Gardens Throwing Shade

 

I was in the MN Landscape Arboretum Bookstore to pick up 𝘚𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘴 𝘋𝘢𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘯𝘨: 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘕𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘚𝘬𝘺, 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘒𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘓𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘰𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘊𝘰𝘴𝘮𝘰𝘴 by Travis Novitsky and Annette S. Lee. Travis presented his work for my landscape photographer speaker series in early December, 2023 —just a month after his book had been released. He was the third of five guest artists I brought in for my last event as photography programs manager at the institution colloquially known as "the Arb." His presentation was full of connections made between the night sky, photography, seasonality, human experience and how these come together through storytelling. If you have the chance to hear him speak, do it -or pick up his book.

Book in hand, I turned to look across the aisle, and eyed 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘰𝘪𝘭 by James Nardi, a book I read a dozen years ago in my Brooklyn apartment, merely 3 feet from our garden and its mixed-blessing soil between the apartment wall and sidewalk. In this book, Nardi describes the soil as a cosmos under our feet, and within it, a universe of chemical compounds, ionized atoms, and organisms. If you want to understand how over-watering can be toxic to a plant or be able to explain how electrical charge relates to fertility, this book is a good read. 

Next to Life in the Soil was another book on earthworms. While paging through this book, I got to thinking about failures common to native gardening under shaded, home landscape conditions. Out in the park, the gardener sees Trillium grandiflorum or Caulophyllum thalictroides, and thinks "I’ve got shade and medium soil, so this should grow in my yard." After purchasing these difficult-to-find plants, siting and digging them in, they don’t make it. The gardener questions the plant (was it healthy?), the sky (too much sun, not enough water?), or the source (can’t trust that nursery!). 

Blue Cohosh, Caulophyllum thalictroides, in bloom at Shelterwood

These questions should be asked, but are only the beginning. Forest-dwelling plants have a complex relationship to the earth conditioned by millennia of dead leaf and wood deposition, decayed and partially decomposed, along with fungi, insects, and microbes. The chemical composition of such healthy soil is light years apart from scraped, compacted, replaced, overused, apparently healthy but relatively lifeless earth around our homes. Even in apparently natural woodlands, soil in human-occupied regions has often declined to simple mineral soils that lack layers of organic matter. These layers are necessary in support of those plant species we desire for our yards. In other words, trees alone are not enough. Yard trees have a very different relationship to yard soil than forest trees have to forest soil —something I repeat to Shelterwood customers each year. 

 

You may be wondering what a gardener can do to grow more soil-sensitive species among those species well-adapted to survive less hospitable conditions (I’m looking at you, PA Sedge). Before addressing that, a brief discussion about the types of shade that can be found around common home sites in the U.S. is necessary. See the following post to learn more (to be published on Jan 1, 2025). 

Post Two: Gardens Throwing Shade: Not All Shade Is Created Equal

 

Cutleaf Toothwort, Cardamine concatenata, in coir pot at Shelterwood

Autumn Changes

Two months ago I closed my native plant nursery, Shelterwood Gardens. Although 2024 was my most successful to date, with sales doubling each year since 2020, it was also the year we decided to sell our always-too-big house on acreage we could hardly keep up or afford to have others help. The strictly retail nursery was small, typically no more than 5000 plants, all raised in pots with most over-wintered at least once. Peak species count was about 230 -all native or nearly native to the counties surrounding the Minneapolis Metro region.

What set Shelterwood apart from the other native plant nurseries in the state was my focus on mature potted plants and time with the customer. I understood that a customer's native plant research often mixed with desire and the web's most popular, most reiterated information. Since the nursery was never very busy with customers, I had time to help each choose species appropriate to their site and conditions. 

Nursery in early spring

The information I provided was built on my experience growing individual species, observations of species in the "field," and research -in other words, not fool-proof. In some ways native plant gardening can be quite easy and at times, especially as a gardener aims to mimic natural communities more precisely, it can be overwhelming. The goal was always to keep those new to native plant gardening interested, curious, and motivated to carry on despite the common setbacks like prominent weeds, species failure, and excessive herbivory. 

 

Nursery in mid June

 

In the Upper Midwest, where native plant gardening has its roots in the work and thinking of Aldo Leopold, among others, there are many native plant nurseries -most of them focused on prairie and wetland edge species. Although I also grew and sold these, Shelterwood increased the number of woodland and sand prairie species for those many woodland and sandy soil lots. In this arena there is opportunity for growth -for gardeners and nurseries, should they choose to take it on. 

 

Nursery in winter

Below are my closing words to a list of about 150 customers who had subscribed to Shelterwood Gardens native plant nursery newsletter.

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Dear Native Plant Enthusiasts,

Another summer is coming to a close. Water-stressed trees, primarily sugar maples in our woods, are beginning to show their fall colors. There's also the sound of crickets and katydids, which arrived early this year, but are more pronounced in August. This chorus of rhythmic chirps and trills, what is called stridulation, I consider one of the goals of gardening with native species. Order, in the garden, can and should be expanded beyond sight alone, into a panoply of the senses. Where a neighbor might comment on apparent chaos they see in habitat you've helped create, redirect their attention to the aural order's assurances that all is as it should be. Check out this great website to identify the August singers supported by your gardens. 

