windthread

Fear of what we don't understand

The Grubs.   Hidden.  Working.  Living.

I have continued to search for information.  I've asked everyone i can and been reading reading reading on the internet.  I have found a surprising amount of wrong information and half information.   A good lesson in itself.   I asked a person who presents himself as very knowledgable about Everything,  including organic gardening in this area.  I asked the guy who officiates at the dump who lives in the house he was born in,  60 some years.  Asked if he had any of these at his house and yes,  he does.  Asked what he thinks of them,  of the fact that i have so MANY.  He shrugged his shoulders and said he has seen many things this summer that he's never seen before.  I said "would you worry?" and he smiled and said " you can if you want to".

I want to know and understand them because of the very Literal magic they have performed with that  15 foot x 5ft x 16" deep pile of manure and feed waste.    Including the layer of the bales of  Oat hay that the Goats refused to eat that just laid there almost unchanged for going on 2 years.  It is now gone.  Disappeared.  Poof.  In a maybe a month or so.  Poof.

I have been trying for some time now to learn how the application of Permaculture philosophy can work here in a place of desert sand and drought.  The most basic tenet being Living Soil.  Microbial beings, earth worms and etc.  In this case, the Etc. is maybe for one year only,  GRUBS.  Maybe i am seeing the fruits of Leaving Things Alone.    And seeing also the fruits of Waiting....waiting through that knee jerk reaction of perceiving them as a THREAT.  Because of their sheer number, their ugliness,  their hiddenness.  I want to look at the importance of trying to know the truth of them,  of them being here,  what it means to the Whole of this Diorama.  Unless the conditions of this summer were to occur again,  this might be the only time in my life that i will be able to witness this.  There has Never, in my 19 years here been near this much rain and over a prolonged period.  

I read through so Many agricultural papers, blogs, and well all manner of postings but the one that is the most concise and clear is Mother Nature's Backyard...mother-natures-backyard.blogspot.com.  

"Fig eater beetle, cotinus mutabilis, Green fruit beetle,  Fig beetle and June bug.  Habitat primarily the South West US and Mexico...are often mistaken for green June beetles, cotinis nitida and occasionally Japanese Beetles, popillia japonica which occur in the Eastern US.   The beetles feed on already injured fruit.    The larvae occasionally consume plant roots but their primary food is decayed plant matter.  They provide a vital service by hastening the decomposition of organic matter, aerating soil and compost.   Aug. 24, 2013 post.

So,  i am going to be grateful for being given the opportunity to Witness this and in the coming week actually feed them by adding the rest of the manure and bedding straw from the Albatros.  I'll go back over the information and find out when they pupate and at that point I'll quit adding.  Will move that BEAUTY FULL soil to the raised garden beds and begin again in that long pre-compost strip.  

I feel very very Happy.            

And i saw something this morning as i got to my Tuesday job.   The house next door...where the mare and her foul were stung to death by the bees a while ago?,  well,  though the rest of the horses had been there all along,  the house had been empty.   Through the local grapevine i know that the man who had owned and worked the horses had recently died and his wife intended to move over to that house at some point.   As i drove by slowing down i saw much MOVEMENT and saw two Great Pyrenees moving about,  and a large livestock trailer with two Australian Shepards tied to it, barking, excited.  A woman moving about.  And then,  as i watched,  having parked and walked over to the road fence,  i saw her untie the  dogs and open the trailer from which spilled a herd of maybe 30 recently sheared sheep,  two adult llamas and a baby.  The woman moved slowly and surely,  the dogs excited as they separated the llamas into one paddock,  the sheep into another.  Gates clanged shut and she went to another trailer and hauled bales of feed to each of these.  I called out....Hello! and she looked up,  i said what i was doing there and asked if the sheep would be staying and commented on the dogs.  Yes.  sheep were staying.  I said that i have Goats.  She asked where i live.  All the while continuing moving,  looking,  signaling the dogs.  I've heard through that grapevine that she's not too friendly but even if so,  this was enough.  I watched a woman maybe around my age,  working.  Steadily.  Surely.  Doing what needed to be done.  and I imagine,  Just Going.   This fed me.  A lot.

 

     

 

 

 

 

a monday, work away day, ONE of TWO, if i can......

the second week without Alz. B and i worked through the obituary that family had put together.

Sent my version.

and so, ok.  That.  I found with extensive looking,  Maria Fremlin, Colchester, Esses England about the grubs.    And am still totally involved in the grubs.  In Who they are,  WHY they are and how do i feel, FEEL about who and why they are.  This is BIG.  Because the truth is,  i can Kill them.  I can kill a lot of them.  Not All of them, but a lot of them.  Kill them.  

Why?

and granddaughter.  Alyssia Ortiz Fortune,  .....her.   We are looking at Mooji.

 

go look.  Utube.  Lots there....and i don't need to say anything here,  but she and i are looking.  Talking.  Looking.

 

 

 

 

 

SUNday

what an interesting day.   Company day.  I think this might be like what Sunday's used to be????

Alz B's son Bill came.  He brought their youngest dog,  a small dog,  Nanno.  They had gone to the dump and i am on the way home.  He called when they were a minute away,  saying that and could they stop by.   I watched self.  Ordinarily,  i would FEEL   ......   NO!   but because of the sense gained from the EXPANSION of time,  i thought...

ok.

sure.

He brought Alz.B's obituary, first.   One he had written and then a revised version from his sister.  Wanted input.  Edit.  ok.   But he also came because he really wants to be OK with Tay.  Wants her to know him.   He is a dog person.  

At first we kept his small dog, Nanno,  on her leash but while we were studying the grubs in the compost,  we set caution to the wind and undid her.  Tay SAILED...flying over bushes and wheelbarrow with the thrill of company and little Nanno went about...she's familiar with this place long before Tay came here.  And to make that long story short...All was Well.  Dogs buzzing about,  people conversing about a dead member.    It was good.  Just good.  I have the obituary and i will revise it and return it to him.  An Obituary.  An Obituary.   hmmmmm.

Then,  Cindy,  the Good Nurse from the Old Folks home came by on her way home.  and Tay had even MORE practice at Company.  This company brought her milk bones and she accepted and ran but ended up lying quietly,  just watching,  letting go of her stranger energy.   Good Again.  Very Good Again.

 

i need to stay with this awhile.  You see here,  a peanut in a shell on the right for comparison.  To recreate in your mind the SIZE of these grubs.  Contracted, they are as seen here.  But Extended as they become when they want to dig themselves BACK into the soil,  they are longer.  And i want to spend time with these grubs.  Spend time with how i am well, truthfully, repulsed by them.  WHY?  WHY? do i almost instinctively recoil?  They are only a lifeform.  WHY?, do i recoil?   

and i look at the SOIL here,  that once was chunks of things and now no longer

 

this BLACK SOIL,  transformed.  Because of them,  that i am repulsed by.

a kiss on the forehead by the God Thing

toDay was OutSide.  Slowly slowly going.  Slowly slowly pulling Care Fully,  those grasses with the Hurtful seed heads,  stuffing them into a feed bag,  not wanting to leave it to chance to pile them to dry and then burn.  This year there's too many.   And as it Is,

 

 

 

i am moving along,  on my knees,  grasping those grasses at the point they rise from the earth,  grasping, pulling, grasping pulling,  sometimes with my whole hand sometimes with just two fingers and i am in that altered state that this kind of going can give.   But

suddenly....STOP!  and i do and i look.  Look .  Scan.  And there...  there she is.    I am not sure what i see.  This time of year she would ordinarily be browner.  She is like a newborn in color and her eyes...her eyes are a pale yellow.   But her Body is Large and Formed as a mature female is.

