karl.tsakos.us/blog

I don’t fence my garden in. That’s because I am lazy and cheap. Also, most of my flora is left alone by the local fauna. Some of the little critters in the area bother my tomatoes or nibble on the occasional plant. But for the most part they leave them alone. They could climb over any fence I put in place anyhow.

No, the most destructive animals I have seem to be the odd dog which has escaped its leash and gone for a romp. A ROMP THROUGH MY SEEDLINGS! You know, the only bed I planted so far is now in the cotyledon stage, fresh green coming out of the earth. Which bed do you think the local dog decided to traipse through? The answer is the one out of four beds where it would make a difference. It kindly avoided the other three beds. Dogs, those S.O.B.s.

The other wondrous thing happening in the garden is the amazing health of my garlic. If you’ll recall, I planted the garlic two years ago from some cloves of store bought garlic which had begun to sprout. Last year I was tempted to dig one up and see what was happening under ground. They were growing, but didn’t seem super healthy. This year, there is strong evidence that they have formed new bulbs. This year will be the year for fresh, home grown garlic.

Indoors, I took a lead from both my mother and one of my favorite podcasts, Gardenfork.tv. Now is a good time to start my own seedlings inside and get them ready for the garden. You might have guessed from last year that I don’t like starting seedlings inside. Mostly because I have no place to setup the grow lights they will want. However, from past experience, I have discovered that even poorly started plants will take root rather well. So, I figured I would give mine a head start.

My mother started a bunch of plants indoors this year. A fact which is kind of funny as she doesn’t have a garden of her own. However, both my sister and I are sharing our gardens with her. I guess she will still have her hands full. Anyhow, She gave me a bunch of bronze fennel she started. I transplanted them from her beautiful celadon bowl into some cheap plastic cups I had laying around. Now they are sitting on a windowsill that gets sun most of the day.

Are you following the trends here? Cheap and lazy. One of the reasons I have a garden is because the price of produce is so high. Of course, it is incredibly satisfying s well. But really, when it came to transplanting the fennel what do you think I used? A store bought tool or dowel? A sharpened stick from outside? No, a Bic pen I found on the table next to me. It worked like a charm. Will it work as a pen again? I don’t know or care. I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

It’s my fault, I realize that now. I thought it was safe to plant some seeds, that we were past another hard frost. It was over 70 degrees last week. I tempted fate and fate struck back with a vengeance.

Yesterday and last night we got snow. And not just a little snow, it’s sticking to the ground. The temperature is around freezing and will be dropping to the 20′s tonight. However, I didn’t just throw up my hands and surrender, I took action. Wether that action pays off in the long run is another thing all together.

One of the advantages of raised garden beds is that they have a lip above the ground to support my makeshift covers for the garden. The bed in the upper right of this photo is the bed I planted in last week. Yesterday morning I covered the bed with a couple of old storm windows stored in my basement. If they are enough to protect the seeds which were most likely just germinating when the cold hit is anybodies guess. Here’s hoping they work.

It’s just March and I’m already at work in the garden. I’m taking a cue from the plants budding all around that we will not have another hard frost and that it is in fact safe to plant. I could be wrong, but at $1.50 at most in seeds, it’s a risk I’m willing to take. The water came from my rain barrel, so really, I only spent about $1.50.

The bed was prepped by clearing out all the leftovers from last season. Then, I turned over the soil and amended it with chicken manure my mother gave me. This is chicken manure straight from a hen house complete with feathers. Hopefully the local animals will start collecting the feathers for nesting material as it makes my garden look a little, well, creepy.

I’m starting this year with a couple of varieties of spinach and some sugar snap peas. I planted them about an hour ago a and they haven’t done anything yet. This is the worst part of gardening, the waiting.

As usual, I was all excited about prepping and planting that I completely forgot to document my work in photos or video. Hopefully, that won’t be such an issue as I really do want to do more of this blog in video.

But Karl, what is it you want to video? Well, I’m glad I asked me that. I plan to expand the garden this year. I’m going to make a new 10 X 4 foot bed in which I will grow the tomatoes in a better, less cramped layout complete with integrated supports. I’ve got the plans all drawn up in my head. Hopefully, they will not stay there. I also plan to grow corn in the other half of the bed. I’ve never grown corn, so that will be this year’s big experiment.

Well, that’s all for now. More to come soon.

It’s 10:50 AM and I’m waiting for my brother to pick me up for our New Year’s Day hike. I’ve been up since 7:30 to let my Mom’s dog out. Yes, the two of us (the dog and me) spent a quiet evening together. After watching the ball drop at midnight, it was off to bed. My mother was of course off with her friends having a wonderful time I’m sure. I suspect they were all asleep by 9:30 PM.

The hike is a tradition I have held on and off for the past decade at least. Makes much more sense to me then partying all night with a bunch of acquaintances and strangers. As I am sure you know by now, I’m a big fan of the outdoors. It then follows starting the new year with a visit to the outdoors is in order.

To be clear, I am not going to commune with nature or to worship the earth goddess, I just like fresh air and beautiful scenery.

For me, this is a biggy of a hike even though it will be a short one. It’ll be my first hike in the woods since having my stroke. Even though I will most likely never have another one again, I haven’t gotten used to being removed from easy access to medical attention. Yes, even a trail in the woods in a populated part of the country is removed in my mind.

Anyhow, Yani is here, so we are off.

It’s now 1:45 PM and I’ve just returned from our hike and Mom was home. Can you believe she didn’t go to bed last night until 1 AM?! That’s unheard of.

Anyhow, our hike took two hours and we only travelled about 2.2 miles. The slow pace was due to several factors. One was my stopping to take pictures on the way out. Then there was the snow all over and no trails for the most part. And the third was that we didn’t know where we were going so we had to stop continually to determine our position on my iPhone. Which reminds me, RunKeeper is a pretty nice piece of software for tracking your progress. One of the nice features is that you can choose the sort of activity you are doing. Other systems I have used only account for running, but this has everything from cycling to swimming.

The weather was beautiful. The temperature was around fifty degrees fahrenheit and the sun was out. Blue sky, white snow, grey and brown trees, grey rocks, and green and blue lichens made up the scenery.

So how did I fare? I had a great time. It felt wonderful to be out in the woods again. I think I am still going to want a hiking partner for some time to come, but I know I want to get out more. I’m sore from not having hiked in a long time and hungry because of the exertion (we may have moved slowly, but snow is slippery and there were hills to climb a plenty). This is great because I feel like I’ve done something and been somewhere and, okay, because I was out in nature. Not communing with nature, just enjoying being there.

So all in all, to me, it is a wonderful start to the new year. Happy New Year to all.

When I was in third grade there was a major debate taking place. Which was the better band? Queen or Kiss?

Well, of course when you are a third grader you know everything for certain. And I, like many of my friends, knew Kiss was the better band. And, we weren’t afraid to argue that point despite not ever listening to the music of that or pretty much any other band.

Of course when I say debate, I of course mean everyone versus Jeff Wilde. At least I think his last name was Wilde. There were two Jeffs in my class and I’m almost certain the one I am thinking of had that surname. The Jeff on the side of Kiss, the side I and all right thinking people were on, was a skinny kid with ruffled, brown hair. Jeff Wilde, on the other hand, was a slightly plump kid with a blond crewcut. He was all alone on the side of Queen.

Now, I knew I was in the right because my older brother was a Kiss fan. He purchased their albums. He even had the Love Gun album which came with a cardboard gun. The gun was designed with a flap of paper which would pop out with a loud snapping sound when you flicked the gun. It even had the word “BANG” written on it (just so there was no question that you heard a gunshot). How cool is that?

On the other hand, Jeff brought in evidence of his fandom one day in the form of a Queen album. I remember it well. Even though it didn’t have any cool toys with it, it did have a picture of a giant robot holding the limp and crushed bodies of the band in it’s cruel hands. Now I know that is cool.

No, this debate never went any further, no school yard fights. I think it was pushed aside for a more interesting topics such as the Yankees (another favorite topic of third graders).

Today, I believe I can name one Kiss song or two – maybe. But, I can name several Queen songs and albums. In fact, I consider them one of the best bands of all time for their musicianship and creativity. I guess I will concede this one to Jeff Wilde.

*For the record, I don’t know anything about the Yankees anymore either.

As most of you know, I suffered a stroke in July. I have not blogged since then, not because I have had nothing to say, but because I felt I should start by talking about the stroke. Well, I’ve decide that it’s not going to happen. Maybe someday I will discuss the stroke, but not today.

Suffice it to say, I have almost no lingering side effects from the stroke and am living a normal life. And now, I will continue with blogging as part of that life.

Tonight, when I got home from my brother’s house, I decided to eat a snack in the back yard where it was cooler than in the house. I was treated to one, no, make that five of those things that remind you how big a place the world is.

I had left the windows mostly closed when I went out earlier today since the weather channel had warned of rain and I was going to be out until evening. It had been another hot day, although not as bad as earlier in the week. When I got back this evening, I opened a bunch of windows. Still, it takes a while for a house to cool down so I decided to enjoy a bowl of cereal in the backyard while it did so. (As a side note, I almost never eat cereal in the morning. For some reason, I enjoy it more as an evening snack.)

As I sat in the yard and looked up at the sky I saw several things. Some minor clouds that just lurked on the horizon leaving me with clear skies overhead. Stars twinkling through the hot atmosphere. Airplanes going in every direction. And, something else; little stars that silently moved in a straight line at a constant speed from horizon to horizon.

If you had never seen these objects before, you might assume they were very high flying airplanes, up so high you couldn’t hear them. But they moved to straight and steadily to be planes.

If you thought about it, you would have realized they all were flying over the same path. Three of them from south to north and two from north to south. (That should have been a give away clue.) They were in fact, satellites. Man made satellites to be exact.

I’ve seen them for years while growing up. It was in Cape Cod on summer evenings where my family and I first realized what they were. We would sit out on the beach or the porch of my grandmother’s house talking into the evening and gazing at the sky. Our two favorite things to spot were satellites and meteors. Both always seemed abundant on warm summer evenings.

So, not only do they remind me what a big place the world is when I think about how many miles above my head they are and how fast they are moving. Both large numbers and yet small compared to the space and the stars above and around them. This time, I’m also reminded of time. My recanting of when I first saw them and thought about what they were was also years ago. So now I’m also getting a sense of time when I look at them.

I guess I always did think about time in a way when I looked at satellites. No matter how recently a satellite is launched into space, I will always think of footage of NASA from the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. Don’t know why, it just happens. Well, that and footage of the Hubble Space Telescope being launched from the space shuttle in the ’80s.

Anyhow, it was a nice thing to sit in the yard and enjoy watching the silent light show above me.