“Moreover, he used to tell the brother gardener that he should always make a beautiful flower bed in some part of the garden, planting and cultivating every variety of fragrant plants and those producing beautiful flowers.  Thus, in their time they would invite all who saw those herbs and flowers to the praise of God.  For every creature says and exclaims:  ‘God made me for you, O mortal!'”

-Day by Day with Saint Francis, A Franciscan Breviary

In looking at the space created so far, I’ve realized just how much the garden has metamorphosed; but also, how much I have changed along with it.  We’ve read each other I think, and in that reading the garden and I have both changed and grown together.  The space that exists continues to be a tranquil place of contemplation, work, and relaxation as well as a place to grow peas to keep Dave happy while he’s working on the house.  The sweet peas are beginning to climb up through the dying English peas, so where there was once sweet and tasty eatable pods are now the delicate vines with deep purple and mauve flower of the Campanini sweet peas, the fuzzy little seed pods that will give me more of the same ancient flowers next year.  These are the descendants of the original flowers growing in a Sicilian monastery, collected and sent all the way across Europe to the shores of England.  By my desk is a bowl of dried English peas that will make their way into my square foot garden space next year, and the most amazing climber beans that bloomed scarlet, almost lipstick red and produced sweet pods of young beans, and iridescent violet and beans that dried deep purple, now an almost black with just a streak of white.  Next years crop laying in wait.  Likewise, the strange octagonal pods of the asparagus peas grow tighter and tighter around their seeds, drying and waiting to be planted into strange fingers of stem and leaf that bloom into a deep grape purple flower.  The pods themselves have a rather earthy taste that end with a drying, almost base effect on the tongue.

A week ago I got a tumble compost accelerator in the mail.  I traded in my points on my credit card and got a rain barrel, composter, and a clock for the new house.  Saturday I went out to the yard to assemble the composter.  Little did I realize that this marvel of technology was not only assemble in so many easy steps as the Chinese who made it will never have to do, but the parts that are all hard black plastic don’t assemble as easily as the instructions suggest!  So, like any man in this situation, I didn’t follow the instructions, and attempted to put it together to no avail.  Compound that with the swatting of mosquitos, wiping of sweat, and the frustration of trying to put a square peg into a round hole and viola!  You’ve got a recipe for curse words.  I put it back in the garage, incomplete, and left for work.

While I was at work it dawned on me.  Black plastic in direct sunlight has to heat up, and if it does heat up, it has to become more flexible.  So back to the house a couple of days ago, half an hour in the sun while I mow the front lawn, back to the composter and yes, the part that wasn’t able to bend will bend.  If I had another pair of hands I’d be able to bend it in place while holding each end of the composter together.  I’m sure it was quite the site, me bracing two halves of a very large, very warm plastic barrel between my legs while trying to get the bottom half to line up with the holes the screws that hold the barrel together will require, then trying to line up the opening of the cover so that the holes that will be the lip the door to the composter will support also line up…

…then my neighbour and his friends light up a bowl.  Mosquitos, sweat, heat, and the putrid smell of  cheap dope and the cackling of what can only be described as male versions of MacBeth’s witches high on cheap clove.

The things I go through to keep the garden looking it’s best.  I’ll need a pair of hands to help with the composter, and I know my brother will probably be able to spare half an hour  to help.  Or an hour.  Or maybe two hours.

Then yesterday, another miracle.  I’m walking back to the compost pile before I leave and I notice that an amaryllis bulb has shot up, along with thick fleshy green leaves, a flower stalk!  The bulbs that haven’t bloomed for three years, that are sitting in pots in my back garden gaining strength so they can flower over Christmas, have decided that Christmas is coming early this year.

The tomatoes are multiplying beyond my ability to use them; but there are plenty of people in need of fresh tomatoes and I’m not afraid to have a cherry tomato or two while I work in the garden.  The corn is filling out really nicely, only going to be three or four cobs but I am certain they will be delicious.  Beets are getting fatter, and I’m about ready to try my hand at making kale chips.  Keep everyone posted at how that turns out!

