Greenstorm's Journal

Alright, so I'm going to have 6000-7000 square feet of garden at Cor Viriditas this summer. The bed is roughly triangular. It's going to take an extended three-sisters planting (corn, squash, beans) with plants I've known to grow well under widely-spaced corn (tomatoes, tomatillos) shade-tolerating greens (lettuce, chard, mache, magenta spreen, shungiku, brassicas, chicories) and some pollinator attractors (calendula, borage, fennel, cilantro). I'm saving back seed from most of this, so if it's a complete failure I can try again next year.

Let's sort out how much seed I need. Generally I'll plant 1-2 seeds per plan desired; because it's a chaos garden I expect germination gaps to be filled in by whatever is close by,

I've collected some short season corns and some PNW corns for this mix: gaspe is my favourite, saskatoon white, saskatchewan rainbow, oaxacan green dent, early riser, new york red, carol deppe's magic manna and cascade ruby gold, lavender parching, painted mountain from six or eight different places, a couple bits from seed trades. My plan is to make three groups: dent, flint, and flour and plant them at each corner of the triangular bed, with sunflowers in-between. There will absolutely be cross-pollination between types but perhaps a little minimized. Within each group the corn plants will be spaced fairly widely to allow undergrowth.

What this means is roughly 1500 square feet each of flour, dent, and flint corn for a total of 4500 square feet of corn. Call it 3 square feet per plant and I'm looking at 500-1000 seeds of each type. The rest of my corn will go in the freezer.

Squash will be almost all maxima, with a corner of pepo out of curiosity (I'm playing with hull-less pumpkins for the animals and trying out a few bush delicatas). Again they're short season, including the buttercup and red kuri that actually ripened last year (hopefully with some cross-pollination), potimarron, north georgia candy roaster (this makes fabulous pickles from the unripe fruits), sundream (super cool resistance/short season), nanticoke, lofthouse mix, lower salmon river, blue hubbard (I love large squashes I can keep in the cool room and chop chunks off as I need them, I'd like to steer in the direction of large), gold nugget (I think the shortest season squash? grows well among corn), a few more kabocha types. They'll be primarily planted into the corn patches, seeds mixed as evenly as possible. Give each squash plant 50 square feet over the 4500 square feet of corn garden and that's 90-180 squash seeds for the garden; the rest go in the freezer.

My landmate is going to start some tomatillos, promiscuous tomatoes, and pepper grexes I've sent her. We should be able to pop those starts in when we seed the bed. I'll have 6 shelves x 3 flats each x 50 cells = 900 plant capacity for starts. 200 will go to peppers, 50 to tomatillos (I have a sweet ground-cherry-tasting one I saved seed for last year), and much of the rest to tomatoes (I sent on my "promiscuous A" good-tasting mix, my orange/red bicolour promiscuous, I think another promiscuous one, and then a bunch of largely self-supporting favourites and open-flower-architecture named cultivars: Brad, Silvery Fir Tree, KARMA purple and KARMA MF, Minsk Early, Uralskiy Ranniy, Mikado Black, Maya & Sion, Grocery store green, I think KARMA miracle and a couple others?). So call it 400 tomato plants? They'll be in amongst the corn, and at the edges of the corn. They'll be smallish when they go in but since everything else is being direct seeded that's likely ok, they'll grow enough that some will not be overtaken and it's those vigorous ones I want to save seed from.

Beans are primarily dry bush, they'll be mixed in the center with the sunflowers, peppers will be to the south side of the sunflowers. There's roughly 6000 - 4500 = 1500 square feet of this moat. Call it 800 square feet of sunflowers at 4 square feet each, that's 400 sunflower seeds if planted 2 in each hole (I don't fully trust some of my older seed, though I suppose I could start these indoors too and just put out 200 plants). Beans are 1/square foot, 200 square feet. I'll put a dozen or two melon plants on the south side of the sunflowers in a patch with the peppers. I'll have 200 pepper plants in total, roughly (100 hot grex, 100 sweet grex) that don't really get their own space but instead go in amongst the center.

Aforementioned leafy greens and some roots (beet and turnip grexes, fall radishes, salsify) will be scattered throughout for imediate weed suppression, creating a seed bed, and immediate harvest throughout the spring/early summer.

This is the most hands-off gardening I've ever done and I think it'll be educational as to the new property. It's been awhile since I worked with light as a limiting factor. I expect plenty of things to be shaded out; the seed from what remains will be good for this kind of mixed underplanting. In year 2 I'll move this mix to rotational pig fields, using the saved seed, to help supplement my hog feed through fall and winter.

Things are exciting here.

My site at the company is trying to be sold. I may or not lose my job when the sale goes through. There is some government intervention that is leading to uncertainty about the outcome.

Tucker may or not stay in my town to live but he doesn't know, and if he moves I may or not move with him.

There was this bear.

12 new piglets (10 surviving) and they are adorable.

It's been raining for the last month.

And Tucker's found a new person. Last year about this time he started something like 5 relationships in 2 months, was pretty dishonest about some of them, violated some agreements we had, and got angry at me for my boundaries around it all. I was pretty trepidatious this time. It started the same: "oh, I'm going to go see this friend I don't know well" beforehand and transitioned into "actually we've loved each other for twenty years and need to talk every day" after the fact.

I mean, at this point that's what I expect from folks new to poly. It's so hard for me to get off on the right foot and really enjoy the other folks' relationship when everything feels evasive and hidden. Don't get me wrong, I've felt poly guilt and struggled to tell partners things, and it's taken me time to be able to realistically assess my relationship patterns to have a sense of how things might proceed. Still. I do like to have some sense of what's going on if we're going to talk about it at all, and even more importantly I need to not be misled. Stepping away for some months and letting the NRE sort itself out, my preferred method, was not an option here.

So I tried another tack this time: get real clear on what I needed from the relationship, focus on that, and be honest about my terror around repeating the last experience and still not feeling heard about it. It feels especially rough when... that all happened when I was evacuated from the fire last year, and this year it's now that I'm losing my job and trying to decide whether to leave Threshold and my town. I just don't have extra bandwidth to be present and level.

The reason I stay in a relationship with Tucker, especially as close a relationship as I am, is that he does the work. It can take him some time but he certainly does not often use "let me work on that" as a way to duck out of responsibility and buy time: he actually does work on it.

After a day of echoes of last year (with "you always ruin my relationships" overtones) he seems to have figured out a way to be present and loving when we're together, to actually spend time with me, and things have been pretty great. He was even super supportive around the bear and being a second person as backup, which... well, we'll talk about the farm and how I feel about other people being involved in that some other time. We also still have some planned vacations together rather than all future planning being eaten up with trying to stay in proximity to people several thousands of miles away, which also helps a great deal.

Looks like the route forward with this one is "put my needs on the table and don't ask too many questions".

A complicating factor, not so related to the new relationship, is that I need to ask questions. Deciding which job I'm taking next is a big thing for me, and if I move again I intend it to be my last (which I also said about this one and that may still have been true). He's been up here nearly a year and maybe doesn't want to stay in Fort, which means that this would be the time to move. I'd really like that nailed down, or at least start the process of "do we want to share a house/a property with 2 houses" and "is there a place that covers his needs and my needs actually in the world where one need is affordability"

My hope is he'll do the work on that one too. Definitely I'm struggling with the uncertainty.

Phew.

Somewhere in there I ordered and planted a whole bunch of african violet leaves, so I must believe there's a future. I picked a mess of beans and need to pickle them. I ordered a sauerkraut crock. The seasons will turn, and turn again. I always find that comforting.

Here's to a boring winter.

Living in the whirlwind. Here's the change, the chaos, in which I ride like a cork. Even corks get sucked under, you know, but we pop up pretty quick when we're released.

I trust myself to pop up pretty quick when released. I'm still learning, but becoming better, at knowing what triggers that release. Funny how it's the same litany it always was: creation, intimacy of mind and body, assurance, love, home, connecting with my own body and with nature and with my thoughts.

So many things are forefront in my mind that they're getting lost. I don't want to start writing things down yet -- more paper, more to manage -- but shortly I'll have to.

Househunting is taking a tremendous amount of my motive power: either to do, or to procrastinate on, it takes the same energy. I build dream castles in the sky that come crashing down, I second-guess myself, it's not necessarily the prettiest scene but it's started rolling some. I need to go to the well pretty often to keep up with it.

Tenay is the well right now. She listens, she shares back in kind, she is snuggles and sex and approval in ways that leave me totally unconflicted about my interactions with her. It's pretty great.

It's important for me not to draw too hard on any one of my relationships to support any others. I don't like the idea of being in a relationship that's dependent on any of the other ones remaining the same; what happens then when things change? Does everything collapse? It has in the past.

So I'm thinking a lot about my relationship with Dave. I'm thinking a lot about this often-supportive, occasionally blindingly thoughtless, no-promises, somewhat ashamed of me, encouraging, sweet, sometimes surprisingly responsive, insightful, kind, steady and rather unruddered person I'm starting to have old relationship feelings about. I'm wondering whether it's a net drain or a net benefit. I poke at it a lot, and yes, I've initiated some self-examination on his part, trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. What are we offering each other? Is it worth it? Short term? Long term? Should I be spending all this time and energy I use thinking about it on something else? Should I stomp out the fire and go searching for more appropriate tinder? I don't know. As Tenay reminded me, I'm acting on incomplete information right now. I'm looking forward to getting that information and going on with my life, whatever that looks like.

I'm also looking forward to getting through the waiting list for counseling and seeing if maybe I can find a good fit to talk about this stuff with. My boundary issues finally identified as issues, I'm eager to fix them up.

UBC, the giant machine into which I'm trying to cast myself, is also taking some time to get back to me. At least I can backburner that without worrying too much.

Yoga is fabulous but the difficulty of it is wearing off as my body adapts. Infuriatingly this doesn't mean I can do it better, it just means I get less exercise high and my butt is disappearing. I'm pretty much halfway through the 75-day commitment I made and it's starting to take more willpower to get there, what with less endorphin payoff and my desire to, you know, do things with folks sometimes. Still, I'll make it to the end, it's helping keep me engaged in my body, and by the time I'm done I'll be moved and onto my bike.

