The many faces of the apricot tree with different skies. I sat under it for awhile the other day while someone else worked in my yard. It was a reminder of the simple joy of letting go. Feels like it’s been a long, long time since I let myself really relax. If I ever knew how, I’ve lost the skill. But I intend to practice every day and maybe I’ll be able to create a new healthy habit.
This crinkle-cutter worked really well on a narrow sweet potato, and I tried some tricks that several recipes promised would deliver the crispiest fries ever. They did not. The fries look much crispier than they actually were, but they were still tasty.
The Eureka lemon tree that I’ve had for a couple of years, and cut back to a stump last year (because, well, I can’t even remember why right this minute but it was necessary) has grown really well, and I’m thrilled that it finally has some flower buds at the tips. A houseplant success!
I’ve tried to get Topaz to walk with us the past few days and she wouldn’t. Turns out she just had a strong opinion on which direction she was willing to walk. This afternoon I cajoled and pleaded, and she lay down. Until I turned back through the east gate, walked past her and out the west gate, and she came right along. It was just before sunset and I caught both pets in the frame right before full shadow dimmed the emerald carpet. The forest floor has never looked like this. Seeing in real time how an extra wet season sets up a more serious fire season. We’ll know more later.
I’ve seen more mushrooms in the yard and woods in the past month than I’ve seen in the previous 33 years combined. Even with gloves on my hands got cold so we turned for home early. We got back to the yarden just in time for last light on the mountains, as the fall foliage radiated warmth.
I can’t get enough of the precious apricot tree in her fall raiment. And with that beautiful BIG blue sky behind her!
I don’t know who said it first, but I heard it from Jess Craven in this 2.5 minute video thanking us, the grassroots activists and all the voters who chose democracy over oligarchy: “The many are more powerful than the money.” Tears and tingles have been rising all day as I celebrate with friends around the country, listen to my heroes who have been on the front lines as their joy and gratitude overflows, and release wave after wave of tension and anxiety from my body.
The little birds got a new feeder today: all metal cage and perches, with a tricky system for opening. This should stump jays, squirrels, and maybe even bears.
Robert Hubbell sums up the many small victories that amount to a huge win for regular Americans in this eight minute read or listen. Former DOJ attorney Joyce Vance celebrates in this post named after the book she released last spring, Giving Up Is Unforgivable. We won because we didn’t give up!
Now, the hard work begins, as everyone is saying. But first, we get to breathe, and celebrate, and rest on Cloud Nine for a little while… Then come January, those moderates, those firebrands we elected, we hold their feet to the fire and make them enact meaningful legislation that starts improving lives immediately. Next week is not too soon to start letting your elected representatives know what you expect from them when they’re sworn in.
The forest floor is insanely green these days, more so than I hav ever seen it, ever. We took a ramble this morning before more rain moved in this afternoon, with snow possible at this elevation overnight.
Starting on Day 1, here are some top priorities: *) Release unredacted Epstein Files! Like housecleaning, this might necessitate accomplishing a few things before you can get to the one thing, like tidying up clutter before you can dust. Those things might be a) Impeach AG Todd Blanche, and b) enlarge the Supreme Court by a significant number (and then strike down rulings like Citizens United and Dobbs and a few others).
I’m grateful for every meal, every day, knowing so many don’t have enough to eat. May our blue tsunami turn the tide on hunger in America. I’ve almost got the fish sandwich down. This time, I didn’t use bread flour for the rolls and they didn’t turn out so well. But I’ve got the coating right, with flour, cornstarch, and Penzeys Cajun seasoning, and zero cornmeal. (40% off almost everything at Penzeys right now in celebration!