If you sense wistfulness in late August -this is the season where we still actively enjoy the wonders of summer, but anticipate its end. In this anticipation there is an aesthetic, emotional quality of melancholy. This feeling is sustained with diminishing light, the hours shifting cool then warm then cool again, morning dew, the flash of fiery senescence on our eyes, and crisp blue sky. Autumnal melancholy is neither sad nor bittersweet; it is no less a yearned for comfort than plush sweaters, spiced hot milk, wood smoke, and squash's sugary starch.

With late August upon us, Shelterwood has only a half dozen or so open weekends left before the close of the season. This season will also be Shelterwood's last. I opened Shelterwood at the outset of the pandemic, making this my fifth season growing Minnesota native plants to maturity. Having worked within horticultural and educational settings over several years, I wanted to bring to the native plant business what I wanted to see and hadn't found -even in Minnesota, a state rich with native plant resources. I think that I have created in Shelterwood a proof of concept that native plants can be grown to maturity, overwintered, and that there are customers who want them.

Minnesota's native plant trade has focused on prairie species for it is in prairie that we find flowers, therefore pollinators, and these two things people have come to want to see more of in their yards and gardens. There is, however, much greater depth to be found in Minnesota's numerous ecoregions, from northern Lake Agassiz Plain to the southeastern Driftless. Woodlands, of which Minnesota has such great diversity, has long been overlooked in the native plant trade. This, however, is beginning to change and will continue to change as long as there are customers who expect to find native woodland species at their favorite native plant nursery. As a small nursery, I was able to grow species that were difficult to germinate or grow at commercial scale. I was able to depend on seedlings emerging in pots of their "choice" instead of rows of hothouse cell trays. Where profit is not the motive, small can do many things big cannot.

 

I'd like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to those customers who've returned, year over year, to support Shelterwood as well as 2024's new faces. Business improved this year due, in large part, to finally getting on the Lawn2Legume grant list of nurseries and participation in two additional off-site sales. It would be great to see these off-site sales extended from May into June and then again in late August to early September. If that is of interest to you, request it from your favorite retailer of native plants. Without the big growers on board, it is unlikely a fall sale could take place. Another opportunity would be to orchestrate sales in each quadrant of the metro, i.e. NE, SE, NW, SW because if there is one thing I've heard frequently -it has been "this is far." More native plant "expos" can help growers sell plants but also bring in new, native plant curious gardeners. The greater the number of gardeners looking for native plants, the better the opportunity for those growers to keep their business growing.

Shelterwood still has over 2300 plants to send to homes. To be sure, some popular species have sold out, but there are plenty to make a trip worth it. If you, or someone you know, has received a grant for a pollinator or rain garden, come out as soon as possible. It is quiet enough that I have been spending an hour or more with customers to help identify the best species for their project. For now my hours will remain similar, Friday through Sunday. I have shortened Sunday hours to 9am-1pm, as there are few to no customers in the afternoon on Sundays. However, please reach out to make an appointment if you cannot make it within open hours. I will continue to serve native plant gardeners as long as is possible.

Some may be wondering "what's next?" Well, for one, you will notice the "for sale" sign at the entrance to Shelterwood. I am also writing. In 2007 I began what became a popular New York City garden/nature/art blog back when people, not AI, did the writing. It's still out there, although I changed the title when we moved to MN, and I occasionally add new material. Unfortunately ads, SEO, and AI have ruined what used to be a valuable Web form. Social media changed things too, starting with attention spans, what is seen and what isn't, and forced character limits on writing (on IG, anyway -I left FB in 2016). Typing on a phone is impossible anyway.  Last winter I started working on a long form story -some call that a book. About what, you may wonder. Keywords: plants, people, ecology, love, boundaries. Fiction -something new to me, and a great challenge. I'm also working on my upcoming exhibition, this November at Rosalux, in Minneapolis. You can see the details here. If you follow Shelterwood on Instagram -I will keep that going and am uncertain what I will do with the account once the nursery closes for the season. Whatever I choose to do, I will announce it there.

Hope to see you soon and enjoy the remainder of summer and return of autumn.

Best

Frank

Shelterwood Gardens

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Some responses I received in reply to this late sumer newsletter, identifying details removed...


Hello Frank,

 

Wow sounds like a lot of change is coming your way.  Will yall stay in Mn?  Still working for the Arb?I feel sad about Shelterwood closing as you offered such a ray of light for us native gardeners. But I understand there are lots of challenges to remain profitable. 

 

Thank you for all you do!!!!!

Kristy

Dear Frank,

It’s not often an email makes me weep. Yet yours this morning did just that. (Weep is a strong word, but I truly did just that!)

The opening paragraphs were so beautiful. It’s exactly how I feel about this time of year but have never been able to put into words. And also how I feel about native gardening – it’s so much more than what we see, which many don’t often understand.

Then to learn this is your last season…what sadness this brings to me. Shelterwood has become my go-to place for natives. Because you have such a variety of woodland natives, which are so hard to find. Because you sell larger pots, which give the plants a fighting chance to survive among the many and challenging tree roots in my yard…and the dry soil as a result. Because your nursery is peaceful. And mostly because you have taken time with me, offering your knowledge, teaching me so much. I wish I had learned of Shelterwood a few years earlier.

