Friday, July 26: a storm was brewing so Wren wore her new Thunder Shirt.
Friday, July 26
Tuesday, July 30
Tuesday, July 30
Wednesday, July 31
Wednesday, July 31
Wednesday, July 31
Thursday, August 1
Underwater roots as thick as my forearm
Thursday, August 1
Still Thursday…
Friday, August 2
Friday morning, before working
Friday evening, after working, same angle
This afternoon, before a quick dip just to cool off — no work today!
Progress has been slow but steady in the pond this week. Even though it’s hard work sawing through those roots and hefting chunks up onto the edge, it’s gratifying. The water is cool and buoyant, and I don’t hurt when I’m in it. A lot remains to be done, but there is plenty of hot weather ahead to enjoy doing it in. This afternoon, in 96℉, I cooled off and tried one method to lift sludge from the pond floor. It wasn’t too effective, so I’ve begun researching other options. Anybody got a pond vacuum I can borrow?! Meanwhile, GT will have his work cut out for him moving all the rush chunks I’ve cut out of the water.
The rushes overtook the pond, choking the life out of it, in much the same way that pain and other health concerns sapped my own vitality: encroaching incrementally, unobtrusively, until suddenly I was forced to pay attention and found both the pond and my joie de vivre unrecognizably congested. I am grateful that I’ve seen the light before it’s too late, and have begun to rectify both conditions.
This image from a decade ago shows the beginning of the problem. I can’t believe I don’t have a better image of the pond in its heyday! Lots of closeups, but nothing on here of the full feature. I’ll have to dig through the archives for an image of the full pond when it was born in 2008.
“How many frogs? Through benign neglect of my fish ponds they’ve become frog ponds….” This image and caption are from 2016, when I counted more than a dozen frogs in the pond.
And in wildlife rescue, this morning Wren found a baby robin chirping on the path by the spigot. I didn’t even see it, but noticed her cautiously investigating from a foot away. She was a very good girl! So curious. I scooped it up and set it in the chokecherry tree so it would be safe until it could fly. When I checked this evening it was gone.
I’m grateful for the lovely massage therapist that was recommended recently, and to the friend who recommended her.
Wren got involved the last time too, but she’s polite and patient so I get treated first. Elyse is supremely skilled and has brought considerable relief to chronically tight muscles. And she delivers!
I’ve never been consistent with self-care, but my new year’s resolution was to take better care of this old workhorse body, and regular massage is now a part of that. Along with eating 92 different plants a day.
Four sautéed plants in a cheese sandwich…Lots of plants in a big salad almost every day…Plants for dessert…Plants for breakfast…And more plants for lunch in this highly decorated, so simple cheese grits with saucy black beans.
I’m grateful for the means and the support to attend to this body. And I’m grateful for the means, time, and support to attend to this mind and spirit as well. As waves of grief continue to wash through me, I’m still savoring each day… each evening… and especially this evening…
Wren enjoyed examining the giant roots of the famous trees in town park.
I’m grateful today for another Boyz Lunch. It’s been a long, long time, since the fall. We took a picnic lunch to the Paonia Town Park, where we enjoyed lasagna rolls, focaccia, and big soft ginger cookies. Now Mel says it’s THIRTY different plants in a week, but at least that includes herbs, spices, and grains as well as fruits and veggies. The lasagna brought in three (chard, mushrooms, garlic) and the cookies added four more with cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and chocolate (it’s a bean!) — I don’t think flour and sugar count, even though they’re plants too…?
Resting on the patio back home, I spied an octopus in the sky.
I’m grateful once again today for the Parks State Farm – Phil’s Towing combo that have rescued me three times in the past six months. This time it was a flat tire that must have occurred shortly before I arrived home from the last place I went, whenever and wherever that was. I’m grateful that I have to leave home so infrequently that I sometimes can’t remember the last time I did so. And I’m grateful to neighbor Gary who suggested I call my car insurance instead of try to do it myself.
This surprising little flower popped up in the ground cover that I don’t remember seeing before. And it didn’t last long — the next day they were gone, nipped off by deer, which is probably why I have only seen the foliage.
The sandwich loaf provided good lunches all week, including this Havarti-avocado-lettuce-peach salsa sandwich.
