A Memorial Day Recommitment

"I was lucky," my friend told me.

Three words. "I was lucky." My mind is on replay this weekend. I keep returning to a moment and hearing the story all over again. I repeat it to my friends. Each time I retell it, the story becomes a little more breathtaking.

I was over at the gym on Friday waiting for our instructor to arrive. My long-time yoga neighbor and I were lying next to each other on our mats. She's quick to laugh, so I say silly things to amuse her. We always giggle during a balance exercise and throw each other into a tumble.

So I was just on talk vomit, releasing whatever random thoughts were in my brain and this time it was cookies. The delicious cookies that my friend Tamara makes, a delicate near cloud-like confection of chocolate chips and oatmeal. They are manna from heaven and I had made a special request for them the night before. So trying to limit my sugar intake before bed that night, I was hoping only to have one. But then this new mantra that I've been practicing of respecting my impulses took hold and I grabbed two more and ate them with pleasure. The morning after, I told my Yoga friend, the scale registered almost five extra pounds. We were giggling then. I wasn't serious at all. Cookies. Weight gain. Just word vomit. To make my giggly friend giggle.

"Beth," she said, "when I eat cookies, I just eat as many as I want."

I don't know when the story turned, but it fell like a quiet thunder from her lips. Because, she said then, during the communist time "we ate nothing."

Washington, D.C., is a melting pot of nationalities. You almost forget how far people have traveled to be your neighbor. And when you ask sometimes the countries are so exotic, Togo, the Philippines, Malaysia, that you can't even imagine visiting.

Remind me, I said to my friend, where are you from? I heard it before she said it.

Cambodia.

Your family?

All dead, she said.

The Khmer Rouge. My lovely friend. Always smiling. Always kind.

And then, with her hand over her face, she told me her story about living three-and-a-half years, beginning when she was 17, in a labor camp. Hard labor, she said. "It was our job to clear the land mines from the fields to grow rice."

But the rice, she said, was exported to China. And she got no food.

Oh, the killings, she said quietly. "I was lucky."

She was lucky because she lived. She was lucky because she managed to navigate a harrowing journey out of the camps as a refugee. She was lucky when she escaped the rapes and the murders in the refugee camps. And she was lucky she said that she wasn't pushed off a mountain when she arrived in Thailand. She was lucky she had a brother in the United States, who had left Cambodia before the ascent of the Khmer Rouge. And she was lucky because she managed to get a letter posted. And she was lucky because he found her. And on September 17, 1980, she was lucky because she came to the United States.

My beautiful friend. She works for the United States government now. After we work out, we laugh together in the locker room. I was always tease her because she takes too long in the shower. We get dressed again for the afternoon meetings. She puts on an elegant dress and heels, she paints her lips. I don't know what her profession is, but she commands a quiet authority, when she leaves the locker room. I always wish her a pleasant day.

The roads we've traveled brought us together. I don't know how she does it. But to her, she simply was lucky. And now she's quick to laugh at whatever silliness that I can concoct.

But the next time, I eat a cookie, I'm going to eating it slowly, and joyfully, and revel in my great good fortune. And for Memorial Day this weekend, I honor my friend, and all those in this world who suffer so unfairly at the hands of evil. The Putterer

Weary Warrior

My goodness but the garden did its job this weekend. It took me into its embrace and nurtured me, gave me a place to recover and rest. And then once it had accomplished restoration, it demanded a kind of industry that energized me and gave me such sweet satisfaction.

I've been thinking about sustainability. Ever since my daughter Claire took the bold, brave move to visit a completely self-sustaining farm in Ecuador. She spent an entire week off the grid at a place called Sacred Suenos near Vilcabamba in southern Ecuador. I've been thinking about how I have slowly been evolving a garden that once only grew pretty flowers along pathways of stone and grass to something that is sustaining life and repurposing itself in its compost and in the food it grows. And as I've evolved from a rather uneducated gardener to one that sees the garden as a metaphor for all things, I've also somehow managed to turn a rather dispassionate young girl, who sometimes stopped to admire it, into a young woman, who cares enough about gardens that she spent a week working hard on a real one that tries vigorously to be a fully sustainable farming venture. Last night, she told me that she thinks that whereever she goes, she'll try to grow something in a garden.

