Spooky Season: Witches

While most of the books did not have "witch" in the title, it was still something that came up.

First of all, there was some fiction that was not great. 

The best of those was The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna.

I saw it on a library post for the Shameless Romance Book Club. 

That in itself would tend to put me off, but I decided to go for it. It was at times too cute and I was amazed at how awkward the unnecessary sex scene was, but I didn't hate it; that was a win.

In this world, witches are born and have to learn how to use their power. Fear often gets in the way of connection. I thought the relationships in that area were handled well.

With Spells For Forgetting by Adrienne Young, I believe I saw that someone else read it and was curious about the mystery. That resolution was actually pretty satisfying, except that you have some people who don't seem to be unusually evil doing some pretty twisted things, while other people who should be really motivated just let things go for years. 

I could have liked the book more if the people were more compelling.

The better fiction was The Heretic's Daughter by Kathleen Kent, from my Daughters list.

I kept getting it confused in my mind with Gallileo's Daughter, also on that list, but about a different heretic.

This is based on the story of Martha Carrier, executed during the Salem Witch Trials and written by one of her actual descendants. While a fictionalized account, it draws from a fascinating family history. 

Relationships are hard here, as is life, but you can appreciate the struggles and the choices.

Then there was a non-fiction book that was not great, but it led me to a book that was amazing:

In Defense of Witches:The Legacy of the Witch Hunts and Why Women Are Still on Trial by Mona Challet

There are good points, but then there are attempts to be cute. Some of it could be the translation. 

The premise of looking at the types of women accused of witchcraft and why was interesting, but another reviewer wrote that all of the good points were in the introduction. Well, the introduction was written by Carmen Maria Machado.

However, in reading In Defense of Witches -- and reading about it -- there kept being references to Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body, and Primitive Accumulation by Silvia Federici.

The funny thing about that was that it was already on my larger to-read list. It did come up with the word searches, but since it seemed to be more statistical I was going to hold off on it. The various references convince me otherwise.

There is so much in Federici's writing that is interesting and that points to other things to study.

The title is a reference to Caliban from The Tempest and his mother, whom is referenced in the play, but not seen.

The play was written at a time when slavery was expanding, along with persecution of "witches". That becomes the theme of what was going on in society, largely driven by the rise of capitalism.

That actually led me to yet another book (which wasn't as good), but that kind of becomes something else.

We will get there, but I will take one more week to wrap up Spooky Season. 

Increments

Let's say that at this point you are committed to dumping the lawn, but you can't see your path beyond that.

That's still a good start.

There are many directions you can go, and none of them have to be the final destination.

The suggestion you will probably see the most is creeping red thyme. I see stories about it shared a lot, though I don't think I have ever seen someone who has done it.

I am not against it. It will be lower maintenance than grass, it is more interesting to look at, and it is more fragrant, though there could potentially be objections to that. 

It is better for pollinators, in that you do get blossoms before you cut it down, unlike grass.

It is native to Greenland, Europe, and Turkey, so there is a good chance it would not count as a native plant.

That might mean that it feeds some pollinators in their adult form, but may not be good for the larva or eggs or other parts of the ecosystem. It is still a step forward, but it might not hurt to research native ground covers.

One year I got volunteer clover that just spread. I loved it. It was so much springier to walk on than grass. 

Then the heat dome killed it, and it didn't recover quite right. I planted some white clover, and I have some, but I could not recreate what nature had done on its own.

Regardless, it doesn't hurt to check native ground covers for your area. If all you want to do is go away from a lawn, ground covers is the right category to search.

I remember being confused when I would keep seeing various strawberries coming up as a ground cover; wouldn't they be too squishy? Because I was thinking that if it's a ground cover, you walk across it. Then I visited the Willamette Heritage Center. 

The parking lot is two levels, with a pretty steep grade in between. The soil in between is anchored by strawberry plants. It is a ground cover, but not for walking. 

Think about the desired function for your area.

I am going to give you three more ideas.

If this is a holding place, where you think you will want to do more planting next year, you could consider a green manure. That would allow you to use the time in between to build up nutrients in the soil:

https://www.thespruce.com/what-is-green-manure-1761842

If you like the idea of the creeping thyme, but maybe not that much red, you might want to consider a tapestry lawn. This could be a chance to mix in some native and non-native plants. If there is something you don't like, it's no longer the whole area:

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/tapestry-lawns-why-you-need-this-low-maintenance-grass-alternative  

And maybe if you don't like one patch, you replace it with a bush, adding to the complexity.

Maybe it will be a berry bush.

Finally, to get a broader range of ideas, try reading Edible Estates: Attack on the Front Lawn.

