more news on things that are growing

So todayI can report a most victorious accidental discovery. I was on my way to place an order for some seeds when I came across an entry in Johhny's herb catelogue: chickweed. I had heard of chickweed and looked at the picture. I gasped, looked again, looked up another picture, ran out into my yard, looked up another picture and I can say with confidence that Chickweed is growing all over my yard. It's just this soft-spoken weed, very unobtrusive, that I have been foolishly pulling up and putting in the compost whenever I'm out in the yard looking for something to do. Turns out, this stuff is basically magic. I looked it up and it is reportedly great for insect bites and skin irritation, as well as good internally for circulation and kidney support. You can also eat it on salad like spinach. Yay! One more excuse not to repare the lawnmower! Why on earth would I want to mow down the free medicine growing in my yard? I am also happy to report that I finally spotted a bonafide honey bee in the back yard yesterday. This was in addition to about seven wasps, two bumblebees, one stink bug, a shiny looking beetle tht may or may not be eating the mustard greens, possibly one cabbage moth, possibly one robber fly, definately one squash bug, and I think three hover flies, in addition to the standard army of roly polys and fire ants, and a couple of spectacular butterflys that have been visiting the wisteria. There are also dozens of some bug or other that I still cannot identify. All I know about this bug is that I saw one eating an aphid on my sweet potatoes last August so I know these bugs have my best interest at heart. I am still waiting patiently for a lady bug, just one lady bug, to join the backyard party, but am nonetheless heartened by the diversity of beneficial insects in the garden. The plan of course, is to go all summer with no need for pesticides, even organic ones. We'll see what happens when the squash get bigger, with their requisite vine borer woes, but I am still faithful that mother nature is perfect and will help a sister out if I don't go spraying poison everywhere. Nathanael and I have eaten at least one home-grown, organic vegetable every day for about two weeks now. I must say, I'm getting a little tired of the mustard greens, but soon we'll have our english peas, and some strawberries. We will have chard, about one and a half carrots, and the collard greens and lettuce are still going strong. Then it's on to the squash and tomatoes and the humidity and 112 degree days and maybe by then I won't be so happy about all this gardening.

Speaking of growing things, I watched a blurb about peak oil the other day that actually made it to CNBC. I was shocked to see a mainstream media source actually giving air time to a problem, that just last week I heard flat-out denied on NPR. I won't spend time talking about it here as there are plenty of better-informed sources on the web concerning this issue. I was reminded however, that we have very little time indeed to prepare for what will, I believe, be a world-changing event, a process that will change all of our lives permanently. Nathanael and I talk about it sometimes and I still have no idea what would be worse in the event of an oil-supply collapse: stay intown with all the crazed, scary people, or be out on a piece of land somewhere isolated from help. I think there's no way to predict which scenario will be the best, so I console myself with the idea that as long as I am continually building important survival skills, I am doing the best I can to prepare for whatever is coming. Skills are something that noone can take from you. So, no matter where I end up, I will be ok if I know how to take care of myself. I've decided that the next project will be learning how to make cottage cheese. They say it's among the easiest to make, and it doesn't require anything I don't already have, except rennet. I've read of some plants that produce rennet alternatives, and that might be a possibility. There are also cheeses, like the Indian paneer, that require nothing to curdle the milk but vinegar, so that is worth trying out as well. After that it's yogurt which is supposed to be easy to make as well. Maybe I'll have some made in time to eat with all the free blackberries that are currently growing along every single street in Mobile. The south ain't so bad after all.

Surviving

So it's been a while since I posted and I know my masses of readers must think I've died or finally caught illiteracy from the Alabamians with which I've surrounded myself. Neither is true. I've just been..... adjusting. Something about that last stretch of winter always finds me hanging on for dear life. Of course, it feels much less dramatic than that. I find myself surviving, and just that. It's always the same set of symptoms this time of year, a reluctance to bathe, clean the house, cook, get out of bed, do anything really, much less write about how uninspired I feel on my blog. I accidentally wear the same thing to work two days in a row and subsist on sliced cheese. It so happens, actually, that Nathanael has helped me through this particular aspect of winter doldrums by not being too lazy to cook. We've taken to celebrating "Mainstream Mondays" with a piping hot blate of Tuna Helper and an episode of Starwars (we're watching them all in series.) Speaking of the bandwagon, my remedies du jour also include finally reading those damned Harry Potter books which are not bad thankyouverymuch. I started last week and I'm already on book 4. They're just so easy to read. (This does NOT mean however, that they don't include some decent vocabulary words and historical references. They do.)