Well, I guess my garden has done its job there too. For me, I arrived home Friday completely wiped out. This project was for all practical purposes nearly impossible to do. Had I tried to do it all by myself, I would have failed. Fortunately, I was able to multiply forces by engaging my colleagues to pitch in just small amounts, in a many-hands make less work fashion. Still, I woke early each day, worked through lunches, stayed late in the evenings and even worked through on a Saturday. So that by the time, I signed off at about 7 p.m. last Friday, I had clocked innumerable hours.

Saturday morning, I woke at 4:30 as if I was still on deadline. My body wanted to sleep, but my mind tracked only to this rigorous schedule. So I got up intent on reading all that I had missed in the past four weeks. By 8:30, I was coffee'd up and so Kate and I went off to Behnkes. There, I wandered around studying the plants, thinking of places in my garden where I might add this, or transplant that. But the thought of raising a shovel or turning any dirt was so beyond anything I could possibly do. When I got home, I took a book and some tea down to the garden. And there I rested, reading and listening to the catbirds call each other. I drifted off to sleep in my purple chair. The cool breeze sometimes pushing a lock of hair across my forehead. And there I rested for a couple of hours, until I realized that what I needed to do was to go to bed. And so off to bed, in the middle of the afternoon. And through the night and into the morning, I slept and recovered.

Well, Sunday morning, the catbirds called me into action. I felt so good. The morning was fresh. The garden was glorious. I took my bike to the farmer's market for the first time. All those times we've traveled Piney Branch Road by car, I never realized how steep those hills were. Pumping harder, accessing core strength, even screaming out with joy as I pushed myself up the hills. Heads turned inside passing cars to check out the crazed woman. Sailing back down on the other side, wind in my hair. Oh joy, I live a charmed life. All day, I worked in my garden, mowing grass, feeding compost, pulling weeds and singing the songs that pumped through my iPod into my ears. And when it was all done. I took a look at what I had created and I felt so happy. What joy! The Putterer

Putter Splendor

Yesterday, I went out to get the paper and the profusion of blooms just took my breath away. I got my camera and started shooting. Peonies, roses, irises, everything. The Putterer

Book Binge

Love this book

So. I had to pick up some books at the library. I was participating in World Book Night. I volunteered to pass out 25 free copies of one of my favorite books. That would be The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver. (I read that book that time we went to Africa.) When I got to the Wheaton Library, I found they had a used bookstore. So I went to the gardening shelf and bought four used books for five bucks. I gave away my free books and started reading my used books. One book, had a list of favorite books recommended on the inside cover. So I bought those books on Amazon in the used book section. Now I got more books coming, including this great classic called Norman Taylor's Encyclopedia of Gardening and a collection of essays and poetry by a feminist farmer named Janet Kauffman. I got up early this morning and started reading one of my used books, a collection of essays by Dorothy Sucher called The Invisible Garden. It turns out she's from Silver Spring, Maryland, like me. Great lady. Lovely book. "I had become infected with my first bout of garden fever, a recurrent disease, like malaria; an obsessive state in which plan piles upon plan, project upon project, the more grandiose the better, and nothing, absolutely nothing, seems impossible." I know this feeling. I wish I could have known Dorothy. I passed out my books last night in just 20 minutes. I gave away 25 books and most people smiled and thanked me. Some people, though, looked worried when I approached them and rushed away. Some said no, thanks. A disturbing few even laughed and jostled the arm of their buddy derisively, as if reading were so uncool and I was freakishly weird. Meanwhile, I wish I had an extra pair of eyes, because I've got a lot of books to read now. The Putterer

A Month Ahead and A Month Behind

Azaleas are peaked or past peak.

Roses are busting out.