Life changes, though – just like our gardens. I wish you all the best in whatever comes next.

As I’ve watched my garden over the summer, I’ve taken lots of notes and kept a list of possible plants to buy for end-of-summer planting. I’ll be out to visit soon, hopefully this weekend.

Warmly,
Kimberly

Nursery late summer

That’s a lot of news! Some good some sad for those of us who have enjoyed you and your plants at the Mound Market or at your beautiful property that you have so graciously opened to so many of us!! How much I will miss my stops there in the spring…… thank you for all you have done and you will be missed !! Wishing you continued happy, successful adventures!!!!!! I hope to stop by one more time?

Best Regards,
Marie

 

Nursery in early fall

 

Hi Frank, I'm saddened to hear you are closing the nursery! I also read that you are selling the house? Where are you moving to?

I wanted to tell you that you have been an inspiration of sorts for me. Over the past few years I have successfully winter sown a large variety of native plants. I divide them up in the late spring and then plant in the fall. I'm amazed at the success rate of this method (however, Coreopsis palmata has, for some reason, been a tricky one).

Anyways, thanks for all of the great info you've shared over the years.

Mark

 

 

 

Squirrel Appreciation... 🤔

We don't blog because, well, social media apps. Instagram is where I am (@shelterwood_gardens or @frankmeuschke), although it delivers more grief than blogger, but there is an instant audience. That fact seems to keep many of us long-time bloggers on our phones. I will try to upend that by, at first, reposting and building upon wordy posts from that other platform. This is one from January 21, Squirrel Appreciation Day, 2024.

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The squirrels have had quite a winter so far. Is it the lack of snow or the mast year full of acorns? In winter they often emerge after sunrise, warming up in the sun, before making as few journeys across the land as possible. Not this winter. Daily, up before sunrise, chasing each other, bounding from tree to tree, and remaining active for most of the day. Earlier in winter the larger Fox Squirrels were more abundant, but now the gray dominate. When I leave our place in the woods, it may be the squirrels I’ll miss more than any other wildlife as they animate the yard, living as close to us as possible with only modest interaction between us.

I know this is not the position of many people. There are few posts on this blog more visited than the one about drowning squirrels (not me!). In urban settings squirrels are often considered a pest. They bite each tomato! They nip the rose buds! They destroy my house! Curiously, they do none of those things at our place. Why? They have what they need within the woods here. They treat the house like a big boulder, present but of no interest. I have yet to see them take interest in the vegetable garden, but we also protect it from more interested parties.

Cities are the ultimate walled gardens. Within the city, ideas are cultivated about the value of wildlife, out there, in the wilderness. Yet wildlife, within its walls, is subject to other values. We aim to protect distant wilderness, and the creatures we identify with it, while we struggle with the wilderness within the walls of the garden.

We hold dear the preservation of wilderness. We head out to it for a taste of beauty, clean air, and wildlife. Given over to the experience, it can teach us that the way of wilderness is not aesthetic, is not perfection, is not harmony as we tend to think of it, but that wilderness is the walls torn down.

Happy Squirrel Appreciation Day. 

Electoral Gutter Ball

Much has happened in the last several months, yet all that has become unimportant (temporarily, one hopes) in the face of the re-election of Donald Trump. I've written about this before, here, in 2020, but old posts become buried. Below are a few things those in my physical orbit may have heard me say and, whether of any value to a reader, I wrote them out.

Social Media & News

You might hear about the death of traditional/conventional news media; its impotence in the face of social media's democratization of news delivery. I don't worry much about people ignorantly sharing false news, wrong data, outright lies, conspiracies, superstitions, and the rest -sure it happens quickly at great scale, but it is human nature to repeat falsehoods and has been part of our lives for as long as we could whisper in the ears of our neighbors. 

However, social media used as a powerful tool of disinformation and propaganda at the hands of malignant forces is worrisome. Those powerful, or empowered, who intentionally devise an array of media designed to align power with a social-political world view, who can alter its code to redact information, display AI-generated propaganda, and is easily contrived to appeal to individual identities is a great threat to governing institutions and civil society.

Factual information has been replaced by opinion information (this is my opinion) under the masthead of news journalism. This has been exacerbated by news channeling, whereby we receive information that mirrors our individual perspectives. Traditional news sources have been hollowed out due to mistrust cultivated, from the left and the right, by the accusation that these traditional new organizations are accomplice to power. 

Today the only "true" news is editorialized news that aligns with someone's position on any and all topics. This slippery slope ensures traditional news outlets slide further toward editorial to keep eyes on its revenue-generating ads. Consumers of this editorialized news announce that they are eyes-wide-open critical thinkers who have done their research, when what they really have done is divorce themselves from the responsibility to listen, think critically, and form a complex understanding of complex issues in favor of a marketplace of reassurance.

Disillusionment and Defection

When people do not vote, or worse, defection vote, out of their idealism, I am confounded. As an artist, it is rather clear -I can imagine a perfect circle, yet I cannot draw one. This illustrates, rather simply, how I, a human in a complex social-political reality, differ from the abstract perfection to which I might simultaneously aspire. To wait for the perfect candidate, whose perfection must also ensure winning, or even to wait for a candidate only more closely aligned with a belief system, is to misunderstand politics, but also humanity and its flawed systems. 

