Bereft?

Robert Frost's poem Bereft is usually read as one reflecting loss, in particular the loss of a partner. Yet when I read it lately it brought to mind a different kind of loneliness. The loneliness of being alone within a relationship.

Bereft

Where had I heard this wind before
Change like this to a deeper roar?
What would it take my standing there for,
Holding open a restive door,
Looking down hill to a frothy shore?
Summer was past and day was past.
Somber clouds in the west were massed.
Out in the porch's sagging floor,
leaves got up in a coil and hissed,
Blindly struck at my knee and missed.
Something sinister in the tone
Told me my secret must be known:
Word I was in the house alone
Somehow must have gotten abroad,
Word I was in my life alone,
Word I had no one left but God.

Have you ever wondered what a man (or woman) sees in their life partner? In particular what does a perfectly nice, attractive older woman see in a man who belittles her, not only to her face but to others? Why would a woman enter into a relationship with such a man at any time, let alone in the autumn of her life? Why tolerate such loneliness? I'd rather be alone all my days than live with such a person and endure such loneliness.

A man who calls his wife stupid (and worse), who treats her with open disrespect in front of others, is seriously lacking in the qualities men of intelligence used to aspire to. Nobility may be a very old-fashioned concept, but a man without nobility and honor in the dealings with the woman he loves is a poor specimen indeed. Most of these men appear to be bullies to begin with, have an inflated opinion of their importance, and love to recount how they always know better than anyone how to handle every situation. They are always telling someone off.

However, even if you are an insufferable boor in your daily interchange with strangers, it seems if there is anyone you would defend it is the person you love, your life partner. The man (or woman) for that matter, who disparages their partner to others says a great deal more about themselves than they do the partner, and what is said is none too complimentary. The impression left is negative.

I wonder how a woman is "wooed" into a relationship with a verbally abusive man? Perhaps she feels as if she deserves no better. Perhaps he wisely conceals his abusive nature early in the relationship. From what I have seen it starts slowly and builds. The time to stop it would be when it starts, but bullies have a sixth sense and can smell vulnerability. Where a woman with a healthy sense of self-esteem wouldn't stand for such treatment, the timid woman, the fearful woman, the woman who was raised by an abusive father, or has been the victim of an abusive partner before, may allow it.

Such women need all the support and encouragement we can offer. Surprisingly enough, so do their partners, but the encouragement given them is to live up to their potential as protectors, both physically and emotionally, of the family. If other men (and women) voiced intolerance of such behaviour the bullies would be forced to examine their own actions.

Once again peace, and the love of peace, begins in the heart and works its way outward. No one should be left bereft.

In Hardwood Groves

The same leaves over and over again!
They fall from giving shade above
To make one texture of faded brown
And fit the earth like a leather glove.

Before the leaves can mount again
To fill the trees with another shade,
They must go down past things coming up,
They must go down into the dark decayed.

They must be pierced by flowers and put
Beneath the feet of dancing flowers.
However it is in some other world,
I know that this is the way in ours.
~Robert Frost

I've been raking leaves. They've gone from green to gold to rust, and the cherry trees are spangled green and gold and rust even now, but the leaves rain with each shiver of wind.

Autumn is a good and tidy time. You rake up the summer's green, load it into bags and send it away to the farmer who turns it into compost for next year's crops.

It would be nice if life's cares were so easily gathered together, bundled up and turned into a rich bed for new experiences. All the ragged edges and unraveled sleeves, the old angers and resentments allowed to break down in dark decay and come up again in flowers. A garden of the spirit.

This week's correspondence and conversations have reminded me that people do not allow their bitterness and grudges to go down to decay and come up in flowers. The old hurts, the bent and crippled coping mechanisms, are carefully tended. Keep them warm and dry, like museum pieces. Go back to stroke them when the pain begins to dull. Lay on hands and let the bitterness burn like a green fire. There is no going down in decay possible in the carefully tended museum of the spirit. No coming up in flowers.

It's hard to work with the curator of a museum of pain. Curators guard their collections, lest some part of it be touched, soothed, shattered. Curators love their collections, even if they are no more than a heap of old wounds and broken promises.

You look and listen while they catalogue in detail, each one. You can love a curator without loving the collection. You are patient and wait, hoping that a bright treasure lies hidden among the rubble heap. But days, months, even years, into the tour, no brightness emerges. You suggest perhaps it's time to look up from cataloging the misery to see the sun shining through the windows. But curators are focused on pain. Not to cherish it with them amounts to betrayal and abandonment in their eyes.

It's much easier to be out in the garden, tending to a cycle of life that allows the death of all things, and the subsequent flowering. Out raking leaves, in the crisp cold air.

Be the Change You Want to See

Yesterday, as we were going through boxes looking for something, I discovered (to my shame) some items packed as we left Calgary and forgotten in all the hub-bub of our new and exciting life.

I opened a small box to find inside my turtle shell rattle and a feather from a certain bird which is held sacred in Native American circles. The feather was a gift from a tribal and clan kinsman who has now taken the long journey himself. He gathered it at the base of a tree wherein was a nest.

As do many Native people who still walk a traditional path, he cared for an area of forest, and for its creatures. He left gifts of fish and road kill at the base of the nesting tree, and over the years the birds had come to know him, and would sit quietly as he approached. He considered their dropped feathers their gift to him, and that gift he shared with me.

The rattle fits snugly in my hand, reminding me of the first time I ever saw what we called a "terrapin" as a child. Funny little animals. Infinitely patient. The owner of my shell had long since vacated it when I picked it up along an Arkansas creek bed. It was bleached of all color, the chalky white of bone, scribed with the irregular pattern of it's growth plates. It had a handle once (the rattle not the terrapin) but I found it awkward. I pulled it out and sealed the hole over. Now it lies in my hand in perfect ease, with a tail of beading and feathers. It whispers as I move my hand.

