OK So Crow begrudgingly logged me in to do a guest post. Again. I like think that it is not my ego (but thanks for all the kind words on previous guest post) so much as it is the contemplative state I achieve on Friday or Saturday nights, knowing that the next day's schedule allows for a few extra ales or lagers, and a few more minutes or sleep, or the satisfaction of knowing that (although I love my job) the coming day is full of productivity on things that make Crow and I happy. Full of elbow-grease and tidying up loose ends and maybe shoveling a stall or two, or sorting through salvaged produce for crisp greens for the various fowl, or splitting old locust logs into kindling and smallwood burners for the kitchen woodstove...
Those things make me happy. So if you see what Crow and I do here, and you see the level of happiness, keep in mind that it is mostly because those day to day things are things that we knew would be enjoyable, and difficult, all at the same time. This place is a paradise, but only for those who find satisfaction and peacefulness is hard work and the expenditure of effort for things they can call their own. At least that is my view of it. Crow's may differ, depending on the day, phase of the moon, etc... I don't really know. That is a secret I haven't shared here. Despite our connectedness and beautiful story of meeting each other, and how well we mesh, I generally have absolutely not goddam idea what she is on about, usually. For example, a few nights ago I came home from work:
She had sent me an email while I was at work, telling me about all the kind folks in one of her "Duck Groups" or "Poultry Groups" (Sorry if you are a member and reading this, you really DO all sort of blend together for me, but NOT for Crow) who had heard about the subject matter of the last post (sorta my fault) and had started sending gift certificates for a certain hatchery, lets call it "Bob's", so she could replace the losses. Her email read (and I am paraphrasing "Holy SHIT! I was really sad but so many kind people are offering to send stuff to help replace what I lost because they heard the story and that makes me feel better, but Holy SHIT! What if I use that to get more and then something bad happens to them?" So I emailed her back something like "Please take some pork chops out of the freezer. I think we also have some frozen turnip greens. I will be working a little bit late. About the ducks and chickens, etc... we will talk when I get home, but I think they are just being nice, so you are not obligated to create a miracle just because they are being nice. Thank them for being nice, and then stop feeling guilty or whatever subtle emotion you are feeling that I don't have words for and can't really understand. Also, please feed Izzy I forgot to feed her last night."
Because the farm stuff is my weekend interest, while throughout the week I do ecological consulting. I can't explain what that entails, because its mostly just doing what I think is appropriate and billing various clients. Crow, however, knows each animal like it was her baby. They are all her babies.
So I got home from work, and eventually started to unwind on the couch, killing time while reading various news on my laptop. Crow spoke up (that is her favorite time to tell me stuff) "So they sent all this gift certificate stuff to Bob's, I'd like you to look at this breed of duck, because it might be hardier than the runners."
"Who?" I asked, because the 'Bob's' name didn't ring a bell.
"All those kind people who sent certificates so that I could replace the losses" Crow said.
"Right, they sent the stuff. I get that. So what are you asking?" I said.
"Well I am wondering about the etc. etc. etc. at Bob's for the stuff they sent." said Crow.
"Who?" I asked
"The nice people" said Crow.
I wanted to scream, but I didn't want to scare Bella the beagle who was on my lap doing her traditional Bella weaseling. I just nodded and said "MmmHmmm" because I was too tired to explain why I kept asking "Who?" Bob's is. It grew quiet again. I went back to reading.
She spoke up again "I was talking to Nicky and she was telling me etc. etc. etc. about Bob's, so what do you think about etc. etc." Here was my chance, so I asked her, very plainly "Who?"
"You know, Nicky," said Crow, "remember when she came here and she was moving and she brought all the ducks and geese..."
I wanted to scream again. Who in the hell was 'Bob's'? (By the way, Nicky, I will never forget you, your talks and subsequent visit here with Crow injected a whole new level of interest, and you gave her so much trust, and you got to eat a part of Slingblade, and we shared a smoke... I knew who she was talking about when she said Nicky :-) "
So that is my example of how I hardly ever know what she is going on about. Just one example. There are probably lots of them, more than I even know. But it doesn't matter, because I know who she is, and she knows who I am, and even if we don't know what the other is talking about, we know where they are coming from.
But I don't know if any of the readers here really know where I am coming from. Probably very few, because I have only posted a few entries here. So tonight I thought I would share something at the core of where I am coming from. Yes, I know, that was a long prelude. That is because I was doing lots of other stuff in the interim and couldn't figure how to transition. So here goes - a recipe for happiness. I made this tonight and I am eating it right now. It is a local variation on Chili con carne:
1 1/2 lbs. fresh ground pork sausage with Taylor's spicy seasoning
1 1/2 lbs. fresh ground venison
2 TBSP. of olive oil (unless the venison was ground with some fatty meat, in which case you won't need oil"
1 small can of RO-TEL diced tomatoes and green chilis
1 small can of RO-TEL tomato sauce with green chilis
(I say small can because I can't be bothered to read the label. I just know that it is good. I'm guessing about 8 ounces each)
5 medium, juicy tomatoes, diced
Two large green bell peppers, diced
One quart of fresh-shelled October beans grown by the neighbor (I don't know of a supermarket equivalent, not sure if there is one or not)
Two cups of soaked pinto beans
Four cups of soaked kidney beans
One large onion
Twelve - 16 oz bottles of a hoppy IPA (Harpoon is OK, Lucky Star is also nice, but feel free to have fun with this one)
5 TBSP Coarse ground black pepper
3 TBSP coarse salt
2 TBSP fine paprika
1TBSP fine cinnamon powder
1/2 cup cola (RC, if you can get it :-))
1TBSP crushed, dried Cayenne
Finish at least two bottle of IPA before starting.