Yes, escapism abounds these days as life has, with a dull "thud", become boring. I know it will pass, it always does. But it's still hard. One thing does, however, bring me great joy. I could spend hours watching things happen in my garden which has only just recently found itself free of all eyesores except for the mating lawnmowers, one of which belongs to a certain ex-roommate who also left a certain broken down car blocking the view to my english peas. Nevertheless, the mustard greens and lettuce are reaching upwards, alive with deep red and electric green. Spring comes early in Mobile, a pleasure for which we will pay dearly in the muggy heat of August. The peas and sugar snaps are doing their thing in a jolly sort of way, wrapping little tendrils around everything they can reach, including eachother. The crocuses have been this months most exciting surprise, blooming despite the prediction to the contrary by Mobile's newspaper columnist/garden expert guy. I meant to send him a picture to directly contradict what he wrote a couple of weeks ago about them not blooming "down here" but forgot to. They've been so cute, popping out just above the surface of the soil and opening up a violet or creamy white blossom. Above them, the fig branches are pushing forth crinkled, baby-green leaves and tiny, immature fruit. I didn't realize they don't blossom first. Does that mean the fruit is actually a juicy flower bud? If anyone can tell me the answer, they can come pick figs from our three trees this July. If you are really lucky, you can also have some watermelon from the seeds I planted over the weekend. If all goes as planned, their vines will set off across the yard and we won't be able to mow the grass for a couple of months. Should be hilarious.

How's the job going you ask? Ehh. I still sometimes stop and think, "I really have a pretty cool job." but what can I say? I just don't like HAVING a job. I'm over it. No matter how cool the job is, it's more time away from my life than I want to spend. These days I'm rethinking a desire I once had to be a teacher. My current job is teaching me a few things: teaching itself is very hard work, I'm not that bad at it, and I can get into the idea of a summer vacation. Maybe it's all those years as a student, but some part of me keeps expecting Spring Break. For now though, I guess I'll just keep gettin' er done and spending as much time as possible surrounded by vegetables.

The bandwagon

So, after about two weeks of Internet Explorer not allowing me to access my blog (for absolutely no obvious reason) I've switched back to Firefox. Firefox still doesn't allow me to use the scroll function on my mouse, the original reason I stopped using it. What can I say, I'm kind of lazy. But, after the blogger issue and learning more about how Firefox is safer, I'm sold. I will learn to live without scrolling.

Speaking of bandwagons, today is Fat Tuesday here in Mobile. What that means is, "you partied all weekend, now party some more. You've got all of Lent to get your body to forgive you." Yes, please. I'm not really a big "partier" in the sense of injesting lots of intoxicating substances. I am, however, a big fan of excuses to eat funnel cakes and candy and catch chinese junk being thrown at me from passing parade floats. Every time I go to a parade I can't get over what a fun idea it is. It's a wonderfully over-stimulating experience complete with garish costumes, semi-robotic parade floats and high school bands that dance in sink while playing their instruments. Most of this is entertaining; some of it is shocking. (My high school's band never humped their sousaphones while marching, and the majorettes never wore hot pants.) In addition to all this fun, you get the added sport of trying to catch as much stuff as possible from the maskers. In New Orleans, I hear the standard throw is beads, although I hear the Zulus also throw coconuts. Ouch. Here in Mobile, one is always surprised and has a chance of catching all manner or ridiculous items including Moon Pies, peanuts, stuffed animals, any cheap plastic toy you can think of (my favorite is my new pink plastic whistle), ice cream sandwiches, Dublunes, streamers, beef jerky, entire boxes of oatmeal creme pies, and the list goes on. This weekend, friends came down from all over and, as a team, we faired quite well, subsequently filling my dining room table with a massive mound of junk food and beads.

Our favorite spot to watch the parades is in an area where the crowd is mostly lower to middle income families with children. I was struck by what fun all these free toys and candy must be when you are young and not already spoiled. Amazingly, however, a childlike greed for what are essentially useless items seems to extend to every age group. We were shocked by one old lady who continually demanded of passing band members that they grab "those beads over there" which she was unable to reach because of the parade barricades. I couldn't imagine what she was going to do with all of them. Despite this, I much prefer this crowd to the mostly well-to-do adult crowd one seems to find further downtown. They made me feel sort of ashamed of myself. Also they were more drunk and tacky.

Anyway, if any of my friends are reading this, thanks for a great weekend. I laughed almost the whole time, from the moment the girls team pulled ahead in pictionary, to the moment Amanda asked, "Is there something in my teeth?" to which Karen responded, "If there is, it's tooth-colored." Hilarious.

My Superbackyard

If you walk out into my back yard, the first thing you'll see is my garlic patch. It's the pride and joy of the back yard, the only thing that seems to be growing well. It is not to be outdone however, by the courageous collard green that is growing, against all odds, in the winter shade of our southern fence. Last evening I was kicking around, cleaning out the frozen marigolds and tomato plants, depressed at the thought of the one meal that collard plant would provide. Not even a whole meal, a third of one meal, as payment for my exertions in the heat of august. I was annoyed that my sugar snaps had, in the past 4 months, offered exactly one blossom. That's exactly one sugar snap pea, not exactly a positive impact on the grocery bill. I considered giving it all up and putting in some hedges I'd never have to fool with again.

Today I've regained some of my idealism. I walked out in the tender morning sun to see that my little Calemondin Orange had perked up from last night's doldrums in response to a watering. I thought about my bay bush and how I needed to give my mother some of the leaves for Christmas so she can cook with them. I thought, what if everyone in this town put in a zuchinni each summer? What if everyone had a little dill and parsley in a pot next to their kitchen? What if everyone took out a pine tree and replaced it with a pear tree or satsuma?

