It's about time.

Eventually is almost here.  Maybe this fall, or otherwise definitely next spring.

I have been doing a little bit of pondering lately.  Plenty of time for that because, no matter what else this year, I would like to keep my strawberries.   One has to have his priorities. 
So these strawberries, they should really take off in the second year; the plants do look very healthy, a lot of runners that is, if you can find them.  I know they are called straw berries for a reason, and yes, they were mulched plenty thick, but the weeds came through with a vengenance.   And then you look at it and you think they are gone, gone gone, out of the ball park.  It will take forever to get those weeded.  I try to find ways to do it smart, i.e. with any tool that takes an engine, or makes noise or is dangerous.  
And then in the end you resign yourself and just sit down and start, not knowing how long it will take.  Watering the row so the weeds can be yanked with root and all.  Putting the weeds back in the row and using them as a mulch.  And then, inch by inch, foot by foot, you scoot.  So, yes I have  been pondering, will be pondering some more. 

We have lost that ability, to look at a job and just start on it.   It is called a monks' job in Dutch, something tedious that can take a long long long time (like copying the bible say).   And then I thought about the Belgian Cathedrals, there is one that took 175 years to build, and actually it hasn't been finished properly yet.    Jobsecurity for sure, but that is a patience, and a foresight, a determination.  (I can just see the laborer come home from work: his wife greeting him and asking how his day was).   I am looking at spending a bleep of infinity (120 hours) to weed a few strawberries.  It really does work a lot better together,  more fun weeding with someone else.  Hopefully my friend David from St. Louis will come over to help today.  I am keeping the faith that one day he will overcome his fobia of leaving the house and will just will himself in the car and scoot up here.  Them cathedrals are not built by one person
However silly that job is, there is something very calming about it.  Just keeping  at it.  Maybe a little dutchness surfacing: a shovel a day keeps the sea away.   Another feature is the wine weeding, preferably a cheap bottle of strawberry wine, starting at about 11 in the morning in 95 degree heat.  You take a swig (no cup or glass allowed (Wil Farm safety feature) you throw the bottle 20 feet ahead in the row, and by the time you have completely forgotten about it, there is a bottle of wine in the row: happy surprise there!  Take a swig and repeat.  Aamazing how I keep surprising myself, although for some reason my throwing arm becomes weaker as the bottle becomes empty and the wine warmer.  10 ft, 5, ft, 1 ft.  I bet that is how those monks copy their bibles too. 
Everything has to be done more efficient, produced faster and what do we have, unemployment on the one hand and shitty jobs on the other.   Go figure. 
Can I just say something about the weather?  Ma complains about Holland, 70 degrees and raining every day...  Such weather sounds like an American tourist tourist trap destination.  Fourth week of 100 degrees here.   I remember that cold front moving in last week, it was only 90 degrees, time to put an extra quilt and a sweater on.   Sleep schedule has been a mess with this heat and night shift so here I am at 4 am waiting for it to get light, baking a cake and listening to........ thunder!  Not worried, it will blow over. 

Oh chicken update:  they are stupid, and they kill their own cousins and nephews.  Strange animals.  Will start using the hennabagoes next week, after I get back from Colorado.

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