I've been ultra flirty lately, and strongly desirous of a new lover/playmate/more spark in my life. I have a couple flirtations that can't go anywhere, so I figure it's time to go out and start seeking folks. Seeking nonmonogamous kinky compatible folks, taking a pass on anyone who isn't actively involved in a compatible flavour of poly already. There are a couple avenues for this I suppose I should explore, but I am somewhat disincentivized by the work involved. So much work. Who knows if the payoff will be worth it? That said, I'm definitely nosing around and should do so in a more organized way to get what I want.

Valentine's day brought a ton of relationship articles from the woodwork. I am meditating on this passage
This person cannot handle sacrifice or compromise. She believes her needs and desires and opinions are simply more important than her partner’s, and she needs to get her way in almost any big decision. In the end, she doesn’t want a legitimate partnership, she wants to keep her single life and have someone there to keep her company.

This person inevitably ends up with at best a super easy-going person, and at worst, a pushover with a self-esteem issue, and sacrifices a chance to be part of a team of equals, almost certainly limiting the potential quality of her marriage. from http://waitbutwhy.com/2014/02/pick-life-partner.html

Is this me? Is this a problem? I guess I still have trouble fighting off all that internalized polyphobia. I know poly is something I need. All evidence suggests it. But it's hard to remember that I'm legitimately allowed that need and allowed to choose relationships that fit it, instead of thinking that I should just compromise on it and then everything would be fine. It would not be fine. I would be, have been, and am a shitty monogamous mate over the long term.

To complicate everything a little further, my brother is staying with me. I ultra love him, it'll be good to spend time with him and have conversations with him, but... I need to wear clothes in my house, and not use loud vibrators or have loud sex, and I have to use roommate skills like self-checking frequently and knowing when and how to ask for alone time etc.

Plus, the friends group is drifting away a little bit, yoga is getting in the way of some socializing, there's no core of souls to hook my own onto. That's not awful or traumatic but it is different. I can see into a future where I leave Vancouver as gently as a dandelion seed in a slight breeze, nothing holding me here anymore.

Who ever knew, ten or twenty years ago, that all this could be? I never would have guessed. On the whole I'm happy with it, with myself and how I navigate my choices.

Enough of this update. Be well.

So I've asked Angus to be out more-or-less for May 1st. We'll have lived here for 13 months; together for a couple more than that. He asked if we'd continue a relationship and I honestly don't know the answer to that question. Probably, definitely, I don't know a way not to be friends with him but there might need to be a period of mourning first or he might get his life in order and sail off into the sunset and not want me around anymore? How can you look into the future, anyhow? Certainly not when I've just finished finals (minutes ago), still have a few major assignments due, had the power out in my house for a couple of days, haven't had space to myself for a long time?

It will be very good for me to have my own place again.

I have a lot of thinking to do about moving-- I won't get all my damage deposit back, but I could probably knock $200 off my rent (It'll be about $1225 at that point, which was good when we were looking right before the Olympics but is a little high for this area right now). I need to keep a 2 bedroom or a really roomy 1-bedroom+den because of the rats. I need to keep hardwood floors (ideally) or I'll deal with laminate. I need to keep some sort of garden space. I'd like to stay in this area, or in a swathe directly east as far as a couple of blocks east of Hastings, maybe as far south as 15th or so. I'd like to keep a professional landlord company or at least not a creepy Vancouver landlord. If I move, more light will be mandatory.

I have a lot of self-care to do. I refuse to learn on Michael, who not only has his own very serious stuff (his dad's been diagnosed with terminal cancer. It's not supposed to last very long in the grand scheme of things) but really just can't deal with my leaning at the best of times. He is a good place of refuge, but only if I don't bring my storms along. I need to continue to cultivate friends who are immediately supportive in every important way: who provide snuggles, unweird straightforward comfortable conversation, who can hold me when I cry or allow me to use them as passive company, who offer advice and stories, who offer things sometimes without being asked, who eat with me. I need to continue to exercise well, I need to bike more. I need to spend time with the sun on my skin. I need to continue to connect with my classmates, who are an incredible source of support even through their own stresses-- in fact, those shared stresses are immensely reassuring.

Our school cohort is starting to drop-- the cute South African boy disappeared the other day and was very brief in texting that he wouldn't see us again, don't ask why. Today, trying to write the practical final in the rain, one of us ripped up the soggy mass of pulp that was his paper, threw it on the ground, and left. He may still pass the course and return, it was only 15% of the grade, but we were all pretty crispy today. Those who remain are tightening, a little at a time.

I need to find myself a bed, a bed that's mine, that's squooshy like marshmallows, and some kitchen stuff like pots, pans, and dishes.

I need to tell my mom.

I'm going to be okay. I just need to remember to eat, climb, and breathe.

If you know Angus, please, please be helpful and supportive to him. It's his depression that's the trouble here, he really needs to deal with it, and I can't make him do that or help him do it. I'm worried about him. If you can think of something to do, please, do that thing.

The rollercoaster and my funny hobbies

Lady Luck and Fighting Chance: