February half gone, and yet so much more to do…
After a busy day, I’m sitting here chillin’ to The Angels (a.k.a. “Angel City”) on Pandora.com, quaffin’ a cold one, taking a well-deserved rest, and leafing through an issue of The Ulster-Scot (www.ulsterscotsagency.com), sent to me by a bro with a sense of humor -- he gave ‘em my Christian name, but my fiancée’s surname, implying that she wears the pants in this “hoose.”
To my amusement, Mags found Conal Gillespie’s The Ulster Language Trail column, “Benefits of Tree Planting,” featured in this month’s issue of TUS completely incomprehensible. Since she began dating my Appalachian ass last year, she’s acquired a surprisingly strong command of both spoken and written Lallans (she doesn’t speak it herself, mind you, but she understands what she hears or reads), so I was rather taken aback (not to mention amused) by her inability to make heads or tails of the Ulster dialect. To my eyes, it was merely a somewhat off-kilter version of “the Braid Scots,” and certainly no more different from it –or my own, Upper Southern dialect, for that matter -- than is, say, Landsmål from Swedish. To Mags, though, it might as well have been another language. She simply didn’t get it.
I’ve mentioned this only because of one paragraph, a paragraph that reminded me of the way in which I’ve spent the last few days:
“A sennicht ir sae sine A wus i’ the glen ahin’ oor hoose sneddin hazel steeks at Ah’ll uise i’ mae gairden laiter oan i’ the yeir. A allus dae thon joab i’ Decemmer ir Janwerry accause hit’s aiser tae sned thaim quhan the sap bes low i’ the wunther.”
Ain’t that the truth? And I oughtta know, as I’ve damn near worn out my shears, saw, bypass loppers, and left elbow (thank God for jow) over the last two weeks -- and time is running out.
For the last two years of his life, Da’s cancer rendered him an invalid, depriving Green Hell of a much-needed pair of hands. The amount of care he required also kept Ma Bean and I from attending to many necessary tasks, as a result of which a good bit of Green Hell went to hell – in a hand basket.
The last two droughts – coupled with one or two of my long-suffering Ma’s eccentricities – have devastated the lawn. Much of the garden became a weed-choked mess (Mags and I only planted a few beds last year, as, for my part, working it without Da just didn’t feel right – even when he was too sick or weak to help, he’d come out and wander among the plants when he felt up to it), and the “jungle” on the eastern property line (courtesy of an idiot who owned the adjacent lot many years ago) is completely out of control.
Late last year, Mags and I decided to re-establish control. First, while I devised a “battle plan” of sorts and performed “triage” on the property, Maggie went to war with the honeysuckle vines that were choking our blueberry bushes (I call them “bushes, but as they’re a highbush cultivar –some nearly 12’ tall – the casual observer might very well mistake them for small trees), completely eradicating it. She then pruned them and dressed them with a helping of 10-10-10.
To my eyes, the foliage looked a bit yellowish last summer, so after I pH test the soil, the next step will be applying as much ammonium sulfate is necessary to lower the pH to the proper level. Owing to the profusion of pines in the area, among other things, much of Georgia’s soil is slightly acid as-is, but blueberries prefer extremely acid soil, in the 4.5-5.0 range. As soil pH that low is damn near lethal to many other plants, we probably won’t be companion planting in that particular part of the “back forty.” Next week or thereabout, I plan to cover the entire area with an inch or so of composted manure and commercial topsoil, before laying down six or so inches of pine bark mulch. Expensive, but worth it. Few things, after all, taste as wonderful as freshly picked, homegrown blueberries. Besides, as sorely as the poor things were neglected for the last two seasons, they deserve a bit of coddling.
The cabbages we started from seed in January are nearly ready to transplant, and the eggplant, peppers and tomatoes are nearly large enough for repotting. We repaired our vinyl-covered “greenhouse” during the first week of this month, so they’ve gotten a bit of an early start. As, however, I forgot to warn Mags about providing adequate ventilation, we lost a few seedlings to the “solar oven effect.” No big loss, but it means that our main crop of tomatoes will be a tad late, unless I decide to buy seed for a few early maturing (58-70 day) varieties.
Our next project was turning the soil in our raised beds (we’ve done four out of eight thus far), and putting in the seed for a few early vegetables. The peas I planted near the first of the month just germinated today, which makes me one very happy camper. By late May, the heat will kill them, so the earlier they sprout, the better. I didn’t have the chance to buy fava beans, so I might hold off and plant them as a fall crop, but I’m undecided. They’re one of my favorite legumes, and I had such good luck with them in 2005 and 2006; that I’m tempted to risk it. Favas, too, are a cool season crop, but as they’re far more heat-tolerant than peas, the gamble might just pay off. The onions, “Bonilla” shallots, leeks, and Chinese chives we seeded on the same day have yet to germinate, but if the profusion of ramps in the yard is anything to go by, they soon will.
