gardening | Bertram's Blog

Taking a Break

October 29, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I don’t know when I last took a break from working out in the yard — from what I remember, I’ve been out there every day for months — so today was a rare treat.

I had considered pre-digging some holes for the bulbs that are due to arrive today and tomorrow, and I should have watered the grass (it’s still so new that it needs to be watered at least once a day, though I only managed a double watering once) but when a friend asked if I’d like to go to the “big” town (7,000 people!) for a shopping trip, I dropped everything and went with her.

I doubt it will hurt the grass any to be neglected one day. I gave it a good soaking yesterday, and will do so again tomorrow. Nor will I miss out on the sunshine. Tomorrow will be warm — perhaps the last warm day until next year — so I will be out for longer than is probably practical trying to plant as many of those bulbs as possible.

Besides, it was good to be able to fill up my refrigerator, which had been almost empty. And I had the opportunity to shop for Thanksgiving dinner since I doubt I’ll be going back there until December sometime.

I got a turkey breast, and to be honest, I’m not expecting it to be very good since the additives are about 20% of the weight. It might make for easy cooking, especially since it’s a freezer-to-oven product, but I also bet it will have a plastic feel as such highly processed meats often do. But in this case, it truly is the thought that counts. Neither my friend nor I want to be included in other people’s family plans, so we’re going to celebrate on our own. We really don’t have to fix a traditional meal, I mean, it’s not a requirement, but at least this way we won’t waste time trying to figure out an alternative menu. And anyway, who knows — the turkey might be excellent after all. One thing I know, we won’t have to worry about the grief upsurges that are so often brought about by being with couples. After all this time, it’s still hard for me, and she’s coming up on her third anniversary, which would make it doubly hard for her.

This day does show that there is life after gardening when it gets too cold to be out working, though today was a bit of a cheat because of the companionship and the shopping expedition. But as with all other changes I’ve dealt with, I’ll survive the coming winter.

And anyway, there’s always next spring to look forward to.

***

Pat Bertram is the author of Grief: The Inside Story – A Guide to Surviving the Loss of a Loved One. “Grief: The Inside Story is perfect and that is not hyperbole! It is exactly what folk who are grieving need to read.” –Leesa Healy, RN, GDAS GDAT, Emotional/Mental Health Therapist & Educator.

Posted in gardening, life, relationships. Tags: change of seasons, life after gardening, planting bulbs, taking a day off from yard work, taking care of grass, Thanksgiving dinner for grievers. Leave a Comment »

The Coming Seasons

October 26, 2021 — Pat Bertram

It’s been ten days since the grass was put in, and it’s still alive! Yay! Maybe my brown thumb is gradually turning green. I’ve still been watering the grass every day, but strong winds are bringing in cooler temperatures, so it won’t be long before I switch to every other day, and then gradually fade out as winter pushes its way into my world.

I’m not especially fond of winter, but I have a hunch this year I will appreciate it more than normal — no watering grass and plants, no digging, no landscaping. Except for the watering, I’m mostly done with the digging. My final two hundred bulbs should be here Friday, and after they are planted, all I have to do is watch the forecast for the first snowfall, then scatter my wildflower seeds and tramp them into the ground before the storm hits.

Then it’s all about waiting for spring. Or not. Too much of my life has been about waiting, so perhaps I should change my focus to something beyond my yard and garden. Playing house and cleaning all the corners that have been neglected during the past few months perhaps. Walking, probably. All too often, I was too tired from the gardening chores or my knees too incapacitated to walk this summer, so winter would be a good time to concentrate on mobility. Ooops. But snow! I don’t walk in the snow, so that might not be the best thing to concentrate on. Still, there are my knee exercises to do to make sure they are as strong as possible as I sink deeper into old age.

The only thing worse than waiting is planning, so I’ll be better off not planning what I will do when the yard chores are finished especially since there is a good chance they won’t be finished for a long time. After all, the neighbors on all sides have trees, and somehow most of the leaves end up in my yard. It will be good to have the leaves, but I don’t particularly relish raking them off the grass and blowing them off the rocks. Still, tools are always fun to use, so it will be just a different focus.

