Garden update, now with vocab!

This is not about books, music, or films, but it is partially about words.

I have realized that when I am telling people about my plants, I sometimes use words that they don't know, and that it is completely reasonable that they don't know. 

(Does this happen with my political writing?) 

It has come up more with "volunteers", but what really drove the point home for me was the look of disgust on my sisters' faces and their immediate objection to my maybe putting down "green manure". 

In January I had posted about some of the issues I'd had last year, and trying to figure out how to make it better this year. 

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

I decided what was really needed was to till and add soil. It was possible, but it did not go as expected. There were a lot of delays and I got a really late start on planting. 

I put in a round of pumpkins and sunflower seeds. The seeds were older, but I have had luck with that before; this time nothing was sprouting. I was thinking of augmenting with plants anyway, but again, due to the late start, no one had pumpkin plants.

I really love growing pumpkins, but I was giving up on it happening this year. Then I thought of this pumpkin farm we visit sometimes. I reached out to the farm store.

They don't normally sell plants, but she advised I check with the owner. He said he could probably find some volunteers, though there would be no way of knowing what they were.

First vocabulary term: "Volunteers" are the things that are growing that you didn't plant. Yes, that does mean your dandelions and crabgrass, which could be spread by wind or animal movement, but you can also get bigger things. 

We had to uproot a seedling for an oak tree that I assume was buried by a squirrel. It might have been an okay spot for temporary food storage, but it was a terrible place for an oak tree. One of my Master Food Preservation teachers had tried planting tomatillos, and they failed, but some of the seeds ended up in compost and spread around the yard, and they grew like, well, weeds.  

Since he had not planted them, he did not know what types of pumpkins they would be. Of course they could die or get too late a start, but this was my last chance for the year.

He found me three. 

One was in one of those big flower pots that you plant different flowers in for an arrangement; there was something there they had not planted. It was pretty small.

One was off to the side of one of the main pumpkin fields. The root system was really shallow, but the vine was strong.

One was in the middle of some grass near the house. That's the one that lived.

The small one withered right away. The shallow roots lasted longer, but did not make it. It was during a heat wave when I planted them, which was not ideal. 

But one hung on. It kept spreading forth bigger, greener leaves, but not vines. Yet it was still producing little pumpkin babies. 

It turns out there is this thing called "semi-shrub" that grows like a bush. I like the vines spreading all over the place and flowering everywhere, but I can see how for some plots this size would be more convenient. They do tend to produce smaller fruit and blossoms.

One friend tried a plant ID app that was torn on whether it was pumpkin or squash. Since it came from a pumpkin farm, I am assuming pumpkin, but there's no certainty.

Actually, this stirred up some memories. Pumpkins really are just a squash, which mainly divide into summer and winter squash, but they can interbreed. One year I planted pumpkins and yellow crookneck squash and harvested orange crookneck squash. 

This also reminds me of a cousin telling me about this section of a huge squash that he got at a flea market. He was trying to find out what kind it was, because it was really good, but they couldn't tell him. Now I assume that it wasn't any established variety; somebody planted the right other kind of squash next to a Hubbard to make it more delicious.

(For more fun on what makes pumpkins themselves, try reading Pumpkin: The Curious History of an American Icon by Cindy Ott.)

Three surviving vines would have done a good job covering the front yard, at least until the first frost. That's not what I got, plus there is the back.

"Punt" is a football term, when you kick the ball further away from your end zone. It's not because you think you can score -- you would try a field goal for that -- but because the other team is getting too close to scoring and you want to buy time.

My punt is that right now I am planting a lot of peas and green beans. They have a short growing season and should make vines. If nothing else I need to keep the new dirt from flying away or becoming a giant litter box for the neighbor cats.

Then, before the first frost, I have to figure out what I do next, and what to do between now and a good starting time for next.

One of those options is "green manure".

Green manure is a cover crop planted for the purpose of enriching the soil. Before the next year's planting, instead of harvesting you till it back into the soil. You can think of it as instant compost, except the "instant" is doing a lot of work there.

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

It's not a coincidence that the other things I am planting are legumes. If I added in some corn, with the beans and pumpkins it would give me the Three Sisters, but it's way too late to plant corn.

https://www.almanac.com/content/three-sisters-corn-bean-and-squash  

There is a lot I have not figured out yet. That feels pretty normal for me as far as gardening is concerned.

For now, I am at least hoping to see some baby pumpkins getting bigger and turning orange. 

