I carry no phone An aspiring Luddite In a wired world.	Jeff Berry is an early adopter of the Internet and the Web, a late adopter of Twitter, and declines to adopt Facebook. With the death of Google+, he's experimenting with federated platforms . He admins a medievalist Mastodon instance, and can found on the PlusPora diaspora pod. He hates cell-phones.

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Summer Draws to an End The end of our first full summer in the new house is drawing to an end. For a variety of reasons, we didn't get as much done in the back garden as we had hoped. For one thing, there was a heat wave of massive proportions, which made it unpleasant to work outside and sub-optimal for gardening in any case. The heat wave was of such a great magnitude, that long buried structures could be seen via aerial photography. As this article discusses, field boundaries, burial mounds, building walls, and neolithic monuments are all clearly visible from the air. Less significant, several paving stones left behind by previous inhabitants of our house also appeared, indicating a path, now lost beneath our lawn. We spent most of our effort this summer on destruction: we took down dead trees and hacked at pampas grass; I attacked a rickety shed with a crowbar; my wife tore what seems like miles of ivy off walls. While useful, and at times very satisfying, it didn't leave us with much of a sense of progress. The only addition or improvement that we made was the construction of a compost bin at the bottom of the garden out of repurposed shed-wood. Until now. With the weather at last cooperating, we finished clearing a bit of space against the south-facing wall, near the apple tree. This is what it looked like before. Then we made a trip to the garden shop for weed membrane, compost, and few plants. Once again the remains of the shed were called into service, and with a bit of work, the fruits of labours were apparent. A new raised bed had been constructed, and rosemary, mint, chives, and thyme had been installed. A dose of cat repellant completely the project, since we do not wish our new bed to become a litter box for the local semi-feral ginger cat, aka Big Ginge. I am disproportionately pleased with the new raised bed. Small though it may be, it represents the first real, positive step in what we have been envisioning for this garden from the outset. Clearing the decks is all well and good, but creating something, even a little something, feels very good indeed. Luddite'sLog, 18 September 2018 © 2018 Jeff Berry

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