January Cozy-ing
January 4, 2024 § 1 Comment
Unlike many people, it seems, I’ve never minded making New Year’s resolutions. I don’t feel stressed about them. Instead I tend to find them inspiring. I like fresh starts. I’ve always, for better or for worse, liked the idea of reinventing oneself. Or perhaps rather to allow a tucked-away part of oneself to blossom. Resolutions can help with the unfolding.
If I succeed, lovely, but if I don’t, well, I usually find I’ve forgotten about the resolutions and don’t even remember to chastise myself (heh). So it’s all right.
That said, this year I’m finding myself to be a funny paradox. On the one hand, I’ve been reading about and leaning into the idea that winter is for coziness, hibernation, rest, renewal, ease . . . and that SPRING is the natural time to begin new things. I love this. I am a gardener. I feel this in my bones, in the soil in the creases of my hands.
And ALSO: this is 100% my year to get myself into financial ship-shape. After years of dashed hopes, an aching heart, and infertility, I finally had my dream baby at the end of 2022. It took surgeries and IVF to find this little love, and he had a pretty rough start (but now he’s chubby and happy and trying so hard to walk!). As a single mama by choice, I am the sole provider and daycare-payer for our family. I do have some savings and investments, but I need to increase my income and tidy up loose ends in order for us to be solvent, or better yet, to thrive.
I also miss writing terribly. My creative self has largely been tabled while I threw my heart into my nonprofit summer camp community garden all-the-things job. There has absolutely been creativity within that role – gosh, so much, of another kind – but I miss the writer, the dreamer, the girl who posts all the pretty pictures and imagines how to spin beauty around her with words and things.
Luckily, I have two circumstances attempting to bring these opposite tugs back towards one another.
FIRST, my writing, multiple-income-stream-developing, financial-self-education time has to happen when my little one is asleep. So I sit down with a cup of hot chocolate next to a heater that has fake flames and fake crackles (I scoffed at this heater when I read about it and then the reviews convinced me and I actually love it – it’s the littlest bit of easy ambiance, ok? Here’s the link! Not an ad, everyone just needs one). I pull out my computer and I remember how I like to wend my way through words. I remember graduate school in the yellow Victorian house in Iowa, the smell of spices coming from the kitchen, my first golden retriever lying beside me on the floor, so many curly-haired boys the five clever women in our house were crushing on, the late night cups of tea with my dear Japanese friend.
SECOND, my sweet babe has to have a surgery early this month and the recovery is expected to be rather difficult. So I took two weeks off from my job and we will be home. I anticipate mostly holding him, at least for the first week. We are going to be extra, extra cozy. And perhaps in between snuggles and consolation I will find time to write. And if not, the wonderful thing about an imagination is that it works while you are doing other things. I can hold a baby and plan out a book proposal. I can kiss his little head and think of characters for a story. I can have a tired cry in the bathtub while he sleeps and then lean back and remember the hope of new ventures, of easier days.
We push ourselves through challenging things hoping for better times on the other side. Human nature? Optimism? In any case, here we go (again)!
Joel 2:21-24, 26a
March 15, 2013 § Leave a comment
“Do not fear, O soil; be glad and rejoice, for the Lord has done great things! Do not fear, you animals of the field, for the pastures of the wilderness are green; the tree bears its fruit, the fig tree and vine give their full yield. O children of Zion, be glad and rejoice in the Lord your God; for he has given the early rain for your vindication, he has poured down for you abundant rain, the early and the later rain, as before. The threshing floors shall be full of grain, the vats shall overflow with wine and oil. . . . You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied.”
A passage to ponder while on my knees in the dirt on these cool/warm, sunny/rainy, almost-spring days. Can gardening be a part of bringing heaven down to earth? I have to think yes.
And . . . home, again
February 8, 2013 § 1 Comment
I’ve remained on the quiet side the past couple of months, but guess why? Because changes galore have been happening. I like to take a little while to settle in before I start talking about it.
Remember when I went to North Carolina? Well. I’ve come again, with all my belongings and my dog in tow. We mean to stay.
I’ve faced transitions enough times that I feel something of an old pro at them (I no longer let all the uncertainty and newness pile up until I can do little more than burst into tears, for example). One of the best things about putting yourself into precarious and/or unfamiliar situations is that you learn to adapt, reach out, and trust. You fear risk less, because even while it sometimes makes things quite uncomfortable and even unpleasant, on the other side of risk you might find something wonderful. And you trust that the universe (or, for me, God) will catch you. In this overly-independent society you actually learn to accept help and to cultivate gratitude. People like to help people, did you know that?
