Terracing on Wazoo

Merry in Texas (two years old) in a previous garden (1 year old)

Our one year stay in the wilds of Texas (gardening-wise) was full of battles with unbelievable spiders, fireants, and those remarkably industrious, plague-like leaf-cutter ants. A group of leaf-cutters stripped my father-in-law's rose bush in one evening. You could watch them laboring in a straight line over the sidewalk, burdened with towering loads of redbud leaves. If they chose a favorite of yours, say your Mexican Heather, all was lost. Boiling water, soap, you name it--the tunnels of the leaf-cutters were deep and secret, and even if you thought you had them beat they reappeared like a ghostly army.

Martin and I gave gardening a good effort in Texas. You could get a tin can to grow in the rich soil, but then some critter would eat it up, no fooling, every time. Martin's vegetable garden was well-researched and planned but utterly pathetic in the end. Our compost pile looked busy enough; it swarmed with life and I squinted my eyes in defense every time I dumped in a new round of scraps. Indeed it was so frightening in there that we never used the well-rotted mess except to spread it hap-hazardly on a bed of cilantro.

After we cleared the mountains of leaves from our patio, I dug beds and lined them with bricks. The nurseries were tempting with every sort of tropical plant I grew up with in Bangladesh, and I bought bunches of plants regardless of the fact that they were suited for full sun and our patio was shadowed in cool shade from the giant spreading pecan trees.

I even planted sunflowers, which were duly destroyed by a tropical-force storm.

And before I left, just a year later, I dug up all my best plants (one scorching summer day--not recommended replanting time!) and bedded them in at my in-laws, where the jasmine, heather, esperanza, and lantana took off gloriously, at last at home in full sunshine. It turns out that even impatiens is a perennial in Texas (who would have thought it?), in the sunny humidity.

Fast-forward some years and you'll find us in the cooler, drier hills of Pennsylvania, at Wazoo Farm. All in all, I think I've found the perfect planting zone. Why? It's cold enough in the winter to rule out mighty armies of bugs, snakes, and creatures, yet we're still warm enough to make rhododendron, azaleas, and dogwoods feel right at home.

And for the first time in my life, I might just stay put long enough to see my garden mature with the passage of time. This is a happy development, especially as it makes our toil feel worthwhile.

Today found me beginning terracing on one part of our plummeting hill. If you've ever seen the stunning terraces in Ecuador, say, the effort seems worthwhile. At least in theory. If terracing sounds like fun to you, you are deluded. I can't remember the last time I've been so sore at the end of a day, though it may have been the time I last gave birth to a baby.

I've been putting off the hills since we moved into our house last summer. One hill is covered with nettles and some promising landscape rose stubs I threw in last fall. The other hill is covered in long grass and various weeds, and is waiting anxiously to receive the box of berries the UPS fellow dropped off this morning. Oh, no, I thought. They're here, nestled in that Stark Brothers box: 48 strawberries, raspberries, blackberries. And I'm not ready. Again, the bad hostess.

--What's in that box, Mommy?
--MORE WORK.

But look, I'm not complaining really. I just wish an army of fit people armed with shovels and hoes would knock on the door: We've come to take care of the hill, ma'am.

Yes, please. Instead I get visited by the Jehovah's Witnesses, and they only leave tracts. I saw the Mormon missionaries walking by again today, and hoping they were not trampling our insignificant Canadian Hemlocks, I pictured myself handing them shovels, perhaps, or inviting them on the precarious wheelbarrow walk up to the garden. They looked a great deal cleaner than I have in a while, and I didn't think they'd be up for the trek with a stinky, filthy indeterminate Christian.

Tomorrow, more terracing. I invite you to show up with your shovels.

Ah the Smell of Sweat, of Soil, of Rotting Scraps

We were perfumed with spring tonight.

Before I tell you about the dense clay I hit with my shovel in what I hope will someday be a crumbly, rich strawberry bed (looted by birds and beast), I think I'd better tell you a few things about Wazoo Farm.

First of all, though it doesn't quite exist yet, something is beginning to shape up, as you'd be able to tell if you drove by slowly and gaze with eyes that discern past the mess littered all over the yard.