I’m not ranking priorities because there are just too many that need to happen all at once. We’re looking at a triage scenario to save the casualties in this train wreck of a government. *) Break the Big Awful Bill so that SNAP, Medicaid, and Medicare are all resurrected to their full health and even bolstered: Healthcare for All, whatever forms that takes. *) Immediately reunite all detained and deported immigrants who have been separated from their children, and rescue as many as possible from prisons overseas; then formulate a realistic and compassionate Immigration policy and defund ICE. *) Restore the Department of Defense: Impeach Hegseth and fire his toadies, stop the war with Iran, stop murdering boatfuls of people in the Caribbean, restore military honor to those officers besmirched by this regime. *) Fire RFK: reclaim federal public health agencies including CDC and HHS, and start nurturing these sickened, broken organizations back to full strength; restore funding for cancer research and other crucial studies. *) Stop BIG OIL: Save the Arctic! Save the PLANET! *) Save the children, Stop the guns! *) Save Science! Save public education! Save Reality! Save the Gulf of Mexico! Save the Kennedy Center!
You have probably thought of three or four urgent priorities of your own as you’ve read this tragically incomplete list of mine. I could go on but you get the picture. And not one of us has to be responsible for all of these. My suggestion is that you pick one or two pet priorities for the next six months, and be clear and constant in your communication with your representatives about its importance; spice up your daily calls or missives with an extra one now and then. Make democracy fun again!
Today’s lunch, simple and delicious: another bad bun, toasted, with havarti, the last purple tomato, and a side of small tomatoes, with chips, and the last of a fun read about Anne Boleyn, The Beheading Game. In this version, she comes back for revenge!
Like any abuser, and I’ve known more than my fair share, the Abuser in Chief now pays lip service to reform, claiming he will work with Democrats because he doesn’t want to veto everything. I’ll believe it only when I see it and meanwhile I’ll be anticipating many more about faces, temper tantrums, scapegoats and vitriol. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see him take his Qatari jet and flee the country for Vanuatu, Morocco, the UAE, or some other country that has no extradition treaty with the US.
As Jess Craven says, sorry for all the links: well, she says interviews, as she’s introducing this one with congressional candidate Justin Pearson in Tennessee, but the principle applies. After this election I’ll back off on sharing so many links, but it feels important to me to amplify the messages of the frontline activists and candidates.
So I’ll also share this from my friend Jean, who has channeled her rage and anxiety into a clear and compassionate essay, “A Crisis of Humanity—the U.S. as Victim and Perpetrator.” She’s been a tireless grassroots activist for years, and will be working the polls on Tuesday. I sure hope she lets herself rest after that.
Unrelated to the election but relevant to the season, these images from past celebrations of Día de los Muertos offer a healthy approach to our inevitable end. I was fortunate to participate last night in a lovely online All Hallow’s Eve ‘meditation on change, endings and letting go’ led by another friend, honoring departed beloveds, and releasing what baggage we can now.
Over the past few days the ‘bonsai’ rose has finally sprung its first flower of the year, only after I brought it inside to the sunroom. Oh the fragrance!
Your Local Epidemiologist does a great job of laying out how important it is to vote like your health depends on it in her article Politics is medicine on a large scale. She first tells the story of a doctor investigating Typhus in 1848, the offers a graphic showing which 29 states have some aspect of healthcare on the ballot. In between she writes:
“In his final report, he said treating individual sick people with medicine wasn’t necessarily the long-term solution; what was needed was education, jobs, better housing, fairer taxes, and “full and unlimited democracy.” He wrote: “Medicine is a social science, and politics is nothing but medicine at a large scale.” (The government thanked him with sanctions, including pay cuts and the loss of his hospital-provided housing.) ….Nearly 180 years later, his point still holds…. health is on the ballot or in campaign slogans in at least 29 states. Governors, state legislators, and attorneys general are the officials who pick personnel, run Medicaid, fund public health departments, and set state rules on everything from vaccines to abortion.”
What follows is a lucid description of how health is still on the ballot in between the lines, and concludes “Health is on almost every midterm ballot this year, whether you notice it or not. Go vote like your health depends on it. Because it does.”
It’s not just your health, our health, public health that depends on this election. This regime’s cuts to climate and weather science “have exposed US to ‘cascade’ of El Niño dangers,” reports The Guardian. And let’s not forget the horrors of ICE and the murders of American citizens like Alex Pretti. This video of his parents updates us on where the investigation into his unlawful killing stands now.
Wren made friends yesterday with a new yarden helper.