I’ve been grateful all week for ample and delicious food, from occasional homemade granola with peaches from the tree last summer via the freezer, to fresh garden salads supplemented with avocados and nuts that I didn’t grow, to of course cheese sandwiches. I’ve been eating more protein recently, and how lucky am I that I can say that? And have smoked salmon in the fridge to include in my lunches.
I made one sandwich with fromage fort, smoked salmon, lettuce, avocado, and peach salsa. It was delicious but it felt like it needed to be on a bagel, open-face, instead of between two slices.
Lacking a bagel, but with a thick slice toward the end of the loaf, I toasted that and added a fried egg, and enjoyed a gourmet lunch. I truly do savor these simple sandwiches with a few extra touches, with deep humility and gratitude that my life at this time allows me such marvelous food. I share the bounty of my garden and my lunch plates not to boast or show off, but to inspire and encourage anyone who has the means to make the time to make a simple meal special, and to savor it. I’m keenly aware that the day may come when I don’t get to enjoy this kind of lunch, for an infinite array of potential reasons: anything can happen, to anyone, at any time. Each meal is a special meal; each meal, like each breath, like each moment, is unique.
Where’s Wren?
Meanwhile, in the garden, each day offers new delight. New blossoms continue to open on the little cherry tree even as the first cluster to open begins to set fruit.
With the coldest nights behind us, I hope, I am planting this week. These sci-fi ‘self-watering’ baskets came from Gardeners’ Supply complete with a water meter for each. They actually seem like the best hanging option for this dry climate, and I’m optimistic about the strawberries I planted in them.
The little North Sky blueberry has acclimated long enough, sprouted new leaves, and seemed ready to go in its big pot filled with special blueberry soil.
How is it possible that I forget over the winter how much joy and contentment the garden brings me? I stepped outside into a cool, damp morning after Telesangha, and didn’t come inside again until lunchtime. I was just going to plant the blueberry, but one thing led to another. I spread compost over the onions, garlic, strawberry pot, and a few other large pots I’ve yet to plant, watered some beds lightly in case it didn’t rain, brought in the tea towels from the laundry line in case it did rain, strolled around the grounds admiring a few things, pulling a few weeds. I noticed and praised the first potato leaves emerging in that bed, checked on the illicit asparagus patch, and puttered with some small tasks, all the while humming aloud or silently to myself like a grateful, busy bumblebee.
The crabapple blossoms survived last weekend’s windstorm, and ongoing windy days, but a juniper by the driveway lost part of a trunk.
The Fuji apple tree, though irregularly pruned by deer, has a few limbs with blooms, lit with late sun after rain. Our evening rounds brought satisfaction, contentment, and a light rainbow. I’m grateful for a day off with no obligations, time to plant, rest, and restore in the garden, time to meditate during the storm, and time to reflect on the blessings of this life I landed in.
I’m grateful for the easy sourdough pizza crust recipe that Garden Buddy shared, and for cheese. And the right tools for the job.
I’m grateful for several salads with garden lettuce and arugula, as well as extras like toasted cashews, celery, cheddar cubes, pickled onions, and one of the miracle tomatoes from the sunroom.
I’m grateful for occasional store-bought organic chicken thighs with bones and skin. So hard to find any kind of chicken with skin, and it’s the best part! I made a delicious sheetpan roasted chicken and veggies and enjoyed several meals over the next days, including a chicken and cheese sandwich, chicken and veggie salad, and broth for Wren.
Once all the chicken was gone, I still had skin from two of the thighs. Too much fat for Wren, too good to throw away, too tempting to compost, so I fried it and used it for extra flavor in a cheese sandwich, along with more miracle tomatoes.
Plenty also to be grateful for in the garden over the past week, with new flowers blooming daily, lots of bees, bountiful sunshine, and mild spring weather.
I’d been craving fish sticks after seeing this recipe, and so made a few one night and also breaded and baked some wild asparagus with them. The scallions are young perennial onions from the garden, and the tartar sauce is homemade, including the last pickle and onions from a jar of refrigerator pickles I made at the end of last summer and lost in the back of the fridge. I’m grateful for using up odds and ends in the kitchen.
I’m grateful that the tender new cherry tree has opened its buds, one by one and five by ten.
Wren enjoys a snack of Atlas (or mat) daisy. I keep telling her, “Please don’t eat the daisies.” But she won’t listen. Look how she clutches it!
