Living Without Air

Summer is here,.... definitely here. The time of the year when the humidity is so high that the haze just hangs in the air and you feel more like you are swimming than walking when you are outside.  I wake up in the morning and hustle outside in the pre-dawn to do chores before it heats up, sometimes dressed in only whatever pajamas I slept in the night before, and on these hot summer nights... it is a good thing that I live in the country without too many neighbors driving by.  We dress to fit the weather around here because living in a turn of the century farm house means...you guessed it, no air conditioning.   I know, I know....at this point you are all thinking, "Oh my God, how does anyone live without air conditioning?!"   Well, up until about 30 years ago, everyone lived without air conditioning.  It was a luxury - saved for large hotels and businesses - and now it is considered the "norm".  Unfortunately, the way we spend our cash on fossil fuels and energy, it will likely, once again, be considered a luxury before too long. 

As hot and sticky as it can sometimes get, I have never really longed for an air conditioner.  It was nice when I was pregnant in July with my third child and we were living in town, but I did just fine without it on the subsequent two pregnancies.  I, personally, can't stand the sound of motors and compressors running all night - even the fan is a bit too much noise at times - birds, coyotes, dogs barking, thunder, wind,....fine, just nothing mechanical.

And so, we live in the heat and this, in a nut shell, is how we survive.  We open the windows and catch the breeze. 


Dark, shady and cool - the perfect siesta

Timing is everything, however.  You have to open the windows at night - all the windows - on every side of the house, and if there isn't a breeze, you create one with fans until the cool night air seeps in and displaces the warm air of the day.  Then, (and this is key), in the morning first thing, you close the windows and the drapes.  It sounds a little counter intuitive, but after many summers of living quite nicely through days of high heat and humidity, I can tell you this works. 
We have also done what we can to be sure that we have plenty of shade trees surrounding our house.  Deciduous trees planted on the south side so that their leaves shade in the summer and allow sun in during the winter, and when the heat just gets too stifling, then it is time to pull out the hose and have a little water fight action to cool things down.

And as it so happens, just about the time that you are convinced you will not be able to take the heat and humidity for one more day, the horizon darkens and the haze takes on a new appearance of omminous clouds in the west.  You can feel the storm clouds building and rolling in until, finally, from the completely still, fetid air comes a blast of cool wind that brings with it a thunderstorm, the smell of ozone and a cool breeze.  That cool breeze I appreciate more than any air conditioner I have ever known.

The June Delusion

Deep in the gloomy hollow of winter, I picture June.  I imagine running outside with only flip flops on my feet rather than snow boots, I picture my kids chasing each other around the yard, riding bikes and playing in the sand box...I picture time on my hands to relax, to drink beer on the porch, to nap in the hammock.  And every year, I am completely delusional. 

I think how wonderfully unencumbered I will be to not have to run kids around to school functions, how much extra time I will have since the days are so much longer, I imagine the fantastic mini-vacations we can plan.  Again, I am delusional.

I find myself mystified by how May seemed to evaporate before I even registered its existence, and then I find myself standing in front of the calendar in the kitchen with jaw dropped open wondering how it could be the middle of June already?!  And what is even more worrisome is that there isn't an "unscheduled" day on the calendar until sometime the end of July. 

This happens every year, you would think that I would learn by now.  The kids get out of school and rather than being one organized, unified family of children, they spin off like so many pin balls in every different direction.  There are friends to see, camps to go to, parties to attend, 4-H to prepare for, jobs to do....multiplied by five.  I feel like a pinball flipper that just tries to keep them all in play, while simultaneously gardening and working full time.  

My days generally start before the sun is up and, with kids insisting that they stay up later since it is summer, the days end much, much later than they should.  My hands have achieved their "permadirt" status with dirt ground into the calluses and blisters from living in the garden.  There will be no end in site to the amount of produce to be picked, blanched, frozen, processed, canned, pickled.  And while each crop harvested is wonderful, it carries with it a boat load of work involved.  Throw into that a few vacations, a few parties, a few 4-H events and the summer is essentially over before my brain has wrapped around the fact that it is June.

That's not to say that I would change any of it. 