 

and can you see there,  at about 3 oclock an oval shape?  It is an egg case.  the bottom of which is a very cream white.   All the while i finished my own work,  she stayed close.  Moving around on the screen cloth of the frame for the winter greens bed.  Moving around,  but staying close.

I raked up the scrap feed from in front of the pallets in the Albatros and as i raked down to the bottom,  there were

Many

of those white grubs i talked about the other day.  Many.  Like, really.  Many.   And looking at them, there is a feeling of not wanting to see so many.   and later,  after i had piled the scrap feed
on the Looong Yard Bed as mulch for the winter,  i went over to that long long space of where i pile the debris from the "Bedroom" in the Albatros which is a combination of bedding straw, manure and urine.    it had stayed  pretty "high"  a pile and still had that Oat Hay from 2 years ago that didn't seem to ever want to decompose.  (no wonder the Goats didn't want to eat it)  and  i'd not really looked at it in a few months....the pitch fork still stood in it...but i dug in and turned.  And

lo and behold

there is rich,  like so so Rich Black Soil....soft,  sifting softly,  perfect and Grand and Excellent and

FINE.

and also...grubs.  Lots and Lots of grubs.  So.

it's true,  what i read on Google.  They are very Fine and Good workers.  Which for me is good because i don't have Fruit Trees which their mature selves,  those Metalic Green Fruit Beetles love...but then i remember the Native Plum that i planted this spring.

it's Complex.

Never before had i had the "Flying Olives" here.  I'd seen them other places but never here.  So   this is New and because this place has provided the excellent circumstance for their Going.  

I'll take pics of them tomorrow.  Today i just couldn't.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

is size proportionate to physical body or is it Energetic?

before light.  My tools were ready.  Not the fork, it was just already there,  but the glass and the postcard.  There is a very FAST and Elusive Black and Red Jumping Spider.  Almost had him  twice.  But not.  And i think how small he is,  how large i am.  But i need to catch him and put him Out Side.  

 

i don't know if i want the Raven ...landing....or as he is here,  Flying....                                                       so, just looking.  

and i went back to that question on the drawing of two days ago:  Why does the Dog Matter?  What IS the Dog?

 

and again,  the issue of Size.   Dog is not this large,  in reality.  No dog is.  Yet,  it's the size i wanted to see.  The size i want to look at for a while.  The size a Dog is Energetically.  And to entertain the thought of which is really Real?  The physical beingness or the Energy?    Also,  Dog crosses over the Breath.  Why?  but then, Raven flys over the Breath.  

Am thinking about Planes of Being.  Easiest to limit it to three:  World of Spirit,  or the Unknowable but perceived,    the Middle,where there is Interaction with the third which is the physical body which lives this life.    

It is absolutely amazing to be able to follow a thread of thinking without effort one day into the next.  Just amazing.  

 

Was thinking to bring this pot In to use during the cold months for some Inside growing but i see these 5 seedlings that have taken root.  What ARE they?   Pot has been on the porch since late spring....thinking how the seeds were carried by Wind,  caught by the pot and settled.

 

 

 

more of Suddenly and then later, no suddenly, just going

things were going along when all of a sudden,  found self  looking for the "Breather's" cloth....and it went from there

 

this second a drawing on a print out.  

So we circle back to the Breather.  Having called out,  Breathe ME,  and it happened.   What then does someone DO with that Breath?  

Have you ever made yourself some kind of sacred circle?  Maybe in childhood,  you matted down tall grasses to create a Space?   All my life i've done this....beginning with that hidden space in tall field grass, then   squares and circles made of stones and sticks on camping trips.  Then where i lived and then now, the Raft, i'm thinking.  Just a small space,  marked off in the most rudimentary way.  And here,  it's made of four Breaths.   The next surprise was Her  body.  Going over to the scrap basket there it is.   I NEVER would have "thought" this in my mind,  but there is no question.  This Scrap...which by the way is a piece of cloth from Deb Lacativa.  

There were many faces today.  Many more before this one with is neither this nor that i think and will work.   Neither young nor old,  this culture or that...a face.  eyes  nostrils  mouth.  a human face.  The dog remains the same.   And it is Raven, tho,  not crow as i had originally thought.  Ok.  Raven then.  

 

and in the Spaciousness of the 5 Days,  maybe even some Aesthetics...like dusting off of Cobwebs?  Maybe.

Dog and i worked outside,  pulling and bagging  the Bad Grass that can get lodged in an animal's nostrils.  It was itchy work....mosquitoes from the Rain....but we persevered.    And the Glorious thing is that there are THREE MORE DAYS

                                                                             ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

later,  rain in just sprinkles,  then fat drops.  Waiting for the last Feed of today.  They are quiet because the last two Grass Hay bales have been boring.   This difference,  when it's just dry and falling apart to when it's dense and full of all manner of stuff.  People keep saying that...Goats will eat Anything.  Tin Cans.  Plastic.  I always just bristle.  I suppose they will TRY because they are hungry and expected not to be FED.  

 

 

 

 

 

i bring,  what i think is enough,  by the quality of the feed, by wheelbarrow to the fence.  I then hoist it over into the first feed tub,  then go through the house and Out and seperate it into 4 other bowltubs.   I LOVE,  just LOVE the sound of them eating...their beauty Full teeth ripping and grinding the feed.  It's such a fine and Grand sound.  When the feed is kind of ify,  as in the last two bales,  they are distant from it at first.  Eventually,  they do go to it and eat.  but it's not the same.  Tonight, i opened a good bale and it was Magnificant,  the happiness.

 

and then, from this Evening's Rain,  a Rainbow

 

it is Beauty Full and very Fine.

 

 

 

How it's all variations on The Theme

This morning

 

 

 

 

and no.  Too big.  Too big for this morning's thought,  but then as i put the pics here,  maybe not too big for some Other Thought that i haven't even Thought yet...??????

but all good in that it worked to help identify the Image that was in my mind....i know more now.

DOG plants potatoes.   old ones i dumped into compost.  A 5lb bag gone mushy.  She removed them from compost one by one and dug and planted.  Covering neatly with her nose.

 

 

the eve of the beginning of ~5~

and just to say first,  i am looking forward to getting over to all the comments of the last few days.  I'd been doing that last eve when the Lightning came...so....looking forward.

 

 

Tay is on Yet Another Mission.  All over,  everywhere,  she's digging these small holes.  At first i didn't understand,  but it has become clear because i watched her this morning before i went to work.  She goes about sniffing sniffing sniffing and suddenly STOPS,  nose pressed to the earth and the begins to dig.  Only takes a minute and there we are.  A big fat unattractive (to me) grub.  Same ones i have found in the Compost.  Same ones in that one raised bed along the outside fence.   I have tried to ignore them.  They are BIG and well, grubs.  And now i watch as she unearths them.  There are a LOT.   She unearths them, snifs them and then walks away.  

So,  i decided to Stand and Face and i googled Big White Grubs:

yup.   Green Fruit Beetle  cotinis mintabilis   Yup.  larvae.  This summer there were MANY,  motoring around through the air in slo motion.  The kids and i used to call them flying olives.  They are like blimps.  They fly slow and low and are clumsey,  they bang into the house,  fall to the earth with impact, reorganize and take off again.  Why there were so many here this summer,  since i have no producing fruit trees which the adult beetle feeds on????  Because i have

COMPOST.  this is what their "babies",  those homely big white grubs NEED.  One of the sites i looked at put it this way:  feed on decomposing organic material along with your worms and other members of your    Microherd.   

they do no damage.  They do not eat roots of plants.  The down side of them is that they turn into those Flying Olives who feed on fruit.   but for me,  they are actually beneficial because they do Enormous work to convert the plant material and manure into EARTH.

