A Moveable Garden

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

• Weather

We got rain!, just slightly over 2 inches, most of it on Thursday and Friday. High temperatures averaged 45.8°F, ranging from 54°F to 39.4°F. Lows averaged 35.4°F, ranging from 30°F to 37.9. It was very windy both Saturday and Sunday, with some dark skies. Forecasts for the coming week include mixed precipitation and maybe a little snow.

The wind knocked this dead tree across the street on Sat. or Sunday.

• Beginnings/Firsts

My husband put the Christmas lights on the weeping spruce on Wednesday!

We watched our first Hallmark Christmas movie this week! (“Christmas at the Plaza” — I knew I’d like the setting no matter what the story was). I’ve got a couple more set to record, based on Reddit recommendations.

I backed up my computer on Friday for the first time using the new program my husband wrote to do it, to make it easier for me to back it up regularly.

• Wild Things (Flora, Fauna, Fungi)

• Wandering 

Mostly a series of short in-town walks this week, between the cold weather, my mild cold, and the (much-needed) rain. No outside walks on Wed., Thurs., or Friday, but I started using the treadmill again to get a little exercise on those too-chilly days. Working on a Snapfish photobook took a lot of hours, too.

Wandered over to the art gallery on Monday with a friend (RL) and we also walked around the permaculture garden at the college.

• Curiosity & Discoveries

We watched Virtual Birding through Maine Audubon on Thursday evening and saw some unfamiliar birds in Arizona, Hungary, and Denmark, among other locations. (Click for larger views)

• Creating

Created a Snapfish photobook gift this week over three days.

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

Body/Mind: As mentioned above, I’ve started using the treadmill again to get a little exercise on those too-chilly rainy/sleety/windy days, logging 6.75 miles over three days this week. Walked more than 8,000 steps on six days, with two days over 10,000. I had a negative Covid test on Thursday. Both my skin biopsies (from 4 Nov) were negative, yay.

Vehicles: My husband changed the oil in the BMW on Saturday and took the used oil to the town garage for disposal. We paid the Jeep’s registration at town hall on Tuesday.

• Gardening/Yard 

As mentioned above, the Christmas lights are now on the weeping spruce outside. My husband also set up a new motion camera in the front yard on Wed. and moved one in the backyard to a new spot. He got gas for the snowblower on Sunday. I added more mulch — chopped up fallen leaves — to the garlic on Wed. to give them a good six inches of cover.

Parsley, winter thyme, chives, and kale are still available for harvesting.

A few more garden photos

• Nesting 

Cleaning/Maintenance: I did clothes laundry on Saturday and watered the houseplants on Tuesday — two Thanksgiving cacti and two geraniums are blooming, plus an aloe.

Food: I made a tuna casserole on Monday, with artichoke hearts, red bell peppers, (our) garlic, (farmstand) scallions, & milk, and we had that with raw carrots that night, by itself Tues. night, and my husband ate it with corn on Wed. while I had a veggie burger with arugula (+ corn). We ordered takeout Chinese from the local place on Thurs., which we have been eating since then. (I picked up more soup from them Sunday evening.)

My husband made a loaf of sourdough pain de campagne on Monday for us and another loaf on Friday for a friend.

Supplies: Received the monthly Amazon S&S order this week with food and health & beauty items. Ordered items for Christmas this week, a couple gifts for my sister for her upcoming birthday, and some other things, including: bulk order of whole artichoke hearts in brine from Cucina & Amore, my favourite source; two boxes of checks on sale at Checks Unlimited — should last us several years, at a rate of fewer than 15 per year; some greeting cards from Rachel Hudson (RHudsonIllustration) thru Etsy; and I set up a S&S through CocoFloss for more coconut dental floss. We also got two Covid test kits from the local public library, which was giving them away on Tuesday.

Financial/Admin: We met with our financial person via Zoom on Tuesday and updated each other on the current state of our financial affairs, got a few questions answered. I finished my ACA application for 2025 on Tuesday after our meeting. My husband sold an item on eBay that day too.

• Sleeping & Dreaming

Lots of sleeping this week, an average of 8 hours per night (with a high of almost 9 hours on Thurs. night and a low of a little more than 7 hours on Mon. and Fri. nights), and I had an average (FitBit) sleep score of 90, with 92s on Wed., Thurs., and Friday, and no score below 88! I got a whopping 14 hours 50 mins of REM sleep (SO many dreams) and 7.5 hours of deep sleep. I needed it.

• Reading / Words & Ideas / Listening / Watching  

Reading

BOOKS: I finished The Last One At The Wedding (2024) by Jason Rekulak this week. Frank Szatowski, 52-year-old widower and longtime UPS driver, is protective of his ambitious daughter, from whom he’s been estranged until she calls to invite him to her lavish wedding, and when he, his sister, and his sister’s weekend foster child appear in rural New Hampshire at a heavily guarded estate for the three-day wedding festivities, he has serious reasons for concern about the weekend and the marriage — including an anonymous note he’s received implicating the groom in a young woman’s disappearance several years before, and a 56-page privacy document he’s forced to sign when entering the compound — but everyone else, including his daughter and sister, seems happy. Has Frank fallen prey to a conspiracy theory, has he simply overreacted to some things he’s noticed, or is there something very unsettling going on behind the scenes? A really captivating thriller/psychological drama.

NEW WORD: Agnotology. From Wikipedia: “Agnotology is a branch of social science which looks at the ways in which doubt or ignorance about certain subjects is created. … The way in which media attention works can be exploited to produce ignorance. Other factors that influence it are that corporations or governments do not reveal certain facts. At times, they force these facts to be removed if they have been revealed. The methods they use include censorship, destroying documents, putting the weight of certain facts differently, or being inattentive or forgetful.” A useful concept to know.

Listening

A small selection … oldies and Christmas

Watching

As mentioned, we watched our first ever Hallmark Christmas movie this week, “Christmas at the Plaza” (2019). We also watched Agatha Christie’s “Why Didn’t They Ask Evans?” (w/ Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple).

• Connections &  Community

Local Support: Shopped at the local co-op and the farm stand on Monday and at the local café/bakery on Saturday. And bought Chinese takeout on Thursday and Sunday. Bought a Christmas wreath from neighbours’ granddaughter’s school on Saturday.

Relationships: Went to an art gallery, took a walk, and had tea together here and caught up with a friend (RL) on Monday for four hours. Wrote long email to friend (RVN) on Tuesday. Hosted the permaculture Zoom meeting on Thursday with 7 of us. Skipped in-person Salon on Friday because of my cold. Talked with my sister by phone for 15 mins on Friday morning, and zoomed with college friends (RVN and ChN) in Baltimore on Friday evening for 1.5 hours. Chatted with neighbours (WD, RD) briefly Sat. evening and with him again on Sunday while walking. Texted back and forth with sister and friends during the week and messaged a few times with a friend (MS) I hadn’t heard from in a bit.

Donations: Loaned $50 — $25 each to two folks in Pakistan and Albania — through Kiva (and intermediary organisations in those countries) on Friday. I’ve been lending basically the same $50 over and over for 15 years, with no defaults.

• Endings 

On Tuesday I dumped the two annual flower hanging baskets I bought in May into the compost. End of season vibe for sure. They were a great buy. Here they are in their prime.

On Friday, my husband swung the little British car into the back of the garage for the winter. Sleep tight and don’t let the mice bite, little car.

• All This Useless Beauty

this pile of fur and energy (he’s kneading me)

farmstand yuletide glitz