windthread

214 on a mission

figs.  Need to find some figs.

it's the time of day and i couldn't get a better pic, but you can get the Drift.   Wine and Honey Poached Figs with Fresh Cheese and Herbs.  What kind of cheese?, well, creamy fresh goat cheese the recipe says.  Check.  just need to find the figs.

and this evening i'll make something i might ordinarily make for later in the months, but i want it now.

Roasted root vegetables with Goat Cheese Dressing.   Potatoes, Sweet potatoes, turnips, rutabega, carrots.

the dressing:  Goat Cheese, serrano chili, olive oil, lime juice, green onions, garlic, cracked black pepper, pureed and chilled.  Like going to heaven.

and it was a work away day but i wanted to see this at least a little...how the storm goes over into the moon.   

and i was asked to do the math today about how many bales of grass hay i will want to "reserve" as mine.  this last harvest into May when the new first cut will be ready.  so i figured it out, maybe, to be 150 bales.  i really don't like looking at numbers.  it's too harsh.  that's $1,350.  eeeeee.  well,  and really,  on the flip side of the math,  how amazing i can DO it!?!  who would have Guessed.

 

 

213 Normal

i may have done very Normal things today.  things many who look here do,  in the regular course of their days.   i visited.  shared a meal.  shared life, laughter, things.  i shared a day within the context of a Community that gathered and walked and milled around and were very Human.  for many, this would not be anything significant to note.  would be...well, just normal.  

but for me, it stands out in Neon.  my days are very solitary.  they take place withing 10 miles tops of one another.  small days.  same days.  days that say 3 oclock at the latest is when Beings should eat.

 

after a few moments, the initial commotion settles.  there are 3 feed tubs.  it evens out.

 

someone, and it differs day to day, is always inclined to avoid the meley and eat what has fallen out when i first dump it over the fence.  Why?   I don't know.

what if i didn't come back?  what if i stayed Gone?, way past 3 oclock when all their stomachs had processed the food from the morning?   would they....be uncomfortable?  or die?, even?  No.  it just wouldn't be what they are used to.  they are used to Calling me.  they Call me and i come.  bring food.  What if they were somewhere where they could BROUSE all day?  little stuff.  weeds, sticks...just little stuff.  What would happen then?  Would they be so dependent on 3 oclock?

but.  because i know about their 3 oclockness,  i left a more "normal" kind of experience and drove home.  part for them, but also part for anyone who lives anywhere nearby.  once they begin Calling, they are Loud.  Call.  Call.  Call.  i think of my neighbors.  but, really, think of my neighbors in a self oriented way too, that they don't have ill feeling about these Goats here.  Do I need to think this????  I don't know.  but i came home.  i came away from a Beautifully Normal day to be here by 3 oclock.

thinking about this.

 

 

 

212

while the cheese finished draining,  i went to visit Alz. B.    today she was counting.  lots of numbers in the monologue.

 

from a gallon of milk.  next time i am NOT going to pasturize it.  see what the difference is in taste.

and then i loaded some Goat pellet feed bags with compost.  i didn't take a pic of that.  should have. and my NEW shovel,  the old one still being lost.    and i loaded them into the car for the trip to Marti's house tomorrow.  a virgin voyage.   the compost is a gift for her husband.    i have known Marti for years now,  beginning Online.  tomorrow i will go to her                                                                       home.                                                                                                                                                                                               i will see, face to face, all the things that i have seen in emails over the years.  her table.  her altar.  and now, her cloth work.   her husband will show me all their garden things....not in pics in email, but in person...me and their plant people, face to face.   and then, i know they will feed me.  we will sit at her table and "break bread".  i am a little uhhhh,  well, amazed by this.

 

i'll take them some of my tomatillos.

 

and i'll take her some of the Locust pods,  Doris's snake tree pods, that gave this color in a copper pot.

 

and THEN.   this, from the computer screen, from facebook.  Look who's Here!

 

they chickened out.  no Alluvial Fan for a middle name.  but i will make her a cloth.  i will make her a cloth with an alluvial fan,  with her on it.  them too.  it can tell her the story that the thing of the planet that her parents love most, alluvial fans,  they would have given her for a name, but they worried it might be too much so they didn't.  but in our Hearts, we will always know it is hers.

and Saskia....look.  this is what i mean.  by things i see in my life as i live it.  this time even stronger.  when Julian was born it was Strong.  and now with her, stronger yet.  if you look at the face.  this is not something from nothing going into nothing in the end.  this is Something.  singular.  purposeful.  

 

 

we used to have a furnace vents  on the floor in that house.  the kids, well, and me too, would stand over it on cold mornings and let the heat billow up and warm us.  when he was maybe 3, 3 and a half,  one morning, as the heat rose and fluttered his willy,  he went on and on that morning while i was doing things in the kitchen.   he went on and on about HIS baby.  about the baby he would have.  and i was listening with one ear until i realized he was talking about when he Gave Birth.  i went from the kitchen to the dining room where he was and said "Jonathan....you can't give birth to a baby.  you can't have a baby born from your body"   and i remember like it is NOW, the look on his face, he was stricken.  

and we had the talk.  i told him that he would need to find a wife.  and give her the seed.  and she could "born" a baby.    how his dad had given me the seed for him and this way he came.  he was bereft.  for days.  and then there was the Mr. Rogers show where he sang the song, Everybody's Fancy.   

