PRIDE AND PREJUDICE

I spend a lot of my time these days out in my garden cheering on my flowers and vegetables.  It seems to be working better than usual this summer but I better not take all the credit – I’m thinking Mother Nature considers her rain and heat units have more of an effect than my positive thoughts.  I say let her take the credit – no one wants her in a bad mood.

Mind you, I do spend some significant time muttering bad things about her under my breath while I’m out there.  It’s not all happy thoughts and pixie dust while I wander up and down the rows of beans.  A good portion of my garden time is spent in hand-to-hand combat with portulaca, redroot pigweed, and lamb’s quarter, to name a few.  (There are many others that I don’t know the name of, but dislike every bit as much.)  While I understand Mother Nature loves all of her plants equally, I wish she would grow her riff-raff somewhere far away from my peas and carrots.

You see, I have this misbegotten and unrealistic vision of a magazine worthy garden.  In my head I picture perfect rows of perfect germination in perfect plant density.  Also, the rows are perfectly straight, but that’s more my husband’s dream than my own.  My seeding equipment doesn’t have GPS like his does.

I also envision that the only plants growing out there should be the ones I planted.  I require that my vegetables enjoy sovereignty over the domain I have given them.  It is only their green growth that I want to see; that, and clean, weed-free black dirt between the rows.  There should not be any thistles or dandelions.  Wayward canola and flax spill-over from the grain bins is not allowed.  Quack grass and foxtail are banned as well. 

I am not winning.

But I do try.  I dedicate a few hours each day to eliminating the enemy.  I start when it’s still coolish, when the horse and deer flies show up I know it’s time to quit.  This morning the flies were running a little late; I make have baked a few brain cells. 

Maybe that’s what gave birth to this episode of self examination I’ve been wrestling with for the rest of the day.  It has occurred to me that I am prejudiced.  I try to segregate the plants that I want from the plants that I don’t want.  I banish (or try to) the unwanted, going to the extreme of maiming or killing them every chance I get.  Not because they are not strong and healthy.  Not because they are not edible or nutritious (they say portulaca and lamb’s quarter are both).  Not because they can’t be pretty in their own way.  No, the only reason they have been placed on a hit list is because I have appointed myself judge and jury over them.  In this time of social equality and awareness this feels a little awkward, I can tell you.

It’s mostly about my pride.  I love the way the rows look when the weeds are all gone.  It gives me great pleasure and satisfaction to claim this implausible and unbalanced microworld I have created at the cost of so many undesirables.

It’s a fleeting thing though.  Gardening season is about to move on to the next stage – harvesting.  There are only so many hours to the day and picking a preserving will now take over.  Any weeds that have dodged death so far will now shift into high seed-forming gear and I will be right back where I started from next spring.  Mother Nature wins again.

A POUND OF GROUND

I’m facing one of my standard dilemmas at the moment; the old ‘what to make for supper’ quandary.  And, as I stare at it thawing in the sink, I find myself brain dead.

Now, now!  Be kind!  I’m not always brain dead.  I do have moments of startling clarity – like two hours after a lovely/ awkward conversation with a person whose name I have just finally remembered – but after more than a half century of continually needing to come up with supper menus, well that part of my brain is wearing a little thin.

It’s not always like this.  Approximately two years ago when my deep freeze had run dry of all packages labeled ‘ground beef’ I could think of 1001 recipes I wanted to make with hamburger.  The possibilities were endless ... and useless, because all I had to work with was pork roasts and moose sausage.  I wish I had written some of those fantastic ideas down at the time.  Sure could use them this afternoon.

I suppose I could barbeque patties ... again ... but I don’t think I have any buns.

There are other choices downstairs in the deepfreeze.  It’s just that if I don’t keep the different cuts of meat going down at the same rate I pay the price with nothing but short ribs and chuck roasts for the last two months before we can order another half beef.  Better to stick to some kind of rotation.  Besides, on these really stinking hot days, one of the nicest places to hang out is in the dark, cool basement staring into the depths of the freezer.  Even when I know I’m going to end up with my pound of ground, it can take me a good five minutes to retrieve the package.