Democracy, in its best form, is compromise with parties who want different outcomes. However insufficient this is when it yields results not closely aligned with a set of beliefs, it remains the best system we have to date, over thousands and thousands of years of human civilization, in which human beings have hardly changed. A single vote is the slightest nudge toward the direction aimed for. When people do not vote, it suggests a belief that they will not be affected by a move away from the direction toward which they supposedly aspire. To vote for the candidate who will take us in the opposite, or unknown, direction from which the voter believes we should head in protest against the insufficiency of a candidate, then that voter is reckless, ignorant of the consequences, careless, or self-destructive.

When people say "my vote doesn't count," all I hear is "my vote should be worth a lot more than one vote." If someone does not vote because they do not have a conscious idea of which direction the country ought to move, then there is ignorance, indifference, confusion or laziness. General election information is simplified and everywhere. Ask your mother, your father, your preacher, your cousin, your friend to help out.

Politicians Are Not Mother Theresa, They Are Not Martin Luther King

A political leader is a politician, not a religious leader, a thought leader, a saint or Samaritan. Politicians at the highest level have the awful responsibility to weigh various outcomes, to consider the consequences, political and otherwise, of their choices and compromises. They will make unrighteous decisions where choices must be made, where silence or doing nothing is the worst choice. The political leader will need to make these choices knowing they will be exposed to criticism from factions within their own party and opposing parties salivating as they encircle the tent.

The critic is only required to consider their cause, for which outcomes will not be tested, where the political leader must weigh layers of local, national, and global outcomes when making a choice -one that will be scrutinized, distorted, lambasted, and certainly tested. The critic has little to no responsibility for the consequences of their critique, there will be no one to measure the results of their policy, to hold them to account, to vote them out, to bitterly complain that their failures led to a despicable new political figure.

And that is where we find ourselves in 2024. Fear of threats, real or imagined, seem to be our biggest motivator, whether it's fear of fascism or fear of immigrants or climate change or losing control over your body or crime or losing your job to AI or transgender kids or paying off your debt. Too often I hear about people voting against their interests, but choosing a political leader isn't always a rational decision. The influence machine (i.e. social media/channeled news/regional talk radio) is powerful and repetitive and our local and chosen communities create group think. 

Regardless of local, national and global outcomes, the voter will rationalize their choice with arguments concocted by the media machine. Do not waste your time with retorts to these arguments as you will only become frustrated and maybe even reinforce foolish ideas implanted in their head. After all, anything you might say as a means of argument has been previously constructed as evidence of their righteousness. It's not a free exchange and the outcome is predetermined. 

I feel as if I have wasted too much precious life time on this already, so I will curtail it here.

Cathy Opie's Landscapes

 

I was surprised to see landscape represented in Cathy Opie’s recent work. I often find myself frustrated by artists who’ve taken on landscape later in their career, but if I am honest, this feeling is sometimes nothing more than professional jealousy. Given that, how easy it would be to couch that jeolousy in a negative critique of the work. It seems I can forget that landscape doesn’t belong to me, or anyone, but for a few hundred years, has been a symbolic entity that artists can tap, turn over, reproduce or renounce.

The swamp landscape of Opie's Rhetorical Landscapes

Although Opie says shots are unplanned, or there is little preparation, or it’s all in her head, what materializes is always passed through her razor sharp filter. In her exhibit, Rhetorical Landscapes (2020), she presented photographs of the Okefenokee Swamp adjacent to floor-standing screens displaying animated magazine clippings. Opie frames these swamp photographs in terms of the Trump administration’s undermining of climate goals, rising seas, and its effect on these southeastern U.S. swamps, but there is more to it than that.

Trump’s rhetoric makes great use of the swamp image, commonly understood as a murky waste, dark, mysterious, where dangerous creatures lurk just beneath the surface. In doing so, he leverages the symbolic power of landscape to transport and amplify fear across heterogenious social, geographic and cultural terrain. Taking a cue from the juvenile “Who ever smelt it, dealt it,” in pointing to the swamp, Trump reveals he is the very swamp he’s invoked. That Opie pictures the Okefenokee, as opposed to other, if not equally vast, swamps appears logical given the American electorate’s association, however faulty, of the nation’s malignant inclinations with historically rebellious southern states. In these two ways, Opie’s swamp landscapes function as other landscape images have before —representative, or in service, of a nation’s identity.

This meaning is turned on its head when the swamp continues to be seen as mysterious, misunderstood, and threatening but is also threatened. A landscape that holds this (threatening/threatened) and other dualities (land/sea) suggests the swamp’s metaphorical potential to be representative of queer identity. This interpretation is supported by Rhetorical Landscape’s exhibition design in which the swamp photos are hung on the outer wall, apart from central, free-standing kiosks of animated collage that are representative, and a critique, of American culture at large. I prefer this take over the more academic approach. It’s more intriguing and a refreshing break from the critique of landscape as long-ago exhausted and forever beholden to the capitalist-imperialist enterprise.

One of Opie's blurred landscapes -only a portion of a larger work.

