...and front yard...and side yard...and vegetable garden...
About a month ago I got pushed right over the bloody edge at work (I work at a university, and as the old saying goes, The fights in academia are so particularly vicious because the stakes are so very small) and I retreated to my garden for some therapy. I now have a completely new raised-bed side garden (120 square feet), an expanded vegetable garden (an additional 60 square feet), all new raised beds in the vegetable garden (8 beds at 15 x 4 feet each), a redesigned front garden, half a dozen flats of seeds under lights in my cellar, and a gigantic leaf cube behind the garage.
Phew.
Plus the soil is now extraordinarily fertile due to all the bodies I've added. :)
My DH grumbles that the yard looks like a construction site, but I suspect he's relieved I complain to my plants instead of him. And unlike my dean, the soil doesn't care if I smack it with a hoe.
Guess I'll find out later this summer if vegetables produced in a fit of pique taste as good as regular ones. :)
pam
Burying bodies in my back yard...
Now that's what I call a constructive use of energy, though the veggies might have a 'bite' to them! ☺
Sounds great Pam - congrats! Any photos?
HAHAHAAHA! Your thread is guaranteed to get hits with THAT subject line! I don't work in academia, but I'm sure it can be the pits. I bought my house for the specific purpose of gardening. If I don't garden, I'm not a very nice person to be around. Don't worry, I'm convinced plants appreciate you for the attention as much as we appreciate their company. And as I always tell my co-workers when they say they wish their boss would get run over by a bus, NOTHING lasts forever! Show us some pics, show us some pics! Of the plants, not the bodies....
The garden is great therapy. I worked at a major university for 17 years and can verify just how petty it can be.
... Sounds stressfull! ☺
Have to be careful with wishing that the boss would get hit by a bus...I had a friend in academia (chemistry professor) who said, I wish my dean would just up and keel over, and wouldn't you know it, one day soon afterwards he up and keeled over, dead as a doorknob. My friend, who is really a very nice person, was rather traumatized.
OK here are some pictures:
The new side garden...
...the veggie garden (OK, you caught me, I've only made 7 of the 8 beds, I still have to turn over the last one)...
...up close of the bricks in the veggie beds (have 2 of 8 so far, caught me again :) )...
(the bricks in all the beds are just stacked, not mortared...got 1000 of them for ridiculously cheap from a guy who collected them from a local school that was being demolished)
...and the front garden...
(all of the plants were already there, I rearranged maybe half of them)
(will hopefully look better once the plants actually grow :) )
Uh, nothing like posting your pictures to make you realize, Man I left a lot of junk lying around the yard...maybe DH is right...*sigh*
(BTW DH built the fence in the background of the first picture...he's a handy guy. :) )
I would not have been traumatized if that was our dean.
Pam - Wow, when you let off steam you really accomplish something. I should attack the area I started clearing last fall when I'm in a rage and maybe I'd get something accomplished!!! LOL It's looking good and can't wait to see it planted. Eleanor
Nice fence, looks good. You have a serious project going on! ☺
victorgardener--
*snort*
Me neither...but my friend is a much nicer person than cranky ol' me. :)
pam
This message was edited Mar 30, 2008 7:53 PM
Ah yes, I remember disputis academis. I always thought the worst battles were among the arts/literati crowd or between the social scientists. The scientists and engineers seemed to get along pretty well. Phuggins, I can also recommend splitting wood as a therapeutic release.
No, I can vouch for the engineering battles, Don.
At my school the biologists and chemists are by far the worst...the science department has a bad rep on multiple campuses.
I don't have any wood to split but I am currently destroying an old stump with a pickaxe. :) Very satisfying, especially when the wood chips go flying.
I'm just glad the crap at work happened after the ground thawed...otherwise I might be running around my department with a pickaxe.
Thanks for the compliments everyone...nice to get positive feedback. :) (I *heart* DG.)
pam
Looks like pent up aggression can do a lot of good work. I will also be happy to see the results later in the season.
Oh Pam, you did great! what a great escape!!!! talk about being productive!!! I was ready for a mental breakdown when I started gardening... yes, if you see my garden you would believe it... the problem now is that I am addicted to gardening and can't think of anything else but plants... I am in school - for a Masters in Nursing and guess what, I can't wait to finish, and I am not going to take a class this summer... goodness gracious NO! gardening is way more interesting!!!!and I can do it alone...
my nephew told me I can dispose of his body when he dies... to feed the plants of make a raised bed and use him to feed the plants... the problem is he is way younger than me... oops! is this too gross to say??? If only I could do the same with some clinical instructors I had!!!! I wonder if plants would thrive!
Kassia, I bet your garden looks great, impending mental breakdown or not. :) I'd love to see pictures, if you have some. I know, I became interested in gardening a few years ago when I bought my first house and now I am totally addicted. First it starts with a few cheapo plants from wal mart...and then you buy a book or two...and then you start seeds for the first time...and pretty soon you're tearing up your entire yard and wondering where you can put the chicken coop. (That's my latest thing...chickens.)
I once saw a sign in a garden that said "Trespassers Will Be Composted", I might have to get one. :)
I bet administrators would make FABULOUS compost...after all, they're completely full of...well...bull poop.
pam
oh... you are so right!!!! LOL... and can you imagine what kind of compost politicians would make???? oh dear, some of them should not wear a rose on their lapel - it would grow right there!
