Savoring the sights, sounds, scents of the fruit trees in flagrant bloom this week, I laid a camping pad under the apricot tree on the day the petals all flew off. I was grateful to see a dozen painted ladies, a few bumblebees, some moths, and several other kinds of native bees as well as a few honeybees also enjoying the flowers.
The next day, the wild plum burst into blossom, and the day after that the peach tree buds started to open.
And Biko showed Wren how to enjoy a strawberry.
Saturday is the third No Kings Day national protest against the corrupt, murderous regime in power in the US. If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention. You can find an event near you here. I’ll be joining friends at the Paonia Town Park, and donating my craftivism to the local Immigrant Protection organization. These little red hat badges will be available for a $10 minimum donation to support local families affected by ICE terrors.
We use this graphic in the Mindfulness Foundations Course to illustrate how we tend to get complacent about the things we think we care about. I used ‘the necklace’ as an example for a few courses, but after today, I’ll use losing Biko as an example. Unless I get complacent about having found him again, and forget all about how it felt for a night and a morning to think he might be gone. Which was awful. A friend just this morning was talking about the phenomenon of hedonic adaptation, wherein we become acclimated to a new condition, a change in fortune, and over time our wellbeing goes back to its general resting state. It’s like when we forget to appreciate the non-toothache, and only notice that we were relatively painfree for awhile once we suddenly have pain again.
While we looked for him last night, and again for hours this morning, I did manage to appreciate the blooming maxis near the front gate. I looked behind them four or five times, since there’s a little divot in the ground where he’s hidden before, but nope, he was not there any time I looked. I was pretty sure that he was in the yard. It got dark last night, and I didn’t worry because I knew there were no holes in the fence, and sometimes he’s hard to find at dusk. Wren is so easily distracted these days by the sparrows in the rosebush, and now the finches at the feeder.
I poked around with my walking pole in the thick grass under the apricot tree. With all the fallen leaves his camouflage shell might not show up. I even lengthened the pole so I could poke to the bottom of the pond a few places where I couldn’t see beneath the plants and algae, just in case. We looked for about half an hour last night, forty-five minutes before work this morning, and another hour before lunch while the sun hinted through cloud cover. We looked absolutely everywhere, and even walked the perimeter outside the fence. I knew there was a slim chance someone might have come in the gate and left it open while I was out half the day yesterday: even just long enough to walk down to the door, knock, and wait a couple minutes, if it was sunny and he was active and near the gate, he could have walked right out with no one the wiser. But it was a slim chance, and I didn’t panic. I wouldn’t have worried at all in summer, confident that when the sun came out he’d emerge from hiding to bask, and I’d catch him running around later in the day. But the forecast for the next few days was not conducive to his coming out: possible heavy rain through the weekend, and on Sunday an overnight low that could spell the end of him. So we had to find him, and I didn’t want to be out looking in a downpour later.
It would take a gap this size beneath the fence for him to escape, and there just isn’t one along the perimeter. This gap is between the garden and the yarden, and those are his footprints: he uses it regularly to come and go from the area where his dogloo provides frequent overnight shelter. It’s where Wren found him on Wednesday night, but not last night. I triple checked. I checked both corners in the shoddy shed where he’s sometimes tucked in, and lifted the cardboard box he used before it collapsed, but he wasn’t under it.
However, after looking literally everywhere else in the yard, and triple checking the dog pen and garden, I went back to the broken cardboard box and lifted it all the way up, not just the front end–and there he was! Oh the wave of gratitude I felt in that moment! It washed away all my pending grief at possibly losing him.
To be clear, Wren did not find him. I found him, she was nowhere near, off chasing sparrows. But I put the box back over him and called her, and then she found him. To her mind, she had succeeded after our long and arduous hunt, and it was important to her to feel that she’d found him at last. We were both delighted and grateful, and moved Biko, some dried rushes, and the box all to the round pen to recreate his cozy bed, so he could tuck in for the rest of the season and I’d always know where to find him when it’s time to bring him inside. For the moment, his value is as high as it’s ever been.
I’m thinking there may be a lot of people who don’t realize how much they value Democracy just now, and what an ugly surprise it will be for them if it comes to pass that they wake up one day and we no longer have one. It’s certainly the direction this regime is trending, and the source of pervasive grief for many, but it’s not yet a done deal. If we act together, each of us doing our little things every day, but all of us coming together over and over in grassroots groups and other communities, resisting as a population instead of lone individuals, then we can still stem the creeping red tide. This short interview with Rebecca Solnit inspires the hope that remains for all of us if we come together in determined resistance.
