Sometimes it’s the simplest of gardening chores that never gets explained. I’m reminded of this when someone asks me how to plant an annual or when I see a neighbor raking leaves over a great distance. Isn’t that just about the hardest way to get leaves from one place to another? So here it is, the most efficient system for moving leaves in all of Takoma, a system I’ve abandoned often enough to feel a tad forgetful. Now that I’ve enumerated it in a six helpful (or is the word anal?) steps, I’m sure I’ll remember it.
1. Start farthest away, working toward the leaves’ final destination.
2. Start uphill and rake down. Gravity’s a big deal.
3. Rake the leaves onto a large sheet or tarp and carry or drag them to their destination. (Personally, I find fabric more supple, and it takes up less space in the garage when not in use.) Raking the shortest distance possible is the idea.
4. Load onto the sheet no more than can be easily carried or dragged. In this photo the leaves are piled lower than usual because they’re wet and really heavy.
5. Keep those gloves on.
6. Inflict no loud, high-pitched noises on thy neighbors.
Photo: Acer palmatum ‘Green Castle’
My research into XM Satellite Radio includes nine hours of driving over two days, plus a week or so around the home and garden, and I’m happy to report – no, make that ecstatic – that XM’s a WINNER. For example, on the highway I didn’t have to listen to my out-of-date CDs or the execrable local radio stations. Instead, I heard a long concert of Scottish folk music. A complete Beethoven symphony. The Al Franken Show. A talk show on NPR. Lots of bluegrass, which felt just right while driving through the mountains of Western Virginia. A station called Progressive Country, which I thought was an oxymoron but turned out to mean Willie Nelson. Even some excerpts from operas, something I haven’t willingly listened to in years. Lord only knows what I’ll discover I like by the time I’ve checked out all 65 music stations, commercial-free. Here at home I have the little XM receiver sitting in its cradle in the living room where it plays through the stereo speakers, and when I want to listen in the garden or during my neighborhood walks, it plays through headphones.
Before buying XM, I’d read an animated discussion of satellite radio on one of my favorite political blogs, dailyKos, and discovered that whether customers chose XM or Sirius, its only competitor, they’re an incredibly happy bunch. Some people choose Sirius in order to hear Howard Stern – puh-leez - while some choose between Sirius and XM according to which sports they carry. Again, not a concern of mine. But locally headquartered XM has just what I want – three channels of classical music and three of jazz, plenty of folk and bluegrass and Reggae, a huge selection of rock subgenres, several channels broadcasting in French, interesting stuff like "Latin jazz," and lots, lots more.
Maybe my music research project is finally over and I can turn to the next item on my to-do list – getting used to my new CoolPix camera and doing some serious photo organizing and archiving. It feels kinda daunting and maybe lethargy has set in, it being winter and all. I have to remind myself how cool it is to have climbed a learning curve and created something new and exciting, this blog being yet another example. And it led to reading Sandy in B.C., who inspired me to try new things photographically.
Silly me, asking you what music you listen to in your gardens, only to be told that you’re all blissfully tuned into the sounds of nature. Naturally I wonder why it is I need something more to occupy my mind and I figure it’s all those drugs I took in the ’60s and ’70s. Allegedly.
So here’s how it works for me. Say it’s a cold December morning. When I’ve done lots of stuff I need to do and it’s finally warmed up enough to go outside, I want to immerse myself in the garden, slow down and get all in-the-moment like we’re try to do these days. So it’s just me, the birds, the squirrels and some far-off construction sounds. I slowly walk the whole garden, noticing whatever there is to notice and fantasizing about changes I’ll make when it warms up. I sit for a while and contemplate my favorite oak. I’m starting to feel pretty mellow about now, and really grateful to be in my favorite place in the world.
And here’s where apparently I’m unlike even other passionate gardeners, my people. Right about now I want more, more, more, like nature and beauty and music, all at once. Yeah, if I just add some Brahms or some jazz or whatever I’m in the mood for, I can really bliss out. Raking leaves becomes a musical opportunity. After all, what better place to tune in to great music? So the high lasts longer, at least for me, speaking as a potential addict, I suppose. Do you think I need rehab? Don’t answer that.
So, readers, let me ask the question I probably should have asked in the first place. Do you have music in your life and if so, what, how and when? Tomorrow I’ll report on my experimentation with satellite radio – is it a dream come true?
