Start blogging again for God's sake. Do it like getting up on cold rainy mornings and bundling up to go out and feed horses. Just do it. Every day.
You always have so much to say, let's be honest, probably too much, all the time. It's the writer in you, the communicator. Just put it out there because it's your gift and contribution. Then maybe you will feel less need to talk so much in general, especially to yourself, which could be a good thing because you won't look like a lunatic.
I'm thinking all this while sitting on a plane and watching so many around me with their laptops and tablets and I think flying could be a good time for writing, so I should start doing this, too. A tablet would be nice--smaller and lighter than a laptop, and I need to replace my Nook, which is obsolete.
Actually, I'm plenty irritated that my Nook--and my laptop--are both obsolete, outdated, because I've had them both less than 10 years. I hate that the electronic industry sells us the idea that we need all these devices, then renders them obsolete as soon as possible with "improvements" and "updates". Maybe I'll just bring an old-fashioned, spiral-bound paper notebook and pen with me when I travel.
Friday, January 18, 2019
Monday, August 27, 2012
Get Crackin'
It's been a frustrating morning. I'm happy to say that I've been more inclined to laugh than anything, though, and I feel really good about that, because there was a time when little things could upset me way too much. I'm a bigger person now, I guess. I hope.
The front gate wouldn't open. It was comical, to think we were trapped on our property and might not get Kaela to school on time in this, her first whole week of "real" school. Because she's been homeschooled since kindergarten, she's been in high anxiety since the first day of eighth grade last Thursday. Then, this morning, in a rare moment of almost relaxation, having two full days of school under her belt, she said we should wait until 8:05 to leave the house, instead of leaving at 8 sharp; she didn't want to get to school too early and have to stand around waiting. Then, voila, the gate refused to open. There we sat, poised at the edge of our property, separated from the road by mere inches, and the remote wasn't functioning. We were going to wish we had those five minutes back, as I had no idea how to get it opened mechanically, and was afraid I might break it if I tried to do so. I carefully backed my little Prius up a portion of our curving, narrow driveway to a spot where the sides were not so steep and I could actually turn the car around without taking a nosedive into the rock-hard clay with the fragile front end. I drove back to the house and went inside to try the master gate opener, and nothin' doin'. It didn't budge. I was out of ideas, so I called Dan, who walked me through the process of opening the gate mechanically: find the correct set of keys in a certain dresser drawer, unlock and remove the padlock from the pin on the gate arm, remove the pin, disable the actuator (arm), pull the gate open. Once I could drive out, I then had to get out of the car to close the gate again before I could get back in the car and continue (finally) on our way.
By this time it was 8:16. Kaela was texting her friend, Kara, fingers moving with lightning speed, working herself into a perfect frenzy.
"She says they start at 8:25! I'm going to get a tardy slip!" she fretted.
"No, they start at 8:30, you'll be fine, we'll be there by 8:25," I said, trying to use my best soothing voice. Then I lapsed from better judgement and mused aloud, "It might be a good idea to leave by 8 or earlier in the morning, just to avoid such unexpected delays. I mean, we could hit construction, or an accident . . ."
This observation set off a new texting frenzy.
"Oh, we'll be fine," I repeated, mentally kicking myself. "Try to drink some of your smoothie."
Smoothies are one of Kaela's favorite foods, but lately she'd been nauseous and having difficulty eating, probably from stress. She took a tiny sip now, just to shut me up. She hadn't eaten breakfast. I kept urging her to drink more, all the way to school. We pulled up at exactly 8:25, and the kids were just lining up as I approached the loading curb.
"Wait until I stop the car," I cautioned, since Kaela had unbuckled as soon as we entered the drive, had her backpack already on and was poised to leap, hand on the doorknob. The smoothie was only half gone.
With a sigh of relief I headed back home. I was happy to have the smoothie, although I would have preferred she have some food in her stomach, because it meant that I could get right to work when I got home. I've vowed to write every day while Kaela's in school, and I'm excited about doing it. I didn't get started last week, on her first two days (Thursday and Friday), because Megan was still home from college then and we had things to do, small things, but important because I treasure time with her especially now that she's moved away and making a life of her own. But today I was returning to a quiet house, except for the dogs, and they're easy to ignore. They're just doing their job when they bark, warning off intruders (be they coyotes or hummingbirds), and they require nothing from me in doing it.
I'd given some thought to where I would write, and I like it here in my dining room. It's the center of the house, and there are huge windows all around me and plenty of light. Look to my right, there's my butterfly garden, the road and the (non-functioning) gate. Look to my left, there's the back yard and beyond, the arena and horse stalls. There are plenty of chores waiting there, but they can do just that: wait. And there is no one and nothing here to dictate otherwise, a glorious feeling.
So I begin to write, and a small glitch occurs. Look back at that second paragraph--the rather long one. See the French word "voila"--only it doesn't look right, because it isn't. There should be a small accent mark above the "a". On most keyboards, you have the option to use your number keypad and alt key together to make properly accented letters for languages that use them. Some keyboards have two sets of numbers, one of which is a permanent number keypad, and other keyboards have a "numlok" key that will allow you to turn numbers into a number keypad, to use as a calculator in most cases, and also for this special foreign language accent feature.
My notebook, it turns out, has neither option. This is serious for me, because I use French and Spanish quite a bit. It took me awhile to find out this limitation; at first, I just wasn't willing to accept it, and I kept trying to find a way to access a number keypad feature. I first tried different function key combinations, and when nothing worked I decided I should consult the manual. I searched the house, and no manual. This is sometimes the case with electronics lately; I believe they expect you to access more and more information on the web. So I went to the internet, and, sure enough, there was the manual for HP notebooks, in pdf, all 130 pages. I searched, but nothing shed light on my particular needs. I then did a general web search on accessing accent mark features on notebooks, all to no avail.