Some more encouraging things to listen to or watch for respite or inspiration over the next few tense days until the election include this long interview with Rep. Ilhan Omar calmly deconstructing the conspiracy theories that fueled a raid on her DC home; Joyce Vance talking with Pulitzer Prize winner Ami Fields-Meyer on how youth mobilization swung Brazil and Serbia; and Jess Craven talking with Oklahoma Senate candidate Jasmine Thomas.
The apricot tree is turning.
My friend Ted sums up the stakes in his post Beyond Tribalism: “The spiritual task underneath the political challenge is to move beyond loving one’s self, family, race, tribe or party. The real test is whether we can live with a spirit of universal love…. In the 21st Century, whether we can move beyond tribalism will determine the long-term existence of life on Planet Earth.”
Coffee at the library garden was a welcome respite for the three of us this morning. We sat together on a beautiful, warm sunny day on the south side overlooking the two-lane highway that runs through town. Conversation was so rich we hardly noticed traffic noise. Wren came too, of course, and moved from lap to lap, sun to shade, as her soft animal body dictated. I hadn’t been in the library for awhile, and stepped in for a quick tour and to get some photos to show it off. There was a bead-making class about to set up, a patron at one of the several computers in the tech room, comfortable furnishings, happy houseplants in every corner, a charming children’s room, and lots of books. I may not want to handle them, but I sure don’t want to see any of them banned or burned. You bettah vote.
A friend whose opinion I respect responded to my post last night in an email offering more perspective on Proposition 137, the allocation of sales tax on sporting goods for conservation and wildfire prevention. She works in the field of wildfire governance, and was concerned about the confusing messaging the public is exposed to on this ballot measure. Here are some resources she shared showing the extent of support for the measure from conservation groups and “organizations who are doing place-based, on the ground work in [affected] communities.” Wish I’d known this before I voted. Grateful, though, to know my ballot has been received.
In case you haven’t voted yet, these might be helpful in making your decision. Here is some myth-busting from Vote Yes on Prop 137, and here’s a press release announcing the support of more than 170 women leaders in Colorado. Western Resource Advocates also supports the measure. These groups represent “the scientific consensus … on the efficacy of thinning and prescribed burning for reducing the risk of impacts from extreme wildfire.”
A beautiful sight! Laundry hanging on the line again!
She said that this website opposing the proposition “erroneously applies science conducted in one geographic region to another (i.e. applies findings in the Pacific Northwest to Colorado forests), and intentionally misleads the public.” Her experience, having been personally affected by an extreme wildfire some years ago and doing extensive research on the phenomenon since then, leads her to question the person behind this website, as well as the choices of certain groups opposing it. Groups she’d like to trust, as I trusted the Center for Biological Diversity. She opined that “There may be reasons not to vote for prop 137, but expanded commercial logging and road building shouldn’t be one of them….”
I was so grateful to be able to do laundry this afternoon, and water the cherry tree, and take a long hot shower. The water situation is 90% resolved: the pump cuts on by itself now and the pressure tank appears to be fully functional. The plumber was sorry to leave without full resolution, but one of two caps on the pump “disintegrated” when he tried to remove it so he was unable to replace the brush on that side. A replacement cap has been ordered. I’m not recklessly running water, but I feel a lot more ease with what I am using. Lunch was a basic cheese sandwich, with a heaping side of gratitude.
An hour ago I received a Watch Duty alert that the air quality at my nearest station was above 100. When I opened the app I saw that everywhere else it looked fine, so I double checked on Paku, a dedicated air quality app, and was staggered to see it at 884. What could possibly cause such a spike? Now, at bedtime, it’s back down to 20. A fluke in the technology, perhaps. I’m grateful to head to bed tonight a little bit wiser and a lot more at ease.
If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again.
ROBIN WALL KIMMERER
One way we can do that, maybe, is to counter the six cults described by Chris Murphy in his book Crisis of the Common Good, shared by my friend Ted Leach in his blog today. The cults are Profit, Consumption, Globalism, Technology, Credentialism, and Corruption. Not quite the Seven Deadly Sins, but getting there.
