Up all night birthing a goat

At morning’s first light–before a busy day–slowly scrolling down the Facebook home page.

Marvelling at the differences in friends, family and acquaintances.  Marvelling that I’m not feeling irritated at the differences this morning–that the mind is not judging, sorting, categorizing as it loves to do.

Instead, look at the sparks of God!

This one ponders if she’ll be up all night birthing a goat.

A week-old baby goat. OK, I didn’t help birth it.

An Elf, a Pig, and Reindeer Tracks in the Snow

Twinkling

Christmas lights twinkle all around.

I am sending you all holiday love.  Can you feel it?

Did you have a wonderful time during these holy-days?

Can you feel the Sun returning to the earth, lightening our days with hope and joy?

(If you can’t, that’s OK.  I can’t either.  But the calendar does say that the light returneth to the Northern Hemisphere.  Often in January I measure the return.  It equals ten minutes of light each week.  If you don’t believe me, check it out yourself.)

We’ve been celebrating Christmas a day late.

December 26th = December 25th in our books.

Tomfoolery of our Santas and Snowmen

Dear readers, it’s just about time to go a’diggin’ down in the basement closet and find our multi-colored Christmas lights and Grandma’s ceramic tree and the reindeer ornament that hangs on the wall by the door.  Don’t forget some garland, and the box for Christmas cards, and that red-and-white Santa pillow, and who knows what else?

Oh, yes, some of you know what else, don’t you sly long-time readers?  Yes, the Santas and Snowmen must come upstairs and find a special place to sit on their tic-tac-toe board.

I really want to introduce you newcomers to the Santas and Snowmen.  (Some of you spotted them in a recent post and admired the way they marched around outside in the snow.) However, I really didn’t want to type the story again.  So I am copying and pasting a blog post which originally ran in Lake Superior Spirit on December 25th, 2010.

(I wrote it just four days after my gall bladder surgery, so it proves that the doctor didn’t remove any sense of humor along with that organ.)

Tomfoolery of our Santas and Snowmen

Blue plums, almond stove, needle in eyelid, Charley Brown tree

Tomfoolery of our Santas and Snowmen

Pale weak limpid sun rises lower and lower in December’s horizon.  It rarely shines through gray clouds, although today stratus clouds allow its orb to deck the skies with sunny cheer.

We’re buying a new almond stove, our first stove in thirty years.  They’re discontinuing the color “almond”.  It’s a gas stove, it has to be, due to our regular power outages when trees blow down over electrical wires.  We bought locally this time.

I wonder what makes some of us want to share our lives, while others prefer anonymity, silence.  What makes some of us want to share words about pale suns and almond ovens, while others don’t?

Finding your way home again

Here is a little story inspired by blog reader Colleen who was fascinated by a recent comment about some of our inky black nights in the woods.  You can’t see your familiar hands, your feet, your journey to the mailbox. 

(Now that the moon stretches into her fat belly every night it’s like soft lamplight amplified by the gleaming of stars.  Except when it’s snowing, and the firmaments hide themselves behind clouds pregnant with heavy white maternity robes.)

When the pregnant moon births our way through the darkness

What’s next

Yesterday the dentist cemented my permanent crown, covering that oh-so-wayward broken tooth.

Later this afternoon our daughter and boyfriend  board silver jet and wing to New York City leaving us with sweet memories.

Yesterday they wheelbarrowed firewood into our wood room in sweltering evening heat.

Last night we all unloaded the 49 Studebaker truck, stacking logs in wood pile.

This morning dozens of birds squawk, scream, sing, chirp, and titter.  So many forest sounds! Birds love mid-summer. They chatter excitedly before heat rises.

Daisy

There’s a WHAT living in our basement?

Breathe deeply, dear reader. I am only going to show you Peaceful Pictures.

On Saturday morning I was meditating in the basement, cuddled delightfully beneath a heavy winter blanket, listening to the fire crackling merrily in the woodstove, the outside temperature hovering near freezing.

It was one of those “ideal” meditations in which the monkey-mind-full-of-thoughts decided to cease its internal yakking.  Blessed silence ensued.  Oh, you meditators, you know the delight of this silence, don’t you? You sigh in the deepest relaxation, muscles releasing at the deepest level, and you know that Heaven on Earth exists.

Pollen on pond

My heart lilted joyfully and…are you ready for this?…I opened my blissful eyes to see…staring at me from across the room, its neck raised and poised, its body slithering in a typical s-curve…yes.  You’re right.  It was a blessed garter snake. In our basement.

Snow shadows for breakfast

In the hush of dawn

Snow shadows make very nutritious breakfasts.

They dance with Vitamin D, which we northerners need in winter due to  lack of adequate sunlight.

They are filled with flickering protein and trace minerals such as zinc and magnesium.

The calcium in snow shadows becomes apparent when you notice the bone-dense trees swaying in the wind.  No osteoporosis for those who get their recommended Daily Amount of Snow Shadows!

If you haven’t eaten breakfast–or even if you have–please settle quietly to drink it your Recommended Daily Allowance of mid-winter snow shadows.  You don’t even need to get cold or wear sunglasses.

Enjoy…

Oh the foods that you’ll eat!

You think burdock is unusual, you say?

You think the slender pungent root of the wild and prickly and dangerous burdock plant is food fit for farm animals and wild rodents?

(If you taste it raw–like I did last week in an effort to ascertain if it was really burdock or its look-alike cousin horseradish root–you will skyrocket to the ceiling of your house, grabbing on to a ceiling fan or cobweb, and squirm in agony, wondering why you attempted such a foolhardy feat.  You may even spit the raw root in the nearest sink in pungent distaste.  Never fear!  If you sliver it–sliver it, do you hear me?–and add it cooked to dishes, you and your liver might like it.)

Rain, Mom’s Coleslaw dressing & nursing deer

Green, everywhere.

All day long it has rained.

Rain, rain, rain.

The skies open their gray curtains and water drips everywhere:  on grass, on dandelions, on trees, on robins, on hummingbirds, on fawns nursing against Mama Deer.

An old photo of nursing fawn. Not this year. Long-ago.

I stay inside all day.  No venturing out to splash in puddles.  No venturing down or up the road, admiring lupines and daisies and leaves covered with raindrops.

Rain drops.

Nonetheless, it’s a good day.  There are books to read.  Moments to meditate, to feel Present in the unfolding day.  There are Father’s Day phone calls (in which I get to participate!)  There is spaghetti simmering on the stove, frozen foccacia bread, coleslaw with my mother’s dressing recipe.

(OK, here is her recipe, because I know someone will ask.)

Joanne’s Coleslaw Dressing

1 c. sugar

1 c. oil

2 t. salt

1 small onion, minced

1/2 c. cider vinegar

1 t. celery seed

1 t. dry mustard

(You know what to do, right?  Without me spelling out the particulars?  Take all the ingredients and mix together.  Add to cabbage, carrots, whatever you use in coleslaw.  Yum.  OK, you can half the recipe–like I did.  You can also cut back on the sugar, like I did.  Barry is requesting another recipe of coleslaw tonight cuz he liked this so much. Thanks for the recipe, Mom!)

 As for the rain, I am glad about it.  We can pause in our wood-splitting activities.  Barry and I have been splitting our wood again.  It’s a yearly chore.  You know the routine. 

An old wood-splittin' photo circa 2009. Because it's raining today.

Hook the wood splitter onto the tractor.  Pull the splitter next to the wood pile.  Start the ’49 Studebaker truck.  Back it up to the wood splitter.  Start the wood splitter.  Adjust the leaking gas.  Adjust the choke.  Adjust six other things before it’s running without belching smoke.

Ready, set, split your load of wood.  Pay attention!  Do not let your attention wander one iota, or you’ll be sorry.  A stray piece of log will zing off the splitter.  Or another log will hit your knee.  (OWWW!)  Both of you must stop when you get tired or your attention wanders.  Safety is of utmost concern.

Thus, when it’s rainy, you get to stay inside.  A wood-splitting day off.  You’ll be out there again tomorrow, or the next day, or perhaps on Wednesday, so don’t think you’re off the hook.  But enjoy today’s rain, for sure.

While the spaghetti noodles boil on the stove, let your gaze linger on the garden.  Everything is–finally–growing.  It’s been so hard getting those tomatoes and squash and cucumber plants to grow.  Sometimes it’s the brocoli and zucchini which protest.  Not this year.  They’re doing lovely.  We think everything is putting roots down deep.  We’ll see, after the rain.

Look at those tomato plants, will ya?

Mama Deer is nursing her fawn behind the garage.  Photos, you ask?  Nah, not a chance.  Mama and Fawn-Baby would be gone in three seconds flat, if a camera approached within 300 feet.  Instead, just imagine.  (Or look at the old photo I inserted up above.)

OK, I must tend dinner.  I wish you a Happy Father’s Day, fathers and mothers and children alike.  I wish you peace on rainy days.  I wish that raindrops enrich and nourish your spirit, sending your roots deep into the earth.

Kick back & relax...rainy day...or not.