Our fence is complete. Strong, young workmen came one morning and took out the old fence. Then another crew of men dug the holes for the new posts. I was surprised they were using the traditional post hole digger: one wooden handle, two small shovel heads hinged at the end. Dig straight down, pull up with the dirt, do it again and again until the hole is the depth you want. You make a deep hole with a small diameter. I thought they might have a power tool. I asked. The man said that the power tool is too great a risk for injury. Then I realized that there were three men digging, so there would have to be three power tools, and that would be very expensive for the owner of the company, and the fence would cost much more.

They used steel posts, the new thing in fence construction. Steel won’t rust, won’t rot, and will “give a little” in the wind. They set those posts in the holes and filled the holes with concrete. To mix the concrete in small batches, they had wheelbarrows with large wheels. They were here most of the day for these tasks. During the process of digging, they cut into the phone line, even though it was clearly marked. I was without a phone until the next afternoon. Today most people use cell phones, but we, being old fashioned, have only a land line.

The next morning, the work crew arrived at 8:00 am and set to work. They brought a power saw that they set up in the backyard, to cut boards. They had power drills and screwdrivers. Those steel posts have evenly spaced holes, like those cupboards in which you can place the shelf where you want. Easy to measure, easy to attach the board. First they attached the rails, the horizontal boards. Then they attached the facing from the outside. Finally, the steel posts are covered with boards, so they look like wooden posts. Four men working steadily completed the fence by 2:00 pm.

The wood is red cedar. It needs no finishing, no paint or sealer, because the natural oils of this wood protect it against the weather. The wood will age to a silvery gray color, but right now it looks reddish gold. The whole backyard is filled with the aroma of cedar. It feels like a new place, a sanctuary, a haven.

When my neighbor finishes his fence, which he is building himself, in his spare time, our yard will be enclosed. Robert Frost wrote a poem “Mending Wall” in 1914, in which he quoted the proverb, “Good fences make good neighbors.” In this poem, the narrator questions why we must build walls and fences, while his neighbor keeps quoting the proverb. Almost one hundred years later, there are at least twice as many people as there were then, and each person longs for some boundary between himself and the others. Perhaps we could rewrite the proverb to say, “Good neighbors make good fences.”

The strawberries, an ever bearing variety, are producing their second crop. The raspberries are almost finished. The snap peas are finished, their vines all dried up. I’ve taken them down and put them in the compost bin. The lettuce keeps on producing, as does the rhubarb. The onions are now big enough to take, and the squash are starting to form. My neighbor already has red tomatoes, but mine are not quite ripe. I get a handful of green beans every day or so, just enough to eat that day, from my two plants.

I’ve planted a new set of pea pods, new spinach, new lettuce, and I’m trying again for carrots. I haven’t had success with carrots. Their seeds are so very tiny, and take so long to germinate. And then it’s difficult to thin without disturbing the ones you want to keep.

For years, I’ve heard “soil is everything.” But now, I have optimum soil, mixed according to directions with peat, compost, and vermiculite. Well, perhaps I have too much peat, since I didn’t realize that the bag stating “4 cubic feet” also stated in much finer print, “expands to 8 cubic feet.” Still, I have been adding compost for two years, so I think it’s close to optimum.

As long as we think, “soil is everything,” and we don’t have optimum soil, we can attribute failure to the soil. However, once we get the best soil possible, we have to think about water, pests, light, and timing. I’ve lived in so many places, each with its own timing, that it’s hard for me to get it right. In Washington state, we planted peas on George Washington’s birthday: February 22. On the coast of Oregon, we had red tulips blooming on Valentine’s day: February 14.
Here in the Midwest, though, the frozen ground is covered with snow in February. I have learned however, that there is usually a thaw in January for at least a few days, and on those days, you can plant spinach and it will come to life early in the spring, much earlier than that which you plant when the ground is ready. In a book titled, “The Medieval Home Companion,” written in France, I read, “When it rains in July, plant cabbages.” So far this July, we have had miniscule measurable rain. I did notice that the cabbage plant that the rabbits ate, has come back to life. We’ll see if it has enough time to make a cabbage. Most places I’ve lived have enough summer time for two crops, at least for vegetables such peas, spinach and lettuce.

I have time now that I didn’t have while bringing up a family, or while teaching abroad. Now it’s time for my own second season.

I so appreciate you who read this blog, and I love to receive comments. It is not a good idea for you to have your personal details on this website, so I edit them out. I receive the comments you have made, read and consider them. However, I do not approve all of them. I’d like to protect your privacy as well as mine.

“Privacy” now there’s a word that has lost all meaning in the modern age. In China, I wonder if there even is a word corresponding to it. I saw no evidence of the concept when I stayed there. But here in the USA I don’t see much evidence of it anymore either. When I was young, the older people were afraid to talk of anything important on the phone, because we had “party lines” : more than one phone on the same line. They didn’t want people listening in on the conversation. Later on we had “private lines” : only one phone for that line. Still, you could have more than one actual phone in your house for that line, so your kids, for example, could be secretly listening. So, the older ones, those who had lived through the world wars, were close lipped in their conversations, both in person and on the phone.

These days, everyone using a cell phone is using radio waves, not phone lines, for the connections. No communication is at all secure. And now, furthermore, we have the drones flying overhead, listening to everything that is said. We have google mapping the world, which seems convenient, until you realize that your own home is online all the time, pinpointing your patio dinner party. The young generation doesn’t seem to care in the least, willingly giving out personal details everywhere. How have we come to this?

So, at least here, I strive to keep privacy, that outdated concept, alive.

It is lovely at 7:00 am when the dew is still on the grass and the birds are in full song. By 10:00 am it is blazing hot even in the shade. I’ve been out early to water the plants and do a little weeding. I have only one faucet for the hose, so it requires a lot of walking around to get everything watered.
This morning a young neighbor saw me outside and came over to chat. She asked the name of the shrubs I was watering. “Hydrangea” I told her. “Does that mean it needs lots of water?” Do you know why she asked? The word comes from the great botanist Linnaeus formed from the Greek word for water and the Latin word for cup. I learned these facts on the website dictionary.com one of my favorite sites. I’m still curious though, because they do seem to need a lot of water. Further study required.
The spinach that was so successful in the garden is finally finished, so I am adding compost to that space and getting it ready for more plants. It was quite dry because I had stopped watering that particular space. I’m getting the compost from my bin, but it needs to be sifted and I ran out of energy for that. Saturday may be a good day for that.
The pea plants are drying up, but are still green at the very top. I’ve planted some new ones in another bed, so we should have some pea pods in September. The lettuce just keeps on producing, no matter how much I cut. I eat lettuce every day. And, the strawberries are white with blossoms for a new crop.
Tonight, I’m going with my daughter to an outdoor theater performance. It should be somewhat cooler by sundown. I’m wearing my purple sparkly sequined cap. I hope you’re enjoying this wonderful season as much as I am.

Today I went out to water the garden before 7:00 am. It wasn’t terribly hot yet. It’s my understanding that early morning is the best time to water, but I seldom get outside during “early morning.” I cut some rhubarb, picked some pea pods, some green beans, and some lettuce. The grandchildren came over for lunch and we ate these foods along with what their mother brought for them. It was so very hot outside that we didn’t do much at all. I turned on the air conditioner for relief. They watched some old Garfield cartoons on my computer, but when their mother was ready to work, they had to give up the computer.
I played one game of chess with the child who has a high level of skill in the game, but I was able to beat him. I asked his younger brother what he wanted to do while I played. He said, “Nothing.” I replied, “What a good thing to do on a hot summer afternoon.”

Have you heard the old word “lollygag”? That is what we did today.

The old fence is almost all removed, thanks to my son-in-law, my neighbor, and the contractor I hired. The weedy vegetation is all gone, thanks to my son-in-law, his father, my neighbor, and the contractor. The plants I want to save are mostly moved, some to my son-in-law’s house, some to temporary locations. I am expecting the fence contractor to come some time this week. There is the issue of the gate to the back yard. When I looked at how the land is, I saw how it was sloped in two directions. I’ve been trying to grade it out to the way I want it to be. It isn’t easy work, all this digging, but it feels good after a week of sitting in a classroom.

I’m hoping I’ve made enough progress for the contractor to understand where and how I want the gate to be. We’ll see. It isn’t easy communicating with contractors. Perhaps my exercise of using only seven words in a sentence will be helpful. “I want the gate here.” Five words. Easy to understand. The trouble is, contractors often say, “Oh, you don’t want it here.” My next door neighbor, who is also building a fence this year, said, “I like to remind them, last I checked, I am the one writing the check.” This neighbor told me though, “You’d better move this dirt so they can see what you want.” So, moving dirt it is.

It’s become very hot and dry, so I felt the need to water my plants before I started the digging. I was shocked when a lot, and I mean thousands, of what appeared to be little white flies flew up from the ground where I have cocoa mulch. On a closer look though, I saw that they look more like worms. Very tiny white worms that curl up and then jump. It’s the strangest thing I have seen in a long time. In fact, I’m sure I have never seen this before in all my gardening years. An hour’s research on the internet told me that these are larvae of a certain kind of fly, and that they have come in with that cocoa mulch. I liked the cocoa mulch at first, but I have seen that it is prone to mold, and now these creatures have appeared, so I will not use it again. Later in the year, I’m going back to bark mulch.

