Distractions

By the kitchen sink I keep what my husband calls a "bletch bucket." It's for compostable food scraps. In the winter our bletch bucket might sit by the sink for days, collecting only banana peels. Once the CSA starts up and the weather warms, however, it fills and smells and attracts fruit flies, so I empty it once a day.

The compost bins sit in the far corner of the backyard. To reach them I pass the raised bed and the flower bed. This can take half an hour. Cheat grass keeps growing amongst the flowers, you see, so I have to pull that, and then I have to check on the blueberries and why, pray tell, did the hundred flowers on that bush form only a dozen berries? I let Sasha plant the radishes too closely together; in case you're tempted to do this let me dissaude you; the radish greens will grow well but you won't get a single radish bulb. Which is fine for feeding guinea pigs but not people. So as I pass I pull radish greens for our dear Apocolypse Pets, and pick a pea or two for me, and then I fail to suppress my astonishment at the sunflowers. Did I tell you about the sunflowers? Last year two or three grew in dry dust back there, back where I put the compost bins, and lo, they have multiplied. It's a sunflower forest. They are just about to bloom. Wasps like them. I find wasps absolutely creepy but bees are interesting. Honeybees visit the flowerbed. On my way back to the house I squat to watch them.

Then one of the children calls me or I remember the pasta water is boiling or whatever, you know, I remember whatever task I had started before deciding to empty the bletch bucket, and I hurry back inside.

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By the way: One of the three bins is completely filled with dirt. I made dirt in just six months. In the desert! That's what they call continuous learning.