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Lessons

Mar31
The wild plum has rained the last of its petals in the winds, and now following the apricot erupts with tender green leaves. But last week, I caught a few lovely pollinators in its fulsome flowers, including many painted ladies…

I remember asking Marion one time, decades ago, with a distinct whine, “Isn’t anything ever not a lesson?” She was older by thirty years and wiser by far, but I don’t recall her response. All I know is that I’ve learned in the interval that every living moment is always a lesson, or can be.

… one gorgeous sphinx moth…

I’m grateful that the Colonel gave me a solid foundation in using tools and the gene to enjoy solving engineering type problems, and the confidence to tackle all kinds of household situations. I’d suspected a propane leak at the tank for a few weeks when I noticed a faint odor as I walked past one day in late fall but I promptly forgot about it. A few weeks later I was home when the tanker driver arrived with the next monthly fill, and asked him to please check for a leak. I watched his bubble solution, and I didn’t see anything either, so we left it at that. But by the end of January I wasn’t convinced, and when a different driver came I mentioned it to him. He did a bubble spray test and confirmed that there was a tiny leak at the very old regulator, and said “I’ll send M to replace that.”

… a single Great Purple Hairstreak, which is almost impossible to catch with open wings…

Last week I started wondering if M had ever come by and meant to call the company to inquire, but once again I forgot. I did not inherit the genes for executive functioning. So yesterday when T returned, I was outside reading in the freakishly mild weather, and went over to greet him. “I see M hasn’t been here yet,” he began, and we chatted for a long time, only partly about the leak. He mentioned that the price per gallon went up, and I said, “That’s what we get with war… and a government in chaos,” which I think I get political action points for saying, and he didn’t respond. He still didn’t think the leak was bad enough to be affecting my bill, “only if you’re baking a lot of cookies every day,” he said… Little does he know.

… and many magnificent Red Admirals.

“Funny you should mention that,” I said, then asked if he’d like a cookie, and he kept chatting, about how he seen a coyote over there one time and too bad he didn’t have his gun then, and from there it devolved into how many coyotes he’s shot through the years, “seven in one day!” he proudly proclaimed; he spoke about cattle camp and losing calves to coyotes, then moved on to speak about a lion no one ever saw who was hunting deer on a particular ridge. All the while, my heart was sinking further, and my lungs were choking on exhaust from the truck, and I was starting to wish I hadn’t offered him one of my last cookies.

“That’s interesting,” I said, “but I can’t breathe the exhaust any longer, so I’m going in to get you a couple cookies, and I’ll be back in a minute.” When I took him the cookies he said he thought he might have enough dope in the truck to replace the regulator right now, and he’d just have to turn off the gas to the house for a little while, and did I have an on-demand hot water heater? No, but I figured if I didn’t use the hot water it should be ok, but really that was a lesson right there, which I keep learning over and over again, which is to ask more questions, don’t assume I know anything about something I know nothing about.

I had just been coming in to make lunch when he arrived, so I went back in to start that. The last of the curried cauliflower cold with mayo, plus an egg and some bacon, yum, I was looking forward to it. The bacon was cooking perfectly until it wasn’t, almost done, but then no flame. Duh. Again with the executive function issue. I knew not to use the hot water and was very careful as I washed my hands after putting the bacon in the pan to use only cold, but I failed to make the obvious connection that I couldn’t use the burner either. I went back out to see how things were going, and to ask if I’d need to do anything with the stove once the propane was back on, and we had another incomplete conversation which reassured me.

This week’s Birthday Cake Challenge started off well!

After he left, the burner lit effortlessly and there seemed to be hot water. Although it did seem a little less hot, but I let myself ignore that symptom, because every time I turned it on to wash my hands or a dish or two it was still hot enough. Surely the boiler couldn’t keep it that hot overnight if it wasn’t fueled. But after a couple hours of yard work this morning, I had to face the truth as I stood under a warm shower gradually cooling. I’ve never had to light that particular pilot, and thankfully it didn’t require getting down on the dirty utility room floor and contorting myself to stick a match inside a small opening whilst pressing and holding the red button. Grateful it was also a piezo starter. It lit right away, and flared up when I turned the dial, and it’s been happy hot water all afternoon.

