Monday, May 16th 2022
It’s 3:20 in the morning. We don’t really have white nights here. I am a little bit too far south for that. We also don’t get the Aurora Borealis. We used to get pickles but now there’s climate change so I’m not sure. But it seems as though it never really gets dark this time of year. Or maybe it does closer to midnight but the sky definitely has color to it. It’s a very dark blackish blue and you can clearly see the silhouette of the trees. There’s enough light to see but if you go outside.
There are some great ironies in the world. My last bit of disagreement with my ex partner was about her trying to give me this mosquito repellent. There were no mosquitoes yesterday. Well, maybe no mosquitoes is a little thin but compared to Saturday, there was a ceasefire. Maybe the mosquitoes talked amongst themselves and decided I was too worthy and adversary to continue attacking. More likely, it just cooled down a little bit and the cold weather sent them into dormancy.
There are lots of tricks to living in this house. One of them is that the house is built beautifully for summer. With the windows open and the fresh air flowing through all the rooms, it is lovely and cool all by itself. There is a place in my office where I have a couch under two windows that is probably the most luxurious place I know of when it’s hot. But every night as dusk approaches, you have to close all the windows and stop the fresh air. It becomes stuffy very quickly but it’s necessary. Dusk is when the mosquitoes come.
There are gadgets that you can buy. This chemical garbage but my ex partner tried to give me is something. There are zappers and bug Killers and bug lights and tiki torches and stuff to rub on your arms and face. The hippies have several different essential oils that you can use. I personally find that rubbing a little coffee on my skin is enough to deter them from bothering me.
What resonates with me though is simply closing the windows at dusk. I guess there will always be mosquitoes and when it’s wet, they breed and come to life. Everybody knows this. But I like the gentleness of simply closing the windows for a couple of hours. You get used to it. It’s not so bothersome to have the windows closed and have it be a little stuffy. It just makes opening up the windows in the morning that much nicer when all the fresh air comes in. Who knows, maybe we sleep better with the windows closed.
One thing I’ve noticed though that is really disconcerting. I really have gotten old. My ex partners athleticism and how physically strong Dima was in handling the well cleaning was almost shocking to me.
There was a time not so many years ago where I was not afraid of any physical labor. I was not afraid of digging or hauling or riding long distances on my bike. But now none of these things seem even real.
There was a moment in the garden yesterday when my ex partner grabbed the wheelbarrow and went around one of the boxes and set it up on the other side. We had mixed up some potting soil with some Ash and was using it as a planting medium in the boxes. But just the way she maneuvered the wheelbarrow around the corner and down a small slope and up the other side seemed alien to me. If I had done that same movement, almost every step would have been an adventure. And agony. I would have been fighting pain with every step. It was like looking at some abstract thing. It was unimaginable.
It’s crazy what has happened to me. What has become of me. I mean, I’m proud of the garden. I’m proud of the work I did. I’m proud of my dirt. I’m proud of the decisions I made and I’m proud of the work that I’ve done. I’ve been banging on this Garden for months. But then on days like today I look up and I realize that a small professional crew could have done what I did in a day. And if we are talking about corporate prefab garden boxes, they would have had a couple of idiots pull it off a truck and throw them on the ground and drive away in 15 minutes. Bring in a mini tractor and just drop several buckets of corporate dirt in there, collect some money, shake my hand and they’re gone. Same result.
The world has a way of making us feel small. It used to be a dream of mine to make a restaurant. I used to love going to restaurants at one time in my life but the ones I liked were the ones where the owners worked there. I like going to restaurants where the person who had financial ties to the place actually participated in the work. But now when you go into a restaurant or a coffee shop, 99% of the time you’re just looking at slave labor going through the motions for a paycheck. The actual ownership is usually some corporation and the cafe or restaurant itself was slapped together in a matter of weeks. Completely prefabricated. The palate for the color scheme, chosen by a professional designer months before.
If you were to visit town, you would find that there was basically one Street that’s interesting to hang out on. This street didn’t used to be a party area. It used to just be a sleepy little business district where you could buy some things you needed for your house. It was all very small and very old and very slow. Now it is exactly like a million other places to go visit on Friday and Saturday night. Now we have a corporate English pub. We have a corporate coffee shop. We have several corporate jewelry stores. We organize parties now and they never stop playing piped in music.
The kids gather there and play music. People walk around staring at each other or go to the bars to get drunk or hook up. There is a scene where everyone tries to be noticed or to be someone special to someone else.
Of course I’m talking about something normal. People live this sort of life when they’re young and single or when they’re older and divorced or when they are married and bored. People just keep needing people and loud music and prepackaged, precooked Frozen restaurant food.
The most important thing is image. The most important thing is to appear clean and corporate rich. The most important thing is to be clean to the point of sterility. The most important thing is to appear to be painless. And then, you try with all of your heart to fit in with the picture. Clean, corporate, sterile. Instagram worthy.
When I lived in New York, I used to go to a Chinese noodle place for breakfast. They hand made the noodles right in front of you. All different sorts and they also brewed their own soy milk. It didn’t cost very much money and everything was made from scratch.
When I lived in San Francisco, my favorite breakfast restaurant was called Tygers in West Portal. I wouldn’t say the food was fancy but they hand cut the potatoes and Jocelyn, the owner, was there to make sure that everybody was doing okay. I’m not sure how she acquired the restaurant but she did and it was not just her property, it was her job.
Last night’s dinner was beans and greens. The beans were what was left over from planting. I had soaked them to get them growing but we didn’t plant all of them so I had to cook them. Then I made the mistake of asking my ex partner to cut some horseradish greens for me. I guess I didn’t explain it well because she brought back a huge basket, more than I could ever eat in one meal. I guess she felt like she was shopping in town.
You have to cook horseradish leaves in oil. You can put some water in the pot to steam them down at the end or to support some kind of starch or porridge in there. But you have to cook them in oil. They taste okay but oil has a way of taking a sharpness out of things. I guess whatever the chemical is that makes horseradish hot is oil soluble. It makes sense.
But she couldn’t stay for dinner and I couldn’t even make her a plate. She doesn’t like my food. I’m not particularly fond of her food. She buys her food at the corporate supermarkets. She likes the diversity. I like keeping things simple and practical.
You know, I didn’t need to build this Garden. I’m pretty pleased with the project but I’ve definitely made a dent on my landscape. I’ve also created a lot of work for myself and I’ve ended up spending money on materials. I’m probably going to spend another $50 to buy a surface pump that will not vibrate the well so much drawing water.
You know, I could have just agreed that I have enough greens growing wild on my field to keep me going. I could have dug a couple of small holes and thrown a bunch of zucchini seeds in there and I would have had vegetation all summer. A few pumpkin seeds for the starch and the fruit trees. It really might have been enough, it would have been a lot less work to set up and would have required almost no money. I wouldn’t have had watering problems, I wouldn’t be measuring my well or worrying about the quality of my water. You don’t have to do much of anything for pumpkins and zucchini. And as far as the trees are concerned, well, I’ve got roofing panels sitting in front of them and they all seem to be doing fine. The only ones not coming in ironically enough are the ones that sit right next to where my neighbor parks her miserable Mercedes van. Those three trees right where the oil stain is are dead.
Or maybe I’m missing the point. Maybe this is my restaurant. Maybe I am cooking exactly the food I want to eat and maybe I’m happy having the responsibility to take care of it. Maybe my pride in accomplishment of having built this is actually more than I think. Maybe the obligation to do more than stare at the field means something. Or not.
All I’m saying is that there seems to be some kind of a competition for image and I can’t compete. No one can compete. No human can compete with corporations and corporations are inhuman in their abilities to create money sucking enterprises.
Truthfully, I liked it better the way it was. At the time, I was really busy with my English teaching. I had so many students, I didn’t even have any time for myself. I couldn’t stop people from approaching me to teach their kids and there was a steady stream of people to my apartment for years. And that main Street in town? I knew the owners of all of those places. I knew all the people at the market. Everybody knew everybody and we were town.
Not anymore. They have Kmarted us. We have been kfced. We have been Russified and corporatized and cleaned and sterilized. We have been asked to be hungry and to fight for what is ours. We have been asked to hate and be angry and to isolate ourselves. It is illegal not to make money.
And of course we make lots and lots and lots of garbage. We need lots and lots of lots of plastic to bring home all of this prefabricated sugar laced carcinogenic food. It is important to ruin the land and the air and the water. It is important to buy bottled water shipped in by trucks. It is very important that some corporation finds a way to make money off of our misery, our loneliness, our sickness and our desperation. It is very important to keep up appearances. It is very important to post a really good picture on Instagram.
