Spartan Garden

 

                This fall, Green Club has take on the school garden in a big way. It had fallen deep into weedy disrepair in the last year or so; there was no time to work in it with last year’s schedule. This year, I changed mine to eliminate an advisor class and now, on Fridays, about a dozen students and I head out cross the football field to the school garden patch.  It is amazing what twelve people can get done in 40 minutes—more work than I can do in six or seven hours. We go out in the grey drizzle, feeling powerful in the face of bad weather, and walk back to school laughing when we are done, damp.

·         We’ve pulled all of the big weeds (the small ones are still there).

·         We have filled the yard debris barrel over and over again.  We could use another.

·         We have hacked back the blackberries that reach through the fence because they are rooted between a fence and a garage.

·         We have broken down the ancient non-functional  compost bins and replaced them with hoops.

·         We have pulled most of the grapevines out of the arbor vita—the rest is waiting for a ladder and a day without anyone else around.

·         We have laid a thick layer of leaf mulch over most of the garden beds in two large swaths.

·         We have rescued strawberries that were in the path and they are now in the back of my classroom waiting for a new bed.

·         We have planted two fava beds.

·         We wrote a grant for six raised beds and six benches which would have a huge impact upon the space.

·         We have transplanted all of the native plants that were along the chain link fence line into the area around Dixon Creek with all of the other natives.

It looks a LOT better. But, there is still:

·       

  Greenhouse needs to be repaired and bricks laid down as a floor.

·         The trellis over the entrance needs to be rebuilt.

·         More mulching and weeding.

·         The fridge in the shed needs to go away—it works, if you want to haul it!

·         Weed trees need to come down.

·         Plant the line between the garden and the football field with pollinator plants so that it is clear that the neglected patch by the cross country shed is not our problem.

·         Blueberry bushes! Raspberry vines!

·         Glow up the scarecrow! Fix the stained glass garden art! Make pretty signs!

 

November Weather Forcasts

 

On Thursday evening, I looked at NOAA weather so that I could plan the weekend. Fog. Showers and clouds. Rain. From here until eternity. It’s November. Then I looked out the window at the half moon in the mist. Something did not quite line up, but I figured the rains were coming.

Friday morning, there was heavy fog. One of my most avid gardeners stopped into my classroom before school to ask if we were still going out to tackle blackberries. “Yes!” I assured him. At nine thirty, the clouds broke and we had a glorious 45 minutes planting favas, pulling blackberry, weaving leaf crowns, and mulching. The sun stayed out the rest of the day. Rain tomorrow, I thought.

Saturday morning. Heavy fog. We better go out now before it rains, we decided, and walked down to the market. The fog lifted as we bought our veggies and shopped for Thanksgiving presents (I found an excellent pair of blackberry loppers for the school garden). It was lovely. After scanning the sky, I spent the entire afternoon in the front yard, harvesting persimmons, trimming grape vines, and raking leaves. It has to rain on Sunday, I thought as we came inside for the night.

Sunday morning was cloudy and humid but dry. We spent an hour on the paper and headed out for a hike before the weather changed. We climbed to Dimple Hill from Oak Creek, admiring the deep golden leaves of the Big Leaf Maple and the greeny gold on the alders. The deciduous trees really stand out against the firs in November. At the top, we looked out over waves of puffy grey clouds and blue green hills and listened to people pose with their dogs for a photo and headed down for lunch. No rain.

It is Sunday evening. We have to go grocery shopping and it looks like the rain will hold off until we come home.  We may even big good through Monday.

 

 

Tom McCall

         I may have a new hero.

For the last three weeks, I have been working my way through Fire at Heaven’s Gate,  a biography of Tom McCall, Oregon governor from 1967-1975. I am not done, but it is a compelling read.  Living in Oregon I  see his legacy every day. It’s not a “cradle to the grave” biography, with no narrative peaks—it focused on his political life and there’s lots of drama. It may be fair to say the subject drew drama to himself, but it was also the era. As I read through his list of accomplishments, I find myself muttering “this man was a republican” over and over and wondering how we have shifted so far away from these values.

 While in office (and I am not done) the man supported:

·         Protecting Oregon beaches and public access

·         Cleaning up the Willamette river by regulating pulp mills

·         Keeping poison gas from being stored in the state (and transported by rail through the state)

·         The Bottle Bill

·         DEQ

·         Air and Water pollution restrictions on industry, even if it meant that the industry might locate in another state.

·         A Land Use process that put citizen involvement as Goal One and focused on protecting farmland from suburban sprawl.

·         Publicly speaking about his son’s struggles with drug addiction.

On Earth Day, he said “It’s obvious that a change in attitude is vital, and the first desirable change would be the realization that the problem of environment and pollution is not the other fellow’s, but the responsibility of everyone.”