KEYHOLE GARDENS

KEYHOLE GARDENS

I'm always a little late to the trend, style and taste included, but last year we experimented with this “new” concept of a keyhole garden. It's a idea that is being pushed in dry areas of the world like Africa. One of our misgivings about a garden out here in our dry, hot, and sandy desert is the large amount of water it takes to produce a tomato, egg plant, cucumber or whatever. I mean the cost of water alone could buy bushels of veggies at the market. Throw in fertilizer and time, well while I'd like to be all “green”, sustainable, and you know, kind to Mother Earth but economically it just doesn't make sense and I'm a poor man. So when I came across the keyhole idea from a Saturday morning presentation by the El Paso water company we decided to give it a try.

The concept is very simple. Create a somewhat raised garden so all plants can be reached within an arm's length. Make a place in the middle of the garden to put kitchen compost and water it. That's about it.

We chose to use sandbags, but the perimeter wall can be just about anything you can find, rocks, bricks, logs.

We found an old water purifier fiberglass tank, but some use wire or five-gallon buckets. Again your imagination for the container and what you have on hand is your basic limits for the container. Mainly it should hold compost and allow for drainage of water. As you can see I drilled holes in ours.

For the floor you put anything that will slow the water down but at the same time be porous. We used cardboard, sticks, leaves, paper and more.

On the inside of the walls we put up some tar paper to keep the moisture from getting to the sandbags.

Put about 12 to 18 inches of topsoil. (We used good old West Texas sand and some mulch)

Make a lid to put on the compost bin. Add the kitchen scraps. Sow the seeds and you're off.

The watering is done through the compost bin. ( We did cheat and water outside the bin until the sprouts came out.) The idea is that in 3^rd world countries they would dump their dishwater into the bin.

Early on you can see how pretty the cabbage, lettuce, peas and our one tomato plant are doing. We harvested lettuce, some peas, and tomatoes. The beautiful cabbage had been eaten badly by those beautiful white butterflies that visited. (actually, their larva and subsequent caterpillars) while we were on vacation. But that tomato plant grew and grew and grew and you can see in the photo of Kamala in front of the garden it had taken over the entire garden.

 By Autumn's end we had collected a bounty great tomatoes (and I love vine ripened tomatoes). When our first freeze hit I counted over 200 green tomatoes, golf ball size or bigger.

Our second keyhole-

We also tried another keyhole garden, but by digging down in the ground a couple of feet, throwing in cardboard, paper and leaves. We used some old earthen roof tiles to build up the sides to about a foot above the ground level. We used a 5 gallon bucket with holes drilled in the sides for the compost bin. Unfortunately the picture doesn't show off the construction very well but it does show it's production.

I should add to this little bit musings that neither of us have the gift of a green thumb, so while this is only our first year, not much of an experiment yet, it seems to me that the keyhole concept must be most important factor of success.

If you were really interested in making one these guys do a much better job of explaining it, visit

keyhold garden

WITNESS

ENJOY THE RIDE

I offer up this bit of brain drippings knowing full well I may be wrong in my attempt see into the nature of humans.

"Proof of One's facts doesn't always prove the theory."

(I said that.)

Still the Question begs to be answered so I dally on with my thoughts and perceptions.  The following is a sharing of those meanderings.

THE PURPOSE OF LIFE

Let me be right up front here. If there be purpose to this stream of Chaos, it's  to bare witness to the marvelous flow of this mystical world in this magical time.

NEXT BIG QUESTION

The next question is not; Is there a God? but Is there a Me?

Dust Devil -

Out here in West Texas we've got these little whirlwinds that twist their erratic paths across the dry landscape picking up sand, leaves, sticks and whatever trash it comes across high into air. If you get blindsided by one of these little critters you'll end up with eyes blinded , your mouth crunching sand and your favorite hat flying fast circles above your head then spit out 30 yards away in the middle of cactus patch (in West Texas the hat thing is particularly offensive). Now a Dust Devil is made up of air molecules, hot and hotter, exchanging places and in the process takes on an individual character by picking up environmental trimmings (sand, tumbleweeds,  roofing panels, whatever).

There's a sameness in all Dust Devils because of air exchange (swirly wind)  and all

are individuals due to the uniqueness of what they grab. Nothing static about these guys. They suck things in and spit things out in such rapid motion that within minutes every part of our little whirlwind has changed (air molecules to garbage can lids) Yet we see the little bugger continue twisting it's way through neighborhoods. Eventually it will simply die with a phizzle. This strange creature consists of nothing except what it does. It's a process more than a thing.

Well if we take a close look at ourselves we are a bit like our friend the Dust Devil, a whirlpool of chemicals, molecules and atoms which within their journey in and out of the whirlpool produce an experience and an awareness. With just a moment's attention, One can see this flow in thoughts, events, sensations. You are, literally, not the same person you were yesterday. New chemicals have danced into your body hooking up to form new cells which push old ones out. In time, all of the body is replaced. We, then, like the Dust Devil, are a happening, not a thing. Obviously, there are a lot of differences between the human processes and the whirlwind processes and, as far as we know the Dust Devil processes don't produce an awareness.   But who knows for sure?

