Life at Dogfight Cove

hi all

2010-12-11T11:11:00.000-08:00

i am in hawaii! and will be here for the next three months. i have suddenly felt like writing again, which feels really good. but i need a new format. this place is too loaded for me. time for a fresh start. so a new blog is underway.

back from NM

2010-10-01T11:15:00.000-07:00

home.

i made it home from the traditions in western herbalism conference- which was out in new mexico and awesome. i really liked the landscape- so different from here. it was really nice to get away. and to be hanging out and learning lots of cool stuff with interesting folks was a great bonus. and i had a lovely time meeting and spending time with the lovely kristine/tansy. she was asked to be a presenter next year based on her herbal roots zine and teaching herbs to kids. so check her out- her blog is on my side reel! i got a few good pics from my trip, it's hard to take good photos in the desert.

crasher and team hongisto have turned a concrete slab into a garage in just over five days. it is nice to have activity on the property. i have had much oomf in that way lately.

asher has better pics on his camera but i don't know where the cord is. the garage probably deserves it's own post anyway.

i have been working hard on painting and organizing the house for my extended trip away this winter. i want everything looking good and all of matty's piles sorted and tucked away so when i get back i don't have to deal with it. i am really looking forward to some time away and on my own. it's a little heavy around here at times. good days and bad days. i've been feeling better lately but that fall nostalgia is kicking my butt. made it through matty's b-day but coming up shortly is our wedding anniversary. ugh. trying/wanting to get back on the blogging train but not feeling really inspired or peppy these days. hope all are well out there.

it's september

2010-09-14T15:27:00.000-07:00

dear matty,
it's september now. august was hard on me. very hot and weepy. painting the interior walls of our house very bright colors has been meditative for me. sort of the only activity i have been able to find that makes my mind blank. i am enjoying the blank time it provides. i think you would like (some) of the colors (ha). now it is september, your birth month and my sister's, the captain, as well. same year, day and pretty much moment. something you always will share. these firsts really suck. they wash over me sometimes and i am often overcome. i just try to roll with it. time, time, time. that's what i am banking on now. poppy and old man hongisto and uncle crasher will be starting on asher's garage next week- that would have made you very excited. i can see you jumping around and yelling "yes, this is awesome". i have been sorting through all the old pictures on the computer and getting them printed and into albums. something i have been meaning to do for years. i stumbled upon an old video of jesse and isobabe playing music at the pub. you are there in the background yelling, of course. it was jarring and awesome and a lot to hear your voice for the first time in months. fall is coming quick. the garden is cleaned up and ready for planting of winter greens. the chickens are laying a lot of eggs. crasher is almost done building them a chicken tractor. so-so and i went riding around on sunday and he showed me some awesome spots in the state forest. i drive now, since he had his stroke, and he gives me shit about how i take the potholes. don't worry, i give it right back to him and threaten to make him walk. annie and yorke bought an acre of land across from josef's house! how awesome is that. i adore annabelle and i am sure that yorke misses being able to walk his land with you, daydreaming about what should go where. you were always so good for that sort of thing. i talk to your folks often. your ma and i are closer than ever. i miss you. this was always a great time of year for us. we liked fall together. i am jumping ship for the winter, some way, some how and i think you would appreciate that. our friends and family are great. we done good on that front.
just so you know some things never change around here.
cats still like to hang out in bags.

i still dress the dogs in ridiculous outfits sometimes. this is actually abigails hot dog costume. joe wasn't that into it.

crasher still climbs trees.
benny still loves a good swim. although he is getting chubby and you would be putting him on rations and giving me crap.

we still cruise the back roads.

the mountains are still ancient and potent and healing.
i know you are well. i am trying my damndest to be.

witchy behavior

2010-08-20T06:46:00.000-07:00

josef and i spent the afternoon having lovely chat and wine and straining, bottling and labeling all the tinctures that were ready.

we used lots of fun stickers.

uncle crasher cranked away on making the compost heap more accesible and played in the garden- bringing in a lovely basket of goodies.
he has also been witchy lately- saving seed.

we got a kitten yesterday. her name is roo (short for kangaroo) and we are already in love.

feels like fall is coming. i'm looking forward to being able to work in the yard again without melting and running back inside.

i had to laugh

2010-08-16T07:41:00.000-07:00

I had to go to the lawyer the other day- who was jovial and easy going and i like quite a bit. asher and i are trying to work out the land transfer for his property- something we have meaning to do for at least a year and half now. i went down and met the guy- matty had been dealing with him previously because it was near his work and he pulls out the surveyors map that matty had brought him on which dodge had drawn little pictures of all the different parts of the property. it was quite detailed and i had to laugh out loud (luckily not cry) because only my dear love would find it reasonable to do so. it was folded up very intracately and sealed with masking tape. love that man. loved that lawyer said, "so, this is what i have been working with". hilarious. of course he had gone ahead and gotten the proper plat maps and all. he asked me what restrictions i wanted to put in the deed and i asked him to name a few common ones since i have not done this before. he said "well, no mobile homes"- not going to be an issue, "no junk cars"- i already have a few on my property so that seemed a bit hypocritical, "no pig farms", we'd like to have pigs at some point so nope. anyway- it was quite amusing and we go back this week to, hopefully, finalize it all.

the elderberries are ripe and i am getting ready to make some wine and syrup.

i finally went through my box of condolensce letters and sorted through them all. i've written about twenty letters back and have a bunch more to go. i am saving them all in a special box which i will tie up with a ribbon and stash away when i am done. it was quite lovely and emotional to go back and read them all.

i made my first tincture formula. a heart tonic for a friend that is sad.

it was so fun! beakers and droppers and medicine.

all these need to be strained and bottled.

the cat and the rest of us are trying to stay cool. it has been really, really hot. i've started canning and continue to paint. i finally gave up the ghost (ha) on trying to make peace with my bed after sleeping on the futon constantly and getting a stiff neck. crasher and niklas built me a new bed out of scrap wood and foam. back to basics here- that's what we slept on for years and i feel much more rested. we now have another guest bed and the compound now has enough beds and linens to sleep about twenty. dang.
asher and i went in on a new chest freezer because our other hand-me-down one crapped out on us. luckily there wasn't a ton in it at the time. time to fill up the new one for winter. speaking of winter, and fall things are shaping up to be very busy. i will be at the preschool part time as the lunch lady! fun. and then there are trips to go to the Traditions in Western Herbalism conference in new mexico with a blog friend (see dancing in a field of tansy on my blog roll) which is going to be great fun, heading to new england to see my family and in-laws, heading south to see friends in charleston where hopefully pierce will play some shows, heading even further south to see my darling hand-gun robert whom i have not seen since he moved and checking out josef's old stomping grounds. and then... i hope to take off for hawaii for the winter. i am looking for any connections i can get so let me know if you know neat folks there or cool stuff to do. i believe i am going to have a travel year. asher told me so sweetly the other day when i was stressing about leaving and making that work and being lonely when i am gone, "lady, (that's what he calls me most of the time) let go and go find yourself". thanks, friend. i'm gonna give it a shot.

sometimes i love my friends so much it overwhelms me...

2010-08-07T13:32:00.000-07:00

5th annual middle of nowhere party 2010- ain't goin' nowhere

2010-08-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

it's become a regular holiday for us....

friday evening was family open mic

benny's ear finally bested him but he was a good sport with his cone head.

lots of silliness and glitter

and food and friends

and brothers

and pretty alissa

and a giant robot pinata (thanks wenders and quiet chrix)

the morning of the second day... bleary

more brothers...

amazing

the slip n slide is a must from now on

poppy and his skeleton effigy

time to take the pinata down

merlot, anyone?

lots of prizes in there

he swings...

it outta there

yorke and annie rocked having a newborn at the party the whole weekend. very impressive and awesome.

lots of glitter and personalized hats

and rock n roll

thanks to all who helped put this together. we have been having party plannning committee meeetings for the past month and everyone had their jobs and it went off without a hitch! so much love floating around this weekend. we weren't sure if we were going to go ahead with the party but how could we not? love you guys. thanks to ginger for taking all these awesome pictures.

polar bear knowledge

2010-07-27T09:47:00.000-07:00

this polar bear is my lady right now. she hangs in my bathroom and sometimes i look at her and say, "man, this is really hard" and she says, "yeah, well the ice is melting up here and i am stepping off into the abyss and yes it sucks but wadda ya gonna do? live it." and i'm like, "i know, lady. i'm doing it. it's just hard sometimes."

maybe i get it, at least a little

2010-07-25T21:05:00.000-07:00

i met my first other young widow last night. she sat next to me at a bar and asked me to buy her a shot because her husband just died. fancy that, i said my husband just died, too. turns out her husband was also thirty and she twenty-eight. she was two weeks in. she looked like hell. i recognized that look. i bought her a shot and myself one to. we were not very similar but we were in the same club. i keep thinking about her today. people keep telling me that they can't stop thinking about me, i think i get why now.

i just noticed that the stairs are getting worn. that was one of matty's favorite jobs. sanding down floors and stairs and refinishing them. oh the dust he would make, silly man. i guess the stairs will just keep getting worn for now. that's okay. i can live with that. it's harder to live with the blank spot in our bed.

i may be sad sometimes but i am also happy.

at least we all love each other

2010-07-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

the kittens do, very much so.
crasher got a mailbox, and footers and blockwork done on his garage. but, you know, mostly a mailbox.

i've been laying on the couch, a lot. i painted my living room blue. watch out for voodoo cat jiving.

blue, changed the art around.

oh, more laying on the couch.

the bottle tree is locked and loaded for such things that will not be mentioned here, yet.

the family that stretches together, stays together.

i can't do that. but it would be cool if i could.

ah, there she is again. what is going on?

chadnesss opened his tattoo parlor with a holy cow awesome blow out bash.

a good time was had by all.

i love you so much, i need to bite your face.

went to john bartam's garden's in philly on the way home from connecticut. lovely.

cats will lie on the couch with you.

my darling godson. sweetest boy in the world.

waiting for the rain... until then:

2010-07-11T09:54:00.000-07:00

hello

2010-07-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

i have been silent here because i don't really have anything to say. i made it six days on the camping trip but was having terrible nightmares and anxiety and then trying to hold it together enough to participate in the experience of school and helping run the camp. i had to leave to try and regroup so that i could head up to connecticut to attend the memorial that matty's ma planned at her church. it was great to see his folks and hug his family but it is sad to know that i probably won't see much of them anymore. i just got back into town the end of last week so i haven't really been around the past two weeks. but now i am home and i am just sad and not well. i miss matty so much. i can't seem to get up the energy to work in the garden or really care about much yet i can't stop being hard on myself in my mind to be more productive, on top of things and get stuff accomplished (like canning, jam making, schoolwork etc...) but i just can't do it right now and need to let it go and just relax. thank god for my friends, those lovely lovelies and my dear family and in-laws. right now i am just waiting on time. waiting for the time to pass to relieve all this a bit. lots of tears in the spaces in between.

camping trip

2010-06-13T09:41:00.000-07:00

packing to go into the woods for ten days with my herbal medicine school. school every day from 10-5, 25 people setting up camp for a week and a half. whoah. see ya when i get back.

