Spring at the Allotment (Encore)

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Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse, and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest-paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's going to tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

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You were made to outdo your holiday,

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Welcome to bedtime stories for everyone,

in which

nothing much happens.

You feel good,

and then

you fall asleep.

I'm Catherine Nikolai.

I write and read

all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens.

Audio Engineering is by Bob Wittersheim.

We are bringing you an encore episode tonight, meaning that this story originally aired at some point in the past.

It could have been recorded with different equipment in a different location.

And since I'm a person and not a computer, I sometimes sound just slightly different.

But the stories are always soothing and family friendly.

And our wishes for you are always deep rest and sweet dreams.

I have,

waiting for you,

a tried and true method for falling peacefully to sleep.

I'll tell you a bedtime story in which nothing much happens.

You'll listen and let your mind rest on my words and voice.

And before we get much further,

you'll be asleep.

I'll tell the story twice,

and the second time through will be a little bit slower.

If you wake later in the night, you could listen again, or just think back through what you can remember of the story.

We're doing a bit of brain training with this ritual,

helping to make a habit of calm focus before bed.

So each time you do it, it will become more natural and even more relaxing.

Our story tonight is called Spring at the Allotment.

And it's a story about setting up a garden of herbs and vegetables with a friend.

It's also about a picnic basket full of sandwiches,

turning over the soil with your hands,

and the pleasure of sowing seeds in neat rows on a bright, sunny day.

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I even floss now.

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Now,

it's time to switch off the light and set aside anything you've been looking at.

We're getting ready to sleep, so settle yourself into the most comfortable position you can find.

Draw the comforter up over your shoulder and feel the softness of the sheets at your skin.

Sometimes it even helps to simply say to yourself,

I'm about to fall asleep,

and I'll sleep deeply all night.

Now take a slow breath in through your nose

and sigh out of your mouth.

Let's do one more.

In

and out.

Good.

Spring at the allotment.

When I'd first seen the flyer, snow was still on the ground.

I'd been coming out of my neighborhood market, a bag of groceries in my arms, and seen it pinned to a bulletin board.

Community garden, plots available.

It was decorated with someone's hand-drawn flowers and baskets of vegetables.

I stood for a bit,

booted, mittened, zipped into my heavy coat,

and wrapped in scarves and hat,

and dreamed about green things and blue skies.

I'd reached out with my clumsy mitten and pulled off a scrap from the flyer with a phone number,

and fumbled it into my pocket.

A few days later, when a friend was sitting at my kitchen table for a cup of of coffee, I'd pulled it out and we'd made a plan.

We,

each of us,

had a few hand-me-down garden tools and just a little bit of experience.

But we also had a deep yen for becoming successful gardeners,

and we figured our zeal would fill in the gaps of our knowledge.

We divvied up the work.

She'd go to the library and get us a few books on what was best to grow in this part of the world.

And I'd have a long talk with my green-thumbed grandfather

and borrow his almanac and seed catalogs.

We'd both root around for gloves and rakes, spades and shears and loppers.

Soon we had a stack of books with torn out magazine articles folded into the pages, charts of what was going where and when

and a dusty basket of the tools we'd need to make it happen.

We had mud boots and packets of seeds and a clear sunny Saturday to begin our garden.

We planned to meet at the allotment in the mid-morning and start to turn over the soil.

The day was bright and warming, and stepping out of the car, I could smell the clean scent of freshly tilled earth.

We found our plot, sketched out in the soil with stakes and string,

shook hands with the neighbors,

tucked our hair into bandanas,

and got to work.

The soil was tilled and soft,

but still needed to be evened out

and we broke up clumps of dirt with hands and hose.

We consulted our charts and walked off the sections.

Here we'd plant the herbs, basil and oregano,

lavender and rosemary,

sage and thyme.

Here we'd plant runner beans and green beans.

Here, rows of lettuce,

here tomato plants.

In the back row, we'd have a line of sweet corn,

a section of zucchini, a few broccoli plants,

cabbage, cucumbers,

and a small section of potatoes.

We weren't sure about the potatoes.

They seemed tricky.

But we'd done our reading and had a container of cut seed potatoes ready to go in.

Growing anything, I supposed, was a gamble.

An act of faith,

that rain would come,

that the sun would shine,

that the natural processes buried in the cells of our seeds and seedlings

would activate and pullulate.

It seemed worth the gamble, meriting the faith to try.

So we dug trenches, spaced our seeds and plants,

and carefully padded the earth down around them.

By the time the sun was high above us, we'd shed our jackets, and our faces were smudged with dirt.

I stood to stretch my back and saw my friend, her hands on her hips, looking out at the work we'd done.

Ready for a break?

I called out.

Yes, please, she said,

stepping carefully through the rows to wash her hands at the spigot.

I'd packed us a basket for lunch,

and we'd carried it over to the picnic table, and opened it up.

I had a thermos of Earl Grey tea, still hot and a little sweet.

I'd made a mess of sandwiches, thick slices of sourdough,

spread with mustard, and a tasty mix I'd made of mashed garbanzos, soft avocado,

diced cucumbers and pickles, tahini, a bit of dill and lemon and plenty of salt and pepper.

I layered it onto the bread with sprouts and tomato slices, and wrapped them in tea towels.

I had a few apples for us and a whole batch of my date bars, topped with a cardamom crumble, tucked in wax paper in an old cookie tin.

It was more than we could eat, but I'd planned to use the extra to make some friends.