It is interesting the way having a yard and spending time in that yard every day makes one cognizant of the seasons in a way that merely staying inside and switching from heat to air-conditioning and back to heat does. Even walking didn’t make me as aware of the seasons, perhaps because I wasn’t as involved with my environs as I am with yardwork.

Next year should be interesting. I’ve dug up about all the weeded areas I could, and those I couldn’t will be sown with wildflower seeds. If my raised garden is built by then, I will have a garden to plant, but if not, I’ll mostly be taking care of what has already been planted. Though, come to think of it, the lure of bedding plants is strong, so I’m sure I’ll find some place for a few. Or even more than a few.

Last night I was thinking about age, brought on by a neighbor’s comment that I was too old to go tent camping, which I might be. But I do think in another decade, I will look back on this year, my first year of unarguable elderliness as a time of relative youth. I mean, look at all I’ve accomplished with the landscaping. Admittedly, I did not lay the sod, the ornamental rocks, or the crushed rock for the pathways, but I have been out there every day doing something to turn my property into a micro estate.

It has been a good experience, and I’m looking forward to seeing where all this takes me in the coming seasons.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in gardening, home, house, life. Tags: creating a micro estate, landscaping, preparing for fall, waiting and planning, waiting for spring, yardwork and the seasons. 2 Comments »

A Pot of Olio

October 24, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Olio is one of those words beloved by crossword puzzle creators because it can fill spots where a lot of vowels are needed. That’s the only place where I ever heard the word. One of the definitions is a highly spiced stew originating in Spain and Portugal and made from pieces of beef, mutton, venison, poultry, bacon, pumpkins, cabbage, turnips, onions, spinach, endive, marigolds, and various herbs. The other definition of olio is “a miscellaneous collection of things,” and that’s the meaning I am using here because of the disparate comments and updates I will be including in today’s blog.

Last night, after the “Nite at the Museum” featuring a mystery I wrote, the woman in charge called me all excited because the mystery worked, they had a great turnout, they made money, and people had fun. I think people around here enjoy this sort of mystery where the characters don’t have to memorize anything — they just wing it — and the “audience” can participate or not as they listen to the entertainment, have a bite to eat, and wander around looking for clues. The mystery I wrote for a dinner put on by a guild I belong to didn’t work because no one wanted to participate, some of characters didn’t want to circulate but instead huddled together and mumbled their lines, and very few people knew what was going on. If that guild wants a non-participatory mystery, I will suggest they buy one. But that’s not until next year, and who knows what will happen between now and then.

My grass is still green. It’s turning brown on the edges of some of the sod pieces, but I pay particular attention to those areas to make sure they get plenty of water as well as to make sure water seeps beneath the sod to keep the ground wet in the hope that the roots will seat themselves more thoroughly by winter.

I received email notices that my bulb orders are on their way. I panicked when I saw what I’d ordered — three hundred bulbs? Really? I can only hope my knees hold up! Luckily, the weather will cooperate. Although the week after I get the bulbs will be getting a bit below freezing, the high temperatures will be in the fifties and sixties, so I should be able to take my time with the planting.

And speaking of knees — I chatted with a neighbor for a few minutes this morning about his plans to turn a bus into an RV. I asked if he was going to outfit the vehicle with solar panels, and he said yes since he plans to camp off the grid. Too many places with electrical hookups charge a bundle for the night, and he doesn’t want to pay it. We talked about being able to camp on BLM lands, and I mentioned my defunct plans to go on a year-long camping trip, and he said that I was too old now and my knees are going bad. His comments took me aback, but he’s right. I couldn’t do that sort of trip anymore, and in fact, it’s why I moved here and spent my trip money fixing up the place.

I could do shorter trips, if I wanted and could get the money together, but I have responsibilities now. Grass itself is a huge responsibility! And then there is the house and all the rest of it.