Despite the fact that most days start out with coffee and ibuprofen just to get sore joints and aching muscles up and functioning, despite the fact that I have been seeing roughly 20 out of 24 hours of each day for the last few weeks and seeing precious little of my bed and pillow.....I wouldn't change any of it.  There usually comes a moment in each crazy, hectic day when something small happens - a cold beer gets pulled from the fridge to be enjoyed for a few minutes on the porch, a kid learns to ride a bicycle,  a rainbow shows up after a storm, a fledgling bird suddenly takes wing, one of the cats comes to rub up against you and purrs while you're weeding....little things that implant themselves in my brain and are the fodder for my mid-winter delusionment.

I initially started this post as justification as to why I haven't written since the middle of May, but then again....there just hasn't been time....and I have been having too much fun.

The Dinner Table

There is a time in every day that I look forward to, and not just because I am a highly food motivated individual.  It is a time when everyone that is home gathers and eats dinner.  Breakfast and lunch are largely free-for-alls, but dinner is on a schedule.  It isn't particularly fancy or civil, - I am quite sure that Miss Manners would have a lot to say about my son's occasional lack of a shirt, my husband's ball cap and my daughter's elbows, but it is all of us gathering around to discuss the happenings of the day and issues that happen to come up.

Growing up in a home with a mom that majored in home economics and a 1950s era mindset in the 1970s, we ate all our dinners around the table as many nights as possible with the classic 'pork chops and apple sauce' for dinner.  Those were some of the best memories of growing up.  Not that any of the meals were especially memorable, but the feeling that sitting around breaking bread with people that you love and that love you - it was a comfort that fills the soul. The feeling of being part of a group, part of a family.  Knowing that if you weren't there, you would be missed.  Discussing issues, ideas, problems, and funny stories of the day.  No matter where people had been, how good or awful their day had been... we came together, if only for a short while, and shared our happenings.

My husband and I bought a second hand table almost 16 years ago shortly after we bought our first house.  We liked it because it was a very wide table and we could each lay our section of the newspaper on it and not get in each other's way.  Slowly, kid by kid, we have included more leaves and expanded our table. It is now covered with any number of scratches, crayon marks, and paint splotches because it is the main hub of creativity for the kids, but every night it undergoes a transformation and achieves its highest potential as a gathering place for the family to eat.

A favorite thing is when my kids have friends over and we all sit down to dinner together.  It doesn't really matter how many people cram into my house, we always find enough leaves to extend the table as far as we need to.  Sadly enough however, sitting down to a family dinner is an oddity to many of my kids' friends, but they all take to it very quickly.  There are no cell phones allowed, no books, no toys.  You are expected to say "please" and "thank-you" and to ask for things to be passed to you.  Seconds are always allowed as long as everyone has been able to have firsts.  After the ground rules have been established, these kids take to family dinners and we have a blast.  You never know where the discussions may lead you - sometimes I ask the friends for some good blackmail material about my kid and that generally leads to very interesting stories and much discussion.  Sometimes we angle toward politics or religion.  There was one crazy night where the entire meal was devoted to coming up with silly jokes involving names such as, "What are the names of those two guys by the window?"....."Curt 'n Rod".  As I said, it isn't always sophisticated, but I learn more about my kids from the time spent eating dinner together than any other time time of the day.

I made a point the other night of keeping track of the flow of conversation...it went something like this:
Babies - new one in the family
Elizabethan collars for dogs
Fixing Washing machines
Vegetarianism
Medical field and what a complete mess it is
The definitions for the words 'meme', 'truffle' and 'sudoko'
The difference between a "truffle" treat and a "truffle" mushroom
Google's search engine verses all the others and what makes them so popular
High School computer classes and free college credit
College
Peccadillos
Cards and Gifts
Writing Cards
Interspersed with crazy giggling
The thought that we remember the past as being better than it actually was
South Dakota honey

What the segue was from one topic to the other is, at this point, completely unknown and often times there really wasn't one - someone would simply throw out a question or thought that popped up.  There are many times when my sister and brother-in-law come over for dinner and the conversations will extend well beyond dinner and involve a bottle of wine (or two) and the oldest kids sitting around trying to understand the complex threads of discussion that we sometimes end up having about government, religion, wars, economies, history, education, literature, societies.  We joke that we can solve the world's problems over a meal, but in all honesty, that is how many problems do get solved. 

It makes me wonder how problems will get solved when, for many, there are no longer meals that are eaten together, but in front of the television instead.  I know too many families where this is the norm - dinner hastily prepared and eaten in front of a television screen- often alone, based on the stories of many of the kids that visit our house. I know that most of them are generally good kids and happy, but I can't help feeling sorry for them never having this experience of togetherness with their family.  We have lost much in our society that is good, but I sometimes think that this is the worst.  I know that not every family is lucky enough to have jobs that allow them to be home at mealtime every night, but I also know that we find time for the things that are most important to us....what does that say to our kids when we can't find the time to sit down and share part of their day with them?

The Zen of Moss Roses

"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change."   ~Buddha

I have a flower garden plot right outside the door that I consider to be my Zen garden.  It is fairly small, in relation to the rest of the flower and vegetable gardens at least, and it contains one of my favorite flowers - the Moss Rose.  Every year for the last four or five years I have had Moss Roses here and, despite being listed as annuals, they reseed themselves vigorously with their tiny grain-of-sand sized seeds.  What this means, however, is that I have to be exceptionally aware of what these tiny little flowers look like when they sprout.  So this area outside my door starts out each year as a bare patch of dirt and slowly weeds start to sprout up and then, with all the same faith as the proverbial mustard seed, so do the Moss Roses. 

While the rest of the flower garden is growing to knee high and blossoming with flowers, this plot of dirt takes its time and looks mostly like an abandoned lot of patchwork weeds.  If I were to take on trying to make this section completely weed free and beautiful all in one day, it would be overwhelming in every sense of the word.....this is how it became my Zen garden.

It happens often that I am completely overwhelmed by life.  Too much to do, too big of a mess to clean up, too many problems in the world, ....., not enough time, energy or enthusiasm to take them all on.  I will despondently stand on the top step of my porch contemplating the indirect proportion of stuff to be done to my level of energy and slowly sink down on the steps in apathy....which puts me in very close proximity to my bare, weedy plot of moss roses. 

These tiny seeds have been washed out, grown over, walked upon by several errant children....and yet they are here.  Slowly growing, changing, and blossoming despite their challenges.  And so, while stewing in my wretched mind set, my fingers slowly start to pull at each little weed that surrounds them and I carve out a small square of weed free area that then extends into the next weed free area and, one listless moment after another, I slowly clear an area that allows the moss roses to become the gorgeous flowers they are.

What often happens while weeding these minuscule little seedlings is that I stop thinking of all that is overwhelming and wrong in the world and suddenly my mind starts to focus on nothing at all - no worries, no plans, no things to be done, no problems, only the slow, methodical, careful weeding from between the tiny seedlings.  I start to see my life in relation to this weedy patch of ground and realize that it takes slow, methodical, careful work to eventually come to a place in one's life that is free of weeds and open to the air and sunshine.  It can't happen in a day.   And then slowly it refocuses in on the other things that I actually can do that need doing and, eventually, I pull myself up off my knees and, feeling better, meander to the next garden area most in need of attention. 

Pulled from my despondency by a tiny plant that will evolve into a beautiful flower. My bare, weed patch of a life takes on a little of the energy of these hardy little plants that survive the brutal winter, take root amidst a washout of sand and dry dirt and challenge the weeds around them to gain light and air enough to grow, but it never happens all in one day and the enlightenment that they provide doesn't last indefinitely....it all takes time, and year after year it is the same.  A quiet circle of growing, weeding, flowering, seeding out, dying off, surviving the winter, and growing again....and I am part of that circle for these little seeds, and they are part of mine.  Would I survive without them? Yes.  Would they survive without me? Yes.  But together we are better - I pull up the weeds that surround them and they pull me up when my darkest thoughts surround me - and together we grow.

Dandilion Diversity

I am convinced that if you were actually trying  to grow dandelions, they would be the hardest flowers to grow.  Right now, they are everywhere, and what is worse - the seeds are everywhere.  I just spent part of the morning pulling dandelions with my favorite of all garden tools (my wicked dandelion puller) while simultaneously being horrified at the literal carpet of dandelion seeds that are spread on the ground like a shag rug.  Clearly, it is never ending.  It is probably a good thing that I don't live in town or my neighbors would hate me.  I refuse to use chemical spray on my lawn or garden regardless of how many dandelions emerge.  As much as I dislike them, I highly prefer them to the chemicals that we tend to haphazardly spray around. When comparing dandelion to weed killer my list goes something like this:

Dandelion pros -

• green,
• pretty yellow flowers,
• white puffs of seeds that kids like to make wishes on,
• good to eat,
• can make into wine. 

