Christine H. Lee

Month: June 2018

Going Up

June 23, 2018 /

This winter, I made space.

I thought I’d run out of room–that there was nowhere to go, nowhere to grow new things and expand my garden and life–but then I realized there were ornamentals I could cut down. So I cut those down and worked on mulching the soil. The soil wasn’t very good–and I knew I’d likely have to wait a season before I could plant vegetables in the mulched areas.

You see, skunks and raccoons like to come through the garden in the summertime each year–they dig through mulched areas for bugs and critters, and any little plant is at their grubbing mercy. If I don’t plant anything vulnerable there, then they serve the purpose of turning and aerating the mulch as it composts.  Let’s go with that. Yes. Every setback is an opportunity.

So–I had to find another way to make room. Because there is more than one way to make space. I looked up. And up. And I looked at the plants, stretching their branches and leaves toward the sun.

I would go vertical.

On pinterest, I saw that there are myriad ways to go vertical: bean teepees, lattices, trellises, etc. But I. Wanted. A. Squash. Arch.

I fantasized about a tunnel of green in my garden. With little squashes hanging down from the top in Autumn. And beans in the summertime. Maybe some watermelon with slings keeping them up. I mean, we can all dream.

So I asked my partner for help (he is good with tools and taller than I am–plus it is always good to have help). And I went out and bought cattle fencing, PVC pipe, and fence posts from the hardware store. We already had the twist ties.

This is what you need for a squash arch:

  • Cattle Fencing (a big roll of it is nice–it is about 4 feet wide, and depending on how long you want to make your arch tunnel, you will need a multiple of 15 (it’s about 15 feet per section)).
  • 1 inch PVC pipe + connectors (each section needs 2ish spans of PVC pipe–you want at least 20 feet for each section–and since noone really sells 20 foot long PVC pipes, you will need to buy a connector for each span).
  • PVC pipe cement
  • Fence posts (I bought both 4 foot and 6 foot fence posts–the 6 foot fence posts worked better)
  • Twist ties (a bunch)

This is how you build a squash arch:

  • Figure out where you want your arch to go. You can put it between raised beds. Or, like me, you can put it along a pathway.
  • Connect your PVC pipe. You will also need to cement it in with pipe cement.
  • Hammer a fence post in. Attach the PVC pipe to the fence posts with twist ties. We attached it with masking tape to hold it in place before we did the twist ties.
  • Attach a 15 foot long portion of cattle fencing to the PVC pipe.
  • At the edge of that section, hammer in more fence posts.
  • Repeat.

We didn’t construct it with much precision–so my directions are general.

Finding space isn’t a specific act, either. You make it how you need to make it. Also–if it doesn’t look perfect, the vines will grow over it, and make it beautiful.

Beauty is in progress.

Bees Please

June 11, 2018 /

I have always wanted bees. To become a beekeeper.

But there is a difference between intentionality and becoming the thing you want to become.

Pascal introduced framework in the study of decision-making, coming up with the theory of expected value: When faced with a choice between uncertain alternatives, you should determine the positive or negative values of every possible outcome, along with each outcome’s probability, and then make your choice. Or in short–figure out best case scenario and worst case scenario, and see with which you’d rather live.

Another theory is loss aversion, or the discovery that winning $100 is only about half as appealing as losing $100 is unappealing. (The reason I don’t gamble). This theory illustrates that the relationship between value and losses/gains aren’t always equal; losses are a bigger deterrent than gains. 

I’d wanted bees for years–I can’t even count how many. Only that in 3rd grade, we were each assigned to pick a creature and do a report on that animal or insect. I chose honeybees. And the more I learned, the more interested I became in these diligent creatures. I wanted to learn more. I wanted to watch them work. I wanted to smell the honey and wax firsthand.

My desire to become a beekeeper has been a low level but steady desire, like french fries–I can live without them, but I’ll also never turn a french fry down.

But I didn’t get bees. I was married to a husband who was averse to bees and beekeeping. He had bee venom allergies. And he wanted nothing to do with any sort of farming or husbandry. The risk of putting strain on our marriage and relationship outweighed any unknown, positive outcome from beekeeping. Basically, I wanted to stay married. I made many decisions based on not wanting to lose something. Not wanting to lose my marriage.

And so I refrained. The loss deterred any unknown gains. The worst case scenario outweighed the best case scenario.

It didn’t matter. The worst case scenario still came to fruition. I lost anyway.

When he left the marriage, a tipping point emerged for so many decision points in my life. No longer did I have to consider his aversions. I wanted to turn every single failure and setback into an opportunity and this was one way to turn a failed marriage into opportunity. And furthermore, I wanted to create more space for myself in creating a new life as a single woman and single mother. I wanted matriarchy to combat the shit that would be coming down the pipe. It was time. I was ready. I wanted bees. I didn’t even want the honey so much as a living colony whose behavior I could observe and nurture. I wanted an example of an effective matriarchy.

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