I am working!

I do not post as often as I use to.  It is interesting.  When I had cancer, almost five years ago now, you feel as if time is running out, the clock going faster and faster.  There were stories I wanted to tell, episodes in my life, what happened and my reaction to this and that.  If you go through the cancer experience even getting up in the morning is a pretty serious achievement.  I told those stories and I got well, chased that cancer away and now my life is not unlike anyone else's.  Day to day is pretty much the same thing adjusted for the seasons.
I am working now and I should be shouting with joy!  And I am. Oh I could post pictures and tell you the process but I have done that so many times before.  I have showed you my website and you will find what I do there.http://www.PictureTrail.com/slate  a few short years ago I couldn't lift 20 pounds and now I am Superman!  This is my immortality.  I built structures and gates and metal creations that will far outlast me!
It is snowing all across the Nation, all 50 States, I hear!
So many of those metal framed canvas structures from China
are collapsing. It is nice to know I I build strong creations!

I cleaned out my greenhouse early this year and started from
seed all the "cold crops": Spinach, lettuce, kale, broccoli,
cabbage and others.  They are doing well. And Valentine's
Day is time to start my tomato seeds so they are started and
under a light.  I have posted lots about my tomatoes and the
greenhouse so as far as blogging, been there, done that!
But I am happy with my tomatoes and always have the goal of
the best ever!
All is great.

One of my Standing Creations under 18" of Snow!

Garden Palette

 Playing in my studio

 Lettuce in a planter, picked daily.

The "back porch", filtered sun and perfect for fuchsias!

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Nude for now but getting dressed. This is the main garden entry with the Trumpet Vine.

My garden is my biggest palette, where I put most of my effort, most of my energy and all my artistic talents are tested.  I plant early the things that can be planted early.  I have 70 flower pots each larger than five gallons and the early vegetable crops do well in them.  I plant peas in February followed shortly after with spinach and lettuce and chard, cabbage, then strawberries.  I wait until the weather is warmer and I can til my main garden area.  I measured it today,  it is 31' x 40' enough room for a lot of vegetables.  I will plant tomatoes, of course! and squash and carrots and beets, cabbage, peppers and some odd and ends.  I try something new each year but the focus is always on my tomatoes.  I have saved the seeds from the best tomatoes from last year and have a genealogy of tomatoes that go back almost 25 years.

The pool, looking toward the blueberries and my studio

This area has about 20 pots and a waterfall. The "Mural" is 1/2" concrete board.

New area this year, I have developed the area to the east of the greenhouse.

   My garden is divided into areas and is sometimes the same from year to year and sometimes totally different.  I have two garden entries, like a main arched entry and a servants entry, an area of blueberry plants, a sitting  area surrounded in potted flowers and the concrete slab between the greenhouse and the garden with its own 20 or so pots.  It takes about an hour each day to water these pots by hand and I enjoy that time to commune with them.  I like elevated gardens and have flower pots and planters as high as seven feet off the ground.  My elevated pots are on automatic watering systems and the others I do myself by hand.

Three varieties of blueberries about 6' tall.

I'll keep you updated on this area, it gets really pretty!

   Most of my flowers are the same:  wave petunias because they are spectacular.  I do have some others this year but couldn't tell you their names, just "pretty flowers" and a contrast from my usual.

Blueberries and pots on garden wall.

I haven't learned how to place the photos in the proper order to go with the story.  Anyway, my garden has begun and the weather forecast is nice for the next ten days!  Lots to do and plenty of time!

Facebook

I get "friends" requests from facebook, sometime three or four in a single day.  I have no idea how they find me or what they really want.  The only social networking I do is right here, on this blog and sometimes on my other cancer topic blog.  If you want to know what I am up to, what I am making and about my thoughts, sometimes, even the weather, this is it.  I have been in and out of facebook and once had hundreds of "fiends".  I am currently back in because I wanted to see what a particular real friend was up to and had to re sign up to access the account but when I last dropped out not a single "friend" inquired as to why?  It is because they don't give a rip and really, neither do I.  I couldn't even name 400 people let alone count them as friends.  That is what hands are for and why we only have five fingers!  Now people friend me again and I mostly ignore the requests.  I am here.  That is enough.  Even here it is a lucky day when I get 3 comments!  People are busy.
   I am emptying flower pots, putting that soil back into the garden and filling the pots anew with potting soil along with a dash of blood meal, bone meal, cotton seed and kelp.  Plants have to eat too.
I will have more than ever this year and all is well in my greenhouse.  Flowers and tomatoes alongside.
Once you get cancer even if you get rid of it, you always have the idea that "this" could be the last season, the last flowers, the last effort at the best tomato. So make the best of it. Today is always the only day we really have anyway.  Tomorrow is a fantasy and yesterday is gone.  The Beatles had it right.

