Honey with the Angels.

My Mom's cat, Honey, has gone to be with my Mother and sit on her lap.

They will be together again.

Mom will be waiting.

Thank you my son, Robbin and my little Beans for taking care of Honey until it was time for her to leave.

The Passion of doing something...

I'm going to talk about passion today. Not the Passion that is capitalized. Not the strong feelings  as distinguished  from  reason.
I'm talking about passion for an  artistic life.
Passion for other humans is overrated and chancy at best. I'm beyond taking that risk. I'm beyond being a "groupie" for anyone. My passions are limited to small wonders and learning something well within the context of my life.
This brings me to knitting and felting.
(If you thought this post was going to be x-rated or questionable in nature... relax.)

I always thought that passion was something like this...
"We cannot be sure of having something to live for unless we are willing to die for it." ~Ernesto "Che" Guevara~ .
But for me there was never a passion that I wanted to die for, so I thought that I didn't have one.
I had many interests, hobbies and things that made me feel good, but never something that I would ".. die for".
Yes,I would have died for my children and grandchildren but so far, with luck, I never had to make that decision. The passion that I waited for was just not there.... or so I thought.
Now, I realize that I have had passion all along. I just had the wrong definition. My passion was more of a general and diverse passion for what was around the corner... what was over the next hill.. the grass on the other side of the fence sort of passion. I guess it was a drive more than a passion.
 As Einstein said, "I have no special talents. I am only passionately curious." Although I do think that I have some "special talents", I really think that the main one is an insatiable curiosity. 

So I find myself in one place, fifteen years in one place, and now
 I have had an epiphany. 
One word...passion... that was written in an email this morning gave me pause for thought. A comment that made me express an idea that confirmed my belief in the strange mystery I call My life.

I take photos.

I knit.

I dry my felting on top of the ivy, in the sun,

because it's beautiful.

I yearn for the possibilities of new yarn.

 I want to dig in my  garden and not wear gloves. 

I want to create something beautiful. 

I want to feel the earth in my hands.

I have passions for a lot of things. It's a quite passion that doesn't make a lot of money and has to do with continuity and beauty.

 It's about seeing something from a distance...

And then going inside.

Seeing the water flow into a planter...

  and waiting for it to come out at the bottom.

And being there to see it drip.

This is a passion of time... and place... and life.

I know now that I was waiting for passion in all the wrong places and expecting too much.

I wanted it to happen as it did in the movies. I wanted something big, with heavy breathing , but what I really wanted was to capture my love... in a photo, to learn a new knitting pattern, be with my family, read a good book, plant a garden, feed a goat, find something new and different.

  And tell someone about it.

That's my passion.

Simple.

Unique.

Me.

Slow Walk and an update on Squeaky.

I took my first walk up to the ridge in, probably, three weeks.

I took it slow. My energy is not back to normal but I feel pretty good and this morning I woke up feeling the best I've felt for a week and a half. I find that a small  nasal decongestant seems to do the trick before I go to bed and once during the day. Clears up the stuffiness and makes me feel like I'm still in the land of the living.
I walked at a slow pace and finally reached the top of the hill.
It was so beautiful.

 New grass was coming up everywhere. Getting some rain... and then sunshine, brings the carpet of green up so fast. I heard new life everywhere. I heard birds singing and saw them move from one tree to another, anticipating the arrival of Spring.
They are frantically looking for places to build their nests and bring their babies into the world.
Such busyness! Such industry.

A Spring Azure, or common blue butterfly, was going from leaf to leaf, not stopping long enough for me to take its picture. Then it landed on a pile of dry scat. This held the butterfly's interest for quite a while and I was able to take this shot of it.
This is a male with checkered fringe and small dark dots. They love the rich, moist woods here and it would seem that they like scat too. He stayed there for quite a while until I got too close and then he flew away to other grasses up the trail.
I started back down the hill, stopping to take a picture.  The sun felt warm between the trees. In the shade it was still cool but where the sun reached through I could feel the warmth.

