It’s so weird not being able to take photos of what I’ve done.  I have to remember it all!  You’ll just have to imagine it.

The weather is fall fever!  I have to keep stopping and just take it all in, the dry breeze, the sun that’s just right, the tall trees mostly still green overhead, all the critters busily pollinating and preparing.  It’s so euphoric.

So today I hacked up a little more of the clay concrete that is the new, expanded natives strip.  You’d think by now there’d be more of a loamy layer, but no; it’s pure clay, and very impenetrable.  I guess it’s Missouri.

Then I liberated the next section of the perennial veg/fruit beds out from under the monster gourd vines.  (I even found yet another gourd in there!)  There were still a few prickly pear cactus and strawberry plants under there.  I weeded and hoed as much as I could to bring the section out to where the first one is, and laid down rocks.  Then I watered it in.

Now I wait until I can move the monster vines away from the third and final section, and see if anything survived.  Then I’ll have room to add more kinds of perennial edibles.

I started adding leaves to beds, in this case the one near the back porch where I throw dead flowers and cuttings.  It’s a great mulch, and raises the level of the beds.

I won’t say I’m running out of fall jobs; some have to be timed for later in fall.  I will admit I run out of energy and have to sit and soak in all the euphoria.  Or throw frisbees at the dog.

I’m wearing my temporary “free” reading glasses; they’re very strange!  But they do magnify everything, and I can see everything clearly if I hold still.  I wonder why cheap (free with OTC)  readers come with standard blue screen filters and progressive lenses, while the cheapest covered prescription glasses cost hundreds more for each enhancement.

I think while I’m camera-less, I’ll use previous photos for focal interest.  Here’s one from exactly a year ago to the day.

Last night Avdi and I went on our monthly date.  It was like a perfect summer night, but without the humidity.

First we had drinks at Off Elm.  Then we explored all the places to eat along Gravois in Bevo, South County.  What an intriguing atmospheric neighborhood.  Lots of Bosnians and Middle Easterners and very divey bars.

Finally, we decided to check out Civil Life brewpub.  We sat outside at their lovely, flowery patio drinking cask ales and eating excellent smash burgers.  We actually got to talk about Matters of Consequence, like AI and the work Avdi does.  I know he has to dumb things down for me, but I could follow what he was saying.  We practically closed the place down!

These photos are courtesy of Avdi, since my phone is dysfunctional.

My final post-op proclaimed me all fixed!  Success!  I have 20/20 for distance in both eyes.

Close-up is a different story.  I can’t see much of anything now.  So they gave me a prescription for reading only now, and for bifocals should I ever decide I need them.

Over at the optical center, it took a long time for the expert to decrypt all the insurance-ese, which is like a confusing labyrinth of what’s covered how, when, and if.  And it’s different for after cataract surgery, which I was able to inform her of.  Did you know insurance covers the frames and lens blanks but not the refraction (prescription)?!  And every single frame is covered differently.  It’s so convoluted and rigged in order to price people out of basic needs.  Even the blue screen blocker option adds on way too much to afford, so I’ll need to look for computer and phone screen filters, protectors, or settings that do the same thing.

She was very persistent, though, and got it all sorted for me.  Then she helped me find the least expensive option that we both liked for me.  They’re colorful turquoise frames!

So in 10 days I get to pick up my reading glasses.  In the meantime, I ordered some non-p. reading glasses free with my OTC benefit, so hopefully they’ll work.

Back at Avdi’s, I watered, and continued on the hoeing of the natives sections along the trees.  It’s still warm and perfect out.  Then I tried to take photos, but my phone is so screwed up that it won’t take pictures now!  It cuts out, or freezes up, or restarts, and other malfunctions.  I managed to get one photo!  I can’t even text without the app deciding not to work.  So frustrating.

Today (again gorgeous out) I weeded and cleaned up the “apothecary bed” (future), and more of the strip around the veg garden.  I threw a frisbee at L a lot.  I had a nice chat with Angela, as she was pruning some natives, which she will give me for mulching and seeding.  (I gave her milkweed pods.)

Later, while driving to Aldi’s for the family order, there was something not right about the sun, or maybe it was my eyes.  It was too bright to see or drive, even with shades.  I don’t remember it ever being quite that blinding.

It was another perfect day out.  Today’s garden accomplishments were:

I liberated the far right corner of the perennial veg/fruit area from the monster gourd vines, so the asparagus and horseradish (for  now) can breathe.  I weeded, extended the bed outward, raked out all the rocks and debris, encircled the plants with rocks, and piled the rest of the rocks down in front, to be used later.  Then I watered it in.  Eventually I’ll free the rest of the bed (prickly pear and strawberries?), and possibly add native passionfruit seeds to stratify.

Next I raked all the leaves and debris inside the woodsy edge back to along the fence, like I did last year, clearing the path.  Now it looks very natural park-like, and when the trees and flowers start filling in more next year, it will be even more so.  Even Loucious approves of it.

I weeded some around the outer strip of the veg garden.  Then I moved the big round “planter” from the shade natives, and placed it over the maidenhair ferns in the woods area.  I’m trying to add some hardscape features to add focal interest.  Last, I watered a few plants and seedlings to keep them growing and rooting in.

I’m loving these cool yet warm Missouri fall days for fine-tuning and preparing the garden for its winter sleep.  It’s the flip side of spring, when all this work comes to fruition.  Visualizing the results and the pleasure it will bring keeps me energized during cold, dark times.  I can feel the coming transitions underground.

As I was going to leave a box of free homegrown eggplants for my apt. neighbors, I ran into Precious down the hall.  We had a very pleasant talk about all kinds of stuff, including advice about difficult hair and a referral to my other neighbor, Chavonne, who runs a salon and can help me with my hair issues.  We talked about trading goods for services, like my growing plants for Maddie, another neighbor, in trade for her sourdough bread, and got to know each other better.