 

Unlike Mark the duck (who has his own twitter feed if you’ve not seen it! @marktheduck1), my day was spent quietly mowing the grass, filling the pond, pulling weeds, harvesting onions, digging out potatoes and garlic, some baby carrots, peas, beans, beets, dill, and even a cob of corn that looks marvellous, but probably could’ve used another month or so.  Still lots to grow bigger left on the stock.  It was my 45th birthday and it came quietly, and passed again quietly.  Just another day, but one that I enjoyed very much doing things that are my own quiet, peaceful pastime: primarily, scheming about how to alter or improve the garden.

There’s new grass coming up in the front.  I initially thought I wanted to do raised beds throughout the front yard, increase the production of vegetables and flowers, do something more productive or just plain different from the other houses on the block.  But there is a kind of strange, peaceful, enjoyment in mowing that I had forgotten!  Mowing is just … zen!  Plus there’s cuttings that are great for compost.

Many of the plants I’ve put into this garden have significance.  They’re like markers of where I’ve come from, the people that I’ve met, the important times in my life.  The hollyhocks came from Gladmer Park, and although they’re suffering from a really bad fungal infection I can’t break myself to pull them out.  They’re standing, in some cases, almost ten feet tall without leaves and just masses of pink, purple, and red flowers.  The lilies that I brought, the gas plant, all plants that were purchased after taking garden tours with the Regina Horticulture Society.  Star gazer lily to remind me of my past history as a club kid in Saskatoon, my friends there, especially Belinda who was (and still is in my heart of hearts) one of my best friends.  And the perennials that I planted from seed which are now filling out, spreading like gang busters in whites, pinks, mauves, and reds.  The roses, three planted and two survived the winter.  One red, the other white (and a miracle growing from a dead stump, yet to bloom) to remind me of my friendship with Pam, my boss.  The herbs throughout the garden:  borage, lavenders, sages, thyme (which had no business over wintering…you bet I’m going to mulch heavy again this year!), lemon grass–all to remind me of the history and nature of gardening, the healing power of herbs and the earth taken care of.  And this year, four asiatic lilies planted to mark my birthday, but one specifically planted to mark the passing of a primate of the Old Catholic Church.  It’s called playful:  bright white blossoms with streaks of pink and purple spots, combined with a heady scent.  Then there’s the other plants, the perennials that were part of this garden before I took it over, the old poppies and peonies, the new trees Dave planted in the front borders:  cedars, willows, box, dogwoods, and beautiful red-leafed trees that once grown up will not only provide shade but help to keep water out of the basement.  The garden is a collection of plants that have memories, that become individual but part of a collective.  I know I’ve said it before, but gardens like people, like gardeners, have lives their own.  This garden is a far older, more elderly teacher and companion.  It has taught me patience, knowing when something is a mistake and needs to be either re-done or reconsidered, the importance of layers and colours in a space to increase it’s depth not only to the eye but to the body, the foot, the paths which when wandered create separate spaces and rooms, but also the illusion of a larger space, a journey.  It feels a lot more like a cloister, or a courtyard, and I think even when the lilacs are trimmed back in the fall, as they grow that space will return.

So new projects!  The fall will bring trimming back the hedges in the back, sorting and cutting the wood for fire in the spring/late fall.  The pond is going to be filled in with gravel, sand, and stone to create a fire-pit space with two benches.  The reality is that putting the fire pit in the garden (that is the old garden) will put a source of flame far too close to the three old spruce trees and I can’t risk them going up in flames…because they’d take out my garage, and probably my neighbour’s garage as well!  So!  New pond going in where the garden is, much bigger, much deeper, and with any luck filtered by pond plants, kept mosquito free by gold fish, and cool enough to jump in after a long day’s work!  The city requires permits for pools that primary function is for swimming.  The primary function of this pond would be fore aquaculture.  Swimming would be secondary; still, fences and gates are going to need locks and greater security to keep wandering kids out.  The old topsoil is going to move to the hugelkutur garden raised bed that I started late spring:  twelve by six, I layered a bunch of sticks, twigs, and branches (old and new wood) from the hedges and buried it with soil.  The idea being that once the wood begins to decay, it will not only provide greater nutrients for the plants being grown on top of it but the wood will retain more water (meaning you have to water less) and the head created from the decomposing wood will allow for earlier planting!  I’m wanting to create a really substantial mound so I will probably layer more wood on top of the existing soil and put more dirt on top of that wood.  By next spring, the mound should be (I’m hoping) about 2-3 feet tall in the middle, sloping down to the edges of the raised bed.  Enter square foot gardening techniques and bob’s your uncle.  Higher yields, earlier yields, and better tasting (apparently) yields as well.

Keep weeding, keep harvesting, keep being grateful for the bounties you have in your life, especially the ones that are unexpected.

 

 

Every hermit needs a hermitage.

Recently, my neighbour noticed that the lilacs in the back yard were pushing over his fence.  Turns out when a lilac lives to be a ripe old age, they lean (much like people) on things to support them.  So in a gust and burst of energy, Dave (the guy who’s flipping the house) cut down all the offending branches and put them into the back yard.  After getting the rest of the branches from next door, I realized that I had the coppice that I had wanted to build the fencing around the south side of the house.

Except that something moved in me and pushed me towards a bigger project.  Every hermit needs a hermitage, a dwelling place that is a somewhat temporary structure where he or she can retreat to in the world.  Now the garden in the back yard is definitely becoming a very cloister like, contemplative place in it’s own planted-and-wild sort of way.  But an actual structure would not only be a dedicated place to actually just *sit* and *think* but be a decorative aspect to the yard as well, in that hermit-desert father-Franciscan kind of theme that I’m going for.

For the last two days I’ve been stripping leaves off the branches to make them ready, sorting out the smaller branches to fill the spaces in between the bigger branches, and thinking of a plan on how to construct this hut.  My first thought was to build a simple small rectangle under 100 square feet with an arched roof on either side, kind of like the arches of gothic cathedrals.  The upside would be that the waddle would be consistent up the sides of the arches and provide support for any dob that I’d put on.  Dob, by the way, is a mixture of water, clay, grass or straw, and poop from a horse or a cow.  When mixed and combined it forms a kind of concrete that adheres between the branches, can be left exposed as is or painted.  I was going to white wash it.

Unfortunately, my mind lead me into a different direction.  Instead of a rectangle, I’m building a sort of square with one rounded end.  I laid out the pattern and marked the ground with my fingers, cut the initial poles for the walls, tried hammering them into the ground (mistake number one:  rubber mallets are not for stakes apparently), gave up on trying to hammer them into the ground, and instead dug a hole about a foot deep for each of the stakes, then stomped the earth around them to give them some support.

Then the waddling begins.  It’s a kind of peaceful weaving process, but the more sticks and branches you weave in between the posts the more you realize just how much coppicing you need to build a think like this.  I realized after getting about 10 inches of wall that I was probably going to have to switch to larger branches, and more than likely going to have to go into both hedges and cut more wood to finish the project.   But that wasn’t the biggest problem.

It turns out that soil that is dry doesn’t create much of a support for wattle (or is it waddle? Mental note, post about the Mark the Duck twitter feed at some point) as the walls get higher.  The key branches on the south side that I used for foundation poles began to not only bend in the ground, but turn up the soil.  Which means I need to possibly rethink my design, definitely dig up and re-pound the poles *or* put in support poles, and take all the woven wood out so I can do this.  The foundation poles *have* to be strong and in the ground stably otherwise the entire building, small as it is, could potentially come crashing down…even while someone, someone like me, is in it!

I’m agitated that I basically have to start over from scratch, but the reality is if I do the job well and know that the construction is solid, I’m going got have a hermitage that will that will not only function, but one that may last a lot longer in years than one that is just shoddily assembled.  I kind of like the open wood and the spray of branches that jut out everywhere.  I know that I could produce an adequate about of dob from the gumbo in my own yard…I’m not sure if that’s the route I want to go.  I need to think about it more, and think while I’m working.  God knows there’s enough grass clippings available to mix into any kind of dob that I would use.