I was finally at my last resort, calling tech support. I spent the next 1/2 hour with a really, really nice young man who did his best to a) understand what it was exactly I wanted to do, and b) figure out how to get my particular notebook to do it. We even went so far as to explore the very setup of my machine, went deep into its inner workings and programming, where we could ask it to change everything to French or Spanish, but nowhere did we discover the ability to simply insert an accented foreign word or letter here or there, as I so often need to do. Then he informed me that what I evidently need is a separate USB numeric pad, but not one with only 10 or 11 keys, make sure to get the one with 19 keys! And they sell it at Best Buy for only $22. Thank you, Very Nice Anonymous Tech Support Guy, you made my day.
And so frustration becomes learning and on I go. Or, as one horse trainer I know likes to put it, "You gotta ride the ride." But I have writing projects waiting, and that's a whole 'nother blog.
The front gate wouldn't open. It was comical, to think we were trapped on our property and might not get Kaela to school on time in this, her first whole week of "real" school. Because she's been homeschooled since kindergarten, she's been in high anxiety since the first day of eighth grade last Thursday. Then, this morning, in a rare moment of almost relaxation, having two full days of school under her belt, she said we should wait until 8:05 to leave the house, instead of leaving at 8 sharp; she didn't want to get to school too early and have to stand around waiting. Then, voila, the gate refused to open. There we sat, poised at the edge of our property, separated from the road by mere inches, and the remote wasn't functioning. We were going to wish we had those five minutes back, as I had no idea how to get it opened mechanically, and was afraid I might break it if I tried to do so. I carefully backed my little Prius up a portion of our curving, narrow driveway to a spot where the sides were not so steep and I could actually turn the car around without taking a nosedive into the rock-hard clay with the fragile front end. I drove back to the house and went inside to try the master gate opener, and nothin' doin'. It didn't budge. I was out of ideas, so I called Dan, who walked me through the process of opening the gate mechanically: find the correct set of keys in a certain dresser drawer, unlock and remove the padlock from the pin on the gate arm, remove the pin, disable the actuator (arm), pull the gate open. Once I could drive out, I then had to get out of the car to close the gate again before I could get back in the car and continue (finally) on our way.
By this time it was 8:16. Kaela was texting her friend, Kara, fingers moving with lightning speed, working herself into a perfect frenzy.
"She says they start at 8:25! I'm going to get a tardy slip!" she fretted.
"No, they start at 8:30, you'll be fine, we'll be there by 8:25," I said, trying to use my best soothing voice. Then I lapsed from better judgement and mused aloud, "It might be a good idea to leave by 8 or earlier in the morning, just to avoid such unexpected delays. I mean, we could hit construction, or an accident . . ."
This observation set off a new texting frenzy.
"Oh, we'll be fine," I repeated, mentally kicking myself. "Try to drink some of your smoothie."
Smoothies are one of Kaela's favorite foods, but lately she'd been nauseous and having difficulty eating, probably from stress. She took a tiny sip now, just to shut me up. She hadn't eaten breakfast. I kept urging her to drink more, all the way to school. We pulled up at exactly 8:25, and the kids were just lining up as I approached the loading curb.
"Wait until I stop the car," I cautioned, since Kaela had unbuckled as soon as we entered the drive, had her backpack already on and was poised to leap, hand on the doorknob. The smoothie was only half gone.
With a sigh of relief I headed back home. I was happy to have the smoothie, although I would have preferred she have some food in her stomach, because it meant that I could get right to work when I got home. I've vowed to write every day while Kaela's in school, and I'm excited about doing it. I didn't get started last week, on her first two days (Thursday and Friday), because Megan was still home from college then and we had things to do, small things, but important because I treasure time with her especially now that she's moved away and making a life of her own. But today I was returning to a quiet house, except for the dogs, and they're easy to ignore. They're just doing their job when they bark, warning off intruders (be they coyotes or hummingbirds), and they require nothing from me in doing it.
I'd given some thought to where I would write, and I like it here in my dining room. It's the center of the house, and there are huge windows all around me and plenty of light. Look to my right, there's my butterfly garden, the road and the (non-functioning) gate. Look to my left, there's the back yard and beyond, the arena and horse stalls. There are plenty of chores waiting there, but they can do just that: wait. And there is no one and nothing here to dictate otherwise, a glorious feeling.
So I begin to write, and a small glitch occurs. Look back at that second paragraph--the rather long one. See the French word "voila"--only it doesn't look right, because it isn't. There should be a small accent mark above the "a". On most keyboards, you have the option to use your number keypad and alt key together to make properly accented letters for languages that use them. Some keyboards have two sets of numbers, one of which is a permanent number keypad, and other keyboards have a "numlok" key that will allow you to turn numbers into a number keypad, to use as a calculator in most cases, and also for this special foreign language accent feature.
My notebook, it turns out, has neither option. This is serious for me, because I use French and Spanish quite a bit. It took me awhile to find out this limitation; at first, I just wasn't willing to accept it, and I kept trying to find a way to access a number keypad feature. I first tried different function key combinations, and when nothing worked I decided I should consult the manual. I searched the house, and no manual. This is sometimes the case with electronics lately; I believe they expect you to access more and more information on the web. So I went to the internet, and, sure enough, there was the manual for HP notebooks, in pdf, all 130 pages. I searched, but nothing shed light on my particular needs. I then did a general web search on accessing accent mark features on notebooks, all to no avail.
I was finally at my last resort, calling tech support. I spent the next 1/2 hour with a really, really nice young man who did his best to a) understand what it was exactly I wanted to do, and b) figure out how to get my particular notebook to do it. We even went so far as to explore the very setup of my machine, went deep into its inner workings and programming, where we could ask it to change everything to French or Spanish, but nowhere did we discover the ability to simply insert an accented foreign word or letter here or there, as I so often need to do. Then he informed me that what I evidently need is a separate USB numeric pad, but not one with only 10 or 11 keys, make sure to get the one with 19 keys! And they sell it at Best Buy for only $22. Thank you, Very Nice Anonymous Tech Support Guy, you made my day.
