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

High temperatures ranged from 78.3°F to 64°F this week, with an average high of 72.3°F. Lows ranged from 53.1°F to 61.3°F, averaging 57.4°F. We had a trace of rain on Thursday and a little more on Sunday, totalling .20 inches. It’s starting to feel more like fall and the geese are still flying through. We actually decided to have canned soup for dinner on Saturday instead of leftover tuna salad!

• Beginnings/Firsts

We sent out our first come-and-get-’em peach email to friends on Monday.

I ordered a new laptop (refurbished Dell from Amazon) on Tuesday after my Asus died on Monday; it arrived on Thursday and I’ve been adding old backups, adding apps, and downloading photos I’d stored in Google to it since then.

• Wild Flora, Fauna, Fungi

seen in the garden

heard in the garden

• Wandering 

I took a long walk on Monday, to the bank, and longish walks on Thurs and Fri, with shorter in-town walks the other days. We were in Lebanon, NH for a medical appointment for my husband on Wed.

around town

• Curiosity & Discoveries

I spied it from the house and had to go investigate. It’s a broad-winged hawk feather. We hear them most days.

• Creating

Practicing creating …

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

Body/Mind: I worked out 4 times (4 hours) this week. I participated in Dharma Sunday from 10-12 on Sunday, which was led by Damcho, on kinship. We had small breakout rooms on Zoom and the other two in mine were gems. I walked more than 10,000 steps five days this week.

Cat: Bumble is almost exclusively using the new (guest bath) litter box now. I don’t know why he’s abandoning the master bath litter box. What goes through his mind?

• Gardening/Yard 

It’s peach week! Both of us picked and sorted peaches all week, any time we had a free moment, and made them available in the garage for friends and neighbours.

I also harvested sungolds, chocolate cherry tomatoes, and a jalapeño pepper. My husband mowed the lawn on Wed.

Most of the pictures I took this week were in the garden.

• Nesting 

Food: Tom made two loaves of (kalamata) olive bread on Monday, very yummy! I made a cacio e pepe version on Wed. for dinner with shrimp, our sungolds, artichoke hearts, our garlic, and summer squash, and I made tuna salad on Friday with arugula and our cukes. As mentioned above, we had canned soup on Sat., and on Sunday some premade breaded haddock + summer sautéed summer squash and onions, cukes and sungolds. On Friday I made 3 loaves of peach cobbler bread.

Cleaning/Maintenance: I did clothes laundry on Monday, vacuumed the kitchen and cleared off my two downstairs desks on Thursday, watered houseplants on Saturday, and vacuumed the family room and did another load of clothes laundry on Saturday. My husband made a dump run and did some errands on Wed., and he repaired my PJs on Saturday.

Supplies: Husband picked up two brooms and dustpans, one to use with the new litter box location — and we like it so much, we bought a spare.

• Sleeping & Dreaming

I got an average of 7 hours 4 mins of sleep per night, with three nights over 8 hours (two barely), one almost 8 hours, one a little more than 7, and one 6-1/2 hours. FibBit sleep scores were good — four over 85, including a 90 — other than one night’s 76; they averaged 85. I had a total of 14 hours 45 mins REM sleep and 8 hours 18 mins deep sleep this week.

I actually got up and wrote out a long dream I had one morning: The internet is not working. I notice a tall Amazon truck in the driveway behind us, hitting wires, and I go to investigate. Jack (a black lab) and two other dogs are walking out the long driveway and we (T & I) follow, somehow ending up near a small lake, some stores, a place called The Exchange. I think that it’s strange that we’ve never noticed or explored this area, so close to us. It’s charming and exciting to have found this. I’m sitting outside on a wooden seat (waiting for T to get us food, I think) and there’s a girl to the left of me with jeans that have pears as a design on them and her shirt also has pears and other fruit on it. I ask her if she bought the shirt to go with the pants, and she says she did. There’s a man on the other side of me, talking a lot. We’re in a small square in a small town, getting breakfast. I run into X. She and I walk around the small stores and she quotes from a movie about this. I’m trying to figure out how to get home and also how to find this again. T&I are in another outdoor square, larger and open, more like a plaza, eating, and Carey and Jack are there, amazed to see us. They said they’ve lived here since 2014 and had never seen this place; I said we’ve been here since 2004 [not accurate] and hadn’t either! X & I try to figure out directional clues and take a road to the left where we find a sort of rustic store on two levels, with a man inside behind a counter managing it. I walk around inside the building but outside the store and find a door that seems to lead to a private one-car garage that’s open to the outside, behind the store. A woman has left her purse on the ground by the door while she runs out to her car. When I open the door by her purse, a chihuahua dog comes running out. We go out there and look around but then come back in. There’s a bathroom across from the garage door that has signs about paying, using coins to operate the restroom, but those signs and coin machines are old and now it’s free. I’m excited to find a public restroom here in case I can make my way back to this hidden place. I go out the garage door to try to get home.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching  

I finished another Elin Hilderbrand book set on Nantucket, The Rumor (2015), which is one of my least favourites so far.

I like this little poem:

Listening to this among other things:

Watching: We’re watching another season of Shetland on DVD.

• Connections &  Community 

Local Support: My husband volunteered at the local car museum on Tues and Thurs, about 8 hours total. I bought groceries at the regional co-op on Wednesday, produce at the local farmstand on Thursday, baked goods from the local bakery on Friday, and picked up a Too Good To Go bag from the local bakery on Sunday. My husband bought a few things at the local hardware store this week, too.

Relationships: Chatted with neighbours and friends (SL, ND, AS, BT, BB, et al. ) and with acquaintances in town quite a bit this week. Poetry group met on Tuesday afternoon outside for 1.5 hours with 8 of us, which was great!

Permaculture met on Zoom with 7 of us on Thursday morning, and Salon met in person outside with 5 of us on Friday afternoon for 2 hours. Lots of emailing with the “peach people” about the peaches and we talked with some when they came to pick up peaches. Had a 45-min phone call with my sister on Sunday evening. My husband attended a cars & coffee event on Saturday morning and chatted with fellow antique car enthusiasts for a couple of hours. A friend (JW) left us several beautiful tomatoes on Sunday.

• Endings/Harvest

I had an email on Sunday from the daughter of one of our original Salon members (DN) to let me know she had died the week before, at age 94. She had moved away a few years ago but I was still in regular contact, as were others in the group.

And please sing a dirge for my Asus laptop which died at 3 p.m. on Monday, 2.5 years after we bought it … and 3 months after my last backup. 😒

• All This Useless Beauty