1 June 09

Weather
Sunny, warming up after a weirdly cold night

Current Yard Animals
Sparrow looking ticked that I forgot to buy seed

Of Note
A large part of my life is juggling various goals and projects, most of them self-inflicted, and either enjoying the fruits of the work or goosing myself for falling short. I'm a big fan of to-do lists. This blog, in its way, serves as a personal checkpoint. I feel lazy if the same "Currently Reading" book appears too many posts in a row, like geez, he's still reading that 300-page book? Didn't Stuart O'Nan write the whole first draft in only 10 weeks?

Most of my drive comes from two sources. The deeper one is that I tested well on the Iowas in first grade or whenever it is kids take those tests, then spent the next ten years having teachers say I wasn't meeting my potential. Coupled with my parents' wonderful support and encouragement (you can do anything, etc.), I believed that I was special, slated for big things, ever on the verge of living up to some fabled, Herculean awesomeness. It was often rather stressful, but I finally started trying in late high school and my ambition (taking numerous forms) was and is generally high. I'm probably still underperforming according to the Iowa test board, but ultimately the spur has served me well, and I'd rather feel I'm capable of catching the carrot than feel that the carrot's reserved for better, abler mules.

The other source of my drive is that I'm a stay-at-home Dad with a freelance copywriting job, which means that most of my time is entirely self-governed. If I don't have drive, I'll be a deadbeat by week's end, every week of my life.

Back to those to-do lists. I'm fairly disciplined about accomplishing a week's stated tasks, but I've been trying to tame the scatter I feel when too many things remain outstanding. This week, my obvious but rarely applied tactic is breaking everything into manageable segments, then pursuing one segment at a time. Example: I'd like to finish 25 press releases for my freelance gig and also write 5,000 words of my novel. Most weeks, I'd write some press releases, bounce to the novel for a couple hours, go back to press releases, etc., the result being stress and consternation. This week I'll work on 1,000 words of the novel, doing nothing else until they're finished. Then I'll proceed to 5 press releases. Then back for another 1,000 of the novel. Like I said, it's an obvious approach to better focus, but I'm usually too aware of everything I'm neglecting to keep my energy fixed on one particular job.

Pumpkin update: we had days and days of rain. Great for the plants but they really need sun; they got some over the weekend and it's sunny now (though still too cold for my liking). I've been fertilizing with Neptune's Harvest Fish and Seaweed Emulsion, which most of the serious pumpkin growers swear by. I use the suggested amount once a week. It's murky brown and smells the way you'd expect (see L'il Lisa's Patented Animal Slurry), but the odor's fairly weak and has a pleasant sea aroma once you've watered it into the ground.

Three of the plants are coming along well, especially the first I planted. I'm hoping for vines in the coming week or two. Also fearing the cucumber beetles and vine borers that typically arrive in June.





Mythological Character
Sinis the Pine Bender: strong man who killed travelers by asking them to help him bend trees to the ground, at which point he'd tie them to the branches, release the trees, and tear the victims in half. He suffered the same fate at the hands of Theseus, who knew his trick in advance.

Word
Aglet: the plastic or metal tube at the tip of a shoelace (this week's words may be found in The Whatchamacallit)

Book
The Pirates! In an Adventure with Napoleon by Gideon Defoe

Music
CPE Bach: Symphonies & Cello Concertos

Today's U.S. State Capital Is
Dover, Delaware

19 May 09

Weather
Sunny, warm at last

Current Yard Animals
Goldfinches; saw what may have been a northern shrike in the cemetery yesterday

Of Note
One of the pumpkin plants died. It was Cleo, who'd been coming along nicely over the past week. All was fine this morning, and then at 11a.m. I noticed the leaves were wrecked. It looked as if something had hit it or chewed it; either way, a worrisome early loss.

It's possible--though not likely--that the cold got it. We've had two near-freezing nights, unusual this late in May. I covered the plants with overturned plastic bins and left a milk bottle full of hot water inside. The bottles gave off heat and kept the temperature in the bins about 5 degrees warmer overnight. Seemed to have worked fine, with the exception of the mystery death this morning.

I planted a replacement plant along with three others I've been keeping indoors, bringing the current outdoor total to five. I'll pick the best two in the coming month and uproot the rest. The forecast's calling for increasing sun and warmth over the next few days, which is just what everybody needs.

In other news, I've switched workouts to a strength-building routine, which is 40 heavy sets three days a week. First day was yesterday. Today I'm craving food in a way that only happens when your body really needs it. I'd like to be able to bench press my own weight someday, which would really be an achievement considering what an overweight weakling I was this time last year.

Speaking of workouts, Juan Manuel Marquez, one of my favorite boxers, is training for his fight against Floyd Mayweather, Jr. by lifting boulders on a Mexican volcano.

My new novel's coming along well. I've got about 30 pages, adding roughly ten a week. I like to think of each page as a Mexican volcano boulder.

