9.14.15 Where the sky slowly becomes a purple of its own making

After a long day, filled with not-the-most-helpful circumstances, I gather the pup up and go on down to the Eagle Sanctuary. 

Where the view is broad and the fields fragrant.
Where the grasses are coming to their own crescendo with colored seeds fluttering in the evening wind. 
Where the small birds are trying to fall asleep in the tall bushes,

as the mice scurry along through the tall tall cow corn,
and the sky slowly becomes a purple of its own making.

9.14.15 On a day like this, down by the river

I find myself wondering 

if the neutrinos are dancing

if only the atoms murmur

9.14.15 Resting in what we each have here

Sometimes it feels as though we simply cannot do this.
And then we come to our senses, and realize
it is just very hard, how we feel.

And then, we remember there actually is no recourse; 
no stepping off the bus, really -
no leaving the party, or turning something off.

There is only the enormous effort to bide with it,
while we manage once again to rearrange the perspective
resting in what we each have here.

 

9.13.15 Wandering about the valley, we see the fields chock full

Wandering about the valley, we see the fields chock full of Butternut Squash, laying out by their vines, or stacked into enormous wooden boxes. The soy is coming to fruition, as are all the fruit trees, dropping their beautiful apples all along the ground. Trucks piled with cow corn, with potatoes, rumble along, as tractors appear everywhere, hard at work as the harvest approaches. 

In my herb garden, the Scarlet Runner bean has gone crazy this year, pulling upon the arch with it's weight. Soon, it will be that time, as it is every year, to go out and pull down the dried bean pods, clean the beautiful hard purple and black beans from them, and save them for next year. Such a lineage of generations, when we save our seed. 

The Kales are all thigh high, having endured the cabbage worms, which I pick off nightly from the broad leaves I bring in for dinner, and perversely carry gently to the front door, popping them down into the annual bed. 

The soil is becoming so damp that I will begin checking the various Maitake spots, always under stately Oaks, to harvest at their peak. For years, I've been making the flower essence, then the hot water extraction, to be added to organic alcohol. 

I kept making it and not using it , and then giving it to my friends Pat and Ken, who have been running my herb business. Til this year it turns out it is one of a zillion things that are essential for my husband. Go figure. So this year I will both harvest and prepare whatever beautiful plants I come upon, and too, keep checking with Whole Foods, as in the fall, they sell Maitake as an edible mushroom, that you also can hot water extract for yourself, and then make an alcohol extraction. 

In the meantime, all the hordes of baby birds are merrily racing about, having a grand time, and I know not whether they have any premonition of what is to come. 

But I have once again made my peace, with the survival of the fittest. With the way that sometimes, a lifetime is a beautiful delicious summer, and no more. With how crowded it truly would be, if every sparrow and crow did survive the winter times.

9.13.15 I hunker down to look, Dante examining, sniffing

     The forest has been so filled with morning mist lately, as the frequent, welcome rains dampen the soft pliant ground, the pine needles and humus almost crimson.

     So many fungi awaken this time of year; beautiful medicinal mounds of Maitake, Chanterelle, Chicken of the Woods, all bright colors or iridescent, sprouting up in their perfect ecosystems.

     The crickets fill the woods also, singing to each other, as the light slowly comes, and with it the birds begin to call and sing. 

     This morning there is a bit of energy, so I push and push up the mountain, feeling the warm burn in my thighs, as we round each turn of overhanging branches, trees, undergrowth.

     After a rain, the land is very much like when we have snow, revealing who went where and did what, when, last night.

     We come upon a small opening to someone's burrow, where a Coyote defecated! Upon the entryway! I hunker down to look, Dante examining, sniffing, then looking about, but knowing that they are long gone. I take a stick and fling the poop elsewhere, laughing to myself.

     As he tosses me his ball, as we round the bend, and head up further along the quiet pungent range.

9.13.15 My small neighbor, who comes to find and visit with me, growing up