A Moveable Garden

Weekly recap of my ritual of existence in this liminal space called life. (See here for more info.)

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• Weather

We got about .8 inches of rain this week. It felt dry and I felt like I was watering the veg, hanging baskets, and new plantings every day. Sunday’s rainfall measured only .16 inches, though it came during a (quick) thunderstorm. Temps seem pretty typical, with an average high temp of 76.4°F, ranging from 83.8°F to 68.7°F, and an average low of 56.5°F (good sleeping weather), ranging from 46.8°F to 63.3°F.

• Beginnings/Firsts

We had our first daylily bloom of the batch along the driveway on Tuesday, just one, and by the end of the week 47 had bloomed. Lots more to come.

Friends’ (R&Ch) son and daughter-in-law welcomed a new baby girl (Lulu) into the world in the wee hours of Saturday, little sister to two toddler brothers. May she love her life.

• Wild Flora, Fauna, Fungi

Besides what’s seen elsewhere in this post,

• Wandering 

I took longish walks on Monday, Wed., Thursday, and Friday (to the bog), with shorter walks on Tuesday, Sat., and Sun.

Bog

Other Walks

• Curiosity & Discoveries

New-to-me moth larvae seen this week:

• Creating

I’ve started creating a photo book for my sister of her cat, at her request. That’ll be continued next week.

• Repairing and Maintaining (everything but the house & yard) 

Finance: Paid large medical bill on Monday using my Health Savings Account. Sunday I spent a couple of hours dealing with a scammer call (allegedly from Chase Bank), + chatting with several departments (including fraud) at Chase, + chatting with another of our credit card companies when I found in the midst of all this that I couldn’t log in to their website. Think it’s all sorted but what a waste of energy and time.

Body/Mind: I walked some every day this week, and took more than 12,000 steps on five of the seven days, including two over 14,000. I worked out with weights three times (3 hours); it’s harder to fit that 4th hour in during gardening season, and I miss it. I had my annual PCP visit on Tuesday morning and my mammogram on Wed. afternoon. I took Covid tests on Friday and Saturday; both were negative. Learned more native plant families on Wed. with another Zoom course in Botany in a Winter (now, Botany in a Summer) through Maine Audubon. I finished up the Sharon Salzberg teaching series on equanimity this week.

• Gardening/Yard 

I planted 3 firecracker Vermillionaire cuphea annuals, 2 Pineapple Brandy coleus, and 4 basil starts on Sunday afternoon. Spent about 5.5 hours in the garden watering, weeding, pruning, and planting. And probably a couple more hours looking around for insects and to check how all the plants are doing.

Garden this week

• Nesting 

Cleaning/Maintaining: I did towel laundry on Wed. and clothes laundry on Thurs. Cleaned our toilet on Monday. Vacuumed the kitchen, hall, and laundry on Tues. and the sunroom and the same hallway on Sunday. I think the robovac ran in the bedroom/bathroom and family room this week, too. My husband ordered a replacement part for the washing machine on Sunday from eBay. He made a dump run on Wednesday and came home with a small length of very nice garden hose (with fittings) that we can put to good use.

Supplies: On Friday I ordered another shipment of the giant rolls of 2-ply toilet paper we started having delivered in March 2020, when there was not much other toilet paper to be had. Over a few months we realised it made a cost-effective addition to our regular soft Charmin; the Charmin lasts a lot longer when we use the Coastwide Professional™ Recycled 2-Ply Jumbo 1000-ft rolls (12 to a box) for most cleaning and hygiene tasks. The carbon compost bin filters were delivered on Wed. and fit the lid perfectly.

Food: Leftover tuna pasta salad on Monday and Tuesday, grilled hot dogs (soy/beef) on Wed. with a new dish, pasta shells with garlic, artichoke hearts, cherry tomatoes, and basil. Had the rest of the pasta shell dish with veggie burgers with arugula on Thurs. Friday I made an asparagus frittata, which we had that night and Sat., and then Sunday I made it again, including garlic scapes this time along with the asparagus, for friends who came over that morning, and we finished it for dinner that night.