Your relationships and environment

Not all titles can be clever.

Some of you know that I used to do a preparedness newsletter; that's where the Sunday blog came from.

It often focused on pretty tangible preparedness for emergencies, but your emotional resources are a part of survival too. 

It totally makes sense to look at your environment in terms of whether there are nearby farms or you are in a food desert and are there plants contaminating the air and water or a pipeline that could explode without warning. Today, though, we are just asking...

Do you feel safe expressing yourself politically?

Would the neighbors shun you? Might you get a brick through a window?

Look, even here in the liberal suburbs of Portland, I know people who have had their Pride flags stolen and I see Trump and Thin Blue Line flags all the time... there aren't really monoliths. 

In general, though, are you able to express your views safely?

If not, you may be feeling some isolation. That may be more true on a day when a lot of rhetoric is flying around about how liberals are evil.

If your area seems bad in that regard, there is a good chance that it would not be economically feasible to move. You can still try and find community.

Look for the helpers. Maybe there are some like-minded people working on getting more supervision on the polluting factory or organizing to improve the food desert. 

If you don't find anyone, maybe you could start something and bring people in, but first check out who is around you. It might be surprising..

I should also note (and I promise you that dominator culture plays a role in this), it is not unusual for volunteer organizations to have terrible political struggles, with some people wanting to take leadership so slandering some members and playing favorites with others. I have seen some terrible burnout in dog rescue.

As we get into the relationships, we have to remember that people are not perfect. Also, you are people.

Who empties and who fills your bucket. Who listens when you are hurting? Whom can you ask for help?

The very important related questions are who confides in you? Who asks you for help?

Not having good answers is not where you throw up your hands in despair; it's just a starting point.

Maybe you need to reach out first. Is there someone whom you think might need help, and you would be willing to help them, but they haven't asked? How hard would it be for them to ask you?

You can tell someone that you are there for them, though it may require some reinforcement before they believe it.

You could also find that you would like to help others but you feel like your bucket is too empty. Is there someone you could talk to about that? 

If it's less pressure to do something that is not a big need, like a nice note or cookies, just because, that can be a perfectly fine starting place.

These are only starting questions, but I am going to throw two more out there knowing there are common patterns that come up:

Is your primary social engagement coming from work? 

Today's world makes that pretty easy, but changes in work can disrupt those relationships very abruptly, even when you socialize outside of work.

If job troubles happen, is that going to leave you isolated?

Also, if you live with people, do you all recognize each other as full human beings with the rights to their own thoughts and ways, who need to respect and be considerate of each other?

Sure, I ask that thinking more about husbands and boyfriends being sexist and not granting women their full humanity, but you know, it can happen with parents and children too.

That doesn't mean that you have to break up the relationship, but often people will struggle to realize they are not respected -- maybe they are not even liked -- and it's hard to move forward from that.

Respect is something that you both feel and do. My younger sisters and I are in a good place, but there was some anger and fighting along the way. Don't despair if things aren't good yet.

At the same time, if things are mostly in a state of detente achieved by ignoring issues, there may be room for improvement. That improvement is worth the discomfort that it will require.

I know there is nothing very concrete there, but it can't be concrete because it is so individual.  

It is also worth it.

Now in this worst timeline, there are previews of the accelerating stressors, so use them as a guide to what kind of improvements might help you and what improvements are possible.

We still need to be able to imagine something better, and implement it if we can. 

After the case studies, moving forward

Looking over the case studies has given me many thoughts about how we got here and what we do next.

I have been vacillating between giving personal tips and things to think about versus the importance of having some dominator culture analysis.

I think the analysis will take longer, so here are some tips.

Actually, today is more about the devastating reasons that we need the tips.

Looking at the three case studies, they were in different states of comfort and happiness, which seemed to be greatly affected by personal relationships and environments.

Obviously, in the same way that relationships form part of your environment, there can be some fuzziness on cause and effect in the relationships. I believe B's unexamined sexism damaged his relationship with his wife, and then that damage led to him becoming more misogynistic.

Life and people and situations can have all sorts of complications and nuances and they are very personal.

Because we know that, we are not going to necessarily judge people for what they do or don't do; that is not the purpose.

What we can do is consider our situations and options and then try and do better as we have the means.

Remember, A was the most conservative but also the most comfortable; most of us are at least suffering mentally now.

I do not expect that comfort to last, but the things that will cause that will not make life easier for anyone.

I predict future (already starting, really) difficulty along various lines.

We are going to see declining health with more difficulty accessing health care. That's not just vaccine-related but also deregulation and less enforcement of existing regulations. There will be deaths, but there will also be a lot of disability. Notice the increased talk of eugenics (even when they are not calling it that) and increased talk of institutionalization, especially  when we are talking about mental illness.

Growing stress and declining civility leading to more violence leading to increased fear, with increased fear also coming from incarceration of homeless people and immigrants. Yes, there have been deportations, but the camp in Florida seemed to be more about incarceration.

There will be more environmental disasters with worse government response. This is going to destroy jobs and housing situations. Also, we are seeing less job security and protection for workers. 

Add to that the rising cost of living on multiple levels, with some items becoming very hard to get, that is going to mean declining quality of life and private companies buying up real estate and this is also going to drive people into homelessness, which may drive them into incarceration.

Artificial intelligence in wrapped up in all of this, contributing to less respect for workers and more job loss, more environmental damage and energy instability, more psychosis, and less ability to get good information, which the government will not help.

I want to point out something with the increasing threats: you are not meant to feel safe unless you are "with them", but being with them is a moving target. The hate always needs to expand. Currently the people who care about the "good" immigrants that they like are starting to get it, maybe, but that will expand.

It's easy to feel very angry and bitter, but that won't help. Acknowledge the anger, because it is fair; then think about surviving and helping others.

And how do we survive and help others? 

That's where we start looking at our own relationships and environment. 

Case studies: Possibly the most relevant one

It's easy to think that most of my conflicts would be with conservatives; at least on the surface we seem most diametrically opposed.

However, I got on Facebook shortly before the country elected our first Black president. I think that might have caused some sifting, where I don't even remember the conflicts. I remember there were some, but it's been a long time. Certainly the oddball bigot pops up here and there, but my bitterest disputes seem to be with leftists.

That's why I say that C might be the most relevant, but of course the interesting thing about disputes with leftists is that they are so similar to disputes with conservatives. They are...

• Confident that they possess the moral high ground.
• Discounting of the most reasonable things you say.
• Quick to become abusive.

It should be better. Trump is a way more vile person than Bernie Sanders, so you would think that someone devoted to Sanders would not be as noxious as someone devoted to Trump. As reasonable as that premise sounds, it just hasn't been my experience.

In this case, C could not stand my support of Hillary Clinton. He kept attacking my posts in her support, which I kept defending in turn. 

The point of the breach was that in checking out his own page I noticed I was not the only friend who disagreed with him, but he didn't seem to be attacking the men in the same way. I asked about that.

"How dare you accuse me of sexism!?!" 

From my perspective, I was only asking a question to make him think. I did have my suspicions that he was sexist, but I didn't think he was doing it consciously. Maybe that was condescending of me. Anyway, he unfriended me and the conversation ended.

That wouldn't even be that interesting, except that it surprised me that he is avoiding politics so much right now. 

There's a lot going on; most people are posting a lot, with lots of outrage and concern over the current government's corruption and depravity. 

Leftists contributed to these, so their posting is often kind of defensive about how Harris would be just as bad on Palestine or how Democrats should have given us a better candidate, but they are still posting. 

Why isn't C?

Last I knew, he was living in Texas, like A. That may not be working as well for him.

The most noxious leftists are living in New York or California, where they are a lot less likely to be beaten up for their beliefs. That could make a difference.

There you have it; those are all three now.

Can we learn anything from this?

I am willing to post more about that.  

1957 - 1954: August Songs

Writing about July, I mentioned that I was going to have to switch to only five songs per year at 1955, partly because there were fewer songs to pick from, and partly because they were a lot cornier.

Don't get me wrong: I like some of these corny songs. For my Ballroom Dancing 2 final, I choreographed and danced a tango to Hernando's Hideway. I did that because the soundtrack to The Pajama Game was one of the records we had when I was a kid. 

Those songs from 1957 were very popular in movies and television in the 80s, and I have residual fondness for a lot of them.

It's still nicer with rock. 

I don't know that "Rock Around the Clock" specifically had anything to do with increasing the number of hot songs in the year-end roundup, but it is generally considered to be the song that brought rock into the mainstream. Having rock around did make things different.

I found Nik Cohn's Awopbopaloobop Alopbamboom: The Golden Age of Rock pretty annoying, but I may need to revisit it. In retrospect, things that stuck with me from it seem important.

He had pointed out that previously young people and their parents were listening to the same music; then rock was adopted by only the youth.

