the poet in you

We have placed our very first birdfeeder within viewing range of our kitchen window. Are we pleased? Following is an excerpt from an email sent to a friend:

"The only other event is how completely rejected I feel by the blasted birds. We bought such a very nice bird feeder, the same glorious orangey yellow as our house and made of a chainmail, oh you know, a wire mesh material. Michael fixed a little pulley near the top of a tree limb so we could raise and lower the feeder easily. We filled it and waited. The birds have more than rejected it; they won't even give us the satisfaction of having taken notice. Blasted peckerheads is all I have to say about them now. And the squirrels are in on it too. You'd think the thing was filled with haggis but it's sunflower seed; I imagined they'd be forever grateful and cling to it as if their little lives depended on it but no. So sad. It swings on the breeze neglected like some kind of California foreclosure property."

The New York Times Book Review had a review of Toward Another Summer by Janet Frame. I remember that years ago there was a movie about her called An Angel At My Table. It was the first time I'd ever heard of Janet Frame. Ever since then I've had her in the back of my mind, I've wanted to read something by her but I didn't know what. I now have Toward Another Summer on my short list of books to buy.

This is a passage printed in NYT's Book Review,

    "There were spiders in the corners of the floor and roof, slaters and slugs under stones, worms in the garden, ladybirds on leaves, snails in the bushes, birds in the trees, rats and mice in the scullery, trout in the river, cattle and sheep in the paddocks, and our new cow Beauty, smaller, less wild and tossing than Betty who, my mother explained, was 'an Ayreshire, not as trustworthy and gentle as a Jersey.' "

It as a very busy weekend as far as gardening went. Some of it not very productive, too many trips to Home Depot, Lowe's and nurseries. In the end, on Day 3, the work paid of and I think that we're both very pleased.

The raised garden bed endeavor began last month as a birthday gift from Michael. On the morning of my birthday he gave me this:

We were going to make three 4x4 raised beds! The gift wasn't so much that three raised beds would appear in the backyard full of flowers and vegetables but rather, a commitment to see it through. We have lots of ideas for the yard, we talk about them all the time. That's the trouble, all the talking and non of the working it out to fruition. This weekend we did a lot of work.

We built the beds last month, so that part was done. Then, over the last several weeks we worked the ground and in the end we removed a lot of the existing soil because it just seems like it could potentially be really, really bad for us and for the plants. We talked about bioremediation and growing hypo-accumulators - plants that pull heavy metals up and out of the soil. The problem with that is 1. it's at least one growing season lost and 2. once the plants have pulled metals out of the soil they have to be disposed of properly. Plus, the time it would take to have the soil tested, it was too much and we weren't getting anywhere. All I knew for sure was that I didn't want to eat vegetables that came directly out of the ground in our backyard. It's old landfill and there is tar, roofing material, car parts, old clothes, lots and lots of bottles and cans. I didn't know for sure if our soil was contaminated but I wasn't willing to risk it. The best solution was to dig up the area where we wanted to place the beds and replace the topsoil with some very good quality garden soil and compost. That was very hard work.

We agreed on a few things. We wanted to grow organic as much as possible. This meant staying away from the big brands like Miracle-Gro and Scotts. We were trying not to spend a ton of money but were willing to if it came to that. We shopped Home Depot and Lowe's. We even went to a swanky nursery and found some very overpriced products. We weren't really finding what we were looking for. We thought we did. We even bought ten bags of something labeled Garden Soil in 6 inch letters across the front of the bag only to find that it was a soil amendment and plants should not be planted directly into it. We decided to keep that for an ornamental flower bed. But it cost us $3.50  a bag, a lot of labor moving it around and we still didn't have soil for the raised beds.

Finally we gave in and called The Natural Gardener. I regret so much not doing this sooner. I assumed that it would be our most expensive option. It ended up being much less expensive for a much better product that we could have ever found at Home Depot or Lowe's. We bagged some very sweet soil ourselves at $3.50 a bag and because we bought ten bags we got a discount plus the bags were bigger than the bags of soil that we originally bought at the Depot. And we got 2 bags of blended compost. More for less. It was glorious. We are now dedicated dirt nerds and have almost pledged allegiance to The Natural Gardener. Almost because I did buy a bird feeder at Lowe's. But I digress...

Our first bed is 90% complete. To me, it's beautiful. We still need to plant the back row and add a trellis to the corners. This is a really slow process but all very satisfying.

Everything happens in fits and spurts for me - bookselling, gardening, writing, reading, blogging. I am at a complete loss when trying to understand why this is so. The moments of productivity are so dizzily satisfying it seems that feelings of accomplishment would be motivation enough but somewhere along the line the momentum is lost and everything seems daunting and futile.

My lack of structure keeps me tied to what has become an increasingly unsatisfying job, one that is unnecessarily stressful and takes me out of my comfort level on a regular basis. My "real job" offers me the security of routine. I hang on to it in part because I have regular hours. My failing is that I am unable to do the same, to implement a regular schedule with bookselling enough so that I generate a regular and steady income.

What adds to the conflict between "real job" and vocation is my peak hours of productivity. I will never be very productive before ten in the morning. Ten o'clock to me is perfectly early enough. I am not a 5:30 a.m. girl, not an 8 o'clock girl. Right now it is midnight and I feel very focused and present. I constantly fight this by trying to adhere to a more conventional schedule, getting to bed early and rising early. It probably seems like nothing but this has been a major struggle for decades. *Note to self: find book on circadian rhythm.

I anticipate being back on track soon enough. The nasturtium buds opened up and they've got me wanting more color and more plants. I think we'll be getting soil enough for at least one of our raised beds. Also, I've done enough scouting and listing of books so that I have plenty of stock for several weeks. In fact, it's probably a good weekend to purge some old books and list  a few auctions on ebay. I want to finish up an article I started for The Bookshop Blog before they think I've completely lost interest and forgotten all about them. I have a full plate for my extended weekend and I'm looking forward to it.

Did you know that modern day pirates keep time sheets to keep track of their hours? I heard it last night on NPR so it must be true, right?