A Useful Technology

Yesterday was a day I set aside to do, what I knew was to be, a certain difficult battle with technology. My mission was to suck up the fortitude to compile photos and videos of the various horses I want to sell and get the information ready to get to possible buyers. It used to be such a simple thing to take your camera out, shoot some stuff, plug it into the vhs tape player to make a copy, and then mail it off to prospects. The problem with technology is that every couple of years when I need to do something like this, the equipment has changed, improved, gotten infinitely more complicated, and what I did know then, I have now forgotten.

Now the process involves the camera, of course, now digital, but also a computer, with its always evolving software updates to be able to edit the material. Once the editing fun and games is muddled thru, then comes burning it to a dvd, or worse, trying to upload it to either emails or web pages, none of which ever seem to be compatible with the data, requiring a new upgrade of software. The cycle of this perpetual, tormenting learning curve has me wishing for a simplification of this nightmare, like where people actually come a see a horse in person. I ask too much, I know. I like horse and buggy technology, and the dark ages were comparatively much easier.

Anyway, as I typed away at my computer on the dining table and waited for incredibly slow sites to upload stuff, I was creatively cussing this annoying process when a tiny movement across the room caught my eye. The various dogs who were lying around the room took no notice, each in resting mode and softly snoring. Then another flash of movement revealed the shape of a tiny bird, flitting from one window to the next. It was a wren who had come in the open screened door to the porch, and on into the living room. It was very confused.

Our living room area and the foyer have an open two storied ceiling, and these areas are separated by the wooden beamed stairs which rise to an overlooking balcony. There are large windows over the doors to the back porch and over the front door. So this tiny trapped wren was flying back and forth from these high windows, hoping the light from them was an exit. I climbed the stairs to see if I could assist its efforts.

The wren nearly flew into me as I intersected its path and then it changed course and flew into the kids’ bedrooms, first one and then the other as I followed it around trying to herd it back towards the living room area again. I closed all the possible doors to narrow the options of its egress, and had the porch door open in hopes it would figure it out soon. Then I saw that another wren had joined in the mix, having also ventured inside and now it too was trapped by these walls and panes of glass. These two little birds now had the Yorkie's undivided attention.

We have two different types of wrens in our area, the Carolina and the House, and I couldn’t tell which these were. Just as I was going to look it up in a field guide, I heard one of them do their call, and a thought occurred to me of how to solve my puzzle of their identity using a bit of technology.

My cell phone is a hand me down iphone from my uber-techno husband and this thing is grossly more gadget than I ever need to place a call, but does do a good job as a portable camera. It happens, tho, to have an ap on it for bird watching, complete with all the pictures and info one might need to identify a bird. It also has their voices. So I played the Carolina first, not it, and then the House call. It was a perfect match, so much so that the birds flying around my house answered, and then flew downstairs. One landed on the piano a few feet from me, the other a bit further away. They were so cute. Troglodytes aedons, the cell phone identified them as.

I kept playing the cell phone House wren call and walked with it to the open porch door. Obedient little wrens they were. They followed me, found their way out to the now open screen door and to the freedom of the trees beyond singing as they flew away.

These weren’t the first wrens to venture inside, or to nest on the back porch here, but it did make me think of why they are called House wrens, with this habitual characteristic of the species. These were the absolute first, tho, that I have helped get out by using a cell phone/gadget and its technology.

In the course of the day I didn’t accomplish much of what I had wanted to get done with the video/horse stuff, but technology, and me, were back on better terms for this, my attitude towards it improved. I had to concede; it has its usefulness, even if only to help a little bird or two to fly back home. Thank you to Mr. Jobs and all the other nerds who made it possible.

The Lunacy of the Poor Puppy, Jack

When I told the vet this morning, what had happened over the weekend to the, once again, poor puppy Jack, I was asked "Did it happen on the full moon?". A definite "Yes" was my answer. In recounting and rethinking the events, it must have been a perfect storm of misaligned energies and forces that set things awry and got things so crazy.

