I would say Ed is not a sentimental guy. He doesn't tear up at recollections of trips taken, dinners eaten, projects completed. He has one random photo of us -- taken during a visit in Germany to a machinist who supplied parts for one of his projects. The photo is stuck on a bulletin board in the sheep shed. It's a random, low quality image and I'm not sure what moved him to lean it against the board, but at least there is that, right next to some yellowing certificate that he got for going down in a parachute many years before my time.
And I'm not a jealous person. I had a husband once, he had an on again, off again girl friend and now here we are. If either he or I were not happy together and preferred other relationships, I'd be sad, sure, but not jealous. I just don't see the point in that set of emotions. I don't want what someone else has. That's their life, not mine.
I write this because of a very funny conversation Ed and I had at breakfast. Here's how it came about:
It's one of those lovely days again, but with the same caveat: still smokey, with poor air quality. It's not as bad as it was three days ago, but for Ed -- it's borderline yukky. Me, I go outside, walk to the barn, and take stock...
(one of my favorite peonies)
(I love how close Tuxie is to Shed Unfriendly...)
It's not too awful out there. Not great, but not utterly miserable. I wouldn't run a marathon, but I can certainly do some yard work. Still, we keep the windows closed in the farmhouse.
But for breakfast we take our food outside. Ed knows how much I love our porch meals. It will just be for a short period. But of course, once we get comfortable, we linger.
And again we talk about farmette projects. He has some replacement persimmons trees to plant (which he will do wearing a mask against the pollution). I laugh at him: by the time these little twigs sprout persimmons, we'll be long gone!
In fact, I say to him, your whole nut tree project (we planted, though predominantly with Ed's digging efforts, a good sixty nut, maple, paw paw, persommons and fir trees) -- has a very slow growing rate. The once twigs are now slightly bigger twigs.
Ed agrees. To add strength to my argument I remind him -- by comparison, look how huge the trees now are in the new orchard!
He answers -- yes, but she (insert name of on again off again girlfriend) and I planted those quite a while back.
Say what??? Who planted the new orchard???
Well, the big cherries and apples -- she and I...
Are you kidding me? You do not remember that you and I planted the entire new orchard together?
We did?
I dig out the relevant posts on Ocean. April, 2012. We'd already been together seven years and I had agreed to move into the farmhouse with him in 2011. A year later, we planted all those fruit trees. Apples, pears, cherries.
I love ribbing him about his memories of our time together. (They're scant.) Ed lives very much in the present, though he has a fantastic memory for sailing trips he had taken. But otherwise, things are a jumble. I am glad that he has his share of experiences and good memories, but let's just keep them a tiny bit more straight: new orchard -- designed, selected, planted by us. Shush!
Sheepishly, he studies the Ocean pictures. Um, you are so right....
Well yeah!
Once again I take on weeding today and it fills up most of the morning and afternoon. It's not the usual cleaning of my Fields of Focus (meaning the flower fields that you typically see on Ocean and the ones I tend to with almost maternal care). Today I attack a flower field that is so peripheral (and therefore so neglected) that it doesn't even have a name (like Big Bed or Lily Field (by the porch) or Sunny Field or Roadside Field or Sheep Shed Field). It's stuck between the Big Bed and the Sheep Shed Field and over the years I've ignored it and let the weeds have done their thing. Occasionally I pull out a few weeds that threaten to devour a planted perennial. Mostly though I ignore it, even though I pass it every morning on my way to the barn.
Why this total neglect? Well, it's a tough field to work with. We have never greatly improved the soil there and when a drought strikes, it cakes and cracks and does all those things that shouldn't happen in a flower bed. I can pull the hose to it, but just barely. I've put in some plants over the years and they do okay, but again, I can't be proud of the way it looks and I have so much work to do elsewhere that I mostly just let this and the Sheep Shed field do their own thing.
But today I got motivated. I do not know why. I've said this before -- I don't know what drives me to do one thing but not another out in the flower fields. At this point in spring I do not set goals. It's all about maintenance and support. I go where I think I can do the most good I suppose.
Here's a partial view of it after I'm done. Maybe it will actually be pretty this year!
Afterwards, I'm spent. I sit back, I read a little, evening approaches. Ed, too is wiped. (Here he is, after a haircut and beard trim from his own personal hair stylist!)
And then something pulls me outside again. I get this idea that I should weed the Sheep Shed Field as well. I will then have cleaned up every field under my care. All twelve of them.
I get to it.
And by dusk I am mostly done. Sure, I have some corners that could stand to be cleaned up still, and, too, I think it would be cool to throw down some chips on the cleared beds. Projects for another day. Right now, everything looks just so good!
It takes several years for new perennials to establish themselves. I'd say that for the first time since I started working here (in 2011, when I moved in), nearly all the plants are at their full growth. Sure, every year, some flowers need to be moved or replaced. But 95% survive and stay, and grow and bloom. I have this deep satisfaction of having done my work to bring it all to this moment.
I'll leave you with a photo of a fragment of the Roadside Bed, and of the Parking Lot Bed. Just because today is the day to recognize those lesser fields -- the ones that rarely get the attention they need.
It's been a great spring for growing farmette flowers!
With love...