I took it from its wrappings and laid it on our altar between the Buddha and the prayer bowl. It is an emotional, if not a physical, link to ancestors who kept time primarily with rattles, in a homeland three thousand miles away. There is a dichotomy for you - a genetic dog's breakfast who (in blood quantum terms) is half Native American or as Canadians say "First Nations" and a Buddhist.

What is culture and what is its value? We had a rip-roaring, and at times loud discussion about culture and acceptance, or a lack thereof, at "Happy Hour" a couple of days ago. We are of a generation whose members often feel threatened by difference and diversity. Never mind the names the "others" were called. Behind it all is fear, fear and ignorance - though sometimes a willful ignorance.

If you want to see a face light up, smile at the turbaned gentleman and his wife in her sari, at the mall. Say, "Hello! How are you today? Isn't it a beautiful day?" Or greet them and tell them that their child is beautiful. I've seen tears come to the eyes of grown men, simply because they and their wife were greeted warmly. I think that's heartbreaking.

Every human life is a treasure beyond price. Every human has incredible potential for good. We are all a part of the great cycle of eternity and if we only knew so we would be filled with joy. The Bengali poet Rabindranath Tagore expressed this idea, "The same stream of life that runs through my veins night and day runs through the world and dances in rhythmic measures. It is the same life that shoots in joy through the dust of the earth in numberless blades of grass and breaks into tumultuous waves of leaves and flowers."

I cannot change the mind of the 70-year-old who announces that he "hates them people". His world is divided into "us" and "them". ("Them" being anyone different from himself.) However, I will not sit quietly by while he reviles "them" in my presence. I remind him that his people, his "us", the Irish, the Scot, the Pole, the German, was once the reviled immigrant.

Change must come from inside. It cannot be imposed. But the self-motivated and positive inner change of a single individual affects the larger web of life and results in the advancement of human society.

I cradle my turtle shell rattle. While I sometimes yearn for days that are gone, and songs that have been long stilled, I know that if we are to ever have peace in this world, we must renounce our tribes, the cult of "us" and "them", and simply become "us".

Along the Road to Lillooet

We came around a bend in the narrow road a few miles from Lillooet to find a small group of Dahl sheep standing at roadside. They were quite unconcerned with us and hardly even broke their chewing pattern.

Ian took this picture from the driver's side and they were on my side. I could almost have touched them. The baby was really cute and reminded me of the baby Saanen goat we had years ago, when we lived out in the middle of nowhere in the Columbia Valley. She was wild as a March Hare and quite untouchable when we first got her, as a "bonus", when we bought her mother.

The mother's name was Villanelle - which is a kind of complicated poem. A villanelle has 19 lines. The first and third lines of the first stanza are rhyming refrains that alternate as the third line in each successive verse and form a couplet at the end. I can testify from taking poetry classes that a decent villanelle is damn difficult to write, although many poets have taken a stab at it. The most famous villanelle is Dylan Thomas' Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night.

DO NOT GO GENTLE INTO THAT GOOD NIGHT

Do not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right,
Because their words had forked no lightning they
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,
Curse, bless me now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night.
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We called the baby Geraldine, after Skip Wilson's character whose catch phrase was, "Don' chu TOUCH me! Don' chu DARE touch me!" Both goats were both sweet as could be but they climbed like monkeys. One day we found them on the roof! They also immediately ate the 100 foot row of raspberry bushes I planted.

Vill was huge, as big as a Shetland pony. One day we had some pesky folks visit. I won't say who or what they were but they often called to force religious tracts on us and try to convince us to attend their church. In those days we were too polite to tell them to push off.

This particular day they pulled up in a brand new Honda Civic, first year Civics were built. They came in and expounded on topics of no great interest to us, but a source of some excitement to them. After a very long while they got up to leave. We stepped outside to find both goats standing on the new car, Vill, the 250 pound sumo goat, on the top, and Geraldine - who was by this point a substantial goat herself - on the hood. Each goat was standing in a sheet-metal sinkhole. They looked up and said, "Maaaaaahhhh".

The gentleman said some most uncharitable words about our goaties and rushed at the car screaming blue murder. The goats bounded away like their cousins the antelope and resumed their observations from a safe distance. If it had been up to the caller he'd have had roast goat for dinner. Happily enough having the goats stand on his new car put an end to the persecution by pamphlet we'd been enduring. Saved, or at least rescued, by goats!

And all this memory sparked by one little picture.... By the time you are 1000 years old (much like I feel some mornings) there are a great many memories flying around in your head, as useless as single socks or flat bike tires. Oh well, if I download them onto a page then there's more room for important stuff that needs remembering, like where the heck did we put the paper towels?

This One's For Dave

A few kms out of Lillooet, in the middle of nowhere, we saw this neatly shingled outhouse a couple of hundred feet off the road. It was quite a hike up a steep hill, so if you needed to go you'd certainly want to plan ahead. Pack a lunch, cancel any standing appointments....

We stopped and I took a picture for Dave, who is the local "Outhouse" expert.

Now, how many people would come to a screeching halt along the road to take a picture of an outhouse? But you know me, always thinking of others. ROFL

On the Road Again...

When the boys were children and we set off on a road trip we'd always sing an off-key version of Willie Nelson's On the Road Again. No different now. Wednesday morning Ian and I set off on an 800 km road trip to visit the small and somewhat out-of-the-way village of Lillooet BC. We got a mile or so down the highway when we looked at each other and began singing On the road again, just can't wait to get on the road again....

