The Taters are in the ground

 … along with Asparagus which I have never grown before.  It had the same instructions that came with the potatoes; 3-inches below ground level and then add ½ an inch a week until achieving ground level.

This slow filling in of the trench means that I can’t plant my carrots, onions, beets, etc. until May.  No problem, I’ve got seeds in pots growing in my window sills for all of these.  The problem is, I didn’t label them, so I need to wait anyway, until they are recognizable.

The “Netherland Bulb Company” in Easton, PA packages these packets of Seed Potatoes ( 4 different packets).  They are from stock grown in Idaho, and locally available at Dorothy’s Stumptown Nursery.  One other recommendation is that the soil should be richly organic, loose with good drainage.  I have gardened my backyard organically for over twenty years now.  For this potato trench, I have mixed 1/3 my own compost, 1/3 the native soil, and 1/3 Stumptown Nursery’s Barnyard organic compost.

Here are the trenches, three of them.

The first Pic is a halfway point, …

 

 

The comes the final Pic, when they’re watered in.

 

…

Bright Eyes (1934)

 

Anyone who watches this picture these days, begins tearing up as soon as they see the rickety aircraft, bi-wing planes on a rudimentary airport they remember that her father died in a plane crash.   – but it’s not that – they quickly remember that Shirley’s parented only by a mom who’s working as a maid for the worst couple in the world, with the most spoiled brat child in the world.  This is the first ten minutes of the film.

We are sobbing already.

Then her mother dies, in a freak accident.

We continue sobbing the way through, while she’s singing, “The Good Ship Lollipop”.

It ends well.

It’s been a good day in River Town

 

PP and I decided the Potato [root vegetable] Bed was ready for planting.

The first step was reading the instructions.  She was disappointed when I told her today’s step involved the cutting into smaller pieces with one or two eyes.  We took a vote and the ayes had it.  But they then had to sit in the sun and dry out for one day, so Pic 1 is: “drying and quartered potatoes”.  

We next dealt with our every 3-4 weeks minimal garbage: all of our scraps go into compostable recycling; most of our packaging is dropped at the local dump once a month for free; I dump my kitchen garbage bag 2-3 times a week into a back deck garbage bin, which is a can with a “Contractor’s Bag” in it; 2-3 times a month, I move a full Bag to the rear of my property, and every 2-3 months, I take a load to the dump for $37.50.

While looking at the back deck, PP and I decided to begin the cleaning process.  Chopping up and stacking the remaining wood was the initial task, See Pic 2: “Next Year’s Starter Stack of Wood”.  Chopping wood with an axe was interesting.  When I had two “good” eyes, I always aimed wrong, guided by my dominant right eye.  Now that my right eye has Macular and is effectively sidelined, I make no more mistakes: neither in picture taking, nor in wielding an axe.  I was like Jack the Flyswatter in the Beanstalk today, almost every blow, a deadly hit.  It gave me a powerful feeling.

That still left us with a sweep-up job for tomorrow, Pic 3, “Empty Winter Wood Pile”.

So, this afternoon PP and I decided that Peter was getting too old to manage a full, sunny front yard, as well as a back yard, which he has recently downgraded to two beds: Salad Bowl bed and Root Crop bed.  So, we have partitioned the front yard area into at least a dozen beds of undetermined purpose or management, as of yet.

We have laid down eight-foot timbers, often with four-foot adjuncts, laying out pathways, and bed boundaries.  The dozen could as easily be two dozen.  The purpose is to be able to focus on single beds.  I certainly would contemplate sub-letting a bed or two to sunny-loving, redwood inhabitants.  They could be the needed labor to get the front yard under control.  See Pic 4: “Garden Beds in Front”. 

A Final Early Spring Night Tonight

 

The temperature is dropping 30+ points along our micro-climate River tonight.  Ah Well, we got good things done today.

I hired Julian Diurni, Jessica’s son, to churn my compost bins.  He emptied my Bin #1 [Pic 1], sharing the 2 yards or wormy compost amongst both front and back yards.  It completed my new Potato Bed trench garden [Pic 2].  I will plant my seedlings there as soon as they open their eyes to Springtime growing season.

