Cabin Fever Contemplations

Make it stop.  Please.

The snow just slid off the roof of the house, its own mini avalanche, rattling these old windows and freaking out the cats and causing a vibration under my feet. 

It’s April 9.  This is uncalled for.  I’d call Mother Nature a b____, but she seems peeved about something already and I don’t want to antagonize her further.

A couple of days ago I was lamenting the bog that I call a driveway.  It happens every spring, and to most of the Adirondacks, and although at the time it seems unrelenting, it does go away.  As I look at everything covered in a couple inches of snow and sleet today, the mud would be a welcome sight.  That’s what I get for grousing.

Since leaving my day job at the end of the year, I’ve spend a lot of quality time with our woodstove.  I’ve concluded that when it’s a secondary source of heat, it’s fun to futz with wood and nice to smell the smoke.  But when you’re counting on it for your survival in sub-zero temperatures, it loses its luster.  By April, I can’t stand dealing with it anymore and curse profoundly at every piece of wood that doesn’t quite fit.  I’m resentful of the 24/7 commitment it demands and tired of smelling like a piece of charred wood. 

Because we got off to a late start on the firewood this fall (due to the house painting project), Larry cut nothing but ash.  I love it because it splits so nicely.  And you can burn it green, which was the plan.  It’s burned very well for us, considering it only had minutes to age.

Our new house in Mississippi has two fireplaces, and I’m trying not to be elitist towards them.  One has glass doors and was obviously used more regularly than the other one.  Neither are intended to be a real source of heat, but should be useful in getting the chill out on those damp days.  I haven’t used a fireplace since our camp in Lake George, so in yet another aspect, I’m coming full circle.  The smell and sound of a freshly stuck wooden match still reminds me of my grandfather.

I debated whether or not to bring the woodsplitter south.  For a brief insane moment I 

considered selling it, and ran the idea past Larry, who looked at me like I’d lost my mind.  What was I thinking?  We’ll always be playing with firewood.  Larry loves to drop trees and work with his chainsaws and I find splitting to be very zen.

Meanwhile I’m grateful for having a warm, toasty house, the fact that we had more than enough firewood to get us through the winter, and I’ll welcome the mud when it resurfaces.  I don’t want to irritate Mother Nature any further.

The Christmas Card Standoff

I don’t know when I started paying attention to such things, but I’m beginning to scrutinize my Christmas card list.

Once upon a time, when my address book overflowith with relatives near and far and an

overabundance of friends, it would take several boxes to get out my yearly sentiments.  Nowadays I’m more discriminating as to whom I send out cards, basically because I’m cheap and a little lazy.

But it’s also that as I’ve gotten older, I pay more attention to who really matters in my life.

Older aunts and uncles always stay on the list.  I love them, they’ve been fixtures in my life since childhood, and it’s respectful.

Cousins for the most part stay on the list.  Over the years, a few have dropped off, as our lives went into different orbits and we finally realized we no longer had anything in common.  Card sending was a formality that we realized was no longer necessary.

But friends are the real wildcards.  Some stay in your life forever, others just pass through, others are friends but don’t rise to Christmas card level (and only you can determine what that threshold is).  This is the group of recipients that most often play the Christmas Card Standoff game.

For example:  A certain friend has been on my list for years.  I worked with them umpteen

years ago at a job that I barely remember.  At the time, we were good buds – doing lunch together a lot, commiserating together about the boss, sharing little kid stories.  But I couldn’t tell you the last time I actually saw this person.

If the last time I actually saw this person, shoulder pads were in fashion, it’s time to cut them loose.

I made the conscious decision to not send them a card.  I debated, but I made the call.  Now I’m waiting to see if I get one from them.  If I don’t, I know they felt the same way, and thank goodness.  I don't take it personally if I've rotated off their list of recipients.

Sometimes you get lucky and the card you sent to them comes back as undeliverable, unable to forward, whatever.  Hey, you tried.  If you run into that person in Price Chopper months later (after unsuccessfully trying to avoid them by ducking into the cereal aisle), you can say oh, I tried to send you a Christmas card, I figured you (moved, went into the witness protection program, died, fill in the blank).

Every day at the mailbox now is like spinning the roulette wheel.  Checking return addresses for people deliberately left off your list just adds to your holiday stress.  And if you see an address of someone you didn’t send a card to, damn!!  Now you have to get one off to them ASAP if not sooner, so you don’t look like a schmuck. 

It’s three days before Christmas as I write this.  I know who I didn’t send cards to.  I’m hoping they didn’t send cards to me so I can be relieved of this particular holiday guilt.  It’s the Mexican Standoff of the season.  Aye carumba!  Merry Christmas to all!!

