Live stake elderberries are in the ground, I got an acceptance email for my essay “Places I Went With My Dad,” I’m home with my family with homemade cheese ravioli and Brussels sprouts, cocktails, and animals tucked in safe for the night, and it’s a bright and beautiful night sky outside.
I’m mindful of the fact that 25 years ago I had a newly firstborn babe in arms. It’s amazing to ponder the passage of time since then, and a worthwhile exercise for all of us, I think. To stop and think about our time on the earth, then and now, now and what is to come.
I’ve done my annual review, detailing what went well in 2019, what didn’t, and laying out goals for 2020 in all areas. As anyone who reads here regularly can imagine, I’m extremely ambitious when it comes to setting goals for home and farm projects, and equally so with my writing, but I like to aim big and then celebrate what I manage to get done.
It’s been a challenging year in some ways but I feel like it’s ending on a good note.
The herd went wild right before sunset today, galloping, bucking, rearing, braying. I have no idea what set them off, but it was a spirited show of pure athleticism and grace in motion. I’m glad they are all healthy and happy and fairly easily calmed down with some apple treats and fresh hay.
I hope everyone reading has a lovely evening and a wonderful 2020.
We’ve had a wonderful holiday and are still enjoying the time off with family. Lots of good food and good time spent.
Last night my son was making homemade (amazing) pizza and in the midst of a busy kitchen where we were all standing and talking, Clementine ran in, grabbed a small pizza’s worth of rolled out dough, and gobbled it down.
I honestly thought it was no big deal, but thanks to Google and a call to our local university vet school emergency hospital, we learned that the yeast in bread and pizza dough finds a perfect and perpetual “oven” in a dog’s stomach. The yeast grows and grows.
My husband and daughter took Clem directly to the ER and they quickly induced vomiting. It was about 40 minutes from the time she ate the dough until they got to the vet. The dough she’d ingested was the size of a football when she threw it up.
There are a number of serious medical issues that can happen when dogs ingest yeast-based dough, and while inducing vomiting is a solution, it’s not one to try on your own, as the volume of the dough coming back up can block the esophagus, so it’s best to get to a vet as soon as possible and let them safely manage the treatment if you can.
Clem was back home within a couple of hours and we were soooooo relieved that all was well.
Keep the dough away from the dogs! And if one gets it, head to the nearest emergency vet to be truly safe.
The elderberry live stakes are here and ready to pound in, the RV camper is here and ready for my son, daughter-in-law, and their dog, the shopping is done for food and gifts, and now I’m just sitting back relaxing until they get here tonight.
I hope everyone reading has a wonderful and joyous holiday season. It’s hard to believe we’re so close to 2020.
Three male cardinals came, along with their wives
And three blue jays buzzed one another
While Carolina wrens pecked at the stack of branches and brush beneath.
Then tiny sparrows came, one, and then two, wings aflutter,
Adding their smart gray to the chorus of red, blue, and tobacco brown
All in the deep ever-green of the holly tree
While bare oak stood tall, arms outstretched,
Inviting, protecting, holding the space.
I am late saying Happy Thanksgiving here and so will wish it now - I hope the holiday weekend was full of gratitude and family/friends. This year my son and daughter-in-law stayed at home to celebrate their first anniversary and we here on November Hill had a lovely week with my mom here and my mother-in-law here for the Thanksgiving meal.
I don’t often write about cooking, but this was the first year we were totally meat free. We had our final fall CSA veggies on hand and I used most of them in preparing the meal. This was the menu:
Baked pumpkin stuffed with wild rice/tart cherry/walnut/spinach + many lovely herbs and spices
Cranberry sauce
Sweet potato casserole with vegan marshmallows, pecans, plus a little brown sugar + cinnamon
Sourdough/kale “stuffing” baked in a pan
Brussel sprouts with soy “bacon” bits
An oldie but goodie from my childhood: lime jello salad with cream cheese, celery, pecans, and no sugar added fruit cocktail
Pumpkin cheesecake with a ginger snap/pecan crust
I made everything from scratch and started on Tuesday so I was able to enjoy Thanksgiving day itself without much work. I have such good memories of staying up late cooking while my husband and children are asleep, and I did some of that this year. It was lovely, special time, and gave me a chance to be thankful for all that it represents. To be awake while loved ones sleep, making food you know they will enjoy, holds so much of what it means to be a mother, for me. And this year, to be able to do it while my own mom slept was especially nice.
The herd got leftover ginger snaps, the dogs got tasty bites of the veggies, and the cats got a bit of heavy cream to lap up off a dish. We all enjoyed the day.
We also finished rewatching the brilliant, gorgeous Netflix series Anne With An E. If you haven’t seen it yet, it’s wonderful in every way. There are two seasons on Netflix and a third coming in January, but Netflix announced last week that they are canceling the show, which was originally set to have five seasons, and this provoked a twitter-storm of protest. This is one of those shows that is just so beautiful it should be held up as a shining example of what can be done with the medium. I hope a network picks it up for the final two seasons that are on the stove simmering.
I have a trifecta of films I always love to watch this time of year, so we also squeezed those in during the holiday weekend: Contact, Interstellar, and Arrival. I love all of them. This year after watching Arrival again I got intrigued with the fact that it was inspired by a short story by Ted Chiang, who is a technical writer for software development but also writes creatively. He has two books of short stories out and apparently writes about one story every two years or so. He says he has no inclination to try to write a novel, and no need to try to write stories more quickly. There’s something truly beautiful about a creative process that is willing to spend two years on a story, its concepts and themes and expression. I’m reading his stories now.
