Akannie’s Weblog

Hard to believe that July is nearly gone–not that I’ve missed much of it, as I feel like I’ve been running with the bulls in Pamplona!  I need to chill out…lol   Summers are busy in the country. Gardens to prepare and plant and tend and harvest. Chores to be done that require warm weather and sunshine. Grass to be mowed and mowed and mowed.  This has been the wettest summer on record, and the last I heard we were something like 20 inches of rainfall over normal. And that was in April!  Cannot imagine what it must be now.  We vacillate between scorching heat and downpours.

  Right now, we’re in the downpour portion of our program. We must have had 6 inches of rain today or more. The nearly empty cistern is full to the top and the yard looks like a rice paddy with standing water everywhere.  Detour Road had water across it in several places that made you have to slow down and sail through it.  Yikes.  When I came home from taking himself to work this morning, it was just starting to get light. When I saw the water I had driven through in the dark, I squeeked.

  I bought some Gala apples today and a few bananas and a peck of peaches.  I made a 9×13 cake pan peach pie.  LOL  It turned out really good, except I thought it had a  tad too much nutmeg. Hubby thought it was heavenly.  For supper (vegetarian night)  I made a black bean burrito that had bell peppers, tomatoes and yellow squash from the garden, corn cut off the cob, onions and black beans all stir fried with cumin and fresh ground black pepper and garlic.  It was wonderful. All wrapped up in thick homestyle flour tortillas with cheese and salsa and sour cream inside. Had a box of a Spanish rice with vermicelli in it and served it up on the side.

  I’ll be baking bread tomorrow and doing laundry. The cistern is now so full it’s in danger of overflowing.  When that happens, it floods the pump housing and shuts everything down.  Not good. Seems like it’s feast or famine around here. lol  Patrick got a raise at work today, though. .50 an hour. It made him a happy man.  He’s also getting a bonus of a dollar an hour for every hour he worked in the past month.  Because he wasn’t late and didn’t miss a day.

  I’m whipped. Getting up at 4 AM kicks your butt by 11:30 PM.   I was very grateful to be contacted by one of my old sponsees who changed sponsors and has been drunk now for about 3 months. I’m grateful she’s alive, grateful she’s going to meetings again and hasn’t had a drink today.  Alcoholism kicks butts and takes names.

  This is a short one tonight….I’m off to dreamland.

Hot and sultry today….beyond sultry.  So frikkin humid you could swim in it. And 95 degrees.  Finally had ourselves some severe thunderstorms around 7:30 PM and cleared the air and brought the temps down to about 72.  Thank Gaia !!  I nearly had a stroke picking blackberries this morning…but managed to pick a little under a gallon.  The berries have been plentiful; and still a lot more on the vines. Debating whether I should get some more peaches tomorrow when I’m out and about. I have frozen 2 quarts off our little trees and 2 gallons from 2 pecks. yikes.  Prices are at a premium and I bought seconds at 8.00@ peck…the top grade ones are 15 dollars.  I’m trying to buy extra grain based things each week as I shop for groceries. These things are going to be outta sight pricewise or unavailable come winter, I fear. Rice, oats, flour…things like that.  They are planting the whole country in corn for fokkin ethanol production, better prices and guaranteed purchases, I guess.  I wonder who they think will be buying gas with ethanol if everyone has starved to death?

 There’s craziness going on in this world these days. I try to stay out of it as much as I can.  It will make me crazy if I let it. I see a shift though, which certainly gives me hope. The scary part is that there are so mnay people out there who haven’t a clue, I see them every day.  Is this what it always feels like to the older generation, I wonder?  Amazed that I have become that generation.  I shake my head and mutter a lot.

