Use It Up, Wear It Out

The garage is a universe of ungodly junque including a clear plastic tri-fold egg carton I should have recycled months ago and also a big dirty bag half full of potting soil, and so today, as the world closed down, I spooned soil into the plastic dimples, soaked it and planted 12 collard seeds, showing them the seed packet to encourage them. Closing the carton created a terrarium. It's now in a dark warm place. Possibly the seeds will germinate in five to seven to ten days, maybe. I realized I have utterly forgot how to garden, remembering only that the largest part is faith.

Next I wanted, or rather, needed, for the very first time to put up a house number, but didn't want Mylar numerals stuck on the siding or the constant sight of numerals disrupting my contemplation of nature. Everyone until now has found this house, but one dark night someone had to drive seven miles from here to catch enough phone signal to call me and wail that there was no house number, and I had to go stand on the highway with a lantern to guide them.

What might the solution be? In the garage, behind trashbags of packing peanuts, was a two-foot metal planter so old I had grown up with it, heavy and too corroded inside to plant in. Inverting it over a rock and applying the numerals created a sturdy yet portable and removable house number, a courtesy for the Instakart drivers and first responders one might need in a pandemic.

These frugal up-cyclings enhanced the refreshing and sparkling spring day, ideal for scrubbing the bird feeder and refilling the outdoor mousetraps with poison, admiring the perennial crocuses down by the road; a hawk careering in an uncluttered sky and red cardinals calling to hardly anybody.

The Christmas Miracle

Hairy-stemmed poison ivy grew all over the garage's northern wall and wasn't visible until the foliage was gone. Ivy overgrowing a structure not only crawls all over it, but pulls with incredible strength. It can pull whole trees down or part the stones in a stone wall. It was gathering under the garage roof in a conspiracy. The ivy had to go. And nobody else was gonna cut it down, so it was on me.

Trouble was, I could barely move or think, being so burnt out from work it was too much effort to raise my arms overhead, much less pick up a cutting tool. Was limping around. Couldn't stay standing for long. Couldn't think of words, either. I had healing to do, but how? Stupid woo-woo advice from the Internet said sleep, meditation, yoga, little or no Internet (the net generates decision fatigue), and replace the Internet with books.

Okay, then: waking shockingly late, exhausted on waking, feeling corny every minute of the yoga DVD and meditation app, working as much as able (about 1/4 the normal), drinking coffee (it didn't help), and the rest of the time reading, starting with McCullough's hefty Harry Truman biography. Sprinkle in a few meetings or meals with friends and four days of cat-sitting. Three weeks and this morning I get out of bed saying, "This is the day I tape down that one carpet" and even before morning coffee it was done, and I still had energy. With temperatures in the high 50s I dressed in long sleeves and long pants and gloves, and bushwhacked behind the garage (all overgrown) to the ivy-covered garage wall and started severing the vines.

Took about an hour. It was a miracle: I still had energy. Severed some honeysuckle vines along the lane. Still had some energy. Shampooed and showered in case any poison ivy touched me. While on the bedroom floor putting on sneakers I saw some spaces all dusty and cobwebby. Dragged out the vacuum and vacuumed them up. Then -- then! -- I still had enough energy to cook a baked potato and an egg in butter. And eat them! And then write this post!

It's a miracle! Merry Christmas, happy holidays, blessed solstice.

The Most Secret Secret Place

1. When I was 10 my mom called from work and told me to cook the steak for dinner. I didn't know how. The heat was too high and I burnt it black. Scared, before Mom got home I took the pan outside and dumped the charred steak - BEHIND THE GARAGE!

Behind the Divine garage

2. Grownups hated it when kids climbed their fences and sneaked through backyards, but we did it anyway. This route down our block began in the bushes BEHIND OUR GARAGE!

3. If my little friends and I wanted to play with matches or plant dollar bills to grow money trees, we went BEHIND THE GARAGE!

4. The previous residents of our house really liked the neighbors who lived in back of us, and had left a gap in the hedge and two flagstone steps leading into the neighbors' backyard. When no grownups were looking, we kids used this as our shortcut to Carter Street! These steps were located ______________.

5. When I grew up, my husband threw what I didn't want inside the garage BEHIND THE GARAGE!

6. In 2002 I rescued pink Missouri granite bricks from the gateposts destroyed when the state widened Highway F. I had no place to put them except BEHIND THE GARAGE and they are still there!

7. To get rid of 2x9 planks full of nails I can't pry out, I drag and dump them BEHIND THE GARAGE!

8. The only place on the property that Dutchman's Breeches (pictured) ever grow is in the woodsy, north-facing incline _______________!

Happy Spring Equinox y'all!