thanks world

2010-06-09T16:08:00.000-07:00

today i was driving down the mountain into A'ville for herb school. it was a dreary, cloudy morn and i was feeling dreary myself. suddenly an adolescent bear came running up the bank and jumped the guard rail into the road. i thought i was either going to hit him or he was going to come right in the window of my truck. i was only going about twenty miles an hour due to switchbacks and at the last moment he pivoted and started to run beside me. only for maybe five seconds, but it felt like much longer. i could hear the sound of his thick paws hitting the pavement. he turned and gave me a crooked smile and then dove back into the underbrush. that'll change your mood pretty quick, as well as give you a serious endorphin rush.
our day at school started out today with my teacher talking about her dear friend and world renowned herbalist and teacher, frank cook, who passed last august. today is his birthday. she was in tears, just so open and free with her emotion, talking about his life and what an amazing impact he had on people, trying to break down the "green wall" as he called it to reintroduce people to plants and get them turned on to what we put in our bodies and what is available all around us to heal and nourish us. it was so moving and really hit home with me. she talked about how many people frank touched and how devoted he was in his mission to spread the spark of his passion. it made me realize that i have been really lost in my sadness over missing matty so terribly and want to shift my focus to honoring him for what an amazing person that he was.
matty only lived to be thirty years old, an age he always said that he would never reach. he said to many of us that he did not think he would make it to thirty. when he did he was so happy. i am glad he made it to celebrate that birthday but he couldn't hold on much longer than that. the wear of his mental illness began to show so much on his face and his spark was fading over this past year. i am overwhelmed by the amount of people that he touched in his short life on this planet. i always told him that i felt like he was barely holding human form. i could see looking at him that he was really just a bunch of molecules buzzing closely together trying to hold a human shape. that man was potent and powerful. he described himself as the key tied to the kite in a lightning storm. every person he met fell for him. he was one of those people you are just drawn to and want to be close to. it drained him at times but he made everyone feel welcomed and loved and drawn into his (our) circle. the extendedfamily that matty created and nurtured spanned this country and several others. matty believed that every person was worth being made to feel loved and supported, included and encouraged. worthwhile. the man so rarely said a harsh word about anyone and yet his mind was beating the shit out of him every day. he never let on or complained. he just rocked as hard a he could on the days that he felt well and hid himself away on the days he felt bad and suffered mainly in silence. he didn't want people to know his pain, it was too ugly and mean and against everything he believed. so what he put out was positive energy to everyone around him to do their best and follow their passion and go for it. matty believed in going for it. if someone was questioning whether or not they should follow their dream matty would say, "pursue and find out", make it happen, anything is possible and doable. it just takes putting forth action. he allowed for people's failures and shortcomings and was always available to sit with folks through rough patches and could always be called on for help and support- even if that meant driving across the country in the middle on the night. he was always game. he spent a lot of time helping people talk through and process their emotions and was constantly on the phone calling folks to check in on how they were doing. he was such a lover and a wonderful friend and companion. these words don't do him any justice, but they are a start. i loved having him as my husband. we had so much fun together and enjoyed the hell out of each other. what a treat to be married to your very best friend and to feel so lucky and proud of your spouse. we honored each other every day and never took for granted that it was guaranteed to last. i am thankful for that.

i thought i would share our "i will's" from our wedding last summer.

"will you be my friend and lover"
"I will"

"will you stand by me when things get tough"
"I will"

"will you encourage the best in me and be gentle with the worst?
"I will"

"will you help me to take life less seriously, and laugh with me, and grow old with me"
"I will"

i will, i will, i will. i will not be broken by this. i will rise above. i will learn about healing with plants and continue to love and support the people in my tribe and beyond. i will honor that man that was my partner for eight lovely, difficult, magical, hilarious and beautiful years.

family road trip with my sister ("dearheart" or "mi cunada" as matty called her) out to california. three people, two dogs, one minivan. many (mis)adventures. oh the stories we (all) have to tell.

ah, life.

2010-06-07T17:05:00.000-07:00

another fun day. went back to the funeral home to get the death certificate fixed (turns out it was correct already) and it was me and two elderly gentlemen waiting to look at caskets for their dead spouses in the waiting room. the guy comes out and i go to tell him my name and before i can he says, "oh yes, i remember you"- yeah duh, because i am not eighty and should not be here! then i went to talk to the sheriff, my buddy (his name is actually buddy) to try and get back the "evidence" (i.e. the Note and the music fliers) and he says, "well, i guess you must still think of him every day because you come home and he's not there. i don't have the key to get into the evidence room but i could send an officer with it some night this week." yeah, that sounds great- a cop coming over to my house in the night. we agreed it might be better if he just mailed it to me. anything not to deal with that dude ever again. total moron. and he's up for re-election folks.
now i am procrastinating working on a plant presentation i have to do on wednesday for school. waiting on "the new normal" because this ain't it.

there's gold in them hills

2010-06-06T08:58:00.000-07:00

today is one of those days i just keep expecting him to walk through the door. and say hello.
it is lovely out though.

my matty tattoo is almost healed up.

try to remember

2010-06-05T18:26:00.000-07:00

note to self: do not leave crasher home with a jug of kool-aid while you and niklas go watch a civil war re-enactment in town and hit up the swimming hole on the way back. or you will return home to find hyper active freak nut dancing to german techno and babbling nonsense at your dogs.

ugh

2010-06-03T07:40:00.000-07:00

i don't have much to say. the reality of not seeing him everyday is sinking in. really, every single day i don't get to see you? it's too much. it's horrible. i want my life back.

haircuts

and love

and lounging with dogs

a shaggy b

and trying to feel okay

lots of starring out at the hills

the lovely annabelle birch

my dear friend is a poppa. i like that.

the other molly. glorious creature that she is.
in-laws came, we planted the tree. maybe i'll post some pics of that but not today.

waitng for rain

2010-05-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

making Hawthorne flower tincture. the plants are starting to speak to me (woooooowoooooooo)

i am feel very spoiled right now because i have a huge pile of woodchips and a big old load of beautiful soil that i call my bereavement dirt pile. it was my widows gift to myself. i just want to be in the dirt.i told asher that on days i feel really bad i will burrow a hole inside and take benny the dog in with me and live in there and throw poo at them. of course the guys made it into a bike jump.

david.

taking a snooze.

a happy dog laying on...

a sister who does not like dogs.

well we did it. we put matty in a coffee can. a chock full of nuts can seemed just right. he hangs out on the porch with us with his favorite coffee mug.

we are looking toward peace and quiet and some sense of a routine. it's out there somewhere.
tomorrow we plant the willow tree with his ashes. this will be my third memorial. talk about ripping off the scab. i don't even know what i feel anymore. i just need some time to sit with it all. and dig in the dirt some more. of course.

the elements contained in all things

2010-05-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

picked up matty's dear folks from the airport this morning. they are both napping and i am sitting on the porch watching a thunderhead roll in. there is peace and sadness in this moment. and it is so beautiful. i am thankful and full and sad watching the leaves in my life flip upside down greeting the coming rain. make this garden grow.

yes

2010-05-25T18:03:00.000-07:00

props to the freshly widowed woman who rocks her cells and tissue test at school today and then comes home and busts ass installing a drip irrigation system, finishing up as dusk comes on. white wine spritzer and tunes on my porch. learning how to be alone. the current plan: stay out in garden until dark and i am dog tired and then fall asleep on the couch. not really into sleeping in my bed yet. time to plant cukes and squashes, sweet potatoes, more herbs and succession plant carrots, greens, beets. note to kitchen herbwife- hiked up to higher elevations and harvested some Hawthorne flowers this weekend- tincture on the way. thanks for the advice. keep it coming.

on learning more about the (our) heart

2010-05-22T16:11:00.000-07:00

well, i don't even know what to say. i showed up at matty's work on friday to clean out his desk, ugh, and it was very awkward- how the hell can a team of social workers be so awkward? i mean, nothing against how awesome they and the work they do is but come on. throw me a bone here. and then one of the higher ups, who is an incredible woman, pulled me aside and wanted to dissect the peer support specialist model and what i thought about it and did i think the job played a factor in matty's suicide and blah blah blah. i did my best but it was early in the morning and i am holding a box containing my dead husbands favorite coffee mug and random stuff he had thumb tacked to the wall and i just want to go pick strawberries. i am so sick of people processing on me. there is not a lot of tact flowing around these parts. i cannot believe the stuff that people have said and done to me in the past weeks. ridiculous. i am not really a poor me type of person but this is one of the times in my life when i feel totally reasonable being like, "hey, this sucks for me. your job is to take care of me and go deal with your own shit somewhere else". his work also sprung on me that they were having a memorial for all his clients on monday and that they would really like me to be there. i am sure all those folks are having a really hard time processing this but i did not want to go. and man, they could have given me a little more notice. but i went because i knew that matty would really have wanted me to. so i show up and it's being held in a soup kitchen with the feeling of a twelve step meeting (anyone who has been to one of these meetings knows the feeling of a room like that) and not only was it totally unorganized but they totally hung me out to dry. the minute i walk in i've got some crazy dude staring at my tits and saying, "uh, so did matty shoot himself in the head or in the chest, i don't understand." and i say, "yeah he shot himself in the head" and he responds, "oh and you found him, that must have really sucked." yeah, it did, dude, and by the way my eyes are up here. a room full of seriously mentally ill people. there was a lot of mountain dew and cold cuts rolled into tubes and no one had any prepared statements- just a lot of uncomfortable silence. these folks don't get out much and are intensely mentally ill. so i got up and made a little speech about how this was the first real job matty every had and how much he cared about them all and believed so deeply that everyone is worth feeling loved and cared for and okay. i was not planning on saying anything because i was barely holding it together and feeling incredibly anxious but i did it and i am proud of myself for making it through those couple hours. style and grace-i heard that mantra lately and have been rocking it.
i went to herbalism school on tuesday and wednesday. on wednesday we met at the botanical gardens to do A and P (anatomy and physiology). which i would just like to say that my herbalism program is so awesome because we learn botany, materia medica of herbs, edibles, aryuveda, A&P and so mcu more- it is just so inclusive and i find it all so interesting. but it is hard for me to sit in class all day and stay focused and not want to bolt. but i've been pulling it off. so, we are learning about the cardiovascular system and how amazing and awesome our hearts are with what they do each day. and all i can think is that my heart is in splinters right now and that my heart friends heart isn't doing any of these things anymore. that is an intense thought to wrap my head around. makes me sad. and makes my heart hurt more. then on our afternoon break i get a message that annie is in labor. baby coming. we weren't expecting that for another week. so i dip out because who can focus after that news and go run a few errands of things we might need in the hospital- mostly snacks and delicious drinks. spent a bunch of time sitting in parking lots because they weren't going to be checked into the hospital for a few hours. show up with my bags of goodies as night falls, shaking and not sure what is about to go down. and damn that woman blew my mind. she rocked all night long with yorke and i as support. she rocked it like a tribal woman in a potato field. so grounded, centered, focused and following the flow of her body. amazing. the three of us were left alone for the most part all night as things progressed. after not being alone barely at all since matty died sitting on the curb outside the hospital at two thirty in the morning is a pretty lonely time. i looked up and saw a crescent moon, matty's moon that he had tattooed all over his body and knew that he continues to hang out with me.
twenty hours au natural and then as we entered blue time of early morning they discovered that the baby was posterior (sunny side up) and was not coming out as easy as we thought. so intervention with pitocin and eventually an epidural as they tried to turn the baby. i have don't think i have ever pulled an all-nighter sober. it is a different beast. she labored all through the next day and i am trying to be careful not to go into too much detail because it is not my birth story. yorke held one leg and i held the other and we helped push that baby out. she pushed for almost three hours and was amazing. annie went into labor on a very windy day and when that baby came out she cycloned out of the birth canal. that little girl has the wind in her spirit and i love her so much already. when i held her i thought, "oh hi, it's you." welcome to the world annabelle birch. i like you so much already. i'm pretty sure we are going to be friends.

asher's birthday

2010-05-17T04:35:00.000-07:00

hard days, these days.