The batter looked perfect in the pan.

But the other water heater, the one that provides the radiant floor heat, that of course was also out, and that’s the pilot I didn’t want to face, so I just turned it off til fall, grateful that there’s plenty of firewood since it’s going to get cold again for the next week, and grateful in a perverse way for the freakishly mild spring that’s likely to resume after that, and grateful either way for the forecast moisture. I never thought I’d be grateful for Mud Season, but here I am eagerly awaiting it.

Sadly, more lessons were learned after baking…

So many lessons in the last two days! Excellent practice listening to his murderous pride with as little judgment as possible and much more open-heart than I could have before mindfulness, understanding his perspective, feeling kindly toward him, feeling grateful that he fixed the leak. And then letting it all go once it was over, rather than perseverating. But wait, oh, it was after that that I walked in grief the rest of the day. Okay, so but at least I didn’t feel blame or anger or hatred, and I did cultivate compassion and loving kindness, so that’s progress.

… including perseverance!

Some other lessons revolved around the Year of Birthday Cakes Challenge, among them that I really need to practice bake ahead of time for each new cake I try. Today’s epic fail was technically a Technical Challenge rather than a Signature or a Showstopper, as the birthday girl asked for a specific kind of cake. It seemed easy enough: a lemon bundt cake with raspberry filling. And in Bake Off Technicals there’s no tossing a failure into the bin, you have to present something to the judges. So when (after following instructions to the second) I turned the cake out after ten minutes leaving the bottom fifth attached to the bundt pan, it turned into a salvage operation. One lesson was “ten minutes exactly” isn’t enough time to cool a cake in that pan. Maybe it would have held together after another five or ten minutes cooling in the pan. Or, maybe not. Other lessons I’m learning are non-attachment to outcome, and humility.

The final offering, of which I kept half and made her promise not to share it with anyone else. I gave a verbal IOU for a good cake some other time.

Among today’s successes, I count maintaining equanimity, compassion, and good humor; recognizing repeatedly that I am not my thoughts; and creating an absolutely perfect loaf of sourdough.

Caketastrophe!

Feb19
Their time in DC was amazing. The number of people they gathered along their route to the Lincoln Memorial lifted my spirits, and the crowd that stood and listened to the closing ceremony was impressive.

I’m still following the Walk for Peace on Instagram, and reading articles about it as people including the monks reflect on what it meant for them, what it means for us. I enjoyed this article in Mindful.org, ‘An Invitation to Reimagine Where Peace Begins.’

“…the longer we resist offering our attention to these unhealed places, the more we will keep living through the reverberating echoes of those same wounds over and over and over again. Different possible futures are only made possible by first giving our loving awareness to what’s happening right now—even (maybe especially) when it surfaces sorrow, hopelessness, or anger that we’re not sure we can handle in the moment.”

It’s a good thing I’m practicing inner peace every day. In my Quest to bake birthday cakes, today’s has been rough! I started last night baking the cake and the cookies with which to decorate it. I got excited because the beaten egg yolks looked so perfectly aerated that I forgot to whip in the sugar before adding flour, so I had to add sugar last. I think it resulted in a slightly heavier batter that didn’t rise as much, but overall the cake itself was okay and the orange shortbreads were perfect.

The first attempt at white chocolate mascarpone frosting went horribly awry. I thought at first it was because I beat the butter and cheese at too high a speed: the recipe said the only thing you can do wrong is overmix it, and to beat it on medium til light and fluffy. Or maybe because the butter and cheese were different temperatures. But in retrospect I think it failed because I used the whisk attachment in addition to high speed. Anyway, I set that mess aside, grateful that I had another cup of mascarpone and another stick of butter. But that started to split too! Though the finished white frosting tasted delicious it looked rather like cottage cheese if you’d blended it just enough to make the curds really tiny. I was afraid to beat it longer to try to thicken it, in case that just made it split even worse! Piping was pointless, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t try, and gooped up the silicone piping bag for no reason. There’s not much more challenging baking tool to wash than a piping bag; I see why people use disposables but can’t bring myself to waste plastic like that.

The lemon curd for the filling between layers turned out beautifully, though. And to salvage the split white frosting I whipped up a quick chocolate ganache, grateful that I had not used all the cream and that I had dark chocolate on hand. However, that also started to split! What? I think I know what happened there too: I added the chocolate to the hot cream in the hot pan, instead of adding hot cream to chocolate in a cold bowl, and the heat caused the chocolate to seize. I was able to salvage it, though, by tossing in a tablespoon of soft butter and whipping it, but that made it too thick to pour a thin layer over top. So the cake ended up with too much frosting of two kinds of chocolate that wouldn’t hold on the sides, and I was grateful I had the shortbreads which I’d planned to stick on there anyway. I took my tithe portion before frosting the cake and filled that missing space with shortbread also. I’d have been sent home from Bake Off with that cake, but instead of feeling I’d failed I chalked it up to practice. And isn’t that what this Birthday Cake Quest is all about, learning new skills? I learned a lot, and the Head Bitch at the Bad Dog Ranch was delighted with all the “many fun layers of yummies!” which is all that really matters.

After the cake was picked up, I dumped the split mascarpone/butter mix back into the Kitchenaid, and used the beater attachment to try to salvage that. It worked, sort of smoothing it, which is how I figured out that while the whisk might work for creaming butter and sugar, it doesn’t work for creaming butter and mascarpone. I was grateful that I have a flourishing herb garden in pots in the sunroom, where I harvested a handful of rosemary, oregano, parsley, sage, chives, and a little tarragon, which I minced and mixed into the butter blend with salt and pepper. All those fresh herbs left only a hint of vanilla from when it was destined to be frosting, and it turned into an adequate spread for toast for lunch, and topping for a baked potato for dinner. A busy and educational day in the kitchen!

I’m grateful, too, that we got a little snow the past few days, with more up in the mountains, but Colorado (the state and the river) are in dire drought this year regardless. That’s the real ‘tastrophe, as explained in this article from The Atlantic. Just before the snow fell I caught the first crocus blooms, and enjoyed a few sessions counting birds for the Great Backyard Bird Count. Never mind that there were hardly any birds over the weekend, at least it got me and Wren outside. So just a few more things I’ve been grateful for this week:

Gemini Full Moon

Dec4

I was grateful today for abundant sunshine to charge the solar panels and melt a little ice once I’d shoveled the paths again. And to lift the spirits of many of us.

I was astonished to look out the west window and see a doe chewing on an old shed antler that was ornamenting the garden. She munched on it for a long time while her fawn nibbled some leaves under the snow. It reminded me it was lunchtime.

Today I was grateful for the last two slices of bread which I dressed with peanut butter and jam. But yesterday, as cold and grey as it was, I was really happy to make a grilled cheese sandwich. I used mayo on both slices but then remembered I had a smidge of that tomato butter Amy and I made back in September. I’d pulled it from the freezer to make room for turkey stock and been using it up all week. So I spread that on one side, layered cheddar and Havarti on the other, and closed the sandwich. Then I tried a trick we’d seen on Instagram, to spread mashed potatoes on the outsides of the bread before grilling.

It must have not been the right kind of potato. It looked great, but the bread was actually less crispy than a usual butter or mayo grilled cheese. I topped it with the single harvest from the hydroponic tomato experiment, which also looked great but felt like a little marble so I gave it to Wren for last bite.