I also made plans for Thanksgiving. A widow friend, like me, feels out of place having dinner with other people’s families, and though we both are pleased to be invited, it does turn what should be a celebration into a reminder of what our lives have come down to. So we’re going to celebrate together. I doubt either of us is up to dealing with a turkey, but we’ll figure something out.

Meantime, happy week before Halloween!

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in blogging, gardening, life. Tags: grass as a responsibility, miscellaneous collection, olio, plans for Thanksgiving, planting bulbs, spiced stew from Spain, too old. 2 Comments »

Gardening is Like Writing

October 22, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I’ve heard it said that there are two kinds of writers, plotters and pantsters. Plotters outline, so before they sit down to write, they know exactly what they are going to say. Pantsters write by the seat of their pants, so when they sit down to write, they never know what they are going to say.

Me? I’m neither. I start with an idea, then add another idea, and keep adding ideas until I know where I am going to begin and where I am going to end. The middle part is a matter of finding ways to connect all my disparate ideas, so by the time the book is written, the story seems inevitable, as if had been written by a plotter.

As it turns out, I garden the same way. I started with a few lilac suckers from a neighbor’s lilac bush. At the time, I just planted them more or less at random because there was no order to the yard. The fence that was here at the beginning of my tenure enclosed only a small part of the back yard, which to me was a selling point because I didn’t want a huge yard to take care of. Between the fence and the alley was a carport, and next to the carport was a decrepit garage.

I had no plans for anything back then except to shore up the garage, but eventually a sibling talked me into fencing the property, which turned out to be a great idea, even though I ended up with a huge yard. The fence adds a modicum of safety, from marauding dogs if nothing else, and it defines the property. Eventually, old garage and carport were removed and a new garage built.

And during all these projects, I added a few more bushes. Then other plants. Then the pathways. Then the grass. Now I am filling in the gaps in the landscaping, and suddenly, the yard looks inevitable, as if it had been gardened by a plotter.

The truth is, I did everything wrong. The hardscaping is supposed to be done first before the first greenery is planted, but in my case, the hardscaping grew along with landscaping. And I planted by trial and error, which is a gardening faux pax, even though that’s how I do everything. (I’ve heard there are two kinds of geniuses — the early bloomers who are born super intelligent, and the late bloomers who learn a sort of genius through trial and error. I still have a long way to go to reach genius status, but through trial and error, I might get there someday.)

I suppose with gardening, like writing, rules don’t matter as long as what you do works and you end up with cohesive plot, whether a novel plot or a garden plot.

I will be interested to see what it all looks like next spring, though as long as nothing major occurs to destroy the grass and plants, it should be beautiful.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in gardening, life, writing. Tags: fitting ideas together, landscaping, learning to garden, planting a garden, plotters vs pantsters. 5 Comments »

My Changing Identity

October 16, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Before I bought my house, I rented a room in a house. There were three of us — the owner, another tenant, and me. Sounds so Judge Judyish, doesn’t it? Though truly, my only problem was the owner’s careworker who used up one of my favorite spice mixes. But that was minor. And none of this introduction has anything to do with what I plan to write about except to explain why I watched certain movies.

A television and basic programming came with the room rent, but I didn’t watch until the last few months when it occurred to me that I might never have television programming again. (I actually have two televisions, one hooked up to a DVD player and one hooked up to a VCR, but I don’t have programming and I don’t watch any of the movies I’ve stockpiled.) Anyway, that Christmas, I watched Hallmark movies galore. In fact, I watched so many, I was able to tell when the next twist would come. (For example, twenty minutes before the finish, the couple had a huge misunderstanding, and then, five minutes before the end, they finally found out the truth and made up.)

One of the big drivers of such movies is that because of the main character’s problems or her parent’s problems, she has to leave her power job and adopted big city behind and move back to her hometown.

