Cost/Benefit Analysis ―Or ―How Much Guilt is Enough?

I had to mow the lawn today. I had already put it off longer than I should have but I knew, next weekend, mowing wasn’t going to figure into my plan of freaking out as I pack for our trip to Ecuador. So, because thirteen days from today I will be in a strapless gown, even though the temperature called for a tank top and shorts, I donned clothing appropriate for a cool and cloudy day, slathered sunscreen on the few bits of skin still peeking out, plugged in the mower, and sweat like I was in a hot yoga class.

Partway through mowing, I took a short break and did a little pruning. Over the summer the bush next to our mailbox did what bushes do. It grew. Recently it had been getting harder to find the mailbox, let alone close it without a pine branch getting mashed in the mailbox door. I did a mental cost/benefit analysis and determined that the benefits of being able to open and close the mailbox without fighting through the bush were greater than the 99% possibility Dean would be mad at me for an hour or so after he discovered what I’d done. He has been busy putting the garden to bed and I knew he wasn’t going to want to deal with the composting of those branches.

In our house, there is always the issue of compost — or to be more specific, the pre-composting chipping and shredding. I knew this would be the cost to the benefit. I knew when he saw a wheel barrow piled high with pine branches he would not be happy. Chipping and shredding was not on his list of things to do this weekend ― even though he goes into a zen-like state of tranquility when he’s doing it. Because we have a “baby” chipper, said chipping and shredding must be done while the branches are green and soft. So I knew the cost of my benefit was going to be immediate.

Dean was inside making spaghetti sauce from the garden tomatoes while I was mowing and pruning. I came inside just as he was getting ready to head outside. I had a mini debate with myself. “Tell him about the pile of branches before he discovers it himself, or let him be surprised and pay the price later.” I went for the surprise factor and hoped it would be much later. 15 seconds later he was stomping through the house to the garage mumbling to himself. Something about women and shredding. I offered him a solution. “Just throw them away. Just this one time.”  But no. That is not an option in this house. Not yesterday. Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever.

Dean stomping through the house mumbling was a cost I could live with. What I hadn’t factored into my formula was the guilt, which amazes even me because I am the Queen, the Empress, and the Goddess of Guilt. The guilt I felt from knowing that he was out in the backyard chipping and shredding branches I had created, when he really wanted to be putting his garden to bed, was too much for me. To rid myself of the guilt I would have to make amends. I offered to work in the garden. “Really? You’re serious?” he said. I nodded and held my breath … hoping it wouldn’t be “turn over the dirt in the beds … by hand … with a garden fork.”

But I got lucky. All I had to do was harvest the rest of the beans ― even though our bean crop was inedible this year. I don’t know why, but they were stringy. And I don’t mean stringy as in string beans. It felt like your mouth was full of dental floss when you were finished chewing them. But there is no way Dean would throw perfectly good but inedible beans into the compost. And if somebody else will sit in the hot sun and pick them ― so much the better. I didn’t dare suggest we throw them away, but personally, I think they might enjoy being with the other members of the vegetable variety in the compost.

So ultimately the cost/benefit breakout looked like this:

Cost: Dean grumbled.  I sat in dirt, sweating in the blazing sun picking beans.

Shadow got filthy from flying chipping/shredding bits.

Benefit: A bush won't attack me each time I open the mailbox. Shadow will get to eat stringy beans. I didn’t have to turn over the dirt with a pitchfork. Dean gave Shadow a bath.

I think it’s clear the benefits outweighed the cost.

The nasty, stringy, inedible beans are waiting to be sorted, cooked and shelled. I could help with that … but you know what? I’m not feeling that guilty.

◦

Cost/Benefit Analysis ―Or ―How Much Guilt is Enough?

How To Get Out Of Planting Seeds

My dad’s coming for a visit this next weekend and I thought he would prefer not to hear crunching every time he took a step, so yesterday, house cleaning was my number one priority. I knew something was up when I walked in the kitchen first thing in the morning to make coffee and saw all the rugs in the house in a pile out on the deck. I knew immediately what was happening. There were no words said between us. After nearly 38 years, Dean and I are experts at nonverbal communication. It was seed planting time and Dean thought if he helped me clean, I would help him plant seeds. His eyes shown with hope, mine reflected back mops and brooms. Seven ½ hours of house cleaning later there just wasn’t any time for me to plant seeds.

