Johnny and Sharyn: the Story Begins

March 7, 2022 //
15

I met Johnny fairly late in the game. He had jettisoned a marriage and a band. When we met, I was fifty-one and he was sixty-three. In 2009 our mutual friend Marlene McCall brought him to a monthly session I had started where we sang traditional ballads at a home in Berkeley. This man that I had never seen before walked in one day, parked his Marshall amp next to an electrical outlet and told me “Move over, darlin’,” usurping my customary place at the foot of the table. I was not primed to like him, neither his electric guitar nor his take-charge attitude. I grudgingly shifted my chair over about a foot, maintaining a semblance of my space.


But when the session started I saw how he listened to the singing, his expression rapt, following every nuance, every ornament of the long Scottish and American ballads we sing. I saw his eyes riveted on each singer’s face, his right hand scribbling singers’ names and song titles on white paper that he kept in the breast pocket of his long-sleeved black dress shirt.


I fell in love with Johnny’s versions of blues ballads: “Frankie and Albert,” “Stagolee” and “St. James Infirmary.” I got used to his long introductions (The man liked to talk…). Gradually, over two years, after one incident where he flirted with me for a minute, I began to fall for the man himself. I contrived to be places he might be. I missed him when he wasn’t at a Ballads session — he was prone to disappear every once in while for a month or two.


In July 2012, just back from a meditation retreat, I decided to email Johnny about getting together to swap songs. I paid out a lot of rope, saying I didn’t know how busy he was or if he would be interested. I offered to invite Marlene so that we would have the possibility of singing three-part harmony.


He called me up, we jostled schedules for a week or so, and then fixed a date. I would go out to meet him at his house in San Leandro. I remember fussing about what to wear on the warm Saturday afternoon.


After taking a bus, a BART train and a moderately long walk, I arrived sweating slightly. I walked into his living room, furnished with a couple of oak chairs, a worn blue love seat, a cheap oblong table and three entire walls of record albums, CDs and music books. His red Telecaster and vintage 00018 Martin waited on their music stands.


Johnny did not offer me refreshments. Instead, he directed me to lay my guitar case across the oak chairs and unpack. He sat in a black padded folding chair near his teaching table, a beer at his right hand, plugged in, tuned up.


Early on he sang me Allen Toussaint’s “New Love Thing,” which would become our song: “I lost my job and I don’t care — I got me a new love thing.”


When he finished playing that one, I said “Tell me you didn’t write that song.”
“I like that song,” he said.
“I like it, too, but it is a catalog of disasters. You’re inviting misery.”


He told me I didn’t understand, that in New Orleans where Toussaint lived, people celebrated every good thing even if they lost their jobs, wrecked their cars, etc.

Our music exchanges were less than stellar. Johnny assumed that we would play everything together, jam; I thought we would take turns singing solo. Since breaking my left hand in two places in 2006 I haven’t had much stamina for playing in first position, which tires my damaged hand. I usually play capoed up to 5th or 7th fret. It is not easy for me to play with others: I can’t just watch their left hands for the chords, or play the chords as they are called because I am fingering the songs in whole different keys and have to transpose on the fly. Johnny could have played along with anything I played, but I don’t remember that he did. He accepted my wish to trade songs instead. He sang me an original song, “Work With What You Got,” rich in rhythm and groove and light on melody. He sang me a Buck Owens tune. I sang him love songs: Si Kahn’s “Queen of the Cowboy Cafe” and Kevin Welch’s “Something ‘Bout You.”


I didn’t see anything of Johnny’s house that day other than the living room and the bathroom. I remember a ragged deep pink towel hanging on a towel rack. Johnny took my empty water bottle and refilled it from the kitchen, bringing it back to me.


As the afternoon wore on I found myself hoping Johnny would suggest having dinner. He didn’t. I left his house thinking, “I want to sleep with him, but I don’t want to clean his house.” I bought a Drumstick from a passing ice cream truck to tide me over until I could arrive home on the last bus.


As it happened, the Ballad group met the next day. Johnny settled into his chair next to me and I said, “Guess which song I can’t get out of my head?”
“Work With What You Got,” he replied promptly.
“You’d like that,” I said, “But it’s ‘Got Me a New Love Thing.’”

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Dear Johnny, a Letter from Taos, New Mexico, on Your 76th Birthday

February 24, 2022 //
5

Dear Johnny,

I’m wondering if you enjoyed your birthday breakfast: eggs sunny side up, homemade hash browns, bacon and sausage, fresh fruit, plenty of coffee, zucchini muffins. I would not eat the eggs for you, but they were there shining in the pan. Other people ate them.

Thank you for being with me in this beautiful place. You always talked about coming to New Mexico, eating green chile cheeseburgers in San Antonio and seeing the license plate-covered guitar. You loved that story: I told you about that guitar on a little stage with a piano, the kind of joint you could play, but I never showed you the picture because no one sent it to me before you died. I hope you can look at it through my eyes when I get it.

I don’t know how you would have felt about the snow. You would have wanted to crank up the heat, maybe sit by the fire where I’m sitting now. You would have looked dramatic in the snow with your black clothes and your silver hair, but you did not have clothes warm enough for snow when I knew you. You toured in Montana once, but it must have been in the summer.

I always want to share Mabel Dodge Luhan House with people who are special to me. Mom never came. You never came here — always too busy or else incapacitated. Suzanne came here and she doesn’t talk to me anymore. You know that.

Dorotea is here, the one who called you Johnny Love and wanted to sing back-up on my records. Natalie is here — you met her a long time ago. She asked me to sing a song you liked during slow walking and I sang “The Cuckoo” because it worked with the pace. I didn’t say, “I can’t” or “Johnny’s songs were made to dance to, they all have rhythm and a strong groove.”

I wanted to sing “They All Ax’ed for You.” I’ve always loved your version of that. I’ve taken up singing it and made up a new verse for you. Your verse goes

I went on over to the other side and they all axed for you:

The heavenly host was out of hand and they needed somebody to lead the band.

I went on over to the other side and they all axed for you:

The devils axed and the angels axed and Saint Peter axed me, too.

Baby, they all axed for you…

They all ax for you, Johnny. We all miss you. Gavin is collecting the scraps you left behind — the tapes, the charts the CD roughs, the video. Jerry is taking things off your computer. People are posting videos with the names of the songs wrong and no attribution. You would have hated that.

Me? I’m learning some of your songs and planning to learn more. Lucy came up and cleaned your house and started going through your things. I’m hoping you find a way to intercede and give me the Martin and I think Jerry should have the red Telecaster if James Clifford doesn’t want it.

I don’t know if you were mad at me when you died, or merely heartbroken or resigned. I wish I had talked to you one more time and said something kind. I wish I had been with you when you breathed your last breath to soothe your brow and give your forehead a kiss. I know you wanted me there again: you told me so. But it was not to be — I couldn’t leave my 92-year-old mother. I never stopped loving you or wanting things to be better, wanting you to achieve your full potential.

All my love,

Sharyn

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Derailed at Regular Intervals: a Remembrance of Johnny Harper.

February 17, 2022 //
20

I said, describing my recently deceased former partner, “This train was bound for glory, but derailed at regular intervals.”


Betsy said, “I’ll bet there’s a story behind that.”


There is a story, but there are missing pieces in the telling because we can’t look straight into the character’s heart and mind.


The man, John Harper Lumsdaine, aka Johnny Harper, was bound for glory (and would have appreciated the nod to Woody Guthrie’s autobiography). Born the eldest son of a family of boys, he sang “Tying a Knot in the Devil’s Tail” to his spellbound elementary school classmates, having heard it a few times on the radio or around the house, spooling out the long tale of drinking, hell-raising and branding, dehorning and knotting up the devil.


