Good in a Way in Everyday Ramblings

I took this on the way back from the plot midday today. A neighbor garden a block away. The city came and brought a crane and lifted the fallen branch off the shed at the community garden and chomped it right there on the spot. There has been no communication from the garden manager or the Parks Department about the tree. I know that from now on I will not wear headphones or listen to anything other than the ambient environment when I am now there.

When I first applied for a plot, I wanted the closer garden but now I am not so sure. Besides seeing a guy sleeping in there, last weekend now I see that the other garden is being considered as a “Safe Rest Village” for camping for un-housed folks. And they are also considering the south edge of the park I live next to for the same.

Please cross your fingers about this. No one wants these sites a block away. But we already have a huge drug and mental health problem here just being south of downtown. I don’t know what the answer is…well, I do, we need more affordable housing for everyone, decent places to live close-in to available services, and decent wages and medical support, but I hate that this is forcing me to be a NIMBY.

And I keep thinking about the cheerful woman that helped Kes and me back in April at the plant store that said she had a plot in that garden for many years.

I don’t think the park is an option. There is a Waldorf school across the street and those parents pay a fortune in tuition and act as if, and appear to believe, that the park belongs to them.

So far up here we haven’t been affected by the Bootleg Fire, but this is bad news for all of us here in Oregon. The photos of the fire from space are terrifying. We are stocking up on N95 masks and hoping for the best.

When I was coming back from the garden Monday, (after leaving carrot tops for the wild bunnies) I noticed that there was a big macho truck and empty trailer out in front of the falling down house with the vines growing over the front stairs and porch full of cardboard boxes. Someone had cleaned up both the vines and the porch. And there is a combo lock on the front door.

There was a listing that a single woman lived there, my age. I was trying to find out more about the house. It was built in 1914. And does not have air conditioning, nor was there any evidence of a window unit. One wonders if the heat dome had something to do with the fact that the house appears to be empty now. The Queen Anne next door, (which has had significant work) was built in 1885.

I found a photo of the block taken in 1964 and to my astonishment the Queen Anne had a two-story enclosed front porch all along the house. It is not there now. That explains why the house appears to be set back from its neighbors.

On one of our walks, I showed the house to Charity and Mrs. Sherlock. They were not in the least bit interested but there is a story there that is talking to me.

In the mornings in the Open Practice, I have been reading out loud a poem at the end. This morning the poem written by William Stafford was about garlic and I sense it wasn’t a big hit.

Dave asked me on Sunday if I was still writing poems. A couple of years ago I had found (and shared) the link for the poems of our own, Mr. Finch, and I read and uploaded to YouTube. They are still, obscurely, out there.

That house is talking to me. I just need to figure out what it is trying to say.

There was a day, 12 years and a day ago, when Mr. Finch was smoking out on the upturned flowerpot in my patio well and he had just found out he needed to have the neurosurgery in a couple of days and radiation after that and he wanted me to take pictures of his blond hair.

Google Photos made a memory of that day and sent it to me this yesterday.

Life is just weird. It’s good in a way we don’t know what’s ahead.

At least for now it is looking like I will be able to harvest those tomatoes on the vine in the little plot I call mine.

Last updated July 22, 2021