There was a huge full moon that was just rising this weekend as I was finishing my rounds of the afternoon feeding of the horses. The dynamics of the herd were still in a total state of chaos since I had recently weaned Frank, the foal, who was born on a full moon, 6 of them ago now. The subsequent reshuffling of the herd had all the horses jockeying for new social rankings and there were lots of flattened ears, teeth showing, and a few spinning back kicks thrown as they were sorting the situation out. Frank’s dam, Joline, had been placed in the group with Robijn and Sunset and was quite obviously at the bottom of the pecking order and was being repeatedly chased away from her hay pile. So I went back out into their paddock to move her pile further away from these two other mares and their gnashing teeth.

As I was moving her hay, I fussed at the two evil food hogs, and tried to defend poor sweet Joline. From where I was I could hear across the way in my neighbors’ farm, the sound of a dog fight and one dog obviously getting the bad end of the duel. It sounded gruesome and I could hear voices hollering trying to stop them as I turned and walked back to the barn.

 Then, as I got closer to my own barn, I could hear yet another dogfight going on in one of my stalls. I ran to the stall gate and couldn’t at first make the latch release but I could see that it was one of the terriers on the bottom, with my big dog on top. The sounds, too, were horrific and nauseating.

Finally I got the gate open and went in to break it up. I grabbed the large one by the skin of her neck and back and lifted her. This did not improve the situation as she had a firm hold on the terrier, who I could now see was Jack, the Australian terrorist being held by his head in the jaws of the big dog and both came up as I lifted. I was screaming, kicking, and punching and was getting no where. My grip slipped and I fell backwards on my butt and still the growling and screaming continued.

Finally I was able to get enough of a good kick into the big dog that she loosened her grip long enough for me to pull her away. Jack was quickly up and ran away and I sat upon the side of my big dog and held her down until she relaxed and submitted to the restraint. I was gasping for air, my heart was pounding, and my hands shook. The adrenalin rush had done its job but its effect wasn’t gone. It had just come out of nowhere, this fight, so unpredicted, and so violent, all over a few tidbits of spilled horse feed. I sat there stunned.

My dog is a shepherd, German in every way. They are my favorite breed, loyal, intelligent, sensitive, etc. I have had many of them in my years and loved them all, but most have regrettably had an incident of some type of skirmish with another dog. The fights are always brutal and traumatic to the other dog and to the breaker, or breakers up, of the fight. Shepherds are hardwired to be possessive and to be dominant, are formidable to this end, and do not suffer fools lightly. They fight with one quick and determined bite, a firm hold that squeezes and crushes, and one that does not loosen without one using a force greater than the dog possesses, to do so. This time a kick in the ribs was the final answer to my saving Jack from an almost certain death.

After locking the shepherd away, I assessed poor Jack’s damage. There were two holes on top of his head, perilously close to his left eye, and blood poured freely from them both. Another hole was under his jaw, and a bright red stream flowed from it as well. The jaw bone was not broken and inside his mouth his teeth checked out ok as well. So I cleaned the wounds and tried in vain to regain some composure, questions screaming thru my brain about the whys of what had just happened.

By this time the moon had risen to above the tree outline and out in the woods nearby the coyotes began howling like Sirens and the remains of the afternoon air hung wild with an electric energy. Had that rising full moon's appearance really caused such a flurry of fighting, all of it coinsiding in such a brief moment? Was it indeed caused by being in the exact crossfire of the beam of light from the setting sun before it illuminated the rising white orb?  Legends and stories abound of lunacy and strange events, including werewolves, all being caused by the full moon. This orb rose and left revealing no answers. Come next full moon tho, I will be very cautious in animal world, and may lock them all up.

In animal world, the dominant being rules, and eats first. The possession of dominance can change with a tiny change in social dynamics, age, and energies from varied sources, perhaps not excluding the power of the moon. Dominance is not strictly the domain of the larger. It can be a state of mind and attitude. Jack was unfortunately, a bit mistaken on his perceived level of dominance to try to take food from the shepherd on this day and hopefully won't repeat it. He is terrier though, and the smaller they are, the high their opinion of themselves.
Jack is home from the vet with new antibiotics. He is not looking real pretty but can almost get his left eye open, and is feeling much better. Pecking orders have been  re-established and peace is settling down on the farm again. Tonight I will finish the spanakopita for Thanksgiving with the family, and tommorow do the "over the river and thru the woods" thing again to my parents' house yet again. It sure seems like Thanksgiving was yesterday when it has only been twelve rises and falls of the moon since the last.

And so begins the holidaze of 2010. Hope everyone has a happy one.


  

Bare Bones

There is a gentle rain falling today outside the door to the back porch. The droplets fall with varying intensity upon untold numbers of fallen colored leaves, and this softens their impact, quieting them, and it makes for a peaceful, relaxing day, devoid of any pressure to get horses riden or to get any of those pesky outside jobs done. They will wait. Today is for tea, and for doing some writing, and perhaps some painting. There is also the strong possibility of my doing some sewing of some sort, but anything might happen. There is just a relaxing of my shoulders in this being relieved of outside duty, a free pass from farm world, courtesy of Mom Nature, and  it is greatly appreciated.

Yesterday we wondered back to the creek bed again. It is still very dry and the water was even lower than the last time we were there. There were many more leaves on the floor of the creek bed and many animal tracks telling the story of their need for the diminished water supply in our area. Deer tracks were the predominant ones, of all sizes from the heaviest adults to the tiny sharp imprints of fawns. There were skid marks where several had misjudged the slipperiness of the blue hard packed clay near the remaining pools, where they came to drink. Raccoon hand prints overlaid some of these, as did fat tracks of cows.

In one of the longer pools it was evident that an animal with a belly about a little less than a foot wide, had crawled thru it leaving a path thru the leaves exposing the sand below. Alligator? Perhaps. It is quite possible and very interesting to think so.

The light was not as spectacular as the last time we had been there and the element of surprise was diminished but it was nice to just be wandering with no purpose, in a pretty place with no agenda. The fun part about going to a place with very little idea of what you might find, is that that is what you do sometimes find, the unexpected, is sometimes amazing and boarders on the magic.

Mark was busy taking photographs while I was taking in the stories these footprints told. Following a trail of tracks, I ventured up the sides of the creek to visit with one of the largest two trees I have ever been around. The main tree was a cypress, firmly planted in a huge sand bar, with its roots and knees circling its base in a 50 ft. or so perimeter. Growing out of the massive root system closer to the creek was a huge sycamore, climbing towards the heavens with glowing white bark and shaking yellow leaves. These beings, albeit vegetable, were alive and were presences to be admired. I walked close to the cypress and put my palm towards the bark and felt its energy, the heartbeat of a tree. I was awed.

I noticed a few feet away, in this lovely grove of these two giants and its supporting group of mock orange trees, that a cow skull lay in the sand, upside down and bleached white. I snapped a few shots with my cell phone and then noticed more of this poor dead cow's skeleton scattered around its final resting point.

This cow's carcass had obviously made dinner for many a scavenger as the bones lay in a circle a good ways away from the skull, a heavy thigh bone here, and toothless jaw over there, and varying leg parts that I couldn't really tell what they were, all here and there, pulled away from the source and picked clean.

I started to gather these relics up and called Mark over to see them. He told me to place the other bones around the skull and he began taking photos of the still life of bones. I gathered more and slowly the grouping began to take on a renewed life of its own. 

In the deep white sand surrounding the cypress giant, I happened to see a piece of whitened bone, perhaps a vertebra I guessed, sticking out of the ground. When I pulled on it, it quickly suggested it was not a mere back bone, but with a bit of digging I was able to pull the whole treasure out. It was an entire pelvis, white and unbroken, preserved by being covered with sand so that no small rodent could chew the bone for calcium supplementation. It was massive, and yet the abstraction of it not being attached to the cow, lent itself to new interpretation, and gave it new  suggestion and life.

It is interesting to me that we as humans, and perhaps other animals do too, tend to involuntarily try to see the face in an abstraction. We want to recognize the face, and in seeing something with such symmetry as an upside down skull, or cow pelvis, out of context, and it is amazing how quickly the abstract becomes a personality to our brains.

