Mission accomplished

El Cabrero is far from being God's gift to gardening. For the most part, I'm terrible at it and weeding is one of my least favorite activities. However, for some reason I seem to have a karmic affinity to garlic, which is my specialty.

Usually we plant it sometime around Christmas, after the ground has frosted but before it gets too hard. When the scapes or bulbs come up in early to mid summer, we cut them off and sometimes eat them. Once they start to grow, we weed as needed. Harvest time is usually the second half of July, when the plants start to lose their green sheen.

This year we have a bumper crop, enough to last through the year and to plant next time around. Which is a good thing since we just garlic in just about everything we eat with the exception of ice cream (although that might be interesting just once).

JUST ONE LINK TODAY. Here's yet another news report on the growing interest among legislators in establishing a Future Fund or permanent trust fund from mineral severance taxes in West Virginia.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Fish day! and other signs of life

A lot of people around the country and beyond are thinking about the carnage in Connecticut, as am I. But two events this weekend reminded me about the persistence of life as well.

Today, Dec. 16, 2012, was officially declared Fish Day at Goat Rope Farm. By way of explanation, during the winter, spring and early summer, the creek that runs by our place is teeming with minnows, crawdads and such. But the dry spells of late summer often dry the creek totally up for weeks or more at a time.

After a while, the water returns. Shortly thereafter, aquatic insects do the same. But fish usually take a while. Fish Day here as occurred in February but sometimes as late as April. For some reason (would that it was an omen of good tidings), it came early this year. This morning, I caught a glimpse of a solitary minnow but didn't trust my eyes. I thought I saw it again this afternoon but waited until seeing it again this evening before calling it.

Life goes. But it also comes back.

The other reminder was the December ritual of planting garlic, the only vegetable I seem to get along with very well in the gardening arena. In a time of year when much seems dead, putting perfectly good garlic cloves in the ground seems like a total waste. One expects them to molder and disappear, but they tend to sprout up in spring and grow to maturity in summer. Life out of death again.

I'm reminded of a Springsteen lyric from the song Atlantic City. You may well know the one.

LINK TRUCK BROKE DOWN

Garlic and me

El Cabrero is not God's gift to gardening. If anything, I'm more a walking talking bottle of human Roundup. However, for some reason this does not apply to garlic, a plant to which I seem to have some kind of karmic affinity.

While I'd prefer not to discuss the rest of the garden, I say with pride that this was a good year for garlic. I harvested our crop a while back and it looks like it will be enough to carry is through a good part of the year. This is saying something, since in this household garlic winds up in just about everything with the possible exception of breakfast cereal.

There is something about planting something just before the dead of winter and harvesting it just before the dead of summer that appeals to me.

BAD IDEA DEPARTMENT. Here are looks at two of them, including the Balanced Budget Amendment and the Boehner plan.

I'm getting pretty tired of this ****.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

Garlic!

I don't have a green thumb but I do my time in the garden. This year, ours is not terribly ambitious but it has been a pretty decent year so far. First came lettuce, arugula, radishes and spinach, then peas and the occasional hot pepper. Tomatoes are coming in now, along with an eggplant or two.

One crop I take a particular interest in is garlic, something I consider to be a welcome addition to almost any recipe, with the possible exceptions of breakfast cereal and deserts. We usually plant ours after the first frost but before the ground gets too hard. This time we did it on Christmas Day (the power was out so that provided our entertainment), putting the clove sections about finger deep and covering them with mulch from the goat barn.

Garlic is pretty low maintenance. In early summer, the plants develop bulbs or scapes that we cut off (they are edible). Then just wait until the leaves start turning brown and dig them up, being careful not to damage the bulbs.

This weekend I dug up our crop, which turned out pretty good. I'm hoping it will get us through most of the coming year. As for the rest of the crops, how's that rain coming?

STALLED. Two million jobless Americans have lost unemployment benefits due to congressional inaction.

ELIMINATE THE MIDDLE MAN. Here's a novel approach to global poverty.

WALTHER REUTHER. Any op-ed that favorably mentions a great West Virginian and labor leader has a place here.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

GILGAMESH: BLAME THE SNAKE (AGAIN)

Caption: This guy says "I was framed."

Welcome to the last day of Goat Rope's Fun With the Epic of Gilgamesh Week. If this is your first visit, please click on the earlier posts. You will also find, as always, snarky comments on current events.

Gilgamesh went to a lot of trouble to find the secret of immortality. He crossed dangerous seas under the guidance of the ferryman Urshanabi and visits with Utanapishtim, the Sumerian Noah (or Deucalion, if you want to go Greek), and his wife.

The latter prompts her husband to give him one last chance to find the secret of everlasting life:

Gilgamesh, I shall reveal a secret thing, it is a mystery of the gods that I am telling you. There is a plant that grows under the water, it has a prickle like a thorn, like a rose; it will wound your hands, but if you succeed in taking it, then your hands will hold that which restores his lost youth to a man.

El Cabrero could use a little of that...

When he gets to deep water, Gilgamesh ties stones to his feet so he can sink to the bottom. He plucks the plant but for some reason won't use it at the time. Instead, he plans to take it home to Uruk

there I will give it to the old men to eat. It's name will be "The Old Men Are Young Again"; and at last I shall eat it myself and have back all my lost youth.

As you probably guessed, it didn't work out that way. On the way home, Gilgamesh stops to bathe in a pool of cool water

but deep in the pool was lying a serpent, and the serpent sensed the sweetness of the flower. It rose out of the water and snatched it away, and immediately it sloughed its skin and returned to the well.

Gilgamesh weeps over what was his last chance to live forever, or at least a lot longer. He returns with the ferryman to Uruk. He is warned of his coming death in one of many dreams (like Genesis, this epic is all about dreams). He is consoled and urged to accept his limitations with gratitude by the god Enlil:

You were given the kingship, such was your destiny, everlasting life was not your destiny. Because of this do not be sad at heart, do not be grieved or oppressed; he has given you power to bind and to loose, to be the darkness and the light of mankind. He has given unexampled supremacy over the people, victory in battle from which no fugitive returns, in forays and assaults from which there is no going back. But do not abuse this power, deal justly with your servants in the palace, deal justly before the face of the sun.

In the end, he dies like all the rest of us and is laid to rest in his tomb with copious offerings from his family and subjects.

It's really a pretty good story, not bad at all for one of humanity's first drafts. When it was rediscovered in the 1800s, many were shocked by the story of the Flood and the ark (although the Greeks had one too).

Others have since wondered whether wandering Greek bards may have learned of it in their travels, where it may have influenced the Homeric tradition of the Iliad and the Odyssey. We'll probably never know.

Naturally, scholars have come up with all kinds of interpretations. I'll stick to the most obvious: no matter who we are, we are mortal. We should be grateful for what we have and "deal justly before the face of the sun."

STOP THE PRESSES! Scientists think that feeding cows garlic could reduce some of their noxious emissions and reduce greenhouse gases. The measure would also dramatically reduce bovine vampire attacks.

PUTTING THE "VICE" IN VICE PRESIDENT. The latest New Yorker has an interesting piece on VP Cheney.

SHOULD DOGS VOTE? It looks like an Australian shepherd/terrier mix has been removed from the voting rolls in Washington state. I don't know shepherd/terrier mixes that well so I can't comment on the wisdom of the decision. I do believe, however that boxers, if given the franchise, might well sell their votes for popcorn.

WHICH REMINDS ME...There are all these WV jokes about dead people being on the voting rolls. Personally, I think you should only cast a ballot in the name of a dead person if you are REALLY sure how they'd vote.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED