Garden – THE DAILY ROUND

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The Forest, Having Blown Up

July 21, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty17 Comments

We’ve had an unexpectedly dramatically dramatic summer, and I would be most grateful if the energy that’s hurled us thus far through the green-flowered and golden weeks would flatten out a bit into some semblance of balance and peace.

But, there is too much, so let me sum up:

Part One

My soul is a broken field, plowed by pain. ~ Sara Teasdale

I guess we’re always, most of us, both prepared and unprepared for loss. We’re full of intellectual wisdom and knowledge about death and grief. We believe we’re fortified by these words and the stages and steps they describe.

And then we step into the land of loss, and the barren, rough landscape opens up, and every surface we encounter in this new world scrapes away at our sense of the known and bloodies our fragile attempts to touch and learn, and sucks the words out of us, and the walls that encompassed the reality we’d come to recognize and rely upon utterly fall away.

Of course, they were only made of paste and cardboard to begin with, but we had so carefully constructed the stage set that encompassed our lives for so long that we disregarded the potential for its devastation.

And how easily, and quickly, it can all collapse and be blown away.

The utter strangeness when a circle of love is broken and the presence of that circle’s heart is removed, requires tricky navigation, and, for a time following Clancy’s death, I chose not to move at all. A week after his death I turned 60 and it meant nothing but that I’d existed for another week.

I didn’t know it then, but I was ill. I had lost contact with my senses, sheltered—or hidden–so deeply within my grief that I didn’t understand that something “out there” was wrong. When I tried to move through my yoga, bicycling, and trail walks with sweet Riley, I felt like the tin man in need of oil. Every joint and muscle hurt, first a bit, and then unbelievably. I stopped trying.

Phillip, family, friends, the four-leggeds, and the gardens helped, as they always do.

We focused on tending Riley’s loss of her lifelong companion and littermate, began to adjust to our own sadness, and I met with my wonderful physician, who helped identify the disease that had taken up residence in my body. Some knowledge does lend power, and over the past month, prescribed treatments have largely eliminated my pain. It’s being “managed,” as they say. (I say, “Hooray!”)

Gratitude always walks with grief, a partnership that, if we choose to recognize it, helps to make us whole again.

Part Two

Little by little God takes away human beauty:
Little by little the sapling withers.
Go, recite, “To whomever We give a length of days,
We also cause them to decline.”
Seek the spirit;
don’t set your heart on bones.
~Rumi

Since I felt stronger, we traveled to an area Phillip had already explored for our retirement. Never sure if that should happen now or later, we visited the communities we found most attractive. We looked at some homes for sale. Mostly, we hiked and sat, and listened. Sweet Riley’s ability to join us on the trip proved a wonderful opportunity to reconfigure our circle of intimacy, settle into each other’s energy, and learn more about the family we are now, without Clancy’s physical presence. Knowing the felines were in good and loving care, we relaxed into the healing offered to our spirits by a landscape we love.

On the way home, we looked at another home that intrigued us, and made an offer to buy it. It was a Friday afternoon, so I called a realtor in our hometown and arranged for her to visit Monday morning, to list Full Moon Cottage for sale. How exciting, to make a change, we thought…perhaps this was the new path Clancy’s death had created for us.

The universe had other plans. Early Monday morning, a storm propelled straight-line winds speeding across the area, and twirls of small tornado tails bobbed down, here and there, twisting bits of the world into unrecognizable designs.

A single kind of thunderous crash caused us to leap out of bed, adrenaline lending us a rather impressive athleticism. Phillip grabbed the flashlight and, through the darkness, assessed that possibly a tree or two had fallen. As the sun rose and daylight scattered across the yard, we saw instead that, without warning, and in an instant, the forest beside our home had exploded.

Part Three

My barn having burned down, I can now see the moon. ~ Mizuta Masahide

Through a fog of dazed shock, I began to clean the decks as Phillip saved what he could of the front garden. Several of our trees had fallen, but the more dismal reality was that about 30 or 40 of our neighbor’s white pines had crashed across our front yard. There was no way we could clear the havoc ourselves.

A few hours later, covered in dirt, mud, and pine needles, we greeted the realtor, an impressive false smile frozen on her face as she stepped over branches and bravely proceeded to draw up the contract, assuring us that when the home actually came on the market, 10 days later, all would be well.

Home insurance doesn’t pay for storm damage, except for that sustained by the physical house, and we miraculously had little of that. But that’s where the miraculous aspects of the story stopped, we felt, since we did have about 40 trees, in a hundred thousand pieces, that had to be removed.

