Philosophy 102

Now I know the difference between a steer and a bull! I'm glad you found a guy who appreciates you and is worth keeping.

I'm in a bit of a funk today. Maybe because it really feels like the big weather change before winter sets in, and it's too cold to work in the garden for very long. I feel like taking a nap but then I'll be awake all night. Better to take the dog for a long walk.

it's the human response to waning light.
I'm feeling a major pre-winter funk: I can relate to the toddler who has been hyperfocused on playing, and then POOF! playtime ends. Tantrums, scowling and a mouthful of dissent, until we resign ourselves to the reality of the cycle of growth. In a few months (aahhh - seems like an eternity right now) we'll be back at it with new ideas & anticipation of all things new again. Logical, substantive...but I didn't want to roll it all up nice & neat quite yet.
I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems time is more elusive as I age. Requires the inner cheerleader to encourage, exhort & redirect my vision down the road a bit. Life in the garden will continue: everything wants to grow, and everything needs a rest...

Unfortunately, though I'd like to get in a snit about the chilly weather, my tomatoes being frosted, and the darkness falling too early (and go curl up under the comforter with a good book), I have instead hauled out my Fall gardening gear....wool socks and vest, thermal gloves, and new, really great, purple polar fleece baseball cap with ear warmers. Happily I have not yet needed the rain resistant brim hat or rain suit pants. I still want Harley to get me a headlamp for some holiday that involves gifts, since I have been out in the yard working by flashlight or moonlight twice in the last few days. Despite the darkness coming on moments after I get home from work, the pumpkin vines are all hauled up and composted, my new garlic bed is almost cleared and ready to plant, just needs a little more weeding and compost spread on, and my pathway to the front door is approaching completion. Somehow, every Saturday has managed to get filled up with family needs and boring things like grocery shopping, so Sunday afternoons have become frenzied with garden work and there I am out in the dusk on the weekdays feeling my way around.

Holly - I can just feel the satisfaction you're going to have when these thing are almost complete. Good job!!

Unfortunately, I've just been listening to the news and we're about to get a two-day storm with high winds and lots of rain. Oh, goody . . .

Nooooooo. Toooo sooooooon. Chilly is okay, but wet is quickly misery. I have commercial load of compost being delivered tomorrow. I can't use my homemade compost on my new garlic bed since it might be infected with the fungus that wiped out half my crop this year.

I don't know if any of you follow Cliff Mass, but he provides great analysis of what's going on with PNW weather.

Basically, we have a massive low pressure system approaching in contrast to the high in EWA. So the wind is going to be sucked through the passes as the pressures equalize.

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/

Ohhhh, I love the idea of an "inner cheerleader"!!! Yes indeed - what is your colour scheme and do you have an insignia! Go for broke on this one gardeners - your imagination is the only limitation and editing of initial costumes welcome.

Laurie, did I miss something? I don't understand your post, but then I don't get a lot.......

Katie59 I love the Cliff Mass blog. Interesting!

The fog of the funk I was in yesterday is lifting a bit. I will brave the nasty weather and bring in all the green tomatoes and put the on the window sill to ripen. Then tear out the green beans and tomato plants. Do herbs overwinter or do I just pull them out and plant anew next spring? I have a bed planted with iris bulbs that are getting huge and sticking out of the soil. What do I do with that? There is so much I don't know! Thinking about garden chores and getting busy is brightening my mood. I think this is another case of bowing to Mother Nature and accepting the changing seasons, and embracing the change. Time to make soup.

I have new warm fingerless gloves with a mitten cover for fall gardening. Add those pocket handwarmers and I'm set. I also put those in my actual pockets, and also in my shoes. I like to be warm. Buy the case of them at Costco. I love the idea of ear flaps on a hat. My ears hate cold but they like the feeling of the headphones snugged up against them. Get out the silk long underwear. There is too much to do in the fall garden to sit inside, not that I can sit for very long anyhow.
Holly, I highly recommend Harley buy you a large worklight, like the ones they use in construction, to use in the night garden. This floods a much larger area than those headlights you speak of. I have one of those and I have to say I find them annoying. Not enough light, and not a wide enough beam. Just enough light to irritate me. I have a large rechargeable flashlight I use for my slug/weevil hunting expeditions. If you get the worklight with two lights on it instead of 1, you can floodlight an entire garden and be happy all night long.