What about a pot of chili?  Nah, that’s a meal for a cold winter’s night.

I would ask Google for help but I’m pretty sure one of these times the response is going to be “Not you again!”  I’ve scrolled through pages of their ideas and it’s never any help.  The choices are either the same as what I already know or they list ingredients not found in the western world, let alone my spice cupboard.

Meat loaf?  Lasagna?  Spaghetti sauce?

Time is running out here.  The deciding time period must soon come to an end to accommodate the actual cooking time.

I guess while I’m burning through the last minutes of pre-prep time I could check out the garden for veggie choices.  Oh hey!  In my vexation over the meat part of the meal I forgot that this is gardening season.  There is Swiss chard out there, and fresh lettuce, radishes, and strawberries for dessert.  This changes everything!  When the veggies start rolling in the protein dish takes a back seat around here.  I can’t skip it out completely but if I do nothing more that brown it up with some salt and pepper it still passes muster.

The pressure is totally off now.  I think it will be hamburgers in mushroom gravy ... maybe there’s new baby potatoes out there too ...

RESTARTING THE ECONOMY

We did our part to try to restart the economy yesterday.  We rebooked optometrist appointments that had evaporated in mid March along with everything else, and headed off to the city for the day.

And by that I mean the whole day.  Our appointments were scheduled for 8:50 Manitoba time.  That’s right.  You do the math.  But, if your eyes are giving you trouble and you need to see what’s up the choice between 7:50 am next Thursday or a more reasonable hour sometime late in July is obvious.  The alarm clock went off at 5:00, we pulled out of the yard at 6:00, and were right on time to don our masks and be properly socially distanced for the next two hours.  Even with losing an hour to Daylight Savings Time, we still had a whole day ahead of us to revive the Canadian economy. 

And believe me, we did our part.

The first order of business was something to eat.  Our first restaurant meal since ... Valentine’s Day.  While we were there for the food it was unmistakable that the atmosphere had shifted since the last time we had been out: staff in masks, every second table unused and the customer traffic sparse.  Thank goodness the scent of food cooking managed to cover the smell of ever-present hand sanitizer and disinfectant.  I sure hope that the people in charge of my investment portfolio thought to diversify into Lysol and Clorox wipes.

Next on the agenda was shopping – everything from building supplies to underwear.  It had been a long long long time since we had set foot in these stores.  And it’s now way harder to do that than it used to be.  They say that they’re ‘open for business’ but the trick is to find which door they have actually opened.  For some you can just walk right in like in the olden days, but most reserve the right to count heads.  In order to regulate their customers they are enforcing an ‘in’ door and an ‘out’ door.  Unknowingly I managed to park as far away from the ‘in’ door as possible at least 89% of the time.  It’s my newest superpower.

Once we made it inside these hallowed doors we were presented with the dreaded bottle of hand sanitizer.  The English language does not have adequate words to express how much I hate this stuff and being told that “This kind is great!  It smells just like watermelon!” does not enhance my experience.  In a way though, it does have a positive effect on my hand hygiene; when forced to apply it I go directly to a washroom and use soap and water to get rid of it. 

Once past the sanitizer barrior it was off to the races.  Well, actually, it’s more like a labyrinth.  Arrows on the floor to show shoppers which way they should be travelling ... signs reminding folks to move single file ... ‘X’s six feet apart to keep us away from each other.  It was as if we all had to relearn how to drive our shopping carts – you know like what it’s like after the first snowfall in the fall?  There were fender-benders and rear-enders going on all over the place.  I’m more of a meandering type shopper.  When I go to Canadian Tire I don’t need to travel the auto parts aisle so I skip whole sections which always seemed to have me going the wrong way on a one way street.  It was more relaxing out in the real traffic as we made our way to the city limits.

Glad to report the day was a success, though.  We both have new glasses on order, I have refreshed my summer clothing choices, we will be able to keep the thieving birds out of our strawberries, and there are a couple of man projects that can be finished off now.  Plus, I have three more plants because the garden centers are closing down for the year.  I’m sure the Canadian economy enjoyed a slight up-tick because of our efforts. 

You’re welcome.

MOTHER NATURE NEEDS A REPAIRMAN

The day started out nice enough.  It was warmer than I expected when the dog and I stepped out onto the deck to survey our kingdom – that’s what we do while I drink my second cup of coffee.  I soak in the sun’s warmth, check to see if my planters need a drink, and maybe deadhead a few of my petunias.  Turbo, on the other hand, checks the horizon for uppity coyotes.  It’s his job and he takes it very seriously.

As I said, the temperature was quite pleasant and there was a nice little breeze which I was glad to note.  I’ve been trying to weed garden and the flies and mosquitoes have been a real nuisance.  I only had a few hours left at that job so I should get out there while the getting was good.

I did not consult the weather app on my phone for what the future might hold.

Time means nothing when I’m weeding.  I went out after my coffee was done and worked until my stomach told me it was time for lunch.  As usual it was on Manitoba time but I decided to eat early and get back out there.  The pleasant breeze had picked up a bit but nothing crazy.

 

The crazy part happened while I was enjoying my taco salad.

Subconsciously it must have registered that a hurricane had blown in.  I don’t remember actually making a decision to not go right back outside, but I kept finding trivial, puttering jobs to do in the house; fold laundry, tidy the kitchen, text the carpenter who installed my new kitchen drawers that they needed some sort of adjustment.  When I got down to emptying the dehumidifier in the basement I knew – the chances of me working outside again today were somewhere between ‘slim’ and ‘none’.

Is it just me, or does it seem that Mother Nature’s prairie fan seems to be on the fritz?  There isn’t a single setting that seems to be working correctly.  The on/off switch is broken – the wind never seems to stop.  The oscillating option swings around wildly, one day from the east and then a day from the west and then the south.  The days that it blows from the north I can at least work outside because our windbreak lives up to its name.  Her wind machine also appears to be stuck on the ‘high’ setting.  If it wasn’t for the fact that we all hope it will blow in some rain I would love to find the power cord and yank the plug out of the wall.

An hour or so ago I mustered the resolve to go out and see if I couldn’t just finish weeding that one last row.

 

I couldn’t.

 

But I did take a walk around the yard to apologise to all of my poor plants tipped sideways in the wind, holding on for dear life.  I promised them a drink if the wind’s velocity ever went down far enough to allow water to fall to the ground from a sprinkler.  Some of my freshly transplanted ferns are actually broken.  The deck is covered in sticky hummingbird juice because the feeder spun its contents out all over the furniture out there.  The birds were looking for something to drink so I gave them some more but tethered the feeder to a deck post to prevent the sugar shower from happening again.

 

The trampoline has come very close to liftoff a couple times.  I told the dog he should go lay on it to hold it down.  His face can be so expressive at times.  Loosely translated his answer was ‘no’.

Not one mosquito was encountered on my walk although, come to think of it, there were a couple of blurs whizzing past my face.  At 60 kpm that might be what a mosquito looks like.

The weather app on my phone just gave me a heads up that there would be rain in the next 24 hours.  That sure would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.  Mother Nature’s watering system doesn’t seem to be working well either this spring.

WHO HAS SEEN THE WIND

There’s a character in W.O.Mitchell’s book Who Has Seen the Wind who lives out on the prairie outside of town in a piano box.  I can’t recall anything else about him except that he has been driven mad by the wind.  On days like today I think of him and feel a sense of connection.

I had plans.  This is a busy time of the year for a gardener.  There are trees to trim, weeds to discourage, and as always, there are dandelions to decapitate.  But, here I am, hiding out in the house because a few hours of working out there in yet another day of quasi hurricane winds and I’ll be looking for my own piano box.