I’ve been caught again and I have fallen into what seems to be a very good place. I’m so excited to be working in the farm and gardens at a year-round camp in the Piedmont region of North Carolina. Here in Orange County we have many, many small sustainable farms, fantastic food co-ops, winding roads, and horses galore. Two and half hours east, we reach the ocean. Two and half hours west, the mountains. Everyone has been so kind and inviting; southern hospitality is not a myth. Tassie is thrilled to have new friends, and so am I.
We went walking with one of our new friends and her dog the other day, and since I am currently camera-less (two broken ones), here is a first shot of us in North Carolina, courtesy of Leah Maloney:
Pardon the messy hair; some days, like those where the only things on the agenda are a long walk and a lot of reading, it just seems all right to let it stay a bit wild.
So. We are going to become southerners. Hold on tight, y’all. I can’t wait to find the stories that are here.
Among other species
February 1, 2013 § 1 Comment
Here’s a passage I came across in my reading yesterday that made me pause, re-read it, and ponder for a bit:
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Thoreau, and his many heirs among contemporary naturalists and radical environmentalists, assume that human culture is the problem, not the solution. So they urge us to shed our anthropocentrism and learn to live among other species as equals. This sounds like a fine, ecological idea, until you realize that the earth would be even worse off if we started behaving any more like animals than we already do. The survival strategy of most species is to extend their dominion as far and as brutally as they can, until they run up against some equally brutal natural limit that checks their progress. Isn’t this exactly what we’ve been doing?
What sets us apart from other species is culture, and what is culture but forbearance? Conscience, ethical choice, memory, discrimination: it is these very human and decidedly unecological faculties that offer the planet its last best hope. It is true that, historically, we’ve concentrated on exercising these faculties in the human rather than the natural estate, but that doesn’t mean that they cannot be exercised there. Indeed, this is the work that now needs to be done: to bring more culture to our conduct in nature, not less.
– Michael Pollan, Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education
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(thoughts?)
Breakfast at Home
December 22, 2012 § Leave a comment
The cow is milked. The chickens and ducks and sheep and steers are fed. So is the dog, after she and I romped around in the snow for a bit. She feels better, now that we went to the vet and got the tick diseases diagnosed (sigh) and got her on some antibiotics. There is a time and a place for them, and this is one of them. It’s good to see her old spirit back. And so – happy Saturday!
There is something about a late(ish) breakfast after morning chores. It makes me want to eat healthier, to crave things like, today, kale and eggs and fresh milk (in my coffee). Back in Colorado, when I worked at the horse barn, I would grab a granola bar for my pseudo breakfast at 6:45 a.m. – which didn’t really count, in my mind, as anything more than enough fuel to get me moving for a few hours. I’d go out to the stables to feed and move and turn out horses, and muck stalls, and then around 11:30 or so I’d head back home to my real meal, a substantial and fantastic brunch complete with meat and/or eggs and almost always greens (especially when I was also working at the organic farm several days a week). Yum.
There is surely a mind-body connection here. The physical effort plus the great outdoors seem to send little signals to the brain that we need nourishment! and nourishment that is natural, real, from the earth and its animals as directly as possible! So as much as I love a little pastry or tart as much as the next girl, this isn’t the time for it.
And I think that is part of why I crave this farm-life so much. It builds health up from, out from itself, in so many ways. Done well, it perpetuates health – health for humans, animals, land. And, in my opinion, communities.
I’ve been reading the book Radical Homemakers by Shannon Hayes – and, lest you be misled, this is not simply about lucky suburban stay-at-home-moms who are financially comfortable enough to be doing what they do, possibly with a nanny in tow, and possibly eco-friendly in the I-can-afford-it kind of way. (There is nothing quite wrong with that, but it isn’t a reality for most of us, right?) So, if you aren’t in this position, and it seems that you have to go to work, whether you like it or not, this book is probably equally if not more so for you. Hayes explores how the home has functioned past to present, how the choices we make are driven by and/or affect our communities and society as a whole, and how many families are assessing the current trends in career and home life and making deliberate deviations in the pursuit of health and happiness. The book is full of examples, quotes, and real people that make you think, “Huh. I could do this if they could.”
