Useful life

A couple months ago I got fired. No warning came when I got shit-canned as they say. That was that.

I went home, drank me some beers, felt sad for a minute and moved on.

Flash forward: The past ten or so weeks have been some of the most productive ever for me. While my schedule has seen little running or bicycling or working for money (all quite normal activities) close observers will have witnessed the completion of Lisa and my housepainting and my planting of some Very Impressive Gardens.

Lisa and I started covering our the cedar shake siding on our domicile in blue stain in November 2010. (Yes, a year-and-a-half ago. We take our time.) After distractions, travels, two winters and much coordination we finished painting the Mother last month. Sure, I didn't have to get fired and have time abundant to get-'er-did but that helped. The place looks great passersby comment. I am pleased. Plus we didn't shell out the thousands of dollars required to hire professionals.

In other local news I took over my neighbor's garden. This was a completely Peaceful Takeover. Don & Mary invited me to garden within their very tell fence two doors down. Starting sometime around March I started to fill the existing ~15x40 fenced space with tomatoes and basil, cucumbers and summer squash, beans and cantaloupe plants. We are starting to enjoy the bounty now and - should we remain pest-free - will continue to harvest vegetables well into the fall. Despite my summer plantings I am more a devotee of fall gardening than ever before. An existing garden became the perennial garden and my yard retains a focus on native plantings and art with added fruit trees. We ate one of our tree's first apricots this week. Lisa cussed seein' as they taste so very fine the apricots do

We also recently got our whiskey barrel-cum-rainbarrel operational again, the back-door screened, took a trip to Virginia, Kentucky and an undisclosed Douglass County location. On the most recent trek to the Ozarks we got to tour Missouri's youngest yet mighty community radio station. We also met Myron the wizard behind  88.1fm KZGM in Cabool, Missouri.

This is the time I am supposed to be productive or so they say. One works hard in their 40s amassing wealth I guess. Somehow I got the memo about hard work but missed the part about amassing wealth unless that wealth is measured in terms of the richness that comes with living in a Real Community with friends and roots where so many places have ever-deepening meanings.

See you in the Streets,
Trevor