again, maybe try

slurred words bouncing down the chilly November sidewalk. drunk or high, who knows this time. someone out there in the autumn air is loopy and full of something that makes the person not quite of this world. and here I sit thinking about the pain in my gum and whether or not we should shoot sperm into k after her period this month.

yep, same old question.

my mind feels soggy -- limp, stale, wet bread waiting to make its way to the chickens’ run.

speaking of the chickens, I miss being with them throughout the day. i make it home sweaty and almost breathless as dark is settling in and the chickens are locked up in their nice little run and it is too dark to let them graze the yard.

we have two escape artists and one has already spent the night in those sinister urban woods behind our house. so, I am missing them and pook, our dear little whippet. the bees have gone to bed for the winter. or at least they have slowed their furious wings to a fanning ball to keep themselves warm up inside their hive.

but I miss them too.

bones are busting through my back gum. this is shard number three; I’ve been to the oral surgeon twice. once to be told that the bone had already erupted; next to have a small bone plucked from my gum. now, bone number three is shimmying its way to freedom and I am in dull, achy pain.

and so that old question about whether or not to try to get pregnant again is back. on November 25th it will have been one year since k put some jiz inside me and I got pregnant, miraculously, instantly (the first time that bleachy, catalpa liquid ever touched the deep red of my female parts and probably the last time).

so, k has had a one year break. and maybe, just maybe, we will give it another whirl. and maybe, just maybe, we won’t.

in the meantime I intend, via copious amounts of wine or painkillers, to join the land of the loopy, slurring street strangers and cover the pain of this erupting bone.

good bye sabbatical

I've been back to work for one week.
It was hard diving in. I cried. Well, I wept hard.

I was scared that all my compassion had dried up and that stumbling back into the madness of direct connection to a justice system so full of injustice and ache and madness (not insightful madness, but the angry, heart wrenching madness of a system rusty at the root and too heavy with the bones of too many souls to turn in any degree of right direction) would be too difficult to stomach.

When the days were long and the flowers were blooming and life was pulsating in the perfect patterns of aliveness all around me this summer and early fall, I felt contentment. I also felt that deep satisfying exhaustion due to all of the hard physical labor I did around the yard (our little urban farm on the edge of some woods; the kind of wooded area in cities where dead, human bodies turn up--eerie woods I would not walk alone in at night).

Anyhow, I was so fortunate to have these many months off and explore the pieces of myself that have often been pushed asunder because so much of my time is spent working away from my homestead. When I list what I accomplished over the last 3.5 months it is quite amazing:
Scraped and painted front porch and railings
Got chickens
got bees
learned about beekeeping from my beekeeper mentor and some books
harvested over 2 gallons of honey two weeks ago by myself--well kk was my helper--but I did it without my mentor
rendered beeswax
made lip balm
built from scratch with no plans mobile chicken run for chickens
put together pre made coop and permanent chicken run
took a permaculture course and got a certificate
dug a four by four by four root cellar in the back yard
filled it with a shit load of michigan squash, onions, and soon some sweet potatoes
planted and tended gardens at home/gardens at community garden
made a lot of pies
went raspberry picking
went blueberry picking
made blueberry freezer jam
dehydrated a hell of a lot of roma tomatoes
taught myself to cook lamb shank
cooked a lot of good food from local farms and my own backyard
read some books
tended to kk's dying grandma
ushered in her death in our living room
eulogized grandma s at memorial service
spent a vacation up north with my sister,eo, her husband, the 3 wee ones, my ma and dad, k's dad, and grandma c and got along swimmingly
threw a great dinner party for my baby sister's,ea, pre-wedding celebration
stood up in aforementioned sister's wedding with kk and other sister
road my bicycle a lot
planted three american black currants, two precocious hazelnuts, one american hybrid chestnut, two beach plums, four regent serviceberries.
pulled out bushes in front yard including stumps, by hand, in order to plant the serviceberries
ran a chicken wire fence behind where the tall bushes once lived
went to reskilling festival and milked a goat
wrote
drew a little
loved a lot
enjoyed my friends
enjoyed sleeping
drank good beer
rested
got my hands dirty
hit 5,000 miles on my portland
loved some more
realized how much i love animal husbandry and how one day i want to keep goats too and homestead as full time as possible

so, I am back to work and I still have an ever-flowing chest of available compassion which I am thankful for. And I have the understanding hearts of people around me, at work, who are insisting that I not jump full force into the nitty gritty and that I be good to myself.

