Those who know me are very aware that I love to grow food. I’ve been gardening seriously for about 46 years now, and I still finding myself learning the hard way. What can I say? I’m basically self-taught. In the beginning especially, my gardening experience came from books and publications like Organic Gardening And Farming (now just Organic Gardening) magazine, and Mother Earth News. I would read anything related to organic methods I could find.

When my gardening “career” began way back in 1973, there was no internet, but there was a thing we techno-nerds have come to regard as “sneakernet.” In other words, my fellow gardeners and I would exchange books and magazines back and forth in the course of meeting in person over a nice hot cup of chamomile tea. I got pretty good at learning how to build healthy soil that would in turn yield strong and healthy plants and provide delicious produce. And of course, when one grows his or her own food, the nourishment is just as much spiritual as it is physical.

Can you tell I love gardening?

Yes, you really do need to love gardening to keep doing it. It’s rewarding, but it’s also hard work! God bless all the farmers is all I can say… those folks work way harder than anyone I know. Anyway, back to the gardening. Yes, it’s hard work, but at least in my case I’ve learned some techniques that help reduce the amount of labor required for upkeep. Take mulch, for example. Take it I say!! It’s right here! What?? You don’t want any?? FINE!! Yes, I’ll take your leaves. What? You thought oak leaves are no good for the garden?? Well that’s pure bullwonky!! No, they don’t make your soil acidic. They keep in the moisture, build the soil and prevent weeds from taking over. AND earthworms LOVE oak leaves, and their poop is alkaline, which serves to neutralize any acid that might leach out of the oak leaves. So there!!

But I digress (no kidding, right??).

So there I was, minding my own business, developing gardening techniques that became habits. Now there’s the internet, with tons and tons of information readily available with a flick of the wrist. Some of my habits have been modified due to all the new information I’ve found; but then some old habits are hard to break. One of my habits is improvising when it comes to planting various crops. Today I planted garlic for the 3^rd year in a row. However, I’ve modified my technique a bit. First I went online to verify planting depth (2 – 3 inches) and spacing (8 inches between plants, 12 inches between rows). Then I thought I could save myself some grief by actually marking off the rows with baling twine. Even more useful was the long piece of left over 1 x 1 that I marked off 6 and 12 inches for spacing (6 inches was from the edge of the garlic bed). Then I marked the rest of the stick at 8 inch intervals for plant spacing.

When I got ready to plant, I noodled a bit because the soil is pretty wet and cold right now. The idea of digging a hole for each bulb with my pointer finger as in previous years didn’t appeal to me. So I thought a bit longer and decided to devise a tool for planting. Found me a nice fat (about 1 ½ inch across) maple branch that had fallen a few days ago, cut it so one side was a nice place to grip, and the other side was 3 inches to the knotty part. Perfect depth for planting garlic cloves or onion bulbs. Just push the stick in the ground to the knotty part, drop the bulb in the hole, and cover with a trowel full of soil I already had waiting in a bucket. Easy peasy.

Before heading out to the garden, I came in the house for a drink of water. My Beautiful Girlfriend and our Beautiful Friend Pam were working on some macrame plant hangers. Our Beautiful Friend is a Master Gardener, and also is keen on using homemade items for various tasks. I proudly displayed my new planting tool, and she said, “oh, that’s a dibble!” “A dibble??” I queried. “Yes, that’s what you call those. You made a dibble.” “Oh!” I replied with a grin. “So now I’m a dibble dabbler!!” She laughed and agreed. A dibble. Wow. So of course I had to go the the interwebs to learn more. There are many, MANY types of dibbles for sale from various vendors. I never knew!

I thought it was just a stick!!

Speaking of farms… I’m pretty sure they are all just like this:

For the past several years, my Beautiful Girlfriend and her Beautiful Friends have embarked on a trip to Beautiful Leelanau State Park. They spend 4 nights in a rustic cabin with the modern convenience of electricity to power lights, a fridge, and a microwave . The potty is a small hike away, but the surroundings at the tip of the Leelanau Peninsula are magnificent indeed. A little piece of paradise.