At seventeen, Johnny met a girl who played the guitar. He began to play himself, first to impress her, and then because he fell in love with the combination of music, song and story. He fell so hard that he dropped out of Stanford University to pursue music, giving up a scholarship and landing in the Viet Nam war. He fell so hard that he determined to master not one, not two, but all the styles of American roots music, from blues to R&B to classic country, from gospel to funk to rock and roll. And master them he did, spending hours listening to records, copying licks, watching the hands of guitar-players when he went to concerts.


Johnny started out on acoustic guitar, but when he was in the Navy he heard The Byrds’ version of “Mr. Tambourine Man.” Transfixed by the sound of Roger McGuinn’s electric 12 string, Johnny moved to acquire the record and an electric guitar. He spent his shore leaves in Hawaii haunting record stores, ever eager to hear more, to learn more.


Released from the service as a conscientious objector with the help of an Episcopal priest, Johnny parlayed his love of music, his skill and dedication, into a career. He ran Down Home Music record store in El Cerrito for awhile, played in bands, DJ’d a radio show on KPFA Berkeley. He formed bands of his own and played all over the San Francisco Bay Area for years. He toured playing guitar behind Maria Muldaur. People who saw Johnny perform never forgot him: his patter, his impish grin, his command of his entire vocal range from the deepest half-spoken growl to the softest falsetto coo, and his incomparable, spirited, polyrhythmic guitar-playing. If you heard him play, Johnny Harper put a spell on you.


I came to know that Johnny was a versatile player. He worked solo, in duets, quartets and larger bands. An acoustic-based folksinger myself, I longed for Johnny to tone it down and play with the restraint that I would have played with had I had his chops. But in living with him, watching him rehearse, listening to him and attending his shows I came to understand that Johnny was at his best as a bandleader. He chose the songs, wrote the arrangements, selected the players and rehearsed them with care and patience and then let fly on stage a spicy gumbo of music long-simmered in his skill. He fronted his bands dressed in black with his red Telecaster strapped across his body, his long legs encased in black jeans.


People danced at Johnny’s shows. They laughed and cried and begged for the Mardi Gras beads he threw to them. They hired him to play at their weddings, funerals and street parties. They took guitar lessons from him. One of his friends followed him to every gig as sound man, roadie, whatever he needed.


When people heard Johnny play for the first time, whether he was fronting a band, hosting an open mic or playing behind someone else, they came away asking, “Who was that guy?” He was that good, that talented, that memorable.


So why, as our friend Dale Geist says, do you not know about Johnny Harper? Why isn’t he a household name? Why don’t you have a shelf of Johnny Harper CDs and a playlist of Johnny Harper favorites? What could stop this glory-bound train of talent, ambition, drive, energy and joy?


What indeed. Some time after Johnny fell in love with American vernacular music, Johnny fell in love with the bottle. No one is sure when it happened. Like many people, Johnny turned to whiskey and beer for solace, for company, for the buzz. The bottle sang a siren song to Johnny, telling him he could do whatever he wanted, that together they were invincible, immortal, telling him that she would always love him, inspire him, comfort him.


And so, after years of hard work, after some success, after promising beginnings, the Johnny Harper train began to derail. When Johnny felt under pressure from a project, under pressure from his impeccably high standards, almost always when he was on the verge of a success — a CD release party for a protege, a video shoot, a series of tribute shows to the music of The Band — Johnny ran off the rails, blew off the gig or the rehearsal or the studio date, holed up in his house with the blinds closed, hollow-eyed, drinking, watching videos for hours on end, letting his phone ring unanswered until the voicemail got full and, sinking further, letting go of showers, shaving, changing clothes, eating.

Every time he fell, Johnny got up again and gave life another try. Until this time:

On a February day or night in 2022, Johnny Harper breathed his last. He died alone on the floor of his bedroom, leaving behind students, friends, an ex-wife, a former partner, professional colleagues, fans and admirers, a beloved niece, some cousins and a brother, plus a huge trove of cassette tapes, CDs, video footage and other music that had not met his standards. He lives on in his students and in the minds and hearts of those who loved him.

