Spring Cheer in the Garden

A bit of actual spring cheer

The soil in the garden here is dreadful. It's heavy on clay, in other words pure mud when wet and rock hard when dry. It screams for compost or any improvement really and all flower and vegetable beds are exposed soil, and so is the ground around the fruit trees. I have nothing against digging my fingers into good, soft top soil, but the muddy sludge that is wet claysoil is not much short of disgusting. This of course means a few things. One, the immediate emergency solution is to bring in as much new soil as I can and use that for whatever I want to plant. Two, I must get a proper compost going post haste, along with a wood chipper so I can start working on both improving the soil itself and covering its surface up with protective material. So far the owner of the house (grandma-in-common-law) has been of the persuasion that exposed soil is "tidy" and that any plant matter cover is not, so theoretically there might be some resistance to my plans, however I suspect that will be shortlived.


I of course knew beforehand that the soil was dreadful, but the knowledge became concrete only just now, as I spent a short while planting some early coriander seeds in a flower bed. Incidentally that seems to be another thing the old lady doesn't subscribe to, having edible plants amidst decorative ones, especially if they're not in nice straight rows. Usually I rather enjoy the process of sowing, but now I found myself not really wanting to touch the ground with my bare hands at all. It really made abundantly clear how desperately the garden needs to be worked on, and how I really can not put it off, especially since I would like to redo the garden quite thoroughly. But even if I wanted to eschew large scale changes, I would still need to put in quite a bit of work if I wanted to get half decent results.

I also spent some time dredging the garden pond, which is small, shallow and filled with many years' worth of gunk. Quite apart from the near solid, porridge like cover of algae on the surface, I dredged up a bucketful of semi rotten leaves, some slimy water plants and a stench familiar to those who have made their acquintance with fetid swamp waters.
Had I not spied what seemed to be the emerging buds of water lilies, I might have been overcome with desire to fill the damn thing up for good. As it is, the optimist -or delusional- section of my persona insists it must be possible for a garden pond to not stink, not be covered in algae and in general to be rather pretty and pleasant than a practical study in swamp gas productions.

Warming a House

It was hinted to me a couple of months ago, that there would be a housewarming gift waiting for me here. I was told it was three times bigger than expected and packed with utmost care with bubble wrap and styrofoam blobs. Of course that sent me guessing, and I easily ruled out anything where size made a difference (otherwise it would've been sent back) and anything robust enough not to need such packing. That would be among other things, most machines and books. I thought it unlikely to be a statue or some such, since I've well articulated my dislike for that kind, but I couldn't really think of anything non-decorative that would fit the criteria.

Well, when I opened the box, I found this.

It opens up into this.

It's a hand carved Malaysian book rest, likely intended for religious books. It's from the 1700's or older. Purchased from a private collection in Leiden, Holland.
Even my wildest guesses didn't include something this nice. The carvings are intricate and beautiful and the entire book rest has suffered only minor damage. The legs have two dragons carved on each and the upper halves contain an elaborate floral pattern surrounded with small human figures (each different) and big rosettes in the corners.

I'm intending to use it for my dictionaries, mainly my Oxford Thesaurus which is certainly big enough to warrant its own book rest. To be honest, that book is probably as close as it gets to a religious text for me.

Because I'm sure none of you are yet sick of seeing it, here are some photos of the details.


A person with long pigtails and what appears to be a massive codpiece. Never let it be said that Malaysian woodcarvers of yore lacked a sense of humour.

This one looks like a dancer. He too seems to have a well-defined codpiece. The corner rosettes have the most obvious damage, as their edges have broken off.

This little fellow is probably praying or studying or some such, but to my eyes he looks like a gardener. After all, he's crouched down and surrounded by flowers.

And here, vans more mit veelink (excuse my Überwaldian), the book rest with my thesaurus. I didn't think that book would ever look small, but it does now.

The Boxes

Today the moving truck arrived with my boxes. After a disappointing start -they failed to show up on the agreed day, supposedly the driver "forgot"- they delivered my earthly possessions right on schedule. Or a day early, if you consider that they said the trip would take a week and they picked them up a day later than originally planned. Tapings intact, all boxes accounted for, only superficial nicks on them. I have only opened three of them so far, the ones containing such important objects as seeds and meds, but I was surprised to find that their sheer presence makes me feel so much more at home. I plan to unpack them only partly at this point, take out the stuff I have use and places for already and redistribute the rest in the remaining boxes.

There it is. Most things I hold worth preserving packed up in 21 cardboard boxes (no product placement intended). Looks so much smaller in the picture. Oh and pardon the low quality image mashing, there was no space in the little anteroom to fit all the boxes in one frame. The ugly lamp by the way, is most emphatically not mine, it just landed there on its way out of the house. Among the things I dug out of the first few opened boxes were my gardening books, a hot water bottle which I could've used a couple of days ago while in the throes of a cold, and best of all, my house slippers made out of thick blue felt. The Finns will know the kind, I'm sure. As a general principle, I hold that home is where the dictionaries are, but I am contemplating the possibility of adding felt slippers to the definition.

Testiteksti

Testing testing one two three