Judi -

Herbs: it depends on the plant. Herbs can be perennial or annual. Some die back, some don't. Some are "sub-shrubs", like lavendar and rosemary. What are you growing?

Iris: eventually you'll need to divide the iris and replenish their soil. A cute to this is if they stop blooming. You'll have to dig them up to do this.

Glad you like Cliff Mass - he has quite a following here. His discussions actually make the weather patterns interesting.

The storm didn't play out at my house. But I'm sure we'll get the high winds and start of the rain on my commute home (across the 520 floating bridge) tonight. Yippee . . .

Judi, It won't hurt to leave your Iris above the ground for the winter then dig them after they flower next year. You will find the center of the plant dies out so you trash that and replant the new ones. Plant the roots about 2" under the ground and the 'bulbs' right at the surface. I like to plant a new clump with about five new plants in a circle with the bulbs in and the leaves to the outside. You can trim the roots if they are long and gangley to about 6". Amend the soil with a little compost worked into the new spot. When you are re-planting them you can trim the leaves into a 6" fan also. Makes them easier to handle.

Also, you might want to put wire over top of the newly-planted spot until the soil has settled. Squirrels really like to pull the iris out of the disturbed soil to check for edibles . . .

I think Laurie wants us to create a cheerleader uniform for each of us with colors and insignia on the sweaters.
I have no imagination so I will go with good ole North Kitsap purple and gold and a big NK put together by their middle vertical lines. And on the back a big Viking ship.

She really wants us to have cheerleader uniforms? I must have really missed something because I still don't understand.......

Just imaginary! Someone up the thread was talking about having an internal cheerleader to get her going.

Laurie's post 7163945:

"Ohhhh, I love the idea of an "inner cheerleader"!!! Yes indeed - what is your colour scheme and do you have an insignia! Go for broke on this one gardeners - your imagination is the only limitation and editing of initial costumes welcome."

In response to Kate's post 7163649 (right after your posting about winter funk):

"I don't know about the rest of you, but it seems time is more elusive as I age. Requires the inner cheerleader to encourage, exhort & redirect my vision down the road a bit. Life in the garden will continue: everything wants to grow, and everything needs a rest..."

Oh now I get it! I thought Laurie was going crackers. I could actually use one of those inner cheerleaders. thanks for the clarification!

I have more time as I age because I am not at work all the time. My summer was short because I work in AK and the weather is often Seattle winter-like. I miss the fall clean up but it just gives me more to do this spring. Now with my debris loader is is only a two day job of vacuuming up decomposed perennials and mixing it with the mulch to spray back on the beds after I mulch with the compost that was in excess this year. I put a remote thermometer in my compost and it is staying around 60F when we are in the 5 to 20's. I think I will ad some nitrogen to keep it cooking. Then the plants next year will have dessert every day.
Laurie I'm with you we need to motivate the inner self with bright outer clothing. I am going with green and orange. I will start with orange long johns top and bottom then put on a pair of florescent green tennis shoes with orange laces. Then layer over it a pair of Lederhosen with Leprechan suspenders. A silk cravat of white and pumpkin with a black bowler hat for accesories. My I pod will be cranking our "Secret Garden" and I shall romp and play in the snow.

Steve -

Well, at least you'll scare off any innocent passersby!!

I could sure use one of those Billy Goats . . .

Judi -

No problem. Clarification is what I do for a living . . .

I can dress this way because my garden is hidden spring through fall. Though the airport sometimes has small planes taking off over our garden. I suppose they could think I was a Mime.

Oh my! I'm so glad your garden is hidden! I believe your wife must be glad, too... Lederhosen? Leprechaun suspenders? Always after me lucky charms....and all that.
Hmm. I will have to think about a uniform and symbol of some kind. Here's a fall gardening cheer about yard and garden cleanup to get us started:

Rake 'em up, Pile 'em up, Throw 'em in the bin,
Rake 'em up, Pile 'em up, DO IT AGAIN!!! (now do the splits without grimacing)
Pull 'em out, Jerk 'em out, Toss 'em in the pile,
Turn the pile over - That's COMPOSTING STYLE!!!! (now do a backward handspring, with a double twist and land straight, hands straight up over your head. Smile pretty! Don't forget to give that little hop and kick your tiny foot out at the end.)