Weed killer pros -

• fewer weeds, 
•  able to keep up with the Jones. 

Dandelion cons -

• dandelions growing everywhere you don't want them, namely the gardens. 

Weed killer cons -

• chemicals in the environment,
• monoculture lawns that provide no beneficial value to pollinators,
• chemicals in the kids and pets that play on the lawn,
• Chemicals in the worms that live in the lawn...and then in the birds that eat the worms...and then the cats that eat the birds that ate the worm that absorbed the chemical that lives in the house that Jack built....

Looking at that list, it makes the decision not to spray a simple one for me.  Are they unsightly? Depends upon how you look at it.  Watching my seven-year-old run laughing and kicking all the dandelion seed heads into the air until she is surrounded by a veritable mist of floating seeds...I don't think they are unsightly at all.  The dandelions also provide my children a much needed way of earning allowance or time on the computer - 30 seconds computer time or 1 cent for every dandelion pulled out of my gardens and it only counts if the entire root is there.  This has been known to keep several kids busy for quite some time and it cleans up the garden nicely. 

It fascinates me to see the amount of money and time that people spend on having the perfect carpet of lawn.  Seriously? This is what we focus on?  Waste of time, energy and water in my opinion.  I love the current move to change over lawns into vegetable gardens - more interesting to look at and clearly better for the environment and our health.  We need to get over our obsession with having a perfect golf course lawn surrounding our houses. 

I am reminded of an anecdote that I read sometime last fall:

"Imagine the conversation The Creator might have had with St. Francis on the subject of lawns:

God: Hey St. Francis, you know all about gardens and nature. What in the world is going on down there in the Midwest? What happened to the dandelions, violets, thistle and stuff I started eons ago? I had a perfect "no maintenance" garden plan. Those plants grow in any type of soil, withstand drought and multiply with abandon. The nectar from the long lasting blossoms attracts butterflies, honey bees and flocks of songbirds. I expected to see a vast garden of colors by now. But all I see are these green rectangles.

St. Francis: It's the tribes that settled there, Lord. The Suburbanites. They started calling your flowers "weeds" and went to great lengths to kill them and replace them with grass.

God: Grass? But it's so boring. It's not colorful. It doesn't attract butterflies, birds and bees, only grubs and sod worms. It's temperamental with temperatures. Do these Suburbanites really want all that grass growing there?

St. Francis: Apparently so, Lord. They go to great pains to grow it and keep it green. The begin each spring by fertilizing grass and poisoning any other plant that crops up in the lawn.

God: The spring rains and warm weather probably make grass grow really fast. That must make the Suburbanites happy.

St. Francis: Apparently not, Lord. As soon as it grows a little, they cut it... sometimes twice a week.

God: They cut it? Do they then bail it like hay?

St. Francis: Not exactly, Lord. Most of them rake it up and put it in bags.

God: They bag it? Why? Is it a cash crop? Do they sell it?

St. Francis: No Sir. Just the opposite. They pay to throw it away.

God: Now let me get this straight. They fertilize grass so when it does grow, they cut it off and pay to throw it away?

St. Francis: Yes, Sir.
 
God: These Suburbanites must be relieved in the summer when we cut back on the rain and turn up the heat. That surely slows the growth and saves them a lot of work.

St. Francis: You are not going to believe this Lord. When the grass stops growing so fast, they drag out hoses and pay more money to water it so they can continue to mow it and pay to get rid of it.

God: What nonsense. At least they kept some of the trees. That was a sheer stroke of genius, if I do say so myself. The trees grow leaves in the spring to provide beauty and shade in the summer. In the autumn they fall to the ground and form a natural blanket to keep moisture in the soil and protect the trees and bushes. Plus, as they rot, the leaves form compost to enhance the soil. It's a natural circle of life.

St. Francis: You better sit down, Lord. The Suburbanites have drawn a new circle. As soon as the leaves fall, they rake them into great piles and pay to have them hauled away.

God: No. What do they do to protect the shrub and tree roots in the winter and to keep the soil moist and loose?

St. Francis: After throwing away the leaves, they go out and buy something which they call mulch. The haul it home and spread it around in place of the leaves.

God: And where do they get this mulch?

St. Francis: They cut down trees and grind them up to make the mulch.
 
God: Enough. I don't want to think about this anymore. Sister Catherine, you're in charge of the arts. What movie have you scheduled for us tonight?

Sister Catherine: "Dumb and Dumber", Lord. It's a real stupid movie about.....

God: Never mind, I think I just heard the whole story from St. Francis."

I think of this a lot when I go into garden centers and DIY stores and smell the chemicals that line the aisles and see the bags of mulch.  What a screwed up world we live in these days when maintaining our perfectly green lawns is more important than the millions of people worldwide could use that $38.95 we just spent on weed killer to actually grow a useful crop that could feed them and their whole family. Where are the priorities?  I try my best to find a silver lining in some things, but when it comes to this....it is simply depressing.

I think I will make a few wishes that humanity will someday actually pay attention to this world and what we do to it, and go blow some dandelion seeds around.

The Broody Hen

Every once in a while, for reasons that are not entirely clear to anyone save maybe the chicken herself, one of the hens decides to become broody.  What this generally means is that, what was yesterday a normal strolling, pecking, scratching, egg laying chicken now becomes the equivalent of a chicken zombie.  They pull out the feathers on their belly to provide warmth to eggs (whether there are any or not) and then they sit.  You can attempt to pick them up and shoo them out the door and sometimes they will seem to snap out of it for a few minutes and act like a normal chicken again, but the minute you look away....they are back on the nest and sitting with that glassy-eyed stare of internal concentration.

Some pure bred chickens have had the "broodiness" bred out of them - programed only to lay eggs and then walk away from them without a second thought.  Essentially, genetically programed infanticide.  But there are other breeds, and often mixed breed chickens, that revert back to the "wild type" and will sit on a clutch of eggs. Some even have enough wits about them to actually hatch them out.  I can  honestly say that chickens are not always the brightest of animals.  The current broody hen that I have been monitoring will get off the nest typically once or twice a day and then seems to forget which nest is hers despite the fact that her nest is the only one with eggs in it.  The state of broodiness seems to be contagious as well.  When one chicken starts it, others are likely sure to follow, which is the case at the moment.  Good thing too, because as one crazy zombie bird gets off her nest the other one will often be at the point of trying to remember where her nest is and will trade nests....again, not the brightest light bulbs in the room, but they (eventually) get the job done.

When the eggs do hatch however, there is an amazing transformation that takes place in a hen. They go from being an easily frightened, squawking, fleeing chicken into a bold, ruthless, and intimidating mother hen.  I have seen hens stand up to (and make cower) pigs, cats, dogs, and even my children. They puff out every feather until they are twice their usual size and will tackle whatever evil obstacle threatens their young.   I credit the last mother hen with teaching our current pig to have a little respect for the lowly chickens in the barn - while watching the hen and chicks one day strolling around the pig pen, I was convinced that they were all about to be snacks for the pigs- pigs being the indescriminate eaters they are, but mama hen took after the pigs with feet, beak and feathers flying and sent all three pigs racing away from her small flock of babies. I have not seen them bothered since and our pig will happily allow the chickens to eat out of her bowl with her. 

This transformation in motherhood is really not all that unusual - most mother animals would likely walk through fire and fend off whatever evil beast is threatening their young...I know I would.  But what amazes me is a chicken who, the week before, couldn't remember which nest was hers, suddenly has it together enough to defend and protect these small balls of fluff that are all running in different directions.  She keeps track of them, teaches them the best scratching areas and techniques, calls them away from danger, and keeps a wary eye out for any possible marauders.  If the weather turns cold, or at night when it is time to roost, she takes them under her wing to keep them safe and warm.  I have seen human children with mothers that are nowhere near this attentive and a human's instinctual ability for child rearing has been severely diluted over the centuries as compared to that of a chicken.  I am not sure if that is a insult to humans or a compliment to chickens, but needless to say, I keep a wary eye out for the mother hens.

Weathering the Weather

It seems to me that the climate truly is changing. There is a distinct difference to be made between the weather and the climate.  Weather will change day to day - one day unseasonably hot, another day 40 inches of snow may fall, but climate is the overall averages that change slowly over time in different areas of the country and world....maybe overall it is hotter one place and colder somewhere else.  Personally, I am starting to feel like the Midwest is where the toilet bowl vortex meets the drain.