Now, Cohn's racial analysis was terrible (that was one of the annoying things), but I know variations of this music had been around for a while; it just wasn't being listened to by the white middle and upper class. 

I suspect that was a big part of the conflict; these kids from nice families are listening to music for poor people, if not expressed in those words. That it happened at a time when these nice kids had pocket money added fuel to the fire and cash to the industry.

Cash does tend to help things catch on. 

From Billboard's Hot 50 

1957

8/1 “Whispering Bells” by The Del-Vikings
8/3 “Mr. Lee” by The Bobbettes
8/3 “Old Cape Cod” by Patti Page
8/4 “Green Door” by Jim Lowe
8/5 “Chances Are” by Johnny Mathis
8/6 “I’m Walkin’” by Fats Domino
8/7 “Silhouettes” by The Rays (Repeated on 8/8)
8/9 “Searchin’” by The Coasters
8/10 “You Send Me” by Sam Cooke
8/11 “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” by Harry Belafonte

1956

8/12 “Moonglow and Theme from Picnic” by Morris Stoloff
8/13 “The Great Pretender” by The Platters
8/14 “Be-Bop-A-Lula” by Gene Vincent
8/15 “Long Tall Sally” by Little Richard
8/16 “Lisbon Antigua” by Nelson Riddle
8/17 “Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley
8/18 “Why Do Fools Fall In Love” by Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers
8/19 “More” by Perry Como
8/20 “The Wayward Wind” by Gogi Grant
8/21 “I’m In Love Again” by Fats Domino

From Billboard's Hot 30   

1955 

8/22 A Blossom Fell” by Nat King Cole
8/23 “Cherry Pink And Apple Blossom White” by Perez Prado
8/24 “Love Is a Many-Splendored Thing” by The Four Aces
8/25 “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley & His Comets
8/26 “Mr. Sandman” by The Chordettes

1954

8/27 “Sh-Boom” by The Crew-Cuts with David Carrol
8/28 “Papa Loves Mambo” by Perry Como
8/29 “Hey There” by Rosemary Clooney with Buddy Cole
8/30 “Hernando’s Hideaway” by Archie Bleyer
8/31 “Answer Me My Love” by Nat King Cole

Case studies: The saddest one

B is the one who I think is divorced now.

I already mentioned him declaring the truth of the clip with a man imperiously telling a woman that gaslighting doesn't exist; but there was something else.

It was a picture of Ryan Adams requesting that he be freed. B captioned it, "He once broke up with a girl... the horror."

Ryan Adams is not in jail. He has many releases including this year, so is not prohibited from working. 

However, there are people who look down on him because of harassment allegations. Seven women, including his ex-wife, said Adams offered to help them musically, but was really trying to pursue them romantically, and then retaliated and harassed when his advances were rejected. Adams has apologized for this, after initially denying it.

It's not the most recent post, but one where his personality is coming through and looking pretty misogynistic.

One thing about the three is that they were all at very different places politically when we scuffled. B was someone who liked conservative traditions but did not like the direction they were going.

Often those were the types who would say that they are socially liberal but fiscally conservative (which is a crock), but I think he was a little bit too religiously conservative to have fully supported reproductive choice. I imagine the direction he went was full-on libertarian, but bitter about that being his most palatable option.

I too am very sad about how the Republican party has devolved. I mean, they haven't been that great for a while, but nothing good has come of it getting this bad.

(Sorry for those who thought this nightmare would propel the revolution forward. You were wrong.)

(For the Republican devolution, a lot of people will look at Lee Atwater and the Southern Strategy as the start, but even if you don't go back to the end of Reconstruction, I would at least go back to the Dixiecrats. It was a process.) 

While I understand that it can be very hard to admit that you were wrong politically, I don't think political trends took the worst toll. 

I believe his biggest problem was the unacknowledged sexism. Of course I respect women. Of course I support their rights. 

But in this moment I know that I am right and you are wrong... somehow repeating in every moment where there was a conflict.

I believe that harassment is bad in theory, but in practice it keeps not seeming that bad.

Of course I know that you are a complete human being, but... over and over.

It is easy to avoid acknowledging those patterns baked into the patriarchy. It would take digging deep to grow out of them, in a way that is not comfortable or flattering. 

Plus, if his sexism is benevolent enough and her expectations are low enough, you can get along fairly well for quite a while. 

The benevolent sexism still wears down the recipients, less gradually as it becomes less benevolent.

