Monday I was outside pruning the red-twigged dogwoods and the viburnums, something I typically do in February, when I heard a familiar sound, looked up and there they were –geese in V-formation flying due north, and honking, honking, honking.
Why, I always wonder, do they waste precious energy talking. And so I make up imaginary conversations to explain their yaaking.
“Mabel, get up here. I’m exhausted and it’s your turn to lead.”
“Not it is not. It is Matilda’s turn. I lead almost all day yesterday.”
“You did not. George did. Hey, George, get back in line, you’ll kill yourself if you keep taking extra shifts.”
Honk, honk, honk.
Well, it keeps me amused and I need to be amused because, as I said, I am disoriented.
Because, seriously, geese flying north in February?
Sara and I made plans this fall to spend the long weekend preceding Presidents’ Day in Provincetown. Worried about possible winter storms in February, Sara insisted we cancel.
No wonder I am disoriented. Instead of being buried in snow and thankful that we didn’t try to make it to the Cape, on Tuesday I started cutting down the grasses I left up for winter interest.
This is a task I usually undertake in late March or early April, at what is typically the very beginning of the gardening season. Tuesday was February 21.
Even more startling, I spent much of my time outside on Tuesday weeding. Weeding? In February? This is beyond bizarre.
Some years ago I bought some compost that was infested with one of those weeds that once you have them you can never get rid of them. Of course I did not realize this until I had spread the compost everywhere. Now I have an infestation.
Cardamine hirsuta, aka Hairy Bittercress, is an exotic invasive of the mustard family that emerges early, often in late winter. Advice abounds for eliminating this plant by means of herbicidal sprays. Others advise that, as a tasty edible green, one should eat it. I am neither spraying nor eating, just weeding it out as fast as I can in the hopes of getting ahead of it.
Weeding in February is messing with my rhythms. Persephone’s not ready to be done with winter yet.
I need to finish my Master Gardener presentation tentatively titled “Honey, I Shrunk the Lawn.”
Did you know that the average lawnmower mowing the average lawn spews out as much carbon dioxide as eleven new cars?
Did you know that more gas is spilled in a year by homeowners filling lawnmowers than was spilled by the Exxon Valdez disaster? That’s 17 million gallons. The Exxon Valdez disaster was 10.8 million.
Did you know that in 2017 the EPA estimated that, nationwide, we used 9 billion gallons of water per day on lawns?
Did you know that in this country we use more pesticides each year on lawns than we do on agriculture? This becomes less surprising once you realize that non-native European turf grass is the largest crop we grow in the U.S.
Don’t get me wrong. I love my lawn. It lets me walk on it, play on it, cook on it, lie down on it. It creates the necessary open space, what the Japanese call the “ma,” that I need to fully appreciate my planted garden. I even love the grasses that make up my lawn, the fesuces and ryes and blue-grass.
But my lawn is ecologically and economically expensive and I don’t need anywhere near as much of it as I have. This is true for many homeowners. The solution is to shrink the lawn and I am hoping that my presentation will demonstrate a variety of ways this can be done with a reasonable amount of time and money and effort.
I also need to conclude my season of writing.
Did you know that as a “writer” you can report a loss year after year after year and not be subject to penalty from the IRS? You never need to make a profit to claim it as a business and deduct expenses associated with it from your tax liability. Most business require a profit to be shown in at least two years out of five. Not writing. You can lose and lose and the IRS in its infinite wisdom understands that this can be so because writers are crazy.
We pay to submit our work to journals that most likely will reject our work. If by some miracle there comes an acceptance, only rarely is there remuneration.
We keep writing and submitting in the face of endless rejections. My writing friends remind me that until you have experienced at least 250 rejections you are not a seasoned writer.
So common is rejection that many journals discourage submissions that relate to rejection. Here is what Brevity, a major player in the field of blogs about writing, has to say on the subject:
“We receive numerous submissions dealing with rejection, motivation, and persistence, and while we are happy to consider blog essays on these aspects of a writer’s life, we are actively looking for other material and fresh approaches.”
In other words, if you write about rejection they will most likely reject you. Need I say more?
Though I have not yet reached the 100th rejection, I am beginning to question whether there might be a better use of my time in winter, particularly if winter continues to erode into a short break between the end of November and the middle of February.
And then yesterday happened – snow and freezing rain and hazardous driving and the gardens with their load of Cardamine hirsuta completely buried.
Of course I am disoriented.
I am looking for a “recombobulation station.” Let me know if you have directions to one.
