Visiting the frog.

I spent my 40th birthday at Chuck E Cheese in Staten Island. Not to say it wasn't fun, but I enjoyed the real celebration upstate visiting a another larger-than-life critter. Last summer we made a frog oven out of cob (adobe). It's been buried under snow all winter, but this weekend we unwrapped it and fired it up:



As you can see, it had alot of cracks but the frog itself was basically intact. After we completely burned the inaugural loaf of bread, we went to work mixing a clay, manure, and plaster mix to coat the whole thing and patch the cracks.





We'll see how long the plaster lasts. This is our first attempt at making anything out of cob, so like most of the things we do, we are just winging it and seeing what happens. So far so good.

The garden is growing.

Our backyard garden as it looks now:


The radishes have bloomed which means they are probably inedible, but the flowers are so pretty:


I am trying to grow cucumbers up one side of the bamboo trellis and cantaloupes up the other side. We'll see how it goes:


Eggplants in the tires this year and pumpkins behind them:


The peas are rockin. Already in bloom so we will have harvest soon:

End of May

It's the end of May and things are mostly planted in both gardens. There is still more to put in. My tomatoes for instance, are a bit too small. But they will go in soon. I'm having more fun in my backyard garden this year. Last year it seemed like so much work. Now it seems like nothing compared to the farm we have going around the corner. I find the work in the backyard a relief compared to the back-breaking hoeing and tilling and building that we are doing with Harri. I'm happy to be doing the community garden, but it is not really my garden. Really it is Harri's and we are just doing his bidding. Which is good and bad.

I would like to spend more time experimenting with some sculptural gardening ideas. More structures with things growing in and on and around them.

Today I think we will go to the community garden and try to figure out what to do about a watering system.

Busy weekend.

Our house and garden(s) were a flurry of activity this weekend. On Saturday morning, Scott met Harri at the community garden to get a compost delivery. The City of New York delivered 18 cubic yards of composted manure courtesy the Bronx Zoo. It's a giant mountain of dirt.




Later that day, the Council on the Arts and Humanities of Staten Island (COAHSI) sponsored a workshop on Carribean Herbalism at the garden. Harri talked about herbs and gardening and visitors helped in the garden. Our friend Tattfoo Tan is doing a conceptual art piece about gardening and food so he was there snapping photos and recording conversation also. We had a nice turnout. It was great to see so many people in the garden working. Neighbors came by and joined in. One neighbor even brought us water, then sodas, and later, bananas. Kids were hanging out of the windows watching. Even a couple of teenage boys asked if they could help out. Henry worked really hard in the garden and then he and his new friend, Gwen, conquered the giant dirt pile and pitched a homemade flag made out of a stick and a plastic home depot bag on the top. They ran up and rolled down the pile until they were covered head to toe in dirt.





On Sunday, we gardened at home a bit and then made a cool bean trellis out of bamboo and found embroidery hoops. Somehow I think this idea is going to expand in the yard over the next few weeks.

ghosts

Against my better judgement, I've recently joined Facebook. But I do have to admit I am enjoying the experience. It is amazing to reconnect with old friends. One friend, who I haven't seen in roughly 30 years is sending me hollyhock seeds from her grandmother's garden circa 1972. Amazing.

It is strange to see so many people from the past with present lives. Grown up with children and grandchildren. Only in my memory they are teenagers. Like living ghosts.

One old friend posted pictures of her life in North Carolina in a picture perfect log cabin in the woods with stream and dog and beautiful children. Another friend is living a glamorous life in LA. Not that I begrudge them beautiful, happy lives, but it is weird to imagine so many different life scenarios. In another reality I could totally go for that life in the woods, or that glamorous Hollywood life.

But I'm here in scrappy Staten Island in a house with jacks holding up the floors and no kitchen. And it is good. It's not glamorous or lovely, but it is good. My friend Ciro said to me the other day that he was glad he lived here because at least everything didn't look the same. I was driving down Forest Ave today thinking about that. Thinking about our visit to Las Vegas last fall. Everything in Las Vegas (outside of the strip) is beige. Beige houses, beige shopping centers, beige strip malls. Beige beige beige. Forest Ave is nothing exciting, but at least it is not beige.

Stapleton especially is anti-beige. It is dirty, gritty and beautiful. It reminds me of the east village back in the days when it looked like a war zone with crumbling down old buildings filled with junkies. Except the streets are alive with well, life. Soccer playoffs, streetball games, kids laughing, crazy people hollering, church choirs singing, people gardening...


Scott, Henry and our gardening mentor and friend, Harri boxing in the herb garden area.


Me, Harri and new friend Missy that I met on (where else?) Facebook.