Among many other things today, I’m grateful for community radio. In particular at the moment, KVNF in Paonia. This evening, Cookin with Jazz was dj’d by The Hurricane, who put together a thoughtful retrospective on Charlie Watts. I learned more than I ever knew about The Rolling Stones’ drummer, and heard some wonderful music. It reminded me of the time I spent as a nomad, driving around the country camping in my Subaru wagon with my first catahoula.
We were camped in northern California among redwoods, cozied up in the back of the car, listening to KMUD out of Garberville. They were playing a Joni Mitchell retrospective. Something about the soft, moist night air, insect symphony blending with Joni’s songs, snuggled into my sleeping bag, cuddling that good dog… I’ll never forget it, deeply touched by the magic of radio. I was grateful for community radio then, and I’m still grateful thirty-two years later, tucked into my little mud hut in the juniper forest, crickets outside, Charlie Watts conversing softly over the airwaves, lying on a yoga mat on the floor beside my old best dog ever. Something very similar about these two far apart evenings, emotionally linked through the power of community public radio.
One of the butternut squash vines grew through the fence and twined in with a tomatillo, each supporting the other.
The first tomato seedling to be planted this spring is producing the most amazing fruit. I finally plucked this Brandywine this evening because its splits were getting too big; it weighed in at one pound 2.5 ounces. I’m grateful for this hefty tomato, which makes me think of my father, whose ideal tomato would give at least one perfect half-inch slice to fill a sandwich. I’m grateful to have inherited my father’s passion for growing tomatoes, and grateful whenever I can bring tender thoughts of him to mind.
I’m grateful for curiosity and a sense of humor, both of which provided a healthy perspective on this sight this morning, and this evening. I left the gnawed tomato on the vine to see if the critter came back, which clearly it did, but I didn’t catch it in the act. Still, better it keeps wrecking one fruit than I pick that and it attacks another.
Grateful to discover another ‘new way’: to warm Stellar’s pill-delivery cheese to make it pliable enough to wrap his meds, and cool the troubled wrist at the same time. He gets four sets of pills a day and two injections. It seems completely random how he cycles through good spells and bad spells, which he’s in right now: I’ve picked him up three or four times today from stumbles, as he walks like a drunken sailor. Just a few days ago he was doing so well, and nothing really has changed. Eventually will come a point of diminishing returns for him, and I may have to discern when that is. Every pet person’s nightmare.
Speaking of nightmares, I had a doozie this morning, after waking at 5 to let him out, and forcing myself to sleep for a couple of more hours. Somewhere in that last hour, oh I don’t even wanna describe it, but in short, he was dying in my arms as people passed around us in the busy lobby of the place we lived, one in a hundred offering some simple comfort or help like a single paper towel–though I kept asking for someone to help me get him back to our apartment. I finally realized it was a dream and I could wake up and leave it behind. I’m grateful for the capacity to recognize a dream and leave it when it’s ugly.
I’m grateful for the lettuce-leaf basil, and for Amy’s suggestion to use it on a BLT… with, gratefully, a fresh garden tomato.
I’m grateful today for how the efforts I’ve made have paid off. I don’t have a lot of the things that people value, but I value all the things I have: I have enough. I have more than enough. I’m grateful that the choices I’ve made over the past forty years or more have led me to this life, this community, these friends, this place with its home and garden. I’m most immediately grateful today for the food rolling in from the garden. I’m grateful every day for the food that finds its way to my plate from all the places it originates; I’m grateful to have any food, especially grateful to have enough food, all the food I could want, in a world of want.
I’m grateful for tomatillos, parsley, cilantro, garlic from the garden, and for this great recipe for layered enchiladas. I’ve made it a few times, but one has to be rich in tomatillos, which this summer I am! Also I used mostly parsley because there is a dearth of cilantro in the garden this year. Funny how that goes, one year you have more of something than you can use and the next year it just doesn’t take.
