Your life started on Thanksgiving Day, 1995, in Columbus Ohio. A coworker of mine had gone there from Chicago to visit her family, and she went to a movie the day after Thanksgiving. She exited out the back of the theatre, into an alley, where she heard a tiny meow. Looking around, she found you, about a day old, abandoned alone in a shoe box in which someone had unhelpfully also left a turkey leg. She put you in her pocket and brought you home on the plane, which is how I met you, and you came into my life.
You saw me through nearly every major change of my adult life, over your almost 20 years with me. We moved from Chicago after my pre-midlife crisis and career change (you complaining for 3 days in the truck cab). You kept me company during some very lonely years; I really didn’t mind the scratches and the bites (usually followed by a conciliatory lick).
You managed to escape outdoors only once in 20 years. I wandered the neighborhood at night, listening closely. I would say “meow” and wait to hear you. Finally, you did answer me, with your characteristic “meow?” which you somehow always posed as a question, rather than a statement. That was one of the worst days of my life: I thought I had broken my promise to you, that I made when you were a kitten: that I was responsible for you, no matter what. I would take care of you your whole life.
We went on to move, several more times. You got a little fatter and a little more mellow. You survived the addition of Otts (and Juju - another black cat) to our household. You were nothing if not adaptable. And patient. And a bit ornery. When Otts and I had to leave the US (due to the crazy immigration system – me for 6 months, him for a year), you and Juju stayed behind. And you loved me as much when we got home as when we left. You were not vindictive.
You were getting up in years when Juju died (and I’ll never forget what you did at that moment; if I ever wished you could talk, it was then), but you also came into your own as the only kitty in the house. You got kinder and mellower; you developed one white whisker which you kept for years, the other whiskers turning only near the end. When we got another cat (Hachi), you faded back again; you were never the dominant personality.
You never had a sick day in your life, until you were 16. I thought we might lose you then, when you lost so much weight. Due to feeding complications with the other cat, we had to wake up every 45 minutes all night long to feed you – which we did for almost two years. At this point I’m sure we sound like crazy cat owners, but there was not any other way to both let you sleep with us in our bed, and make sure you did not lose any more weight. You were more and more a part of our life as we kept track of how you were doing, where you were, if you needed anything.
It was strange to see the entire arc of your life from kittenhood all the way to extreme old age. It was a little like being able to see the arc of your own life, particularly to see what getting old will do to us all. It’s not that long before I myself am an old kitty.
For the last few years, I really didn’t know each day when I left if you would make it through the day. But you kept on going, ever your loving, idiosyncratic self, all the way to the end. When I left for work each day, I would say goodbye, as if it were the last time. You were deaf by this point and couldn’t hear me, but it didn’t matter, I told you anyway that I loved you. But mainly, I thanked you for all that you had done for me. I genuinely felt that every day I said it. You could not know this, but you made me a better person.
So, thank you, Owen, one last time.
So much for my plan to blog the whole summer! Anyway, you did not miss much. More harvesting of various things, things that did not grow, more rogue vegetables. Complete rundown below on what worked and what didn't for this particular gardener, in this particular garden.
Unless otherwise noted, all plants were from starters, mostly planted in April.
I stopped really tracking how much time I was spending on the garden, as well as how much I was using the bounty from it. But I've made estimates below. Other than buying a few more starters in Aug, I really didn't spend much more on it at all. So I mainly estimated a weekly value for what I would typically pick, but upped it a bit for all the basil that was harvested in Aug/Sep.
Ok, so it didn't really end up paying back what I spent on it. I guess the other way to look at it is that I got a lot of satisfaction and enjoyment for about $25/week. Next year should be much cheaper since all the landscaping/beds are in place.
Not a lot of 'action' to report (other than the harvesting of many herbs), so here is an update as to how all those plants are doing, about two months later:
At this point, I would say I overestimated how much parsely and cilantro we eat. Have basely touched the mint so far. Also have more thyme than we need.
Rogue Tomatoes! I purposely did NOT plant tomatoes, since everyone report agony over them. [and yet still, they are what every single person asks me if I've planted....hm....] However, two of them have spontaneously sprouted up, in two different areas of the garden. Ok, if you want to live so badly, I will try to help you. But I will probably end up killing you. You have been warned, Rogue Tomato.