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Less Kale, More Chronicles

June 9, 2021 //
4

Dear Readers,

Since I last wrote I have embarked on serious work on my memoir. I am five chapters in what I call a first or second draft, depending on my mood. The memoir originated in a habit of writing that I have had for most of my life, aided by over twenty years of writing and meditation retreats with Natalie Goldberg, and vomited on the page in three years of NaNoWriMo from 2009-2011. I had written a lot, over 150,000 words, plus countless stints of writing in notebooks and I did not what to do with what I had, so I let it sit. And sit. And sit.

Then, shortly after I wrote my last blog post in January 2021, Saundra Goldman invited me to a free webinar on writing. One of her questions caused me to weep, sweat, lose sleep. She said, “Tell me about experiences when you went out on your own and what you dreamed of.” The question haunted me, bringing every failure in my life into focus. She was offering a four-session class in February. And, before I even started it I knew it was time to write the memoir, time to dig into what my life had been and the root causes of much heartache and self-doubt.

Before Saundra’s class started I set a strong structure in place to help me make it through the emotional ups and downs of writing. I already had a writing group that I met with once a week. To that I added twenty minutes of sitting meditation each morning and a ten-minute check-in write that Saundra recommended: “Where I Am.” Right after breakfast I returned to my room to sit and write.

When I took Saundra’s class I connected with one of the other students. I liked her energy. I liked her project. I reached out to her on Facebook and joined a dyad of writers who wrote with each other twice a week for an hour and read to each other for an hour on Fridays with limited feedback. I was nervous about giving and receiving feedback because I had been working in a tradition for over twenty years where you don’t comment on each other’s work at all. At the same time, I was excited because I was engaged with the memoir again. Writing is lonely work and being able to ask questions about how my work was landing with listeners felt helpful.

I registered for one of Natalie’s online writing classes to keep me going after Saundra’s class ended and signed up for a writing retreat in July in Wisconsin, even though the pandemic still raged through the United States — I figured if it was impossible Natalie would cancel the retreat. I started meeting with a writing group twice a week rather than once, knowing that every time I attended I would be writing. If I could I would work my memoir into the writing topic; if not writing would keep me limber for memoir writing.

With my structure in place, I wrote. I had written a draft of my first chapter in 2019 for a manuscript review. I took out the draft, reread it, read the comments Natalie had made, thought about them and began to craft a new shape for the chapter. I took out some parts I loved, hoping to use them later, and tried to make the story clearer. When I thought I was done with the chapter I asked a few writing friends to read it and comment. I asked one of them, my most clear-eyed and enthusiastic reader, what he thought the story needed next and he said the reader needed a break from the intensity of chapter one.

I considered what I could start with in chapter two and ultimately decided to go back to the day I was born, before I was born, where the main character was my mother.

All through the writing process I spend time rereading parts of notebooks and journals, making time lines for the section I am working on, drawing diagrams to represent potential structures of the book. I work intuitively, letting writing do writing. Sometimes I don’t know for days or weeks what is happening next in a chapter or in the memoir as a whole, but I keep writing anyway, even if I’m writing “I don’t know what else needs to go in chapter five.”

I also keep asking for what I need. One day I was writing in writing group about wanting more feedback from people who did writing practice. When I read the piece aloud, one of the listening writers said to me “We have a group like that that meets on Wednesday evenings.”

I agreed to attend one meeting to see how it went before making a commitment: my entire writing life I have stayed away from “critique groups” and competitive situations. At that first meeting we got a fun writing topic, a piece of a Nick Drake song. No one was slashing and burning the writing we heard. I joined up and added the Wednesday Evening group to my writing, support and feedback structure.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because if you want to work on a sustained writing project such as a book you will need a good structure. My pal Saundra will tell you to study books for their structure — she’s good at that. But the structure I mean is a writing and emotional support structure because writing a sustained work is hard work. The part that no one tells you about writing a book is that you will unearth things about yourself and your past as you write and it will not all be pretty and some of it will not feel very good.