Tony and I have decided that as much as we love the Tin Palace, it's time to put down roots again. The Okanagan is beautiful. We love Oliver and the people are wonderful. But the real estate prices are in the stratosphere and surprisingly enough, I'm finding it a bit too developed. It's an almost unbroken corridor of development from the US border to Vernon. The only thing we could possibly afford would be an apartment. Been there done that.

I am adamant. I want room for a garden, a greenhouse, a pond and a few chooks. There is nothing that says contentment for me as much as the background clucking and fussing of a few well-fed hens. I had my first flock at the age of six and I have never gotten over my love of the chicken. Chicken-kind is calling my name. Thus we have begun the search for a warm and reasonable place to buy property. Lillooet is both warm and has reasonable land prices. Hence the road trip.

It was raining when we left Oliver, rained harder on us as we headed up the Okanagan Valley, poured as we rose out of the valley and turned west, and more or less drizzled all the way to Merritt. The highway to Merritt is chopped through an ominous-looking forest of lodgepole pines. Mile after mile of sun-starved skinny trunks packed so closely together that dead trees lean on still-living neighbours but do not fall until they collapse into shards. Walking through such a forest, with spikes and splinters of deadwood thrusting in every direction, would be like facing a medieval army.

After Merritt the Nicola Valley widens out and the wall of trunks is replaced or interspersed with aspen and sumac. The autumn colours were spectacular. I took some pictures from the passenger seat, at 90 km an hour. Hard to capture the brilliance of the colours through a dirty windshield.

Somewhere along the highway between Merritt and Spence's bridge the sun came out. Spence's Bridge looked like an interesting little community, but we had no time to explore it. We pressed on through the village of Lytton and onto Highway 12, toward our destination.

The scenery between Lytton and Lillooet is nothing short of spectacular, but I was clutching the dashboard which made it hard to take pictures! The Lytton - Lillooet road is your typical Canadian mountain "highway" - two narrow lanes, no shoulder, precariously huddled between a sheer drop-off into the Fraser River on the left and unstable and menacing cliffs to the right. "Slide Area" is the most common sign.

For a short stretch a few miles this side of Lillooet the road narrows to one and a half lanes, as it traverses the area known as "The Big Slide". This is where a substantial part of the mountain above the road moved house about 1200 years ago and took up riverside accomodations. Unfortunately the mountain is still moving. It flings stray rocks (or truckloads of rocks) onto the road on an almost daily basis. (A grader is stationed permanently at the edge of the slide to keep the road cleared.)

According to locals, as you enter the Big Slide Zone you pray to whatever gods you believe in, grit your teeth and dash through as quickly as you dare, hoping you don't meet a loaded logging truck coming toward you around a hairpin curve. I guess you get to test your backing skills if that happens. There are a couple of pull-offs, where two vehicles could pass. I wouldn't want to back down the road looking for one of them!

Thankfully we met no other vehicles coming across and we were soon through what had been for me a dreaded stretch of road. Then the vista opens up. Years ago we lived in the Columbia Valley between Radium and Golden. The road into Lillooet reminds me of that same stretch. Amazing beauty, rolling green meadows on both sides of the river stretching right up to the foot of the mountain.

We entered Lillooet as the sun dipped behind the mountains. It's a funny little town. Main Street meanders and changes directions two or three times. Downtown is about two blocks wide, which is all there's room for between the banks of the Fraser and the first bench of the mountain, but it must be a couple of miles long. The shops are separated into two distinct areas, on opposite ends of Main Street. The residential streets mostly climb up the benches in terraces. It's easy to see why most of the real estate listings include the words, "River View" or "Water View". I think the modifier "spectacular" is assumed.

We checked into a motel and went to find a place to have dinner. Chinese, pizza, Greek, and any number of "regular" eating establishments were available to choose from. We chose the Greek place and were not disappointed. Excellent meal.

Thursday morning the air was crisp and squeaky-clean, the day was warm and perfectly sunny. We spent the morning exploring the town, beginning with the realtor's office. We spent time in the jade shop which is a mini-museum with a talkative and very pleasant artist/owner. We dropped into the nice museum which is jam-packed with artifacts representing Lillooet's colorful history, including a camel saddle.

We drove up and down the terraced streets directly above downtown in what might be charitably called the "working-class" neighbourhood. Not a bad neighbourhood, just small lots and older homes, interspersed with mobile homes. Some of these places were immaculate with wonderful gardens, others were "accented" by peeling paint, sagging gates and discarded car parts.

Drive-bys of several of the properties dampened any "listing-based" enthusiasm. One appeared to be a large two-story building in the photo, but turned out to be incredibly tiny, with a false-front and what appeared to be a four-foot-tall front door. We decided that the realtor must have lain down in the middle of the street to take the photo. Another house, which looked nice in the photo, appeared to be one strong puff of wind away from collapse. Another candidate was a very nice house, but is backed up against the foot of a steep slope and may very well be under it within a few years.

Another series of terraces held newer "up-scale homes", the kind with sharp edges, concrete driveways and aggressively manicured flower plantings. The lots were wider but so were the houses. Not the neighbourhood for me. I can visualize vigilante committees protesting mychickens headed up by women wearing anti-wrinkle cream and carrying "hot yoga" manuals.

I need a neighbourhood with a certain relaxed atmosphere, where no one would drop dead if my chicken crossed their road. Thus we moved our search to the semi-rural edge of town. Big lots with houses that appear to have grown a bit here, pushed out a bit there. Horses, gravel drives and big sheds. Swings in the front yards. Large and somewhat disorganized flower beds. This is more like it. I think this is the neighbourhood. It will take another trip or two to narrow down the field to any one property but we're not in a hurry, we're where we want to be, at least until next spring.