And so frustration becomes learning and on I go. Or, as one horse trainer I know likes to put it, "You gotta ride the ride." But I have writing projects waiting, and that's a whole 'nother blog.
Friday, May 25, 2012
Walmart
I took Kaela shopping tonight, and we ended up at Walmart. She was looking for a new purse. We'd gone somewhere else first, and she'd scored the last of their stock of the new Nancy Drew video game, which made it a VERY GOOD NIGHT. But that first store didn't have any purses she liked, so we decided to try Walmart.
It had been a very good day, too. By definition, that means we didn't have anything planned, and we didn't have to hurry up and get anything done by a deadline, and we didn't have to be anywhere special at any certain time. I did a lot of catching up on little odds and ends--"puttering," my husband calls it--and even managed to watch MOST of a baseball game! Think of that!
The last couple of weeks have been REALLY hectic, with rodeo and all, and I felt bad that, a couple of times, I'd told Kaela no, she couldn't do something she wanted to do. There is only so much I can fit into a schedule and maintain my sanity. And, kids being kids, enough is never enough. There is always the next thing to do, or that desire to stretch the current time with a friend into more hours, or another day or two. So I was glad to feel somewhat rested and restored, enough to take Kaela out shopping for her game and a new purse. It was her money; all I did was drive.
So, we were at Walmart. We always find Walmart--interesting. Kaela seems even more highly tuned to some of the more interesting features than I am. Tonight as we headed down the aisle towards the accessories department, she commented, under her breath, "If you've had a baby-child, you should put some CLOTHES on."
I was clueless. I hadn't noticed anything other than a group of people wandering by. I may have halfway registered a few tatooes.
"Skimpy clothes?" I asked.
"Belly shirt--NO, up to HERE!" she declared, holding her hand across her upper rib section.
"Hmmmm." A thought occurred to me. "It's not only Walmart, it's Friday night," I noted.
She slapped her forehead. "Oh, right."
Then it got really weird, even for Walmart. Everywhere we went, people were running into their friends. It's like they all knew each other. Each time we witnessed another such exchange--"Hey, Bubba!" "You headed over to Earl's, too?"--we exchanged a quick glance, just to make sure we were both seeing the same thing and weren't either one of us imagining some huge Walmart Culture Takeover Of The Population At Large.
Even at the checkout line, two hefty, shaved-head men in camos were calling out to each other from lines at registers 19 and 21. "You goin' to Luke's wedding?" "Unfortunately, yeah." (I am not making up this dialogue.)
I had a scary thought. "Do you see anyone we know?" I asked Kaela, glancing around nervously.
"No," she said quickly, staring ahead and not even checking, like she was terrified of what she might see.
Then, there came a ray of hope and clarity. Our checker demonstrated intelligence and wit above and beyond the call of duty when she asked us if we wanted a bag for the purse Kaela was buying, or not. And, when Kaela declined, she commented, "No, you have no idea how many people want a BAG for the BAG they're buying. Like, really?"
And we were restored to balance and harmony, and headed for the door, almost free of Walmartland, when there came a voice, and I saw--a--face--I--KNEW.
It was my cousin's fiance. And then next to her, I saw my cousin.
"Oh my god, there are people we know here," said Kaela, and she was laughing a little hysterically.
Well, there you have it. We, too, must be Walmart people! I don't ever, ever wear a belly shirt, but I do have a tattoo.
It had been a very good day, too. By definition, that means we didn't have anything planned, and we didn't have to hurry up and get anything done by a deadline, and we didn't have to be anywhere special at any certain time. I did a lot of catching up on little odds and ends--"puttering," my husband calls it--and even managed to watch MOST of a baseball game! Think of that!
The last couple of weeks have been REALLY hectic, with rodeo and all, and I felt bad that, a couple of times, I'd told Kaela no, she couldn't do something she wanted to do. There is only so much I can fit into a schedule and maintain my sanity. And, kids being kids, enough is never enough. There is always the next thing to do, or that desire to stretch the current time with a friend into more hours, or another day or two. So I was glad to feel somewhat rested and restored, enough to take Kaela out shopping for her game and a new purse. It was her money; all I did was drive.
So, we were at Walmart. We always find Walmart--interesting. Kaela seems even more highly tuned to some of the more interesting features than I am. Tonight as we headed down the aisle towards the accessories department, she commented, under her breath, "If you've had a baby-child, you should put some CLOTHES on."
I was clueless. I hadn't noticed anything other than a group of people wandering by. I may have halfway registered a few tatooes.
"Skimpy clothes?" I asked.
"Belly shirt--NO, up to HERE!" she declared, holding her hand across her upper rib section.
"Hmmmm." A thought occurred to me. "It's not only Walmart, it's Friday night," I noted.
She slapped her forehead. "Oh, right."
Then it got really weird, even for Walmart. Everywhere we went, people were running into their friends. It's like they all knew each other. Each time we witnessed another such exchange--"Hey, Bubba!" "You headed over to Earl's, too?"--we exchanged a quick glance, just to make sure we were both seeing the same thing and weren't either one of us imagining some huge Walmart Culture Takeover Of The Population At Large.
Even at the checkout line, two hefty, shaved-head men in camos were calling out to each other from lines at registers 19 and 21. "You goin' to Luke's wedding?" "Unfortunately, yeah." (I am not making up this dialogue.)
I had a scary thought. "Do you see anyone we know?" I asked Kaela, glancing around nervously.
"No," she said quickly, staring ahead and not even checking, like she was terrified of what she might see.
Then, there came a ray of hope and clarity. Our checker demonstrated intelligence and wit above and beyond the call of duty when she asked us if we wanted a bag for the purse Kaela was buying, or not. And, when Kaela declined, she commented, "No, you have no idea how many people want a BAG for the BAG they're buying. Like, really?"
And we were restored to balance and harmony, and headed for the door, almost free of Walmartland, when there came a voice, and I saw--a--face--I--KNEW.
It was my cousin's fiance. And then next to her, I saw my cousin.
"Oh my god, there are people we know here," said Kaela, and she was laughing a little hysterically.
