I'm snow impatient

We had 40 degree weather again today, and the DC remnants of snowmageddon seem confined to the ice mountains assembled by the plows. But west of here there's still nearly six inches of compacted accumulation, even on the south facing hillsides. That means, barring a heat wave or lots of rain, it will be a while before I can prepare and till my barley field in Ravenna and get my crops in. I had been hoping for mid March. Not looking likely at this point.

I brewed some ale this weekend from store bought ingredients (pictured) and reassured myself that April could still work for planting.

The snow does not bar me from hiking anymore at least. On the Appalachian Trail near Boonsboro, it was desolate except for one team of folks doing some clearing of downed trees off the trail. "Howarya," we exchanged in greeting. They looked at me and my friend Mohammad like we were slightly crazy for deciding to wade for miles through the snow. "Cabin fever," I explained casually and shrugged my shoulders.

They missed the part where we decided to slide Mohammad's iPhone down a snowy hill while it was recording a video. So at least I didn't have to explain to a man armed with a chainsaw that, hey it's ok, we're the good kind of crazy. "Please put the saw down now, sir." Have a look.

keep on rottin' in the free world

Once when I was sailing in Bahamian pirate land, I met a Scotsman who lived up to every frugal stereotype in the book. Maybe he had to. He lived with all of his possessions on a wind generator-powered sailboat with a cat as his first mate, as he migrated bi-annually between St. Augustine and Marsh Harbour, chasing the warm weather. He lived the most free existence I have seen thus far, though he was a pensioner, so it's not like he also had to pull in some sort of salary. Anyway, before he would have a single malt, he would first swish some water around in the glass and pour it out.

"Does that make it taste better?" I asked.

"Nae, lad," says he, explaining the water served to line the glass. "Aie can't abide the thought o' one bloody drop gwin ta waste."

Makes sense to me. I hate waste. I mean, I hate it to the point where I feel compelled to scavenge whenever I see useful items in the trash. Reusing is of course much greener than recycling. Dumpster divers, we understand each other, my brethren, do we not? Anyway, the same mentality lends itself very smoothly and admirably to composting.

I throw out the equivalent of one small grocery bag's worth of garbage every two weeks. I'm sure I could do better. The reason for the small discharge is that the remains of the carbon-based life forms (in my case stuff like vegetable & fruit peelings, stems, onion skins, coffee grinds & filters, and paper) get composted. Yes, even the junk mail (minus envelopes, colored paper/ink and plastic windows) gets shredded and added to the pile. Very satisfying, considering how my efforts to get off the ad men's lists have never seemed to work. The system does especially well with a purely vegetarian diet, but carnies don't have to totally despair.

I switch the location of the compost bin (pictured) around each year, which makes it easier to plow the decomposed material into the soil. Everyone's happy.

We should all aspire to be compost someday. Such thoughts arouse my morbid sense of curiosity, which has just led me to this article. Spare me your disgust. We live our entire lives as parasites. I eat plants now. I have no problem with them eating me later.

three sisters

By 2008, I'd made up my mind to plant the area around Ed and "Mintania" with corn. There was enough space, and the general gardening rule of thumb I've learned is you either choose between crops or weeds. There is no such thing as a dead zone. You simply make a decision on what you prefer. In the first two years, I chose weeds because I didn't have the time to keep plowing them up.

Corn is probably one of America's most prolific and subsidized crops, hence the rise of the ethanol industry. But it's damn good and it's more versatile than wheat since you don't have to mill it in order to consume it. It's useful fresh or dried.

Some time ago, I got interested in Native American culture and history. This intensified after I discovered "the family secret" on my maternal grandmother's side. I think we're part Cherokee. Now I have an answer whenever people ask me if I'm part Asian. Seriously, they do sometimes. But back in 1920's Virginia, when you could only classify yourself as either "white" or "colored," and that determined where you lived, went to school, jobs, etc., if you could pass for white, then that's what you said you were. My great-grandmother Lelia (pictured) was a remarkable woman with many gifts. If I ever have a daughter, I hope to pass her name along.

Anyway, Native American agriculture was based upon the "three sisters" system of planting corn, beans and squash together. In summary, the corn stalk provides a pole for the beans to climb. The beans add nitrogen to the soil. And the squash spreads out in between and crowds out the weeds. Nice and harmonious. So this is what I set out to do.

My first attempt faltered. I planted the corn in rows, you know, like every good farmer does. That crowded out too much sun for the squash and often left one corn stalk shouldering all the weight of the bean plant. Then, after seeing how it's supposed to be done at the National Museum of the American Indian, I wised up and did circular clumps of 3-4 corn plants spread out in mounds, with a bean plant in the middle, and squash (I like zucchini) in the wide patches between the mounds. Much better.

the witnesses

I've decided you kind of develop a friendship with your perennial plants that come back year after year. My oldest is a spearmint plant that began life in my late grandmother's garden. "Such a nuisance," she said. "It just takes over." Ah, but when there is mint tea and tabouli to be had, you work out a compromise with its expansionist nature. It lives in the black plastic pot, half submerged in the background (back left of photo). It stealthily tries to take over the whole corner, but I refer back to our 2006 negotiated treaty that established the mutually recognized borders of Mintania. As the pot slowly deteriorates, those terms will probably have to be renegotiated.

The second is the red raspberry plant in the foreground. "Ed," as he was named by an ex girlfriend. Ed has expansionist privileges that the mint can only dream of. This pic was taken in June 2006, soon after I drove Ed over from the nursery and installed him. He's at least 3X bigger now. As you can see, the weeds have already recovered from my labor the month before. This was before I started growing corn in that area.

Along with the asparagus, oregano and thyme are also permanent residents. "Be fruitful and multiply," spake I. It's supposed to be good to talk to plants anyway. This study shows that women have an advantage in that field though.

beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy

I'm temporarily skipping ahead to the present day. By way of another century.

People who know me well know that I have a lifelong love affair with beer. It started when I was four and an older cousin, as a joke, let me have a taste. Minutes later I was finishing off unclaimed beers at the family crab feast (we're all Marylanders on my dad's side). I don't think anyone realized this occurred until the ride home when my parents looked in the back seat and asked themselves "What's wrong with the boy?" My happiness was cut short by bewildered scolding and my many demands that we pull off the road so I could pee.

A few years ago, I began brewing my own, with good results. On a visit to my paternal ancestral town of Biedenkopf, Germany, I let slip over some Bosch that I was a brewer and was politely asked to restore the family presence there since the small town, which once boasted four breweries (like the one in the picture), was now utterly deprived. If someday there is a such a thing as a President Palin or President Cheney (what's Liz up to?), I'm going to have to keep that offer in mind.

I digress. This year, I obtained permission to plow up some land adjoining my trailer home at Ravenna to grow barley and hops. The do-it-yourselfer persona is excited with anticipation. OK, so I don't know how to actually malt barley ... yet. I've got a few months to figure that one out. But my first attempt to "grow my own beer" will serve as more blog fodder as the year progresses. I've already got the barley seed from Seeds of Change and I'm going to order the hop rhizomes today.

life in West Nile

I spent a full May 2006 Saturday digging up the weeds by the roots, turning them over, chopping up the exposed soil with the blade of the shovel, and moving on to the next shovel-full. I discovered that the mosquitoes here are pretty damn hungry. After covering every bit of exposed skin with itchy welts, they went on to bite through my jeans and shirt.

Once when I was in high school, I'd managed to cut myself pretty badly on a piece of glass on the way to a talent show audition and I remember some friends following the trail of drops of blood through the hallways to the music room where they adoringly told me, "You have such pretty blood!" Apparently if you're a tiger mosquito, it tastes pretty good too. Whenever I go to my garden, it's like I'm wearing a dinner bell around my neck. My neighbors don't seem to have this problem. Vegetarians really do taste better (or at least smell better according to this study).

Anyway, by hand tilling I managed to save all the asparagus plants. I also found some plants that looked like, well something potentially edible. They weren't. BTW, I still do this when something different looking shows up. I've had better results since. Last year, this strange vine appeared out of nowhere and I decided to let it be. Turned out it was a lima bean plant.

I do plan to finally rototill the non-perennial sections of my plot this spring. There is some kind of deeply-rooted mean-spirited weed that pops up everywhere on extremely short notice through inches of mulch and even wooden boards, and it chokes the hell out of my plants. The winter strategy review concluded that the infantry can't always handle it quickly or thoroughly enough, so an air strike is needed.

welcome to the jungle

H.D. Thoreau, where would my life be without you? You are the most prominent among my personal pantheon.

I like the outdoors. I have a do-it-yourselfer streak. I like to cook. I like the smell of dirt, freshly tilled. The best night's sleep I ever had was after I spent a whole summer day bailing hay in order to bribe a farmer into showing me the whereabouts of a forgotten family burial ground.

Gardening is the answer to a life sentence of the slow fluorescent death in an indoor office. It's also a kind of a laboratory in the event that someday I decide not to make that particular compromise anymore.

So, step one, I contacted a local community garden to see about plot availabilities. It was May by then, but there was one 15' by 20' plot left. "It needs a little cleaning up," said the manager, in a clever understatement. "I'll take it," says I, enthusiastically, and sent off my $20 annual rent that afternoon.

The photo is of my garden plot as I first saw it in early May 2006. "I'll rototill it for $60," said the manager with a sly smile. Nope. Perhaps he didn't see that there was some asparagus somehow surviving in that mess. This needed a hands on approach. Anyway, I like physical labor right? Or at least I guess I really like asparagus.