He worked deeply to the bottom, scouring into the transfer buckets every tasty morsel of fresh recycled compost.  There are fresh service piles in the front yard, ready for my re-visualization; he also filled the new raised-bed  in the back yard by the once-leaning trellis; and left a few buckets for my withering Clematis.  The bottom of Bin #1 has been scoured to its’ depths. [Pic 3]

Bin # 1 will start a new cycle of composting.  For me it starts in the morning with yesterday’s coffee grounds.  If I cooked with veggies in one of my WOKs the night before, I may clean things out into this handy. foot-opening, specialty, mini-garbage can.  Back from shopping at noontime, I will chop off the leaves and tails of things like beets and carrots – compost, even for fruit like pineapple; and oranges that I eat all day long.  At dinner, often in the WOK with Kale, onions, and asparagus; and an avocado somewhere along the line.  My mini-can fills up every day or two.  I eat a lot of fruits and vegetables.

So, the excess from Bin #1 went to top off Bins #2 and #4 [pic 4], putting them to sleep for another year.  I’ll open Bin #2 in Spring 2022.  It’s a cycle – I add new worms every six months.  Other than that, I don’t touch them – normal rain – normal stirrings.  

But as I said to open, it’s chilling down tonight.  We’ve only got one or two more nights like this before late Spring kicks in,

10° Centigrade, over 50 F.  That’s when seeds start perking, etc.  Many things can’t wait – my cat and I have a hard  time waiting.  I’ve started a very late seasonal fire in the fireplace tonight. [Pic 5].  It’s not really like a winter “warm us up” type of fire; it’s more of a camping trip “doesn’t this feel comfortable” type of fire.  The cat can’t wait until the mid-seventies afternoon tomorrow, she’s pacing and looking to get into trouble.

Brief Encounter

 

Tonight’s movie was “Brief Encounter”, a classic British, 1945, B&W movie, which touches all my movie buttons:

  British, pre-Post-WWII, tied to classical music (Rachmaninoff), and starring Celia Johnson, a Mary Astor style woman, who is instantly and completely appealing. 

She leads a normal life, and accidentally runs across an appealing man in Trevor Howard, who is a Doctor moving to Africa to conduct research.  Her husband does the Times Crosswords.

The movie revolves around the train station, where they meet.  Very Shakespearean with the comic relief provided by the waitress and the station attendant. 

It is the investigation of a delusion – that the grass is always greener on the other side. 

They have a fantasy relationship, which seems so real, even though it’s just moments out of the normal, hum-drum week.

It’s an entirely romantic, escapist fantasy film.

He says to her, on first meeting, formally, “You’re too sane and uncomplicated, but you could never be dull.”

The power of this movie,

  and it is overwhelmingly powerful, is the train scenes,

    both coming and going, as well as on board.

This is a train movie.

It is a masterpiece.

 

Independent Spirits

 I could have not picked two more disparate movies than:

 “Sand Pebbles” w/ Steve McQueen, 1966, and

 “The Far Country” w/ James Stewart, 1954, to watch, these last two nights.

Different historical eras. 1926 vs. 1896; different themes,

  power versus lust;

or are they that different?

A key dialogue line in both films, tying them together was,

 “Prepare Ship to Repel Boarders.!”

It was a standard Hollywood line to raise audience apprehension.

For the Scriptwriters, it was a shift to the “Rebel Force”.  The American patrol boat was now morally led by Steve McQueen; the steamer to Dawson by Jimmy Stewart.  “Don’t Tread on me” is the rebel’s motto.

The underdog wins against all odds.  It’s the American Way.

The generational gap between film production merely signifies,

the public’s coming to grips with the reality of death accompanying moral conviction more often than the miraculous escapes, repeatedly, of Jimmy Stewart.

Realism.

 Pride & Prejudice the 2005 movie with Keira Knightly

 

All the critics say, “A timeless saga”; and I couldn’t agree more.

A brilliant movie.

Keira Knightly was perfect for spicy, “z”, Elizabeth.

 

I especially liked, Donald Sutherland, the vapid father.  I thought he  died decades ago, after Animal House., but he was up for this role.

He perfectly made no decisions, of any sort, in the film.

 

Judi Dench has become a character actress in the classic movie

  sense from the post-war era.  She was great as a nasty bitch,

    never will plot lot lines reconciled her, as all the others were.

 

But the best character actress,

  I hope and predict to be a legend in the future is

    Rosamund Pike.

   Only her name will hold her back,

   She has the background, staging, education, and experience to become one of the greatest legendary actresses of all time.