We may watch Gravity and The Martian this week to complete the mood. Last night my daughter lured me into rewatching Silence of the Lambs, which is outside the space mood but such a finely-crafted film. A screenwriter/author friend, Alexandra Sokoloff, analyzed it in a 36-page brilliant look at the film from the perspective of craft and plot, and we looked at it while watching, as we also looked at how the Clarice character inspired Dana Scully’s character in the X-Files. A fun way to end the holiday weekend!
This morning it’s sunny, cooler, and I’m going to have to spend some time trying to get christmas tree lights to work. Isn’t that just the worst thing? When you plug the tree in and an entire section is dark? Okay, in no way the worst thing, but annoying.
Last week the oaks went into their full glory here, so I’ll leave you with my beautiful Oak At F.
It’s a cold gray rainy day that took me by surprise. I thankfully took the dogs out for their farm romp before the rain started, and then had to dash out to let the pony and donkeys in so they could have shelter and hay in the barn if they wanted. The donkeys wanted, the half-Shetland pony loves cold rain and stands out in it if not locked in a stall.
Cody and Keil have in paddocks adjoining the barn for the past 9 days. Last Saturday morning Cody presented a deep laceration in the groin, which prompted a vet call, stitches, antibiotics, Bute, and of course arnica and bellis perennis. He’s doing well, and the vet has been back to check on him, but the swelling that has traveled to his sheath and barrel/midline has been hard to see. Vet says it’s normal and all is well. We’ve never had anything like this to manage before. The worst thing is that I may be the one whose fault it is, since I left a plastic muck rake in the pasture lying (tines down) across the muck-barrow. We found it Saturday afternoon on the ground, a tine broken off, and somehow I think Cody might have run into it in the early morning hours and impaled himself. There are a couple of other possibilities that have to do with branches and brush, but we’ll never know exactly how this happened.
Yesterday we had sunshine and nice temps, which led to planting the 8 native wild blueberries I had on hand. I love where they are, that they’ll feed wildlife and bees, maybe us too, that they turn a stunning crimson in the fall, that they’ll create a screen on the edge of our property where we planted them.
The orchard grass seed we sowed in the grass paddock, barnyards, dirt paddock and back pasture is doing extremely well. I’ve been told for years it was useless to plant here, but one person told me she plants it and it does well, and since she lives nearby, I decided to try it. I ordered the first batch of seed online, and then suddenly our local feed store started carrying it, so we’ve bought subsequent batches there. We still need to sow the front pasture, and will get to it soon, I hope. It’s going to be interesting to see how it does through the year.
Bear Corgi has suddenly had some arthritis, according to the vet, and is on Adequan injections and double dose omega 3s to help it. Vet says short, frequent walks are best, and he’s self-regulating, so I hope he is more comfortable. It seems he is - he’s getting on the furniture again and is ever eager to go outside. Right now he’s on the huge dog bed though, as Clementine and Baloo have taken up the entire sofa between them and I’m spread out on the loveseat. Pippin has the chair, and that’s it for the living room seating!
We still have fall color, though it’s starting to fade after the stretch of 40/20 temps we had last week. Tomorrow we’re back up to the 60/40 range. I’m having a hard time believing it’s already the past the middle of November.
Yesterday I was cleaning stalls and happened to capture this on film. It was wonderful, and I wish I had the entirety of it, and also a more accurate representation of the sound, but here you go:
Thank you for the gorgeous autumn show you’re putting on for us. Fifteen years ago we met you in the springtime, made the offer that same day, closed the deal in late summer, and then November came. You were in your glory.
This year, as every year, I know that when November comes I’ll see it again. The colors and textures and changing season of a house and a barn on a hill, where I’m still learning the land and the wildlife, trying to be a good steward of what keeps you happy and healthy.
The gifts you give are moment by moment. I’m grateful and still in awe.
Clementine went into her first heat cycle, which took me by surprise and has been interesting to navigate. She’s on hiatus from her Canine Good Citizen class, and we’ve tried a few different “diapers” that work but aren’t ideal. The winner by far is the Suitical, which is a soft stretchy cotton cat suit type of garment that you can put a pad in or, safer for chewers, a washcloth folded in thirds. The suit itself seems comfy and while you do have to unsnap it so she can urinate, it really works well.
We finished planting the things I had on hand and with the good rain we’ve had, the grass seed in the back pasture, the paddocks, and the barnyard is all coming up beautifully. The front pasture is another matter, and I think we might need to divide it in half or possibly thirds to do the overseeding. We’ll figure it out.
I have never seen so many acorns in my life. Every oak tree has mass produced this year, covering the ground beneath. I suspect one factor is that the deer no longer come onto our property due to the fencing, and so the only creatures eating the acorns are a few squirrels and a few equines. I need to get out there and scoop them up into buckets so I can distribute them outside the fencing.
Two dear writer friends and I had a wonderful retreat last weekend on the Pamlico River. I got so much done! I’m not sure if I mentioned it here, but I took a 6-week remote writing workshop called The Art of the Fractured in September/October, and generated 4 exciting essays that are either out on submission now or still being revised. I begin a 4-week remote workshop next week called The Visceral Self and I’m very eager to get started. Jeannine Ouellette is the instructor, and she’s wonderful. If interested, look her up at Elephant Rock. She offers a number of workshops, both remote and in person. I highly recommend!
A few shots of writing retreat weekend, from our writing spots in the cottage:
I’m home now, enjoying the daily routine of animal care, laundry, and chores while the soft rain falls outside. Autumn is here.
I’m so excited to see that UCLA is naming its new track after one of its well-deserving students, Rafer Johnson.
Our Rafer Johnson was named by his breeders, Ken and Marty, for the track star and humanitarian, and we love the name, the story behind it, and also the fact that he now gets to share in the limelight just a *little.*
Drake Stadium track to be named after Betsy and Rafer Johnson
UCLA Newsroom |
UCLA Athletics today announced plans to honor track and field legend and humanitarian Rafer Johnson, along with his wife, Betsy, by naming the track at Drake Stadium after the couple.
The Betsy and Rafer Johnson Track at Drake Stadium, the home of UCLA track and field, will be formally unveiled in a dedication ceremony on Friday, October 25, 2019 at 1 p.m. The ceremony is free and open to the public.
“As we look back across UCLA’s first 100 years and think about the people who helped shape this institution’s core values, Betsy and Rafer Johnson are among the first who come to mind,” said UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. “Their selfless efforts to inspire others and encourage opportunity for all perfectly embody UCLA’s mission. That’s why we are so proud to dedicate the Betsy and Rafer Johnson Track at Drake Stadium.”
Johnson, a two-time Olympic medalist who captured gold in the decathlon at the 1960 Olympic Games in Rome, began his UCLA track and field career in 1955 as the captain of the freshman team. In that same year, Johnson won a gold medal in the decathlon at the Pan American Games in Mexico City. He ran varsity track from 1956-58 and led the Bruins to their first-ever NCAA track and field championship in 1956 under head coach Elvin ‘Ducky’ Drake. Prior to helping UCLA win the national crown, Johnson won the Pacific Coast Conference title in the low hurdles en route to guiding the Bruins to the conference championship.
“It is such an honor to have the tracked named after us,” said Betsy and Rafer Johnson. “UCLA has always been a special part of our lives and the lives of our children, Jenny and Josh. We have been and will always be Bruins.”
While competing at UCLA, Johnson won a silver medal in the decathlon at the 1956 Olympic Games despite being handicapped by a knee injury and torn stomach muscle that kept him out of the broad jump portion of the competition. He reached the pinnacle of his Olympic achievements in 1960 as the USA team captain, flag-bearer (the first African-American to serve as such), and gold-medal winning decathlete. At the 1984 Olympic Games, Johnson was selected to light the Olympic cauldron at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.
Johnson served as UCLA student body president in 1959.
Finally, our temperatures have dropped to something more normal for this time of year, and it actually feels like autumn again. We’re seeing a little color but mostly falling dried leaves from the trees because we have been so dry for the past month - only a very light rain on a couple of occasions.
They say drought makes fall colors more intense but this year I’m not seeing that yet. The dogwoods are turning and their red berries are lovely. I’m thinking about grass seed and young native plantings needing water, and the idea of rain dancing is also on my mind.
Everything needs a deep slow-falling drink. Meanwhile it’s dusty and dry and my very hardy native perennials are thriving without much water at all. Plant natives in the fall, make sure they get an inch of water a week for their first year, and you’ll be gifted with healthy, low-maintenance plantings that host your wildlife and allow you to put your energy into other things.
It’s hard for me to believe it’s already October. Time flies in general it seems, but this year the endless summer has exacerbated it. Last week we had a 100 degree day, and it felt like the middle of July.
Rain dancing: mostly consists of me standing and looking up, silently compelling the clouds to come, the rain to fall, and the plants and trees to drink their fill. There’s a possibility of rain tomorrow. Sending wet thoughts to all who need it!
We’re moving into the fall season, now, in every way but temperatures, which are back in the low 90s here this week and not at all what I was hoping for. There has been no rain for several weeks now and things are getting dry and dusty. Even though the native pollinator beds and plantings that are well established do well in this weather, I had to water a few of the more recently planted, and opted to go ahead and water them all. It’s been awhile since I had to do that!
The goldenrod and tickweed are lovely, and the asters are just starting to bloom. It looks like the narrow-leaf mountain mint may be having a second bloom, which is wonderful since the bees (of all kinds) adore it. The garden is as busy as ever.
I’m noting the fig tree through the window as I type, which reminds me to say that it’s possibly the tallest it’s ever been, and it is covered with figs, but this tree seems to be stuck in its tendency to set fruit quite late in the summer, which often means there isn’t time for it to ripen before first frost. The only thing I know to try is to cover it during any frosts and see if that makes a difference. For the past few years we’ve had very hard freezes that turned it brown overnight, and the growth has resumed in the springs, but maybe the tree is having to put all its energy into regrowth and then the fruiting is pushed way back? I need to research this to get better answers than my own pondering.
Out the opposite window I see two sparrows climbing through the mesh onto the front porch and upon further inspection, I see they’re trying to drag a large leafed branch through the opening at the top of porch screen. I’m not sure why - surely it isn’t nest building time. There is always something going on here which catches me up in its mystery.
And, after sending a photo to our “fam chat” via text, husband says he put the branch there because Clementine had it and he was trying to keep it away from her. The sparrows must be trying to figure out what it’s doing there and are pulling at it. Sometimes the mysteries get solved quickly!
Clementine has become interested in pulling branches off the fig tree and blueberry bushes and bringing them inside to chew. Nothing interesting has fallen lately so she’s breaking them off herself!
This weekend the North Carolina Botanical Garden has their fall plant sale, and the first night is open to garden members only. I have my list written down - am getting some things to go in the new bed, a few things to fill in the existing beds, a few things to add to the still sparsely planted shade bed, and a few new things for Poplar Folly.
