I just noticed that my last post on this site was August 3, 2023. This was shortly before all hell broke loose, on the morning of August 16, when my 57-year-old son Colin Cudmore, inventor of the Garden Tower, who lives here in GAPV, in the house next door, suffered a massive aortic dissection, both ascending and descending branches. He was supposed to die, but did not; the two surgeries left him paralyzed from waist down, suffering from extreme nerve pain waves (signaling that nerves are beginning to fire, a good sign), and utterly determined to make his way back, at least to home (after we renovate the house so a wheelchair bound person can navigate through it), and eventually, back to walking. He is inspiring everybody around him with his continuously generous and cheerful attitude.
Meanwhile, Summer turned into Autumn, and Autumn turned into Winter. However, our arugula and one type of lettuce are still growing, feeding us.
Last night, we held a wonderfully raucous New Year’s Eve Community Dinner with massive amounts of food, wine, and White Elephant gifting. Seventeen of us altogether; other than Thanksgiving, when we hosted a dozen, this was our first Community Dinner in lo these many months.
Tuesday work party: Three of us begin to clear this alley/driveway. And that includes this gigantic, deep rooted burdock which Nathan, who walks over here to work with us for most work parties, managed to actually dig up completely. Note: the root is about as long as the plant was tall.
THURSDAY
Community Dinner evening, something we have managed to cut in half. Rather than every single Thursday, we now meet first and third Thursdays of each month. That way, when we do meet, it feels like a celebration rather than an obligation.
This evening, a special “treat.” Cooked pokeweed leaves, which our friend Ben, with his old friend and new Green Acres resident Ningyao’s help, knows how to cook. First, a one-minute boil in lots of water. Then, a ten-minute slow boil in another pan with not so much water. He tells us that when cooked this way, the poke leaves get rid of two different kinds of poisons. We did eat them, trusting Ben’s expertise, and no one got sick! Tasted like, yep! – cooked greens. Something we may want to remember if store bought greens get too costly or scarce; or the carefully cultivated greens in our garden don’t do well. Let us appreciate, indeed, let us revere, all these wild plants that simply, know how to grow, no matter what the conditions.
A big turnout this time. Probably 18 altogether. Unfortunately, it had just rained, and looked like more might be on the way, so we met inside, instead of on the patio.
Afterwards, some young people in the living room . . .
decided to make music together, and then, Yingyao told me in the morning, when I went to bed, decided to go out to the yurt, where they continued for two more hours — in a thunderstorm! An evening to remember, especially for them, and for the yurt, which has just been inaugurated into yet another new use! That adds to its already discovered uses: a place to sleep overnight, a place to do yoga chikung taichi, a place to hold meetings. And, it appears that, whatever the occasion, both the yurt’s size (12 feet diameter) and the indoor/outdoor rug inside that features a mandala, create its capacity as a centering device. Something sorely needed in this increasingly chaotic age.
FRIDAY
At our dinner, I had taken a few minutes to consult with neighbor Devin, who works as an arborist at IU, re: two of the trees in the Overhill front yard. So, I shouldn’t have been surprised to see Devin pull up the next day with his grandson Ethan, and lots of tools for lopping and cutting. He proceeded to give an hour-long lesson to 11-year-old Ethan, who jumped right in and learned quickly. Great to see older generations passing along hard-earned expertise. Great to see younger generations eager to learn.
SATURDAY
Work Party. Ningyao and I finished clearing that area we began last Tuesday. YES!
Nathan and Joseph weeded the main garden. (And Joseph pulled lots more potatoes out of the ground. Will reseed that area with some kind of fast growing green. Arugula?)
At one point there were three bumblebees on different echinacea flowers here, plus a monarch butterfly. But by the time I rushed to get the ipad to record the scene, they were gone. There is a tiny bee on one of them, however.
. . . in preparation for sowing root vegetable seed for the fall. Which we’ll do at this Tuesday’s work party, along with finish the job of clearing this garden. What’s left, still too much comfrey. There was way too much yellow dock, and one gigantic burdock. We shoveled the roots out of both kinds.
(I realize that there may come a time when we will need to utilize both yellow dock and burdock for what they can yield to humans. No doubt they have medicinal uses; and perhaps certain parts can be eaten.)
Here’s me, hauling the branches of one of the yellow docks. I decided to leave the root to someone younger.
Camden took on the job of getting the dock roots out. See right front of this montage.
Puppy Shadow makes himself at home next to Ningyao. Below, we’re almost done.
Partway through clearing excess comfrey, and having already taken back a wheelbarrow full of the stuff to the compost in back, I remembered that what we could have done was strip the leaves from the branches, and place them on the beds as mulch, since comfrey pulls up minerals from the soil. So with what’s left of it, I plan to do at Tuesday’s work party; and yes, the whole point of this two-work-party operation is to plant the root vegetable seeds, and cover everything with some kind of mulch, probably straw — and comfrey leaves!
Last Thursday’s Community Dinner featured a full patio! Plus lots of great food and the new yurt as partially hidden backdrop with old barn lurking behind.
Saturday’s Morning Work Party, first priority: get the chips off the road! After waiting for what, six months, we finally got our longed for chip drop. That’s Marita and son Nicolas bottom left. Luckily, the driver managed to avoid the little poppies from which neighbor Carisa had casually tossed seeds.
Some of the new chips we put on the paths of Joseph’s fairy garden, where the elderberry bush is now flowering.
And Marita borrowed neighbor Dave’s trusty (horribly noisy and effective) weed whacker to get the path between the mess that we’re going to get out of here next Saturday and (what used to be the) pond visible, and walkable, again.
Here she is just starting out. Later, voila! (Second shot from a greater distance.)
Marita has already spent one night in the yurt, and is about to spend another. But first, she wants to get air flow figured out. Up through the bottom . . .
. . . out through the top.
New flowering the last few days on back patio.
PlantNet ID tells me it’s garden loosestrife, and we have to watch out, because it’s invasive.
