Sunday Times
I hardly know where one week ends and the next begins anymore. After putting in more than 50 hours per week in each of the past two weeks, ending up with two days off this week (from paid jobs, anyway) was an unexpected treat. I found plenty to do with that bit of found time.
Monday didn't see us nearly as chaotically busy as we'd originally planned. I woke up to a horny and insistent husband, not that I minded feeling lazy, and with the breakfast bug biting me. Making and enjoying big ol' slow and longdrawn weekend breakfasts is probably what I miss most about working weekends. Not being able to go to Eastern Market would be the other big regret, but that's neither here nor there. We never did get to the garden on Monday.
It was early afternoon by the time we finally got done with all the ruttin' n the warshin' n the vittles and all that so we headed straight out to Ferndale to catch up with Rudy, Bobby and Deb. They were staying with another member of the "old gang", Jen's brother John and his wife Mary Jo. Very nice people, very warm and welcoming. We ended up spending much more time there than we'd planned, but it was time well spent.
I was really struck by how old Bobby is looking. He's mellowed slightly, too, but he still has his wonderfully odd sense of humor. There's always been this slightly counter culture tinge to his Princeton educated and cultured person that I find intriguing, truly one of the most interesting people I've ever known.
Paul was even comfortable enough there that he didn't start to give me his Time To Go signals until after his brother had called to tell us they were packiing up their picnic at the park in Hazel Park and heading home. After passing out jars of jam to Rudy and Mary Jo and a precious jar of blood orange marmalade for Bobby to take back to Massachusetts, and sneaking some graduation cash to Deb with a customary conspiratorial auntie-like, "don't tell your dad" we headed out to scrounge up corn dogs at the Hazel Park carnival.
The carnival is the part of the day I'd take back if I could. What a sad spectacle it was. I don't know what was sadder, the fact that every other teenage girl we saw was pregnant or the sight of their little tweener sisters busy practicing to be the next generation of skanky, classless sexpots waiting their turn to get knocked up. The carnival itself was sad. I don't know if they down-sized it this year or if it just seemed that way, and it seemed shabby, gray, depressed. The harkers didn't shout and try to lure you to their games. Laughter was noticably missing from the grounds. We stuck around only long enough to down our coveted corndogs and lemonades before the almost oppressive atmosphere got to be too much. I don't think we stayed for an hour.
On our way home we noticed Trader Joe's was still open, and bopped in for a moment. While perusing the libations aisle we discovered they carry the Lindeman's Framboise that we fell in love with our last trip to Frankenmuth. A bottle of that followed us home for a visit. They also carry Lindeman's peach and apple lambic beers. We'll have to try those soon. If you'd told me a few months ago that I'd fall in love with fruit beers I'd have laughed in your face.
The rest of the week most non(paid)work hours have been spent in the garden, where I've discovered the truth of the 1st Law of Gardening; there is always something to be done in the garden. The 2nd Law of Gardening apparently is if you're really a gardener you're going to always look for something to do in the garden, because there's no place you'd rather be. And that would make me really a gardener. If I'm not being paid to be someplace else that's where you are most likely to find me these days. I'm quite the vision with my jeans rolled up, my beaten up old Lilith Fair bucket hat on my head, dirty feet sticking out of red garden clogs and flourescent orange garden gloves protecting my hands from the worst (but not all) blisters.
I found a large plastic tub/tote to keep most of the gardening stuff together for easy lugging to the various sites that make up our garden. Since we're divided into three different locations between the WB community garden, the complex's version of a community garden and our courtyard, it's good to be able to keep it all both handy and lightweight. We chose to invest in a second flat garden hose for that reason. What we give up in water pressure we gain back in portability. I can easily lug my tub from the van to either planting area in the complex, or toss it into one of the wagons for the trip uphill to our community garden plot.
So what are we going to be harvesting from all this work, you ask? This year, I fear, we will harvest mostly experience and some tomatoes, but we've planted lots of goodies to try. In the complex's bed we have radishes, lettuce and sugarsnap peas coming up vigorously. The WB community garden plot is home to our tomatoes, peppers, chilis, shell peas, bush beans, zucchini, broccoli, various herbs including a whole bed just for basil (because you can never have too many tomatoes or basil) and cantaloupe. I have a second bed to put in a later crop of bush beans, but I may add some more more radishes and lettuce to that bed first. And I hope to add some late season greens when the early crops are done. We'll see how it goes. Since we chose a cucumber variety that does well in pots we've planted those in planters in the courtyard. I'm not giving a whole lot of thought to the self-seeded White Currant tomatoes in the courtyard. I'm just going to let the strongest of them fight it out. There are still plenty to give away, though, if you want them. We've been given a second bed in the complex's garden that I'll fill with herbs this next week, and may even be given a third plot to play with later. We'll see what happens. I'll post pictures periodically.
The guest that we were supposed to have this week didn't work out. She had a severe bout of separation anxiety, and felt she's be able to handle it better in her own home surrounded by her own things.
That brings us around to another weekend in the gatehouse. Paul's been out to the garden to do a little weeding and cleanup this morning, and stopped at the new Indian grocery on the corner on his way back. I can now say I have some kind of grocery store less than 4 miles from me. All the better when it means my husband brings me warm samosas for breakfast.