Secondly, Wazoo Farm has quite a history. How much is fact, and how much legend? We can't say. . .

Our house is almost 100 years old; next to us is a big sloping lot, in all, 3/4 of an acre. Apparently we have little to complain about, since the lot originally sloped much more dramatically than its current perfect sledding/wagoning grade.

Back in the day when I was still nonexistent, the city council demolished a hotel downtown. Rather than haul the crumbled building to a landfill, they trundled the wreck over to our property, where they buried it and graduated the steep hill. One of these days as I plant tomatoes, I expect to plunge my shovel into the soil only to hit the old porcelain of a sink, or the bricks of an old chimney, or the spittoon of a paying guest.

I have so far turned out miscellany: pottery, glass, plate, brick shards. Nothing truly outlandish yet.

Later Wazoo Farm played a major part during the Depression in feeding the inhabitants of the college where Martin now teaches. I don't believe the food was raised on the land we own now, though the fellow who lived in our house was the provider; he owned sheep he grazed on one of bucolic hills that nestle around us.

We watched the first episode of the BBC James Harriot series, and I was struck again at how very like this place is to England, though we have many more trees and trailers.

This afternoon we tooled down the winding roads to a favorite haunt of ours. We passed, among other things, a man turning chickens on a giant spit over a fire (this weekend we attended the annual ramp festival--more on that later). Finally we pulled into Shield's Nursery, a rambling, lush place with numerous greenhouses, organic seedlings, and wandering peacocks. There I found rosemary and creeping thyme, a myrtle, and would you know it? More roses! In fact, this nursery carried David Austen Roses, (David Austen is a British company that carries mouth-watering old English teas.) A woman was watching a huge Asian wisteria tree being loaded into her pick-up truck. The blue-purple blossoms were embarrassing; it was as if we were staring at someone in lingerie. The two David Austens I loaded into the back of our car were more respectable with their stark, thorny, bare branches. But inside the bareroots pulses the blood of queens, (or at least frumpy English matrons smelling of talcum powder).

Now I am bone-tired, having spent a good part of the day hauling dirt from our hill UP the hill to my beds. We are filthy and happy, and Wazoo Farm is at last taking shape. If you'd like to visit, we have an extra shovel! Come and toil! Merry will make you lunch, and Elspeth will sing you a song.

Sideyard of Wazoo Farm (before); stay tuned for "after!"

Phew-WEE!

Merry riding in wagon with cast of "Laura-Pioneer"
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"Pie! How did you get pie?" said Pa.

Laura was so amazed.

"What kind of pie is it?" asked Pa, tasting a piece. "Apple pie! Where did you get apples?"

"It's a blueberry pie," said Ma. "From the blueberries I saved from our garden."

"You are a wondrous," said Pa.

[Later:]

. . ."Now a nice chopped button," Ma said.

Laura brought Ma a button.

"Now some gravy," said Ma.

Laura brought Ma some gravy.

"Now please give me a match, Laura. . . .A button lamp," said Ma, and set the lamp by Mary. It only gave a little light.

When the bread had been made, Ma took the bread and put it on a shelf. "Time to go to sleep, Carrie," Ma said.

Laura stayed awake. She wanted to see what would happen in the morning. Everyone slept soundly. [pause for sleeping] Then the wagon jumped! Ma woke up. Laura woke up.

"What in the world is going on?" said Ma.

"A blizzard," said Laura.

It whirled round and round.

"Phew!" said Ma. "You stay in bed, Laura." Everyone had to stay in bed. Ma dressed warmly by the stove. They stayed in bed, listening to the sounds of the blizzard.

Pa was singing: "Slap, slap, the blizzard of the day! Oh, slap, slap, slap, the blizzard of the day!" he sang. The beds weren't made.

"Oh," Ma said, "What is it?"

"A blizzard," said Laura, "Don't you remember?"

"Oh, yes, but I was wondering what Pa was doing."

"It's his slap-slap song," said Laura.

. . ."Now that's enough," said Ma. "Washing day!" she reminded Laura. [seasons have changed?]

. . .Ma washed Laura in the creek. She scrubbed Laura top to bottom. "Feel free to splash about!" Ma said.

