Send Me a Lumberjack
I’m feeling a little content constipation. It’s probably August, because I think we can all agree that as a general rule, no matter how much we think we’re looking forward to August, it generally turns into a month-long suckage. Heat. Humidity. Drought. Rain. Blight. Fog. Mexican Bean Beetles. School shopping. Faint smell of cat pee in the carpet that can’t be pinpointed. Heat. Humidity. Weird fungi growing under every plant in the garden.
Really, I find myself once again at the place where I’m thinking it might be time to just rip out the entire garden, throw on some extra straw mulch and call it a year. The weather has gotten so funky and extreme. Nothing is ripening in any numbers big enough for actually putting food up for winter. We pick, we eat. We watch and wait. We (I) try not to beat myself up for having yet another unsuccessful garden season. The gardener in me laments moving into town beneath hundred year-old oak trees and desperately misses the acres of sunny land out at the old house. But I don’t miss living there, so I’ll get over it. But is it bad for me to wish for a big lightning storm to come through and knock down three of the offending shade-making trees? Trees that are in otherwise perfectly good health?
I’m thinking the neighbors aren’t going to like me too much once we get solvent with this real estate debacle we’re in because people, I’m putting aside some paycheck for tree removal.
So this is why it’s been blog-lite around here of late. I’m just a little at a loss.
Technorati Tags: garden, organic gardening, August
"All through the long winter, I dream of my garden. On the first day of spring, I dig my fingers deep into the soft earth. I can feel its energy, and my spirits soar."
~Helen Hayes
August 21st, 2007 at 8:16 pm
Hey, K! I’m with you on the tree removal. Every night we go for a walk and take note of just how huge some of the trees have gotten in our city neighborhood so that streets are now dark with shade and houses totally overshadowed. We took out a huge one in our back garden last year and, oh, what a fabulous difference. Now the sun shines in and we can grow grass! I think small fruit trees or cedar trees are what we need in the city…but I know that’s a bit sacrilegious. Still….I’m sticking with it!!!
August 21st, 2007 at 8:22 pm
I totally feel your Blog Content Pain. I’m lucky I got that advance copy of Backyard Giants to fill some space for a couple days. I finally got enough tomatoes to justify firing up the canner, but the weather has been nasty and I’m disgusted with the whole thing.
I had some tree work done last year along the property like and it made a huge difference in the garden. Yeah the neighbors will piss and moan, but if they’re not gardeners and canners they’ll never understand how important it is.
On the bright side, I have lots of slicing tomatoes laying around wrapped in newspaper so there’s good eats.
August 21st, 2007 at 9:26 pm
Hey Kelly
The faint smell of dog pee is just as bad as cat pee…….
I had to cut back one of my blueberry bushes tonight–it was covered with caterpillars. I have had those bushes for 7 years. They have survived cicadas, Japanese beetles and drought. Caterpillars!!! The chickens, at least, were happy.
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:11 am
You know, Cathy, I was thinking about how you had that big tree taken down… the problem with these is that they’re on my MILs property and she doesn’t want us to take out the trees… also it’s v expensive. Just one tree is about $1500. I need to find someone to barter with!
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:12 am
Steven, it has been such a bizarre season! I am pulling in lots of cherry tomatoes and a few slicers here and there. The Black Krim are incredible.
August 22nd, 2007 at 5:13 am
Debra, oh nooo! Did you have to cut it all the way back? Your chickens must have been ecstatic to get such a treat. I’ve been tossing slug-covered leaves into the coop all week. Such happy sounds! Almost cancels out my bitching and moaning about the damned things. This rain…a gojillion slugs. Yuck.
August 22nd, 2007 at 6:54 am
I’ve cut the berries back somewhat–remember the cages Steve built around the bushes? Overgrown with grass this summer since I have had no time to attend to it, so I can’t remove the cages
About the trees. Could it/they be sold for lumber? Then you’d have $$
August 22nd, 2007 at 12:51 pm
Kelly… until I read Steven’s comment I was thinking that your first line read “content constipation” as in “happy constipation!” Apparently this mugginess has been affecting my brain.
I get that time-to-rip-out-the-garden feeling around this time every year, too. I think that it was Pam at Digging who mentioned the feeling first, and that it was a harbinger of fall for her. I just wonder why these brilliant bursts of design insight come to me in August instead of April, when I would have time to see them through for once.
FWIW, Debra might be onto something. We have had people cut down trees here at work in exchange for being able to take the lumber… I know that the Amish will often do it while they’re here working on other things, and random woodworkers sometimes will do it, too. If I find a solid lead for you I’ll email–getting your MIL’s approval for it might be the harder trick, though.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:22 pm
If only there were a way, I would gladly take all your trees and expand my own little forest.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I so feel for you. Your post pretty much sums up my August! Bring on Fall!!
August 23rd, 2007 at 11:20 am
I’m with you. The garden has been sheer frustration this year, probably one of the very worst ever! Enough to forage on and provide a side dish here and there but nothing to put up. sigh. I’m ready to pull it up and call it a day.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:13 am
Ha! Kim, I’m not sure I’ve ever been contentedly constipated!! I think the design insight must come now because you can see how things really look at their full-expression, see where holes exist, or things don’t work. Imagination can take us only so far?
I’ll start putting out feelers for the wood, that’s a grand idea. I know my MIL would be fine with some trimming of the overhanging branches, so that might really help.
August 24th, 2007 at 6:23 pm
My brother-in-law is a lumberjack. For real. ‘Cept he’s in Vermont.
Even if your garden didn’t produce the way you want it to, it was still inspiring to me over here. And you write like a song.