***
3 months and they are getting close to an oil embargo. The country has no GDP other than selling their natural resources and to take some 3 months to even think about an oil embargo.
Maybe somebody can explain to me why they are bombing Lviv. Lviv is in the West and the oil corridor to Crimea is in the east. They’re just murdering people for nothing.
***
The groundwater is at 2 m. This is 20 cm lower than when we started. It looks like our guy gave me 20 extra centimeters with the cleaning. Basically, he added 126 l of capacity to the well. That’s not nothing. It wasn’t the meter I wanted but he seemed enthusiastic and worked hard and said there was a real reason he couldn’t go further. I have to go with it as being the truth and be thankful for the extra 126 liters. At the moment, I have 90 cm of water which is 567 l.
The water is a bit slimy and grimy from the cement he put on the walls. I need to dump this out today but I am going to wait for evening and water everything if we don’t get any rain. We won’t get any rain. The weather report says we are not going to get any rain in the next 5 days. They never correctly tell us about getting rain but they are always spot on about no rain days.
Also yesterday, I did notice that the well recovered much faster than it did before. I’m going to say that this cleaning operation was a success. Maybe it was not the optimal success that I had hoped for. But all things considered, I’m not sorry and I went to a good guy.
So the answer to the question is to be ample but a bit stingy if that’s possible. I’m definitely going to water three times a week. I’ll do that like religion. But I’m going to limit the amount of water that I put out. I don’t think I can make 25 L per meter. I know this is supposed to be optimal but I don’t have it. We are all going to have to do with less.
However, I am going to have to replace my water pump. Perhaps I can sell it and make back some of the money I paid for it. It is not a very valuable instrument. But I cannot use a submersible pump without turning up all the sediment inside the well. That sediment won’t kill you and it won’t really kill the plants but it won’t really be drinkable water unless I take the vibration out of the operation. If I’m going to have to rely on well water, I need to pick up a surface pump.
I looked at some reasonable models and it looks like my number is going to end up at something between 150 and 200 rubles. Basically this is about 60 or $80. Not the end of the world but money is extremely dear these days. Sanctions are affecting everybody including me and the United States government has never shown the slightest inclination towards giving a crap what happens to me. The same is true for quite a few American friends as well.
But if I am going to grow a vegetable garden, I need to make this investment. MoneyWise, I don’t know what Dima will want to put a gutter system on the barn roof or even if he’ll do the job. That’ll be a materials Plus work. And if I buy a few more barrels from my barrel guy, this will tack on to the total expense. This expense will not break me or put me on my knees. But it’s enough to make me feel damn certain that we get it right.
For sure I’m going to town this week. I could buy this pump online and they could deliver it but I have some questions that I don’t think I can ask online. Maybe I can. But then again, it’s always better to support your local people rather than buying from the corporations. Usually, things are a few rubles cheaper at the market and, you know, you’re talking to a face and a name and a person who lives here. Better to support them.
As for today, I feel kind of washed out. I can’t really say why. I have a ton of greens still laying around and I still have some beans. They will end up being supper and probably I’ll mix in something to give it a little bit of taste. And I think I’m going to go pick grass from my boxes. I don’t feel greatly enthused to do any serious material moving today. I should do some more mulching or at least cutting grass or filling up one wheelbarrow with leaves. None of this is heavy work.
Other than that, not much. If it gets really hot today, I can hang out inside. Maybe I can do some web work. I’m always putting off web work.
Or I don’t have to do anything really. I could just take a lazy day. I don’t have anything important to do until evening. I guess this is my choice.
***
This is not good.
https://mobile.twitter.com/InformNapalm/status/1525916768182624258
***
This is good.
Recognizing that single-use plastics are one of the most taxing factors of our industrial world, this company produces plates for restaurant fast foods made of residual pulp from sugarcane plants. They say that it’s biodegradable and compostable. There are other countries and other similar companies mentioned here who are also taking steps in this direction. It’s not the answer to the question of environmental destruction, but it’s definitely a decent step.
***
It’s 7:20 and I am basically packed up for the day. I’ve been packed up for a while now but this is the first time I thought too close up here
I pumped 30 cm of water today. That’s roughly 200 l. I gave everything a wet down. I probably could have done more but I didn’t want to rest the pump on the bottom. It didn’t matter. I kicked up enough crap from the bottom that I was pumping brown water by the end.
