Sunday 6 March 2022
Here we are, once again, in March. A dreary damply chilly month, but one that is redeemed by the knowledge that any snow will be followed in a few days by melting, rather than by weeks of frigidity. And, wet and unpleasant as it is, after a cold winter the dank interludes when the temperature creeps into the thirties and sometimes the forties seem harbingers of spring.
My recovery continues smoothly and quickly. I am four days away from the point when I transition from not being allowed to lift more than ten pounds to being able to do anything. It would be quite wonderful if the body really worked this way: if, in the midst of a state of tremulous of frailty, a surge would erupt and rush through my body—muscles swelling, sinews knitting, chest expanding—and like a superhero casting off his disguise I would burst forth from the cocoon of convalescence.
Sadly, I expect no eruption, no surge, no bursting forth. I will instead be sensible and temper my enthusiasm. I recognize that rules are necessarily artificial things that attempt draw clear boundaries in situations characterized by gradual change. We understand that a rule is most effective if it can be remembered and followed (and perhaps enforced); its accuracy has little to do with its effectiveness. I wonder if, one day, perhaps not so far off, we might have computerized agents that would guide us more gradually. ‘You can lift fifteen pounds, this week,‘ such an agent might say. As I convalesced, it would gradually decrease the constraints; it might be aided, perhaps, by the use of sensors to gauge my degree of activity and whether the body is responding well, or not. It is not far-fetched, I think, to imagine that devices that can track our pulse and pace and blood oxygen levels, might be able to detect the subtle physical remonstrances though which the body says, ‘hey, that was a little bit much.’
Yesterday, spurred by the continuing deterioration of our Markut lime—which lives happily outside in the summer, and winters unhappily inside, increasingly beset by scale—I transgressed the spirit, if not necessarily the letter, of the rule. Normally, about every six weeks during the winter, there will be a warmish interlude, and I take the opportunity to take the lime tree outside for a shower. It’s the only way I’ve found to effectively combat scale: set the hose’s nozzle to jet, and blast the leaves and stems with pressurized water. It is wet and chilly work, and takes its toll in tattered leaves, but I’ve found nothing else nearly as effective. This winter the six-week rhythm was undone by my surgery and ensuing convalescence. As I slowly recovered my strength and stamina, the lime tree ominously journeyed in the opposite direction, scale gradually colonizing its leaves and stems, resulting in an increasing drizzle of sap that left the leaves shiny and the floor sticky. Armed with paper towels dosed in rubbing alcohol I tried to stem the tide, but, as in the past, such manual measures only slowed the advance. Yesterday, as the tree began to drop leaves, I felt I had to act.
The issue, of course, is that the lime tree—a dwarf, but nevertheless three feet tall and in a pot to match—undoubtedly weighs in at considerably more than ten pounds. Quite the quandary. But I’d come up with a clever solution. A hand truck! It lived in the garage, and was intended for moving furniture about, but I realized that the lime-tree-and-pot could be slid onto the handtruck, and rolled smoothly outside, and let gently down the stairs to the theater of shower operations. We will move rapidly past the issue of the weight of the solid-steel handtruck, tarrying only to note that it can be pulled and moved by leverage and leaning rather than lifting. Not such a great transgression, if, indeed, it was any transgression whatsoever. And, of course, I was only five days away from the ‘you-can-do-anything’ zone, so surely there would be a bit of leeway.
All went well. The hand truck worked admirably. The lime tree bumped gently down the four stairs of the back porch, endured its shower, and bumped smoothly back up to its place in the sunny southwest corner of the kitchen. I was unaffected, due either to good planning or an over-cautious rule. The lime tree, on the other hand, left about half its leaves behind, with, presumably, a much greater proportion of the scale. Although bedraggled, I think it will survive until it can be returned to its natural habitat sometime in April, where some combination of unfiltered sunlight and predatory insects will bring the scale under control.