Chapter 16. Stop Dancing for a Little While!

If there's one thing I have today, it's water. Why did I expect to harvest such a small amount?

Note the hen ------>
added for
size comparison.

The plastic pond is filling itself, 

as is The Main Hole. I expect the hole to be fuller this afternoon. 

I am encouraged by the cleanliness of the water that comes up thru the dirt...or down from the sky, or both! 

Now imagine a full year of someone whose rainwater is properly and legally routed via green plastic sleeve out to the drain in his street, and remember that the standing water in The Main Hole is just the result of mud from a few hours' runoff from The Asshat's [lack of] downspouts. Or, better yet, he could always save his water in a tank and then use it to his heart's content in the summer.

That's right, my "pond" would be empty.

I can phone the City and the Code Enforcement gang to file some more complaints. Or, on the other hand, I can make lemonade. Imagine how full that hole will be in a few hours, after drainage begins and I've quit having to deal with mud that results from his lack of common sense and courtesy, and the water has filtered into the pond. Imagine how full it would be if I had my water reclamation project in place already. Imagine how full it will be in June when he turns on his rainbirds and leaves the house for a few hours. That's right....overflowing.

I'm sorry that my digging is so slow. I could have a lot of water in there.

Now I'm on a mission to find a few cattails! They will be wonderful for keeping the stored water clean, and they will look fantastic in the pond when it's in and full.

Chapter 15. Rain Dance

Wow, one of my rain barrels is 2/3 full--amazing! Of course, it's a desperate group of people who think that about 20 free gallons of water is earth-shattering news. I certainly hope that the SoCal people, who are just afloat in free water this year, will remember us up here with our little barrels of free rainwater when they are filling their pools on our dime.

That is a subject that makes me very very angry. Here is water leaving NorCal to go South:

And here is water in a NorCal back yard:

How nice for the SoCal households not to have to conserve or to have ugly barrels in their back yards. Must be a nice life.

My friend Candy and I spent the day today in the Hardwork Store, figuring out how best to catch The Asshat's floodwaters, and at last I have it. I will spend quite a bit of time over the next two weeks getting it implemented. For now...I will watch the rain fill my ugly barrels and feel lucky.

Oh...the water in the barrels is just about coal black. Here are two buckets on my back step: one is from the hose for the dogs; the other has run off the roof.

Oh man....I gotta paint!

I am wondering if the black water will settle. Not even sure how usable that water actually is...well, maybe for washing pee out of the kennel? And I'm wondering if the runoff water will be cleaner next time it runs off, assuming there is a next time. After all, 52 days have passed since rain last fell in this town, so an awful lot of dirt (pulverized tires) has accumulated up there.

As for the seedling collection, the fava beans have not even remotely responded, besides to turn poodly. Therefore, I am going to try to sprout some fresh ones on the counter with a heating pad before sticking them into dirt. I will at least see if any germination occurs. Most bean seeds do better germinating this way anyhow. 

These seeds are so beautiful!

I bought them in Scotland (Beauly, to be exact) just about ten years ago.

Chapter 14. In Which Winter Descends and Freaks Me Out

I guess Our Google Overlords are mad at me...took about five minutes for this "new post" page to open.  ("Oh crap, is she going to write about digging holes AGAIN?")

It's an ugly and cold day outside, making me think the bathtub is preferable to the "frog pond." Boy, I would be tickled pink if I got frogs. I had better take a drive to the pond in Marysville and pick up some hatchlings this spring--especially as I will now have a nice environment for them.

At this juncture, 11 out of 12 bean seeds have sprouted:

That seems like a pretty good ratio to me, but I also think I haven't planted anywhere near enough of them. I think I will start another whole crop that's twice as big as the ones above.

I am going to drink tea and eat pancakes and to hell with it all today. That's just the kind of girl I am.


WOOHOO! RAIN!!! <frenzied dancing> First rain in like...55 days or something! I definitely have rainbarrels out to catch what I can!

Chapter 12. Progress Is Slow

.....but by definition it's progress.

Here is where the dirt was:

                                         Here is where the dirt is now:

                                                Here is how much more dirt I have to move--yikes!

All the while, roughly 33 horrifyingly ugly and shrill constantly reproducing inbred little gremlin mutts (maybe cairn terrier/poodle/min pin/Chinese crested mixes) are screaming at me from The Asshat's side of the fence. My dogs are ignoring the neurotic screeching. I am exhausted from trying to reinforce the fence, which the vile beasts have chewed peepholes through (the same fence The Asshat refused to pay his share of in the first place), by adding another whole layer of fence boards over the existing ones, all the while with them screaming at me. He's not lifting a finger to silence them or help. Anybody surprised that the same moron who floods me out for years also treats me to his neglected screaming "dogs" for 8 years? What is WRONG with me that every instance of his idiocy amazes me anew?

Oh--I decided not to do the pea and chard bed yet because I think it'll be easier to dig after it gets a little rain on it. Maybe Friday or Saturday.

Chapter 11. On Being a Slouch

Some days are better for napping than digging, and I guess today was one of them. It wouldn't have hurt me one bit to go dig a few shovelsful out of the Main Hole, but I'm feeling a tad bit intimidated by the enormity of the job before me. I know that if I just get out a few shovelsful a day, before I know it, it'll be done...but still. It's a lot, and it's also a hassle trying to figure out where to put the dirt for now.

I have pea and chard sprouts. I do not have a bed ready for them. Therefore, I have to start there. I have to dig out some old expired soil in the raised bed in my side yard, put in some fresh ripe compost, and fix the little gate to keep the dogs out of the new bed. Then I need to let it rest for a few days before I plant. It might even rain on Thursday, 3 days from now, and that would be fantastic for just before planting. Give the newly supplemented soil some soak time.

 <---my delusions of grandeur







My peas are not the kind that are supposed to climb on fences. They only get like 2.5 feet high. In a way that's good but I hope they are very productive ones. It drives me crazy that in a typical garden, only a few are ready to pick on any given day and you never really get a big bowl of them all at once! Maybe I will put a few unsprouted seeds out there and see which ones do better. Might as well experiment. Here's what I would love to see happen:


I planted 20 pea seeds, packaged for 2008 (so 6 years old). 19 came up, so that was pretty good. But I didn't really plant enough, did I.

AND today I will DIG. Fool around with peas and dig holes! I so want that Main Hole to be big but I so wish the pixies would come in the night and do it for me!

My yard
next
year---->













Van Gogh's version of the garden after rain.
(Talk about delusions of grandeur! Now I want to be van Gogh!)

Chapter 10. Values

I wonder why some people would rather look better than actually be better. I wonder why they think I should spend more time worrying about how I look to trivial and in fact unattractive people than I should spend actually having a more meaningful life. I wonder where they get off thinking that I enjoy them telling me that I'm not good enough, and that I'd be so much better if I were just like them, when they are really nothing I'm interested in emulating?

Who would take beauty advice from these people?

We have such a superficial and rude society. Telling other people how they ought to look certainly does imply that they are not good enough, or anyway not as good as the opiner is. It certainly implies--no, states outright--that they need fixing.

I would say that I don't care what people think, but it does hurt my feelings so it's a lie. However, I really don't want to care what they think. My logical side says they are trite and worthless, and they know it, which is why they need to look better than they are.

My feeling side says, But they think I'm not as good as they are, so it's clear I'm not valuable to them, and those were people I thought respected me.  So yeah. How could that not hurt my feelings?

Well...ok. Fine. I'm done with people like that. I don't need them in my life. I would much rather fool around with the holes in my back yard than the holes in the hearts of thoughtless, unkind, planet-sucking, trivial people. At least I'm productive. I think the holes in my back yard are a lot more meaningful than their planet-poisoning trips to plastic surgeons and beauty parlors, and it's ok if they don't agree, and it's also ok if they quit cluttering up my horizons.

And now for something really important! The green beans are up!