I tried.  This morning, after more than an hour long pep talk, I wrote down an itemized list of what I wanted to get done, pulled up my big girl britches, and forced open my south-facing door so I could leave the house.  It took all my physical strength to get the door open and all my emotional fortitude  not to go right back in.

When the wind blows from the south in this yard the only ‘safe’ place is behind the house, so after one lingering glance over to the garden that needs weeding Plan B was invented and I made for the backyard.  I give myself extra credit that I didn’t go back inside to add this new job direction to my list just to give it more legitimacy.

 

I really didn’t have any particular job in mind until I got there.  I just wanted out of the wind, but lo and behold, there was a garden hose to roll up and put away.  People who know me are now laughing out loud.  As a general rule, being neat and tidy with garden hose is not my forte.

 

Also, tucked in behind the house is my small greenhouse, recently emptied of all its greenery.  That’s right: I’ve spent the past week carefully tucking hundreds of bedding plants into their forever homes just to have them threatened with frost for two nights in a row and now this crazy wind.  If I listen carefully I can probably hear their tiny cries for mercy.  The job at the very top of my To Do list was to do a walk around and see how all these babies were doing.  I can’t bring myself to do it.  I put them in the ground and tucked their roots in tight.  I just have to have faith they can hold on to the earth on their own.

But, at least there is a greenhouse to tidy up!  Trays to stack, unused pots to store away, shelves to clear off, floor to sweep; it took me all of 22 minutes.  It would have been less but I was texting with a friend at the same time and had to keep stopping to text her back – thank goodness for small blessings.

 But the work was done so I went back to the house to record these two jobs and then officially stroke them off my list.

It’s not even 11:00 yet, the wind is steady at 36 and gusting to 53; there’s got to be something I could do inside!

Well, besides housework that is.  I’m sick of that.

So, here I sit at my computer, telling you stories.

The dog is following me around looking pathetic because he wants to go out in that wind for a walk.  I’ve explained to him about the piano box thing but he seems unperturbed. 

MY COVID CLUSTER

It’s been months now, apparently.  Isn’t it funny how time slips away?

The year started out pretty much the same as always. But then there were some news stories about a place in China we had never heard of before having a problem with a new disease. ‘No biggie’ we said, ‘that’s far away’, and life went on.  I ordered my garden seeds, researched where we might go for a winter get-a-way, and booked the carpenters and painter to come re-do my kitchen.

Maybe that’s why this COVID thing managed to sneak up on me; I was busy with my kitchen.  We weren’t totally unaware, one of the carpenters was about to go on a cruise and we wondered if that was a good idea, but since we had decided to stay at home this winter travelling seemed like it was someone else’s problem.

Then came the day that I got a phone call from a very agitated daughter ... Did I know they were closing the schools?  Indefinitely?  Like, OMG, what am I going to do!

No.  I did not know that.  What else had been going on while I was ‘hiding’ my husband’s tea in a new cupboard space, and other such nefarious schemes to liven up our marriage? 

It’s all been downhill since then.  We had Optometrist appointments set for two days after the shut down, but of course they were cancelled.  The longer I sit and play on my iPad during this shutdown the more I realize my glasses aren’t up to snuff anymore. 

Also, that same day my husband had finally agreed to an appointment to see about hearing aids (“YOUR TEA IS IN THE NEXT CUPBOARD TO THE RIGHT, DEAR!”)  I’m left worrying that his acceptance that he might need hearing aids was a once-in-a-lifetime occurrence and the opportunity has been snatched away by ‘The Covid’.

But, what it might have confiscated in vision and hearing it has been generous in replacing with other things.  Now that the spring weather is here I find myself needing to shimmy and shake my extra COVID-19 pounds into last summer’s shorts.  It can still be done but it’s not comfortable, and I assume it’s not pretty either.  I was blissfully unaware of the extra roll at my waist - I can’t see it because of the COVID-19 hair in my eyes.  A person should just grin and bear it but my teeth are feeling a bit skuzzy too.  There was supposed to be dental hygienist appointment in there somewhere, as well.