It always seemed such a contrived plot, especially since once she was there, her values suddenly changed, going from a power player to a more laid-back lifestyle. I didn’t have that experience moving here because I’ve always been something of a small-town person even though I grew up in Denver. Back then, though, there wasn’t so much driving every which way — we all more or less lived in our parishes and congregations in our own discrete neighborhoods. Each move I made as an adult took me to smaller towns, except, of course, when I went to look after my father in California, and even that conglomerate of three linked towns had a small-town feel, mostly, I think, because again, I mostly lived in one particular neighborhood, the only one close to the desert.

What I am discovering, however, that despite my feeling at home in this small town, the movie scenario, while trite, it isn’t all that contrived. I noticed that when I moved into a place of my own — a very nice place, probably nicer than I had any right to expect — my sense of self began to change. I was no longer one step away from being homeless but instead was fully homed. My habits changed and I became more of a neatnik than I ever imagined. (Well, except for my office. I still have piles of paper on my desk, heaped blanket and pillows on my daybed, and an empty cup on the bedside table.) I also became houseproud — proud that this house belongs to me as well as being proud of the way it looks and the way I keep it up.

I’ve settled into that version of me — the houseproud one — and now it looks as if I will have to rethink who I am based on the looks of the grounds the house sits on. I’m more of a dirt and weeds with a few scraggly flowers kind of person. And now . . . well, now I’m not. I’m the proud owner of an — almost — landscaped property with reddish paths meandering through brilliant green grass and skirting around bushes that are still too small to be noticeable. But one day those bushes will grow up, the wildflower sections will bloom, and I will live in a showplace.

This all seems so . . . not me. And yet, obviously, it is.

I just need to get my head around that.

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times.

Click here to buy Bob, The Right Hand of God.

Posted in culture, gardening, home, house, life. Tags: becoming a gardener, Hallmark movie, houseproud, how a place changes you, landscaping a yard, owning a house. Leave a Comment »

The Grass is Greener

October 15, 2021 — Pat Bertram

Today was one of those special days you cannot plan. Or maybe you can, but I sure didn’t. When I was unexpectedly given the day off, I’d planned to go to the library, run a few errands, then work on clues for the mystery at the museum. I got as far as going to the library. Then things changed.

I noticed that the “open” sign was lit at my mechanic’s shop, which is a rarity since he’s been dealing with The Bob and various Bob related side effects for almost a year. I stopped by to see how he was doing, and he seems to be doing well. I asked if he was ready to work on my brakes. When he said yes, I asked when would be a good time. He said, “What about now?”

So I left the car walked home, lugging my books.

A little after that, a trailer full of sod was pulled in front of my house.

A couple of workers started laying the grass. And wow! That grass sure is greener on my side of the fence!

By now, most people’s grass has started to fade, which made mine look fake.

But it’s not fake, and that sort of worries me. All along, I wanted a relatively easy yard to take care of, but I thought one patch of grass in the front would look nice and be easy enough to take care of. But eek! A local landscapers had a couple of pallets of sod left over, and they asked my contractor if he thought I wanted it. I figured a couple of pallets might be a bit more than I wanted, but if so, I thought they could keep laying the sod until they ran out.

Well, they kept laying it down and laying it down, and not only did those rolls of grass cover the front yard, but also all down the side of the house as well as the patch of yard I was going to turn into a wildflower meadow. (Never fear, those seeds will be used to fill in other places in the yard to give it some color.)

There is still more grass left, so tomorrow, they will lay it down where I planned to put a parking space. Why not? I don’t need a parking space and if a rare visitor came and needed to park there for a bit, well, it shouldn’t hurt the grass. And anyway, I have the grass and I don’t have the gravel for the parking space.

All that grass looks great, but now I’m locked into watering and mowing that meandering lawn forever. Perhaps not forever, but certainly for as long as I live here. One mitigating factor is that the grass is so very thick that any weeds will have a hard time finding a place to roost, so just like that (a snap of my fingers) any future weeding will be relegated to a few garden areas.

As for my car . . . apparently, the parts company sent the wrong master brake cylinder. Although it’s listed as the right part, it’s missing a hole or has an extra hole (something about clocking?). Anyway, the car still is not fixed. Maybe Monday.

***

Posted in gardening, house, life. Tags: landscaping, laying sod, taking care of a lawn. 4 Comments »

I Spy With My Little Eye

October 7, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I spy with my little eye something beginning with the letter “B.” Not just one thing, actually. Lately I’ve been spying a lot of things beginning with “B.”

Blossoms of course. Although I don’t have many flowers, there are enough to add splotches of color to my yard. These African daisies certainly are cheerful!

Butterflies. Not “of course,” because I seldom see any butterflies, but yesterday, a bunch of yellowish white butterflies (cabbage butterflies, probably) descended on my yard. The adults are not harmful, and the larvae are only harmful if you are growing things like cabbages and Brussel sprouts. These butterflies are migratory, which could be why there are so many so suddenly.

Surprisingly, while I was watching these small butterflies, a monarch — looking ever inch the king among its smaller subjects — stopped by to dine, too.

Bees. Bumblebees. I used to see these big black and yellow furry bees only sporadically, but I see them quite frequently now. They seem to really like my zinnias.

Beetles. I don’t pay attention to beetles so I don’t know how ubiquitous they are around here, though I imagine there are many species mucking around in my dirt, but I’ve never seen a beetle as big as the one I saw late yesterday — it was pure black and must have been an inch and a half to two inches in length. Before I could get my camera, it disappeared beneath the ornamental rock, which is fine — I’m not really that interested in coming across such a monstrosity in my image folder.

Oddly, I haven’t been seeing many birds lately, just a few migrating vultures, though there must be plenty of birds in the area because those who keep their feeders full are always having to top them off.

Your turn. What did you spy today?

***

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: african daisies, bumblebee, cabbage butterfly, I spy game, large beetle. 1 Comment »

Garden Dreams

October 5, 2021 — Pat Bertram

The tenant in the house next door told me that when he looks back on this time in his life, he will always remember me with a shovel. That’s a fair assessment. When I look back on this time, I’ll also remember me with a shovel. I must have dug a ton or two of dirt, removing weeds and grass from what I hope will one day be a mini wildflower meadow.

You’d think after all those weeks and all that effort, I’d be glad to hang up my shovel (literally, hang it up — my long-handled tools are hung on a rack on the wall of my garage), but apparently not.

I got a notice that one of the bulb collections I ordered will be here in a couple of weeks. The place where I want to put them was once part of a graveled driveway. I figured it would take me a while to dig through all that gravel to get deep enough for tulips and daffodils, so I decided to get a head start on the project. It did take a while, but now I’m ready for those bulbs whenever they get here.

Still not completely fed up with shoveling, I’ve spent the last couple of days digging up more weeds. Although this property isn’t particularly wide, it’s long, and hasn’t been taken care of, so there are a lot of weeds to dig up. I cheated in the spring and early summer and simply mowed them down, so I made use of this gorgeous weather to dig up the roots of some of those weeds. Luckily, a lot of the worst areas for weeds are now covered by weed barrier fabric and rock, though I’m not sure how long that will last. Although the fabric was the strongest available, grass is poking through the fabric. Come to think of it, it’s called a weed barrier, not a grass barrier, so I can’t blame false advertising for the holes in the fabric.

I’m planning on taking the day off from shoveling tomorrow, but since I have nothing else planned to take the place of the “fun,” I wouldn’t be surprised to find myself outside with a shovel again.

I’ve managed to keep enough plants alive to give me hope that one day all this work will be worth it, though it’s worth it anyway — it gets me outside, gives me something to do, and fills my head with garden dreams.

***

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: digging weeds, hanging up my shovel, mowing weeds, planting bulbs. 4 Comments »

Gifts, Gains, and Geographical Art

October 2, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I had a gift waiting for me by the door when I got up this morning. Well, two gifts, actually. It had rained during the night, and it was still a bit drizzly, which was nice. I’d planned to wet down the garden area I’d just finished digging up and leveling to make sure the soil didn’t get blown away in the strong winds that are common in this area. The rain not only brought a touch of coolness, but did my watering for me.