Maybe this change is some fictitious thing that my mind has dreamt up, but it seems to me that the wind used to blow more from the west, storms blew in from the west.  Now, the wind can often be found blowing from the south and sometimes the east as well.  The other day, I went out for a run around the block and was met with a northeasterly wind that threw me all off pace. The radar has as most storms swirling around from the southeast like a giant whirlpool just waiting to haul us under.   The spring used to be a time of "April showers bringing May flowers" but now it seems more like "April tornadoes bring May FEMA and Red Cross trucks".  I, like Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel, gather all the news I need on the weather report....and that news isn't looking so good.

I catch myself sometimes being so angry about our complete apathy of the environment and what we are doing to it, and then at other times I find myself almost hysterically laughing because we are so far past the tipping point already that it really doesn't matter what we do ....we are screwed.  I am often reminded of Ruby in the movie Cold Mountain when she explains the current events, "They call this [weather] a cloud over the land. But they made the weather and then they stand in the rain and say 'Shit, it's raining!'"  We are all aghast that the massive destruction with the tornadoes that takes place and then placidly climb back into SUVs and fill up with gas.  The disconnect in people's mind is completely staggering.

This last weekend has been an especially wild one with regards to the weather.  I didn't sleep much last night because the radio was left on in the hopes that maybe I would hear the Severe Weather Alerts that come up just before a tornado blows you off the face of the earth.  This, of course, only works as long as there is electricity and, given that the electricity went out three times last night before the storm even hit, I also left my window open by my bed so that I might then hear when debris started flying around or the rain would splash in and wake me up.  Night time storms have really started freaking me out.

Personally, I rely most on my dog barometer.  Gina is a very good predictor of what is coming.  I know that when I let her out at night to roam the farm and check for vermin, that if she makes a bee-line for the porch and crawls under it to hide in her ever deepening den, that I had better get inside and pay attention to what is on the horizon because it isn't likely to be anything good.  But, if she strolls off into the pasture and checks out the perimeter of the farm, then the weather will likely be fine for that night.  Now... if I could just teach her to be a barometer for human intelligence with respect to the environment and climate...that might be useful.  My guess, however, would be that she would simply crawl under the porch and dig her hole even deeper.

When It Points To The East......

http://cs.astronomy.com/asycs/media/p/449739.aspx

"The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand"

~Frederic Lawrence Knowles

I never paid much attention to the moon.  All the while I grew up, I would play outside at night and stargaze late into the night, but the moon never entered into my sphere of awareness other than as a way to light my way on dark nights or as an obstruction to my sight of the Milky Way with its quiet ethereal glow.  And then, when I moved into town for college and work, it all but disappeared from my life entirely. 

You hear, now an again, about odd moon moments, the "blue moons" that happen every so often when there are more than one full moon in a month, a lunar eclipse, and periodically an exceptionally large full moon will slowly rise on the horizon with an orange glow that takes the breath away, but the day to day moon changes are completely missing from most people's awareness.

 The moon has always been used to track time.  The Native Americans have a name for every month's full moon to keep track of the time of year and signal when to harvest, when to hunt, when to fish.  We have just passed the Full Pink Moon - which is in reference to all the pink blossoms that fill the fruit trees this time of year. The almanac has all but made a science of using the moon to predict when to plant seeds to obtain the best harvest. The "moon" dates that are best to plant crops for root production or fruit production, the best time to breed animals and set eggs based on the stage of the moon.  Does it work?  I can't say that I know for sure, but I know now of the moon's pull in my own life.

Since moving to this farm, the moon as been an ever present time piece.  She moves about the sky with such precision that I have fallen under her spell.  I have come to find that I can relate better to the moon's constant change- sometimes bright and illuminating, sometimes dark and brooding - than I can to the sun's constant effervescent illumination.  Her moods wax and wane much like my own.  Every twenty-eighth day I know that I will spend the night in a state of wakefulness because of the brightness of the full moon, and in the winter when the snow is on the fields, I know that I will be able to look out and track the deer and coyote that move about under her gaze.  I have come to expect the moonrise just as some anticipate the sunrise.  I know enough now to take a small break after the sun sets during the days surrounding a full moon because, after the moon rises in the east, it will be possible to go back to work in the garden for a while under the pale glow of her illumination.  I have come to realize that it is possible to start the days very early under a waning and waxing moon because the glow from the moon augments the early light of the sunrise.  And if it is the stars that you seek, it is best to wait for the new moon to examine star charts and tell the stories of the constellations. 

For many, the moon is merely something to be studied in science and astronomy classes.  The satellite to our humble planet, a remnant from the formation of the earth, the ugly step-sister to our beautiful blue orb.  However, in true sibling nature, she keeps track of us, she marks our days and months and years.  In quiet counter point to the brash sun that religiously keeps track of the days, she marks the nights.  Even under a thick blanket of clouds, I can often tell just where the moon should be and at what stage.  Like the ocean, I feel the ebb and flow of the tides within my own blood.

This is the question that I ask my children, "Is it getting larger or smaller?"  "Closer to full or closer to dark?"  If your head can spin in astronomical circles fast enough, you can likely figure it out, but my dad taught me a saying that has never steered me wrong, although it took a little practice to figure out.  "When it points to the east - may your light increase.  When it points to the west - wane be at rest."  The "points" being the points of the  crescent moon - if they point to the east, it is getting larger (hence, increasing light) and if the points of the crescent are to the west, then it is waning.  I can tell you, without even looking at it tonight, that it is waning and will be a new moon in the next ten days or so and then we will be slowly waxing toward May's full flower moon.

"Every one is a moon, and has a dark side

which he never shows to anybody."

 ~ Mark Twain

Come Walk With Me.....I Would Love My Flowers To Meet You.

After a long and crazy day of work - either as a veterinarian, or a mother/wife/farmer - there is one time of day that I look forward to - the evening constitutional, my stroll through the gardens,... my walkabout. There are many evenings when I get home and drop all my stuff on the steps to the porch and quietly stroll around the flowers for five or ten minutes. It lets me forget the day's disappointments and frustrations and brings me back to earth....literally. I have built my flower gardens all the way around my house to allow for a leisurely walk before I enter the house and am greeted by my mob. I could spend hours trying to describe the loveliness, peace and tranquility, but my words would fail miserably. Better simply to allow the pictures to speak their thousands of words for me.

To Russia (And Elsewhere) With Love

One of the most fascinating things that I have found about writing a blog is tracking its audience.  Don't get me wrong, this system is in no way exact - I have no idea of who actually is reading, but only a very general idea of where they are from.  I have noticed that for some time now I have had readers (or reader) located in Russia, some in Germany, some in England, and a few here and there scattered over the globe.  It would be wonderful to have some comments posted from readers from other countries and if you are concerned that your English isn't very good....no worries, because I guarantee that my Russian, German, Portuguese and Thai are much worse than your English ever could be.  We are one global nation thanks to this lovely Internet, and I, for one, like to know my neighbors.

Standing Stones

Nature in all its many facets is astounding.  In Spring I revel at all the new flowers and plants that bloom, I sit mesmerized while watching honey bees and other insects going about their busy lives with no thought for us whatsoever, I am fascinated by watching migratory birds return year after year to nests that only they know how to find, and I even harbor great affection for the rocks. 

Perhaps the quietest members of my garden, there are many rocks that line my flower beds and get moved slightly from place to place as I weed around them throughout the year.  I like the feel of them, their heft, their rough edges and sharp angles.  They are the oldest things here - limestone, granite, sandstone, quartz, geodes- they speak of a time that I will never know.  A time of heat and turmoil.  Pressure and seemingly infinite spans of time.  There are small trilobites that I find embedded in the limestone rocks, whole generations of a species that, at one point, thought they were the height of civilization as we do now.

For whatever reason, I have a fascination with standing rocks up - a change of perspective for them, I imagine. When I find a small pile of them lying around, even though they may have odd angles, I take on the inherent challenge of balancing one upon the other.  It takes a little time and patience to get them to all work together, and not enough can be said to praise a small amount of sand that helps create the all important friction that holds the odd-angled rock in place, but when they are all in harmony and supporting one another, they almost seem enlivened somehow.  Even a rock wants to be something - whether it be a quiet meditative being lying in the midst of a field, a part of a building's foundation , or a member of a cairn.  Perhaps that is being overly anthropomorphic, but then I try to imagine what the animal world looks like to a stone - we all must be in high speed motion to them, flitting from place to place, growing, aging, dying within a blink of a rock's eye.  How ridiculous must the work-a-day world seem to a rock.

