How are you doing?

So, this week has been bad.  

As an academic, there are certain rhythms to my life that I have taken for granted.  Our year starts in August.  That's our "shiny, new everything is going to be different and wonderful THIS year" time of the year. We don't officially say "Happy New Year" but that's what it feels like.

The actual New Year in January is pretty hellish.  It's the middle of the year for (North American) academics. There is no "shiny."  There is fatigue and drawing on our energy resources to start a new semester when all the evaluations, reports, student admissions, theses, dissertations, grants, and conference submissions all are due, at least for me.  

After Spring Break, there's a light at the end of the tunnel and it's not necessarily a train. ((You know how old I am and how young my grad students are?  I told that joke to them and they thought it was hysterical; the first time they'd ever heard it.  How clever I am!!))  :-/  

Anyhoo, May is hellish with all the defenses, finals, and ceremonies. But then we are done.  DONE!  I get about 5 to 6 weeks of working at home on my own while the kids are at school and I'm working on research.  Once they are home, my mother-professor (Mofessor) role conflict increases exponentially and I cannot work, exercise, and garden as well and I do during those 5 precious weeks.

Except this Saturday.  I finished grading my students' (excellent) final papers.  I submitted the grades. I took a deep breath. And I realized: nothing changes.  The kids are home.  Dave is still working a wonky schedule so there is 7 day-a-week senior management coverage at his CCRC. We are not going anywhere.  We are only leaving the house to exercise. I feel like I'm driving through Kansas and the landscape is flat and the highway is neverending.  It's fine. But it is also isolating and desolate.  

It's the sameness.  

It's the ambiguity about how long this sameness is going to last.  It's the fear that if we don't have this sameness Bridget or Christopher could get the 'Rona and, with their atypical responses to paraflu, end up in very bad places.  I know that most people know about Bridget but click on Christopher's links to see what I now understand was the beginning of both of their weird lung problems. 

It's not knowing what is going to happen with the University or the Public School system in the Fall. It's knowing that it's going to come back in the fall and seeing that New Zealand is already running low on flu vaccines and they are often the leading indicator of the flu season for North America. 

It's walking around the neighborhood and doing the 6' shuffle with everyone else and being grateful I don't live around a bunch of whackadoos and also knowing THIS IS NOT NORMAL.  

Most days are good. But there are always a few hours where I feel my entire being freak out a little bit.  Maybe sometimes more than a little. 

Here is a picture of me engaging in what is truly the best thing about my week: watching Columbo on the Hallmark Mystery Channel at 7 am on a Sunday morning.  I do not understand why, but when Monday starts, I long to go back to this on a Sunday morning.

So how are you doing?  

So You Want to Garden?

Are you doing more work in your backyard?  We are.  And ironically, this is the year I said I was tired of doing so much work in the backyard. But when it became clear that we are not going anywhere this summer and, well, I have this huge backyard with two 20x24 raised garden beds, well, dang it, we're back to gardening.  

So I'd consider myself a moderate gardener.  I am past the beginning stage, but I am definitely NOT an expert gardener.  So, at best, I serve as a step-ahead mentor to folks just starting out.  But you know I love to share assvice, so here we go!

First, follow our local farmers from Renfrow Hardware on Instagram. I have learned so much from them already including how to stop frost damage and how to pickle radishes!!  Lots of great info about gardening and gardening supplies from them.  

Second, unless your back- or sideyard has no trees, finding a sunny spot is tricky. I know the sun rises in the east, but where it actually rises in relation to your yard changes a great deal over the year.  On the advice of Laurel Holtzapple, Landscape Architect for groundworks studio, we have a "fedge," a landscaped wall of edible plants in the back garden.  Crazily enough: because of where the sun rises it gets absolute full sun in the summer and about 2 months of full shade in the winter (December and January) because the sun's rise changes so drastically that it stays behind the fence between our yard and the neighbors.  

This is a picture of the back garden which gets the most sun in the yard, except that the blueberries by the fence are in full shade during December and January because the sun's rising position is so different then. And if you look closely, you'll see the chairs we put in the garden to drape tarps off to protect from the frost on Saturday night.

Also, trees reach for the sun. And some of our larger trees have started shading parts of one of our gardens because that is where the sun is.  This was our first garden plot when the trees were younger and didn't shade it so much. 

So! What is sunny in March may not be sunny in July when the sun has moved spots and the trees have all their leaves.  Honestly, sometimes I go stand in my yard multiple times a day and look around for where the sun is, was, and won't be in a few hours time.  The reason I say this is that I frequently see new gardeners start raised beds in spots that "look pretty" in their yard and are sunny in the winter but I can tell full well are not to thrive in the summer. (Ahem, our own first-hand experience, TBH) You need full sun--at least 6 hours--for most vegetable plants! That's harder than you think in an urban garden.  That said, you can trick lettuce into growing in the middle of the summer under some shady spots. So you can make it work!!

Third, weeds suck.  Don't use roundup.  Use your hands to pull them up.  Also, if you have a paper shredder, shred newspapers, old bills (no plastic), and scrap paper for mulch around your plants to keep weeds down and water in. 

Finally, watering sucks.  I hate watering.  We have a rain barrel that we use early on, but come July when we are begging for some rain you actually have to go out and water your plants.  That said, I LOVE LOVE LOVE soaker hoses.  We bought ours off amazon similar to this one.  They only water the spots you want.  I only need to use them once a week for about 30 minutes and it's the easiest thing I've ever done.  Buy you soaker hoses now!!

Do you want to know other things?  I have some tricks on Leeks and dill, including saving seeds for the next year.  I can talk about the importance of "suckering"/pruning/training your tomatoes.  I can talk about keeping bunnies out of your garden or at least keeping them from eating EVERYTHING so that you can have some.