We headed for home, the long way round, passing Pavillion Lake, with water as blue-green, and as clear, as a Jamaican reef. There were boats and cabins around the lake, in a scene which could have been picked from the top of a puzzle box. The contrast between green water, cliffs dotted with dark pines, yellow aspens and brilliant red sumac was breath-taking. A painting with such colours would seem gaudy and contrived, but nature does it to perfection.

We stopped at Marble Canyon and took pictures, and saw a huge pile of very fresh bear scat full of berry seeds. This incredibly huge spire is part of Marble Canyon. We saw some nice country the rest of the way home, not as spectacular as the scenery on the way out, or through Marble Canyon, but certainly enjoyable. We had a very good trip.

Thankfully...

I feel so much better than I did a few years ago. This became obvious yesterday when Ian and I went to the grocery store, and stocked up on "Thanksgiving" fodder. We got home about 3:00 pm.

Ian has celiac so can't eat anything with wheat, so I made cornbread (substituting chickpea flour for wheat flour) and then made a cornbread dressing for the turkey. It was yummy. It contained the usual celery, onions and mushrooms. I added cooked wild rice to it, which gave it a great texture.

I also made sweet potatoes, baked regular potatoes, gravy, and a pumpkin-pecan pie with chickpea flour crust. With cranberry sauce and turkey cooked on the grill outside it was a feast fit for kings, and amazingly enough, it was ready to eat by 6:30.

A few years ago it took me two or three days to cook a holiday meal, and wore me out for a week afterward. I was fine today, made a big brunch at 11:00 and have been busy all day.

Our neighbour Stan has been working hard for several days to put the winter skirting on the Tin Palace. We bought OSB and he did a superb job. He's a meticulous worker. I painted the board before he put it on, and he fitted the pieces so carefully you couldn't slide a piece of paper between the skirt and the trailer in most places.

When he finished and I asked him to figure out his hours and let us know what we owed him he said, "Oh I don't work for money anymore. I'm retired. I just do what I like to do."

I was astounded! He has worked four long days, and I couldn't get him to take any kind of payment! We will have to think of something very nice to do for him. People can be so kind.

More snowbirds have arrived in the last couple of days. We are looking forward to lots of fun this fall and winter.

The Endless Summer

Great minds are asking, "Why don't you have any pictures of fall colour on yer blog?"

Well, it might be because we don't have any! It's been warm and it's still as green here as it was in July. But that will change shortly. Today was the first cool day we've had, following a night of rain. It was cool enough this morning that there was the slightest touch of snow on the hill above us. It disappeared during the day but I was just out and it's chilly. I covered my two tomato plants, which are laden with tennis ball-sized green tomatoes, lest they be frost-nipped tonight. I'm hoping for a warm spell and a few more ripe tomatoes, but I think these greenies will be picked and brought inside to ripen. It's a shame. They don't have the same flavor vine-ripened tomatoes have when you have to pick them green.

In the front the volunteer sunflowers are blooming like crazy, their cheerful faces facing the afternoon sun. The flowers in my pots are still blooming too, though they are beginning to look a little worse for wear.

Now that I think of it I haven't seen a Rusty blackbird in days, so I guess they must have moved on toward winter quarters. The quail, finches and sparrows still gang the feeder and go through 10 pounds of birdseed a week.

The orchard behind us is groaning with apples. They are deep red, and almost ready for the pickers. I picked a half dozen apples from one of the trees here in the park yesterday. They are crisp and juicy, heady with the fragrance of roses.

I've also been picking grapes from the vine that grows on the fence at the back of the park. The clusters are gangly and sparse, but the grapes themselves are marble-sized and ever so sweet. Their sugar content is so high I can't eat many of them without dropping my potassium level.

The only fall colour we have so far is on one branch of the big maple tree which is in the dog run. The leaves at the end of that branch are a carnival in many shades of yellow, green, orange, red, violet, taupe and rust. Beneath the leaves the winged seeds are mature and waiting for a chance to fly.

The park is almost empty, or was earlier today. But Snowbirders Joy and Jim arrived today, others are expected shortly and soon our little winter community will be humming with activity. I'm glad we stayed the summer. It's been a lovely time, despite the leg mishap in June.

Ahhhh.... Sweet Mystery of Life...

At last I've found you!

I love kitties. My father did not like cats, so I never had a cat as a child, but almost as soon as Tony and I were married we acquired a kitty.

But over the years I've noted a great mystery. All cats assume the "loaf" position. The mystery is; What happens to their feet?

Today at I Can Has Cheezburger? the mystery was solved.

Tada! The Loaf Foot-Tuck

My mind is free! Now I can move on to thinking about string theory and how to make a perpetual motion machine.

Like the Cheerful Chickadee...

Was it Snow White who advised in a song to "Whistle while you work, just like the cheerful chickadee?"

We had some infrequent visitors to the feeder this morning, a pair of black-capped chickadees. They are so perky and cute. They grab a sunflower seed from the feeder and flit away to shell and eat it. A minute or two later they'll be back for another seed.

The much larger sparrows and finches hang on the feeder, they'll even lie down in the tray and take a nap. They fight and scrap, knock each other off, and many end up simply eating from the ground. The chickadees don't come to the feeder if there are sparrows and finches on it.

Seeing them reminded me of a lovely experience over 30 years in the past. We were living in a small house on a western slope above the Columbia River. The place had been built by a retired ornithologist who spent the last 20 years of his life there, feeding the birds off the balcony.

We had many feathered visitors to our feeders, and one cold winter morning I discovered that the chickadees were so tame that they would perch on my fingers and eat from my hand. What a thrill that was! I still remember the feeling of their little toes grasping my finger.

These chickadees are not so tame, but I always love hearing their cheerful chirping on winter mornings, and you know when their song changes from "chick-a-dee-dee-dee" to "Feeee-beee" that spring is on its way.