The Beauty in Necessary Evils

There is never enough time to get things done on the homestead.  You wonder where the time went.  We spent all summer painting the outside of the house.  This meant power washing the exterior and watching pieces of paint and wood go flying all over the yard.  It looked like a ticker tape parade had gone through.

Next was spot scraping and repairing siding and molding from whence said pieces of wood went flying.  Then hitting bare wood with primer, and finally painting.  What we optimistically thought would take a couple of weekends (oh will we ever learn) took the entire summer.  That’s what happens when you're trying to get a major project done on weekends, and half the time you get rained out or some other commitment crops up.  You can only get so much done after work on the weekdays.

But we toughed it out.  It seemed like the never ending project, especially in the face of other things we wanted to do to get the house marketable.  We focused on getting the front done, so we could take pictures to put online.  Larry also put new metal on the porch roof, to match the rest of the house, which was done last year. 

It was a long, slow and sometimes painful haul, but we finally got it done.  We stood at the end of the driveway and thought, wow, the house looks fantastic!  Why did we wait so long to do this? 

Larry also built some sweet steps off the back door.  We’ve been using a variety of slippery, shifting cinder blocks for take-your-life-in-your-hands steps since he bought the house.  Getting the stairs built was a revelation.  It was a thrill to be able to open the back door and step out onto a platform.  It was awesome.  Again, we asked ourselves, why did we wait so long?

It wasn’t a matter of waiting.  It was a matter of prioritizing, of working on what we felt was the most pressing thing each season.  We’d spent almost ten years working on clearing pasture, dropping trees, fighting weeds and trying to get a good grass stand established, and working on gardens.  This year, with no horses and just five low-maintenance chickens, we let the pastures go, which was probably the best thing we could have done for them.  They grew in thick and lush, with not nearly as much weed action as we feared.

Larry also planted almost exclusively pumpkins in the gardens.  He wanted to do something low-maintenance, and they were just the ticket.  He also planted a few cabbage plants (which

the deer enjoyed immensely, thank you very much) and some basil, but the pumpkins became The Thing That Took Over Charley Hill.  They were a huge return on investment in volume.

It’s a sad truth that you get the home improvements and repairs done when you are getting ready to put the house on the market.  The whole thing is bittersweet.  But with no serious buyers at the moment, we get to enjoy our work for a little while.  It's a pleasure to pull into the driveway and see the fresh paint, the new lattice, the beautiful metal roof.  The house smiles.

And we'll take away the lesson - as we said to each other while enjoying cocktails on our newly painted porch – of not waiting so long next time.

A Weekend at Watkins Glen International Raceway

I’m still a little dizzy from the fumes inhaled at Watkins Glen International Race Course this past weekend, where Larry and I spent two days watching the U.S Vintage Grand Prix.  

It was a blur of MGs, Corvettes, Porsches, Jaguars, Mustangs, Ferraris, in every variation imaginable, and a ton of other cars I couldn’t identify.  Some went faster than others, but they all had one thing in common – the dedication and enthusiasm of the people who drive them, take care of them, and follow them around the country to various events.

Car racing has no real appeal to me.  This was a weekend for Larry.  WGI is probably most well known for its annual NASCAR race, but they have numerous other events throughout the year.  (Check out their schedule here.)

Not your typical race track, WGI is 3.4 miles long (for the long course) and includes a variety of turns.  Bleachers were stationed at various points, so you could go traditional at the front stretch grandstand and watch pit row, or sit at a corner and watch everyone brake into a turn (much like the Northway going into the twin bridges at rush hour).  

The stars of the weekend were the vintage cars.  It was a bit like stepping back in time to watch them, many from the early to mid-part of the 20th century, revved up and racing around the track.  The races were broken up into groups by vehicle:  small displacement production sports cars, pre-1973 formula cars, pre-war (which war, it doesn’t say, but I’m guessing WWII), GT cars, and a slew of acronyms that I never figured out over two days.

Brummmm! Brummmmm!

WGI is an expansive facility; our tickets were all-access, so we were able to go pretty much anywhere we wanted.  It meant we walked miles – miles – each day, but it was worth it to see how much Larry enjoyed himself.  We also hiked the equivalent of Mt. Marcy in bleacher stairs.  

Not being a NASCAR race, there weren’t tons of fans in the stands.  But the folks who were there, well, they love their cars.  Participants ranged from a few true backyard hobbyists to racers sponsored as much as Dale Ernhardt Jr.  From the classic car show to the motorcycle expo to the random string of classic VW buses, people were there to enjoy and share their passion.  Even in the garage, where drivers and mechanics were busy with all the intensity of a NASCAR event, folks took the time to chat and explain things and share a story or two.  

Garage row

Inside

One of the fun games to play, particularly in the garage area, was “Is That His Daughter or His Girlfriend?”  You get to use all your powers of observation and deduction to get to the right answer.  Sometimes an unassuming chat with one or both parties is necessary to come to your conclusion (Larry was particularly good at this).  Even then – who knows.

By the time we left Sunday, I had seen enough.  While Larry had me take his picture with every Porsche we passed on the way out, I was ready to stab myself in the eye with a spork.  But it was so worth it to see him enjoy himself.  

It reminded me of when dad and I would go to horseshows (as spectators, not competitors) all the time.  We dragged mom along once, and afterwards she said never again.  “You two have to stop and look at every horse, every bucket, every bale of hay, every eye hook in the wall,” she said.  Dad and I said, “Well, yeah.”

Payback is, well, you know.

It's (Gonna Be) the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!

This year Larry decided we should be pumpkin ranchers.

In search of a garden goodie that would not take a ton of maintenance yet yield an easily

Yikes!

salable product, he planted all pumpkins in the front garden.  Their leaves have now exploded, literally filling the garden, and blossoms are visible.  

The blueberries out back, after doing squat the last few years and being afflicted by some sort of creeping crud last season, are bearing beautiful fruit.  Larry also planted a few beets, cabbage for his sauerkraut (oh, the humanity) and basil because what’s summer without fresh basil and mozzarella salad?

This past winter’s long, icy grip is a not very distant memory.  When the sweat is running down my back, I remind myself of how I couldn’t get close enough to the woodstove last winter.  I will not complain about the heat this year.  Not once.  It’s become a personal challenge.  Anyone who hears me do so has my permission to slap me.

Our big news is that we’ve put the house on the market in anticipation of Larry getting a job transfer and moving to warmer climes.  In an effort to look more mainstream, we mowed our yard this year.  I admit, it does look nice.  I left a few pockets of wildflowers, where they were actually in greater population than grass or weeds.  They provide pretty bursts of color.  I wouldn’t exactly call what we have a lawn, more like evenly cut green stuff, which, from a distance, could pass for a lawn.  To my dismay, it all grows pretty fast.  I’ve gotten back into the lawnmower groove, which is good exercise.

The front of the house has been power washed, scraped and repainted, and the porch has been reroofed to match the rest of the house (kudos to Larry for working like a dog on all this).  Rehab projects take forever when you’re chipping away at them on weekends.  The painting of the porch seemed like the never ending story and I wouldn’t wish painting lattice on my worst enemy.

When it was done, though, Larry couldn’t stop admiring how much better it all looked.  “We should have done this years ago,” he said, and it was hard to disagree.  We didn’t because we were always too busy working out back on pastures, which have gone by the wayside this year.

And we still have our Final Five chickens.  Tough old broads, they are.  They’ve become fixtures, following us around and gracing us with one to three eggs a day.  

I’m enjoying the yard more this year – futzing with my perennials and doing small yard projects I haven’t had the time to do before.  I don’t have the niggling guilt in the back of my mind that I’m not doing enough with the horses, because they’re out of my equation.  I’m getting the itch to ride again, but it’s not a burning desire.  At least, not yet, not here.  I’m not sure where I’m at with that right now.

Meantime, we’re enjoying our summer immensely – watching the gardens grow, giving the house some long overdue sprucing up, enjoying our time together right here, right now.  And oh yeah, we need to cracking on firewood.  So I can huddle up to the woodstove next winter.

A Visit to the Adirondack Meat Company

Big doings around town lately has been the opening of the Adirondack Meat Company, a processing plant (slaughterhouse) in Ticonderoga.  Local producers of local meat have had to go to Eagle Bridge or other fairly distant locales to have their animals butchered for sale.  AMC provides a much needed service in our area.  

Their primary focus is threefold, according to owner Pete Ward:  Humane treatment of the animals, sanitation and profitability. 
  
AMC processes beef, pork, goats and sheep.  To butcher buffalo, elk, etc. they need an exotic animal license, which they don’t have at this time.  They also don’t butcher poultry, so my girls are safe for now. 

It’s wonderful to see how a new local business is taking off, and what they’ll provide to the community in the way of jobs, and a delicious end product.  A retail store is in the works as well. 

Larry and I took a tour of the facility during their open house and received a valuable lesson in processing.  Before taking the tour, I had a broad understanding of how the animal gets from Point A (animal) to Point B (barbeque).  And here is, I believe, the opportunity for real learning.  

In brief, the animal comes in from the holding pen into the kill room, where its dismembered and gutted.  It then goes to a cooling room when the carcass temperature is lowered to approximately 39 degrees.  From there it goes to an aging room, where it stays for an average of 7-10 days. 

At that point, the carcass is cut into specific pieces parts and packaged.  Some is turned into ground meat.  It all ends up in the cooler for either pick up by the customer or for direct sale to the public. 