Today I had to get more creative. I am going to share with you not only how to get out of planting seeds, but I also have an eco-friendly, non-toxic gardening tip for you. This first step isn’t required, but I recommend it. Take a trip to England and fall in love with the electric teakettles which seem to be standard in English B&Bs. Then come home and buy one. Heat up electric teakettles of water and pour that boiling water on the weeds in garden pathways, rock pathways and the beneath-the-deck rocks.

Here’s how you do it. You can hook up an extension cord and place your teakettle near the garden hose and the area you want to clean up. Or, if you missed hot yoga because you were cleaning your house for seven and ½ hours, you can place the teakettle at the top of a set of stairs so you can kill weeds and get in a cardio workout and strengthen your legs all at the same time. Not that you need to do that after you’ve cleaned your house for seven and ½ hours the day before.  Or if you are really crazy, leave the teakettle in the house so you get the optimum workout AND have some spilled water to clean up so you can get in some squats.

The only problem that I have run across in this nifty eco-friendly weed-killing process, is that the water is so cold coming out of the hose that it takes about five or six minutes to heat up the water to boiling, weed-killing temperatures. Staring at a teakettle while you wait for it to boil is almost more annoying and boring than watching the hour glass spin around while you wait for something to happen on your computer, and I get enough of that at work.  You may want to fill your wait time with other activities.  If you are a woman, this multi-tasking will be easy.  If you are a man, don't despair.  You will improve with practice.  But here’s a tip. Don’t get so involved in your “fill activities” that you get back to the teakettle after it's already boiled. You’ll feel you need to wait for it to heat up because it’s already hot, but waiting for a teakettle to boil….after you missed the first boil … is very annoying.

Here are a few suggested ways to fill those five-minute snippts of time. You can “get tough” and dig out the rose bush that has only bloomed about three times in the past 16 years.

I didn't mean to break the shovel handle.....  and okay, I had to ask for help.  I wanted to keep my toes.

You can give your ground cover a haircut so the parsley (which your husband said wouldn’t spread) from the two-years-ago herb bed (this years strawberry bed) will not seed and spread next year.

You can run up and down the deck and basement stairs washing and drying clothes (just in case you need a little more cardio). And then, of course, you can blog about it  (in five minute snippets) because who in their right mind isn’t dying to know how you spend your weekends.

Please heed this warning. Pouring boiling water on weeds may become addictive. You may find yourself still heating and pouring boiling water while the seed planter in your family has hung up his coveralls and is admiring his newly planted seeds. There is no known cure.

Excuse me now while I go pour out teakettle number 31. No, I am not exaggerating.  And no, I'm not finished.

◦

How To Get Out Of Planting Seeds

Really? That's What It Took?

Have you ever wondered why it's so hard to make yourself  your husband get up, grab whatever manly tool is required and repair things that have been staring him you in the face for weeks, months, or more likely, years?  You know, things like a toilet that sounds like a bull moose in heat whenever you flush it.  Okay, I haven't actually heard a bull moose in heat, but ...  oh, wait, that would be because only women moose, women mooses, a woman moose would go into heat.  I meant a bull moose making those manly bull moose sounds to attract a female moose in heat.  Like she would really be attracted to some big-nosed, ugly, bellowing, clumsy moose who thinks he's mother nature's gift to ungulates.  She just wants baby mooses.

And then there are things like fences with planks (or whatever those straight up-and-down parts are that keep your neighbor's dog out of your yard and garden) that are so old that on occasion one or more of them just decides to fall over and leave a big hole in your fence.  Did you know yellow labs love pumpkins?  Oh, and some people have stacks of paving stones neatly stacked next to a nice big area of dirt (formerly known as grass) just waiting for the perfect moment to create the perfect path.

And there's the  painting and staining which always seems to take a back seat to more important things like gardening or rocks or did I mention gardening?

What is the secret?  What does it take to get that ever-growing list of projects crossed off the to-do list?  I've put a fair amount of time into thinking about this and I've come up with a few solutions.  One of those is to decide it just isn't worth doing.  Cross it off like it never existed and lessen the guilt.  So what if the toilet sings?  Maybe it's a method of water conservation.  You know, if it's yellow let it mellow, if it's brown flush it down. 

