Good morning! Hello. How are you? Doing okay this morning? It’s a Monday, so that’s always a little dicey. I’m okay with this Monday because it’s back to my normal Monday ease-into-the-week schedule and not the eight meeting insanity that was last Monday. Also I’m super sore, and I don’t think my body could have handled another day of “gardening,” so it’s probably best I am forced to sit in a comfy chair in front of some screens all day today.
OK. Let’s see. I skipped yesterday. Right. That was wise. When we last left off, Jane had just had a terrible fit. Oh yeah. That sucked. Well, that happened again last night. Same thing. She won’t do a thing, she insists on doing a thing. It’s so painful. Emma had to come up and help me out. Then it almost happened again — twice in one bedtime. It’s a rough time for Jane. Our working theory is she is developing empathy, and it’s a holdup for her because she can tell we’re annoyed she’s caught in this infinite loop, and she wants to do the thing while in a good mood, and we’re basically ruining it. She’s made a few references to it, and she’s talking more about mine and Emma’s happiness levels. I suppose this is all a good thing, but the other thing it’s bringing along with it is that her bad moods linger after they’re done, and she talks about them later. This is new. She didn’t used to remember or care about past tantrums. Now you can see them leaving their mark even hours after they happen. That is so sad.
It wasn’t all bad, though. We had some houseguests this weekend — Nick and Meghan and Henry from Wilmington. That was lovely and they prepared an easter egg for Jane and she really loved that. And Henry pushed her on the swing and Meghan took her to see the chickens, and Henry and Jane rode scooters around the driveway. That was nice.
Most of the weekend was spent gardening, of course. So that’s all I’m really gonna talk about today since I haven’t really looked at the news or anything since Friday, so I can’t give you your Scooter Braun or Mitch McConnell updates.
I am so sunburned. It’s ridiculous. I didn’t realize that it was summer enough to get sunburned. This is silly. I should have known better. But it’s like the first weekend I’ve been out in the garden for any length of time, and here I am with red arms and neck. Luckily this morning I took a look in the temporary toiletries area in the guest bathroom attached to the guest bedroom in which I’m staying while my mom is here, and the Solarcane was just sitting there. And I suppose that’s the one good thing about this — I had forgotten the sheer joy of Solarcane and its immediate sunburn relief. Doesn’t last very long, however. I can already feel it wearing off. I had gotten good last year about putting on sunscreen before every extended outdoor sesh, but I’ve fallen out of the habit. Damn. Ouch. Lesson learned.
I am also so sore. The biggest accomplishment about gardening this weekend is I moved 9 wheelbarrow loads of dirt from the dirt pile to the birdies beds, which are about 20 yards away. It’s harder than that sounds, too, because I also hand-sifted every single load of that dirt using a wheelbarrow-compatible compost screen. Had to get the rocks out. I also amended the soil with compost and perlite and such to get it ready to be plantable, and then I covered it with a layer of my leaf mould compost to use as a mulch. It was a day and a half of work but it’s done, and I am very relieved.
I also used up the entire cubic yard of soil, so I am completely out and all I have done is fill the Birdies beds and the Greenstalk planter. I am going to have to buy a lot more dirt. That is one of today’s research projects.
I also potted up — well, not potting up, but adding the second layer of dirt to the already potted-up tomatoes — a bunch of tomatoes. I replanted some black purple opal basil that seemed to have dried out, but also potted up the two of the twelve seedlings that seemed to have survived. I think that had to do with the fact that that cell was closest to the hardening-off fan and was trying out more quickly than the rest of their tray mates and I was not rotating the trays enough. Yet another lesson learned.
I finshed loading the Birdie’s Beds at 3PM on Sunday and I was kind of bummed because I still hadn’t gotten a single plant into the dirt outside and I am pretty sure our frosts are over. Average last frost day is this Wednesday but there’s not a single night below the 50’s in the 10-day forecast so it seems safe. So I had an hour and some change left, so I decided I would take apart the Greenstalk planter, add the compost to the soil I should have added before, re-assemble it and plant some things in it, because that was the only other dirt I had ready. So I started doing that, but catastrophe struck:
I swear to god this thing fell like three feet from Jane and could have killed her if it fell in the other direction. She WAS near me, though, so I probably could have deflected it. But it was terrifying. It took Emma and I forever to figure out what was wrong, what we were doing wrong. Here’s what happened: Although each of the five planters are identical, and it doesn’t matter in what order you assemble them, once it’s assembled the top planter expands in a way the others do not, because it doesn’t have a planter above it locking it into place. But I didn’t realize this. And there is no warning about this in the manual. So when I reassembled it, I put the former top planter somewhere in the middle, it didn’t lock properly (I checked, I thought it did, I was wrong), and… boom. I don’t really think this is the manufacturer’s fault, but i do think there should be a note in the instructions that says “once assembled, if disassembling and reassembling, care should be taken to put the top planter back on top.”