While it was awesome to understand the entire process, I found the kill room the most interesting.  Here’s where things really happen.   

A participant on the tour asked if someone could be in the kill room when the action was taking place, say someone who brings in their animal for their own personal consumption, and wants to watch the process.  The answer was no; only the processors and the USDA inspector are allowed in the kill room.  Understandable.   

But this is the opportunity to really educate people.   

I would like to put in the Suggestion Box that AMC install a viewing lounge adjacent to the kill room.  Bring in school groups for field trips – particularly little kids, educate them early - and let them see how this part of their nutrition pyramid comes to fruition.  Call it “Meet Your Meat Day.”  The permission slip sent home for parents to sign could have a smiling cartoon hot dog and hamburger on it, symbolic of some childhood innocence about to come to an abrupt end. 

Before it was a hamburger or hot dog, it was a critter on four legs coming in from the holding pen, none the wiser.  Then it becomes a hanging carcass, with its heart, liver and lungs on one tray and its head on another, to be inspected by the USDA.  Its hide is skillfully peeled back so as to not contaminate the meat, its hocks removed and innards eviscerated and put in a refrigerated holding tank, to be collected for rendering.  

I’m reminded of one of the few episodes of Duck Dynasty I’ve been exposed to. Phil Robertson graphically demonstrates for a group of elementary school kids how to dismember a duck.  Later, as he recounts the event to his wife, he says “And that’s when the little girls started to squeal.” 

I imagine there would be a lot of squealing going on in the viewing lounge at AMC.  Some of it would probably be coming from me.  But that’s okay.  Nobody ever said reality was pretty.  It is tasty, though.

Click on this link to learn more about the Adirondack Meat Company.

When All Else Fails, Wait for Mom

Chicken tracks in the snow are adorable.

It looks like little dinosaurs have traveled around your house, which isn’t so far from the truth.  

The girls seriously dislike the snow.  I can open the door to the coop in the morning after a snowfall and they look out with an attitude of “Yeah, well, no.”  Only after I have cleared or packed the path a bit will they start to come out.

One of their favorite hangouts is underneath the porch of the house.  There the dirt is sandy, loose and begging to be dug into.  In the summer it’s a great spot because it’s cool.  In the winter its appeal is that it’s loose dirt amongst nothing but frozen ground and this annoying, cold white stuff.  

With the weather we’ve had this winter – some snow, lots of rain that becomes ice – the chickies have stayed around their coop.  Over the summer they kept me company as I convalesced on the porch, by hanging out in the front yard, working their way up the porch steps until I yelled at them, and roosting on the pioneer fence.  They endeared themselves to me on a whole new level.  Because they were only five of them, personalities became distinct. 

We still have Wheezy, the chicken I nursed back to health after a weasel attack several years ago.  There’s Broody, the only one out of the original flock who has shown any inclination to set on eggs.  She’s the smallest and Queen of the Coop.  There’s Spot, named only because she has a dark spot on her lower eyelid that’s noticeable. The other two are indistinct – sorry – and nameless.  They're all hale and hearty and coming through the winter in great condition.

A few weeks ago, the girls started coming down the path through the snow and going under the porch again.  When I came home for lunch, I’d hear them coo under the stairs and sometimes they'd stick their heads out looking for a treat.  The other day they got the motherlode of my failed attempt at King Cake, devouring it with great relish.  I know I'm supporting negative behavior with positive reinforcement (pestering me for treats and getting cake for their trouble), but I’m beginning to feel sorry for them given the winter we’ve been having.

One day last week, as dusk was approaching, I looked out the kitchen window and saw three chickens by the woodpile.  It was an odd place for them to be hanging out.  Usually by that time of the day, they have instinctively put themselves on their roosts in the coop for the night.  I threw on my coat and went outside.

It had snow lightly but constantly all day, and the ground was covered with about four inches of very light, fluffy snow.  I saw a set of chicken tracks come out from under the porch, pick up the path, and make the left turn between the trailer and woodsplitter to go down the path to their coop.  But these three birds somehow – maybe snowblindness, maybe the depth of the snow threw them off – missed the turn and continued straight just a few more feet, to the other side of the woodsplitter, and ended up in a dead end area by the woodpile.

Even they knew they were in the wrong spot.  They just couldn’t figure out how to get to the right spot.  

I was going to herd them around the corner and down the path.  But as I approached them, they didn’t move.  Two things had happened:  the magical chicken bewitching hour where it’s bed time and they stay wherever they happen to be for the night, and (I think) they had gotten very cold, up to their chicken thighs in the snow, as they all had one leg curled up underneath their bodies like little black and white flamingos.