So, first things first: if you want to write a book, do whatever supports your sanity. For me this is sitting meditation. Then make some writing structures: if you like writing groups or classes, join some and show up for every meeting. If you want or need feedback, find a trusted friend or two who is willing to read your work periodically. Ask people for what you need and see if it doesn’t appear.

And then what? Keep going. Keep going when you write junk. Keep going when you are confused. Keep going when you don’t know where you are going. Let writing do writing.

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Unexpected Tranformations: What Happened in 2020

January 11, 2021 //
3

Dear Readers,

You probably think I have dropped off the face of the earth if you think of me at all — it’s been a long time since I have written here. The last you heard I had pinkeye and had just released “The Border Song” on the WOS podcast and was writing my memoir. The Covid-19 pandemic has taught us all that life transforms itself in unexpected ways: shortly after I wrote my previous post in October 2019 I gathered up my cat, Fiona, and made an emergency move back to Kensington. Fiona and I took up residence in a former storage room and I spent the next four months packing and unpacking boxes, cramming my belongings into closets and rooms that already held the possessions of three other adults.

On the first day of 2020 Fiona disappeared. I spent a month looking for her and found no trace. A coyote had come into our yard for the first time and must have snatched my beloved cat.

At the end of February 2020 I went off to Taos, New Mexico for a retreat with Natalie Goldberg and numerous old friends. I made plans to meet a friend in D.C. that summer to travel to West Virginia to see a small town, attend a music festival and possibly look at houses. I returned to Kensington, visited Johnny, who was in the hospital, and returned to my former yard to dig up the blueberry, Robert the raspberry, and my fig tree. I trundled them home in a grocery cart and planted them in pots on the deck below my small room.

Then I returned to work, busking in downtown Berkeley for a week. That Sunday I went downtown to pay my phone bill and return a library book and everywhere I went people were coughing: on the bus, in the AT&T store, outside the library. We were starting to hear about the coronavirus, but no one knew much.

I got sick the next day and was sick for a good two months. Longer, until the end of May with fatigue, an extremely sore throat, swollen glands. And a week after I first got sick California went into lockdown.

I’ve been home ever since: musicians can’t play in public safely, especially those of us who sing. Bus travel is not recommended, so I spend most of my time around the house like many of you do now. I’ve adapted to singing on Facebook, doing monthly live-streams and occasional special projects. It is not the same as singing for an audience that you can see and hear, even an audience of commuters, because the commuters buy coffee, smile, wave, ask directions, sing along occasionally, make requests and comments, put money or snacks in your guitar case; when you live-stream you look at a tiny light on your computer. People can see and hear you, but you can’t see or hear them. I saw a photo of one guy who had lined up dolls and stuffed animals in rows on his desk so that he had someone to sing to.

Robert the raspberry adapted the best to his new environment. I had cut him back before I dug him up and in the spring he grew new canes and bore green leaves, flowers and fruit. The blueberry survived and looks healthy — it leafed and flowered but the birds got whatever fruit it produced. I tried netting both berry plants, but the leaves did not react well to the net, so the plants have to take their chances with the wildlife.

The fig tree had just started to produce its 2020 figs when I dug it up and transplanted it — not ideal, I know, but the best I could do, the best chance I could give it for life. It had been a healthy, happy tree in San Leandro in amended soil, growing near other plants, including the persimmon tree. After I transplanted it into a large ceramic pot it lost its fruit and then its leaves. This is called transplant shock: the tree is alive, but shocked into dormancy. I don’t know if it is grieving or sulking, or if it is just lonely. The only thing I can do is give it water and mulch and hope it decides to bloom and bear again someday. It does have the company of an English holly tree, but, because they are not in the ground together, the holly may not be able to whisper words of encouragement. Like me, the fig put its 2020 plans on hold and will see what 2021 brings.