I’m grateful to spend time under the crabapple tree in full bloom and buzzing with pollinators. More from here another day.
I decided to make cheesos with the three leftover fish sticks, but the white cheddar melted just too holey, so I flipped it onto some corn tortillas, then loaded them up.
Yes, even more sunroom tomatoes! Tiny but prolific, considering. And garden greens.
I’m grateful that the onion patch is popping up nicely.
I unintentionally let the sourdough starter sit out for a few days because I couldn’t find time to start my usual bread. It grew tall in the jar, then subsided. So I looked for a way to use some discard before feeding it again and refrigerating until I have more time. Found a quick recipe for a sandwich loaf, which didn’t use as much discard as I wished, but made a lovely loaf! Despite forgetting to halve the yeast for altitude compensation, and then falling asleep and letting it rise too long, it turned out pretty well.
And so today’s cheese sandwich included avocado, Havarti, garden lettuce, and I opened a new jar of last summer’s peach salsa for extra punch. I’m grateful for a lovely lunch under the red umbrella, reading The Left Hand of Darkness, by master story-weaver Ursula K. LeGuin. I’m so grateful that I can read.
After lunch I potted down the French lilac I’ve been gradually training toward bonsai, from the large black pot into a much smaller pot, trimming more than half the roots, and all twigs except those with flower buds. In another year, I anticipate downsizing again into its final bonsai pot and drastically pruning. I’m grateful that today, I felt better physically and mentally than I have since before the face poison in early December. I attribute this to a number of new health protocols including allergy and anti-inflammatory, and some other lifestyle changes I’m in the midst of making. I’ve been awake all day and gotten a lot accomplished that I’ve been wanting to do.
Before coming in for the day I battened down the hatches, stowing chairs and other loose items around the yard, in anticipation of a potential fierce wind storm tomorrow. I moved the car away from trees. As I write tonight, the wind is already picking up outside with an occasional moan. Things may look quite different around here tomorrow night. This is the most dramatic high wind warning I can recall here. Steady southwest winds up to 50 mph with gusts to 65 are expected. Precautionary and Preparedness Actions advised on Weather Underground include “avoid being outside in forested areas and around trees and branches… People, especially those with respiratory illnesses… are recommended to stay indoors and avoid prolonged outdoor exercise or heavy exertion due to wind-blown dust.” I’ll gratefully stay inside and rest. We’ll know more later!
Baking bread used to be a special occasion; now it’s become a weekly routine, and one that I remain exceptionally grateful for. Proof that when you do something often enough it becomes a habit. I’ve settled on a ratio of three-quarters regular flour (King Arthur) and one-quarter hearty flour, in this week’s loaf the Rouge de Bordeaux, described as a “19th Century bread flour” in the class of ‘hard red winter wheats.’ Now we both know.
I’m grateful for the little wonder tomato in the sunroom, whose vines are putting on new green growth, new flowers, and new fruits. I used one in lunch the day the bread baked, slicing the heel and one slice while it was still warm, and slicing one small tomato still warm from the sun. I wanted to savor the tomato, so it got its own piece of bread with simply mayo and a sprinkle of salt; the heel I spread with fromage fort. What a simple, quick lunch, and so delicious.
A lot more things than simple, delicious lunches have been happening here over the past week. I’m working extra hours for a couple of months creating lesson plans for a new course I’m halfway through teaching. I’m so grateful for the students who are so enthusiastically participating in this offering. We’re all learning a lot, and enjoying the journey. And at the end of most days, I’m exhausted, so I go to bed without opening the computer again. I’m grateful for the inquiries from faithful readers who are concerned about me. So far, nothing to worry about; just taking rest as needed.
I’m also grateful that the friend who had a heart attack last week is recuperating at home now, with enormous gratitude of his own at his miraculous survival. “You just never know,” he told me today. Indeed. And what a potent reminder this incident was. Death or near-death always jolts us into a heightened awareness for awhile. I’m aware of all the stuff I’d like to get rid of before I die, and all the things I’d like to accomplish, and the loose ends of end-of-life paperwork I have yet to tie up; I’m more keenly aware of the love I haven’t expressed, the amends unmade, the kindness I get to show to anyone, anywhere, anytime. And so much more. I bump up against a little edge of anxiety about it sometimes.
Fish, fish paste, and mirepoix mixed in the bowl before adding eggs and breadcrumbs.
But then I walk the little dog and the big cat up the driveway or through the woods, listen to the house finches warble in the treetops, watch the little green sprouts grow in the garden, gaze up at the bright stars on a clear night, and everything feels all right: in this moment, all is well. This “ever changing present moment,” as someone mentioned in Telesangha this morning. Letting go of what I can’t control, and making the best of what I can. And that includes the ritual of lunch. Another healthy habit that used to be hit or miss for me, and now is an anchor in my day. Today I made pan-fried fishcakes, with some wild-caught cod I had in the freezer. I learned a new word, mirepoix, which is a mix of sautéed vegetables used in a sauce. In this case, the mirepoix of finely diced onion, carrot, and celery was added to finely chopped fish and a fish paste made by blitzing some of the diced fish with heavy cream in the food processor.
Eggs and breadcrumbs are added, and the mixture formed into patties, then dredged in flour, egg, and more breadcrumbs before getting fried. I had enough egg beaten to cover eight small circular patties, which had to chill for at least twenty minutes before frying. I let them chill away all afternoon, and used some of the mixture that was left to shape a custom fishcake for my sandwich, and fried that right away.
Mayo, mustard, fish cake, lettuce, and another precious tomato made for another simple, special lunch.
Taking a break from the computer and the kitchen, I spent another outside unit sanding and oiling the handle of a garden hoe I had decided would be the right tool for a particular job of spring cleanup. I was grateful to find a file I hadn’t used in twenty years right where I had left it; and grateful I had ordered axe oil last summer and knew where that was. And even though I couldn’t find my set of three smaller files, I did find the spare fine one, so I was able to get a reasonable edge on the rusted blade. I’m grateful I made it through this precious day that will never come again without sleeping away some of its fleeting hours.
I’m grateful for homemade granola, for Honeybadger whose gifts inspired me to try my hand at it, for all the ingredients from oats to syrup to dried fruit and nuts that I happened to have on hand, and yes of course I put chocolate bits in it.
We got a taste this morning of the severe winter weather that’s rampaging across the country. We woke to a blizzard with stinging snow blowing every single direction all at once. It only lasted a couple of hours and dumped three inches of snow. No one wanted to go out in it. I’m grateful that my little pets can hold it a long time. Shortly after it stopped snowing I persuaded Topaz and Wren to go for a short walk in the woods, just long enough to find Topaz a small spot without snow under a juniper. I’m grateful it was largely melted by late afternoon so we could take a longer walk, and grateful that tomorrow promises to be warmer and sunny.
We were asked in a group this morning where we find gratitude in the day. One person said “In relief,” i.e., when something happens or doesn’t happen and the emotion is relief, gratitude follows. Once it was articulated, a number of us could relate to that; though I hadn’t thought before about being grateful for Relief. Or if I did, I’ve forgotten. My answer to the query was, “Every morning when I wake up alive in my bed, for waking up alive, for the bed, for the house the bed is in, and on from there….” And of course, I’m grateful for my almost daily cheese sandwich.
Today’s version included mayo, mustard, dill pickle relish, Havarti, two fried eggs, and shredded lettuce, piled between slices of fresh-baked bread an hour out of the oven. Grateful for the convenience of ready-made condiments in the fridge, for the fridge, for the solar power to run the fridge; for the flour, salt, and sourdough still going strong, and the water and how it gets here, and the oven and the propane that fuels it and how those got here; for the fresh organic free-range eggs, and the non-stick skillet, and the wooden spatula; for the organic lettuce and those who grew it and transported it; and for the cheese, and the Danish cows it came from, and all the roads it took to get to my doorstep. I suffer some, but I really have nothing to complain about. And that’s a relief.
In which Topaz leads the way. It’s Mud Season, and the pathways through the woods are half icy, half muddy, and half dry. So it’s a good time to follow Topaz on a walk because she hates mud and ice, so she finds the driest way through the forest. I’m grateful for idle rambling this afternoon, seeing parts of the woods and old juniper friends we haven’t visited all winter.
I’m grateful for community activism on behalf of environmental protection, and this time it’s right in my own back yard. As a community, we’ve been fighting for our quality of life and our livelihoods for more than a decade, in a battle with the oil and gas industrial complex that seems to never end. If you’ve ever visited here, or you just want to support us, please consider signing this comment form to the BLM now. The deadline for comments is February 20.
When this started in 2011 with proposals to lease public lands at the heart of our watersheds for fracking, there was enormous community response. Hundreds of people attended meetings, thousands sent letters, urging the government to protect these lands that are crucial to the agriculture and recreation that drive our economy. What can one person do? I realized I could compile some of my many photographs of the area into a ‘visual comment’ to submit to the BLM during the initial public comment period. And then I realized I wasn’t the only one who had photographs.
By the time it was done, more than fifty valley residents and a few visitors from out of state had sent me hundreds of digital images, which I complied into the North Fork Scrapbook. Please visit the online scrapbook generated and maintained by our leading environmental protector, Pete Kolbenschlag, now director of the Colorado Farm & Food Alliance, to learn more about the unique valley and the looming threat to its health. I’m grateful to Pete, to the Western Slope Conservation Center, to Citizens for a Healthy Community, and to the thousands of valley residents who are making their concerns heard in an effort to protect our home.
This week we baked focaccia to go with what Amy predicted would be ‘sad beans.’ She was wrong. They were very happy beans. But I’m grateful she suggested the focaccia, which I’ve only made a few times and none as successfully as tonight’s simple, delicious recipe for a small loaf pan focaccia. I didn’t even make any adjustments for altitude and it came out beautifully. I topped mine with flaky sea salt and Penzeys Bouquet Garni spice mix. I really miss having a rosemary plant in the sunroom, and regret that the one I’d had in a pot for many years didn’t survive a repotting last fall. But the Bouquet Garni mix was a good substitute for fresh rosemary.
Amy also suggested a delicious ‘dirty martini dip’ she found on instagram, which is just cream cheese, sour cream, an ounce of gin or vodka, and an ounce of olive brine zapped in a food processor with a pinch of salt, then served with olive oil and olives. I skipped the olive oil, substituted greek yogurt and mayo for sour cream I didn’t have, and tossed one olive in the mix as well. Next time all the olives go in the food processor. We are both grateful for olives. Amy ate her dip with pretzels and crackers and saved her focaccia for the White Beans au Vin that I had proposed for dinner, but I enjoyed the dip with my bread.
I don’t think we intended to put alcohol in both our dishes but I just realized that we did. I’m grateful for tomato paste in a tube, which lasts a long while in the fridge and doesn’t get yucky like that in a can when you try to save it, even in another jar. I’m grateful for all manner of kitchen and culinary conveniences, and grateful that I have a kitchen in a warm house during this cold winter.
I led an interactive guided meditation today in a study group. The meditation, from one of our instructors, called on me to lead the ‘client’ in an exploration of feelings of amazement and gratitude for the most basic things, including how our body breathes and pumps blood and mostly does everything right most of the time without any effort on our part. But when I reached the part where I encouraged the client to bring to mind the things in their life that provide security, the kinds of things I write about here day after day, like a safe home, sufficient food, and clean water, they balked.
Their big heart immediately skipped over gratitude for the comforts of their life, to a desire to help the many who lack these basic amenities. It can be a fine line. I struggled with this myself for many years, and still do sometimes. It’s not fair that I have so much and others have so little. But gratitude is not antithetical to compassion and may indeed be a necessary precursor to it. We need to give ourselves permission to experience gratitude without guilt: for the small things in our lives, like tomato paste in a tube, and the big things like lasting friendships, meaningful work, and our capacity to help others as we’re able. The bottom line is that it’s not only healthy but essential to acknowledge and give thanks for all the good in our lives.
Both recent research in neuroscience and the longtime teachings of Br. David Steindl-Rast reveal the importance of gratitude. Brother David is passionate and eloquent on the transcendent meaning within gratitude. It’s a spiritual practice for him, and he’s been studying and teaching its importance for many of his 97 joyful years on earth. I’m grateful for his influence on me through the years, and that I am finally beginning to live his message. Let me remember to be grateful every living moment of every day.
“There is a wave of gratefulness because people are becoming aware how important this is and how this can change our world. It can change our world in immensely important ways, because if you’re grateful, you’re not fearful, and if you’re not fearful, you’re not violent. If you’re grateful, you act out of a sense of enough and not of a sense of scarcity, and you are willing to share. If you are grateful, you are enjoying the differences between people, and you are respectful to everybody, and that changes this power pyramid under which we live.” ― David Steindl-Rast
