The Ginger & the Blueberries

Not long ago, perhaps five years, I picked up a small blueberry seedling while doing the weekly grocery shopping. This is not an uncommon thing for me to do. Some people's impulse buys are candy bars, shiny trinkets, or a pair of shoes. Mine are plants, and the cheaper and more impractical the better. A packet of watermelon seeds for only sixty-seven cents? Perfect. I'll take one of those and one of the carrot seeds, too. Do they grow in the kind of sandy soil surrounding my house? Who cares, but it might be fun if they do.

Another good example of this impulse can be found in the gangly remains of wildflowers outside my office window that appear to be nothing more than overgrown, un-plucked weeds. The bag of wildflower seeds found its way into the earth around the same time as the blueberry bush and, due largely to the scorching mid-day sunshine of North Carolina, amounted to nothing more than a smattering of reedy green stalks with yellow blooms. They're nothing to look at, but they make me smile every time I peel my eyes away from the computer screen to gaze outside.

Recently -- after considerable time, effort and expense invested in revamping both the front and side flower beds -- we experienced rousing success with five or six hostas in the front bed. They were purchased from a proper landscaping company and planted in a semi-circle around our best crepe myrtle. The hostas flourished, quickly doubling and then doubling again in size, inspiring us to buy seven more to complete a border across the front of the bed. One week later, our leafy hostas were reduced to lifeless stalks by local rabbits and deer. I've learned two things since then. Miracle-Gro doesn't really work miracles and Repel All gives your plants that extra bit of seasoning critters love.

The blueberry bush has benefited from having been planted out of reach from the larger garden invaders in our fenced-in backyard, in the only spot that isn't laid bare to the unrelenting sunlight of summer. And, since spring in North Carolina has transformed over the last twenty years into a rainy season of tropical proportions, the bush receives plenty of nourishment from good old Mother Nature during that important time when buds appear, develop into delicate bell-shaped blooms, and eventually turn into berries, disappointing the bees and littering the ground with white confetti. That's when you can start counting the harvest you might reap if birds and bugs are kept at bay.

Ever since the plant went in the ground, our ginger-haired son (aka, the German) has obsessively anticipated its annual production. Why? I don't know, because he doesn't eat blueberries, or any color berries for that matter. The only way he might voluntarily choose to eat a blueberry is if you dehydrated it, ground it into a powder and reconstituted it as a chip packed in a canister with other identical chips. Blueberry Pringles. Bringles. Even then, loaded with additives, preservatives and blue dye number eighty-seven, it might still be too healthy for his tastes. Regardless, he watches as the berries develop each year and reports back on their progress.

"There are going to be a lot of berries this year," he'll say in his trademark monotone way. "They're going to be really big, too."

That first year, our little blueberry seedling yielded three edible berries. The next year, maybe twenty. Production has since expanded exponentially. This summer, we can expect to pluck close to one thousand blueberries by the time the harvest is complete, and that doesn't include several hundred from a second blueberry bush we planted this spring. I'm almost tempted to see if any other parts of the backyard are fertile ground for these little fruits.

Our pending blueberry bonanza aside, and even though the side flower bed is doing well, our thumbs remain only middlingly green-ish. Basil, oregano, rosemary and thyme thrive in the same section of yard as the berries, while our tomato-less tomato stalks defy the basic impulses of self-propagation by refusing to yield anything close to fruit. I doubt this concerns the German, though, since tomatoes are just giant red blueberries that he wouldn't eat anyway.


© 2018 Mark Feggeler

Reclaiming the Valley of Death

Ten years we've lived in our house and all that time I've lovingly referred to our backyard as the Valley of Death.

The way my backyard once looked.

(NPS photo)

It wouldn't be fair to say nothing grows in the Valley of Death. There's sandy soil with good drainage. Half the yard is shaded by tall pines sprinkled around the periphery of our property. A few lonely bushes planted by the builder in 2005 had managed to muscle through.

Not the azaleas, mind you. Azaleas and I have never been able to reach a common understanding. My record of killing azaleas is second to none in North Carolina. In fact, if reincarnation is real, then all those poor azaleas I've tortured over the years must have committed some egregious sins in past lives for which they needed to atone.

In the interests of full disclosure, most things I've planted in the Valley of Death have withered and died primarily because I've consistently chosen the wrong kinds of plants. I would find myself roaming the garden section of Lowe's or Walmart, see something colorful and think:

"This looks pretty. I'm going to bring it home and watch it grow." 

Then I'd get it home, plant it, and watch it burn to a cinder in the high heat of summer because I neglected to read the informational card telling me the plant needs 17 hours of shade, several gallons of water, morale-building pep talks, and deep-tissue leaf massages three times a day. After years of this behavior, I finally learned to read the labels and, unknowingly, moved to the opposite end of the spectrum. Only those plants capable of tolerating full sun and requiring little to no water started making the trip home with me. It no longer mattered if they were pretty. The question I asked when wandering the garden section became:

"Can it survive equatorial solar radiation, desert droughts, and the occasional fire ant infestation?"

I wanted plants with a Dungeons and Dragons constitution score of 18, plus three for magical potions (fertilizer). The trouble with that line of thinking is you end up with a yard full of plants and shrubs that look scraggly, twiney and neglected even in the best of health and at full bloom. It's difficult to take pride in showing off a garden full of purposefully planted weeds and sticks that would make Georgia O'Keeffe long for the lush greenery of the New Mexican dessert.

Lately, it seems, I have managed to strike a balance between aesthetics and sturdiness. It all began with a blueberry bush.

I can't recall if I bought the bush or it was given to me as a gift. However it came to me, I planted it in the backyard in the one shady spot where things seems to grow. After all, I like blueberries. I like eating them. I enjoy baking with them. I wanted the bush to have the greatest chance of survival, and planting it where I did paid off. The bush produced approximately one dozen berries that first year, a few dozen the next, quite a few dozen the following year, and presently is poised to yield several hundred berries in the coming weeks.

I fully realize one bush does not the Garden of Eden make, but any sign of success was encouragement. So, this spring, I decided it was time for the Valley of Death to meet its maker.

My next project -- a simple, under-
stated water feature.
(NPS photo)

At present, there are five knockout rose bushes, the blueberry bush, two rosemary plants, several new crepe myrtles, two wildflower patches, two butterfly bushes (which were already there, but which appear to have sensed the enthusiasm), two lovely camellias (thanks Mom and Dad), one spindly grassy thing with long spikes topped by purple blooms, and a rapidly growing grape vine. I hadn't really intended to grow grapes, but Aldi had a rack of mismarked plants ("Grape Bush") near the checkout counter and I simply couldn't resist. Even the oregano I ripped out last year has sprouted anew.

With all this new growth boosting my confidence, perhaps it's time to take the yard to the next level. I've often thought it might be fun to install a water feature. Nothing too intricate, just a simple, understated cascading waterfall with mossy boulders surrounded by a fully matured natural pine forest. Piece of cake...



© 2015 Mark Feggeler

Flush With Manliness

I am not, by most modern definitions of the term, manly.

I am under six feet tall. My features are not chiseled. I don't follow sports. My last two dogs collectively weigh less than the average Christmas ham. I enjoy shopping. My abs are less six-pack and more lumpy down pillow. I bake a mean loaf of bread. My gambling skills are non-existent. And if I attempt to grow a beard, I end up looking like someone who might loiter near your child's elementary school with a bag of candy and a van parked around the the corner.

But where I have, in the past, proven my manliness are in those home maintenance and upgrade projects that occur from time to time.

Need a room painted? Two coats in one day with clean up. Done.

Assemble a new cabinet or dresser? Stand back. It might get messy for a bit, but you're gonna love it when it's all put together.

Enhancements to a mostly barren backyard? How about a 100-square-foot paved patio with retaining wall and a fire pit on one side of the yard, and an outdoor theater with an 8-foot screen and surround sound on the other side? Yeah, I did that.

Unfortunately, while I can still proudly grunt and strut from time to time, a chink in my manly armor has begun to show. It started small, almost unnoticeably, and has grown into an epidemic encompassing three of the most important rooms in the house. By now, it is nearly impossible to flush any one of our toilets with any sort of assurance it will (a) flush on the first attempt, (b) refill the tank within an acceptable amount of time, or (c) flush without generating a screaming, squealing sound like the souls of a thousand plumbers crying out in vain for you to call a professional for help.

Fixing a toilet used to be simple. Chances were pretty strong the root cause of your problem was a flapper that no longer kept a good seal. Easy enough change out and cheap, too. Five bucks and a little water sloshed over the edge of the tank later and you were done.  And if your toilet innards stopped working, you drove to the hardware store, plunked money down for new innards, drove home and installed them. That was it. Not any more.

In the past year or two, I've plunked down more money than I care to recall on toilet innards. Cheap ones, expensive ones, fancy ones, simple ones, complete replacements and partial repairs -- doesn't seem to make a difference.

This one didn't flush at all. That one is louder than a freight train. The flapper chain on this one can't be adjusted. That other one sprayed water ten feet into the air in a room with eight-foot ceilings. Even when you do get one that seems to work, you'd better hang on to that receipt because once you let your guard down it's going to find some way to mock and torment you.

At this point, I figure I have two options, and I'll let you decide which is the more manly of the two. I can either heed the screaming voices and call a professional, or I can remove the innards from the toilets in the house and hire one of our kids to remain on standby at all times with a bucket of water. What do you think?



© 2014 Mark Feggeler

Dear New York

Long Island, to be more specific.

It's where I grew up. A place full of fond memories, familiar smells, delicious foods, and ghosts of friends past. The friends aren't deceased, but the versions of them that exist in my mind are long gone. We are all older, balder, fatter, except for the ones with bad toupes and those who can't blink anymore because of one too many plastic surgeries. Judging by their Facebook profiles, many of them, like me, have moved off the island to settle elsewhere. Others didn't wander too many miles from home.

As the plane flew low today under the canopy of clouds covering Brooklyn, I watched the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island pass by. The skyline of Manhattan presented itself, the new Freedom Towers standing tall in the Financial District not far from Battery Park where I once attended an Earth Day celebration in the early 90s with college friends.

It's amazing to me how many baseball diamonds you spot from a few hundred feet up as you pass over Queens. In some places you can see six or seven fields all squeezed in next to each other with shallow outfields and barely any room for bleachers. Baseball was the sport I followed most closely during my formative years. The pastoral simplicity of the game, bursts of excitement punctuating a two-hour pitchers' duel, the crescendo of the crowd as the count runs to 3-2 with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the tying run on second. It's a shame our nation is losing its patience for the game.

What strikes me hardest each time I return for a visit with family, or in this case for work, is the overwhelming sense of claustrophobia.

Maybe it all relates back to that same feeling you get when you return to your old elementary school. You'd swear someone came in and lowered all the water fountains and miniaturized the toilets. The cavernous hallways have narrowed and the ceilings hang far too low. Even the people seem smaller.

That's how every block looks to me as I drive through once familiar neighborhoods. Smaller, less familiar, less significant. The landmarks have all changed, empty lots now have two or three houses crammed onto them, and I unkowingly speed right by the house in which I spent the first two decades of my life. I can't even be sure I could walk the path from the old house to McVey Elementary School, something I did hundreds of times as a kid, without the help of my GPS.

A short time on Long Island is all it takes to remind me how much I enjoy the openness of my semi-rural North Carolina community. Much like my time in college at Plattsburgh, NY, I am smitten by the relaxed nature of the people and the elbow room we have between us.

I can't help feeling a little sorry for the people who never left Long Island, but I'm sure many of them would feel sorry for me for leaving, if they ever had cause to think about me. Long Island was a wonderful place to grow up, and there is nothing about my childhood I would change. I suppose, if we're fortunate enough, we all just naturally gravitate to the place we feel most comfortable.

If we're really lucky, there might even be a few baseball fields nearby.



© 2012 Mark Feggeler

Frilly Beds & Naked Midgets

Hand-me-downs are essential to the newly-married.

Back in the early 1990s, when My Lovely Wife and I set up house in a tiny shack halfway between her job in Southern Pines and mine in Raleigh, we had only 850 square feet to fill and nothing with which to fill it.

The house had five rooms: (1) a bedroom with a four-foot closet, the only closet in the entire house; (2) a kitchen with twelve square inches of usable counter space and an antique stove that sparked more than it cooked; (3) a former screened porch turned foyer that housed the clothes dryer; (4) a great room that served as both living room and dining room, in addition to housing the washing machine just under the pass-through between the kitchen and dining room; and (5) a bathroom that combined all of the worst qualities of every 1970s KOA campground bathroom I'd ever experienced.

We both brought to the house personal belongings that helped make it a home. In My Lovely Wife's case, that included a bedroom suite and a set of sidetable lamps from her parents' house.

If you overlook that her childhood bed held only a full-size mattress, or that it was of a frilly French Colonial style, or that it sported an equally frilly canopy that made me question my gender every morning when I woke beneath it, it was perfect. We didn't have much money back then, so we made it work, even after our 65-pound Dalmatian developed a habit of stretching herself lengthwise between us every night.

The sidetable lamps were another matter.

I'm not closed-minded, or at least I'd like to think I'm not, but our house growing up was not wantonly strewn with images of people in varying states of undress. The first time I set foot in my In-Laws' house and saw the number of statuettes of naked and half-naked people, I knew there would need to be a period of adjustment. Cherubs were my Mother-In-Law's favorite. You couldn't swing a cat in her house without knocking over a half dozen naked midgets.

Which brings me back to those lamps.

The stately shades matched the French Colonial bedroom suite perfectly. Unfortunately, so did the golden naked ladies who held the bulbs aloft in their upstretched arms. I not so lovingly, and not so creatively, referred to them as "the naked lady lamps."

Their presence alone did not offend or unnerve me, but there were many times I felt distinctly perverted groping around in the dark trying to the light on. It might have been worse if they were naked men, I suppose. Can you imagine the quantity of glue we would have used reattaching their members after a false turn of the wrong knob?

In time, and after encouragement from me, we purchasd a more conservative set of lamps to adorn our sidetables. Almost 20 years later, the French Colonial bedroom suite is mostly gone, a few pieces hidden under paint and serving out their final days in Our Daughter's room.

It is said we become more and more like our parents as we age. I've kept a close watch on My Lovely Wife for signs of it, but so far there isn't a single cherub in sight.



© 2011 Mark Feggeler

Dark & Pooky

What is it about basements that make them so creepy?

When I was a kid, our basement was both a sanctuary and the scariest place in our house. Okay, maybe the eaves of the house where we stored old keepsakes and treasures were scarier, but I'm talking about creepy heated living space.

Ours was the kind of house where the television did not overtake the fireplace as the focal point of the living room, so the finished half of our basement became the de facto family room, complete with a sofa and two comfortable chairs aimed purposefully at a modern black and white television. Before too long, my parents purchased a color television with a pull-knob on/off switch, a volume control that looked like a car's cigarette lighter, and two knobs for changing to the seven or eight regular channels and the five or six UHF channels, even more if you spoke Spanish.

The basement itself really was not creepy. With the entertainment it offered, enhanced in the early 1980s by the addition of a wired brown cable box and a VCR big enough to house a nuclear arsenal, the basement truly was a place to retreat to with a glass of milk and a bag of Oreos for hours of respite and quiet.

No, the creepy part of the basement, for me anyway, was restricted to a very definable and small area located between the third step up from bottom of the stairs to just inside the room itself. This "portal" was the place you ran through on both the way up from or down to the basement. You might wonder why. The reason is simple: the door to the other side...

Like many New England basements of the time, ours was split into a left and right with the staircase dividing the two fairly evenly. At the bottom step you turned either right to the finished side or left through a door to the unfinished side. The finished side was open and comforting. The other side, not so much.

The unfinished side of our basement had a painted concrete floor and an impressive oil burner that heated our water and sent steam hissing through radiators in the different rooms of the house. It had a small, dark storage area under the stairs that held our toys and was just big enough for someone to hide in. It had a workbench with all of our father's neatly-arranged tools and a weaving pattern of cords along the ceiling that served as clothes lines for the washing machine tucked into the far back left corner of the room. It had two utility lights that lit the front and back halves of the room equally poorly, shining a harsh glow on anyone -- or any thing -- within a few feet of it but casting deep shadows around the periphery. On laundry days, the hanging clothes blocked even more of the light from reaching the walls where our common-property toys and games were kept on metal shelves.

As you descended to the basement, you paid attention to see if the door to the other side was closed. If so, it typically meant safe passage. If not, it could mean something hidden just around the corner to your left could reach out and grab you, dragging you back into the laundry-scented darkness and into the floor drain where it lived. Even worse, it could be an older brother waiting to scare the bejeezus out of you and steal your Oreos!

Whatever my mental issues are with basements, our children seem to have developed their own. Five years ago, when we moved into our newly-built house, we envisioned our basement family room as the center of activity for our three kids. Our builder had cleverly overcome my Yankee instincts to cut the basement up left-to-right and instead finished the entire back half of the basement, leaving the forward half unfinished for storage.

During the first few years in the house, the kids flat-out refused to go downstairs without an adult chaperone. I must admit, despite my long-standing fear of the basement with which I grew up, I didn't understand it. Our basement has windows along the entire back wall that let in copious amounts of natural light. There's a huge television down there too, which was enough to make me overcome my childhood fears on a daily basis and run the gauntlet through the "portal." I simply could not reason out why they were afraid of the basement.

As they have gotten older, they have gotten over their fears to the degree that they now realize the basement can offer them the same quiet hideaway our old basement offered me and my brothers. They take full advantage now of the fifty-five-inch television, the computer, the games in the storage closet, the open expanse of carpeted flooring, and they even can play for hours in the unfinished "other side" of our basement.

I think the best understanding of why basements strike some of us the way they do came not from my own reflections or from observing my children overcoming their fears, but instead from a tiny visitor who came one day with his family. The small boy, as toddlers seem to do, was having fun playing at the top of the staircase leading from our living room to the basement. He repeatedly would go only a few steps down and then come quickly back up.

When I asked him if he wanted to go downstairs, he shook his head and said: "It's dark and pooky."

I think that pretty well sums it up.



ⓒ 2010 Mark Feggeler