I’m grateful that one of my slothful habits turns out to be “an accessible and low-cost protective factor across the lifespan” for my brain! “A growing body of research” indicates that reading for pleasure by children can improve attention and executive function, and by adults lower stress and increase cognitive function; in both, it improves mental health. I could have told you that last bit! In more good medical news, it looks like coffee, even decaf, supports gut health and potentially cognitive health.
I did something different with this week’s sourdough, shaping in a banneton, rising overnight in the cool mudroom, and baking on a sheetpan instead of in a Dutch oven. This resulted in a much thicker crust, and could have used a few fewer minutes in the oven. Or maybe a lower temperature.
What else improves my mental health is the Great British Baking Show. It’s back on for its 17th season, the last twelve of which are available on Netflix. Four episodes down, and even though it was disastrous for most of the bakers this week it’s still the most feel-good show on TV. Yes, it’s a competition, yes there is nail-biting anxiety during some of the challenges -ok, most of them- but it’s a show that cultivates the kind of connections mentioned as an antidote to the destructive cults above. And there is Alison Hammond, an ebullient host whose chemistry with quirky comedian Noel Fielding keeps contestants in good spirits no matter what. And now there’s Nigella Lawson, too.
And, there is Paul Hollywood’s eyes.
On the home front, I’m grateful for snow in the mountains, and another small harvest from the garden. And I mean small! I planted four cabbages in the spring, which were supposed to mature in sixty days or so, and it took them all summer and into fall to be ready to pick. They were supposed to be small, but not this small. I picked all the green tomatoes, too, the evening before we had a hard freeze. Every year the garden is one experiment after another. I’m grateful for all the professional growers in our valley.
I’m grateful for a kindred spirit in my friend who came for a walk and tea on a sunny day after the freeze and the rain. While we bundled for the walk, by the time we turned for home we’d shed our jackets, and then we enjoyed a leisurely pot of tea by the pond. She’s been working hard to save democracy after founding our Indivisible chapter a decade ago, and is still going strong. She led the local “Vote Early” action for No Kings Day last Saturday, which nationwide was a historic success.
If you want to vote to protect our environment, our democracy, and an America for all the people instead of a select few, check out the Blue Voter Guide. Type in your address, which isn’t saved and is used only to locate your ballot choices, and you can see all your candidates and ballot initiatives, along with all the organizations endorsing each side of the issue. I found it helpful for most of the issues, but am still left scratching my head over a couple of them. More research needed before I cast my ballot later this week.
Wren and Elena both very fashionable in their pink neckwear.
Cleaning up the patio today after having brought in all the houseplants, I noticed something in the adobe wall and had to wonder, Did I do this? It’s possible, but I don’t think I did… Who carefully placed this flat stone in the hole in the wall? And by who, I mean what kind of creature, bird or rodent or…?
I do know that I did this, however. I’m so glad and relieved to have finally completed the insulated window coverings for the sunroom! I hung the final panel on Saturday. Stay tuned for the whole Warm Windows story, a remarkable quarter century in the making.
The monsoons continue to be generous this year, taking the edge off the drought.
I know people who don’t bother to vote, especially in a midterm. I’ve skipped an occasional midterm vote but that was before I understood the system. Next month, just weeks from now, the stakes are way too high to let your vote slide.
After torrential rains last month, erosion at the canyon was dramatic with deep rills carved down the steep walls.
We get to VOTE every two years, for various local, state and national representatives. Each election cycle represents an incremental turning of the rudder of our collective ship. This means that over time, say, eight to ten years, we get to change the direction of our government.
So each election, it behooves us to reevaluate: how well are the people I voted for last time actually representing my personal interests, and how well are they contributing to the collective wellbeing of our [fill in the blank: town, county, state, country] and ultimately, are we moving toward the destruction of life on earth or are we mitigating the accelerating crash of climate chaos?
