Rocking an Alaska garden

Rocking the garden. Nagging stump gone, ground sloped away from the house, planters ready for something.

 Sitting yesterday taking a rest and enjoying the amazing "silence at the break of noon;" it was so quiet the sound of cracking intruded, two Pine grosbeaks picking at the spillage from the last bird feeder taken away the day before. They were a first, and a second; the only times they have been sighted around here in other than winter conditions. A junco also toyed with the good seeds among the husks.

Despite the frequent rests, the yard is slowly taking shape; the garden ready for planting, some landscaping, more on the firewood piles and leaves and other detritus taken away.

The main garden raked and ready for planting. Those are potatoes and

taking a chance, hardening for two days and will plant tomorrow. I have 

more seed potatoes if these don't make it because of the early planting. 
The stones are for passive solar heating when they are covered at night.

And rocks, yes, the rocks, raising the issue of comma placement and how that little curlicue can change meaning so easily. Is it rock the landscape or rock, the landscape.  Both work in this case.

And speaking of rock, and oh, boy, is this a paradigm leap, I came across some interesting music this week.  Go with me through the thought process as it goes in a semi-logical circle. 

The news this past week, particularly in politics reached absurd levels, and especially with the things repuglicans come up with to say about (take your choice) Obama, women's anatomy, crime, Benghazi, well, pick a subject and one of them at least, has said something stupid about it. All the time I was reading about all that stuff, a song kept going through my head and rather than waste a lot of time writing about it, I put a post on facebook that read: "Some days the news is so absurd you have to take refuge among the poets." To that I added some lines from Bob Dylan's "It's all right, ma. (I'm only bleeding)."

Wildflowers from last year coming back.

Thinking about the songs from my own youth and then what passes for music these days always raises the thought that our music had real lyrics. Dylan is a case in point.  And there are so many others. There's a meme going around showing a Nikki Minaj lyric which is essentially one line repeated about a thousand times with just about any song from  the 60s. Another one compares credits of a Beyonce song with the same sort of repetition listing six writers and six producers while Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody" lists one writer and one producer.

Another of those trees 
split and stacked, only
two more to go.

That all took another hard turn this week when another song crossed the airwaves, a song by a modern rocker, with, get this, lyrics that say something. The group is The Pretty Reckless, the lead singer is Taylor Momsen who in another life played a character in one of those teen drama TV series, "Gossip Girl." The music is hard rock as well as pretty reckless but within it are lyrics that actually have something to say. One song had been recommended to me by a friend and I liked the music so much I ended up buying a whole album. I learned later it is a concept album with a thread that runs through it and it should be listened to with the songs in order.

The lyrics of another song on that album hit home relative to the news today. I think she was singing to and about the mind of a mass shooter in a school, but to me the words also address what is going on out there in the Nevada standoff.

For just a sampling this is the chorus from the song, "Why'd you bring a shotgun to a party?"

"Why'd you bring a shotgun to a party?

"Everybody's got one, there's nothing new about it

"Wanna make a statement? You should've come without it."

And, in the last singing of that chorus the last line changes to:

"Wanna get the girl? You should've come without it."

I thought about putting a video here, but the song has some raunchy language and in some of her videos, Momson is as close to naked as you can get and still stay on YouTube, so if you want to, you can look it up yourself.  Additionally I might have learned a lesson and maybe lost a friend or two by posting something pretty raunchy on Facebook last week so I am laying low for a while. I also recommend the song "Heaven Knows."

Which all completes the circle from rocks to rocking to rock and roll as I rock out working in the yard. The neighbors love me. Ha!

"Why'd you bring a shotgun to a party?" (Words on screen, no nudity, profanity)