I’m rich in cucumbers, too, and made another batch of pickles this afternoon. I’ve got a couple of jars of lacto-fermented dill pickles in the fridge already, a couple of vinegar-dill jars preserved, and today processed three pints of bread&butter pickles, and a scant pint of fermented dill slices. We’ll know more later if that last one will keep on the shelf, but it’s worth a try. I’m grateful that after a few years, I’m starting to feel pretty comfortable pickling and preserving; it no longer has to be a huge deal that takes a whole day’s focus. I’m grateful for the fruits of my labors in the garden and in the kitchen.
And naturally, I’m grateful for another day with this wonderful dog, who had energy to walk to the canyon this evening. Panting all the way, but happy and eager, and mostly without stumbles. What a teacher he is for me! Patience, acceptance, impermanence… above all, pure love.
I’m grateful I rescued this little fella a dozen or so years ago from an untenable situation; grateful Pamela suggested a new person for him; grateful Deborah wanted him. I’m grateful he’s been in my life since then, and feels comfortable and safe at my home, and gets along with all the animals here. I’m grateful he enjoyed his week here, and grateful his mama came home safely to pick him up this evening. I’m grateful for his exceptional example of the skill of relaxation.
I can’t fix Afghanistan. I can’t fix Haiti. I can’t fix climate chaos. It can be discouraging. But I can be kind and cheerful with the new UPS man. I can grow flowers for the bees and vegetables. I can meditate with loving-kindness on man’s inhumanity to man, and abuse of women. I can hold the horror in one hand and the beauty in the other, the ten thousand joys and the ten thousand sorrows, and bring them to some symmetry. I can express gratitude for the random distribution of conditions in my life, that let me live in relative peace and ease compared to the rest of the world.
Comparisons are odious. I heard this from a poet in the context of writing; but lately I’ve begun to wonder. It seems to me that comparisons, through the appropriate lens, are often excellent reminders of just how great our lives are, if we don’t live in a war zone, and we do have running water and electricity in our homes, get to choose what we eat, grow our own food, read what we like, choose our thoughts, and so much more. Americans take liberty for granted.
While Rome burns, I turn my attention to a gift bun from the local popup bakery. Gratitude. After coffee from across the equator, and the sticky bun flavored with the Asian native cardamom, I turn my attention to the rattlesnake pole beans, growing so tall that I a) finally get the Bean Stalk story, and b) needed a step-stool to pick them. I can barely keep up, and was grateful to learn that they also make good dried beans. I might stop harvesting the ‘immature pods,’ any day now, and let the rest mature and dry, for soups or chili and some to plant next year.
Grateful also for two new cucumbers to add to the weekend’s harvest, enough now to make some pickles. Real pickles. I’m grateful to accept the benefits of fermentation, and for the means and knowledge to make real pickled pickles, not only the quick kind with vinegar.
Cucumbers, garlic cloves, ripe dill florets, and a horseradish leaf (all from the garden) in each jar; bay leaves, cloves, peppercorns, mustard seeds and allspice sprinkled into the quart jar, and a single tiny hot pepper added to the pint jar. How beautifully they packed! Then glass weights on top of brine, a pickling lid, and into the pantry til the weekend. I’m grateful for the morning light on junipers and that big old dog, for sweet treats, pole beans, and pickles. I’m grateful every day for the roof over my head, water in the pipes, the power of the sun, the love and support I get and give, and the courage to know that nothing lasts. I am grateful for equanimity.
I’m grateful that Stellar hasn’t fallen off the cliff! He gives me more and more thrills at the edge these days.
I hate to admit that I’ve been taking ‘outside’ for granted recently. Or at least, I haven’t been spending as much time in it as I ‘should.’ There is this sense of clinging to the natural world on this refuge, of imminent loss, exacerbated by smoky skies; a sense of foreboding. My spatial consciousness contracts and expands according to my capacity to hold all things in awareness: moments of tenderness and beauty, of brief connection with other souls human and non-human, of empathy and compassion, of color and life, and at the same time this clutching void of mortal uncertainty. I am perpetually aghast, with a thick sugar coating of delight. Holding it all together in desperate equanimity. Growing pains.
