Chalk it up to inexperience, and not enough cold water, these little guys in the front got sprung.
I Know Who Poo’d
All summer I was extolling the virtue of neighbors and knowing them, then something dropped me in my tracks last week. It was a little pile of poo, neatly secreted through the a-hole of a very small dog, two of them in fact (turds and dogs). The dogs, I could discern from the droppings, were the little yippy kind. Only those kinds of dogs can squeeze out those baubulous bobbles of doo – the round, hard barely-a-fist-size kind. Only an annoying, overly-trimmed, tailored, and parlored kind of a canine can squeak out those equally offensive rocks. Not that I have anything against the dogs. I do not. It’s the owners who insist that just because a dog is of a certain size, dimension, and coat hair, it must be coddled, curled, and coiled up in travel baskets and squeezed into pastel duds that are even saccharine on a doll.
I have to pause to admit that I did not actually catch the canine culprits in action, but in light of surrounding circumstances, I can be pretty certain I know who they are or, at least, who their owner is. She’s a neighbor, but not an acquaintance or a friend. She was blathering away in a high-volume pipsqueaky kind of a voice very late at night a month or so ago, dead center of the sidewalk in front of my house. The words she was using did not match her manner of dress although I may be elaborating here. It seems she was cursing like a sailor. Or maybe it was the content of her call. I recall that there was something offensive enough about the occasion that it prompted me to take the rare step of using a stage whisper through the window to suggest she “move on.” Personally, I thought it was a nice way to say what she really deserved to hear.
This block is a quiet one. It’s a one-way. There are old people. There are babies. There are people with early-morning jobs. There are blue collars. There are white collars. And no one seems to know for sure or care at all which is each. There are new couples with babies. There are more than a few little old ladies. There are, I believe, even artists, but they’re the solitary kind that are up at night working, not up all hours talking about being artists. Or they’re the kind (like the one kitty-corner to me) who sleep at night to get up early and take their dogs on a non-poop littered walk so they can come home and give lessons to musicians (who aren’t as good as them but are getting better) so they can continue to be artists and musicians. (I, like others in this little stretch of row houses on my street, view these mini, on-going serenades of lessons as a fringe benefit to being on the block.) There are people who, if they need to have a lovers’ quarrel or family feud through the air waves, and can’t do so in the privacy of their own homes, will at least move on when someone makes their presence known, “ahems,” or kindly, as I did, suggest they move on. That night, the little chickadee in the Juicy Couture velour with her matching miniature whozseedoggywhatzsits, took offense at my suggestion. She said something utterly forgettable about it being a free country or me not owning her or the sidewalk or some such other nonsense that indicated she has no regard for making the world a better place through love, kindness, and peaceful harmony.
The first summer I lived in this house, in the year 2000, I had some friends from Wisconsin who came to visit. I don’t remember if it was a weeknight or a Friday night. Either way, it was late. We’d been drinking. We’d been laughing. We were on a back porch in Brooklyn. We were free. The night was ours. So we thought, until my next door neighbor, who works the graveyard shift, stuck his head out the window and barked at us to “Keep it down out there.” I wanted to crawl into the ground. It froze me. My friends all started cracking up over it, and eventually I did too. They took that moment and froze it in time. They still pull it out to polish it with retelling. It was their first true New York moment.
I put on my neighbor’s voice to put this pipsqueak in her place. “MOVE ON!” She was still yakking away when I went to put a collar on my good sized dog. She may be advancing in age, but she’s still more than twice the size of Juicy’s little rag dolls that were prancing near my front stoop. I don’t remember if I had to bring out the big dog, or if the silence of the night made her realize her words were falling loudly, and she might be outnumbered in the people who, in this moment,valued quiet over freedom. I still hadn’t said more than my two words repeated once. (I’ve been here long enough to know that on my block, like many, past a certain hour, it is best to do what can be done in few words). Within minutes the encounter was over.
So I thought that was the end of it. I’ve seen her since then. We have a silent pact that requires neither of us to look at the other. Nor are we required to extend the usual dog-walking courtesy of crossing the street if there’s any chance of an unpleasant interaction. We stay the path, bothering only to keep our dogs under tight rein. And I thought that was the way it was and the way it would be, and also the end of it.
