The birth of Son and Sun

In the Winter of 2001, we added a baby boy to our family. We began to spend more time at home enjoying parenthood. We were dressing warmly because we had three ridiculous Eisenhower era wall heaters but we were happy. Then there was the big storm…..that darn tree let go of three limbs, each at least 30 feet long, one of which hit the side of our roof. Luck for us it didn’t do too much damage but we had had enough! We called a tree guy. We didn’t know how we were going to pay for the tree guy but we’d have to figure it out. We were terrified that tree would crush our house or injure our precious child. The tree guy explained that the tree had been improperly pollarded many years ago and would never be a good shape. We would have to have it trimmed annually at a cost of $1000 to stop it from losing branches. It was suggested that we spend closer to $2000 and remove the tree. Well, we couldn’t imagine our yard without the tree, but we couldn’t have it threatening our safety. We had to petition the city to have the tree removed. We had neighbors crying and trying to talk us out of it. We had to attend a tree board meeting and beg to be given permission to remove a tree from our own property. I’m not usually irritated by “the man”. I like laws, I think they’re important. However, the process of removing a tree from out very own land was a bit much. Finally, we were given a permit. We shelled out a bunch of cash and the tree was removed before lunch. It was astounding how quickly the tree disappeared.

Then, the beauty…..we had sun! Lots of sun. So much sun! Jonathan built a shed in the back corner of the yard. We had somewhere to store dog kennels, weed whackers, car parts. After so many years with leaves falling all year, the backyard slanted toward the house. Our little concrete path from the backdoor to the back gate was constantly covered in mud. I spent the entire Summer of 2002 trying to level the backyard. Our growing boy would play in an exersaucer or hang out in a backpack while I dug and dug and dug. I made a huge pile of dirt on the patio. I say dirt because that’s what I thought it was. I later realized that it was some serious topsoil. Enriched, deep black and so fertile. Duh, we live at the bottom of a hill, next to a laguna with soil being enriched by millions of falling leaves each year! Oh, how far we’ve come. Anyway, I had to stop halfway because there had been a driveway there and it was a 3 foot layer of compressed shale. That remained it’s own little hill until the Summer of 2008.

So, there we were with sun, a big pile of dirt, and some scrap wood from the shed building. Jonathan built me 5 huge planter boxes. We put these 3 foot high boxes, one rectangular, four triangular on top of the compacted shale in the bright bright sun. I filled them with “dirt” and planted stuff. All of the usual suspects were there, squash, toms, cukes, strawberries, peppers. Whatever was handy at the nursery and sounded yummy. In addition to the herb garden next to the kitchen, we now had more food than we were prepared to deal with. We were still spending lots of time away from the house and would arrive home full from eating out only to see the veggies shriveling in the crisper. We left a basket by our back gate and filled it with excess for our neighbors to enjoy. The zucchini plant looked prehistoric. It was huge! Oh, right, great soil! I think even the neighbors ran out of uses for the zucs. We went on this way for a few years. I don’t know how long because I live in some sort of weird timewarp. We learned where to get more interesting varietals and where to get organic stuff. We began frequenting the Occidental Ecology center for plant sales and brought home some great stuff.
We realized that we really love to grow food. The truth is that I am not a happy gardener. I do not enjoy pruning and weed pulling. I now understand that fresh food makes those things doable for me. I am slowly becoming obsessed with eating my meals from the garden. Also, there is something so wonderful about watching your child come home from school and forage in the garden for a snack.