I’m grateful as always for these two faithful walking companions.A carder bee on the mini zinnias. Grateful for color and light. Grateful to have been able to order a new bee lens, after receiving a generous credit at B&H for all my old photographic equipment. More better bee pics coming, if the lens arrives before the bees are gone.There is so much in this simple image that I’m grateful for, including the camera that took it, and the implications for future photography. I’m grateful for the dark sky, for the moon that tethers us, for gravity. I’m grateful that the clouds parted and smoke cleared enough to see into space tonight, as the Perseids peak. I’m grateful I’m still awake at 1 am, and I’m heading outside now to see what I can see. I’m grateful to be able to go outside any time I want to, day or night, and participate instantly in the world of nature.
Grateful for this beautiful boy, and the new camera that made this lovely portrait.
It arrived yesterday, just an hour too late to capture the newly fledged phoebes. After a busy day, I took it out to play this evening, just fooling around with the zoom, without even learning the thousand and one functions and settings. I’m grateful for the means to purchase this amazing camera, grateful for the technology that allows me to have far more ‘film’ than time so I can shoot to my heart’s content and throw away a thousand images to save one good one. I’m grateful for B&H Photo in NYC for their help and expertise whenever I need new camera gear, and grateful to JT for turning me on to them. Following the gratitude trail, I’m grateful for the countless individuals who designed, experimented, and constructed for many decades to create this camera, and for the materials, and for the countless people who mined and melted and melded those raw materials into this astounding piece of equipment; and for the FedEx lady who delivered it a scant 27 hours after I ordered it, and for all the human ingenuity and labor, and the transportation and infrastructure, that allowed that. It’s an amazing world, despite the tragedies perpetrated by our species.
I bought the camera with a 24-240mm zoom, not the best lens available but at a price I could afford: a pretty decent shot of the mountains at 240, so I’m optimistic about shooting hummingbirds with it tomorrow.I’m grateful for the rainbow tonight and the rain it followed, though none landed here; grateful for the beautiful apricot tree and for neighbor Fred who manages its pruning and overall health; grateful for the last apricot shining in last light.And finally, I’m grateful for the successful fledging yesterday of all four phoebe chicks in the second clutch. The first couple left the nest Thursday and went back in overnight. When I went out Friday morning, all four were snuggled together on the ladder, and by mid-afternoon (an hour before the camera arrived) they had all flown into the woods with their parents. This evening, I heard an adult back out on the east side of the house. I dursn’t hope…
I woke feeling sad, after yesterday’s descent into the stark reality of climate chaos. I thought I might feel sad forever. I’m grateful I’ve learned to accept sadness, and impermanence: I’m grateful for allowing things to be as they are in each moment, and for the reassuring knowledge that everything changes, nothing remains the same for long.
Nothing external has changed, of course: insects are still in decline worldwide. But I trudged out on this crisp, damp morning with Stellar and Topaz by my side, and strolled to visit this split tree. I felt better already, just letting myself be sad, and finding beauty at the same time, balancing grief and gratitude within equanimity.
Despite the poignance of seeing this western tiger swallowtail, I felt profound gratitude and tenderness that it chose to feed on zinnias I grew from seed. Every little offering we can give back to the planet seems essential.
And then there’s the cheese sandwich, cookout edition. I’ve been thinking about this for days. I had frozen a hot dog leftover from Michael’s memorial, which I thawed and sliced. All the hot dog condiments slathered on wheat bread, sliced cheddar, and potato chips completed the assemblage: a whole cookout in a single sandwich. Yes, it’s a temporary pleasure, lasting only as long as the sandwich itself; but, the making of it, the thinking it up, and definitely the eating of it, all while remembering Michael and last week’s party, lifted my spirits. Life’s simple pleasures. I’m grateful that my life includes the conditions to have on hand all the ingredients of a cheese sandwich, the technology to keep them fresh, the leisure to dream about then make one, the awareness to savor the process and every bite, and the reasonable expectation that I will eat again tomorrow.