Such was the case with the pelvis, which soon became referred to as Elvis. Mark took many photos of our new found friend, that are haunting and surreal, ones that transpire mere cow bones in a grove. We left the re found bones of the displaced carcass back rejoined with the skull, but borrowed the pelvis and hope the deceased won't mind that we took it home. What a gift this ol' cow left behind.

It just doesn't take that much to find magic in life, but it does require an effort. It is out there and it is everywhere, if, you get off the sofa and open your eyes and see it and feel it. It is amazing to have had such experiences in this one place, so close to my back door, in this jumble of trees by a creek bed. Ireland was a magical and mythical place to visit of course years ago, but this little spot in my back acreage ranks a pretty close rival. The shaking yellow leaves and sky stretched trees, bleached white cow bones, and possible alligator trails of yesterday left me feeling refreshed and happy to think that there are still mysteries and things to be discovered. It is hardly ever a bad day to walk in the woods, and Elvis concurs.

Autumn Song

This past Sunday was Halloween. I think it may the first that I did not carve a pumpkin for. There were no costumes and no trick or treaters out here at the farm. There never have been since we live so far away from suburbiaville. When our kids were small and enjoyed knocking on doors for candy we always had to go to town and find a neighborhood that looked promising for loot. This Sunday was quiet, tho, and it settled into a nice memorable day of its own merit, not requiring the help of pumpkins, nor of costumes and candy.

I fixed a late morning breakfast of leftover corned beef, turned into hash with diced potatoes and sweet sautéed red bell peppers and onions, with a sprinkling of thyme. This was topped with two soft poached eggs. A spot of fruit on the side and a light screw driver completed the fare. It made for a nice mellow start to a fine autumn day. 

I have always loved corned beef, the salty flavor that goes so well with horseradish, potatoes, cabbage, carrots. I regard it as high comfort food. I also am reminded every time I eat it of one of the worst whippings I ever got, as a kid at my parents’ table. 

On that memorable occasion my mother had prepared corned beef hash, which I liked immensely, even tho it was from a can, as were most food groups in the mod ‘60s. As we opened our napkins, post prayer, and took stock of our grub, I casually remarked that the food looked just like the Kennel Ration canned dog food that we fed our pup Skippy. I meant nothing by it other than an observation. I just remember my surprise at being suddenly snatched from my chair by my father and getting a very solid paddling, while I protested the innocence of my intention. I learned to keep my non positive, or any questionable comments to myself from then on. There is holy hell to pay for insulting a cook.

Anyway, back to Sunday...various chores which got done at a leisurely pace, made for some of the day until later in the afternoon when the sun began washing the landscape with a warm golden hue and made long cold shadows as it began its decent to the horizon. We climbed onto the four wheeler and went back to the woods.

Our property is approximately 90 some odd acres of which, maybe 30 or so are relatively high ground and is open, used as a horse farm, hay fields, and site for home and barn. It quickly slopes behind our house into seasonal wetlands, hard wood covered, dense and dark, until it gets to our northern border of Pinchona Creek. I had seen from the back of horse a few days ago that it looked that the creek was at very low stage and might be revealing interesting things without the usual flow of water over it.

We climbed down the banks into the creek bed where only a mere trickle of crystal water flowed now. The banks loomed some 25 to 30 feet over our heads. At our feet were small black mussels, and a carpeting of leaves from the many species of trees in the canopy above. 


We stood on a long flat hard blueish clay bed at this spot, an ancient deposit of a chalky vein that runs under the Black Belt soils and which is home to many fossils and impressions left by animals that lived in the sea that once covered this area. I broke a few pieces apart and found impressions of bivalve/clam shaped group.

As we walked further along the creek bottom we came around a turn to huge ancient cyprus trees standing nearly 150’ or more by my guess. They were covered in Spanish moss and they looked like swaying dancers in the breeze, lit from a low angle, making them seem even taller. The banks, that are normally under water, now showed how these giants were not subject to be eroded away like the oaks and pines are. Wild and crazy root systems intermingled and occasionally rose to form a knee, but together it all formed a net or barrier to keep the bank from being undercut.

I had never seen as large of a grouping of these trees before and to find them literally in my back yard was just amazing. To find the spectacular in unexpected places is why we enjoy exploring, and it certainly paid off this time. Mark, of course, took many gorgeous photos of the beautiful scenery we were in and I did the ones here on my cell phone. It was hard to not see something wonderful in every direction I turned.

The sun finally got too low and it was time to get on the four wheeler and head back to the house. We came out of the woods into the wild flower field. Leaves were being blown around and drifted without course. It was a nice Halloween. Van Morrison wrote his Autumn Song many years ago but there is not a fall that comes that his song plays nonstop in my head.  “Leaves are brown, they fall to the ground.....I just feel like singing Autumn song....” 

Food.... Glorious Food.

“I am in the kitchen now. I stir the risotto and type. I am waiting on the capon negro to finish in the oven, a bird stuck on a contraption to hold it vertical and allow it to roast, basting in the steaming beer in the dish below it. The bird is covered with a rub of cumin, paprika, chile powder, cocoa, and a touch of brown sugar. The smells are phenomenal. On the cook top, the colors of the vegetables in the risotto are bright, and make for good contrast with the black beens simmering in the neighboring pot. The risotto sizzles with each addition of the warm broth, a mixture of the sautéed vegetables and chopped Black Mission figs, mixed in with the fat grained rice and vermouth, gradually becoming rich and thick before the final addition of the various cheeses. Tonight I will add parmesan and asiago.  A sensory feast before its even on the plate.    I drool, therefor, I am.” 

(last night while fixing dinner)  

I love to cook.

This was not always so. When Mark and I married some many moons ago, my knowledge and experience with cooking was limited to being able to microwave a hot dog and heat water. Mark taught me to make cornbread and how important the care of a good cast iron skillet is. I still cook cornbread in that same skillet, his grandmother’s, well seasoned, with multiple decades of its use.

Eventually I managed to learn to cook a simple breakfast. A Crock Pot held my hand as I used it to learn how to make a meal. There were many errors along the way, but I gradually learned improvisation and a good bottle of wine can get you over most with little notice. 

I had several folks along the way who taught me basic stuff like combinations of flavors and proportions of ingredients, and such and I became a bit more comfortable and adventurous  as I learned. My cook book collection is enormous and I can spend hours reading recipes, tasting them in my mind, imagining the merging of the flavors, but rarely follow them. I learned,too, that it was about the food, of course, but that it was also about the sharing, that made the meal and the preparing of it, become, something special. Food became an art project on multiple levels of satisfaction, in both the production and the consumption.

There was our friend Pat, a poor fellow who was going thru a painful divorce and who needed a diversion to his evenings. Pat was the first real “foodie” I had ever met, he loved food. I mean loved, FOOD. So for a while, every Wednesday night, he would come over and bring whatever fresh veggies or bag of shrimp he had. I would pull whatever I had out of the fridge and we would all engage in the process of creating and experimenting with the random stuff we had. It was he who introduced me to cooking risotto. The night we first cooked it, we all got into such a giggling fit that we were paralyzed and could barely stand, much less, stir the rice. I had to pull in help from my daughter to handle the chore. She, of course and rightfully, thought we had all lost it and were crazy. We finished that meal off with enormous bowls of ice cream. Pat remarked that mine was so huge it was bound to affect the climate. It was so good. 

Eventually Pat’s pain eased and we ceased the regularity of our Wednesday sessions and we moved on in new directions. Pat sadly died this year, and those memories of our time spent in my kitchen, chopping and tasting are now more precious. I, of course, remembered the incapacitating giggles again last night as I continually stirred the rice and added the broth.

In all this time coming down this path of learning to enjoy cooking, the most surprising thing I have come to realize is, that the teacher who really taught me the most, I had not even known I was taking lessons from. Her name was Francis.

