Fertilizing the Way

I have had absolutely nothing exciting happening to me over in this part of the world worth sharing at all: no new ideas, no breathtaking (or giving) inspirational newage wackhead ideas... nothing. Really, desertification has taken hold of my brain.

Let me show you how exciting life is these days over here....

A while back, after my shingles had begun to heal, we found that our composter was getting very difficult to manually rotate the blades and mix the food clippings into the peat in the container. In fact, it seemed that the blades would pop out of their slots more often than not.

A few weeks ago I dug the entire composter out and spread it under the bushes, the trees and places where maybe fertilizer might like to go. I even turned it under the localized soil so that it wouldn't just sit on top of the hard earth and burn the roots and leaves (compost that becomes fertilizer is apparently, pretty potent stuff, and I have found on more than one occasion that playing in it can lead to very itchy, rashy arms...)

That was exciting, don't you think?

Here is something else that I'm sure you will giggle with enthusiasm over...

Since I got sick with the shingles, the sunlight and the heat have bothered me. This has made it difficult for me to go out into the yard and weed. Mayu has been busy this year and didn't really get around to it either. The last time I did a "comprehensive weeding" was before I went to Texas and Kansas. But the weeds kept growing, even though I wasn't out there pulling them.

Finally several days ago I spent five hours on one section alone, just pulling up the weeds. Yaaay, exciting stuff. Then the day before yesterday I spent another two or more hours going around the rest of the yard on my hands and knees pulling up more weeds. And more weeds and more weeds.

I know, you are falling asleep... so am I, believe me. Gah! Talking about weeding and composting as exciting events in my life!

When I was out weeding around the composter I realized that something other than weeds were growing around the bushes which received the compost. I found that to be slightly more fascinating than the clumps of earth the deepset weed roots would take with them as I pulled them up. As I have absolutely no idea what is growing there, I decided to leave them and see what happens. More than likely it will turn into a genetically defective, late season flop of some vegetable that we eat and compost.

The interesting (but fleeting - weeding can be mind numbing even if you try to do it mindfully...) thought I had while I was out there, was that at times, we can inadvertently "seed the soil" with things that grow beyond our circle of influence into new ideas, new concepts, new ... stuff that can be a benefit or a detriment to the those who are affected by the growth.

All I did was take the compost and put it under the bushes, hoping they would benefit from the act. Little did I realize that this simple act would result in the growth of a totally new plant! In fact, not only is one plant growing there, but as you can see in this photo, there are two completely different ... things that decided to grace my soil!

The results I expected were quite different from those that I got.

Maybe it's a giant beanstalk!

I love you!

Cam

 

P.S. I went for a ride up "urayama" today, and the insects were swarming while I rode on the concrete. But once I got higher up, and into the gravel roads, there was so much summer overgrowth that I found myself in a jungle, a veritable sea of green weeds that eventually prevented me from continuing up the hill, due to their density. Those tiny little plants grew and grew until they were a wall that stood in my way.