Times like these are not great for benevolence. 

Know that not examining your sexism affects your political beliefs, and that racism works in much the same way, but less frequently in such intimate relationships. 

Case studies: The first one

I know... I keep going back to those former friends.

Let me try and put some perspective to it.

I have thought about doing some blogging on predicting how different things will play out and what might be good things to do for various circumstances. I still might.

However -- in my obsession with people mattering -- I think it is most important that we hold on to our humanity. 

That gets tested in different ways.

All three of them started out differently, so the differences between them now make sense.

Since it looks like I am going to be spending some time here, I probably need to assign codes.

The one who is now in Texas will be A.

The one who seems to have gotten divorced will be B.

The one who mostly only talks about music now is C.

A was always conservative. He was not a mean-spirited person, but would easily believe that all of our problems come from immigrants and that they are all illegal and criminals, regardless of facts.

Let me put it this way: he sincerely believed that pregnant women who didn't have health care would deliberately get arrested so they would have health care through the birth. They could just arrange to have someone to care for their baby from birth until their release date, and that this happened regularly. 

He gave them credit for not getting abortions. 

I can't guarantee that this has never happened, but I doubt it. There have been so many horror stories about awful health conditions in prison, with needs being ignored, giving birth in showers or alone in a cell, where the slightly less awful stories are about giving birth in shackles. Then, if you are someone who does not have the resources to get health care, it is very possible that you do not have people with the means and willingness to take care of a newborn. The most likely result would be a very stressful pregnancy, a nightmarish childbirth, and then the child going into foster care and a real risk of never being reunited.

This makes me skeptical about it being a common plan, but there is a conservative mindset where other people are always abusing the system, and it is easy to do. Unless you are a white man; then everything you have was earned!

I would say that he is the one who is currently in the best frame of mind. I think there are two reasons for that. First of all, he has intact family relationships, which is huge. In addition, I don't think he gets challenged a lot, especially since moving to Texas. 

Remember, with all three relationships, the fractures happened because they were facing arguments that maybe their worldview was wrong. They were enraged by the stubborn refusal to acknowledge how right and smart they were. 

Right now I think he has it pretty easy. 

Mind you, I don't think that will last. This administration is trying so hard to kill so many of us that for all the pain now, there is more coming.

As it hits different people at different intensities, some will change their minds, but some will really hold on.

Denial is powerful.

I don't begrudge him the satisfaction he has now. 

I also don't envy it, and I don't know how long it will last. 

Uncontrollable rage?

There is a point that I want to make about those "former friends", but I think maybe to get to it I need to mention another memory first.

I was at Beaverton Transit Center waiting for the train. Over on the bus side, this man just started yelling at this woman.

She was ignoring him. It was not certain that he was yelling at her; he was not acting lucid so I can't rule out hallucination. He stayed pretty focused in her direction, though, so it seemed to be her.

There were lots of people around, and it was not long before she got on a bus. Even if he had followed her, there was a bus driver there, so in that context it did not seem dangerous, just unpleasant.

None of those details are really uncommon, but it stayed with me for two reasons. 

One was the intensity of the rage where it seemed to have a visible target. Often that kind of meltdown is directed at someone invisible. Also, while the visible person is very upset, there is often more fear or despair or something like that.

The other reason it stood out was that I had some suspicions about the origin. 

The man did not appear to be homeless, but most of the people I had seen exhibiting similar behavior were homeless. 

I had learned by then was that while it is certainly possible for someone mentally ill to become homeless, it is more common that homelessness -- with the stress and lack of security and dehumanization -- brings on mental illness.

I acknowledge that this was supposition, but it was a strong feeling. I felt that this was someone whose prolonged anger had taken away his balance and brought on delusion.

If you look for associations between anger and mental illness, initially you find those in the other order, like bipolar disorder or borderline personality disorder might lead to rage outbursts. Well, maybe, but there are people who have those disorders and will not rage at you. 

We also look at children having tantrums and accept that a normal part of growing up is emotional regulation, where you get better at dealing with emotions in appropriate ways. 

(Or maybe some children learn mainly to repress their emotions; our society is not perfect.)

I suspect that you can also lose the ability to self-regulate, especially if you don't see the value in it. Now being loudly horrible is demonstrated by people at the highest levels of government. Previously, people in those positions would often be kind of corrupt and horrible, but they would maintain this veneer at least. 

Would it surprise anyone if I added that in that incident, it was a middle-aged (or so) white man yelling at a younger brown woman?