No Bend Gardens for the Honorable Elders

Brad, the remarkable, built this one for me on the base of a neighbor's discarded table. The interior is three concrete mixing tubs from Lowes. Punch lots of holes in the bottom and they make elevated square foot gardens.

Manna Gardens

My latest passion is the MANNA garden. This is an acronym meaning Making Authentically Natural Nutrition Available. The garden itself is in a portable planting bag AKA Publix recycle grocery bag. I pulled out the piece of plastic in the bottom, turned it inside out, painted a catchy logo, filled it with great soil and planted. Granted, I will not be able to feed lots of folks, but it does provide excellent herbs and a cuke or two. One of my friends takes hers to work and puts it out on the hood of her car while she is inside making networks hum.

Manna was the Hebrew for WHAT? This was evidently the reaction the first Hebrew had to the flaky stuff they found on the ground during the Exodus. Manna was food for a day...one day. It rotted if you got greedy and tried to collect too much of it. Only on the eve preceding the Sabbath could one collect two days worth of it. The little Manna gardens are one day's worth of food...not even an entire day's worth. They are one or two bites of food. Still they serve a purpose. They keep me mindful of the miracle that is food production. Only plants---the original solar collectors...can photosynthesize. No human can. As Wendell Berry said, " Lots of us are not interested in GROWING food. All of us are interested in EATING it.

Vivi's You Tube Debut

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CUOaAMcbm4M

I'm Not Stumped Yet

Because I begged, the city cut the giant oak to pedestal height rather than to stub. I put a giant container of ferns on it and a bobbing egret. Somehow I feel better because it is not so obviously decapitated. Also, the raw sawed off top somehow reminds me of the short story, " The Giving Tree" which I hated because it seemed to show that the results of a loving heart are destruction. The boy is sad and the tree gives itself to him as lumber. The boy sells the lumber and is still unsatisfied. The tree offers more. Finally, the boy grows up and is still unsatisfied as an adult. The tree has nothing else to give.

I think I fear that I will never be satisfied at least not with praise from the outside which I discount as " If they only knew." When am I satisfied? When I play with Ryn or when I cook a good breakfast for guests or when I finish an elder interview that seems to ring true...or when I turn an oak tree stump into something less horrific or when I plant a garden or a tree for my grandchildren.

Footnote. Keith Richards heard the melody line for " Satisfaction," one of the Rolling Stones great hits, in a dream.He said he used to sleep with a guitar and a tape recorder.

Green Thumbs Don't Cry

This is the tea house. It was in the shade of an ancient oak tree. Recently, the oak tree next to it was cut down. Lots of folks cried. The oak had stood through several hurricanes not to mention world wars. The oak was tall when Elvis was in town under the judges order to keep it clean. The oak stood through several hurricanes. Now it is a pedestal. Sadness.