Having finished that, for the most part (and having been interrupted by rain, which renders this clay soil unworkable), we then set about pulling up one of the trellises, and re-marking the boundaries of the garden, effectively removing the barrier between Green Hell I and Green Hell II. We also added 3-4” of organic matter to two of the 2’ x 6’ raised beds, and topped them off with 80lb of bagged topsoil each.
So much for the fun stuff…
Like, death, jury duty and taxes, tree pruning sucks – and is equally inevitable. It’s a simple, but tedious task (if not quite as easy as it looks), and one with which I’m quite familiar. I became acquainted with this not-so-fine art between October of 2003 and September of 2004, as I was out of work for a year, and had to so something in order to make ends meet. I managed to grow $4,000.00 worth of produce (retail value) that year, but while the bills came in with monotonous regularity, the phone calls didn’t, for all that I put in job application after job application.
However comforting the ability to feed oneself, it does little to deter the repo man, should one miss a car payment. For this reason, among others, I pulled myself up by my American bootstraps and got the cash-flow rolling by doing those “jobs Americans won’t do.” That year of landscaping, house painting, aerating lawns, etc., in addition to keeping me out of debtors’ prison, provided quite an education, as I learned, first-hand, why Americans “won’t do” such jobs.
The pay, for starters, is ridiculously low. Certainly, illegal aliens can survive on it, as the Gringo taxpayer generously supplements their income with WIC coupons, EBT cards, and – if I may coin a phrase – other “forms of social parasitism Americans won’t lower themselves to accept,” but those of us who are “out of the loop” are simply shit out of luck. Moreover, the unscrupulous bastards who employ our “guests” needn’t insure them, as – in Georgia, at least – the use of hospital emergency rooms as de facto clinics is a common practice among the latter.
The perfect fusion of capitalism and socialism: The entrepreneur lines his own pockets by forcing the taxpayer to “share the wealth” with his employees – and with government complicity, at that.
Beyond this, there are the matters of licensing fees (every municipality wants its “cut”), bonding/insuring costs, etc. In short, our “third way” mixed economy (it sure as hell ain’t a “free enterprise” system, the contrary claims of certain talk-show hosts notwithstanding…) is much “freer” for those with a ready supply of capital than for those whose sole assets are skills, knowledge, and the willingness to work.
Needless to say, this sorry state of affairs necessitated working around the system, as it were. Luckily for me, I’m honest and good at what I do. If I couldn’t tackle a particular job, I’d say so – and if I could, I’d do it better than the next guy. It was during this period of my life, incidentally, that all the “useless” knowledge I’d accumulated over the years proved most useful.
The art classes I took in high school and the oil painting in which I’d dabbled while in my twenties paid off during the odd house painting gig, as I could explain the differences between “warm” and “cool” tones (and whether they enhanced or clashed with one another), explain (and demonstrate) the effects of “underpainting,” and take a “big picture” approach to determining whether or not the overall “composition” of house and yard proved visually pleasing.
The decades of gardening knowledge I’d picked up from my father -- and from experimentation and independent study -- also proved invaluable, as I could explain (for example) that certain plants prefer acid, alkaline, or neutral soils; that some actually compete with each other; that some require more light than others; etc.
Unfortunately, this proved as much a curse as a blessing, for the following reason: As a species, Gentle Reader, homo sapiens is driven far more by emotion than by reason. As a gardener since childhood, I tend to think both realistically and long-term. If, for example, March (the month during which I prefer to plow) is unusually wet, I’ll forego doing so, as plowing a wet, clay soil (welcome to Georgia…) plays havoc with its structure. When Joe Homeowner wants his lawn aerated, however, (and is absolutely convinced that it simply must needs be aerated, posthaste), there’s simply no convincing him otherwise.
Fortunately, I was only stuck in that particular rut for a year (I loved the work -- I simply couldn’t survive on the low pay or abide the oft-moronic clients), but in that time, I managed to hone a few skills, and accumulate a few others. Tree removal was part of the job, and one that has since come in handy.