The morning after the storm, I watched as the two turkey hens we’ve come to know over the years paraded their new chicks through the rubble, over and under branches, accepting of the changed landscape and inviting me to be as well. A doe and her fawns leapt across the yard nimbly. Easy for you, I thought. Can’t you see the world’s been upended?

A few days and a small fortune later, we were left with what we called a muddy “trail of tears,” and worked about 80 hours between us lugging, raking, tossing and scraping together branches and limbs, in 91° heat and a sour funk. I mourned the little crab tree that had anchored my front garden, the vegetables and berries we’d lost, the lovely old hickory tree. A sad business indeed.

Still, Riley seemed happy to be home, reunited with her cat buddies, and unfazed by the need to jump over or circle around trees on the trail, or stop and re-route altogether, so that was a blessing. And I was feeling physically stronger every day, another light in the darkness.

By Friday, we decided to put off buying a new home, moving, or selling Full Moon Cottage. We were fairly spent, almost on empty, and fully exhausted.

We set down the rakes and shovels and took off our gloves and sat on the deck, sipping ice cold beer and surveying the altered scene before us.

And we began to laugh. And, of course, we counted the many blessings that had equally fallen all around us. We had been spared injury; the house was minimally damaged, the gardens would recover, and many were still growing madly…

I shared that I’d had the Masahide quote running through my mind all week. And then I told Phillip, making a sarcastic joke, that, at least we could now receive better internet and phone reception, which the wall of white pines had always prevented. He replied, “The forest having blown up, I can now receive three bars,” which really set us off…and I knew we would be OK. Better able to see the paste and cardboard of life for what they are, we can set them aside and focus on what’s really real and lasting. Like the turkeys, and the deer, and sweet Riley, we will make our way across these losses and come to new places, feeding on the blessings that are all around us, and loving the memories of all that’s come before. Our family’s circle of love was never broken; I see that now. It’s only changed, and Clancy, and Riley, and our precious four-legged felines will always be that circle’s heart.

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Devouring Mysteries

April 20, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty19 Comments

How can it be, at my advanced and advancing age, that only four seasons, circling round and round again continue to amaze me each time they take their turn and reappear? Like a church, Full Moon Cottage and the neighboring Glacial Drumlin Trail move through cycles, with attendant mysteries, rituals, sacraments, and an ever-changing choir to accompany these. And, if anything, each year’s cycle of seasons becomes more precious and startling, perhaps because I’m ever more acquainted with the energy required for the transformations they create. A rainstorm, overnight, shook off the bud casings and sang out the tender leaves on our fruit trees and along the trail. I went to sleep knowing the trees held the possibility of leaves, and woke to a realized mass of fluttering green foliage, newborn and tentative. The world is a nursery crammed with infants in spring. I devour these mysteries entirely and delightedly. Within a week or two, daffodils and tulips pierced the earth and are now ready to burst into bloom, and, if I don’t survey the gardens every day, I fear I’ll miss them. Along the trail, sweet wildflowers have been decorating our walks for the past week. Well, perhaps skunk cabbage is less sweet and flowery than a sure and comforting sign that spring is here for certain. Skunk cabbage is one of the few plants that exhibit thermogenesis, or the ability to heat up the earth enough to melt the snow and ice that may be present, and emerge early enough to attract pollinating insects before they become prey to other creatures. It sends up a purple spathe rather than flowers, and, within the spathe, a spadix emits a decidedly unlovely odor that attracts the insects that will pollinate it. I understand this, but thermogenesis in a plant, however it’s explained, rests upon deeper mystery, to me. The Marsh Marigold is an ancient native plant, having survived glaciations, enduring after the last retreat of the ice, apparently well-suited to a landscape of glacial meltwaters. Why it managed to survive is a mystery, but its cheerful gold shines up from the puddle-filled ditches every April. And the Pink Beauty and Blood Root have ants as helpmeets to spread their seeds, a process called myrmecochory. Their seeds have a fleshy organ called an elaiosome that offers a “come hither” scent to the ants, who carry the seeds back to their nests. I wonder if these are considered a kind of party treat heralding the ants’ spring? Anyway, they eat the elaiosomes, and put the seeds in their nest debris, rich in nutrients, where they are protected until they germinate. And although I can understand the science that explains these plants, their existence and their sacred interdependence with ants remains a cherished mystery. The winter choir of sifting snows and blustery winds has changed to a chorus of birdsong and amphibian arias; this past week, the red-winged blackbirds were the day-sky stars, but at night, our opened windows allowed the Spring Peepers, Leopard Frogs, and toads to serenade us with their river songs. We haven’t heard the Bullfrogs yet; I hope their solos come along soon. All these mysteries occurring under my nose, all this energy being expended all around me…it makes my daily round look rather unproductive and flat by comparison. My students and I planted potatoes this past week, and others worked with their teachers to prepare a butterfly garden. I’m not sure we’ll get out in the garden today, as it’s very windy and down about 30 degrees from last week’s surprising warmth, but we may plant some of the lettuces, peas, and other cold-weather vegetables we’ve started, and divide out tomato seedlings into their own 4” pots. The Master Gardeners have also scheduled lessons to teach the students more about Monarch Butterflies and their crises regarding habitat and migration, and plan to establish a Monarch Waystation at the school this spring.

When I’m not at school, I’ve been cleaning up the gardens and, of course, devouring mysteries, both those around me and those in book form. I like the ones I cannot solve the best. I’m re-reading the wonderful Cadfael mysteries by Ellis Peters/Edith Pargeter, and a friend just got me hooked on Donna Leon’s Commissario Guido Brunetti mysteries, so I’m fully-booked, so to speak. But it’s the mysteries and rituals surrounding me that most deeply feed and fill my spirit. Here is one of my favorites:When they were little puppies, we noticed how Riley and Clancy loved to fall on the grass and roll joyfully, over and over, especially in spring. We could almost hear them giggling. So, we’ve always called this their “Roly-Poly Game,” and the expression quickly became a cue for them. Whenever they heard it, they would fall down and merrily roll while we laughed at them and cried out in mock disbelief. “Oh, no! Not roly-poly!” Over and over, like little children, they seemed delighted in entertaining us with their silliness. A beloved spring ritual.

This past winter, when we received their respective health diagnoses, I didn’t expect them to be here, now, and certainly not with the ability to be sung back to life, like the green leaves, and playing roly-poly. But here they are, in April, celebrating our annual ritual, diving down to meet the sweet green earth, giggling and making me laugh, joyfully devouring the mystery that brought us together years ago and that allows us to share another spring day. It is a mystery. And a gift.But this mystery has a name, written on my heart for 14 years. It is Love, and I devour it as hungrily as any communicant, and as full of gratitude.

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Gardeners, All

March 15, 2015March 23, 2020by Kitty8 Comments

Such a splendid week we’ve had at Full Moon Cottage! We’ve been breathing gratitude, along with the sweet scent of geosmin, the organic compound released by active little actinomycetes as the earth reheats in spring. Like earth’s signature sachet, it evokes a million memories of gardens I’ve tended and loved since I was a child. The comforting reliable signposts assuring us that spring has arrived and is busily establishing her known rhythms has caused our enthusiasm and energy levels to rise like sap and respond by honoring the rituals this time of year calls forth: opening windows, cleaning and winnowing through closets, washing rugs and curtains, and going outside as often as possible to notice homecomings and welcome back old friends. The Canada Geese and Sandhill Cranes have been winging in on great southerly winds crying out, “Here we are! Here we are!” The male birds—cardinals, chickadees, flickers, jays–are establishing territories and will be seeking mates for nesting, so I’m scattering pet hair and dryer lint, and continuing to fill the feeders. Our owls make their presence known, as do the bossy crows, and this morning, Phillip heard a robin’s song. The river’s coat of ice is melting away. A lack of winter snow has caused the water level to be quite low this year, so we’re hoping for rains, but just to see the water sparkle in sunlight touches and begins to thaw every frozen particle lodged in our winter hearts. The long months of chilled confinement have ended; winter’s dark and snarled mind knots loosen and dissolve, allowing our spirits to flow. We’ve been laughing more this week. It’s too soon to get into the gardens, but at least I can see them again, and am trying to locate the very detailed list I made last autumn of all the uprooting, dividing, and replanting I had planned for this spring. Of course, first, we have to wait and see who did, and who did not, survive the bitter cold and lack of adequate snow cover we experienced until late winter. Ever hopeful.

I remember my first garden, when I was about eight, and the deep joy I felt planting my bachelor buttons, moss roses, zinnias, and cosmos. Every morning, for weeks, I dashed from bed to garden, pajama-clothed and barefoot—a habit that endures—to examine the earth for signs of green life. I weeded and watered and spent most of that summer immersed in “my” garden, as I have ever since. Daddy had encouraged this, utterly, and supported my dreams of color and blossom; Mama didn’t garden, but supported everything that gave me joy. I took it for granted that everyone had parents who so lovingly tended their dreams. Until I can grab a rake and trowel and get going this spring, my garden jones is satisfied at school, where, led by our intrepid team of visiting Master Gardeners, we’ve spent a few weeks planning, and are now planting seeds for this year’s garden. The little pots will sit in long trays on counters in the school’s basement, warmed by grow lights and watered from the bottom. It gladdens my heart to see how joyfully and naturally the children connect with these activities. They cannot always name the steps or tools involved in gardening, or even evidence familiarity with the resulting food, but they so merrily dig into buckets of soil and so tenderly plant seeds in tiny, plastic earth-filled homes. I think there’s nothing so healing, creative, or natural as gardening.

The children’s spirits have been thawing, too, and warmer days have increased their energy, and the need for its release and creative expression. Their city skyline artwork turned out beautifully. I was stopped in my tracks, though, when more than one child asked where in their skyline the jail should be represented, or a child showed me his city and identified a building as “the prison.” Once again, I was reminded that the familial, reliable, and seasonal rhythms in which I have always taken comfort and joy are very different from those circumscribing the lives of many of my students. Sometimes their behavior is angry and puzzling, and then comments like these reveal the missing pieces, and my heart breaks open, creating spaces for new seeds of understanding to be planted.

Phillip and I talk, often, of our students and the ways we might touch their spirits and hearts, and give them hope, or a bit of light to companion their journeys. It’s not likely they’ll remember us, but will they remember that a teacher once told them how special, and precious, and gifted they are? When they doubt their purpose, or lose their way, or struggle to make the right choice, will they feel rooted in courage and reach for a light-filled path? Breathing in the wonders and invitations of spring, I’m reminded that we are all stewards of each other as well as of the earth, and that how we prepare, nurture, and tend one another’s spirits is our calling as humans and, certainly, as teachers. Not everyone was gifted with present and loving parents who cultivated their gifts and wonder from the beginning, and we all have dark spaces that can be filled with self-doubt and self-loathing, or planted with promise and loved into bloom. We may never see the amazing blossoms and glorious results we have helped create, never be identified as one of the gardeners, but we must, over and over, plant the seeds of possibility, expectation, and affirmation, and shower them with love. Ever hopeful; gardeners, all.

Merry new spring and joyful planting!

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Autumn Heart

September 25, 2013March 29, 2020by Kitty14 Comments

The turning, tilting earth has brought us around once again to my favorite time of year. The light is gorgeous and my spirit feels lightened in autumn as well. The world sparkles, amber and bedewed, as though newly dipped in honey and rolled in stars each morning.

The 4-leggeds and I go for long walks and sniff out miracles along the trail. One day, we pause to watch the sunlight piercing through the trees, another day, it’s spider webs clinging to the bridge, or dew on long grasses, or butterflies flitting around the purple asters. The lush viridity of past months and particular summer companions are preparing to leave our environment. Life cycles are shifting and the world feels more fragile, and therefore precious, in autumn.

One late afternoon, I watched as the garden glowed with sparks of gnats rising against the setting sun…autumn reminds me how magical and brief, how unique and delicate is a lifetime.

The garden continues to yield, though she’s growing tired from the energy spent to do so; still, tomatoes are collected and stored away, as are the herbs, peppers, squash, onions and carrots. Soon, it will be time to tenderly turn the plants back into their earthen bed, an activity that, like every ending, sobers the heart and invites contemplation regarding the sacred balance between loss and gratitude, planting and harvesting, life and death.

Like a squirrel, I tend to overstock the pantry and freezer this time of year, too, always ready for desserts that perfume our home with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and vanilla, or hearty soups, and wild rice stews. It’s time to bake yeast breads and savor the smell of wood fires and apples. Of all the year’s seasons, autumn most stimulates and satisfies sensuously, or so it seems to me. The air shivers with the pungency of damp decay spiced with wood-smoke, and the leaves color our world with scarlet, gold and orange. Like the chiming of cathedral bells, bird-call increasingly resounds. Geese, ducks, and cranes flock and honk, blackbirds chorus, and crows scold and complain throughout the day. Soon enough, winter’s icy astringency will erase and muffle, utterly. Now is the time to savor these bountiful smells, tastes, colors, and sounds.

Halloween decorations are making their way around the living room and dining room. A Wiccan friend tells me that, rather than taking offense at our Halloween witch figures, she believes crones are a fitting symbol for the year’s decline; hopefully, this is a time for rendering the year’s wisdom as well. I’m creating rituals for this…to sit with the movements and invitations of the year thus far, those both pursued and rejected. Who am I now seems a fitting question for autumn meditation, before planting the seeds of Who do I wish to become for winter’s incubation.

My husband is adjusting to the rhythm of the new school year and, before he returns home, I’m off to teach second graders in an after-school program. Ships passing, and then mooring back together for the 7 P.M. popcorn party that the puppies anticipate every evening.

These are ancient autumn rhythms for us, this rising to gather and store, and to continue crafting a life that matters, to enter the dance of diminishing light, and to notice everything precious and brief before the dark of night rushes in, colder and closer each evening.

Now is the time to be burnished by autumn’s golden light and hallowed by the season’s holy mysteries, honoring the gifts offered between the green life of summer and the austerity of winter. A time for counting blessings and letting them go, for gathering in and handing out, for storing memories, sharing stories, and gentling onward sacred farewells.

Blessed be, say my Wiccan friends; merry meet and merry part…and grateful be your autumn heart.

Balance, Becoming, Change, Daily Round, Droughts and Floods, Environment, Gardening, Gratitude, Healing, Hope, Learning, Loss, Nature, Noticing, Photography, Relationship, Transformation, Web of Creation

Blowing Hot and Cold

September 10, 2013March 23, 2020by Kitty6 Comments

Nothing is glummer Than a cold in the summer. A summer cold Is to have and to hold.

~ Ogden Nash, Fahrenheit Gesundheit

It is ironic that on the hottest day of the year (September 10th!) I continue to harbor a nasty late-summer cold. We’re five weeks into another drought, and during the long, necessary hours of watering the gardens, it feels odd to be sneezing and taking breaks to greatly enrich the investments of Kleenex stockholders.

My voice sounds like a sheep crossed with a foghorn, and several bees and wasps seem to be lodged, circling and thrumming, in my head. It figures: a couple of weeks ago I smugly announced to Phillip how interesting it is that “I never get sick. Just never. It’s been years.”

Lesson learned.

Again.

It does seem, though, like the hours spent watering are also cooking the tenacious virus out of my system…More irony: What’s killing the garden is healing me.

It looked like we might avoid a drought this year. We enjoyed a temperate spring and bountiful summer, harvesting more asparagus, gooseberries, and cherries than ever.

The gardens seemed to be recovering so well from last summer’s horrendous months of aridity. But August and September have set us back again. We’re grateful that several gallons of tomato sauce are already in the freezer, but the grass is dying back, the trees and wildlife are suffering, and there are more of both than we can care for, thoroughly.

So I’ve begun to blow a bit cold on gardening, too. I’m willing to plant, weed, and tend my gardens for hours, and have, for 50 years, starting with a tiny flower patch my father and I prepared for my first garden. (Moss roses, bachelor buttons, zinnias and marigolds: A gardener is born.) But I have to admit that the past two summers have robbed me of the rewards previous years have afforded. I used to feel the joy of midwifing a nursery full of thriving greenery, blossoms, and food; now, I feel like a full-time hospice worker once again: Who might die today?

The long hours that formerly yielded deep peace and contentment are leaving me feeling, well, forlorn and bereft. I miss the partnership of Mother Nature; we used to co-create so happily together, though I understand her abandonment after decades of maltreatment and abuse by beings who should know better.

Still, there’s a garden in the front yard that needs to be overhauled, and I can’t help but get a little excited about planning its design…all the plants could be drought-resistant, and irrigated wisely.

Maybe I need to keep working at it, showing Mother Nature my intent here is earnest and my commitment faithful; maybe that’s the only way both of us will heal and find each other again. Isn’t true love always renewed in a garden?

Ah-choooo!

Now, where are those garden-design books?

(See Ogden Nash’s entire whole poem here.)

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Dona Nobis Pacem

May 20, 2013March 25, 2020by Kitty15 Comments

May my silences become more accurate. ~ Theodore Roethke

When I was younger and my body, or mind, or spirit shared its weariness, my response was usually to resist such silliness and work harder. I suspect this was the equivalent of “leaning in.”

Now I listen attentively and grant myself Sabbath minutes, or hours, or days, or weeks—whatever is possible in proportion to the emptiness I detect—if these will restore my creativity and re-balance my energy.

I have spent years offering my creative energy to Full Moon and her gardens; it’s nice when I allow these places and spaces to gift me in return with their beauty and energy, allowing love to flow both ways and deep re-creation to restore me with peace and new insights.

So, weary to the bone, I’m taking a week off to be still and to listen; to plant and ponder, weed and wonder…to allow my silences to become more accurate.

I began the day with a breakfast of asparagus freshly harvested, in gratitude: barely cooked, lightly buttered and generously peppered…my Sabbath has begun.

Joy and gentle peace to you from Full Moon.

Daily Round, Farmers' Markets, Gardening, Home, Organic Food, Spirit, Spring, Winter, Wisconsin

To Market, To Market

March 15, 2013March 15, 2013by Kitty21 Comments

I can tell it’s almost spring, though continuing snowfalls are no indication that this is so. But these days, the birdsong is all about spring, the sandhill cranes and red-tailed hawks are returning, and the inner time-keeper that heralds earth’s green abundance is causing me to shift from soup-making to craving salads and fruits and icy teas.

This is the time of year I countdown the days to the opening of farmers’ markets, in our local communities and in Madison, where the largest outdoor producer-only farmers’ market in the U.S. will open on April 20th. My own garden’s vegetables and fruits, local CSA’s’ offerings, and all these glorious farmers’ markets…such lovely, healthy bounty, and it’s almost here, near enough to smell!

The first 20 years of my adulthood were spent in Milwaukee, which is not a huge city, but at a population of 600,000 or so, the largest in the state. And since it’s the home to several universities and colleges as well as (still) many ethnic communities, shopping for produce, spices, and groceries was always a possible adventure. In the early 70’s, the first “health food” stores brought the additional availability of whole wheat and other grains still absent from grocery store shelves. We could prepare and eat healthy meals, and fairly cheaply.

Then I married Phillip and moved to the “country.” I couldn’t adjust to the scarcity of fresh produce and lack of ethnic foods and spices. I drove 40 minutes to Madison to find healthy ingredients. I remember an older teacher sitting beside me in the staff lunchroom and commenting on the “funny-food” I brought for my lunches (probably something with garlic and spinach). It all brought home to me that a move of 50 miles had brought me back to the wretched dietary habits of the 1950’s and 60’s: better eating through chemicals, processing, excessive sugars and fats, and meat, meat and more meat. It really made the newness of the community and our marriage all the more challenging not to be able to cook, bake, and eat foods that fed our spirits as well as our bodies.

The Farmers’ Market in Madison, and growing and preserving as much food as we could, helped a lot every summer. And, as the years have passed, an increasing awareness of the health benefits derived from fresh, organic foods and ingredients, as well as a shift towards greater variety and sophistication in tastes, has altered the local food landscape for the better. Several community farmers’ markets are close and affordable, and also provide wonderful opportunities to connect with friends and hear updates on everyone’s stories.

And when the cold winds do blow and shut down access to fresh garden produce, local groceries now stock organic choices. A few years ago, a woman opened a wonderful bulk goods store in our area, working with local and Midwest Amish and Mennonite suppliers. A short, beautiful ride in the country and I can stock up on inexpensive organic grains and spices that keep our meals varied and healthy all winter. I’d never tried some of these before (spelt; kamut; rye berries) and have enjoyed experimenting with new recipes.

This week I met with a friend at the indoor Milwaukee Public Market, a place I’ve enjoyed visiting since it opened in 2005. While not the most affordable place to shop, it’s a wonderful resource for specialty “treats,” people-watching, and to pay homage to the history of Milwaukee’s Third Ward. Years ago, when I worked downtown, I’d walk to the Third Ward over lunch break just to watch men unload crates and crates of fresh produce and fruits. It’s always good for my spirit to be back in Milwaukee and to share a meal with a friend, but now it’s also good to come back and cook up a healthy meal from ingredients I can buy here, at home.

My friend Bob, and I, at The Milwaukee Public Market

Time to bake some whole-grain organic soda bread for our St. Patrick’s celebrations…Joy to your first day of spring! May it bring a season of fresh and blessed health to your mind, body, and spirit, and may there be enough green in your pocket, on your plate and outside your window to make your life rich and your spirit merry!

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Coda

October 16, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

Full Moon Cottage has been a merry place the past few days. Although the sky was fairly dreary and dark all weekend, we were overjoyed to receive the 3 inches of rain that fell and to hear the music it made Saturday morning through Sunday.

The river looked like this last Friday:

And like this today:

We’re pleased more rain is on the way tonight and later this week. Today, though, has been sunny and warm, making an inventory of the gardens and trail possible. While some annuals have succumbed to early frosts and we’ve lost some of the perennials to the drought, the roses and mums continue to bloom and color is yet abundant.

The honeybees and bumblebees buzzed intently around the mums this morning. I imagine they know it will soon be closing time in the garden, and are gathering all the available pollen and nectar while they can. The cold weather caused them to slow down and cling to the plants, barely moving. It was good to see them so active again today.

The herons, sandhill cranes, and egrets flew to warmer locations during our cold spell. I’ve worried they were weakened by the drought and hope they’ve found winter nesting sites where water and warmth are available.

Mysteriously, area cardinals, usually abundant year-round, disappeared during the long weeks of drought. I’m hopeful they’ll return and cheer up the winter landscape. Our old friend Bobtail is still a frequent visitor, and the chickadees and tufted titmice have been consuming great quantities of sunflower seed.

We’ve had a coyote roaming our territory the past several weeks, and he seems to have decimated the rabbit population. I haven’t seen the turkey flock for a while, but they cover a lot of ground and may circle back again, with the fox likely following them. I only see him in red flashes here and there. The family of barred owls in the woods beside our home strikes up sustained hooting late in the afternoon. I have no idea why; they may be defending their territory. We love their presence; their hoots punctuate the daily round at Full Moon Cottage as dearly as all the other creatures’ calls, barks, chirps, chatters, buzzes and squeaks.

The drought’s destruction has eased for now, and for that, we’re grateful. The planet’s increasing heat is likely to continue to cause drought conditions and we’ll have to adjust. (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/07/24/what-we-know-about-climate-change-and-drought/)

Rain appears several times in the coming forecasts, although it’s often labeled “scattered,” so we may or may not be the happy recipients. It’s too late to save crops for area farmers, but gardens, prairies, forests, rivers, lakes, and all the wildlife that rely on these for food and shelter, have seemed tangibly relieved the past few days. This afternoon, a chorus of blackbirds scattered themselves throughout the treetop choir loft along the trail and filled the air with their songs. High winds shook down remaining leaves, reminding me that autumn is here to stay…but then again, the drought has taught me to take nothing for granted. Everything can change and there are no guarantees that the land and animals I have known will survive coming variations in temperature, water levels, storms, winds, and the resulting available food and shelter.

Life is precarious and made more so by our lack of engagement with the ways our need and greed affect the planet.

But for now, I am enjoying, with great deep gratitude, the songs of blackbirds, the buzzing of bees, the hooting of owls, little Bobtail’s visits to “his” feeder, and the sweet patter of rain falling, like blessing, upon our world.

They may be gone tomorrow.

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Becoming, Daily Round, Full Moon Cottage, Gardening, Gratitude, Loss, Photography, Transformation

All’s Right With the World

May 11, 2012March 25, 2020by Kitty10 Comments

The year’s at the spring

And day’s at the morn;

Morning’s at seven;

The hillside’s dew-pearled;

The lark’s on the wing;

The snail’s on the thorn;

God’s in His heaven—

All’s right with the world.

~ Robert Browning, Pippa Passes

We are being gifted with glorious weather this week and it looks like it will continue for still another week as well. The rains were too heavy last weekend, but now we’ve had just enough to keep everyone happy, and plenty of warmth to beckon buds into bloom and songbirds to sing. The rose-breasted grosbeaks have returned, the hummingbirds have completed their extraordinary journey and are replenishing their energy at the feeders. I’ve heard orioles and seen them along the trial, but they haven’t yet come to the feeding station and I’m hoping to set out a few oranges this afternoon to draw them in and make them welcome.

Morning’s begin around five for us these days; birds vie for their chance at the worms, insects, and seeds, and the night creatures withdraw to the shadows edging the woods. The sun rises between 5 and 6 A.M. and the eastern view towards the river explodes with light. The acreage at Full Moon Cottage is hemmed in by curtains of willow leaves, ash trees, and pines, and all are illuminated at dawn, back-lit by gold and it is too much; I’m called to wordless stillness, staring at the beauty.

I’ve always loved this stanza of Browning’s. Though I don’t agree with his theological pronouns or geography, we’re all entitled to our perceptions of Holy Source and to orientations regarding its presence that give us peace…and the rest of the stanza is glorious. “Summer afternoon—summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language,” wrote Henry James, but a spring morning is equally captivating.

Just be, says the world; it is enough.

I sense a greater energy in myself, my partner and our 4-legged companions as the bright days lengthen; we all want to be out in it: the budding and blossoming, the light and shadow, the colors and connections.

