Tag Archives: wisconsin

Winter Breeze Makes Me Feel Not So Fine

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I’m used to the cold. I’m used to snow. I was a kid in Wisconsin in the 70s and 80s, and would be woken up by my mom early mornings to scrape ice inches thick off the car windows. I reveled in snow days and more than once thought about wearing snowshoes to get from the front door to the school bus waiting at the end of our drive. Winter doesn’t bother me. Snow and ice do not frighten me. As a teenager, in the snowiest months my sister and I would try to find a semi-truck to drive behind both to save on gas (less driving against the wind) and to clear the road ahead of us as we drove away from our home out in the country for a big night out on the town (in the nearby metropolis which boasted about 35,000 residents – a Mecca to us then). As uncomfortable as some of those winter-life adjustments may have been, they were normal and nearly painfully predictable.

So what has me and others calling this the winter of our discontent should come as no surprise. It’s the fact (no longer question or issue) of climate *change*. I wondered as I watched the State of the Union address last week whether it was the first time a President has referred to climate change in such a nonchalant way, like talking about oil and gas prices, education, unemployment, and other standard areas of common concern. My worry is that now that it’s a given, there seems to be a resigned acceptance. It’s like those fighting the battle to stem the tide of global warming had the wind taken out of their sails defending its existence and what they called it (global warming vs. climate change as if that makes any difference to the birds and seas, or to you and me). So wrapped up in the political fight(s), they got little done in time. And no one, it seems, really knows if it’s too late. And if it’s not, how to reverse the damage.

Here we are with summer in January in the should-be coldest parts of the world and winter sitting in the lap of the normally mildest. In January, it got colder in Chicago than in the South Pole. In Juneau, Alaska, flowers bloomed out of season. Water in the North Pacific is up to seven degrees warmer than most years. Meanwhile, more than 36,000 flights were cancelled due to extreme weather conditions, three times more than in the past two Januarys. An early count shows more than a thousand local records were set for snowfall in January in the United States, while California is shutting down ski resorts for lack of snow. A recent survey found that the water content of California’s snowpack is at just 12% of average, the lowest it’s been since record-keeping of the measure began in 1960. As a result, the state has announced it will not distribute state water supplies to its 25 million customers and nearly a million acres of irrigated farmland unless there is an abundance of wet weather by May 1. These cities and farms that normally rely on state supplied water will have to look elsewhere. They will have to tap underground reservoirs, if they have any, and ask other districts to buy or borrow some. No doubt there will be significant costs involved, something municipalities in cash-strapped California and already facing the economic blows of drought can ill afford. Mandatory rationing of water has already commenced in some areas. If one thing is predictable, it’s that the painful effects of California’s drought, and I’m sure other consequences of aberrant weather, will be far reaching this year.

Welcome, I’m afraid, to the new normal.

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Diggin the Dirt on Flowers

Fellow revelers, help me out with the following question that was posed:

What types of flowers are the readers out there growing? I’ve almost ignored flowers since I started my renewed interest in the garden. I have a few calendulas (pot marigolds) growing in a small pot, and a handful of neglected bulbs in the ground along one fence which keep coming back year after year. Any ideas on some nice flowers to grow?

As for me, in the front yard I have my famous day lilies from Wisconsin alternating with the hostas (which bloom every year now that they’ve matured – this is one of the things that I very much love about hostas, which can otherwise seem kinda bland).  Again behind the front row of flowers/hostas, I have some white small flowers whose name I cannot remember.  I want to say nasturtium but I know that’s not it (anyone who can take a peek at my photo here, and help me out, please do).  The native plant garden is just behind that, with a black-eyed susan that’s now giving me plenty of blooms.  I love having this in my yard.  It reminds me of the Replacements song, I Saw Susan Dancing in the Rain.  I think next year I may grow daisies just b/c of Prince’s song that has the line in it: I’m blinded by the daisies in your yard…

Onto the steps, where I have zinnias, three pots for each of three of my favorite people.  In the backyard I have begonias, and upstairs petunias so I can sing the song, “I’m a lonely little petunia in an onion patch, an onion patch, an onion patch…and all I do is cry .. boohoo boohoo.”

A few days ago I bought some bulbs at Home Depot because they were 75% off, and they looked pretty.  Hard to resist.  I’m planning on keeping them for next spring, though I’m not sure how well they keep (I’m assuming there will be no problem with them but have no experience to go on here).  They’re gladiolas and dutch irises (LOVE the smell of these).  A friend, many moons back, gave me crocus bulbs but it was in my pre-garden days and I never did get them in the ground.  I may get some next year; these would be inspired by the Joni Mitchell song about having crocuses to bring to school tomorrow…

QUESTION: Has anyone else’s garden been inspired by a song? Any recommendations for any particular flowers?  I used to keep marigolds around some of my vegetable plants but haven’t needed them this year.