There are many contributors for writing, but the artist and architect is Fritz Haeg. 

I promise there will be ideas that would never have occurred to you. Even if they are not for you, it can open your mind to what is possible.

You can find more information at https://www.fritzhaeg.com/edible-estates-book.html.  

Sheet mulching and humanity

I am going to be spending a bit more time on yards than initially intended. That is at least partly because it relates to greater issues.

A few years ago I sheet-mulched a small section of our front yard.

If you are not familiar with the term, you lay down sheets of cardboard or newspapers (if newspapers, six pages thick) and then cover them with mulch and water well.

The way it was supposed to work was that in six weeks I would have a pretty good soil base and it would take out any weeds or grass underneath it.

The positive part of that is that it is still a good piece of ground. Many of the bird and bee-friendly things I planted were perennial and still growing with very little care.

The somewhat flummoxing thing is that it was more like twelve weeks after the start that things actually germinated. I don't know if that was because of the method I used or some other factors.

The unfortunate thing was that it was so much work for such a small patch of ground that I have only tried it one other time, and that was with mixed results.

That means that even though it is much more disturbing for the soil, I am having someone till it to mix in the mulch, and there might even be some spray involved. I am not proud of that, but as someone who is neither physically strong and energetic nor rich, I do have to be practical.

There could be other options that would be somewhere in between in terms of how environmentally friendly they are, but they would also be much more expensive. Back to that not rich thing...

(Plus, most landscaping companies want you to have a lawn, with or without other plants, that they will come regularly and tend to. Even trying to describe what I want gives them the impression I am deranged.)

Regardless, there are two other things I want to mention about sheet mulching, if you are so inclined.

First of all, it used to be much easier to come up with old newspapers. The last time I tried it, I was only able to because someone else had collected some papers when they meant to try it, didn't get around to it, and then were moving and clearing out their garage. The first time, my sisters had ordered some bookcases and I used the cardboard boxes.

You can purchase paper specifically for it, but times have changed and it affects things in ways you don't always expect.

The other thing is where we get to the humanity.

When I was researching sheet mulching, there were things that made sense. For the cardboard packaging, I needed to remove the packing tape. For the newspapers, I didn't use the glossy inserts.

There were comments that all of it was unnatural and bad, that even if the paper was from trees the ink wasn't.

I was worried about that, but it was part of an overall trend that I have seen before.

Some of us will remember Sarah releasing curls to the wind after cutting hair so they could be used in birds' nests in Sarah, Plain and Tall. I once found a post railing against that; that hair is not appropriate material and would tangle the birds feet!

Since some birds do use animal hair -- sometimes longer -- and long grasses, I was not completely sold on that, but I had also seen that you could compost hair and dryer lint. 

No! With your hair dye and shampoos it is all chemical and bad.

You will see similar things about feeding birds and bee houses and pet ownership.

There are things that I am sure are right. I do believe that bees are better off feeding on flowers than leaving fruits out and that leaving food scraps by the road side puts animals in danger of cars. That's completely logical.

I have seen the pictures of angel wing and I know not to feed ducks bread. 

However, if the main theme of the communication is that humans are disgusting sources of contamination... it's not even necessarily that a case can't be made, but that it's not helpful.

What I know how to do better, I will. I will also remain open to learning more and changing how I do things.

I am still here, and I want to be here. I want other people to be here. 

We can work out how to make that better if we have the will. 

That will should not be confused with despising each other. 

I should also note that the warnings about angel wing say what you can safely feed the ducks. The article about not leaving fruits out for bees explained why and talked about how to set up a watering station, which could be helpful.

Some people only have anger and contempt to offer. They are not the best sources. 

Spooky season: From the other side

There were two books that fit in especially well with the theme:

Lily Dale: The True Story of the Town that Talks to the Dead by Christine Wicker

Spook: Science Tackles the Afterlife by Mary Roach

I had read an article in Smithsonian about Lily Dale that referenced the book. It took me about fourteen years to get to the book, but I did it.

When I was reading about death, trying to be ready for something that still hasn't happened, I read Stiff by Mary Roach. I realized that she had some other books that I was interested in. When she is interested in a topic, she goes all in, and I can appreciate that.

Stiff was about what happens to the body, while Spook is about what science says about the soul. That was partly what experiments they do to try and understand near-death experiences, but there was also a section about mediums.

Lily Dale is about a whole town of full of them.

I had already known something about the topic -- and how to fake it -- from reading about Houdini, especially in David Jaher's The Witch of Lime Street. Reading Lily Dale and Stiff so close together gave some different thoughts.

Wicker and Roach both took classes on how to receive psychic messages. Yes, they have those. 

It is probably easier to take one in Lily Dale than anywhere else.

Lily Dale is a town in New York that started as a spiritualist community. It started after the movement started after the Fox sisters started using "rapping" to communicate with spirits.

One of the sisters -- with another present -- later admitted it was a hoax, but recanted after pressure and continued to provide services. Somehow the community continues. 

There is an organization, but there is not a strict dogma. Therefore different residents may claim to get their messages from fairies or the dead or various other sources.

When I was younger, my tendency was to think that such things were either fake or evil. After more years and experiences, I think there can be many ways of receiving information.

There were two things that were interesting about the classes. 

One is that while you are in one, it can really feel real. I believe it was Wicker who wrote about being in a session where they levitated a table. It was exhilarating, and she was amazed, but something someone said later caused her to wonder. She realized it was a trick. The participants did not know it was a trick -- at least not in the moment -- but what about the person leading the session?

That was unclear. Perhaps they believe they have something to offer and consider some showmanship to be a fair selling point.

They are getting paid for their offerings.

Wicker told many stories of people hearing life-changing things that they needed to hear that could not always be explained by tricks or guessing.

There was something else from Roach's account:

People were more interested in the messages they got for others than the messages others had for them.

That obviously can't be the case all of the time, or there would not be people making money on it. However, that tendency to get inebriated on the thrill of having a message for someone, rather than wanting to know what you can know about yourself, seems like a problem of human nature.

But yes, sometimes you might feel or think or realize something that would be important for someone else.

I bet you could even more reliably -- and more helpfully -- figure out things about yourself.

I also watched a lot of Tyler Henry (the Hollywood medium) clips on Youtube.

Honestly, I appreciate that he is so caring with the people he reads for. Is there something to it? Probably. Would it be something they could hear for themselves? Probably.

Then, at some point -- after I was done and stopped clicking on links for Tyler Henry clips -- Youtube started suggesting clips from the US version of Ghosts.

It looks pretty funny, but with a good heart. 

I could imagine watching that.

Feeling fruity

Although I do not buy from them exclusively, I do like looking at Territorial Seed Company:

https://territorialseed.com/ 

In addition to being family-owned, they are very much focused on this area and heirloom varieties. That is important for me.

Recently they had an offer for your own blueberry patch. You could get six each of three different varieties for under three hundred dollars.

I did not question the value of the offer or the enjoyment my household would get from having a blueberry patch in the backyard. However, berry bushes take a while to establish. We would not get a great harvest this year.

My efforts this year are largely being inspired by this disaster of a government and all of the many things that can go wrong, without knowing which things will go wrong and how soon.

There is some speculation that Trump will declare a state of emergency on April 20th to cement his control, kind of a Reichstag Fire scenario.

I don't know that I really expect that. Mainly, I think about how some people celebrate April 20th; talk about harshing their mellow!

If it does happen, it does not matter what I plant, nothing would be ready to harvest then. 

It would also not hurt that I had planted it. It might make it even more valuable that I planted it.

My point is not to depress or discourage you, but to remind you that we don't know the future; we somehow have to make peace with that.

If we are looking at fruit trees or bushes, expect those to take longer to establish. 

I have grown strawberries from seeds, once upon a time. I got strawberries in the second year. 

That can be fine, but starting with strawberry plants is much faster. Consider what you are doing. 

If you are planting a tree, you probably are waiting at least three years for fruit. You will probably also reach a point where it produces a lot of fruit for a long time without too much maintenance. That just doesn't happen with asparagus.

You also need to think about location. Roots will extend and might cause sidewalks to buckle or branches might mess with your gutters, based on location. You need to make sure there are no pipes or lines underneath before you even get started.

I would gladly plant blueberries in the ground; now they say you don't even have to do too much with augmenting the soil acidity (which I would definitely research more before doing). However, if I am am going to grow blackberries, I know how those spread and they are going to have to be contained. As a harvesting preference, I would not want strawberries in the ground, but on a pyramid or gutters or something.

You also need to think about pollination. For example, there are three categories of blueberries: ones that bloom early, mid-season, and late. Mid-season can cross-pollinate with any, but if you have one early bush and one late bush, there's a good chance you are not going to get any berries.

That means there are things to think about that don't come up with a vegetable patch. There are adorable things too, like learning that there are Romeo cherries and Juliet cherries and the reason they have those names is that even though the fruit is different, both trees produce better when they are planted near each other.

(Which may not be that faithful to the play, but that's a completely separate issue.) 

I don't mind that sometimes you are doing things that take work and planning and time to pay off. If I couldn't handle that, I would drop out of my Master's program.

