Walking through life is an adventure. We had a week of heavy storms and rain, but everything pulled through in one piece. Sometimes you try one thing, stumble, and something else works so keep getting up. Mercy is so important. Plus the mushrooms are digging the rain. Wish knew which ones are edible. Just look at scifi and fantasy books and live music concerts having a great year while not hearing a peep out of the supposed summer spiderman blockbuster. Don’t know if Raleigh is just a pocket, but a month of walking around and living, no kid or adult has mentioned Spiderman: Brand New Day, not even a random costume at GalaxyCon. Supposedly 10% of the population went to see it opening weekend or something....
This week got to learn about growing corn and corn truffles which given all the rain we've gotten, our community garden corn seem infested with. It's apparently a huge delicacy so the high school kids were excited. Me? Not so sure about this $1,000/pound weather mistake. Given how much scifi and fantasy read, people keep asking about “Disclosure” and going to blame series like Altered Carbon, Asimov’s Robots, and Silo, expect less end of the world pyrotechnics and more comical everyday automation. Like replacing store mannequins with robots that can wear brand clothing and do a basic wave or dance at customers in store front windows for holidays. Which is going to take visual merchandising jobs to another level each month...
Best week gardening in two years. My dye garden failed in the Southeast drought, but checked out the local Raleigh 50-60 community gardens and experts whose land thrived. Learning tips and meeting people is a delight plus you get to pick food for the neighborhood. This past week is particular highlight as got to learn about gleaning when a local farmer who planted the corner of an acre field with 4 rows of watermelons contacted the local community gardens about picking the extras for the church. Four trucks, forty volunteers, and 1,000 watermelons later, everyone who picked got a free watermelon and the chance to feed all the food bank, soup kitchen, and meal boxes for seniors in Raleigh. What...
Sometimes you plan and God laughs. Was all excited to start painting the shop and Raleigh got record rainfall after months of drought. 8+ inches. The plants are happy and the paintbrushes will keep for a few more days while our city is filled with people laughing downtown. Families and groups of friends out for a nice meal. Birthdays. It’s really nice to sit and have adult philosophical conversations about life, the universe, and everything else. There’s a Revelation theme in the 3rd seal/famine horseman going around, but it seems to more mindful eating and drinking. Got to try new fruits called Spanish limes and Amish style orange watermelons. Perfect with salt. Speaking changes for the better, about two years ago discovered that many popular drinks contain bull’s blood in them for color and switched to water and local...
Finishing part three of the fall festival linen quilt class: embroidery. All the pomegranates. Shout-out to Freeman’s Creative in Durham for all the new linen yarn they’ve gotten in lots of color if you’re looking for nicer Italian linen yarns in North Carolina. So many colors! Also, finished our 50-60 local RTP community gardens survey in an attempt to figure out how to survive a century extreme drought next time. Some community gardens failed too, but a number sailed through with no problems which are worth sharing. The ones doing the best are 40-50 raised beds with fertilizer around a water central source from wells and rainwater barrels for easy watering. Little libraries, benches, food pantries, and counting scales feature heavily. Many churches have an adopt a bed program for roughly $10-20/year to cover costs of fertilizer which is clever. Small children’s books are loved. Edges of the gardens often have fences with pretty passion flowers, herbs, and grapes on them to produce 1,000-2,000 lb/year on average. Some gardens are doing closer to 5,000-8,000 lb/year, but that’s the exception. It is nice...
