In the works

Dear friends, I think I'm doing it again. I'm front-loading my summer, determined to end up just as flustered and distracted and slightly crazed as I was last fall. I seem to be heading towards it headlong like lemmings for a cliff, in fact. Sigh. I just don't learn, do I? I'm wired this way.

This spring/summer, my goals list reads like this:

• Fence garden
• Lay brick paths in aforementioned garden
• Build greenhouse
• Get chicks 
• Plant more fruit trees/bushes/maybe hazelnuts?/maybe a willow hedge?
• Plant one or two more shade trees
• Transplant overgrown things from garden by driveway
• Overhaul main flower beds.

I'm telling myself I'm getting a jump on things, with the pile of lumber beside the driveway and the rolls of welded wire fence in the garage. Oh, yeah, and the big and ever-growing pile of bricks there. That too.

I am a scavenger, and it feels terrific. Scary, yes, but also terrific. I decided to become a scavenger of brick after I realized (via Craigslist) that anyone in possession of any significant quantity of old brick wants to sell said brick for $.35 apiece. Needing 600 bricks, and not wanting to pay $210, I began to consider the ruins of the old Derby knitting factory, in downtown Binghamton.

Photo by Mary Schwarzhans

No signs, no fence, no Keep Out, no No Trespassing, no Cross This Line and Die. Plenty of brick, though, you see.

Photo by Mary Schwarzhans

 So far, about 350 bricks have come home with me.

Photo by Mary Schwarzhans

In my mind's eye, there's a corner of my garden where I've laid out eight 4 x 8' beds in a basketweave pattern. The bricks in the paths between the beds are also in a basketweave pattern, and all around there are pretty lettuces and herbs and edible flowers and bright dewy things growing... it'll be the gourmet corner of the garden, the frou-frou. The rest of the garden is for potatoes and tomatoes and corn, beans, and squash. Food crops. But just this little corner over here is for beauty, and special-ness. And for growing some really awesome salad.
A little corner of Eden, really. I can't wait.

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