But last week, I came home to poo on my pavement. Smack dab dead center. Unmistakably in front of my house. I started to tell my good neighbor/friend about it. She lives on the same end of the block as Juicy. My good neighbor/friend lives right next to Juicy’s apartment building with her two kids and partner. They’re out there so often, and soak in so much about the neighborhood, I’ve decided her partner’s the mayor. So in my retelling of what had happened, before I could get to the second “move on,” my friend was finishing the story for me. Turns out Juicy told the Mayor what happened. Next thing I knew, my friend/neighbor was telling me the rest of the story, with Juicy defending the fact that it’s a free country, and all she was doing was talking on her cell phone, and it wasn’t even really that late. And she doesn’t even really know them. So my suspicions were confirmed. She trained her dogs to poop on my path.
Now before you go thinking I’m jumping the gun on this conclusion, note that I have seen her since our initial encounter, loiter with her dogs in front of my house, looking around to see if anyone’s watching. A passerby always seems to appear before they get to doing their doo. The sidewalk, too, by the way, is a free and clear canvas. There are no hydrants, or flowerbeds to awaken the little doggies’ urges. Moreover, most people pick up their dog’s dookey, so much so that even a “curb your dog” sign on the block is rare.
So I was mulling all this over in my head tonight, as I took my dog out for a walk after being away all weekend. I have known my dog for a good seven years. She has never, in all the time that I’ve known her, ever pooped on the sidewalk. She has always had a yard at her (and for her) personal disposal. With only minutes to go till we turned the corner onto my block, she pulls over and squats deeper than is her custom. A few feet ahead of me, a delivery guy was getting on his bike. He was watching to see if we would cross first or if he should go ahead. In that moment was when my normally uber-private puppy got into that unmistakable crouch, nearly in the middle of the sidewalk. Of course having walked her without ever needing a bag, I was empty-handed save for her leash in my quickly tightening grip.
I didn’t have time to see whether she left a gift, but I think it was at least a token. I whisked her away hoping that whoever’s house it was doesn’t have a neighbor with a real, or perceived, vendetta.
Taking it to Another Level: fellow blogger learns the secrets of grow lights and water ways
Hello fellow revelers,
Just wanted to share a recent post from a fellow gardening blog, Gardening in the Boroughs of NYC. I met the author at the recent Big BK Seed, Etc., Exchange. I love this description of how she went to a lecture on hydroponic farming, which was informative but only served to even further pique her curiosity on the subject. Instead of setting down her pen and checking off the lecture as another thing done on her list of to-dos, she dug in deeper, and farmed for a way to learn more. She wound up with an internship to learn the deeper ins and outs of hydroponic farming with Boswyck Farms of Bushwick.
The post is a good reminder of the virtue in each of us, individually and collectively, to roll up our sleeves, dig in the dirt, learn the earth and its resources, explore new methods of doing, telling what we’ve learned and sharing, to the best of ability, our means to do more with less.
Revel reading, y’all!
http://nycgardening.blogspot.com/2011/09/hydroponic-farm-intern.html
Walking Before Midnight
Take a walk one night this week past ten, if you can. It’s rare air out there, breezing around the brink of summer and fall. There’s a unique quiet on the side streets and trees lit with Chinese lanterns and colored lights. Plaster madonnas peer past their plexiglass cases. Discarded miniature rockers and outgrown baby bouncer toys wait to move again. The requisite construction debris, with once treasures in heaps, lines a few row houses parallel to mine. I usually like to look between the buildings to see the back of my house and view it as others passing by. Tonight I delighted in my neighbors’ individual lots in their varying stages of care and decay. It’s worth a walk on a weeknight, when the more diligent have turned down their beds, to catch a city sighing under sleepless moon and clouds outlined in inky blue.
And you? What do you see when you take a late night stroll?
Go ahead … gimme the dirt.
It Was the Best of Times
It was the best of times. It was the best of times. Thank you so much to the fellow revelers who joined me today in the garden for some good eats, great company, and the best The Big BK Seed, Etc., Exchange ever! The best thing about it, of course, was the company … but wait’ll you see my stash o’ loot! I feel like a kid on Halloween night, buzzing with the warmth of friends, a belly full of nummy treats, and anticipating an evening sifting through the goodies! Big thanks to everyone for making it so much fun, and getting out here despite the lack of cooperation of the MTA. It reminded me of why I love gardeners. Special thanks to Ralph for the banana plants and bringing seeds for all, to Mimi for the awesome bruschetta and heirloom tomato seeds and spreading the word, and to Aimee for the books, flower seeds, yummy beans and delicious figs! And a big special thank you to my partner for warming the hearth (then cooling it with the best ice cream ever)!