Cooky Cooky

It was cool today. The nice thing about slightly cooler weather is that you can cook dishes you have avoided all summer. I took advantage of the piles of vegetables I bought a couple of days ago and made a vegetable curry for dinner. It was absolutely yummy, so I jotted down the recipe to share, and I took a picture. Sadly it isn't as pretty as it is delicious.

Squash, Garbanzo & Lentil Curry


Ingredients:

1/2 large onion, chopped
2 ribs celery, chopped (1/2 cup)
4 plum tomatoes, chopped
2 medium potatoes, peeled and diced
1 cup red lentils (cooked)
1/2 can 15-ounce can chickpeas, drained and rinsed
1/2 acorn squash pulp
1 tsp creamed coconut paste
1 cup water or broth
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoon minced fresh ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 package prepared Indian Curry Paste
2 cups vegetable broth

Method:
1. Stir-fry onion and celery in water or broth in a large soup pot until tender.
2. Add bay leaves, ginger, cinnamon, curry paste, creamed coconut, vegetable broth, tomatoes, potatoes, squash pulp, lentils, and chickpeas.
3. Bring to a boil, lower heat, and simmer, covered, for 15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Remove bay leaves before serving.

Serve with jasmine or Basamati rice

Big Day

A vegetarian diet requires vegetables, and Tony hadn't been out to the primo organic produce stand here in Oliver before. So after breakfast we took the ten minute trip up the road to Covert Farms and Pancho's Organic Market.

Once you turn off the highway you take a steep and twisting road, narrow and sort of crumbling at the edges. Today we had the good fortune to be stuck behind a bale-laden hay mower, which was moving at the blistering speed of 10 mph. We crept along until there was a short stretch of visible road and we eased around him with a wave. This is farm country after all.

The market is a big open shed, with fresh-from-the-field produce spilling from huge wooden bins. Faced with such a feast of colours and shapes, I always go overboard and buy three times more than we can possibly eat.

Today I was bewitched by the many colours and shapes of peppers. I bought four (five?) different kinds, including a poblano which is used to make mole', but I could have gotten many more. There were five or six varieties of tomatoes, including huge beefsteak, heirloom green-striped zebras and yellow ones. We got a big bag of our favorite Romas, with their thick, meaty walls, and a container of tiny sweet "grape" tomatoes, each the size of a (!) grape.

Squash is another of my weaknesses. The pumpkins were all too large, but we got a spaghetti squash, green and yellow zuchinni, yellow pattypans, and one each of festival and delecata squash. To those we added a yellow baby watermelon.

Since it was noon by this point we decided to have lunch, and each had a bowl of the most fabulous squash soup, an order of dolmans and a teeny piece of cheesecake. The cheesecake was a tiny round, less than 4" across, topped with strawberries.

For those who would like to try the soup here's the recipe:

Pancho's Squash Soup

Ingredients:

3 Festival squash
3 Delecata squash
3 bulbs roasted garlic
3 yellow peppers
3 red peppers
1 onion
6 cups soup stock (chicken or vegetable)
1 TBSP curry powder
2 tsp. smoked sweet paprika
Yogurt and green onion for garnish

Method:
Bake squash open-faced with 2 tsp butter in each at 325 degrees F for 1 hour - should be very soft and slightly brown on top

roast peppers and onion on BBQ until soft.

Blend squash, garlic and peppers in food processor. Place in pot, add stock and spices.

Serve with dollop of yogurt and a few strings of green onion for garnish.
--

On the way home we stopped at Panorama for nectarines, pears and apples. Then I left Tony in the truck while I went into the grocer's for a cartload of things not to be found in produce stands.

My neighbour went to a fair farther south today and I promised to walk her dog, Doc. Doc is an Australian shepard, and a real character. He was happy to have a walk and read the news, and by the time I had walked him and come home to put away the groceries I was ready for a rest.

We had a simple dinner of herb buns, corn on the cob and a ratatouille I'd made yesterday. I walked Doc again after dinner, in that period after sundown when the sky is still luminous and full of light. As he snuffled happily in the dog run I heard strange ulating cries overhead. I looked up to see a group of about 30 sandhill cranes, close enough to see their red heads. A few minutes later one of the local red-tailed hawks landed on a fence post nearby. What a lovely day! Life might get better, but I'm not sure how!

Bye Bye Spidey

Late yesterday Lacey had a moth meal, courtesy yours truly. I went down to the hot tub for a soak and found a pre-cooked moth in the tub. I fished it out with my croc and laid it aside. Once I was back home I eased it into Lacey's web and she was on it within a couple of seconds, wrapped it and spent about two hours having a really good meal.

She sat quietly in her web all evening, as I went off to sleep she was still resting. Yesterday's web had been tattered by a seed pod which landed in it during the day, and by the wind. Usually she tears down her old web and begins building a new one as soon as it gets dark, but I checked several times during the night and she had never touched the web. At 3:00 am she was hanging in the web, as it got light about 5:00 her old web had been cleared away but she was not working at building a new one.

At 8:00 am I couldn't see her from inside, which is not unusual. She often retreats to the spot between the window frames for a nap. When I went out at 9:30 to water my tomato plants I checked and she was not in the window frame, nor anywhere else I could find.

There was a long webstrand from the corner of the window to a nearby tree, so I assume she has flown our coop. While the web in the window was protected it was not in a very productive area. She probably would have either starved or moved, had I not been dropping meals into her web. Maybe she doesn't like what I catch for her.

Anyway, no more spider-watching. On the positive side we can now wash the window.