But there's more.  While searching,  i saw this.  These very same grubs are sold,  ten to a package for live feed for pet chameleons and lizards.  one site, 3.99 pounds...british...for a 10 pack.  So  actually,  if i could get into it (which i can't but it's a fun thought),  Tay and i could go into business.  Like with Truffles,  yes?  A grub sniffing dog.

 

 

and inbetween,  she enjoyed her corn cob to the fullest.  I CANNOT imagine the scenario in her mind as she prances around with it held high like the greatest Prize of All.

And tomorrow begins the First of the Stretch,  the Expanse of FIVE DAYS.  I got Everything i could think of in town i need to day when i went to work for the Old Cowboy.  There should be NO reason to go back into town until Monday.  Am watching self.  

 

 

 

Equinox

Thunder Man speaks.   AGAIN.   Equinox and thunder.  how interesting.   With the continuing RAIN this year,  things are continuing to Grow at the same time as Seeding at the same time as Ripening at the same time as Rotting.

I went out and pushed the weeds aside and sat on the Raft.  Closed my eyes and listened to Thunder.  I sat with maybe Zillions of grasshoppers, all sizes,  seemingly mindlessly hopping nowhere and everywhere,  just hopping that Snap! hopping...in my face,  on my hair,  and Thunder rumbled, the temperature shifted,  Wind came up.  All this.  All this in one small Flash of Time.  

I feel that i am at some POINT of being able to understand things in a different way....if i can find the way to that.  And since it's all so Vague,  who knows.  But i feel like it's 

Available

Last Night...Sun stayed so STRONG to the last when being swallowed by the Rim.

 

Still Life:   Hibachi and bindweed

 

i want to Can them.  But it's humid.  hot.  and the propane is low.  So...maybe freeze instead.  I prefer canning for the aesthetics.  jars beat freezer bags.

and Joan.

Joan @coppercreekers....gave  such a gift....the rendition of Over The Rainbow,  Isreal Kanakawiwo'ole  on her blog.  JOAN...THANK YOU.  bIG.  it was one of the songs that Elizabeth Louise McIntosh knew till the end and this particular version has been so loved by me....it Pulls me Apart....leaving all manner of spaces in me...THANK YOU,  tODAY was the perfect day to listen again.  Could not have been more perfect.  Perfect.

I understood again today how the body,   the physical entity that we are housed in,  the biological entity,....holds some kind of imprint of Necessity.   The example here,  being on Alert,  ready for 911 call from the Old Folks Home,  and really,  from the medical alert even in the years before.  How my Body,  Nervous System,  had kept Ready.  How i checked the number of bars on the cell phone daily to be sure to receive.  How i was on alert in case i was needed.  

That's Over today.  But i realized that there is a residual cellular energy still present and that it will take a while to lessen.   Similar to when it was finally over with the Maniac i was married to....that took years, really.  This,  less.  Because i recognize it.

 

Later, same day

And it might feel like that for a while, i'm thinking.  Just later of the Same Day.  This Day might last a while.  Like be elastic,  stretching on.  For a While.    There is so much.  First, the Death.  Death.  Here one minute, gone the next.   Just that sudden.  Like Jude says,  Poof.   I actually said that to her when i first got there last night,  she and i in their "Chapel"  just one of the rooms they set aside for such moments,  and i sat in there next to her,  stroking her hair as i did a lot,  and i said that.  Hey, Betty,

Poof.

I had been there, earlier in the day because i had been forgetting to bring her new pants and socks and i had remembered and thought,  OK,  no time like the Present,  and drove into town to Walmart,  the only place we have here for such things,  and got her 5 new of those pajama kind of bottoms the kids wear which are the best for her and then took a long time picking out socks.  Took an index card with her name on it and my stapler with me and left the bags in the Nursing Station to give to the woman who puts name labels on clothing...the iron on kind....on Monday, which is tomorrow.  I hung around with her for a while.  She was mumbling as usual,  a kind of constant string of pretty much syllables,  not many words, really,  but i gave her a glass of cranberry juice and cheered her on to " Just Chug it!"  until there was that gurgling sound at the bottom of the straw and she did.  She got to the gurgling sound.   She was her  new usual self.  How she's been for months now.  Nothing remarkable.