Let's go even further. Every poor neighborhood in America, every government housing project, ought to plant exclusively fruit trees. It is idiotic, when considering the nutrition problems we face as a country, not to consider this obvious solution. Why do they put in an azalea when they could put in a blueberry instead? Every town where their are hungry people could be transformed into the garden of Eden.

It seems to me that most people in modern America have become so removed from any form of the agrarian lifestyle, that they cannot even concieve of producing their own food. They cannot imagine actually touching the dirt from which their carrots and potatoes come. They no longer actually realize that their potato came out of the dirt at all. I'm reminded of my friend Wendy's 5-year-old son Nathan who vehemently refused to eat the popcorn I made for him on the stove because he had only ever eaten it out of a microwave bag. This broken conceptual link probably makes it incredibly easy for people to trash the place without any sense of the consequences. It also makes it easy for most people to think that the only way to get food is to buy it. As a result, people subconsciously imbue money with the power to feed and sustain them instead of the earth. This misappropriation of the power to produce from the earth to human wealth is extended nowadays to every other product Americans consume now that manufacturing is almost nonexistant in this country.

I miss alot of things about the city I used to inhabit. I miss the culture, the sense of being part of a teeming organism, the variety of people and activities. But one thing the city doesn't have, one thing I love about semi-rural southern Alabama, is the awareness among the average person, of the ability to produce food. Half the people I know here have some kind of citrus tree in their yard. Our proximity to the bay makes fresh-caught fish a common luxury. The drive to my job at a farm took me past cotton and peanut fields and farm markets whose offerings changed with the seasons. I believe that when the inevitable happens- some serious economic crisis that severely affects our fuel-dependent food supply-places like this will fair most successfully. I also believe that, in the mean time, my little collard green and handful of garlic is a step in the right direction. It's a tiny dent in my grocery bill, that, multiplied by every person in this country who has room to grow some kind of food (everybody) could make a huge difference in the way food (and every other good) is distributed in this country. It is a tiny step toward ending the dirty little secret of American life: that we don't and don't know how to produce anything of value for ourselves, a deficiency which leads, no doubt to the histeria of imperialist war and the willful ignorance of a distribution system that causes so much suffering around the world.

So I'm an idealist again and tommorrow I'll plant some e. coli-free spinach where the marigolds used to be.

Keepin' if Real in Mobile

My fiancé, Nathanael and I are lonely right now. I just moved to Mobile four months ago and haven’t really made any friends yet. Nathanael has lived here his whole life and the last of his really good friends just moved away. So we’re lonely. It can’t be blamed entirely on a dirth of people or opportunity though. It’s also my fault. At 25 I find myself experiencing…. Friend fatigue? I’m probably too young to just be over new people, but maybe I am. So often, I just don’t find it worth the trouble to have that first exploratory conversation with someone, and take the risk that they’re a totally worthless human being- or worse, that they’re perfectly nice but just a little bit annoying. It’s not easy moving somewhere new. It’s not easy growing old enough to loose that youthful faith in humanity while still being young enough to need friends. It’s not easy doing all of this in a world that is increasingly isolated and alienated.

Nathanael recently dubbed our house the house of the “keepin’ it real” people, in contrast to the “rock and roll house” we’ve observed on the other end of our street and the “crack house” next door. We think that puts us in a category that is not necessarily superiour to others, just difficult to recognize. The keepin’ it real person is non-comodified. That is to say, she does not necessarily adorn herself with the kind of markers found among other subgroups. No particular shoe, hair-cut, car, or smell typifies the keepin’ it real person. (Well, maybe they drive a Honda.) Rockers recognize their kind easily enough. The same goes for hippies, hoochies, yuppies, potheads, cheesedicks, rednecks, and senior citizens. They know where to go to find each other. They probably have fun parties. But where do the “keepin’ it real” people find each other? My first instinct would be to answer ‘The skating rink’ because I think the skating rink is fun. That’s actually not a bad idea. If anyone knows of a bimonthly roller rink party for keepin’ it real people in Mobile, please let me know.

But who are the “keepin’ it real” people you ask? They’re just that, keepin’ it real. If they’re anything like us they do totally reasonable thinks like vote, plant a tomato every once in a while, play pictionary while drinking liquor, listen to good music, make dirty jokes, eat bacon fat. You know- keepin’ it real kind of stuff. Again I ask, where does one find such people in Mobile, or anywhere for that matter? My generation has entered that strange age of embryonic adulthood- too young to be friends with your kids’ friends’ parents; too old to wear band patches on your jacket. You know- dinner party age. I’ve decided through this experience in a new town, that 1) I should embrace my inner nerd and go hang with the grannies at the quilting circle I saw advertised and 2) an important measure of a city’s maturity is the availability of social situations that do not necessarily involve alcohol or nerdiness. It’s enough to make a girl want to go to church, just to meet some people. Until then though, I’ll keep trying the skating rink.