Blog Topics

As you might know I am really almost never without something to say.  My problem is to limit and focus. In the world of things there is much to talk about, a bit to reminisce, and so many things that I wish to explore.

The only time in my life when I knew everything I was only seventeen.  Now as I get older, with each passing day, I am discovering that I know less and less.

   There are several reasons that I blog.  I can.  That is one for sure.  I am alive and well and strong.  Two years ago I was about as close to death as one can get and still be able to creep back from the edge.  So, blogging is in celebration of life, living.  Screaming into the fire with the notion that I am not ready yet!

   Blogging is a journal for me.  I can look back to see what was consuming me in the past.  I can hunt for inconsistencies, attempt at discovering a pattern and examine my garden from year to year.  I can look back and discover the eggs of ideas that could have been incubated. 

   I like teaching and clearly attempt that from time to time and it is not all about politics.  I have written extensively on tomatoes, on my steel creations and offered a detailed description of my stone posts, enough to allow for easy copying if anyone should want to.  Clearly I like discussion and comments and disagreements always lead to a better understanding.  I don't know any truths whatsoever!  Except maybe it is nicer to appreciate a night sky than to attempt to understand it.

    You can meet people from all over the world in the blogging universe and a few will become your friends.

Some, I could end up at their front door one day and they would feed me and that is a wonderful feeling.

People from all over the world have the same concerns, the same pains and frustrations, similar interests and aspirations.  The Beatles had it right:  We Are One!

   I get ideas right out of the newspapers and always want to know, as Paul Harvey used to say, "The Rest of the Story"?  I am pretty convinced we are not told "the Truth" about anything.  Some is by design, the truth would destroy profit and in other cases we just don't know the truth and mostly don't care to find out.  We are a lazy lot and wish not to investigate any consequences.   I am a "list maker", have been all of my life.  School teaching demanded it, the lesson plans, goals and methods to achieve them, contingencies when things went astray and the necessity for alternative plans.  The construction industry was the very same except when things went wrong I lost money.  That is the source of my "conservative side".  Any mistake I ever made cost me money and sometimes a lot of it.   It costs the employer about $20 dollars an hour to pay an employee $12 dollars per hour.  I had sometimes nine employees, $180 dollars per hour. A mistake would cost me $3 dollars per minute until I solved it.  You learn fast.

   Some of you reading this blog may think that I am a flaming liberal and I am not.  Oh, socially I may be but fiscally I am about as conservative as you can get.  I am not in favor of a Government that gives everything away.  I think that rewards laziness and I hate lazy people.  I think we should all pay taxes equally, what ever that might be.  If every dime of the working man is taxed for Social Security, then I think every dime for everyone should be also.  I am not after the money of the 1% but I want them to pay the same taxes as I have all of my life.  The same.  Equal.  I want "Capital Gains" to be taxed as wages.  Some may say oh they won't invest and risk their money if that were to be the case!  That is garbage.  Everyone, even you and I almost always invest any surplus money that we may have.  That is what a bank account does.

   I Blog because I don't write letters and I seldom use the telephone.  I don't have a cell phone but if I did 100 minutes would last me over a year for sure.  I am about the worst there is on the telephone, quickly get tongue tied and run out of things to say.  Me?  Yes, for sure, I am no good on a telephone.   There are some people I care about though and keep in contact with them through this blog.  If you want to know what I am doing, how my garden is doing, the weather in Oregon or what I am thinking, this is the place to find out.

     The blog world is interesting and slightly mysterious.  The cyber world is way beyond me.  Somebody or something is always listening, noting key words and phrases, hunting for something.  I get advertisements on my screen that theoretically are geared toward me.  I don't know why.  I couldn't afford a "Hot Russian Babe" and my wife would laugh at me!  I go to the grocery store, the hardware store and the local steel scrap yard and that is about all of the shopping that I do.  Sometimes I buy sanding disks or ornamental iron on line and I use my Amazon credits from my credit card to do Christmas shopping.  That is about it for on line shopping.  I have never set foot in a Target Store or Best Buy or Sam's Club or most of the big box stores.  I have been caught in the local Walmart, "China Incorporated" from time to time and always sneak out, guilty as hell.

    I get "hits" from Russia, sometimes over a hundred in a week and it always leaves me curious.  Why?