My little philosopher…

It was a lovely day. After lunch I edited some meditations, including this one from my dear departed friend Cynthia Wilcox. The timing was perfect for “Sensing into Boundaries.” As I was editing it someone came to the door that I just couldn’t attend to in that moment and Cindy’s guidance supported me.

And before I knew it, the short day was over. I made sure not to miss the rising of the Gemini Full Moon, whatever that means. A friend had mentioned it this morning as meaningful to her, and later texted after she watched it rise six hours earlier in London. I’d been upstairs waiting for it but remembered I had to run out and dump the birdbath before it froze, and just as I got there the moon peeked over the mountains.

The birdbath was already frozen. We came inside after this shot. I love how the farthest peaks of Mount Gunnison are still in alpenglow and the moon highlights a ridge I’d never realized was part of the distant mountain.

These last two are through the window so there’s a bit of distortion. I considered what my friend had said, and looked up the significance of this moon. Yoga Journal offered a full and mindful analysis from which I’ve excerpted this:

“What makes this full Moon particularly potent is how Gemini teaches us that reality is malleable. The stories we tell ourselves about who we are, what is possible for us, and what we deserve directly shape our experiences. When we change our internal narrative, we change our external world. This is the secret power of Gemini—it shows us that a simple shift in perspective can unlock doors we didn’t even know existed.”

A Walk in the Woods

Nov30

Today it snowed at least five inches, which gave me a chance to catch up inside, and review photos from the last weeks of this mild and gorgeous autumn. Most days I woke Topaz from her mid-morning nap on the sunroom table to invite her out for a walk. She’s going a little deaf, so a gentle touch on the side of the basket and she startles awake with a little mrrrp!

It takes her awhile to get going once she steps outside. She rolls on the flagstones and stretches, while Wren and I zigzag through the woods close to the yard, noticing details. I call to her occasionally: sometimes she hops through the gate and runs to catch up, but most of the time we’re well on our way before she shows herself.

Some days she doesn’t join us at all. Yesterday I thought was one of those days, so after awhile I gave up on her and we ambled eastward, from one lovely view, one magnificent tree, to another.

I’ve been practicing a meditation instruction I heard a few days ago, to remember, just for a moment now and then, the felt sense of being “without a care in the world.” The woods is the best place to do that. I don’t think of myself as stressed until I realize how that feeling used to be much easier to find.

It’s healthy to now and then shrug off worries about health, mortality, money, the collapse of democracy, and recall that carefree feeling. I was immersed in it. We had wandered on deer trails for half an hour and were pretty far from the house, the canyon in sight. I sat on a log for a short meditation. A quiet mrrrp interrupted my reverie, and Topaz jumped up next to me. I was delighted to see her. She’d been stalking us all along.

Once she had gotten enough appreciation she wandered away and that was my cue to get up and move again. I let her and Wren dictate our route.

There’s an avenue of ancients near the southeast corner that came to my heart to visit, so I steered us in that general direction. The junipers are evenly spaced down a gentle slope to the canyon rim. A couple of them appear to be around the same age, five or six hundred years or older, and some younger, just a couple hundred. The series below shows more than one angle on each of the trees.

I got to the bottom of the avenue and realized there was another tree in the line that I had not once in thirty years understood. It was just below a rocky ledge, at the top of the scree that angles down to Ice Canyon. As I considered the whole slope, I experienced the feeling of this next tree slowly sliding down the edge as rock eroded over centuries. Its powerful roots kept it anchored and it reached upward even as the earth carried it downhill.

I turned, and for the first time followed the sight line uphill from that tree along the avenue…

… and then I turned again and followed it farther downhill, to another tree I had failed to recognize as the last in line, barely hanging on above the drop into Ice Canyon. I wallowed in awe for a long while without a care in the world.

A Wonder Bread

Sep3

I’m grateful I got four early cabbages, and learned a lot in the garden, before I took the screen covers off the late cabbages when they got too crowded. Because there’s not much left, and less each day.