It remains to be seen what the well looks like tomorrow morning and tomorrow afternoon. If this cleaning job works well, one or two more pumpings should get most of the crop out and if the sediments are allowed to fall to the bottom instead of staying embedded in the water, I can go back to drinking it.
I had an idea that might be worth a try. It has to do with putting the water pump in a bucket but surrounding it with cloth. This would dim the amount of vibrations and perhaps kick up less sediment. It is more primitive technology but if it works, it works. The definite solution if we’re going to pump the groundwater at all is to choose a surface pump. It’s not that expensive and it does not completely destroy my budget. I’m just cheap and there’s a war on and there’s enough negativity already in this project to have me doublethinking all of my choices.
I don’t want to make a big deal of it but I got a call from a conservative group. I’m not going to be specific. They are local and they were doing something called rubbing my nose in it. The note was short and sweet. “Why didn’t you give us a chance?” My answer to this was the same as with every single person I would rather not associate with these days. The answer is that I did give them a chance. I did leave my door open and I did try to be a good person. This Hope was in vain.
When Donald Trump was elected president, the conservatives all said that we should just give them a chance. We shouldn’t fight so hard in opposition. The majority opposition during the Obama administration had basically handcuffed the president and disallowed him from even choosing a Supreme Court Justice. That bit of Injustice led to striking down Roe v Wade and demanding that women bring all pregnancies to term. This is despite rape. This is despite stupidity. This is despite overpopulation, economic problems, familial or personal instabilities. The unilateral penalty for getting pregnant when you really don’t want a baby.
During this period of time, the conservatives did not vote any individual set of values. We did not have individuals representing their regions, we had a group of people voting as a united front. All of their votes were the same and all of their rhetoric was basically bullshit. They never could actually explain their actions. They just talked crap and said we have the power and you have nothing you can do about it. Basically, they were playing with the law and the laws and the people of their constituency. And of course they did this for money. They make money off of human misery in the oil business and the corporations. It’s called corruption.
At a glance, the American conservative party is remarkably similar to the United Russia party. Единая Россия, the party of Putin, absolutely votes uniformly. They follow the directive of the president unilaterally. There are many questions about the fairness of elections or about party policy. Locals, in my experience, get played with over their resources. Moscow makes the decisions and opposing them causes suffering.
I make my choices based on practicality. I do not however back down to coercion. I do not give up power over my right of decision. Certainly, when the cop came to my house at the behest of my neighbor and threatened me with his gun, I did not think it was wise to argue with him at that moment. But I did not back down on my position or my argument and I never have. And in subsequent meetings with this cop, I have not allowed him to have the power of fear over me. I’ve never spoken to my neighbor again but she still thinks the situation is humorous. She laughed when I fell today and swore. I guess disabilities are humorous to ugly ex prostitutes.
The point is that this coercion that we are all under, this economic pressure that we are all handed, this disenfranchisement, this disempowerment, this lack of agency that we have to make our own decisions needs to get pushed back. There are genuinely important issues, universal issues, literally existential issues that because we are asked to ignore them, we are literally being asked to commit suicide. This is for money and power. We are being tortured for money and power.
The answer for me is ecology. One negative thought that I had today is that I myself am now putting pressure by using all this groundwater. I’m using all the groundwater because we are not going to have enough rain and we are going to have the 13th or 15th or 20th consecutive year of drought. My neighbors are not going to stop laughing in their stupidity and selfishness and ugliness. The local constabulary is not going to change its tune and start believing in the environment first. The Russians are not going to stop shooting people to have free access to oil in the Black Sea. No one is going to stop haggling over oil money long enough to realize that we have completely destroyed this planet.
I don’t like being spoken to by people I don’t respect. I do not like power people believing they have any ownership rights over my body or my life. I don’t like being played with as a toy by people who believe that they have such unlimited power that I should be some object to them. I’ve often felt that I understand what young women must feel like. To be pressed into understanding that they are nothing more than possessions. To take all of their goodness, their heart, their love and their trust taken away and to be told they are nothing more than meat is an unfortunate waste of humanity.
It’s so easy to be a troll. When you are insulated, you feel you are endlessly powerful. When you feel someone cannot touch you and you yourself live your life obsequiously, you can see how people revel in the opportunity to pass the sadism on. I’m sorry, I’m just not into S&m. I’m not into bondage and I’m not into power. I’m into the environment. These are my only politics. All I care about is ecology and the health of this planet is all I vote for.
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