Naiveté Redux

Every true genius is bound to be naïve.  –Friedrich Schiller

My drumming education has begun!  The weekend I played at Ladies Rock Camp eight years ago, our drumming education was simply learning a couple of beats which could then be added to a song.  I’m not critical of the experience at all; there simply wasn’t time for more than very basic instruction.  I expected my drum education now to be similar – learn various beats and how to add them to the other music.  Wrong!

My first lesson was on how to set-up my drums to fit my body.  My husband had set them up for me when we moved last summer, but there were definitely adjustments to be made and I’m still not sure I have everything entirely right.  I’ll work on additional adjustments as I begin to play.  Then there was a lesson on how to tune the drums and how to hold the drumsticks.  Another lesson focused on reading musical notes for drums – what!!!???  I didn’t even know there was written music for drums!

I’m feeling a little overwhelmed – much like last month when I realized how naïve I was about what it takes to start a garden.  I’m going with Schiller’s quote, though, and believing it is okay to be a bit naïve.  I may not become a genius gardener or drummer, but I’m taking action and I’m learning.

I’m still learning.  –Michaelangelo at age 87

Back on One Horse — Being Dragged by Another

Not just a garden gnome, but a gardening gnome, on my greenhouse windowsill.

A couple days ago I wrote about my Skip Day.  I’m happy to report I’m back up on that horse – I’ve already made up the mileage lost on my Skip Day and my reserve mileage is as high as it has been since I began the 1200-mile challenge as my January “Someday”.

However, as my January “Someday” gallops along, my March “Someday”, gardening, is being dragged through the dirt (pun intended).  I started my composter going back in February, had soil delivered to my greenhouse by the first of March, and I’ve ordered seeds.  However, there are some things about gardening I just didn’t know.  I didn’t realize I needed a propagator (a place to grow the seeds until they’re little plants).  I thought the seeds would arrive and I’d just plop them into the soil and, voila, my garden would grow.  I also thought the sun beating down into the greenhouse would be a good thing.  Plants need sun, right?  Well, apparently they need some sun, but not too much.  Now, while I wait for my seeds and my propagator, I’m trying to figure out how I can shade the windows of my greenhouse knowing it will be beastly hot in there come summer.  I also didn’t realize different seeds should be planted at different times.  I picked March for my gardening “Someday” because I thought that’s when people started gardens.  A greenhouse gardening book I just bought gives a year-round schedule for pursuing a garden in a greenhouse.  I’m reading it and figuring out how to make this first garden successful while already planning what I’ll do differently next year.

I’m disappointed the little green plants I thought would be sprouting by now are only seeds somewhere on their way to me, but I’m learning so much.  I haven’t fallen off the gardening horse, I’m just doing a little acrobatic jumping around in the saddle as I try to figure out how this all works.

March “Someday”: Gardening

I’m still struggling to learn Italian, but I’m already prepping for March’s gardening “someday”.  Yesterday my sweet husband assembled my double composter (a much more complicated job than I anticipated) and the first batch of compost material went in.