Further Musings

This year we got to host a few folks for Thanksgiving dinner.  Twas lovely meal in a lovely setting.

This morning we watched Rivers and Tides with a few friends over sausage breakfast casserole and molasses bread.   I’d seen it once before and watching it again today made me restless to creates something with my hands.  I’ve been frustrated with my inability to do anything with the backyard, all my ideas are too grand.

JQ brightly suggested I try the front and Steve talked about how art is risk.  With those two encouragements I circled round the yard until I began to uncover again a pile of rocks at the edge of one of our giant oaks.

This is what’s come so far.  There’s a small winding wall that tries to evoke Goldsworthy’s wall at Storm King but is only two stones high   None of it is awing but it is fun and I enjoyed building it.

NPR and the Avett Brothers are providing the free soundtrack for my cooking fiesta tonight: Provencal barley, honey whole wheat bread, and a fresh batch of muesli for the morning.  I’m really pleased with the Provencal barley made in part from our home grown basil and tomatoes.  Yuminess.

I think part of what I’m going to do with this year is cook the complicated recipes in the New Basics that I’m always intimidated by.  They’re always fancy looking but man, they always taste good.

From last year, before the landlord next door finally hired someone to care for her property.

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It’s Sunday afternoon and I’ve dragged our desk chair into the bedroom to gaze out upon our backyard.  I’ve looked at this backyard for many years now and it makes me smile to see it as it is now: mostly clean; scattered with flowers, centered around a veggie bed that has given us many, many tomatoes this summer.

I’m staring out this window because it’s a room that I can shut off from the noise from the living room where the TV currently hold sway.  And I’m loving looking out it for the different view it gives than the front.  The front of our house is shaded by two giant pine oak trees.  They tower skyward for 40 or 50 feet before the gracefully branch out into big sweeps that twitter in the light breezes.  They shade the front yard and they blot out all competitors with their acidic touch and heavy shade.  Our front yard needs to be cut twice a season for the odd weed that grows above the moss and occasional grass.

The backyard, in contrast, is a riot of growth. Thick, green, maple trees shade the right side with their branches overhanging swaths of ivy and wisteria that longs to reach up and swallow all it can grab.  The center of the yard nearest the house is in fact a yard, though a “natural” yard: free of fertilizers, weedkillers and grass.  Instead each weed fights the next one to see how high they can grow only to be mowed down every couple of weeks.   The back left is a tumble of grapevines, honeysuckle and kudzu, each entangling the other.  The center of the yard towards the back we have fought to a stand still with respective gardens: flowers in the back and veggies in the middle.  The fence to the left has been beaten back for years in a hard fought battle against a wall of vines 90 feet long and 30 feet high.  At the base there is an alley where I’ve cut a path between the neighbor’s monstrous growth and the fence but it is only just wide enough to walk down.  Above head height the vines twine towards the light of yard, each month building another layer of structure to reach out, killing the trees and clawing towards the air above our yard like a leaning, insatiable green monster.

This year I planted several of these to add color to our chain-link fence.  I’ve loved their lush green and bright, bright yellow rolling along the top of the fence line.  Should we be around next year, I think I’ll fill the fence with them from front to back and mix in some cardinal climber to add some bright red as well.

The summer is drawing to a close but this guy is about to open.

It may be brief, but what glory it is.  Our neighbors gave these to us last year.  I just love them massed in a bright and tangled line of color blazing through the very heart of the garden.

(clicking on photo brings up desktop sized image)

What a glorious day here in Chapel Hill with blue skies, bright sun and cool shade.

One thing I remember well about the house Charity lived in before we were married was the huge chive plant outside their back door.  I like having this one in our backyard.  The flowers are beautiful and when we need fresh chives we’ve got them.  Haven’t needed them yet, but when we do we’ll have them!

This year we’re hosting a community garden in the backyard.  The previously cultivated area, with its fantastically amended soil, is simply too big for us to make use of all of it.  Several folks had mentioned to us over the winter that they would love some garden space and now they have it.

It’s great for us as it means less mowing and weeding because they’re subduing sections of the yard instead of us and we’re delighted to have the company.  Kudos to Charity for this great shot capturing the scene Sunday afternoon in the gorgeous central NC weather.

It’s a bit nostalgic for me to be a part of a group of folks farming in CH, community style.  One of the old photos of me as a three-year-old is my mom, myself, and my brightly colored plastic wheelbarrow in front of our community garden in Carrboro, not 3 miles away from where I’m typing this morning.  I think it’s pretty cool that 27 years ago I was a part of a community garden and yesterday I was again.

Some people have a mommy blog.  I am aware that I am slowly slipping into having a garden blog but how can you not write about something you’re so excited about?  I’m pleased as punch to see these peaking out at the passers by.  Last year I separated and transplanted these white and yellow beauties from the backyard out onto the front embankment. I hope they bring an extra bit of celebration to the neighbors.

Last week, whenever we tried to flip on the outside lights, a buzzing noise would begin to build:  bzzzzzzZZZZZ pop!  And out would go all the lights on that circuit.

To try to avoid the expense of an electrician I replaced one of the light switches.  Though it didn’t fix the problem it got me on a home repair kick.  I weatherstripped both exterior doors (no more cold air blowing on our feet), fixed the leaking washing machine, and installed a new outside light.

Our small group of friends has been talking a lot about building the Kingdom.  I think there is something profoundly humanizing about the ability to make changes for the better in the places we live.  It was felt good to bring some order and improvement to A&C’s little corner of the world.

On Friday afternoon I was sitting at the computer in the den when the lights flickered.  A friend called and then two or three minutes later my across-the-street neighbor called.  I stood up to look over at his house to see what he wanted.  As I peered across the flames in my front yard I couldn’t quite make him out.  Wait!?  Flames!?  On the front bank, 50 feet away and moving towards our house?! Ah!!!

Assuming (correctly as it turned out) that our neighbor had called 911 first and then called me  I didn’t waste time actually answering his call.  Instead I ran to the hall closet while yelling for a napping Charity to “Get up!  Get up!  Get up our yard’s on fire!” (Turns out the word fire was required for her to actually start moving).

Dumping our cleaning supplies across the floor I shoved an empty bucket underneath the bathtub spigot.  As it filled I could hear the fire truck approaching.  I ran outside and dumped the water on flames closest to the house.  The Carolina blue fire truck pulled up, the firemen hoped out and quickly sprayed the front embankment with dirty water from the truck dousing the fire.

All in all it only burned about a 10 foot diameter circle 50 feet from the house but it was quite disconcerting to see.  We think that that the electrical transformer directly above fire probably sparked and started the fire given that our light’s flickered, as did our neighbor’s.  The power company paid a visit to the transformer later that night and has hopefully solved the problem!

All ended well except that the firemen used a rake to make sure the fire was out and beheaded several of the daffodils.  I’m thankful they were the only casualties.

This afternoon, under the warm sunlight of these first days of another Chapel Hill spring, I cut behind the empty pink house next door on my way home.  The house has been empty for nearly a year.  On the whole its yard is a tangle of vines, dead trees, and patchy yard, but as I cut through gravel parking lot that is the backyard a bright spot of color caught my eye amongst the empty beer cans and dusty gravel.

How these little jewels have survived the years of uninterested renters is beyond me but I’m thankful for this burst of beauty on my way back home today.

(Clicking on either picture shows a larger version.)

The other afternoon I was cutting up an orange and caught a peak of the light through it.  I love to eat them but I rarely notice how beautiful they are.

Today was our first really nice day of spring here in Chapel Hill.  Despite my hacking cough I ventured outside with Charity to work in the yard in the warm afternoon sun.

I pulled a few weeds. Charity was somewhat more ambitious. Don’t mess with my Honey.