Thanks to the lack of rain my over-seeding pasture and putting in native seed mixes along the strip down our lane have had to be postponed - there is no way for me to water those areas and I’m going to have to wait for Mother Nature to get back in sync with me before sowing. However, the grass paddock, which was planted before this little drought, is doing quite well and recovering nicely. We’ll keep the equines off it well into fall.
A large section of stone over the stabilization grids has been put in outside the far barn door, creating a nice mud-free area and erosion control as well. I feel like someone should set up one of those monthly (or better, weekly) delivery things for various kinds of stone - I would sign on in a heartbeat! I need enough to complete a project that takes a day, and if it showed up each week it would all be done pretty quickly. But we’re moving along with it and plugging things in as best we can.
The animals are all doing well. I know every single one of them is going to be happy to get a break in the heat/insects as we cool down, when that finally happens. And I need things to cool down so they can be comfortably in the pastures during daytime hours when I have help to get the barn projects done.
However, all that said, when I sit down and just enjoy what already is, the to do list drops to the back burner and I know that what the list is, really, is the stuff of life, what fills the days with purpose, and the aim is not to finish the list but to treasure the doing of it.
It’s a quiet day and although it doesn’t quite feel like fall, it sure looks like it through the windows!
We had needed rain and minor winds from Hurricane Dorian here in central NC, but for whatever reason our power went out at 2 a.m. and we were without it until close to noon today. The power company did some needed trimming back of limbs along the lines, restored our service, and hopefully after a day of sawing and shredding we are now set for the rest of the hurricane season and beyond.
I had water in my storm jugs, tubs filled for flushing toilets, and while our hand pump for the well is not yet here, the knowledge that it’s on the way was a comfort. I filled troughs and water buckets at the barn and I have my water storage tank in the feed room as a back-up.
Meanwhile, there was a lot of porch sitting while monitoring the hurricane’s progress and today as we waited for power to come back. One of us made a very nice picture sitting in the porch chair.
I hope everyone is safe and would love especially to hear from Calm Forward Straight when she gets the chance!
A couple of nights ago I went on a later-than-usual romp with the Corgis and was reminded of what a lovely, sweet thing it is to experience the last bits of light and also the brightening of the light inside the house. For as long as I can remember, one of my favorite things to do is walk or drive in the evenings and see the lights on inside of homes; it represents for me the real meaning of the idea of home: a safe, warm place to be. Seeing glimpses of people moving about inside their houses has always felt like warmth, a hug, something safe and solid to hold on to.
So as I walked with the dogs I glanced back at the gate and loved its solid presence, then turned to the house and felt its warmth and love. I forget sometimes that November Hill is for me the culmination of a life-long dream. Living with family, horses, dogs, cats, wildlife, and the trees, gardens, insects. Whenever I saw warm lamplight in windows my mind careened forward to now, and in now’s moment I paused to say thank you to the universe and everything that has led to this home and this place.
We read about time travel and astral travel and all kinds of ways we go from one place in time to another. These moments when the past and the present curve together is the reality of those concepts, I think, especially if we stop and fully experience them.
The spotted horsemint, Monarda punctata, is in full, glorious bloom right now and it makes me happy every single time I look at it. The view yesterday:
The Arcadia hives are very busy right now, as the goldenrod is starting to come out and there are also a number of fall-blooming pollinators in our area. I enjoy the native bees too and it’s a busy time still in the garden beds.
We’re still cleaning up small branches and sticks from the deluge that happened a week ago, and have scheduled time to take down two very large dead trees, a red oak (it succumbed to a root ball fungus that I was told is rampant here now) and a tulip poplar that was taken out over the course of several years by my equine herd, who love to chew the bark in midwinter. We put a wrap around the trunk but it was too late to save it. I plan to put in some young tulip poplars to replace it, as it’s a majestic tree that provides shade and early nectar flow for bees. I may actually install fencing around these to keep the horses away!
We closed off most of the grass paddock so it can rest and recover. The first day the FOUR strands of Horseguard tape was up, two donkeys and a pony literally tore it down. One unfortunate fellow was caught in the act.
We purchased a new, stronger solar charger and the fence is back in place and certain marauders are being kept out. We overseeded and will let this area repair itself for the next few months.
I had the consult about stormwater management with native plantings and have a good plan for the strip of our farm that runs down the side of our lane. We’ll sow a mix of sun and shade native seed that includes wildflowers and grasses - no mowing needed, and all excellent forage for pollinators. Along with that we’ll put in native wild blueberry bushes every six feet or so. We’ll feed pollinators, the birds, and ourselves with those berries.
Down at our driveway where the water rushes through the culvert pipe we’ll be doing an area of live staking with elderberry, another native pollinator that will also give berries for wildlife and for us.
The two sections in the front pasture that need addressing will likely be fenced with wood to keep the equines out, in small oblong sections on each side where the stream bed is most in need of stabilizing. We have a nice list of options for planting but I’ll be doing additional consults with some rain garden specialists to help with the geology of the areas.
Thankfully the local nursery we use can provide what we need for the strip very affordably and we’ll do that in early fall. The live stakes are done in December. The rain garden installations are going to be done in several phases after our gravel road repair is done.
In other news, I’ve been appointed to our county’s Food Council, and am excited about the opportunity to get involved with their work. And my daughter just won first and second prizes in a photography contest, the details of which can’t be shared yet, but I’m so proud of her. She’s a gifted young woman.