The other gift was an actual thing — a putter to be exact, gifted from the man who did most of the rock work around here. With all the moving around of hoses and all the work that’s being done on this place, the ornamental rock gets dislodged, and I’m always having to side kick rocks back into place, but I end up kicking the red crushed rock, too. And besides, my knees don’t like moving sideways like that. So I thought a putter would be perfect.

And it is perfect. I spent an enjoyable few minutes this morning using the golf club to putt the rocks back into place.

As if I haven’t been doing enough digging the past few weeks, this morning I spent a while preparing an area to plant hollyhock seeds. Though the rain was quite extensive, that particular area of the yard was dry and rock hard. Because of that anomaly, I don’t suppose it will surprise anyone to hear that the hollyhock “forest” will be smaller than I originally intended.

After that, I moved to my “island” garden, pulled some dead flowers and dug up some weeds. Now that was easy! The dirt had been worked a year ago rather than decades like the rest of the yard, and because of the rain, it was like digging in pudding (if that pudding was heavy and overcooked).

Considering that I also did chores around the house, ran errands, and checked up on my absent friend’s house, I’ve had a rather gainful day. Oddly, the only thing I didn’t do was the one thing I’d planned to do — work on the character list (motivations and movements) for the murder at the museum event. I’m not going to plan on working on the character list tomorrow — that way I might actually get the job done. Apparently, I don’t like to do things I’m supposed to do, even if the “supposed to” is something I myself planned to do.

But meantime, my “geographical art” project is shaping up, shovelful by shovelful. I’d read that Central Park in New York is considered by some to be geographical art, and that is exactly what I am doing with the gardens and pathways in my yard — creating geographical art. I’ve done art projects before, but never on such a grand scale. I’m looking forward to seeing what the finished art project looks like, but that won’t be for several years yet, so I’m concentrating on coloring my yard however I can.

What if God decided S/He didn’t like how the world turned out, and turned it over to a development company from the planet Xerxes for re-creation? Would you survive? Could you survive?

A fun book for not-so-fun times

Posted in gardening, life. Tags: gardening as art, geographical art, landscape art, putter, using a putter to put rocks back in place. Leave a Comment »

Gardening Is the Answer

October 1, 2021 — Pat Bertram

I finished digging the grass out of a soon-to-be wildflower meadow. For a few minutes this morning, I thought I’d get rained out and would have to save the last six-foot square until tomorrow, but the clouds spat a few drops at me, got bored, and moved one.

After I finished digging and shaking the dirt out of the clumps of grass roots, I raked the area flat, which oddly was the hardest part of the whole task. But I got that job done, too.

An experienced gardener left a comment on my blog yesterday that a wildflower field doesn’t have to be tilled, and I wondered if I had done all that work for nothing. And yet, that Bermuda grass is so strong and overpowering, I was afraid my poor wildflower seeds wouldn’t stand a chance if I didn’t do something about the grass. In fact, that grass is so strong it’s starting to go through the weed-barrier fabric on the north side of the garage. Supposedly, the contractor got the strongest fabric available, but as I said, that grass is strong. It looks like they are going to have to add another strip of the fabric, as well as finish putting up the gutters on the garage, but that is not something I can to do, so I won’t worry about it.

I’m glad to know about not having to till the soil for a wildflower meadow, so in some other spots where I want wildflowers, I can just toss the seeds and stamp them into the ground. Well, after I dig up the weeds, that is. And the grass.

A friend sent me a quote: “The answer is gardening. It doesn’t matter what the question is.”

I thought that was lovely. And it does sort of reinforce a surmise I made. A fellow griever once told me about an old woman she knew who had lost everyone she had ever loved and yet was the happiest person the griever knew. We both marveled at the possibility of finding joy despite all the sorrow, but now I know the woman’s secret. The woman was a gardener, so as I surmised, that’s the answer to the conundrum.

I wonder if I will be that person? More likely, unless gardening keeps me mellow and allows me a life of sorts without having to deal with too many irritations, I will become a curmudgeon.

Either way, gardening does seem to be the answer.