I began writing my 'log' and added a few all at once! They are meant to be read in chronological order... so read them first one last, it will make more sense... or not.

Baroness - Grad

'Grad' by Barroness - my favorite song on the the Red Album... in fact the entire album is amazing. Makes me fee like I climbed a mountain. The lead singer does amazing art, including the album. Listen to it loud.

Black Crowes - Non-Fiction acoustic

'Non-fiction' by The Black Crowes - been around for years, currently do the casino circuit. They have fantastic lyrics and just rock. This is someone else's rendition of the song.

Baroness - Cockroach En Fleur

'Cockroach en fleur' by Barroness - formed in 2003, a band hailing from Augusta, GA. Got an Appalachian twang. "Grad" is my favorite song on the Red Album. I saw them live at a free metal festival in Atlanta in 2009. It was held on the grounds of an abandoned mill. Epic.

4/12/11

Yesterday gave meaning to the song 'Why Don't We Do It In the Road?' after I noticed two turkeys doing just that. There was a gang of them crossing the road into the woods, but the two weren't fleeing because of my oncoming vehicle with the rest. The obvious male (bigger red waddle & more colorful feathers) in the pack was standing on another smaller and assumed female, getting his balance, almost like he was kneading dough for at least 5 minutes. I turned the engine off and opened the door to get out and take a picture of this rare witnessing. I guess I invaded their privacy because they scurried off before i could take a photo.

Later...
We, my housemate John aka Kenny Rogers Jr. (he looks just like him just smaller) and I, brought the portable Fender amplification system up to the house yesterday. Besides his never ending Peter, Paul, & Mary station on Pandora, I've listened to some much needed Ray Charles form my ipod last night. Today I intend to end work at the 8 hour mark for the first time in a couple days. I don't keep track of time like I would with a job where I had to commute to work, but because I live 'on campus' it's like working in my own yard. No one knows what my job entails, so I do as I please. Good thing I'm a workaholic obsessed with plants. No real desire to slack... yet. Today I got home just after 5 and Jr. is nowhere to be found so I plugged in my ipod and figured out the levels... back in church. I've always thought that metal, loud and preferably live, was for me what church was for others. Release. I sometimes run at high speeds. Metal assumes autopilot , takes over for me so I can relax and not worry. Security. Like actually feeling OK that someone else is driving but me. Few and far between. They may be driving, but I know where we're going, and how to get there.
Good metal, in my opinion, tells stories. It has highs and lows. Intros, slow building, crescendos, and treks back down. So far tonight I've coaster through my favorites anticipating Jr.'s return any moment, when I'll have to turn it down to something respectable. Metal is most effective loud; the foremost reason people dislike it. ("I like all music... except opera and heavy metal.")

Songs on the 'metal therapy shortlist' are the three blogs that follow.
The first 2 songs are pretty tame, acoustic, to inspire all listeners.

There is one of great album art.

4/10/11 - 4/11/11

It's a bit cloudy this morning, overcast, yet the temperature's 10 degrees higher at 43. Today i plan to check out a good spot for the greenhouse. Do I put it in direct sun or at the edge of the woods? The online picture made it out to be shower curtains held together with bias tape and zippers. Though not as offensive as the compost pile sitting directly outside the new spa's window, I still don't want it to be viewed before the garden, as an obstruction.

Yesterday was a long day, though I actually didn't mind working. Hardly checked the time. I made a spot for the greenhouse by cutting a couple of overhanging limbs off a maple to reduce future shading, after the trees leaf out of course. Looks like there's the beginnings of a larger (20'x10') greenhouse, pre-existing. Staked rebar with a cinder block on each. So the much smaller 'pop-up' (4.5'x4.5') greenhouse will sure fit there. Leveled it, spread gravel with the tractor (hooray!), and spent the afternoon, into evening, collecting fallen branches for the bonfire, which raged pretty good and was pretty awesome until I took an orange ember to the right eyeball. It is bothersome but not excruciating. From time to time it will tear heavily and my right nostril runs in unison. Go figure. My weepy right side.

4/9/11

The chipmunks are my favorite. They come to fill their cheeks with the seeds the birds throw out of the saucer onto the deck. Up until now I've seen them rustling speedily in the leaves and in & out of the many stack rock walls. They've come to the deck, but never stayed when I came out and sat down. Though they're pretty fidgety, they are going about their business, vacuuming up seeds, not even flinching when I move, though I'm only a yard away. They trust easily, likely because they know they are much faster than me. Anyway, I figure one's a boy and one's a girl. Right now they are busy collecting stash and can't seem to stand each other. They scramble whenever they meet on the course; running from fill up at the deck to bouncing up the stairs to their little hole of a house maybe 40 yards up the hill. Each stops a couple of times along their bounce back up tp look around, make sure they're not being followed. They can take two of the 18 inch deep stairs at once. Looks like 20 stairs. The fatter one with the red fuzz on his butt seems to be the boy. He's the one in pursuit.
It looks like it's squirrel o'clock with 2 chipmunks, 2 gray squirrels (one's pretty ratty, easy to identify. we'll call him 'Patches'.) and red squirrel who is more nervous than the rest, but the cutest of course.*
And there's of course the mythical black squirrel... who came and went with a flash. Like a sighting you're not sure really happened..
...or maybe there's actually 3 chipmunks and they're all fighting for territory.
As dusk happens everyone seems to disappear. Except the juncos of course.

