The birds

How I used to feel in my spring garden.

This spring has been different in one very substantive way...I have not had to fight either the wind, the birds, or the insects in my garden. Right now there are potatoes, carrots, lots of lettuce and some spinach growing, which will mean a bountiful harvest until about June I would guess.

It's been so lovely to pass by the lettuce section of the produce department every time I visit the grocery store without needing to purchase any, after a couple of years of frustration in trying to grow it.

This year, it's different.

The trick, it turns out, is shade cloth. I will fully admit stealing my inspiration for this new addition from my friend Beth, who showed me her garden last year nestled under its white canopy of shade cloth. Seemingly free of insects and certainly not damaged by wind or birds, all her crops looked beautiful and I got a serious case of crop envy.

And so this year, I installed the row cover supports and put everything except the potatoes and onions under wraps. And it worked. 

Munched! A lapse of judgement -- no shade cloth -- quickly rectified.

I know all this made a difference because this morning, with a rainstorm coming in, I put in some spinach transplants, and figured a couple of hours without a cloth cover wouldn't make much difference in bad weather. The birds wouldn't be out and about, right? I was wrong. When I went back out the winged criminals were fleeing the scene, after picking apart one spinach transplant completely, and probably getting ready to move onto the others. And so, in the middle of the rain, I covered the rest of the spinach and left the birds to find forage in our pasture.

It may have taken me five years to figure out, but I think I finally understand the rules to growing here: grow it under wraps.

Rearranging Deck Chairs and Chopping Wood

Sometimes it feels absolutely surreal to go from the morning news to outside, around our property. With so much turmoil, how can there be such peace within nature?  Do you ever feel that way?

The spring grass is getting tall, the birds are starting to seek out nesting materials, and they're perfectly content in their lives -- quite unlike what I see when I turn on the news. Most days that feels we're all just stacking up the deck chairs at the non-sinking end of the Titanic. The band still hasn't played "Nearer My God To Thee" yet, so we still have a long ways to go, however. I just hope Jack and Rose are okay.

Living on the west coast that's actually how it feels sometimes...like the rest of the country is tilting and we're sitting on a little island of dryness and safety...for now, anyway. 

Of course the tilting country analogy is not really the case; there are plenty of other places in the country that feel like we do here, but after years of planning my exit from California, for once it feels good to be knee-deep amidst all the "silly" environmental regulations, generous state health care, and at times ridiculous seeming touchy-feeliness. It doesn't feel so ridiculous anymore. It's actually quite comforting to know I live in a state that embraces the voiceless, the downtrodden, and the dreamers. And the environment. Even if sometimes it's at a semi-ridiculous opposite end of the spectrum, I'd rather be here than more "red" parts of the country, let's just say that.

I don't have to worry about my representatives voicing my opinions in Congress, because as one of the most liberal areas in one of the most liberal states, I know that's going to happen. So we have that going for us. 

So what's a resistance fighter to do? Chop wood, carry water, as the Buddhist saying goes. In other words, the usual routine -- so comforting when things seem crazy elsewhere. So in light of that, I realized that I was overdue for two improvements in my home garden. One was an automatic irrigation system in the raised vegetable beds, and the other was floating row covers, so in the last week or so, Big Ag and I have been busy installing both.

Why did it take me so long to put both these things in? I guess sometimes life is like that...you get into a rut ( also known as "a routine") you don't even realize you're in until you're out of it. Most of our industrially-focused civilization we live in is like this, all the time...we don't know how much we need something until we have it. The cell phone. The laptop. The food processor. That can cut both ways; it's always important to know how to do most things by hand, but there's nothing wrong with shortcuts if you're proficient and just need to save either time or energy.

That's certainly the case for our country as well. Those of us who have assumed the environment would always be protected, that the highest levels of government would be run in an orderly fashion, and that if our leaders did not always welcome the inquiries of the press that they would still honor them, have had a wake-up call about just how quickly all that can change. 

And so vigilance all around appears to be the call of the day. The nice thing is, at least we still have the birds, the wildlife, and nature to enjoy while we're going about our business. But no small effort of vigilance is important there, too, if we value what we currently enjoy.

So pick your metaphor. Chop wood and carry water. Move those deck chairs. Either way, stay vigilant, but also stay in touch with those things you're most invested in protecting. Those are the things that will keep you sane through times like this.