It’s as meditative as walking in the garden, or pulling weaves, to build with the materials that come from the space you occupy.

Having realized it’s been quite a while since I last wrote  a blog post, I wanted to update everyone about what’s been going on.

I started in the garden late this year; it wasn’t because I was up to my eyeballs in other things.  I was feeling depressed about things, feeling stuck with no way out.  I was contending with fears that had a grip on me that were at one and the same time absolutely illusionary.  It’s so strange how we can come up with ideas in our own minds about things that have almost no grounding in reality, yet form concepts that stop us from doing what’s good for us.  And the insane part of it all was that once I was able to overcome that fear and get back into working the soil, that grip the illusionary fear had on me all but vanished.

As you can tell, I’ve put in a few more beds and changed the concept of what the back yard garden is supposed to be.  When I started last year, I had this idea in my head of a kind of cloister of green and purple and pink and yellow and red and blue.  This initial idea hasn’t changed really, but the concept has shifted a little bit.  That lawn I initially worked hard to airate and fertilize is very slowly disappearing in exchange for perennial beds.  The lawn is now pathway.  The rest of the garden instead functional on three levels:  the first, production of vegetables and fruits to both eat and give away; the second to provide a  place to entertain, to be out of solitude.  The current vegetable patch will at the end of this season be transformed into a brick and moss patio space with a fireplace at it’s centre.  If I can arrange the bricks into a labyrinth even better.  The perennial beds that surround the vegetable garden will act as a border between the contemplative space and the social space, as well as a break between that contemplative space and my work space and potting table.  Right now, I’ve got some pressure treated wood (thanks for the donation, Dave!) that I will be drilling and fixing into the ground to create a new vegetable patch just behind the tall perennial bed.  Once that’s done, the sod that I moved last year which is now turned over and dead will go back into the space to become the vegetable garden in the back…this year, seeded with some wheat from Dave’s family farm going back God only knows how long.  If it grows, there will be seed for the birds to eat and a good amount of straw that can go into compost.  If it doesn’t, I’m sure the birds will love it.

Speaking of birds!  There’s a cheeky little chickadee who doesn’t seem to be too afraid of me.  A few times I’ve gone to the pond to get water to take to the beds or the garden, and I’ve interrupted his bath.  He just flies around a few feet from me, lands on the trellis where I have the sweet peas growing, eyeballs me, and chirps.  I bet if I got bird seed and held it out in my hand he’d land on it and eat.  The robin rules the roost, splashing in the pond like a crazy man with a bad hat, sparrows having to wait their turn as they go.  Found a dead song bird out front again…time to get a water gun for the cats.  Yellow canaries come, land on the lantern, bathe, drink, sing in the trees.  And today there were cedar waxwings.  I haven’t seen cedar waxwings since I was a kid!  I need to get a bird feeder and put it over the compost pile.  Bird poop is good for compost.

Corn is growing rampantly, the day lilies I transported over from the house last year are filling in and showing signs of budding.  The asiatics are almost 4 1/2 feet tall…clover growing with wild flowers I’ve let take space in the garden for the bees.  The mint has filled up big swaths of space in between the perennials, I dug some up and moved it over to the north side of the vegetable garden.  Once the patio goes in it’ll be a lovely fresh border of blue flowers and fresh smelling foliage.

The front yard is greening up, but nothing much I can do there until the construction and renovation is finished.  That space too can be utilized and should be for purposes other than just grass.  It can and will grow food, flowers, fruit.  The work isn’t nearly as difficult as getting to the point of actually doing it.  The imagining is simply part of the enmeshment that you feel when you let yourself become part of the garden space, let the garden space change you.  It feels very much a co-operative process, one in which you read the land your working in and let the land tell you what to do.

Lord,

I give praise that even in the darkness of the winter, I now see that green comes from the soil again; that even in the dryness of decay, beneath there is richness and loam; that in solitude self imposed, there is friendship which awaits; that in the touch of the earth upon my hands there is again hope, again relief from the nameless despair which has covered my eyes like a long winter night.

