The first bed is filled. I shot for a 1/3 each peat, compost, vermiculite deal, per Mel. I ended up with 4 ft vermiculite, 4.4 ft peat (which was a bitch to declod, it was hard and dense like rocks – therefore the peat might be more than 4.4 ft), and SEVEN feet of compost. The mix is still not black enough for my tastes, so I might add some more gook.

I was projecting 22 ft to fill the 4 x 4 x 1.5 bed, and that still seems right – 16 + 8 = 22, but what I have in it now was sold as 15.4 feet. So color me confused.

Oh, the bill for today’s dirt, NOT free like air, was $94. At this rate it will indeed be cheaper to just buy thedamn veggies at the store, and a sight faster besides.

I should note that I while I am committed to this process, I am HATING it. It’s much more physically pleasant in Seattle’s cool climate to perform the tasks associated with this process – measuring and cutting and digging and shit like that – than it was in the climate I was raised in.

My parents encouraged me to help them with their gardening and so forth, and I HATED every second of it. My awareness of that antipathy led me to avoid buying a house for years after I realized it was in my – and Viv’s – financial interest. Three years on, I have certainly confirmed that my antipatthy to homeownership is not reflective of adolescent rage or of Midwestern summer swelter – I still hate it the associated labor just as much as I did as a kid, and I certainly do not subscribe to the ‘safe as houses’ superstition.

I regularly awaken in fearful anxiety dreams associated with our mortgage. In essence, I genuinely do not believe that owning this house is in my economic, financial, or emotional interest.

Yet my rational analysis of my goals is at odds with this.

Returning to gardening, I have found – YES! – something else to hate. When I am engaged in heavy physical labor, I tend to be extremely goal focused, and become incredibly rageful at the least little goal diversion, such as rain, clay-dense peat, a cramped workspace, or other such quotidian challenges.

I don’t enjoy spending time with myself in this state, and there’s little doubt in my mind that my lifelong avoidance of, you know, sports, housework, and exercise is due to the painful self-loathing that these helpless, vicious rages generate. I’m told, of course, that the rest of humanity does not experience that murderous anger whenever their adrenals spin up, but do not believe a word of it.

You do not want to spend time with me, nor I you.