2010-05-16T06:07:00.000-07:00

yesterday afternoon we all felt sad. so we sat in the alter in a thunderstorm. i gave an impromptu flower botany class. we found space to laugh.

then pierce broke out the electric on the porch.

asher in particular was heart breakingly sad.

hard days, these days.

but still space to love and laugh at and on each other.

we secretly made asher a banner last night because today is his birthday.
he is still asleep at the moment. coffee on the porch and then into the garden.

yup

2010-05-14T05:02:00.001-07:00

what stage of grief is it when you burn stuff in the yard at one in the morning? i'm going to his work today to pick up his stuff and say hello. i am really ready for all these little details to be over so i can just relax. but then i am off to pick strawberries with my lady friends so i hope that balances out the day. i'm tired.

not for the faint of heart

2010-05-13T06:26:00.000-07:00

three weeks in and i think i can say that it has softened a bit. this period of time has passed in a way that i have never experienced the passage of time. as i feel that this is the log of dogfight cove i want to write about my experience that day, just to get it out of me so don't read ahead if you find that idea disturbing. i am writing it for myself. i'll even put a pretty picture here so you don't have to look.

i knew the moment that it happened. it was earth day so i was out with the preschoolers picking up trash in the ballfield of the elementary school. i was leaning down picking up a piece of trash and i felt a prick in my heart, took a sharp inhalation, stood up and thought, "oh." Not, "oh, shit", or "oh, no", just a quiet "oh". i had been trying to get a hold of him earlier that morning because i knew he had been feeling really crummy all week and couldn't reach him on his cell (which was not unusual) and the phone at home just rang and rang (turns out he had unplugged it). i sort of decided that if that was what had happened then i would finish out my day at work and face it when i got home. i wanted to give him the space to do what he was he needed to do and not interrupt. that may sound odd. i felt that if he had decided then i would give him the space to decide. then asher called me to say that his septic was going in and that he was going to head up to the land to check it out. i did not want asher to be the first one there. i even said,"okay, but you might find matty... uh, and if you see him tell him to give me a call." i knew that i had to deal with it then and not later. i called his work to see if he had shown up that morning, they said no and i immediately jumped in my truck and booked it home. it's about a thirty minute drive and i forced myself to listen to music and tried to tell myself that he was just going to be home in bed, hiding from the day and that i was overreacting.. i even stopped and got the mail. strange the things we do. i screamed up the driveway and ran into the house and could not find him anywhere. i stepped out onto the porch and looked around at twenty acres and multiple out buildings and said, "dammit matty, please make this not too difficult to find you." then i saw him on the ground by the picnic table, crumpled, sort of in child's pose. i have seen him in this position before, passed out. i flipped him over and there he was. i straightened him out. i couldn't tell if he was dead and my heart was beating too loud for me to tell if he had a pulse. the damage wasn't as bad as you might think. his face was intact and he looked peaceful. i didn't want to call the police because if he wasn't dead he was fucked and so i just hoped that he was or would be soon. looking back, he was definitely gone- his face and fingertips were blue. i called sara-jo and yorke happened to be there doing some work for her so they headed up and then i called pierce and he started up too. i called the police and they were assholes. then i got myself some water and went and sat by him. the dogs and cats were all around. the sun was shining and the birds were chirping and there was a nice breeze. i wondered why time hadn't stopped. we sat together for about an hour. i remember worrying that he was going to get sunburned. i held his hand and rubbed his leg. i wailed in that way some may relate to where you hear this incredible sound and look around to see where it is coming from and then you realize that it is coming from you. he had laid out a blanket and had his cup of tea (come to think of it i am drinking tea out of that same cup right now) and his cigarettes. in his pocket he had his lighter and one his favorite pilot pens that he always carried and two central american coins that he had smooshed on the railroad tracks (something he liked to do) as his payment for the ferryman. always the artist. he did everything with such style. by the time folks started to arrive i had had my time. it was strange that time didn't stop. that's sometimes it seems like it would just stop. but it doesn't. asher came and i had them stop him by the tool shed because i didn't want to him to see. i watched down the hill as he collapsed onto the ground as yorke told him that his big brother, both of them only children who were brothers to each other, was dead. the next time i looked down there he was gone- he had run into the woods and stayed there a long time.
the police came and were idiots. the sheriff said stuff like, "in all my years of doing this i have never understood why people do this." really, dude? you've never stopped to contemplate that someone could be in such pain that they had to make it stop. maybe you should take the time to think on that a little more. he asked me a bunch of questions about his mental state and any medications he was taking- which of course he was on several. i showed them to him and he said something like, "well, when people are on all kinds of pills it makes them do crazy stuff" yeah, it was the pills that did this to him. you're really on it sheriff dude. his words of comfort to me were, "you know, forest gump really had it right when he said life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you're going to have to deal with." yes, he really said that. then he kept saying, " my buddy bobby has a funeral home in mars hill and he'd treat you real nice, give you a good deal." he even called him right in front of me and said, "i'm here with a real nice lady, they seem like good folks, been in the area for five years and she's a school teacher down in town. i told her you could give her a real nice service." blah, blah, blah. fuck you sheriff and fuck your buddy bobby. he asked if he had left a note. i hadn't even thought to look around for one. the note just said "dear everybody, i love you all so much, especially my wonderful wife. i'm sorry to put you through this. see you next time." the sheriff took the note, along with the band fliers that matty had made that the note was sitting on top of. they were fliers for our buddy's band and had two skeletons- one playing the drums and one the guitar with hearts and arrows all over-very matty. he said that needed to take them because they might give some insight into his mental state. i thought that was pretty funny. felt like saying, "yeah, take them and maybe hang them up around town on your way through." idiot. he finally left but then it took forever for the ambulance to come and for them to take the body away. it was a relief when that happened. at that point yorke went to take care of stuff and sara-jo went to get niklas. we were all so afraid of how niklas would react. that left me and pierce and asher. we sat on the porch and cried and laughed and made some great jokes about the situation that matty would have loved. then folks started to show up and there were about twenty people here for the next while. i was glad to have the house full and there was of course tons of food and flowers and beer. mattresses and pallets everywhere we we all slept in piles. but each time someone arrived they would lose it and then i would lose it all over again. after about a week of that we blocked the driveway and just had the closest family here. i had to tell his dad. that was one of the hardest things that i have ever had to do. his mom was in greece and they had to track her down. i did get to talk to her that night and i am so glad. i am so glad that we are friends, not just mother and daughter in law.
i am going to have lunch today with annie. she is less than a week from her due date. her and yorke asked me about six months ago to be at the birth. so it will be me and annie and yorke and the midwife in the delivery room. i have never seen a baby be born. i wasn't sure i could be there but i am feeling stronger every day and how could i not be there? talk about circle of life. i am going to be a godmother. a fairy godmother, i hope. peace, peace, peace.

what stage of grief are we in now?

2010-05-11T04:48:00.000-07:00

so, um. week three. good days and bad days, with a lot of little parts in between. i told the guys the other day that i feel like a wounded warrior. some friends have made me special necklaces of different healing stones, lots of amethyst, and they have come to feel like my protector necklaces. i drove myself to asheville yesterday and part way there suddenly thought, "am i driving on the right side of the road?" crazy widowed lady on the road.
yesterday i bought a chain and put both of our wedding rings on it, which i had been wearing. my poor little naked finger. it will survive. i will continue on my quest- i feel very legend of zelda, which was part of matty's canon of important things. i also went yesterday to speak with matty's counselor. it is so nice to be able to talk to someone who knew matty, and about all of us, and not have to explain him. how do explain matty? you don't. and he said i was right on track with my grieving. high five for me. he also told me something that some might find disturbing but i found gave me a lot of comfort. he said that of all the people he had seen, and he has seen a lot, that matty was the most tortured. that made me feel confirmed that we really worked our asses off at keeping those beasts at bay and just filled my heart with pride that my beautiful husband brought people so much joy and happiness and made everyone feel so special and loved when he himself was being hounded constantly by the evil that is mental illness. she is a relentless cunt. pardon my language but that is how i feel. i also picked up matty's cremains (that's what they call them) yesterday. which wasn't too bad because i had just gotten out of the counselor and was feeling steadied. we had seriously considered the coffee can/big lebowski route but then decided that would be a bit too irreverent. we have the tendency to have real off color humor around here- another advantage to living in the middle of nowhere, no one to hear you do it. that was something matty also taught us- you gotta laugh at your problems, issues, mistakes- all of it. if matty and i didn't laugh all the time we never would have made it as long as we did. we would have been eaten alive by the whole thing a long time ago. ashes isn't really the right word for what's in that box. it looks more like the gravel from an archeological dig. and it is heavy, it really feels like dead weight. he would be glad to be fertilizer. what a process. yesterday the counselor said, "now, when you really don't want to do something..." and i interrrupted and said, "i shouldn't do it?", since people keep saying to me, "don't do stuff you don't want to do", "don't rush into stuff" blah, blah, blah. he said. "no, you should do it." oh. shit, i guess i knew i didn't suddenly get a free pass. so i am going to herb school this morning. and i am scared but i am a warrior with a broken heart who's got some plants to learn about.

i found this old note from matty when i was cleaning out some stuff the other day.

the world she still spins out there. daily, it turns out.
love to all of you out there. from me. cause i am still here.

the eulogy and some words from the remembrance. too lovely not to share.

2010-05-05T12:03:00.000-07:00

Welcome everybody
And thank you for coming today to help celebrate Matty's life.
I also want to thank you for all your kind words and support over the past week
I have been overwhelmed by how much strength can be found
In the thoughtful gesture of a neighbor.

For those of you i haven't met yet
I am Molly's older sister, Hannah.
Some of you have heard me referred to as The Captain.
A nickname bestowed upon me by Matty.
Matty, i am sure, had nicknames for many of you.
It was one of his many talents.
That is, effortlessly highlighting those things that make us feel unique.
He was that rare person who truly loves humanity
seeing glory, even in it's shame.
And when paired with my sister's nurturing nature
they carved out a life of love on this mountainside that drew us all in
on a journey that brought us here today.

Were it not for the occasion, and concurrent focus on himself
matty would have loved to see so many people coming together on this lawn.
He would wander around, smoking cigarettes and drinking coffee,
balancing out the work that was going on with his own unique blend of insights, insults, and non-sequiturs.
Laughing and cursing, he wove together this community, making family of friends.

Matty first entered my life almost a decade ago,
when he and my sister began their romance not far from here.
Back then, he call me most often by another nickname,
that is, he referred to me as his Arch Nemesis.
Born under the same sun,
Matty and I shared two things,
A birthday and a fierce affection for my sister.
Matty loved my sister, he loved our sisterhood and he loved our family.
He worked hard to gain our acceptance, not easily won in our tight brood.
But the love and understanding he showed for my sister was irresistible.
It was clear that they were a true source of happiness for each other.
And almost three years ago,
I had the honor of officially welcoming Matty into our family as my sister's husband.
Wherever he is, I hope he know he will always be a Gray.

During their years together Molly and Matty passed more hours at each others side
than most couples in twice that time. The pleasure and inspiration they derived from each others company manifests itself in everything that they built;
from the buildings that pepper this land and the creations and creatures that inhabit them,to the network of friends that they wove across all manner of borders.

Matty sheltered more demons than most of us can imagine- perhaps the strongest among us bear the greatest burdens, so that the rest of us can remain innocent.
He fought valiantly to contain them- warding them off by finding joy in the most unlikely places.
And now i hope that we can all take comfort in the knowledge that he is free from them.
At peace to explore the cosmos untethered.