Give me strength to enter into the labyrinth of this garden, a maze without walls or pathways that leads to a centre I still as of yet am unable to know, but must have faith to believe will one day lay before me.  Help me to undertake the planting and sowing, weeding and tilling, moving of stones, culturing of waters, as I would know how to within the walls of my own inner garden, my own mind.

Order the beginning, direct the progress, and perfect the achievement of my work.  You who are true God and true man, and live and reign for ever and ever.

Amen.

It’s been a long while since I’ve actively posted.  That, in part, has to do with a case of optical rectitis that I was suffering from…read shitty outlook on life….and partially because once the snow hits, everything here freezes.  The compost is composting, the leaves and branches and things in the beds are folded over and nicely rotting away, providing much needed nourishment to the soil come spring.  The Stokes Seed Catalogue showed up two weeks ago and sent shivers down my spine, and the amaryllis has just opened flower number four.  Simple flowers the size of cake plates the colour of watermelon bleeding into the green rind of the petals as they close close to the stem.  The other 4 amaryllis have yet to even peek out of their bulbs, which gives me hope of additional flowers.

Something I long forgot about was that gardening in winter doesn’t have to be restricted to dirt.  I cleaned up a 55 gallon fish tank last week-end, a job I’ve been putting off for (see above reason, optical rectitis), and because baking and cooking with a slow cooker seemed to pass the time with more grace than scrubbing three months of fish fecal out of gravel.  But the monumental job of doing it is done, less than an hour later, and I find myself with new LED lights and a power filter for a tank 25 gallons bigger than the one it’s on.

Thus began the addiction and the indulgence of indoor aquatic gardening, having just sunk $60 and change into plants, including a dwarf lotus, which will be leaving from Winnipeg Monday morning and arriving via Canada post hopefully by Wednesday.

The other thing crossing my mind is the value of being a hermit.  Good grief.  Yes, there are contemplative and meditative issues with this, but sometimes something comes along your way that requires some additional contemplation.  A hermit is only as good as the community they belong to, which at the surface may seem somewhat an odd statement to make.  But even the desert fathers had to come in and share a communal meal, as well as take Communion and worship as members of a community.  We’re only as good as the company we keep, and the commitments and times that we spend with that company.  My mess begins when I shut everyone and everything out.  My victories begin when I open myself to the possibility of companionship on all kinds of levels, without expectation, and just allow the fertile garden to grow.

Which is a really nice, really complicated way of saying I hope he calls.

 

I realized today it’s almost been two months since I’ve blogged anything about the yard!  There is a really good reason for this, namely that I’ve spent the last few weeks tinkering, not working as intensively, but sitting back and just soaking it all in.  I wrote in my journal a few weeks ago about how when I am there and just listening, sitting, sipping iced tea, reading, the world just disappears and time seems to slow down around me (the problem being it seems to speed up around everyone else!).

I’ve yanked a lot of the vegetables out already.  The peas didn’t perform very well and about five days ago I realized that they’d all but dried up, so I pulled them up at took out the cedar stakes.  The house plants on the “writing desk” now “expensive but functional plant stand” are all doing what they should:  waxy green leaves and lush new growth.  The few plants I inherited are slowly starting to come back to life.  Took out more carrots, the last of the beets (which didn’t perform well either), three new radishes (which are going to end up as compost I fear), and am watching the onions that may not make it to the frost.  Then again, I did plant them about a month ago so they might over winter.

I had about an hour and a half today and was wanting to mow the grass after collecting veg and some seed from the amaranth (btw, if anyone wants some seed for this incredible Hopi food dye, let me know.  I suspect I’m going to have oodles of seed once I’m done collecting.) except that I was once again swarmed.

Swarmed.  By mosquitos that don’t care that I’m wearing one of the highest most toxic content repellants along side one of those  con fangled insect repellant pagers.  I don’t ever remember them being this small, this aggressive, or this much of a pain in the ass!  I have a routine where I show up at the house, enter the garage, spray on some repellant, go back out, and start watering.  As soon as the water hits the ground the start to swarm up, hungry, angry.  I’m a meal!  I mean, I’ve heard about payback and sharing with the natural world, but these guys are painful!  And I should know pain!  The end of July a wasp came and landed on the back of my neck and took a chunk of skin out of my neck.  That hurt, but it didn’t hurt enough for me to moan.  These mosquitos just make it more pleasurable to stay indoors.

