bashasgarden

Spring came in full force with a week or so of unseasonably warm weather. The pastel beauty of the flowering trees and the tender green of everything else makes me swoon with happiness. Someone I know said that she takes the coming of Spring personally, and I understood that.

But I also feel that it rushes in, and rushes on, too quickly to become the darker greens of summer, and that seems to bring up a sadness in me, but then again, I have been prone lately to bouts of sadness. Sadness of my husband's illness, and what that means for him and for us and for me. Sadness when talking to my Dad, and hearing the age and the depression in his voice. Sadness now for the beautiful canal along the river, destroyed by the flood of two weeks ago. The towpath along this canal has been my own private playground, walking the dog, running, bicycling, and now it is destroyed, in some areas, the canal has been filled in with silt, rocks, and debris from the flooding of the river. We had taken in two flood victims, who were old friends, and now they are back in their house, still without heat, but at least with hot water, and still much cleaning out of mud to do. And possibly moving, to a safer location. Another loss, if that happens, of easy companionship, nearby friends who share problems, and solutions.

But Spring. I am painting, and submitting--although I felt yesterday that I was not yet ready for prime time. I can't stand any more pressure, and the pressure to get paintings done for shows just so I can get MYSELF out there, feels too ego-centric, and damaging to my painting.

But I did enter a very benign show recently, already had paintings done that would be perfect, and so did not have the pressure there.

It is kind of like the Roy Lichtenstein cartoon-style painting, which is of a woman on a bus, and she says in a balloon over her head: "Oh no, I forgot to have children!"

For me, it is OH NO, I forgot to be the artist I always wanted to be. This is because of a rushing sense of time fleeing, my husband's mortality too apparent, and maybe that makes me cling even more desparately to at least one dream that I have always kept alive. His illness, over which I have no control, drives me to paint, and in that realm, I still harbor an illusion of control.

The Garden.

I have been querying around the organic sites, looking for information on how to do a business plan. I found a site that will bring a worker up from Mexico, Guatamala, or Honduras, to be educated in organic methods, in exchange for work, for a few months. I would pay the program $800 a month, in exchange for which, the person gets a stipend, insurance, and we offer room and board. I don't know much more than that, but will look into it. It has to be ethical, and for the highest good of all involved. I need a business plan to see if, with a good worker, I would be able to make enough with a farmstand, and with a farmer's market, over the course of a season, to support this idea.

I thought that if I could get the farmstand operating, then I could get interns afterwards, and perhaps actually make enough to support a part-time worker. I would need to get the farmstand operating for a year, to see if it would be a self-sustaining enterprise, or a money-loser.

So the business plan is something I am looking at doing this year. And checking into the guest worker program for next year.

The greenhouse is bountiful right now with salad, radishes, bok choi, broccoli raab, and sorrel. Also coming in the greenhouse is parsley, and spinach. Outside, I have all the cabbage family crops planted, and this year, hope to keep them totally covered with Ree-May to discourage those pesky white butterflies, and their offspring, the cabbage worms.

I will be planting more flowers this year, for my self--to do still-lifes in painting.

That's all for now--I hope to be able to post more, not once a month, as I have been.