Check out the pea and chard progress...now THAT's what I call beauty.

Chapter 9. Digger dog

No time to dig today....dropped off a dog with a cop for his new K9 job in Nevada. Yay Dunk! I hope he and his cop buddy live happily ever after. They both deserve it.

But here is some real fun...a dog after me own heart, laddie!

Another Delima. I have two showers, one with a shower stall and one with a tub/shower combo. Well...I decided I need to shower in the combo so that I can save shower water for the plants. Now I have to figure out how to get it out of there. And I have to hurry up, because the standing water is too cold to stand in while I take my next shower!

Might try the mist setting on the showerhead instead. My back cringes at the thought of bailing out the tub....

Chapter 8. Planning the Pond

OK, the pond is the way to go.

So naturally, I'm worrying about what the thing will LOOK like. That's kind of daffy, considering that right now there's just a disgusting black swamp, which I have now come to call LaMarshall Tar Pits,

<---(insert German shepherds here)



but hey, I'm not going thru all this just so the yard will still look ugly. Form Follows Function, that's MY motto--as opposed to Form Doesn't Matter If There's Function.

My idea is to dig the hole a little deeper than one would ordinarily do for a molded pond project. I'm hoping that this will allow two things: 1)any future standing water can actually dribble over the top edge into the pond, hopefully via the cement rim of the retaining wall just behind it; and 2)I can drill a few holes around the top area so that water can slowly drain from the muck into the pond through the filtration devices.

The retaining wall behind the impending pond has often been a problem here. The Asshat has in the past actually had so much water running back there that I've had cute little waterfalls pouring out small holes in the mortar. (But did it cross my mind to make lemonade? Nooooo. I just had a fit instead of letting The Asshat pay for my water. It's true, though, that in fact I was more worried about how much water he was wasting.) In future, these little waterfalls will contribute more to the pond than to the muck.





But what if the pond overflows, as it would have in the past? I guess I will dig a scenic little creek when that day occurs. Check out this cool stuff, Rock on a Roll!

Of course, my creek will just be nearly flat, for runoff, and will be mostly rock with a small trickle of water, but so what? That's how most California creeks are anyhow, rocky and seasonal (idea and photo from here).

In the meantime I have to make the pond itself look nice. I have boatloads of broken brick that someone gave me years ago. I can make it sort of like this (see blog here), but brickier:

.....and with cattails in it for the murkiness. And a few rocks and some mosquito fish to hide under them. And I think I would put the flatter side to the back. But I totally love the idea of the pine straw.

So the next step is to dig more. Wow, really?

Bright Lights chard seeds are up! This is extra cool because you can't buy this stuff in stores! And the seeds are ten years old.

Chapter 7. In Which She Is Thinking Again

I wish I knew more about physics and engineering, although mainly I wish it just so I wouldn't have to pay an engineer or physicist when I need info. Here is my "delima," as my students would write (which I'm fairly sure is a city somewhere in South America).

My plan is to sink a 40 gallon barrel into the ground to collect "flood" waters. This is not about standing or flowing water; it's about a constant state of GOO in my entire yard, like my own personal tar pit. I keep thinking that if I could talk the water out of the dirt, and if that reclaimed water would go into that little tank, the actual dirt in my yard would have a chance to dry out, and I'd also have a little reservoir, all courtesy of The Asshat from whose yard the muck emanates. I would drill holes in that tank about every six inches, wrap the tank in garden cloth as a sort of filter, sink it, and then pour sand down the area between the dirt and the tank. Then, because nature is such a miracle, water would dribble into the tank, reasonably clean. Yes, The Asshat is probably using chemicals galore, but I'm thinking I could handle that pretty well with just a few cattails.

No, not that kind!

And then...I remembered septic systems, in which pipes full of holes disperse water into the ground along their tracks.

Disperse water out of little holes. OUT OF little holes. Am I accidentally designing a tank that will not collect water but in fact deploy it?

Oy. I never should have broken up with that engineer fellow. Don't tell him I said that.