Brown the sausage in a large stock pot. Don't drain it. Taylor's doesn't add fat, anyway. Add half of the spices, at various intervals, as you feel like it, while having another IPA. Let the sausage get really brown. If it starts to get too hot or smell of burning, sploosh a little of the IPA on it to cool it. Keep stirring it. Try a hard plastic spatula, then a metal one. Spend a few minutes looking for the spatula - if you find it in the dishwater then rinse it really well and continue. Butter knives work OK, too, just make sure you don't let the sausage stick in the stock pot.
Once it is nice and brown and the whole house smells of sausage, open the ROTEL cans. Both of them. Pour them onto the sausage and stir. Add some IPA if you want, maybe just a sploosh. Whatever amount feels stylish and awesome. Taste the stuff in the pot. Taste some more. Spoon out a little bowl of it and eat it, and get another IPA.
Set that pot on the back burner, on low heat. Get out a frying pan and place the ground venison in it, along with the olive oil, on medium heat. Chop the hell out of it with the spatula (either one, but if you are using a teflon coated pan, go easy with the metal spatula) as it browns in the oil. At some point, it will be about half brown and half pink. That is a good time to spread it all over the pan evenly and get another beer. Yeah, I don't know what happened to the other one, either. No way in hell I already drank the whole thing.
Go ahead and start the hunt for the cutting board. It will take awhile. Once you find it, you should probably have another drink. Then find the cinnamon and the paprika. I am not even sure what the paprika adds, its just that I did it once in my chili and I thought it was great so now I always use it. We don't use paprika in anything else that I know of, so between chili cooking intervals it has a way of hiding in the very back of the highest cabinet, behind the green food coloring and the dog antibiotics with two tablets left. Because it is such a high cabinet you may want to push a stool over, but remember that the three legged ones are unstable. So have another drink, muster up your willpower (it all smells so good at this point) and push the tekewood Balinesian bench across the hardwood into the kitchen and stand on that. It is very stable.
So now, the venison is ready to be seasoned. If you can't remember whether you did already, or not, its OK. Just do it again. Then stir it up some more and finish that current beer while you add the soaked beans to the other pot that has the sausage and stuff. Stir all that, and crank the heat up to halfway between medium and high. Drink.
Stir the venison. Do that same cool-off trick you did with the sausage, keeping in mind that you should drink more than you cool with, because the pan is shallow and you don't want to spill the beer onto the burner. Taste the vension. Clear your palate with beer. Add some of the red pepper. Taste again. Finish the current beer.
Did we chop the pepper and onion yet? Who cares, if we did, we're good, take a break and have a beer. If not, we're good, do that now and have a beer.
Add that stuff, the vension, the chopped pepper and onion, and any drained, soaked beans that you havent added, to the stock pot. If there is anything else laying around that looks like it might belong in the pot, put that in, too. If you drained everything correctly, the stock pot is almost full to the top with a really thick, steamy mess of ground meat and beans. It needs more liquid. Sacrifice a beer, except for one big gulp. Stir it all up. Put the rest of the spices in, and put a lid on the stock pot. Turn the heat down to simmer and go feed the dogs. Surf the web a little and have some more beer.
After awhile, you will smell the sweet gloriousness wafting in from the kitchen. That is your cue to taste it. Add whatever you think it needs. Probably nothing at this point. Ladle a large bowlful and kick yourself that you didn't think about cornbread. Grab another beer and settle onto the couch, and smile to yourself that life is so awesome.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
puzzled
We had a little tragedy here at the farm. Due to a heater in the uphill barn house too much carbon monoxide built up and suddenly took out many of my ducks and chicks. Everybody up there is either a rabbit, a hospital patient, or too young or fragile or precious to be mixed in with the flock. I lost many. Too many to list.
I originally thought it was the food or water and in a panic removed it all, but when more birds began to die, that had been fed different food and different water, I knew it was not that. It happened too quickly if it was an illness, as they would have got sick at intervals. Not all drop at once. By the time I figured it out, more were going down hill. Rusty and I rushed to open windows and pump fresh air in. We desperately picked up ducks and brought then to the windows, attempted to keep them awake so they would keep breathing and cycle the carbon monoxide out. We worked on everybody. Talking to them, holding them. Trying to will them back, when they had no more will in them to come back. For many it was too late.
All I could do after the house aired out was to make them nice cozy nests and keep warming lights on. After being emotionally and physically exhausted, I said goodnight to them and tucked them all in.