Everybody's fancy, Everybody's fine, your body's fancy and so

is 

mine.

and so we sang that until his grief let up.  a long time.

and now....here he is.  and he has his baby.  Heather gave it to him.  They will have a Life.  the 3 of them.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

211

the cheese making and all the preparation of jars strainer pots etc. that it entails,  took much longer than i'd anticipated.  AND i didn't really read the directions,  not the parts where it details how long things sit.  so, it's in the sitting/setting 12 to 20 hours state.  12 hours will be up at 1 a.m.  i could have timed it better.  next time.  

and i could have worked on things outside, but really, i wanted to stitch.  so i did.  and the small scrap that is the Storm appeared.  it's good.

 

 

 

 

210, i like that. twohundredandtendays

as it turns out,  i seem to have a ....cold.   i so rarely get Sick that it never occurs to me that when things are just Not Right,  it might be ....physical.????.  but...i seem to have a cold.  not much, really, just that Junky feeling?

so i am listening to crickets.  their Summer is Gone song...a looooong sustained single noted Trill.

with no breath.   constant.  non~stop.

and, this is for tomorrow.  all charged up for re doing the shelter in the buck pen that they carelessly whacked off, boards.   if it goes how i think it might,  this will happen early in the morning.  right after the milking.  

then,  i will make

Cheese.

this evening i talked to Heather, my son's chosen woman,  him her chosen man,  and baby Giana who we don't even know  yet is 2 days...late.   2 days late.  i smile.  she is IN there.  inside Heather.  experiencing things.  not yet Born.

how we continue to have some kind of Faith and continue to believe that we can bring a child into this world and how that Soul of a child continues to express Willingness to be born into this world

???????

209 it continues, the edgy energy...??????????????????? no need to respond. a Journal entry.

today, again, no phone and no internet.   the thing with the phone is a problem because of being the reasonable facsimile for Alz B.  her son is gone again.  there is the cell, but i don't always remember about it.  land line is reliable.  and NOT so much in these last days.  

so, it began like that.

and then, i went out to change the water for the bucks and there was Lily.  dead.  her brother Ramone died what, a month or so ago?  i was not expecting this.  the mother Tulip is so close to death that i often stand over her and see if she's breathing.  she is totally deaf and progressively demented.  so it was startling to see Lily, there in the weeds, all dead.

i dug her grave with this broken shovel because i couldn't find the good shovel ANYWHERE.  i must have made .....maybe 10 circumambulations around, looking.  looking.  it HAS to be here somewhere.  but i never found it.  so, this broken one that i keep by the big gate.   

AND NO NEED FOR CONDOLENCES.  it was good and ok, even if surprising.  i DID love Lily, of that family of chihuahua/terriers.  but she died by "her own paw" so to speak.  all of them, and maybe because of their mother, had the habit of eating things not fit to eat.  even when there was dog food in the bowl.  i'm amazed they lasted as long as they did....13 years????? give or take.

so...Lily.

and while looking for the good shovel,  i saw  September everywhere.

 

the eggplant.  tomatoes are similar and i couldn't bear to photograph them

a certain kind of mess.  a September mess.  and i'm thinking,  maybe i will just spend the last days of this month dealing with it.  Just This.  ????  maybe i'll take a pic of the before and the after. 

it will be boring.  but it will Witness it.   This Season.   This hard season for me.

 

208

it's about 15 minutes just shy of putting the little ones away for the night.  so...not long here.  but the mood has dissipated.  partly because of her

 

Chinche, bedbug in spanish, who has a very low tolerance level for twisted energy.  no  matter the reason.  her way of dealing with it is this....which is asking that i scratch her stomach.  which is, in itself, annoying.   but she just lays there.  until i am compelled to do it.  and  in requiring that of me, and in me, responding to her,  something gets diffused and taken care of.  

it was another work away day.  i was there for feeding B. lunch which didn't go too well, but...and at her table was Al.  who held one single mouthfull of Ensure with his liquid tylenol in his mouth for the entire hour.  Sonja, his CNA who was supposed to be feeding him tried everything.  i suggested she stroke his throat.  it works with baby wild animals and frogs.  she did.  nope.  Al was having a Mood.  and i watched this and thought, well that's about exactly how Moods are.  Dumb.

after that, i went to the hardware and looked at all the possibilities and came home with a couple different snaps

 

i don't know if they'll work any better, but i am really TIRED of the baling wire thing.  Really tired of it.  we'll see.   the orange stuff is the string from the bales of grass hay i am using.  woven like this, it keeps the babies from hanging themselves in the cattle panel.

