December Field Notes

goblin garden prep, dopamine decor, a book that made my heart explode and harp song

Cozy up besties, get some tea, or whatever hot beverage of your choosing. This is the first issue of my Field Notes series, column? I don’t know what to call it, but you’ll see one here each month!

Observations

I moved into my new home about a month ago. I’m readjusting to living in a city proper again (it’s been 6 years!). Honestly, it’s been overwhelming how many shopping and coffee options I have now. And, I can get Thai food, Indian food… so many foods again. I’m getting my bearings in my new surroundings.

Today, after dumping and layering a bunch of soggy slimy cardboard down to prep an herbal garden bed followed by mulch, I heard a familiar croak in the sky: Raven, two of them, flying westbound. How did I know they were ravens and not city crows? Tail feathers and their voices of course!

corvidresearch.blog

It surprised me, seeing them fly over the city, and it made me glad to see them. Usually, in my experience, ravens are city shy. I went back to brushing aside piles of apple tree trimmings and wondering how I could put them to task in my eventual garden, trellis? A wooden star for our little Christmas tree? Make them into artful wall hangings?

Ground damp and soggy from a recent atmospheric river dumping many inches of rain on the region — I could see little herbs and lettuces popping up in a derelict garden space from the previous tenants’ gardening project. Many more seedlings sprouting, as they do in the fall season here in the Willamette Valley of Oregon — but struggling to grow due to the cold.

I’ve been making mental maps of plants, herbs, and edibles here in my neighborhood. More fig trees than I can count, apples and plums in my yard, arugula, milk thistle, teasel. The usuals: plantain, chickweed and dandelion. Grape vines here and there, hawthorns and a particularly nice patch of mustard greens on a dirt hill in an ally. So many different kind of oak trees, I need to get an oak ID book. My mind does these mental plant resource mappings, maybe like we do in a town or city when we have grocery shopping options. I am building a map of my plant options and resources. I also make note of the cozy homes that flag for kind nice neighbors who do not kill their weeds with glyphosate sprays.