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Still on the Weed

This discussion of weeds: is there really such a thing? has generated a touch of interest and a tad of controversy, so I think we should stay on the weed, for now, so to speak.  In this post, I look at what constitutes a weed.  As in the words of one famous reveler, “A weed by any other name would smell as sweet.”  Another fellow reveler put it better when he said, in relevant part (the rest is good too, check it out in the full comment appearing earlier today):

I recently listened to a podcast where someone said ‘a weed is an herb growing in the wrong place’. It still makes sense if you broaden the term herb to plant. Although I never thought of it, weeds serve to help the garden. Weeds are often some of the first flowers to appear in the garden and attract bees and other beneficial insects.  Check out http://www.theselfsufficientgardener.com and listen to the episode on weeds. It gave me a whole new outlook on weeds, and gave my garden a different look- especially the part that now grows wild. Once I did go walking through the wild section with a machete. It’s not that it is that wild, I just needed to cut the tall grass seeds and get rid of them without damaging the red clover growing below. The lawn mower would have cut everything. …  I hate to kill plants, especially if I planted them.  (Thanks Ralph!)

As I mentioned, my mother is here visiting from Wisconsin.  She has been preparing, for quite a long time now, for one massive blow-out rummage sale in Beloit in August.  My mom seems to be a magnet for things: she knows antiques, books, history, dishes, furniture, philosophy, literature, music, records, record players, and this and so much more.  She seems to be able to find something to appreciate in nearly every person and every thing.  For that reason, she has amassed quite a collection of oddball items and exquisite finds.  And it is all good stuff.  It’s just that it’s still, well, stuff.  She has recognized the need to let go of it, and saying good-bye to all of it, properly, has turned out to be quite an undertaking.  She has undertaken to meticulously wash, inspect, iron, shine and spiff every little thing and every little thing on every little thing.  My dad has suggested the process is ravaging her, and she needs to just let go of it.  Which is exactly what she is doing.  She, I believe, in this ritual preparation is saying good-bye to these things of hers which have become weeds.

For a year or more, I went through a process of letting go of decades of collected stuff.  The task was to big for me on my own.  I had a professional clutter buster who helped me see that the only way to make room for new and better things in your life is to let go of the clutter, which is, basically, anything that’s not useful anymore.  So over the course of that year, I undertook multiple clutter busting sessions.  The process changed my life.  I happened upon his blog today, and found this very apt description of his of clutter busting:

It’s common that clients are surprised at how much stuff they actually have. As the clutter bust proceeds, more and more stuff is found hidden in drawers, closets, under the bed, in boxes, underneath things and in piles. It’s like the clown car at the circus, twenty clowns end up coming out of a tiny car.

We get anesthetized by our clutter and we lose touch. Our awareness is dulled. In the same way vision can get hazy, awareness gets out of focus. We get used to the blur and it becomes normal for us. 

That’s why I’m kindly relentless with encouragement to dig deeper into your stuff. There’s hidden stuff silently wrecking your life.

see today’s post (June 27, 2011) on Brooks Palmer’s blog: http://brooks-palmer.blogspot.com/

I think if there’s room left for the word “weed,” to me it would be defined as clutter in the garden.

If you take a close look at the portrait of my garden, you’ll notice that there’s a patch of brownish green grass toward the bottom (close to my house and farthest from the fence), and, as described, this is where begins the grass/weeds/wild section of the yard.  It occupies several feet from where the picture ends to the front of my house.  My mom suggested that I build up the soil in that area to keep rainwater from seeping and puddling toward the basement.  And, she said, as long as I’m at it, I may as well plant some things there too.  I’m wondering if this is her subtle way of disapproving of that remainder of the yard that is still wild and unruly.  Were she to make a blatant suggestion that I do anything with it other than let it be as it is, she knows I would defend it and launch into one of my weeds-are-plants-too rants.  Bless her heart.

I may do it.  I may try to tame that part of the yard.  I’m not sure if that wild part of my yard is a nod to my own rebellious side, or if I just got exhausted plotting and planting the front half of the yard, and let the rest of it rest.  I will probably do something in the back half.  I’ll probably put my mom to work on it too.  Who knows what we’ll discover there.  It takes a very special dynamic to garden with another person.  Maybe instead we’ll just kick back with some beer and cheese, and watch the grass grow.

QUESTION: What in your life, or garden, or garden of life needs weeding?  Is there anything in your garden that has lost its usefulness to you?  What other plant or thing might arrive when you make room for it?  Go ahead … gimme the dirt!

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