Ketchup

Lacey the spider has finally recovered from the double whammy of becoming entangled in her own web during a windstorm and shedding her skin a few days later. Two nights ago she wove an incredibly fine web in the window. Last night she destroyed it and built another, in the opposite corner. There she crouches, all eyes and empty stomach.

As of yet I haven't seen her eat anything except three gnats, which are not much a meal for a spider her size. Small or not she obviously likes them. She dances around them with the finesse of a Gregory Hines and then she inhales them. But her abdomen is still flat and small, roughly triangular in shape, not the pendulous round "pea" it was before her ordeal. I was hoping that today would be a "fly" day. She could use a good meal.

I don't see myself as Spider Woman, but it would have been cool to slip into this persona this afternoon. Because, when none of the dozens of flies buzzing in the yard had put itself on the dinner menu by mid-afternoon I went out with a rolled up paper, hunted one down and dropped it into Lacey's web. It was a bit mooshed (This is probably too much information) but she didn't seem to mind. She wrapped the offering up in silk and then she chowed down. I feel better, though a little guilty about the poor fly.

The neighbours sat in their lawn chairs, a little wide-eyed, and watched me stalk and swat until I finally nailed a fly. It took a while. I hate to imagine what they were saying to each other over their wineglasses.

"Peg, the woman across the way must be crazy!! What the devil is she doing slapping the ground with a rolled up paper, with a set of BBQ tongs tucked into her belt loop?"

Oh well, I don't know them from Adam Smith. They'll all be gone in a day or two, and the crazy cat lady in the ancient trailer will make a good story to tell the folks back home.

By the time they tell the story I'll probably look something like this. All because I hunt flies for a spider. See where a little eccentricity will take you? Everyone is supposed to have their 15 minutes of fame. I might have had mine this afternoon.

Next topic!

Last Tuesday I was cooking dinner when the flame went out on the stove and would not re-light. The water heater also went out and wouldn't re-light. Time for the semi-weekly call to Gary. There seems to be no way to break the TP's ardor for Gary the repairman.

He arrived Thursday, took one of our propane bottles to be filled, fiddled with the regulator and pronounced it flawed. So he replaced it. No joy. The regulator had oil in it, a bad sign. A layer of oil floats on top of propane in a tank, and apparently some of this oil had been siphoned off into the regulator, and presumably the lines, and was now blocking the flow of propane.

So Gary got the compressor and blew out the lines. No joy. By this time it's getting dark. Gary is taking a long weekend off, so says he will be back Monday. I have an electric burner ring, an electric kettle and a microwave. We will manage. Life will go on in the civilized world.

Gary appeared this morning as I was contemplating making coffee, and in about two hours he had the problem figured out and fixed. The new propane hoses we bought in May were faulty, or had gone south - fine workmanship - both the regulator ($175.00) and hoses worked for three months. Whatever. But, at last we have hot running water and a flame on the stove. I can cook again!

Speaking of food, we have decided, for about the 14th time, to go back to a vegetarian diet. We were vegetarians for most of the years the boys were growing up, and neither of us really like eating meat. It's just that meat is often the easiest thing to fix and I have had long stretches of time when standing long enough to cook was a challenge. That's not so much of an issue now, although on days when I shop I am going to need to plan ahead if we are going to avoid the A & W "solution".

That is the ketchup. And you thought it had something to do with buns didn't you?

Stardust to Stardust

Lacey the garden orb spider was hanging in the corner of the window last night when I went to sleep, and (surprisingly) she was still there this morning when I woke up. I assumed progress, as she was moving her legs a bit - (I hoped) in preparation for spinning a web, although she has always done this at night before.

I got up and went to make coffee. When I came back, five minutes later, she was - dead? At least she appeared dead, and even more puzzling, she appeared desiccated. Her legs, almost transparent, were stretched out full-length, gathered at the tips. Where her body had been there was nothing. A lifeless black dot the size of a mung bean hung beneath the legs. It looked like the husk of a fly she had cleaned out.

Oh, dear. But I puzzled. A bird would have gobbled her whole. Only another spider could have done this and how could another spider have eaten her so quickly? I've seen her eat a fly, and it's a slow process. Half an hour at least. I'd only been gone from the window five or six minutes.

Then the black dot stirred and unfolded LEGS. I realized with a start (and some sense of relief) that I was witnessing her shed her skin! It wasn't an easy transition. She would struggle for a few seconds, pulling herself with great difficulty out of her old skin. She'd then hang motionless for five minutes. But with each struggle more of her emerged. Eventually she was free and her old skin was only a small, transparent husk, with threads for legs, and a tiny, pin-head sized shell of a body.

She hung below the empty skin, exhausted. Her legs twitched occasionally, but otherwise she didn't move. Then she drew her legs up to her body, and swung back and forth on her single thread of silk for several minutes.

We wondered. Would she eat the skin, as orb spiders eat their webs? Or would she throw it away? Slowly she climbed up to the husk, and it was hard to say what she was doing, till suddenly she had it by a single leg. She lifted it and let go, and it sailed away on the breeze.

She flexed her legs and stretched herself. Her legs are longer now, but her abdomen is empty. She will need to eat soon. But for now the morning's work is done. Time for sleep and recovery from what must have been an ordeal. She crawled away to her spot between the window frames. Tonight I am betting she will spin a new web.

In my (Tuscarora) family no one killed a spider which had gotten into the house. It was said that the "Old Ones", our ancestors, might come to visit, dressed as a spider. It was okay to put a spider outside, where it could go its way unharmed, but to kill an Old One in spider disguise would make the Heet'-nunhk (the thunder gods) angry. Mother always said when it thundered on a clear day that someone had killed an Old One.

There are reports from Europeans of Tuscarora funerals in the 1600s, where a flame rose from the departed one's body, hovered 10-15 feet over the grave during the ceremony, then rose to a height of 60-100 feet and moved into the forest. This flame was said to then turn into a spider, which held the spirit of the deceased until reincarnation into a new clan member.