We are moving on to the next stage of pandemic living now.  Saskatchewan was the first province to crack open the door and sniff the wind, so to speak.  We are a changed people though:  back in 2019 a Premiere’s political address wouldn’t have had us all glued to our TV screens, but by the end of April we were dying for what he would say.  He milked it for everything it was worth, too.  First he announced he would be making an announcement, and then made us all ‘tune back in tomorrow’.  He knew he had us hanging on his every word.

We are only taking baby steps, and even that didn’t start right away but it has begun.  Golfers can golf.  Fishermen can go fishing.  We don’t have to do our drug deals on the front steps of the pharmacy anymore.

And, if you want a happy, animated conversation with someone, just ask a woman when she managed to book her hair appointment for.  She will be able to tell you the day, date, and time without looking it up.  For instance, mine is June 4^th at 3:00. 

I can’t wait. 

THE PAIN AND THE GAIN

I’m not sure in these days of COVID-19, when there are millions of people stuck inside their city homes trying to keep busy and sane, whether I should even talk about what I’m doing these days.

I am the first to admit that living where I live is a privilege; I’ve always felt that way.  The green space, the privacy, the solitude of rural living is unequalled unless, possibly, you own your own private tropical island.  Truthfully though in all but temperature, it is the same thing.  The COVID social distancing restrictions are pretty easy to satisfy when you live a mile from your closest neighbour.  I have had to modify how many times I run into town, trying to keep it to once a week, and the curbside pick up type shopping is less than satisfying but these things are the only way I am impacted at all.  I don’t have a job I am required to go to, and neither am I out of a paycheck because my business is closed.  I am blessed and I know it.

Even better, now that spring has come, I am busy.

I was always destined to garden; it’s in my very DNA.  There have always been flowers to beautify the yard and vegetables to feed the family.  Once the ground warms up my ‘to do’ list is never done.  It makes for satisfying work, fresh air and exercise, and peaceful sleep – another luxury in these uncertain times.  The sore muscles are collateral damage.

Many news stories lately have been about governments coming up with plans to safely ‘open up’ their economies without re-igniting the virus’ spread.  There are so many things to consider: people need their jobs to pay their bills and feed their families but if this virus hasn’t been sufficiently suppressed we will all end up back in quarantine and have to start over again.  Not only does no one want a second round of this fight, but the experts predict that it will be much harder the second time around.  Having experienced what ‘staying at home’ means people will not be so compliant for a second go – it’s not all about the paycheck, it’s about the sanity.

I have tried to imagine what life would be like in the city with only a small yard to contain the energy of kids who are denied friends to play with and have established that home schooling is not a fun experience – a fact that their parents absolutely agree with.  Of course there is an even worse scenario – apartment living, trying to survive without even the relief valve of a few square feet of grass.

They say that domestic violence rates are going up – one more very distressing implication of life with COVID.

 

In my protected, privileged cocoon of space and financial security I cannot imagine the emotional stress or financial anxiety so many people are going through.

Meanwhile I work in my garden.  For years I’ve been downsizing what I plant but this year the size of my garden will grow.  In the pre-COVID world there never were any worries about sourcing our food but we have all learned that the systems we thought were infallible have shown serious weaknesses.  It’s time to put to use all the information handed down to me from older and wiser gardeners.  Maybe this will mean that I do extra work for nothing and we will have excess to give away, or maybe we will need it all, who knows?  The thing about gardening is that the seeds have to go into the ground now if they are going to do any good.  The pain of the growing season will give us the gain of the harvest.  We have to enter this with faith that the seeds will grow and we will have a plentiful harvest at summer’s end.

It strikes me that this same faith and perseverance is what we need to triumph over COVID-19.  If we don’t stick with the restrictions of social distancing, wearing masks and gloves where necessary, and not gathering in large groups this spring, we can expect a very nasty harvest of more sickness and death and a second round of isolation come fall.

 

For everyone’s sake, let’s do this right the first time.