Saved by a cheese sandwich.I am always grateful for the infinite possibilities of the cheese sandwich. The extra slice of hot dog of course went to Stellar for last bite. I’m grateful for another sweet day with my dear old catahoula leopard dog.
Yesterday I felt glum. I may have spoken too soon, expressing gratitude that both phoebe parents were alive. All day long the chicks screeched non-stop, while only one parent came to feed them, instead of two flying back and forth as they had been. It seemed like an hour at a time went by without anyone stuffing a mouth. When it cooled off, I sat outside and timed it, and there were intervals as long as 20 minutes while the babies cried before someone came to feed one. I wondered many things: was one parent killed by a falcon? or a cat? had one simply quit? was the other one out searching for its mate and just coming back intermittently with a token dragonfly or cricket? would the chicks survive? should I buy mealworms? Or, was I misperceiving reality?
I’m grateful to Deb for checking on the mealworm supply in town this morning, and grateful that they didn’t seem to be needed after all. Today, it still seems only one parent is feeding, but at least it’s more frequent, and the babies are full enough to fall asleep between bugs.
But what is happening? It’s a mystery, compounded by the fact that this evening I saw two perfectly-adult-looking phoebes land in the apricot tree, and one fed the other a grasshopper. Is one phoebe parent still out feeding some from the first clutch? maybe that last straggler out of the nest? Or, did one parent run off to court a new mate? Or, were those two grown chicks from the first clutch, courting, playing, or practicing? And, how does this situation relate to what I observed a few days ago, two phoebes chasing one another through the junipers?
I’m grateful for how the mystery of nature piques my curiosity, and grateful that I’m not attached to knowing answers. I’m grateful the babies seem to be getting enough food again after yesterday’s mysterious, vociferous hunger. I’ll be grateful tomorrow if I wake up alive and get to watch the phoebe mystery further unfold.
I’m grateful that after a rough few days, Stellar is able to take some short walks again; grateful his supplement refills arrived, and grateful that he finally explained why he wouldn’t come into the kitchen to eat for the past couple of days. I thought he just wasn’t hungry. But this morning, when he came to the edge of the living room rug and balked, I remembered that he’d fallen on this bare-floor corner between rugs and couldn’t get up. As soon as I threw an area rug down to cover the distance, he crossed right over and came in for breakfast.
So much to be grateful for today! Almost everything. Among the experiences I’m grateful for today is a new trick from an old tortoise. Well, not that old. Biko is actually just coming of age, hitting maturity at around the same time a human would (one would hope), twenty-two years old. I’ve been a constant in his life since he was one, though he’s never paid me much attention. But we’ve been working on our communication skills these past few years, and though he doesn’t like me to pet him, he will come when I call if he’s within sight of me, usually.
This year has been an especially good training year because of the drought: there’s not as much wild forage for him, so I’ve been able finally to train him with food. At least once a day I make sure to call to him when I see him approaching, grab a handful of lettuce, and stamp my feet. He will turn and come to me for the greens. This morning, I had just picked some lettuce I wanted to give him, but hadn’t seen him yet. I was finishing up some organizing on the west side of the house. Intermittently over about ten minutes, I called and stamped, three or four times. Then as I had my back turned, I heard his footsteps crunch on the gravel. He had come!
It could have been coincidence, but it felt like a real communication coup. Biko has been the shy, independent one from the beginning. I almost named him Bashful. But to get any tortoise to come from afar when summoned feels like an accomplishment. It gives me hope that he might come home if he ever escaped. It was a miracle his brother Desmond Turtu was found: I live in anxiety of another infrastructure failure or some oversight letting Biko get away. I’m grateful for even the illusion of his coming when called.
