A Week of Lamenting

Today’s post should have been about the beautiful Spring blooms all over the mountains around our house.  There are so many and they are unique.  I’ve really wanted to share them with others.  But, my camera is out of batteries, 2 out of 3 vehicles we have are not running, and John left for Merlefest in Wilkesboro, North Carolina in our only running vehicle yesterday.  No going out for batteries for me.  Instead, we are staying with my mother, and I am posting a blog of laments.

The Merriam Webster Online Dictionary says “lament” as a transitive verb means to regret strongly.  I regret strongly – very strongly – that all of my broccoli and tomato seedlings have perished.  They got too big for my little Jiffy greenhouse and peat pots and when I moved them to plastic egg cartons and free air, they wilted and died.  Apparently, vegetable seedlings are more dainty than flowers.  I’ve planted and grew flowers every year of my mature life with great success.  This is my first time vegetable gardening on my own.  With such a rainy Spring, the ground is too wet to direct seed.  The dirt clumps.  I am beginning to think that our first attempt at a large garden to feed our family might be more of a learning experience than an experience that ends in an abundance of food.

I also believe that my cloth diapering days have come to an end in great sadness.  Yes, I’m saying this the day after Earth Day.  I regret it strongly.  After moving off grid, I have been battling ammonia stinks in my diapers.  I have boiled, boiled, and boiled them.  I have stripped, stripped, and stripped them.  I have tried countless detergents.  I have used baking soda and vinegar together and separately.  I have done multiple rinses.  Multiple hot rinses.  Switched from a pail to a wet bag and back to a pail.  The culprit is our hot water heater combined with untreated well water.  Our hot water heater is old and doesn’t get very hot without shutting itself off.  It does fine for most things like dishwashing and bathing, so we can’t justify purchasing another one just yet.  Our water is tainted with sulfur and/or iron and comes from an untreated well.  I have come to the conclusion that it will be impossible for me to rid us of the stinkies.  I have decided to boil my diapers once more and send my stash of them to a friend due soon.  I suppose I’ll be ordering 7th Generation Diapers from www.diapers.com.  I’ll be doing this despite the fact that UPS doesn’t acknowledge that our address exists, and I’ll have to have them sent to my mother’s house.  It has come to the choice of using bacteria laden diapers on my Ivy, or disposables.  It breaks my heart.  I truly enjoy using cloth.

Ivy’s first birthday is in 5 days.  I will no longer and never again be the mother of an infant.  In a way, I too, regret that strongly.  I so loved being pregnant and anticipating birth.  I so wanted a VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) and a homebirth.  I relished holding a newborn.  Nursing an infant is heavenly.  Watching a baby grow from inside your womb to the outside is like watching a miracle.  Now, my baby runs.  My first born sings her ABCs and plays outside all by herself.  Soon, they will have their own pursuits independent of needing me.

Next week will be joyful.  John will be home again.  We will celebrate Ivy’s birthday.  I will get to see my writing in print as I am being published in the upcoming issue of Kudzu Magazine.  I won the 2009 Gurney Norman Prize for Short Fiction to my ultimate delight.  Gurney Norman is a writing hero of mine, and I think his short story “Fat Monroe” is one of the best ever written.  I will get to attend Evening With Poets, and get to workshop with Gurney Norman the next day.  After a week of lamenting, I am looking forward to what is ahead.

Fear it Won’t Grow

Turning new ground is slow going with only a tiller.  John has went over and over it.  To have been a garden years before, the land has firmly attached itself now.  We are behind in planting.  Rain day after day has made it hard to till, or plant.  The earth turns to clumps of rooted mud.

We have our potatoes in and our onions.  Both scallions and regular.  That is all.  No lettuce, cabbage, carrots… things that should be out already or starting in peat pots inside.  The seeds are waiting on our kitchen table.

I planted onions today quickly, hoping the ground was not so tough that it would stunt the growth of the plants.  In the past few days, a fear has come over me.  What if we work hard at all of this and nothing grows?  I’ve planted things my whole life with failures and victories.  More victories than failures.  I don’t have a solid reason to feel that things wouldn’t flourish in our ground.  Just the fear that it won’t.

I think about my girls.  Everyday seeds are planted in their fresh minds.  Ideas taking root, and my every move evaluated for positive or negative.  The tone of my words.  How I choose to spend my time.  From these observations they either will know they are loved or not.

I don’t want to be tough ground where efforts clump.  I want the strength to steady myself and if nothing else be a consistent mother.  A consistent gardener.

I noticed some of the dirt had washed away from the side of a potato mound in our garden after last night’s hard rain.  I bent down and wiggled the piece of potato I cut and buried.  It was anchored firm, and tiny green and purple sprouts peeked from the top.  I gently added more dirt and went to the cabin satisfied.