Metaphorical Blueberry Farm

Last weekend, out in Queens for a physically distanced Papa Rooster birthday celebration, I bought two blueberry bushes.  For years now, well, close to two decades, when things got stressful at work (often, regularly), which inevitably threw off the balance in life, I have confided to close colleagues my dream of running off to Maine to a blueberry farm - where I could live off the land, quiet my mind, slow everything down... At some point, I read that blueberries are actually quite labor intensive to harvest, so the reality may not match my fantasy, but that is why it is the “Metaphorical” Blueberry Farm.  And it seems I am in need of it now, and moving toward acquiring tangible reminders that it is an option - maybe not today, but out there, after projects get wrapped up here - THE Project.

This past week wasn't great.  Work stuff, work processes - all just reaffirmed the growing apprehension.  It's become difficult to pretend and go through the motions.  Something's gotta give.  Twenty years is a good, solid, respectable run.  But another two decades just doesn't feel tenable right now.  Maybe tomorrow my mood will shift.  I don't think so, though.  Just have to hold on to finish The Project.

It’s also helpful to remind myself that even when my mind meanders into worries about how I would support myself at the Metaphorical Blueberry Farm, that is a scarcity mindset, and I should look to the abundance around me (so sayeth a friend who is a life coach and whose specialty is teaching an “abundance mindset” - I haven’t completely bought into it quite yet, but it is certainly helpful to have a different perspective to look to).

And all around me, right now, out of mere seeds or seedlings, scraps and castoffs,  ready to be harvested, already harvested, are Malabar spinach, pumpkin shoots, ever more shiso, Vietnamese balm, mint, Thai lime leaves, red amaranth, red Russian kale, onion greens ... and soon, grape tomatoes, by summer’s end, chard, green amaranth ... maybe even a few blueberries.

And taking this year’s lessons about better timing for indoor seed starting, next year there could be sugar snap peas, peppers, more tomatoes, and one day, apples, maybe figs ... Perhaps not the diversity for total self sufficiency, but certainly valuable supplements and a hedge against starvation and vitamin deficiency - flavor, richness, that bit of extra, without the costs extracted by the corporate conglomerate masters out there.  And that's only from the containers on a city terrace ... what I could do with an actual patch of dirt ....

I can figure it out. I might not get everything at the Metaphorical Blueberry Farm thriving right off the bat, but in time, if I go there, I will learn, find alternatives, be able to manage.  The Metaphorical Blueberry Farm won't be so scary if I start getting comfortable with the crops, the process, now ... The numbers, too; nervousness and anxiety beget Excel spreadsheets.  In one fantasy, farming in place is an option.  In reality, relocating to Queens may be more feasible.  But it will be fine; it will all be fine.

Summer Lunching (2020)

At moments, this work/shelter from home thing isn’t so bad.  I am so fortunate to have an easy way to step out and take a break from it all.  The office has a dining terrace too, which I used whenever possible, way back when I could eat in a cafeteria...

Oh, I do hope the cafeteria staff have landed ok; during an office update some weeks back, it came out that much of the vendor-employed caf staff was laid off or furloughed - because we are not there.  Technically they are the food vendor company's employees, but pragmatically they are the firm's - they only ever served our firm.  Not sure whether law firms these days make it a practice to outsource services as the one I work at has, but that's just an economic and maybe liability protection arrangement; I would argue it's hard to escape the moral responsibility for what follows from that - the caf staff lost their livelihoods because the partners did not want to keep them on.  This pandemic has exposed all the ambiguities of our capitalist society.

Separately, a propos of this, once-NF posted an article about how Americans are averaging a 16 pound weight gain during this pandemic; opposite situation here, I think that is about equal to my weight loss - I sometimes am just too lazy to make myself a proper meal (and when stressed tend to eat less). I have come to appreciate how much I relied on others to help me feed myself, even though I felt like I cooked a fair amount, for a New Yorker.  I was almost entirely dependent on the caf staff for lunch on work days.  And I did eat or take out dinner at least once or twice a week.  The pandemic has changed all of that, of course.

Lunching outside at home, without significant worry about my food budget, is a blessing I don’t take lightly.  I know any moment the other shoe can fall.

For all I lament about my northern exposure and limited sun for the plants (the reason they are all pushed against the northern parapet), the layout does provide a nice shady area to sit and eat, read, contemplate, sometimes even work (but usually there are too many tempting gardening distractions to attempt to work outdoors).

The lunch: Handful of spinach, one Persian cucumber, Thai lime chili cashews, and - controversial dietary choice - on the cusp of going bad frozen watermelon... I try very much to avoid food waste, especially in these times; I forgot about the watermelon in the fridge - being a lazy meal/snack prepper and all.  I have discovered that freezing cuspy watermelon concentrates the sweetness and masks some of the fermentation.  Sprinkling salt and some cayenne pepper on said frozen watermelon masks this further and turns it into an interesting dessert.  Adding it to a salad that way makes it almost like I let it go on purpose for an intentional summer lunch.

Day After Fay

Timing gardening tasks to take advantage of a tropical storm, and the rewards of its aftermath.

