Rainy day... Sunny day. Rainy day... Sunny day. Welcome to our Winter.

I had a great day with a friend yesterday. We even went "out" to lunch. This is what she wanted to do. I don't blame her. She has been cooped up for a few long months and when the doctor told her to start walking... lunch was of the first order.
 "J" has a temporary handicap sign to hang on the rear-view mirror and so we were able to park in a "handicap" zone, really close to the restaurant. This has its advantages in the rain.
So I took "J" to lunch. She WALKED.... no wheelchair, no walker... nothing but her willpower and a big black Velcro boot. I held on to her but she did really well.
When we got back to her house I know she was tired, but she took me upstairs.
This is her beautiful staircase.

 "J" has been sleeping downstairs since the accident because this beautiful staircase was not wheelchair accessable, as you can see.  But she climbed it, slowly, yesterday.
This is the upstairs landing...

This is a beautiful antique buffet at the top of the landing.
 In front of it is a very cute cat abode for one of "J"s four cats.

 To the right of this cat house is the door leading to the balcony where she slipped on some ice and broke her ankle last November. The door is locked for the winter now.
One of the cats was watching us from under a table.

This is the upstairs guard cat?
 Oh my! Scary isn't he?
 We  worked on some Ancestry.com relatives that "J" has been helping me find. She loves to research family history and she called me one day asking for some information about my family. She wanted something to do while she was in that wheel chair.
Thanks to "J", I now have found relatives, on my father's side that were born in Ireland in 1736. I find this fascinating. I have a lot of family that came from Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland. Amazing information.
 Of course there wasn't a lot of territory for folks to spread out into at the time, with safety, so I guess a lot of people came from these areas .
I also found out that a great, great grandmother was born in Ontario, Canada. I'm so excited about this. Her name was Matilda Ann Beckwith (A name I had never heard of before.) Her son, Daruis Henry Williams (born in Illinois) moved to Kansas and married Annie E. Cottingham (from Kansas) in 1880. They had a child named Arthur Deloise Williams (my grandfather). My grandfather married Maude Ethel Herald, moved to Southern California from Oklahoma, and my father was born in Eaglerock, CA.
Have you ever traced your ancestry? It's so exciting and interesting. You have to check each person to see if the tree is valid, if the information is true, but so far we have had very little trouble finding these relatives.
I can't wait to find out about John McKinney and Elizabeth Jane who came here to Virginia from Ireland. Now, I want to find the European connections. It's like a gift that you find after years of wondering who these people were and where they came from. "J" has found a relative that came over on the Mayflower. How amazing is that.
 I would especially like to know about  the women... who chose to marry, move to different places, leave their parent families, start their own families in a new environment and die far from their place of birth... the questions of how they lived, what their lives were like, how many child they had, which children died young and why. It's all there in the census, at least back to the 1850's or so, when the census started. But there are other places to discover information, like death records, enlistment records, genealogy libraries etc. There are lots of ways to find out about your family. It's like meeting these people for the first time and having a conversation with them. You want to know more. I'm hoping for some surprises and things that I didn't know. I can't wait to continue this on my own.
A few years ago I found out I had a distant cousin living in the Northwest. Our grandfathers were brothers. But, we never knew each other. The family didn't visit. It seems that the brothers moved in two different directions as young men. Maybe Clarissa, my cousin, and I can get some more of this figured out.
Well... This is something to work on and learn about.
"J" is doing really well and the recovery seems to be going in a good direction. We had a good time yesterday, despite the rain. It was a nice visit.
 We had two days of rain and now the sun is shinning again.This morning I went out and planted Hollyhock and gladiolus bulbs.

 This afternoon The Prospector and I sat on the porch for awhile. The Prospector hurt himself a few weeks ago. He did some 30 yr. old stuff with his 67 yr. old body and is paying for it dearly. He hurt his back and left leg. So he has been taking it really easy. He finally went to the doctor and they took xrays, gave him some pain meds and told him to rest. So he is...

He's not happy about it, but he has slowed down. He can't do much of anything.
 Carl is happy.

He sits with the Prospector and watches over him. (Notice the paw on the slipper.)
The hip and back are getting better but it will take time.
I'm doing double duty for a while but that's OK. At least it wasn't a broken back or a slipped disc.
 It will heal and then he needs to remember how old he is and be more careful.
Right, my love?
The sun felt good. I looked at my morning's work. The garden is doing nicely. It's been such a mild winter here. I feel bad even saying that with all the tornadoes back east, but we have not had much of a winter and I would like more rain before summer sets in.

This is how the front garden looks right now. Beautiful.

With tulips coming up next.
The parsley never died this year. It's still going strong.

Well... got to go and feed the goats and chickens now.
Have a nice weekend...

“"The time has come," the walrus said, "to talk of many things: Of shoes..." ~Lewis Carroll ~

I was asked by many of my followers about the shoes that I posted yesterday. So here is some information on them.

My daughter-in- law bought them for me as a thank you gift for helping out when she was recuperating from her operation.
 No, I didn't need a gift.
Helping my family was enough.
Losing my "transmission" was a bit unsettling, but I survived.
So, Robbin bought them and ... I LOVE THEM!!
Thank you sweetie. They are charming.

They match my decor.
My orthopedic inserts fit into them perfectly.

They are wide enough for my very wide feet and they are so comfortable that I want to wear them all the time.

They have good rubber soles that wrap up around the sides and work well on my non-paved roads and trails.
The Velcro straps are convenient and easy.
The brand is Keen. Here is a link:
http://www.onlineshoes.com/womens-keen-shoes-list_ct1,br38,tt2
I'm going downtown to see a friend later. I'm going to help her get out of her wheel chair and start walking. She has her doctor's permission to start standing on her feet again.
This is huge, because she has had a time of it since she slipped on her icy  balcony and fell.
She is doing really well. I'm so proud of her. She never let this get her down. 
I will wear my new shoes and visit her in style.

By the way...Have you seen the latest issue of Where Women Create? I love this magazine.

 There is an article on Magnolia Pearl's Airstream Trailer. OMG! It's so over the top beautiful.
And... usually,  most of the articles are about younger women that have all kinds of energy and I want to say
Enough already. Where are the older talented creative women... and how about some men once in a while."
Well guess what? They must have heard me.
There are two articles this month about... you guessed it...
 A lady named Fay Wood who lives in an old church and makes amazing art. She has been an artist since the 60's.
There is also an article about a MAN, Ryne Hazen, who lives in Utah and is a photographer.
Check it out. They may have to change their magazine's title. Yes!

Wordless Wednesday: A gift of shoes.

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