She and her service dog in training graduated from Basic Obedience class last night and are moving on to Canine Good Citizen in September.
They’re a super team and I’m happy to see them progressing together!
I’m very happy to be seeing signs of autumn all around. I’m so ready for this season to shift, though I’m enjoying the last month of summertime. It’s been hot and buggy and also beautiful, but I love the cycle of the seasons and fall is my most beloved.
This morning I walked out the back door and spied this:
It’s an egg sac left by the sweet writing spider I posted about a few weeks back.
My impulse was first to post this to Facebook, with a little blurb about the symbolism. Then I thought about putting something here. It was only upon reflection that it occurred to me that my thinking after seeing this egg sac lent itself to an essay.
I turned off the impulses to post on Facebook or blog, instead opening a new file in Scrivener and began to write. What I now have is a first draft of something I’ll submit for publication. Had I posted the photo on Facebook, I’d be checking to see how many “likes” it got, and comments. Had I blogged about it here, I would have written something satisfying and in a small way akin to what I ended up writing, but the path to deeper thought would have stopped there.
By postponing the impulses and instead giving myself the time and space to really dive into my thoughts and imagination, I ended up with much more.
Of course, now I’m blogging about it, but in a different way, and not one that will take the place of the essay I wrote.
This is the key to increasing our productivity in terms of writing we can submit, query, or turn into longer-form work. Instead of throw-away social media moments, we go deeper.
A good reminder for me, and I’m happy I got the chance to practice this today!
After a wonderful getaway writing retreat weekend at Porches, I came home ready to jump back into daily life on the farm. This was my office view while on retreat. It is gorgeous and I think the reason it works so well for me is that it is a home as well as a writers’ retreat, and it has many aspects that remind me of November Hill. It’s a home away from home - a place where I feel like I’m in my own space but without the responsibilities. Looking forward to the next visit when it happens.
Back on November Hill, there were nice things going on in the gardens, and nice behavior between Redford and Baloo. The Corgis have gradually become very reliable out on the farm, to the degree that I can allow them to run freely without my direct supervision. Baloo went through a phase of barking at the donkeys but that has passed and they all now seem quite relaxed with one another.
We’ve had good rain since I got home, all the animals are doing well, and I’m starting to think about fall projects. I’m going to make a list just for my own peace of mind.
- consult for storm water run-off planting using native plants is scheduled for next week
- I have a plan for putting in terraces in Poplar Folly to help control run-off using brush pile and compost pile materials
- get new pollinator bed set up
- get raised beds built and planted in what I’m now calling Brown Bunny’s Potager
- stone in several areas near barn
- sprucing up of barn including fall clean plus stall doors, new latches, and some touch-up painting
- finish off the fencing project - all that’s left is to put in 9 landscaping timbers along arena and replace the final two gates
Inside, I’m focusing on two things:
- finish laundry room spruce up, which involves new dog door install, painting remaining wall, and tongue in groove ceiling install
- continue clearing process - I have two closets to go and some rearranging of furniture
I’m aiming to get this stuff done by the first week in October, when I have a trip planned with my daughter. We’re going to Cody, Wyoming! Very excited and it will be a nice way to wind up a 6-week whirlwind of project work.
This time of year is a favorite for me, as summer starts to wind down and I see glimpses of autumn. Geese honking as they head south, wild muscadines getting bigger on the vines, the leaves on the trees just beginning to shift in color. Still very green but there’s a subtle change. The temperatures not quite as hot. The horses and pony are starting to grow fur. I’m happy to enjoy the days as we move toward my favorite season.
I tore myself away from November Hill yesterday to drive north to my favorite writing retreat location. It was like removing a pot-bound plant from a plastic pot, and for a few hours I wasn’t sure I was going to make it off the farm.
When I got here I was greeted by a sprite:
A gorgeous luna moth:
And gorgeous color brilliant in the late afternoon sun:
I went to bed last night after reading about the horrific massacre in El Paso, woke up this morning to read of another massacre in Dayton, then needing a bit of lighter fare, read a post from a mom blogger about her daughters’ messy bedrooms full of dirty laundry. She made them gather all the clothing in their rooms and took them to a laundromat to sort, wash, and dispose of everything they didn’t need.
There’s nothing wrong with that, and I don’t know how she actually behaved to them while this was happening, but what she wrote about it, with photos of her girls and the various items of clothing she posted were aimed at shaming them for their behavior. It made me feel very very sad.
I plan to write to every single one of my representatives, starting with the local ones and going all the way up to my senators, to ask what they are doing to address the level of gun violence in our country. Any person in any government role who has been voted into office should be addressing this in some way or other, because it could happen anywhere. It is already happening anywhere.
For the moms who are horrified by your children’s messy lives and rooms, I offer a few things to do instead of shaming them.
1. Model the behavior you want to see. Ask if you can help them organize their space. Make it into a fun thing. “Let’s get your room organized before school starts and then celebrate by going out for dinner!” Helping means just that. Not preaching, not barking, not shaming. Put on some music and dance your way through the clean up effort. Make it a bonding experience, not a shaming one.
2. Remember that creativity is generally messy. If you find clothing that has been cut up, dyed, drawn on, decorated with glitter, or otherwise changed from the way you think it should be, consider that you have a creative child. This is a good thing. Find ways to help them channel it. Please don’t try to shut it down.
3. Give yourself permission to freak out, but do it privately. I like things to be neat and orderly. I love seeing a room that looks tidy. Most of this is my own personality and way of being in the world. Some of it is because my mother was that way. Our house was clean and organized. Mostly because my mother hired someone to keep it clean and organized. My children did not have the ability to hire someone to do that for them.
4. Regarding the impulse to shame: if you are shaming your child it means you feel shame inside. For something. If you don’t know what it is, you can figure it out. You shaming your child is a Big Red Flag that you have work to do on your Self. It doesn’t make you a horrible person or a terrible parent. It just means your children are bringing up in you the things you need to work on as a human. Do it for them. But more than that, do it for YOU.
5. Most of the time our children grow up and move on to other homes. If yours haven’t yet, I bet when they do you’ll miss the messes. If not, no problem, enjoy your newfound clean and tidy home! If, like me, you do miss the creative piles, the projects, the crazy, fun, sometimes disgusting things you unearth, you’ll have to find ways to channel this. Like having cats, dogs, horses, donkeys, a pony, honey bees, gardens, and a ton of other stuff to keep you occupied. Enjoy it all. Life is short. Our children are who they are because of genetics and the way we treat them and how we act in front of them. When we see behavior we don’t like, we have to look first to ourselves, then to our extended families, and we have to make peace with all of it. In the end, if we do this, we can thank our children for helping us become more compassionate and loving.
I’m very proud of my daughter, who, in addition to studying neuroscience, doing research with lemurs, training a service dog, and managing a medical issue for the past year or so, continues to take gorgeous wildlife photos.
Last year she won first place in the Human Impact category, and this year she won Honorable Mention overall with this photo:
Congratulations to her and I’m looking forward to seeing what photos come from the next year’s travels and observations of our animal friends both domestic and in the wild.
Busy week here. Our water pressure was getting spotty over the past week so we called the new well service that came highly recommended from a local horse farm friend. I was shocked that they came out so quickly for a non-emergency and am extremely happy with the work they did and the way they involved me in the process, explaining everything step by step and showing me the issues they found.
Our well and all its parts are as old as this house is - going on 25 years of age. The water tank bladder had been punctured by rust debris and become waterlogged, the switch was turning on and off almost constantly, and the old water pump had become worn out as a result of age and the other issues.
We decided to go ahead and have everything replaced with new, better elements. Commercial-grade pump and tank, new switch, new seal, and added a two-filter system as a new update. Our water is very clean and tests well but we wanted to avoid any sediment from having the pump pulled getting into our water lines. It was fascinating to see them pull the pump and stretch it all the way to the front gate! Our well is a little over 300 feet deep.
The highlight of this repair and update is that they have ordered a hand pump for the well so that when we lose power I can pump water by hand into buckets! I’m beyond excited about this - it’s been on my list for several years. These pumps are slow to ship right now so it will likely be another couple of months before we get it, but that will put us squarely in hurricane season - just in time.
We are in a much nicer weather pattern at the moment - highs in the 80s and lows in the 60s - pretty perfect summer weather, in my opinion. We also had a very good rain this past week, which gave everything a needed deep drink after the high heat we’d been having.
In other news, my farm helper is coming two days a week again and as a result is able to get to some tasks that were on the back burner. Every day when I go out I’m finding things he’s done which would never make it to the top of the list but are so nice to see. I’m grateful for his attention and his hard work.
The pollinator beds are going strong. I’ve identified a few things I’ll move in the fall mostly because of the height factor, and I’ve decided that this fall we’ll also go ahead and remove the two remaining rose bushes that I left because of sentimental reasons. They were in these beds when we bought the farm, and while I do enjoy the roses when they bloom, these roses are targets for Japanese beetles and other pests and do nothing for the pollinators, so they’re taking up valuable growing space. I’m thinking more and more about native plantings and how well they perform in the gardens. And now that Arcadia is populated with the honeybee hives, I need to insure they have a variety of forage year round.
Tomorrow my husband and I are going to watch a friend from bee school inspect her hives. She got her bees the spring after we completed the bee school and has become a certified beekeeper as well as certified in “naturally grown” beekeeping practices. I’ve seen photos of her working her bees and she’s gentle, effective, and shares my beekeeping philosophy, so I’m really excited to get this chance to see her in action, in person.
With the well expense this week, I’m back to my “no new projects” mode until the fall. Already in process is having two broken windows replaced and getting a new/larger dog door installed, but other than that, I’m going to be focusing on implementing things already in progress or on hand. Whew!
I’ve got writing tasks and projects in process also, and this is more than enough to keep me busy. That it’s almost August is amazing to me. How has this year gone by so quickly?
We call these “writing spiders” and this week there are two in prominent places where I see them many times a day. Get back to work, they are saying. :)
This is the most recent photo I have - it’s so hot this week I didn’t manage to get a birthday portrait, but I like this shot of Rafer with his good pal Keil Bay.
Birthday treats have been given out all week long at mid-day, in an effort to make the high heat more bearable. Though Rafer and Redford seem to love the sun and often lie in their dust circles basking.
Rafer is a real love bug and even when I insisted, ON HIS BIRTHDAY, on using water on his legs and then lotion (we’re having horrid issues with flies on legs right now) he was sweet and cooperated.
I feel like we’ve had nothing but joy from this handsome donkey. He’s handsome, sweet, full of spunk, and we love him dearly.
On Monday morning I found one of the barn swallow chicks on the stall floor, dead. It may have been the one that kept falling out and possibly injured itself. We had closed off that stall so the pony and donkeys wouldn’t step on any wayward chicks, so I know that didn’t happen.
By evening, there were only two chicks left in the nest. The resident black snake made a valiant effort to get to the nest for a meal, but the parents had placed it well and the snake fell to the ground before getting to the chicks.
I told the parents yesterday morning to please get those two remaining chicks out and flying - and by afternoon when I fed lunch to the horses, they were out in the barnyard practicing! They followed me to the back pasture when I was doing water troughs and were flying maybe 15 feet off the ground, with lots of landings.
Today I was out early, watering the pollinator beds, and heard birds calling above me. The entire flock of barn swallows were flying high! After the video above, they actually came directly over my head and circled and swooped, as if to show me they were all doing well. I assume these weeks in the barn hearing our voices, being close to us as we do chores, acclimatized the chicks to humans. It was a treat to see them all enjoying the cool of the morning, and to watch the young ones practicing moves in the air.
We’re once again in the midst of high heat, with daytime temps in the mid-upper 90s, and heat indexes in the 100s. The herd are doing well, as it seems to be a drier heat that isn’t as draining, and we’ve had a breeze blowing which at least keeps the air moving around us out there.
The native plants seem to be much more able to handle this weather than the non-natives do, but I’m trying to keep them happy, so I did a deep watering this a.m. We may get a thunderstorm late in the day, which is welcome, as the pastures could use the water too.
We have another week of this kind of weather, but I read last night that moving into August we have a period of lower than normal temps on the way. Hallelujah! I need a break from this, as I know much of the country needs as well. And much of the world.
As many of us do, I worry about the planet and what is to come, but for this morning I’m focusing on this little flock of barn swallows who made it in spite of the dangers of nesting and fledging. Flying high and celebrating their success.
This is a short clip from a longer video; the long one shows the parents feeding large insects to the babies as well as the babies turning around to use the bathroom over the edge of the nest so it falls to the stall floor below. How smart is that?!
They’re starting to fledge now, but have had to be put back in the nest a few times because they’re falling out but not flying. Hopefully they finish up today so we can stop fretting over them. The nest is sheltered and safe from wind, rain, snakes, but obviously a stall floor in a horse barn is not the best landing pad for young birds. Soft but not safe.
I posted about this a week ago but wanted to remind folks that I’ve signed on with Authors Against Border Abuse to provide up to 3 hours ($100/hour fee) of editing, developmental editing, consultation about your writing, and/or creative coaching regarding writing practice or other creative issues, in exchange for a paid receipt for your donation to organizations like RAICES, which help with legal counsel and fees for families and children at our border.
This can be done for local folks in person, or folks at a distance via telephone, Skype or FaceTime, or telephone, and you can make your donation now and schedule the actual consult for the fall if summer is not the best time for you.
Please comment with your telephone number or email if interested - all comments are moderated by me, so any with contact info will remain private. Thanks for considering and I’d love to assist with a writing project while also helping families and children at the border.
Last Thursday, the morning of the 4th, I had an email from a neighbor saying her adult children were coming to visit and bringing fireworks to set off for the holiday. I could go on about that, but the most important result of a night of sitting outside with horses and donkeys while warfare was simulated next door was a reminder of how amazing my own two young adult children are.
My son and daughter-in-law arrived from New York for the holiday weekend, bearing no fireworks, but a bag of extremely good coffee beans. Along with my daughter, they brought keen minds excited to talk about real issues in the world, loving souls happy to snuggle dogs and cats and comfort as needed while the warfare simulation was happening, and values that guide them to consider the environment, wildlife, all animals, and other people when celebrating and simply living on this planet.
I’ll never have to worry about any of them bringing fireworks home to frighten animals, trigger combat veterans, or pollute the air and neighborhood with toxic smoke.
I consider myself lucky and I hope I’ve modeled that consideration to them and in that way played a role in helping them develop into the people they are. And they will model the same to their own children, moving us collectively toward a country where July 4th means something other than exploding sound and flashing light and toxicity.
We celebrated with good food - made veggie burgers, homemade fries (thanks to my son for that!), and drank good wine on the 5th. On the 6th we had our favorite fresh summer pasta (sauce made with local tomatoes, garlic, and basil, plus olive oil, a little salt and pepper, and a round of Brie) with handmade linguine thanks again to my son. I made my mom’s old-fashioned lemon pie filling but served it with local blueberries and a few raspberries instead of in a crust. It was wonderful. Even more wonderful than the food was the conversation we had while preparing it. What a gift it is to sit with my entire brood together!
Thanks to Mother Earth for the rainfall that evening and to the cicadas for providing a giant white noise machine. And the trees for processing that horrid toxic smoke. By the time I went inside for the night, I could see the stars again, and hear the soft snorts of a calmer herd.
I’ve added my name to Jessica Keener’s list of authors who are against the abusive policies being enacted at the Mexican border. She’s compiled a list of authors offering our editorial services in exchange for donations to organizations actively fighting the abuse that is happening. If you have writing that you’d like a consult on, make a donation to a legitimate organization, show me (or anyone on the list you choose to work with) the receipt, and we’ll schedule the consult.
Jessica has laid out the ground rules clearly on HER BLOG - read it and let me know if you’d like a writing consult with me.
We’re back into a higher heat spell here, but the humidity has been lower than usual so it’s not been too bad. Our upstairs HVAC unit had some trouble this week and I worried it was going to be the time they said we had to replace it, but alas, it was a dead capacitor which was replaced and we were back up and running in half an hour upstairs!
