Bi-polarity

My nature is very dualistic. Besides being a gardener, until the farm can support itself...I am also a massage therapist and a bartender. On Mondays and Tuesdays I do 3 hours of massage before going to my full time bartending job at night. People are often surprised that I would have two very seemingly different means of employment. But to me they are not so different. I actually really do love people, after all. I love their stories, I love their surprises. At times I do not love them, but in that I love the contrast too. I am a very spiritual person, but I also LOVE to dance. Two of my favorite music groups/singers are Metallica and Enya. I love beer, and wine, and going out to bars, and parties, but I don't do illegal drugs. But back to the employment....in both these professions I connect with people and help them relax...sometimes, if I may be so bold as to say, I can help them heal, at least in some small fashion. That's what I love. But I would get bored only doing massage, and although I might not be bored, only doing bartending would not be good for me. I need the grounding, the reminder that I get from massage. Gardening does that too for me, helps me stay connected. That's so important. I always go back to this idea I've had for years and years that the disentegration of community is causing most of society's ailments. Our society has become a bunch of boxes in a lot of ways and if you don't fit into them sometimes it's hard to find a community. Alex is convinced that is where modern religion has gone terribly wrong. Disconnecting from the natural world. Nature is where it's at, people! Anyway...I'm trying to get Alex to do some posts on this site, since it's her farm too...so I'm going to start differentiating when I write...this is Sherry...that's all for now. :)

7 April 2010

Today I noticed the bleeding hearts are in bloom.

When a neighbor knocks on the door, you never expect them to say they just killed your dog.


Death has a way of cutting in line, demanding attention before any and all of our other little notions about what the day will bring.

To Prune or not to Prune

So Spring is here now, and all of our babies are waking up from their winter nap to a beautiful season. We're trying to make up for last year's mistakes and get a head start this year so we won't fall too far behind. The Lavender garden is a big project. Alex and I went out there the other day, clippers in hand, ready to rescue our dying plants. The weeds did a number on them last year, and lots of our beautiful babies were half-killed by the evil crabgrass. The Lavenders look woody and dried out, but most of them have new green growth at the very end of the old dead stuff. So she starts cutting away, snip, snip, snip, "giving them a haircut" she likes to think of it as. But me? Oh....the horror. I have a real problem with pruning in general, not to mention pruning out of season. I am so afraid that I am going to cut in the wrong spot, or too much, or not enough. I'm so afraid that I'm going to kill the very thing I love.

I panic and Alex comes over to give advice, "cut about a third, and try to leave some new shoots if you can." So I go back at it, dismayed face, telling the Lavender, and reassuring myself...."she said a third, that's the rule." It's an unreasonably stressful thing for me. I feel on the verge of tears, and have to keep taking deep breaths. Alex says, "you really have to be okay with this, it's kind of an essential part of being a gardener." I know. I know...but I feel like I'm hurting myself when I cut off all this beautiful new growth.

I feel like this plant tried so hard to survive for us last year, despite our incompetence, and the fight with the weeds, and it survived. And instead of being grateful, and happy for it, here I come along and cut it down again. But we have to. If we let it continue, it's just going to get gangly, and ugly, and not very healthy. We know pruning now might hurt the plants. Some of them hardly have any new shoots at all, but if we don't try, we're not going to be able to keep them anyway. It's a risk, and it's our fault that they are like this, and I guess that's what feels so bad. I just have to learn to forgive myself, and pray that the little bit of life left in the Lavender can forgive me too.