A friend from Facebook posted something to do with fall that made me shudder and swear, until I read through it.  It said something about the beautiful fall colours in the leaves, the pumpkins, the warm autumn nights, being able to wear sweaters again, and the mosquitos all die and go back to hell where they belong.

I agree.

The other thing that happens when you sit and read and contemplate is you realize that as you begin to dig, things change and morph around you.  I’ve spoken about how the garden takes on a life, a spirit of it’s own, and the gardener becomes a part of that spirit–a co-creator–rather than a distinct and separate part.  I’m realizing that where I dug flower beds is only the beginning, that to capitalize on the full sun and the pond I need to surround it with flower beds.  Which means that September will bring two big jobs:  digging a lot more grass out, and mowing out the compost pile so I have something to cover the perennials that already went in.  Along with that, the vegitable garden either has to shrink because of the spruce trees in the west part of the yard, or move forward either closer towards the pond or right into the front yard.  But there’s got to be a driveway put in first, and winter, and lots of time to think and plan and plot about ways I can reduce the amount of mosquitos in my yard.

I will say this:  sitting in the cool of the evening, watching as the dragonflies in mid and late July came out to feast, then later and now the bats (which I’m very fond of), there are some upsides to having so many of the little pests around.  I’m just not liking the not being able to be there without having to swat.

Next blog post:  the hash pipes and beer cans that keep appearing in my yard from next door.

I have a visitor.

Today when I arrived I found corn nuts on my desk.  Oh yeah, I’ve got a desk in my garden now.  Which I know may seem strange for some people, and I know it doesn’t quite fit in the space, but I’m able to write here now; I suppose I could have a buffet here as well, or put up one very short person on a very, very firm bed.

Yes, corn nuts on my desk.  And holes in my bonsai tree soil.  A squirrel has decided to use them as a larder for his stash…or her stash…and I guess I can get used to it.  See, the birds have also decided to make a meal of what few peas I have.  That I don’t mind.  I’ve actually become quite accustomed to having the birds around.  The pond is bringing droves of sparrows, at least 12 that I can count, song birds, robins, grackles, morning doves, a couple of large and small wood peckers, and a sea gull that’s circling.  I think it might be eyeballing the gourami that I put into the pond.  A tropical fish in a garden pond.  Bright red among the green to go with the bright red cast-iron Japanese lantern that was my fathers’.  Just a couple of weeks and the pond is showing signs of life.

The plants are in bloom and I’m noticing that there are definite paths in the grass, which mean there are definite places where I’m walking more than others, which means I’m creating outlines for new flower beds next year.  I’m realizing that there will be much less grass in this yard and I’m ok with that, although David is a bit miffed that the fire pit has been replaced with a water pit.  I’m sure he’ll get over it.

Nothing is beating the taste of baby carrots tugged with little effort from the fertile soil, or that wonderfully sexy taste of new potatoes covered in melted butter and boiled with the first harvest of tender, earthy green beans.   The second batch of radishes is just about ready, and the two that I left in the ground for seed are becoming very large.  They’ve out grown the beets which are close to being ready to pull out.  The onions are fattening, and the second rows I’ve put in are sprouting again which means we should have green onions for a labour day barbecue.

I’ve been thinking about the fence, that is, a fence with a gate to block off the view of the garden from the street level.  I’ve also been thinking about what exactly to do with the front yard.  Right now it’s a neglected green space.

I’m also shocked to see that it’s not rabbits eating the beet greens.  As I write this, the sparrows have landed and are chomping through the beet tops.  And the swish chard.  And one just flew at my head warp speed and swerved at the last minute.  I had a mental image just now of myself, flat on my back, with a sparrow sticking out of my forehead.

High summer in the city in the garden.  You can’t beat it, especially accompanied with a glass of iced tea mixed from water out of the garden hose.