I scanned the ridge to see if a deer or other creature was watching me.
Nothing was up there.

As I moved back down toward the house I saw our chickens in the distance. They were free ranging  and that means they have the run of the outer edges of the farm. I don't let them into our yard in front of the house. They make the garden look like a bomb site.
 I think that our cat is herding them and keeping them in the area near their hen house. They never seem to stray any further than the parking area. Sometimes they will come into the front garden to dust themselves and if the garage is left open they always have to come in and investigate. They seems to stay close. Maybe it's Annibel, but sometimes I think they know there are  predators around.

This is Squeaky.

Someone asked about her a while back and I realized that I don't talk about Squeak' or the other chickens very much. I do appreciate them. I always thank them for their egg production when I get the eggs and tuck them in for the night, but I'm not really a "chicken" person. They don't give you good eye contact.
 They are kind of... how do I say this nicely... at a disadvantage in the brain department. I know I'm going to get some flack for this but it's true. They live their lives reactively and instinctively. Which is OK for a chicken... I guess.
They just don't look at you.
Dogs look at you. My goats look at us... but chickens don't. This bothers me.
I will have to say that my friend's chicken, in Montana,

 was an exception to the rule.
She would come into the kitchen for breakfast, sit with us and enjoyed our conversations... and took care of an old rooster out in the chicken house. She seemed to be a cut above most chickens.
She didn't make eye contact either, but she seems to be smarter than the average chicken.
 Generally though, I think they are kind of different and a little clanish.
But Squeaky.... she is a chicken unto herself. She's a banty. I didn't give the other chickens names, but for some reason I did name the three banties
Squeaky is beautiful, but rather insecure.

She came with Neapoleon, the rooster and Henny Penny, the other banty hen who went to her maker last year.They came here, as babies, seven years ago.
Squeaky has the most beautiful feathers. She is a "perfect" little banty. But, she is terribly broody and she squeeks instead of clucking. She doesn't lays eggs anymore and I have to feed her separately because she gets so overwhelmed by the big hens. Do they have valium for chickens?
 I guess I would be intimidated too, if I was her. Look at the difference.

She is truly on of the little people of the hen house.
 The hens are kind of rough with her. They chase her when she tries to get a piece of luttuce or seed.
Squeak' just squeaks and runs.
Neapoleon use to help her and she relied on him to protect her, But last fall he had a stroke and now he walks a little crooked and his head droops to one side all the time. I think that his days are numbered.
He is still head of the flock and he still rules the roost. He crows all the time and struts his stuff with the ladies. He has always been a gentle rooster.

I like Neopoleon. He's little and he is a good guy.
He's kind to the big, fluffy butt hens...

And they seem to respect him.
The chickens give us eggs and I always say, "Thank you ladies." to them when I leave the hen house.
But chickens are a funny lot.
I, personally, like this instead...

Murphy gave me a kiss when I put my face up close to him. He came right through the fence and planted those big lips on me. What a guy!
 Brownie is smiling. He is so happy about everything right now. The warm weather, having Murphy at his side and special treats.
It doesn't get much better than this.
I'm telling you... being kissed by a goat can make your day.

Wordless Wednesday: Just Be...

I remember three day weekends

I really do. They were looked forward to like a short vacation when I was working... like a third day of relaxation... a wonderful reprieve from the alarm clock and getting up at the ungodly hour of 5:30 in the morning. I loved that extra day. It was like a gift from God... my employer, the school district.

Now I forget what day it is.
I don't really forget. I just don't have to know. It's one of the joys of retirement.
This is how my Monday went....
I felt so much better when I woke up this morning. I still have trouble at night with the stuffy nose, can't sleep, find the Kleenex, blow your nose, take some more medicine, think about sleeping in the recliner and looking like what my father use to call "death warmed over", but I'm feeling better today. It's incremental but I know that I'm not getting worse.
So, this morning after breakfast I let the dogs out and decided that I'd had enough of being cooped up and I went out with them. I opened the gate and let them go into the back area that they love so much. They disappeared quickly. I would see flashed of fur every once in a while as they ran around the yard.