CSA Today
Fresh and friendly. No tables due to some fortunate snafu. Seems lack of structure loosened strictures. I saw them tell one woman to take another bit of green beans and let one shopper with baby switch up the apples and plums even though the sign said one or the other. We’re getting there my fellow revelers! Could be close to end of season also means light at end of tunnel, and all the “volunteers” are realizing it wasn’t so bad after all (now that it’s almost over).
The haul, while getting slimmer in September, nonetheless is comprised of pretty healthy looking produce. Making collard greens for dinner tonight, along with roasted beets. Happy farming and feeding, all!
As Promised – Guest Post re CSA
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Reflections on My C.S.A. Involvement Observations from a New C.S.A. Member Guest Post by Matthew Donoher |
I joined a CSA this spring. This has been my first involvement with any group of this sort. It was briefly stated at my introduction/recruitment that I would be charged a fee, based on a sliding scale in accord with my income. This could be paid initially in full or by placing a down payment (which would be used to acquire the start up costs that a Farmer might use for seeds etc.). I then could make weekly payments, at the time of pickup to pay off the balance. Each week a distribution of locally grown, organic vegetables and fruits would be made at a designated time and place. Fruit is available at an additional cost, as are cheese, eggs, meat and wine (at the particular CSA of my membership). A condition of membership is involvement with the distribution for two periods of 2-1/2 hours. The distribution time is a four-hour period and it takes approximately ½ hour to set up and then break down the site.
At the time the program got under way this spring I was unemployed and I would come to the distributions at about 4:15, just as the site coordinator would be starting setup, and I would volunteer my services in doing the same. From this practice I became acquainted with how the organization worked out in the practical applications.
The farmer drops of the shipment in the early afternoon (an act which I never witnessed), the contents of which may or may not be known to the powers that be. At sometime after 4:00, the site coordinator and volunteer staff (members fulfilling their obligatory service) would begin setup. The site coordinator ultimately delegates individuals to tasks to which they are suited (lifting or nonlifting).
Setup involves pulling out tables from storage and bringing them to position in the yard, if it is clear and if not, under the porch roof. Then the produce is hauled, bushel and box and sorted by its type, taken from the pallets the farmer left earlier. All of the necessary scales to measure are dealt out, along with the chalkboards which are scribed to identify the produce. Let us not forget about the eggs & cheese, and whatever additional items.
It is at this time it seems that all of the distribution is evaluated and the quantities for each share are calculated and determined by count and or weight, because the delivery content can vary from the expected lot. All of this occurs in about a half-hour with a staff that probably is inexperienced to the task at hand (you might include indifference to the demeanor of the individual delegated to the role, although it is not the general attitude).
Breakdown is different from Setup; although I never participated actively, I was present for part of one and I can elaborate on the actions. Now there is all that was brought out of storage which requires to be put away. Although there are no full containers of produce, there is the residual share and left-over produce which has to be sold, donated or put away. Trash has to be removed and a general cleanup of the grounds is required. All of this with a staff that is anxious to leave as soon as possible having fulfilled their obligation, and all of this occurs — get ready — in the DARK. Would you want to be a site coordinator? Positions are available.
I believe this is why there are two coordinators at a site, one for each detail, Setup & Breakdown, at least to my observation.
It has been an interesting involvement, being a member in this organization, which began this spring. The location is easy enough for me to get to, I usually ride my bike there, its located just off Church and Flatbush avenues. All in total I feel it has been worth the while. I like this group, I meet people of interest with every visit, and I have developed some new friendships, (always worthwhile) and this will continue until some time in the fall.(at least). The food is a subject for another writing, I can say in all honesty that my refrigerator is stuffed with all sorts of leafy vegetation. With consideration I just may do it again next year.
Alternasourcing and Getting Back to the Garden
Hello fellow revelers,
I’ve been taking my time getting back up to speed on things in my garden and life since a much needed hiatus that involved throwing myself in heart, mind and soul in a writers’ workshop in the wilds of Vermont, with one phenomenal group of compadres, led by the magnanimous Crescent Dragonwagon, cookbook author extraordinaire (as well as children’s book author, poet, instructor, all around phenom, and etc.).
A rapid fire survey of the grounds this morning reminded me that a garden needs tending well past the browning of the last cuke on the vine. I’m not much of a fall gardener, but I still have the steadies going: my hot peppers upstairs, the various herbs, the last of my heirloom tomatoes, and that mysterious bush out back that I never did determine conclusively was dogwood or elderberry (the issue became less pressing when the local herbivores devoured the few fruit it produced this year). The pumpkins that I got after a friend’s show at a restaurant in New Haven last year gave the scene bountiful color with its vibrant squash blossoms springing from every vine wound relentlessly up, down, over and under every spare inch in my yard. Alas, I don’t think they’re going to give me a single jack-o-lantern by Halloween. My neighbor from Bangladesh watched as I cut back the wild rose bush that likes to keep sticking its neck over into her territory where her kids like to play. As we were talking, she saw me cut off one of the many pumpkin stems squirreling around the yard. She asked me why I cut it, since it had a small blossom that looked ready to bloom. I didn’t really know. I guess it was because we were in conversation, and as I said before, I don’t really like to talk as I’m gardening. It’s not the kind of multi-tasking that makes me feel like I’m accomplishing something. If anything, when I’m persuaded to talk while I’m gardening it robs me of that little bit of time I get away from the rest of the world. But this is a good neighbor, and I like her company, so I didn’t mind much this morning. But the point is that the talk made me absent-minded, and I plucked a perfectly good vine I likely wouldn’t have otherwise. She asked me for it, and said she’d like to cook it. I thought she meant the squash blossoms but she was talking about the leaves. I remembered a few years ago she gave me a plate of food she had made for Ramadan, and it had fish cooked with leaves from the squash she had growing out back. It was tasty and I’d meant to ask for the recipe then, but never did. This morning, after a few more minutes commiserating over a sad season for fruit trees (she has plum, peach, apple, and cherry in the back to my peach and cherry), she decided she wasn’t going to have time to cook today and handed me back my needlessly interrupted vine. I tossed it in with the other clippings to be put to the compost out back. We agreed that in the next couple weeks, we’ll make a day of picking and cooking the leaves that are now so overly abundant in the yard.
Something I heard several times last weekend at the workshop/retreat was one of Crescent’s sayings, inherited, I believe, from her father, Maurice Zolotow: “nothing is wasted on the writer.” The same, it seems, is true of the gardener.
As I mentioned before, the extent of tending my front yard last year was to toss whatever seeds I had aging in my basement to see if any would take root. As you likely know by now, my approach this year is slightly more steady, measured, and, hopefully, responsible, since that is a goal I’ve set for myself. I am moving toward living a more responsible life overall, one where little to nothing is wasted. Toward that end, I am supplanting my gardening with the exploration of additional paths to self-sufficiency since self-sufficiency is, in and of itself, responsible. Of course we don’t all have the means to “Thoreau” it all away and Walden our days away. For those of us who are revelers of the brick and mortar set (though not limited to this demographic), I am exploring, in various arenas, a practice I have coined “alternasourcing.” As I use the term (and invite others to collude), alternasourcing is the obtaining of goods and services from non-traditional sources, which, in its optimal functioning, provide sometimes less expensive and frequently more environmentally and socially friendly products. Alternasourcing is not just about where you get your goods. It is also about the how you obtain the things you need to live (as well as the things you want, hopefully with an eye to questioning needs/wants in a new way).
Alternasourcing may include, for example, minimizing the groceries you buy from the corner megastore, and supplanting it with regular visits to your local farmers’ markets, using your own space for herbs or whatever you have space for, learning how to forage for naturally grown wild edibles, or getting a plot in a community garden. (An aside: my uber-awesome neighbor/friend/co-gardener I mention frequently, and her partner, were on a three-year wait list in our not-super-hip ‘hood just to get a small triangular not-so-enviable plot in the local community garden.) So, while you’re waiting in line for a patch of dirt down the street, consider new ways to tick those items off your grocery list. It may include participation in a CSA, a venture I undertook this summer for the first time. For those of you who have been following, the journey has had its ups and downs, but summer’s not over, nor are the remainder of my bi-weekly shares. I’ve been chronicling it here, but thought it was time to bring in another voice (of reason, I believe) who has had a more hands-on CSA experience, and whose insight has helped answer nagging questions I’m left with after bagging up my produce (at that same community garden, btw). Long after I’ve bagged up my goodies and have unloaded them on my table to shoot, the questions linger. They usually concern the demeanor of the volunteers (disabusing me of the Pollyannaish notion that all gardeners are revelers). For the answer to this, and an inside peek at what goes on behind the other side of the table….read on my friends in the next post, for a spiffy piece comped by our friend, former neighbor and fellow reveler, Matthew Donoher, who, btw, I ran into on Church Ave. right before Irene hit, as I was vying with the other stragglers to get the last of the should-have-had-a-long-time-ago items, such as flashlights and batteries and radios. Matthew, to his credit, was cool as a cucumber, in search merely of a new baking sheet to try out an oatmeal cookie recipe. I have been blessed in my life with good neighbors.
How about you? What are ways that your life has changed in response to global climate changes, or economic turbulence, or just your own desire to live more efficiently/responsibly?
Go ahead… gimme the dirt!
Plants: Feline or Canine?
I just took a rare 20-30 minutes alone and sat on my upstairs terrace, sitting with nothing to eat or drink or read or write or distract me. I just sat, breathing in the late summer night. There used to be a big pine tree I loved that kept me hidden from view on the terrace. I didn’t mind that my view was obstructed. I usually went there looking for privacy, not to street or people watch. Tonight the night hid me. And I thought about plants. Some of them I baby more than others. The zinnias out front, the lettuce out back which has loved me back tenfold, and the tomatoes who have been showering me with their appreciation this past month.
And then there are the ones that just always seem to get pushed to the end of the list, which I often don’t reach. I’m usually remembering these guys as I’m racing down the block to the F train, or after I’m snuggled in bed. So tonight I spent a little time with them, observing but not really doing anything other than turning them around to give them a good sunward stretch. Surprisingly, they all seem to be loving my neglect. There’s a jalapeno plant in a large container that just gave me a couple bowlfuls of fruit. There’s also a cayenne pepper plant that wintered inside and I set on the terrace just to give a final good-bye. There’s a couple nice plump peppers waiting to be picked on the plant I formerly left for dead. There’s also a habanero out there because I hadn’t yet decided where to reuse the soil. It gave me a weird little – I’m guessing cross pollinated – bell/habanero-like thing earlier this summer. I’m keeping it going just cuz it keeps me guessing . Everyone out on the terrace is having a grand old time, whether I’m paying attention or not. They’re felines.
My front yard, however, is full of canines. At least that’s the way they’re behaving this year. All they want is all of my attention all the time. The hostas, who usually can withstand any near death experience or slow torture, spent half the summer telling me they couldn’t take the heat. Their leaves went into shock (and back again eventually). They’re sturdy, and they seemed to have weathered it okay in the end. I did spend several weeks this summer in a spin of shame. I mean, it’s bad when you can’t get a hosta to look good. It was painful. The roses, I am finding out, are definitely dogs. It was a drama queen for the last few weeks, looking at me accusingly whenever the zinnias got a little extra attention. So it got a nice long bath, replete with vegetable/flower spikes, some sweet nothings whispered to its stems, its leaves lovingly caressed till I must have got too intimate and it halted me with a thorn. But lo and behold, whenever it gets this one on one time, as if out of nowhere the most beautiful sweetly scented buds appear. Ah, she’s a revel gardener’s best friend (hope my dog isn’t reading this .. she’ll be pissed!).
As I feel autumn inch its way into the evening air, I know very soon I’m going to be missing my leafy friends. Each one, of the feline or canine persuasion, has given back more than I dreamed in life lessons and, in many instances, literal sustenance this summer. I can only hope I honor them sufficiently by taking their lessons to friends and progeny in the seasons ahead.
p.s.
almost forgot my point about the tomatoes. They’re no shrinking violets either. So I didn’t stir them. So? They didn’t care. Sometimes I think people put steps in directions just to make it seem more involved than it actually is. All we’re really doing with growing the mold is mimicking what happens when a tomato drops from the vine, rots on the ground and spills out her juice and seeds, except we have the extra step of planting in the spring. Until then, put on your big kid apron on (or don’t), go get those seeds, plug your nose, and get crackalackin!
revelgardener 