  We have got to get a truck soon. I am throwing the need out to the Universe, for the financial prosperity and manifestation of a working truck so we can haul water.  It doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just a stout heart and strong back.  LIke me.  LOL  The cistern is very low and when you want the damned thing to leak water into it it doesn’t.  We’ve had a couple of rains too…

  Living this country life is a good thing, in spite of the annoying stuff like not having a well and having to depend on a cistern.  Even that wasn’t annoying before the engine blew on the truck.  I did it myself a few times, loaded the tank and everything.  It’s no big deal, though himself likes to make it into one.  He’s like that with most things that need doing around here. If it’s hiking or something he likes he’s all for it. Anything else…not so much.  I was talking to a young friend of mine who is pregnant for the first time, and she’s nesting.  Doing all sorts of things around her house and loving being home for the first time. She’s a teacher and works, but she says she always used to be very restless and wanted to be on the go until now.  I know that feeling. But I didn’t get it til about 45, or maybe even later.  It’s easy for me to stay around the house now - I just need a little more money to do projects. lol

  I need to get ready for bed, as I’m keeping the car tomorrow, which means I have to get up at 4.  Will hit a noon meeting and maybe buy some fruit. I am going to make bread on Thursday, and need to get some wheat flour too. I’m debating whether I wiull use the bread machine or not.  I probably need to get my hands in the bread dough. That machine makes it less  messy, but all the fun goes out of it.  I’ll decide later.  Guess himself is working on Thursday, which means I won’t be able to drive to the women’s meeting. It’s his Thursday to be off….best laid plans and all that… I really need a car…CORRECTION: I really want a car.    sigh….

    Glad the storms have passed and I could get back on the computer. 

Peace out.

Monday morning.  Slept in til almost 8:30 after being up late reading a puffy Andrew Greeley story about an Irish Catholic family. (what else?). lol  NO posting yesterday, as it started to storm and had to unplug the computer and phones here. I have already inadvertantly fried one modem during a lightning storm…  The storm began around 8PM.  It was a magnificent exhibition of howling winds and slamming rains and thunder booming across the meadows.  I went out at the beginning of it to take the flag down and try to call all the outstanding cats that were still flirting with their freedom.  Got all but 2….and then another finally came in and poor Mr PoPo  was last…trapped by the rains under the back deck. When he finally came in, he glared at me like it was my fault. He is a gorgeous Russian Blue I think, that big Slavic flat head and wide shoulders. A wonderful guy, really.  A cat that I fostered and the owner never came back for. But…that’s another story…

   My morning routines are simple….chickens, cats and dogs…food and waterings…and then coffee. Finishing up the leftover Starbucks Sumatran dark roast…I’m such a coffee whore, I don’t even care that it’s leftover from yesterday.

I went outside to check damages from the storm. One of the big peach laden branches has splintered off form the trunk of the tree. This winter we’ll havre to prune the hell out of both those trees.  And hope for the best.  We have apples the size of baseballs too.  I picked a few green beans and 4 large ripe Better Boy tomatoes. I will eat at least one of them for breakfast, with fresh ground black pepper and brie.  One was a little slug chewed, and so I gave it to the chickens. They are chasing it around the run like a group of Indian boys playing stick ball. 2 cats, Lily and Frank, are on top of the tarp that covers the chicken wired top of the run–I’ve not seen them there before, and despite all my coaxings, will not come down in true cat fashion. These animals are a delight.  We are having a problem deciding what to do about the chickens. They have stopped laying for all intents and purposes, and the general consensus is they must go. If they don’t produce, they don’t need feeding and the expenditures.  But what to do??  Patrick keeps saying “Dumplings and chicken” and I look at him and say–and just who’s going to murder them? Because it surely isn’t going to be me. I cannot do that. I’m not a very good farmer…  The cats do not catch mice in the house either. They constantly catch critters outside, but I guess they think that if they’re in the house, they’re part of the family. So I have to use clean kill traps and peanut butter. lol This mindset works well when it’s cats and cockatiels.  Not so much when it comes to rodents.  I don’t think twice about the mice.

    It looks like more rain is on it’s way…grey and overcast out there.  Husband is back at work and the house is all mine. I have some mild housekeeping to do, other than that, it’s going to be rooibos tea and light reading.  I think I will make a vegetable lasagna with the abundance of squash I have.  Layer in some fresh tomatoes and onions and some frozen spinach I have. A little cheese and voila! 