And then there is that other miracle, the French drain.

According to one site, "A French Drain is a perforated pipe surrounded by gravel. It is used to collect water from a low spot in the yard. The pipe is usually 4″ Perforated (holes or slotted) and is encased in 3/4 inch washed stone."

My question is...how do the little holes know if you want water to go into them or out of them? Simply because of which side of them water is on? So in other words, if the wet ground fills up my tank, and then the ground dries up nicely, the water will then obediently go back out the holes again?

Oh man. Mrs Bernard, wherever you are, you were right. I should have paid attention in class even though I was so sure I'd never use any of that math crap in the real world. Once again, teachers have proven that teenagers are in fact stupid. D'oh! And then they turn into stupid old ladies!

I think I might have to adjust my plans. Maybe I should only drill holes in the barrel around the very top area, and not try to collect water from its entire length. That way water would come in off the top six inches or so of the soil and collect in the rest of the barrel, without being tempted to disperse all that it had collected. I wonder if I really need to worry about what is going on under six inches of topsoil. I mean, I guess I have to worry about deeper water if there is a far underground leak somewhere, but would that water really go upwards if there was too much of it? I don't think so, unless there is serious drainage restriction.

Consider this. If I have a flower pot with no hole, all the dirt will be floating in the excess water, so in fact there'll be standing water. But on the other hand, if I have a flower pot with a normal hole and saucer, and I water the bejeebers out of it, the water will go down and overflow over the saucer, not over the top of the pot, and that is what water would rather do than going back up. So the question is...do I have any drainage in my yard? Who the hell knows. I probably have as much drainage as anybody in this clay-bottomed town. And does this mean that I should only worry about the top part? After all...that's the part that gets all over my dogs and carpeting anyhow.

Maybe if I am only collecting water off the top of the soil, I don't have to dig to China. Maybe, in fact, I should just use the black plastic "pond" lying in the pile of junk in my side yard...aw jeeze, that thing may not be terribly deep, but it sure is wide.


As Roseanne Roseannadanna would say, "It's always somethin."

Red Chard seedlings are up! Yay!


Also....here are my homemade sourdough tortillas (whole wheat with sunflower oil)

Chater 6. Hole Growth

AAAAAH. Back to work tonight. So much for vacation...too poor and busy to go anywhere. That's ok, someone has to stay home and dig these holes. How come everyone else's dogs dig holes but mine? No, they are not always on terra cotta tile. But of course, how can any self respecting dog dig a hole in a swamp? Wouldn't work.

Today was primarily dog food day. What this means is that several boxes of meat finally defrosted and could be decanted into small boxes of mixed items. It's probably not all that necessary; I'm sure the dogs would be fine with all one thing today and all another tomorrow. The problem is that I would never be able to remember who ate what when, so it's easier to just have the mixture all sorted out.


Now it looks like this (note Lizzy shopping):

Yes, I do get to put a few things for myself in the door. I have been making veggie stock because the stuff in the grocery store is so damn bad. Here's how I do it: after I make veggies for my meals, I toss the trimmings (EVERYTHING, including onion skins) into a ziploc gallon bag in the freezer. Then when it's too full, I buy a few extras like leeks, carrots, parsnips, cabbage...whatever is available, on sale, seasonal, and strikes my fancy. I toss it all into the giant stock pot and boil it for 1.5 hours, strain the slop out, and bag or jar the juice for freezing. It's also possible to boil the stock awhile longer and reduce it.
I just cannot justify paying exorbitant prices for veggie stocks that taste like hockey players' socks.


Helleluja, and I mean exactly that! This digging thing is hard work! I barely get anything out of the hole except a raging backache! Well that's not entirely true; I'm also getting an awesome hole. Sometimes I just like to complain, especially when my back is sore. It's almost like it makes it feel better. Anyhow, it's really impossible to tell, and I don't seem to be able to get a better picture, but in fact The Hole is growing.

Hmmm. Can something that is becoming negative space actually grow?