And I’m really grateful I had a fun distraction over the weekend, making a seemingly complicated bread that said it was “same day,” but took several steps and lots of rises over about 28 hours. ‘That Sourdough Gal’ offers a one, two, or three day version in several loaf-pan sizes, starting with this Sourdough Wonder Bread Copycat Recipe. Amy’s made it a few times but this was my first effort. On Sunday night I made the stiff sweet starter (right) and let it rise overnight, and well into the morning since it was a cool night. Late Monday morning I made the tangzhong (left), and was delighted it was done in the microwave instead of stovetop. Both of them could have been more their ideal selves than they managed, but I learned.

After the tangzhong cooled, I mixed all the ingredients in the KitchenAid with a dough hook and let it run for about twenty minutes. I plunked the dough into an oiled bowl and let it rise for almost four hours.

It remained too cool inside to rise well so I set it outside, first in the sun but the top got dry even covered, so I flipped the dough over and moved it into shade. It was supposed to increase by about 30%, and this looked about right.

Then I rolled it into a log and let it rise three plus more hours in the pan, until the center was just above the pan edge.

And baked to perfection! After it came out of the pan I brushed the top with melted butter, and by the time it had cooled enough to slice it was midnight. So I put the loaf away and dreamed all night of the tomato sandwich I would have for lunch the next day.

I’ve waited all summer for this moment: a vine ripe tomato from my garden, homemade soft white bread, and just the right amount of mayonnaise. Amy saw this picture and said “I think you might need more mayonnaise.” I told cousin Mel about the sandwich and she said, “Whenever I get mayonnaise I think of you.” She recalled a time when I was horrified that there was no mayonnaise, and she said, “You wailed!” We laughed and laughed. It’s nice to be known.

I was extra grateful to be able to eat this sandwich yesterday for lunch. Not only that the tomatoes survived the grasshopper plague and ripened beautifully, that the bread turned out so well, that there was sufficient mayonnaise, but that I could finally chew again after five days on a liquid diet. The dental crowns that keep on giving! It’s been awful, but with some friendly advice and a recollection, I finally got some relief from the mouth and face paralysis and pain. I drank custard, soup, and smoothies for five days, took Vitamin I morning and evening, and looked up some Feldenkrais sessions for jaw pain. It still feels awkward to close my mouth but the teeth have almost quit hurting, don’t feel loose anymore, and can at last do their job again. On a wonder bread.

Pure and utter perfection: tomato, mayo, salt

Yesterday evening by the pond, I was trying to capture a gorgeous blue dragonfly, which I didn’t quite succeed in, but a sweet mama frog hopped into the picture. And when I looked at the picture, I saw another frog already hiding beyond the lily pads.

This morning, who did I find up in the vegetable garden all the way the other end of the yard? One of my darlings in the wood chips damp from the sprinkler. They are on the move! I wanted to catch it and return it to the pond, but who am I to say? It had come all this way braving untold hazards, I could hardly be the decider and make it start its journey all over again. And then for lunch, I enjoyed another perfect tomato sandwich, with some lightly curried carrot-corn soup. It’s been a peaceful couple of days at Mirador, as the wild world spins around.

Another Sunset

Aug5

I was grateful to get into the dentist today to check out increasing pain in my teeth since the crown a few weeks ago. All kinds of nightmare scenarios were going through my mind, but not with the pernicious insistence of pre-mindfulness days. The dentist was reassuring, diagnosed it as a “bite problem” and ground down both crowns to resolve it. They said my teeth were bruised. What? I was grateful to learn something new: teeth are held in place by ligaments, and ligaments can get inflamed for all sorts of reasons, including not quite perfect crowns. Fingers crossed that’s all it is. We’ll know more later.

I’m grateful for making it through to another glorious sunset. West, light smoke floated below the clouds. To the northwest the wildfire smoke seemed to float above the clouds, though really, I think, it was just closer.

