Sunday Time Changes & Preparing For Summer

It was a good weekend to be off the phone.

Early this morning, before the gray light took over the valley, before the birds had started their thing, while the wind was still blowing in the tree branches in waves across the mountains, there was a squirrel that sat on a thick limb outside our bedroom porch door, which was open, and sat chattering away, I think just to himself, like a mumbling drunk just home from the bars, hoping I’d listen.

---

It’s evening now. I just washed the dirt off my hands. The day got away from me in the best sort of way. Outside almost all day.

It’s March 8, and we typically would have snow if not on the valley floor, not far above it, and back in the valley’s snow would surely still litter and line all the trails, packed ice, dripping mud, but this year, for the most part, there is no snow until quite high above all the valley floors. And rather than bemoan the inevitable, I grabbed the garden tools and went to work in the back yard.

As we haven’t had snow in weeks in the valley other than a few quick and short lived bursts, the garden has been open to the sun and weeds have already begun growing. So I went to work against them today. First I took the stirrup hoe, sometimes called an action hoe, and broke apart the entirety of the top layer. This tool is good at cutting pants from their roots and then when digging deeper, pulling up the bottoms of those roots, for the most part anyway. When it comes to deep rooted weeds, a shovel is required to break the deepest part of the root way from its hold in the soil.

So I broke the soil and pulled up all the growing parts as best I could. Then using a pitchfork, or more specifically an ensilage fork to pull all the roots and plant remnants out of the ground. In a few places I had to tackle deep seated weeds with a shovel to overturn deep soil and break the weeds free.

Then I cut a nice deep edge all the way around the permitter of the garden. This deep clean edge helps prevent the lawns grasses from having an easy step into the garden. I tend to cut this at the beginning of the season and then again a couple more times during the season, because as soon as the soil goes back into place the yard has an easy time working it’s way over into the garden.

Next took some eggshells and coffee grinds that had been building in a bucket in the house and broke them up and spread them across the dirt, burying them in, with especially care to break up chunks of espresso pucks, because Acre, for no good reason, has been caught at least a couple times eating discarded coffee grinds. I don’t have an explanation on that one. This is the same dog that will race me to a fallen coffee bean on the floor as if it’s a piece of wonderful meat. All I can say is he’s my dog.

The sun was out today. It was warm. In a tshirt and shorts it’s this season that I begin to realize how little sun I’ve had since October. And while it often isn’t until April, getting back in the sun a little early does not bother me in the least. In these parts a lot of people can already be heard bemoaning an unknown but assumed fire season. I’m not having it. We might have a huge fire season. We might not. Thinking that snowpack in March determines it is not accurate. I’ve been here long enough to know we can have huge snow years followed by rapid melts, early hot and dry summer, and unpredicted fire seasons. I’ve also seen the opposite, winters of low snow pack followed by early wet and cold summer, and then a late summer that get’s regular intermittent rain and even snow, and almost no fires at all. Again, unpredicted. Predictions are guesses at best. The lottery. Poker. I don’t have the bandwidth to listen to complaints about such variable in the unknown future. I don’t enjoy a heavy smoke year any more than anyone, but I’m not apt to complain 6 months before it gets here.

After a good few hours of lingering yard work I pulled on my new runners for a quick spin. I ran last Sunday and with fair “success,” my first real run since last August. I’d done one or two short loops near the creek, all at level, and very short distance, but last Sunday I ran a satisfying 50 minutes up a gentle grade to a flat just below a ridge for a nice view of the valley, and experienced no pain during the run. I felt the knee a few times… not pain, but notification of it’s presence which I still view as a sign of it not being totally healed, but no pain was an improvement. Last Monday and Tuesday I felt a slight bit of pain but nothing that stopped me from exercising it but I did not run on it again until today. And today Acre and I ran what I’d call a chill, moderate hill and carried on for another 50 minutes, again without pain. This was more vertical than last week, still mellow, still very slow, but bit by bit it seems to be working. I probably won’t run again until next weekend. And I’m curious to see what the week brings. Pain? I’m likely to have more pain in my back from gardening, I hope anyways.

Gardening back is a thing I seem to have to build every spring. I’ve yet to find a good exercise to carry on with that keeps it at bay.

My brain has been a little something that resembles off, but in a good way today. I had a last minute podcast invitation yesterday, and I took it, and really enjoyed the conversation. But I didn’t realize how much three + hours of talking would drain me. I definitely should have eaten before it. Lesson learned. Turns out you drain a good bit of energy in that sort of thing. I didn’t know that. Next time I’ll be more prepared. At least I had plenty of coffee.

We covered a lot of topics, from building Black Coffee, to trying to optimize days for a creative life. When it comes out I’ll offer a link to check it out, though I warn you, I’m not convinced that podcasts are my best form. It’s one I’d like to do more of, as I tend enjoy hashing out ideas with another in focused conversation in a similar but totally different way related to how I like to hash out ideas on page.

The two acts lead to the same place, but do so through very different avenues. And while I’m sure there are plenty of podcast hosts that are more challenging to talk to, the few I’ve done I’ve been lucky to be talking to very articulate and interesting people who are apt to ask questions conducive for interesting conversation.

So overall, a great weekend.

I kept having to put off this Substack and then the time changed and I’ve lost an hour tonight, but here we are. I’ve got the photos done for this week’s PhotoRoundUp. If time permits I’ll get it sent out tonight, otherwise, this next week will be a double PhotoWeek. Stay tuned.