I was just going through last year's photos of the garden and it looks like we are almost a month ahead in terms of bloom times. In fact, my garden seems like it's in a big hurry, and every flower and every plant is vying for attention. The azaleas bursted open as if they were trying to beat out the daffodils. The roses woke up so early, I thought they might ask for a cup of coffee. The dogwoods flowered so fast, I almost missed them. And the May-blooming irises and peonies are warming up in the batter's box for their turn at the April plate.

We're finally going to get some rain today and it couldn't come at a better time because while the garden is out ahead, the Putterer is way behind at work. So today, I'm going to be head down at home on the keyboard. Though, really that doesn't bother me. It's a pleasant task, I'm writing little blurbs on the cool things to see at each of the museums. I might even run downtown and take in a museum, or two, to complete the task.

A bus man's holiday.

Meanwhile, I couldn't be more pleased with the garden this year. I'm right on schedule, having put down mulch for the first time in half a dozen years on some of the beds and staunched a few weeds. I got grassseed down just before the early spring showers arrived, so the blades are robust and thick. I grew red lettuce, kale and chard from seed, so the vegetable patch is ready to deliver. I worked and worked

Dogwoods are showering their petals.

Swiss chard is ready for picking

the soil over at the community garden. I grew a cover crop of clover, then turned it over in trenches, row by row, mixing in compost so that my beds are thick and spongy, and teaming with earthworms. Over there, I've got sugar snap peas and greens growing in one bed and the others are ready to plant just as soon as the nights can be counted on to stay warm. I've got tomatoes, melons, cukes, swiss chard, basil, eggplant, peppers, onions and parsley starts all thriving under my lights and waiting to go out to be hardened off and planted.

Today, the temperature shouldn't  rise above 55, so I've got my fireplace humming with a toasty blaze. Delicious coffee in hand. Snoozy pup snuggling beside me. It's going to be a wonderful day today.

An early spring for an at-the-ready gardener. Not a bad thing at all. The Putterer

Got Crafty Today

Made a succulent mini-garden today.

My neighbor put this pitcher and bowl out on the curb last fall marked free, so I took it home. Last weekend I drilled drainage holes in the bottom of both the bowl and pitcher and today I made an arrangement of succulents and stones. I can't get out to water all my potted plants every day in the heat of the summer, so I'm potting ups some sturdy fellas, who don't need so much water. The Putterer

Sunny Saturday!

It couldn't be more beautiful out this morning. The sun is so bright, it was piercing my eyes as I fumbled to make the coffee. I had to shade my eyes in the kitchen in order to see where to pour the water into the coffeemaker.

This morning, I'm off to Behnkes to pick up some fertilizers, non-chemical of course, to feed my soils to the letter of their needs. The soil tests came back this week and I am armed with the specific requirements to make my garden produce. I spent the whole week studying the reports and planning what fertilizers I'll use and how to make them work for me. I'll be planting four new rose bushes, a hydrangea and a native kalmia all along the fence. Last weekend, I had the boys help me dig out the holes. The soil was tough and difficult. So, I'll also amend with compost. The kalmia needs a particularly acidic soil and a place on a shady slope. Its root ball needs to be planted a bit above the ground, so I've selected the perfect home for it just beside the gate. The roses that I picked out thrive in sun, but tolerate shade. They are perfect for the range of shade and sun that play along the fence throughout the day. I'll start off the morning by putting the dry roots into buckets of water and leaving them to soak all of today and tonight and I'll plant them tomorrow for Easter Sunday. Over at the Community Garden, the water is turned on and so I can commence to begin. The soil there was higher in pH, than I expected, a 7.3, which is at the highest range for vegetables. Word up is that our compost was heated improperly, elevating the pH. I'm going to add Espoma sulfer in to help acidify.  The soil test recommended that I add straight up nitrogen in the form of urea or bone meal to start the season. I've evidently added too much compost because my potassium, magnesium and calcium levels were in the excessive range, while my phosphorus was at optimum levels and my organic matter was admirable, at 12 percent. It's going to be a perfect day. The Putterer