At the shore
August 8, 2012 § Leave a comment
This past week, we took several days of our summer to spend together as family in Door County, Wisconsin. We fell in love (again) with water and boats. Here, my mother explores Cana Island. We couldn’t get enough of Lake Michigan. (More to come!)
Water’s edge
July 24, 2012 § Leave a comment
Summer sunshine and water lilies at Straight Lake State Park.
Heat, water, and work
July 2, 2012 § Leave a comment
My goodness gracious, it is hot.
The dog and I have been in the river twice today, once with iced coffee in hand. Otherwise I sit in here and sweat, and she sits in here and pants so heavily I can hardly think. Just now we are still damp and sprawled about the office/living room avoiding awareness of the air’s heat.
This week has been a doozy!
We began with a day and half ecology inservice at my job, where we spent time learning the native plants and birds of this region. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Afterward, I remembered to renew my Audubon Society membership.
Today while sitting in the cool, shallow flow of the river I listened for birds. It is like getting to know one’s neighbors. Learning their names brings you into relationship with place. I smile to walk past common milkweed, daisy fleabane, and orange hawkweed and to know their color, the shape of their leaves, the creatures that like them and the purposes they might serve. I am tickled pink to recognize the “fire-fire, where-where, here-here” of the indigo bunting, the “chhrrrrrrrr” of the clay-colored sparrow, and the “chip-chip-chip-chip-chip” of the chimney swifts darting above my roof.
Halfway through the week we brought in an expert to teach us how to build a ferrocement tank.
This involves pouring a cement pad, building up the structure with rebar, mesh, and EML in the shape of a short silo, and mixing sand, portland, water, and glue to sling mud onto the structure. The purpose of the ferrocement tank is to catch rainwater from the roof of the polebarn and redirect that water as needed for agricultural use.
Guess who helped a bunch? Or rather, supervised with affectionate brown eyes and a good deal of panting?
The work was fascinating and sometimes tedious, and by the third day with the heat of the sun beating down, our relief upon nearly finishing was significant! We ended the workday by unloading hay into the barn, eating a fine late lunch, and heading to the river for a swim followed by a nap. Keith (our instructor) gave us a brief information session on how to finish putting a roof on the structure, and then we went merrily on our way to an early bedtime. Though I made brownies and ate ice cream first.
And now, thank heaven, it is Monday. I am doing small work tasks like marketing workshops, updating facebook, and switching water lines as needed. But otherwise, this is a rest day to make up for the week’s hard work and large amounts of people time (I am one of those sorts who need a balance of people time and by-herself time). It is a satisfying kind of day, one where you feel you’ve earned your rest, and are excited for what’s coming next.
Life is good. Even in summer’s heat.
Quenched
May 24, 2012 § Leave a comment
It is raining outside. Yesterday I bought two trays of flower starts thanks to a sale at our local nursery, and perhaps somewhat foolishly (and optimistically) decided right away to put them in the ground. Rain was in the forecast. Surely it would be all right.
But as I loosened the soil to make pockets for the salvia, hypoestes, zinnias, mimulus, phlox, allysum, lobelia, and begonia the wind blew roughly and the soil moved through my fingers dry as sand. Now and then I’d have to pause and close my eyes to keep the dirt from flying into them; even so, there were times when I missed anticipating the dusty gust and had to gently wipe the corners. Poor little flowers! I suppose I should have stopped right then. Sometimes I get so determined and just keep going when I ought to reassess and redirect.
While the heat, despite the lack of rain, has been coaxing the peonies and irises towards heavy, just-about-to-burst budding, that hot, dry wind is one of the reasons I do not terribly miss Colorado (apologies to all my favorite people there, and horses. I do miss you). Such a wind isn’t an especially common thing in the Midwest, just the result of this dry spell, something we expect will pass. With each little cluster of transplants in their places I gave them a good watering, yet the few times when I went back to relocate a few of them I discovered that beneath that top wet layer the earth was still dry, dry, dry. I rewatered and sort of wished/prayed that they would find the moisture they needed.
The sky to the West had that promising slate blue-gray, one of my favorite colors, and yet a tantalizing one. The one where you’re watching for rain. I looked west often, but the rain didn’t come. I sowed in some cornflower seeds, watered everything one last time, and went inside to make dinner. Checked weather.com. Listened to occasional growlings. Tassie and I sat on the porch as the darkness came on and blinked at the great flashes of sheet lightning to the West and the North. The winds were calmer, but still restless, blowing in different directions. Uneasy. Everything was waiting.
