Life In The Fast Lane
Master Gardening and Dying Kitties
(never a dull moment)

Ozark The Emperor

Ozark is 13.5 years old and is dying of FIV which, if you didn't already know it, is kitty AIDS. Ozark is hanging on like a general because that's the kind of guy he is. We've been talking to Max about him dying because the signs that the end is nigh are pretty clear.

He has become very gaunt, especially near his tail where his back bone is so visible that you can count his tiny vertebrae, he has started peeing on any heap of comfy clothes he sees lying on the floor. He has never been a cat who's had "accidents" inside. This cat prefers to do his business outdoors and once held his bladder for two whole days while we made him stay to protect a bandage on his foot- he refused to use his litter box. Incontinence is one of those signs that a kitty's body is breaking down. He's hardly eating anything, and only very soft food. He's still drinking water but not much.

He walks very slowly and holds himself in a defensive huddle. He has started looking unsteady when he's standing up, as though he might topple. I was afraid to check on him in Max's room when I came home from class yesterday because I am sure that at any minute now I'm going to find him dead. I don't want to have to hold his dead body and say goodbye to him. At the very same time, I fear that he is in pain and wonder if I shouldn't take him to the vet and see if they think he's in pain and if he is, perhaps euthanizing him would be merciful. Poor little guy.

Master Gardening Class

I have certainly learned my lesson about writing about local people and events and how even though 99% of the people in my town don't read my blog, the day I describe them on my blog and use pithy observations or use any kind of criticism, they will find their way to it and I will eventually get myself lynched. So. Carefully onward...

Although I expected a largish proportion of older classmates (retirement is a great time to really dig into the garden), at 38 years old I didn't expect to be the second youngest person there. The class was filled with kind, enthusiastic, and eager septuagenarian students. I admit I felt a little out of place (how surprised is anyone to hear that?). Happily there were only a couple people who looked as though they needed an expression readjustment due to perpetually soured features (who knows, could be a medical condition?).

It will be clear to anyone who visits Dustpan Alley regularly that my plant interests are intensely focused on edible and flowering plants. I'm not a huge fan of ornamental shrubs, nor am I particularly dying to be able to name every conifer variety that is native to Oregon. I admire the native plant society's efforts to preserve the native plant variety in my state. Variety everywhere is a matter in need of great attention. However, I can tell right now that the Directrice of the program would like me to get very excited about Pieris Japonica which she loves (as does every gardener in Mac) and would be shocked to find out with what venom and viciousness I ripped it out of my front yard. I particularly hate Pieris.

I have only a 10,000 square foot city lot. I must be ruthless about what is growing on it if I am to be a productive urban homesteader. I need edible plants, plants that are multi purpose (like roses that feed the beneficial insects, provide joy in my home as cut flowers, and make medicinal rose hips). Every garden must have things in it that particularly please the insects and birds, because without them, well, us humans will die off.* Yet, there are many things besides Pieris that please both the birds, the bees, and me.

Speaking of my lot size... I have to admit that it gave me great big pangs of unattractive envy that fully 50% of the students have acreage and are there to learn to tame their property. Every other person who stood up to introduce themselves said something like this "Hi, I'm Janet Shrewsbury, my husband and I just bought our dream property of seven acres..." or "Hi, I'm Roddy, I have an acre and a half in Sheridan and I just want to learn what to plant in it..." or "Neiner neiner! I have five acres and my dream farm house and you don't!! You only have a city lot and a stupid boring ranch house!" Oh the pain of it.

I felt exactly like a person who has just quit smoking and is totally at peace with not lighting up ever again but finds themselves suddenly at a party where almost everyone is smoking and the temptation is surrounding you. I have come to a place of peace with the fact that I really do have all I need. Seriously, I have yet to reach the potential of the square feet of dirt at my personal disposal and even if I had, if I need to grow more than I can grow here on my lot, there is a community garden here in town that I plan to support, there are obviously plenty of people with property they barely know what to do with and might be willing to let me farm small parts of it for part of the crop.

Anyway, because I have a limited amount of space, I am not going to dedicate much of it to native specimen plants. I fear that my Directrice and I do not have the same Utopian dream. She assures me that that's what's "wonderful" about master gardeners; that they have all different passions. I hope she means that.

So a part of me is chomping at the bit to get to the part where we learn about pruning fruit trees and growing food, but I have to admit that I am truly a plant geek and I found myself getting rather keenly interested in our discussion of slime molds and the difference between gymnosperm and angiosperm plants. The plant world is full of incredible symbiotic relationships, wild habits, and weird fruiting bodies.

Back to the property issue- I think perhaps it's good that I am not in a position to own a piece of acreage, nor am I likely to before I am myself a septuagenarian, because so many other people out there are in the same boat as I am and would like to know how they can grow more of their own food and take part in rural kinds of activities on their limited space. We can't all have farms or our own meadows to run across in dirndls while strumming "The Sound Of Music" on acoustic guitars. Lots of us would like to figure out how to make a small space yield the maximum amount of food and healthy miniature eco-systems. I'm by no means the only person doing this, but we need a lot more people doing it, talking about how they're doing it, and showing others how to have the wholesomeness of farm life on a city lot.

I keep trying to compile lists of blogs out there that are doing the urban homesteading thing without acreage and my list is still somewhat small so if anyone has links out there to share, please do, baring in mind that I don't add blogs to my list that post infrequently. Here is my list so far (remember, these are people who are living on city lots):

The Tardy Homemaker
These Days In French Life**
Her Able Hands
Wordy Diva
The Apartment Farm
Spadework: From Plot To Plate
Bliss
Homegrown Revolution
City Farm***






*Not as dire a pronouncement as you might imagine.
**I'm not actually sure whether Riana has acreage of her own or not, she does have access to acreage. But either way, I include her because she does things on a scale that anyone can relate to even if they don't have more than a city lot.
***Riana's sister's blog.