So much of what Hayes says here makes sense to me. It explains why, for so long, I wrinkled my nose at nearly every reasonable career option out there. As I read through the book, so many times I thought (in my melodramatic way) Oh my heart! Yes. This is the life I have wanted. Thank goodness the sustainable/environmental movement came along, where I could find a few more folks with my kinds of ideals, and find jobs therein. That said, as a (still) single girl, it’s challenging to think about how I can focus on home and how I can create homegrown community without a partner in this divine crime, this subversion of commercial, corporate society. But I mean to try.
Here’s an excerpt:
When women and men choose to center their lives on their homes, creating strong family units and living in a way that honors our natural resources and local communities, they are doing more than dismantling the extractive economy and taking power away from the corporate plutocrats. They are laying the foundation to re-democratize our society and heal our planet. They are rebuilding the life-serving economy. (57-58)
Read the book! And eat kale for breakfast, at a table, leisurely, like you deserve it. Your body will thank you.
Ding Dong Merrily on High
December 21, 2012 § Leave a comment
The melody to this piece is from 1589 – did you know that? It began as a dance tune, and was made into a carol much later. Isn’t it marvelous how melodies can be carried on through centuries? One of the great things about carols, particularly, is the way they rise up each season and urge us to sing them. Outside of church or choir, how often do we otherwise make an effort to sing together in our culture? And to think that we can carry history through, and on, by singing the same words as so many others so long ago.
The story this song always makes me think of is Little Women. I have read about Meg, Jo, Beth, and Amy cover to cover so many times, as if I might join their world – their little family? – by doing so. I was in 7th or 8th grade when it the film first came out, and my parents took us to see it very near to Christmas. I still remember the excitement of the opening music and the title curling across the screen, and my mother looking down the row at me and grinning. Oh the joy!
“Ding Dong Merrily on High” brings me at once to the scene when the girls are walking all donned in capes and ribbons out in the snow to share their Christmas with a family in need. Family – generosity – food – togetherness. A happy holiday.
Ding Dong Merrily on High
Ding dong! merrily on high
In heav’n the bells are ringing:
Ding dong! verily the sky
Is riv’n with Angel singing.
REFRAIN
Gloria,
Hosanna in excelsis!
Gloria,
Hosanna in excelsis!
E’en so here below, below,
Let steeple bells be swungen,
And “Io, io, io!”
By priest and people sungen.
REFRAIN
Pray you, dutifully prime
Your matin chime, ye ringers;
May you beautifully rime
Your evetime song, ye singers.
REFRAIN
You can listen to the King’s College (Cambridge) boys choir singing this carol, here.
Turkey Foot
November 18, 2012 § Leave a comment
We are grateful today.
Today I went to LTD Farm to pick out a Thanksgiving turkey, help (just a little) with the harvesting process, and take it home only a few days before it will be enjoyed by me and my family. I felt meat-rich.
I took the feet home, too, so a certain golden retriever could have an afternoon treat.
She enjoyed it!
We are thankful for the farmers’ hard work, the turkey’s life that in turn sustains ours, and the Giver of good things for what He has designed and made available to us.
Festival
October 15, 2012 § Leave a comment
We had several cloudy, cold days on either side of October 7. But on the day of the festival the sun came out. And so did the people.
Want to learn more about the farm? Visit Hungry Turtle’s website.
Want to learn more about nature experience opportunities for kids? Visit Bluebird Hill Homestead.
Oh, cider, scarves, and pumpkins. Farms and fall. Food. Friends. October.
Ephemeral fall
October 3, 2012 § 1 Comment
All the colors are turning and I have yet to photograph them! How is this happening? I daresay they are already past their prime, actually, and with the dry-as-a-bone weather we’ve been having the trees are quick to drop their leaves. This is sad. But fall has been blissful. October is starting off almost too hot in the afternoons, though we’re headed toward a cold weekend for the festival. This means there will be a bonfire. And hot cider. Just saying.
Meanwhile, it is time for pumpkin carving, tying corn stalks into shocks, and locating ingredients. My plate is full this week. Photos to come, soon, my friends. At least one fall afternoon must be documented.
Score
September 17, 2012 § Leave a comment
Jar of honey. Cutting board. Hand-picked (by me!) Haralson apples from Whistling Well Farm. And homemade vanilla from my sister and John. Happy kitchen.
Kinds of Honey 