It has little bearing on what follows, but I’ll mention that it’s an operation neither to be undertaken lightly, nor by idiots. To this day, the number of people who apparently don’t understand that a chainsaws and axes are lethal weapons never ceases to amaze me. I remember watching a “reality” TV show some years ago, one featuring – of all people – Ted Nugent. The “Motor City Madman” was in top form that day, playing macho-man with a ridiculously oversized chainsaw. (The bar must have been three or four feet long, for Christ’s sake!) This caught my eye immediately, as a buddy and I had been sawing tornado-damaged pines (think 18” trunks) into manageable pieces only a few days before – with much smaller saws.
“That damn fool’s gon’ kill ‘imself,” I muttered as the show progressed. Obviously he didn’t – he’s still alive and well, as far as I know – but I damn near ruined the carpet when he ended up cutting the living shit out of his own leg. Leave it to me to have taken a big ol’ slug of beer – which, of course, ended up on the carpet, the TV screen, the VCR, and everything else within four or so feet in front of me -- just as it happened. The Nuge is good people, mind you. He’s pro-freedom, pro-gun, and supports sane conversation and wildlife management, which, for a post-‘60s musician, is really saying something. Be this as it may, a chainsaw is no more a “respecter of persons” than is the Good Lord. Ergo it stands to reason that even a rock star should shelve the grandstanding and observe proper procedure when using one.
Ted’s “excellent adventure” (in the ER, one imagines) aside, I had ample opportunity to witness – firsthand – some of the “interesting” things that occur when Dame Fortuna places a Husqvarna in the palsied mitts of a hydrocephalic. After retiring, my late father took a job working the equipment rental counter at a local home-improvement store, as a result of which we were often able to “compare notes,” as it were, whilst having a few beers and shaking our heads over our species’ lamentable – but hilarious -- stupidity.
Two all-too-typical highlights from these all-too-frequent discussions:
IQ tests are, of course culturally biased. Owing solely to American preference and prejudice, trees in this country are three-dimensional objects, possessing height, in addition to breadth in depth. In India, however, this isn’t the case. Therefore, when Devadatta Chandragupta (who makes good money in the tech field, as it happens) fails to consider that once a tree is rendered horizontal, height translates into length, he’s not to blame when he fells one and sends it crashing through 1.) A power line; 2.) His neighbor’s roof; 3.) His own roof.
The same applies to Mexico, in which objects apparently possess no mass, and therefore are exempt from our own country’s blatantly discriminatory law of gravity. Pedro Pendejo is to be pardoned, then, for not realizing that the bar of his saw will be “pinched” when he attempts a perpendicular cut through the trunk of a 20” (+/-) diameter pine. Nor is he to be faulted (or even snickered at) when he rents another saw and attempts to free the first by making an identical cut – from the opposite direction.
As for the yuppies? Don’t even ask. Many of them serve only to illustrate that like love, stupidity is colorblind. If I have to explain to even one more of them that his lawn is dying because there’s a black walnut tree growing in its midst, I’ll probably end up on the six o’clock news, for putting the ol’ Homelite to uses for which it was never intended…
Luckily, nothing in Green Hell was sufficiently large or out-of-control to necessitate the use of anything larger than a bow saw. There was, however, still a shitload of work to be done.
As I’ve mentioned, Da’s illness caused us to neglect a good bit of the property, so Mags and I are busting our asses for all we’re worth to restore some semblance of order to the place. The first thing on our list was taking care of the trees. As there are a dozen or more on the main property, and trees delineate the entire eastern boundary, this has proven rather daunting. The crape myrtles and dwarf apples were most in need of attention, but the poplars weren’t far behind – for all that poplars are said not to require pruning.
“Horseshit!” says I, “They most certainly do!” True, they weren’t as bad as some of the other trees, but there was still too much deadwood and too many suckers for my liking, so I skirted them up to the height of my own head, and then set about cleaning up the crape myrtles. And did they ever need it… Ma Bean, bless her heart, is only 5’2” tall, and doesn’t quite get the whole pruning bit, unfortunately. This being the case, taking matters into my own hands was as much a matter of self-preservation as aesthetic preference. As I stand “sax fute hie,” what is merely a shortened (if improperly shortened) branch to Ma is a “Vlad Tepes Special” to me – an eye-gouging death-stake from hell. For this reason, my first task was removing these potentially lethal protrusions, before lopping off the suckers, canes, deadwood, and crossed branches.
I don’t like trees that grow pell-mell in all directions. As a matter of personal preference, as well as for the health of the tree, I prefer an upward and outward growth habit, or a conic or spherical configuration, depending upon the species. When it comes to crape myrtles, I prefer the up/out habit, but when first I began working on them, Ma was horrified. She hovered around me; flapping and buzzing like an African bee with a bad case of PMS.
“Don’t take too much off! Don’t take too much off!” she said, with every cut I made. Mustering all the patience I could, I calmly and rationally explained to her that the problem wasn’t my taking too much off – it was that the trees were too bushy, and that the interior portions weren’t receiving sufficient sunlight. I also mentioned that the deadwood, dying branches, and suckers were detracting from the overall health of the tree, and diverting nutrients from the stronger limbs, as well. For my pains, I received a blank stare – and further admonition not to take too much off.
Now among Ma’s eccentricities is the fact that she’s a “neat freak.” I’ve been told that it’s a Virgo thing, but as I myself am both a Virgo and a consummate slob, I’m inclined to doubt it. Whatever its cause, she’s certainly possessed of the trait, and in abundance, to boot. This, ironically, is what finally got her off my back. When she saw how much improved was the symmetry of the trees by a bit of selective heading and a few thinning cuts, she finally found something other than busting my balls to do and finally buzzed off.
Pruning, as I’ve said before, isn’t especially difficult, but it can be mind-numbingly tedious -- especially when the trees have been neglected for a season or two. This they had, and to make matters worse, a late frost last April killed many of the more tender suckers on the crape myrtles, leaving masses of ugly, dead, brown stems and foliage behind. The ones in the backyard were in relatively good shape, but one of the smaller trees on the lawn (the northern side of the house) receives no sunlight until well after noon, and didn’t fare nearly as well as the rest. I didn’t have the heart to tell her, but I’m probably going to have to head it in order to save it, and save it I will. Crape myrtles, when in bloom, are one of the loveliest trees one can grow – even if they’re a heavy-duty pain in the ass at times.
Among the plant’s less appealing attributes is the readiness with which it propagates. In plain English: The damned things spread like weeds. They’re also extremely messy, dropping, as it seems, metric tons of leaves, dead petals, seedpods, and twigs in some very inconvenient places – such as my herb pots and the half-barrels in which Da and I planted a few bulbs before he became ill. My nastiest encounter with crape myrtle debris, though, came about while I was painting a house a few years ago.
When I made it to painting gutters, I noticed some moderate rust damage – usually a sign of standing water, which also serves as a breeding place for mosquitoes. Climbing onto the roof, I noticed that the crape myrtles on one side of the house had been allowed to overhang it, and that some of the branches were actually in contact with the fascia and gutters – a serious “no-no.”
Upon looking into the gutters themselves, I had occasion to vent two far less innocuous Anglo-Saxon monosyllables. The trees had left several inches of assorted debris in them, clogging the downspouts completely. This, in turn, had led to the standing water that caused the rust. As there was no point in simply painting over the mess when it would simply resurface in a few weeks, I cleaned the gutters (a very nasty job, as the stuff had begun to rot) and then pruned the trees to grow away from the roof – both at no extra charge, one hell of a bonus, to my mind.
Having finished my own crape myrtles for the most part (just one small cluster at the head of the driveway to work on), Mags and I next took care of the pecan trees, skirting both up to the leaders, and thinning some of the crossed branches – another of my pet peeves. Fortunately, both trees were in good shape, so they didn’t require any backbreaking labor on either of our parts. Maggie put a few inches of compost and topsoil around the base of one, from the trunk to the drip line, and we’re hoping that the tree will send new feeder roots into it. We intend to do the same with every tree on the property, and then mulch them six to eight inches deep, in order to lessen the effects of the drought we’re expecting.
The cherry tree on the hill was a mess, but as it’s stout enough to climb, I’ve been able to make some headway, getting it into shape. The apple and crabapple trees in the front yard, though, have been a nightmare. The branches were a snarled mess, and I discovered, to my irritation, that one of the three leaders on the crabapple is deader than fuckin’ Elvis, and will need to be removed. It’s too tight a space for the chainsaw, so I’ll probably have to get creative with the bow saw: removing the blade, positioning the handle around the easternmost leader, and then re-inserting the blade. Hopefully, I’ll be able to finish both tomorrow.
The azaleas and roses, while hardly food plants (well, one of the latter produces rather nice hips, admittedly) were in need of immediate emergency pruning, to which Mags attended. Tomorrow, we’re going to see about adding a bit of ammonium sulfate to the soil (foliage was yellowish), fertilizing, and putting down more mulch. This will be an absolute necessity, as the population of our fair state, unable to grasp the concept of cycles, apparently believes in perpetual growth. Said growth, combined with the drought, means less water to go around. The diminished supply of water, in turn, translates into watering restrictions on lawns and purely ornamental plants, so conserving soil moisture is of the utmost importance.
