It’s hard to weed with your eyes closed

I was lying in bed early this morning, wishing that I was sleeping, trying really hard not to think about how I don’t have a job for next year and failing miserably.  I decided, as I have many times in similar situations, that I really need to start meditating again.  I remembered the place I was in in the spring of 2008 and how 10 days of silence, attempting to clear my mind and feel everything in equanimity changed that place.  I remembered the peace and the feeling of satisfaction that spread through me.  So I sat up and spent 10 minutes trying to find that place… then I heard the coffee percolating downstairs and whatever clarity I was muddling towards vanished and was replaced with the fog that precedes my morning coffee.  So I got up and drank my coffee and forgot about meditating, and about not having a job for that matter.

I ended up in the garden, and wandered around aimlessly for a bit.  Jer was gone for the morning, and as I haven’t been around a lot lately, physically or mentally, I am not sure of the priorities.  I know that blueberries are to be dug, I know that everything is to be watered, I know that lots of things are to be seeded or transplanted, but I don’t know what or where or how to do it so that it doesn’t have to be done again.  So I sat down to weed the onions.  I pulled grass and buttercup and thistles and bindweed, and I did it slowly and peacefully (if one can call causing the death of many living plants peaceful).  I got dirt under my fingernails and between my toes and it made me feel better.  Not all better better, but some better.

I went to get a massage recently because my carpal tunnel, caused by treeplanting, compounded by knitting, revigorated by gardening has flared.  My massage therapist asked me what it feels like when I stop knitting and stop gardening.  I looked at her questioningly… stopped knitting?  Stopped?  Like took a break?  I knit when I read, when I play cards, when I’m sitting on the ferry.  Sometimes I knit at red lights.  Stop?  It made me think about whether I glorify the act of being busy, but I don’t think I do.  I choose to do slow things, like knitting and growing organic food.  I choose to sit on my bum and weed onions by hand.  I choose to do lots of things that keep me busy, but they’re meditative for me.  I don’t know if actual meditation – the kind I did in Bolivia, sitting still for an hour to clear my mind – is what I need.  I think I just need to get dirt under my fingernails every day.

Here’s some pictures.

The canning season has begun!

The pictures pretty much tell the story of our lives lately – it’s been hot, so Jer jumped in the pond.  Some plants are doing well, but it’s hot and dry, so lots of others are struggling through.  The kale’s not so juicy, and the salad greens are confused.  We had our first farmer’s market of the year, but for a long variety of reasons we didn’t have many vegetables… so we made jam.  Frogs are filling up the pond, and that’s about all of the exciting details!

Dusty Road Craft Collective

It was the Denman Island Craft Faire this weekend.  Jer and I participated in the Faire a couple of years ago, when we first arrived, and didn’t really understand the caliber of the Faire.  Last year I was too busy knitting sweaters for loved ones to knit small, sellable items for strangers, so we abstained.  This year we decided to share a table with our most loveliest of neighbours, and it was awesome.  Our table was overflowing with beautiful things at the beginning of the weekend, and was pretty sparse by the end.  Cutting boards, pizza peels, mustard, oat cakes, biscotti, sundried tomatoes, chickens, bags, purses, clutches, knitting, stuffed owls.  We had.  All of it.  And we did it with friends and we were successful, and I felt validated as a crafter.  Awesome.  AND our neighbours were still willing to sit at a table with us and sell our things after our dog chased their new-to-them cat up a tree.  He came back down all by himself.  We did apologize…

Plus it snowed.  And I got a snow day.  The Friday before the Faire, someone decided to grant me the freebiest of freebie days.  I’m pretty lucky.

  

Summer lists

Oof!  I’ve been absent lately, but really I haven’t been.  I’ve just been busy.  Summer busy – the best kind.  The laze-about-in-a-hammock, have-5-naps-a-week kind.  But I made a list at the beginning of the summer of a whole bunch of things I wanted to do before summer was up, and I’m doing a really good job of crossing items on the list off, except for blog-writing.

My list:

• Pickathon (I’m leaving on Tuesday, consider it crossed off)
• finish weaving (I’m over 50% done)
• finish sweater (less that 20 grams of yarn left)
• move wardrobe (I’m waiting for the right shelving – this may not get done this summer and that’s ok)
• camping (set for middle of August)
• design shawl
• read 6 books (I’ve read 5 and change)
• make 1 new friend
• spend a day by myself w/ my dog
• make pie squares
• pick strawberries
• pick blueberries
• pick blackberries
• sell 1 bouquet of flowers
• ride my bike to Courtenay
• play first 2 weeks of school
• build raised flower bed
• mulch flowers
• 8 blog posts
• canoe to Hornby

See!  I’m doing pretty well!  Except, of course, for the blog post thing.  This is my second.  And I’m leaving for a week on Tuesday, so August will have to be a blog heavy month.

As you may have deduced by the last item being crossed off, Jer and I bought a canoe.  I told my mom and she promptly asked me if it was a boy or a girl, what colour it was, and whether it had a name.  I was only able to answer 1 of these questions – something that several years ago would have astonished me.  Our canoe is yellow.  She’s lovely and pretty and she goes straight and fast.  Her name is Joan, or Joni.  I wanted to name her brawk, because she’s yeller and a chicken, but Jeremy is much cleverer than I.

The garden is crazy awesome.  The farm made the most money it’s ever made last week, which was really exciting.  I’ve got sunflowers blooming that light up my heart, and one of the Gladiolas that Jer bought for me is in bloom too.  Maybe I’ll grab my camera from the car tomorrow and give you all photos, and then be almost halfway done my goal…Oh.  And the ants came back.  We had another battle between two colonies, but it didn’t last long and they seemed to drink the Borax water solution Jer made up for them.  I had decided not to freak out about it, and this was a good thing.  The ants all seem to be gone.As I said, next week I’m off to Pickathon, a music festival outside of Portland.  I’ll have a day in Portland, where I assume I’ll spend hours in Powell’s Books.  If anyone has a recommendation for something I absolutely HAVE to read, I’d love to hear about it.