As I was going to leave a box of free homegrown eggplants for my apt. neighbors, I ran into Precious down the hall.  We had a very pleasant talk about all kinds of stuff, including advice about difficult hair and a referral to my other neighbor, Chavonne, who runs a salon and can help me with my hair issues.  We talked about trading goods for services, like my growing plants for Maddie, another neighbor, in trade for her sourdough bread, and got to know each other better.

It’s sad that both P and C will probably be moving on to other situations, though I’m happy for them.  It takes a while to break the ice with women who are used to not trusting white people, with good reason.  But we had so much in common, we were just chattering and confiding away.  I told her about the Black Panthers/Uhuru collaboration to rebuild homes and grow food etc. in N. City, which it turns out she’s from.  We agreed that’s how community and hope begins.

At Avdi’s, I got a lot more done on the landscape.  I watered the new transplants and seedlings; I hoed and sowed native wild blue phlox up in the very front of the side rock garden; I completely cleaned up and redesigned the little rock garden in back; I cleaned up and watered the front garden; I hoed the weeds away from the lilacs; I raked some paths out back; and I threw frisbees at Loucious.

It seems like once you determine to move beyond your narrow comfort zone, serendipitous things start happening like a cascade effect.

Eventually I got myself in gear and went over to Avdi’s to get some outdoor work done.  The days have been totally conducive to working outside, so I’m taking advantage of it.  I did a lot!

I watered.  I raked up all my debris piles and dumped them in the designated area.  I hoed the whole sun side of the expanded strip I had tilled along the woodsy area, sectioned it off, and sowed Queen of the Prairie, Swamp Rose Mallow, and Rose Mallow, and watered it in.  I hoed an area in the trees, and sowed Jack-in-the-Pulpit, which takes two years to stratify.  I added Prairie Smoke seeds to the sunny part of the side rock garden where Silphium had been, along with the poppies.  Now I just have a few more natives to get in the ground later this fall to stratify.

If even some of these natives germinate, it’s going to be so gorgeous next year.  And in the meantime, I’m going to spruce the whole landscape up for winter.  Progress toward mini-MOBOT.  Now all we need is a mini-Climatron!

Inside the house, a pack of howling savages had taken over Y’s room and beyond, screeching and banging around like a stampede of wild animals.  I just stayed outside where it was safe!  I was so relieved I didn’t have to sleep over tonight; Avdi and Jess will be there.  Yay for grownups with guts!

I really, really intended to go volunteer tomorrow morning.  I was 2/3 of the way convinced I could overcome my driving and navigating nervousness to go help with a worthwhile job that I have the skills for.  Even when it turned out to be a renovation, at a different address than I had assumed, not the farm or garden, I was ready to do it.

But then, and here’s the really lame excuse, plumbing facilities at the site are not quite up and running yet.  That could honestly be an issue for me.  Between all the above anxieties, I reluctantly let them know I couldn’t make it, but still want to volunteer on future projects.

I know, it’s the very thing I was talking about earlier, white privilege.  Think of all the centuries of Black people being denied basic needs and amenities that whites take for granted.  More to the point, these renovations in N. city can mean the difference between people having a roof over their heads and infrastructure, or going unhoused.

The mayor and city gov have done pretty much zilch for the communities devastated by the tornado over a year ago, or for the other ongoing basic needs, so it’s up to the communities themselves, with volunteers, to do the dirty work.  And here’s me, with my good intentions but lame excuses, like I might very possibly need facilities.

I haven’t given up on volunteering some of my time and skills for these worthy causes.  I need and want to do this.  I know I’ll need to overcome some of my obstacles initially, and then I’ll have the confidence to do more.

I feel pretty bad about this.  I just don’t want to arrive on site and become a liability, not part of the solution.  I got my momentum started; now I just look for the next opportunity that I can reasonably fulfill.  And the ones after that.

Have some fall flowers to distract you from my sorry self!

Here is how subtle and engrained racism can be.  It’s not necessarily how you think, but is revealed in how you don’t act.

I got up earlier than usual today, which was already too late for what I’m considering doing tomorrow, which is driving early in the morning to someplace unfamiliar in N. City via highways I never use, in order to volunteer maybe once or twice a month for half a day, helping grow food for people in a food desert who are still recovering from the tornado of 2025!  Just the getting myself there is a challenge.  How lame is that?!!

The huge gap between our relatively comfortable white life out in the suburbs that some take for granted, and the daily grueling survival made worse by the ongoing lack of disaster relief and housing for the Black community, is rarely in our face except in theory.  Just the thought of driving that route once in a while, not every day, is an obstacle for me!  But for other white suburbanites who could easily do that drive, it might not ever cross their minds.  Their family and lifestyle come first.

So the question is, will my genuine desire to use my skills to help out in the city once or twice a month overcome my lame anxiety about navigating the route early on a Saturday, when I normally sleep in more than I usually do?  Put my borrowed wheels where my mouth is?  Finally do something, even a small thing, not even a hardship, to support a cause I really believe in?

This is how racism stays alive and in control.  Or I should say where, down on ground level, literally where the rubber meets the road.  It’s so much easier to talk about it and do nothing.  It’s somewhere over there, across that invisible red line, where we don’t live.  In my case, I want to be there, but not have to wake up so early and navigate the unknown to get there!

Like I said, subtle and engrained.  But very real.

Stay tuned for the outcome.

First off, I think I found my volunteer org at Pride.  More on that later.

Today I implemented the silphium “solution”.  Well, alleviation, anyway.  Plus I added an experimental native seed for sun section to stratify.  So from left (sun) to right (shade), we have: CA orange poppies, purple echinacea (coneflower), New England aster, then Asarum can. (native ginger) plants, and Arisaema drac. (green dragon) plants, ending where the irises and other plants start.  It’s watered in well, plus it’s supposed to rain.  Now we wait through winter to see if it worked.

Loucious really likes the sukkah, and now knows the word for it.  When Avdi moved to the sukkah to work, L sat with him contentedly.  He’s a Sukkah Dog!

A long time ago, someone got the brilliant idea to plant silphium.  It’s a tall native with pretty yellow flowers on top; what could go wrong?

Fast forward to years later, and they’ve become an aggressive forest of 10’+ square woody stalks, 14′ taproots, seeds being spread everywhere, and uncontrollable expansion.  The good news is I’m not the responsible party; the bad news is they’ve taken over the world and pushed out any weaker plants.

Do you see where I’m going with this?  Another garden metaphor by YT.  If you don’t get it, read on.

Anyway, knowing I’ll never single-handedly eradicate or control them, I decided on a compromise, but hear me out.  Much bashing and mashing later, I managed to clear the area of most of the surface stalks and new growth.  I hand-cultivated and soaked the area.  There are a lot of other native plants and trees in there I want to preserve.  In fact, it will become a strip of redbud trees one of these days.

Today was back to hot, so when it cools off again, I’m going to transplant a lot of green dragon and native ginger as a green ground cover.  They too are aggressive spreaders, so I might as well use that habit to my advantage.  At some point, I may add some other tough, beneficial natives to help compete with the silphium.  Picture an eventual redbud grove with a green ground cover and flowers all season

The point is, I can’t realistically undo the “damage”, and left to its own devices it will just multiply into the rest of the space.  But if I do what I can to fill in the spaces with stronger, smarter alternatives, and nip or chelsea chop the new silphium growth in spring, eventually the other options will impede its expansion and even take over.  It’s a long process, which I may not live to see, but at least I started somewhere.

If you know, you know.

Botcode is my favorite language.

In other news, I’ve never grown so many eggplants!  Too bad they don’t get used much, except by me! 😎 🍆🍆🍆

I grew all the hanging gourds in the sukkah, mostly accidentally!

So much got packed into the weekend, that I’ll just summarize and let the photos tell the story.  The culmination was Tower Grove Pride, but I was so engrossed in being there and talking to people, I neglected to take any photos!  The real reason was, I didn’t feel like a tourist, I felt at home in my element.  But more on that later.

For erev, Stacey made this wonderful meal: chicken parmesan, and two challot, one an experimental garlic challah to go with the meal, which was great.  I made garden Italian zucchini with fresh herbs.  Meanwhile, I had time to prune lots of trees and tall semi-woody plants (Silphium and Tithonia) for the sukkah.

Saturday, Avdi and I worked on the sukkah frame and drank beer.  I mostly did the latter, while he did the ladder, and his famous knot-tying.  He did a beautiful job, and then collapsed on the swing.  Loucious supervised (waited for frisbee-throwing).  I threw branches on top.  Jess and I applied branches to the sides.  Later, Avdi spent the night at Jess’s, while I slept over.

Sunday, we all piled in cars and went to Tower Grove Pride.  We all split up.  I spent the day getting to know people at the nonprofit orgs booths, to see if I could find a good match to volunteer for.  There were so many doing great work in the communities.  I totally lost track of time.  I didn’t even mind having no money, because the conversations were so worth it, plus people were practically throwing freebies and flyers at me, a shopping bag’s worth!  My HW’s cut out for me.

This was the less capitalistic STL pride, not the huge corporate theme park-like Pride sponsored by big corps.  Tower Grove Is surrounded by trees and a park, and is more friendly and genuine, IMO.  So many diverse communities and groups were represented.  I was amazed by the number of local companies (e.g. Schnuck’s) and orgs that are queer-inclusive and supportive.  Also alternative political parties and collaborations that I could get behind.  I just need to pick one that I could actually help behind the scenes.

After Pride, S and I worked on decorating the sukkah.  S hung trans colors, and named it the Trans Sukkah, or, the Tardis Sukkah, except it’s not really bigger on the inside..  After that, I removed all the light strings from the veg garden and strung them up on the sukkah.  Later, we had the family meeting, with good attendance and food that Jess brought.  When it was dark, Jess sat in the lit up sukkah and did some work.  Stacey, S, and I also have been spending time in it.

Today I raked up some of the debris, and watered the garden.  The lettuces and greens are already coming up.  More asters are blooming.

Today was again perfect for working outside.  I sawed and lopped down large branches for the sukkah, the largest of which were shading out the part of the cleared area I hope to try again with Queen of the Prairie, which I need to sow soon to stratify adequately (C90 code).  They and other natives need sun and wet conditions, so it accomplished two goals.

Later I’ll cut down some large, more herbaceous branches for the next layer of the sukkah, and then some excess flowering natives for ornamental purposes.  There aren’t many colorful leaves yet this year, because of the climate, but lots of flowers.  Last, we’ll decorate the sukkah; I’m thinking about stringing up lights as well.

Stacey was gracious enough to pre-prepare both challot and a whole meal for erev, which allowed me to prune branches, and later add a green side of my own.  I think we may have a crowd, but one never knows around here!  Lots going on, as usual.

I got more work done on my garden projects.  It’s easy when it’s so cool and pleasant out.

I cleaned up the cilantro and parsley sections of the herb garden and sowed a fresh batch of each.

I planted some rooted native tree saplings along the woodsy area to fill it in more.

I cut down some more fallen silphium, and weeded around the perennials in the hosta garden.

I cleaned up and bug-sprayed the last of the house plants outside, and brought them in.

I raked away more debris in the veg garden, and weeded the flower strips around the outside of it.

I decided it was time to bring in the one pumpkin I grew.

As soon as Avdi puts up the sukkah frame, I’ll cut all the branches he’ll need for the roof and walls, then help decorate.