Woody & My IBF

While I was driving, I had a lot of time to think about things. Not necessarily the world's great issues or my inner psyche, but just whatever came to me. When I came home and filled my brain space with whatever had become habit, like TV and catalog reading. I fill an entire recycling bin with catalogs every week, and only half of that is newspapers since I get The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal on my iPad. I have to go to the dump from time to time with an truck bed full of paper crap because they have entire dumpster-sized recycling bins for me to fill. When are these guys going to figure out I am never going to buy veterinary supplies or genuine chunks of the Berlin Wall? And at Christmas, well, I think that if I bagged those bad boys, I could construct some mighty nice auxiliary levees and prevent national disaster. It's my own form of Doctors Without Borders. I would call it Catalogs Without Buyers or Operation Catalog.

As for TV, I would be just fine if I watched only what is on my DVR and not whatever random shit is on when I need something to do. By the way, I really miss my Tivo. I don't know if it's changed, but when I had it you could only record one thing at once. The television gods schedule all the shows you want to watch at once. I need to watch one and record the other, or better yet, watch a previously recorded show and record (I wanted to say taped, shows my age, ahem) two more. Verizon lets me do that. But Verizon doesn't say when the episode was first aired. That may seem like a little thing, but when you pick "new episodes" (no repeats), it records all the episodes that are new to it and you don't have any idea if you are watching that second episode before you were surfing and found the show, or if it one you forgot about (remember my age), or if it is really new. The other thing Tivo does that I miss is know what you like and tape other things for you. Sometimes it is really funny, like if you watch QVC you get The Real Housewives of New Jersey, or Myth Busters and get the news.

Anyhow, it is now gardening season. As I pull weeds and shovel manure, I again have a quiet brain with which to contemplate. It is a lot easier thinking when driving than thinking with dirt down your bra. It is almost St. Patrick's Day which is the ideal day to plant peas. They also say that if you can sit on the soil with your bare butt for 2 minutes the soil is ready. I have a little extra time this year as I forgot to order my seeds until last night and they don't offer express shipping on seeds. I don't see why not. There must be other procrastinators like myself out there. Maybe somebody had a car accident and couldn't order or their kid had extra detention and their mind just wasn't on it. Maybe someone was on a road trip. Like me. Anyhow, the peas and the spinach go in now. Now. My garden will be cursed if I don't put that butt on the soil on March 17 and decide I absolutely, positively must plant that day. I have done it in the rain. I have done it in the snow. Call me superstitious, but I swear it works. I grow sweet peas, as in the kind that smell good, not the kind you eat, although I grow those too. I am the only one within 100 miles that can grow sweet peas outside a greenhouse. It is my special gift. But I will die, absolutely die, if I don't get those bad boys in the ground this week. I am putting my fingers in my ears and pretending I have another week.


I may have mentioned that if I didn't have Oscar next door driving that little green garden truck along the fence, I would garden in the altogether. I love soil. I garden barefoot and if I don't see any poison ivy, I garden without gloves too. I'm not sure if I am extracted from one of those scary trees in The Wizard of Oz or if it is just my immigrant potato farming stock. After awhile, I get what I call permadirtShoulda kept it to myself. Anyhow, they already know my address and have practically memorized my Amex number as I buy a huge amount of mulch, top soil and compost. He asked if I wanted it in the bottom driveway or the top driveway. The appropriate answer is the bottom one because it is out of view of everything and I can leave huge piles of stuff forever if I forget about it. I told him the top one and I had him dump the entire truckload on one side of my driveway. It is a pain in the ass to get out of my driveway with all that compost there so I
hope this will provide motivation to finish. I hope the snowplow guy isn't moving it next January. The pea beds (duh) have to be done right away. Since the soil in my area sucks, I have wooden box things filled with soil to grow stuff in. They are called raised beds. Plants eat stuff, so you have to put more soil in them from time to time. My beds are about six inches short which is a lot. So I set out to move about 5 tons (my honest guess) of compost among 12 beds and whatever is left I'll put where the pumpkins grow (probably 12 inches short, pumpkins eat a lot). The asparagus beds have to be filled right away too because they'll be sprouting soon and I don't want to drown them later. Well, you have to pull the weeds out first so that you won't be providing a buffet for the chickweed and dandelions and purslane. And Canadian thistles. These thistles are the bane of my life. They are my Caddy Shack gophers. And this year they are mine. I bought a huge jug of RoundUp EX in the blue container which is supposed to be illegal if you don't have a special chemical handling license. And I bought a backpack sprayer. I will spray those suckers every single day until they go crying back to their mothers. But first I am digging. And digging. And digging. Thistles have these really long, really brittle white roots that run about 18 inches under the soil horizontally. The  plants go up vertically from there. You pull out the plant and about 9 inches of root, but the other 9 inches is still attached to the mother ship. Man oh man. Pulled weeds for a few hours. Filled beds with compost for another few. This is a short day for me, but the beginning of the season and I'm not quite in gardening shape. Note to self: prophylactic Advil is a good thing.

Needing an excuse to get out of the garden, I decided to get those old Cochranville Garage signs I saw at Shenk's barn last year (and probably the year before). Shenk's is an amazing place. They have old door knobs. Old faucets. Old tools. Old hooks. Old doors. Milkboxes. Windows. Porch posts. Outhouses. Iron things I have no idea what you do with. It's unbelievable. Shenk's is only open from Wednesday through Saturday but I forgot so I called the guy from the driveway. He was okay with it because I am a regular. I knew exactly where those signs were and calculated the tax and wrote a check. To show you what kind of town I live in, last year he miscalculated the tax by three bucks and change and called me to refund it. Going back another day when whole place is open. Will take pix. Gave one side of sign to friend/restorer and kept the other. Had ice cream and watched TV with my imaginary daughter, Lila Rae. Considered sending blog address to almost-real imaginary boyfriend. Note to self: get a life.