The cold is gone, for now, and there is sun and one can split firewood wearing just a sweater and gather eggs before they freeze. Last week, when it was still bitterly cold, DH, Amie and I bundled up and drove to an old, wooden bridge in town for the unobstructed view of the north. …
Category Archives: future worries
Some Music
(I realize I am soon becoming the Queen of Grief, but you can always read the “Molting Chicken” entry after this one and restore some balance.) Last Sunday Amie played in her Orchestra concert. This concert featured four Rivers Youth Orchestras, from Preparatory (that Amie is in) to Symphony. It’s absolutely riveting to follow the …
Precious Things in Transition
Watching Bill Moyers’  recent interview with Wendell Berry, it was hard not to tear up, because of the sheer beauty of this man, his poetry, his speaking, and his holding both grief and joy in equal measure and balance: It’s hard to think of any thing that’s precious that isn’t endangered. But maybe that’s an advantage. The …
For a New Culture
In the last few days I’ve come across no less than three children (all 8) who think babies are born by being cut out of their mothers’ Â bellies. That adds to the child who, a couple of months ago, said this to Amie, who immediately set the record straight. What with all her exposure, from …
Gift of Abundance
We had a full, full house this weekend, with SIL and friends visiting and dropping off their daughter for a week’s holiday at what Amie and I now lovingly call “Camp Boredom,” a.k.a. “Camp Mama.” Â The addition of one has skyrocketed the ratings of this camp for both participants and organizer. I listen in on …
Goings On
Wild strawberries, which are said to be deadly when overripe, as these were: deadly because you die of disappointment: no taste, whatsoever. Bummer! A surprise patch of St. John’s Wort – this after trying to grow it from seed (50 seeds, only one germinated). Thank you! Hive 3 swarmed on the 16th and alighted in …
Two Conversations: Grief, Again
That day, several months ago when my friend R and I got the IBC totes, I was part of two conversations, one with the man who arranged the sale, the second with R afterward, on the way home. 1. Bleakness I’ll call him L. We chatted in his factory’s yard, surrounded by totes stacked like a …
I’m Sorry
I just read another great post by fellow blogger and Transition worker Charlotte Du Cann (in UK) in which she writes about our need to listen to our ancestors. She writes: Because you realise we have put the best of ourselves out with the trash, and what we have now is the life of a …
The Companion (*)
A few weeks ago a very good friend and I were driving through town, delivering signs for an event. We were discussing vacation plans and I told her about a rule I’ve been tinkering with, that I would fly only to visit family, not  for recreation. She asked me why, which surprised me because she …
Woodcocks or, Of Extinctions
Some time ago (April 16) we returned to the field of the Full Moon/Grief walk. Our group was smaller this time. We had timed our congregation to dusk, because that is when the male woodcock performs its sky dance for the benefit of the females of the species. Woodcocks are crepuscular, most active around dusk and …