Francis Clayton was a very tall and very round black woman who my parents hired when I was in 3rd grade to keep their house, cook, clean, run me around town, and do whatever. She was very good at all of this. She raised me, from our introduction in 3rd grade until my senior year of high school. Her influence on my character was immense. I preferred time with her to most anyone, and I spent endless hours in her kitchen, not helping, but just sitting and talking and, watching.

What had not occurred to me however, until recently, was that in my watching, I was learning. It just took years of struggling thru the formality of learning to follow recipes and such, to finally understand that she had already taught me the real basics of cooking. Comfort. She cooked from the soul, and she was abundant with her love, and her cooking always was soothing and sweet for the soul for those lucky enough to sample her fare. Her food deeply nourished on so many levels. There was nothing fancy about it. It was just simply, good.

Now whenever I cook a batch of collards, batter fresh bream from our pond, season the black eyed peas, drop corn meal covered green tomatoes or okra into hot grease, or mix some butter beans with corn kernels to make a salad with mayonnaise, or any of the more southern types of dishes I can see her still in my folks kitchen in town and up at our lake house, doing the same, and I mimic what she did and feel her spirit. 

We are what we eat, literally in both a physical and a spiritual sense. Food prepared with anger or out of obligation, or with a lack of concern for even basic esthetics goes down badly and sits like a rock, refusing digestion. Fast food is without any spirit and is the worst.  Food should be fun and makes folks happy.

I have been told many times by the folks who have shared a meal at our table, that my cooking makes them feel better. Unknown to them, that the ooh’s and ah’s  they give to me, is really high homage to this wonderful teacher, Francis, that graced my life and left her legacy to me, to share with them.

On Sunday I enjoyed a very nice brunch with the family at the downtown marina restaurant. It was a fine October day and we sat on the covered deck outside, which is perched high on the bluff overlooking the Alabama River, under tall oak trees, and saw the boats below us waiting patiently in their slips. Acorns dropped above our heads, landing on the clear fiberglass roof and like small bricks being hurled our way, and I felt like I was really in a version of my new favorite Iphone game “Angry Birds”. Then they would roll noisily and slowly down the grooves of the roof until they made it to the edge, then silence, and they were gone. We enjoyed omelet’s, silky cheese grits, along with other various breakfast fare, and eased it all down with a screwdriver or two. Nothing fancy, but good for the soul and the stomach.


I came home after this diversion, with thoughts of doing something outdoors that might be both gratifying and productive. A given glance around this farm gives an endless list of things which might fall into either of those categories. I juggled and few and then I looked at the area formerly known as the veggie garden, now an overgrown jungle of surrounding shrubs that have way over grown their “matures to something? feet high??”  nursery tags, the interior path ways filled with dry grasses, volunteer zinnias, and goldenrod, and raised boxes undetectable. I felt somewhat like Scarlet O’Hara standing in the post Yankee ravaged South, ruined garden of Tara, and I said to myself, “As god is my witness, I will grow collards in here again!” And thus began my afternoon of righteous labor with intent to take back that which nature had the full summer to run amuck with.

I stood at the gate and was significantly overwhelmed when I took in the whole scene of what lay before me and the knowing what the cost to my poor body would be. It would have been so nice to blink my eyes and have it be done, all tidy again. Nice fantasy but it wasn’t going to happen like that, I knew that, so I looked down and focused on what was within my reach and I began, that is, after I had hacked down the branches of the lady banksias rose to even get into the garden. The dogs all assumed their positions in  shady places and waited for me to work it all out.

Soon I was in my rhythm snatching the villainous weeds and stuffing them into my bucket. Once full, the bucket was dumped into the front end loader. This continued for unknown hours. The tractor made at least 4 trips to the compost pile to dump this mess and at long last the horses convinced me it was “quittin’ time” and I stopped my mission for the afternoon. Mission was not anywhere close to being accomplished but I had scared some of the weeds still left in there pretty bad, and they know I am coming back for them, soon. I did feel pretty darned gratified.