Ma put a new dress on Laura. Time to time, Laura said, "When is Pa coming back?"

"Soon," said Ma.

"But when is Pa coming back?"

"Soon!" said Ma. Laura kept saying that. Ma dressed her up and slowly combed her head and braided it. [Merry brushes doll's hair]

"Can you put my hair in a bun?"

"Of course I can," said Ma.

etc. etc. etc.

Oh, I can't keep up! This is a taste, verbatim (though I missed much of the dialogue and narration) of the rapid-fire dialogue Merry is spewing out lately, whenever she has a few moments. I hear her rattling behind me as I work at the computer, and I hadn't been paying close attention to the actual storyline until now. I have noticed that Merry has littered her bed so full of "stations" (kitchen, bathtub, etc.), that there is barely any room left for her to sleep.

And I have noted that more than once Ma has "thrown herself on the bed," and sighed "Phew-WEE!"

We've been reading "The Long Winter" and Merry is completely immersed in "Laura-Pioneer" world.

Merry enjoys being Laura--except when I ask Merry to perform some distasteful task, and then Merry is suddenly most emphatically her literal self again.

In other roles, Merry is once again filling the soil-spattered boots of "WORM QUEEN." We spent most of yesterday digging up impossibly heavy squares of sod and flipping them over to make beds for our strawberries and flowers. Merry hovered over my spade, plucking out long earthworms and rubbing them on her face and neck. "I kissed it!" she yelled at one point; at another she crammed a few in her magnifying box, and at another she queried, "Have you ever put a worm down your shirt?" I ceased telling her when I spotted a worm, and muttered to one as it anxiously squirmed back into the soil, "Don't worry, you're safe with me."

Elspeth spent much of the day banging about in the outdoor kitchen, gurgling tepid water from dirty receptacles, and sitting in her blue sled, looking contemplatively at the sky, until Merry pulled her over the grass.

But now it's time for me to go. I've got beds to make inside, beds to dig outside, (sounds like Pa needs to find a new job, too, since there's "no more food in this town") and the world is sunny and warm. Phew-WEE!

Trees

--photo by K J Robinson

TREES

I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.

A tree whose hungry mouth is pressed
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;

A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;

A tree that may in summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;

Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.

Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree.

--Joyce Kilmer
spotted in A Child's Anthology of Poetry, Ed. E H Sword, Ecco Press 1995.
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I wish I had written the above poem, though I expect I would not have allowed myself the lovely archaic language.

Here is my own bumbling attempt at spring time poetry:

SPRING

Just before green,
in rain that feels
like the breath of rivers:
Bud like infant fist opens,
Rain pearls on black feathers.
I hear singing, soil whispering.

--Kimberly Cockroft
Once again, a chronic problem with my poems: line endings? last line? (Of course Martin has not yet got his poet's paws on it.) But for heaven's sakes, it's a spring poem and does not have to be completely brittle and finished but can afford to be supple, bending, pale green. Here's to spring time poetry!

Gratitude

Darkness finally covers the trees outside my window. A few minutes ago I could see two black birds, yellow beaks the only sunshine-color we've had in days. They swayed in the great gusts of cold wind, unconcernedly grasping the still-bare branches of the maple. Someday, by gum, that tree will leaf. But it won't be any time soon.

Today my good friend and I ventured out into the cold in her minivan. Freezing temperatures drove us to capitalism! We sported five children between the two of us, and people in stores watched our slow cart procession with concern or humor. Finally, the Sam's & Lowe's trips ended; we, who are not true shoppers, flopped exhausted into the van packed with huge packages of Romaine Hearts and Organic Potting soil. A latte seemed in order.

As we waited in line for our decaf-grande-extra-hot-vanilla-lattes, the children began a symphony of complaints behind us. "It's not fair," they wailed. "We want a snack; we want hot chocolate, etc."

We established life was not fair, an echo from every childhood that only in adulthood seems ironic.

The Starbucks drive-through was slow. The children continued to whine. Then one of them asked: "Why are we here?"

His mother did not skip a beat. "To love and serve God," she replied. "Isn't that what the catechism is?" she muttered to me.