Things are proceeding fairly well, it seems. Bought some acorn squash to plant in the unused 5th of 5 raised beds. Still need to find some basil to plant, everywhere I go it's either sold out or looking very raggedy. Started to harvest the cilantro, which seems to have grown unusually large...not sure if I should have cut it back earlier. The Italian parsley also seems to have experienced a weird growth spurt (bolted?); and the arugula continues to flower despite my best attempts to keep it cut back. All it seems to want to do is flower...not many leaves. Herbs are doing well except the tarragon, which seems committed to staying tiny.
The only really bad problem is with the chard. The leaves are turning brown (the leaves at the outside of the plant go first). Cutting them back does not seem to help. See picture to right. Any ideas?
Most of my labor is actually going into non-garden landscaping, so I'm no longer counting that in my count of hours to keep the garden going. If you remember all that gravel I started with, I've managed to re-use almost all of it. Except about 20 cubic feet. Not sure where to put it, it is still a sizable mound.
Not all that much to report from the past 3 weeks...hence no posts. The garden continues to grow, and we actually have picked a few of the herbs (judiciously). This seems like a good time to explain some of the measures at the bottom of each post. One thing I'm trying to track is how happy the garden is making me. One other dimension is basically profitability. I've been tracking expenses, but now that the 'harvest' (LOL) has begun, will also look at what we save at the grocery by not buying herbs and veggies that we have from the garden. We've used herbs 3 times (some scallions, oregano, and thyme), which I'm going to price at $1 / $3 / $3 if I had had to purchase them.
No dead plants yet, nor significant bugs (fingers crossed). I think that I'm doing something wrong with the arugula though...I'm guessing it wasn't supposed to go to flower? Also, added some chives to what's planted, thanks to a friend sharing extra from her yard. Still have not found lemongrass or galangal to plant, but have not really tried. Think it'd work to see if store bought lemongrass will root?
Been working in the yard a lot, but not so much on the garden. One thing about all those hours in the garden, it meant that I didn't spend any time doing yard maintenance, and now it's biting me in the butt. So more gravel relocation, weeding, edging, moving of plants and some bamboo removal (which looks to be an unending saga worthy of its own blog). Also removed a fence post, which obviously the person who poured the cement for it meant it to last several centuries. Now have a giant lump of cement to dispose of.
Really, there's not that much more to say. I finally planted the herbs and vegetables that I bought about two weeks ago, so now the garden actually looks somewhat like a garden, in that it's no longer all about dirt and gravel.
At first I was going to be pretty diligent at following the guidance at spacing, which varied from 8" to 24" depending on the plant. In the end, I just put them all about 12" apart. (really, mint needs 24" around it? that seems crazy, considering it's a weed, basically). We'll see if that works out or not. I'm only really worried about the kale and the radicchio, which might be space hogs. I'm also wondering about the instructions on full vs. part sun. Almost everything I planted said 'full sun' and what I have mostly is 'pretty sunny but with a little shade thrown in.' I'm guessing it will work.
I am still a little worried about the soil overall. I put in the recommended amount of compost, but the soil here still does not seem very loamy to me. Still too much clay. I also added, as I was putting each plant in, some compost from our own bins. Thanks to the prior owners, these were pretty full of what looks like excellent compost (from kitchen scraps, not yard waste), complete with worms. And a whole lot of egg shells, which seemed reluctant to break down. So maybe that will be a little boost for my new plant friends! There was not a ton of it though.
I planted four out of my five 4' square raised beds. Saving the last one for some basil, maybe a second planting of cilantro? Also thinking I want a lot more shallots, as we eat a lot of them.
Cumulative garden stats:
Well, gentle reader, if you've made it this far with me (can't believe I started 3 months ago!), just hang in there a bit longer. There will soon be plants in the ground. I know this for sure now because I actually bought starters for most of the plants on my list from last week. Although, they are still not planted in the ground. There were a few things to do first....
Both of my regular readers (Hi, Mom!) will readily recall that with this project I was not only trying to plant an edible and delicious (and maybe cost-saving) garden, but that it also had two other goals: drain less water towards our house, and look beautiful/add to the value of the house. And in fact, far more time and sweat has been put into these latter two things than in planting food. So it's probably to be expected that this past week saw more labor on the landscaping aspects of this project.
Due to the fact that I was leveling off the yard, I ended up creating 3 levels. So the question became: what will differentiate (and hold back) one level from another? I thought that some bricks would go well with my color theme, and decided I wanted bricks that look like bricks, vs. the horribly regular and not quite brick colored 'bricks' one finds at the giant box hardware store. After much searching for used bricks (who knew there was a giant market for these things?) I finally found a pile of them at a local building materials recycling place (Second Use). So, bricks ready, I put down the anti-weed ground cloth/covering, and put the bricks in place. Next up was finally returning much of the giant pile of gravel back into the spaces between the raised beds. I still have more gravel than I know what to do with (may have to ressurect the zen garden idea), but that is a problem for another time.
I bought nearly every plant on my list from last week (except the berries, lemongrass and galangal, the last two of which I'm not even sure will grow in this climate)! Got them at a local nursury (West Seattle Nursery). I really couldn't believe they had radicchio. And shallots. All that remains is to mix in the compost and figure out what to plant where, spaced how. Hopefully the rain lets off a bit as the ground still seems too wet to me.
Culumative garden stats:
Slowly but surely, it's coming together. Have all the bed frames in place now, and have leveled the ground (again) to prepare it for the pathways. This involved putting even more dirt into the raised beds. And I have a smal pile of extra dirt now. Overall, though, my estimations of how much earth I would have relative to leveling the yard and the hight of the raised beds seems to have worked out. Don't ask me how I calcuated this; I just eyeballed it. [In high school I took one of those spatial reasoning tests and scored off the chart...not that seems to have been useful for me. Until today.]
Last week I got rained out (hence no 'week 10' entry), only got about an hour in, and the dirt was so wet it really was impossible to work with. This week it's still a little too wet, so note to self and others: better to get the earth in place before it gets really rainy in the Spring.
I've come to realize that for me, the design of the overall garden space is taking up more time and energy than the raised beds/gardening part of this. So when I look at the hours spent on this, probably you'd only need half of what I've done, if you started from a patch of dirt instead of an old dog run. I'm still spending a lot of time moving dirt around, leveling the yard, and figuring out where/how to put the gravel paths. Fingers crossed that it'll look great in the end, but really: if you just want some raised beds to plant stuff in, you could probably get to where I am in the process with about 15 hours of labor to date.
On to plant selection! I've started to look for starter plants, and am not seeing much that's on my list. Kind of worried that that means I'm going to have to plant seeds, which I think will work less well for me, but I don't think I'll have much choice. At the moment, here's what we think we'll put in:
HERBS:
VEGGIES:
FRUIT:
This list is mainly fairly expensive things that we use a lot of in our cooking. We've already got rosemary in our yard.
Culumative garden stats:
If you are wondering what happened to week 8, there was no week 8. As in, I didn't do any work on the Garden that week.
Well, things are moving along! At least the illusion of progress, which is nearly as good as actual progress. The moving of dirt continued. I took my previously level yard, and started digging out the paths between what will be the beds and created 5 piles of dirt (which will be the raised beds). I sort of guessed at where they'd be...which if I was doing this again, I think I'd be more precise, since I ended up moving more dirt again. Oh well. I also added some sand into my clay-heavy soil. Luckily (or unluckily) our yard came with 2 features we don't really want or need: one is the dog run that's becoming a garden; the other was a child's sand box/area. Really it's just a large patch of sand in the middle of the back flower garden. It's got to go eventually, so I worked some of it into the soil. I'm going to reuse/repurpose every bit of this yard!
So, with piles of dirt ready, I turned my attention to creating the frames for the beds. You will recall I had bought a bunch of 6' cedar fencing boards, and cut them down to 4' lengths. I had also decided to stain the boards (I have some natural stains, so no chemicals). The color competition was won by the red/organce and black/grey stains. So I stained all the boards, and cut posts for each corner (and gave them pointy ends...felt like I was preparing to take on a large number of vampires). At first I tried nailing the boards to the posts....FAIL. Even driling holes first did not work. So turned to our trusted friend the dry wall screw, which worked great.
Next, hauled the frames (I made 3 of the 5 I need) out to the yard (garden!) and plunked them down, hammered them into the dirt, tried my best to level them, and was done. I left out a lot of annoying digging and moving of dirt in there, but you get the idea. About 7 hours of labor this weekend, but worth it, as I can actually see some progress orccuring. Plus really getting to be time to be planting stuff!
A People’s Hearing
Keeping Families Together culminating event | Fair Immigration Reform Movement
Congressional Testimony, Senate Office Building, Washington DC
March 13, 2013
Legislators in attendance:
Our Testimony:
Otts Bolisay:
Thank you for listening to our stories today. My name is Otts Bolisay. I’m an immigrant, in the US on a temporary work visa.
Ken Thompson:
I’m Ken Thompson, I’m a US citizen. Otts and I have been together for 12 years now, and we live in Seattle, Washington.
Otts:
I want you to take a second to think about your biggest fear.
For the longest time, my biggest fear was having to leave the country. Ken and I have already been separated once by our immigration laws. I wanted to share with you a little bit of what that was like.
It is a hard thing to walk away from your loved ones, not being sure when you'll see them again.
I've put it out of my mind, what it felt like in the airport that day when Ken and I said goodbye to each other. As he walked away, I could feel the air suddenly pressing on top of me, how it wouldn't enter my lungs. The inability to stand, or speak. Having to close my eyes because the dizziness would make me collapse.
All of this happened in 2007. My work visa had expired, and in order to qualify for a new one, I needed to leave the country, and not reenter for a full year.
But there was no guarantee that I would get that visa. Which meant that I had to leave Ken (we had been together 6 years at that point), my community, my home, without knowing for certain that I would see any of it again. It is a terrible thing.
At this point in my life, I've spent almost 24 years in this country. I turn 41 this July. That's over half my life. I've spent over half my life in this country on some kind of temporary status, with no path to permanence. Over half my life, and in that time, learning, working, feeling that it was safe to come out of the closet, falling in love.
I have a brother and sister who both married US citizens. They're able to stay because immigration law allows their spouses to sponsor them. But even if Ken and I married, which we can finally do in WA State, he can't sponsor me to stay.
So I'm standing here now, remembering what it felt like when Ken and I were separated. Standing here, 24 years in the country, 12 years in a relationship with a US citizen, still with no path to permanence.
We're here to talk about Keeping Families Together. For LGBT people, family is very often the support network that forms around you over time. It's something that you have to make because, for many of us, your blood family don't want to have anything to do with you—(you can be thrown out, disowned, or just erased from memory.) I'm lucky that my family never made me go to therapy, never forbade me from coming home for Christmas, and never stopped picking up the phone whenever I called.
Separation from your loved ones is just as unbearable whether it's me and Ken, a mixed status family or somebody who's undocumented.
Ken:
So what lies ahead for Otts and I? The clock is ticking again for us. Otts' visa expires next year, and once again, we will have to leave the US.
Our dilemma is that there is no country we can live together in permanently, and as of right now, there is no path back to the US for Otts. I can not move permanently to Otts' home country. So where can we go?
If this sounds like some sort of horrible limbo to you -- it is. But our limbo is not limited to just the times we are exiled from the US, it permeates every day of our lives. We've avoided, or put off, most every major decision most couples make: about changing jobs, moving to another city, buying a home. Or having children. It is a life deferred, a thing I'm sure many here are familiar with.
I don't know why or how Otts and I found each other, our families immigrating across the globe and bringing us together. I just know that we love each other, and that we are a family now. Unfortunately, our immigration policies are working to keep our family apart, not together. This is true for an estimated 40,000 same sex couples also in our situation.
The Uniting American Families Act addresses this problem, and needs to be included in any core Comprehensive Immigration Reform legislation.
Some people must wonder why gays and lesbians are part of an immigration reform discussion. Aside from the fact that many people, like Otts, are both immigrants and LGBT, after hearing the stories of everyone here today, I'm more convinced than ever that there are more similarities than differences between these two communities. We both want to keep our families together. We both lead lives of deferred plans and dreams. We both are accepted and rejected by the country we call home.
The clock is ticking for Otts and I, and many immigrant families. We need action by Congress on CIR now.
Thank you for your time today, and for listening to our story.
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text and lower image copyright 2013 Ken Thompson and Otts Bolisay. Use only by permission.
top image copyright Immigration Equality