• Sleeping & Dreaming

Another bad week of sleep and the lowest average weekly sleep score I’ve ever had, 79.4 (ranging from 75 to 86). The main problem was that I just didn’t get enough hours of sleep, with my usual midnight sleep time + a cat activated by the early morning sun we’re getting this time of year. My average time asleep was just over 7 hours this week, with a low of 6 hours 8 mins and a high of 7 hours 45 mins. It’s very rare I don’t log at least one night of sleep over 8 hours and often several. REM sleep totalled 10 hours 24 mins, and deep totalled 8 hours 13 mins. I miss winter’s long nights.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching  

BOOK: I finished reading A Friend from England (1987), another novel by Anita Brookner, this week. It’s about Rachel, an independent woman and bookstore owner, who has enough experience of romantic relationships that she determinedly avoids any love entanglement for fear of disappointment. Rachel is friends with a couple whose daughter, Heather, a woman apparently inexperienced in the ways of the world, is about her age, and the couple and Rachel both want Rachel to shepherd her; but Heather, as Rachel comments numerous times, is shrewd, as well as distant, reserved, and immovable when it comes to any of Rachel’s modeling or advice. No one in this book is likeable but Rachel’s lack of insight and often mistaken yet confident assumptions make for an interesting plot.

ESSAYS: I read this on Thursday and really enjoyed it: Sasha Chapin’s How My Day Is Going. It’s sort of about the benefits for him of meditation. This particularly resonated for me, though I don’t think for me it’s related to meditating: “It’s not that I can’t remember past events, or conjure linear time, it’s just not the way time intuitively presents itself to me these days. Every experience seems superimposed on the same timeless moment—it’s all a self-presenting flicker on the screen.” This is how time feels to me.

He also writes, “Also, when you ask me how my day was, it’s hard to look back from the present moment, to conjure something other than what’s currently happening.” Answering a question about how my day was or what I did yesterday is, as anyone who knows me well, nearly impossible, which may be one (big) reason I make an effort, and it is an effort, to collect all these bits here each week, reminders of what actually occurred. And why I take photos pretty much every day, tangible touchstones of my tracks that remain until the always encroaching tide of time overtakes and dissolves them. Ephemeral. Liminal.

I saved this to make:

And also this Shrimp Linguine With Herbs, Corn and Arugula recipe from the New York Times.

• Connections &  Community 

Local Support: Bought cards at a local gift shop on Monday, veggies and fruit at the local farmstand on Monday and Sunday, olive bread from a local market on Saturday. Ate outside at the local café/bakery on Saturday (when it was 57°F) and picked up Too Good To Go items from them on Thursday and Sunday.

Relationships: On Monday I ordered flower deliveries for a friend (R) and for my sister for upcoming birthdays. Tuesday I took a friend (R) to lunch (outside) and before that we went to a local art gallery to see a small but varied show.

I hosted the permaculture meeting on Zoom on Thursday morning (6 of us) and attended Salon in person on Friday afternoon (6 of us, including someone new to the group, plus we met a friend’s new dog).

On Sat., we took pillows over to friends (E&S) who were having family visiting and took a tour of their growing garden. Sunday, a friend (MA) and her boyfriend (also a friend now) came over for a couple of hours for brunch, a garden tour, and a catch-up conversation. Talked with my sister by phone for 10-15 minutes on Thurs. evening.

Donations: Made a membership donation to Cornell Lab of Ornithology on Monday. The organisation isn’t part of my community but the birds are.

• Endings/Harvest

Finished the Sharon Salzberg equanimity teachings. Cancelled two credit cards and ordered new ones.

• All This Useless Beauty

After I finish casting my streaming workouts to the TV, the Chromecast screensaver carousel sometimes shows me this bit of art, if I leave it running long enough. It’s a total feast for my eyes.

I like this woodcut that was part of the art gallery exhibition my friend and I visited on Tuesday.

Hydrangea flower buds don’t have to be this beautiful, they just are.

Something about the light just caught my attention.