Did I say something interesting and why would they never leave a comment?  In any given year I have more visitors from Russia than here and they have never left a comment.  Maybe they are not allowed to?  Maybe Hot Russian Babes in search and quickly moving on to more desirable waters?  One of the mysteries of life.

I have had hits from Arab countries and would love to have them stop by for a chat!  Are they really after Democracy or do they want flat screen televisions?  And us?  What do we want?  If we can get 50% to turn up in an election we consider that pretty good!  Newspapers used to be "The Fifth Estate" telling us the truth in a deceiving world and that has all changed with the times.  We don't seek any truth anymore.  Sound bites.

   My world revolves around my little one third acre near the downtown of my little city.  I have control here.

I can turn the water on or off and almost control the weather.  I have my garden, my tomatoes and flowers, the shop and my little studio.  One day I can bang steel together, grind and make fire and on another I can dig and work in the dirt, putting my hands deep into the Earth.  On some occasions I may paint, work in my quiet studio and apply color to canvas just for the hell of it.  Because I can.

   I am always thinking of the next project, inventing something or improving on what I did.  I always get up early and still make lesson plans, list of this or that, what things I may need, how to acquire them, what to do.

The difference now is that I am retired and I know these lists have no importance and I can toss them at a whim.  Like going to Seattle on the spur of the moment to help a friend.  That was simply great.

   Now you know.

The Weather is Better!

This is such a huge country.  Somewhere there is still snow. It is pouring down rain and flooding in Florida and Colorado is burning.  Literally. The worst forest fires in history.  Oregon has been damp, a bit of lingering rain but pretty mellow by comparison.  A light coat in the mornings and shirt sleeves after noon.  Today it is not raining and the sun is pushing through a light layer of clouds.  The next ten day weather forecast is nice and for my up and coming art show, perfect!  No chance of rain and close to 80 degrees!

   I ran around my garden this morning and thought I would show you a few pictures. Despite the rain it is looking pretty healthy and with ten days of sunshine, maybe a real opening to summer, it should take off!  My corn is about a foot tall but with some sun it could still be "a foot high by the forth of July"!  My tomatoes should be taller but they have tomatoes on them.  They will shoot up with some warmer days ahead.

Tomatoes!

I always start my tomato seeds in my greenhouse on April Fools Day and they are up already!  I save the seeds from the best tomatoes from year to year and every year they just get better and better. This is very easy to do if you want to try it.  Ignore all the complicated advise about fermenting them and such.  Just squish some seeds from a good tomato onto a paper towel and put them in a book.  Next Spring tear off little sections of towel with the seed and plant it.  I always get about 98% germination which is better than the seed packets you can buy and I know where they came from.
   Did you know that saving seeds is ILLEGAL?  Especially if you are a farmer and grow commercially.
Google "Monsanto" to discover what you are eating and how they manipulate the food resources. Pretty scary.

   I don't plant genetically modified seeds or use any pesticides or herbicides in my garden.  Healthy plants don't need these.

My Simple Bench...

 Location, location, where to put it?

is done!  Sometimes simple is best.  I never really know what a bench will be until I finish it.  I only have the basic shape and size in mind when I begin it.  They sort of grow and take a life of their own.
   A lot of it depends on what I have in my shop or the graveyard behind my shop.  I almost never buy anything specifically to make a bench.  The seating area is concrete, I have shown you how I do that.  I thought seriously about "painting" this bench; I've shown you those also. You would think that painting a bench with $2 dollars worth of paint would be easier than the slate that I did, but my hat is off to artists who work with paint.  It is a lot of work!  Slate is pretty easy and Nature supplies the colors for me!
   I am still "between jobs" so I am considering making a little table to go with this bench.
   I go on about the weather like an old man!  We got 2 days of sun and then the rains came.  The forecast is more rain for a week.  I gave up on my late corn and tilled it in.  My early corn is up but barely and will never make that "knee high by the forth of July" rule.  The tomatoes look healthy but it is too cold for the blossoms to set.  It will need to be a late, hot summer for them to produce anything.  Funny weather all over.
More of what I do is HERE

Tomatoes, the love of my life

I could write a hundred blogs about tomatoes.  Next to my family and a real close second is my garden.

One of two garden entries

It is divided into vignettes, almost photo perfect segments, little paradise areas in my otherwise industrial back yard.  Most of these are flowers happily in areas to themselves or in various pots I have collected over the years.  The biggest section, "the garden" is the accumulation of almost forty years of working the soil to perfection.  This area, about forty feet by sixty feet is my organic vegetable plot and the prima donna here will be my heirloom tomatoes!  They will easily reach seven feet tall and are proudly supported by my ornamental iron creations.

 My "Washington DC Tomato

    I start my tomatoes from seeds that I have saved each year and every year I am always amazed at what can be produced from one tiny seed!  My favorite has no name.  It is from a plant that I found in Washington DC growing and abandoned in a parking lot strip of earth.  I suspect it is related to the Russian Black Krim or Cherokee Purple variety.  Big, deep, dark,  red and full of flavor like you wouldn't believe.
 
   I start about 100 tomato plants, keep about 25 for myself and give the others to friends and neighbors.  In a really good season, when the Gods are happy and the weather is perfect I may get a couple hundred pounds of tomatoes from these plants.  Years ago I built a food dehydrator and on these really good years with a bountiful harvest,

 It takes about 25 pounds of tomatoes to make about one-half pound of dried chips!

I will slice them up and dry them.  They become like potato chips except they are tomatoes!  The year before last was such a season and I sent these to friends all over the world!

My Entire Garden is HERE

My Greenhouse

     February is almost here and in the Pacific Northwest it will be time to plant peas!  Many people plant them too late and complain when they quit growing at the first hint of hot weather.  I plant snow peas, the edible pea pod type found in Chinese food.  I am too lazy to shuck peas.  Peas are planted directly outside and don't require much soil preparation.  You can poke a hole in the ground and plant them in the mud.  They add nitrogen to the soil and are finished by the time tomatoes are ready for planting, so you can get two crops in one space.

 Polycarbonate windows and slate over plywood walls

     Gardening is my favorite art form, more than painting and working with steel.  I start all of my own plants from seed in my greenhouse beginning April 1st. with lots of flowers and my almost famous tomato plants.  My greenhouse is almost forty years old and I will tell you about it today.

 I always leave one tomato plant to grow in the greenhouse.

It is about 12 feet long and 8 feet wide and built to retain heat.  It is on a 6" thick concrete slab with the first three feet built of concrete blocks and painted black on the inside. It is built like a house with 2 x 4 framing, insulated walls and plywood paneling painted white on the inside to reflect the light. Originally I had redwood planting benches but they have long since rotted away and a few years ago I replace them with a continuous, poured in place steel framed concrete benches covered in tile.  Not only will these never disappear on me, they are easy to clean and retain their own heat.  In the coldest months I can heat this space with a little 60 watt (think one light bulb) heater placed under the concrete bench.  The heat radiates throughout the bench and warms the entire greenhouse.  It really only comes on at night, two minutes of sunlight and the greenhouse is very warm.  There is a large attic fan in the far gable of the roof, set to automatically turn on when it becomes 90 degrees f. This is essential in a greenhouse as two hours of winter sun will make it very hot in there.  I also have a tiny fan, just enough for a little air circulation, that I leave on 24 hours a day.  This prevents "damp-off" disease, the curse of any greenhouse.
   It is a great place to hang out on nasty rainy days of early Spring and that is usually where I am. Tomatoes love to be transplanted, always deeper each time and I will do this three times before they are ready for the garden.  I have had as many as 150 plants in this space and I only keep about 20 for my garden and give the rest away to worthy homes.
More of my Garden is HERE.

Muse?

I have lost that Drive to create art and am not sure if or how I will get it back again, or what form it will take. I wonder what "Art" is, why it drove me before to create the physical out of

dreams and visions that I have had. I still have dreams but now they are swirling dervishes of language and I am dreaming in color. I don't know where to take this or whether it will go anywhere, but it is a bit like the steel, lumps of iron in my shop, wanting the heat from the fire, pounded on my forge until they become what was always within them. Art.

Maybe it is the economy. There is no excess money to purchase what I make and without sales I can't continue. Maybe it is the neuropathy in my hands. Everything I touch is like stirring a bucket full of cut glass. The steel does call for me but only offers pain.

I always start my tomato seeds in the greenhouse on April Fools Day and my garden is always my best art, creating a total environment that is really me, an island, my island in this narcissistic world we live in. That is four months from now. Plenty of time.

My Other Blog is HERE!

Most Amazing Calendar

These are my tomatoes, nurtured from seed,
talked to everyday and perhaps the best Art
I do. They have been magically transformed
through the clever talents of my friend and
fellow artist, R.C. deWinter, to become the
most amazing Calendar. Brazenly, I am plugging her HERE! For the gardener or Kitchen Gourmet
there is no better Christmas gift. Twelve wonderful photos that have become art, a piece
of my garden, a little bit of me and a little bit of
"Gina". They are wonderfully produced as a large Wall Calendar. I hope you enjoy it.