Chapter 5. Limitations

Not digging any holes today. Every joint in my body is aching--I guess I just had too much fun yesterday driving around and searching for buckets. Getting old, as they say, is not for the faint of heart.

That's ok. It's a cooking day instead. I need to make some soaked whole wheat tortillas (super recipe, tasty and reliable) and other very basic things. I am not buying any "foods" any more that have ingredients or have been processed beyond pressing or grinding. FOOD is...ingredients! It doesn't HAVE ingredients!

I am greatly bothered by two phrases: natural foods and health foods. They both loudly beg the quesion....as opposed to what? Unnatural foods and poor health foods? OMG. It's true, that's exactly what the obverse is, and yet we BUY those things? What on earth is wrong with us?

Basic, basic, basic. I think it will be good for the arthritis. It's supposed to be good for the immune system, and arthritis is an autoimmune issue.

It's even hard to type.

Thanks Cathy! at everydaypeoplecartoons.com

ADDENDUM:
The peas are up! Little pea-lings!
If that ain't enough to cheer me up, what would be?

Chapter 4. Bucket Lists

I went on a mission to acquire buckets today. YES,  I could certainly go buy some. But there are a few reasons I won't, not the least of which involves about 50 bucks for ten of them. Also, it seems very weird (meaning very bad for the environment) to me that stores that sell buckets, such as WinCo, refuse to give away used buckets they got with bakery mixes in them (oh god no, those "bakery items" in big chain stores are not freshly baked in the truest sense of the phrase). A buck's a buck, but are they REALLY advocating manufacture of new buckets rather than the reuse of buckets that end up in the dump?

Yes, I did ask. And yes, they told me I could not have the used ones, that I'd have to buy new ones in the bulk department, that they don't give them away for free any more because they sell them now. Well, I really don't want to shop there, in that case.

One thing I discovered is that although I thought it would be easy to rinse the sugary residue out of the buckets, it wasn't. It's actually very very greasy. OH man, my hair is like three feet long and I'm imagining what the inside of my bathtub drain looks like with them hairs all nice and Crisco'ed up. All I can say is, freaking EW.

For the record, Raley's and Food Source both told me I was welcome to whatever buckets they had around when I asked. One Food Source clerk offered to call me when they had a few. That's nice, and it makes me willing to spend a little bit more money at Food Source, even though I really do like the bulk department at WinCo.

I mean...DID like.

But I also noticed something horrifying: now I don't want to buy any of the baked goods in any grocery stores. I was reading the label on that bucket, and it makes me very glad I'm on my whole foods kick. OK I'm also happy about the whole foods kick because I lost seven pounds just since Jan. 2, with no effort whatsoever, but...nobody should eat the stuff in those buckets. NO, it's not better stuff than the pre-packaged garbage. It's exactly the same, or worse. Read this list of ingredients in the Garlic Spread from one unnamed store:

       Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil (soybean and cottonseed oils)
       Water
       Garlic
       Salt
       Parsley
       Mono and Diglycerides
       Calcium Disodium
       EDTA (preservative)
       Potassium Sorbate added as a preservative
       Annatto (color)
       Artificial Flavor
       Vitamin A Palmitate

Someone somewhere is making a good living manufacturing that crap. Can you imagine?

"Hey Sylvia, what does your dad do?"

"He manufactures borderline toxic chemical additives for food and sells it in 40 lb. buckets."



You can get (AND ARE GETTING) your chemicals, dry or liquid,

From nice places like this. Gee, doesn't this sound like a grand idea?









Most of those ingredients are only there because the substance is in a bucket. If it was in a bowl in your house, it'd just be butter or olive oil, garlic, parsley, and salt (maybe or maybe not on that last one, but that probably IS the thing that makes you want to eat a lot of it). Actually, those things are also what would be in it if the store bakery was actually making it (whatever IT is) fresh.

Oh dear goddess. I am so not typing this stuff. You know that sweet white drizzle on cinnamon rolls and other such goodies? The stuff you figured was powdered sugar and a little milk, like your grandma used to mix up?