My Honey Pie’s absence, of course, puts me in “bachelor mode” while she’s gone. That’s not anywhere near as dangerous as it may sound; I’m a pretty low key kind of guy these days. My idea of a “boys’ night out” is staying home, hanging with Freddy the Freeloader (our cat) and watching Son of Frankenstein on TV (I found it at www.archive.org). One “dangerous” thing that rears its ugly head, however, is I always seem to gravitate toward comfort food while I’m home by myself. I’m talking “high-octane” food here… yummy stuff with lots of fat and salt, and then some sugary wonderfulness for dessert.

My normal fare when my Lovely Bride is around slants more toward lean proteins, whole grain breads and / or pasta, or maybe some brown rice, and lots of green vegetables. Believe it or not, I really do love all that stuff. I almost always have some very healthy fare for lunch at work: I fill a 4-cup Pyrex bowl with greens, onions, mushrooms, and maybe some shrimp or chicken; seasoned with some garlic, maybe some oregano or thyme, maybe some soy sauce. Nuke it for 3 ½ – 4 minutes and lunch is ready. Very delicious.

Well, when my Sweetie goes out of town, I’ll admit, I get a little lonely. This seems to cause my taste buds to shift toward things that don’t exactly help me keep my manly figure very trim (OK, it’s not so trim anyway right now, but never mind). Monday was pizza night. I like making my own, although I cheat on two things: the sauce and the crust. I get a Boboli pre-made crust, and some Classico Organic Pizza Sauce. Both of those are truly excellent in my professional opinion. Then I cook up the “healthy” stuff: some gluten free Italian sausage from Mac’s Meats in Rothbury, MI, minced onions, minced peppers, black olives, mushrooms, and some whole grain, uncured pepperoni (no nasty chemicals). Set the oven for 450, toss the pizza in (I don’t preheat for this pizza), and after about 15 minutes, dinner is served. And yes, I know there’s no such thing as whole grain pepperoni. But the Italian sausage is definitely gluten free (ha).

Tuesday morning’s breakfast: leftover pizza and some orange juice (again, healthy stuff). Tuesday’s lunch: dead chicken, greens, onions, mushrooms in that Pyrex bowl. Tuesday’s dinner: leftover pizza!

Wednesday’s breakfast: the last of the leftover pizza and more healthy orange juice. More greens, onions, mushrooms, and chicken in the Pyrex lunch bowl. The evening meal was a bison burger at a local pub with my son (holy moly those are good). When I got home I may have accidentally eaten a Ritter chocolate bar with hazelnuts (made in Germany but only $2.39 at Meijer… holy moly, those are good too!!).

Thursday’s breakfast: the old standard, peanut butter and jelly on whole wheat, with a handful of frozen blueberries and some fat free milk. Lunch: did I mention the Pyrex bowl?? Oh but dinner… Mmmmmmm. Oink, oink. Snarf snarf. Oh… what did I have? Fried chicken thigh, ¾ of a box of Cheezits; and washed it down with some Vernors. I may also have accidentally wrapped some of that leftover whole grain pepperoni in some sliced cheese for the 3^rd course. Oh and for dessert: Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. And of course when I was at the gourmet food store (Dollar General), they had the King Size cups! Simply had to go for those. All of these delicacies combined to make an elegantly simple meal, exquisitely designed to clog arteries and raise blood pressure.

Friday: peanut butter and jelly again. Hey, I like it!! Lunch: the Pyrex bowl again. But this time, it contained some leftover gluten free Italian sausage, leftover pizza sauce, onions, mushrooms, some chopped cherry tomatoes and green beans from the garden; all this seasoned with garlic powder and oregano, and laid atop some crushed up leftover Cheezits. Sounds weird but it was very tasty.

Friday’s dinner: YAY!! My Beautiful Girlfriend was on her way home! I used the last of the gluten free Italian sausage and threw it in some pasta sauce. Added some garlic, finely chopped greens, and sliced green beans from the garden and made some spaghetti!! The Oinky Cholesterol-Salt-Sugar-Filled Feeding Frenzy has come to an end.

Her arrival may well have saved me from a coronary event!

