windthread

sharing this earth

 

 

 

 

so far:

there are 4 kinds of lizards,  this one the largest, maybe 8 or 9" long.  Another with copper eyelids.   A skink.  Each day, more and more butterflies,  caterpillars, one looking like a Chinese festival dragon.  Moths.  Bees, 3 kind,  wasps, earthworms, horsehair worms,  child of the earth, spiders,  squirrels, wild turkeys.  All  manner of birds, songbirds, finches,  woodpeckers.  a Crow passes above.   tree frogs.   More things, still unseen but leaving evidence of their presence.  And,  a snake.  Alyssia and i were choosing the spot for the second Hummingbird vine.   and then,  looking just to the right,  coiled neatly at the base of the fence post,   snake.  We were silent and looked.  Snake was still,  looking back.  We wanted to be seeing a Gopher snake.   We leaned in,  close,  holding the camera as close as we could but the shape of the head was obscured by blades of grass and the coiled position.   Got a stick,  but too short.  With the tip of the shovel, gently touched.   No response.  Alyssia then nudged it.  No response.  But we had the pictures that clearly showed the design of the face...those white stripes at the eye.  Not much conversation and we moved a ways down the line and planted the second vine.   Time for the kids to come home from school and all of the evening activity of Goats and Chickens,  dinner.  Early evening i noticed that Tay was limping slightly.  Left front foot,  i felt it for maybe a thorn,  Alyssia felt it also...nothing.    That was Thursday.  Friday it was swollen,  foot, ankle...some but not a lot.  Not painful to touch.   Maybe a sprain.  Wait and see.  Saturday morning was swollen like a club....a substance oozing from a spot she had licked.   She would not bear weight on it.  The only Oroville vet open with Saturday hours was booked and advised to go to the Emergency Clinic in Chico.   Tay and I set out.

Vet walked in the exam room and stood looking.  Asked if there were rattlesnakes around.  She did the usual vitals check, heart and lungs good,  a fever.  Palpated the pads, all the bones.  normal.  Shaved the area that Tay had licked and there, the two puncture marks.   Because too much time had passed, the antivenom would not work.  She is on 10 days of a HEAVY  Cephalex dose,  Gabapentin for nerve inflammation and pain and an anticonvulsant.  Rovera a general antiinflammatory.  I am to watch for any side effects,  which can be severe.  I am to watch for any discoloration in the shaved skin and between the pads.   It's hard to predict how it will go.  She's healthy and strong.

So.   We are all ummm,  subdued.  Thinking our own thoughts.  

as i was leaving the exam room,  the vet,  a  young woman,  offered that her parents live in Red Bluff and as always,  there are many  rattlesnakes on their farm.   Said there are grandchildren and dogs, cats, livestock.  I said...what do they DO?   She said, remain vigilant.  always vigilant.  Teach the children.

 

 

 

 

initiation

a few days ago,  before i brought the baskets here,  i'd taken off two scraps.  they didn't belong.   they were what was at hand, but had nothing to do with this story.  the  Cloth then, was very plain.   

immediately,  without even looking, the two purple/blue scraps surfaced from two separate baskets and as i set them down, the juxtaposition of the forms  and placement  at first was seen as awkward.... but Felt right and continued to feel right as i watched it from some distance,  pinned to the wall.  

they are of the same "place".  But the horizontal piece somehow is a passage of some sort....that needs to be gone through, in order to "get there".    Some kind of Initiation.

 

 

 

 

Enough.....then addendum, 4/25

Enough waiting.   I realized i was waiting,  and waiting negated Now.  All the days of Now.    So i went to that storage unit and brought back some of the baskets.  Hard to tell,   well, impossible to tell,  exactly What was in those baskets that were covered in black plastic garbage bags.  But some.  At least some.    Unloaded them at the bottom of the Road Up.  Reloaded them into Alyssia's vehicle and

here.  They are here.    On the bed in what is the bedroom here,  which i don't use because it feels so claustrophobic.  The baskets rest there.  Are quiet there.  Already,  in their first moments there,  two fragments rose.  OK.

ADDENDUM  4/25

that first pic.  Taken from INSIDE ,  looking down  at the gate,  at the parked car,  at the little road of Carefree Way.  Across, in the distance is the farm across.  You can see that it is cleared,  unlike this Hill.  They have horses,  burros, sometimes some cows grazing.  sheep.   They cleared all but the Live Oak.  Most people do that.   This Hill remains in it's natural state.

 

 

Earth Day ~ Elizabeth Ingraham...Mapping Nebraska

 

 

The term, body of work.  Go LOOK....www.mappingnebraska.com

an Extraordinary Body of Work.  The most amazing i've ever seen.    Her ground cloths, she says 

"respond to a particular location.....they document what is unseen, invisible, remembered or imagined"

I've written those words on the inside back of a seed packet and keep them in my pocket as i go through the days,  taking them out,  sitting down where ever i am and reading them.....several times a day.  sometimes in the middle of the nights.  They are a perfect combination and placement/order of words,  like crystals, strung on a thread  and show me again what i forget; that if we just wait in Openness,  things will come,  exactly what we need.

the pics above....another mother who lives Here....see how she carries her babies on her back?   First she carries her egg sac and once born,  the multitude of babies until they are mature enough to hunt for themselves.   Beings here do not run away.  Alyssia and i were resting at the Wall Garden,  Emrie in her carrier pouch.  Alyssia went off to get her phone/camera,  i lost track of where this Mother was,  but A found her, maybe an inch away,  took the photographs.  I love her eyes.

 

 

 

 

old mother inherits crocs from midling boy

for

since that post of April 1,  the MOON post,   Fixed,  i have thought.  Slowly.  Thought by thought.  slow.   going back,  then going forward.  I said i was fixed.  grounded.  HERE.  Finally Here.   What did i mean?   and there is an immediate and easy association to that meaning "home".  Am i  feeling  "home"?   

that word.  Home.  what exactly does it mean if you stay with it for a long slow time?   Home.  and no,  i don't think i have a feeling of home.   And if i go slowly back,  there is that Other Place.  If i go back in my mind's eye to that Other Place,  is it "home"?   Was it "home"?  if it was,  why?  

Am looking at that word,  and all it conjures,  which is huge,   wanting to really understand it.  And maybe "home" isn't something at all 

necessary

in the ordinary sense of the word?  

Maybe i would like to be fully Present,  in each moment,  in this Place.  Maybe i like feeling Fixed.  Grounded.  To this earth.   I would like to be fully Present,  with a curiosity and Openness to what it is that is evolving every day?   and not give it the name of home,  which somehow feels like i am reducing it to something Known,  something of the past?   What if i don't need to name it,  but just live it?

Related articles

so much.

Campsite A retaining wall that is becoming a Garden

 

this is  the retaining wall at Campsite A.  Alyssia's place.   Last year,  they hired Nathan to prepare this flat place that would receive her modular home.   Had a lot of conversation about it.  Exchange.  But every time Nathan was here on his own,  different things would happen.  They ended up calling him Uncle Nathan because he had his own imagination about this Place and couldn't help but create things....one of which was cutting too deep into the Hill,  requiring Jenny and Alyssia to build this retaining wall.  Which took forever and was extremely labor intensive for them.

But it's done.  And it's there.  and today,  it's a really Grand raised bed.  Between 50 and 60 feet long,  3 ft wide in the bed, but there is all that is behind the wall too.  Today we think of corn there.  

right now,  except for the two small spaces that the kids planted,  it's full to the brim with whatever seeds flew there and secured themselves.  Weeds.  Wildflowers....some of which Alyssia and  i are  positive are edible and nutritious food plants. Medicinal plants.

Like with everything else,  there is a Restlessness....an urge to Get On With It....time goes.  But there are the extenuating circumstances that arise.  Puppy's surgery,  the resultant incarceration in the travel trailer,  and RAIN...24/7.  Again.  Way beyond "normal".

and so it goes.  Watching.  Looking for ways to Understand.  Looking for ways to Be within it all.

sentient beings

Alyssia and Emrie and Julian arrived this morning at 7:30.  The appointment was for 8 oclock.    

Every morning since the beginning,  Puppy has been waiting for the sound  of Alyssia's car,  crunching up the gravel drive,  getting out,  going to the horse trailer and putting food in her bowl, tinkle tinkle.  Yesterday,  late in the afternoon,  early eve,  there was a youwling sound....we heard it and stared,  wide eyed,  the sound of a cat in heat.....calling.  And this morning,  when Alyssia's car crunched up the gravel drive,  an hour earlier than usual,  to accomodate the 8 am appointment,  

no Puppy.

We all walked the 6 acres,  calling.  Puppy!  Puppy!  we even tried kitty kitty,  just in case,  but no.  Nada.  No Puppy.  

Time ticked on and we made the call to the Spay and Neuter Clinic....couldn't find the cat.   They said ok,  another time  and we gave up calling,  imagining some things  quietly to our own selves...about her absence..like hawks maybe,  or an owl or just that it was true,  that sound had meant she was out....being a hussy....prowling.  Somewhere around 9:30,  there she was...like always but an hour late and they said bring her in.

The cat carrier that brought Tazmeena from New Mex to here is on the back bedroom bed.  Puppy inside.    They sent her home with medicine for 3 days,  and Elizbethan Collar.  Post OP instructions.  

She is still in there.  Still. Puppy,  the Fearless Arborial DogCat.  Still.  Eyes glassy,  ears out to the side, drooping.

The woman had said  "What is her name?"  Alyssia said   "Puppy Merced Hill"  and Julian said that she had a second middle name of Pinecone.   So,  Puppy Merced Pinecone Hill".   The woman was bland and said,  Puppy.   Puppy Ortiz.  Alyssia said, no,  Puppy Merced Hill.  Julian said  Pinecone.  Her papers and medicines come back as Puppy Ortiz.

It takes so little,  really,  to give Life to things.  Puppy was ready to meet her fate.  Totally ready and hot and yowling.  And we interceded.  We took her and took her innate ability to be her total Cat ness.  There were times when we talked about maybe letting her have one batch of kittens,  maybe that one of them might be like her,  an Arborial DogCat,  but us,  being who and what we are,  we took her to have all her female parts cut out of her body.

 

 

Fixed.

i wrote a LOOONG post about this pic.  It didn't take.  Disappeared,  nada,  gone.  Maybe i'll try again.  or Not.

But what is important to note,  that this MOON, last night and in the few nights before, .....Fixed something.  I am Here now.  Here.    I am grounded.  so,  OK.  Here we go.