The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

Happy Monday, everyone! The moon is waning and the tides are getting big again. They were insignificant enough last week that Phil was able to harvest several hundred pounds of seaweed to line our raised beds. I dragged out of the freezer some fish scraps that I'd saved last summer, and some freezer-burned fish, and the idea is that we put those in the bottom of the bed, then a layer of seaweed, then hopefully some composted manure and then some topsoil. Hopefully the bears will stay asleep a little longer!

I spent the weekend at a class on Greenhouse Gardening in Alaska. It was a _ton_ of very interesting information, and I've promised enough people that I'll share some of what I learned that I'll probably post a blog about it this week. So, having talked about greenhouse pests, etc, I got home last night (and it's light until almost 10pm now, so 7pm doesn't feel quite like 'night' anymore) and was looking at all our little seedlings all over the place… And then I looked at the window and saw the most enormous aphid either of us had ever seen crawling up! Phil looked around and spotted another, headed ominously for the basil seedlings. So we captured both of them and looked at them through the binoculars backwards to confirm that they were indeed monstrous aphids. I looked at the jar full of willow cuttings we'd taken from a willow that had landed on the beach in one of the winter storm landslides, that have been budding, rooting, leafing out and looking so cheerful, and they were infested with those aphids! Must have had eggs on them when we brought them in. Hmmm. We think the willows ought to go outside for a while! 

And this right after we'd talked in class about parthenogenesis and the rampant reproductive capabilities of aphids. 'Breed like rabbits' nothing! The expression should be 'breed like aphids!'

Up For This Week

It's going to be a busy week! I have some important decisions to make regarding work/writing/school, might take another class this week, have an article to finish, we have a friend coming to stay today, I'm having more mercury removals on Wednesday… And today I'm hoping for some downtime but clamoring for some writing time too! 

I have been feeling so tired, it's as if I'm too tired to breathe. It's an interesting way to look out at the world. There is still plenty of beauty to appreciate and so much to be glad of!

I will write a blog about the whole greenhouse question: I think that it's interesting whether or not you live in Alaska - what I learned was by no means solely Alaska-specific. 

This week, I'm also planning to do a couple of product reviews for items that I appreciate owning in my life. I have some uneasiness about owning 'stuff,' but have also come to recognize that it can be a valid part of abundance, that there are certain things that can make life not just easier but also 'better' all round. I am paying attention to my thoughts around abundance at this time, in the knowledge that there is such a constant risk of falling into scarcity mentality that I need to build the feeling of abundance in my heart and mind to guard against that. I wrote a blog for 'Eighty Percent Raw' on this very subject - take a look if you like!