Well, there you have it. We, too, must be Walmart people! I don't ever, ever wear a belly shirt, but I do have a tattoo.
Monday, April 9, 2012
Lucky
I lost one of my chickens today, and I'm very sad about that. Lucky wasn't just any chicken; she was--well, Lucky. And she was lucky. She'd lived through some pretty feather-raising experiences.
Lucky was an Old English bantam, and a perfectly beautiful specimen of the breed, with her golden speckled feathers. She was a tiny little thing, and she laid the smallest white eggs I've ever seen come from a chicken. I acquired Lucky from a friend about 5 years ago, when I first moved to Redding. Lorene had mail-ordered and hatched some eggs in an incubator, so her kids could see baby chicks come into the world. Then she needed to find them a home, and I was happy to have them. My husband, Dan, built them a nice pen out of some old dog kennel fencing, and he bought them a lovely wooden hen house.
The pen stood just outside our fenced back yard, where our 3 large dogs spent a lot of their time. There were six or eight chickens, and I went out and got some guinea hens to add to the flock. They were all chicks together and got along well. Occasionally we'd let them out to spread their wings, and I taught them to come when called by offering dove and quail seed and calling out, "Guinea, guinea, guinea!" (I'd heard of teaching guinea hens to come when called and didn't realize the chickens would learn, too.) Once or twice a chicken got into the back yard and the dogs killed them. One day Lucky got in and lost all her tail feathers in the mouth of our Lab, but managed to escape. That's when we named her Lucky.
We'd had the chickens for almost two years when we had a terrible storm one winter night; I heard later that winds had been clocked at the airport near our home at upwards of 80 miles an hour. In the middle of the night, the wind sounded like a freight train going by outside my bedroom window, and through the din I heard a loud crash. I ran outside to see what made the noise, fearing the worse for my horses, chickens and goats, but as I rounded the house the wind lifted me bodily and threw me against the chain link fence, knocking my own wind right out of me. I went back inside and decided I'd just have to wait for daylight.
The next morning I found my chicken pen and henhouse had been lifted and thrown right over the 5-foot back yard fence, and broken into pieces. Although there were no dead chickens in the yard, there were several missing when we finally found the survivors pecking around in the front yard bushes a little later, acting as if nothing had ever happened. Lucky, once again, was one of the survivors. Days went by before we could erect a new pen, and in that time we lost every single chicken and guinea hen except for--you guessed it--Lucky. She spent every day right next to the house, outside the kitchen window, and roosted there at night, ten feet up in the branches of a pine tree.
That was three years ago. In the meantime, we've increased our flock to twenty-one hens. Since everyone but Lucky is a full-sized chicken, not a bantam, she unfortunately was at the tail-end of the infamous pecking order, and was constantly and viciously chased away from food a good deal of the time. She alone, however, would eat out of my hand, so at least once a day I would go down to where the new chicken pen stands near the horse barn and hand-feed her. Sometimes the other hens, although they were too chicken to actually eat from my hand, would crowd in close and intimidate her into running off. I got into the habit of quietly trying to draw her away when they weren't looking. I could literally peek around the side of the barn and whisper, "Guinea, guinea, guinea," and she alone would hear me and come waddling around the corner to eat from my hand.
Dan had just sat down to a dinner of warmed-over ham and noodle casserole tonight, and I was in the laundry room folding a load of clean clothes, when I heard a chicken squawk, not even sounding hurt so much as surprised.
"The dogs have a chicken!" I screeched, running for the back door.
Dan beat me there, and I watched through the sliding glass doors as he called off the dogs and scooped the little mass of feathers into his hands.
"It's Lucky," I moaned.
He took one quick look, and when he lifted his eyes I saw what he didn't want to have to tell me.
I decided to bury her out at the back of the property, where we had to bury two of our little goats, Jar-Jar and Binks, last year. Digging graves is no easy feat in Redding soil, but "Lucky"-ly it was only a chicken grave and we've had record rainfall for the last month, so the ground is relatively soft, as in a great big pick can make a decent dent if you're very persistent. (I've never buried a chicken before, and I doubt I ever will again, but Lucky wasn't just any chicken.) My granddaughter, Kaela, came down to help me out (she really is grand). The funeral was well-attended by several friendly cows, who stood just outside the fence and mooed forlornly to excellent effect, as the sun sank sadly into the west. We piled lucky thirteen very large stones on top of the grave, and placed white stones all around the edges.
Lucky had a very good life, and a pretty long one, for a chicken. I tell myself she went quickly and didn't suffer, because the last sound I heard her make was more surprised than anything. If my mom is in Heaven watching, as I'm sure she is, she's probably already taken Lucky under her wing and is up there feeding her from her hand while Jar-Jar and Binks frolic nearby.
Lucky was an Old English bantam, and a perfectly beautiful specimen of the breed, with her golden speckled feathers. She was a tiny little thing, and she laid the smallest white eggs I've ever seen come from a chicken. I acquired Lucky from a friend about 5 years ago, when I first moved to Redding. Lorene had mail-ordered and hatched some eggs in an incubator, so her kids could see baby chicks come into the world. Then she needed to find them a home, and I was happy to have them. My husband, Dan, built them a nice pen out of some old dog kennel fencing, and he bought them a lovely wooden hen house.
The pen stood just outside our fenced back yard, where our 3 large dogs spent a lot of their time. There were six or eight chickens, and I went out and got some guinea hens to add to the flock. They were all chicks together and got along well. Occasionally we'd let them out to spread their wings, and I taught them to come when called by offering dove and quail seed and calling out, "Guinea, guinea, guinea!" (I'd heard of teaching guinea hens to come when called and didn't realize the chickens would learn, too.) Once or twice a chicken got into the back yard and the dogs killed them. One day Lucky got in and lost all her tail feathers in the mouth of our Lab, but managed to escape. That's when we named her Lucky.