It’s sad that both P and C will probably be moving on to other situations, though I’m happy for them.  It takes a while to break the ice with women who are used to not trusting white people, with good reason.  But we had so much in common, we were just chattering and confiding away.  I told her about the Black Panthers/Uhuru collaboration to rebuild homes and grow food etc. in N. City, which it turns out she’s from.  We agreed that’s how community and hope begins.

At Avdi’s, I got a lot more done on the landscape.  I watered the new transplants and seedlings; I hoed and sowed native wild blue phlox up in the very front of the side rock garden; I completely cleaned up and redesigned the little rock garden in back; I cleaned up and watered the front garden; I hoed the weeds away from the lilacs; I raked some paths out back; and I threw frisbees at Loucious.

It seems like once you determine to move beyond your narrow comfort zone, serendipitous things start happening like a cascade effect.

Eventually I got myself in gear and went over to Avdi’s to get some outdoor work done.  The days have been totally conducive to working outside, so I’m taking advantage of it.  I did a lot!

I watered.  I raked up all my debris piles and dumped them in the designated area.  I hoed the whole sun side of the expanded strip I had tilled along the woodsy area, sectioned it off, and sowed Queen of the Prairie, Swamp Rose Mallow, and Rose Mallow, and watered it in.  I hoed an area in the trees, and sowed Jack-in-the-Pulpit, which takes two years to stratify.  I added Prairie Smoke seeds to the sunny part of the side rock garden where Silphium had been, along with the poppies.  Now I just have a few more natives to get in the ground later this fall to stratify.

If even some of these natives germinate, it’s going to be so gorgeous next year.  And in the meantime, I’m going to spruce the whole landscape up for winter.  Progress toward mini-MOBOT.  Now all we need is a mini-Climatron!

Inside the house, a pack of howling savages had taken over Y’s room and beyond, screeching and banging around like a stampede of wild animals.  I just stayed outside where it was safe!  I was so relieved I didn’t have to sleep over tonight; Avdi and Jess will be there.  Yay for grownups with guts!

I really, really intended to go volunteer tomorrow morning.  I was 2/3 of the way convinced I could overcome my driving and navigating nervousness to go help with a worthwhile job that I have the skills for.  Even when it turned out to be a renovation, at a different address than I had assumed, not the farm or garden, I was ready to do it.

But then, and here’s the really lame excuse, plumbing facilities at the site are not quite up and running yet.  That could honestly be an issue for me.  Between all the above anxieties, I reluctantly let them know I couldn’t make it, but still want to volunteer on future projects.

I know, it’s the very thing I was talking about earlier, white privilege.  Think of all the centuries of Black people being denied basic needs and amenities that whites take for granted.  More to the point, these renovations in N. city can mean the difference between people having a roof over their heads and infrastructure, or going unhoused.

The mayor and city gov have done pretty much zilch for the communities devastated by the tornado over a year ago, or for the other ongoing basic needs, so it’s up to the communities themselves, with volunteers, to do the dirty work.  And here’s me, with my good intentions but lame excuses, like I might very possibly need facilities.

I haven’t given up on volunteering some of my time and skills for these worthy causes.  I need and want to do this.  I know I’ll need to overcome some of my obstacles initially, and then I’ll have the confidence to do more.

I feel pretty bad about this.  I just don’t want to arrive on site and become a liability, not part of the solution.  I got my momentum started; now I just look for the next opportunity that I can reasonably fulfill.  And the ones after that.

Have some fall flowers to distract you from my sorry self!

Here is how subtle and engrained racism can be.  It’s not necessarily how you think, but is revealed in how you don’t act.

I got up earlier than usual today, which was already too late for what I’m considering doing tomorrow, which is driving early in the morning to someplace unfamiliar in N. City via highways I never use, in order to volunteer maybe once or twice a month for half a day, helping grow food for people in a food desert who are still recovering from the tornado of 2025!  Just the getting myself there is a challenge.  How lame is that?!!

The huge gap between our relatively comfortable white life out in the suburbs that some take for granted, and the daily grueling survival made worse by the ongoing lack of disaster relief and housing for the Black community, is rarely in our face except in theory.  Just the thought of driving that route once in a while, not every day, is an obstacle for me!  But for other white suburbanites who could easily do that drive, it might not ever cross their minds.  Their family and lifestyle come first.

So the question is, will my genuine desire to use my skills to help out in the city once or twice a month overcome my lame anxiety about navigating the route early on a Saturday, when I normally sleep in more than I usually do?  Put my borrowed wheels where my mouth is?  Finally do something, even a small thing, not even a hardship, to support a cause I really believe in?

This is how racism stays alive and in control.  Or I should say where, down on ground level, literally where the rubber meets the road.  It’s so much easier to talk about it and do nothing.  It’s somewhere over there, across that invisible red line, where we don’t live.  In my case, I want to be there, but not have to wake up so early and navigate the unknown to get there!

Like I said, subtle and engrained.  But very real.

Stay tuned for the outcome.

First off, I think I found my volunteer org at Pride.  More on that later.

Today I implemented the silphium “solution”.  Well, alleviation, anyway.  Plus I added an experimental native seed for sun section to stratify.  So from left (sun) to right (shade), we have: CA orange poppies, purple echinacea (coneflower), New England aster, then Asarum can. (native ginger) plants, and Arisaema drac. (green dragon) plants, ending where the irises and other plants start.  It’s watered in well, plus it’s supposed to rain.  Now we wait through winter to see if it worked.

Loucious really likes the sukkah, and now knows the word for it.  When Avdi moved to the sukkah to work, L sat with him contentedly.  He’s a Sukkah Dog!