A Reason To Fight

I sit here listening to Disturbed and thinking about what I am going to do with a new triangle of garden space I’m creating. In the middle of my backyard, I fenced in an area about 20×20 to keep the dogs out. I used two pieces of cattle panel that had been affixed to my back wall and had been used in the past for vines. It just so happened that as I used each 20 foot piece of cattle panel for the east and west sides, and on the west side is where I dug my 2 foot trench with the intention of making a sunken hugelkultur. I did not end up putting a large amount of wood in the trench because of two realizations: mesquite is extremely tenacious and termite colonies form in larger pieces of wood. There are always termites in the yard, but they are not the type that go after my house, according to The Shermenator, a pest exterminator. However, if I attract a colony, I’m asking for trouble obviously, and most of the mesquite I had was from one tree that got cut down at my work and was less than a year old. If I had buried all the wood that I was planning, I would have just created a mesquite forest.

So I just buried older sticks less than 3″ in diameter on one side of the trench and filled the rest with anything I could find: compost, peat, horse manure, my first big batch of biochar, anything I could use to fill it up. So that is my best in-ground garden area, but I wasn’t confident eating out of it for a year because there was incomplete compost, and a batch of worm/compost tea with Garrett Juice, which has molassas, somehow turned out bad, so I grew gourds in that area.

Well, without even planning it, even though it was obvious, I grew the gourds on the cattle panel, and they did amazing. I also planted some along the eastern cattle panel, which did pretty well as well, but nothing compared to my “hugel trench”. Currently there must be 3 dozen gourds on there, and I have already harvested about a dozen. I also leaned flower stalks from these plants in my area. I am not sure if they are agave, or something similar, but they make huge flower stalks that are the primary home for certain local bees as well. Well, the plants grew up the stalks and the cattle panel, and it made a beautiful green wall that has been very rarely watered all summer. I am going to leave that area untouched until the spring so that the native bees can over winter there.

A Reason to Fight, Acoustic with Lyrics in English/Spanish

It’s funny because I mentioned that I was listening to Disturbed, which was just an aside—I didn’t have any intention of saying anything more about that. The title at first was just “Garden Update Fall 2024.” As I just typed along about how I felt about the garden at the moment, ala “stream of consciousness” more or less, I mentioned things just happening without being planned that way. YouTube was playing some Disturbed songs for me when A Reason to Fight—Explanation/Commentary started playing. I was going to change it because I was like, “This isn’t music; what’s up with this?” So I opened up the YouTube tab and started listening. I’ve heard this song “A Reason to Fight” before but never considered it’s meaning.

“The image in your eyes
Reflecting the pain that has taken you
I hear it in your voice, so ridden with shame
From what’s ailing you
You’ve fallen down but you can rise again
So don’t give up”……
“It feels like it’s a battle that you will never win”…….
“When there’s nothing left inside, there’s still a reason to fight”

The song is about depression and addiction, about suicide. I have a lot of personal experience with this, and I teared up listening to what they were saying. I have never tried to kill myself, but whether personally or through those around me, I will say that this is a very important topic to me. I was going through some difficulties with my mental/emotional health for… well, at the time, my whole life. Gardening, along with getting help and also my cat, saved my life. I remember the moment I realized it. I had started growing some plants in my mom’s old garden, and I was sitting out there in the shade smelling the tomatoes and just watching the plants as my cat came up to me and rubbed up against my leg, and would go and lay underneath the plants on the moist ground. I felt a calmness I had not felt before without “escapism drugs” such as alcohol, etc.

At this time I do not want to go into detail publicly, but suicide has also affected my life. This is all part of what I want to do online with this whole blog, website, and social media accounts. We are having a terrible mental health crisis in this country. A lot of people focus specifically on banning certain types of weapons or restricting their access, but the fact is if someone is at that point where they will cause harm to a lot of people and possibly end their life, making them less efficient isn’t enough. Mental illness is pervasive throughout our society, and the treatment accessible to those without resources is terrible. I’ve been through it.

My wife and I do not have a very significant community around us, and I think that is a problem. We try to have good relationships with our neighbors, but we live on a main street, and there just isn’t a sense of community in my neighborhood. Not one that I have found yet anyway. I actually grew up right down the street, and we moved there when I wasn’t even three, I believe. When the house was sold, I was something like 35, and we still had the same neighbors on 3 of 4 sides as when we moved in.

I want to eventually use this blog and associated pages/accounts to find a community online. Whether local or not, I need a community of like minded people to be a part of. We do know people here in Tucson, of course, and some are very good friends and family, but as far as becoming more self-sustaining and building resilience in our lives, we need to connect with more people. I have been trying to find people on NOSTR, and I am following some interesting people but have yet to make any connections.

Not only do I want to develop a community, I also would love to do something for people with mental illness. We were hanging out with a friend, and we came up with “The Bi-Polar Bear Gardening Club: Through Highs and Lows, Our Garden Always Grows.” Even though I may not look so good on a resume, I have come a long way, and gardening has helped a lot. I want to expose other people for any reason: mental health, better nutrition, less dependence. It used to be that basically every yard had some sort of garden going.

Those struggling with mental illness and depression end up becoming isolated or only spending time with those who share their affliction because they are not accepted or understood by society. People with mental breakdowns get the police called on them who show up with guns and an aggressive attitude, and people end up being more traumatized ironically because someone who cared thought the police would come and help. Many times these people end up killed by police or at the very least tazed because police are not properly trained to deal with a mental health crisis.

I believe gardening is important for everyone, on many levels. It keeps us connected to the earth and to a natural expression that we are stewards of but do not control in any way. We do not grow plants, we take care of soil so that it can provide an environment that a plant can grow in. I mentioned my cat earlier. Animals heal. This is something my wife tells me all the time, especially if I am having a panic attack or something. We have dogs and cats, and just petting them has measurable effects on the body. My wife is the biggest animal lover I have ever met.

To be able to promote gardening as a therapy for both the mentally ill and honestly everyone, and to also have animals around that are taken very well care of and that people can interact with as a part of therapy, both for the animals and for the people, is basically our dream. It’s one of our reasons to fight.

I didn’t even get into my new triangle of garden space, lol. I have an excuse to do another “quick” post today or soon.

–Love