Mythological Character
Theseus: slayer of the Minotaur; he was fathered by Aegeus and Poseidon after his mother, Aethra, slept with both in a single night

Word
Berm: in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia, the bank of a canal or the shoulder of a road; in Alaska, it's a mound of snow or dirt that's formed when clearing land

Book
Snow Angels by Stuart O'Nan

Music
Handel's Giulio Cesare

Today's U.S. State Capital Is
Baton Rouge, Louisiana

13 May 09

Weather
Sunny, warming up

Current Yard Animals
House finch, squirrel; saw another bluebird in the cemetery yesterday

Of Note
I planted the first two pumpkin plants outside this morning. Last night dipped to the low 40s but the forecast looks relatively warm for the next ten days; it seemed a good time to plant. I'm only going with two this year, which'll give them plenty of room to grow and feed. Of the remaining six, I'm keeping two in pots as backups in case some calamity kills the pair outside. The other four will be divided between a friend and my father. My Dad intends to plant them and do minimal maintenance, which will turn them into a kind of control group: does all my extra effort have significant effect? Comical answers may ensue.

Here's how I planted the two outside. I filled a couple of holes in the bed with fresh humus/manure--40 lbs. each. I buried the plants there, still in their peat pots, though I did cut the bottom of the pots out to let the roots go wild. I watered each plant with 30-10-10 (nitrogen-rich) fertilizer. Nitrogen promotes leaf, root, and vine growth.

There's plenty of sun today. I'm eager to see these guys take off in the coming week. The plants look incredibly tiny outside. I immediately started worrying. I installed a temporary fence--green plastic mesh with stakes--around the bed to protect them from errant balls and the like. In coming weeks, I'll be looking for vine borer eggs around the base of each plant, hoping to hand-remove them before they hatch and burrow in. Pesticide doesn't generally work on vine borers until they've already hatched, and once they're in the stem you've got to cut them out with a knife, assuming you even know they're in there. There's also the matter of squash beetles, but sprays will work on them.

I found a 100% natural spray for powdery mildew, which can murder the leaves when things turn humid mid-summer. It's called GreenCure and I've read some promising reviews.

Now it's just a waiting game, letting the plants creep around and looking ahead to pollination in July.

Herman:



Cleo:



Mythological Character
Echidna: monster, half-woman and half-serpent. She had lots of offspring with Typhon the Terrible, including Ladon, the Hydra, the Chimera, and Cerberus. She was also the proud mom of the Sphinx and the Nemean lion.

Word
Syzygy: an alignment of three celestial bodies, such as the sun, the earth, and either the moon or a planet

Book
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Music
Lorraine Hunt Lieberson at Ravinia

Today's U.S. State Capital Is
Lincoln, Nebraska

11 May 09

Weather
Sunny, chilly

Current Yard Animals
Goldfinch

Of Note
I finished reading Backyard Giants, a thoroughly great and suspenseful chronicle of the 2006 race to grow the world's largest pumpkin. I've long been fond of any person or community devoted to one obscure--or at least highly specific--pursuit of excellence. It's amazing how many core similarities emerge between, for instance, giant pumpkin growing and professional boxing, or pro boxing and novel writing, or novel writing and [insert mad pursuit of choice].

These passions are always hobbies to some and ways of life to a select few. They have the potential to be all-consuming, financially irresponsible, probably doomed to failure, and patience-testing to loved ones. But they're all weirdly spiritual to the genuine devotees. Pumpkin growers have their own organizations and camaraderie, their own jokes and jargon, their own secret knowledge, and their own specific fears and inspirations.

It seems like any pure pursuit could be viewed as insane, or at least as a type of OCD, to casual bystanders. Some pursuits are better sanctioned than others, but there's no fundamental difference between a man spending 40+ hours a week growing pumpkins and a man spending 40+ hours a week hitting balls with a stick. The "40+" is inaccurate for both. Growers and ballplayers both have sleepless nights and daylong preoccupations with their work. And the more specific and intense the pursuit, the more the varying pursuits resemble one another. They all boil down to love of the work, discipline, obsessiveness, and maybe most importantly, the will to recover after many, many devastating failures.

Pumpkin growing falls into the hobby category for me, but I can see myself one day retiring to an acre-wide patch and giving 100%. Novel writing falls into the compulsive, repeated failure category for me, but I crossed a important threshold a few years ago. I'd spent a few years writing a book under challenging circumstances; My wife and I became parents, switched jobs, moved to a number of different towns, and bought our first house. I struggled with lots of turning-30 tailspins over death and God and meaning-of-life type stuff. I finished the book and caught the interest of some A-grade agents, but it ultimately didn't work out. I knew I had to write another book right away or risk a permanent loss of confidence. So I did, and I got an agent for that one, and long-story-short I couldn't get the novel to work and (long-story-omitted) amicably parted ways with the agent and found myself back at square one.

