Category: Uncategorized

Gardening

This is how I can describe yesterday. Morning, hot. Lunchtime, hawt! After work, reasonably pleasant. The weather was welcoming enough that I spent some time in the backyard looking at my tomatoes, onions, purslane, spinach, mache, chard, and herbs.
The onions
I planted these bad boys in pots last fall and ignored them. An amazing thing happens when you ignore your onions, and aren’t constantly picking them, they get bulbs. I’ve collected a dozen small white onions and used them in cooking.
Tomatoes
This year the squirrels obviously found another food source and allowed my tomatoes to ripen on the vine. Last year I would find 1/2 eaten green tomatoes littered all over the place because the tree rats lost their mulberry tree and decided to make dinner out of my unripened fruit. I’ve had at least two tomatoes ripen, untouched.
I’m also happy that despite being ignored and only watered to the point of wilting, they have produced. Well, now that I’m watering them more often. During the renovation they were hard if not impossible to water as the water to the house was cut off and ‘somebody’ had raided the water barrel’s water.
Lettuces
I’ve talked about my purslane hunt and well there is nothing really exciting about growing mache and spinach in a pot. Throw in seeds. Watch them grow.

Despite not being able to take advantage of Spring I think I’ve done alright for myself and my little garden.

Addition:
The idea of the edible front yard lives on. I’m wondering if I should put some of the purslane in the front. But that also means, in the ground. Something I should really not do with something considered a weed. Yet, then again, I have peppermint, a weed, growing in the ground. Probably somewhere oregano is a weed. It grows like one, and it too is in the front yard. So maybe I’ll add some purslane, unless someone talks me out of it.

Crime and safety

As I briefly mentioned three men were charged as suspects for Robbery 1 in Northern Truxton (1700 blk of NJ and 200 blk of R). This hopefully will put an end to the robbery spree that was experienced lately. In the BACA meeting (I’ll make an attempt to put the notes up today- notes are up user-thismeeting pwd- neverhappened) the police officer (either Ofc Babcock or McCollough) noted that crime is down. Um, yay.
The problem is although crime statistically may be down, but the feeling of safety hasn’t exactly spiked up. And one of the conclusions I came to during the meeting is some of the things that don’t make me feel at ease aren’t exactly illegal. Teenagers sauntering down the street emulating the thug/ gangsta hoochie momma image yelling profanities and loudly rapping the most profane lyrics, not exactly illegal. Some people just exude and cultivate an air of negativity that you can feel.
The question of is this Shaw/Truxton a safe neighborhood, usually comes from other women. My answer has been, and is, this is an urban neighborhood, not the suburbs. Also I’m not going to say, and you are not going to make me say, ‘oh, this is a bad neighborhood,’ because I live here. If you ask do I feel safe? It could be better, but I’m fine. I do not dread walking home (unless it is in this oppressive heat). If it is late at night, I may take a bus or a cab. Not owning a car, having an employer who does the Metrochecks, and biking, my transportation costs are pretty low, even with the occasional cab ride.
There are shifting degrees of safety I feel. I don’t think I’ve ever felt unsafe, well maybe except for that one time when the woman with the dog kept following me, that freaked me out. I try to be aware of my surroundings, I walk like I know where I’m going, and I try to reduce my risk, because this area is what it is, and slowly it has and will get better.

BACA meeting notes preview

Well Jim sent out this, which was mentioned at last night’s meeting:

Neighbors,

I write to offer a friendly reminder to you that we will be in the pocket park at First Street and Florida Avenue, N.W. this evening at 7:30 p.m. in recognition of National Night Out. That is, for the 10th time in the past 10 consecutive years, the Bates Area Civic Association, Inc. has sponsored a rally and candle light vigil at this location, essentially, to promote peace and an increased sense of unity in our community. This year, the event is being co-sponsored by ANC 5C Chairperson and SMD 5C01 Commissioner Anita Bonds, along with several indigenous community organizations, like the Hanover Area Civic Association, Inc., Ebenezer Baptist Church, and TruxtonCircle.Org.

During each of the past 10 years that we have held the vigil, we have observed incremental improvements in the quality of social life in the park and, to a large extent, our presence on NNO is a symbolic yet substantive as well as personal statement by everyone who participates, of our desire to see this location completely transformed into the kind of place from which residents of the community of all ages can derive benefit. I know that we are all busy people, but I make this personal appeal for you to take 30 minutes out of your otherwise hectic schedule to be with us tonight. Indeed, visible and tangible opportunities to be in solidarity with your neighbors around a matter of this type of importance (i.e., public safety) do not present themselves everyday. I hope to see you there!

Best,

Jim Berry
Bates Area Civic Association, Inc.

Also three suspects have been arrested in regards to some burglaries in the area. I don’t know if you can contact 5D to see if they got your stuff. I’m guessing whatever was stolen, got hocked.

Purslane


Purslane
Originally uploaded by pawpaw67

There wasn’t any at this Sunday’s Bloomingdale farmers market, but they had some last week and I love the stuff. I’ve had it twice now. Make a dressing of olive oil, lots of freshly chopped garlic and line juice, delish!
I like it so much so that I looked on line to find out how to grow it myself as I also discovered it has a crappy shelf life. After about 4 days in the fridge it begins to fall apart. Well, I discovered it was a weed. And then that same day I noticed it growing between the bricks in Georgetown.
Later in the week I began to notice it growing in Shaw. Never noticed it before, because it is, you know, a weed. So this Saturday I went on a purslane hunt. Found a mess of them growing on a notorious drug dealing corner. I developed a theory, but that was struck down when I also noticed it growing in front of the houses of various upstanding citizens.
I don’t plan to eat what I grabbed. I just want to get the rootstock, get them growing in pots, cut away the old growth and dine on the new. Until then I await the salad guys to bring in more purslane.

Characters unWelcome

I handed the keys back to Matt, because I finally got all my crap out of their house. On the way there and on the way back to my own house I had to deal with the ‘characters’ that populate Scott & Matt’s block. Anyway, during my stay over in the center of the TC I noticed the amount of ‘commentary’ from the characters I had to deal with was high, or higher than over on the western end of the TC.
What was said, voiced, whatever ranged from a general friendly hello to, depending on the situation, like on my bike, ‘hey can I get a ride?’ I didn’t find any of this stuff threatening, just annoying, particularly after the 3rd character. My only danger, I felt, was from spraining my eyes from them rolling in the back of my head. Maybe it was annoying since it was all male commentary. I’m wondering if the women I passed by were just as friendly, would it take a different spin or interpretation. Also maybe if the stupid commentary, with no baby/honey/ boo crap, was rare and there was more of the simple friendly acknowledgement of ‘hello’, I might have viewed it a different way too.
Staying in another part of the TC was informative. Each block is different with its own set of pluses and minuses.

East of 16th St, East of 11th, an observation

There are certain populations, manners, patterns… things I notice when I pass 16th Street, the great dividing line. I sometimes see the, I don’t know what to call it, feeling or sense that I pick up on when I pass 16th shifting over to 14th St. Well, one Sunday ride from church, I noticed a gesture that I thought would be more 16th-17th St, maybe 14th, but to see it east of 11th, was something. Two gentlemen were walking arm in arm, obviously a couple, and apparently at ease with their surroundings. It’s not the only, I still don’t have a word for it, thing that I sense/feel (gad I’m hating my vocab right now) that has shifted over from Dupont past the magic 16th St barrier.

Prepping for semi-retirement

I figure it’s time to make this noise again, I’m going to place this blog into semi-retirement and focus on something else. I haven’t yet picked a date, I’m thinking September or December 2007.
The other thing is, semi-retirement, I’m not sure what that looks like. I’m not going to give up writing about what happens in my immediate area, the TC, but probably not as often, not as regularly. And since I do like blogging, I’m not going to quit InShaw.
The thing is I want to write more about history and neighborhood history. Plain old history is a professional and personal interest. The “Fun with Proquest” posts, digging into the Truxton Circle name, some other work I’ve been doing, and the need to get back to the neighborhood census project are pulling me in a different direction. There are other things that a change would address too, but I don’t want to get into them right now.

Passive aggressive?

Sometimes direct confrontation is not the answer. In certain situations direct confrontation may possibly make the situation worse. That’s just my opinion and the conclusion I came to yesterday regarding teenagers hanging out.
It’s Summer so the kids on the block and their friends are all hanging out, running up and down the sidewalk like chickens with their heads cut off. These aren’t wide houses so bands of kids can randomly wind up in front of your house screaming at each other, loudly gossiping, hitting, flirting, boasting, and carrying on. I want them to move on. Directly, asking a band of kids, particularly when they are bragging about how tough they are, to move, maybe not a good idea. So instead I sat on my stoop and read the paper. If I were really annoyed, and wanted them gone quicker, I’d water the treebox or weed the treebox (which would involve fistfulls of dirt flying all over).
Kids will be kids and I’m not exactly at the ‘children should be seen and not heard’ state of mind, yet, but I’ll be glad when school starts up.