katealaurel

In the time since the odd introductory post below, I’ve done the following:

• Found out I’ll be moving to Turkey in September
• Finished a Reed College thesis
• Graduated
• Found a summer job

All of which, naturally, mean some changes for how I’m living (and how this blog is going). Right now, though, it’s summer, and I’m funemployed (as they say) until mid-June. An excellent time to finish putting this website together, and start blogging here on a regular basis.

That is, if I can manage to drag myself inside and onto the computer. Portland is a gorgeous place in the summertime: perfect 70-80 degree temperatures and cloudless skies almost every day, with low humidity and pleasant breezes. I spent most of yesterday and today outside, finally starting to get a vegetable garden together. I’ve never had great success as a gardener: growing up, I wasn’t interested, despite or because of my mother’s very serious flower and vegetable gardening. At my last house, the garden mostly died in the middle of the summer as we all became distracted with other projects. Only the cherry tomatoes and an enormous, grasping, mutant squash plant really took off.

I’ve been anticipating trying again at a garden for most of the last year, though, especially during the last few months. My neighbors started preparing their garden beds and getting early plant starts in. I spent my time (including not a few perfect 75-degree days) in the library, frantically editing my thesis. This weekend is the first time I’ve been able to spend all outside, now that I’m done with academic work, graduated, and soon-to-be-employed. So I’ve spent the time as productively as I could: yesterday I cleared a bed of everything but a number of serendipitous strawberry plants, and today I mulched those with straw, turned the communal apartment complex compost pile, dug some compost into the bed cleared yesterday, and turned and cleared of grass my main allotted vegetable plot (about 6 x 12 ft). I’m exhausted, dirty, and got a little too much sun. It’s great. I needed to start balancing out a whole year spent inside.

I’m hoping this summer will be a good mix of pursuits outside and inside, things done with my hands and things done with my brain. And when things come up in the garden, I’ll make sure they come up here in the blog, too.