Mary's Peak

 

Mark and I climbed Mary’s Peak on Saturday.  We have done this hike every year; we no longer need a map. We mark the trail by plants—the logs where the Coral Root orchid lives, the seep for the Monkey Flower, the long slog after the bench that once looked out over the valley, but the view is now blocked by doug fir. We have learned how to hike together. Mark is a slow wanderer, attention pulled off the trail by whatever he is thinking about at the time. Right now, he likes to look at pampas (the fluff that disperses seeds in the wind). I am a quick and steady climber, matching breath to pace. When we need to Make Time, I take the lead and Mark stretches out his long leg to keep up. When we need to move slowly, Mark goes first and stops whenever he wishes. We often discuss speed before we begin.

Because this hike was late in the bloom season, I suggested not taking notes on every flower that we passed. But it had been a stressful week, so we decided to move more slowly, stopping several times to observe the world. As we climbed, we moved backward in time, in the season. At the beginning, thimbleberry was ripe. Then it was just a forming fruit, and, by the peak, still a blossom. The peak itself was quiet. The rock garden was past bloom so we were left with the wide view from the Pacific to the Cascades. We sat down for lunch amid a huge population of grasshoppers which were cheerfully munching on all of the lupine plants and being munched by the local robins. Several were mating on grass stalks; others were hanging out alone at the tips of other plants. An invitation, we wondered? Some were reddish, others were green. Lots of speculation while we ate bagels and blueberries.

On the way down, we considered rotting stumps. First we passed a tree that had fallen across the path and been cut away. There were fungi settled on the center older rings of the tree, but not on the outer younger word or the bark. A few feet further down, another tree’s younger wood had rotted away, leaving a stand of older wood in the center, like a volcano plug that has eroded.  Clearly beetles and ants had been at work here. A little further—a stump with the center rotten away and the bark shell standing.  Three Douglas Fir, all within a quarter mile of one another, all decomposing in a different way. We made notes. There’s clearly a Master’s Thesis in our observations—maybe even a lifetime of fulfilling work discovering why trees decompose in such different ways on the same mountain trail.

We have hiked some trails three, five, ten times a year, every year for 20 years. There is comfort in knowing a trail so well, of being rooted in your place so deeply that you know the specific plants along the way. That Phantom Orchid, not any other. We have also developed a sense of deep wonder of the complexities of our natural world because being so familiar with a place means that we have to look more closely to see something new, to break our minds out of the daily patterns.  We pack snacks, water, a notebook, and our curiosity, every time we step onto a trail.

 

 

Estate Sales

 

I love Estate Sales. I rarely buy anything—our house is full—but they give me a chance to step into someone else’s home, house, and material life. How do you arrange your cabinets? What do you value? When was the last time you painted your walls and what color? How are the rooms laid out inside that house—what does that layout say about the era, its values and esthetics? What can I learn about daily life from this house? I call it intellectual curiosity. Mark says I am just nosy.

There was an estate sale in the neighborhood on Friday. I was on my way to water the trees at the school garden, but I stopped in. The house fronted our local neighborhood park and was built in the 1920s. There was some remodeling—more like redecorating—done in the early 1970s, when they also added a garden shed. The place was packed. People were everywhere—and the interior of the house had exploded into the back yard, but that did not empty it out. The basement held an entire series of metal shelves, all full of stuff. I wandered around, stunned. It was chaos. There were big boxes and bins full of hot wheels and matchbox cars, still in their packages. There were at least three hundred cookbooks. There were shelves of board games—versions on Monopoly that I did not know existed. Upstairs, one room was fill of plastic model horses and other animals. A closet held three sewing machines and paper patterns.  The kitchen held shelves of stemware—fifty heavy wineglasses, the kind that you might use in a restaurant with a clumsy dishwasher. Boxes of canning jars. Wind chimes. Tools. Bins full of dishes—full sets of Good China from the 1950s. Clear cut glass. It was hard to know. Some stuff was still wrapped up. People were digging through the piles, finding treasures.  None of it was truly antique, or expensive, or valuable at any point in its life. It was all the stuff of working people’s lives that, when cared for, made a home.

In the lowest corner of the garden shed, I spotted some pink glass. I squatted down to look more closely. Under a ceramic coffee pot, a knife wrapped in cardboard, a set of binoculars, and some paper, I found four pink glass coffee mugs still priced and wrapped from a past yard sale. There were four larger pink glass plates from the same time. They went with some teacups and plates I already had at home—and with my Aunt Jean’s Good China in my cabinet—so I carefully hauled them out and replaced the other stuff into the milk crate. I paid eight dollars for it all—which is the same price that last owner paid, who knows when, before it was buried in a milk crate in the garden shed—took it home, and washed it off. We used it for breakfast on Saturday morning.