*I've since learned that the adorable red squirrels are 'bad squirrels'. They are carnivorous and steal eggs out of nests. Cradle robbing cute red squirrels.

4/7/11 - 4/8/11

Today is day two. I've gotten the low down on my responsibilities on the property. Where my beds and pots are and what goes in them. Today I meet the maintenance crew and get the equipment & supplies knowledge; compost, tools... there's that woodpecker again.

Feeling good today. Feeling on track. I've met with the chef and studied the passed 2 year's garden maps; detailing what was planted. I ordered seeds and made a list of of the seeds I still need to purchase... collards, marigolds, turnips. I'm a little too excited about planting seeds. I have to wait until they get here and it's giving me butterflies! Today I meet the director and hear her expectations. I hear she's a bossy lady. I'll blow her away with my container plantings. I've got pictures.

4/6/11

I should spend the next entry writing about the inside of the house... yet coffee & birds outside on the deck is a better place to spend the morning, and the only time and place I write. Crisp, but cold. Clear and dry. The doves are back along with a woodpecker I have no problem hearing, just trouble locating.
What a peculiar sound doves make when they flap their wings. I think they are courting right now. The sound of the river's a constant. For a moment I could have assumed it was the hum form some kind of industry. Thank god it's not.

4/5/11

My first morning at Menla. Woken by rain with the sunrise. Slept pretty well I guess, except the dream where Sugar visited me. She was jogging toward me as if I called her. I could smell her fur. I was so excited... then it seemed impossible she be here & she was gone. I guess she was paying me a visit. Just saying hello.

I have a bit of dusting to do in my space, but all in all it's not a bad place to live. Closets, desk, lamps, windows, wood beams, & a door to make it mine. They say it's the best staff lodging here. Lucky me. I'm important, being the gardener, and they want to treat me well. Much appreciated.

I only glimpsed my garden space while driving. It seemed... not level. But I'll wait until I walk it before thinking anymore about it. Today at noon I'll meet the chef to talk herbs and veges. Maybe tomorrow morning I'll assemble the greenhouse.

The rain has lessened as I put down a plastic bag to sit on. Protect my butt from the puddle on the white plastic lawn chair. As soon as I sit I spot a gray squirrel, a morning dove, and two deer. What a way to wake! There's a saucer full of corn & seeds set at the corner of the railing on the deck. Chickadees, juncos, titmouse, chipmunks, and squirrels come within 5 feet of me to feed. (Sugar would have loved it here!) Then they post up in the neighboring branches. Eat. Sing. And dive back down & snatch another seed. This is how they spend their mornings.
I can hear the river below.

I can see now that there is a pair of doves. They enjoy the fallen seed on the ground. When I was a kid, in THV, my bedroom window looked out from a corner where a couple of pines grew. All growing up I thought the cooing doves were an owl & that he was also my alarm clock.

It's wonderfully cool right now. Hoodie ans flip-flops.
Though today id cloudy, the sky is high up over the surrounding 'mountains'. Story is that Panther Mountain and his friends used to be a plateau, nit the rounded peaks they are today. The valleys were cut by water, not from the force of the earth forcing them up all jagged and rocky. My views from the deck are framed and made up of naked trees, all seeming foreign to me. Only able to read their bark and buds, if they're actually swelling this early in the spring. New friends to make. Learn the language of this hardwood dominated eastern woods.

They gave me a carebox of food. Looks like it was put together by a mom... cereal, PB & J, whole bread, oils, tamari, lentils, spring greens, etc. But best of all coffee, sugar, tea, and almond milk. My fears of being the 'bad one on campus' are quashed. Everyone's just like evryone else, everywhere else. Except maybe better because they seem to function with an understanding that we can all work at whatever pace feels comfortable to make this place run. In theory it sounds good. For myself, I am in no short of work ethic. As I write this a deep roar is coming from the north, from over the hill, seeming at first like an airplane. But it's not, it's the wind pushing through the bare woods. Powerful and magnificent are two great words to describe it.

4/2/11

Excerpts from 'An Island Garden' by Celia Thaxter

"He who is born with a silver spoon in his mouth is generally considered a fortunate person, but good fortune is small compared to the happy mortal who enters this world with a passion for flowers in his soul."


" 'I can never make my plants blossom like this! What is you r secret?' And I answer with one word, 'love'. For that includes all, - the patience that endures continual trial, that constancy that makes perseverance possible, the power of foregoing ease of mind to minister the necessities of the thing beloved and the subtle bond of sympathy which is important, if not more so, then all the rest."

"The Norwegians have a pretty & significant word, 'Opelske', which they use in speaking of the care in flowers. It means literally 'loving up', or cherishing them into health and vigor."

"Like the musician, the painter, the poet, and the rest, the tru lover of flowers is born, not made. And he is born to happiness in his vale of tears, to a certain amount of the purest joy that earth can give her children, joy that is tranquil, innocent, uplifting, unfailing."

Thanks Uncle Keith.