Dad mentioned today that he wanted some pictures of the garden in it’s current state.  It’s still really a work in progress, but let’s face it:  the real defining quality of a garden is that the gardener is growing and changing as much through the garden as the gardener deludes him or herself into thinking they are the one doing the changing.  It’s symbiotic.  That’s my big word for the day.  So here are a few pictures of the updated garden.

The dirt from the pond obviously needed to go somewhere, as well as the sod.  What I did was to take the sod, turn it upside down and make a grass sandwich with the existing grass.  This is going to do two things:  it’s going to kill the grass that is compacted together, and it’s going to create a really good compost once that’s done.  I took the last of the rocks that appeared by the garage and lined the bed.  The dirt is about three inches deep and is shaded by the lilacs, perfect for the hollyhocks that I seeded here.  Will be putting in some annuals to give it some colour as well as shade out the seeds as they germinate.  Come August/September, I’ve got a package of delphinium seeds that I’ll mix into this bed as well.

Some of the weeds are actually pretty attractive and I’ve been encouraging the native heathers and chamomiles to continue to grow.  Hard to see them because they look like little light bursts on the fence.

So Dad had an old cast-iron Chinese lantern that’s been around for at least as long as I have (so that’s at least 44 years old if not older….holy crap)…to punch it up beside the pond, I spray painted it with a rust-protecting paint bright red.  Cherokee red would’ve been preferred (just because of that damn Frank Lloyd Wright addiction I can’t seem to shake), but the red wagon colour is about as close, if not exact, as I can get.  And I’m loving how the red amaranth (Hopi) is contrasting against the other perennials.  The pond is going slightly green because of algae, but the addition of some more plants, and the continued grown of the water hyacinth will help to provide more shade and reduce that issue.  There is a resident in the pond along side the multitude of water beetle that just appeared almost overnight.  I got a rainbow gourami (yes, a tropical fish!) and put him in there.  They’re members of the labyrinth fish family, surfacing to take a gulp of air every so often, so as a tropical fish they’re well suited to stagnant ponds.  There’s not water circulation as of yet, but I may get a small pump and put it in to help deal with the algae.  Then again, I might end up with $150 worth of water lilies and some snails…..

Beans and peas actually have very delicate, very beautiful flowers.

The plants around my little make-shift bench are starting to flower as well.  The geraniums are glad to be out from under the grow lights, and there are still several house plants that I have to crate up and move over.

I try to picture the house with the pine boards and cedar shakes, the darker roof, and a fence enclosing the space from the street view and suddenly realize that this is, very slowly, becoming a very cottage garden.  I have a hope that within a year or two I’ll be able to try and get into New Dance Horizon’s “Secret Garden Tour” but we’ll have to see.

For info on this great event, click here!

http://www.secretgardenstour.ca

Being gay, you would think that as soon as the month of June rushes in I would be even just a little bit excited about the Pride festival.

When I was in my early twenties, I decided I needed to make a change, make some new friends, and maybe do some good. I joined the Pride Committee.  Back then, it was a group of people who volunteered their time and energies to create a really kick-ass festival.  We also did things like challenge government stereotypes:  not many people remember this, but an NDP provincial government under then premier Roy Romanow refused to declare Pride week.  We actually had to take the provincial government to the human rights tribunal to get a declaration.  Co-incidentaly, many people don’t realize it was actually the government of Grand Devine, a *gasp* dare I say conservative government, that initially made inroads into LGBT equality in the labour force in…wait for it… the 1980’s.  I was really into it not only because it felt like politically I was working for change, or that I was actively working to organize events and help put together the first ‘legal’ parade in Regina, but because I was meeting all kinds of people, making all kinds of friends, and floating on a high of what I was able to accomplish with the help of those friends.  Which makes it sound like I did it all, when in fact i was actually just a minuscule part of a bigger team that did it without any organizing principle except getting the job done (and if we turned a small profit we could turn back into the next festival the following year, coolio).

