Zero to One-Eighty » snow

She’s a naughty girl with a bad habit

Adrian Cooke — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 04:32:18 +0000

Genie on snow patrol

She would give Céline a run for her money, too.

For the time being

Adrian Cooke — Mon, 16 Feb 2009 16:59:57 +0000

While walking with Genie at Wadsworth Mansion, just a few weeks ago

Kris recently reflected that:

The stories of old people planting trees, knowing they’ll never see them grown, are lovely for their message of faith in a long future that can’t be claimed. But equally beautiful is the thought of building something for the time being, knowing it may not last out the decade—or the year—or even, quite horribly, the week—and doing so anyway because what there is today matters as much as the possibility of the future.

For most of the time I’ve lived in New England I haven’t had a garden of my own to take care of. But almost from the beginning I noticed how Connecticut residents do exactly what Kris is talking about: every spring they plant flowers that will last for only a few weeks or months. They take it completely for granted, and they take pride in their work. Bulbs, potted plants, garden beds that sprout and then leap into colour. It reminds me of Toowoomba a bit.

Back in Brisbane—where my only prior experience looking after gardens was helping my mum in hers—I know that you can leave a potted plant outside all year long. Here, you can’t, if you want to keep your pot in one piece.

So far my accomplishments in the garden amount to keeping plants trimmed, the grass cut and getting a few geraniums to hang on from the summer until last fall. It was a start, not so much at a garden that persists, but at the habit of working without thinking too much about the future.

Putting things off

Adrian Cooke — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 04:49:12 +0000

When things are growing outside, Elena’s in charge of the usable plants like fruits and vegetables, and I’m in charge of curb appeal. I love red geraniums, so during the summer I bought some and stuck them in two big pots on either side of the front stoop and they grew and they bloomed and they brought happiness.

Months passed.

So those pots were still there, yesterday afternoon, when I got home from work. I had noticed, the day before, while shovelling appallingly heavy ice from the front path, that each vessel had developed both a magnificent, domed crust of hard ice, and some decisive splits running from top to bottom. They looked, on close inspection, like two large, cracked terracotta eggs.

You know as well as I do that I had been meaning to move them for some time. Mainly it was that I didn’t know where to put them. Every time I thought about moving them I had trouble visualising what to do. I was thinking of two different places, both unsatisfactory. They’re also really heavy.

A week ago, an article called “Motivating Minds:”

A team of researchers led by Sean McCrea of the University of Konstanz, in Germany, reckon they have found a piece of the puzzle. People act in a timely way when given concrete tasks but dawdle when they view them in abstract terms.

I saw those cracks in the pots and immediately decided to deal with them. They were even heavier because of all the ice. But there was only one place to put them now (garage), so the decision was made. When they thaw out they are going to melt all over the concrete, the hard specifics of which seems to be exactly the kind of thing that getting things done requires.

For the time being

Powder

Adrian Cooke — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 00:14:56 +0000

I just love the pine needles.