Obessing

Obsessing

I am obsessing over Turkish yogurt; G.D. Gross’ 70% cacao chocolate; watching all of Dempsey and Makepeace on U-Tube; and getting the weeds out of 20 of my 70 square meters in my garden this year so that something else can grow there next year. I am also obsessing over getting sand and manure for the garden, and clearing the remaining 50 square meters of weeds, but that will just HAVE to wait.

I took on the yogurt as an additional source of calcium – needed along with MUCH higher Vitamin D – to counteract my osteoporosis. Now it is almost impossible to stop eating it until the yogurt tub is empty. Pudding should taste this good! Never mind about pudding! This yogurt defies the need for embellishment, although fresh ripe cranberries might just up the obsessive quality.

Yogurt and chocolate:


The chocolate ought to be a no-brainer! Surely by now EVERYONE knows that cocoa is positively GOOD for the body, don’t they? True, I do keep reading reports that support that idea. However, I MAY have ignored reports that contradict it, but, if I have, it is only because I want to believe it really is as good as my tongue insists it is.

I rather enjoy the cultural and gender dynamics of Dempsey and Makepeace. I didn’t get to see all of it when it was on TV in the previous century, and in this century, I didn’t buy the complete series when I could have. I don’t mind rewatching it on U-Tube. In fact, though I do watch it out of sequence, I really enjoy it. The only things that bother me are the small U-Tube screen, and having to upload the next 10 minutes worth every 10 minutes. Nevertheless, I am having excessive obsessive fun doing just that!

The weeds will still be there next year! (more joy) Rebecca recommends JUST growing weeds. This would be a brilliant solution, if I wanted weeds. The trouble is I want things like: onions, spinach, kale, peas, beans, flax (and nettle – which many people would classify as a “weed”), beets, turnips, potatoes, basil, parsley, sage, rosemary, lavender and so on. I must admit that the parsley, sage, rosemary and lavender are doing well. I’ll find out about the potatoes soon enough. I have a potato growing experiment going on. Some of the onions seem to have done well too, which is amazing since they are almost overwhelmed by weeds! I also actually have three peas! No, no, not pea plants, I have nine of those. I mean the entire crop of peas is three peas! I KNEW I should have planted beans!

Garden: first the potato experiment, then the weed infested onionsand finally the thriving herbs.




Actually I planted the peas more for their nitrogen fixing ability. It is also another reason I like the nettle. That poor soil is so “poor” it is a wonder anything grows in it! Hence a reason I want the manure. One of these years, when the weeds are more under control, I will spread some nice HOT manure (preferably goat, sheep, horse or cow in that order) on the dirt in the fall and let it cool off under a nice blanket of winter snow, then dig it in the following spring. Perhaps then I could have four peas or even six! The sand is for the root crops and the herbs of course: it will give the roots room to expand and the herbs will get good drainage. Thinking about it increases the amount of sand and manure that would be “sufficient”. I’ve been straining my imagination to figure out how to get truck loads of sand and manure to the area. I don’t just want “some” sand and “some” manure, I want A LOT of both. Good thing the area is still covered in weeds AND not readily accessible for trucks, or I really would be obsessing about this. Do not tell me that a tractor could reach my garden. I do not want to know that!

Dang, but that reminds me Vesa wanted to sell me a John Deere way back when all I had was a balcony! Seventy square meters is still too small for even the smallest garden “tractor”. Still it’s kind of like big power tools: use them once and forever dream of having a personal machine shop loaded with drill presses, lathes, routers with the full compliment of router bits, not to mention entire swarms of saws, blades, chisels, and clamps. Heck, if it isn’t at least as well equipped as Norm Abrams’ New Yankee Workshop, then it’s definitely time for another visit to the hardware store! And thus another obsession is revealed. There you have it. I am obsessively obsessed!