Good bye dear sabbatical; you were so good to me and my heart is better for having known you.

their small fingers dipped into the dripping honeycomb

the confused longing pounced on my heart like a stealth cat on the prowl for a helpless rodent. it came fast and furious--the ache. not quite empty; not quite loss--just a sadness fused with a smile for the memory of the moment that brought the longing.

their small hands--hands that are learning everyday more and more to draw and write and maneuver hockey sticks with grace and finesse--dipped excitedly into the oozing honeycomb. they scooped up wax and dripping, sticky amber liquid and chomped down on it with fierce laughter at the newness of the experience. and i smiled.

cause only at our house--this home k and i are creating everyday--could these young boys have this experience. the experience of tasting honeycomb in their aunts' kitchen. honey that was harvested only days before by me, a novice beekeeper, and my beloved, my kk.

and the longing hit, because the excitement of sharing this gift from the beautiful bees that live behind my garage and forage the neighborhood's gardens and sparsely wooded areas with our nephews brought up all kinds of dreamed desire for building our lives together with the honest yearning of our own children.

and then the longing retreated to a silent place in the long cavities behind my blood filled organs. and i remembered my thankfulness for all this life that has surrounded me these last many months. the lives of these bees and the chickens and walnuts, zinnias, turnips, beets, black raspberries,autumn-orange-brown oak leaves, and all that shines deep red orange in the morning sun and even deeper purple orange in the setting sun makes my heart full and lessens the ache to a dull thud that only surfaces in tiny moments.

tiny moments when small fingers fall into the sticky life of a honeycomb and small mouths turn up in amused smiles of wonderment and astonishment. smiles that adults do not know how to conjure up to our faces. smiles that we may be missing out on for ourselves...

the story of k's 35th birthday and my last hurrah before returning to work--Part 1

the week of the 13th of october I headed out by my lonesome on a little adventure to kind of say goodbye to all of this time off. Two days were spent alone and then my love and many of my pals met me up north at all season's to help celebrate my lovely kk's 35th birthday.

On my alone adventure, I went to a bed and breakfast in bellaire, mi for one night and visited short's brewery. Short's makes delicious beer and sipping on two different lovely, hoppy beers off draft made me happy. I wandered down the brisk autumn michigan streets of a small northern, but not totally north town, back to my cozy b and b and took a warm bath in a deep, clawfoot tub. Then I slept and awoke to a yummy gourmet breakfast of mushroom oil infused spinach, feta eggs; brioche with orange sauce and cranberries; fresh berries with orange cream yogurt and fake sausage. I drank seven cups of coffee cause I was nervous which, of course, made me more than nervouse. All of the other guests were in their late 60s or early 70s and then there was little boy/girl me from ypsilanti.


treating myself to a b and b

then I headed out for a scenic drive to all season's (k's dad's rustic resort up in Carp Lake). I stopped at King Orchards and Friske Orchards and bought apples, honey, dried michigan cherries sweetened with apple juice, and apple butter. I slowly made my way to Carp Lake. I went on an 18 mile bike ride (which included a bit of the Mackinac to Petoskey rails to trails cause I put some cyclocross tires on my sweet, burly Portland) I cooked a small dinner for myself in K's dad's cabin and then sat with grandma C. We watched wheel of fortune and jeopardy.


Carp Lake Rails to Trails. On this trail I met a little old man with a rifle. He was very kind and hunting partridge, but really he was going for his second nature filled walk of the day.

Then I headed over to my cozy, little cabin (cabin number 1) and watched the American Masters' documentary on Joan Baez.

Then I slept and slept and slept. I fell to sleep at midnight and did not get out of bed till almost 11:00. It was a crazy deep sleep. The kind where you almost could adult wet the bed cause you are too passed out to wake and dreams of peeing start to filter through your mind...

Anyhow, the next day I took myself on a car tour through the tunnel of trees (M119) from Cross Village to Harbor Springs. I was going to ride my bike (lots of bicycley mags/articles touted the tunnel of trees as a great bicycling route). I am thankful I did not venture on the many miled trip cause it is a freaky road to drive in a car on let alone try to wind and wind and climb hills and wind and wind on a bicycle. It was gorgeous.


a view of the big lake from the tunnel of trees

I stopped at Pond Hill Farm and bought some awesome michigan apricot (the jar was consumed in something like four days by me) jam and some turnips and carrots for the stew that I made for k's b-day celebration.

Then I drove back to Carp Lake and wrapped k's b-day gifts and continued to draw pictures on the paper bag wrapping.

I read and relaxed and waited for my love to arrive. Finally, she drove in with the triple As (yes, three dear friends with names that start with A, and they all stayed in cabin number 3 together). We stayed up way to late talking and talking and laughing.

