The Accidental Gardener

I have never really grown anything edible on purpose. I grew up in a house where TV dinners packed in shiny aluminum trays were the newest modern convenience, vegetables came from cans and Wonder Bread was a "natural food".

I have attempted the occasional avocado pit suspended by toothpicks in a glass jar and the top cut off a pineaple stuck in the sand. But really, since my mai tai days are long past and modern convenience is even more of an issue, frankly my fresh pineapple comes freshly cut in a plastic container that only finds roots in the cupboard until I realize it's been there so long it's time to recycle.

I have a tangelo tree that came with my house but it was already there and it already came with fruit attached - sort of an outdoor grocery store. It will soon be gone because the oak in the back yard is now so massive that the tangelo lives in its shadow. It gets smaller every year and by the end of next summer will be gone. Since It doubles as an orchid hanger I will have to start giving the orchids better homes.

This year, I decided to plant a few edibles. Not a victory garden per se, unless I can count it as a victory against drought and pestilence! It started with the pepper. My very expensive yellow pepper had a little pepper shaped nodule inside so I decided to plant the whole middle in a tiny pot to see if it would grow. And so it began - a huge clay pot, expensive dirt, a tomato plant and some basil for good measure. Tomato sauce, here we come!

Walk Like A Dog

I understand that Tibetan Buddhists believe that dogs are the reincarnation of monks and I'm starting to wonder if there's not some truth in that.

Chaco is ginormous and at 128 pounds, when she wants to go for a walk, well frankly we go for a walk. So the other night we ventured out into the fog that was settling on the peninsula. I was soooo tired but we went. I walk with a mission. Chaco walks to take in everything on our path.

By the time we got to the next block, I noticed how she likes to stop at the corner to walk through the oak leaves - not the typical valley oak leaves that drown my back yard and are so common here, but the huge broad ones that you see up north in fall. She actually crosses the steet to walk through them. For a huge 10 year old dog with arthritis and hip displaysia, it has to be for the joy of it.

Then we look for cars and cross the big street and I start to realize that without her I wouldn't be looking at the yard with the oak leaves or the yard with the kalanchoe. I would never have noticed the ground covers that creep through what look like perfect lawns, the one with the tiny blue flowers or the tiny white flowers with purple edges. I wouldn't be waving and smiling and talking to the neighbors I don't really know. Certainly I know I would NEVER be walking unafraid through the fog in the dark. I would probably not be thinking how the fog here falls from a gray line across the sky like a smoky mist, not creeping on little cat feet the way Carl Sandberg said. It smells like fish and the saltwater bay and I realize how connected I am to the earth and this small city I have lived in for so long and how I am starting to walk like my dog.

One Thing at a Time

I wanted to go the the Ringling Museum in Sarasota (http://www.ringling.org/) to see the Kimono display. I wanted to plant plants because it finally warmed up. I wanted to rake leaves and I wanted to work on my jewelry project. I wanted to finish reading my book.

None of those things got done. I transplanted one plant, walked the dog, and spent hours and hours photographing my work and writing a required art bio on myself. While I was at it, I listed some of the things I photograped on Etsy.

A couple of hours ago, I would have said it was all a huge waste of time but now I'm not so sure. Reviewing the last 26 years of my clay career has forced me to recognize that I HAVE done something. I DO know a lot and I don't doubt my work - well not as much, anyway. Oh, and it didn't hurt to see that people had actually looked at my work shortly after it was posted!

By the end of this evening, I am going to have finished at least one creative thing, which will be this posting! When I look at the huge list of things I want to do and things I have to do I always feel like I didn't do anything.

Now I know that's just plain wrong. Sometimes you just have to take care of business and things move forward on their own.