They,  the night staff,  had done her regularly scheduled catheter change some where in the night,  nothing remarkable there either.  She was feisty and pinched Travis,  the much loved CNA,  certified  nursing assistant,  as she often does.  He's a big guy so there's a lot of surface to pinch.  Her pinches leave marks.  sometimes draw blood.  Anyway...nothing unusual.  and then,  the next time Travis did rounds,  within the hour,  she was gone.  She shared a room with 3 other women, one being Virginia who i've mentioned before who i love,  who would have known if there'd been any kind of struggle and have called the nursing staff.   So i think she just died in her sleep.  Or died in some quiet state.  She just died.   This is a mystery.  How suddenly,  it's the moment.  And you let go.  How prior to that moment,  you are as fully Engaged with Life as you can be.  But then,

you are not.

So her son got there,  who i have acknowledged to him that i think of him as a brother sort of person,   and we waited till the funeral home person came and placed her on the guerny and followed them to the Funeral home.  Some paperwork.  Then her son and i decided to just walk.

it was so peacefull.  Nothing going on at all in Socorro New Mexico at 3 something A.M.  not a single vehicle.  And we walked all our "trails"  that we had walked with her over the years before she ended up in the Old Folks Joint.  We told stories.  We went to her house which is a couple blocks away from the Funeral Home.  and stood outside.  because it's rented now.  and we talked about her Rose Bushes.  We talked about stuff about her that was good and stuff about her that was not so great, but so totally her.  And it was almost dawn when we were done.

Up until just recently,  Alz. B.  was 3 times a week.  She started with every other week,  cleaning her house and doing gardening for and with her 12 years ago.  Then became more and more.  Till 3 times a week at the Old Folks Home and then because of my request,  twice a week.  

Betty and i had a little of a contentious friendship from the beginning.  Lots of "debate".  Betty was, in my opinion, a snob.  I didn't mind saying that to her.  And one of the examples of that was her constant harping at me for being a "cleaning lady",  when my intelligence and education were "beyond" that.  I would point out to her that i made the most money for the least amount of time being a cleaning lady.  And that was my reasoning.  I wanted as much Freedom as i could glean.  I could have worked 8 hours a day at Community Mental Health or cleaned her house and hang out with her,  which her son paid for,  for 2 hours and end up with the same amount of cash.  But she would say "where's your Pride?'   So things like that.  We would argue a point and then later in the day she would call on phone to see if i was mad at her.  No.  never mad at her.  Just standing my ground.

But that whole chapter of my life is over now.  12 years.  So many days a week but constant Awareness and Thought.

And according to the Understanding i accept as Real,  she is working her way through the Bardo.

So, I remain with her for that.

 

and i fooled with these so random scraps on this piece of cloth off and on all day.  Stitched those very few stitches,  really nothing much at all but they felt so good,  the needle going in and out

 

 

and this is what this all will mean to me in the not too distant future...Time.  This will be the LEAST amount of TIME i have ever worked.   I will have FIVE DAYS of being able to stay here.  Stay HOME.  FIVE DAYS.    I am going to be 69 years old this year.  It's about TIME.  Don't we

think?

and as to the silent/not   This is the place where i am the most of who/what i am.  This blog.  There are people in my everyday world,  children who are in my Life but from a distance.  This is the place i am most Myself.  Me.  grace.  and ALL the comments here,  are from my family of sisters.  That is REAL.  and i wouldn't trade that for anything.  for Anything.  I KNOW you,  those of whom i have met through this cloth stuff.  I know you like family.  Like sisters.  and in many ways, Better than sisters.  I do not filter here.  This is it. Boring or not.  It's what IS.

and i am very very grateful to it all.  It's kind of Amazing, really,....Yes?  Yes.  Yes it is.

Love,