I enjoyed all my snacks, and I promise I didn’t steal any of them…

Once upon a time, there was an Industrial Computer Flunky (I.C.F.) who was minding his own business in the world of a manufacturing plant that uses lift trucks which very easily smoosh handheld scanners and then of course he had to scrape the pieces off the floor because it had a repair contract and they will replace the broken oh-fooey-kersmooshlings even though it was our fault but who cares it’s only money and electronic waste and then here comes Filbert Wonkletoes from Zoomophone Networks who was sent by someone in The Mother Ship (Corporate Headquarters) to run a patch cable from the Good Old Network Thing (G.O.N.T.) to the Brand New Network Thing (B.N.N.T); and hey I could have done that and why didn’t they tell me he was coming but hey I’m just the Onsite Computer Flunky (O.C.F.) so who gives a flying mahookey about me anyway and HOLY COW this run-on sentence is almost a million words!!

*Whew!! *

Breathe… breathe…

OK. It’s just frustrating, ya know?? I’m the only Industrial Computer Flunky at the place… so here I go, gathering names from poor Filbert Winkletoes and I told him “This is no reflection on you, but who sent you?? I’m really sick of this surprise stuff!! It would be nice to get a ‘heads-up’ to know you’re coming… What if I wasn’t here? What if I had a contagious rash? What if my tricycle had 3 flat tires?? Doesn’t anyone care about the likes of me??”

Well, OK, I may have only said a small part of that.

This lack of consideration makes me want to sing the “Leave Me Alone, I’ll Bite You” song:

Leave me alone, I’ll bite you!

Your nose is full of bees.

For why you are mean to me in this way??

You need to eat some fleas!!

And of course, this would be sung to the tune of “Leave Me Alone, I’ll Bite You.”

Am I the onliest one in the universe who is enjoying such communication kaboom? I’m pretty sure I’m not. It wouldn’t be so bad if this was an uncommon occurrence; but it’s getting worse and worser and even worserest all the time, and my frustration even makes me misuse and invent fake superlatives of “worse!”

Seriously, I consider it bad manners. Is all this because “plan” is a four-letter (so therefore bad) word; and folks are oblivious of the need to play nice when they formulate one? When I was growing up, if you had a plan that involved others, you let them know ahead of time when they could expect to be part of the plan. Too many folks in my Professional Universe (P.U.) (and yes, it’s beginning to stink) are doing their own thing to get stuff done; and not thinking about the possibility their activities might affect another person’s day.

OK, that’s fine. I’ll fix those monkey-headed wombats! Tell ya what I’m gonna do!! I’m gonna craft a nice e-mail to the Big Kids And Maybe Some Of Their Underlings (B.K.A.M.S.O.T.U.) to alert them of their decribbulous putrefaction. Yep! I’m gonna give them what-for with my shouting words and abrasive tone so they’ll instantly snap into shape and communicate like adult people who know how to effectively and courteously implement a plan! And I’ll use lots of bold italics and exclamation points!!! Then I’m gonna call every single one of them unanimously and sing “Leave Me Alone, I’ll Bite You” into their voicemail compartment thing-a-ma-doodles (technical talk). Finally, I’ll send them expired donuts in the mail.

Or not…

Instead of being fired, I’d like to actually retire in 5 months and 25 days. But who’s counting??

The communication is almost as effective as when these guys talked about baseball.

So there we were, minding our own business, on Sunday of last week, when what to my wondering ears would appear but some blinking and beeping from there and from here!! Our electrical stuff was doing very strange things. Some things were flashing, others simply didn’t work at all. Having had enormous fun with similar power strangeness, I quickly went to the basement to turn off the main switch in the breaker box. Very soon after, our son texted me: “You guys have power?” “Nope,” was my reply.

No storms, no winds, so we figured no big deal. Didn’t really mess up any plans either, because we were planning to go bike riding anyway. We have a generator, but the only thing I used it for was to run the air compressor so I could pump up the tires. On our way to the bike trail we saw the power crews had already sprung into action to fix what had apparently been caused by a huge tree branch. We had a very nice ride, and stopped for an elegant meal at the local Taco Bell and headed home. We noticed the traffic lights were working once again, so we figure all was well at home.

Well almost.

After turning the main back on, everything woke up except for our internet. Total bummer. You see, we are spoiled Americans. Even when we don’t have internet, we are spoiled Americans; but when we can’t play on the interwebs we get a smidge cranky. So I call the support number. Nobody’s home. Left a message. No call back. Left an e-mail the following day from work. No reply. I call again and leave a message. Nobody cares.

