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Christmas 2009: Does The Garden Smell Fishy To You?


    Behind our mother-in-law’s hideaway — a humble structure of 650 square feet — we created a plentiful garden. In Year One (2008), which enjoyed a banner tomato-growing season, our 10 by 20 patch produced tomatoes in abundance, and we gave bagsful to a neighbor to share at her church. Our success made me boastful. “I feel agriculturally competent. And beneficent. By sharing with true believers, afterlife points will accrue.”

    In Year Two (2009), we hoped to brag, “Our Better Boys are not only tasty, they grow in the bounds of a rustic, dry-stacked stone wall.” I googled famous walls of past millennia and pointed at the screen. “Look, Mary, our wall will be equally famous.” Enthused and optimistic, we took delivery of $400 worth of rocks. More fools were we. Our purchase, clearly discarded by someone more knowledgeable, only humorously formed themselves into something we called a garden wall.

    Stone edifice erected, Year Two crept forward amid a convoy of rainstorms. We realized too late our past success had occurred as a fluke in virgin soil during an accidentally dry year. The summer’s rains brought muddy shoes and root-rot. I pondered our failure. “Mary, the garden is nothing but clay; we need better soil.”

    Planning for Year Three, I shopped for dirt. On the other end of the line, the man said, “I just dredged an old fishpond.” Fish poop, I thought, good fertilizer. Didn’t the Pilgrims bury a mullet in every hill of corn? How could we lose? I called Dirt-Man back. He said, “I’ll come tomorrow.” Thrilled, I spread tarps in the parking area — life had taught me you can’t sweep dirt out of gravel. Wheelbarrow after wheelbarrow, we moved the fishpond to the veggie plot, where it spread like snowflakes. I wondered, should it weigh so little? The answer came days later when it rained: silted, fishpond fecal matter is not garden soil. It was boot-sucking muck. A local told me adding sand would eliminate the fishpond soil’s quicksand tendencies. Also, soil testing and other corrective measures could be needed. If I ever retrieve my boots, I’ll tell you how it worked out.     

    Perhaps you also recall our 2008 autumn purchase of the “The Rocket,” our 26 year-old truck. Using convoluted rationalization, we decided — OK, there was no we — I said, “We have no need for an expensive, late model truck. A cheap used one will do, and we’ll only need liability insurance.”

    You may call it what is was: Schram’s Folly. From the outset it made the garage smell because of its general incontinence. It also suffered from unpredictable narcolepsy. One day, the engine took a nap during a heavy rain on a two-lane highway, almost killing us. Needing guidance, I consulted with various neighbors — male, of course — who agreed, “This truck doesn’t have many moving parts. It should be simple to fix.” Simple. Guess again. Engage your imagination and watch us burn through the money.

    The Rocket’s narcoleptic tendencies continued. On another day, when it died on the road between Lost and No Service Available, I gave up. “Sell it, give it away, set it on fire, I don’t care.” We banished it forever. Don’t ask its initial cost or how much we spent trying to make it reliable. I won’t say; it’s too embarrassing. But I learned one thing: a rusting gas tank is not a desirable accessory.

    Ah, life’s lessons . . . . If you read my summary of 2008, you marveled at how we saved money by personally pressure-washing and stripping our house in preparation for re-staining. This year revealed another result of our parsimonious efforts: even baby-sized residential pressure-washers gulp about two gallons of water a minute. We should have given that requirement more thought. When living away from the city, one becomes one’s own water and sewer company. After days of pressure-washing, our well pump — a submerged apparatus 540 feet underground — ground to a halt on a holiday weekend. Yes, you guessed it; even in rustic North Carolina, holiday rates apply: $4,500!

    Thus enlightened, this year we hired a pro to wash the guesthouse exterior. However, we re-stained it ourselves, rationalizing our self-help effort would offset part of the pump-repair fiasco. Unfortunately, our tenant in the mother-in-law’s hideaway tired of the daily rattling of ladders and our faces at her bedroom windows. (We did not look! However, the guest house soon became available. No smoking, no pets, for those who sought rustic quiet.)

    Afflicted with home-improvement zeal, we reexamined the own house, with its phone-booth sized main bathroom. Yippee! A new project. I voiced the idea, “We could extend the bedroom and build a new master bath.” If you are reading this and thinking similar thoughts in your own home, I suggest another think. Look at the requirements: break up and install a new septic tank; replace the post-and-beam load-bearing wall; match the tongue-and-groove wood on floor and ceiling; re-shingle the aging roof and more. Sanity prevailed. We scratched that plan—the estimated costs exceeded our mad-money account. A new, much less expensive plan won out — make the house look bigger. A friend helped us build a wrap-around deck for 1/20th of the cost. And next spring, sixteen flower boxes with impatiens! Mrs. Schram is thrilled.

    This conclude our life-report for this year. Some people write annual letters of grand accomplishments; we err and educate. We hope you feel enlightened. And should you wonder, we are still physically and mentally intact and have paid for another year at the gym.

    Merry Christmas, and as the Germans say, have a good slide into the New Year.

Postscript - for a holiday bonus, go to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC8vX99Q0Lw
for something from my childhood.

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