Today’s haul…way too many to eat.
Art and Jermel lug the goat — which Art artfully butchered and marinated the day before — down to the Caja China.
A moment of levity between L’il Willy and his pet raccoon, Lola. I googled “a boy and his raccoon” just to see if that turn-of-phrase had ever appeared on the Internet, and I was amazed to find this IMDB description of the 1969 movie “Rascal” (spoiler alert!): “A comedy filled with tenderness as a baby raccoon snuggles his way into the life of a lonely boy.”
Incredible how life imitates art!
Kenya rudely crashes this meeting of the jean shorts club being held atop our own “grassy knoll.” Like the protagonist in Herzog’s “Fitzcarraldo,” Frank’s been consumed with his single-minded pursuit of building a grass bench. Eventually, we plan to sod the whole thing for better coverage, but this picture proves it’s “sittable” in its current form.
These ground cherries are coming along nicely. When we lived in cultural backwater Watertown, N.Y., the “farmer’s market” (a.k.a. “cynical vendors selling store-bought produce and wares”) was a weekly source of frustration. One week, a vendor sold me what he said were tomatillos but what turned out to be ground cherries. Not knowing any better, I used them in a fresh salsa to top tostadas. What a revelation! The ground cherries complemented the rest of the salsa ingredients perfectly, yielding a sweet salsa that’s not as cloying as the mango or pineapple salsas you occasionally encounter.
First fruits! As good as advertised, our Czechoslovakian slicers are the first tomato variety to start fruiting. Last year, I want to say we were eating these guys a good month before any other tomato so much as started to ripen.
Here’s a sneak preview of our next project. All we need is our trusty chainsaw back from the shop and a couple days free of rain. Last Thursday, I found two massive excavated tree roots while walking to a friend’s BBQ in Ukrainian Village. On Saturday, I lured friends and fellow gardeners Micah and Art to the roots’ temporary resting place where, in a driving rain, we loaded them into the back of the VW. The job required two trips and the generous (and unsolicited) help of two highly intoxicated Ecuadorian guys moved to pity when they passed us on the street.
The root pictured above is the bigger of the two and, hence, nicknamed Big Boy. After scraping off the rot, lopping off their tops, sanding them down and finishing them off with tung oil, what I think we’ll have is two comely, salvaged benches on which to sit and contemplate life’s enduring etc.
I started this blog with the goal that it become a resource for other people involved in similar pursuits, so that they could learn from our mistakes and follow our progress as our humble project evolves. Unfortunately, reality has gotten in the way in the form of working multiple jobs and the lure of various summer-induced venial pursuits. So roughly two weeks have passed since my first faltering baby post, and lots has happened in the interim. These are some highlights.
With the help of some hearty and dedicated friends we have:
-Assembled, filled and planted six 4’ x 10’ boxes. Kelly and I planted three boxes, while our friends Art and Chelsea, Katie and Marcie planted one each.
-Diverted our neighbor’s drain spout into our rain barrel. Since the property we’re growing on has been abandoned for about 15 years, its city water service has long since been shut off.
-Planted a raspberry patch populated with canes generously donated by the folks from Honky Tonk restaurant and bar. Willie Jr., the 13-year-old rapscallion son of owners Beth and Willie Wagner, has been an invaluable source of labor, ideas and prurient humor (in both English and Spanish — what a whiz!)
-Hauled off a half-ton of debris and rubble from the lot.
-Hauled in about a half-ton of salvaged limestone pavers from a machine shop on Cermak Ave. and used it to build a comely, winding staircase into the lot.
-Built an in-ground hobo fire pit out of donated bricks and a rusted out steel drum.
The plan is to update this site every day or two, but for now, this summary and the pictures that follow will have to suffice.
Kelly yields the scythe with the wrath of an angry god. When Kelly and I first moved into our apartment two doors down, we’d sit on the porch and gaze out at the massive, overgrown jungle that lay below. After the city fined the property owners, we sensed an opening. One of the main thrusts of our pitch to the couple that owns our lot is that we’d keep the weeds down, leaving them in the good graces of the city’s Code Enforcement Office.
(photo by Marcy Montross)
Kelly mugs for the camera while taking the fight to the weeds in old-school style.
(photo by Marcy Montross)
The view from the lot, toward the alley. This is where the garage once stood (and now rests). Not only is this an eyesore, but it’s a severe impediment to accessing the lot. It also proved to be a favorite haunting ground for brown spiders with gigantic egg sacs. Incredibly, Kelly found some nice leaf lettuce spontaneously poking up through the rubble!
Ah, finally clear. Nice work, all!
Kelly shows off one of her many found treasures: a partially melted camera. The lot once housed an old frame house, which burned down (almost taking the entire block with it) about 15 years ago. While clearing the lot, we dug up all kinds of miscellanea from family that once lived here, and Kelly maintains a menagerie of the most interesting.