Bat Cave Garlic

fog countryside
Originally uploaded by mygothlaundry.

I went up to Bat Cave today to visit my friends D & A, and their kids, N the prodigal son & R. It was a gray, misty, rainy day and cold up there on the mountain, where the leaves are just starting to turn. I took my brother, because ever since my brother read this article, he's been obsessed with the idea of becoming an organic gourmet garlic farmer himself, and this idea involved using my backyard as the starter farm. He came over on Friday and looked at my sad excuse for a vegetable garden, which I abandoned to weeds a while back and listened to me explain my vision for the backyard, which involves raised beds which in turn involve a lot of money and an obscene amount of work. "Lot of work," he said dubiously, and I agreed. I don't have that kind of energy for gardening this time of year: I get gardening energy in about March and it begins dwindling in June, only to peter out altogether by August when the weeds get fierce and I never want to see another goddamned green bean again anyway. Garlic, though, must be planted in the fall, thus keeping vampires at bay throughout the wintry months and a good thing too.

Then I bethought myself of my Bat Cave friends, and their large well established garden, so we went on up the mountain today to check it out. Worked like a charm: I am patting myself on the back with the simple joy of the successful matchmaker. Now D & A will have a frequent visitor; my brother B will have somewhere else to go on his motorcycle, and in a few months, we'll all have enough garlic for, well, pretty much anything that requires gigantic amounts of garlic. I knew they would all get along, with visions of garlic millions dancing in their heads, and soon, Bat Cave Garlic will be a reality. A reality with a really great name; I've already got the logo designed in my head.