 Cutter came back a little while later looking kind of funny.

I said, " Cutter, what's the matter?"  He looked at me and ran back down the hill behind the potting shed.
 I didn't know until later that he had rolled in something awful. Not awful to him of course... but something that he found delightful and irresistible.
Oh, the joys of dog ownership. Why is it that they can't seem to resist something so putrid... so foul?
 What is it that makes them want to rub their faces in feces.  This is what separates man from dog.
Carl seemed concerned...

He kept watching Cutter and standing next to me. I guess he thought Cutter was in trouble.
I left them to run some more and started taking pictures of...
The flowering quince that we thought we had killed when we built the potting shed .

Elizabeth Taylor (the rose)  just starting to get new leaves on her pruned branches.

and my pansies seem to have survived the winter. Not hard to do in this mild winter we're having.

 The Daffodils are blooming everywhere.

Beautiful flowers, laughing in the winter sun...

and reminding me that Spring is coming early this year.

I sat on the porch and let the sun soak into me. Letting my body accept  all the warmth and vitamin D that it could. I was pulling the heat of the sun into my pores, surrounding my sickly invaders like an army of good. I was really into the Creative Visualization that has always worked to take sickness out of my body...
when I caught this smell... right in the middle of my focused concentration.

Cutter was standing there, next to me, on the porch.
I looked down at him and said, "Dog, you stink."
He just looked at me and then he was off again to run with Carl.
I lost the moment. Lost the wonderful image of getting well and ridding myself of this cold.
I decided that I needed something constructive to do that wasn't going to overtax my brain so I made some cookies.

Snickerdoodles with orange zest. Lot's of orange zest and some of my chicken's free range eggs. Look at the dough! That beautiful dough is like the sunshine outside... like the Daffodils... Bright! Yellow! Blending into my body... making me well. Making me feel good... oh,yes! good, healthy and ... 
What is that smell?    Who let Cutter in? 
Cutter was at my feet again and his fragrance was wafting up and spilling onto the kitchen floor.
"Oh, Cutter!! You are going to get a bath, little boy."
 I asked the Prospector to try and wipe Cutter off with a washcloth. He did and it helped, a little.
I finished the dough.

Made the cookies and then...
I fixed myself a cup of tea and sat down for a while.

 

I love Lady Grey Tea. It was just the pick me up that I needed to accompany the Snickerdoodles. I only had two cookies. Honestly... well... and some cookie dough.  Does cookie dough count? I thought cookie dough didn't have calories because it isn't cooked. Isn't this true. I'm sure I read it somewhere.
We wiped Cutter down with a soapy wash cloth twice today. It is helping, but we may still have to give him a bath tomorrow. I have no idea what he got into, but I know that the foxes still come into the yard at night and Annibel, our cat, is always out there. I don't know who's poop it was but Cutter found it too good to pass up.  Rolling in any alternative poop when it's there on the ground, is like humans eating cookie dough. Irresistible! You just have to have some.
That was an awful analogy, wasn't it? 
 Carl never does this.  It's somehow beneath him. 

When I let Cutter outside tonight he didn't want to come back in. I had to lure him with a biscuit.
He has had a bad day and when he thinks that he is in trouble or thinks that he's done something wrong, he gets panicky.
Getting two rubdowns with a soapy washcloth goes against a Corgi's self-important " I'm in control of my life." attitude.
He's not happy. He came inside tonight and went directly to his crate. He wanted to go to bed.
I guess Scarlett was right.Tomorrow is another day...

Living a Poem

Winter still hangs inside of me

like the branches of a low tree, like the cold in my chest.
But, this morning, the bluebirds came ...

They tried to tell me.
 How the seasons change....that I mustn't fuss about little things.
They bathed and left.