An Irish farmer I follow on Instagram highlighted this trick to refresh rusted garden shears, and I’ve used this jar of vinegar to soak three pruners, about twelve hours each. The vinegar bubbles and the rust just falls off! Then you scrub them clean of vinegar and they’re ready to sharpen and good as new. It’s time to soak the Supreme Court and Congress in vinegar. Here’s a list of links I shared with North Fork Indivisible this morning. I hope some of them inspire or at least interest you.
Finding a moment of peace down at the pond, before wasp harassment drove us back inside
My little town. My neighborhood. Teaching. Scavenging. I couldn’t decide until I realized the umbrella they all fit under is finding what I need. I’m grateful for finding what I need today.
Feeling on a bit of a rocky plateau in mindfulness practice, I was grateful for finding camaraderie and meaning in a meditation and meeting I led this morning, with some wonderful graduates of the Foundations Course I teach; and then in the afternoon, finding common ground and ease with some wonderful new acquaintances in a course I’ve just started taking. Later, resting in the comfort of a zoom chat with Amy.
Grateful for finding what I need for a delicious sandwich for lunch between zooms
I’m grateful for finding what I needed at the Hitching Post in town, the little store that has one of everything you could almost ever need. I needed a couple more cans of wasp spray. I hate to use it, but we’re not able to spend more than a few minutes outside near the house, or even sit still as far from the house as the pond, without being threatened by an aggressive wasp. I don’t think it’s the same wasp every time (but it could be); I think they have guards stationed all around the yarden to drive me inside. But it’s simply too lovely, in this most beautiful season, to be imprisoned by fear of wasps. They continue to rise from the stump, and I found another huge nest under the deck just outside the east door, and another in a decorative pot on the patio corner.
I’m grateful for finding the time to take the scenic loop to town and home again, driving around the reservoir to enjoy the first fall colors turning up on Mendicant Ridge, and the plenitude of all that community water still behind the dam.
Grateful for finding salad greens to meet the needs of Biko and myself this evening
After dark, I dusted the stump with diatomaceous earth, grateful to find that in my garden supply drawer; unfortunately, that roused the wasps quickly, and I was stung again on the tender skin inside my forearm. It wasn’t as bad as fast as the last one, but continues to swell so I’ve taken another Benadryl: grateful for finding what I need in the medicine drawer.
After all that poisoning, I wanted a hot shower but it was already down to 40℉ outside and all the windows and doors were open. So I shut most of them, and found enough small pieces of wood to kindle a fire in the woodstove. Grateful for finding what I need without having to split kindling, since the kindling cracking pedestal is still out of commission. And I could go on: finding hot water at my fingertips, noticing how dry my hands are and finding lotion on my desk, finding Biko quickly before dark so I could bring him in for another cold night. Extremely grateful for having enough conveniences and luxuries so that I almost always find what I need without having to look too far or hard.
Grateful for finding the canine companion I need just in the nick of time…
I’m grateful for rain overnight which left the high desert refreshed, and gave morning light an extra vibrant quality. As we headed for the gate, I was tickled to watch a gnat-nado; we saw a few more of these swirling columns of insects rising as we walked through the woods.
Coming home we spied a sleeping sunflower bee, genus Svastra, waiting to warm up before flying.
It was a big day. A fulfilling class in the afternoon followed by a rare outing planned with friends and their visiting family. So the morning involved baking little apricot cakes as my contribution to the snack spread. I adapted the recipe for high altitude, and also added an element from the next apricot bake, an upside down cake, with a dollop of brown sugar in an apricot half underneath the batter. Naturally, I had to test them before I could share, so I had one for dessert after my cheese sandwich! Today’s was open face cream cheese on toast, slathered with apricot jam. Yes it’s a sandwich!
Meanwhile, Wren and Biko ate a little more healthy fare with some chopped romaine.
Wren enjoyed cocktails at the rim of the Black Canyon with the rest of us, and wore just the right coat to match her new best friend Tatiana.
We could see smoke, we guessed from the Little Mesa Fire SSW of Delta, which fortunately has grown slowly to only 450 acres in a wild area. As I drove to the canyon, I listened to The Pen and the Sword on KVNF, which featured an interview with John Vaillant, author of Fire Weather: A True Story from a Hotter World. The book is about the 2016 apocalyptic wildfire that consumed the Canadian city of Fort McMurray, the chief supplier of oil imports to the US. Ironically, the fire was unquestionably driven by fossil-fuel induced climate chaos, as Vaillant demonstrates, and “was not a unique event, but a shocking preview of what we must prepare for in a hotter, more flammable world.” It was chilling to listen to this interview after watching news of the catastrophic Maui fires this afternoon: precisely the scenario Vaillant cautioned about in his book that came out this summer. (I hope the interview will appear on KVNF archives shortly.)
