Mind Your Dirt – Page 17 – The weirder side of urban organic gardening with a smidgen of backyard chickens and danger

February 5, 2016

I Am the Worst Person Ever!

Okay, I fully understand if you never want to talk to me ever again. The abusive neglect, the lack of phone calls and the general all around shabbiness of my behavior is inexcusable. Here it is three weeks since my last post and I come crawling back at 7:30 at night reeking of overtime and exhaustion only to write to you a paltry apology that has nothing to do with gardening or landscaping or sustainability. Nor does it have any neat-o photos or illustrations of puppies or cute chickens! How crass. How sad. This is all I can muster at the moment.

A sad little cellphone selfie using the light from my laptop and a meager 5% remaining battery power. One shoe off and an unhealthy dinner getting cold on the counter. Something involving potato wedges and a meat item of sorts. This is my life the last few weeks. Not keeping in touch with my good friends at Mind Your Dirt but eating shitty food long after the sun sets while the couch absorbs my sad tired form.

Why you may ask? Well, see that bronze disinterested lady up there in my feature image? Well, she (and her twin) represent 1/8th of the massive new project at the San Diego Museum of Art. To “free the art” from the confines off storage and bring it to the people of San Diego in all its glory.

There’s me holding the first “E” in FREE. See how excited I am? I’m the one guy in this photo that was most impacted by the project.

A fantastic plan when you are a fantastic person sitting around a boardroom table spit-balling fantastic ideas. But for the poor schlubbs like yours truly, a daunting undertaking to organize the logistics and build the mounts for ginormously massive bronze sculptures when you have zero time in an already INSANE schedule. That said, let’s do it!

My days have looked something like this…

You may feel a little pressure... — You may feel a little pressure…

Each object had it’s challenges, but the Zuniga also had some bad galvanic reaction. That’s when you use two different types of metals touching one another and then stick it outside for several years and they fuse together. Like permanently. Well, someone at some point thought that carbon steel and bronze would be a good idea. Nope. It wasn’t. So Zuniga needed me like the desert needs the rain.

I won’t bore you with the details, but lets just say the last few weeks, as well as the last few years, have been very taxing at the museum for me. But, I tend to thrive under pressure so I soldiered on and we are almost ready for next Thursdays big press preview and circle members opening! Almost.

All of that said, I am so exceedingly sorry to have not been more a part of your life! I have been working in the garden, but haven’t been reporting back to you. I am the worst person ever!

And I am sorry.

Um, wait a minute!! I DO have a cute puppy photo to post!!! My bestest of friends just got a new puppy and I took a photo of her. Hold on…I’ll go get it…

James behaving badly 010_My best friends New Puppy — BAM! Instant puppy photo.

HA! You thought that I couldn’t produce didn’t you? I’ll never completely let you down. Not all the way. Just a little.

What else has happened? Well there was a huge wind storm on Sunday night that jacked up most of my house and yard. Here’s me on the roof trying to fix everything…

And when I got to work the next morning, there were several downed trees…Two people were crushed by fell trees actually! Not these, but you get the idea of what 80 mph winds can do.

And then when I got home, I fell these mini trees…of broccoli.

And one of my friends that buys my extra eggs shared this photo with me of one of my backyard chicken eggs next to a store-bought egg.

Let’s see, what else has happened? Oh, these amazing wildflowers are growing behind my museum. They give me great peace when my stress meter hits the roof.

And lastly I will share this snapshot I took of one of the many garden guardians I have hidden throughout my yard. This one is called Juan Buddha. When South meets East, if you will.

James behaving badly 09_Juan Buddha one of my garden patron saints_South meets East — Juan Buddha

Nirvana without siesta is taxing at best.

Okay campers, that’s about all the steam I have left in me at the moment. I’m typing very poorly and there will be little to no spell-checking going on up in here tonight! Plus, those potato wedges really depreciate in value when the heat leaves them. AND Sasha needs belly rubs like crazy right now.

I DO have tons to share with you about my garden and stuff. Including root knot nematode battles so please bear with me. I’ll also be in Mexico City for work for a week and change this month. But I’m hoping to have time to write a bunch of stuff on the cargo plane…

Again, so sorry and I love you all with all of my being. that may be the sleep-dep talking…

January 20, 2016

The Pure Joy of a Husky Seeing Snow for the First Time

Or, What I Did the Day that Bowie Died…

If you’re anything at all like I am, you need reminders of happiness and simple joy right now. The loss of David Bowie has had an unexpectedly profound effect on me so this is a gift to myself and hopefully, to you.

We don’t get much snow here in San Diego but in a stormy winter like this one, you can drive an hour from the beach and be in snowy mountains. An extreme juxtaposition indeed! Geez, I really hope you gardening folk like photos of dogs, because you’re about to get an overload of them!

My girl Sasha is a husky-lab mix who has never ever seen a single snowflake in her short life. An unthinkable scenario given her breed. The song of her ancestors sings to her of the cold blue biting blindness but she has no frame of reference. I imagine her soul was sick as a result.

