Farmageddon

I wish I could take credit for the clever title.  Alas, there is someone more clever than I.  My brother David (countnefariousjunior.blogspot.com) and I were discussing the never-ending duties of home ownership and he mentioned this joke with his brother-in-law.  They call their urban garden efforts "Farmageddon."

The special irony here is that I don't own a home. I just maintain my mother's property, which is located in a central California growing zone far away from my cool coastal domicile.  When in residence in Sonora, I become a dedicated Farmageddon lifestyle apostle.  In fact, I'm a regular weekend Johnny Appleseed.  Except that he went somewhere.  I stay in one place, and my sowing doesn't yield the same results.

However, when it comes to Farmageddon, I cannot afford to think negative thoughts.  While Nature is fickle and trying, she also delivers small and wonderful rewards.  This year, I perched six strawberry plants in one of the charming, but terminally silly, containers called "strawberry pots."  After a great loss of potting soil and much hue and cry, the plants stayed in their cubby holes and proceeded to flower and fruit.  I've eaten [twelve, tiny] strawberries that I grew myself.  For the city dweller, such results are almost unbelievable and incredibly satisfying.

Into the tub of the frost-bitten—sadly, to death—lemon tree, I've plopped five Early Girl tomato plants.  Thanks to liberal doses of tomato food (who knew there was such a product?), I've been gifted with lots of delicate tomato blossoms and some fledgling tomatoes.  Someday, the tomatoes might be red, too.

My friend Bruce came to visit one weekend, and spent it in the trenches planting a fruiting quince tree.  Since I started my preserving binge, I've been obsessed with quince, an old-fashioned fruit favored by the 49ers who settled the area. Lately, I've seen it return to menus, but, for the most part, it's a misunderstood and troubled fruit.  I mean to change that perception in my own small way.  (Check back in two years and see how I'm doing.)

In between my vegetable and fruit endeavors, I've been on a crusade to save the hydrangeas.  Since we felled the ailing tree in front of my mom's deck, they get blasted by the scalding rays of the morning sun.  As a true practitioner of Farmageddon, I purchased a market umbrella and installed it in the garden to shade the hydrangeas.  While the effect is very upscale restaurant, the solution failed.  I didn't take into account the angle of the sun, which slips under the umbrella with laser precision.  Even worse, anyone coming up the walk toward the house hits the umbrella head on. Practicality aside, Wolfgang Puck would be proud of the look.

The "save the hydrangeas" project needs rethinking, but that will have to wait until after the "death to the volunteer plums" campaign.  Currently one of the wild plums has wrapped a heavily fruited branch around the power line into the house.  The one next to it drops fruit onto the flagstone patio.  As soon as Steve the Tree Guy (master of the three word text) can manage it, they're toast.

True, Farmageddon is as overwhelming as the name suggests.  Once the plums are gone, I'll have an ivy-covered bank that will need attention.  Followed by a serious attack on the vinca and other noxious vines.  The weird thing is: I didn't even start this garden.  Since saving the world and curing cancer aren't options, I guess I've found a commitment I can really dig in to.

The Peculiar Happiness of Preserves

My friend Pinky recommended a book to me called The Peculiar Sadness of Lemon Cake, or something like that.  It was a sad little book about a girl who could taste and experience the emotions of a person in the food they prepared.  From the title, you can guess that this talent wasn't personally felicitous.

For me, it would be different story.  Lately, I've gotten on a preserving jag.  There's something so magical about turning beautiful fruit into gleaming, translucent jelly.  Then, even better, I can give this glorious, jewel-toned creation to a friend and feel really excited about it.  I made it and they can eat it: literally spread the joy on toast or whatever.

For an apartment dweller (as I am for most of the year), these few moments of feeling connected to the earth and constructive in a pioneer-like way are amazingly satisfying.  I'm insanely proud of myself, even if I use pectin instead of a candy thermometer.  Maybe I'm turning into an artisan.  That would be cool.

Which Sixties?

My brother Donald is disappointed that my blog isn't about the Sixties: that fabulous decade between the 1950's and the 1970's. Personally, I don't have many fond memories of the sixties.  To start, I try to blank out the hip-huggers, bell-bottoms and bouffant hair styles that never flattered my well padded figure. Plus, high school constituted a four-year nightmare for the intellectual fringe such as myself.  Why would anyone want to recall ten years of purgatory, even if most of it transpired in a bucolic small town? 

Apparently, my entire high school class is in collusion to do just that.  Through the modern miracle of Facebook, the Sonora Union High School Class of 1966 is connecting like mad.  William Sandy Richter, who I'm certain has matured into a lovely, respectable man, has given of his time to coordinate the project, and must spend many a day hounding SUHS outliers who have escaped the noose of the internet.  First order of business?  Your birthday.  I'm getting copied on birthday greetings to people who's names I haven't heard of in forty-five years.  Not only does Bill/Sandy send greetings.  The classmates themselves add to the cacophony of well wishes.  My email inbox isn't big enough for all this good will.

I'll admit to some curiosity about the actual reunion event, and I've fallen in that trap before.  I could relate the dreary and dire happenings of the 5th, the 20th and the 35th, but I'll spare everyone the pain.  I don't doubt my classmates are nice and lovely people; they just aren't my people anymore.  I've drifted too far away to want to go back to those less than halcyon times.  I have a different life, great friends and a satisfying career.  Resurrecting high school memories doesn't jingle any bells for me.

To end on a less curmudgeonly note, I wish my classmates a happy time as they reacquaint themselves.  My friend Pinky has committed herself to the Friday night cocktail party, so I'll get the gossip without any expending any effort.  And maybe I'll raise a glass in a solitary toast: Hail Sonora High School.  Hail, hail, hail.



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