The next day some of the folks (all ladies) who had arrived on Thursday night and/or Friday morning went on a glorious hike along the wooded dunes of Lake Michigan. It poured on us. But it took two hours and was invigorating.


Ladies on the Lake Michigan's shore while hiking

After that big hike, I decided to ride my bike with T motion to Legs Inn where a bunch of us met for dinner on Friday night. It was freezing out; probably in the high 30s which is colder than usual around that time of year in Northern Michigan. T and I had a fun ride; we avoided most of the hills, and we made the 18 miles pretty quickly. We all gorged ourselves on lots of polish food and beer and then T and I (and our bicycles) both hitched rides home. I also got to try out my new bicycle helmet, head lamp that T had ordered for me and K a while back. His has been a hit around ypsi and now we have some to go with his!


Hockey at legs

Then we headed back to the cabins and drank bourbon and beer and played euchre and spoons in one cabin and then in another folks played apples to apples. The euchre cabin, where I was, was the X rated cabin; the apples to apples cabin, where K was for most of the night, was the PG cabin. We vividly and unabashedly discussed taint in the X rated cabin if that gives you any clue about the dirtiness.

The next day was Saturday, October 17th, K's 35th birthday. She is getting older and her eggs are drying up (which may or may not matter to us), but we had a glorious day. While the day was cold (in the 40s) the sun shone like mad. a bunch of us went on a good 24 mile bicycle ride around the shore of lake michigan into Mackinaw City and back to the resort. We took our time and marveled at the water and the wind and the sun and all the things that make me glad to be alive.


the birthday bike ride. all of us lookign up at birds that were almost black dots on the blue sky; they flew so high.

the rest of the 35th birthday weekend to be continued...sooner

a question for all of you

A question for all of you, my kind readers--from where does your spring and supply of compassion originate and continue? What keeps it flowing? What do you do if it runs dry? What do you do when hope becomes a wrinkled, burnt raisin on the vine? tell me please how do YOU maintain compassion.

soil

I've been digging a hole in my backyard. It is an experiment. A root cellar experiment. I will be sinking a rubbermaid tub full up of sand and apples, carrots, and squashes down in my deep, deep hole. I will seal it up tight and add rocks to the top to keep out unwanted critters. It may work. The hole will end up being approximately 4 X 4 X 4.

Grave like.

I love the soil. I love digging in it and pulling my hands through it. I've found quite a few bones in this area of the yard. I've also had to lacerate tree roots, and I marvel at the water that pours from their sad underground limbs--so much like blood, so full of life.

The theme of this week; maybe the theme of my whole sabbatical is soil--earth--that living body of death, decay, life and energy below us. I am reading the Worst Hard Time by Timothy Egan right now and re-reading the Unsettling of America by Wendell Berry and simultaneously digging a hole in my backyard and watching my chickens shit and scratch and cultivate and create beautiful, fertile compost.

It is all too amazing for words. And still my eyes well up with tears as I read and dig and watch because, dammit, I desire something different for my life. I desire this closeness to the earth that I have been able to foster over the last few months away from my paid work.

The Worst Hard Time is about the dust bowl--the killing off of the buffalo; the massacre of the soil the destruction of the earth in the name of profit and the constructed american dream that trampled down the Comanche and other indigenous people in the name of profit for the "civilized" and the mad vengeance that befell the people who were still there when the dust came ripping. I'm not done with the text yet, but the first 90 pages are a fantastic historical account of the tragedy that human beings can create by fucking up the planet.

In the Unsettlng of America there is a great chapter called The Use of Energy. It is all about soil and agriculture and the destruction that we have waged on the planet through the god of big agribusiness and our disconnection from the land, animals, and plants.

Soil.
on my mind.

I'll end with this great passage by Mr. Berry, "The Soil is the great connector of lives, the source and destination of all. It is the healer and restorer and resurrector, by which disease passes into health, age into youth, death into life. Without proper care for it we can have no community, because without proper care for it we can have no life."

some pictures instead of some moaning

I wrote this whole big thing about a lot of the complex internal shit going on in my head and heart and then I thought, "not now."

So, instead, below are some pictures from the last couple of weeks.

enjoy.

they love to be near us:


a lot:


my new paint job on the old porch and my kk's mums:



bicycle tires outside ypsi cycle:


the new adobe oven at the growing hope center:


driving along with my darling in a borrowed truck:


one wall to the mobile chicken run i've been building:


the gift of eggs from our lovely hens:


a break during the 62 mile ride of the tour de troit: