None of the Seeds

 

What else are going to follow-up an introduction to The Specials with? The class of ’77 has given way to the albums of ’79.  Yesterday’s ride was an introduction to The Specials.  “Do the Dog” “It’s Up to You!” ahh, they all sounded great, speeding along Route 9.  I can’t say if they’ll lodge any more notably than The Buzzcocks or The Damned, but I tried and today I tried to maintain consistency on that initial infectious Ska revival and kick it off with “One Step Beyond.”  I labored to remember what other songs were on the album.  What was the name of the song about the “kicker thief, underwear taker?”  “In the Middle of the Night” doesn’t pack the same punch-of-social-relevance as, say “Complete Control,” but it did catch my little one’s attention. 

I dropped my little one off and she couldn’t have been in a better mood.  ‘Twas the last day of school.  Selfishly I found myself wishing or the “last day of work,” though it would, of course, likely prove ominous or at least boring.  I adorned my mask, as she told me it wouldn’t do to be one of those parents walking across the campus without one on and I went back over to the remarkable old copper beech tree there on the lawn, between the main building and the dining hall.  And while I have many memories of many places on campus, I confess that I haven’t much recollection of this phenomenal tree.  How could that be?  Didn’t I come and stare at it every day and wonder how such a remarkable, three-or-four-hundred-year-old venerable could have grown in this place?  For the second time this week I plucked a few nuts from the tree.  I am hoping to be able to grow my own giant, back in New Paltz. 

 

I found something online from an English kid who spoke with a wretched, tired accent about germinating beech seeds naturally and in the fridge.  Martha Stewart also had a blog post, but her trees were already many feet tall.  I think I had all I needed to plop my seeds, still in their husks down into the earth and see if they might not eventually reach for the sky.  I’d planted three or four in a pot the other day and this time I planted four more such pots of seeds.  I suspect it will take weeks before anything shoots up if they do at all. 

 

Down near the trail I refuse to give up.  For the yet another day, I ripped open four packs of pumpkin seeds and dutifully dropped the spade in the earth, toggled it a bit and dropped the pumpkin seeds down in, covering and moving on.  That’s all the “gardening” I’ve decided I’ve time for this year.  Perhaps next year I’ll go about it differently.  There is a lone pumpkin plant which has shot up nicely in the pot where I left it there by the trail.  But none of the seeds I planted in the patch seem to have managed the same.  I suppose this is simply because the surrounding weeds are more capable and are not interested in allowing the pumpkin plant to rise in the crowded scrum.  Maybe they’ll start to flourish before I know it, along with the eggplant and the zucchini and the sunflowers and the myriad of other things I’ve tried to “plant” down there in guerrilla fashion.  But I’m beginning to doubt it. 

 

 

 

Thursday, 06/10/21