After three years of mc-ing the flag raising, marching in the parades, getting tables and chairs set up for the dance at the Cathedral Neighbourhood Centre, talking to reporters, I (and I suspect everyone else on Pride) burnt out.  Without missing a step, the local group at the GLCR picked up the gauntlet and continued the tradition.  In that aspect, it’s a real show of what community is about when the celebration is important enough to keep it going without any need to ask.

So I find myself, 20 years later, thinking now.  Having watched event announcements for the week of festivities, realizing I can’t make half of them because of work, and not being able to make the other half because I just can’t drag myself out of the house that I’m living in…(taking care of this dog is another blog post in itself)…I find myself wondering why it is I don’t really have a sense of pride in being gay anymore.  I fired off an e-mail to the current committee saying that I would love to volunteer.  I thought to myself, all you need to do is get involved again and you’ll be meeting people, making friends, and gaining back some of that community spirit that you seem to have lost!  Except after the volunteer co-ordinater got ahold of me to ask me what t-shirt size I took, I found myself wanting to not volunteer anymore.  Lucky for me, I never heard back from anyone.  I guess they didn’t really need volunteers after all.

But at the heart of this post isn’t anything I did before, or anything I’m seeing now:  why is it, when I look at myself in my 43 year old body, do I not feel the sense of pride in being gay that I once did?

When the committee I belonged to dissolved, I slowly drifted away from anything community related.  I stopped going to the bar after a disastrous relationship with a disastrous drag queen (again, like the dog, another post all together!), stopped hanging out with my friends in the community in Saskatoon.  I went to Divas so much people thought I lived in Saskatoon!  That not going back to Saskatoon had more to do with not wanting to run away from my problems here in Regina than anything else, and I think that might be the real key as to why I don’t feel pride anymore.  When I stopped running away to Saskatoon and forced myself to start looking at the problems in my life that were making me unhappy, the need to run away disappeared.  The friends I had there for the most part never really stayed in touch, which only emphasized that the decision I’d made was probably for the best.  I miss Belinda especially, and there isn’t a day that goes by I wish I could reconnect with her.

I’m not ashamed of who I am.  But what I do feel is a deep sense of gratitude to have been given this gift, and it is a gift, even though some days I feel so very alone. One day in my past, I’m not sure exactly when or exactly how, being gay stopped being what I was and became an integral part of who I am, a part of myself that I am humbled to have.  Its not something I feel the need to flaunt anymore as much as treasure and honour by making good choices for myself.

Last night when I thought through how to write this post, I was going to say things like that festival now isn’t the same as the festival then, or that the energy now isn’t the same as the energy then.  Although that might be true in some aspects that have no real bearing on the heart and soul of the festival, Pride is basically the same.  I’m the one that has changed.  The way I look at myself has changed.  The sense of loneliness that I talk about comes not from not being able to have friends, or to want to socialize, or to date.  It comes from the realization that the vast majority of people that I used to be able to relate to are no longer people I can relate to.  I don’t belong to the community in the same sense that I did before. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m older, or because my outlook has changed.  My sense of grief doesn’t come from being alone as much as it does in realizing that even if I wanted to come back into a place of being active in the community in the way I did before, I can’t.  Firstly because there are younger fresher faces that are doing a fine job without my help, and secondly because you can’t put a square peg into a round hole.

I’m very grateful to have participated in an organization that helped in breaking down the shame that so many of us have had to deal with.  When I think back, I realize I was actually part of a very small bit of our city’s history.  That’s pretty cool!  Being proud means being able to take joy from one’s accomplishments, for the hard work one has put into a life.  Yes, coming out of the closet is an incredibly difficult journey for many, and people very likely still need to be told, even in 2015, that it’s ok to be gay.  But it’s just one book on the shelf, and there are so many of those books that get overlooked because the rainbow book is so bright.

I’m proud of my accomplishments.  My sexuality isn’t an accomplishment.  It’s a component of the individual who’s written two novels, worked for 15 years at the same job, gone back to school after 20 years and landed high grades in some of the most challenging classes I (and others) have ever taken, grown an continue to develop a cottage garden, and make a really REALLY good cup of tea an honey.