Oh well. Lesson learned.
Plus, this pile of dirt was right in the path Nick and Meghan and Henry needed to take in the evening to get to the screened porch where we congregated at night (Nick et al came in their own little camper, it is fantastic. Super safe COVID visits they don’t even need to come in to use the bathroom.)
SO, it took an hour or so, but i got all that direct back in the pots, and the pots re-assembled (did I mention I was already so sore and so sunburned) and the porch hosed down - which of course drained a metric ton of dirt onto my downstairs planting area, which I have not yet cleaned up. I’m hoping it’s dried out this evening and I can just use the big lawn blower on it. Fingers crossed.
We took a break for dinner, and a walk, and when we got back, Emma and Jane hung out in our makeshift driveway living room with Nick and Meghan and Henry and, on principle, so I could claim I accomplished everything I wanted this weekend, I got about ten things planted in the planter - loofah, lettuces, scallions, sage, fennel, parsley, thai basil, some Napa cabbage, celery, and a watermelon.
So now I can say, even though it almost killed me, I got some plants in the ground, outside, this weekend.
You’ll see all this in video form tomorrow, but it’ll just be a video link, where I go and ramble on about something else, so unfortunately the narrative and videos are decoupled. Usually on a Sunday I can finish the gardening goals I set for myself by, like, 3PM and I can then go do a quick video edit, but not so this week. This week was a marathon.
Man, I am sore.
Also, the compost is still not heating up.
We did get two lovely evenings by the fire chatting with friends, though, and what more could you ask for in the world. We’re all in our little bubbles, and there have been some good things about this enforced isolation and many of us are ambivalent. I am always ambivalent too. But the few times I’ve actually seen friends this pandemic (I think this was the third time? fourth maybe? Neighbors aside. Neighbors are friends. This is an unfair count. I digress), it’s been lovely. I am super thankful they came to visit. They’re still here, actually. Nick’s about to bring me an Egg McMuffin, thus making me even more thankful.
Last night we were trying to think of the last TV show that a) had a theme with lyrics, or b) had a theme with a pop song as the theme. This used to happen a lot. The last one I could think of in category B was True Blood. Oh crap. I just thought of the one I was thinking of last night: the season 2/3 theme of The Leftovers. I guess that leaves category A: What’s the last TV show (adult TV show that is) with a theme with lyrics?
Secondly, as I was driving to the garden centers Friday morning, Black Metallic by Catherine Wheel came on, and I wanted to text Kellianne and it occurred to me it’d be awesome that every time a certain song came on that reminded you of someone, it just sent them a little text. I would probably set about ten of these up, two for Kellianne. I think it would be nice. Some songs just make you think of a friend, and it’s nice to let friends know you’re thinking of them, even if it’s a robot doing the actual gruntwork. You’re still thinking of the friend, you just have your hands full driving or something.
Anyway, Kellianne, Black Metallic came on the other day and I was thinking of you.
Let’s do a mix. A Covers mix! Yay! I love a good covers mix. Thank you to Nicholas Rhodes for Class Actress. I super love this new Breeders cover of His Name is Alive. And Loretta Lynn’s cover. And SOHN’s new cover of Song to the Siren. I didn’t think that song needed to be covered anymore, but he brings something new to it and it works. Brave cover, there. And a twofer from high school with REM and Love and Rockets back to back: both of which I had no idea were covers when I first heard them. And Until December covering Bauhaus, because Until December was the guy from Consolidated’s band before Consolidated, so I had been thinking of them. I actually have the 12” single of that cover, weirdly, even though I was never an Until December fan. But it’s a good cover.
Have a lovely day. I hope you Monday isn’t too bad, too sore, too stiff, too sunburned, too existentially dreadful. I hope the sun is shining. I hope it’s warm. I hope you remembered to buy something for your wife’s birthday this Friday because I definitely did.
The theme to that German show DARK has a track by Apparat with lyrics.