Perspective

Aug1

It’s been such a joyful journey to watch these little creatures grow. I’ve felt like I had a pretty good handle on their development, checking on them a couple of times a day, noticing the first tiny hind legs developing, and then seeing the forelegs on a few yesterday. I sent a picture to Dr. Amphibian, and he asked if any were coming out of the water onto land yet. Well I think not, I thought, If I’m just now seeing the forelegs, but I didn’t say so. I’m learning.

As I was leaving pondwatch last evening, there was a flicker in the rushes, a hint of a hop, and it was gone before I could be sure, but I thought I saw a froglet! A baby garter snake also escaped my camera; thinner than a pencil and quick it slithered off the flagstone and swam across the pond to disappear into the rushes.

Pondering what my friend had asked me, I came down to the pond this morning with fresh eyes, a shift in perspective. I looked more closely into the marshy ground with an open mind. These curly rushes over the years have grown roots to the bottom of the pond and created their own little land masses. When I noticed a baby frog right away, I had to laugh at my hubris, to think that in my couple of superficial visits a day I was keeping up with their development!

I knew the tadpoles had been clustering around the edges of the rushes for a week or two, but I hadn’t thought to inspect the rushes themselves for froglets. I only saw the tadpoles who swam away from the edges when Wren or I came close enough to disturb them.

There are still five or six adult frogs hanging around, some as big as the palm of my hand.

But the froglets, they’re only the size of one thumb joint—and yet perfectly formed complete miniatures of their parents! I only saw half a dozen, but now I know how well they hide I’m sure there are far more than I counted. The habitat is perfect for them: the rushes are partially submerged, providing a lattice over pockets of warm shallow water. As they make their metabolic transition from herbivores to carnivores, they can find the exact niche they need in any moment somewhere in the spongy rush islands, and when they’re completely transformed into froglets they can climb all the way out.

Seeing one perching on a lily pad was absolutely the best part of my day.

The pond is rich in other lives as well. Dragonflies, damselflies, water bugs, spiders, and apparently enough tiny animals to feed a thousand froglets. I’m profoundly grateful for the way each day enhances my perspective.

Grasshopper Plague

Jul16
On midday grasshopper patrol…

Morning, noon, and evening, neither rain nor hail nor fire nor smoke can keep me from doing grasshopper patrol around the patio and through the garden. Sometimes I use the hose and sometimes I just sweep with my hands. I’m grateful I’ve managed them as well as I have, despite not starting quite early enough; now they’re big I have some strategies in mind but I was waiting for the grasshopper webinar today to decide my next step.

They’ve once again demolished all the rabbitbrush in the yarden, stripping the leaves of what little grew back on this massive bush this year, after they completely denuded it last summer, killing the lower half.

The beautiful little rose bush I nursed along and finally potted up last month was thriving on the patio table, alongside three tiny citrus trees. I checked them several times a day for the slightest sign of grasshopper predation, intending to bring them inside at the first bite.

I failed miserably with the tiny trees: one afternoon I noticed a single leaf damaged, so I set the tray near the door to bring inside—but I forgot, left it out overnight, and the rock squirrel who haunts the patio ate all three down to a toothpick. The rose continued to thrive—until yesterday. Midday it was fine. Evening rounds it was missing three-quarters of its foliage. So I whisked it inside to the sunroom table and administered first aid.

I was relieved to sit down for an hour at lunchtime, amidst heavy smoke outside, to a PPAN (People and Pollinators Action Network) zoom webinar called “Pollinators Meet Grasshopper and Mormon Cricket Management.” Sharon Selvaggio, a pesticide reduction specialist with The Xerces Society, gave a riveting presentation on the complex relationship between grasshoppers, pollinators, and ecosystem health. The Xerces Society, a conservation organization working to protect the natural world through the conservation of invertebrates, educates about the unintended consequences of widespread pesticide use.

