Gardening retrospective

Gardening wasn't quite as much fun this year. I had to battle several mammalian invaders, and work seemed to take so much time that I couldn't keep up with things. The lack of time is means that I did harvest food, but it sometimes felt like a chore, and I wasn't the best gardener I could be. I'm a bit disappointed about this,  although I expect the situation next year to be different (plans are in the works!) so we'll see if a new attitude plus better battle plans make a difference in 2022.

The squash and pumpkin harvest was practically miraculous. The reason? I only planted one kind, but harvested three. Mysterious plants sprung from the compost bin, like Athena from Zeus' forehead. (Well, not quite, I mean, it wasn't a fully grown warrior plant.) Moreover, the possum ate 90% of the butternut squash, which I eventually sacrificed as a decoy plant to distract the it from the other produce.

Amazing surprise squash plant that grew out of the black compost bin at the very back. For reference, that bin is a meter in diameter.

 A lovely recollection of early summer produce. The eggplant and tomatoes were great successes, but for the first time ever I ate only a single zucchini and two cucumbers. Better luck next year, I guess, especially if I hire the right person for the currently open position of Brigadier General in change of Garden Mammalian Defensive Strategies. I'm taking applications in the comments.

A new type of letting go

I heard this phrase in a song several years ago, when I was driving back from Ohio. I had been visiting my folks frequently during that time because my father had cancer. The phrase resonated immensely, within the larger context of the song, which is that however difficult your life is right now, there are moments of beauty, and that when the end of life comes we will wish for even an hour longer.

I adopted it as my motto and designed a cross stitch pattern. However, I never finished anything beyond the words because I planned to add some kind of colorful embellishment. So it just sat for two or three years in my sewing basket. Last week I read a decluttering book that changed my mind. The book was essentially useless, repeating what every other book in this vein says, except for one thing I hadn't heard before: decluttering can include letting go of projects. 

You may have noticed that I'm an extremely organized person, and I'm the type that gets quite a few projects done. But there are always some unfinished ones lurking. So this morning, like every Saturday, I made a long list of the things I wanted to do today. Then I decided to ignore every one of them and either finish or let go of as many projects as I could. 

I gave up on the flowers, and just framed the saying. I repaired my screen door and my sofa. I gave away books I hadn't read and the beautiful yarn I have been meaning to knit into a sweater for years. A few pantry ingredients that I knew I'd never use went into the trash, along with the stair railing I intended to reinstall. I took a load of things to the thrift store and a half-dozen people on my buy-nothing group have said they'll take all the produce that I do not want to freeze anymore this year.

I'm free(er)! 

Bay Area, Part 2

Giant vegetables and beautiful scenery rounded out the rest of my vacation. My friends S and L live nearish to my brother, and offered to be my tour guides for a few days. Learning of my love for kitsch, they took me to visit a giant artichoke when we are too many fried artichokes. Yum.

Then we did some hiking around Monterey Bay and I saw actual sea lions and sea otters. (As I understand it, the lions are common but the otters are rare.) Yes, I had to use binoculars and have the right area pointed out many times, but I'm pretty sure I squinted and actually saw the smiling face of an otter doing the backstroke.

I even visited my old friend, Wesley the Grumpy Cat. He's still grumpy, because now his family has a dog. Darwin the 95-pound lap dog is pretty much the most chill, lovable dog ever, but Wesley does not agree. I was happy to see him nonetheless.

Yet another vacation

I'm on vacation once again! Yes, I do have a job, but it's not very good fodder for the blog, so I'm not as good at posting during those times.

Like many people, I'm doing the "I haven't seen them in X years/months" tour. I am visiting my brother and his lovely family who live in the Bay Area. I had hoped that this trip would include a respite from the never-ending heat of DC, but they're having unusually warm weather right now.

My trip happened to fall on my birthday, so we celebrated by biking across the Golden Gate Bridge. This was lots of fun, although you need to be prepared for noise, wind, and hills. I was also introduced to onigiri rice triangles, which were delicious. A quick search reveals that these don't exist in DC, so I guess I need to learn to make them.

I'm hoping I can also squeeze in my favorite San Francisco activity, which is watching all the SF employees wearing hoodies and drinking coffee while coding on their laptops. This is a nice change of pace from the DC types wearing suits and discussing federal policy on their cell phones.