We'd had the chickens for almost two years when we had a terrible storm one winter night; I heard later that winds had been clocked at the airport near our home at upwards of 80 miles an hour. In the middle of the night, the wind sounded like a freight train going by outside my bedroom window, and through the din I heard a loud crash. I ran outside to see what made the noise, fearing the worse for my horses, chickens and goats, but as I rounded the house the wind lifted me bodily and threw me against the chain link fence, knocking my own wind right out of me. I went back inside and decided I'd just have to wait for daylight.
The next morning I found my chicken pen and henhouse had been lifted and thrown right over the 5-foot back yard fence, and broken into pieces. Although there were no dead chickens in the yard, there were several missing when we finally found the survivors pecking around in the front yard bushes a little later, acting as if nothing had ever happened. Lucky, once again, was one of the survivors. Days went by before we could erect a new pen, and in that time we lost every single chicken and guinea hen except for--you guessed it--Lucky. She spent every day right next to the house, outside the kitchen window, and roosted there at night, ten feet up in the branches of a pine tree.
That was three years ago. In the meantime, we've increased our flock to twenty-one hens. Since everyone but Lucky is a full-sized chicken, not a bantam, she unfortunately was at the tail-end of the infamous pecking order, and was constantly and viciously chased away from food a good deal of the time. She alone, however, would eat out of my hand, so at least once a day I would go down to where the new chicken pen stands near the horse barn and hand-feed her. Sometimes the other hens, although they were too chicken to actually eat from my hand, would crowd in close and intimidate her into running off. I got into the habit of quietly trying to draw her away when they weren't looking. I could literally peek around the side of the barn and whisper, "Guinea, guinea, guinea," and she alone would hear me and come waddling around the corner to eat from my hand.
Dan had just sat down to a dinner of warmed-over ham and noodle casserole tonight, and I was in the laundry room folding a load of clean clothes, when I heard a chicken squawk, not even sounding hurt so much as surprised.
"The dogs have a chicken!" I screeched, running for the back door.
Dan beat me there, and I watched through the sliding glass doors as he called off the dogs and scooped the little mass of feathers into his hands.
"It's Lucky," I moaned.
He took one quick look, and when he lifted his eyes I saw what he didn't want to have to tell me.
I decided to bury her out at the back of the property, where we had to bury two of our little goats, Jar-Jar and Binks, last year. Digging graves is no easy feat in Redding soil, but "Lucky"-ly it was only a chicken grave and we've had record rainfall for the last month, so the ground is relatively soft, as in a great big pick can make a decent dent if you're very persistent. (I've never buried a chicken before, and I doubt I ever will again, but Lucky wasn't just any chicken.) My granddaughter, Kaela, came down to help me out (she really is grand). The funeral was well-attended by several friendly cows, who stood just outside the fence and mooed forlornly to excellent effect, as the sun sank sadly into the west. We piled lucky thirteen very large stones on top of the grave, and placed white stones all around the edges.
Lucky had a very good life, and a pretty long one, for a chicken. I tell myself she went quickly and didn't suffer, because the last sound I heard her make was more surprised than anything. If my mom is in Heaven watching, as I'm sure she is, she's probably already taken Lucky under her wing and is up there feeding her from her hand while Jar-Jar and Binks frolic nearby.
Cultural Acclimation
My granddaughter, Kaela, wants to be a marine biologist. She’s been hounding me for months to obtain from Netflix and watch a film called The Cove. It’s about how the Japanese harvest dolphins. I won’t pretend to have a lot of knowledge about the practice of killing and eating dolphins world-wide, since this film is the only information I’ve absorbed on the subject thus far. Viewing it did raise some interesting questions in my mind, however, and I’m eager to do further research. But that’s a whole ‘nother blog.
The Japanese manner of herding and corralling the dolphins reminds me very much of how we deal with cattle. They line up fishing boats near a pod of dolphins and create a “wall of noise” by banging on metal pipes that hang down into the water. At the end of the pipe, under the water line, is a foot that sends the vibration out into the water. The dolphins dislike the noise, in fact are frightened by it, and move away. The fishermen thus herd the dolphins into a cove, then quickly spread a wall of net across the mouth of the cove, barring the dolphins’ way back out to sea. Once the dolphins are corralled, some are marketed to research centers and amusement/education centers, such as Marine World or Sea World. The rest are harvested, killed and processed for human consumption.
Dolphin meat used to be featured in school lunches throughout Japan, but due to political pressure this practice has reportedly been discontinued, although the film alleges that dolphin meat still finds its way into the marketplace at large, disguised as one type of fish or another. Dolphin fishermen, again yielding to outside pressure, also claim to have made their killing methods quicker and more humane. These two facts, again, remind me of the beef industry in America. In recent decades, we’ve been urged to avoid too much red meat, and animal activists have protested and tried to bring about change in the way we treat and harvest cattle. Ironically, it’s the Japanese who have some of the most humane cattle practices, producing the famous Kobe beef, which is supposedly dramatically more tender and of better quality because the cows are treated kindly before they are swiftly and humanely dispatched, thus keeping harmful enzymes and chemicals released during stress from adversely affecting their muscle tissue.
Raising cattle for food is a long-standing part of our culture here in America, as in many parts of the world. Many of us think nothing of raising these animals expressly for consumption; they have no other function in our world. Japan is a small country, surrounded by ocean, and relies on fish for the mainstay of its diet. Raising red meat is too costly for a country with so little land to use; raising cattle takes a lot of acres. Dolphin herding and harvesting is probably a part of their culture from antiquity. In India, Hindus are appalled at our practice of eating cows; to them, cattle are sacred. In Korea and the Philippines, past, and in some cases present, practices include eating dogs. In parts of the Middle East, Africa, Mexico and South America, meat goats are common.
I tried to eat goat meat last year. I’ve grown up eating beef and chicken, but I’ve never raised a beef for slaughter and I’ve never killed my own chickens. I do own dairy goats, and friends who own meat goats urged me to try eating goat meat, so I did. It was difficult, and I have to say I just don’t want to do it—to me, the cooked meat tasted and smelled just like my little goats smell, and I couldn’t get past that. Maybe if I’d grown up with it as part of my culture I would be less bothered by it. I already know I never want to try to eat dog (even typing this is horrifying to me)—my dogs feel like my adopted children.
I think that’s a lot of Western civilization’s problem with dolphin harvesting—what dolphins are, to us. We see dolphins as these cute, amazing, mysterious ocean-dwelling mammals, not food. The film makes a point of stressing that they are MAMMALS, not fish, but so are cows, goats and dogs. Of course, there are those who shun eating any living animal, and perhaps eating any mammal is as repugnant an idea to them as eating goat or dog is to me. It’s culture, and individual choice and conviction. There are lots of good arguments for not eating meat, environmentally and for humane reasons, but that, too, is a whole ‘nother blog. I ate vegetarian, for the most part, for several years,but finally started eating meat again when I was diagnosed with anemia. I still eat very little meat, and prefer eating vegetarian a lot of the time. Food, like religion and politics, is something that people can get very emotional about.
I do know for sure that I never want to eat a dolphin. Like eating dog, it seems horrifying to even think of it. To me, dolphins are highly intelligent, almost mythical and mystical creatures. I’ve been telling my family for a long time that, when I die, I want to be cremated and have my ashes poured out over the Pacific Ocean; I have this idea that what’s left of my cells will merge with the ocean and, ultimately, even become a part of a dolphin somewhere. So I get how some people are upset about what the dolphin fishermen are doing, and how some people won’t eat meat of any kind. Most of all, I appreciate the people who made The Cove for inspiring Kaela to want to learn more about marine biology.
Saturday, March 31, 2012
A Little Brown Box
I got a little brown box in the mail today, and it immediately made me feel a wonderful sense of renewal and anticipation and happiness. As they say, good things come in small packages. Evidently, they also come in unassuming and unexpected ones.
It's been a very stormy couple of months. After a mild and relatively rain-free winter, now that the schedule of horse activities is in full swing for the 2012 year, the weather has decided to make up for lost time. We've had unprecedented rainfall, and my ranchito is largely underwater. This morning, when I slogged out to the lake of a pasture to feed my goats, high winds nearly ripped the barn doors off and scattered the hay to kingdom come. The horses stand in stalls, heads down, blanketed, bored and itchy, their saturated hooves breeding fungus. Their soaking wet stalls are difficult to clean, and we have to gear up for protection against the elements with hooded slickers and tall rubber boots. The chicken eggs when we collect them are muddy and are even harder to clean than the stalls. The dogs track mud in, and we clean it up so they can ask to go out awhile later and start the process all over again.
And then, like the sun breaking through the clouds, came the little brown box. What could it contain, you wonder, that could be so thrilling?
The little brown box is just full--of--insect larvae. Bugs. Fly predators, to be exact.
This is the kind of stuff I get excited about.
You have to understand: flies are a REAL PROBLEM when you have horses. They accumulate and multiply at an alarming rate, and are very annoying and harmful to humans and equines alike. They bite! And it hurts! They carry germs and disease from feces to animals and cause wound and eye infections. Flies are not fun to have around.
Enter the tiny but very important, helpful fly predators. They arrive in my mailbox as larvae, and as soon as they begin to hatch, I hang their box out by the horse stalls, where they can do their job. They quickly and efficiently locate any fly eggs or larvae and lay their own eggs on them; when the young fly predators hatch out, they do just what their name suggests and prey on the developing flies, killing them and stopping the fly reproduction cycle in its tracks. These little guys work hard, and having them around works! Visitors to my barn comment gratefully on the relative absence of flies.
I appreciate bugs. They have a role to play in the balance of nature. Much to my children's chagrin, I don't kill spiders; I capture and remove them from the house. My daughter complains that they'll just come back in, while I remind her that there's nothing for them to eat inside and they're much more likely to remain out where they can hunt all the other bugs.
My tolerance for bugs has led to some . . . incidences. Once, while visiting my husband's aunt Lorie and her boyfriend, Bob, I glanced over to the side of the couch on which I was sitting and commented, "Oh, there's a scorpion." Bob leapt to his feet like he was on fire and grabbed a large catalogue, and I quickly said, "Wait, do you have a jar? If you hit it, it might escape, but I can catch it." He looked at me like I was from Mars and swung at the offender, who promptly escaped. You can't squash a scorpion on a soft surface. Eventually he did fetch a jar and I caught it. (I'm pretty good at catching things in jars.) The minute I had it contained, Bob grabbed the jar and headed for the door.
"Wait!" I said once again, "I'll let the kids look at it close up before we let it go."
And again he stared at me incredulously. "Are you nuts? I'm killing it before it bites somebody!"
It was his home.
A couple of hours later, we all went down to the local restaurant for some dinner. While we were eating outdoors on the lovely summer evening, a large beetle landed on my head. (And I mean LARGE, this was in Florida.) All eyes became glued to me as a couple of the girls screeched, evidently frightening the beetle, who stumbled onto my mashed potatoes and lay there on his back, waving his legs frantically.
"Silly thing," I scolded and, hoping to make light of the whole incident and move on quickly, scooped up the beetle and tossed him into a nearby azaelea bush.
Returning to my seat, I caught an expression of pure horror on Bob's round red face. "What is it with you, lady?" he hissed, like I was a witch or something.
Ah, the perils of being an environmentalist in this world.
Then there was the time I allowed my children to keep a black widow and her egg sac to observe until the hatching. I'd trapped her in a jar and left her there, securely lidded and safely contained, overnight, during which time she miraculously spun and laid her ball of eggs. This was a rare opportunity, but I misjudged the size of the hatchlings. One morning, as we all sat reading, baby black widows, which happen to be white and nearly microscopic, poured out of the screen atop the jar and out into my living room. I shooed the children into another room, grabbed the vacuum and cleaned feverishly, reassuring myself that chances of more than one surviving were minimal, anyway, since they are voracious and cannibalistic. I'm happy to say, no one but black widows were harmed in the unfolding or aftermath of this story.
So, back to the little brown box of bugs. It's arrival was indeed exactly like the sun breaking through the clouds, because fly predators begin to arrive in my mailbox in the spring and continue to arrive monthly all throughout the warm summer months. Collecting that box from my mailbox brought up a whole array of feelings, the way smelling pine trees makes you feel Christmassy, or smelling coffee in the morning makes it easier to get out of bed. Just holding that box in my hands let me start feeling those long summer days of warmth, sunshine and horseback riding.
And now, magically, as I've been writing this, the clouds outside the window have begun to blow away, and the sun is shining. But what's most amazing, all the bare black trees on my oak-wooded property have decided to burst into bloom and are sparkling, wet and green, like emeralds.
Thanks, little brown box.
It's been a very stormy couple of months. After a mild and relatively rain-free winter, now that the schedule of horse activities is in full swing for the 2012 year, the weather has decided to make up for lost time. We've had unprecedented rainfall, and my ranchito is largely underwater. This morning, when I slogged out to the lake of a pasture to feed my goats, high winds nearly ripped the barn doors off and scattered the hay to kingdom come. The horses stand in stalls, heads down, blanketed, bored and itchy, their saturated hooves breeding fungus. Their soaking wet stalls are difficult to clean, and we have to gear up for protection against the elements with hooded slickers and tall rubber boots. The chicken eggs when we collect them are muddy and are even harder to clean than the stalls. The dogs track mud in, and we clean it up so they can ask to go out awhile later and start the process all over again.
And then, like the sun breaking through the clouds, came the little brown box. What could it contain, you wonder, that could be so thrilling?
The little brown box is just full--of--insect larvae. Bugs. Fly predators, to be exact.
This is the kind of stuff I get excited about.
You have to understand: flies are a REAL PROBLEM when you have horses. They accumulate and multiply at an alarming rate, and are very annoying and harmful to humans and equines alike. They bite! And it hurts! They carry germs and disease from feces to animals and cause wound and eye infections. Flies are not fun to have around.
Enter the tiny but very important, helpful fly predators. They arrive in my mailbox as larvae, and as soon as they begin to hatch, I hang their box out by the horse stalls, where they can do their job. They quickly and efficiently locate any fly eggs or larvae and lay their own eggs on them; when the young fly predators hatch out, they do just what their name suggests and prey on the developing flies, killing them and stopping the fly reproduction cycle in its tracks. These little guys work hard, and having them around works! Visitors to my barn comment gratefully on the relative absence of flies.
I appreciate bugs. They have a role to play in the balance of nature. Much to my children's chagrin, I don't kill spiders; I capture and remove them from the house. My daughter complains that they'll just come back in, while I remind her that there's nothing for them to eat inside and they're much more likely to remain out where they can hunt all the other bugs.
My tolerance for bugs has led to some . . . incidences. Once, while visiting my husband's aunt Lorie and her boyfriend, Bob, I glanced over to the side of the couch on which I was sitting and commented, "Oh, there's a scorpion." Bob leapt to his feet like he was on fire and grabbed a large catalogue, and I quickly said, "Wait, do you have a jar? If you hit it, it might escape, but I can catch it." He looked at me like I was from Mars and swung at the offender, who promptly escaped. You can't squash a scorpion on a soft surface. Eventually he did fetch a jar and I caught it. (I'm pretty good at catching things in jars.) The minute I had it contained, Bob grabbed the jar and headed for the door.
"Wait!" I said once again, "I'll let the kids look at it close up before we let it go."
And again he stared at me incredulously. "Are you nuts? I'm killing it before it bites somebody!"
It was his home.
A couple of hours later, we all went down to the local restaurant for some dinner. While we were eating outdoors on the lovely summer evening, a large beetle landed on my head. (And I mean LARGE, this was in Florida.) All eyes became glued to me as a couple of the girls screeched, evidently frightening the beetle, who stumbled onto my mashed potatoes and lay there on his back, waving his legs frantically.
"Silly thing," I scolded and, hoping to make light of the whole incident and move on quickly, scooped up the beetle and tossed him into a nearby azaelea bush.
Returning to my seat, I caught an expression of pure horror on Bob's round red face. "What is it with you, lady?" he hissed, like I was a witch or something.
Ah, the perils of being an environmentalist in this world.
Then there was the time I allowed my children to keep a black widow and her egg sac to observe until the hatching. I'd trapped her in a jar and left her there, securely lidded and safely contained, overnight, during which time she miraculously spun and laid her ball of eggs. This was a rare opportunity, but I misjudged the size of the hatchlings. One morning, as we all sat reading, baby black widows, which happen to be white and nearly microscopic, poured out of the screen atop the jar and out into my living room. I shooed the children into another room, grabbed the vacuum and cleaned feverishly, reassuring myself that chances of more than one surviving were minimal, anyway, since they are voracious and cannibalistic. I'm happy to say, no one but black widows were harmed in the unfolding or aftermath of this story.
So, back to the little brown box of bugs. It's arrival was indeed exactly like the sun breaking through the clouds, because fly predators begin to arrive in my mailbox in the spring and continue to arrive monthly all throughout the warm summer months. Collecting that box from my mailbox brought up a whole array of feelings, the way smelling pine trees makes you feel Christmassy, or smelling coffee in the morning makes it easier to get out of bed. Just holding that box in my hands let me start feeling those long summer days of warmth, sunshine and horseback riding.
And now, magically, as I've been writing this, the clouds outside the window have begun to blow away, and the sun is shining. But what's most amazing, all the bare black trees on my oak-wooded property have decided to burst into bloom and are sparkling, wet and green, like emeralds.
Thanks, little brown box.
Bringing up Bebe
The title of this blog is also the title of a book I have most recently fallen in love with, so much so that I went out and bought a copy for my daughter, Jaime. When I asked the clerk at my local Barnes and Noble to check if they had a copy of it, he repeated the title but pronounced it "baby". "No, bebe," I corrected, smiling, "it's French." (He must have thought I was an idiot.) The subtitle is: One American Mother Discovers the Wisdom of French Parenting.