However, sometimes there are things you are ready for and things you are not ready for.

This year I am only planning on planting annuals, where I should be able to expect everything to die after a good frost. It is lower stakes and lower commitment. I will figure out the next year after that.

It is wonderful to have many options. Trying them all at once is not as wonderful.

And you still need to be okay with the possibility of failure:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/02/right-action.html

Lots of vegetables

Part of my leaning toward permaculture is creating a better ecosystem. 

Such a system does produce a lot of food, but eating the food you are used to does not necessarily fit into that structure.

A lot of what we eat was developed and bred into something bigger and perhaps with a preferred flavor.

If you want to eat corn on the cob you grew yourself, you are probably going to need to plant the corn into rows; the teosinte that corn is (probably) descended from was more of a grass, and quite small.

You are going to need cages for tomatoes and bell peppers, because the fruits were bred to be bigger without the stalks being bred to be like trees. 

That's just how it is, and it isn't necessarily bad. 

It doesn't even have to be a conflict because it is very common that people with a permaculture food forest will still also have a fairly typical garden patch in addition.

Since we have tended to default to lawns, which are pretty sterile, if you want to convert that to a garden patch it is going to take some work.

That might be part of why square-foot gardening was so popular for a while. It didn't matter what your soil was like, you were putting chemicals in a box. 

I personally do not like that, but I get it. Honestly, if I were to decide to grow carrots I would probably need to do something like that. My area is known for it's heavy clay soil, and carrots don't do well in that.

I don't mind that so much, because the sandy soil where carrots do well is prone to liquefaction in an earthquake; who needs that? However, carrots are a popular and tasty vegetable.

Carrots are special in many ways. Usually with the square-foot gardening method, your boxes are 1 foot high, but carrots require 2-foot high sections.

Still tasty, and another way you might combine things. You could have some boxes with a mix and some things planted in the dirt. 

I can recommend books for either or both of those.

All New Square Foot Gardening by Mel Bartholomew

Growing Vegetables West of the Cascades: The Complete Guide to Organic Gardening by Steve Solomon.

Solomon goes over many, many varieties; when I first read it I did  not know how you would ever choose. 

I realized that you don't get it all at once. So you try some varieties one year, and then you keep the ones that you like and that grow well, and you try new things the next season.

One thing I will mention tomorrow is native plants, and those generally get planted in the fall. You could try a vegetable garden, decide it's not your think, and fill that area with native plants.

There are a lot of options.

Some of them will definitely fail, and that is discouraging. 

There should also be some successes that feel amazing.

You can find resources through your local extension office:

https://extension.oregonstate.edu/washington

Spring planting

My sisters have a friend who has been overly influenced by Doomsday preppers. Many of the things she mentions would not be bad on their own, even if her understanding is a little off. 

I still think the approach is wrong.

She was talking enthusiastically about planting food and how much you can get with permaculture, especially Jerusalem artichokes.

Ye-es, kind of.

I love permaculture, and should be thrilled to hear people talking about it. It can grow lots of food. It is certainly a better approach environmentally. 

Those things don't necessarily overlap the way you would want.

That's not bad; it just means that you need to consider your goals.

If you do not have any land, this may not be the most useful post, and I am sorry for that. 

There is a lot to be said for growing your own food, especially in times like these. I expect supply chain issues.

One important thing to remember is that a lot of US agriculture is very corporatized and may not involve things that are good to eat. It is not ideal to depend on imports for any type of product. If it's one that's essential for life and you need it all the time, that is all the more reason why local supplies are good.

Permaculture is great for how it can be self-sustaining, environmentally friendly, and healing. Permaculture can benefit all of the flora and fauna, not just the humans. That is wonderful.

Lawns are also incredibly destructive. To really have them looking right tends to take fossil fuels for trimming, chemicals for fertilizer, and it doesn't provide much in the way of food or shelter for any of our pollinators.

Lawns first became popular with the aristocracy in the Middle Ages... does that sound like something that everyone should have? 

You may also have seen people encouraging planting creeping red thyme or tapestry lawns. Possibly also a good idea, though not one that would add to your food supply. 

In January I did write a little about gardening; that post focused on all of the things that can go wrong. 

I have not finished planning what I am going to do this year.

However, the weather is warming up, and the ground along with it; this is the time to think about it.

I will post about different options over the next two days, recommending books and links as applicable.

The starting point is to think about what you have and what you want. If your yard is a play area for children, grass does work pretty well for that.

Otherwise, there are much better options. Some of them are low maintenance once you have them, but they all require getting there first.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2025/01/three-things-gardens.html 

https://preparedspork.blogspot.com/2025/03/mindset.html