya.

I wrote Hillary asking her to get out quite a while back. Now the hounds are at her heels. Money won’t come in. The math doesn’t work. Superdelegates have begun to flee. Yet, she has decided to press on. Why? Pride, maybe? Certainly a commitment to being the first woman presidential candidate and then the first woman president. Both laudable and signficant, but by themselves insufficient to keep her in the race. She may not believe what’s happening. She will.

My own take is that Obama will look like very different against McCain than he has against Clinton. He embodies change, as she did, too, but he will look younger, stronger, less hidebound, though he will also look less experienced, less weathered by fate and circumstance. The race will hinge on his ability to pick up some of the Reagan Democrats who swung so decisively behind Hillary. How can he do that? VP is one strategy. I still think his best shot is Bill Richardson, but I read some pundits who think a strong woman would be a good choice. Maybe John Edwards?

Obama by 5 percentage points in the end. That’s my prediction. And I have no basis for it, other than hope and gut instinct, neither too reliable, but there you are.

Garden

Garden Illustrated

May 8, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

59 bar falls 29.80 1mph NNE dewpoint 27 Beltane

Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

A few illustrations from today in the garden, showing various beds.

A Cambodian statue from Artisans D’Angkor

The blue and the green

My favorite spading fork (favorite spade above)

Garden, Great Work

2008 Gardening Season Is Underway

May 8, 2008 Charles Leave a comment

59 bar steady 29.83 3mph WNW dewpoint 31 Beltane

Waxing Crescent of the Hare Moon

Hemerocallis (the daylily) is a sturdy member of the plant kingdom. Every time I plant, no matter where I plant it, nor the care I give it, the daylily spreads and grows happily. That’s why years after the fact the foundation outlines for many rural home are still obvious, tiger lilies continue to grow and bloom just like the house was still there. Today all the daylilies in the first raised bed we ever had, made, as all of them, by Jon, got moved.

Jon also put in a cedar rail fence and last year I deconstructed it down to the original cedar fencing. We had him add wire fencing to keep out nuisance animals–our dogs. An older me saw them as less of a problem, Kate agreed, so down the wire fence came. The daylilies have gone from the bed to the edge of the cedar rail fence. Two peonies have likewise made the transition, but they went into a tree circling bed that is about a quarter finished. We have a young, sturdy elm on the fence line. I removed the fence around it and will soon complete digging out a circular bed around its dripline.

The former daylily and peony bed will get sweet corn. I’m also going to try the Native American method of planting climbing beans at the base of the corn stalk.

Three tomato plants grown from seed to 1 foot + under the lights are now in place, too. They went in the former lily (Asian and other true lilies) bed. I’m taking a chance planting them directly outside with no hardening off, but I wanted to try it, see how it works. If they die, we’ll buy a couple of tomato plants. If they don’t, I can skip a step in the future if I watch the weather carefully. Which I do.

Also had a brainstorm for what to do with the hill that has succumbed to raspberry canes. Moss. This is a shady area and I read an article about how to convert lawns to moss. It won’t work for our front lawn yet, but it should work on this slope shadowed by the seven oaks at the top. Gonna try it. The result can’t be worse than what we have.

While I dug and transplanted, Kate made a trip to the Greenbarn, a nursery and garden store up near Isanti. She bought a number of things: impatiens, onion sets, Coleus, sphagnum moss, small onion sets already well underway, some seeds as well as other things. Anyhow all this means the 2008 gardening season is off and growing.