So I had the opportunity to do something very rare.  I reached down and picked up Wheezy and tucked her under my arm.  She didn’t put up a fight.  I picked up Broody, who flapped for a second but then gave it up, and tucked her to my midsection, holding her against Wheezy and me with my arm.  Then I reached down and one-armed a No Name and brought her to nestle with the other two.  I officially had an armful of chickens.  For a second I thought they would do their usual chicken freak-out at being held, but then I realized they felt content.  They were warming up.  They relaxed.  They felt secure.

I carried my load of poultry to the coop and gently put them on the floor.  The other two chickens (who obviously had the smarts to find their way back earlier in the day) were on the roost and looked at them like “Where were you idiots?”  Wheezy fluffed up her feathers.  Broody got something to eat.  No Name gave me a blank, tilted-head look.

Lots of people laugh at chickens’ goofiness, and all animals have their amusing moments.  But when you have animals in your life, the moments that really have meaning are when you have those times of connection, of when you know they trust you.  I've had many with horses over the years.

Chickens aren’t particularly cuddly, at least mine aren’t.  But having that opportunity to “rescue” them (and there have been others) and hold them to me for a few minutes was a reminder of how the universe is a sum of its parts, and to appreciate those moments.

It's nice to help out when someone takes a wrong turn.

Let Go or Be Dragged

Hello 2014, you shiny faced little pixie you. You have no idea how happy I am to see you here. Your predecessor 2013 was a little harsh, and not just on me. Lots of folks had a rough year. On the 30 Acre Wood, she lulled me into a false sense of security for the first five months of the year, and then let loose with the big smackdown.

I’m won’t say it wasn’t necessary, but it was a little heavy handed. Yes, she got my attention. After the pain subsided and I was done being an angry bee and the pity party was over, I began to see the point she was trying to make.

Ignore your deepest feelings at your own peril.  I had been fighting the feeling that the horses weren't working out for us, but I refused to recognize it or acknowledge it. 

When you’re stuck on being identified with or as something, even if it’s just in your own mind, giving it up can be a mental impossibility, which turns into a physical impossibility. But the universe knows better.  And the universe always gets her way.  If you’re not paying attention, she drops the subtleties. And the next thing you know, you’re lying on the trail with a broken leg and your horse is gleefully galloping away from you.

Sometimes you need to let go, even if it’s wrenched from your hand. What once filled your soul may not be working for you anymore, for whatever reason. If you’re holding too tight to something, even if it’s no longer serving you, you can’t hold anything else. That can be self limiting at best and mentally crippling at worst.

Life After Horses has been a major adjustment, but it’s beginning to feel alright. Larry and I have had the opportunity to do more things and travel more freely, and that feels wonderful. The universe pried my hand open to make me let go, and now that my hand is beginning to uncramp, I’m able to hold other things.

This spring we may get some beef calves, to keep the pastures from going feral and to fill the freezer in the fall. A new batch of chicks may inhabit the coop. I’m looking forward to finally tackling some of the yard projects I’ve been trying to get to for several years now, without feeling guilty for taking that time away from the horses. And who knows – horses may very well indeed be in our future. Sometimes you need to take a breather to come back to something with renewed passion and joy.

What do you need to let go of, that’s no longer serving you? Join the Bona Fide Butterflies at their "Letting Go" retreat on January 24-26, 2014 at the beautiful Glen Lodge in Warrensburg, to explore what you may need to release in your life and how to move forward.  Best of all, it will be in a playful, friendly and relaxing weekend with kindred spirits. Trust me, it’ll be easier and a lot more fun than breaking your leg.

 

 

Baking Bad

Larry often says that cooking is interpretive and experimental, but baking is like chemistry – you have to have the ingredients just right, or it doesn’t work out.

I’ve never been much of a cook. I have a few culinary tricks up my sleeve, but for the most part my food preparation is utilitarian in nature. If I were a single woman, I’d probably live on bologna sandwiches and Captain Crunch. Fortunately for me, Larry enjoys cooking and usually takes the helm in the kitchen.

Once in a while, though, I get an urge to bake, especially in the fall. I found a recipe for Impossible Pumpkin Cookies that, despite their name, seemed pretty easy. After starting to mix the ingredients, however, I realized I had purchased a can of sweetened milk and not condensed milk. There was no conversion or swapping mentioned in my standby Better Homes and Gardens cookbook. So I called my friend and baking guru, Dianne Johnstone.

 

Dianne said no, you really can’t use one in place of the other, and there wasn’t any real workaround. She asked what I was making and I said Impossible Pumpkin Cookies, the impossible part apparently being the cook’s ability to pick up the right ingredients from the store.