Opie considers her out of focus sunrise/sunset photographs abstract and uses them (and others) to bookend focused photographs of Civil War monuments in southern states. She indicated that the book ending and “splits” shown in her other landscape images refers to division and duality. The blurring in those images may be a way to question the American promise purportedly evoked by 19th century landscape paintings of awe-inducing places like Niagara Falls (Opie also photographed Niagara, blurred). 

 

The full work: blurred landscapes bookend a monument to the rebel cause.

One of Opie's Norway mountain landscapes. Image reproduces color and tonality poorly.

 

More recently, Opie has been photographing mountains in Norway. She intimated this flirt with beauty was tinged with guilt. Beauty, like landscape, is overloaded. Rather than beauty, could this work be about the pleasure inherent to the experience of calming, blue tonalities. Isn’t there room for calm —especially after 4 (just 4?) years of Trump? Whenever we speak of guilty pleasures, there is always a sense that judgement is entirely unfair.

Although described as a critique of the Catholic Church, I found Opie's most recent work “Walls, Windows and Blood” her most abstract and engagingly ambiguous. Most impactful are the "Blood Grids." Not only do they compellingly capture the textures, colors, and light inherent to painting, but by fracturing the original whole, the photographs create incredibly intimate moments with the physical work unlikely to be had in a crowded museum. I can only imagine the pleasure she had in arranging these pieces. Her process reclaims the artistry of, and becomes a spiritual union with, those original artists who had little choice but to serve the power of the Church.

Simultaneously, the modernist grid Opie uses to structure the assemblage of photographs ties the violence of the Catholic Church exacted across the globe to the universalist, global enterprise of aesthetic Modernism.  In a manner homologous to the power of the Church, Modernism has had an unassailable authority over artists and, although not bloody, for some generations, has been an oppressively misanthropic and homogenizing force. Although the grid speaks to the rigidity of Church doctrine, the Church's fetish for flesh and blood undermines the excess of Modernist rationality. Opie's subversive gesture is the simultaneous binding and contrasting of these forces, not quite canceling each out, but rather holding them in a revealing, dynamic tension.

Took Flight

We always say, and I shall repeat, "how fast time goes," or "where does the time go," and all other sentiments on time that age seems to stir within us. This winter, virtually snow-less and, by far, the warmest on record, helped make time ahead seem abundant. With the early onset of spring, the significantly early nursery opener date of April 8th (usually the second week of May), and so much to do and prepare for, time took flight.

The first week of March, warm and sunny, I was fixing and building, restoring and painting. I re-sided all that I could safely reach and the same went for painting, so we emptied our savings to hire out siding replacement and painting on the upper floors. My first project was to detach, dismantle, and dispose of three steps descending from the screened, back porch. New treads, new risers, re-engineered the original, 30 year old stringer attachment and raised a sunken landing made for a more solid exit. Although I re-used the old stringers, paint and new cedar treads made it look almost new. The beginning to a very busy spring to come.

Siding crew finishes what I could not -although I completed the lower part, at right.

With every project there were tangential projects -things we chose to live with that, once something adjacent is restored, look awful if left in a poor state. For our house, this was most often the granite rock and plastic edging. Rocks sank into the soil, ants and plants brought or created soil above the rock, edging warped, sunk or was cut by mowers. It's work anyone would avoid -physical labor of the most tedious kind. Move rocks, wash rocks, remove plants, add soil, replace fabric, dig in new edging, replace rocks, shake off crazed ants, swat mosquitoes.

2020 was a good year to address time-consuming projects -prior steps had no footings.

By late April, I was able to power-wash, repair, paint and install all remaining, under-porch latticework in the front and rear of the house. By mid-May, after years of living without, I constructed, painted, and attached two railings to the new, in 2020, south-side staircase I built to replace the dangerously rotted, completely unsupported old steps. The landing, a mishmash of limestone and concrete paver, was completed last fall and adjacent rock edging was renovated this spring.

 

An old project is finally complete with railings, mishmash landing and edging rehab.

Two major projects remained for June: grading and seeding of a drought-killed lawn (and its edging, of course) that became bare soil and weeds, and building new steps that descend from the north-side deck, rebuilt in 2016, to the vegetable garden. I chose to renovate the front lawn, first, in order to take advantage of coming rain, but it was also the bigger of the two projects. Rain it did, leading me to repeatedly seed, and stalling other outdoor projects. While it rained, I packed boxes, growing ever more frustrated with rain that, not long before, was welcome.

 

The earliest, newly seeded lawn grew in well. The latest, last seeding failed (not seen).

 

A brief dry spell let me repaint trim and paint post and rail of the front porch staircase.

When our realtor, John, stopped in to check on my progress, I watched him uneasily navigate the rickety "temporary" steps we'd been using to descend from the utility room deck to the garden. This convinced me I needed to forget the possibility of letting them go. Still, between rain and other demands, I continued to push off building a replacement.  There simply wasn't enough time.

We used these steps, built decades ago, for 8 years.