Sometimes they fall.  Gravity, rain and wind work their change on the rocks just as they have for millions of years and I will come across the dismantled pile looking like so many pieces of puzzle and stoop to rebuild them again as I take a break from the endless pulling of weeds.  No two piles are ever the same, but then it is fun to hear people's remarks that have seen a group of stones together and then realize that they are subtly different, as though by magic they have shifted themselves.  Sometimes, I think they do.

A Most Unusual Cat

"...He had been gardening again and held in one hand the kind of wide-bladed, lime-green grass that grows at the untended edges of sidewalks and lawns.  He shook the dirt free, pulled out a half dozen of the longer strands, smoothed them, then twisted them into a flimsy green braid.
     'Time', he said, holding up the braid to me.  He indicated one end, then the other, 'Maybe one thousand year.' He touched the individual stalks of grass tenderly. 'Souls, Spirits. You see?  You, your father, your mother, sister, wife, children, you see? Your spirit is together with their spirits like this, tight against each other. That is why you were born into this [l]ife together.  He pulled one strand out and tossed it up into the sunlight.  'Maybe one of these people, or two, not so close after this [l]ife.  But people you really love, spirits that are close to your spirit, you see? They tie around tight to you,  [l]ife after [l]ife."

-Breakfast with Buddha by Roland Merullo


I read this book several years ago, but this was a part from the book that entered into my mind upon getting to know Vincent.  Vincent is a cat and I am quite sure that he has become one of the strands of grass in my braid of time.

Vincent came to the farm slightly over a year ago.  A feral cat, wild and frightened of anything and everything human.  Only enticed closer by the lure of food that is left out nightly for the resident clowder of cats.  He would wait until we had put the food down and then would warily creep into the mob of cats and grab a few furtive bites before any move on our part would send him flying.  Skinny, crumpled ears, and starving, night after night he would get just ever so slightly braver until finally, after many months of very slow and patient work by my kids, he let one of them touch him.  Always only afraid, never mean.  Cats have two defense mechanisms that they work from when they are in over their heads - they become incredibly ferocious, or they do everything in their power to flee - Vincent was always the second.

At our farm, when a new cat arrives, it is given a certain amount of "breaking in" period before the local vet - that's me- steps in and insists on said cat being a more socially acceptable pet, by which I mean neutered/spayed and vaccinated. Vincent was having none of me anywhere near him even with food available, and carrying a net looked especially worrisome to him.  I left the net in the care of my son and within a few days of trial and escape, Vincent came to the door of the house, trapped in the net under much duress just as I was in the process of making pizza on a Sunday night.  Time and tide may wait for no man, but neither does a cat in a net.  In short order Vincent was anesthetized via an injection in the muscle, tested for several nasty cat viruses by doing a simple blood test, vaccinated and neutered.  All while laying on my front porch surrounded by four (and sometimes five) curious kids - my son opted out of watching the neutering process.   Anesthetic reversed and by the time the pizza was done, he was completely recovered and had staggered off in the direction of the barn.


What happened to that cat during that process, I have no idea.  From that point on he is always around.  He sits just outside the door on the stoop so that you almost step on him when going outside - even in the very coldest of weather.  When I go anywhere on the farm, he trots along beside me as though he is a dog trained to heel.  When I cook in the kitchen, he sits on the small table just outside my window and monitors closely.  The other cats on the farm will drift by and briefly interact with me while on their own personal missions of self satisfaction, but for whatever reason, Vincent seems to have appointed himself as my personal entourage while at home. He loves attention and will purr and roll affectionately around your feet and legs.  Gina, my typically cat-intolerant dog, loves him and will actually allow him to eat out of her bowl right under her nose. 

And so I ask myself, who is this little soul that seems to have adopted me?  I sometimes peer into his round, furry face as he loyally sits by my side while I garden and think, "Who are you?" and more often, "Who am I to deserve this affection and loyalty?"  How can something that was absolutely terrified of all things even remotely related to me, suddenly change and appear to love with such complete abandon?  Human beings don't have the monopoly on souls, as far as I am concerned.  An animal's ability to love unconditionally so far outstrips our own that at times it is shameful.  Whatever the reason, from where ever he came,  I hope his soul is one of those that stays with mine for all time.