The horses and pony and donkeys are hanging in there. Biting flies are definitely out but we also have a good number of dragonflies this year and they seem to keep the numbers down some. Regular baths with tea tree shampoo and hosings on the other days have kept them comfortable and happy. Rafer Johnson and Redford both go to their dust circles while the horses are getting baths. The dust rises in clouds and is a good sign that the donka boys are doing their version of bath and fly control.
They were all extremely happy on Wednesday this week, when the new cutting of hay from Canada rolled in. Keil Bay and Cody were in the barnyard and they ran to the truck and sampled the new bales before they were even unloaded. 8 hooves up and that grew to 20 once the pony and donkeys had their say.
Nights are getting quite loud here with cicadas in full song, just in time for July 4th, when I’ll fret about fireworks and sit outside with the herd, only to realize that the cicadas are like a giant white noise machine, muting the fireworks enough to make them not quite so scary. If we’re lucky a big thunderstorm will thwart the entire thing.
MY ANNUAL PSA WITH REGARDS TO FIREWORKS:
They frighten wildlife, horses and livestock, dogs, cats, and sometimes people. They can trigger symptoms of PTSD for our veterans. There are so many other more considerate ways to celebrate. Shooting loud bright things off into the sky isn’t one of them. The smell, the debris, the risk of fire - I can’t think of anything good about it. If you MUST experience them, go to the nearest city putting on a firework show. Give your neighbors, including humans and wildlife and animals, a break.
Speaking of wildlife, we have goldfinches flying madly about the property all day long right now. The pollinator beds are buzzing with pollinators. Here are a few shots of what I captured in about 5 minutes this morning while weeding.
Monarch caterpillar seeking shade on a large weed, which I left intact. The milkweed is in full bloom just to the right of this. I’m so happy to see this caterpillar!!
Yesterday I was watering the pollinator beds and I’m fairly sure the Arcadia bees have found the narrow-leaf mountain mint (and all the rest of the pollinator plants) in my garden beds! This is partly why I planted these beds, in anticipation of providing food for my own honey bees, and seeing them foraging was such a happy moment.
The cats, Corgis, and equine herd were with us in spirit, but what a joy to be on the lake with both my human children, my daughter-in-law, a good friend of our family, my husband, and Clem.
We rented a pontoon boat and had food, drink, gorgeous skies and temps, and the very best company. I came home relaxed and happy.
Last night we got out the super-duty binoculars and found Jupiter in the night sky. Three of its 79 moons are visible right now, and it’s pretty amazing to see them from the back deck and ponder science and science fiction and the magical, mystical world we live in.
I often wonder how it would be if the Earth had more than one moon and what our night sky would look like if it did. But 79? Can you even imagine?
While looking for the moons of Jupiter my husband downloaded a very cool app on his iPhone - it’s called Sky View Lite and the Lite version is free. You simply point your phone (or ipad) to the sky and it names what you’re seeing. I think we could have played with it all night!
This morning a different galaxy revealed itself as I was sitting on the front porch while the Mystical-kit meow ate his breakfast. A charm of goldfinches emerged from the seed heads of the first-blooming echinacea and dashed up into the sweetgum tree. What a sight to behold. Every summer I wait for it and it never fails to make me smile.
Yesterday and today we’ve had a constant soft summer breeze blowing. It’s not a cool breeze but it makes the most beautiful whoosh sound and is very welcome as the heat of early summer returns to November Hill.
The main portion of the new interior fencing is now complete! It’s difficult to get one photograph that shows the overall layout, so I took several angles to try and capture it. This is the far end of what we call the dirt paddock - it runs from the back of the barn to our property line, and at the end, adjoining the property line fence, had gates to the front pasture and the back pasture.
Since we mostly keep the entire farm open to our herd, they often galloped through from one field to the other, which I love to see, but having our gates literally right on the edge of our property has always been problematic to me. If the neighbors had anything going on over there, the horses couldn’t get to the barn without passing right along that fence line. Since a large part of “what the neighbors had going on” often involved dogs who weren’t trained or on leashes and came through our fence, it wasn’t a good situation. We remedied that two years ago when we got the fencing replaced with 3-board/woven wire, but I continued to wish the gates were further in.
This spring the big posts the gates were hung on suddenly and out of the blue became loose. I have no idea why, but since they had to be replaced anyway we opted to go ahead and do the new design. One day as I was out pondering it occurred to me that I could use the far end of the dirt paddock as a dedicated garden space by simply fencing across the dirt paddock and rounding the two sides that border the pastures to avoid creating “dead zones” with sharp corners. This not only brought the gates closer to the barn, it completely removes the horses from being near that fence line, which for whatever reason seems to be a magnet for the neighbors and their guests.
The horses can move from one part of the farm to the other without ever going near that area. I think it turned out really well!
This is facing the new garden space, toward the neighbors. The little gate is my entry to the garden, and you can see the left side angling toward the exterior fence.
This is a closer shot of the garden gate, which I’ve opened.
From further back, looking toward the back pasture, and showing the new gate that goes to the back.
This next photo looks from inside the garden space toward the front pasture. You get a better sense here of how much space I’ll have for raised beds.
This is from the back pasture facing the front pasture, showing both gates. The horses can gallop through like they always have, but much nearer the barn now.
Overall, it’s so much better! And just in time. For the past month, the neighbor has had workers on her property and is yelling and screaming at them for not doing the work correctly. I’m very happy to have my horses well away from that behavior. Hopefully my garden space, and me being in it some of the time, will deter the rudeness. Maybe a “quiet please!” sign???
As you can imagine, I’m thrilled to be able to check this project off my master list. :)