I never pretended to understand Matty- i know i am far to simple for that. When i try to encapsulate him i envision the night sky- i would emerge from our conversations with pinpricks of incredible insight, like constellations standing out on a clear night.
And in-between them vast areas of unknown and uncertainties, full of mystery and wonder.
During this time of grief i keep coming back to the same quote:
"remember this always:
the living of your own life
writes the book of your most sacred truth
and offers evidence of it."
Matty strove to, and succeeded in, writing an incredible book of sacred truths. One that will be reading and attempting to live up to for the rest of my life.

I ask you now to pass a moment of silence in honor of Matty.

from asher:
Things I like about you:
-your cunning ability to make people really uncomfortable and in the same sentence deeply in love with you.
-your knack for bringing together some of the most amazing people I've ever met, and including and introducing me into that group.
-your dangerously unacceptable humor.
-your extreme kindness in letting me live on your couch with your wife and 4 dogs in a pretty small bus when i had no place to go (for quite a long time) and then in your yard for even longer.
-the way you made everyone feel important.
-your deep love of rusty metal, your wife, and all of us goofballs.
-how hard you tried at everything you did.
-and overall just you.
I learned more from you that i ever imagined i could learn from anyone.
I will always treasure our time together and you are forever in my heart.
Thank you Dodger.

From Niklas: (italics are from matty's notebooks)
a big man, with bright direct
eyes and a strong-jawed
easy smile. a long
winding road of a conversation
another reminder that the
only essence that pandora managed
to keep track of was
hope. there is still hope.
let the pilgrimage take
many turns, and may men such
as that appear, as angels
do, around each bend, with
folded wings and strong
handshakes and voices like the
season needed. many things
mysterious, many things involved.
a farm house in a
stand of trees. a pick up
at the edge of a field.
we are still eating our worlds.
our worlds are eating
us all.

The infinite sadness is real but your war is over. i love you. always.

Read by Ginger: (italics are matty's words)

Break (things).
Build (things) again.
This is how god loves us.

Looking for a pleasant face, an honest hand, a garden and a cork screw and a worn out horse. Looking for a friend or two.
Looking for a breath of faith or mercy.
Looking for a spark, a cooked meal, a warm bed.
the murder and the ghost.

No sink in the worn out bathroom.
older fellow speaking of reefer and his various family relations.
all of this a hangover. all of this a relief.
the days pass and collect, the days wash away.

I look away. the restlessness keeps up safe. the light is too much, we cannot approach, nor act accordingly.
the restlessness keeps us eating and sleeping and fucking. it justifies our participation. it's a hustle. the best hustle.

bed down your lovers. bury your dead. the world spins, dizzy and joyous and lost and all the little running things move with it, one countless mess of involvement, one perpetual urge, one blink of god's blind eye, one procreant disaster after another.

everything takes shape. the whole and the scattered multitudes, the ongoing glory.
the fear and the atrocity.
the silent birth.
everything a birth.
all births raw and loud and new.

this is how god loves us.
the murder and the ghost.

this morning's sign that the apocolypse is not upon us...

2010-05-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

me, matty, asher, niklas, and pierce's clothes drying on the line.
false wild indigo

kittens

this is part of the alter. it is matty's artist statement from his show with quiet chrix, which i think was this week one year ago.

ow

2010-05-03T21:27:00.000-07:00

my idea of what "having a bad day is" changed so much today. it sure is fucking beautiful in these hills though. tomorrow i will make myself go into the garden. asher is going to be my trusty companion. bless his heart and all of our lovely tribe. find your tribe, believe in it, and never look back.

the altar/alter

2010-05-02T18:12:00.000-07:00

quiet chrix burned matty's tag (which is in the mens rooms of gas stations all across this great nation) into this lovely piece of locust. the dodger lives.

the metal vent on the top spins in the wind and makes a lovely a comforting sound. very impressive. it has been so windy. asher welded an armillary (def: an old astronomical model with solid rings, all circles of a single sphere, used to display relationships among the principal celestial circles). the whole thing was made from crap we had in the yard. the platform is the same one that we got married on last summer under our wonderful walnut.

it's a nice place to sit.
after the remembrance the wizardly chadness tattooed some of the family members.

i didn't get pics of all. that's all for today. send stuff if you desire and i will continue to fill up the altar.

this day is one day

2010-05-01T07:11:00.000-07:00

today is the day. the flowers are ready, the tent is up, the poor caterers who have no clue exactly how far they are driving into the middle of nowhere to get here should be here to drop off the food soon. we are all very anxious and going off to our separate corners to figure out what we want to say. the alter is bad-ass, perfect. matty would approve. many pictures of that to come. please send good thoughts and energy our way today as we are really going to need it. today is already proving to be a really hard one. all the cards and comments and phone calls mean so much- i had no clue how much they would help. please feel free to send me stuff to put in the alter. i like that idea and i think matty would have too.

touch and feel the stars

2010-04-29T22:16:00.000-07:00

1:15 in the morning and lots of snoring dear ones. but i wish they were awake. because this is truly awful and painful. my house is so beautiful, small fire in the stove- just because it's cozy to have one. how many times can we go from laughing to crying? many, i guess. more family arrives tomorrow. everyone who arrives has to go through the emotions and that takes us all back to the beginning. each of us is holding up to the best of their ability, which means we are all watching out and loving on one another so tenderly. so much love, so much sadness- plenty of understanding. one week into the beginning of the rest of my life. my men won't let me say, "the beginning of my life solo" and as sweetly as they have secretly scheduled it out that i won't be here alone this life has gone back to being just mine now. and i have no idea what that means. i need to stop that line of thought now and just try and get through to morning. i have enough time to face what may come. one day at a time. my heart hurts. i lost my heart friend, yet i am so happy he is free. many conflicting emotions. but mostly love, thanks heavens.
mourners need to sleep intertwined. hope they don't mind me publishing this. but it is real.

remembrance

2010-04-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

we will be having a remembrance for matty at dogfight cove on saturday from 2-4 pm.
please carpool if possible and leave young children and dogs at home.
we are constructing an altar for him so bring something to add.
see you then.
also folks have been asking for our address:
387 willett drive
hot springs, nc 28743
please don't send me anything creepy, weird is okay.

sad news

2010-04-24T10:20:00.000-07:00

it is with great sadness that i must say the on thursday after a long struggle with bi polar matty took his own life and moved on. i may use this space to find some solace and peace but right now i really don't know what to do. i can say with assurance that i feel that he is happy now and off on a new adventure and that he and i loved each other so deeply and fiercely and wonderfully that although that man was not for beginners it was so worth it. any support would be greatly appreciated. our community from across the street to across the country has come out in full force and there is so much love here right now. i think we're gonna be all right. but this is going to suck for a long time.

oh my

2010-04-16T03:51:00.000-07:00

let's see, i have eight minutes until i have to leave for work. herb school is incredible, i have learned so much in the past two weeks and taken in so much information that i am pretty much speechless on the topic. it is very intensive, i like my teacher a lot- she is so knowledgeable and takes her role very seriously and takes what we are doing very seriously but she is also silly and goofy. i like my classmates, we are getting more comfortable we each other. i am going to have to really focus and make time to study every day or i will quickly be engulfed and overtaken. the preschool is as busy and fun as ever, i actually missed my kids being gone at herb school two days a week! we have been getting ready for our big dinner theater fundraiser- we are doing dr. seuss's "the sneetches"! it is so friggin' cute i can't even say. if you have never seen preschoolers put on a play i highly recommend you do. three minutes to go... we got all our fruit trees in, a strawberry patch, extended the berry area to add more rasberries and blackberries, the seedlings should go in the ground next week and we've got peas, carrots, beets, radishes, spinach, greens, broccoli, pak choi, scallions and onions all coming up in the garden. one minute to go and i will use it to smooch my hubby good bye and i'm off. more later? sometime.

sun, hops and the stink

2010-04-06T05:10:00.000-07:00

yesterday felt wonderfully vacation-y. it has been so drop dead, knock your socks off beautiful and yesterday there was this lovely breeze so we felt like we were on the coast somewhere. matty had the day off and we lounged on the porch for most of the day.
piercable and crasher showed up in the afternoon.

pierce made some delicious dough and sauce and served up a couple of pizzas.

asher is attempting to teach himself calculus by doing a chapter a day in his math book during his vacation from welding school. good luck with that.

asher and i planted the hops that were rescued and potted up after the field flooded last summer. they were all popping up and looked very healthy. we planted them down in the secret field. first planting on asher's land! there were two that were not labeled that will go in under the bottled tree. our neighbor randall came and plowed the field so hopefully soon we will get the onions in. while we were down in the secret field our lovely dogs somehow got into something so horrible having to do with the neighbors cows. oh, the stench is so bad! as A. and i were driving back up to the house after planting we both thought we had stepped in sh*t, it was ripe, so we stopped the truck and got out and looked at our feet. all clean. we started driving again and realized that benny was running in front of the truck and the stench coming off of him was wafting into the windows that horribly. they stayed out all night and i just gave them a hose and dawn detergent bath at seven-thirty a.m. and now i can't get the stench off my hands and i don't think it helped them much! i have my first day of herbalism school today and it looks like i am going to be the stinky one in the room. yuck. wish me luck!

gardening day

2010-04-03T10:05:00.000-07:00

you know you are a plant dork when you wake up at five o'clock, a full hour earlier than you usually have to, because you are worried that it is going to be really hot today and you want to make sure that you get in some gardening time before that happens. then you have to wait two hours until it is light enough to see.

i made a bed over by the toolshed porch.
before:
after:

here is the kitchen garden. one friend remarked last weekend that it was, "very tidy". and it is. i have about twelve raised beds, including that really long one in the back and i mulched in between them all so i won't have to weed-wack in the summer. i am happy with the mulch. asher likes to tell me repeatedly that it is going to raise the acidity of the soil. time will tell, my friend.

this is not okay.

but it is so very, very

cute.
it was cool and overcast this morning (it is just now heating up a bit) so i transplanted a mock orange that was getting drowned in a run-off spot, a hydrangea that was getting to big for it's britches and a red twig dogwood that i wanted in a showier place. i also attempted to root some cork screw willow and those pussy willow cuttings. such fun. i am finding my hori-hori indispensable. i used it constantly this morning. i even used it to cut out pieces of sod. bad ass.

what the?????????

2010-04-02T13:16:00.000-07:00

i am on spring break as of today!! i have been happily enjoying how slowly spring has been creeping into action as i have also been slowing waking up after a long winter. but it is freaking hot out. today it was in the upper 80's. bizarre. matty says, "this is how it starts", in his doomsday sort of way. yikes. i hope lots of gardening will be in my future this week but only in the early a.m. if it's gonna be like this. oh well, i need to go to the library and get some books i guess.

this is my sweet new gardening tool- a hori-hori or a japanese weeding tool. it is very sharp so i am trying to get comfortable with it. it has already helped me remove some burdock from one of my raised beds and i am a sucker for anything that comes with a holster.

i brought home some pussy willow branches from my secret spot where i get wood chips and am going to try and stick them in by the spring.

we hosted yorke's birthday bonanza last weekend and whoah, what a blast we all had. it was a grand old time. i have almost no pictures from it and the ones i do have are kind of weak but i'll post them anyway.

i hope to be posting more this week since i will have some free time. so... stay tuned.

well, it's on.