I tried to go to sleep at 9:30, like a good girl, but I kept listening for the rain. I had my window open a crack and when the first few smatterings came I went pattering down the stairs with the dog close behind. We sat on the porch again, but those first spits were only that. Spits. A bit of dampness, and fireflies flitting around to make me smile like a ten-year-old. All right, then. I really must go to sleep.
This morning meant the most quietly satisfying way of waking up. Pale gray skies and a luscious, cool, wet breeze through the window. Mm. A quenched earth. A morning for coffee, and a lit candle. But first, a barefoot walk on the same grass that scratched my feet yesterday. It is cool and soft today. The flowers stand bright and colorful in the garden and several have already put forth new blooms. About an hour ago the sky decided to give even more, and now I can hear the rain smacking the porch and sliding down the gutters. Tassie and I dashed about it in for a few moments. I grinned at my garden as if I had given it a gift. But the gift is not from me; it is nature herself, this amazing, systematic, mysterious, ecological being, doing what she does. How lucky I am to live here, where she makes everything so green. How determined I am to better learn to her ways and to act within them, so that it becomes less a conscious decision and more a way of life. So that I will know, without even having to think about it, that I am made of dust. And quenched with rain.
Snow in April
April 16, 2012 § Leave a comment
After that somewhat strenuous drive home through a pouring thunderstorm, and a much cozier evening tucked under the covers, and a very nice sleep, I woke up to see white out the window.
What?
I did know, actually, that flurries were in the forecast, but I thought that meant petty little flurries. Rain that just briefly, for a second, turns into snow. Not enough to be completely white and flying sideways with the wind.
Only later, after a solid morning’s work, did I get out for a walk to snap some shots, so the melt had already begun. Even now there is little left. Though, tonight is still supposed to be cold.
Oh, funny spring.
Come walk through the woods with Tassie and me:
Friday the 13th
April 13, 2012 § 1 Comment
All day has been overcast, with a few steady soft hours of rain and now the insistent wind howling outside the house. I’m sitting in front of the wood stove with a tall mug of coffee and a bag of chocolate chips. And A Severe Mercy beside me, which is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read, and a comforting place to go at the end of a day.
Yesterday I worked most of the day outside, me and my red truck and my shovel. I have a plan for a small hill all run a-muck out here, and yesterday the paper-planning found its way into action. Beauty and health come through hard work sometimes, just as they seem to come effortlessly other times. Anyway, I will do my part here. The feeling you get, settling down onto the couch with a cup of coffee or a glass of water, after hours of physical work – there is nothing else like it.
This afternoon I did nuts-and-bolts tasks, a bit of organizing, and then I found myself at an art event in little Amery, WI. I’m so pleased to say there is a talented and vibrant group of artists coming together here, and I met some quite lovely people while browsing watercolor cranes, clay pots, and prints of draft horses. We had asparagus wrapped in fillo dough with a touch of oil and lemon, and of course the wine was circulating. A few jars of pickles and jam were for sale beside handcrafted cards. The feel in these places is active, and awake. It seems to me that so many creatives have an intentionality about seeing the world. Even, perhaps, if they don’t know it.
Friday night. I am happy to be here with my book, and my plans, and my determination to keep my eyes open.
Woodland, farmland, and our new home
April 4, 2012 § Leave a comment
The buds keep coming forth. The leaves brush around my feet. The dogs rush back and forth, sniffing branches, finding animal carcasses, carrying sticks around with personal pride. The sunlight flickers through the trees and falls into patterns on the ground like a kind of intangible lace.
We walk in the woods, now that we have left Colorado behind, left Iowa behind, and settled in Wisconsin to help in the building of a dream. The restoration of a place. Suddenly I have a job in the rural Upper Midwest, where I’ll be reaching out to community, planning events and workshops, and fostering the wonderful oneness of sustainable agriculture and habitat restoration. I find myself thinking, often, Is this a dream? Luck, perhaps? It is something, anyhow, that ought to be meandered through with consciousness and purpose. Yes, and gratitude.
Kinds of Honey 