This morning, as much as I had hoped for the best, it was somewhat expected to walk in and see that all the birds that were affected badly the night before, did not, in fact, make it through the night. I guess I went into shock, and systematically picked up dead birds and stacked them in a box. I then cared for all of the survivors and went outside with ice pick in hand to break the thick ice in the all of the water bins and pools. I broke the pick doing so.
It has been a tough week.
Last week, I found out the results of my thoracic MRI on my back. Basically, from discs 5-6 all the way to 10-11 are bad. That was just the middle back scan. I have yet to have them do a scan on the cervical or lumbar. The neurologist said it would likely get worse.
Also, I found out that my 24 hour heart holter showed "frequent PVCs" (nothing new just documented) and some sort of tachycardia event. I have an appointment at the cardiologist. I went through all of this in FL. Beta blockers make my blood pressure drop too low, and heart anti-arrhythmia medicine makes my heart go crazy.I was set to get a cardiac ablation in FL, but my heart specialist felt the need to tell me how I needed to find Jesus and gave me a bible at one of my appointments. He had obviously saw what I listed as my religion when I was in the cardiac unit at the hospital. A heart ablation is when they go in through your groin up the main artery to the heart and kill the misfiring cells. Imagine, me letting this doctor burn this witch's heart. I left and never went back to him. I refused to pay the copay too. (I am so tough.) My primary doctor was LIVID when he found out and called the specialist up while I waited in the exam room. The walls were thin. He was mad, swearing mad. I was supposed to go to another specialist, but I moved and I have been busy healing myself, and stuff here.
The weird thing is, I feel, as a whole person, much better than I ever had. I feel healthier, even though all hell might be breaking loose around me. I feel more strong, satisfied and centered.
How is that?
Anyway, I was not happy hearing I was worse. I am better, damn it! I hated loosing the very little ones I had brought in or raised up, and had an obligation to protect. I do not like things happening that is beyond my control... because I would have to admit that there are things that are beyond my control. Ok. Fine I admit it. BUT. I do not have to succumb to it. I do have control of how I react to what life gives me and what I choose to do with it.
Not everything was tough this week.
I learned a whole bunch. I got many surprises.
An artisan crow necklace came from Nicky, my wonderful friend who when moving to Scotland gave me her ducks and geese to care for. I held the clay crow pendant in my hand today, thinking of her.
A card from my Mom and Stepfather that said they were proud of who I have grown to be.
A box of hospital supplies, from my dear bloggy friend. I mean everything. More about this later.
Same friend left a song for me... One of my very favorites that I haven't heard in a long, long time. It was spooky that she left this for me. Good spooky. I got the chills.
Today I received an awesome homesteading book from my brother with a live lizard that hopped out of the box when I opened it. (Spooky time) Immediately, I had to look up the Animal Medicine Card for the Lizard. I mean I had just got done stacking up dead birds, when I came inside and sat down to open the box. Here is what the lizard card says:
Just tonight and out of the blue, I got something back that I wrote to a friend when I first moved here. (He is a healer, a clergy man, and obviously a tad in tune with the flow.) Here is part of what I wrote:
I know the body is the last red flag that the ship will go down if you do not go down to the hull and see the hole. I have to tell my cells and organs that have lived so long in battle, that they/we have won. I have to go there, not for long, but I have to visit the core. I travel as not a victim, but as a victor.
I would say my ship is sailing despite the rough seas. More good spooky stuff.
Today, as I told my bird friends or (friends with birds) about my farm tragedy, I got messages of love and support. Offers to help, and loads of compassion. When something like this happens, what you need most is to feel loved. I do. Nobody judged me, as I tried very hard not to judge myself.Thank you all.
Perhaps in all of this is the answer to my question above:
How is that?
I guess I have to add it all up. All the pieces to the puzzle are always right there in front of us on the table of life. One just has to figure out how to put together all the pieces.Nothing like death to make you go back to the basics of puzzle solving.
I better stop rambling and get some sleep.
good night, or good morning-- good everything
~crow
I originally thought it was the food or water and in a panic removed it all, but when more birds began to die, that had been fed different food and different water, I knew it was not that. It happened too quickly if it was an illness, as they would have got sick at intervals. Not all drop at once. By the time I figured it out, more were going down hill. Rusty and I rushed to open windows and pump fresh air in. We desperately picked up ducks and brought then to the windows, attempted to keep them awake so they would keep breathing and cycle the carbon monoxide out. We worked on everybody. Talking to them, holding them. Trying to will them back, when they had no more will in them to come back. For many it was too late.
All I could do after the house aired out was to make them nice cozy nests and keep warming lights on. After being emotionally and physically exhausted, I said goodnight to them and tucked them all in.
This morning, as much as I had hoped for the best, it was somewhat expected to walk in and see that all the birds that were affected badly the night before, did not, in fact, make it through the night. I guess I went into shock, and systematically picked up dead birds and stacked them in a box. I then cared for all of the survivors and went outside with ice pick in hand to break the thick ice in the all of the water bins and pools. I broke the pick doing so.
It has been a tough week.