The first poppy “popped” today as the tulips and trilliums are fading and dropping leaves. We’re well into the garden symphony’s first movement, the whirl of birth and life and death that happens and draws us in and reminds us we’re specifically flowing in the whirl ourselves: The duck eggs will hatch soon; the starling mother drowned in the rainstorm; her six eggs were therefore exposed to the cold and the life within perished…

Our mothers will be feted and honored less than they are due, but happily, this weekend; those of us who dreamed of children and were not blessed with them will mourn unrealized dreams…

It all mixes together and passes too quickly, all of it. Children grow up; gardens rise, bloom, and return to the earth; chances are taken and missed. I cannot remember all the words to the song the child within is singing, but I am certain it is a hymn to the dearness of what is–just this once, and fleeting–and a reminder that joy and pain, regret and rebirth, life and death mix and resurrect into new life. Again.

So I will sit in the garden outside my window and the garden of my life, and see the light and colors of what is here, and of what has come from what has come to pass.

And here is the oriole, orange and brilliant.

Daily Round, Gardening, Recipe

From Seed to Table

October 11, 2011March 26, 2020by KittyLeave a Comment

Part of the daily round this time of year means harvesting the fresh produce still offered up by our vegetable garden before the frost reclaims the earth and bids it rest through the winter. Although a few tomatoes are still ripening, the yield at this point is largely peppers, squash, onions, garlic, carrots, and autumn raspberries, along with the faithful herbs, rosemary, French tarragon, and sage. The basil died during the cold nights two weeks ago, and the dill and cilantro have gone to seed. To me, the smell of basil is synonymous with summer. I’m always sad to see it go, but I freeze cubes of pesto, so we can celebrate its life and scent till spring.

I grew up in sequential suburbs and then lived in a city for 20 years. My father gardened, but he focused on roses, rather than vegetables. My own suburban homes were crammed with perennials and provided years of education in garden design, but never afforded the space for vegetables, beyond a few peppers and tomatoes, so when Phillip and I moved to Full Moon, we were ready to start a “real” vegetable garden. Farmers’ Markets are wonderful, but we love growing our own food, despite the hassles of weeds and pests (though this year’s invasion of Japanese Beetles was discouraging).

The 4 acres surrounding our home were surprisingly “gardenless” before we became Full Moon’s caretakers. When we first toured the property, the woman living here said, “I never knew where to put a garden.”

Really? How about anywhere?

18 years later, we have many flower gardens and a wonderful vegetable garden. From asparagus to the potatoes and carrots we’ve dug up after snowfalls, the annual parade of homegrown produce has blessed our table and fed our spirits–and guests–as well.

Gardening is many things, but it’s never “finished.” The designs and plans are always evolving, the living 3-D sculpture is always changing, and gardeners are forever hopefully dreaming about the next opportunity to co-create their art with Nature. The satisfaction of planting seeds and reaping both food and beauty offers a continual enticement and delight.

Bless the seed; bless the fruit; bless the meal and bless those present, enjoying the lovely, spiraling energy of life, dancing in our gardens, bodies, and spirits.

Catherine O'Meara, Discernment, Spirit Level

Co-Creation

October 2, 2011March 26, 2020by KittyLeave a Comment

So ends a weekend full of fall’s bounty and invitations…for me, the proper response is gratitude: for friends, for family, for 4-legged companions, for the mystery of life we enter, and for the meaning we co-create in community.

Early Saturday morning, my husband and his friend, Scott, helped me plant over 160 tulip bulbs (wonderful bulbs, from www.AmericanMeadows.com).

They dug, and I placed and covered the bulbs with a silent blessing for their peaceful rest and eventual vernal emergence, when all creation rises to the light. I like to plant in groups of five; certainly, this is in keeping with the elements of formal design, but for me, it also ensures the bulbs will rest in community: fragile companions nestled together during the time of fertile darkness, while cold winter winds and gentle–or fierce–snows swirl above their earth-womb, and safeguard their needed gestation.

And so, too, my own spirit is led downward to the coming darkness and cold of autumn and towards the solitude and centering of winter, where losses may be recounted and griefs healed, and where seeds of hope and dreams of growth may be harbored, incubated, and cradled. I’m gathering in the lessons of the year: winnowing, discarding, and laying out the questions I want to plant for winter discernment. Like the bulb’s requirements for transformation, this is best done deeply and in stillness, and never without community. Phillip, the 4-leggeds, friends, gardens, everything in every moment–my relationships with all–reveal myself to me. For each of us, whatever vulnerable potential will bloom into light requires co-creation and the support of community. Our growth is never done in isolation. We collaborate in fashioning the questions with all of creation, in awareness or not, and within these relationships we refine the paths where the questions lead…

Together, Phillip, Scott, and I joined the dance of co-creation with Mother Earth, planting hope and joining our energies with the web of nature, connecting with life’s eternal circle. Planting seeds is always a co-creation and collaboration with mystery, as is a life lived consciously.

Tag: Garden