Happy Winter Solstice! My little gift to you is a terrific site I just discovered, though it’s been loved by many for years. It’s all about the solstice, with lots about its ancient and cross-cultural observance. At Candlegrove I also found this basic science that blew me away.
"Today brings the Winter Solstice. The actual moment of the Sun’s lowest latitude in the sky is 10:35 am, PST. Welcome Yule!
"Solstice means "standing still sun." Daylight won’t begin to lengthen significantly for a few days. For example, here in San Francisco, at winter solstice we have 9 hours, 33 minutes of daylight. Our day will remain that length in minutes until Christmas, before gaining a minute more.
"In fact, even though winter solstice brings the shortest day of the year, it doesn’t feel like it to many people. That’s because more people experience sunsets than sunrises. At mid-northern latitudes, the earliest sunsets occur during the first week of December. Sunset actually occurs a little bit later each day as we move closer to the winter solstice. The days really are getting shorter, but it’s because the sun is rising later each morning. That’s why the days at the beginning of December usually feel the shortest. This tidbit from Jack Horkheimer of the PBS program, Stargazer."
I was prompted to do this bit of research after noticing the sun’s position in the sky this morning, when it looked exactly like this photo. Actually, I’ve been noticing its progression up and down the latitudes all year – yet another reason to spend time in the garden. Though it was only 30 degrees when I went out this morning (just below freezing for readers living in more science-friendly nations) it felt great. That’s thanks to enough layers of clothes and being really active – collecting and hauling those leaves I keep talking about. And that’s coming from a warmth-loving Southerner.
Who is this crazy man, you ask? He’s aptly named himself the Renegade Gardener and is also known as Don Engebretson, a writer/designer in Minneapolis/St. Paul. I’ve been checking him out and I’m liking his brand of craziness. He opines on just about everything but let’s start with his declarations about music choices in the garden because it’s a subject I’ve been thinking about lately.
"Do not garden accompanied by an active Walkman, unless you happen to have secured a tape teaching you the Latin names of plants. In general, listening to most styles of music while gardening tends to lessen the beneficial elements gardening infuses into the soul. Playing rock music while gardening makes you ornery, while listening to modern country as you deadhead your Dianthus deltoides can lead to dizziness and gas. Classical music in the patio should be saved for after the watering is done and your guests have arrived; listening to classical while gardening makes you tire early. Only instrumental jazz, I have found, works pretty well alongside gardening, particularly pre-’65 Miles Davis.
"The sound nature makes in your yard is the most relaxing accompaniment to gardening, but if you must listen to something man-made, the best thing to listen to is baseball. Listening to baseball while you garden can be a smooth, sublime joy."
Reminds me of Henry Mitchell, the much-loved and missed garden writer for the Washington Post, whose equally strong and quirky opinions have been published in two wonderful volumes. You couldn’t pay me to listen to sports announcers in the garden or anywhere else, but I agree wholeheartedly about the deleterious effects of (most) rock music and (almost all) country.
Which leads me a long-term project of mine – the quest to figure out what I really enjoy hearing in the garden and the logistics of delivering same to my ears. All options and technologies have been on the table. I’ve gone through books on tape, a portable CD player, a portable radio, a stationary radio in my tool shed, and most recently, an iPod. Yeah, I was going to be one of those people we see on the subway attached by skinny white wires to their own worlds. And all my attempts have failed because the local radio fare is so terrible and polluted with commercials, and I just don’t have enough music of my own to keep me interested.
Now I don’t have to tell my readers that hope springs eternal in the heart of a gardener. And any day now my new XM2Go will arrive in the mail. Translation: the hardware needed to listen to XM Satellite Radio, with its 160 channels, 60 of them all-music-no-commercials. YES! The service costs $10 a month, which is about what I was prepared to spend on iTunes, but thank god I don’t have to do all the work of finding and downloading the stuff. So I’ll let you know if this baby really makes all my dreams come true. In the meantime, what do you guys do listening-wise in the garden? Or are you all thinking such interesting thoughts that you don’t need a diversion? Go ahead; I can handle the truth.
Sometimes it’s the simplest of gardening chores that never gets explained. I’m reminded of this when someone asks me how to plant an annual or when I see a neighbor raking leaves over a great distance. Isn’t that just about the hardest way to get leaves from one place to another? So here it is, the most efficient system for moving leaves in all of Takoma, a system I’ve abandoned often enough to feel a tad forgetful. Now that I’ve enumerated it in a six helpful (or is the word anal?) steps, I’m sure I’ll remember it.
