September 25, 2022: Autumn Equinox and Aftermath

Autumn Equinox this year happened to fall on September 22, Thursday, the very evening when we hold our weekly Community Dinners for neighbors and friends. Joseph set up an altar for our Equinox ceremony, which we performed swiftly, by holding hands as usual during our “circle up!” prior to dinner, and confirming as a group the value of each of us accessing, honoring, and integrating what is hidden (dark) within ourselves for the next three months as the equinox moment of balanced day and night tips over to the increasing dark.

Oops! Yes, that’s my “Wicked Grove” hard cider on the side of the table. Put it down to take the pic. . .

Then we feasted, topped by an extraordinary cream cake from Eva and daughter Sophia, which unfortunately, was gone before I could take its picture!

Notice, BTW, how much darker it is now, at around 7:30 PM . . .

The next morning, Friday, we spent our regular two-hour work party on separate projects. Examples:

Val worked for the second time on her vision for a sitting area and herb garden under the big maple tree, for both ourselves and neighbors.

Unfortunately, she was interrupted part way through by a wasp attack! Or was it yellow jackets? In any case, they erupted swiftly from the ground when she stuck her shovel in a certain area. Luckily, she doesn’t seem allergic; was much better the next day with just ice as a remedy.

Not unusual, this summer, all over Bloomington. We’ve now identified four spots where we must not tread. I myself have been stung, bad, twice, and had to lay low for a few days each time. 

Adam, John and I worked on weeding and mulching the outside corner. Lots of sprouted grass had begun to overtake the area. We were pleased with the result. Notice the rogue squash, front right . . .

Inside the main garden, a lone fig which will likely not mature in time. Year by year, we still hope for a mature crop from two fig trees, but unless “global warming” really is real, we’re likely out of luck. But their leaves themselves, so beautiful!

September 18, 2022: Friday work party — pulling “weeds,” Joseph hack

Besides removing five piles of downed stuff — branches, plants, etc. — and borrowing neighbor Dave’s truck to take two loads of it to Good Earth, we decided to use the rest of our two hours pulling “weeds” — one particular weed: the Spanish needle plant.

Alert: I lift the word “hack” from its new meaning in the internet age, as in “computer hacker.” You’ll soon see why. 

Ever since my blogger friend Laura Bruno sent me what she called an “avocado hack,” I’ve been into hacking in the sense she used the word. In her case, the hack was to put ripe avocados in a jar, fill jar with water, and refrigerate. She’s right; they last much longer that way. Thank you, Laura!

On Friday, Green Acres Village podmate Joseph came up with a “Spanish needles hack.” Or, I should say, a “cosmos hack.” We all love cosmos flowers in the garden, but we don’t want the Spanish needle plants. Both of them happen to produce needle-like seeds.

Plants are brilliant; they know how to spread their seeds; not just via wind, or water, or birds, but via people’s clothing, as we walk by on paths. 

We were determined to take out most of the prolific Spanish Needles (the name discovered through a phone app). 

See the needle seeds above? They get all over our clothing when we walk by. There have been days when I’ve had to spend 20 minutes removing them all.

Okay. Now here’s where the hack comes in. 

Joseph decided he was going to take charge of saving seeds this year. I hate to admit it, but we have never, until now, done anything but a perfunctory job of saving a few “favorite vegetable and flower” seeds. This year, thanks to Joseph, we’re not only saving seeds from the plants we want to see flourish next year, but we’re also getting seeds from elsewhere; like me, on my walk the other day with former housemate Dan: Ironweed. I love the ironweed blossom, and the seeds were ready on a plant in a nearby meadow. Okay! Dan stuffed some in his pocket, and we kept on going.

Okay, back to the hack.

Because we were pulling Spanish needle plants, and getting the needles all over our clothing, Joseph decided to pull on cloth gloves. And that’s how he captured needle seeds from the cosmos plants! Brilliant!

Grrrr . . .

Now he just had to remove the gloves, pull out all the needles, and take them down to his seed drying and saving place in the basement. YES!

LATE SUMMER: new people plans as we work with the natural world

The three “finalists” for our three open rooms will all attend our August 25th Thursday Community Dinner, so that will be fun!

Meanwhile, for last Tuesday work party, Mike, the new neighbor from down the street who wants to work with us, arrived right on time at ten AM. At first we put him to work with others in the main garden cleaning up debris to be composted. Then Marita said she wanted to make a new compost pile. Did anyone want to join her? Instantly, eagerly, Mike accepted. So they both rolled the full wheelbarrow back to our newly re-situated compost area and went to work . . .

. . . with Marita instructing, Mike layering. 

Here’s the main garden harvest for that morning. Keep in mind that we have four other gardens, also producing continuously at this point.

And then, just this morning, new beans starting! Overnight!

What do we do with the surplus? Give share the abundance.

INTERREGNUM . . .

It’s the Sunday of IU move-in week. Thousands of students (and their parents) descend, en masse, into Bloomington Indiana. Easily navigated streets during summer are already clogged. 

Meanwhile, here in Green Acres Permaculture Village, for a few months in early summer we were undergoing an extended period when we didn’t really know what was happening, in terms of new people moving in to replace the ones moving out. For the first time ever, we were about to have four openings (out of nine) in this tiny permaculture paradise in the middle of a suburb. But that quickly faded about ten days ago, when at least eight people (most of whom heard about us first through the ic.org site) called and emailed to see if they could fill one of the three slots we still have open. Usually, we fill open rooms naturally, through meeting people at our weekly Community Dinners, but last week we decided to cancel the dinner, since one resident had come down with Covid and another one (me) with a second wasp attack. Plus, this coming Thursday, many of us will attend the Andreas (former resident, now teaching in Ireland, except in summers) piano concert, Passion and Despair (Brahms), so we’ve cancelled that dinner, too. 

Which meant that the most likely “candidates” all had to make appointments. Will meet them this week.

Here’s how the patio looked last Thursday, forlorn:

Two days ago, an IU student who has just moved to Green Acres neighborhood (into a corner house a block down the street) contacted us to say he just loves what we’re doing, and how can he get involved? So he came over and I gave him “the tour,” much to his delight. From the way he acted, it appears that he holds the same vision we do, of regenerating a sense of shared communion with the land in small urban spaces. A third year undergraduate, he wants to participate in both our twice-weekly work parties and our weekly community dinners. So I put him on the email list.

Then I told him that he could do the same where he lives. Just get to know the nearby neighbors first. “Maybe one of your next door neighbors will be amenable to working with you on a small garden in the area between your two houses,” I told him. “Maybe not. In any case, start slowly, with one small step; watch as the universe rearranges itself in the direction of your intent. Then, with the altered landscape, take another small step . . .”

He was excited. “Oh I’d better go write that down!” 

I asked him what his major is, and he responded, “I’m wavering, between Art and Philosophy . . .”

Here’s another photo, of corn, now spent, entwined with beans on their way up. We had planted squash there too, but the third “sister” didn’t come up.

Yet more beans ‘acomin,” on one of our trellises . . .

Love beans.