I’ve decided that my Indian name would be Races with Mosquitoes. The heat has arrived. I didn’t get as much done in the Back Forty during the winter months as usual due to my hip problems.

I’ve spent the morning ripping out ground ivy, my mortal enemy. I’ve noticed a few things about this pretty ground cover that I hate so much. One, it attracts bees at a time of year when I have little else in flower. Two, earthworms seem to adore it. I have seen some of the biggest earthworms ever coming out from where I just ripped out some ground ivy roots. If it wasn’t for high school biology, I might have mistaken some for small snakes. And as far as I know, it might just be better for my plants to leave it. I don’t know how many nutrients it takes from the soil and it is shallow-rooted.

As far as I’m concerned, however, one overriding reason fuels my hatred of this stuff. Mosquitoes love it. They breed in the moisture beneath those lovely leaves and flowers.

In permaculture, you observe the relationships between plants and other plants and animals, and you try to enhance the relationships that work. And you have to remember that if you remove a part of the natural landscape, something will come in to fill that niche.

For the Back Forty, it was ground ivy. We got rid of the grass, and mulched the permaculture way, with newspaper and cardboard. Turns out that ground ivy LOVES this way of mulching. It thrives on the old logs and wood chips I use in my paths. It will survive having cardboard layering over it by running, white and pale as a cave creature, under the cardboard under it finds a hole or edge. Then it rises gasping to the surface, and takes nourishment from all that mulch, and runs rampant over all my hard work.

God, how I hate this beautiful plant. I saw my first mosquito today. My race is coming to an end soon, and the ground ivy will have its victory, partnered with those nasty West Nile virus-carrying Asian Tiger mosquitoes. I will have fought the good fight though, and there will be less of them than there would have been if I had let the ground ivy have its way.

It’s been a great day. I planted the rest of the parsley, although I found so many volunteers from last year’s plants that I let go to seed that I needn’t have bothered. Needn’t. You can tell I read a lot. People where I come from don’t say words like “needn’t” or “shall” or “shan’t.” Guess that’s one reason I got picked on when I was a kid. I blame British literature.

I also planted all my saved heirloom lima beans - those would be “Willow” (white), Loudermilk” (black and white speckled), and “Red Calico.” I can’t be sure that there aren’t any “Carolina Sieva” mixed in with the “Willow,” which would be a real shame if I cared more about preserving the variety. I don’t have the space to do it right so I just have fun with it. A few “Jacob’s Cattle” shell beans too, just because they got into the bag by mistake. And there were a few big brown mystery limas. I hope that these will lead me to that goose that lays the golden eggs. Tomorrow Sandy and I will plant most of the tomatoes.

Today we went to the Liberty Antiques Festival, where we mostly spent our money on a funnel cake and fresh squeezed lemonade. Sandy bought a new broom from the Lion’s Club and I spent $3 on books. I purposely left my credit card and checkbook at home and only took a small amount of cash since I’ve saving my money to spend in Alaska. I saw a flute for $30 that I probably would have bought if I had brought the cash, so I’m glad that I did that. I don’t need a flute. Sandy has the music bug right now and we looked at every musical instrument that we saw. But we didn’t get through half of the tents because it was really hot and my back was hurting. I don’t think that we have ever gotten through all the tents.

I was happy with the books. Two were French textbooks of sorts - one is fantastic and has great illustrations and some music published in 1891. The other is all French folk songs from 1911. The third book was lucky - the very first one I picked up was on relief printing, etching, and bookbinding from the 1940s.

I really think that I missed my calling as a book collector and trader sometimes. But I can’t imagine how you can learn so much in order to know what you’re doing.

I didn’t get by either the Farmers Market or Deep Roots Taste Fair. I wish that I had organized my day better. But it was wonderful to take a nap at 4:00 and to sit outside in the warm breezy shade and watch and listen to the birds all around. I wove for a little while, and read a novel, and put some torn up paper in a pot to soak for papermaking tomorrow. Now I have a lasagna in the oven. Life is pretty doggone good.

Boy, I sure have gotten lazy with the titles of my posts. Maybe I should just not title them.

I’ve been working hard in the Back Forty, mainly weeding and mulching as much as I can before the hot weather and mosquitoes arrive. Sandy has requested to be in charge of the big tomatoes this year, so I gave him the primo spot and I just added compost and organic fertilizer to that area this morning. I want to get as much done this morning as I can since the rain will move in later.

We’re still having little cold spells, and I think that we’ve been particularly patient about planting the tomatoes this year. I see how slowly even the cold-tolerant plants are growing and that has informed me that the soil isn’t ready yet. Plus I’m following Pat and Brian’s advice. I’ll have to buy my pepper plants this year because my seedling trays were invaded by two slugs when I set them outside during a warm spell, and now it’s too late to start them. Bummer. I love saving seeds.

I’m very tempted to go ahead and plant my field peas and beans, but I think that the reason that I’ve avoided pests in the past with them is that I have planted them later than most people do. I think that I’ll plant my butterbeans next weekend and see what happens, since they have a long growing season before I get any pods. I always have a ton of butterbeans that are not filled out at the first frost and it pains me to see what might have been.

Anyway, most of my day is going to be devoted to making paper on the front porch. It will be a challenge to dry it, but I’ll press the stack until Wednesday when the sun should be back out.

I’ve been slogging through The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco. Well, I don’t know if the word “slogging” is deserved - let’s say “slogging” through certain philosophical theological parts. But I’m fascinated with the whole historical aspect of the library and the process of copying and illuminating and binding the books. I haven’t seen the movie so I’ll see if I can check it out from our library.

My trip to the Art and Soul retreat in Hampton is in two weeks! I’m looking so much forward to it. I’m not getting much art done at home, although I did a bit of weaving and some studio clean-up yesterday. My woodcut class has pretty much sucked up my artistic energy. I’m going to try to get my color print of the turnip woodcut done on Thursday. Our last class and critique will be right before Art & Soul so my brain will be clear for two days of creativity and new ways to bind books. Then I’ll concentrate on doing smaller woodcuts on my own that I can use in my little books.

I’m taking History of Photography late May to late June for one of my art history requirements. It is writing intensive so I’ll be writing a lot of papers I guess. That is a very slow time for me at work so my eyes won’t be so wiped out from being on the computer when I come home. I think that this will be a fascinating subject.

And in mid-July, ta-da! I booked the Alaskan cruise!

Now, back to the Back Forty for some more weeding and mulching.

Happy Eoster, all y’all li’l bunnies out there.

I went to see my mama on Friday, helped her plant about a third of her garden: cabbage, onions, tendergreens, spinach, beets, carrots, and corn. I talked her into letting me plant way more beets than she needs so that I might have some. As you can see, her garden is much different than mine, and much, much bigger. My brother plows it with a tractor. It’s right smack in the middle of beautiful downtown Marietta, N.C. I had three dogs run up to me for loving, and I only knew one of them. She fed me field peas and okra and chicken tetrazzini and squash casserole and blueberry muffins, and sent me home with pecan pie, more pecans, and venison from the freezer.

Thing is, my bursitis is back with a vengance, leaving me with the pain dilemma - do I work through the pain and make the whole thing worse, or let the garden go for a while longer. Last weekend I pulled out a lot of my rosemary and made a lot more room for my beans, but it was with a price. Anyway, I did plant some dill, parsley, carrots, spinach, and tendergreens today.

There’s a robin building a nest on top of the gutter next to the back door.

I’m very, very excited about our vacation plan for July. We have decided to take a cruise from Vancouver up along the Alaskan coast on Norwegian. I think that we found a very good deal and I’m going to call and arrange everything tomorrow. Most of this will be paid for with the money we got back when we refinanced and our tax refund.

I’ve been thinking about the Pacific Northwest for quite some time, especially since I met an artist from near Juneau and saw her work based on the landscapes around her. I hope that we can add one night in Vancouver before the cruise.

Tonight’s dinner is beef stew in the crock pot. It smells extremely delicious!

That would be since October 2006.

Amazing.

Here’s something that you can do with only two hands and a bunch of honeysuckle vines.

I did something last night that I don’t do very often - I went out for drinks with a friend. It was fun and we decided to do it the first Friday night of each month. We started at the Rhino, where a scuzzy old coot decided that he might have a chance at hitting on me, and quickly moved to McCoul’s, where I’ve always enjoyed the upstairs bar, and they have really good beers. I had my first Irish Car Bomb, which is Guinness and Irish whiskey with a shot (glass and all) of Bailey’s dropped into it. Then you have to drink it all down at once. Whew. I didn’t really understand that when I ordered it, but it wasn’t too hard. Anyway, since all this happened between 5-7 pm I was hungover by midnight.

As far as my “manifesto” goes (I like that term better, thanks Lauren), I’ve been looking at travel deals on Orbitz, and discovered that round trip fares to San Francisco are dirt cheap right now. Sandy and I are talking about flying out there and spending a week together. We would have fun - Sandy and I are at our best when we travel because we enjoy mostly the same activities. I’m still looking at other options. We got back over a thousand dollars from the refinancing closing so it is in my money market account, earmarked for travel.

I also discovered that by honestly giving myself permission to let the housework go without guilt, I actually have wanted to do some clean up. The house is still trashed, but it’s not a source of stress.

Probably the biggest thing that happened, although it had been coming for some time, is that I totally quit the board of our Slow Food chapter. I took my email address off all the leadership emails and listserv admins (except Slow Food NC, which pretty much runs itself and I’m a back up admin anyway). I let the leader know when the web site account was paid up to, so that they can plan to move it or have me transfer the account. I no longer have any responsibility at all on that front. It had to happen that way for me to let it go and let them run it the way they want to do it. And it was the right thing to do because I feel SO MUCH BETTER.

The trip to Spannocchia with Susanne and John will probably be moved to June of next year, a much easier time for me to take off. If that doesn’t happen, Anne-Marie wants me to go with her and her nutrition students to another farm in Tuscany. I have a separate fund that I’m saving money for either of these trips. I just hope that the flights stay cheap to Italy.

This morning Sandy and his friend are going to crawl under the house and see what can be done about the sinking foundation and all the crap underneath the bathroom that stopped the last carpenter from finishing the job of supporting it.

I’m going to enjoy the Back Forty, do a little more planting, fertilizing, weeding, and mulching, and work on color studies for my woodcut class. At some point, if I feel like it, I’m going to clean the floors. Or weave. Those two things have equal importance to me these days.

And go to Deep Roots Market. Today is Owner’s Day, which means I get 10% off anything that isn’t on sale. I get a 5% discount once a month on everything, so I’ll use that too and stock up on some things.

Right now it’s time to go to Greensboro Farmers’ Curb Market. It’s going to be a wonderful weekend.

We’ve had lots of rain over the past few weeks. In between the periods of rain I’ve transplanted volunteer foxgloves into beds that aren’t as sunny, one beside Miss Peanut and several under the oak tree. I look forward to them blooming this year because they have become one of my favorite flowers.

Also I mulched a new path and lined it with the few logs left over from this winter’s pile.

All the lettuce except for the Red Sails under one of the cages disappeared. Likewise all the chard and some of the broccoli and some of the kale. Obviously I need to protect these seedlings and usually I do. I didn’t do my tunnels or greenhouse this winter because of my physical problems, and I threw out the ripped up dirty Agribon fabric in a cleaning fit and didn’t buy more. Lesson learned.

This weekend should be lovely weather and I’ll try to remember to fertilize and mulch with my compost. And plant carrots, lettuce, golden chard, and parsley. More peas.

My pepper seeds are just now coming up. I was just about to give up.