2010-03-22T19:24:00.000-07:00

i was laying in bed reading about to settle in when i decided that this was definitely the moment to start seeds. it is, after all, snowing out. and one of my opinions about gardening is that you can research the hell out of the best and correct time to do stuff but really the best time to do stuff is when you feel like it because then it actually gets done and is often much more enjoyable.
i started broccoli, kale, cabbage, and swiss chard tonight. i am not going to start zukes, cukes or squashes inside. i think they will be fine directly sown and i have a ton of flower seeds (which i will happily gush over if anyone is interested. oh, swoon) that i want to put under the lights and space is limited. i get all my tomatoes, specialty peppers and most of my herbs from working at the herb fest every year ( such a lovely time and an amazing event). so i think i will just be starting some peppers and some herbs aside from the flowers. i am going to do a fall crop of brussels sprouts and some other cabbages so no need to start those now.
some things i did different this year. i used a styrofoam container that was part of my result kombucha/seed tray trade, as opposed to cell packs. i used farfand brand germination mix instead of making my own like i did last year, following e. coleman's directives. i didn't have enough finished compost. although, it has been pointed out to me that i could have just bought compost but too late now. i only pressed the seeds lightly into the mixture, per e. coleman's advice that this will aid in germination due to the seeds exposure to light and oxygen. it feels great to get it all started and i get kind of nervous excitement waiting for them to pop their heads up. i am excited to meet them and it can be a little nerve racking wondering if you did it right and if stuff will thrive. they are such tiny little things. and i want them to get big so i can eat them.
well, that's enough. now i really must go to bed. mission accomplished. err, mission begun.

goodnight.

yes, i love it.

2010-03-13T14:27:00.000-08:00

crasher and i worked on the seed starting area today. two sawhorses with a couple of two by fours across the top to hang the lights from. A piece of plywood with casters on it underneath. then a piece of blue board on top of the plywood with rope lights strung on it with zip ties (of course) keeping in place. then a piece of sheetrock to distribute the heat from the lights and finally a piece of plastic to keep it all dry. modified version from last year but same idea with less stupid. we are getting more smarter at some of this stuff.

i gave a clorox bath to all the trays and stuck them in the shower to dry. (side note: i love my/having a bathtub. i use it all the time for all manner of weirdness. it is so handy).

here asher gives me his best... tiger pose?

gratuitous tub shot from last week.

knife

2010-03-10T14:38:00.000-08:00

i am trying to gather all the stuff i need for the herbalism school. the required books are:
Newcomb's Wildflower Guide, Newcomb
A Field Guide to the Trees and Shrubs of the Southern Appalachians, Swanson
Medical Herbalism, The Science and Practice of Herbal Medicine, Hoffman
The Merck Manual of Medical Information, 2nd Home Edition
Manual of the Vascular Flora of the Carolinas
Human Anatomy and Physiology, Seventh Edition
I also need to buy a Japanese garden knife and a Japanese cleaver- for chopping roots (or a butcher's knife).
Looking for suggestions on good places to get these two items or good brands. Thanks!

enter spring?

2010-03-09T03:15:00.000-08:00

good-bye inside. hello outside. sunday we welcomed spring in proper fashion by sitting outside all day, eating a bunch of food, drinking beer, burning some stuff in the yard and killing a rooster.

asher perched, as he is wont to do.

when i went to get the eggs and feed the chickens Winnie the rooster came after me. winnie the rooster is no longer with us. things felt very different in the coop by monday afternoon. my ladies were basking in the sun and grooming each other. they were down right cuddly. i have never seen them act this way before! and my little bantam laid the most darling white orb ever. her first. so, i think they are glad to see him go as well.

have a great day everyone!

household cleaning

2010-03-05T08:10:00.000-08:00

i just tested my new laundry soap on a dog blanket and i am calling it a winner. i made laundry detergent for the first time a few weeks ago and i am downright thrilled with the results. it was easy to make, took about thirty minutes, i got all the ingredients at the grocery store and it made enough to do about sixty loads, which worked out to about 1 cent (where the hell is the cent button on a cumputer?) per load. here is where i got the recipe. I added lavender essential oil to mine and it is just lovely. no more nasty chemicals, supporting awful companies, and stupid plastic bottles. sweet. that feels good. i am trying to rid the house of all storebought cleansers. so far i make all our household cleaners, and now laundry soap. i'd like to stop using shampoo- i've heard you can just use baking soda and then rinse with apple cider vinegar. that sounds delighful. shampoo is way too expensive and full of crap. i don't make our soap but i love to buy all different folks local soaps. we've gotta lot of soap makers in these parts. i leave that one up to them for now. annie and i made lip balm and salve so we are our way. would we ever go toilet paper-less. my dad is having a small heart attack right now. but, maybe? how gross can it be?

sleepovers forever, please.

2010-03-04T05:16:00.000-08:00

last weekend was old man hongisto's birthday. we convened at poppy's house. a jolly time was had by all. gotta love the partying hongistos. of course, a sleepover was called for.

oh, to whom do we owe the pleasure.
it's one, Yorkus Carpinus. The indomitable hornbeam.
who celebrates the first of march by cooking breakfast with his shirt off.
i have to say i kind of like it when yorke is unemployed.

these two.
the beginning of the seed starting area. just pulled the parts out of the attic last night.

seed starting

2010-03-02T11:19:00.000-08:00

Hi- I am wondering if anyone has started their seeds yet? what have you started and what method are you using???? my johnny's and my baker's creek orders both arrived today and as i got to leave work early due to another blizzard i think i may just try and assemble my seed starting area. yesterday i went to town and traded my chiropractor a kombucha squid for a bunch of seed trays that she had been hand-me-downed by her neighbor. i love a good trade. so, what's germinating at your house?

hey, who's that nerd?

2010-02-26T15:02:00.000-08:00

matty got glasses.

seed order day

2010-02-25T09:50:00.000-08:00

Does this look familiar?

Doing my seed order in this blizzard is making me a bit giddy. i just made matty look at some pictures of radishes that were making me swoon. The Baker's Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog has the most ridiculous plant porn in it. wow.
the urge to eat green stuff is setting in. i am ordering from Pinetree Garden Seeds (all flowers), Johnny's (mostly veggies, some flowers/herbs), and Baker's Creek (veggies, flowers, and herbs). We are (hopefully) getting about thirty highbush blueberries in March from the native plant nursery i used to work at. my old boss/teacher/guru said he "over-ordered" and would sell them to us for a few bucks a piece. i think he is just being sweet, but what a deal. crasher will put in some down on the lower land and i'll put in a few at the school and at friend's houses. the rest will go up here in the cove. I think they are two years old and will come bare rooted. we had a fruit tree discussion this morning (we are so serious around here) and have decided to get two pears, an Orca and a Bosc, a Compact Stella cherry, a fruiting rose called Jubilee (for teas, jam and medicine), and a Nichols Plum. I think i am also going to get a winter honeysuckle because who doesn't want flowers and fragrance in february? also on warm days the bees could have a treat, also it propagates really easily and is not invasive like the vining varieties. Convincing attributes, no? These we will get from One Green World. They will also come bare rooted. We will be getting some more rasberries from the extension office when they do their spring sale.
I am also wanting to get some strawberries but i am not sure what to get. anyone have any suggestions??
Also, while I am in linking mode, the herbalism school is The Chestnut School of Herbal Medicine.

kinda touchy feely. think gratitude.

2010-02-22T14:50:00.000-08:00

this is a post about gratitude.
my husband is out of town at a conference, for work. yup, that's what i said. anyone who knows him might do a double take on that one. it makes me chuckle a bit. he even got glasses a few weeks ago. i gotta post of pic of him in them because he looks darn hunky.
i've been fretting about a decision the past few weeks and i finally made up my mind today and am moving forward. i am going to be going to herbalism school, beginning in April! i am excited and nervous and a little scared to be making the commitment to do this. my interest in plants has lead me down a fantastic path and i think this is going to be a lovely next step. my wonderful work is going to be flexible enough to let me go down to three days a week. the school is tuesday and wednesday, all day.
it's been a big year+ for us. we moved into a house (plumbing is pretty cool), matty sobered up (always a work in progress. "recovery" is incredibly interesting and complex), he quit smoking and we both started working forty hours a week- working for the weekend style. me as a preschool teacher (a totally new concept for me) and he as a peer support specialist. Both are very community based and draining occupations. but we love what we are doing and are happy to be employed. but what a time we have had, i mean through all our years together together, which is pushing a decade at this point, but particularly in these past few years.
holy growth and change, batman. i want to thank our friends and family so much and all the time for all their love and i appreciate being out in the middle of nowhere on this wonderful piece of property so much as well as my amazing mate. he blows my mind folks. and now i gotta go get that damn fire to catch. thanks all and cheers, 2010 is gonna be a good one i do believe.

wintah

2010-02-16T07:29:00.000-08:00

i'm snowed in again.
being snowed in is apparently good for getting done those things that always jump from one to-do list to the next. Like fixing the chirping smoke detector in the back room, or dusting the ceiling fans. my house is very clean right now. my chicken coop is not. they are starting to stink even though it is frozen winterland out there. that does not seem like a good sign. i just went out and worked on it a bit, gave them a bag of leaves from my stash and cleaned out what wasn't frozen. like so many things lately, it is just going to have to wait. no way around it. for awhile there i was just going ahead and driving in the bad weather because i figured i'm from maine, i should be able to drive in the snow. then there was the black ice, almost ended up down a ravine incident of a few weeks ago and matty went off the road yesterday and it put the fear in me a little bit. i just don't feel like risking it. in maine when you go off the road you are in a ditch at worst. we have some serious cliffs with no guard rails- like maybe no one would even know you were trapped down there kind of crap. scary shudder. no thanks. i will just stay home and dust the ceiling fans.
and my seed order i need to get that done.
also when it is cold our phone doesn't work, which means we haven't has a phone for a lot of the winter. that's great, i hate talking on the phone but when you don't have one available you realize how much you use it to get stuff done. oh well. i know i am not the only one in this boat. maybe we could all get together and hang out. oh, wait. never mind. see you in the spring.

party. then snow.

2010-02-10T14:51:00.000-08:00

we are snowed in. thank god for netflix and the internet because i am starting to lose it. i did try to make it to work today but i got as far as miss ahn's, bought a candy bar and then came home. the roads are junk. but i did just remember that there was some rum leftover from the party.
and i did get to put on my party dress on saturday and watch a bunch of handsome men play tunes. that was nice.
we had a valentines making station which resulted in some really funny, weird, and off-color finds while cleaning up the next morning.

see? handsome.

matty made a banner.

more handsome.

and last but not least, also handsome.

blender drinks please.

2010-02-05T17:32:00.000-08:00

the other day we were talking about how it awesome it would be if we had a band play in the house. so then we decided to throw a party and make that happen. the middle of nowhere party, which happens in august, is always a good time to get the yard looking really good and crap put away. so a houseparty seemed like a great time to tic off a few indoor to-do's. like painting the trim. it's a work in progress and quite a change but i like it so far.

there's teal and red to go. opinions have been a mixed bag of love and hate. trying to get the living room windows done by tomorrow night when we host a retarded coyote rock n roll show/ pre-valentines day love-in. this will include cranking up the wood stove and enjoying blender drinks. should be a kick ass time.

ho hum

2010-01-26T05:02:00.000-08:00

i started sweet potatoes this weekend. a little experiment. bonus of just getting to mess about with growing something.

we ended up getting about two gallons of honey. and that was only from about about five frames. it was a very sticky and messy project. next time i think i would try and rent an extractor. it is lovely and awesome.
i think winter is starting to get to me. we had a few warm days that were such a treat but then more snow and cold last night. i know it is not time for spring yet but i am really looking forward to it!

it's the little things.

2010-01-20T17:14:00.000-08:00

i really like taking pictures of bread.
or maybe just food in general. we had wontons for dinner and they were really yum.

my chickens are laying again! i am so pleased. just hard boiled up a bunch for lunch tomorrow.

a buzzworthy mlk day...ha.

2010-01-18T15:19:00.000-08:00

i had the day off today and travi and crasher had spent the night. so after waving my hankie to my dear husband we hit the ground running. it was up toward fifty degrees today and just drop dead beautiful out. trav and i baked bread and stuffs in the early a.m. and made some chicken stock. then when the sun hit the cove we were out of there.
we went down to work on the greenhouse in what i hope is it's final home. i know asher is sick of driving posts. it would be nice to have it ready and running for spring seedlings but i am not holding myself to that because there is a lot going on.

alright. it looks like something.
abigail was very regally perched on the truck for most of the day.
we walked down to the lower land, asher's joint, to retrieve some parts and take in the air. asher used the other half of the greenhouse to make a quonset hut to store materials for his garage/earthship/of doom. it held up fine in all the weather.
here asher was trying to explain to me that he was like that guy. i really did not find that descriptive enough to understand what he was talking about. turns out he meant wilson from the tv show home improvement. and then he assured me that he was going to be that guy for the rest of my life. i can't wait.
so, i've been worried about the bees because of the cold. usually you can knock on the side of the hive and say 'how do' and they wind up a little buzz and respond, 'word'. they haven't been responding to my how-do's. i couldn't stand not to know so i popped the top off today. and, sadly, they had all died. that was the kick ass hive that had made it through the drought. and we should have put straw around them. but now we know.
but... we did get to harvest some honey. our first ever after two years invested. it was very exciting. and sticky.

capped honey. each frame was really heavy.

we are currently straining it off, which is a slow trial and error process.
it feels like gold to us.

trying to get this to work

2010-01-16T07:57:00.001-08:00

click on this cause it is a slide show.

Life at Dogfight Cove

i want to embed this on the sidebar but it is not letting me. and the other one i just put up is so small. anyone know anything about such things?

world

2010-01-15T15:14:00.000-08:00

i entered the world today. whoah world, you crazy. hadn't been there in awhile and with such a long list of errands. am i the only one who goes to three different grocery stores to find the stuff they desire? i don't think so.
those sweet potatoes are going to made into starts for this year's crop. first try at this. last year i bought them from johnny's but i think i can do them myself. mangos on sale=mango ginger sorbet. lemongrass and chili to try and make a special thai soup. yum.

my kitchen friend.

paper whites i am real excited to meet you.

and i don't know what you are but i enjoy you.

cozy evenings

2010-01-15T05:56:00.000-08:00

firewood and lip balm

2010-01-11T15:29:00.000-08:00

we've been so dang busy lately. this weekend was so exception. lots of visits/ing. we did however do firewood. yes, please and thank-you. i love firewood. i love making any male that comes over do firewood. sexist? maybe, but i don't care. i help and i make lunch.

you know you have good friends when...
they come over. they are cold. they say they lost their jacket. you tell them they have to do firewood and to get a coat out of the the mud room closet, chop, chop. they open the closet and say, "oh hey, my jacket."

the always lovely and currently with-child annie came over and we made lip balm. it was our first lip balm/salve attempt (well, second. the first time we met up to do it we didn't have all the ingredients). and it came out great and was really fun. we have plans to make some more special blends. we both made a bunch of different herb infusions this summer to use. nice way to spend time with a girlfriend.

feels like we are in a deep freeze

2010-01-06T14:37:00.001-08:00

my hubby is sick of hearing me say that. but that it is what it feels like to me. so pooh on him. it is really, really cold here. hubby and i are both quite pleased to be back at work (truly, we both really like our jobs) and getting back into our routine after the crazy month of december- which was lots and lots of quality time with friends and family. it was all really fun and low stress.
today it got up to 35 degrees so i worked in the garden. i had to get outside! i am laying out the shape of a large new perennial/herb bed by laying down cardboard and then river rock. and i am very excited about it. it is going to be the bird bath garden. over christmas in maine i picked out all the perennial and herb seeds i am going to order this year. and i am not going to pick out any more (ya hear that self) or else i will lose my mind and break the bank.

flowers, yum.

maine pics

2009-12-30T04:50:00.000-08:00

snowy solstice

2009-12-22T06:02:00.000-08:00

we got the truck really quite stuck. there's a creek running just behind that back left wheel. about a 2-3 foot drop.

the subaru was just stuck in the snow. our lovely neighbor darryl cruised up in his tractor and helped us out.
the chickens are under there somewhere.

hi, darryl.

it is very pretty out there.

our house is nice and toasty.

the toolshed looks sweet but i am glad we are not living in there anymore.

and what can i say about the bus. i am really glad we don't live in there anymore. those were some tough winters.

we took a walk to see miss ahn and get. out. of. the. house. cripes.
checked the mail. i got a few seed catalogs, yum.

the bees are hanging ten. i want to get some straw bales to stack around them. seems like it is going to be a cold and snowy winter.

solstice bouquet.
happy solstice to all.

oh, how it flies.

2009-12-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

december has been very busy! i wrapped up my semester and now i have my nc early child education certificate. yay! i hated doing schoolwork and now i am done. yes.
pre-school world is going awesome. i am really loving my job and am having tons of silly fun with the kiddos. dodge is loving his job as well and is also very busy.
so therefore the blog has been a bit quiet. but, hopefully, after all the holiday chatter i can get back into a groove with posting because i miss and enjoy doing it. i leave for maine on wednesday and then get back the next week and then my lovely in-laws come for christmas #2.
the kitten in the paper factory. (i.e. dodge's papyrus patch).

this is how our world looked this morning. we got about an foot and a half of snow and up until about thirty minutes ago had been out of power since friday evening. lots. and lots. of snow. that much snow in these parts really f*%$s some sh*t up. the roads are a mess. we got both vehicles stuck. real stuck. the chicken fortress collapsed. we are stuck. but... now we have power. not having power wasn't that big of a deal because we use wood heat, have a gas cooking stove and could get water out of the rain water cistern to flush and such. the dogs got into a stupid fight this morning and benny is pretty banged up but he walked a little earlier so i think he's gonna be alright.

lucky for us the partying hongistos were all stranded at poppy's so we got to have no power with them which was hilarious and we made lots of christmas presents and i organized, a lot. our junk drawer is now the most organized junk drawer i have ever seen. talk to you soon.

new links

2009-12-03T14:59:00.000-08:00

i updated my "blogs i like to read list" and added a few more really interesting ones so check out what these folks are up to if you are just surfing around.

lovely sunday

2009-11-29T11:13:00.000-08:00

the chickens are stuffed after all the scraps from the holiday. they got to eat the rest of the macaroni pumpkin. i moved those rocks out of the lower field the other day. to the left of the chickens i want to put in a strawberry bed spiral with a dwarf cherry tree in the center and wooly thyme in the path. it's gonna be awesome ( i may have mentioned it before, now that i think of it). so, i am gathering rocks to start that project.

i worked on my kitchen garden today and built a bunch more beds.

this is the view from up top. doesn't look like much but gives a sense of location.

dodge sanded away in the toolshed, getting ready to make some new frames. i have dubbed his upstairs workshop area his "present making factory" because that is what he spends most of his time doing.

we covered the bar with brown paper for thanksgiving and put out crayons and such. folks doodled away all weekend and this is what came of it:

we did it.

2009-11-28T04:34:00.000-08:00

thanksgiving recap:
lots and lots of jenga (or tumbling towers or ta ka radi- whatever you want to call it). blocks for grown-ups. this went on for days.

and led to tiny creatures storming the castle in the night.

the next day dawned bright and clear and we decided to kill the rooster. however, as we carried him around, and even let him in the house, with the water boiling and the knife ready he was given a reprieve.
...so we went after matty's pumpkin instead.

and stuffed it full of macaroni and cheese. it was a kind death.

lots of napping.

tons of wood chopping.

particularly by this old man.

wendy made a pumpkin mousse parfait. yum.
the fridge is now empty. we have eaten everything in the house.

we borrowed a few table and chairs and all got to eat together. awesome, delicious food.
then we all napped together, for about three hours.
in piles everywhere. tucked in amongst the twelve dogs that were here (and all got along fantastically. way to go puppies!)
then we all woke up in time to continue having fun as the second wave of friends arrived (the service industry folks didn't get off until late)... and into the next day which i don't have any pictures of. but it was fun.
oh, and tunes, lots of tunes.

and now we still get to have the weekend! thanksgiving=most favorite holiday ever.

waiting for the people

2009-11-25T13:18:00.000-08:00

apparently this is the face i make when i am trying to do ten things at once.
like finding an eye hook for the chicken coop door, planting the last of my bulbs, vacuuming, potting up a house plant, drinking wine, playing with the dogs, sweeping out the toolshed, making bed areas, taking out the compost and soaking in the sun (there, that was ten)- all at the same time.

rushing about, waiting for friends to get here and matty to get out of work.
right now it is just me!
but not for long...

bears and yahtzee

2009-11-22T06:28:00.000-08:00

one of our neighbors stopped by last night and dropped off a black plastic garbage bag.
benny know its something good

full of bear meat. a giant hunk of bear meat. and some loose instructions on how to cook it that include adding four cups of ketchup. if you've ever had bear meat you know it often doesn't taste very good. i personally do not know how to cook bear meat so i stuck it in the chest freezer for the time being.

instead we ate egg rolls and played Yahtzee. it was very fun.

these guys actually look this blurry in real life.

crasher loves to yell Yahtzee. we used the continent of africa as our game board.

fun with friends. we are expecting about twenty for thanksgiving weekend, holy shenanigans.

day off, i love you.

2009-11-20T08:53:00.000-08:00

i love having every other friday off. it is a treat. and it is so beautiful today. the doors and windows are wide open. this morning i made sauerkraut, which is currently fermenting away in my freshly scrubbed kitchen.

this daikon radish was too cute. i hope to grow some of these next year- they are handy in a lot of things.
i think you can grow them here.

looking good. this past year i have certainly caught the bug of filling up jars with stuffs. though i am glad the canning season is ova.

another hair cut

2009-11-12T14:54:00.000-08:00

it was me! tee-hee.

this weekend is supposed to be really nice and i hope to get my bulbs planted and work some on my kitchen garden because very soon it is going to be inside time and i want to feel somewhat prepped and even a little ahead for next spring garden time. then i will/can let it go for winter and just focus on other things. but there is a bit more i want to get done until that point...
winter is coming. i can smell it out there. and if all this rain turns to snow, like it sure seems like it might, we are in for it.

mosaic

2009-11-11T04:41:00.000-08:00

i worked on the stove in the toolshed this weekend. first i wire brushed and refinished the stove, then i started the mosaic.

now i need to grout it. it was a fun project, i want to go all the way up the wall behind it.

a long-hair no more

2009-11-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

yesterday morning over coffee Niklas was somehow convinced to let us give him a haircut. the man needs to find a job and maybe shorter hair will help.
matty went first, in the wild chopping edward scissor hands method.

i took over with the, "well, i used to cut my own hair all the time" method.

asher came in clean-up with the, "look guys, my mom cuts my hair. let me do this".

lets just say, we are currently trying to track down the buzzers.
it's downright hot this weekend. we went and got wood with yorke yesterday at our buddies campground.
our stockpile is growing.

we have come so far.

2009-11-04T01:58:00.000-08:00

these pictures are from this time of year four years ago. living in the bus. it sure looks cozy, but it was so cold in that bus. buses are not real well insulated.
i am thankful for our house! i still appreciate having running water on a daily basis. running water, and don't forget hot water, are so cool.

yesterday niklas cleaned both of the chimneys (toolshed and house) and put the ridge cap on the chicken coop. yeah! checking a few things off our, "get this crap done before winter, fools" list. i cleaned out the gutters (from bus life to having gutters- feels weird sometimes) and handed things and provided beer. he also caulked the collar around the toolshed chimney so it will actually keep rain from dribbling down onto the stove and making it look ancient and rusty when it is only a few years old. one of my next projects is to clean that stove up and mosaic the hearth. i am excited about that. i have four or five five-gallon buckets of tile scraps that i saved from when the house was being built.

everybody's working for the weekend

2009-11-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

raw and dreary sunday + big fire in the woodstove means much futzing about the house with my spouse- something i love to do. i wrote in my garden journal and assessed the year and made remarks of what to try/change for next year. that was fun. i've been working in my beds and expect to have a lot of stuff prepped so i can just go ahead and plant next spring. also have ideas for a seed starting lean-to off of the back of the toolshed. Right now i need to start planting bulbs.

bread ready to go in the oven.

hubby clacks away in his nook.

i like to visit and say hello.

early a.m.

2009-10-27T02:54:00.000-07:00

we moved our bed upstairs last night so we can start shutting off part of the house for winter. i love sleeping up under the eaves. it is so cozy. we were going to wait until we painted the trim to move stuff but since the weather has been so lovely when i get home from work i just want to be outside. we have all winter to paint indoors. you can see what the trim will look like in the above picture, that was my test area. it's called flower pot and it is the same color that is in the mud room. matty sanded down and re-finished the upstairs floor last month and it looks amazing. he loves to sand, that one does. we went to chattanooga for the weekend- a very couples get-away weekend type thing, something we have never done before. we hadn't been away together since we got married and we never had a honeymoon- so voila. we actually planned our trip, slept in a hotel room and not the back of the mini van and it was really fun. we drove down through Cherokee and the nantahayla (sp?) national forest- it was so beautiful- and of course hit up some yard sales. then we went to the aquarium and the art museum and cruised back sunday evening. and since i re-set the clock wrong when we moved stuff last night i am now up an hour earlier than i need to be and writing this rambly post. it is raining which is not my favorite type of weather when dealing with the preschoolers- stuck inside all day!!!!!!!! have a good day everyone.

our anniversary, legally speaking

2009-10-20T18:12:00.000-07:00

so many anniversaries, so little time.

look out wood. i be coming for you.

we're doing alright these days.

chilly sunday morning

2009-10-18T06:32:00.000-07:00

well i did get much of my to-do list done on friday in the cold drizzly rain. it was very satisfying. i went through three changes of clothes cause it was quite nasty. i was left feeling prepared for the possibility of frost and snow. i harvested lots and lots of herbs. there are herbs everywhere in my kitchen. i am putting that borrowed dehydrator to good use (thanks, SJ!).

drying out kindling by the stove. the stove has been cruising for the past few days and our house is so lovely and cozy when it is. and this morning there where still coals when i got up so i just threw a few logs on and voila.

lots of apples everywhere. i must delivery these darling felted booties to my pal who just had a babe (i didn't make them, would like to know how though). i went to a ladies night last night which was partially hosted to celebrate the pregnancy of some of our pals. guess who....
it's Yorke and Annie!!!! they are going to have a babe sometime in May. we are all very excited.

i picked a bunch of mexican sage, an awesome ornamental annual that i highly recommend, lest it get nuked in the frost so there are bunches and bunches of it all over the house.

lots of doggie snoozes now that it's chillier.

it's chilly out there but not that chilly. I can see snow on the muntain tops but it sure doesn't look like we got hit very hard. this coming week the sun is supposed to come out. that sounds wonderful, haven't seen it in awhile.

Focused Puttering...

2009-10-15T19:20:00.000-07:00

Focused puttering is what's going on in these parts lately. I have a lot of projects in motion and i am really into all of them. I need to prioritize what needs to be done first and what can wait. mostly i am trying to get all the crap piles cleaned up for winter, winterizing stuff and lots of hoofing around the yard shuffling things back into their homes. we have been starting in on firewood. everything we have split is on the porch or piled next to the stove in the house. our maul broke and we need to get a new one before splitting can continue. I hope to buck a bunch of logs tomorrow as prep for that. i am glad we have at least some wood ready to go since they are calling for possible snow flurries this saturday.
all the wood is soaked because it has still been raining everyday.
two days stuck inside with ten three years old is making me say TGIF. love those little heathens.
i brought in the house plants today.
i've been making apple chips in a borrowed dehydrator. delicious.
I have a bunch of projects slated for tomorrow, since i have the day off.
so i hope to post about how they go since it's always feels good to cross stuff off the ol' to-do list. I wonder if it's supposed to rain again.

feeling hopeful

2009-10-07T16:16:00.000-07:00

my bulbs arrived today! planting bulbs in the fall makes me feel hopeful. i can't wait to see them all come up. i got some weird, cool ones, as well as some classics. i went through the catalouges and cut out the pictures and taped them to the bags so i could envision what i wanted where.
i've been getting in a lot more gardening now that it is cooler and my work schedule has evened out somewhat.
oh october, never end. i love you so.

i harvested some sweet potatoes. i thought we weren't going to get very many because of all the wet but this is from just two plants and they look pretty good. i don't know much about curing them before storage- anyone? and one roaster pumpkin. i want to go to the farmer's market and get some pumpkins with which to make pumpkin butter. that sounds really yummy to me.

went to a 70% off plant sale the other day. yes, that's what i am talking about.

which meant i needed to make space/clean up the bed i made from the old chicken area last spring. it was weeds, volunteer squashes, zinnias and other annuals.
before:

after: very satisfying.

i need to take pictures of other projects i've been working on. i'm adjusted to my new schedule and i think i am back on the blog, folks. how is everyone?

do not breakdance in the kitchen

2009-09-26T17:23:00.000-07:00

it is still raining. today it has been Really Raining. I just had to dig a trench around the chicken coop- which was actually pretty fun. waterworks. and it turns out that i have a rooster. i have heard a chicken crowing all week but in the dark a.m. and thought that hens sometimes did that. but then today i really looked at them and realized that my furry footed one (a brahman or something?) is a rooster. he's big and suddenly i was freaked out by him. so i don't know what happens now, we'll see i guess.
so, since it is raining and even a little chilly we have been inside much more than usual. feels like we are making the move toward indoor hanging out as the season begins its shift. we've been on that porch for months now. oops, asher just hurt himself break dancing. i guess that is part of hanging out indoors.
matty had his thirtieth birthday this week, as did my sister, the Captain. congrats to both.
our friend isobabe made him this fantastic clock. he has been stuck on the idea of wanting a 24-hour clock and made a sketch a while back trying to figure out how it would work. she took the idea and ran with it. it is so cool. i couldn't get a great picture but use your imagination. it is gorgeous. you can check out her other clocks here. see it only has one hand. the times are morning, late morning, noon, afternoon, evening, midnight, blue time, or something like that. click on it to see an enlarged view.
rainy days are good for eating leftover coconut cream birthday pie made by our lovely friend joelyn for the dodger.

and eating buckwheat blueberry pancakes. well, rainy days are just good for eating in general.

matty picked his pumpkin today. the one and only from his pumpkin patch, which is also right beneath the spot he pees of the porch. this pumpkin was fed a lot of urine. a lot. i'm so proud.
now the guys are making steak fajitas so we can continue eating and watching movies.

and reading comic books. and such.

we morph yet again

2009-09-21T16:45:00.000-07:00

these aren't the best pictures, but i wanted to post something so as not to totally neglect my blog. sorry, blog. i been busy. i'll be back at some point.
it's raining and raining here. lots of rain. poppy moved into his new joint so matty and i realized- holy shit the toolshed might now actually be a toolshed! novel idea. so matty made it a sign. and we started moving shit around. this may be the nature of compounds but we have moved objects from place to place and buildings have morphed functions many times over the years here (coming up on four this new years).
this red hutch which was in the bus, then in the toolshed will now go in our bathroom.

i love chimes. bring on the chimes and bells i say. the windy winter approaches.

we now have about twelve feet of work bench/table space.

we left a nice living area, nap spot and the loft is still asher's sleeping area.

kitchen still in working order. this is where we keep the coffee pot, which i think is kind of funny. lots of walking back and forth to the house- it's a nice walk though. good for the gluts on the way back. and the toolshed is a great spot to have coffee.

i am rebuilding the beds in my kitchen garden and adding a bunch a perennial space. it is going to be awesome.

life's going good

2009-09-07T15:58:00.001-07:00

i like my job. it's going well and i like my new schedule. matty also likes his job and classes. so we are both feeling quite positive.crasher, too, seems to be really enjoying his new deal. we had a compound/family meeting the other day where we all sat around and talked about where we were at with our transitions and what our needs/goals are going into the fall. discussing what tone we want to take on with all these changes and figuring out what projects might get done when and who will spearhead which project. sounds kind of hippy dippy but hey, communicating is cool and helpful and helps ensure that you continue to like your friends and lovers.

we got into the bees today to see what they were up to. we were hoping to harvest some honey for the first time ever but they didn't have enough to share. i hope they have enough to get thru the winter. having to supplement them is a pain and not really what we are shooting for.
the fall aster bloom will be another big nectar flow so that will give them another boost. i guess the word in the bee community around here is that since it has been so crazy wet the bees haven't been able to get out as much and have been having to eat their stores. and maybe the rain washes away some of the pollen. it's really fascinating. we hope to do nucs next year because we have had pretty bad luck with package bees- it's very hard/harsh on the bees i think.

dodge and wenders are our A-team with the bees.

poppy's been staying in the toolshed, waiting for his rental house to be available. i don't think i've mentioned that yorke and annie are moving across the county to a really cool farmstead-y place and poppy is going to move into their house. so, bittersweet because we won't get to see those guys as much but we will get to bug poppy whenever we want!~

butternuts

2009-08-30T13:24:00.000-07:00

fall is so close i can taste it.

morning thoughts

2009-08-28T05:01:00.000-07:00

rainy morning. i had my last day of training yesterday and fell asleep on the couch at six o'clock. it is hard to prep for the school year when i don't really know what to expect/what i am planning for. luckily my co-teacher is an awesome woman and neighbor who was at the school for most of last year. i am sort of leaning on her and following her lead. i think we are going to be just fine.
matty and i are beginning to adjust to our new schedule and i wish the weather would cool off a little so i could get some stuff done in the yard. supposed to be starting some fall seeds today- quite late but if we can get the greenhouse up and running they should be okay. at this point it is more for fun and if it yields good results great and if not better luck next year. i am already thinking on how i want to do my garden next year.
we got a lead on some firewood- a down locust and oak that is in a friend's uncles yard. hopefully we can go and check that out this weekend. i would bet we will burn about three to four cords this winter. or I'd like to have at least that much around.

we continued to live up to our name yesterday. matty called me at work from the hot springs medical center. the dogs had gotten into a fight over a toy they had snatched out of the neighbors yard and when m. tried to break it up benny chomped up his arm pretty bad. there was a huge chunk missing on the inside of his left arm but somehow the bite had missed the nerve and the vein- which were just kind of hanging out. the doc stuffed it all back in and stitched him up. m. handles that stuff so well. it doesn't even phase him all that much, he said he even went in the house and made a mix cd for the drive and then tried to load the mower in the back of the truck to take to get fixed before heading to the clinic. nicholas finally saw a real doctor since the motorbike accident three+ weeks ago and they said that he split his kneecap in half and then since he's been walking around on it this whole time it has been twisting and crunching stuff so they have to re-break it and go in there and check everything out. kind of tough to find someone to operate on you when you have no insurance. so he is struggling to figure all that out. the doc he saw at the hot springs clinic when it originally happened didn't even x-ray it, just said, "well, if you can move it like that, it must not be broken." highly scientific diagnosis. time to re-stock the first aid kit.

roasted red pepper sauce

2009-08-23T12:21:00.000-07:00

making plum preserves

2009-08-23T09:59:00.001-07:00

it's nice when your friends keep you company when you are still in the kitchen processing food.

my pantry and other stuff

2009-08-16T05:53:00.000-07:00

the middle of nowhere party marks the winding down of summer for us. just like wenders birthday ramps up the beginning of summer. in the next few weeks things are going to change dramatically for us. matty and crasher start school next week and matty and i start our teacher training in the 24th. we will be out in the world much more than we have been in years. we were pretty against being out into the world for awhile. for the last few years we have mainly focused on building up the infrastructure of the land and spent as much time as possible on the property. it looks pretty damn good around here, if i do say so myself. infrastructure is a lot of freakin' work. starting with a piece of basically raw land (there was an old septic here and the original driveway) it takes a minute to get your shit together. but i feel like we have a good handle on where things are at with the land and now we can tweak and play around with the systems we've created.
and maybe it will be nice to be back out in the world for a minute. as matty said yesterday, "we can always retreat again." yes, dear friend, we certainly can.
it is amazing how many people we know are going back to school. four or five of our friends i can think of just off the top of my head and many folks that came to the party (lots of friends of friends). everyone just hopes that things in the economy will be looking up in a few years. there are no jobs around here! it's been a rough summer for many and now is when people are usually banking funds with which to get through the winter.

so let's talk about food. that is originally what i was going to post about. because i am excited! we were gifted/hand-me-downed a chest freezer as a wedding gift! i've already got it about a quarter full. i put up (12) 1/2 pints of pesto yesterday- yum. and blanched and froze a bunch of green beans. but what i'd like to show off is my pantry. i like to just stand and look at it. it is lovely to me.

dill pickles and pickled beets.
i put up thirty pounds of tomatoes leftover from the wedding the other day.

herbs drying

my plant infusions and tinctures. i'll be straining these off soon. annie and i hope to make lip balms and salves this fall. i am also taking a workshop/class this fall about harvesting and making plant medicines from different roots that grow in these here hills.

my beautiful bulk. i could just hug it. what a damn good investment it has been.

our first winter squashes of the year on top of a basket of onions from the garden. we had our first acorn squash last night roasted and then stuffed into a zucchini and topped with the first brussel sprouts of the year and caramelized pecans. it was really good.
some of matty's kombucha brewing.
jams and jellies. the most recent is a peppermint-jalepeno. yum.

today i've been working on the forty-five pounds of peaches i got yesterday at the farmer's market. we had peach ice-cream last night that was heaven. holy crap it was good. today i'm also going to be roasting red peppers to freeze in some form or another and starting in on making some salsa.
the long view.

here ya go.

2009-08-12T06:01:00.000-07:00

blogger is not wanting to let me load pictures so hopefully this works.
before anyone arrives.

later that same day. we had quite the tent city going on down in the field- tents, campers, and rv's.

briar rabbit dressed as cupid to marry us.
waiting for poppy and i to walk down. (matty has henna on his face)

here comes the best man. he really wanted to wear that leopard print skirt. he also helped us test the limits of the first aid kit prior to the party (always good to do) by getting run off the road while on crashers dirt bike. road rash, fracture in the elbow, and a really messed up knee. but he trouped it out.

here we come.

we wrote out our "i wills"

and then we rocked out.

lots of rocking. non-stop for three days. the stage was lit so so well. and the bands rocked so so hard.

the portal was a hit.

much hanging out. so much good food. we fed people non-stop delicious, wholesome, homemade food. and everyone helped cook and clean. breakfast's were my favorite. there was a lot of love going on. it felt like a family event rather than a party. very family.

shaggy checking out the scene.
the phoenix

the phoenix

joe and trav.
it went off without a hitch and a good time was had by all. matty and i both wish it hadn't ended. we're both feeling like, "where is everybody? wait come back you guys, we're not done hanging out."
thanks to all who helped and contributed food, tents, tikis, equipment, for the beautiful gifts and the flowers- everything really. and for generally being awesome, wonderful people.

mission accomplished.

2009-08-10T12:18:00.000-07:00

that was awesome.
many pictures to follow.
later.
first rest.

puppet teaser

2009-08-05T19:45:00.001-07:00

new porch roof.

wenders brought over the puppet today. it so beautiful. all the fabric is from our friends trip to bali years ago. it is amazing. hard to get the full effect but there will be many more pictures.

it's a phoenix.

getting there

2009-08-05T07:29:00.000-07:00

seventy two hours away and all is well. the water and electric lines are safely in their new underground homes. the porch roof is finished and looks fantastic. we got the tent and now just have to figure out how to set it up. nicholas is going to re-wire the toolshed so it can handle more power without blowing fuses. the bands are confirmed. i am going today to pick up a. lot. of food- cases and cases of things and forty pounds of pork. delicious. we need firewood and to fix the driveway and to clean the house and set up sleeping areas. and finish setting up the lights and to pick up the kegs and find some folding tables and...and...and... oh and to give the neighbors a heads up.

ah, the glitches begin

2009-08-04T03:16:00.000-07:00

we are mainly on track with getting ready for this weekend. we spent the entire day yesterday running errands. someone (no names) ran over the power line to the toolshed with the lawnmower and severed it so we had to splice it back together and figured while we were at it we might as well rent a ditcher or ditch witch or whatever they are called to avoid this happening in the future. those things are beasts! it took matty and i both to run it, and it jumped its chain first thing. we very nearly had to call off the wedding. we were out there until dark trying to finish. it is now six a.m. (and about sixty degrees i might add) and we have to leave to go return it so we only get charged for a half day. the riding mower broke so i will be doing lots of weedwacking today. no real disasters but i am sure there are more glitches to come.

rainy sunday baking

2009-08-02T09:26:00.000-07:00

it's raining cats and dogs. great day to bake and watch movies and snooze on the couch.
rye bread with walnuts.

pizza with bacon, walnuts, basil, and green peppers.

chocolate zucchini bread.

pizza shells to freeze for use feeding next weekends hungry guests.

more party planning

2009-07-31T05:42:00.000-07:00

how many guys with their shirts off does it take to build a porch roof?

apparently quite a few. well, maybe only two to swing hammers and a bunch to stand around and drink beer. it is most likely going to rain at the middle of nowhere party since it rains every day lately. but the party must go on which means that the bands must still be able to play. so the "stage" is getting a roof and we have procured the use of a wedding tent (which should be interesting to try and set up on a hill).

hi hubby. lookin' good.

it looks great, it'll be a really nice thing to have for storing stuff under. ah- did i mention that asher is going to start welding school in the fall? very exciting. it will be awesome to have a welder in the family.
so he will be living in town most of the time and just up at the land on weekends and such. therefore, the toolshed is actually going to become a toolshed. matty can set up his woodworking stuff and i can keep my gardening stuff in there. i 'd like to build a lean-to greenhouse off of the back for starting seeds.
And... matty is going back to school in the fall also. i am going to school as well, except i am the teacher. i will be teaching pre-school at the children's learning center (where we put in the garden) for a class of twelve three and four year olds! and matty will hopefully be working with the after school program. it's shaping up to be a very busy fall.

these guys.

been getting whole eggs!

hanging around

2009-07-28T13:55:00.000-07:00

this is a common site lately. grated zucchini. i've been making zucchini pancakes, fritters, bread, chocolate cake (thanks mom for the recipe!)... and i'm not sick of it yet.
in addition, i did not realize how many cucumbers one plant will produce.
spoiler alert: you are all getting pickles as christmas gifts. surprise!

so...hot, lethargy inducing days equal things like taking lots of pictures of your cat. in a basket. (a beautiful basket that matty's family friend made and then gifted to us. it is so lovely and useful).

so after reading the comment on my last post (jen- it was wonderfully gruesome! thanks.) i don't believe the weasels we saw are getting in the hen house. so that means that the chickens are pecking open their own eggs. it is making me mad. i don't know how to break them of that habit. i have been trying to check often for eggs throughout the day but that is a pain. And i have stopped giving them the eggshells in the kitchen scraps- duh, woman. if you feed them eggshells then that will encourage them to think of their own eggs as food. put that together a little to late. anyone have any suggestions? or zucchini recipes?
only a week and a half to the middle of nowhere party. john brown is here bush hogging the field for parking and camping and it is about to pour on him! it just got very dark.
i made him some chocolate zucchini bread 'cause he loves sweets. sweets for the sweet.

guarding the henhouse

2009-07-21T13:46:00.000-07:00

asher and i were sitting on the porch a bit ago and saw three weasels (at least that's what we think they were) scamper across the yard! i went to check on the chickens and there was one egg that had been broken open and eaten and one still intact. i don't know if the weasels got the egg or what. i couldn't locate a spot where they would have gotten in. so, shit. i've got abigail on the scent and asher is set up on the porch with his shotgun. but i doubt they'll be back tonight.
i found an egg like that the other day and thought maybe a snake got in but asher thinks a snake would eat them whole.
on a brighter note- zuchinni fritters and chicken cutlets (thanks ello for the recipe!) for din-din and then off to see yorke's open mic night in town.

(i can hear asher shooting soda pop bottles in the yard. think i'll go join him)

pretty

2009-07-19T11:44:00.000-07:00

swoon, swoon, swoon

2009-07-16T05:33:00.000-07:00

my favorite, good ol' queen anne's lace is everywhere. makes me swoon.
so much so that i had it carved into my skin. this is one of the only pics i have from my road trip to vermont.

goose neck loose strife- also a dear love of mine.

this is a volunteer melon in the (now) old compost pit. i have no clue where it came from. i'm going to have to make it a little sling and tie it to the fence so it can have some support.

the other bear.

new compost area freshly layered up with sawdust, leaf mulch, cow manure, and chicken shit straw. repeat, repeat, repeat. yum.

i am loving the new compost area. i kept planting more and more flowers around the old compost area until it was fairly inaccessible.
it is about to become part of the kitchen garden, which as i have stated, is about my favorite spot to hang out.

the old compost area is through that red gate, soon to be awesome new entrance to the k. garden.

the old chicken area is becoming a rocking perennial bed, just like that. most of these plants were lovingly divided for me by my dear friend in vermont and i packed them into the cab of my truck around me and tooted them home. nothing is better than sharing and receiving plants from friend's garden. i love that.
my ladies this morning. thanks for the poop and the eggs- keep up the good work.

drying herbs.

making plant medicine (and granola).

onion harvest from yesterday.

mullein.

i just feel really lazy

2009-07-07T11:15:00.000-07:00

i am back in kakalaki and i don't feel like doing much. it is hot. but the house is cool, so i am staying indoors and playing with my new vacuum (thanks ma and pa!) and goofing off with my husband. i am officially ushering in the dog days of summer and what are you supposed to do in the dog days of summer but sit on the porch and bullshit with your pals.

after going on a serious rant at a fourth of july bar-be-que about taking a weedwacker to my chickens to try and scare an egg out them (they were technically old enough to lay two weeks ago and nada) i got my first egg! maybe they were waiting for me to come home.

so much yummy food.

some of the men picking blueberries.

matty insisted i take a picture of him with his giant mountain dew, apparently it would have looked too wholesome otherwise.

we have gallons and gallons of blueberries in the freezer and many more too pick and many friends that have come to pick. these bushes are amazing.

this...

became this. delicious pickled beets. i hope they turned out well.

i'm not sure if you can eat them right away or have to wait a certain amount of time for them to be pickled? anyone?