   We are working at cleaning all the animal products out of the freezer and then embarking on a vegetarian diet again.  In my wifely housemistress role, I have stocked the hell out of our larder, and there was enough meat in the freezer to feed a third world country. The stores are finally dwindling…As it is, we are eating vegetarian every other day.  It’s a lot more work to eat vegetarian. Makes me have to think and get creative. Worth it, as it so much more healthy, but still.  I was a vegetarian for about 10 years back in the 70’s and 80’s. Then  again in the early to mid 90’s.  The past 10 years have been carnivorous again, and frankly I’m tired of it.  It’s such an extremist habit for me…can never eat just some meat, have to eat steaks and rare burgers and  make it the main course of every meal.  Not sure why that is.  But this will be a renewed culinary journey and I will perhaps get better at eating even better than I do now. lol

  JUst for today, I am going to eat a more healthy diet.  I think the main thing that will happen with this is that it will make my whole life connection better. I don’t need to eat the flesh of other sentient beings. It’s just not necessary.

  Off to a day of

        Nowhere to go

        No one to be

        Nothing to do.

HO.

Saturday. The dates and times of my posts never match up with the posted time.  Why is that? Does wordpress live in a parallel Universe that is in a different calendar than mine? ah, no matter.  I can easily exist on several planes at once.

  Interesting day, went to a meeting and then came home again.  SO drove, and he makes me crazy with his driving and it’s everything I can do to keep my mouth shut.  I miss my van.  We traded it in on this little gas efficient Ford Focus. Since the truck engine blew, we are a one car family. Mostly I think it doesn’t matter. But today I knew that I felt like I lost my car and from time to time I use his.  I hate that.  I want my own car.  We have been cohabitating 16 years, and you would think that by this time, everything would have melded into OURS.  Most everything has.  Just not the cars.  Only now, they have too, and I don’t like it one bit.  No sir, not one bit.

    I have a lot to do, running this little hobby farm life of ours. I stay home a lot. But there’s something about not being able to go when you want to that puts one in a tailspin. (And by one, I mean me).  It’s an interesting dynamic that I’ve set up in my head today, and it led to a host of resentfulness. Yoko Ono once said “Woman is the nigger of the world”.  I felt like that today a couple of times.  In fact almost every day I feel like that now and again.  That I do the bulk of the work and get no recognition and no thank yous.  That I am always the one carrying all the emotional baggage here.  That it is EXPECTED of me because I’m the wife.

    Truth be told, it’s me that sets up these parameters. It’s me that feels guilty because I don’t work anymore. It’s me that often cannot let him be the man in this family. Comes from a lot of years of clawing and scratching my way through survival.  Comes from not allowing another person to be a partner in my life. Comes from the fear that in the end, everyone will let you down. They always do.  Parents die, lovers leave, hearts break. And there you are, all alone and trying not to let the big winds blow down your house of cards. During my Ubiquitous Event , this man stepped up to the plate like a champion.  We had been together 9 years. I was 11 years sober. I was run down by an 80,000 pound fork truck that moved big pallets around a warehouse. It was an accident.  My pelvis was crushed, hip broken, all the gluteal muscle around my kidney area was torn away from the bones.  I was bruised from my neck to my ankles. I couldn’t walk for months.  I had a hospital bed with a constantly inflating and deflating mattress. I didn’t sleep back in my own bed for a year. I lost all feeling in my pelvic area. I have Sacral Root Nerve damage, which mostly means that I have limited control over my bowel and bladder.  I have saddle paralysis, which makes it feel like I’m sitting on a half blown up beach ball all the time.  They thought I might not walk again. I did.  They said I couldn’t work again. I can’t.  But I digress…this man who had been sharing my bed for 9 years, took care of me and loved me and has not abandoned me. He had to do things for me that no man should ever have to do in that first year of my recuperation and rehabilitation.  And he still didn’t leave. The whole incident really shook him up, esp when they couldn’t get my blood pressure back up from 30/40 and couldn’t figure out where I was bleeding out from.  I was in mild shock and was amused at his protectiveness and overbearing fussiness.  Bless his heart…

