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Back to the Forum Archives This has been a most unusual year for Mrs. Gaffer and myself with respect to many things including gardening. Gardening is what I want to address right now. Things went quite wrong shortly after we had worked up the soil and set out all of the plants and seeds. What happened is, my right knee took a turn for the worse and I could no longer put off knee replacement surgery. It could not have come at a worse time as I went under the knife on June 6, 2005. Still I was hoping for and expecting a rapid recovery. Needless to say, it did not happen. It is now July 18 and I have achieved just a bit of mobility. For sure, the inevitable happened. Mrs. Gaffer's priorities were, take care of Willie! Everything else can wait. I thank Minerva every day for that undeserved attention from Mrs. Gaffer. Just the same everything else did wait. By the time I got so I even wanted to look outside, the garden was well along. Two foot high weeds were everywhere and the crop did not stand above them. Some kind of action was necessary. My physical condition is such that I have not been able to kneel down long enough to do anything useful for many years. Hence, Mrs. Gaffer and I have worked out a division of labor. She does the kneeling down stuff like planting and weeding. I do the standing up stuff like rototilling. That was great until this year when I did nothing after June 6. I knew I would have a great deal of trouble rototilling in that weed choked mess even if I were okay. With this situation, it was out of the question. In a flash of inspiration, I found a solution. Believe it or not, that's how things come to me. Mrs. Gaffer tells me what I ought to do and I am inspired to do it. We decided to mow the garden rather than rototill. Thank goodness, we have a large garden and plant our rows far enough apart for mechanical devices to be effective. Thus, using an old, but reliable, 30" riding mower, Mrs. Gaffer was able to mow all of the weeds. I would have done it myself, but I could not bend my knee far enough to sit on the mower. So, Mrs. Gaffer, as she often does, took on the task. The effect was remarkable. If you did not know, you would think we did it that way on purpose. What we ended up with looks very much like a formal English garden. We have patches of garden separated by areas of what looks like sod. It is only when you get up close that you realize the sod is composed of common Michigan weeds. From the deck, it looks delightful. So, we will have a harvest after all. We'll have tomatoes, peppers, peas, beans, corn, pickles, and much else, because we found a unique solution to a problem. This is not the first year we have found unique solutions to gardening impasses. Two years ago our effort was also quite different. That was the year Mrs. Gaffer had her innards repaired. It is a problem common to women who bear children. Sooner or later, the works lose their resilience and need repair. So here we were with no division of labor possible. Neither of us could keel down to plant. As always Mrs. Gaffer inspired me to a solution. It was simple. We sat down and put the plants into paper cups. Before we did that I had cut the bottoms out of the cups with one of those infamous box cutters. The cups were tapered and the soil stayed in place without the bottom. Then I put the plants in a wagon and pulled it around the garden. At each place in a row, I would use a long handled hoe to make a repository for the plant. Using an old person's grabber tongs, we have several of these, Mrs. Gaffer would pick up a paper cup and place it in the hole. Then I would push the earth back into the hole. That is how we got all of the plants in and had a delightful harvest. One thing we noticed about this paper cup solution is it solved two problems. It helped us get the plants in the ground and it solved the cutworm problem. Usually, when we set plants, we wrap the stem with a paper collar which extends jut above and well below the soil surface. This prevents cutworms which operate a fraction of an inch below the soil surface from getting at the plants. With the paper cups, this barrier was accomplished automatically. Even with this protection, once in a while a cutworm does manage to get to a plant. When that happens, we usually find the cutworm a short distance from the plant looking for another one. Then, Mrs. Gaffer joyfully applies the A and B rock treatment. The procedure is simple 1, Place cutworm on rock A. 2, Place rock B on cutworm. 3, Stomp on rock B. Over the years with our infirmities we have solved may problems so as to continue what we enjoy doing. I remember one year that I planted corn and other seed without kneeling down. I simply put a funnel into the top of a 3 foot long piece of conduit. Then I walked and drew the conduit along the row while dropping seeds into the funnel. It worked. We had beans, corn, radishes, and peas planted that way. They were delicious. Now, I want to make a statement. If we think about it, we can often find a way around our infirmities. We can find ways to remain functional. I have very little sympathy for that handful of handicapped people who think we should change and inconvenience the entire universe to accommodate them and their handicaps. Too often, there are other solutions to these problems. For sure, there are some things we should do that are decent, useful, and important like handicapped bathrooms and handicapped parking. These things cost a bit more, but they inconvenience no one. I have a handicapped parking permit. I have had it for years. I have it because I often need it. With severe arthritis and an ongoing heart condition I have some bad days. Even so, on my good days, I often eschew the permit and leave the handicapped place for others who may need it more than me. I am also one of those people who get very upset when people who do not have a permit use those parking places. If it were up to me, those people would pay stiff fines when they are apprehended. We ought to do those things that make it easier for handicapped
people to function. However we ought not to pander to that handful
of whiners who will never be satisfied. That is not good for
them and it is not good for the rest of us. Sometime there can
be other solutions and I am for finding them. However, some of
the demands are simply unreasonable. For example, I personally
think it is madness to inconvenience a busload of people for
one person in a wheelchair. On the other hand, I have no objection
at all to dial-a-ride for people in wheelchairs. I am not against
using tax monies to make that possible. We simply need to be
reasonable.
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