Wait! Forget I said climate chaos, since I hope that I’m speaking to some climate change deniers. Just forget about the bigger picture for a minute and consider: are you personally better off now than you were two years ago? I don’t know anyone who can answer YES to that. I know ofsome people who can, people who were already filthy rich (or getting there) who have benefited from the current government’s policies: new and forever wars, exemptions, extractions; the demolition of the underpinnings of public health, food safety, public lands, cultural treasures, endangered species, infrastructure, retirement and healthcare; and the ruined lives of immigrant families, military families, poor families, LGBTQ people, wildlife; and so much more.
But me? I was tenuously set for retirement, if I was frugal, before the last presidential election. Now, I’m worried. I am choosing to skip certain doctor visits because I can’t afford the gas to drive one to two hundred miles round trip. I’m cutting back on some of my favorite foods, and reevaluating my staple groceries because I can’t afford my former shopping habits. Vacation is out of the question: Even if I were willing to get on an airplane again (which I have not since 9/11) I can’t afford a flight; nor can I afford the diesel to fuel my camper van.
How about you? If you tune into your true experience of living these days, and ignore unruly thoughts about imaginary horrors you don’t personally experience fed by fear-mongering propaganda, what do you discern? Are your neighbors actually out to get you? Or are they just like you, trying to live their lives without bothering anyone, trying to make an honest living and be happy and not suffer?
Are you spending more on groceries than you ever have? Are you spending more on fuel than you ever have? These are some of the things you should be worried about, not the lies that the current regime spews at you daily.
Yesterday we got a morning rainbow in the west, an afternoon rainbow in the east, and snow overnight.
You should also be worried about your watershed: Where does your drinking water come from, and do you think it’s a bottomless well? Do you think stripping environmental protections means you’ll still have plenty of clean water? Do you live in a tornado alley, or in the path of hurricanes? Do you think your weather forecasts and warnings are as accurate as they were before staggering cuts to National Weather Service? And if you’ve suffered losses from a natural disaster in the past two years, where has FEMA been?
Take a gentle, clear look: Are you better off now than you were two years ago? Do you feel safer, have more financial security, feel less anxious or angry, get along with your community, your family, and yourself any better? This is what it comes down to. My answer to all those questions is no, and I still consider myself pretty fortunate. Only a sweeping Democratic shift in the House and the Senate can put the brakes on the thieving, greedy, corruption that’s ruining the conditions of our daily lives. You don’t have to admit to it, just do it: vote for Democrats down the ticket. Give it eight or ten years, and see if you aren’t better off than you are now.
Are you registered to vote? Even if you think you are, you might not be. Federal interference with state voter rolls may have compromised your status. You can double check here with just a few clicks, and if you’re not registered there may still be time in your state. Don’t let anyone take your voice: your vote matters!
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My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed. I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.
ADRIENNE RICH
I’ve been reading N. K. Jemison’s trilogy The Broken Earth for a compelling diversion from our current earth-breaking trajectory. As in all good fiction, there are some terribly resonant parallels to our times so it turns out not to be more of a reflection than a distraction. This series followed my reading of Octavia E. Butler’s chilling Earthseed series, Parable of the Sower (1993) and Parable of the Talents (1998), which I’d call prescient except this trajectory was already painfully clear to many visionaries back then.
Poised as we are on the precipice of great changes, one way or another, I’ve been especially interested in the AI thread of our species-wide suicide drive. The Lunch Boyz used to talk about the Singularity regularly, and it took me several patient lunches worth of explanations to begin to understand it. I keep forgetting to ask Philip if it’s here yet, but I’m pretty sure I don’t need to.
So I choose from the endless emails to read articles like this one in The Atlantic, “The Truth Physics Can No Longer Ignore.” How could I ignore that headline? Astrophysicist Adam Frank is optimistic that now that the field of physics has turned its attention to the mystery of life itself, it will be able to help direct the growth of AI. Of course, the article was written almost a year ago, and feels hopelessly out of date now. Nevertheless, it came to my inbox a couple of weeks ago, and this passage intrigued me: “The fundamental laws that govern matter and energy cannot predict another fundamental property of life: It is the only system in the universe that uses information for its own purposes. Plants grow toward light, microbes swim toward rich food sources, animals hide from predators, humans send giant metal contraptions into outer space. Although one can, say, program a robot to search for a wall plug when its battery gets low, a living thing (a human programmer, for example) must hard-code that need into the machine. Life, by contrast, is both agential and autonomous.”