My priority had to be, at realtor request, to empty the house of all objects by June 21st. Monday through Thursday, beginning in June, I emptied furniture, packed books, removed art from walls for wrapping, all the while continuing to operate the nursery on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays. I spent several days accumulating and organizing objects for a yard sale to be held concurrently with nursery open hours. I hired a helping hand for this, yet, in the end, found it was an entirely fruitless enterprise given the fraction of objects eventually sold. I raked in about five hundred dollars, but I also paid the helper nearly four hundred. Not a good use of time or resources. With the looming deadline for delivering an empty house, I also tried, unsuccessfully, to get an estate sale company to sell off a hundred years of objects. They didn't find our things financially appealing or didn't have the time.

So I made the decision to hire a moving company to carry boxed items and furniture from the attic, second and first floors, as well as the basement into either the studio outbuilding (at the time filled with yard sale items and studio equipment) or a twenty-six foot truck. Anything remaining would be hidden in a closet or cabinet to render the house virtually empty. The items stored in the studio building would potentially be for sale while the truck-bound items would be shipped to a storage unit about one half hour to the west for safe keeping until a move date. Lucky, and quick with a deposit, I was able to secure six guys and a truck for the following Wednesday. The task then became tagging each item "truck" or "shed," and clearing the driveway of any remaining outdoor yard sale items to accept a large truck and organizing the studio to accept the majority of house's contents. That Wednesday, six guys worked eight hours to empty the house of large or heavy objects.

The following day, however briefly, I felt a sense of relief, even freedom. The attic was now empty of large objects, as was the second floor, but there were still many unpacked small items scattered about each floor. Each room generated its own contractor bag or two of trash, so I ordered a second dumpster. The dining room floor became the packing table and I hired a helper to wrap and box. Still, the empty house deadline of June 21 came and went, the listing of the house for sale continued to be kicked down the road and those steps were not built. 

With three thousand plants still in the nursery pen, I opened the nursery on July 4 and following days while continuing to package, hide or empty house contents. The attic was finally empty, as was the second floor -closets excepted. The dining room floor held an abundance of ceramic, art and otherwise fragile objects requiring packing and this occupied most of the remaining days. Although the basement continued to harbor items, I moved to clean it as if it was empty.

In that last week, before the open house showing scheduled for July 13th, at 11am, I was able to purchase materials and begin construction on the long overdue steps. The challenge was building a staircase of equal riser height between two fixed positions while using stock standard stringers -a convenience purchase that ultimately led to inconvenience. Off-the-shelf stringers have a rise of seven inches between steps, so I had to modify the stringers to fit evenly within a total rise of 26.5 inches. 

How is this done? First, divide 26.5 (the height of the deck) by the number of steps (4). The numerical result tells you the measurement (6 & 5/8th inches) of each riser. The problem comes with using off the shelf stringers, as they are always cut to 7 inches, the bottom rise excepted -this is cut to 6 & 3/4 inches. When treads are placed, this adds the thickness of the tread material to the bottom-most riser, so that it resolves to 6 & 3/4 inches plus 1 & 3/4 inches, or 8.5 inches -significantly higher than the 7 inch height of each center riser. 

For the upper-most riser, we measure from the deck surface down to the top of the next tread, below, revealing a riser height of only 5 inches! Wildly different heights between risers is against city code which allows only for a 3/8ths inch difference between steps. This is because differences above this number are potentially unsafe as our body intuits where to place our foot based on the last step taken. 

Three stringers and attached legs create "floating" steps unattached to the deck or sidewalk.

Time being short, I decided to cut the stringers' bottom edges down to about 5 & 1/4 inches to bring the bottom-most riser plus its tread thickness closer to seven inches. In doing this, I automatically extended the upper riser by the amount removed, so that the upper riser height is now closer to 5 & 3/4 inches -still way off from the needed 6 & 5/8ths needed to meet code. Now what? The only option left, aside from starting again with 2x12 boards to create new, custom stringers, is to plane off the necessary thickness from the top tread in order to increase top riser height. Doing so will reduce the 7 inch height of the riser below, so that each would need a bit of planing to stay within the 3/8ths inch code rule.

Time nor weather, however, was on my side. The torrential downpours began on Friday, but picked up on Saturday, lasting past 5pm. I had to hide my things, vacuum, clean, mow the now very wet grass and, still, my steps were not complete. Although treads were cut, they were not all attached, and riser boards (concealing the open space) needed cutting, painting and fastening. The realtor then added an additional appointment for 10am that Sunday, so I lost an hour, and gave up. 

An evening call with a friend help set priorities. Instead of fretting, I spent three hours on Saturday evening, until twilight, moving hundreds of pounds of scrap metal (what, I didn't mention the scrap metal?) scattered outside the studio, in like piles, into my van. With little light left, I decided to do something despised by mower and grass alike -cut the wet grass. There was no way to complete the steps -I would attach the loose treads in the morning and offer a warning for safety.

On Sunday I woke early, as always in a Minnesota summer, to begin hiding my things, remove the two van seats that became my temporary in-house furniture, vacuum, and clean. It was 9:45am and I was preparing to leave, as is required for these showings, when the text came from realtor John that the 10 o'clock had canceled. I answered "Great!" which I do not think he was expecting. "Now I can finish the steps." There was some sun, finally, so I cut the riser planks, painted and leaned them toward the rising sun to hasten drying. At 10:50am, a few minutes shy of the open house, I attached the nearly dry riser planks to the stringers and greeted the realtor. I never did get to plane the treads to come closer to meeting code, but I reasoned to myself that these were only temporary, anyway, and way better than the steps they replaced. 