Pam, the problem is I never started small... I got 10 cheap roses... only one survived from the original planted in 06! so in 07 I got about 200... yeah... you can say I have issues!!!
and yes, I have 101 to plant this year... thank GOD the majority are coming on their own roots! so I only have to really worry about planting 30 between April 21 and May 7th! and that's when I start my new job as a nurse!!!!
Great stress reducer working out in the gardens.
...I had a friend in academia (chemistry professor) who said, I wish my dean would just up and keel over, and wouldn't you know it, one day soon afterwards he up and keeled over, dead as a doorknob.
sounds familiar.. I killed Orson Wells.... We were talking about him one night at work and I said "I thought he was dead" He died that night.
Still gets to me even now. Weird, huh???
Sounds like NJ revenge for War of the Worlds!!
Poor Orson...
When I worked in the hospital, I dreamt about patients just before they died. That was wierd, fortunately it only happened a few times, pure coincidence.
mmmwwwhhhaaaaa!!!!!
He is one of my all-time favorites though. A great actor and really great director who refused to play by Hollywood's rules.
One of our iris club members drives a truck & says there is nothing like coming off the road & into the garden. wonder if he composts other drivers.
Iris, that is a good one...
hey Pam, are you planting any roses??? just a little suggestion: really a gorgeous rose!!!
Brothers Grimm Fairy Tale (syn. 'Gebruder Grimm')
http://www.ashdownroses.com/index.asp?PageAction=VIEWPROD&ProdID=936
I have to wait until my work is *done* before I can really get out and garden. Having a deadline is the pits....
BTW - wouldn't burying politicians in the yard poison the soil???
I've told the kids to compost me or spread my ashes over the ocean or turn me into a blue diamond.....(they refuse to consider all options at this point).
Do teenagers make good compost? I have one I'm just about to dispose of if she gives me any more to get angry about....
:)
i read about a cat in a nursing home that would "predict" death. It would move into a room with a patient who would die shortly thereafter. Really strange.
Ha, think of teenagers as those gangly little sprouts who don't look like they're going to bloom, but then suddenly turn into lovely mature blossoms. My daughter is fabulous, but it's a wonder she survived to adult-hood. I know what you mean about not having time to garden. I was happily laid off in February and March, but wouldn't you know it I got a job just as the gardening season started. Blah.
"The fights in academia are so particularly vicious because the stakes are so very small"
Man, is that ever true! Interestingly, I never think of the garden as "therapy." With some of the stuff I have encounter in academia, I would probably be whacking at the plants, and destroying stuff while venting!
Instead, I think of gardening as a way of creating beauty - so maybe gardening is more of a diversion, and in that sense, it is my therapy. :-)
When our lab went out of business, they let the engineering professors come in and 'claim' items by putting a tag on them. It degenerated into a free-for-all with them removing tags and putting theirs on, getting into fights, etc., over the most insignificant crap. Pencil sharpeners, waste baskets, you name it. They were the most small-minded people I have ever come across. Once they receive tenure, their sense of entitlement and self-worth increases exponentially.
> They were the most small-minded people I have ever come across.
Fighting over pencil sharpeners, sounds about right. I'm surprised our faculty don't flick boogers at each other in department meetings.
> Once they receive tenure, their sense of entitlement and self-worth increases exponentially.
Yeah, no kidding. Although I do want tenure. Desperately. (Got that house and kid...) Heaven forbid I ever get that bad, I might just have to compost MYSELF. Honestly, I don't know how someone can deal with all the silliness in academia and take themselves all that seriously. I mean, get over your bad self, already. Get a hobby.
> With some of the stuff I have encounter in academia, I would probably be whacking at the plants, and destroying stuff while venting!
Well, I'm not exactly gardening right now...I'm more rehabilitating my yard, which involves lots of sod stripping, brick hauling, and extraordinarily enthusiastic hoe whacking. Two of my neighbors have wandered over in the past few days asking, What ARE you doing over here???? (I gave them the line about the bodies. :) )
Kassia I will definitely check out that rose...not sure just what I'm planting in all the beds, but right now I have plenty of room. :)
Thanks for your support everyone...sometimes at work I start thinking, Am I the only one around here who is NOT from another planet????
pam
Amended to say: OK, maybe I am from another planet...but not the same one as Them. :)
This message was edited Apr 1, 2008 4:35 PM
So you are a professor, Pam? What do you teach?
Yep...biology...although my various degrees are in oceanography/marine biology. Which means I tend to collect fish type decorations for my garden. :)
You're an engineer?
pam
Yes - stay at home dad these days, but electrical engineer in my previous life.
Pam,
You can bring some veggies into the office. They'll never know what they're eating!!!
Maybe you can add some toxic waste to a special "faculty" patch!
My Mom's been teaching in the arts for over 30 years- she is constantly struggling w/ what she considers to be "small minded administrators". The biggest problem now is that the administration wants her drama dept. to put on "nice, family-oriented plays" instead of edgy ones.
My DH teaches stagecraft and lighting in the theatre department of a local university. It is his 1st venture into academia after many years doing freelance work.
We jokingly refer to it as the "Drama Department" after some of the more, um, interesting faculty meetings...
amy
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