And speaking of soil moisture: The bare patches in the yard are not only unsightly; they contribute to loss of moisture, as the soil is in direct contact with the air, and unshaded by vegetation. I’m sick of fescue, and laying sod during a drought is a fool’s errand, so I’ve decided to reseed with a mixture of pasture grasses, zoysia, and clover. The clover is a drought-resistant cultivar we found in a catalog, and should be exactly what we need. In addition to providing ground cover, the clover renders other valuable services: Its root networks help break up compacted soil, it fixes nitrogen, and as it only attains a height of 3-4”, it requires little mowing. Well be covering additional bare patches (and adding a bit of eye appeal) with strategically planted clumps of Irish Moss, and perhaps wintergreen or walk-on-me.
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Sunday, already. Where has the weekend gone? After busting our asses all day, we’ve nearly finished the pruning, including removing most of the dead leader from the crabapple tree. Quite unsurprisingly (this is my life, after all…) it proved a serious pain in the ass. Owing to the proximity of the dead leader to the two healthy ones, I couldn’t use the chainsaw to remove it. Unfortunately, the blade of the bow saw was too flexible, which made for an uneven cut. The solution? A good, old-fashioned carpenter’s crosscut saw. Funny that a tool not specifically designed for cutting live trees would, under the circumstances, function more effectively than one designed for just that purpose…
Irritatingly enough, some of the flowering plums on the property line have contracted black knot, and have spread it to the cherry tree on the hill. This meant more grief, as I had to scale the latter and lop off the diseased limbs, which will now have to be burned. It also means more work, as several of the flowering plums are essentially lost causes, and will need to be removed and burned, as well. One of the things I hate most about fungal and bacterial infections is that they necessitate removing the diseased limbs last, and then sterilizing the loppers before moving on to the next tree, so as not to spread the disease.
Which leads me to a digression of sorts: I don’t give a shit what the tree- and squirrel-huggers say about nature being “balanced” or “gentle” or “harmonious.” That’s utter horseshit. Nature is capricious, fickle and sometimes, downright harsh. A single bird, returning from wintering in Central or South America can take a dump on a single leaf on a single shrub, depositing a single unknown pathogen, and within two weeks, the entire property looks to have been hit with Agent Orange.
Granted, that’s a slight exaggeration, but not much of one. I do, however, find the ways in which certain microorganisms spread, reproduce, and mutate rather interesting, if grimly so. For now, I’ll just knock on wood and hope that downy mildew never mutates in such a way as to be able to infect humans. It’d probably make a case of jock itch seem downright enjoyable, in comparison…
A pH test revealed that the soil in which the blueberries are planted is 6.2, give or take (neutral), which is entirely too high. I had a bit of trouble explaining to Mags just how sour a soil blueberries prefer – among the few other plants that thrive under such acid conditions are rhododendrons, azaleas, and hydrangeas – but I think I finally prevailed. Today, before the rain kicks in (yes, rain. And in Georgia, even! Can you believe it?), I’m going to put down some ammonium sulfate in order to remedy the situation. I don’t like using the stuff for the most part. It’s too harsh (absolute murder on worms) and I prefer plain garden sulfur, which, while stronger, (90% sulfur as opposed to 30% or so) acts more slowly, in my experience. The bag of the former is half empty though, and this is an extreme case. When you absolutely, positively have to lower soil pH from 6.2 to 4.5 overnight, accept no substitutes…
I’m also hoping the extreme acidity helps deter the honeysuckle that seems intent upon murdering the poor things. I don’t know enough about honeysuckle, though, so it’s research time again.
While I was out playing Tarzan, King of the –uh -- Mixed Coniferous/Deciduous Forest of the Piedmont (and I shouldn’t making jokes of that sort, by the way – if I’m still climbing trees at forty, I must be doing something right), Mags spaded and turned all the stubborn tufts of turf that had popped up in the garden. By planting time, they’ll be nothing but dead roots and grass, as the rain will wash the dirt back into the ground, where it belongs. She also turned the soil in the bed she’s designated the permanent home of the two-dozen strawberry plants she’s ordered.
And speaking of orders…Last, but not least, we put in a fairly large one with Burgess Seed and Plant Co. I’ve had very good luck with them in the past (the hybrid poplars in the backyard are a testament to the quality of their products), so they’re one of the few mail-order companies I trust, although seed companies are admittedly far more reliable than other mail-order houses, on the whole. Burgess tosses in a few freebies with each order, depending upon its size, so we should be awash in goodies this year.
