It’s been a Journey

BlackBerry patch which has overrun its boundaries. 15 by 15 feet. _Blackberries

It’s been a journey for me with this yard. Like, I didn’t really get how much work it was going to be and how difficult it was going to be to get through some of my own mental baggage around yard work.

Of the many things I’ve been working through with myself and working on around the yard, the blackberry patch was an early beneficial project. With out getting into the meds that is my psychology, re-taming the blackberry patch was bite-soiled project with bite sized project which was good for getting my past some of my internal stuff.

The first year was just cutting out the dead, which was a lot. We weren’t sure if they’re one year or two year canes - actually, we may not still be sure - so had to do multiple cut/check sessions over the course of a few months. We mostly go that solved and go to the point that only “stuff what produced fruit” remained by the end of the first season.

The second year was better defining the actual edges of the patch. Further escalating at the start of the season this year uncovered stones through what seemed like the center of the patch to give it aisles for easier pickings. However, now that other areas near the patch are in better shape, we think that’s actually edging.

The second picture is the current patch. it’s about 7x15ft (maybe closer 12ft diameter as it is round-ish). The tree on the left is apple and we are starting to think that the patch is supposed to start at the drip line which would mean that it is about 5 feet out of bounds. That five feet is about where those stones are.

Sooo……. what is currently a “center aisle” may actually be the original containing wall… O_O.

Oops?

It’s not about the broken glass.

No justice, no peace.

The world keeps breaking apart into smaller and smaller pieces. Just when it feels everything you know has been atomized, we invent new levels of dissolution. I’d be impressed if I had the mental energy to think about it. Right now it’s a struggle to remain positive about anything. And there are positive things happening.

Bloody hands there. Bloody hands everywhere..

Alyska and I went down town early Saturday morning. We wanted to see what the capitol and state street were like after the protests. We tried to balance between seeing, documenting, and experiencing the streets, the destructoin, and the reason were, as a country, have gotten here.

It was difficult not to feel like a tourist in an art exhibit both because the broken things have been boarded up and the city is coordinating ways to help vent some of the anger through an art campaign. People have been cleaning up.

Commissioned by the city. Please respect. Respect reserved.

Out of pain and atomized glass, there’s something getting built on it. In so ways, this is good and in others, bad. Painting a veneer of over the anguish that has brought us here doesn’t fix anything. But that veneer being an attractive way to present that anguish helps keep people looking at it and thinking about it. And I’m there, taking pictures of that veneer. I wasn’t at the protests and I haven’t said much about the situation - I feel like I’m only tenuously holding my own atoms together thinking about COVID, my and Alyska’s high risk, having started a new job (same company, different role), and the demands of the permaculture garden we’re building.

The property damage is a release valve. People’s lives are under all this and that’s the important piece. Property can be replaced and people cannot.

There’s people under here that shouldn’t be.

I hope something greater can come from all of this. I have to hope for that because I can’t really see much beyond this veneer. I can see some of the pieces, maybe see how some of it can fit together, but there’s a lot of fragmented stuff out there to bring back together.

Say their names. Love trumps. Love matters.

Minuet

Minuet has taken to burrowing in the winter. It is disgustingly cute.

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