I am a lazy gardener (lazy in other areas too - or, labor efficient, if we spin it positively). So, knowing a tropical storm was coming, the red spinaches (aka amaranth) that I got from the Mother Garden over the 4th of July, that still hadn’t made it into planters, went in - so that I could take advantage of Fay to water them in.  Why water when Mother Nature volunteers to take on the chore?  Of course, that set off a game of musical planters - stray portulacas in the destination planters got moved to better locations, clustered clown violets got separated, broken mandevilla tips that successfully rooted went in, anything that wasn’t in its ideal home moved, more seeds were sown - all to make the most of Fay’s watering.  If those roots aren’t well established by all that rain, there’s no way I would have done better.

The day after, the newly located plants looked happy and hydrated, so, fingers crossed. And yesterday’s sun showers finally led to rainbow sightings!  It’s nice to be rewarded for chasing rainbows every so often.

The amaranths are so lovely and colorful - I’d plant them just for the foliage, even if they weren’t edible!  But since we’re in COVID times, edible is definitely a bonus...

...The mandevillas budding at last - after all the overwinter care, some reassurance they’re still doing their thing. 

And one of the rosebuds is just perfection...

...and not as perfect, but perfectly pretty...

... Then there were the visitors who came by post-storm - the usual snails,...

... also a most unusual and prehistoric looking, HUGE June beetle - maybe they just are that size, but made be do a double take, for the size and the color, sort of pretty, actually.

And to cap off the evening of pretty skies, these lovely sunsets we’ve been having - I didn’t realize until after looking at the photos that I managed to capture both the sunset AND the moonrise!

[Finally closed out with completing photos on Labor Day 2023.]

Fireflies and Fireworks

Low key celebrations in the time of COVID.  Out at the Mother Ship for lobster, Mother Hen food, fireflies, law-bending neighbors’ fireworks ... like my teen years, before the world became vast and expansive.  There is a charm to the smallness.

My future may hold a return to smallness.  I am beginning to understand why folks with families think to leave the jungle - when there are too many factors in play, the countervailing move is to eliminate some of them, balance it out by shrinking the world.

It Takes a Village - Tree Pit Update

Successful guerrilla gardening is a community effort.  After checking periodically on the tree pits on 81st, and bringing water, which seemed barely able to be absorbed each time for how compacted the soil had become, I got it in my head to try to work organic matter in, and to see if I could give the maple seedlings some company.  So this past weekend, while running errands, I stopped into the farmers' market and got over the anxiety about the awkwardness and just went ahead and asked the Sikking Flowers farmer for her stem end waste, and she generously invited me to take as much as I wanted.  So, after cutting it all into bits, I went off to amend the soil, with the goal of planting Mirabilis and cleome seeds gathered in Carl Schurz Park last autumn, and getting everything in to take advantage of the forecasted rains.

At the tree pit with the live seedling, I happened to meet the nice lady who provided the stake, and who promised a taller one since the seedling has actually taken to its home and gained several inches and a bunch of leaves.  I met a nice man who says his daughter takes a photo each time she passes, and that it brought them great joy when a tree went in, and that they do check to see if it looks thirsty, but it hadn't.  (The Collin Dry Cleaners guys seem to have the water handled.)  And I met another gentleman who suggested a nonprofit - New York Tree Trust - that might provide a tree pit guard.  And different other folks seem willing to water if they happen by and the seedling looks thirsty, part of my conversations acknowledging that, yes, I was the tree planter, they are most welcome, and yes, please do water it if it looks thirsty.  So folks seem invested now, and maybe the seedling will keep growing.  I am going to give it a hashtag - #YorkvilleUESTreePit507E81, in case any of those folks goes searching and wants to follow along, and I will add it in a tag at the pit one of these days.  So, I dropped Mirabilis seeds in each of the four corners and cleome seeds on either side of the maple and behind it.

Then, to the pit with the dearly departed seedling (I bent parts of the top and it snapped - no give at all, so no life left, I don’t think).  Here I decided on two Mirabilis at the sides and a ring around the departed seedling with cleomes.  Maybe the now-amended and turned soil will trap water at the edge of the seedling’s roots, and if there IS any life remaining, the roots can take up some water.

The thing with this one, we’ll call it #YorkvilleUESTreePit530E81, is no one seemed to have taken any interest, and there just wasn't a ready water source around.  I had used both my bottles on the other pit, and was hoping against hope there might be a spigot somewhere at that end of the block ... none.  As I labored on, the nice lady who had put in the stake at the other pit passed by, and remarked, "You again?"  And we had more conversation about THIS tree pit, and the lack of water leading to the demise, which is when I met Jane of the window overlooking #YorkvilleUESTreePit530E81, who is home bound, and overheard us.  I had seen her before when I stopped by on other days to water in hopes of resuscitating the departed seedling, but today introduced myself.  Jane offered water by lowering down a bag on a rope from her window to fill my bottles, and offered to do it again if I am by and call up to her window.  Then a custodian at the building came along and asked if there would be flowers, and offered to let me in to the basement sink for more water.  He seems inclined to water occasionally and out of pity for the potential of flowers.  So maybe, maybe, this one will have life again too, so Jane will have something to look out upon.

And finally, after I got home, hours later, it rained some, so the seeds got some reinforcement moisture.  Hopefully they'll take.  Time will tell.