Last week, I found out the results of my thoracic MRI on my back. Basically, from discs 5-6 all the way to 10-11 are bad. That was just the middle back scan. I have yet to have them do a scan on the cervical or lumbar. The neurologist said it would likely get worse.
Also, I found out that my 24 hour heart holter showed "frequent PVCs" (nothing new just documented) and some sort of tachycardia event. I have an appointment at the cardiologist. I went through all of this in FL. Beta blockers make my blood pressure drop too low, and heart anti-arrhythmia medicine makes my heart go crazy.I was set to get a cardiac ablation in FL, but my heart specialist felt the need to tell me how I needed to find Jesus and gave me a bible at one of my appointments. He had obviously saw what I listed as my religion when I was in the cardiac unit at the hospital. A heart ablation is when they go in through your groin up the main artery to the heart and kill the misfiring cells. Imagine, me letting this doctor burn this witch's heart. I left and never went back to him. I refused to pay the copay too. (I am so tough.) My primary doctor was LIVID when he found out and called the specialist up while I waited in the exam room. The walls were thin. He was mad, swearing mad. I was supposed to go to another specialist, but I moved and I have been busy healing myself, and stuff here.
The weird thing is, I feel, as a whole person, much better than I ever had. I feel healthier, even though all hell might be breaking loose around me. I feel more strong, satisfied and centered.
How is that?
Anyway, I was not happy hearing I was worse. I am better, damn it! I hated loosing the very little ones I had brought in or raised up, and had an obligation to protect. I do not like things happening that is beyond my control... because I would have to admit that there are things that are beyond my control. Ok. Fine I admit it. BUT. I do not have to succumb to it. I do have control of how I react to what life gives me and what I choose to do with it.
Not everything was tough this week.
I learned a whole bunch. I got many surprises.
An artisan crow necklace came from Nicky, my wonderful friend who when moving to Scotland gave me her ducks and geese to care for. I held the clay crow pendant in my hand today, thinking of her.
A card from my Mom and Stepfather that said they were proud of who I have grown to be.
A box of hospital supplies, from my dear bloggy friend. I mean everything. More about this later.
Same friend left a song for me... One of my very favorites that I haven't heard in a long, long time. It was spooky that she left this for me. Good spooky. I got the chills.
Today I received an awesome homesteading book from my brother with a live lizard that hopped out of the box when I opened it. (Spooky time) Immediately, I had to look up the Animal Medicine Card for the Lizard. I mean I had just got done stacking up dead birds, when I came inside and sat down to open the box. Here is what the lizard card says:
"Lizard medicine is the shadow side of reality where your dreams are reviewed
before you manifest them physically.
If you have a Lizard totem, listen to our own intuition above anyone else's.
Pay attention to your dreams for they show us
what we do not perceive when awake.
Dreams are shadows showing your fears and hopes.
Make a dream log and record your dreams.
Look for your symbolic and reoccurring dreams and study them carefully.
Lizard can also teach you to become more detached in life.
Sometimes it is necessary to separate yourself from others
to accomplish what is necessary.
Lizard helps you awaken the ability for objective detachment.
It can show you how to break from the past."
Just tonight and out of the blue, I got something back that I wrote to a friend when I first moved here. (He is a healer, a clergy man, and obviously a tad in tune with the flow.) Here is part of what I wrote:
I know the body is the last red flag that the ship will go down if you do not go down to the hull and see the hole. I have to tell my cells and organs that have lived so long in battle, that they/we have won. I have to go there, not for long, but I have to visit the core. I travel as not a victim, but as a victor.
I would say my ship is sailing despite the rough seas. More good spooky stuff.
Today, as I told my bird friends or (friends with birds) about my farm tragedy, I got messages of love and support. Offers to help, and loads of compassion. When something like this happens, what you need most is to feel loved. I do. Nobody judged me, as I tried very hard not to judge myself.Thank you all.
Perhaps in all of this is the answer to my question above:
How is that?
I guess I have to add it all up. All the pieces to the puzzle are always right there in front of us on the table of life. One just has to figure out how to put together all the pieces.Nothing like death to make you go back to the basics of puzzle solving.
I better stop rambling and get some sleep.
good night, or good morning-- good everything
~crow
Saturday, February 4, 2012
do you think I can do it?
He wouldn't be a pet.
Well, you know he would be a pet. But he would not stay a pet. He would become food for my family.
Should I? Rusty thinks I am too mushy. I think I can do it. All I have to do is trade him for a goat. That's it. I eat beef. So, how would this be any different than buying a burger or going out for a steak dinner?
Do you all think I can do it?
He is cute.
Well, you know he would be a pet. But he would not stay a pet. He would become food for my family.
Should I? Rusty thinks I am too mushy. I think I can do it. All I have to do is trade him for a goat. That's it. I eat beef. So, how would this be any different than buying a burger or going out for a steak dinner?
Do you all think I can do it?
He is cute.