In contrast, Mark and I went to our friend Maureen’s small house concert yesterday afternoon. We sat on her covered patio, surrounded by things there were not, in value, any different from what had been at the estate sale on Friday. But they were all loved, cared for, clean, and arranged. Maureen has said, over the years, how much she enjoys keeping her house. When she cleans, she remembers where she found her objects or the people who gave them to her so that she feels surrounded by her life and love in her home. I feel the same way; I love having an orderly house, surrounded by objects that I love, although my home and garden will never be as tidy as Maureen’s. Our stuff is the story of our lives.

If that is true, then something went wrong in this house on the park. The people who lived here loved objects, clearly, as well. At one point, they had a good eye for inexpensive treasures.  But something happened and it went from a cared for home to something else that did not feel healthy, sane, or safe. What happened? How? Could we, as a community, have done something to help out before it ended in this chaotic Estate Sale where rumors suggested that she “had” to clear out and sell the house to live somewhere else?  How many other elders are tucked away in small houses, surrounded by not only the beloved objects of their lives, but stuff that has just….accumulated because it might be useful someday?  What is the story of their lives?

 

Wheelbarrow Starts

     

Summer starts can be challenging. First, most seeds that I plant after the summer solstice do not sprout. Those that do sprout—planted, usually, on June 20^th, need extra care. Spring starts thrive in the greenhouse. In summer, it’s too warm—and it is occupied by my classroom plants, who need the blast of summer sunshine after a long winter on the north side of the building.

                Summer starts need to be right where you pass by several times a day, so you can check on them. For years, I kept them on a rickety table/bench, under the plum tree, right on the path to the tool and bike shed. They had strong morning light, dappled afternoon light, and a stable space above the munching level of the rabbit. The jays came down and inspected them occasionally and the bees loved drinking from the damp soil. When I needed the table, I moved them. It was pretty perfect—but the bench was slowly breaking down. When a friend moved the plants to sit down and I yelled “Don’t” in the middle of a Pie Social, I knew we needed a new system. I tore down the bench, turned it into firewood, and looked around.

                The starts can’t sit on the dining table—it’s too hot in the middle of the afternoon. They can’t sit on the ground—the rabbit would eat them. They can’t rest in a garden bed because they are all packed with plants right now. The greenhouse is too hot unless I check on them constantly and one hot afternoon would fry them at the bases. It has happened.  Then I found an old, still functional wheelbarrow. It’s shallow with a wide, flat bottom, perfect to hold six packs of plants. It has a few holes in it already for drainage. It is above the head of the rabbit, even when he raises himself up to check it out. It is moveable. I am already using wheelbarrows for strawberry plants…. The starts moved in. I park it in the same area as the old bench, but I shift it around, depending upon the weather. Cooler days, it is in full sun; days above 90 degrees, I move it into dappled shade.

                Right now, the wheelbarrow is holding all of the starts, some of  which need to be bumped up, as well as some cuttings that I am hoping to root. They will stay until they outgrow the pots, when I will push the barrow over to the fall garden bed, pop them in, and return the barrow to the lineup against the shed.

Shared Tasks

 The kitchen faucet broke last night while Mark was washing the dishes. It had been going for a while; his plan was to deal with it this weekend, but it jumped the list. As he rigged by a C Clamp to stop the gushing water, I prepped for the water being turned off the next morning. For a moment, I dreamed of a new house, maybe a new car and bike, no yard…It is a lot of working keeping everything functioning around here. But then—we have it down.

·         I am in charge of all of the food. I plan, grow, purchase, prep and cook all of our meals. Mark eats and he washes the dishes.

·         I take care of the Ark, our old VW van. Mark takes care of our bikes. They rarely all go down at once.

·         Mark worries about the animals and calls the vet. I haul them to the vet in the cat carrier on the back of my bike. I pill.

·         Mark is in charge of all electrical appliances. He rewires the stove, fixes the plumbing, tests the chicken door that shuts at twilight. He is also in charge of plumbing. He knows the kitchen faucet very well. He has also worked in the outside faucets. I am in charge of painting, prep for painting, choosing paint, and repairing broken windows. I am also in charge of monitoring the solar panel output and calling in problems.

·         I prune. Mark chops it into compost. He mows. I trim.

·         I clean the kitchen; Mark cleans the bathroom.

·         I write letters; he edits them for word count and, more importantly, tone.

·         I am in charge of our social schedule, keeping order in our household lives, and purging stuff that piles up in the basement or the closet. Mark is in charge of providing a Theory for discussion while we wait for something, like dinner on a busy night.