In the end, the cookies proved impossible for me, as they had a weird timeframe of cooking 10 minutes, then sitting out for 10 minutes, then going in the refrigerator for 30 minutes. Behind the eight ball now because of having to run to the store again and having to be somewhere shortly, I fudged the time sitting to 5 minutes and time in the fridge to half a day. Let’s just say the chickens were the beneficiaries of that particular attempt.

 

This weekend I had a herd of bananas on my counter that were growing blacker by the day, slowly inching their way towards the compost pail. I decided to wash the dead bugs out of my bread pans and try some banana bread. I utilized the basics of a new recipe in my cookbook with some of my favorite components from a banana muffin recipe.
 

But when I started putting all the dry ingredients in the bowl I realized I was looking at the wrong recipe in the cookbook (I have GOT to get new glasses), so I pulled out a pinch of what looked like the baking powder here and some of what looked like the baking soda there. Instead of one monster loaf, I split it between two pans and hoped for the best. I warned Larry this was a compilation recipe, there were no guarantees.
 

To my surprise, they came out great – no small feat for me - cooked through perfectly, moist and delicious, as good banana bread should be. Welcome Fall! Sometimes mad science in the kitchen wields wonderfully tasty results.

Operator, Can You Help Me Make This Call?

Telephone:  an instrument for reproducing sounds at a distance; specif: one in which sound is converted into electrical impulses for transmission (as by wire) – Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary

I had to get a new telephone for the house. As much as I prefer our old black rotary phone, which can double as a weapon against intruders, telephone transmissions no longer play nice with them. The cordless unit we had was beginning to act up, and we were never

happy with the clarity of the answering machine recording. It always sounded like a bad fast food drive-through.

Best Buy can be intimidating to us just-fell-off-the-turnip-truckers: cavernous, flashy and overstimulating. There are too many options. Sales people are either over exuberant (which is quickly followed by exasperation when they see I have no idea what they’re talking about, and they have to dumb everything down) or they try to keep two displays away and avoid eye contact so they don’t have to deal with me.

I wandered the store for a while unsuccessfully trying to find regular telephones. I dawdled by the iPods and mp3 players, something I’ve been thinking about getting for a while but I’m 1) too cheap and 2) too intimated to learn how to use them. You’d think that the adult education folks would offer something useful like "Portable Music for Dummies." What struck me was their size; the last time I looked at them they were something you could put down without losing. Now, they’re the size of a graham cracker. The label actual included the word "Walkman" (well, that I could relate to) and "video." How are you supposed to view video on such a tiny screen? Are optometrists in on this?

Unable to find unmobile telephones, I reluctantly approached a team of three cell phone salespersons. "I’m almost afraid to ask this," I said, "but do you have regular telephones, you know, for landlines?" The inner struggle between being helpful and being condescending showed on the young guy’s face. "Sure," he smiled. "Follow me."

He practically jogged to a far wall of the store, while I hobbled after him, trying to keep up. He led me to a cobwebby and dusty shelving display, to the technological Island of Misfit Toys. "Here you go!" he announced and promptly disappeared. These phones were unpromoted and unannounced, no "Outdated Technology For Losers" signage which would have been helpful. The five display phones looked sad and neglected, spaces between them on the shelves where their brethren had been removed, never to be restocked again. All I wanted was a phone with an answering machine built it. Most of the options were a phone base with six offspring so every room in our house could have telecommunications.

I finally zeroed in on one. The box read "Communication Answering System." The word telephone was nowhere on the package. I suppose that word is now obsolete as well. Its proudly listed features included large, backlit buttons and caller ID that announced who was calling. I suppose these are helpful for us old people, who are the only ones buying these archaic things anymore. I’m surprised it didn’t come with a sample of Lipitor or a coupon for Depends.

When I approached the cashier, I joked that it was called an answering system versus a telephone. She gave me a sad, tolerant smile. "Hardly anyone has landlines anymore," she said. Yeah, well, I live in the country, honey, I kept from saying. I’d like to see how well your ass stacks firewood.

This weekend I will fortify myself with some tequila and take a run at getting our new communication answering system hooked up, charged, and programmed properly. I can always hope for a power outage, where I'll have no choice but to plug in the rotary phone.

　

Clearing the Channels

Greetings from the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where hubby and I are taking our annual vacation with a wide array of his relatives.  Normally I’m happy to hang with the large assortment of cool cousins and extended family, but right now there is a visiting herd of little kids running amok in the house.  It sounds like a pack of wild Indians out there (which probably isn’t so far from the truth), so I took this moment to hole up in my room and figuratively put pen to paper.

