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Joe Wouldn’t Hoe
Ralph Bedard made loud sex, wrote poetry, and crafted flutes by hand from discarded bamboo.
Doug Ferguson (dulcimer) work-studied while finishing a degree at Wayne State University – history? Bob Cameron (guitar) drove a UPS truck as a fill-in driver and tried to keep his VW Beetle running.
I solo’ed as a folk/rock singer, guitarist at bars and coffeehouses across Michigan: Union Street Oyster Bar (Hi, Tom), The Ark (Hi, Rick), … It was the tail end of the 70’s singer-songwriter era.
In The Lakepointe House we jammed a lot. Songs from across the 60’s & 70’s folk blues spectrum, as well as our own creations. Bob penned this favorite and in our diaspora we’ve shared it to all corners of our worlds.
It is many years later and it is August – a perfect time to sing “Joe Wouldn’t Hoe.”
Joe Wouldn't Hoe
By Bob Cameron, c. 1975
Chorus:
Joe wouldn't hoe the ground around his corn
He would stay in bed all the morn
The weeds grew high, up to the sky-eee
But the corn stayed down around his knees.
He got up in the spring to plant his crops
All the while thinking that he'd rather not
This corn he said is just too much work to keep
And with that thought in mind, he promptly went to sleep
(chorus) [thanks, Doug, for the two next verses]
He went out one bright August day
Hadn't been out there since May
The weeds were wound around the Milky Way-eeee
But the corn was down around his knees
He went to the fair when it came
Farmers there kicked him out in shame
They said "We're not gonna share the blame-eeee
For the corn staying down around your knees"
(chorus)
Folks round there, their thoughts revealed
They thought his corn was an abandoned field
They thought his farm was an auto dumping lot
And when the harvest came, he had a bumper crop... get it?
(chorus)
Now every song has a moral they say
Weed your corn or you won't make hay
Spend some time or you're gonna pay-eeee
When the corn stays down around your knees
(chorus) 
My Sister’s New Garden
Meandering nasturtiums splay over the edge of the patio. They thrive on the concrete’s radiant heat.
A curvy flagstone path wends into the back corner, as if there were more to see just around the bend. Crocosmia has nearly finished blushing scarlet; a few sunflowers reach skyward (why aren’t the centers going black, she wants to know).
In their midst stand gayfeather (liatris spicata) and a staked tomato!
The piece de resistance anchors the back wall – two significant clumps of bamboo confined to an elegant wood planter she purchased up the coast. It is both an appreciation of things past and a recognition of bamboo’s beauty constrained by reality: you don’t want these aggressive grasses overrunning your main garden.
My sister tends her new garden with care and delight. Whimsey and prudence. Premeditation and pluck.
The first thing she installed was the incandescent string of lights vining the translucent, shed-like roof over the sitting area, which is the perfect place for enjoying the flora while reading, writing, sipping – or, finding a brother savoring Sauvie Island Blueberries with Barbados Cream. Heaven.
Posted in Design, Inspiration, Mind | 
Tags: bamboo, blueberries, clumps, container, crocosmia, design, flagstone path, garden space, gayfeather, liatris spicata, nasturtium, outdoor space, outdoor spaces, patio ideas, planter, radiant heat, sauvie island, summer, summer blooms, sunflowers, sw portland, tidiness, whimsy | 
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Garden Mind
Not this blue, really?
I got the White Flower Farm Spring 2012 catalog this week. It’s a page turner as usual, with saturated floral images of garden gems in perfect flower – where the reds are redder, the greens greener and the true blues truer than life. One day, there might be a garden catalog with wilted, spent flowers going to seed. Unlikely.
My garden overwinters – stark and dreary, especially without frost or snow cover. I hope it gets cold enough to kill the bad bugs; I hope there is enough snow cover, eventually, to supplement the good stuff (my brother told me snow is the poor man’s fertilizer). But, I digress. What is really at work is stillness. No growth, just the remnants of the garden being earth bound — skeletal, essential, and creating reserves for the proper blooming time.
What I have is garden mind.
Our garden (aka, “R” Garden) sits, while last year’s beauty decomposes into next year’s growth. I see the garden’s shape from our upstairs window – the straight and curvy lines, the beds, the flow from one section to another joined by lawn, paths, steps, and bridges. I like this flow and work to refine it in my mind: firm up that edge with a low border, trim that shrub to be a better neighbor, hack that pachysandra, reset those stones, et cetera. In a process of refinement, endless tweaking shapes the garden and morphs its profile. Its essential personality, established long ago, matures incrementally, bringing charm, whimsy and nature into harmony improved by age.
Of course it’s a living thing and changes occur, apparently spontaneously, as well. Like the clumping bamboo that finally, finally decided to become the screen I imagined ten years ago. Who knew it would take this long? I suppose that’s where annuals come in. They provide the instant gratification that delights the eye and other senses. Not much mystery but adornment galore and great expectations easily met. We enjoy the splash, the visual spice, and the abundance of blooms overlaying the perennial foundation.
The garden mind dwells on ideas and suffers no toil. No: weeding, spraying, mowing, aching backs or biting no-see-ums. It sees golden possibilities; it harbors hopes and plans — flights of fancy that could occupy the whole of next season. It’s a great place to visit.
Posted in Art, Inspiration, Mind | Tags: bamboo, blue flowers, Chris Waddell, design, garden, garden catalogs, Garden Mind, gardener, gardening, going with the flow, granddaughter, lawn and garden, Maisy, nitrogen, outdoor space, pachysandra, perennials, Reflection, soil, weekend gardener, whimsy, White Flower Farm, winter days | 5 Comments »