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
update from the rehab and maternity ward
I thought you all might like to see how the patients are doing. First, the elephant in the room. Braveheart, who proudly juts out his three remaining tail feathers. He now makes noises at me like a drain pipe glugging. I was looking for where the sound was coming from for a week and it was following me. Braveheart also gobbles, of course, and has started stomping one foot with his wings out and cupped. I do Indian dances with him. I swear he dances just like he is at Powwow. I often think about how silly of a woman I would appear to be if there were hidden cameras up there. Fool woman.
I grabbed every duck egg I could when Rain, Happy and Crick (Indian Runners) were in the hospital. Crick died, Happy recovered, then one day just gave up and joined Crick. It hit me very hard. Rain's leg healed, then she took a flying leap down a story of stairs and started hobbling again. She now spends her days inside the uphill barn-house with a flock of teenage ducks who are growing out. I noticed yesterday, she is putting weight back on the foot. I am relieved.
While all of that healing was happening, I had eggs in the incubator. I have to thank my Birds of a Feather Group forenabling suggesting to me to grab all the eggs I could in the event that I might have their bloodlines. Because I was not prepped for hatching in breeding pens, I got a nice little mix.
First came these two:
Happy is gone, but we now have Jensen who is a white Indian Runner. Hendrie, a blue bibbed Indian Runner, could be from Rain. She did lay an egg the first day she was in the Hospital.
Then came a few more ducklings...
Marie the French hen, has been resting up from her prolasped oviduct. Luckily, I have not had to treat her a again. She has not laid an egg since, but her and her sister's egg have hatched. Somewhere in the duckling photos above are her children. She doesn't seem to care about them.
 |
| Braveheart the turkey, growing back feathers and feeling his male-ness |
I grabbed every duck egg I could when Rain, Happy and Crick (Indian Runners) were in the hospital. Crick died, Happy recovered, then one day just gave up and joined Crick. It hit me very hard. Rain's leg healed, then she took a flying leap down a story of stairs and started hobbling again. She now spends her days inside the uphill barn-house with a flock of teenage ducks who are growing out. I noticed yesterday, she is putting weight back on the foot. I am relieved.
 |
| Rain is getting better, again |
 |
| Rain, silver indian runner |
While all of that healing was happening, I had eggs in the incubator. I have to thank my Birds of a Feather Group for
First came these two:
 | |
| Jensen (don't be such a chicken) and Hendrie (grandmother of the flock) trying to find the fluff cycle button |
 |
| Jensen and Hendrie are growing fast |
Happy is gone, but we now have Jensen who is a white Indian Runner. Hendrie, a blue bibbed Indian Runner, could be from Rain. She did lay an egg the first day she was in the Hospital.
 |
| Jensen and Hendrie out-grow the chicks quickly |
 | |
| Hendrie and... ? |
 |
| Jensen - not a chicken at all |
Then came a few more ducklings...
 |
| this one might be related to Squint |
 |
| actually, baby's daddy (Squint) might have fathered the two darker ones |
 |
| this one is possibly an indian runner trout or mix |
 |
| the bigger blue and white may be a indian runner pekin mix |
 |
| Jensen and Hendrie are not nice to the new ducklings |
 |
| but the newbies seem to be holding up fine |
 |
| the black copper maran chicks love them |
 |
| except this guy (RI Red), who was moved up to the teenager brooder |
Marie the French hen, has been resting up from her prolasped oviduct. Luckily, I have not had to treat her a again. She has not laid an egg since, but her and her sister's egg have hatched. Somewhere in the duckling photos above are her children. She doesn't seem to care about them.
 |
| Marie Antoinette |
I don't have a current picture of Knuckles the hen, but she is completely healed from her foot injury. She kicked off the last shoe and began placing her fool correctly on the ground. Now she is walking with ease. Knuckles is with the Delaware breeding group right now, but soon I will have to put her back with the flock, I need to make sure I am hatching Dels only. Yes, I will be hatching all the way though until Summer!
I lost a couple baby rabbits (it breaks my heart), but the rest are growing fast. I will do another baby in the basket photo shoot, and also I want to talk about...
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
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turning 49 and how I feel and don't feel about that. I think I will explore getting older from a tom-boy-ish woman's perspective. I hope to bring a mix of honesty, humor and humility to the table. Pre-Birthday activities include being sent to the cardiologist and the neurologist by my primary girl lady doctor. Which means heading out to the big city. I need to make sure I don't have crap on my shoes. Last time I tracked some in to my doctor's nice white and shiny office floor.
Today I am a mess, as well as-- a healer, a funeral director, a farmer, a therapist, a cook, a maid, a farmer, and a woman living wild and wonderfully here in WV.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Guest Blog: The Mountains
Rusty again...
Crow has been busy - new goats, new baby bunnies, new school semester for the kids, and all the attendant changes and patterns and schedules and teenagers not saying what they are doing and not doing what they are saying... but she loves it. On the other hand, I have been waiting for a new post. So tonight, after a fairly lazy day (long afternoon nap) and a meal of breaded venison steaks (delicious, but absolutely NOT Crow's favorite), country green beans (Blue Lake beans cooked soft in the leftovers of Virginia cured ham trimmings and onion), and some macaroni and cheese (special request by Sophia), I cracked open a can of beer and sat down.