Then there's the just wait solution.  If you wait long enough, somebody will take care of it for you.  The guilt your neighbor will feel after their dog has brought home 15 pumpkins from your garden through a hole in the fence is an amazing stimulant to fence replacement.  Paying for half the wood will ease the guilt you your husband feels because the week the fence is rebuilt he is forced to work late every night.

But the solution that never entered my brain, not even in my wildest imagination, that caused me to open my eyes in wide but happy surprise is this.  Point out that in a very short time your daughter will be bringing her beloved fiance home for Christmas.   I know.  I'm shaking my head in wonder and amazement right along with you.  It's only been three years but yes, we now have a kitchen with painted walls.  And not only that, I've heard whispers that soon there will also be real stuff, like things in frames, hanging on those newly painted walls.

◦

Really? That's What It Took?

Portland Endings ... Harvest Beginnings

We had our first really hard frost this week which means the end to garden growth but the beginning to garden harvesting.  I would be just as happy if all our produce came from the grocery store.  I'm not saying I don't enjoy the fresh produce, I just don't enjoy it enough to put forth the work.  Dean, on the other hand, seems to love the back-breaking dirt preparation, seed/seedling planting, weeding (not that he does much of that), and the all-important harvesting.  That's what's been going on this weekend.  Yesterday he pulled some of the 5,281 onions he planted, chopped them all up while wearing his specially purchased onion-fume-preventing goggles, and made some kind of pickled onion thing.  Our house now reeks of onions.

note the steam in the goggles

This morning just as I had taken the first sip of my coffee and was sitting down to read the paper  I found out Dean would "probably need help digging the potatoes before it rains."  I left my steaming coffee on the table, put on my dad's old army coat, my earband and snow boots, tromped out, and with my freezing fingers, in a wind chill of 25 degrees, plucked potatoes forked up from some of the 798 hills of potatoes Dean had planted and placed them gently in a box. 

Today he has been making green tomato chutney from the 16,275 tomatoes he has picked from his plants.  During a break in the chutney action I slipped in and mixed up a batch of sourdough bread which is now rising peacefully on the counter.   I wonder how many times I'll have to punch it down until there's another opportunity to slip in so I can form the loaves.

So......since it's a cold, rainy, gloomy day and my husband has taken over the kitchen it seems a good time to finish up with our trip to Portland.

On Friday we took a scenic drive.   I don't think this was part of the "scenic tour" but we were almost as impressed with  this cabbage field as we were with the many waterfalls we saw along the way. 

Scenic Drive--Click for slideshow

We ended our drive at the Bonneville Dam just as a barge was preparing to go through the locks.  I spoke to an older (even older than me) gentleman standing next to me as we were watching and he said he'd lived in the area his whole life and had never seen the locks in action so we were pretty dang lucky.  Once the process had completed, we checked out the fish ladders. 

Locks and Fish Ladders--click for slideshow

Saturday we were downtown again checking out the arts and crafts market and walking through Chinatown.  It turned out that it was also "Operation Overcoat" day and there was a long line of homeless people snaking its way down and around a couple of blocks waiting to get into a large fenced off area with tables of free clothing and food.  It was an up-close and personal reminder of how lucky I am. But seeing this in front of a school on one of our walks made me feel hopeful and happy.

As I've been writing this, the smell of onion in our house has now been replaced by vinegar fumes.  My eyelids are sweating, my eyes are watering and my nose is pinched.  I managed to sneak in and form my bread loaves although they're probably going to taste like vinegar.  I might be forced to open doors and windows to clear the air.  With the stiff breeze I see outside it probably wouldn't take long.  And even if the temperature inside drops down to 55 or so Dean should be used to it since that's my preferred sleeping temperature these days and can only be obtained by sleeping with a window open year-round.  I have noticed that the past few mornings there have been miscellaneous bits of clothing thrown across his side of the bed which he must grab during the night .....shirts, bathrobe...., apparently to increase his warmth.  I can't yet bring myself to switch from the summer bedspread to the comforter so today I added a blanket.  He should be toasty now.

◦

Portland Endings ... Harvest Beginnings