Love the outfit, Sofer and the cheer, Pixy. However, no jumping will be done here without Depends.

A red and purple ensemble with a big orange circle on back surrounding the letters GG - for Gramma's Garden - shall be the order of the day.

Maybe you all should wear them to the RU in Montana next June. Just a thought...

For some reason architects wear only black and grey so after years of that I suddenly like pink. Not bright pink, but the nice soft pink. Also blue. So I will choose a pale pink fairy outfit. And hiking boots with striped knee socks.

Sofer - will you have a little beard to go with the outfit?

Pix - like the cheer, but I think I'll leave out the handspring!

What about the split? Leaving that in, are you? "No jumping will be done here without Depends." ROFLOL!

I can still do a split, but it ain't pretty.

yes I have a full beard AND a bottle of scotch in my lederhosen. I too will leave out the splits pix too many man muscles to hurt. LOL though I do like the cheer.

I would love to see the lot of you here performing in cheerleader drag.
Quite a production!
Steve, you paint pictures with words so well...

I try to close my eyes when Steve posts. So far, it hasn't helped.
I don't think you really want to see me doing anything that resembles cheerleading, Katye. Especially if it included things like the splits and jumping. I am reminded of the old advertisement... 'I've fallen and I can't get up.'

LOL Pix

Ohhhhhhh, so sorry, I'm way behind reading the cheerleader coustumes!!!! Sorry sorry - I've been completely preoccupied with the wierdest piece of work - just wierd, but hey its almost Halloween!!

Portland, Katye was talking about tantrums and ended with the image 'inner cheerleader' - her post 7163649

AND - I got my place in the MOONWALK for 2010 - and someone tried to break into our house in London, all okay, didn't get in but been shoring up the locks - so an up and down week.

Pumpkin scone recipe to follow over the weekend - promise promise

So Laurie - what is your inner cheerleader outfit? Do tell!

Laurie will be a druid with a full moon costume. Nothing but her orange hair dancing in the aura of a full moon that just ended. She will be magnificent!
This is her beach to dance on. LOL

What a lovely beach! Laurie will love it.

laurie, i'm glad the ruffian didn't get entrance to your home! The very idea!

Okay, I could go for that beach. Especially if just off camera there is NO ONE WITH ANY DISCERNABLE MENTAL ILLNESS! I've had my fill.

Sofer, would you be terribly disappointed if I don't have orange hair?

Portland, I am going to give my cheerleader coustume long and deep thought this afternoon - I have a pile of shredding the size of a mini-bus, and with ear protector helmet on I am well away from any distractions.

thanks Pix - its even better than that - next day I was coming up the street and spotted two young lads on bikes scouting out our house - and I just headed full steam, headmistress face on - boy oh boy, taking in detail! They shot off as soon as they spotted me! GRRRRRRRR.

Laurie, you need a security camera for the London flat that fees a picture to the country house. Even better would be a picture fed back out onto the street so that people can see that they're being watched.

Have fun with that shredding. I'm so ready to start my weekend, but have a few hours yet.

Katie I just finished reading 'An Echo in the Bone'. It is so good and not the end of the series. If she takes three more years to write the next one, I will be miffed. It quit in a very interesting spot.
I'm now reading 'The Lost Symbol' by Dan Brown. It also seems real good.

Patricia, it sounds like your reading list is much like mine (except that I might have to insert The Time Traveler's Wife in there.

I didn't think an Echo in the Bone was the last one and I'm glad to have that confirmed. You have me intrigued - I'll have to make more time to read. I'm just about finished with A Breath of Snow and Ashes.

In the meantime, have you read George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire Series - it's more fantasy, but still fun?

http://www.georgerrmartin.com/bibliography.html

Hi, Isn't 'A Breath' good? I'll have to find 'The Time Traveler's Wife'. That sounds good. I have read 'A Song of Ice and Fire' Series. Fantasy is my favorite. And these time-travel ones are what got me started.