The awesomeness of Awareness is to produce a sensation of a static self with a strong feeling of control over both itself and the world around it. But couldn't that just be another illusion? I mean we've yet to come up with any real evidence for the ghost in the machine You know, the the little character riding around up there in your head,  pulling the levers, experiencing the world through your body, making Life's big decisions and exercising Will Power over your, sometimes, unruly body. Obviously, my culture tells me, and it sure feels like my "permanent" Self, or Soul is along for the ride and I'm a not just some fleeting awareness.

Free Will, well yes and no

When we take an honest look at ourselves we have to admit a lot of what we are is, thanks to dear old Mom and Dad, a glorious mix of that ancestral gene pool.

The body is, perhaps, the most obvious gift of genes. Size, strength, hair and eye. Of course, a whole hosts of  negatives in the form of disease  can be inherited. Our self image has a lot to do with this bundle of hair, skin, guts, and bones that has a lineage that stretches back into the obscurity of human beginnings.

Next, comes family and culture. The strength of their influence on us lies in fact they were Blessings from our youth, our very first description of the world, our Prime Paradigm.  Having no other descriptions to interfere with these group messages, we embraced them tightly and lovingly.

Mom and Dad (and our extended family) teach us, by their doings, what the world is like and how to react to it. From the "no,no s" that we get as rug rats to formal education a world view is laid out for us.

A beautiful thing about travel through or the study of other cultures is to realize just how many of our habits, styles, tastes, choices are gifts from our culture/subculture. Everything from what and how we eat to mate selection is shaped by our culture.

So, we're genes and culture running headlong into the unknown.  Bumping into rain, sunshine,  trees, bees, people,  sabertooth tigers (well not lately, but you get the picture) and a whole lot of other stuff that make up this environment thing. Now the first time we run into our neighborhood sabertooth tiger we have only our bodies and what Daddy told us about saber tooth tigers to form an appropriate behavior regarding said tiger. If you, somehow, manage to survive the first encounter then you would then have genes, culture, AND EXPERIENCE at your disposal for your next encounter. But lest we forget, experience is formed by what we already have, culture and genes.  

Now we could postulate our soul coming along for the ride, but between the body/culture/experience interaction with the changing environment there just ain’t much in the line of ‘work’ a soul would  be able to contribute except ride around and enjoy the ride (or not!). Clearly, no matter how you theorize this “soul” entity the only job he could possibly perform is to observe since all behavioral actions have already been taken.

A WORLD OF POSSIBILITIES-

The the soul is a fleeting, mystical  thing (created by the brain) which will dissipate with the end of this body.  Well, ENJOY THE RIDE!

The soul is an eternal entity which will continue long after the body ceases to function.  Ok, but there is still nothing for it to do, but observe, of course.  ENJOY THE RIDE!

The soul is a spiritual being, just here in this world to accomplish some mission, or maybe polish it’s own self until it has reached perfection.  Well, sorry, there really isn't too much to do here. You know, body, culture, experience and environment have already got it all covered.  So, come along for the ride, maybe you can learn something by just watching.  ENJOY THE RIDE?

So FREE WILL?  Sure, in the sense, that you can do “WHATEVER YOU WANT”.  Yes, you can do what you want to do.  But remember, every action that you take is dependent on how you body ‘feels” and  what you've learned up to this point.  This constantly changing WHIRLWIND self acts and reacts to it’s world according to the attributes it possesses(physical and mental) at any given time. It does what it wants to do. As actions and reactions lead to changes in our decision maker. They all have effects on our world and they, in turn, will have effects on both us and our world. Therefore, go forth in this world and make decisions and perform actions as you see fit and do so with confidence. Wait, wait I know that since you are free, you may choose to make all those actions without confidence, but, hey, I mean, Come on, it’s a lot more fun with confidence.

The kicker is that while we have all this Free Will and we get to go about making decisions and initiating actions, and parrying actions made upon us it could be pointed out that due to one’s physical body, the exact impact of family and culture, and the accumulation of experience leading up to now our decisions and actions could have been nothing other than what they were/are/ or will be.  Yep, our Free Will is completely predetermined. Again, forge ahead, with confidence.  Or not.

One last way of looking at this Free Will dilemma, which I tend to embrace, is that the self/soul is an awareness created by the brain/body which itself is transitory and changing as the whirlwind spirals off into the Existence performing actions which it wants but at the same time, it could do nothing else. Free Will or not, I choose to live life as if I had total control and accept total responsibility for my actions……... even if the Devil made me do it.

ENJOY THE RIDE.  

Hope to see you around.

In my youth I was a Seeker but all of that fell away and now in my old age, I'm just a Wanderer,and my vision is so much clearer for it.

Don’t like my paradigm?  Try The Egg by Andy Weir.  It’s a neat little short story. Or, hey, let's hear your's.