"Do you want your computer?" she asked and so I accepted. She has her own, it just so happens that she left it on the floor beside the bed one night and then stepped on it the next morning, so the LCD screen is cracked. I set it up on her desk with a wireless keyboard and external LCD, but its just not good enough for her anymore. She needs mine, every time I set it down.
"Can you help me take some hay up the hill for the goats?" she asks - "OK" I say and put down my laptop and take hay up the hill in my little pickup, and we count baby rabbits, and we trash talk the angry geese, and we hug Izzy, and we make the injured tom turkey gobble, and somehow, on the way back into the house, I find myself puttering, doing this or that, and I walk back to the living room to finish whatever nonsense I was browsing online, and there she is, Crow, with my laptop. It happens nearly every time...
When we first met I had no plans of ever leaving the mountains. When I say the mountains, I am talking about the Appalachian Mountains, which are not really mountains so much as they are the old fuzzy and rounded ridges left as part of an ancient incised plateau. But to me they were mountains.
As soon as I was old enough to wander the woods alone, I did. By my sixth birthday I was a regular traveler, leaving the old clapboard house we lived in, on a land lease, and making my down a hillside, through brushy regrowth of hillside pasture, to a small spring-fed stream that harbored bight red salamanders and raucous springtime frogs. Over time, I followed the stream further and further to the perennial reaches, where darters and creek chubs overwintered is icy pools. I went up the adjacent slopes, on some days, especially early in Sping when the wildflowers and spicy herbs covered the forest floor, and the canopy of the forest was hardly more than a whisper of tight, green buds beneath their brown overwintering scales.
If you climbed to the top, in the Spring, you could see the green and yellow dots where the most ambitious of the poplar trees had broken bud, accompanied by a handful of witch-hazel and silver bells in the bottomlands.
Bottomlands were not an area unto themselves, so much as they were a feeling. If you slid-hopped your way to the bottom of a particular slope, where you met the stream or the stream-in-formation, then you were in the bottomlands. Two steps, sometimes as many as ten or eleven, across, and suddenly you were no longer in the bottomlands but headed upslope again. Such was the incision. You could sit in the bottomlands, where the paw-paws and hackberry trees held the hillside from slipping into the stream, and if you looked up you could not see the top of either ridge. The hillsides shot up and away from you, rounded and full and covered in trees waking from a long winter nap. Near the bottom were Hemlocks, small striped-needle relatives of the balsam fir, with moose maples and mountain maples and sugar maples and red maples and sometimes silver maples all mixed in. Tulip poplars, the fastest growers, sent out their mittened leaves the earliest. In March you were lucky to see one leaf breaking bud; by the end of April some of them were larger than your hand. In the bottomlands the feeling was isolation and freedom, a fresh place of privacy and discovery where you were held close in the cleavage of the mountains like a small child, and allowed to explore Great and Unknown mysteries while resting safely against the soft curves of the Earth.
If you had the perseverance to climb either slope to the top, your rewards were physical, visual, and spiritual. Slopes average 40%, so going from bottom to top meant using both hands and feet, although cliffs were not common. Even when stopping the climb to catch your breath, you exert yourself to stop from sliding back down in the deep leaf litter, or hold onto a musclewood or laurel shrub to stay upright. Always, at the top, the ability to stand upright and balance, unassisted, with your head free of branches and brambles, high in the sky - that is a physical comfort. The air is a bit thinner, elevational changes are not dramatic but a climb from 1500ft to 2000ft above sea level to well over 3500ft above sea level is not uncommon. From there you can see the moisture rise up from the bottomlands, hollows, and valleys, and collect at the daily inversion layers. As a child, it was like watching God awken the earth in the mornings. As and adult, it is like watching God remind you that the details -- like ghosts -- are the things that are important. The present and the mundane, the intangible and the fleeting, the inaudible ticks and tocks of the way you count time in your head. You can watch, from this location, until it is done. Or you can watch, fom this location, and it will All Stop. It all depends on what you need when you get here, and that depends on where you have been and how you got there. And there are no secret formulas or answers, only the reliable mechanism with a heart that beats for your happiness and a complimentary sky that guarantees you, at any time, from any perspective, of Freedom...
So, you understand, in some small way, why I call them Mountains. It is a place that I grew in, a place that I left for Florida and Crow, and a place that, one evening, from our bougainvillea-shaded patio in Florida, Crow and I briefly left one day in September to stand in, landing on a mountain airstrip and leading a wedding party to the falls of Meig's Creek, to stand in front of those that held us close, and that we held close, and to say to each other and all those present, that we knew we were intended to spend our time on earth together. Because we chose it, and because it was destiny. As our old Souls guided our lives, and as we became more attuned to listening, it was a simple and magical reality.