My tomatoes have set fruit, the pea pods are fully edible, and are almost finished, and the strawberries have started a second crop. The raspberries are plentiful, and the green beans are starting. Often I go out in the garden, and just stand there eating. It’s so convenient. Today I was going to be more civilized and bring the bowl of raspberries inside, but I thought I’d taste just one, and before I got to the back door, they were all gone. I’m going to plant another set of pea pods soon, so that I’ll have another crop by September. I have a lot of squash in one bed. I set up trellis for them to climb, but they prefer to lie on the ground. So it goes.

I hope you are growing what you want to grow in the garden of your life.

Last week, I had the privilege to attend the Iowa Summer Writing Festival, which is world renowned, as my classmate pointed out to me. In our class of eleven, about half were from Iowa, while the others were from other states including Texas, California, Arizona and Florida, and one man came from Japan! What a group! The festival has week long sessions, and weekend sessions. Each week, about one hundred people attend, that is my guess for a number, and they are divided into classes of up to twelve.

The class I chose was called “Take Five.” It was a class for writing fiction, and each day we focused on one element of the art of storytelling. What were those focal points? Character, setting, dialogue, conflict (also known as plot). We read published stories and discussed them, then we wrote in class, and then we had assignments to take home. It was intense and deeply rewarding. Our take home assignments were to be one page, double spaced, so that is to say, not many words at all. In my classes in China, students used to ask earnestly, “How many words?” and my answer was “Enough to do the job,” which did not satisfy them at all, since they are oriented to test taking. One page, double spaced, size 12 font, is roughly 300 words. I found that I could do these in about an hour.

The exercise in writing dialogue gave us the constraint of using only seven words for each speech a character makes. Many of my classmates wrote descriptions for setting, and then a few lines of dialogue. I wrote the whole page of dialogue alone. We had to start with the sentence, “‘I wish you wouldn’t do that,’ she said.” This set of six words gives us two characters, the speaker and another person, and a conflict. I learned that using so few words makes us aware of the weight of each word. We could say we must “freight” our words to carry layers of meaning. Try it yourself, to see what you can do.

For the final day, Friday, we had to write a story, limited to 500 words. This used to be called “short short story” but now is known as “micro-fiction.” It was quite a challenge. We were all tired from the heat, and the intensity of the class. We each read our story, then the class members made comments. Our rule was not to critique in the usual sense, but to give positive comments to encourage each writer. So, we all came home with positive reinforcement.

Besides the classes, there were other activities, among them lectures in the morning, called “The Eleventh Hour.” Usually the phrase “eleventh hour” means “the last possible moment” but in this case it meant literally 11:00 am. I attended only one of these, the one of most interest to me. It was on managing time, always a challenge for me. The speaker told us that “They say,” if you tie a monkey to a tree, he will spend his energy trying to escape. If, however, you put him next to the tree, he will find it of interest and climb the tree. Thus must we think of the time for our writing. Commit to a time for writing, go to your study, and start writing, if you want to. If you really don’t want to, don’t, but stay in the study for the designated time. I was reminded of my policy in child care for nap time. “I’m not tired,” the children whined. I said, “You don’t have to sleep, but you have to be still and quiet for half an hour.” Very few times, very few children did not fall asleep in that half hour. It will be the same for writing, we learned. “Don’t tie the monkey to the tree,” the speaker said.

I am quite excited about all that I learned, all that I did, and all the people I met — writers in various stages, from all over the world. I went looking for focus and direction, and I think I have that now. I hope that you have your direction now, but if you don’t, try some kind of conference of interest to you. You’ll be surprised.

Today is the anniversary of my father’s birth. I wonder about him more and more and I so miss him. He died relatively young, 68. My dad had several medals from his military service. He never spoke of the details of those medals, and I find myself wondering about them now. I’ve been told recently that there was a fire in Washington DC in 1973, and all the archives prior to that time were destroyed. It sounds very strange to me, but that is what I have been told. What I do know is that my father was an extraordinary man, and I am proud to be his daughter.

Today I noticed at least 8 birds enjoying the new birdbath in my garden. It was quite hot today, so they were in need of refreshing. I’ve been working and working to get my yard ready for the fence—I’ve done all I can and the rest is up to the contractors.

Today I went to the big downtown farm market. While there, I met my daughter, carrying her market bag that I made for her. I was carrying the bag I bought from LLBean, the largest canvas bag they make. In China, I used it to carry books, and the students’ work, and I used it for market. Where I lived, the ordinary market is what we would call a farm market. I used it in class as an illustration of the ideas of “form” and “content.” The bag is the form, limited by size and shape. The content is what we put into it. So, I wanted them to write a three paragraph essay—that was the form. The content was up to them. It was a difficult concept for them. As a market bag, it can certainly hold far more than I am able or willing to carry in the heat.

Today I had a lengthy phone conversation with my son. We spoke of many things, but it wasn’t the content that was so important. It was his expression of caring and deciding to spend time on the phone with me that was important. I am so blessed by my “children.” We need a word in English, besides “offspring” which sounds like the botany lab or the animal breeding grounds, that means “the people, now adults. to whom I gave birth.” They aren’t children anymore, and “adult children” is an oxymoron. I realize that “children” means more than the biological fact, but I still long for another word.

The day is almost over, not in the sense of light since we are in full blown summer, but in the sense of being finished with doing anything more. Tomorrow is another day.

I’ve been playing in my garden again. It’s been the rainiest June on record in our part of the country. Early in the year we heard warnings about another year of drought, so we bought rain barrels and set them up. Wonderful! After the first rain, we hurriedly drained them to be ready for the next storm. To set them up, my dear husband bought flexible tubing to replace the old downspouts, cut the metal ones, and replaced them with the plastic tubing. After a few storms in close succession, he had to divert those tubes to run away from the barrels. We have over 100 gallons stored in those barrels, and no need to use it. It seems that it rains every night. We are so grateful for the recovery from the drought. I hear the corn crop, which was late in planting, is flourishing now.

We’re getting a new fence and reconfiguring the back yard. In preparation, I’ve been digging up plants along the fence line and moving them. I’ve also contracted someone to come with a big machine, to grind up old stumps and root out weed trees. This has to be done after the old fence comes out, and before the new one goes in. The fence contractor will take out the old fence, but wants to set the new posts on the same day. So, I’ll be getting some help to partially remove the old fence so I can get those weed trees out, before the fence guy comes. By the way, the definition of “weed” is “a plant in a place you don’t want it.”

I’ve noticed that the ground is, so to speak, programmed to grow something. And, in the wild, or untended spaces, plants will grow in tiers: something very low to the ground, something about a foot high, something 2-3 feet high, and so on up to the trees at their various levels. I’ve noticed that a fine layer of close to the ground weeds has come up under the tomato plants, and I’m inclined to leave them there. They shade the ground and keep the water, not that we need any extra water this year.

Years ago, the science fiction novel “DUNE” included some little crystals to put in the garden to retain water during rain, and release it during drought. Great idea in the sci-fi world, and now a product on the market. I’ve put it in the garden, and I realize that it is absorbing the extra water and keeping the soil from being waterlogged. It looks like little clear marbles. I do have more than enough peat in the soil to absorb water, but you can’t be too careful in these matters.

We had planted two very small blueberry bushes in a raised bed along the old fence line two years ago. Dear Husband wanted to see how they would do in the “native” soil, in spite of my plea to amend that soil with peat. I can tell you they don’t do well in a drought year, no matter what kind of soil they’re in. They barely survived last year. Someone at the Y mentioned to him recently that they needed a lot of peat to thrive. Since we had to move that bed anyway for the new fence, and since I didn’t really know where to put them, I bought two large pots, two small bags of peat, and some special potting soil. Those bushes have doubled in size!

I’ve moved the frame for that blueberry bed from the old fence line over by the vegetable garden. In this bed I’ve planted a lot of flowers and set a bird bath in the center. I haven’t seen the birds use the water yet, but I keep watching. I wanted an unbreakable bird bath, so I got the copper one. It might be too warm for the birds, I don’t know. There are two cardinal pairs and some young ones in our backyard neighborhood. In the process of moving plants I found a dead cedar waxwing, which I buried. I was reminded of Matthew’s text saying that “Not a sparrow falls to the ground without God’s notice — and you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-30, paraphrase)

In the past week, I have had three dreams or sleeping thoughts. I am puzzled.

In the first dream, I was at a school new to me and was receiving instructions about my classes, paperwork, and schedules. Then someone offered to lead me in the right direction and showed me the door to my room. Instead of a vertical door, though, it was like a mail slot—a horizontal opening in the wall with a flap to push forward. It was big enough for a person to go through, but it didn’t look easy or simple. So, I said, “I am not going through that door.”

The second dream was really just a thought, like a voice asking me, “What is the key to the door?” That’s all. I thought I should turn on the light and write it down, but I really was fully asleep, so I did not.

The third dream was last night. I don’t remember the “story line” of the dream, but the significant statement was, “Find the gate and walk through it.”

Awake, I am wondering, what new direction, or familiar direction, is hidden from me.