In addition to the shitload of oddball seeds I usually order from them -- “Amazing Wonder Egg” (a sweet variety of eggplant, judging by the seeds and foliage), “New Guinea Butter Vine,” (I have no idea what the hell it is, but it tastes like a squash, is – judging by the white blossoms – some kind of Langenaria, and looks rather like a snake gourd), “Giant Sakurajima,” (a football-sized radish cultivar), and others, we ordered a couple hundred onion sets, a couple dozen each of shallots and seed potatoes (I don’t think Maggie quite understands how many tubers a single hunk of potato with two or three healthy eyes will produce, so she’s in for a bit of a surprise…), and some bulbs and perennials, the better to beautify the place.
I only began growing flowers a few years ago, for purely practical reasons. Nasturtiums and certain chrysanthemums, for example, are edible, and deter certain pests. Marigolds and painted daisies likewise deter certain pests, and the zinnias that have now taken over much of the garden were simply part of a packet of mixed seed, containing another species I wanted for its “bug busting” qualities. By midsummer, though, I had to admit that the flowers really were pretty, and added appealing splashes of color to the rows of vegetables in which I’d companion planted them.
My Da became ill around the same time, so to help – in whatever small way – cheer my Ma up; I began bringing her cut flowers, and arranging them as centerpieces for the kitchen table whenever a new crop of blossoms came up. She seemed to appreciate my attempts at “redneck ikebana,” so I kept at it. By the time I started dating Maggie, the zinnias had been cross-pollinating each other for two or three seasons, resulting in a veritable kaleidoscope of interesting color combinations. She loved ‘em, so I bought a couple more varieties, just to see what happens when they cross-pollinate the existing population.
As she and Ma are both very fond of flowers – and even I have to admit that they make the property more attractive – we’ll be putting in quite a few more beds, including some of the more exotic species: tritoma, lupines, dianthus, delphinum, foxglove, glads, lilies etc. So much for flowers.
As I mentioned earlier, we’ve been reviving and rehabilitating the fruit trees and shrubs in the backyard. This year, though, we’re taking it a step further. Along with the seeds and flowers, we’ve ordered a few trees: a pair each of American hazel, paw-paw, apricot, and chestnut. I don’t know whether or not we’ll get to it this season – we may have to wait until next -- but we’re also planning to add a pair each of shellbark hickory, almond, nectarine, plum, cherry, and mulberry (which lures birds away from the blueberries). Initially, I’d wanted to plant butternuts, but when I discovered that they were a Juglans species, I shitcanned the idea for obvious reasons.
I’ve already decided how I’m going to plant them, as well. The smaller trees (hazel, almond, etc.) will be planted in with the dwarf apples, in the middle of the lot. I’ve decided to plant the medium trees on or near the southern property line, while planting the taller trees towards the north end of the yard. This “sloped” arrangement should keep the larger from shading out the smaller, keeping them all healthy and happy – assuming that trees can be “happy,” that is.
Mags and I have decided to plant this “mini forest” mainly for the foods the trees produce. I have other reasons, though. As the trees grow, they’ll provide shade. This shade, in turn, helps conserve soil moisture – critically important during periods of prolonged drought. Moreover, I like the sight of them. I’m not a “greenie” by any stretch of the imagination, but the wholesale deforestation of North Fulton County doesn’t sit well with me, aesthetically or ecologically.
The economic growth with which the newcomers are so obsessed may, provide considerable short-term gains for some, but in the long run, it’ll be disastrous, ecologically speaking. During unfavorable weather cycles such as this one, the last thing this area needs is more destruction of the natural groundcover, and more people consuming more water. Unfortunately, that’s exactly what we’re seeing now. Even more troubling, I find myself an “outsider” with regard to all current attitudes toward the matter.
Most of the people I’ve met either don’t give a shit, or don’t really give a shit, but toss out the odd environmental shibboleth, to show that they’re “hip.” The “true believer” eco-freaks, and tree- and squirrel-huggers actually worship their fucked-up, patently unrealistic conception of “nature,” and to all appearances, want to exterminate the human race (I wish they’d start with themselves, for the record) or have us living in caves again. The gloabalists and other would-be tyrants are simply (and quite transparently, considering their extravagant lifestyles) using environmental concerns as a vehicle to power, while the “grasping class,” with its Boomtown mentality, is driven by short-term personal gain and little or nothing else.
My exercise in terraforming, then, is my way of saying, “Fuck you, and I mean all of you!” while pointing the finger at each group in turn:
“You indifferent, TV-watching fuckwits are the reason the rest of these bastards get away with the shit they do.”
“You granola-eatin’ space cases need to lay off the acid and take a fuckin’ bath. Oh, and tell ‘Mother Gaia’ that she gives lousy head, while you’re at it.”
“You power-crazed, elitist shitbags worry me a hell of a lot more than ‘global warming,’ and I need your ‘leadership’ like I need a case of the clap.”
“And you greedy sons of bitches, with your inability to grasp the concept of ‘enough,’ do little more than give these other assholes excuses to pass new laws and engage in further ‘social engineering,’ thereby pissing me off something fierce and reducing my quality of life. I wish you’d all kill each other and go to hell!”
And at times I do – before they kill us all. The agendas (or lack thereof) all three classes of idiot pursue are nothing other than blueprints for mass suicide, the suicide of an entire species. How much happier a place would the world be, I wonder, if they all ended their own misery, rather than sharing it with the rest of us? Suicide, as Johnny Mandel assures us, is painless…
Dante Aleghieri, on the other hand, claims otherwise. In his Seventh Circle of Hell, the souls of suicides are imprisoned within warped, gnarled trees covered with poisonous thorns; and then torn by harpies. None of the seed and plant catalogs I receive carries that particular cultivar at the moment (more’s the pity), but I did manage to find some of my favorite brambles – blackberries, to be exact.
I’ve ordered five plants. Given the species’ rampant growth habit –especially in these parts – that might have been a mistake. I’ll take the chance, though, as I haven’t had fresh blackberries since I was in my twenties, and I really miss ‘em. They once grew wild around here, and knowing the locations of all the good patches as I did, I’d simply go to one, take a bucket with me, and pick as many as I liked during mid and late summer.
When I was a kid, my friends and I – rather than gathering them and bringing them home – would just eat ‘em right off the bush, which brings me back to Dante – rather like many of my childhood memories. In his Second Circle, the souls of gluttons wallow in fetid slush, while garbage and filthy rain pour down on them. Now with the exceptions of a couple GWAR shows and a few parties at UGA, I can’t claim to have seen anything of the sort in Georgia. The blackberry patch did, however, set the odd youthful glutton (the ubiquitous “new kid,” from somewhere up North or out West, as often as not) straight with a hilarious punishment known to us as the “green apple quickstep” -- the actual fruit of which the poor kid had partaken notwithstanding.
Usually, the story would run something like this:
A few of us would cut through the subdivision across Hembree Road from ours, picking up a buddy or two along the way. We’d then make a beeline through the woods (and yards – nobody gave a rat’s ass in those days), finally emerging on Houze Way – but carefully avoiding old man Chatham’s property (his “mini-mansion” was creepy, somehow) and that of the Westbrooks, who were rumored to own the most vicious dog in the entire City of Roswell. (If the gentle reader will pardon the digression, I have no idea whether or not it was true. I can’t honestly say as any of my bunch ever even saw the Westbrooks’ dog, come to think of it. I certainly didn’t, and as we all hung out together, I can reasonably conclude that none of the others did, either.)
Terrifying (but ever-unseen) dogs and “haunted” (in reality, merely old and abandoned) houses, though, were the stuff of a Southern boy’s childhood in those days, as were blackberries and “new kids.” The horrors behind board fences and boarded windows, horrors with which we terrified (and delighted) ourselves and each other were ultimately products of our overactive imaginations. Not so the horror encountered the new kid who’d eaten too many blackberries…
Form Houze Way, we’d either walk to Crabapple Road and head south, or (if we were feeling especially adventurous) cut behind the firehouse on the corner, or jump the fence of a golf course that appeared to have gone unused since Sherman last paid his respects.
In those days, the only thing between the firehouse and the Amoco station at Crabapple and U.S. 92 was a vast thicket, so wild and overgrown as to be completely impenetrable.
Unless one happened to be a kid between the ages of ten and thirteen...
For us, it was a berry-picker’s paradise. As there were so many we’d make our way through the brambles (or “stickers” as we called them), find a place in which the canes thinned enough allow one to stand, and then eat our fill, before walking up the road to the gas station, the drugstore, or the Big Star supermarket for sodas, gum, chewing tobacco, (A.k.a. “chaw.” Ah, don’t look at me that way. I took to chewing when I was eleven or twelve, my brother when he was nine or ten, and I admit it. Many of our friends took it up at roughly the same age, and it was nothing unusual in those days. Hell, during my 8th grade year at Roswell High, many of us carried “dip cups” – although to my mind, only faggots used snuff; real men chewed plug or pouch tobacco – in school, and nobody gave a rat’s ass. This was Georgia, between ’76 and ’81, Ok? It was almost another world… but one I liked a shitload better than that in which we now live) and other necessities.