Years later, as we sat on another patio, beneath a bougainvillea I had planted a few weeks before Sophia was born, I once again invoked those Mountains. We are going back I said. She agreed, quietly. We had always had a dream of going back. There was little there in the way of economy and opportunity, there was little there in the way of the things you normally associate with a comfortable life. But there was something there calling us. Crow had a box, one of those huge seafaring luggage chests, solid black with snaps and buckles. It was her Mountain Box. On the best of days, in Florida, I could review the contents and additions with her and laugh at the magical possibility of going back. On the worst of days, my heart went blacker than the black of the chest itself at the thought of saving a box of various linens and folk art from Appalachia while I was fighting with all my physical and mental strength to continue in my government position as a Project Scientist, monitoring and restoring forests that were flat and steamy, bottomlands that had no trees or cool water. I grew to love and appreciate it, over time, but it was not my Mountains. A co-worker gave me an antique postcard of a mountain switchback that I knew so well, and I thumbtacked it to my corkboard and cried. And cried. I needed to go.
I moved back in April of 2008, living out of a motel on US Route 460 whilst Crow readied our Florida bundalow for its debut in the crashing housing market. I woke up my first day of work to an ice storm; the bottomland trees coated in a thick rime and the higher elevation trees holding a thick blanket of ice and wet snow frozen to their branches and north-facing trunks. I breathed deep in the icy air as the sun came up, and the corner of my nostrils caught a faint whiff of destiny. I was charged from toe to head with an energy and a realization that cannot but put to words, other than to say I was Home.
It wasn't long until the house sold, and Crow was able to bring Sophia and the rest of our belongings up to the rental house I had secured.
The roads were not laid out in blocks, and the garden was only starting to grow. I saw her pause, I saw her wonder, I saw her compare the view of the mountains to the seething and barely alive heap of garbage that was the overwintered city below us.
As spring came on full, we developed a tradition of going to a small local diner late on Sunday mornings for breakfast - she would have blueberry pancakes and bacon and eggs, and I would have sausage and biscuits and sausage gravy and eggs and more sausage and fresh coffee. We would read the local paper and wonder what the future held - Me, at home and at ease, loving each day at work in my old Home, and Crow, uprooted and venturing, trying to make sense of this different place, trying to understand what exactly was her place here.
She pointed to an ad for a farmhouse and a couple of acres, off the Bluestone River. "Have you looked at this one?" she asked. "You don't want to live there" I assured her, and told the reasons why. There were no restaurants closer than 20 or 30 minutes drive. The 'towns' on the map had been replaced by poverty and decay, and the streets were empty except for the occasional staggering pillhead, I told her. And if you are far enough from the paved road, you can completely forget about a police response to an emergency call. You would have to learn how to shoot a gun, for your own safety, I told her, and you would be alone.
Those are all things I said to my wife, a slender, dark-skinned girl who handed me the world, on a regular basis, and slipped to me her broken dreams in the dark of night so I could hold her close and glue back the pieces I could recognize. But the person that heard those things, that day, was not her. It was Crow, the old soul that had felt her toes in the soil of the tomato patch behind the rental house, it was Crow, who had shoveled snow from our rental porch and painted a giant Star on our front door. It was Crow, who had pushed me to get in the old Saturn Wagon and drive her out Black Oak Road, to the place I knew she would hate.
We rounded a bend in the road and I said, that is it up ahead. She was transfixed. She jumped out and read the realtor's sign - "Let call her, now!" she said, and we did. Three hundred dollars US (all I had to spare) secured the purchase contract until the arrangements could be made. And in April 2009, we moved in.
Tonight, after dinner, I wanted another beer. I drove along SR71, following that same Bluestone River as it further incised the Plateau. I caught the corner store/gas station as it was closing, and bought a few beers and some chocolate to bring home. As I drove back along the river, my old truck kept pace with the current, lazily laying into the turns and relying only on gravity for the drops and riffles. I cracked the window and lit a cigarette, following a road in the bottomlands, sensing, in the night, the shoulders of the earth hovering to my side. A beagle's hollow call welcomed me as I turned off of Black Oak onto our drive, and she jumped at my lap as I climbed out of the truck. The sky was crisp and clear, and Orion was over my left shoulder. A wind blew woodsmoke off the ridge, and the goats called from their stalls. A silence hung in the air, a peacefulness that spoke of centuries of rounding of the plateau, of countless nights like this. And, like a freshly unwrapped present, I pulled the door of our farmhouse open and walked into the yellow glow of the kitchen light.
The kids were on their way to bed. Crow was reading about goats and ducks. My beer was cold, and my beagle had followed me in, pressing her head against my hand. I sat down and wrote this.
Crow has been busy - new goats, new baby bunnies, new school semester for the kids, and all the attendant changes and patterns and schedules and teenagers not saying what they are doing and not doing what they are saying... but she loves it. On the other hand, I have been waiting for a new post. So tonight, after a fairly lazy day (long afternoon nap) and a meal of breaded venison steaks (delicious, but absolutely NOT Crow's favorite), country green beans (Blue Lake beans cooked soft in the leftovers of Virginia cured ham trimmings and onion), and some macaroni and cheese (special request by Sophia), I cracked open a can of beer and sat down.
"Do you want your computer?" she asked and so I accepted. She has her own, it just so happens that she left it on the floor beside the bed one night and then stepped on it the next morning, so the LCD screen is cracked. I set it up on her desk with a wireless keyboard and external LCD, but its just not good enough for her anymore. She needs mine, every time I set it down.