Four panels down, one to go! Inspired by Nature.
A few days later, also in the Atlantic, I read an article subtitled “How exactly is AI supposed to kill us all?” which caused me to wonder, IS Life the only complex system in the universe that uses information for its own purposes? I followed this with a valuable analysis of the threat from SNL’s Weekend Update, an interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei.
The three panels completed over the past month all raised to let in warm sun, and lowered at night.
Before I could get this post finished a new article came out about the hitherto unrevealed extent of rogue AI. The very next day the US president “signed a document drafted by Mark Zuckerberg and approved by the AI oligarchs before it was presented to Trump, who then released it as a White House agreement.” Robert Hubbell went on, “As AI displaces your children and grandchildren from their jobs, gobbles up land and resources in their communities, and drives up utility costs, remember that Trump surrendered to the AI industry in a document drafted by Mark Zuckerberg. And, as a public service announcement, I remind everyone that Trump and the AI industry want to rename ‘artificial intelligence’ to ‘super intelligence,’ to remove any doubt about their belief that humans will be subservient to AI’s alleged superior intelligence.”
The large piñon pine that blew over in the big storm a couple of weeks ago. Brought to you by Nature.
I guess I’m spending the news portion of my attention budget on science-based existential threats rather than political existential threats because, well, been there done that and it broke me after a decade. (Although there’s really no separation at this point.) I’m putting myself back together, healing, by turning the bulk of my attention toward real life, lived experience in this body, on this land where Nature’s intelligent life holds me every day, and inspires my very human creativity, something I refuse to surrender to Artificial Intelligence.
A tiny nest on the forest floor on our walk this morning. I thought it was a hummingbird nest but when I reached to pick it up it felt stuck to the ground, so I left it there.
Also helping me cope with “the colossal scale of so much of what is happening: attacks on the free press, denial of life-saving aid to millions overseas, ongoing ICE killings on the streets and in detention facilities,” are the tactics outlined in the Greater Good Science Center’s recent article Seven Ways to Outlast Political Authoritarianism, recounting the experiences of Serbian activists who learned “how to practice sustainable resistance to authoritarian regimes in challenging conditions.”
Another opportunity to practice Equanimity! After the dish water slowed to a trickle this morning we went out to the utility room to find this: the new ‘automatic’ pressure switch failed. Oh well. They’ve scheduled me for Friday. It’s worse this time because I can’t manually activate the new switch so I’m down to jugs only. Glad I have plenty left! I’m grateful that in this little slice of life that was the worst thing about the day. Rain fell off and on all day, with snow on Mt. Gunnison, and plenty of other consolation prizes.
I went out to bring in the potted lemon tree because it could get below 40℉ tonight, and discovered even more mushrooms. It’s been practically eastern with all this rain, earthworms crawling up on the stepping stones and mushrooms all over the place. I spent the cool, drizzly day inside finally mounting two of the drapes. They’re not perfect, but who am I to let perfect stand in the way of good enough? I learned new skills with each of them which I hope I remember when I mount the next one. As I stood there looking at the instructions this morning I felt a little frustration arise: it looked daunting. And it was! But as a little whine began to whisper I can’t do this!, I calmed it with the reminder, I’ve never done this before so of course I don’t know how, and it’s okay if it takes all day. And it did! And that was okay.
I took a lunch break, and after I hung the second panel I warmed up some cheesy grits to eat with coleslaw for dinner. During dinner I dropped everything and stepped outside to savor the sunset. And then I reclined with the heating pad at my tweaked back, ate some ice cream, and started the next knitting project while I watched the final two episodes of this season of Grey’s Anatomy. I hope many millions of Americans have watched this season, which features some prominent storylines highlighting diverse tragedies caused by this current anti-science, anti-research, anti-American government.
Mendicant Ridge shortly before dinner, above, and during dinner, below.
Needle Rock and Sleeping Indian shortly before, and then during sunset.