Ever wonder why honeybee populations are in steep decline? They’re a canary in the coal mine for native bees and other pollinators like butterflies and moths. APHIS aerial spraying of pesticides to control Orthoptera (grasshoppers, crickets, and katydids) in the Midwest and western states is a contributing factor in the decline of many pollinators. Sharon leads Xerces’ work in seeking sustainable solutions for grasshopper and Mormon cricket management, especially on public lands. She offered some alternatives to pesticides for the home gardener.

Great news! Having a low tolerance for snapping their little heads off, lacking chloroform as my zoo friends use, and not (yet) interested in freezing and frying them, she gave the answer to what to do with them if I choose to pluck or vacuum them off plants in the cool hours while they’re sluggish: drop them into bucket of soapy water! (Ack. I still hate the idea of killing them. Which do I hate more? Killing insects or losing the fruits of my labors? Probably losing my garden.)

Speaking of the garden… I made the onion greens pesto finally, with the chopped greens, some parsley, garlic, lemon juice, pecans, and parmesan cheese. So simple, so delicious!

I was grateful it was cloudy and a little cooler today, so I could also make “Vichyssoise light.” I’d been putting it off because I didn’t want to heat up the house, but you can’t make cold Vichyssoise without first cooking it. I sautéed the onions in butter, added a chopped potato, chicken broth, salt and pepper, and simmered for half an hour. Then I took it off the heat and stirred in a couple tablespoons of yogurt and a big splash of milk and blended til it was smooth and creamy. By then I was too hot to eat hot soup so it went into the fridge for tomorrow. But I did lick the spoon and it’s delicious!

The wind shifted to the west this evening and blew in some fresh air. I was able to cool off outside without a mask and leave the doors open to get a cross breeze through the house for a few hours. I took the opportunity to pick the rest of the un- or less-damaged apricots and harvested more than expected. Another garden success in a scant year!

A screenshot from the Watch Duty app yesterday showing the South Rim fire perimeter, evacuation zones, and the two planes and one helicopter working it at the time. The blue dot near the top is where I live, nine miles as the crow flies from the fire. I’ve been relying on it so much in the past week that I felt compelled to pay their reasonable membership fee; getting the little purple aircraft moving in real time was an unexpected bonus.

I’m grateful for the nonprofits that make the world better, like Watch Duty, PPAN and Xerces, and for endangered government agencies, like APHIS and the National Weather Service, that use science to serve diverse human needs; and I’m grateful for the technology that puts warnings, forecasts, and other helpful data at our fingertips.

I’m grateful for the Weather Underground app, with all the bells and whistles selected: radar, cloud cover, fronts, heat, hail, severe storms… and for knowing where I stand in the midst of it all, once again that little blue dot near the top.

Cherry Pie

Jun24

That old ditty Can she bake a cherry pie, Billy boy, Billy boy, can she bake a cherry pie charming Billy? has been running through my head since yesterday morning when I set out to do just that. Turns out yes she can.

I used a new crust recipe that included butter and cream cheese, and chose to par-bake it though the pie recipe didn’t call for that. It was a partly successful choice.

It made the lattice top harder to attach, but with the clever little tool the lattice was a lot easier to make. However, I think I’ll give away the tool. Though the top crust looked pretty, there wasn’t enough of it. Next time I’ll try a handmade lattice or just leave it solid.

The bulk of the cherries came from Deb’s freezer, from a local organic orchard. Those few little brighter red cherries? They’re from my baby tree. It was fun to throw all nine of them in, and the gesture was well-received at the ‘family dinner’ up the hill.

Little Wren had fun with her friends Josie and Oso, though Oso spent most of the evening challenging a ground squirrel under his mama’s car. I’m grateful for having good-hearted, like-minded friends in the neighborhood, and for spending a comfortable evening savoring seeming normalcy despite the rogue president’s unconstitutional bombing the night before.

Wren inspects my work finally planting one of the little willows Garden Buddy gave me last fall.

This week’s value in the Mindful Life Community is Action, and today’s guidance centered on this quote.