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| Various Incisions Across the Plateau |
When we first met I had no plans of ever leaving the mountains. When I say the mountains, I am talking about the Appalachian Mountains, which are not really mountains so much as they are the old fuzzy and rounded ridges left as part of an ancient incised plateau. But to me they were mountains.
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| Where the Intermittent becomes Perennial |
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| Young black cohosh, squirrel corn, anenome minimas, under sleeping Tulip Poplars. |
Bottomlands were not an area unto themselves, so much as they were a feeling. If you slid-hopped your way to the bottom of a particular slope, where you met the stream or the stream-in-formation, then you were in the bottomlands. Two steps, sometimes as many as ten or eleven, across, and suddenly you were no longer in the bottomlands but headed upslope again. Such was the incision. You could sit in the bottomlands, where the paw-paws and hackberry trees held the hillside from slipping into the stream, and if you looked up you could not see the top of either ridge. The hillsides shot up and away from you, rounded and full and covered in trees waking from a long winter nap. Near the bottom were Hemlocks, small striped-needle relatives of the balsam fir, with moose maples and mountain maples and sugar maples and red maples and sometimes silver maples all mixed in. Tulip poplars, the fastest growers, sent out their mittened leaves the earliest. In March you were lucky to see one leaf breaking bud; by the end of April some of them were larger than your hand. In the bottomlands the feeling was isolation and freedom, a fresh place of privacy and discovery where you were held close in the cleavage of the mountains like a small child, and allowed to explore Great and Unknown mysteries while resting safely against the soft curves of the Earth.
So, you understand, in some small way, why I call them Mountains. It is a place that I grew in, a place that I left for Florida and Crow, and a place that, one evening, from our bougainvillea-shaded patio in Florida, Crow and I briefly left one day in September to stand in, landing on a mountain airstrip and leading a wedding party to the falls of Meig's Creek, to stand in front of those that held us close, and that we held close, and to say to each other and all those present, that we knew we were intended to spend our time on earth together. Because we chose it, and because it was destiny. As our old Souls guided our lives, and as we became more attuned to listening, it was a simple and magical reality.
 |
| No gators in the mountains, although I learned to love them. |
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| The 'new' bottomlands - shrubby marshes. This buttonbuh, Cephalanthus occidentalis, was an old friend. I cherished those connections to the past. |
I moved back in April of 2008, living out of a motel on US Route 460 whilst Crow readied our Florida bundalow for its debut in the crashing housing market. I woke up my first day of work to an ice storm; the bottomland trees coated in a thick rime and the higher elevation trees holding a thick blanket of ice and wet snow frozen to their branches and north-facing trunks. I breathed deep in the icy air as the sun came up, and the corner of my nostrils caught a faint whiff of destiny. I was charged from toe to head with an energy and a realization that cannot but put to words, other than to say I was Home.
 |
| View from Bolt 'Mountain' |
The roads were not laid out in blocks, and the garden was only starting to grow. I saw her pause, I saw her wonder, I saw her compare the view of the mountains to the seething and barely alive heap of garbage that was the overwintered city below us.
As spring came on full, we developed a tradition of going to a small local diner late on Sunday mornings for breakfast - she would have blueberry pancakes and bacon and eggs, and I would have sausage and biscuits and sausage gravy and eggs and more sausage and fresh coffee. We would read the local paper and wonder what the future held - Me, at home and at ease, loving each day at work in my old Home, and Crow, uprooted and venturing, trying to make sense of this different place, trying to understand what exactly was her place here.
She pointed to an ad for a farmhouse and a couple of acres, off the Bluestone River. "Have you looked at this one?" she asked. "You don't want to live there" I assured her, and told the reasons why. There were no restaurants closer than 20 or 30 minutes drive. The 'towns' on the map had been replaced by poverty and decay, and the streets were empty except for the occasional staggering pillhead, I told her. And if you are far enough from the paved road, you can completely forget about a police response to an emergency call. You would have to learn how to shoot a gun, for your own safety, I told her, and you would be alone.
Those are all things I said to my wife, a slender, dark-skinned girl who handed me the world, on a regular basis, and slipped to me her broken dreams in the dark of night so I could hold her close and glue back the pieces I could recognize. But the person that heard those things, that day, was not her. It was Crow, the old soul that had felt her toes in the soil of the tomato patch behind the rental house, it was Crow, who had shoveled snow from our rental porch and painted a giant Star on our front door. It was Crow, who had pushed me to get in the old Saturn Wagon and drive her out Black Oak Road, to the place I knew she would hate.
We rounded a bend in the road and I said, that is it up ahead. She was transfixed. She jumped out and read the realtor's sign - "Let call her, now!" she said, and we did. Three hundred dollars US (all I had to spare) secured the purchase contract until the arrangements could be made. And in April 2009, we moved in.
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| The house is beautiful, the work is neverending; this wallpaper seems to have beenapplied with staples over base of rough sawn lumber and coal dust. |
Saturday, January 21, 2012
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