Well, no longer! Because for Sasha, das wunderhund, Winter has come! She was so excited and amazed and confused she didn’t know how to handle herself. She’d dart in one direction, freeze, spin and then flop around burying herself into the snow.

Here she is in a gleeful sprint. Just look at that face!

Sasha's First Run in the Snow. — Sasha’s First Run in the Snow.

And she wasn’t alone, she had her two friends with her, Noe and Edie. It was another dog party up on Mount Laguna, part of the Cleveland National Forest. Here’s a whole mess of photos from our delightful day…

Diamond Dogs 03_Three dog night — A Three Dog Night (Well, day).

Unwise to start a snowball fight with a man from Buffalo

It was good for all of us to see snow again. Being from Buffalo, I have a love/hate relationship with it. That is to say, I adore hating the snow. I’ve been served three lifetimes worth of it and am quite content not seeing it anymore.

At least that’s what I thought before last Sunday. But after seeing the dogs romp and play, building a monster snowball and being foolishly challenged by my girlfriend into a snowball fight; I’ve come around. Sorta.

Actually, I’m not sure Nury challenged me outright. Perhaps with her eyes she said, “Have at you sir!”

Either way, challenge excepted!

Oh, there was also a moment where old aunt Edie thought that Sasha’s face was edible (Thanks for the image Nara).

I find it slightly poetic that while one of my heroes was slipping away into the East coast evening, my adorable girl Sasha was having one of the most mind blowing and amazing experiences ever. As one door closes, another opens. It’s been over a week and I still find myself trapped in the grip of melancholy. I spent two hours last night looking at images and video of all my lost glam rockers (Mark Bolan, David Bowie, etc.). If The Universe takes away Brian Eno, I’m not gonna play with it anymore. Looking at the photos above really helps me to shake that feeling. I hope it also gives you a smile and some much needed perspective.

“The greatest thing you’ll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return.”
-David Bowie 1947-2016

January 12, 2016

I Can’t Seem to Get Over the Loss of David Bowie

This post was supposed to be a fun post about Sasha the Husky-lab experiencing snow for the first time ever on Sunday. But then something else happened Sunday evening that I can’t ignore and it has hijacked Mind Your Dirt and preoccupied my mind. I’ll get back to my dog’s joy after this.

I didn’t even know that David Bowie had cancer. After having him in my musical world for my entire life, I simply took him for granted. Even now, I find it hard to imagine that he was not immortal. Maybe it’s because of his seemingly infinite career as an artist. I don’t know. Maybe it’s because of his Goblin King blood.

All I know is that cancer has once again stolen away into the night someone I care about. And this one is having a more profound affect on me than I ever would’ve imagined. Maybe it’s triggering memories of my father’s lost battle to cancer almost six years ago to the day (1-30-2010). Maybe I’m just at that age where the people I care about or am inspired by begin to fade from this mortal coil.

Regardless, I am affected by his loss and am having trouble shaking this feeling of emptiness and sadness. Which is strange when considering I’ve never met the man. But grief is grief nonetheless. And I know that I’m not alone today, and that helps give me some solace. Can we all do an Interwebs hug please?

I will share with you a video from Bowie’s last album in which he was well aware that it would be his last. Be warned, when put into context, this is a chilling sight to behold.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-JqH1M4Ya8?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0&w=1280&h=720]

Not since Johnny Cash’s cover of NIN’s Hurt (after June Carter died) have I been so affected by a seemingly haunted message from beyond the grave. I learned six years ago that there can be tremendous beauty in death. When it wraps its cold fingers around us in its morbid embrace, we can learn of our ever-increasing ability to love. Sunday night my capacity to love has reluctantly grown even more.

I’d like to share some things that may help you as it has helped me to put a smile on my face. I can’t possibly share all of what I love about this man, there’s just way too much.

This first video is of David Bowie and Bing Crosby singing The Little Drummer Boy in 1977. I was three at the time. Bing would not survive to see this air, so I thought it appropriate in the theme of outros.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9kfdEyV3RQ?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0&w=960&h=720]

And this is possibly the most hauntingly fantastic part of the movie Labyrinth. As a small boy, I was moved by this scene and this song. To have a villain not seem tremendously like a villain helped me to redefine the childish construct of pure good and evil. Plus, the M.C. Escher sets throughout tickle me.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJ9BHGX58vQ?rel=0&controls=0&showinfo=0&w=960&h=720]

And lastly, I’ll leave you with this sweet scene from The Flight of the Concords which is from my ABSOLUTE favorite episode (all about David Bowie). Germaine as Bowie is spot on and hilarious! So I’ll end this slideshow on a funny note in hopes that I can somehow get on with my day and the rest of my, now sadder, life.

All I can say at this point is I’m so thankful that we still have Brian Eno in this world! Aw, that just made me sad for Brian Eno. He’s probably having a rough go of it as well right now. They were such amazing collaborators over the years. Which also makes me think of David Bowie using Cut Ups, the bastard child of William S. Burroughs and Brion Gysin. Two more heroes of mine.

Damn, Now I’m singing Heroes in my head! I’ll never be able to get over this will I?

We can be heroes. Just for one day.