I did it before it was cool

Don't you just love it when people say that? I try not to say it. Even though I've done practically everything Madonna has done before she made it big. Except record platinum albums, marry Sean Penn, keep fit and trim, model for Versace, marry a "Sir", ride horses, or steal African babies. But I was wearing vintage long before that ho made it all the rage.

I've posted this picture before. I'm posting it again because it amuses me so much. I actually promised I wasn't going to post again today. I posted two posts yesterday with the idea that right about now I would be dressed and cleaning the house. But then I was doing my blog reading and drinking a fabulous latte that Philip made for me before he jetted off to the store... and I just couldn't help myself.

Anyway, this picture was taken when I was nineteen, on New Year's Eve. I am tossing my Philip Morris cigarettes into my Dad's trash compacter. I'm in my ultimate Swiss Miss outfit. Note: this was not worn as a "costume". See what I mean about having fun dressing up? Notice the apron wearing? See, I was doing it way back before there were apron exhibits in museums.

I would like to say that I have placed a couple of orders for the store that I had been putting off. I've been also thinking about classes to give in the store. I really love Lucille's idea of decorating Easter bonnets. I've also gotten some pointers on giving craft classes from Ulla, who does this all the time and posts about it on her blog. Sometimes seeing Lucille and Ulla's creativity and successful work makes me want to stab myself in the eye with one of the knitting needles I've got lying around collecting dust. That way I'd at least have a legitimate excuse for myself.

If you were thinking of telling me how immature I am...let me beat you to the punch. What a frickin baby I am. All I have to do is look at someone else's cool blog with amazing crafts and I get the urge to do a violence to myself and give up. Grow some balls for crying out loud! (Philip would really not appreciate this. We established many years ago that he is not going to suddenly discover he's gay and ditch me for a boyfriend and a life of cross dressing. Growing real balls would truly disturb him. But, I mean, is it even possible?)

I went to Posie Gets Cozy recently, even though I promised myself I wouldn't. So you all probably already got a copy of Romantic Homes, huh? I've been looking for one here in McMinnville and haven't found one. I can't help it. I want to read the article and see the photos. I can't tell if it's because I desperately need to torture myself with all the things I'm not doing, and how unpretty and uncool my house is, or if I will get a grip on myself and just be inspired. Which would be the mature thing, obviously.

Two out of my four Valentine aprons have sold now. I kind of didn't expect that. It makes me really happy though. It's still very slow in the store, but yesterday a woman bought a bunch of things like some oilcloth place mats and the Valentine apron. Sales like that make us feel so much better. In more store news, we're getting better signage up today. So that's one small thing to check off the GIANT list from last month. Inch by bloody inch we're getting there.

Oh, but a real disappointment was finding out that Boersma's (the downtown fabric and knit shop) is carrying the soak line of hand washing soap. They declined carrying it when the Soak rep showed it to them and so she sold it to us. Boersma's didn't bother checking out what we carry, or finding out if anyone else already has that line through her source. So while I am tip toeing around everyone on third street to keep them from stoning my store, not everyone is giving me the same courtesy. It made me incredibly angry. It also firmed up some resolve in me.

So for the last two days I have been coming up with ideas for T-shirts for the store. I have handed several off to Philip to work on. I am also looking up herbal companies because I would like to have a whole DIY bath section where people can come and buy bath salts and essential oils and create their own bath salts and herbal soaks. I will have containers and scoops and some recipes too. No one has anything like that here in town. Next up is sending out my letter to the contract sewing company I keep talking about. I will do that today. Right after I finish this post.

(In case you're curious, there is bagpipe music filling the air and making me prime for war on everyone who hasn't taken notice of Dustpan Alley yet. That's right, this is my battle cry!)

(OK, I admit that I'm too lazy to go put on actual bagpipe music, so it's just in my head right now. But as soon as the advil kicks in and my hip stops throbbing, I'm getting up to put it on.)

How do you go to battle against invisibility? You get loyal customers. You offer things no one else has but that people want. But most of all, if you're the manufacturing type, you manufacture cool things that no other store in your town can buy. Maybe none of this will work. No one has bought my cool pet gift set, but that might be because we've only had about six people in the shop since I put them out. But I have got to rely on our strengths.

By the way, if any of you need any graphic design work, talk to Philip. He can design logos, business cards, and do layout work.

On the home front, I've been cooking a lot more often which has eliminated the need to eat food from downtown which mostly isn't very good. Or if it's good, it's good because it's full of cheese. Home cooked food is just so much better. So we're saving money there. It's a real relief. I have more control over what I eat if I make it myself. Staying home most mornings is working out wonderfully. Except that I often get sucked into the blog world. Or spend all my time writing. Which isn't bad exactly, but it isn't likely to pay the bills faster than my store will.

It isn't working for me to concentrate on doing just one thing from my list of ten healthy things to do for myself. I like being able to choose different things. Three days in a row I've checked seven things off of my list of ten. I like it. If I don't get to bed by ten, I can still not eat any deserts and not snack after seven pm and be doing something good for myself. Not that it matters, but I've lost a pound of flesh. Which means I am so far keeping to my goal of not gaining a single pound. I feel pretty happy about it today.

I'm going to go accomplish some things before I think of something depressing to say.

Notice the rampant use of links? I've got it memorized now. Thanks Future Girl and Philip!