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“The Border Song” Airs on WOS Podcast Today

October 9, 2019 //
3

Dear Readers,

Unfortunately I have pinkeye and can barely see to type, but I wanted to let you know that my song, “The Border Song” is featured in the Women of Substance podcast today. If you see this after today, you can still hear it by looking for show #996.

Here are some links. Please listen if you get a chance. Thanks, Sharyn

WOSPodcast:
iTune: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/women-of-subst…
Website: http://www.wosradio.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/wosradio
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/wosradio
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The Little Tree That Could: The Transformation of Maturity

August 27, 2019 //
2

Those of you who know me well will think I have a lot of gall discussing the subject of maturity. I know. But I am here to tell you about the state of my Conadria fig tree. I planted it in 2018.

After I placed it in its planting hole I gave it some compost tea. Since then I have been giving it gray water (about four or five gallons a week), and clearing weeds from around its base. It takes what it wants from the rain and sun and soil.

Conadria Fig, August 2019.

Last year it bore five delicious green figs. But look at it now! There are at least twenty-five figs this year, a five-fold increase. My new favorite sandwich is to pick a ripe fig, cut it open, put it on a piece of sourdough bread cut side down and then top it with a slice of ham and a piece of cheese. Yum. Perfect lunch food during hot weather.

I am not a person with an abundance of patience, or a person who gives the plants in the yard minute, exacting care. I love them and care for them, but they have to do well on their own to survive out there. It’s true that I ran out to prune the persimmon tree this winter when the wind was threatening to break several branches. It was the first tree I planted in our bare yard because we needed both wind breaks and shade. The persimmon has yet to fruit, although it is now taller than I am — I’m sure I’ll be doing a dance when I see its first Fuyu persimmon.

I did not plant anything this spring, busy with IRS paperwork, waiting for the rain to end, digging holes in my yard for soil testing. My lax gardening style allows plants to go to seed and reproduce themselves. This does not produce the “house and garden” look, as at any season things are growing leggy and going to seed, but it does produce a lot of free food. I can count on chard, kale and lettuce to reproduce themselves and I can have free tomatoes as long as I let them grow where they want — mostly through the squares of the patio. I also have volunteer butternut squash and a few Thai basil plants that like a spot by the north fence and come up there each year.

August tomatoes.

We are in full tomato season now. Yesterday I picked two full baskets. This morning I picked another basket three-quarters full. Then I sorted all of the tomatoes with splits and wrinkles and sun-scald, cut them in half and filled trays for the dehydrator. We will eat them in the winter and spring when there are no good tomatoes to be had.

I have many excuses for not gardening more than I do. At the moment they include practicing music a couple of hours a day and working to turn my voluminous memoir writing practices into a real book. I still cook, but I tend to cook the same things over and over and I have given you most of my go-to recipes already. I am, however, grateful and joyful when the yard produces food that we can eat.

I apologize to all readers for the ugly ads that show up in my blog posts. I have nothing to do with soliciting them, or selecting them. I would remove them all if I could. I had not seen one until I looked at my most recent post this morning. Ugh. Do your best to ignore them, please. And thank you for reading.

 

 

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January 17, 2019 //
6

photo of young fig tree

Conadria fig tree with new buds

I don’t think I’ve written since I started my home orchard last winter with a fuyu persimmon tree and a conadria fig. The small, hardy fig produced five delicious figs in its first year and the persimmon leafed out — and later shed its leaves — but has not flowered. I have left off pruning this year to let the trees grow strong — I can always adjust their shape or height later.

My transplanted raspberry, an everbearing variety, is strong and healthy and bore small amounts of fruit from June until December. I’ll cut it back again when there is a significant break in the rain. The blueberry is flowering now in January, which may be a mistake on its part and the Olallie blackberry has pulled down all of its supports from the fence, which tells me I need to get stronger wire than old guitar strings (Sometimes I carry frugality too far).

Butternut Squash Harvest

The biggest harvest of the year is in, pounds and pounds of butternut squash, both ripe and green, that I got in before the welcome rain. I have been wiping the squash clean and treating it with vinegar and water. Right now it is all over my kitchen, on cooling racks and old wooden crates and on the floor. I put some small ones on the windowsill to see if they would color up indoors. If any of you farming types know a foolproof way to ripen under-ripe squash or if any of you genius cooks know how to make delicious things out of green butternut squash, I’d love to hear from you. And, of course, I’d be happy to share the harvest with any local Bay Area folks — just say the word.

photo of lettuce seedlings

Bronze lettuce seedlings.

When I was out weeding before the rain set in I discovered some bronze lettuce seedlings near the stepping stones that go to the shed. I removed some weeds to help them along and will get back to that when it dries out out there. My yard is pretty good at reseeding tomatoes, butternut squash, chard and kale on its own and I was delighted to discover a large patch of arugula where I had laid down a plant gone to seed. I am picking and eating arugula everyday in my January salads.

In completely unrelated news, some of you might remember a blog where I predicted transforming into a star. While that hasn’t happened, I did get my first radio play of my music. Here’s how it happened. Like many people, I was horrified when the American government started separating families who were coming to seek asylum, taking children away from their parents. What I did in response is imagine myself as a woman with children fleeing violence in my home country. I wrote a song called “The Border Song” and found someone to translate it into Spanish as “Canción de la Frontera.” My partner and I then hired backing musicians and recorded both versions, producing an E.P. (a music CD with just two tracks). The day that the E.P. arrived at my house I learned that “Folk Music and Beyond” on San Francisco’s KALW 91.7 FM radio was producing a show on songs of immigration. I contacted one of the DJs, who is a Facebook friend of mine. She contacted her colleague. He asked for MP3s of the songs, liked them, and played them both last Saturday. This thrilled me. If you read this tomorrow or Friday you can go to KALW.org and listen to the songs for free. If you miss that tiny window, don’t worry: I’m working on posting videos to YouTube and making the recordings available on CD Baby. I’ll let you know when those things happen, in addition to giving you garden updates. I’m busy learning marketing, p.r. and techie bits, with lots of help from my friends, germinating skills while my garden soaks up the January rain.

 

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January Transformation: Planting a Fruit Tree

January 21, 2018 //
4

Young Fuyu persimmon

I took a big step this month toward extending the food I grow. Yesterday I planted my first tree, a Fuyu persimmon. This sounds simple, but it was months of work, from learning about trees and deciding what to put in first to breaking up a concrete slab with a sledge hammer and hauling the concrete out of the planting hole. I bought the tree with a Christmas gift certificate and redeemed another certificate to transport the tree.

I relied on the advice of many gardening books, especially Grow a Little Fruit Tree by Ann Ralph.  I selected the Fuyu because it is a hardy tree, generally free from diseases, because its foliage turns color in the fall, because I enjoy eating Fuyu persimmons and because we desperately needed a shade tree (our yard had no trees or shrubs) and the summers are hot. It was the best tree I could come up with to provide fruit, foliage and shade.

Between me and my desired tree, lay many obstacles, including the stump of a large pepper tree, years of drought and a 50″ x 29″ slab of reinforced concrete. I tried undermining the slab by digging the dirt out from under it, hoping it would break and fall. Then Johnny, who rarely spends time in the yard, decided to discuss my plans with our kind landlord. Richard brought a ten-pound long-handled sledge and set to work. And when he went away he left the hammer leaning against the fence and I took up where he left off, bashing away. One of the more satisfying moments I had was watching the slab crack into three pieces.

Wheelbarrow and sample concrete.

After hauling chunks of concrete across the yard I began to dig the planting hole. About a foot and a half down I found another chunk of concrete. This is life in my hard-luck yard. My landlord had taken his sledge home and I had only a borrowed one-pound sledge, which felt like a child’s toy after the larger hammer. Naturally, I found the concrete as it was getting dark the evening before I planned to pick up my tree.

I wondered if I should delay getting the tree, but I had been working on this for six months and my gut said, “Get it.” I wanted to take advantage of the recent rain. I did not know if I could get the concrete out of the planting hole, but the nursery said I had up to forty-eight hours to plant the tree after I brought it home.

I might be out there digging and swearing instead of writing a blog post now, except my brother’s girlfriend Jayzie dug that concrete out of the hole. It was a small round chunk, eight inches thick. My friends Barbara and Dan call these concrete obstructions “Basic Concretians.”

Jayzie and I dug and filled and Bryan drew us a level and held the tree straight.

After they left, I moved more concrete and rocks, leveled the dirt in the pit, and flipped back all of the pavers I had removed for easier excavation. Then I went in and had a long soaking bath and a hot meal.

Pruned Rose #1

This morning I was at it again. When I went to get my tree yesterday I took a class in rose care and pruning. The cold January day gave me the perfect opportunity to practice on the Sterling Silver rose in the front yard, a tangled mess that had not been properly pruned in years. Our instructor said that roses were forgiving so I took courage and pruned wayward branches, cut away rose hips, clipped yellow leaves. When I could get to the bottom of the plant I took off suckers, cleared away debris, removed the intruding branches of the nearby hedge. I hope the rose will appreciate some air and light.

I appreciate all of the help I got to begin my backyard orchard, including Natalie Goldberg’s teachings about great determination. Do I want more trees? Oh yeah. Shrubs, too. Berries, Meyer lemons, Kadota figs, grapes. I could use a few days off from encounters with Basic Concretians, but my birthday is coming up next month and Berkeley Horticultural throws its remaining stock on 30% off sale on March 2nd.

 

 

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Categories gardening, Uncategorized

Transforming My Garden/Food Shed

July 26, 2017 //
4

Watercolor painting of sweet peas in vase

Sweet Peas

I have not written a blog post in so long that I can’t remember when I last wrote. I have kept up busking and working for my friend Elaine. I even painted a couple of new paintings this spring. I continue to be interested in eating clean food, while Monsanto contaminates the food supply with glyphosate and who knows what else.

Emerald Dent Corn

If I grow my own food organically, I know what has gone into it. For a few years I have grown kale and chard, butternut squash and tomatoes. Last year I added Thai basil. I’ve grown beans before, mostly to fix nitrogen in the soil: although I love fresh green beans, the aphids loved them, too, so I plant scarlet runner beans to go with this year’s emerald dent corn.

After severe drought, California got rain in 2017 and I am able to start thinking about planting trees and shrubs in my no-shade yard. I dream constantly about peach trees, a Fuyu persimmon to shade the patio, a pomegranate, a kadota fig tree, apples and blackberries and raspberries, a Meyer lemon. I have been studying books on backyard orchards and radical pruning to keep trees to six feet.

At the same time I dream of home-grown fruit and relieving shade, I see every eyesore and obstacle in my yard and work to transform them. I have neither money to hire work done nor funds for trellises and pavers — I want what I have to spend to go for trees and vines. I am neither handy or particularly strong, having been disabled from birth by cerebral palsy. I am good, however, at finding alternative ways to do things.

Lately, I have been finding objects. Today I dragged this old box spring three quarters of the way down my street because the wood framing looked like a trellis to me. Or a raised bed.

Bed or Trellis?

A kindly neighbor carried it into my backyard and leaned it against my fence where it awaits its transformation.

I build a compost heap in a rotting stump to speed decomposition because the stump occupies the area where I want my persimmon tree. I scavenge large sheets of cardboard to solarize the weeds in the side yard where I think the berry patch is going to be.

Whenever I get stuck, I just ask myself, what can I do? There are weeds to pull and tomatoes to pick and cardboard to bring home, seagull feathers to pick up from the ground to fold into the compost bins. It isn’t planting season yet, but there is time to disrupt weed growth, to make worm tea, to find garden tools at Berkeley’s Urban Ore. The corn is growing and someday, despite my impatience, I will have garden fruit.

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Categories fruit, gardening, vegetables
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