My dad used to employ this type of gardening, in his twisted way of relaxing, when we went up to our lake house and later at the beach place. Early in the morning, out he would go, a cigar stuck in his mouth, and with his University of Alabama coffee cup and machete in hand, armed for warfare. A few hours of hacking at the underbrush, sticker vines, and honey suckle, he would emerge from the newly tamed jungle, blood oozing from the scratches on his arms, bucket loads of sweat pouring off his skin, his cigar shorter, and coffee gone. He would smile and reach for a cold Heineken beer and feel the piety of beginning a day with such a determined effort. This was usually before 7 am or so, while we snoozed away, knowing that once again we would be safe from all of the encroaching vegetation, saved by my favorite super hero, dad. Of course this pattern perpetually repeated itself as the vegetation always grew back allowing the ritual to continue.

I did pause Sunday, as I worked, and looked around, and listened, enjoying the pleasure of being able to be outdoors again, and even though working hard, not dieing from the heat. It was pleasant, apart from a few nasty fire ants that got into my glove, to be working with the soil, making room for new plants. The scent of the herbs that I hit as I weeded filled my nose and made my mouth water. First, closest to the gate is the bed of chocolate mint, a small leaved mint that has a distinct sweet and yes, chocolate smell, like peppermint patties. Then the garlic chives mixed with this, followed by the thick scent of the basil stems I broke, and then the rosemary chimed in. It was an olfactory overload, but very nice.

Across the pond from the garden, the tall sweet gum trees were filled with the autumn arrivals, the fish crows. This time of year these birds come in large groups and sit at the very tops of the trees boisterously yakking back and forth with a nasal sort of honking and beeping. They are smaller than the regular crows we have here year round and they do not make the “caw” type sound of the larger birds. Theirs is a sound that now quintessential October background noise for me, like June bugs in June. These fish crows will hang around for a while and then be gone to parts unknown, hopefully to return to sing their songs next October, and for more after that.

My back “told me so” the next morning when I got up, about that weeding thing, but a few Tylenol later I was up and kicking. I rode my mare, Sunset, back to the creek, through the woods on the south border of the property. We sauntered along like I was on a Thelwell pony, with her grabbing bits of grass as we walked in the filtered sunlight, leaves crunching under her feet, and lazily made our way back to the creek. The creek was very low and the swamp maples were only hinting at turning colors but showed promise of doing so soon. The trails had done like my garden and were a bit thick to travel through in parts but it was a nice hack.

The perimeter trail ends on the north side into a field that doesn’t get cut regularly and tends to grow wild after a few years. When I came out of the shade of the woods I came into a field of golden sunflower/daisy like flowers blooming on very tall shafts. Goldenrod blooms laid out in a blanket of gold below it and sporadically placed were towers of a pink wild flower I don’t know the name of.

It was spectacular, and it was peaceful. It is nice sometimes to be able to be totally blown away at a simple field of wild flowers and not just be a viewer from a car window, but to be riding a nice horse through it, and just be, there, in a sweet moment suspended in time, and one of sheer unexpected beauty.

Today I will do battle with the willful garden again, and give those remaining weeds what for and the ol heave ho. Adios and farewell ye weeds. Collards are coming to take your place, and snow peas, and chard, and maybe some broccoli. It has been said that to be a gardener one must be an optimist, living for the reward of one’s efforts, and I eagerly await the fresh greens that will grow from this soil.

Jack stood at the bottom of the stairs at the back door, looking up, quivering, and he was scared. He remembered his gallant attempt to jump up the first step the other day and how he had missed terribly, and impaled his soft broad belly on the corner of that first step. This time, his quivering, which began with this anticipated fear of pain, turned into more. Jack started to have a seizure.

Jack’s body began to jump and shake out of control. His eyes looked at me now with a new and different fear, a pleading, help me, I do not understand fear. I picked him up and put him on the floor inside the house. He frantically tried to regain control of his involuntary twitches but couldn’t. I grabbed a jar of honey and put some of the golden sugar in his mouth and soon the spasms thankfully subsided.

I called the vet and got advice on what to do with him for the evening and was told to bring him in the next am for a blood sugar test to see what was going on with the diabetes we were dealing with.