"Sounds right to me," I said, laughing.

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Beyond that funny moment, a moment that was as perfect as my creamy, extra-hot vanilla latte, I thought occurred to me tonight as I vacuumed our forsaken floors: Gratitude.

Gratitude. Suddenly, the other day, I realized that this childhood, for my children, is the only one they will have. I will not be able to rewind their lives or offer them alternatives. Sometimes their childhood seems long and everlasting. Other times, as when viewing a faded picture of my grandmother lounging trim (younger than I now!) in a white swimming suit, I realize that life is short, every minute precious.

Though I desire Gratitude to be a way of life, a rhythm that marks the passage of my minutes, I am sloppy at best in my thanksgiving. Often brief moments of deep gratitude catch me off-guard, as when I cleaned tonight, Elspeth on my hip, the world cold and unpredictable outside our warm windows.

As I age, Gratitude, if I choose it, will gentle me. It will put my pride, my impatience, my chafing, in its place. It will give me the space and the silence to love well without demanding many things in return. Someday it will help me die well.

So tonight, I am grateful for my children, my lover, the warmth of my family and my house. I am grateful for my own childhood, and for everlasting books and music and food. I am grateful for the delphinium and marigold seeds waiting on my back porch, and for lamplight. For the callouses on my hands, my breasts that have fed my daughters, for all of my fingers that touch and wash and plant and write. I am indeed grateful.

Elspea

'Cause she's got. . .personality:

For a cringe-inducing display of bad table manners (o dear, Ms. Vanderbilt)--see Elspea's breakfast antics.

And do make sure, if you haven't already, that you view Wazoo's amazing art show below!

Now--Letters from Chidester the Gumberry

He really exists!

In my Internet travels this evening, I happened upon a new blog--

The Adventures of Chidester the Gumberry!

So far I read only the first letter, from Thomisina Basilina, Sir Chidester's elderly nursemaid, but she promises to share Chidester's letters with us!

Chidester's letters are geared to kiddos with big imaginations; it even has a place where you can drop Chidester the Gumberry a note in reply to his letters. Want to get involved in Chidester's epic travels? Visit him at www.gumberrycastle.blogspot.com.

Wazoo Farm's First Art Show

I am pleased to open Wazoo Farm's premier art show!

You'll notice that each artist receives her or his own page. Please feel free to comment on the pieces.

Artists, all: thank you for letting us enjoy your work!

Please note that all artwork (as well as all text at wazoofarm.blogspot.com), is copyrighted and protected and may not be reproduced in any form without permission.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Christen Mattix

Cradled
Christen Mattix
Oil on panel, 48" x 72".
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In Weakness
Christen Mattix
Oil on panel, 48" x 60".
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Blue Sky
Christen Mattix
30 x 40 inches, oil on canvas
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Christen Mattix, an accompished painter, teaches art at Seattle Pacific University.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Kara Jean Robinson

Goddaughter's Blanket
Kara Jean Robinson
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Besides knitting beautiful creations, KJ Robinson is currently finishing her MPH at John's Hopkin's University in Baltimore, MD. See her lovely blogsite.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: RL Robinson

life sign
Rachel Robinson
Mosaic, 11.5" diameter
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RL Robinson lives in a sunny flat and works as a community artist in Baltimore, Maryland. Learn more about RL at her blog, goldengreenandblue.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Ryan Pendell

Sonnet
Ryan Pendell
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Ryan Pendell is currently finishing his BA in English in Iowa. Next year he will study at the Chicago Art Institute. For more of Pendell's art and poetry, see thegourd.blogspot.com.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: J Long

Newborn Ngaire
J. Long
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J Long currently lives and teaches English in coastal Virginia.

CONTRIBUTOR ART: Mark Levi

Pantocrator
Mark Levi
Egg Tempra on Wooden Board
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Carolina Sunset
Mark Levi
Watercolor
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Autumn Canopy
Mark Levi
Chalk pastel on charcoal paper
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Maddie Portrait
Mark Levi
Pencil
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Mark Levi teaches art in the Chicago area. To see more art & check out Levi's music, visit his website.