     That’s worth something.  I think of the St Francis Prayer when I get resentful and realize that I have to change my focus. I have to commit to this marriage like I would any other kind of service work I do. I have to do everything, all of it, with great love.  Expecting nothing in return.   To love, rather than to be loved. To nurture, rather than be nurtured.  And it comes back to me tenfold. Every time. Until I have one of those days  and then I forget all this.  LOL

   For the first time in my life, I feel truly loved. I feel precious. And the more I have, the more I want.  That’s the thing.  …”gonna have to face it, you’re addicted to love”…

    I fell today, tripped over something in the yard and took a header into the grass. Sprained my right hand, as I used it to break my fall.  I expect I’m gonna really be hurting in the morning, as I am sore as hell right now. Put an ice pack on it and have downed some aspirin too.  I must have splayed my thumb backwards as it feels like that big tendon is the worst.  Now I’m that old lady who falls….

    Enouugh for today. Time for bed and dreams of magnificent content and color.  My life is an adventure on ALL planes….

  HO.

It’s been raining peaches at my house.  We planted 2 trees 3 years ago, and they are loaded with peaches this year. One tree looks like it’s going to split down the middle, and the other is goofishly tall and hangs over like a fainting spinster aunt.  Both have a gazillion peaches. Himself came in tonight carrying a gallon bucket full PLUS his ball cap full.  They’re small, but sweet.  The trees I planted: cherry, apple, pear and peach…are supposed to be dwarf and semi-dwarf trees, but they’re pretty tall if you ask me. I thought it would be 5 years or more before we saw any fruit.  Surprise!  Everytime I go out into the yard, it has rained more.

 I froze 8 quarts of peaches from Calhoun County, which is our local fruitopia.  I may go buy more this weekend. We have to pick berries again in the morning too.  I’m debating making applesauce this year, though I’m pretty sure I will make apple butter.  I went to the food co-op this morning and spent forty dollars. OUch. Bought things like organic peanut butter and dried red chilies and  nutritional yeast and brown rice and almonds and baking yeast and Rooibos tea and wheat germ.  I want to start making my own bread again full time.  The loaves of [only] halfway decent bread are over 3 dollars now. And I find great satisfaction in baking bread. Something very primal about it.  I have flax seed and sesame seed and all sorts of other wonderful things I can add, as well as a couple of different kinds of flours.  I also got a dozen ears of bicolor corn to cook on the grill and some cantaloupe and   garlic and fresh string beans….I’m so hungry for some stir fried string beans with garlic and olive oil. yummmm….

 Pretty tired tonight, as I have been up since a little after 4 AM.  Time to go off to lalaland.   Had a call from across the pond today, and spoke at length with a good friend from these past 8 years or so. What a blessing !!  Life is good.

  Ho.

What is a widget?  I have 7 of them, apparently, on this blog page.

So many things I don’t know, so little time to learn them all.  Gratefully, middle age is settling ’round me like a misty shroud. Having reached a time where there are lots of things I am not supposed to know, and it’s okay. A blessing of age.  When you’re young, people expect things of you. Things like, being caught up on all the latest technology and fads and slang.  When you reach this point in time and say something like groovy, you’re an anomaly, and nobody listens. It’s incredibly freeing…

  Picked a full gallon of blackberries this morning. It was a soft day here, light misting rain off and on, overcast skies and felt a blessing because it was cool enough to wear long sleeves picking berries. Saved me lots of scratches. A neighbor slowed down as she was passing by in her car. She said “Seems like a lot of work for little return to me!  I’d rather buy them at the market!”  Waved merrily and drove on. All I could think was, if it means feeding my little family, I would do it every minute. One more day of food in the freezer.  Or in the pantry. Pies in February taste so much better from these wild blackberries.  But noone much cares about things like that anymore. People have killed off their tastebuds and murdered their palates…all for the sake of fast and convenient. I don’t want that to happen to me. I want to eat and cook slow and lazy and deliberately.  I want to look at the large cherry tomatoes I picked this afternoon, and the handfull of string beans  and the yellow crrokneck and zucchini squash,  and remember the joy of planting it and nurturing it and harvesting it with my own bare hands.  I want to whisper to each plant as I pick fruits, “Thank You for feeding me.”  the way my Cherokee grandmother taught me when I was 11.  I want to KNOW the mystery, and the euphoria, and the satisfaction of sustaining us with the fruits of my labors, the work of my own two hands. My nails are all short and grubby and stained from having my hands in the dirt. I don’t care. I can dance in my garden in the nude if I want to.  I can bless the plants, thank the Creator, and feel the sun all warm on my skin…and be completely connected to the planet I live on today.   Tend the earth, Feed the Soul.

  HO!

Tired out from a busy day. Right off, we had to go out and pick enough berries for blackberry pancakes.  The young prince says I make the best pancakes in the whole world. lol  After cleaning up the dishes, I got started with some housecleaning….long overdue furniture polishing, vacuuming and mopping all the wood floors. I mop with Spic’n'Span…it has that memory inducing smell that transports me back into the early 60’s.  My mom always used it, in powder form, I don’t think it was a liquid form back then. I can barely remember the green and blue granules, but definitely remember the orange box.  We had wood floors all through our house, and it was the only thing she used.  I like the clean smell.  While I was moipping, I put the first load of laundry in the washer and when I was done, it was done. So I headed out to the clothesline.  I worry there is something intrinsically wrong with me that I love doing these things so much.  Hanging clothes on the line in the breeze, sheets flapping in my face…is a very zen moment for me.  As is taking them down later when they’re all dry, and burying my nose in them to smell the sun .  I washed a second load and hung them out as well.  Then I mowed the front and side yards, but saved the back for tomorrow.  Tonight I am tired and sore, ready for a good night’s sleep after an honest day’s work.

  My son came to pick up the young Prince around 4:30.  He has been working long hours many days in a row.  He looks exhausted. At 37, I cannot tell him to slow down, that it’s not a race.  Well, I can…but he just smiles at me.  My handsome boy, all grown up and caring for a family.  I am so blessed to have such a wonderful relationship with him. He walked in, kissed me on the lips and said  “Can’t stay–love you, Mom”.  He did play with the dogs a minute, and then they were gone.  And my house was quiet and peaceful again…and clean. lol

  He is my only child.  The baby I wanted so badly. (At 16 years of age, in love with a soldier just back from Germany).  We tried and tried to concieve and every time my period would come, I would cry.  Finally, unbeknownst to me, I was pregnant.  When he was a year and a half old, I was pregnant again. And Horrified.  I had been taking birth control pills and had gotten pregnant anyway. It was risky, back in those days in the early 70’s, and the doctor told me that there was a 50/50 chance the baby would be okay.  It was all the excuse I needed, and went to Colorado for an abortion at Planned parenthood. It was still illegal in lots of states back then, certainly in Illinois.  There was no way I could have managed another child at that time.  Years later, I would have 2 miscarriages and then could never get pregnant again.  Regrets? Remorse?  Hmmm…felt punished, that’s for sure. 

  I am rambling here.  And that’s okay too, as long  as I keep the words coming, right?

  I have been contemplating my spiritual path alot lately. Or maybe trying to define it is a better phrase. I am a traveller of the Red Road.  I believe in a Universal spirit that permeates everything and by nature is LOVE. I can call it God or fathead or  whatever moniker seems appropriate for that time. I believe in evolution. I believe that we are on a journey of discovery and the more of those things we learn, the sooner we get to move on. I believe that kindness is an answer to lots of questions.  I believe that we’re all Bozos on this bus, and that we have to look out for one another.   I said in my profile (or somewhere) that I am “a spiritual person, in a Howdy Doody kind of a way.”  I believe that laughter is the best medicine.  I can always tell the things that are true for me, as they hit me in my solar plexus with the force of a hurricane.  When I sit in the stillness, I know that i am in god and god is in me. 

  I think of God often as the Wizard of Oz.  The Universal Mind that connects and is connected to all things. With the greatest sense of humor I have ever experienced. And somehow, that comforts me.  And isn’t that the whole purpose of a relationship with a Higher Power? To be comforted and guided and made to feel safe in a crazy world?  

  Enough for tonight.  Hurricane Dolly is slamming into the southern coast of Texas.  Hope Uncle Denny is okay.  The government is out of control.  And yet, the rose of sharon continues to bloom in my yard, and the trees are heavy with peaches and apples.  In the morning, I’ll be picking blackberries again.

All’s right with MY world.

Spent today with my 11 year old grandson. It was a sitter crisis and I am always ready to have him here. He’s a joy…so unlike most kids his age, he’s sensitive and polite and constantly reintroduces me to my childish side. We  have fun, we read, we watch movies and we play games together.  He’s sleeping now on the hideabed in the living room.  It’s his favorite spot to sleep, because all the dogs and cats crawl into bed with him.  His mother doesn’t like animals much. He has a turtle in an aqaurium for a pet, so he comes here and lives out his dreams. He says he wants to be a vet like in a book he read at school. I guessed it was All Creatures Great and Small, and he excitedly said YES! He is always amazed when I know what he’s talking about…lol  So we googled James Herriot and talked about it all at length.

  The world has lost a meaningful life this past week, Lina Newhouser, of Common Dreams news and many other green and political activities has succumbed to the non-Hodgkins lymphoma she’s been battling the past 3 years.  She leaves behind a husband and 2 daughters and a legacy of love. Of course, I didn’t know her. But when I look at the world around me, I feel the loss of people like her.  I found myself crying over her death, not taking a minute to remember that she has just changed playgrounds. I suppose I just needed an excuse to cry, to release some of the toxins that are in my body at any given time.

 It was a bleak day today, in the middle of July. Looked like winter outside. Never quite rained anymore (did storm last night) just looked like it would at any minute. The garden needed a good soaking, and I’m grateful for the water. The tomatoes are looking great, the squash are booming. I found a volunteer watermelon left over from last year…it actually has a 6 inch watermelon on it.  They were Baby Belles, if I remember correctly.   Not as many volunteer tomatoes this year as last either. But the 12 that I planted are producing like crazy. We just need a little more sun so they’ll ripen. The red and yellow bell peppers I planted are looking good too, with peppers the size of baseballs on them.

Tonight’s dinner was stuffed zucchini, with a traditional stuffing of pecans, raisins, onion, celery,bread and spices. I put shredded parmesan cheese into the bowl of the squash first, then the stuffing, then shredded mozzarella on top and baked it all. It was marvelous. Had some leftover pesto tortellini in the fridge, so I sauced it lightly and made it into a side dish. Also had some oversized cucmbers from the garden that I chopped with onion yesterday and put into a cider vinegar, olive oil, brown sugar and celery seed marinade. It was very good, just the right combinations of textures and sours for the dinner plate.

 I’m not doing a good job of writing consistently.  Here’s hoping it gets better.

 I’m taking part in a blessings challenge experiment with others from around the world.  The idea is to change the world. LOL A lofty ideal. And by golly, it is changing my world,  I must say.  It’s all about blessing others with abundance and prosperity and  healing and health and happiness. It’s opening up a whole new world for me.  All sorts of things are coming through…including something called EFT, which I will talk more about later.  Every morning at 7 AM I am part of a prayerful meditation with others from around the globe, blessing our world.  Then later, at 10 AM,  I am part of a smaller group blessing all the participants of the experiment. I’m sure I’ll be talking about all this as time goes on.

  OKay.  Either I can’t write at all, or I can’t shut up.  Sigh….g’nite. Time for bed.

I’ve wanted to do this for a long time…somewhere along the line, I seem to have taken a wrong turn on the Information Superhighway.  Already I am feeling naked here.  The world wide web is an amazing and terrible thing sometimes, and I feel like a Martian here mostly. But I think I will give this a try and see what happens.   The discipline of writing every day will be particularly good for me—if I do it.

 Here’s hoping…

The very first. Yikes !  Here we go!!!!!!!!