Well...in bucket form, it's basically grease with powdered sugar and chemicals in it. And I don't suppose anyone will be surprised to hear that maple icing has no maple in it, right? Well let me tell you what is in real maple icing: Maple syrup, egg whites, and a pinch of salt. You add nothing that came out of a total of eight giant vats in China or New Jersey.

And this is from the "good" stores! What the hell is so good about them??? Wouldn't you be AMAZED if they made something with that real maple frosting on it?

The fact that people will figure out the poisons they are being fed...now THAT is a good reason not to give the buckets away for free.

Chapter 3. Buckets

Aw Jeeze. I have a nice moldy fava bean already, like a tiny white poodle curled up to sleep in a tiny fairy garden.

I used to love the Borrowers. If they had a tiny computer, they could read this blog, could follow it and add lots of suggestions for me, like productive uses for the little color-coded ring on the top of a plastic milk jug, or for the lovely little glass bottles that dog vaccinations come in. In the meantime, I'm heading to a couple grocery stores tomorrow (Happy MLK Day!) to see if they have any of the food-grade five-gallon white plastic buckets. One of those'd be a whole condominium building for the Borrowers, or a city water supply.

Miniature people notwithstanding, here's the plan. Mooch about ten or twelve buckets. Sink them about 2/3 of the way into the ground, up to where the rings start going around the tops:

If I bury the rings around the top third, how can I pull the buckets back out again when I get tired of them, or when I want to empty out their dirt to be replaced with fresh? The thing is, I'd like the seedlings to be mostly "underground," cooling their little plant heels; therefore, I will surround each bucket with a dirt hill, making a mound out of excess soil from The Main Hole. Plant in them some viny things, like summer squash and honeydew and Armenian cukes.

And why would I do this crazy bunch of work when I can just plant my plants in the buckets, above ground? All the magazine articles say that container gardening is THE BOMB!

Simple. Here in Northern California, we get some hot summers, Baby. The hotter those veggie roots get, the less likely they are to thrive and produce. Gotta bury them in nice cool shady dirt! 

Wait! Why would I do this crazy bunch of work when I can just plant my plants in the ground?

Well....because there's a drought. I don't want to water the dirt that has nothing in it but Tiny Unsanitary Rotting Earthworm Carcasses. 

See how that works?

Chapter 2. The Seedlings

Time to start the plants that will go into the holes.

For zero money, I have started the following seeds, which I've had stashed for between one and twenty years. We shall see which ones can stand the test of time. They have been kept in a dry closet so I bet most of them come up.

     red leaf lettuce, 1984!
     bright lights chard, 2004 (up on Jan. 24!)
     red chard, undated but I think from last year (up on Jan. 23!)
     peas, 2008 (up through the dirt Jan. 21!)
     spinach, 1998
     big rainbow toms, 1998
     basil, 1988, and it's all in Italian!
     green beans, 2006 (up on Jan. 25)
     parsley, 1989
     chives, 1984!
     rhubarb, 1998
     fava beans, 2000
     alpine strawberries, 1998
     sweet peas, 1996 and 2006

I had saved the packaging from Costco apples knowing that it would come in handy for something; sure enough, I think it will make pretty convenient little greenhouses for baby veggie plants.

It was certainly easy and cheap enough to fill them with potting soil and seeds that have been around here for awhile. I have a LOT of ripe homemade compost to plant them in later on, and it needs to be used this year, much like most of the seeds.

So far, I find it frustrating that the seeds have been in their tiny perfect greenhouses for nearly three days and are failing to erupt into fabulous lush junior plants! But I have my fingers crossed that soon enough, The Asshat will be watering them for me. If he doesn't? Well, I'll have to rely on bathwater and laundry water, both of which will be totally suitable after I get in my first load of soapnuts (sapindus).

I do need to dig some more of The Main Waterhole today, but I see that I haven't allowed for the displaced soil. I have to do some more thinking today.

The main problem with doing things one's own way is the thinking. There has to be a lot of it.