My thoughts from this episode were running pretty darned gloomy. The past few weeks since Jack was diagnosed with this issue has been rough and extremely intensive, time and attention wise, watching his every move and mood, wondering where his levels were. I have been carefully feeding him small amounts of food several times and day and following feeding up with three insulin shots daily. None of this has been fun or amusing for either of us, and I hate looking into his eyes before I stick yet another needle into his skin. So my thoughts were groping with the realizaiion that this was the way to the end, Jack was not going to be here much longer.

Surprise. The blood test showed that Jack had seized not because the diabetes had worsened, but that his pancreas had caught back up and had begun producing insulin again and the higher dose of it in his blood stream had caused the attack. This is a great thing. Jack is a recovering diabetic. The vet lowered his dosage and was thrilled at the results. Me too.

That was yesterday and as I needed to man the gallery in town and didn’t have time to take him home, Jack got to go urban with me. Jack went downtown, a first for him. I got him out of the truck and put his leash on and started to walk to the corner to cross the street. Jack was very disturbed by the cars, and the noise, and the big things that moved very fast past him. There were strange smells and the ground was not grassy but hard and white. His little tail was tucked firmly between his cheeks and his head was low and his face would not come out from behind my heels. There was finally no choice but to pick him up and carry the sucker if I wanted to get to the gallery in the present millennium.

Once inside the gallery, he remained a bit worried until some folks came in after their lunch at the nearby restaurant carrying their leftovers. Jack could smell the garlic and savory flavors they carried and he followed these folks around the room as they admired the photographs and paintings, wiggling and doing his best to get a sample, but to no avail. I had told them he was diabetic and they withheld the yummy pasta in their boxes. I gave him a piece of cheese from my leftover sandwich and he was cool with that. I still had to carry him back to the truck when I left tho. The big city is just way too scary for this little country dog.

Ironically, we both nearly died on the way home. Driving down the road and coming up the last big hill before our turnoff, I looked ahead to see an oncoming car, in my lane, the driver, a woman, deeply absorbed in her cell phone in her hand. Time went into super sonic speed and my reaction was first to lay on the horn and the only other option in the short period of time before the impending impact was to drive off the road onto the shoulder to let her pass. I don't really think she knew or noticed. Jack didn't say and it admittedly took a while for my blood pressure and fury to subside at the stupidity of this person who was so nearly the cause of my demise. Of all the ways to die, that ranks right up there with the ridiculous. Of all the near touches with danger in my days, to die at the wheel because of some bimbo checking her email or dialing a number while going down the road, would have made me a ghost to be reckoned with in the after life.

Once safely back on the farm, the remains of the afternoon were sweet. Only two weeks ago we sweltered in 96 degree temps while riding our horses in the dressage clinic with Jeff Moore. At long last the weather gods have smiled and long sleeves and flannel are the garb of choice to wear. I actually got 4 horses ridden/worked the other day, didn't break a sweat at all, and had gobs of energy left over to do other farm projects, but didn't bother.

The tea olive shrubs at each end of the front porch are just beginning to bloom now, but already the tiny white flowers are filling all the air in the front yard with a heavenly smell that never fails to bring back my memories of Mrs. Holding's kindergarten school playground and getting to finger paint. The only colors we used at this time of year were orange and brown and the theme of course was Halloween. There was such a delicious joining of the tactile joy of getting to finger paint and the smell of these shrubs, combining with the anticipation of the upcoming trick or treating night to come. How many pumpkins and witches on broomsticks did I gleefully paint while inhaling the powerful scent of these shrubs I have no idea. The memory remains ingrained in my brain, and is as strong as the scent, and is just as sweet.

It has been almost a year since I began writing this blog thing. From the stats feature I have seen that I have readers in places all over the world and I wonder at what they must think about what my life and dribblings about it must seem like to them. I reread some of my previous posts today, and both laughed and cried, and am glad that I have had a place to put down in some form that which has transpired in my farm world in the past months. Just hope to keep staying out of the path of oncoming cell phone drivers for a few more so I ride more horses, paint more pictures, cook, garden, write, and continue to enjoy this world I share with my wonderful friends, family, and critters.