Buddhist philosophy says that life and death are cyclical in nature, that life is an active phase, and death is a period of rest, a time of preparation for yet another life. Both phases, life and death, are seen as blessings. Implicit in that belief is that we not just cycle, we recycle.

Spiders are safe in my house. They do get relocated, but I didn't even kill the Black widows we found daily in our last place. It was fascinating to see Lacey go through an entirely unexpected transition. Climbing from an old skin must be something like dying and waking anew. We all cycle and recycle, stardust to spider to spaceman.

Unwebbed

I did some research on spiders and found that orb spiders have an internal "storage" organ where they load extra calories they can call on when prey is scarce. (In women these storage organs are called "hips".) As a result orb spiders can go for long periods without eating, so I can apparently stop worrying that Lacey hasn't eaten in several days. I have also determined that "it" is indeed a "she" of the species Araneus diadematus, the cross spider, aka the "European garden spider". This spider was introduced from Europe but has spread all the way across North America.

She is still retreating to the window frame during the day and emerging only after dark to hang in the corner of the window. No web spinning, but tonight a little movement, a little leg waving and symphony conducting. It's probably not the best night to build a web though. It's very windy out. But she looks perfectly normal, so I am hoping she will perhaps resume her web-building as soon as this wind dies down.

I wonder... a few days ago there was a very small spider fiddling around at the edge of her web. She didn't dart over and eat it, as she did every other insect that touched the web. The little spider wasn't caught, it moved cautiously around the outer edges. After reading more about orb spiders I am now wondering if the "little" spider wasn't a garden orb male, there to offer what passes for flowers and chocolate to our gorgeous girl?

Maybe Lacey is suffering from morning-sickness! I don't know what a pregnant spider looks like, but I guess time will tell.

Beastly

The ongoing saga of the (sick?) or perhaps just worn out and terrified spider continues. She crept from her hiding place last night after dark to hang in the upper left hand corner of the window, but did no spinning, and by daylight she was gone.

I checked after breakfast and she was once more holed up between the window frames, curled into a tight little ball. I gently nudged her with a blade of grass, just to see if she was alive, and she extended a front leg and pushed the stem away. So I let her be.

Tonight she is once again hanging in the upper corner of the window, no spinning, no movement, just hanging there. I really do wish she'd get busy and start work on her web. I have no idea how long spiders can go between meals. She ate very well two days ago, but she had a very difficult experience night before last, and I don't know about spiders, but being stressed out makes me want to eat! She needs to get better before I gain five pounds!

Today I was watching the birds at the feeder. There was a busy little throng of six or seven kinds of sparrows and finches, plus the rusty blackbirds, probably 40 birds total. I could hardly believe my eyes when suddenly a brilliant green, blue and yellow budgie landed on the feeder! A little out of its natural range (Australia), this sassy little jewel is obviously an escapee. This is not a good climate for budgies. They don't tolerate cold, or even cool, weather.

I thought I might try calling it to see if it would come to me. I've had a couple of well-loved budgies and they will fly to a human's finger if they are tamed and bonded to a human. But this one was wary. It flew away as soon as I opened the door. No hope of catching it. I hope it finds its way home, but it looked like it was enjoying its freedom. Reminded me of something Ecologist Ianto Evans wrote, "Even our domesticated animals are more prisoners than guests."

I refilled the seed tray and the budgie returned to feed, flying away several times but returning again within a few minutes. In between it wheeled and soared with the rusties, who appeared to take no notice of its bright plumage.

The sparrows and finches fight constantly over space at the feeder, even when there's plenty of room for all of them. We have a saying, "Two sparrows are a fight, three is a war!" But the budgie had the feeder all to itself. If a sparrow tried to land on the tray he put the wind up it pretty quickly. The smaller birds seemed intimidated by the budgies almost neon colors, or maybe it knew the right things to say to a sparrow to make it go to ground and stay there.

In the middle of all that a huge flicker landed on the trunk of the cherry tree by the feeder. It was enormous! Flickers are usually 10 - 11 inches long, I swear this one must have been 13 inches. I've never seen a flicker of this size before. We had a pair of yellow-shafted flickers excavate a nest in a tree and raise a brood of chicks not 12 feet from the kitchen window a few years ago, and they were no where as large as this one. I think this is a red-shafted, which tend to be a bit larger, but he hasn't read the breed standard or he wouldn't be as big as a pterodactyl!

And to round off the "beastly" report, a picture of the Red Chief, taken by Zak when he was here in July. Ian spotted this little massage unit and thought it might help my chronically stressed-out neck muscles, which it does. But the Chief was curious about the buzzing noise and came to investigate. As a joke I slid it over onto his neck and rolled it around. I expected it to freak him out, but he loved it! So much that he started asking for spa services, thank you very much. Just there, no a little to the left. Ahhhhhhh! Perfect!

I was holding the end of the leash while he had his daily stroll this morning when a couple approached to remark on his size and his beauty. The woman noted that he is clipped and asked if he is a "show" cat.

Yes, I said, He shows me what he wants, and I get it for him. Ianto Evans wasn't thinking of me when he referred to the domesticated prisoner, but he hasn't seen the RC sitting at my bedside at 3:00 am, patting me with extended claws because he wants a cookie, or a bit of conversation. But the RC isn't looking for freedom. He wants his Mama, on the end of the leash. Just in case he wants something he can't reach alone.

Webs and webs

As it grew dark yesterday evening the wind rose, shaking the TP, tossing the treetops around and kicking up little dust devils in the road. I noticed as I closed the blinds over my bunk that Lacey was having quite a ride in her web. The whole structure was catching gusts of wind and ballooning in and out, while she hung on for her life.