Completed, although uneven, last set of steps.

I went to the neighbors to spend the next three hours sitting on their porch, had an iced coffee, then a beer, in succession. Waiting out the open house slumped in an Adirondack chair was all I could muster. As 2pm rolled around, I headed back to the homestead. The realtor was on his way out -his job done. No offers, no bites, they like the land, not the house -absolutely what I had anticipated and a hell ton of work ended up feeling anti-climactic.

It is fitting that this staircase, the last of five I've rebuilt, should be the project made a decade, nearly to the day, after the first set of steps I had built for my father in law, Rex, just three months before he died. Rebuilding his home's primary staircase was as much about showing him that things would be in good hands after he was gone as it was about necessity, that it was okay for him to let go. Ten years on, however, it's not only okay, but necessary for us to let go of this house and maybe his wishes, so that Betsy and I can put our lives back into our good hands.

 

 

The Ballad of 박은빈: The Age of Youth

 

The tenor of The Age of Youth is heralded in its opening theme, Dick and Jane, by Sydney York. The bubbly, even frenetic tune takes you on a journey that, at its end, pulses with dissonance. Most dramas I've watched over the last nine months have dark themes running parallel to romance, yet none have managed to weave together five distinct character threads, each with its its own trauma, as well as The Age of Youth, directed by Lee Tae Gon and written by Park Yeon Sun. Although each character, aged 20 to 28, is on their own path with work, school, friends, family, and love, they come together at their shared apartment called, ironically or not, Belle Epoque. Over the course of a season they learn how little they know about each other's past and present. As one character slowly unfolds in the presence of their housemates, so do the others, with varying levels of conflict and resolution.

Yoo Eun-jae

The show begins with Yoo Eun-jae, played by Park Hye-su, and her first day in Seoul, on campus, and at Belle Epoche. She is insecure and terribly yielding, and as anyone who has found themselves inserted into the lives of others knows, no less in the personal space of home, the experience can be intimidating. But Eun-jae is also troubled by her past and suppresses it, and with that, her emotions. Her subdued lead character is contrasted, at the end of the first episode, with the appearance of effervescent Song Ji-won, played by Park Eun Bin, whose only concern appears to be an inability to land a boyfriend. As it happens, these two opposite personalities are drawn to each other as the younger Eun-jae looks up to Ji-won and finds, maybe, a mother or sister-figure who is willing to stand up for her. 

Song Ji-won

Ji-won is outgoing and vivacious, but she does not know what troubles her, and her buoyant character can feel superficial, at times, in comparison to her housemates whose issues are revealed more quickly than hers. Ji-won's metered reveal comes in the form of her fictions, shared at home and at school, across several episodes deep into second season. Despite this, you like Ji-won -she's smart, outspoken, witty, brings people together and in so many ways seems to have it together, if only it weren't for that unknown nagging at her. 

Good question, Jung Ye-eun

The stories of Eun-jae, Jung Ye-eun, Yoon Jin-myung, and Kang Yi-na drive the first season. As their secrets unfold, bonds are built, and believably so. Voice-over is used to convey the thoughts of all the housemates, although I was particularly drawn to Yoon Jin-myung's internal dialogue. I imagine, at this age, that I would have found these portraits insightful throughout the psychological tumult of my twenties. Although the program had low AC Nielsen ratings in its broadcast season in Korea, its excellent script and word of mouth have kept it alive on Netflix.

 

Yoon Jin-myung

When people ask which Korean drama they should watch, The Age of Youth always lands among my top five. I think this is because it bests most shows in the young friends genre in Korea and even globally, but also because it disposed of so many common Kdrama vignettes filled with umbrellas, wrist-grabbing, and the lot. It is a show that takes the time to develop each Belle Epoche character so that each has her own specific gravity; all are relatable, even if you do not share their story.

 

Kang Yi-na

While much is resolved by the end of the first season's 12 episodes, what ails Ji-won only began to rise to the surface by then. So The Age of Youth returned with a second season to further explore the lives of Belle Epoche's young women. However, I found that the majority of the second season's 14 episodes to be, at best, sufferable. The replacement of actor Park Hye-su with Ji Woo as Eun-jae was jarring, but that combined with the narrative focus on her emotional, internal struggle with feelings for her ex-boyfriend was exhausting. What was previously relatable in Eun-jae became just shy of pathological, and although her troubles somewhat understandable, I think the writers simply gave us too much of it. At least they made space for character Jung Ye-eun to deal with her post trauma stress and Yoon Jin-myung to discover how to reach outside her tightly-defined boundaries, as well as the entry of a new member of the household, Jo Eun.

Yi Na is a novice driver...

The second season begins memorably with the first episode's comedic car ride and then, leaping over much of the middle episodes, finishes well with Ji-won's growth into a mature, investigative journalist in the final episodes. If it weren't for her story, I would have found it difficult to complete season two. When first season success leads to demand for a second season, the excitement doesn't always translate into production. Beyond the demands business can place on creativity, the original project can also exhaust the creative energy needed to breathe life into a second season.

