Meetings, Emergencies, and Onions (and Garlic)

Today was just a slogging, miserable day - the kind of day where you start meetings at 0830 that bleed into other meetings, then into meeting for an emergency, then lunch when you talk about the emergency, then another meeting about the emergency, then you end up leaving 8.5 hours later (rising time is 0430, with a 2 hour commute in the afternoon) missing yet another meeting but you have a carpool, so off you go. The fabulous thing is that you have somehow managed to avoid doing any of the work that you intended to do, so you have that to work on as soon as you come in the next morning.

And the emergencies - that's the sheer insanity. There are moments when one feels as if one is trapped where the very process of thinking has been somehow abandoned, where common sense was left at Tivoli, where not only does the right hand not know what the left hand is doing but it is questionable if any two fingers on the same hand are moving in the same direction.

So to make myself happy, I planted onions and garlic.

The garden is getting ready to make the switchover from winter to spring: The wheat, rye, and barley are in full head now, and I am digging around them, preparing for the next round. The potatoes have sprouted, and I had the rather unusual experience of trying to plant asparagus - the root balls were big, and they take up lots of room, and then I figured "If I can plant them in rows, why not post holes?" We'll see - these things never work out well for me.

I planted three types of onions - yellow sets, seeds for Alisa Craig (a yellow bulbing onion), and Red Torpedo Onion ( a not surprisingly red onion). I like planting seeds, as it does give you more selection, and you can plant them closer - you pull them early for green onions (Yum!). The garlic are just plain old 3rd generation Safeway that I bought and have saved - although I have been getting some fabulous purple heads (which are hot - again, yum!).

It's amazing to me how happy being in the garden, working with the soil and plants, makes me - not that I have any more control over the process, but perhaps because I am less at the receiving end of circumstances beyond my control.

And, I suppose, that I get to eat the fruits (or vegetables) of my labor, instead of collecting more paper which will eventually be recycled.