Tag: dailyprompt-1884

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So Long White Evil Stuff!

Daily writing prompt
What do you wish you could do more every day?
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It’s the second day of spring, and you want to know what I’d do more of? C’mon! I’m a gardener and a carver. Not necessarily in that order, I want to get on with my garden chores and clean out the workshop so I can get back to carving.

The evil white stuff, bane of my existence, is just about gone, and as soon as I finish the four cords of wood I am stacking, I can start raking, picking up all the dead fall branches, and get to work on the garden. Today I loaded a bit more than a cord of wood, started the raking, and began to move a garden trellis. So far, we’ve stacked about three and a half of the four cords. As soon as the wood is all stacked, I’ll move on to the workshop.

In the workshop/ greenhouse, I have to, at last, remove some of the shelves designed for plants and put them in a large rolling toolbox. Trying to store, order, and keep ready for action carving tools on shelves designed for plants finally irritated me enough to do something. If you’ve seen shots of my shop, it’s a chaotic mix of projects and tools. Well, chaos and creativity, or even productivity, have a limited tolerance for each other. Yes, the shop looks, and is lived in, productive, and full of potential. But after you’ve searched for the specific tool you absolutely need for an unproductive hour, chaos stinks. When I first moved into the greenhouse, the casual approach to the storage of the tools worked well. But now I just need a bit more organization.

So it’s time to bid adieu to the book club, get out the rake, and get physical.

Oh, by the way…I’ve been doing a lot of physical therapy this winter. My PT has been busy getting my “core engaged” with exercises. So I’ve gotten increasingly aware of that. I’ll tell you that after loading wood for a good bit of the week, my core is definitely engaged. I still have some core engaging quarter cords of firewood available to be stacked. Through April 1st, I’ll offer a special price. Get that core engaged! Get healthy. Get my wood stacked!

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Good Deeds

Despite my history of bad habits, I am still running around, writing blog posts, working for a living, carving, and gardening. Every day, I get up and feel grateful that at seventy-eight I am still running around despite my “dirty life and times.”

Regular readers of this blog know that I am fully repentant of my earlier misdeeds. However, there is a certain amount of residual pleasure in recounting them. Hell, it keeps the blood pressure from plunging. In black and white, there are more than musical reasons why Warren Zevon is one of my favorite musicians. I hear some of his songs, and the memories rush in.

It’s true, I am married to a saint of a woman…she puts up with me. She even knows about most of my escapades. I think she may not want her faith shaken by learning all.

This morning, I was listening to a public radio segment about elderly daycare. Many of the attendees were my age. It raised the question of whether my dissipated past helped, shall we say, immunize me against decrepitude or if it was just stupid blind luck. Probably luck.

So with regard to what I’d like to be doing more of? Well, I’m pretty happy as it is. and if it is luck that got me this far, I’m not going to push it looking for a fancy cruise, million dollars or other fancy stuff. I’m standing pat.

Onward!

Daily writing prompt
What do you wish you could do more every day?
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Be Prepared

March is a traitorous month. After over half of the month being April-like, it suddenly turned back into true March with blustery winds and chill temperatures. Luckily, old habits die hard, and I only took advantage of the April-like weather to get a lead on things like garden clean-up, raised bed prep…and, importantly, putting Remay and greenhouse coverings on my raised beds.

Some people plant only based on the weather, forgetting that soil temperature is critical in early spring planting. Want to get those hardy spring crops out and get early and successful yields? Help the soil in your planting beds to in-solate – warm with the trapped warmth of the sun. Remay and other coverings allow the sun to penetrate and heat the soil. The coverings trap the warmth preventing the wind from blowing it away.

I knew an Italian Gardener years ago who felt privileged that every spring, there’d be a high-stakes competition to get his tomatoes, peppers, and garlic to outperform his neighbors. The more challenging the conditions the more he had to up his game. I doubt that many of his tricks ever appeared in print. His tool of choice? Cold and hot frames fabricated from old windows and salvaged construction lumber.

You say you know what a cold frame is, but not a hot frame? It’s a deeper version of a cold frame, heated by the warmth of decomposing fresh manure at the bottom beneath the plants in their containers. As the fresh manure ages the biological process of composting creates heat. and the heat warms the plants as they grow. It’s not a process for a small lot suburban garden. On a warm day, it smells more than a bit.

With my neighbors only a few yards from my garden, I’d love to be able to duplicate his techniques. but I worry that they’d not consider the odor to be neighborly. Sigh!

This time of year, there is so much more that I’d love to do but don’t dare. Gardeners always weigh risk against gain; with an unpredictable climate, the balance is on the side of risk. But I am ahead of the game by weeks. I took the warmth of an unexpected early March to prep the garden. In April, I’ll have a prepared site for doing more things we usually associate with spring.

Daily writing prompt
What do you wish you could do more every day?
View all responses