Renew!

[digitS']

We have all started. Another couple of days of too much wind stressing the tomatoes but the cooler temperatures have been good for the broccoli and Portuguese kale. I got trellis around the zinnias to give them some help .

It's good to have some depth to the bench. Some flexibility.

What's the alternative? I am rambling but, at least, I haven't fallen in the river.



My 100 year old father still uses a phone. He still gets outside now and then. He lost his cellphone. I am not sure how long it was before that was learned. The nurse who visits them, and his wife's relative, made arrangements for a new phone.

He called me the other day on the house phone and I talked to him. My hearing aids are supposed to be really special for phone use. Ridiculous ... but then again, he has better hearing than I do .

Anyway, he tells me that he can't figure out how to use his new flip phone. ( He has worse eyesight than I do .) I tell him: Play with It. Play with it.

Usefulness given up to Innovation is difficult. And too often, we are tricked by those interested in making a profit from our curiosity but we can be cautious. Retreating may be wise and is usually possible but avoidance of the new is limiting and moves us another step from reality. We are perpetually out-of-step, anyway. We have our limited resources, local perspectives, our relationships, history, media, our mental constructs. It's natural.

I was going on the other day about how young people tend to treat me politely because I'm in that "less than 10%" group. DW says, "yeah, yeah," dismissively. I said, "you better be nice to me!" DW is younger than I am by quite a bit. It's not universal respect, for sure. Exploitation and victimization are extremes.

Mistakes? I don't like to make mistakes and I'm probably more risk-averse than most. After all, Dad always signs off by saying, "take good care."

Youths making mistakes at least have the advantage of youthful resilience. The elderly should have some resilience, also. I mean, we have messed up before -- there is evidence that it didn't kill us.

Steve

 

[Ridgerunner]

Although I've had my "officially old" card a few years it was driven home yesterday. While loading 50 pound bags of sand at Home Depot a guy looking in his 40's stopped to help. Just a nice guy stopping to help the elderly. Of course I was polite and grateful, but I'll admit to some mixed feelings.

I've done similar things in the past. Interesting in how your perspective changes when you are on the receiving end.

 

[flowerbug]

i'm just happy to be here. how i am here and what i'm able to do changes moment by moment. i sit on the ground pillow, sometimes crawl, adapt, nap, read a book or frog around on-line.

there are people much-much worse off than me so i take it all as i can and press on.

i'm not perfectly fit by far, however, in a pinch i can lift 100lbs a few feet quickly (i did that once to save a girl from falling off the outside of an escalator - she was goofing around with a friend and didn't think of what would happen when she reached the top - her friend could not have done it but i was there and saw her and lifted her back over the railing without a thought). some time in the future i may just sit on the bottom stair of the escalator (instead of walking up those stairs too) and let it do it all, but that time is not yet come.


p.s. @digitS' glad your Dad can still talk and be legible at 100.

 

[Zeedman]

We have all started. Another couple of days of too much wind stressing the tomatoes but the cooler temperatures have been good for the broccoli and Portuguese kale. I got trellis around the zinnias to give them some help .

It's good to have some depth to the bench. Some flexibility.

Agreed, its always good policy to plant both warm & cool season crops, to cover your bases come what may.

Youths making mistakes at least have the advantage of youthful resilience. The elderly should have some resilience, also. I mean, we have messed up before -- there is evidence that it didn't kill us.

Youths have the advantage of time... time to do move on, time to do over, and time for others to forget. When those of us in our later years make a mistake, we're stuck with it... but hopefully those mistakes are smaller, and fewer.

i'm just happy to be here.

Congratulations! You are now an official member of the OTHG (Over The Hill Gang).
(of which I am a proud member)

 

[flowerbug]

@Zeedman, thank you, thank you, i'd bow in return, but this early in the morning that can be a hazard in so many ways...

now get off my lawn! hahaha! (we hardly have any lawn left as it is so i can rarely use that expression accurately)...

 

[Zeedman]

@Zeedman... now get off my lawn! hahaha! (we hardly have any lawn left as it is so i can rarely use that expression accurately)...

Lawn is just a cover crop that hasn't been turned under - yet. I've steadily been converting my lawn into food production, just need to remove a couple stumps for the next addition. Having found that Japanese beetles are coming from the lawn gives me less & less reason to grow grass.

 

[flowerbug]

Lawn is just a cover crop that hasn't been turned under - yet. I've steadily been converting my lawn into food production, just need to remove a couple stumps for the next addition. Having found that Japanese beetles are coming from the lawn gives me less & less reason to grow grass.

sod usually is an excellent material to bury (i turn it upside down too) with all that good organic material. eventually it's worm food. many of the gardens started with me digging a fairly deep hole to bury the sod and if i have any cardboard and newspapers i'll put some of those over it and then fill it back in. after a few years it's garden gold...

as for Japanese beetles, i hand pick them off in the early morning and drown them in a very weak soap/water mix and then toss them out on the gravel and something does keep eating them so i think i'm training birds to eat them or something... i haven't noticed any yet this year, usually the first place i see them is on the wild grape vines. i can hand pick hundreds for weeks and weeks, but if i don't do it they'll go after the bean plants.

there is a biological control spray that you can use to fight them too, but i don't like that it has collateral damage to other beetles/larvae, plus you'd have to get the entire neighborhood to use it. i'm curious this year to see if my removing of some of the grape vines will have had any effect on the population.