I’m grateful for perspective, which reminds me that we humans and our follies are just a gnat-nado in the context of geological time, the kind of time that created these 1.8 billion-year-old metamorphic rocks, and the millions of years of uplift and erosion that formed this spectacular gorge.
After the drama and adventure of the evening, I was grateful to drive home in my energy-efficient little old car, through pastoral landscape, with a glimpse of sunset in the rearview mirror. I contend daily with the conundrum of how to live lightly on this fragile planet while also relying on the very source of its greatest threat.
I hope the clouds part overnight this weekend so I can rest in the reassuring perspective of the Perseid meteor shower. If pondering geology gives momentary respite, contemplating our place in the vast mystery of outer space provides an even deeper peace.
Dorothy comforts Billina as they begin their unexpected journey together. Illustrations by John R. Neill
Yesterday I shared a dream with a friend who was in it, and revealed that the end of it likely came from the key challenge in L. Frank Baum’s storybook Ozma of Oz. She hadn’t realized there were more Oz books (Baum wrote thirteen more after The Wizard; even more were written by several authors after his death) and through the magic of technology she immediately downloaded the audio version of this one. I’m grateful for her enthusiasm to escape into it, which inspired me to pull my copy off the vintage book shelf and also enjoy it for my bedtime story.
Billina the talking hen frightens the Nome King
I got a hundred pages in pretty quickly last night, and then turned out the lights. It was easy enough to finish it in increments today, first with morning coffee as I ran a sprinkler and enjoyed the quiet morning in the yarden, and later in the shade after work. The feel of this old book, with its soft yellowed paper and faded smell, add poignance to my third or fourth reading of it. Originally published in 1907, this may well be a first edition as there’s no subsequent information in the front matter. I’ve had it almost sixty years. Despite some dated references, it feels surprisingly relevant.
I’m grateful to have it, to have been able to pull it off a shelf in my bedroom, where it rests alongside The Wizard of Oz, a complete Dr. Doolittle series, most of the Little Women books, and numerous other old and fragile paper and board storybooks. I keep them out of love and respect, because they are part of who I am, and besides who else would want them? Perhaps they’ll go to the dump when I die, but not until then. In the complicated life of an adult, in these complicated times, I’m newly inspired to turn to these classic storybooks for an occasional quick and happy respite.
Biko approaching some garden greens harvested just for him, after sitting still for a long while enjoying a sprinkler shower.
I’m grateful for living with a tortoise. Biko is about 23 years old. I got him when he was one, but I just don’t remember exactly which year I got him from a zoo where he was captive hatched. He’s a leopard tortoise, a species native to South Africa, who semi-hibernates inside over winter, but free ranges through the yarden all summer.
Biko is the last of three tortoises that have lived here. One got too big and I hurt my back lifting him: He found a good home in Florida. The second one took a ten-day unauthorized journey and was found, but didn’t survive that winter for unknown reasons possibly having something to do with his autumnal misadventure.
Wren a few days ago chewing her treat after finding Biko tucked under the sagebrush behind her.
For as long as I’ve had tortoises, I’ve had dogs trained to find them at the end of the day. It’s essential in spring and fall, when it’s too cold overnight to leave them out. And it’s good practice in the summer, so the hunter doesn’t forget the job. It took Wren all of last summer to learn what I was asking her, but as soon as spring came and Biko was out again, she knew immediately what to do. The catahoulas used to bark when they found a tortoise. Wren sits down beside Biko wherever he is tucked in.
This evening we had a special guest, so we hunted Biko before heading to the canyon. He was still out foraging, and when Wren found him she sat down like a good girl for her reward. Biko just plowed right into her.
I’m especially grateful today for a short but deeply meaningful visit with another old friend who happens to be in the valley for a few days. She captured Wren’s heart as quickly and easily as she did mine all those years ago when she first smiled across the counter at Moonrise Espresso. It was pure delight to spend a few hours together on a gorgeous early-summer day with heartfelt conversation, laughter, and a few tears.
On our walk back from the canyon, I was grateful to see the claret cup cactus filling with buds.
Zoom cocktails with Amy on Saturday, which I tried to upload from my phone but didn’t realize it hadn’t worked. I’m grateful for a spectacular fall color display on Mendicant Ridge and all the mountains around, whether or not I make it up into the high country to drive or walk among the brilliant aspens. I’m content to witness it from the plateau looking up, knowing and recollecting the feel, the scent, the ambience of an aspen forest in fall.I’m grateful for this little imp, and grateful that she didn’t fall off the edge of the deck. Look at that face!I’m grateful to watch the full moon sidle up behind the mountains on a balmy October evening, sharing the moment with my dear friend across the country.
I’m grateful for the intangibles in a day; not to be confused with the immeasurables, but including them. I’m grateful for the feeling of joy of just waking up alive, for the excitement and potential I feel at the end of pranayama class with a beloved teacher and the sense of understanding that passes between us even on zoom; for the joy of teaching and the sincere caring for the students in my classes (and graduates) to whom I can offer some help and guidance in navigating challenging lives; for the sense of humility I experience knowing that I’m just a step or two ahead of them on this journey to peace and contentment in a culture that demands more of us than we can realistically expect to render. I’m grateful for the facets of my life that I experience and treasure every day which cannot be captured in a photograph. Also, I’m grateful for those moments that can be.
I’m grateful for quotidian moments of levity like this Marine cut mullein top.
Today winterizing began in earnest, deep-cleaning the sunroom in preparation for bringing in all the cacti, geranii, potted herbs, and a few peppers that I can’t bear to lose to colder nights. Above, one of the two Datil peppers, which I dug up and potted to bring in so that I can at least have a chance of some ripening. These hot peppers are native to St. Augustine, Florida, and apparently need a much longer season than I could give them here. Below, I also potted up the single Tabasco pepper plant, which took so long to produce blossoms, then flourished; but alas, it hails from Mexico and the US gulf coast states, and also wants a longer season than I could provide. Hoping these two pepper plants, and a little Scorpion that hasn’t even flowered yet, plus one of the Jigsaw peppers, will all thrive in the sunroom for a month or two more, without spawning aphids.
The bounty of unripe peppers on this Tabasco plant made it feel worthwhile to bring in before nights get too cold. Biko will also be coming in regularly at night now, until he decides it’s time to hibernate in the laundry room.
I’ve created a monster! My goal in spring was to have Wren trained by fall to race around the yard and find Biko quickly and consistently. She is doing an excellent job of that, when she can tear herself away from nibbling on the lush green grasses brought up by an extra rainy September. She runs ahead of me checking under sagebrush, rabbitbrush, juniper, and sits down when she finds him. However, when I pull him from his burrow each evening to bring him inside, she jumps at him and follows me, dancing around as I set him down in his indoor spot, then barks and sits down beside him to tell me she’s found him again! In the mornings, she yips and prances until I follow her into the laundry nook where she finds him yet again; each time expecting a treat, of course. And of course she gets one.
I’m grateful for the patio where I hang out some afternoons in the shade. It’s nothing fancy, but it cools off in the afternoon, and there’s a whole lot of world to participate in when I’m out there. Often I read, so there’s that whole universe opened up by books, right there on the patio. And always, I look up and around often, especially when Wren alerts me to someone else’s presence. She’s so gentle about it. I hear her little body jump up from wherever she’s relaxing nearby, and run a few quiet steps to stand near my chaise, and I look up and follow her gaze. Today she was slowly wagging her curly tail at the Old Doe, who stood looking up from grazing in the flower bed. Beyond her, one of her spotted fawns browsed in the shady grove. Sadly, I saw this same fawn in the yard with her yesterday, but only the one… I worry that the other twin may have fed a lion. Oh well. Everybody’s gotta eat.
I had to chuckle watching this unfold. Biko kept on walking as he always does no matter what’s in front of him, and the Old Doe got out of his way, stepping all the way into the flower bed for him to pass, then stepping out again.I was too comfortable to get up and go inside to get Husband Camera, so I tried the phone to catch this little hummingbird sipping from Jere’s orchid. Still haven’t cleaned the mud streaks from the picture window, but I’ll get to it one day; I did rinse the melted adobe off the plant leaves. Hanging out on the patio I get to hear the summer music of hummingbirds flying around, finches chirping, jays squawking, hawks soaring overhead, ravens cawing, crickets sawing, wind tickling the leaves of birch and aspen…
My kitchen project today was to begin fermenting the first batch of peppers. Five Aji Crystals, four Chimayos, an orange jalapeño, and the one ripe scorpion. I touched the end cap of one of each flavor to my tongue as I cut them up (wearing gloves), and my tongue tingled for an hour. The scorpion was my favorite, with a very distinct tropically fruity flavor along with its searing heat. And yes, that’s a carrot at the bottom. The recipe calls for garlic and shallots also, but I wanted to use only plants from my garden so I just included this carrot. Maybe I’ll add some garlic into later fermenting jars, and maybe I’ll mix them all together when it comes time to blend the final sauce; or maybe I’ll just make a bunch of different batches. We’ll know more later!
I’m grateful we got to start out the day with a nice walk to the canyon, greeting our old tree friends, and taking stock of more erosion deeper into the woods.
Most of our trails to the rim experienced some transformation, this one with a new rill snaking quite a long way down the center.
What happens when I get a burst of inspiration to tidy up or reorganize is that I always lose something. Awhile ago I did a kitchen project in which I bought a few new shelf and drawer accessories, and really got the pantry and cabinets in order. Not long after that I was searching for the J&M granulated garlic refill that my neighbors produce for their marvelous garlic grinder. I was sure that I had a packet somewhere, but scoured my spice racks and drawers and couldn’t find it. Some weeks after that, I was searching for the Chaat Masala that my cousin had sent me last winter, and I knew that I had done something sensible with it when I reorganized, but it had vanished. It was reminiscent of Breadgate, but I didn’t get quite so attached to finding it. And a week after that–this morning–I opened a little flat drawer in a lower cabinet looking for something else, and voila! There were the missing spices. I had quite logically put the flat spice bags in there instead of trying to cram them into the racks with the bottles and boxes. I’m grateful for finding lost things, and for being able to laugh about it.
In other food news, all the string beans are tapering off production, while the paprika peppers continue to ripen. Lunch was a simple BLT wrap. Wren and Biko each got a green bean, but Biko turned up his beak and Wren ate them both.
And I’m grateful that we got to end this precious day that will never come again with a stroll to the west fence, and view this surprising cloud configuration.
Grateful for garden goulash for lunch. I gathered all the scraps from pickling dilly beans and freezing spiralized zucchini this morning, tossed them in a pan with bacon grease and a chopped tomato, and cooked up veggies for Wren’s food for a few days plus a lunch wrap for me. So simple, so delicious! And making the most of food scraps.A good dollop of the veggies on top of cheese, avocado, and mayonnaise, on a tomato tortilla rolled up for lunch.
I am grateful for the deluge that blessed us this afternoon in the valley, on the mesa. It poured for a good forty minutes, nourishing the drought-stricken land. Both patios were underwater and pathways were streams. I’m not the only one who stopped what I was doing (reading) and gawked at the downpour. I’m grateful to live among people who appreciate this gift from the storm gods; to know that my friends and neighbors also paused in their everyday lives to marvel at the glory of this rain.
It wasn’t quite a Hundred Year Flood like they got in Moab last weekend, a desert town a few hours west of here; nor was it like the five Thousand-Year Floods that have occurred in the US this past month. And maybe this particular rainstorm wasn’t a direct effect of climate chaos like the record-breaking floods in Dallas, Kentucky, St. Louis, Illinois, and Death Valley since July 26. Maybe our storm was just an extra heavy monsoon rain, but it was definitely unusual for this area in recent years, and most welcome. I’m grateful it didn’t last much longer, because it actually could have overflowed the patio into the front door. As it was, and rarely happens, wind and rain came from the east for part of the storm, melting adobe down the living room window. I’m grateful that all the other sides of my house got stuccoed years ago. I’m grateful I had the presence of mind this time to go outside and squeegee the window while it was still wet, so tomorrow I’ll only have a few streaks to wash off instead of a curtain of dried grit.
After the storm I wandered around the yard assessing erosion, and hunting for Biko. I was kind of worried he might have gotten caught in a puddle and drowned. As cold as it got so suddenly, he might not have been able to move if he’d been tucked in somewhere water was flowing, which happened to be most of the yarden. There are half a dozen places he tucks in for the night this time of year; he could have been anywhere else, too. I started my search in the dog pen where he hides in the dogloo or the dog house when he senses rough weather coming. But the ferocity of this storm caught us all off guard. I circled the yard checking his other hidey-holes, and found him under the lavender-cotton by the top gate.
He was a little muddy and very cold, but I rinsed him off in a puddle and brought him inside for the night, quite relieved to have found him.After all that excitement, I prepped cucumbers and onions to chill overnight for B&B pickle making tomorrow. And then Wren and I walked up the driveway just before sunset……returning to the yard just in time for another gorgeous spectacle.
