We’re supposed to get a Big One this evening, after T-storms all night and morning.  The whole state, apparently.  Severe everything.  Schools dismissed early so we can kiss our asses goodby etc.  Going to HAIL!

Gotta go help batten down, so a quickie:

I added on a roll of hardware fencing to the top of the “temporary trellis” out front, and planted loofah gourd seeds in two big pots to climb onto it.  I’m sure the storm will destroy it, oh well.

I planted several kinds of seeds in various places: more poppies in the p.pear, okra outside the veg, nigella on the other outside, ornamental popcorn in the 3 sisters jungle, and another variety of kale in the veg.  Loucious discovered gnawing on corn cobs!  (He also got a haircut from Jess.)  The outside of the veg garden is now officially planted, and most of the inside.

We had our family meeting.  No comment.

I took my time at home today, getting stuff done, then took the bare-root strawberry plants and seeds that had just arrived over to A’s.  I planted the strawberries in their prepared bed and watered them in.  Then neighbor Angela paid me in beer(!) for a minor job I had done, and we talked for a few minutes.

After that I listed a few more items on marketplace.  Note my assistant Loucious, helping me sell things.  I avoided cleaning up the kitchen disaster area.  Sometimes you gotta draw a line.  Now I’m just hanging around so Avdi can go out.  My exciting life.

Actually, this excites me: lots of mushrooms in the woodsy area, because of all the natural compost of sticks and leaves building up.  It looks like an actual woods.  Also, my mist flower is coming back, and the artichokes are coming up!

It took me all morning to clean up the kitchen before I could start the challah.  I think I must have run four full DW loads all told throughout the day.  I even figured out how to clean out the filter assembly–eewww.

E and Y had their Dr appointment in IL.  Y was feeling sick at school and I picked him up.  We had a tense moment when A was worried Y wouldn’t be able to make this crucial appointment, the last one for a while, but it worked out.  It was more stressful after learning that one more available source of gender-affirming care is going to be shut down because of evil trump.  There are still some options out-of-state, but it’s getting critical.  This is so wrong.

I made a simple dinner, a caesar salad with lettuce from the garden and chicken.  Y didn’t join us, E and K did briefly, and Avdi couldn’t even eat, he was so stressed out by work and pressures.

E found out there’s more to chicken-raising than he thought–you have to get a permit.  So our plan to pick up chickens today is postponed.  He’s only getting five layers and no rooster, so that simplifies compliance with the regs.

Somewhere in there I did get a chance to plant a couple of kinds of flower seeds–cathedral bells vine on the other side of the front arch, and salpiglossis mixed colors in Y’s rock garden.  Again, not native, but sometimes you just don’t give a f.  Yes, I said it.

Today the strawberry plants arrived, so I’ll be planting them in the dedicated bed as soon as I get over there.

You know, I keep on thinking I can’t handle another job or responsibility, and then I do.  At the same time, I look at everything Avdi has to manage single-handedly, even with some help (not all of it reliable), and it boggles the mind.  Every new task I take on is just a drop in the bucket compared to the overwhelming load and pressure he’s under.  And it’s never-ending, and constantly being complicated by setbacks.  No human should have to deal with so much work, no end in sight, and barely treading water financially, even with budget cutbacks.

In hindsight, maybe the kids will understand why he couldn’t spend more time with them, and even appreciate how they had to learn to be more self-sufficient and part of the solution.  I was clueless and helpless at their ages, but this is a different time in history.  The deranged racist criminals in power have made life so much more difficult for everyone, but especially for already marginalized people who are bearing more of the brunt of it.

Something’s got to give, but it won’t be pleasant.  I don’t believe in god, but every day I “pray” that these unhinged lunatics and complicit supporters will be held accountable for every crime and face appropriate justice.  If not, the earth itself will rise up and take vengeance.  It’s a law of nature.

Today I learned how to sell stuff on Marketplace for Avdi.  I sold an electric cultivator, a gas trimmer, and still have a leaf blower to sell.  It’s my latest trick.  We have a couple of kids’ bikes to give away or sell, and probably it’s just the beginning of this venture.  I enjoyed handing Avdi $150 in cash today.  Now I’m thinking about some of my own items I could sell.

I didn’t get any gardening done except watering, but making easy money for the family makes up for it.  Somehow I’m more tired, though.

My counselor says I need to make sure all family concerns and plans get brought to Avdi first and get brought up at the weekly meeting, so everything has a protocol and chain of command, and I don’t get stuck in the middle having to make a quick decision in the absence of Avdi or a guideline.  If it doesn’t get brought up at the meeting, it can wait.  Kids must run things by Avdi first, not take advantage of my being out of the loop.

I think I’ve managed to get everyone pissed at me for entirely different reasons!

1. Avdi might be pissed because yesterday I got distracted gardening when I should have been sorting out the shopping list, putting in an order, and picking it up.  I tried to make up for it today by doing more housework.
2. Y is pissed at me because I wouldn’t take him straight from school to someplace to watch friends horseback riding without getting permission first, and when I asked where is it, he was all ” Why do grownups always ask for directions?  You have a phone!!”  Also, I did have other things to do for Avdi.
3. E was pissed at me because I asked if he was all prepared for the chicken project with equipment, site prepared properly, and lots of money.  (From what I’ve seen, he isn’t, but what do I know?)  He wants me to drive him to pick up chicks on Saturday.  He said, “You don’t trust me??”  (Later he bought some equipment I had suggested he might need for chicks.)
4. K is more tolerant, but I could tell he wanted me to make a special trip to get more tortilla chips for the nachos he wasn’t, and then was, going to make (on my suggestion) instead of the more elaborate meal he wasn’t prepared to make, so I anticipated by saying I wouldn’t be doing that.  So he asked A to get some on his way home.
5. I’m pissed at me because a job Avdi gave me, selling some used items on Marketplace, isn’t coming together easily for me.  I took the photos, gathered the info, tried to estimate the prices based on eBay, which was not straightforward, then couldn’t figure out the simplest task of adding the G-photos to the listing.  I get so frustrated with the simplest tech.

Avdi is probably more pissed at me for bothering him with all these dilemmas while he was trying to work remotely.  That makes all of us pissed at me for failing to navigate the challenges of dealing with 21st century mishegoss.

Somewhere in there I did manage to do a garden thing: I constructed a mockup of a trellis idea for the new front garden area.

Apparently people aren’t pissed at me after all?  I’m so confused.

K made great nachos, and then made great chicken kebabs.  In between courses, I took the kids’ friend S home, and came in to meet his mother and English bulldog Henry.  We really hit it off, and seemed to have lots in common.  But when I returned to A’s, E told me that was a façade, the mother is usually emotionally abusive to S when others aren’t around.  I guess I still take people at face value and don’t pick up on the undercurrents.  I’m hoping the visit will maybe have a beneficial effect on that dynamic.

I created a whole new garden bed up front in about an hour or so.  It’s adjacent to the little garden with the arch, with the front walk in between.

I layered cardboard, sticks, leaves, and compost soil from the open pile, and watered it in.  It has the cedar in the middle, and the mini-rose on the corner, so far.  Instant garden!  Eventually I want to screen the open side with plants or a trellis with vines, so it will be a private space when you enter.  I’ll add more organic material as able, and plants.

It was amusing to watch each kid walk right by it and not even notice it.  It’s partially hidden by a big bush.  Finally I showed it to Y, who was somewhat interested.

It’s primetime spring now, and I’m binging on beauty and planting things.  I have to make myself take a break to come inside and do housework.  Sometimes the kitchen is such a disaster area that I have to stay clear of it altogether.

Things I did yesterday: dig up some comfrey plants that were taking over the herb garden to give a local gardener; rescue a dying columbine; thin out some ruellia that was overtaking some poppies; have the former owners (Boshart) who designed the whole garden over to take a look around and talk shop; and (don’t judge me) finally mow the front hayfield.  I mowed the section I want to turn into a garden very short, so I can then layer it with cardboard and the rest.  The backyard is still uncut for now.  When my strawberry plants arrive, I’ll immediately plant them in the set-aside bed.

I’ve been starting to bring plants from my apartment to Avdi’s, and bringing some tropicals outside.  I’ve also been sharing rooted tropical cuttings and surplus plants with local gardeners.  For example, I’ve learned that comfrey will take over the world if you let it.

Similarly, the very large native cup plant (Silphium) has aggressively encroached upon the whole side from front to back, and will become a solid wall of tall yellow flowers and thick stalks, pushing out more passive plants.  Not sure what to do about that!

Another plant that went crazy this year is redbud, possibly due to the extreme weather changes.  There are tiny redbud seedlings everywhere.  If I do nothing, we’ll have a redbud forest soon!

Those tall plants in the middle of the veg garden?  Those are milkweed, which also popped up everywhere this spring.  I try to leave them in place, to attract their butterflies.

Y had some lupine and foxglove seeds to plant, so I sowed them on the other outer side of the veg garden, so that most of the strip surrounding it is now Y’s flower garden, mostly perennials.

Then I continued to plant veggies: assorted tomatoes, two kinds of zucchini, and four varieties of peppers.  At this point, most of the main veggies are sown, other than the remaining additional space-intensive ones like melons and pumpkins.  Many volunteers of last years’ have come up wherever I used compost.

The strawberry plants are arriving soon, so I weeded that whole area.  The p-pears seem to be surviving all my rough treatment, and the asparagus is a small tree.

I have an idea for the front little garden.  I want to expand it to the other side of the path to roughly the same dimensions as the existing side.  I would use the layered method of cardboard and organic materials to convert grass into a bed.  Yay, less lawn!

This week I plan to go ahead and mow for the first time this year.  The grass is like a hayfield.

E got A to reluctantly approve of his chickens scheme, as long as E does all the work.  So he’s been out there cleaning up the chicken areas.  Meanwhile, Y’s rats may have found a new home.

We had our weekly meeting, and the first of the season’s B&Bs has been scheduled for May 2!  A and E have been working on cleaning up the pool.

This post reads like a farmer’s almanac or prairie home companion!  What can ya do, apparently I’m a midwesterner on the edge of the plains now.  Ya got yer crops, hay, dog, livestock, until the next tornado blows it all to hell.

I gave E the “talk” about passing on the garden torch STS.  I apologized for being so territorial. He understood how it’s my one “thing”.  I gave him a whole pile of seeds to experiment with–flowers, herbs, and veggies.  He immediately got to work on the “secret garden”.  Later I found a covered flat started on a heat pad under lights downstairs.  I’m glad I can be an influence for good, and learn to let go.

It was such a gorgeous cool day, after storms last night.  I hoed the whole veg garden by hand, then planted four kinds of cucumbers.  Loucious played frisbee with E, K, and me.  Avdi went out for the evening with Allie, while I stay late or overnight.

My dreams continue to be disturbing.  I feel like I’m being faded out as I’m aging and dying, while others move on with their lives.  Like I’m becoming invisible and being shut out, so I need to shut down first.  But that’s a trap, and I won’t give in to it.  Even if I’m alone.  I know how to do alone.  I just escape to my dream real life, and be who people need me to be while I’m still around.

Allie has been in town, and we’ve all been shuttling kids back and forth, especially for E and K’s latest theatrical production, the musical Urinetown.  E played Mr. McQueen, and K did spot op.  Avdi, Allie, Y and two friends, and I attended the final night.  It was so well done!

I continue to be more impressed with these kids’ talents.  It’s appropriate that my first time seeing some of these plays has been at WGHS, directed by the infamous Mr. Schaefer (apparently no first name), not on/off Broadway, and it was more than adequate.  I hope some of these kids do go on to become professional actors.

Erev Shabbat was a quick improv, as we were all headed out early, so I made this fish stir-fry with jasmine rice.  I seem to have found the secret to growing happy cilantro!  Start it the fall before, in a sheltered place, and it explodes come spring.

E just asked if he can use some seeds to experiment in the “secret garden”, which is good.  After I got over my initial proprietorial reaction, I agreed to share some seeds (I’m getting better!).  He did ask first; Y is still getting over the remorse of not asking first, even after I happily planted all his plants in a specially prepared flower bed for him.  I realize I need to be passing the torch to them, especially since they’ve shown an interest.  It’s better to collaborate and let go.

Speaking of, time to go get myself back to the garden and pass along some seeds to the next emerging gardener.