The lack of response is probably due to our subscription to the Podunk Holy Mackerel Super Fast Wireless Internet Service. For a mere $39.99 a month, we got all the data we could swallow; but you’d be lucky if you got 2 mbps (pretty doggone slow by today’s standards). Well hey, these folks did the best they could. They got us much faster internet than dial up; and it has worked most of the time. They came around about 10 years ago as the result of a federal grant that was handed out to local companies to send “high speed” internet to rural homes. Was great for us because we couldn’t get DSL (we are too Podunky I guess); and there were no cable providers running anything in our neck of the woods.

But they could’ve called…

Well their lack of give a hoot gave me the shove to go shopping. I work in IT so I figured things may have changed a bit in 10 years; and sure enough it didn’t take long to hit pay dirt. Well, I’ll be paying them… but anyway; called Frontier and no, they still don’t have any lines down our road. “But we’re always updating our network…” which is what they said 10 years ago. Then I thought, “hey our son has Comcast and he lives around the corner.” I’ve read many reviews about Comcast internet; and some folks love it and others hate it. Customer service is known to be poor, but this is true for pretty much all internet service providers. When I told my friends about our internet woes and mentioned we’ve decided to join the Evil Empire, everyone I told replied, “Comcast?” “Yep!” I replied. And of course, sure enough!! They were “running a special” for new customers; and for $20 a month for the first year, we could get 25 mbps!! That’s like 12 times faster than what we had before. Of course, after the first year the prices goes up. I think it’s like $9713.57 per month (OK maybe only $50).

Now we can run faster and jump higher!! Oh wait, that was that old commercial for PF Flyers (sneakers of yesteryear) (Holy Cow I just Googled them and they’re still being sold!!) (Who the heck puts all these parentheses in one sentence??) (Me!).

Have I mentioned we are spoiled Americans? Yes, we are, and we’ve sold our souls to the Evil Empire. But boy can we stream videos now!!

Now all we need is an All Electric Home!!

Sixteen Thousand, Seven Hundred And Ninety Days

Five Hundred And Fifty Two Months.

Forty six Years.

Forty six years??? Holy Moly time flies when you’re having fun. I mean jeez, it seems like it was just a couple years ago when the Beatles first came to America on the Mayflower (or something like that).

As of Sunday, August 21, I’ve had the privilege of being married to the Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe for 38 years. Now if there are any other Beautiful Women reading this, please do not despair. Here’s why: although it is impossible for you to compete with my Lovely Girlfriend for the title of Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe; please be very aware that all the other women in the universe are the Second Most Beautiful Women In The Universe. So even though you cannot be the Most Beautiful in my universe, you are now and always will be the Second Most Beautiful.

That is my professional opinion. If you don’t believe me, just ask me some time.

Sheesh… 46 years?? Feels like we’ve been together forever; and I say that with the utmost gratitude. Our relationship is pretty much as natural as breathing, really. However we still have a few (very few) times when it feels like we are breathing in a few bugs and they get stuck in our throats. But after a few pittoooeys or boohoos or maybe a grunt or two, it’s all better and time to kiss and make out. In other words, life is not always peaches and root beer. We do disagree, but we can finally disagree without being disagreeable 99.999% of the time.

Here’s a nice bonus: SHE LETS ME KISS HER!! Now that’s really nice, ya know??

Sometimes we are asked how we’ve managed to pull this marriage thing off. Well here are some observations and / or suggestions I’d like to offer for your reading enjoyment:

1) We were very good friends for several months before we started wondering what was hidden under each other’s clothing.

Q) When we realized it was true, we made sure to tell each other “I Love You” at least once a day.

27) Before we got married, we made verbal contracts. Things like: “we must always tell the truth no matter what;” and “if we have kids, we can’t have just one, but no more than two.”

B) We go on dates. Movies, concerts, picnics, vacations. Sometimes it’s something simple like renting a video and taking the phone off the hook. Or maybe even just taking the phone off the hook…

V3) We say “please,” “thank you,” and “you’re welcome.”

#) We hold hands often. One of my favorite stories about this: Unbeknownst to our daughter’s best friend, we were walking ahead of them on the way into the grocery store. She said “Look at those cute old people going into the store holding hands,” to which our daughter replied, “that’s my PARENTS!!”

8F) I tell her she’s beautiful. And of course, I mean it.

And last but not least,

K!) Communicate, communicate, communicate. Never assume. Talk stuff over. Big stuff, little stuff. And be nice about it all. God knows we live in a crazy world, there’s no need to fling fire at each other at home.

I could go on and on… suffice it to say that we’ve learned how to treat each other as if we were best friends. That’s probably because we ARE best friends. This marriage thing hasn’t always been easy, but definitely worth it.

Life is good. We have enough to eat, a nice home, beautiful offspring. Yes, the verbal contract stated two kids They aren’t kids anymore, but they’re ours so we’ll call them “the kids” whether they like it or not. Except to their faces… then we let them know that they are simply beautiful people. And we tell them “I Love You” whenever we see or talk to them.

And the coolest thing is, we’re still very much in love. Did I mention I have the privilege of being married to the Most Beautiful Woman In The Universe?? It’s true you know. If you don’t believe me, just ask me some time.

We’ve actually been married two times: first in a courthouse, then in a church on our 10^th anniversary. But neither wedding went anything like this one…

Happy First Day Of Summer!!!  I think.  Yes.  The calendar says so.  Wasn’t sure it would ever arrive, judging by the weather we’ve been having.  Cool days, much rain, very little sunshine.  And this has been going on since pretty much April.

So now it’s finally warming up, and of course hot weather plus recent rains makes the lawn grow like crazy. Then of course it must be mowed. But hey, I’m sorry… I’m still convinced that this is a totally STUPID human custom! Lawn mowing seems so fruitless. We certainly spend a lot of time tending a crop we can’t eat! Well, I suppose you could eat it; but you can never be sure of whether it’s tainted with doggie weewee.

Perhaps the only reason our lawn gets cut is that I have a spouse. Left to my own devices, my yard would probably grow into the giant weed patch that God intended it to be. But our marriage contract would never allow this; so I have come to accept the weekly ritual of beheading the huge conglomeration of plants we call a lawn.

We don’t harvest the clippings or fertilize or anything, just mow. Fortunately, my wife and I agree that the less work a lawn brings, the better off we are. Sure, she would LOVE to have golf course quality turf; but she begrudgingly respects my organic gardening philosophies. In other words, no chemicals are ever applied to our lawn. Consequently, grass grows but so do lots of other green things. Some people are very fussy though; and they water, fertilize, and carefully count the blades of greenery. They want to make absolutely sure that grass and ONLY grass is growing. I’d love to invite some of those types to inspect my weedy ground, and watch them go nuts. Then I’d invite them in for a grapefruit milk shake and rationalize the value of a weedy lawn.

Many of those “weeds” mingling with our grass are actually beneficial! Here are two examples: clover is a legume, so its roots make nitrogen (as all good legumes do), which feeds the lawn. Dandelion greens are rich in vitamins and minerals, and the tender young leaves have long been valued by the French and many other cultures as one of the earliest vegetables available in the spring.  And their flowers feed the bees!!

Personally, I find myself grateful for clover and other weeds. They join together with the grass to form a nice carpet at my place; one that I’m not afraid to play Tackle The Grandkids on. If we go a little longer between mowings, we get some beautiful flowers, too! Hate to mow then, because the bees are feeding!

I mean, we must be doing something right, because the lawn is always nice and green, and we never water it. I’m beginning to think there are some sick puppies out there, because I see a lot of lawn watering. There is only one result of watering the grass. It GROWS. Then you have to MOW it. Are there really people in this world that LIKE mowing? If you’re one of this strange breed, lemme check your temperature once.  You may have a bad fever that’s affecting your brain molecules.

Some eggplant-headed folks (pardon my French) even post KEEP OFF THE GRASS signs! That’s more anti-American than flag burning if you ask me. How do they mow the stuff if you have to KEEP OFF? They’re probably the same guys who have their automatic sprinklers going full goose Bozo during thunderstorms.

Thank you Uncle Eric, I love “full goose Bozo.” Do you even say that anymore?

Anyway… the kids are grown now, so long gone are the days when I could pass the job to them whenever I could get away with it. Ahhh those were the days… I could actually focus on much more productive chores like spending more time in the garden. And as I pulled weeds and munched the occasional radish, I could daydream about them mowing down my baby trees and flinging rocks at the picture window at 87 mph. But I distinctly remember taking comfort in the fact that they finally understood why I freaked out about all those toys that used to hide in the lawn on mowing day. Nothing like the “ker-CRACK!” of a squirt gun being processed by the mower! Or the unmistakable “VOOOFF!” of a Nerf Ball disintegrating with a single pass.

Oh well. In the interest of domestic harmony, I will continue to obey and help with the lawn.  I do the trim with the push mower, and my Beautiful Girlfriend pilots the Cub Cadet.  We both wear ear protection in an attempt to save what little hearing we have left.  However, I miss the days my Sweet Honey Pie would ride the tractor and sing out loud to the songs I put on her MP3 player. Of course, she had noise reduction headphones on so she can’t tell whether she’s off key. I confess I’ve had a chuckle or two listening to her Cub Cadet Karaoke sessions while I was out running the trim mower.

Where else do you get a free workout PLUS entertainment??

Speaking of entertainment, the cartoon for this week has nothing to do with the lawn, but I found it rather entertaining.

Dear Friends,

I am on vacation, and you are not. Unless of course you are. On vacation. Are you? I am. And I’m enjoying every minute of it. Please pass the Lemon Flavored Soil Testing Kit while I rake these flavor crystals into a small, gently seasoned skillet full of fresh asparagus, mushrooms, peppers, and Dondo Frijole Jumping Beans.

See there?? That’s what happens when you work for a very long time, and then vacation comes. Well OK maybe not. But if I remember correctly, vacation is a time for escaping reality, at least to some extent. Reality is this: I like to eat food, and I also enjoy living in a home with electricity that powers various things I use to enhance my tender hair follicles and skin cells. Therefore, these conditions (among others) require money, and that means I need to go to work.

Not sure about you folks, but I work because:

A) I’m too proud to be a bum and

9Z6) I’m too chicken to be a criminal.

So I must work for my money. However, I have earned vacation so I am taking two whole days in conjunction with the Memorial Day weekend. Do the math: that means I get 16 days off in a row!! What?? No??? 5…? OK… 5. 5 days off in a row!!

I feel sad for those who feel compelled to do work stuff while on vacation. I almost always do not… although this time I actually got a call from the Help Desk and did a little “coordinating from the remote position” to help things along. That was yesterday. Today, I peeked at my work e-mail briefly, then put the iPhone down and ran away screaming. Or maybe I just put the iPhone down. OK I picked it up several times later; but no more e-mail peeking. It’s just not healthy to let my mind be consumed with work all the time. So I don’t allow that. I’m pretty good at maintaining strong boundaries that separate work from home.

My mission this weekend (5 DAYS!!!) is to get at least SOME of the garden planted. I’m so far behind… but as I always tell my Beautiful Girlfriend, “work interferes with my free time.” Next year at this time I’ll have a reeealllllyyyy looonnnggg vacation because I’ll be retired.

Got a bit of a start though. Bought some peppers, eggplants (not eggs from chickens. Eggs from plants) tomatoes and herbs. Yesterday I mowed the garden. HUH?? Yes, the quack grass was already out of control, so I took the garden tractor and put the mower deck into soil scrape mode. In other words, I put it on the lowest setting possible and scalped all the weeds and such. Then I began the laying out of the beds in preparation for tilling. And of course: rained much of the day today. I suppose I could have done more garden stuff, but I would have become very soggy. And yes, all this takes some preparation; which of course is time consuming. But the rewards are very great. We not only get wonderful food, but it is also very good for my spirit. And speaking of the spirit, I’m very happy to announce that I’m definitely in vacation mode now. I know this because I forgot what day it was today.

Success!!

This vacation is for staying home. Very few plans. Plant da garden. Be with my Honey Pie. Maybe catch a movie. Just not sure; and that’s OK.

So, I hope you are also on vacation. If not, well nyaa nyaa na boo boo to the likes of YOU!! Ha ha!!

Yours with 3 more days,

Kenny “Am I Retired Yet?” Compostflinger

Now I’m off to learn new gardening techniques from Porky…