Then a new bird sang outside my window.
A sweet high sound.
Solitary and pure.
I listened.
I heard a voice, this time.
And I smiled.


CC-2012

Dropping my Transmission with the Beans

I spent hours on the playgrounds of Pleasant Hill, California last week so this little bean...
 and this big bean...

could be out from under Mom who was recovering from an operation.
Helping Robbin out was mostly getting the boys out of the house and giving her the rest that she needed to recuperate. I would get dinner going in the evening and clean up afterwards. My son did most of the homework/ bath/ getting them to bed part. It all worked fairly smooth.
I learned to play the video games on the interactive Wii (I think that was what they called it.). I got to pick this blond girl persona and ride a motorcycle around a track trying to collect gold coins. I felt very cool. Then I picked up some coins... and then I hit a wall. I don't know why I hit it. I just couldn't keep the motorcycle going in a straight line and I forgot to slow down on the turns. The Bean had an unfair advantage. He was awesome.... except for the laughing. I told him not to laugh at Noni. That this was only the second time I had played this game with him. I told him that I wouldn't play with him anymore if he laughed at me. So, he stopped laughing. That's when he cut me off and took my gold coins. What a little beast.
At one point Little Bean (5 yrs. old) watched me hit a wall ( for the one hundredth time.) and then go off of a cliff into the darkness of a cyber black hole. He shook his head, leaned over and said, "Noni, I think you dw'opped you' transmission." I thought I would die laughing. I NEVER won a game, but it was fun anyway.

We spent a lot of time at the playground. I haven't spent this much time in a playground since my own boys were little. Every child had one or two parents, grandparents or caretakers  watching them like hawks. It was the weekend so the park was very crowded. It took all my concentration to watch my grandsons and make sure that I had them in my sight at all times. This was absolutely necessary.
 I learned that the ice cream man comes to the park in the afternoon at about 3:00 p.m. and plays almost the same music that I remember hearing when I was a kid. He is the pied piper of the sandbox set. They all run to him like Pan with his flute. The ice cream is very expensive now and I had to put a limit on what the boys could spend. They were delighted when I said they could buy one. I heard later that Mom and Dad rarely do. Of course they didn't tell me this at the park. Noni is such a soft touch.
A couple of days in a row we had lunch together. Did you know that there are two drive thru's at MacDonalds.You have a choice of just about everything now. The boys choose Mac Nuggets and a chocolate milkshake.
I also learned that you can get a "happy meal" with sliced apples now instead of french fries. and that the cherry on top of the whipped cream, on top of the milkshake will sink to the bottom of the shake in about 5 minutes if left in a car holder. We didn't have a spoon so we tried to retrieve the cherry with the straw. This doesn't work unless you have good sucking power and hold it long enough to get the cherry up and out of the milkshake. It's a fine art and my BEANS know all the ins and outs of these ingenious fast food concepts. They are, at 5 and 7 years of age, experts in the field.
My sister and I took them to the Lindsey Wildlife Museum in Walnut Creek one afternoon. The Bean didn't want to go when we got there, so we had a little power play. You know...
"I don't want to go in there."
"Sure you do. It's going to be fun."
"No, I don't think so."
So... that's when you become the "heavy".
  " Yes, we came to see this and we are going in. This is the plan. There is no option. Come on. Just wait until you see what's inside."
Well, guess what? He loved it...
 and Little Bean loved it.
We saw hawks, a fox, a trained squirrel and a real live golden Eagle.
They got to lay on top of a big fake bird while watching a video from a birds point of view.. It was truly like the boys were flying. My grandsons, who have been to Disneyland, were having a great time. There were all kinds of taxidermy animals on a fake mountain, with a staircase going up around it and all kinds of games for them to play, buttons to push and sights to see.
Afterwards we went to the Larkey Park playground. We wore them out. That was the whole point. Then home for dinner and bedtime. I slept well every night.
Mom slowly got on her feet and on Tuesday I drove her to the elementary school to register Little Bean for Kindergarten. By Thursday we WALKED to school and picked up The Bean. She is amazing.