There was an interesting post on the writer’s blog Write to Done about writer’s block.  The brilliance of the post was in the different angle it took on this topic.  It viewed it not as “writer’s block,” but as a “log jam.”  The problem isn’t being blocked, but being so overwhelmed with ideas, thoughts, etc., that our brain jams up.  This was a real eye opener.  One, it made me feel better.  Two, it made perfect sense.  Instead of being an unproductive dolt, I’m really just too flush with ideas for my own good.  Recognizing the problem is halfway to a cure.  Looked at in the right light, it isn’t even really a problem.

This enlightening post came on the heels of a one-day workshop sponsored by the Adirondack Center for Writing.  It was on nature writing and was facilitated by the lovely Robin Zimmerer who published a book entirely about moss.  Seriously.  I wasn’t quite sure what to expect but it’s important to keep an open mind about such things and to be willing to try new experiences.

A campground in Old Forge was the great setting for the workshop. It was more about the intuitive, warm and fuzzy aspect of writing, whereas I’m more of a nuts and bolts kind of gal.  Still, where I didn’t think I’d be able to write anything remotely decent and felt embarrassingly blocked, I surprised myself by coming out of the

writing exercises with interesting, decent stuff.  About moss.  Seriously.

The best part of the weekend was spending time with fellow writer Nancy Scarzello, a Ticonderoga herbalist and naturalist whom I had corresponded with briefly in the spring.  The Summer of the Broken Leg flew by and I unexpectedly received an email from her telling me about the ACW workshop and asking if I would like to share a rented cabin with her in Old Forge while attending the workshop.  It was the perfect little getaway and a tonic to my writer’s soul to spend time with such a kindred spirit. 

Sometimes you just need to let the natural currents break up that log jam.

Step by Step, Slowly I Turned...

It’s always darkest before the dawn. Actually, it’s always coldest before the dawn.

Metaphorically, I was freezing. I was tired of the cold. I was tired of those stupid crutches. Sick to death of them. Of hobbling around from place to place, of having to think of how I was going to navigate a certain area or place, of always having to take them into consideration.

I went into the barn. My deserted, dusty, cobwebby barn. I picked up the broom and tried to sweep the floor, the way I do in the kitchen, with one hand. But the barn broom is much heavier than the house broom, and that wasn’t going to work.

Screw this.

I have been so very afraid of hurting myself again. The physical pain of the initial accident and subsequent surgeries were very fresh in my mind. I didn’t want to undo all the healing I had done. I just had to try to put some pressure on my leg, snugly encased in my velcro boot. Dr. Rosas said for me to try to do what I was comfortable with. I told him 

Copyright Garry Larson
 

that a lot of my hesitation and fear was in my head, and without looking at me he furrowed his brow a bit when I said that. How could he not get that?

But now I had had enough. It was sink or swim time. I leaned my crutches against the gate. I balanced myself and gingerly put my left foot forward and rolled on it, heel to toe, as I brought my right foot forward.

It was okay. A little tweaky, but not bad. I took another step. In the quiet of my barn, surrounded by the shadows of all my former horse loves, I started really living again. Within the next ten minutes, I had swept the barn floor, moved the wheelbarrow and tidied things up. I had proven to myself that I could it.

I had shown myself that a little faith can go a long way.

Larry often tells me that he has faith in me. He recently said I have taught him the most about faith - not in the religious sense, but in the humanity sense. I learned about my own faith that day in my slightly scarred soul and badly scarred leg. I did it, taking that step back towards myself.

That was almost two weeks ago. I am now walking well (with the boot), although rough or uneven ground is still a challenge. I can get up and down stairs much better, and am able to walk at home without the boot, although they are smaller, mincing steps, but self-powered all the same. The first time I was able to carry my own coffee out of the kitchen, you would have thought I’d won the lottery. I played 9 holes of golf for the first time ever last weekend (with a cart), poorly, Larry and I had a blast. I mowed the grass by the chicken coop because I couldn’t stand it any longer. Now that was empowering! And the girls seemed happy to see me back there. Even if I made that up in my own mind, I’ll take away the feel-good.

Ya gotta have faith.

Ghost in the Machine

I stood in the entrance of the barn, the air cool on my face. There was a thin layer of snow and ice on the cement floor; I was worried about slipping on my crutches. I hobbled into the barn and looked around. It looked like a haunted house - cobwebs in every

My subconscious sucks.

corner, darkness making it difficult to see, leaves and debris blown across the floor, the smell of old hay and brittle leather. Why was it so dark? It was empty of horses, but beyond that, it was... deserted, abandoned. The sadness felt like a weight on my chest.

The weight on my chest was the cat, staring at me, willing me to wake up and feed her.

Once I fell off Nifty, I didn’t lay eyes on her until the day her future owners came to check her out. I didn’t even head towards the barn until weeks after our remaining leased horse went home to Crown Point.

I don’t blame Nifty for my fall; in the beauty that is hindsight, I blame myself for not lunging her before I got on in the first place. Maybe it would have made a difference, maybe not; it doesn’t matter anymore. But I still feel betrayed in some way - by the horse, by myself, by my body for crumpling up in such a heap upon hitting the earth.

I'm still very on the fence about my future with horses. On one side it feels good to have the break from the twice-daily responsibilities. I certainly have more money in my checking account, which is a nice change. If Larry and I want to do something, we don’t have to take into consideration barnyard schedules. The chickens can fend for themselves until we get home.

Two weeks ago, I finally did gimp my way back to the barn. Uneven ground on crutches is, for lack of a better word, a BITCH. Standing in the doorway of the barn, I felt sucked into my very dream - to my surprise the barn floor was indeed covered in leaves, pine needles and dirt, the corners cobwebby and dark. In the tack room I ran my hand over my dusty saddle (it doesn’t take long for an inch of dirt to accumulate in a barn), knocked the cobwebs from my grooming tools and bulletin board with the horse calendar my grandmother gets me every Christmas.

People seem to be in two camps regarding my future with horses - there’s "Those damn things will kill ya, spend your time doing something else" and "You got back on the horse, right?" Personally, I feel both ways, depending on where I am at the moment. When I’m not around the barn, I feel like I can completely walk away from it all. No regrets. But when I’m in the barn, I miss the sounds and smells and grooming and cleaning tack. I miss the one-on-one with my animals. I enjoy being in the barn, caring for them, puttering around.

I’m sticking by my decision to take the winter "off." Not that it was much of a decision to be made - I can’t do anything and I couldn’t put all that work on Larry, which he handled the first 6 weeks after my accident. I’m the type of person who likes to make a decision, make a plan and BAM execute it. This indecision is making me crazy, and Larry’s been the witness of a meltdown or two (or three). But I can’t commit one way or the other yet. And as Larry keeps telling me, that’s okay. Despite my left brain wanting things all neat and orderly, it’s not something I have to decide right now.

Maybe it will come to me in a dream.

It's Not Easy Being Green

The beginning of June usually marks the start of peak growth season. I had just put down an initial bed of mulch around my three front flower beds and the perennial bed I planted last year. And then I broke my leg and it rained and turned hot. Things grew. And grew.

Larry is the anti-lawnmower man. As in, he hates to mow. In the 10+ years I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him use the lawnmower. It was part of his incentive to rototill the entire yard and plant wildflower seed when he first bought the house. It’s been successful in varying degrees. The front of the house has fared the best, with really beautiful growth, but last year the backyard bore more grasses and weeds than anything.

Regardless, I've always mowed my little paths through the jungle - across the front of the 

Front yard flowers - my perennial
bed is in there somewhere

house and around the gardens, which gave things some semblance of order and neatness. Last year I put paver stones around two of the front flower beds and erected little pioneer fences behind my perennial grasses and the new perennial flower bed.

But this year I've been stuck in a chair watching the grass grow. And the weeds grow. With no taming in sight. Larry had his hands full helping me out, taking care of everything house-wise and working. I didn’t have the heart to whine to him about the yard.  He enjoys his vegetable gardens; the rest of the yard, who cares?

This spring Larry bought a 4' brush hog attachment for the tractor for the back pastures. It sat next to the barn, waiting for its maiden voyage into the back 40.

As the yard grew exponentially with the rain and angst began to show on my face, Larry  

Stupid chicken! Get out
of my flower bed!

offered to mow around the house – with the brush hog.

I didn’t want to seem unappreciative. I didn’t want to discourage him. But I could not quite visualize how this would work. A 4’ brush hog really isn’t destined for footpaths around the house. It's not a finesse tool. I had visions of everything within a 50’ radius of the house being mascerated, with flower heads flying everywhere.

Larry hooked the brush hog up to the tractor and started it up. I heard him drive behind the house, put the brush hog in gear, and lumber along with the occasional hair-raising sounds of rocks being chiseled. The man was undaunted.

He came around the side of the house, by the garden. He got close to the fence, mowed the high vegetation there. But he never came around to the front of the house.

An hour later, the tractor went quiet and Larry appeared, sweaty and with little green bits of vegetation sticking to him. "Well," he said, "That was kinda like using a 20 pound sledge to hammer in a finishing nail."

 

Back garden

Minutes later, to my shock, I heard the lawnmower rev up, and he made a very quick pass across the front of the house. This weekend, he weed-whacked along the back garden fence, which was all but invisible behind tall grass. He spent hours weeding in his gardens, making the wonderful vegetables he grows suddenly stand out and shine.  I managed to get on my hands and knees Saturday and weeded three of the flower beds, which was very satisfying.

 

Front garden

Things are still a little rough and shaggy looking, but as Larry says, "Hey, it's the Adirondacks."