It's been windy before, and she's been tossed around, and in my waking periods I'll note that she is industriously repairing any breaches in the web. But last night when I turned out the light about 1:30 and opened the blind I could see she was in trouble.

Somehow she had become entangled in the web, and in her struggles to free herself she had become wrapped entirely in silk, as effectively as a fly. I got the flashlight and had a closer look. I couldn't tell if she was alive or not, but fearing I'd do her damage if I tried to untangle her, and knowing that orb spiders eat their own webs and reprocess the protein I let her be and drifted off to sleep, worrying about a spider.

I awakened several times in the wee hours, to find her still as death, and still wrapped tightly. But at about 5:00 am I awakened in time to see her give a mighty push and break free of her wrappings. She ran to the far corner of the window on one of the few remaining threads of web, and hung there. By 6:00 am she had moved to the upper left hand corner of the window, where she hung head down on another shred of web.

When I woke at 8:00 am she was nowhere to be seen. Had she dropped to the ground? Was she so exhausted she'd died and fallen? After breakfast I went out looking for her. (Okay, some of you may think I am getting a little weird about this, and I may be. But it's a harmless sort of weirdness.)

I didn't see my little spider friend anywhere, but I have several large pots of petunias beneath the window, so she could have gone in, or under, any of them.

I had to go to town to grocery shop, but before that I needed to water my tomato plants. While standing with the hose in hand I spotted her, crouched in the protected recess between the window frames. She was sound asleep, and still is, several hours later. I'm glad she ate well yesterday, because I don't think she would have survived this ordeal on an empty stomach.

Perhaps she is injured, but I think it more likely that she's just a bit sore and totally worn out from her struggle. She hasn't yet even begun to rebuild her web, which is totally destroyed. But she will. She will hitch up her little belt, and start over, because that's what we all do when we have survived a crisis.

We are all connected. The same life force which animates the little brown and yellow spider flows through me, my husband and children, my friends and neighbours, my big orange cat. We are all co-creators of this web of life. We all love our lives and fight to breathe, eat, move and BE just one more moment, hour or day.

My Closest Neighbour

Want to meet my closest neighbour? I don't actually know if my neighbour is a he or a her, but I've been calling it "her". I haven't named "her" either, but she has a nice lace-like pattern on her abdomen, so let's call her "Lacey".

Lacey lives about a foot from my nose when I'm on my bunk. I could easily touch her if there were not a pane of glass between us. But if there were not a pane of glass between us I guarantee she would have been relocated long before now!

She started out as a tiny speck, with a body the size of a gnat's. She worked industriously to lay down a fine web which she repairs nightly. Every day she snared a gnat or two, wrapping them in silk before she had her meal. At that point she had no noticeable markings. She was just a spider.

I watched her day by day, as she grew rapidly to the size of a pin-head, and eventually brown and yellow stripes began to appear on her legs.

She hangs upside down in her web, curled somewhat as she naps. But all it takes is the wiggling of an insect in her web and she's instantly alert. Over the weeks she's grown so that her abdomen is the size of a small pea. Her face and eyes are now apparent - yellow face, black sharp eyes. Sort of cute really, if you aren't a fly.

Gnats are now "popcorn" but not much food for a spider her size. When it's been two or three days between substantial meals I begin to worry about her and I confess to dropping swatted flies into her web on several occasions. Okay, I admit I never thought I'd be feeding a spider. Spiders creep me out big time. A small one dropped down onto me from the ceiling a few days ago and brought me bolt upright screaming like a banshee!

Yesterday I gave her a fly which was dead when I found it. She tried it and threw it from the web. Today a fresher specimen was eagerly accepted. She hadn't had a fly for three days and her abdomen was shrunken and flat. She must have been pretty hungry. She had just finished it when a fly was snagged in her web. She pounced on it and wrapped it and the meal continued. She must have thought it was Thanksgiving! Dessert was a gnat.

Tonight she is fat and presumably happy, hanging head down in her web. I wonder how large she will grow? Will she find spidery love and leave a new generation of spiders? Stay tuned. :)

Long Awaited Day

Today, nine weeks to the day from when he fell and broke his leg, Tony eased down the stairs and walked around in the yard. He also figured out how to get into the truck seat and back down again. Woo-hoo!

I tackled that ceiling job yesterday, or one of them anyway. Two of them anyway - oh, three of them. I pulled down the stained paper over the banquette, where we'd had the leak, after we'd repaired that whole section. Then I caulked the seam between the new ceiling panel Ian installed and the original one. That has to dry for at least 36 hours before I can do anything further.

Then I re-caulked around the roof vent/skylight where the old caulking had come out. Then I mixed up sky blue paint from the white and dark blue paints and painted the area over the "bedroom". Once that was dry I sponged some clouds onto the blue, because I couldn't wait to see what it was going to look like. This was tough on my not-so-strong shoulder and upper arm muscles, and my neck. I had a hard time sleeping last night, but I had the reward of hearing an owl hooting from somewhere nearby at about 2:00 am. I've been down most of today, but I have been pleased to look at my lovely blue sky ceiling with fluffy white clouds. I need to do more to the clouds, but once it's all done I will try to take a picture.

I was concerned that the pattern on the vinyl ceiling would look really weird once it was painted, but surprise the pattern looks like a layer of thin clouds higher up.

Once my arms are recovered I will try repairing the ceiling over the banquette. I've got some of that roll-on fiber moosh which hopefully will cover the difference in the two panels. I've always thought that stuff was grotesque looking, but this is white, with a tiny tan fleck, so it should be unobtrusive enough once it's on.

But now, even on the grey days in winter we have a blue sky to look at!