I love this girl.

Bean does too., don't you know.

The day I left I brought them a Valentine's package with candy and these...

Can you believe I found "Love you Beans"?

You plant them in a little container and when they grow the pod will say I love you on it. I got them at CVS. What a cute idea and perfect for MY BEANS.
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This cold is better today. I feel better. Taking naps and sitting on the porch in the sun. We are having beautiful weather here but a storm is suppose to come on the weekend.
That is OK. We need the rain... and snow in the mountains.
The chickens say hello. I want to update you on Squeeky. She's still with us and hanging with the big hens. More to come on the little one with the big attitude.
I can hear Brownie and Murphy complaining about their dinner.
Carl is sleeping beside me and all's right with my world.
Hope is is with yours.

Kind of Feeling Better

Ever since I was a little girl I have had this attitude that sickness was a chastisement for some bad thought or action... or even if I had a wishful desire for something I wanted... but shouldn't have. I carry this feeling with me today and will probably take it to my grave. This isn't a full blown syndrome or a case of mental instability (I hope.) but it's always there in the recesses of my mind, telling me to look back and see what it was that I did, said or thought that caused this illness or distress.
This is a "confession" of sorts because I don't admit weakness or failings readily. I do believe that my Mom could have raised me with a more religious bent. I was a good candidate for carrying guilt around and being manipulated by visions of torment and darkness. She would have raised a good Catholic. I might have even been a Nun.... no! Scratch that. I was too boy crazy for that.
My Mom went to parochial school and was a practicing Catholic until she married my father. It was how she was raised and old habits die hard. We had fish on Fridays and said our prayers. But she didn't want us to have to search for reasons to confess our childlike sins. I always felt like my sister and I were raised with a liberal and freethinking theology. I think I picked up more than this.
I don't remember any direct hits on my "closet Catholic" tendencies. My Dad did have a way of making me feel REALLY bad about my behavior and he was raised in a rather benign christian church without the benefit of confession, rosaries or Mother Mary looking down on him. But he could make me feel awful just by not talking to me. Maybe the absence of "a voice" telling me why he was angry and what I did to make him angry was what started this odd behavior of mine. Maybe it's my father who is still guiding me, silent and angry, in the belief that I must have done something wrong to deserve getting sick. Don't know. I only know that the feeling is always with me. I do wonder about our ability to manifest sickness as a form of reaching out for love. Not in every case, but sometimes.
I'm feeling better, today, so this must have been a small transgression. Last year, when I got that virus that lasted so long... or long ago, at 39, when I found out I had breast cancer.... Those were real soul searching moments. But... this time I probably just yelled at someone. Like, when I shouted a rather provocative expletive at someone who pulled in front of me on the road and then I realized  that both of my grand babies were in the back seat... silent and looking at me. I apologized, but that may have been when the nose cold started. Who knows.
 Direct correlation?
Subliminal Catholic guilt?
 Farmlady is thinking too much into this?
She needs serious psychiatric help?
I don't know.... I only know that my cold is slowly getting better but my brain is exhausted trying to figure out where it came from and why.
I need to channel my "monkey mind" into a controlled environment for a while.
Take to the goats.
Feed the chickens.
Sleep...

Wordless Wednesday: Comfort Food

I'm back home

The supreme happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved..loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.

~Victor Hugo~

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I came home with an awful head cold. I'm recuperating and letting the Prospector and the dogs spoil me.

I left my dear daughter-in-law, Robbin, standing and walking... and living without taking large amounts of medications. She is over the big "after surgery" hump. The fibroid tumor is out and she is feeling really good. Everything is going to be OK. I left when I knew that the only thing I was going to be able to give her was MY COLD. So, I came home.

I will write more about my many hours at the Pleasant Hill playground and the drive thru at MacDonald's in a few days. My age is showing and the "Noni is resting" sign is hanging on my door.

Happy Valentine's Day to all of you.

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