Peaceful Sedition

In her excellent book "Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life," Jenna Woginrich says:

Vegetable gardening has been called "the peaceful sedition" because at the most basic level, when a person can feed and shelter herself, she doesn't require a government to provide for her. ... It's not about pride or independence, or even connecting with nature. It's about wanting hashbrowns on a Saturday morning and being able to run out to the backyard in your bathrobe to grab some potatoes from the garden.

Well, that, and poking a thumb in the eye of corporate agribusiness and its marketing shills, an activity that is not without its pleasures.

Happy New Year!

Today's front yard critter count:
Deer: 3 does
Raccoons: 6 (Old Tailless Guy; his Little Woman; their guest, a male we haven't seen before; and the Not-So-Crabby Mama's 3 teenagers).

The Second Best Gardening Day of the Year

One of winter's most hopeful events is ordering vegetable seeds for spring and summer planting -- it may be wet and cold outside but today it was summer inside my head as I plowed through Seattle Tilth's "The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide," checking out what varieties of my culinary favorites grow best in the Pacific Northwest. We can grow blueberries in our yard with ease and aplomb but our coolish micro-climate makes tomatoes a challenge. I finally gave up growing them in the actual vegetable garden -- oh, the heartbreak of having the tomatoes ripen just as the first cold weather arrives. Starting last year the tomatoes' assigned spot was right up against the south side of the house. They were happy and so was I. This spring the pumpkins will also be migrating from the vegetable garden to the flower garden to facilitate their quest to conquer as much geographic space as possible -- they can grow over the lawn and more power to them.

I ended up ordering all sorts of familiar and not-so-familiar seeds (Miner's Lettuce! Bulb Fennel!), some of which will be sowed in January under lights in the laundry room. I can hardly wait!

Two side-notes:

* If "Ordering Seeds Day" is the second best gardening day of the year, what is the very best gardening day of the year? Why that would be "Digging and Spreading Compost Day" of course....

* If you're looking for a superb month-by-month how-to guide for PNW gardeners, get "The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide" from you local library or your local independent bookstore, or go to www.seattletilth.org.

Today's front yard critter count:
Racoons: 4 (the Not-So-Crabby Mama and her 3 teenagers)
Deer: 0
Birds: 4 Varied Thrushes (complete with orange racing stripes), 1 Song Sparrow.

Let's Start This Off With a Bang!

Why start with a picture of Muttley the Dog? Because I admire his amiability, his sense of purpose, his humor, and his ability to effectively mediate disputes among the cats without losing his temper. All in all, an excellent role model for a life well lived.