In fact, a few minutes after we spread out the lunch, the family from the next plot over sat down to share our table.

They unpacked their own basket,

and we chatted about our seeds as we ate.

They had two little boys who ran around in the sun, coming back to the table for a moment or two to take a bite out of a sandwich or a piece of fruit, then chasing back to play.

They'd been planting in the garden for years,

and promised to offer advice as the season progressed.

They poured us some of their lemonade

and happily took some date bars.

And then we all got back to work.

By the time we were done and gathering up our tools,

our little plot was a tidy patch of neat rows,

careful mounds protecting seeds that would sprout soon, and evenly spaced plants that would eventually need cages and stakes and strings to hold them up by the end of the summer.

We stood and proudly admired what we'd done.

We'll have vegetables coming out of our ears in a few months, she said.

I guess we'd better learn how to can, I laughed.

The next great adventure

Spring

at the Allotment

When I'd first seen the flyer,

snow was still on the ground.

I had been coming out of my neighborhood market,

a bag of groceries in my arms,

and seen it pinned to a bulletin board.

Community garden.

Plots available.

It was decorated with someone's hand-drawn flowers and baskets of vegetables.

I stood for a bit,

booted,

mittened, zipped into my heavy coat, and wrapped in scarves and hat

and dreamed about green things

and blue skies.

I'd reached out with my clumsy mitten and pulled off a scrap from the flyer

with a phone number

and fumbled it into my pocket.

A few days later, when a friend was sitting at my kitchen table for a cup of coffee,

I'd pulled it out

and we'd made a plan.

We, each of us, had a few hand-me-down garden tools

and just a little bit of experience.

But we also had a deep yen

for becoming successful gardeners.

And we figured our zeal would fill in the gaps of our knowledge.

We divvied up the work.

She'd go to the library and get us a few books

on what was best to grow in this part of the world.

And I'd have a long talk with my green-thumbed grandfather, and borrow his almanac, and seed catalogs.

We'd both root around for gloves and rakes,

spades and shears, and loppers.

Soon we had a stack of books, with torn-out magazine articles folded into the pages,

charts of what was going where and when,

and a dusty basket of the tools we'd need to make it happen.

We had mud boots

and packets of seeds

and a clear sunny Saturday to begin our garden.

We planned to meet at the allotment in the mid-morning

and start to turn over over the soil.

The day was bright and warming,

and stepping out of the car, I could smell the clean scent of freshly tilled earth.

We found our plot,

sketched out in the soil with stakes and string,

shook hands with the neighbors,

tucked our hair into bandanas,

and got to work.

The soil was tilled and soft,

but still needed to be evened out,

and we broke up clumps of dirt with hands and hose.

We consulted our charts and walked off the sections.

Here we'd plant the herbs,

basil and oregano,

lavender and rosemary,

sage and thyme.

Here we'd plant runner beans and green beans.

Here rows of lettuce.

here, tomato plants.

In the back row, we'd have a line of sweet corn,

a section of zucchini,

a few broccoli plants,

cabbage, cucumbers,

and a small section of potatoes.

We weren't sure about the potatoes.

They seemed tricky.

But we'd done our reading

and had a container of cut seed potatoes ready to go in.

Growing anything, I supposed, was a gamble,

an act of faith,

that rain would come,

that the sun would shine,

that the natural processes buried in the cells of our seeds and seedlings would activate and pollulate.

It seemed worth the gamble,

meriting the faith to try.

So we dug trenches, spaced our seeds and plants,

and carefully padded the earth down around them.

By the time the sun was high above us,

we'd shed our jackets, and our faces were smudged with dirt.

I stood to stretch my back

and saw my friend,

her hands on her hips,

looking out at the work we'd done.

Ready for a break?

I called out.

Yes, please, she said,

stepping carefully through the rows to wash her hands of the spigot.

I'd packed us a basket for lunch,

and we carried it over to a picnic table and opened it up.

I had a thermos of Earl Grey tea,

still hot and a little sweet.

I'd made a mess of sandwiches,

thick slices of sourdough,

spread with spicy mustard,

and a tasty mix I'd made of mashed garbanzos,

soft avocado,

diced cucumbers and pickles,

tahini, a bit of dill and lemon,

and plenty of salt and pepper.

I'd layered it on the bread with sprouts and tomato slices

and wrapped them in tea towels.

I had a few apples for us, and a whole batch of my date bars, topped with cardamom crumble, tucked in wax paper in an old cookie tin.

It was more than we could eat.

But I'd planned to use the extra to make some friends.

In fact, a few minutes after we spread out lunch,

the family from the next plat over sat down to share our table.

They unpacked their own basket,

and we chatted about our seeds as we ate.

They had two little boys who ran around in the sun,

coming back to the table for a moment or two

to take a bite out of a sandwich or a piece of fruit,

then chasing back to play.

They'd been planting in the garden for years,

and promised to offer advice as the season progressed.

They poured us some of their lemonade

and happily took some date bars,

and then we all got back to work.

By the time we were done and gathering up our tools,

our little plot was a tidy patch of neat rows,

careful mounds protecting seeds that would sprout soon,

and evenly spaced plants that would eventually need cages and stakes

and strings to hold them up

by the end of the summer.

We stood

and proudly admired what we'd done.

We'll have vegetables coming out of our ears in a few months, she said.

I guess we'd better learn how to can, I laughed.

The Next Great Adventure

Sweet Dreams