Which is where I am now, two chapters into a new novel, with a different agent eager to read it once it's finished. I'm facing a year of hard work and, at age 34, have nothing to show for my previous efforts, even as various peers are publishing their first or even second novels with alarming frequency. But that earlier crisis of confidence never repeated itself, and I see myself in the pumpkin growers' shoes. Spend a whole year prepping the patch and doing everything right to nurture the plant, and then in September, right when the pumpkin looks ready to win, the forklift picks it up and the bottom falls out. It's been rotting for weeks, and all you can do it grow is another one next year. And you do, because you're one of those crazy people who find joy in the work, and you crossed some threshold too long ago to quit.

I put my previous novel aside last week, maybe forever, and feel surprisingly OK about it. I had a day of low spirits but nothing approaching despair. I'll make it eventually, assuming I don't die young, and I'm satisfied with my life...my daily writing, my pumpkin hobby, my birdwatching and Baroque classical fandom and, most of all, my family. This blog's an effort to remind myself of how enjoyable the daily routine can be and generally is. I do copywriting and work on novels, I read and listen to music, I exercise at the Y, and I hang with my wife and son in the afternoons and evenings. I still struggle with the sense of being a nobody, because I've always had ambition and here I am, unpublished at 34, but it's getting a lot easier to deepsix that baloney and feel content.

In closing, here's a picture of my eight young hopefuls for 2009:



Mythological Character
Chiron: a wise and beneficent centaur, teacher of Achilles, Asclepius, and others

Word
Serendipity: the faculty of making fortunate discoveries by accident

Book
The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Music
Handel's Orlando

Today's U.S. State Capital Is
Little Rock, Arkansas

8 May 09

Weather
Humid, fresh, thunderstorms off north

Yard Animals
Earlier today: goldfinches, blue jay, pair of cardinals, downy woodpeckers

Of Note
The wren mentioned in previous posts didn't return to the nest it started in the birdhouse. You know what that means: free nest. Last weekend I spotted a bluebird, a northern flicker, and a killdeer. The killdeer sometimes pretends it has a broken wing to lure predators away from its eggs.

Also: there's a goldfinch that comes to the feeder out my office window. Lately he's taken to clinging to and pecking at the window screen. Or cat's eyes bug out and his fur does that ripply-twitchy thing for minutes on end. Fun for everybody.

Two of the eight pumpkin seeds have sprouted, and all of them have roots creeping out the bottom of the peat pots. I'm expecting a few more sprouts over the weekend. I'll probably plant the best four outside next week. I'll give the others away.

Photo from May 7:



Book
Backyard Giants by Susan Warren

Music
Handel's Ariodante

1 May 09

Weather
Mostly cloudy, warmer, good chance of rain

Current Yard Animals
Male & female cardinals, goldfinch, sparrows, house finch

Of Note
About that wren I mentioned yesterday, apparently the male builds a few starter nests in different locations, then gives the female a tour. If she likes one, he's the guy, the chosen nest will be finished, and she'll settle down and lay her eggs. If not, she finds a better provider.

I left a plate of mealworms under the birdhouse to make the male wren look good. I'm his wingman.

Last night I filed the edges of the eight pumpkin seeds I've chosen to grow. They're Dill's Atlantic Giants arrived with what appeared to be a coating a fertilizer. Or magical dust!



The edges are filed to allow quicker penetration of moisture, and also to help the leaves more easily exit the shell. You don't file the point; that's where the all-important embryo is. After filing, I soaked the seeds in water for two hours and planted them, point down, in peat pots filled with Miracle Grow seed-starter potting soil. Gave them water, took them upstairs to a sunny window, and here they sit:



Now I wait for germination. In a week or two, once the plants are up and growing, I'll transport the pots to the yard. In the meantime, I added some 5-15-5 fertilizer to the bed. (The 5-15-5 is the ratio of Nitrogen, Phosphorous, and Potassium.)

Word
Insouciant: marked by blithe unconcern

Book
Backyard Giants by Susan Warren

Music
Handel's Ariodante

Today's U.S. State Capital Is
Frankfort, Kentucky

30 Apr 09

Weather
Sunny, cool, red-flag dry

Current Yard Animals
Chipmunk that's burrowed into an old dirt pile in the back corner of our yard

Of Note
A house wren began nesting in our new birdhouse last night. I'd gotten the house for bluebirds but I'm happy with a wren.

Pumpkin-growing season is about to begin. I've added plenty more humus/manure to the bed, as well as a special ingredient: llama manure. My aunt raises llamas on her farm and offered me a trunkload of manure, called llama beans, which I enthusiastically accepted. Llama beans are jellybean-sized and loaded with nutrients. They can be added directly to the soil without composting (most manure that isn't already composted will burn a plant's roots) and the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium content is unbeatable, at least in terms of manure. They look like this:



I'll be planting the pumpkin seeds indoors this afternoon. I'll report in coming days.

Person
Daphne: beautiful nymph chased by Apollo, who'd been hit by one of Cupid's arrows. Daphne, hit by a different arrow that made her flee, prayed for help and was transformed into a laurel tree. Laurel became sacred to Apollo.

Word
Bailiwick: a person's special area of interest, skill, or authority

Book
Backyard Giants by Susan Warren

Music
Handel's Tamerlano

Today's U.S. State Capital Is
Denver, Colorado