Installation

Peace!

Since I'm not working.... I've had time to work on my garden. Right before I was let go I ordered $30 worth of vegetable seeds. Would I have still went on with the garden had I known I wasn't going to have a job? Probably not. But since I ordered them, I am going to keep on keeping on....

I plan to get a few more seeds....

I decided to go with a bale garden. This house is new to me and I don't know what's going on with the land so I figured that the bales (a)can deal with this Georgia clay, (b)would be easier and (c)better for me overall. If you've never heard of wheat bale gardening, google it. People are growing amazing gardens in wheat bales.

Basically the science behind bale gardening is the bales will turn into compost with 10-14 days of treatment. Treatment includes a nitrogen fertilizer and water. Once properly treated, you can put plants right in the bales or start seeds. Starting from seed is actually cool because the bale will retain a certain amount of heat, and plants planted in compost grow out of control. Also plants won't be competing with weeds for nourishment. You do need to add some soil to the top once you get planting. The bales should last through 2 seasons of planting (summer and fall) and then you can either plant new bales over it, till the compost into the ground or both. The down side is the amount of constant watering you have to do. Bales don't hold water well.

I had the hardest time finding wheat bales. Pinestraw? Everywhere! I lucked up and found some decent sized bales at Lowes. They were about 4'x2' and cost $6.77/bale. I was planning to do 15 bales but I downsized to 10. So the bales cost ~$70 and the seeds cost $30. The garden, so far, cost $100. I had a gift card given to me by a friend as a wedding present. Yeah, the God and I got legally married... So my overall investment is $50. I moved the bales in my Jeep. In the future... I will rent a $19.99 uhaul. It cost me $20 to get all that wheat straw out of my car and I think, I'm not sure, that I broke the vacuum cleaner. I'm documenting the costs because folks always wanna complain about how expensive healthy activities are.


The bales are supposed to set up on corrugated cardboard. That keeps the grass underneath from infecting the bales. But not in a bad way. Cardboard will decompose and become part of the compost mix. Also cardboard will encourage earthworms. Worms are great for a garden. But I didn't have any corrugated cardboard,nor was i going out to look for any. Since I have been in the moving cipher, I used a few of the boxes that we used to move. Hey cardboard is cardboard. Right?


I set them up and watered them in. The smell of damp wheat was strangely soothing... The 1st 3 days are water only. Next 3 days are 1/2 cup fertilizer per bale. Day 7-10 the fertilizer is reduced to 1/4 cup per bale. If the bale is cool enough, you can plant on day 10. Otherwise, keep watering without fertilizer and plant on day 14. I'd like to start the 1st week of May.

That's my boo thing garden, y'all!


PEACE!

Deserts

Peace!

I'm Black. And I have lived in Black neighborhoods most of my life... BY CHOICE! But in my new digs, some realities have become abundantly clear. Black neighborhoods are food deserts. Not all... but most.

Food deserts are defined as areas where fresh foods aren't available. Seriously... Really???? What Black people don't want fresh foods? We are cool with fast and processed foods? I don't think so.

I remember an argument with my mother and my uncle. My aunt and uncle came to visit us in NJ, and my uncle straight clowned my mother about her choice to remain in Jersey. The most memorable part of the argument was that our food was nasty. What??? How could our food be nasty? It came from the grocery store. But the grocery store was the same kind of store that every one had. I mean across the bridge where the white people lived, they had better stores, but that was over there. We could go over there if we wanted too. My parents had cars, and sometimes we did go to those stores, but it involved a bit of a road trip.

I went to a HBCU. I lived off campus. And again, the only option was 1 grocery store and a few gas stations. And speaking of gas stations... I had a coworker who lives in the belly of the hood, with no car of her own. I have witnessed this former coworker buy ALL her groceries from either the gas station or Family Dollar. This is the option that is offered to people who choose to live in Black neighborhoods.

I've lived in neighborhoods that started off mixed. I mean if I live there then its mixed right? These neighborhoods had grocery stores (not food marts) banks (not check cashing places), restaurants (not many fast food restaurants), etc. But as the neighborhood became darker... These amenities disappeared. Not all at once, but eventually. And it was blamed on rising crime rates. I call Bullshit! These neighborhoods didn't become more crime ridden. It just got darker. I looked at the statistics that are available for all folks to see and those were lies. Those companies just didn't want to be in dark neighborhoods.

On the flip side. I've lived in neighborhoods that started out very Black, and then white people came on in... They bring in the new businesses... white businesses.... and then the prices of rent and taxes go up forcing the dark people out. there is an area in Atlanta called "Browntown" that's not so brown anymore. They even built these people a new park!!!!

And this isn't a war Black folks can win. Are very presence decreases property values. It's not that we are nasty or violent. But just us being there means that the neighborhood is going downhill. And if we keep coming, they will keep fleeing. The Obamas could move in a lily white neighborhood and the values would drop.

The basics that Black folks get in there own neighborhoods, is always sub par. The schools suck, the roads suck, the cops are meaner, and the food sucks! Food is a primal necessity we all need. How are we supposed to prosper without proper nourishment? When I 1st moved to the city (rather than suburbs) the only person in my office who lived in the city was my white boss. I made a comment about the loss of electricity when the weather got bad and he looked at me like I had 2 heads. He said he can't remember the last time he lost electricity in his white neighborhood. We would lose electricity every week in my Black neighborhood. Not just me, the street lights would start blinking.

So what do we do? The canned answer is we need to do for ourselves. But we have shown and proven that that isn't going to happen. We've drank too much of the Kool-Aid. What we really need to do is have a mental paradigm shift. Yes we need to have our own... But we need to do it right and not half assed. We need to offer our own the very best, with the best customer service. Not that shitty service we get from hood type shops. I went to florist in the hood looking for carnations and you should have seen the anorexic looking specimen she pulled out of the refrigerator. The look of shock on my face had her lie to me and tell me that's all she had. She didn't expect for me to go to the back and look myself. When I saw she was offering me bullshit at full price, I bounced. Also we need to not ask for hook ups like just because someone shares our skin color, they owe us a solid. You don't do that when you go to a white store.

But here's the thing... White folks don't like when we get our shit together. Most race wars were started because poor white folks were mad that Black folks had more than they did. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Until we take the devil off our planet... we will have no justice or peace.

I gotta go now. I have a long drive to get some good groceries....


Peace

Forced New Beginings

Peace!

I lost my job on Wednesday, April 6, 2006. I worked there for 13 years almost to the date! THIRTEEN mother-jumping years!!!! Yes I'm salty. My boss said it's because we aren't making any money and payroll is too hard to meet. He decided to keep his non-working friend who has been there a few years. She does nothing but make personal calls all day. She leaves early every day (at 63 she does crossfit) and comes late most days. This came as a total shock to me, but i don't think it was shocking to the other employees. I was off the week before I was let go. And when i came back on Monday, folks weren't meeting my eyes, nor were they speaking to me. I had seniority over his friend, and there is a person who works per diem, part time. But I am the one... the only one... who got the ax. And I haven't had a raise in 9 years because he said that we were in a salary freeze.... whatever I'm over it. Sort of.....

Anywho... I have time to focus on some gardening! The God and I closed on a house on March 28th. Yes my boss knew all about this while he was planning my exit. This new house is on a half of an acre lot. And.... it already has a dedicated area for gardening and a chicken coop! So while I'm looking for another job, I'll have plenty to keep me busy. On "Axe Wednesday", I ordered a bunch of seeds (in addition to a bunch of other things I wouldn't have purchased had I known I was going to be let go. I actually emptied my amazon wish list...) The seeds came yesterday. Seeds are heirlooms and do not have an unlimited shelf life. So... I'm a need to plant these seeds this season if I want to use them.

I've decided to go with bale gardening. I'm unfamiliar with the property and it is almost too late in the season to get started with the ground. I don't have any seedlings started. It was always my plan to do a bale garden. This being Georgia means we have that red clay which is not habitable for most plants. Especially new plants. A few years of bale gardening, turning the composted bales into the ground every year, will give me, over time, good ground soil.

No pics right now. I'm watching some delivery men try to bring in a refrigerator we purchased when we thought we were a 2-income couple. Oh well!


Peace

Your Shit

I find it interesting that people don't take responsibility for the choices they make. As grown people we all get to make choices that will tremendously affect our lives. That's what makes us grown. And when I see grown people, my assumption is they made choices that put them in their current situations or they allowed people to make choices for them... again a decision they made. So I hardly ever feel sorry for grown people who find themselves in a dubious predicament because it was their hands that put them there.

That being said, it is my CHOICE to not let collateral people and the choices they made, affect me in such a way my Cipher gets shaken. No. that is my boundary. The only people that get to get in... and this list is super short... are my mother and my God. The list was longer but folks died off. I've lost a lot of people so I'm sure whose actions will have the visceral effect on me. I share my life with my God, so anything that affects him will affect me. He gets sick and can't work, that interferes with the bills being paid in my home. There's love there, but for this Build I'm being pragmatic. If something happened to my mother, my household bills would not be affected since she does not make a financial contribution to my home, but I'm very invested emotionally in my mother's well being. Being her only living child makes the responsibility even harder. But these are my legal relatives.

I have dear friends, that should something happen to them, I'd be emotionally devastated. But that is where the response ends. I'd be there for the moment to their families and then I'd be back to my grind.

This being said... means.... I'm not getting invested in shit that isn't my business. I'm not. And you can't make me. That is a grown person decision.

Does this make me a bad friend? Could be... Could be not. Whose to say? But this is the friendship that you are getting from me. Take it or leave it.

Notice I didn't say Peace....

Retrograde

It is said that insanity is to doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. But what is it called when you do the same thing over and over again and you get different results each time? What is the opposite of insanity? Sanity? I don't think so.

Every 5 years or so I question my entire life. My health changes... usually for the worse. I get dissatisfied with my wardrobe and have a crisis of lifestyle. Every five years. Nothing seems to work. It's here.... right on schedule.

Holiday rant

Peace.

I was reading a blog rant that inspired my own.....

This time of year is known as the “Holidays.” Not the Christmas season, but the Holidays. Because.... there are lots of different things being celebrated now. Not all of them are Christmas. Jesus is not the only reason for the season.

There are a bunch of Christians pissed the fuck off because folks say “Happy Holidays” vs “Merry Christmas.” Ummmm.... why? When you look at an individual, you cannot assume they are Christians. You should not make that assumption. I live in the USA and xianity is NOT the official religion. There is not official religion for the US so it would be foolish of you to assume that everyone you come in contact with shares YOUR beliefs.

Here is the thing... xians have not done their due diligence to preserve their celebration. If you don't like how secular xmas has become then you should have not allowed everyone to join in. You don't see gentiles celebrating Hanukkah. You don't see non-Muslims fasting for Ramadan. If you wanted xmas to be pure, you should have kept it to yourselves. There is even an argument that the xians came up with xmas trees... I'm sorry to inform you... you did not. Folks been bring trees into their homes at the winter solstice for antiquity. In winter everything died and only evergreens were alive. They wanted cheering up. And xians answer me this.... What do xmas trees have to do with the birth of your savior???? Was there a tree growing in the barn he was born in? Did the wise man hang their gifts like ornaments on the 1st xmas tree??? Get your fucking facts straight. Jesus wasn't even born in December. Xian fathers picked that date because that's when a bunch of merry making was going on anyway. They didn't want their new followers to miss out so they co-opted the celebration. The sadness is because of their lying assed shenanigans, the real birth date of Jesus was lost to the ages. Idiots....

This is the same shit that happens on Mothers Day. I get wished happy Mother's Day without checking to see if I have a child. When I say I don't have a child, instead of just apologizing and moving on they try to qualify it. Well go wish some men Happy Mothers Day. And they say it's stupid. Just as stupid as assuming everyone buying gifts and wrapping paper has a church home.

I got to googling because I was wondering how many officially Xian countries there are. The answers were murky at best. I'm talking OFFICIAL, written in there constitution countries and not just where the majority of the population is xian. I said it was murky because even the internet won't commit. In countries like Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan their constitution starts out, “We are the sons of Muhammad...” Well you know those jokers are officially Muslim all up and through. But not so much for these arrogant xians... England has an official xian church. So I assume it's a xian country. The Vatican is a country so them. Other than that... idk. Maybe some of them South American countries?

Y'all xians need to stop. Everything ain't all about you. There are plenty of people who don't want your jesus and there ain't nothing you can do about it. And if you don't like “Happy Holidays” would you like “Fuck you bitch” any better?

Black Women

Peace.

I was having a conversation with one of our patients yesterday. I'm super friendly with patients... it's part of the job. And it's authentic.... even though I don't aspire to be a “nice” person.... but anyway.... We were both Black women just shooting the breeze about how we navigate this wilderness.....

And I realize... It is so fucking hard to exist in this country being a Black person and additionally being female. I wanna say that we aren't supported by the men of our race... But that's a build for another time.

I'm an inconsistent outside runner. I say inconsistent because if the weather is bad I don't run. And I don't have a treadmill or a gym membership so there is no running indoors. I like being outside. Anywho.... I have had numerous life lessons associated with running outdoors.... (1) always make sure your clothes match. If not, and your Black, you look like your fleeing from a crime scene. That's one of the reasons I don't run in the cold. Because to layer up to warmth has me looking like a thief. Especially if my face is partially covered. Here is the thing... when I go over to areas where white folks are known to run and they dress ragedy.... they look like runners. Not to me, but to other people. So the lesson I took from that is that as a Black person I have to look non-intimidating otherwise I will be detained by the police. Even though I'm a woman....

But because I'm a woman I have learned (2) to be prepared to prove... if possible... that I am actually running and not 'solicitating'. This shit pisses me way the fuck off. Basically, folks see me on the street and just assume I'm a hoe. Nevermind that I am exercising in my own damn neighborhood. The only reason for a Black WOMAN to be outdoors is because she is looking to have illicit sex with strangers for money? But... there are Black male runners in my hood. We've had the occasional convo. They too get stopped by the police, but it is never for soliciting. It's always a check. Funny, I get the checks too and the extras.

I don't like them 'checks' either. Not only because it's an insult to me, but because you search for zones when running. To stop in the middle throws the entire run off. Because you either cool down and slow your heart rate. And you want your heart rate to hit a certain spot and maintain it there, That makes you stronger as a person and stronger as a runner. If your training for respectable distances than this is a problem getting frequently pulled over.

Problem (3) So, don't run in my own neighborhood. Run on dedicated tracks. Well..... on holidays and weekends I can run at the local school's track... if they allow it. Sometimes they do, sometime they don't. It's all about how they feel and what's going on. If soccer practice is happening or school is session you aren't welcome. So there is no true consistency in there. I could go to trails.... But the trails in this county have histories of women being raped and killed there. I'd be running alone so....... yeah no. I'd rather be accused of whoredom than killed. I could run the beltline... I could... I have.... But the beltline is for white people. No there's no 'white's only' sign but there might as well be. I've run the beltline.... By the time you find a place to leave your car... most of the spots over there are metered..... And get to running... the white runners treat you like you have ebola and want to infect their babies. And the cops ARE GOING to stop you and question you about how you got loose from your hood. You better have your license and some cash in your pocket or they could get you for vagrancy or loitering. Running while Black is a real thing.

It's not just running. I'm marginalized at every opportunity by him/devil. I was in a restaurant with some girlfriends and we were sitting at the bar. Every time we ordered something we were asked to pay immediately. As a former bartender, that immediately got my attention. If you want people to keep drinking and ordering items, you don't make them pay after every order. Mentally when people pay, they are ready to go. My friends paid... I waited. I told the bartender I wasn't done with my order and retained the menu. I observed the bartender running tabs for all the white people but insisting that all the Black people pay up front. I decided on water and when we left and my girls were about to tip the bartender, I told them to stop. The bartender got mad and told me that he was entitled to tips. That was enough to insure my friends were NOT going to tip. But I informed him... loudly... that I observed him running tabs for white people, but not for Black people. He said Black people run out on bills. He just insured that all the other Black people sitting there weren't going t tip.

I don't have to tell you about being followed in stores. All Black people get that. I don't have to tell you about the everyday racism and discrimination that all Black people face. But as a woman... I get extra special discrimination. Here is a list of things people assume when they look at me.....

I have several children.... by different men.
I have never been married.
I live in the projects
I was raised by any other female relative other than my biological mother
I'm on welfare or have been on it at some point
I have a relative in jail.
I've never voted.
I have some hustle going on.
My hair isn't real.
I'm uneducated.
I work a menial job.
I don't know my father well or at all.
I have bad credit.
I turn up every Saturday night with brown liquor and then praise white Jesus all day on Sunday.

This is some bullshit to have to wake up knowing I'm going to have to face every day. But I do it because there is nothing else to do. But since it's wrong... I do get to bitch about it.

I'm exhausted.


Peace