This may be the case for Extraordinary Attorney Woo, too, although I have yet to hear much recently about that possible second season. As much as the character Attorney Woo placed Park Eun Bin on a global stage, Ji-won was her break-through role -one in which you will see hints of the future Attorney Woo. But don't get me wrong -the entire cast of The Age of Youth makes the show worth watching, and watch you should.

Ballad of 박은빈: Judge vs Judge

By the time I watched the 2017 series Judge vs Judge (aka Nothing to Lose), starring Park Eun Bin, I was a bit weary of her pure-hearted characters -strong-willed, tough when necessary, sensitive to others, things happen to her, she doesn't hurt others, she is the noble poor, hard-working, has something to overcome, and so on. For a young audience, maybe her characters can be an impactful role model, but for mature audiences, those of us who've lived long enough to have hurt others and feel regret at least once, her characters become an impossible person. These characters embody the self we wish we could be and with that, I wonder, what do we do? Aren't these actors capable of greater complexity? I think so, but they are hamstrung by an industry that insists on modeling mores.

But let's entertain the possibility that the lead character, the working class Judge Lee Jung-joo, wasn't prescribed the task of exonerating her brother for the heinous crimes for which he was framed? If only Lee Jung-joo, instead of displaying moral character by immediately disowning her brother and later fighting against power to prove his innocence, had to find a way to accept that her brother committed heinous acts. Could she not show courage by navigating her colleagues at court while shouldering the burden? Is there moral character in coming to terms with loving a family member that made such a grave mistake? Can a show ask how we live with those we love who've made terrible choices? The challenge to the screenwriter is modeling forgiveness in a way that doesn't diminish the severity of the crime, but also offers a path forward that isn't as black and white as imprisoning the criminal and forgetting they exist.

Toward the end of the series, as the real perpetrators are exposed, we are confronted with the possibility that those who are close to us are also capable of the greatest harm. The most difficult scene of the series was the confrontation of Park Eun Bin's Judge Lee Jung-joo with her mentor Judge Yoo Myung Hee, who (spoiler) was responsible for several crimes including pinning them on Judge Lee Jung-joo's brother. Korean dramas are good at rendering tearful emotion, but the contempt and disgust Park Eun Bin had to muster to deliver this scene must've been extraordinary and I found it the most memorable event of the series. 

Despite my criticism of writing that only models pure good and evil, it is difficult to imagine confronting such betrayal and finding within oneself any grace or forgiveness. Although it is easy to think the string of criminal acts presented is absurd, or that Judge Yoo Myung Hee's motives were not convincing, one can also imagine one self-serving misstep catapulting towards another, and yet another, until one has gone too far to see a path toward extricating the good person from the crimes they've committed. As Judge Yoo Myung Hee reveals in that scene -she was not herself and yet she was -the cognitive dissonance of being a good human being and criminal simply too great. I applaud the writers for attempting to relay this internal conflict. I also continue to ponder Judge Lee Jung-joo's struggle with her inability to think her brother was anything but guilty of the crimes he was framed for. We never get an answer to that -it's a question possibly intended to hang in the air.

In several scenes we see a blurred Christmas tree at the end of a courthouse hallway, a reminder that Christianity has a significant presence in South Korean culture. Not to make too much of the display, but notable that Christianity made space for contrition and grace, two ideas that are virtually meaningless in contemporary criminal statutes. Grace is getting what you don’t deserve (forgiveness, release) and not getting what you do deserve (incarceration or worse) and contrition is honest remorse and the deepest sorrow (with god as their witness) for hurting others. Neither of these come into play in Judge vs Judge, although I could argue that it shows in the acts of the son, Do Han Joon, of convicted Judge Yoo Myung Hee. Feeling shame, we find him dutifully helping the family of one of the people wronged by his mother.

Do Han Joon, played by the actor Dong Ha, is probably the most compelling character in the series. You are not sure what to make of him, at first. He is cocky and aggressive toward Park Eun Bin's Judge Lee Jung-joo, but eventually you feel pity for him as you learn he had little to nothing to do with the crimes of his parents. Korean dramas typically translate the shame of parents to the children, and the reverse is also true, and it is no different in Judge vs Judge. 

Judge Lee Jung-joo and Judge Sa Eui Hyun

Of course, he is also one leg of a love triangle, but never really had a chance, certainly not after it is revealed what his mother did to his love interest Judge Lee Jung-joo. The other leg is provided by the rather dull, but cocky Judge Sa Eui Hyun, played by actor Yeon Woo Jin. Fortunately, the love story takes a back seat to the behind the bench court proceedings and crimes. There is little fire between the two and Judge Sa Eui Hyun is awfully paternalistic. I can only imagine his ego has been constructed by his legal pedigree -his father, a lawyer and grandfather, a judge. Yet, he does deliver one romantic line in one of the final episodes while walking, at night, with Judge Lee Jung-joo. I won't share it -you'll have to watch.

Should you choose to watch -note that this series really begins like a slapstick comedy, even as it aims to deal with serious issues. Most of this is to model the change in the Park Eun Bin's Judge Lee Jung-joo from vulgar working class youth to mature and distinguished in her role as a judge. Issues of class play a role in almost every Kdrama, so it would be no different, if not heightened, in a court drama. 

 

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