Incrementalism in Inaction... or "Hurry up and wait!"

Our favorite scene in What About Bob? has our intrepid hero tied up with a lot of dynamite strapped to his every nether region, telling himself "Baby step: untie my knots!"  There are funnier scenes in the movie, of course, but this one is the telling scene because this is the crux of personal triumph in the face of agoraphobic onslaught.  Whether you are paranoid for reasons of pathology, or because everyone really is out to get you, the solution is the same, no matter how grave the particulars may appear:  baby step your way out.  Pick the next thing, and then do it.

We had intended to plant pomegranates this January; we order our rootstock from Womack Nursery in De Leon, Texas, when we plant from rootstock.  We have a very healthy choctaw pecan, along with all our blackberries, and our domesticated muscadine grapes which were all grown in this manner, and we could not be happier with their prices or service.

Unfortunately, life sometimes intrudes.

See, we've got this other project which is simply going to have to come first.  We've been sleeping on a mattress on the ground for as long as we can remember now, and until recently, this hasn't been a problem.  We've been patiently waiting until we have all the tools necessary to build a mammoth four-poster (of the sort which can never be moved from the house... we're talking load-bearing posts, here); we are so particular about this bed, in fact, that we simply haven't started on the project because we were waiting until we could do it perfectly.

And then came the boy...

Two forty-something parents who each have to get up in the middle of the night for a thousand little baby related errands creak and moan a lot more than two thirty-something parents did for their last child.  And the creaking and the moaning have absolutely got to stop, and the only thing we can think of which will make that happen is for them to be dragging their forty-something old bodies out of a real bed, rather than hoisting themselves up off the floor.

Bye-bye pomegranate budget, hello, bed budget.

All is not a total loss, however.  Instead of planting inexpensive root stock in January, we will plant potted pomegranates in March.  They will be more expensive, but will have the advantage of coming into fruit a year or two sooner.  Cosi, cosa, eh, paisan?

Furniture really needs to be moved up the priority chart anyway; the last time we had friends over for brunch, we had to haul our dining room table out into the garden.  It was pleasant, but it was more work than brunch ought to recquire.

But, one thing at a time.  Later this year, when we put a table out here, there will be olives in the background.  The corn will be high in the foreground.  And the grape arbor (just out of sight to the right of this scene) will be in full flourish.  It's a whole lot easier to give Myrtle and the girls all the table scraps they desire if the table is closer to the coop.  I'm thinking a simple peasant table would do; it's the cloth and the flower vase that really makes this look all french provincial; we don't need expensive anything, really, except for tools.  Gotta have those.

Happy farming!