During the stopover, someone (the new kid, natch) would eat far too many berries. Cries of “Stop hoggin’ all the big’uns, you goober!” and “How ‘bout leavin’ some for the rest of us?” would invariably fall upon deaf ears, as the self-indulgent li’l piglet, face and hands stained purple with juice, would point out -- and quite correctly – that it was such a huge patch; no one could possibly eat every berry within it.
At this point, three things would happen: 1.) The politer of us would simply roll our eyes, grumble and pick a few more berries. 2.) The one kid who’d paid entirely too much attention in Sunday School at the First Baptist would blurt: “You shouldn’t oughtta eat too many o’ them, on account o’ they’ll…” before the rest stared him into silence. 3.) The one truly mean little bastard among us would say, “Try the red ones. They’re the best!”
Yeah, that was my brother or m’self, as often as not. As if the Gentle Reader even need ask…
Eventually, we’d leave the berry patch and hit the gas station, drugstore or supermarket, just passing the time on a summer afternoon, for the most part. Note that I said: “for the most part.” Within half an hour or so, full to brimming with blackberries, a soda or two (usually Coca Cola, pronounced “co-cola” in these parts -- for all that I always preferred RC), “Berry Boy” would inevitably commence to feeling the urge to pass something a wee smidgen more substantial -- and less far less abstract -- than mere time.
Gurgles and giggles, Gentle Reader. Gurgles and giggles.
On the way home, roughly halfway through the woods, “Berry Boy’s” guts would abruptly generate the same sounds one would expect of a defective aquarium pump: The aforementioned gurgles. Right about the same time, we li’l bastards would generate a few sounds of our own: The aforementioned giggles.
“Uh, guys?” he’d say.
“We’d best get movin’! It’s after four, and Ma will whip my ass if I’m late for dinner!”
“Uh, guys?”
“Pool don’t close ‘til eight. Y’all wanna go after supper?”
“Uh, guys?”
“Sure!”
“Uh, guys?”
“Oh! Or we could ride bikes, over to [at] the new construction site! I hear there’s some great jumps over there!”
“Now that sounds mighty good!”
“Uh, guys!”
At this point, “Berry Boy’s” tone would become pleading, desperate, and pushy, simultaneously. Standing before us, his face white as a sheet, trying to hold his knees and ass-cheeks together by turns, he’d half whisper, half shriek the words: “I gotta go!”
“Don’t feel like the Lone Ranger,” a certain kind of native Northside kid -- typified by a Bro whose name I won’t mention -- would reply. “We all do. It’s gettin’ on supper time.”
“That’s not what I mean,” the glutton would wheeze. “I mean I gotta go!”
By now, the poor kid’s eyes would be crossed, his face pale, his hands clutching his gut, and his legs wobbling.
“Oh! Someone would say, “You mean you jus’ gotta take a dump? Well jus’ go behind that big tree over yonder. We’ll keep lookout.”
We’d indeed keep lookout (we were honorable boys in our own way, if given to mischief at times) even as we about died laughing our asses off, while “Berry Boy” outdid Jeff Daniels’ character in one of Dumb and Dumber’s more amusing scenes.
And scenes past, present, and future coil about one another like serpents in a Norse carving, while the blackberries I ordered will soon arrive. No tangled mass of “stickers” this time, no gloves, long sleeves and jeans in the height of summer, but rather a double row (supplemented by dewberries, boysenberries, and raspberries), trellised, neatly pruned, and ready to pick, as the season allows.
If memory serves me correctly, it was John Stuart Mill who said something to the effect of: “A reasonable man adapts himself to his surroundings. An unreasonable man adapts his surroundings to himself. Therefore, all progress depends upon unreasonable men.” Being reasonable and unreasonable by turns (and as either suits my fancy), I’ll agree and disagree at the same time. Certainly, a reasonable man adapts himself to his surroundings. When, however, his surroundings consist of the work of unreasonable men, reason dictates that adapting is unreasonable in and of itself, and that the most reasonable course of action is that of the unreasonable man.
While you’re chewing on that one, I’ll be outside, fertilizing.
And fuck "progress."
Take it easy.