20211006_201435

summer is gone.

like in the old cartoons.  "night falls".   it doesn't ease in,  through the heat,  from "over there",    but  falls.   Finito.  I lightened this pic so there would be something to see.  In REAL,  there's nothing to see but Dark.  For the first time since maybe April i washed my hair,  my body,  INSIDE.   firing up the hot water heater when since April,  it was SUN that heated things.  Not now.  I close the windows at night.  I cannot yet bear to close the door.   soon, tho.   Tay still will not sleep in.   There are 3 new possible residents of the Night Hill.   I search for  Sounds of Sierra Nevada Foothills at night.   as just now…just outside,  close,  there is a "screeth" sound.   Not a screech owl…different.  smaller.   just outside.  Close.  it is not shy.   Another i'm pretty sure is a fox.  In a way,  this is very reassuring.  Hill is felt to be a viable Safe place.   the sounds,  when first heard are unnerving.   but only when first heard.

Emrie and i today worked on the terrace project.   We took turns using the hand pick axe to loosen the earth there,  pulling out each rock and using it to build the little wall around the space.  it's small but very   uhhhhh,   very ,   well….significant.    We undid two of the planting bags of fingerling potatoes.   She counted.  16 potatoes.  We grew…over the course of this summer,  in two Gro Bags  16 potatoes.  i smiled.   Not enough to keep us all alive.   But….we DID grow them.  16 beautiful and fine fingerling potatoes.   If you grew 16,  for sure,  if you figured it out better,  you could grow more.  i view it as a success.

Life is good.

 

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18 responses to “it’s happened”

  1. maria Avatar
    maria

    Grace ” yes life is good if we will see it ,

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  2. grace Forrest Avatar

    Maria…it is. and it WANTS to be seen.
    love you

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  3. Mo Crow Avatar

    (((Grace))) there is nothing like eating new potatoes straight out of the ground! It’s a long ago memory for me as my throat can’t cope with potatoes in any form since the radiotherapy for throat cancer but I have the memory of the taste & they are inn my Irish/ Polish hybrid blood!

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  4. Liz A Avatar

    how color bleeds into gray … beautifully documented in this image
    still summer in Texas … the sun is strong and the temps in the low 90s … but there are tomatoes on the vine, so no complaints

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  5. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    Love this photo, fits my mood because I’ve been going around the house saying, “something wicked this way comes” (witches from Macbeth)
    16 fingerlings is just fine; it is a meal and that is such a gift…no matter how small the harvest, body and soul are nourished.

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  6. jude Avatar

    yup, first morning fire of the season but now warm enough for the windows open…
    i don’t think I have ever grown enough to live on.

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  7. CatherinE Avatar

    Good for you for harvesting 16 potatoes! Some years I get a lot, some years not so much. I enjoy growing them though and it’s fun to unearth them.

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  8. Nancy Avatar

    Your descriptions of the dark, an inside shower, the sounds of a Hill at Night and rocks, potatoes and Beautiful Emrie…life does indeed sound very good.
    We had coolness and clouds today. So welcome they were!
    xo

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  9. grace Forrest Avatar

    i boiled 3 this morning. butter and salt. ahhhhhhhhhhhh
    want to back with other roots and whole cloves of garlic,
    tossed in olive oil. Haven’t done that since i’ve been here but as i thought of it, i could SMELL it….

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  10. grace Forrest Avatar

    i was relieved to find that i am MOVING again today. it was
    64 degrees. I had begun to wonder if i had just lost my mojo to old age. But not. i’m trying to teach self to
    Shuffle Dance and that even happened. some. i am not a
    dancer…Marti would laugh….but i’m wanting to do it.
    NOT 90’s is Good.

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  11. grace Forrest Avatar

    eeeeeeeee, i hope not wicked…..there IS a shift in
    Vibes, but here it seems Good

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  12. grace Forrest Avatar

    i miss so much burning wood and it’s so ironic. There is
    an endless supply of seasoned oak….i could never afford
    oak in N Mex. I dream of my old wood stove.
    i actually am thinking i MIGHT be able to. But it would
    require full time farming. Then processing, like canning, dehydrating, a root cellar. Learning to succession plant.
    More than i will do. But to imagine i COULD. This is
    good.

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  13. grace Forrest Avatar

    it is. reaching a hand down, feeling the roundness. Their Beauty. Potatoes are Magic

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  14. grace Forrest Avatar

    it is good, Nancy. it’s also very crude. rudimentary.
    turning on a light switch, running a shower from “nowhere”,
    i used to shower every morning, wash my hair. all my life. It’s an
    event here. I put it off as long as possible. which is easy because i don’t go anywhere. Am invisible except to family and they don’t notice anymore. or if they do, they don’t say. Emrie always sniffs me and says i smell nice. But she also thinks dirt smells good. Lucky for me.

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  15. Faith Avatar

    Emrie is right, if by “dirt” you mean soil, earth. I love that smell, wet or dry. And it is also a good smell in that we inhale heathful microbes when we smell it.
    It seems like you live is a similarly magical place like my granddaughters did before last year’s fires. Not the same, as where they lived there were a lot of people, and plumbing and electricity, but on a hill, and for her in the woods/forest.

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  16. grace Forrest Avatar

    where were they? her? granddaughter, grandaughters….last year’s fire? I takes so long. to go forward from Fire. the people here, the Paradise Fire….first year i came. they are Long Haul people.
    i COULD have electricity, etc. the normal. it takes a bunch of
    money. California is interesting. Complex. Not wrong and Not right Interesting/Complex.
    I don’t need it. Can be very much ok as i am. If Granddaughter and or Daughter make the move here, they will need to deal with that complexity. It wasn’t an issue when they bought these acres. Came as a surprise in the 4 years i’ve been here. Wouldn’t you know?
    Timing. that’s why i don’t question things much. Just Go.

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  17. Deb G Avatar

    Had my gas fireplace looked at yesterday…the pilot light had gone out. Afterwards left it on for several hours as the house has been cold. Not too, cold, but enough. Need to bring the houseplants in. Yes, it’s fall.

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  18. Marti Avatar
    Marti

    The thing about dancing is that when joy slips into your bloodstream, why the body recognizes it and is willing to show it via dance…just let your body move and twirl, jump and shuffle, glide and hip shake and voila! you are dancing……

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