 

Lucky Star and Caroline helped by shoveing and whirling and pushing.

 

 

on the way back in to write this,  i noticed the Elderberry pot.  is this an India Flint pot?....no....don't think so.  it's not that kind of Place.   so, you see, the Mood is gone, but the bitchyness remains it seems.  well...good enough.

and ok.  off  to do the Just Dark Things.  am even a little late.

ADDENDUM:  wHAT has been taking maybe almost a half hour,  took maybe 13  minutes tonight.  so...progress.  yes.

 

 

 

 

 

207

i have been in a MOOD all day.  

even before it did,  i Knew it was coming.   this is Way before light.....

 

fumbling around in the dark this morning, i knocked the dictionary off the top of the Books of Knowledge that sit on the shelf.   as i was picking up all the stuff that fell on the floor,  i picked up this...my favorite bumper sticker which i had been looking for for a long time.   the silver lining.

 

and i referred to her.  several times.  assuming the Look.  it helped.  at least i was able to watch Self as i indulged in my mood.  was able to get some objectivity.  was able to see that for whatever reason,  i was uhhh,  engaging willingly with the Mood.

i rarely have them anymore.  so...i guess it's interesting.   some say, Never let the sun set on your anger or something like that.  here it would be Never let the sun set on your Mood.  but i seem to be.  There have been moments of reprieve from it, like when i was catching the babies for the night.  it was gone then.  

but coming back in to the house,  i noticed it is still here.  so i got the camera to take a pic of "looking at one's house in the dark in September  while having a Mood."

ok.  that's it.

 

 

205 and 206

yesterday, the electricity went out.  somewhere an electric pole had caught fire.  so that was most of the afternoon.  then maybe early evening,  it was fixed and electric back ON,  but, alas, there was no internet.  i called the Electric company but they thought it was in the internet server which is my phone company.  so, called the Tech Support number and spent a lot of time with "Frank" in the Phillipines trying to figure it out.  he was Great.  Kind and funny and when i asked him how the weather was there, he said they were at the moment under a Type 4 Typhoon Warning.   i apologized for being whiney.  he laughed and continued.  we came to no conclusions and he set  me up with the phone company service call on Tuesday.  but then, just a while ago,  it fixed itself. ????  Maybe when repairing the electric pole the cut through the internet fibers that are underground?  Anyway.  so, day 205 fell into oblivion.  

 

she does have a thread song...in the color of the River,  with small thread "words",  images.

This for now because another storm is almost overhead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

204 a Day of many things

I DID IT last night.  moved the 3 babies into the separated pen in the Albatros.  there was some immediate commotion of mothers wondering and babies Wondering Hard,  but amazingly, the night was quiet.    This morning, as Sun rose,  they began not knowing what to do.   6:45 i went out, close to totally prepared, and milked.  Neither Caroline or Lucky Star have been milked before.  so they had No Idea.  Caroline was first, because she likes being First.   and she was the most difficult...had no clue again, Why i might be fiddling with her teats and kept trying to kick me away from them.  and Since the new milking stand that i had bought from the guy who makes them in December is wide and long, it occurred to me to get up On it...straddle her...facing backwards...and milk from this vantage point.  for some reason, she liked the feel of my legs against her, my thighs, and calmed some.   So, i repeated the same with Lucky Star who was less startled to be milked but again, liked the contact.   and i remember daughter Jenny saying how everything takes 3 days with Goats.  once you do it, whatever it is,  3 days,  then it's a done deal.  so for the moment, i'll continue my odd milking maneuver.  after the 3rd day,  they should just be done with any Wonder and Worry and we can become a little more leisurely. 

and then, in the Google News,  i found an article on Alzheimer's.  probably many of us saw it and i went back on the Blog of  David Hilfiker, a physician who has early Alzheimer's,  the name of the blog

Watching the Lights Go Out     if you google that, it's right there...........

he began blogging his "loss" in 2012.  i went back to the beginning and read.  it is Extraordinary.  and whether or not we have anyone in our lives now with dementia,  chances are we will and chances are GOOD that it will be US.    Reading back from the beginning, what has constantly stood out to me is variations on the theme of this:

9~21~2012   "it is not   I   that will gradually deteriorate,  but only my current experience of myself.  And as i worsen, my demented sense of self will not be   "I" either.  It will be only my   current (current   in italics )   experience of myself. "

9~29~2012  "The present moment in this disease isn't actually difficult..."

and as the blog goes along, these thoughts above are stated and restated in various ways.  and really,  isn't it just the way it IS.  that it is the Future that causes angst...that almost always, the Present moment is ,  well,  just the Present moment.

and lots of invisible baste...just to hold things in place while i LOOK.  again, nothing yet is definite.

and i DO like this face.  and i like that i can give her grey hair.   i have hair like my dad's.  my mother called it dish water blonde.  it has grey in it, but for the most part is just a kind of light brown.  but i am at the time of my life when grey means something.  so, this face,  that is in the direction i have been wanting to go,  this face can have grey hair.  i like this a lot.