“Don’t spend your precious time asking ‘Why isn’t the world a better place?’ It will only be time wasted. The question to ask is ‘How can I make it better?’ To that there is an answer.” Leo Buscaglia

My challenge these days is finding the balance between these two questions. I wish this government’s policies weren’t rooted in the three poisons of Greed, Hatred, and Delusion; but they are. I wish I could do more to make the world a better place, and I suffer from feeling that I don’t do enough. Are my expectations, of myself and of human nature, unrealistic?

If you’re experiencing similar distress or confusion you might want to check out the free Mindful Living Skills webinar on Thursday online: Working with Expectations in a Time of Uncertainty. Click here to register or learn more.

Topaz lounges at the pond while Wren and I work.

Some days I just hate the lessons I learn! This evening I learned not to wear hearing aids to work in the garden. There aren’t a lot of mosquitoes, partly because I make sure there’s no water left standing long enough to breed them, even in the catch dishes under potted plants. But there are a few. One got caught between my ear and the hearing aid, and I couldn’t get it out. The buzz was strikingly loud, of course, but beyond that once I pulled out the hearing aid every effort I made just drove the killer insect deeper. There were no Q-tips downstairs so I had to hurry up the stairs as fast as I could, which still isn’t fast or graceful; the swab didn’t get it, so I hurried back down and grabbed garlic-mullein ear oil from the medicine cabinet and filled the ear to try to float it out; shook out the oil, swabbed inside, and could still feel it. After a hot shower and another Q-tip, my ear still doesn’t feel right. I pray that the damn mosquito didn’t bite my eardrum and send West Nile virus directly into my brain. Sigh. First world problems.

And a first world solution: sour cherries over chocolate chocolate chip ice cream, for a brief moment of forgetfulness. Savor the simple pleasures, while we have them.

Vanilla Bean Ice Cream

Jun10

I was grateful to get home today knowing that I had vanilla bean ice cream in the freezer. But before that, I was grateful for so much more.

I was grateful to Pork Central for Wrensitting while I spent the afternoon in the dentist’s chair. They took such good care of her and I didn’t worry a bit, even knowing that the Mother of Topaz was in the same house and might take exception to a tiny dingo in her space.

I was grateful to the great team at Heritage Family Dental in Paonia for their kindness and skill. Even though I got home feeling like they’d punched me in the face. I appreciated the ‘tooth pillow’ for the left side so my mouth could rest open on a piece of foam instead of having to hold it open myself; and the dark glasses to protect my eyes from the harsh light and the tooth-dust mist from my open mouth. I was especially grateful for nitrous oxide, so that even though I could hear (and smell the burnt tooth smell from) the grinding, I didn’t care too much. I was grateful that part didn’t last much longer than an hour… and the next part was fascinating.

Once all the hard work was done, they packed something around my gum around the tooth they had ground down and refilled, then brought in a little beeping singing wand that scanned the lower jaw, upper jaw, and the bite, and from these scans the amazing technology created a model crown, and more amazing technology ground it right there in the next room, and then fired it at 3000 degrees and it came out smooth and shining. Much brighter white, I might add, than any of my natural teeth. Oh well! A small price to pay… though in actual dollars it was pretty hefty.

The computer model created from the scanner to inform the machine that carves the crown.
The grinder, carving a crown out of zirconium. I waited about 45 minutes from the time they scanned til the time she came back in and cemented the new tooth protection in place.

I missed hanging out in the yard this afternoon, but I was sure grateful to get home in time for sunset. And to be able to swing by the Arbol Farmers’ Market in town park and pick up a few tomato starts, and to pick up Wren from next door, and to come home and zoom with a Grateful Gathering, and to plant tomatoes after that, and then watch the moon rise. Oh! and the ice cream? That was dinner. Much of the day spent largely outside of my comfort zone, stretching in the Growth Zone, and a whole ‘nother twenty-four hours ahead of me tomorrow, if I am fortunate enough to wake up alive.