It's by Pamela Druckerman, who wrote it while living and raising her 3 children in Paris. I enjoyed the book so much because I discovered that I am more a French parent than an American one, and I'm relieved to realize why I often feel out of step with my American friends. I guess it's in my genes, therefore I'm not to blame. Being a parent, especially in America evidently, is a tricky business and very challenging, and I'll take validation wherever I can get it.
Besides being full of interesting, thought-provoking cultural comparisons, the book is funny, and I laughed out loud quite a bit as I was reading. It's great to learn and be simultaneously entertained. (See, I can multitask.) I'm sad now that I've finished reading it; I want to hear more. Maybe she'll write a sequel.
In some ways, I am very much not a French parent. Children in France go to day care from a very young age, although the author of Bringing up Bebe is careful to define the differences between French and American day care. Maybe if day care in America were more like that in France, I would feel differently about it. I'm sure there are good, very good, and not-so-good facilities in both countries. Like Druckerman, I've had strong feelings of wanting to raise my own children, especially when they're young, myself. Beyond saying that, I won't ruin the book for you.
However, I have decided that, according to this book, all French parents, in spite of sending their children to school-like institutions from a very young age, are actually home-schoolers. The reason for this is that their central philosophy is that a child must be gently guided to awaken to the world. Her autonomy and unique personality must be respected and allowed to blossom. This is not anarchy, however; there are boundaries, but lots of room within them for individuality. It's a good balance, as described by Druckerman. This is one thing I like to think I have in common with French parents.
The other one is, not surprisingly, their approach to food. French children learn to eat almost everything, and behave in restaurants. Our family's passion for food is not normal. Time and time again, my children's friends have discovered heretofore unknown foods in our home, and even learned to like them. Eating out for us is not just about nourishment, it is an adventure, and as close to church as we get (attending theatrical presentations runs a close second). My kids have grown up knowing all the firm rules of restaurant behavior, and how eating and conversing together is an important part of every day. An integral part of our daily homeschool curriculum is a course we call Nutrition 101, whose reoccurring lecture involves a reminder of the importance of eating a "wide variety of foods in as close to their natural state as possible," i.e., fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains. This is so we can not feel guilty when we eat chocolate like it's a food group all its own, which, coincidentally, is a French practice.
When my kids were babies, I enjoyed speaking another language besides English with them a lot of the time. I thought it was good for them to stretch their vocal and language abilities, starting from the time they first began to use language. With my daughter, Megan, I spoke French, and as she began to speak she knew several words and phrases only in French. Pas pour manger meant she wasn't to put something in her mouth, and she said it "Pa-pa-pa." Each day when her dad left for work she told him "aurevoir" and waved. If she dropped something, she would say "tomber" (pronounced tom-bay). Reading Bringing Up Bebe has been a deeper look into a culture I already love and in which I now feel even more at home. It connects me with a whole lot of other people on the other side of the world, and that's exciting. I love how books can do that.
It's by Pamela Druckerman, who wrote it while living and raising her 3 children in Paris. I enjoyed the book so much because I discovered that I am more a French parent than an American one, and I'm relieved to realize why I often feel out of step with my American friends. I guess it's in my genes, therefore I'm not to blame. Being a parent, especially in America evidently, is a tricky business and very challenging, and I'll take validation wherever I can get it.
Besides being full of interesting, thought-provoking cultural comparisons, the book is funny, and I laughed out loud quite a bit as I was reading. It's great to learn and be simultaneously entertained. (See, I can multitask.) I'm sad now that I've finished reading it; I want to hear more. Maybe she'll write a sequel.
In some ways, I am very much not a French parent. Children in France go to day care from a very young age, although the author of Bringing up Bebe is careful to define the differences between French and American day care. Maybe if day care in America were more like that in France, I would feel differently about it. I'm sure there are good, very good, and not-so-good facilities in both countries. Like Druckerman, I've had strong feelings of wanting to raise my own children, especially when they're young, myself. Beyond saying that, I won't ruin the book for you.
However, I have decided that, according to this book, all French parents, in spite of sending their children to school-like institutions from a very young age, are actually home-schoolers. The reason for this is that their central philosophy is that a child must be gently guided to awaken to the world. Her autonomy and unique personality must be respected and allowed to blossom. This is not anarchy, however; there are boundaries, but lots of room within them for individuality. It's a good balance, as described by Druckerman. This is one thing I like to think I have in common with French parents.
The other one is, not surprisingly, their approach to food. French children learn to eat almost everything, and behave in restaurants. Our family's passion for food is not normal. Time and time again, my children's friends have discovered heretofore unknown foods in our home, and even learned to like them. Eating out for us is not just about nourishment, it is an adventure, and as close to church as we get (attending theatrical presentations runs a close second). My kids have grown up knowing all the firm rules of restaurant behavior, and how eating and conversing together is an important part of every day. An integral part of our daily homeschool curriculum is a course we call Nutrition 101, whose reoccurring lecture involves a reminder of the importance of eating a "wide variety of foods in as close to their natural state as possible," i.e., fresh fruits and vegetables and whole grains. This is so we can not feel guilty when we eat chocolate like it's a food group all its own, which, coincidentally, is a French practice.
When my kids were babies, I enjoyed speaking another language besides English with them a lot of the time. I thought it was good for them to stretch their vocal and language abilities, starting from the time they first began to use language. With my daughter, Megan, I spoke French, and as she began to speak she knew several words and phrases only in French. Pas pour manger meant she wasn't to put something in her mouth, and she said it "Pa-pa-pa." Each day when her dad left for work she told him "aurevoir" and waved. If she dropped something, she would say "tomber" (pronounced tom-bay). Reading Bringing Up Bebe has been a deeper look into a culture I already love and in which I now feel even more at home. It connects me with a whole lot of other people on the other side of the world, and that's exciting. I love how books can do that.
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