windthread

last week we could see many tight green balls on this bush on the edge of the canal/creek.  They changed.  There are MANY of them and today the entire bush/small tree was  abuzz  with BEEEEEES…so many Bees.  Amidst them some butterflies.  Yellow and Orange,  both with black trim.  And as it might go,  it's worth a try to see if the leaves give color.  Button bush.  Cephalanthus occidentalis.  Native.

I watched India Flint's short preview of her online class this morning.  The one where it is just silence and her work.  Am inspired by it.   I wish i could take the workshop itself,  but alas.   Check it out,  the video.

there is a very active facebook page for local  farm and ranch which i look at and today,  Blackbelly Sheep.  If you google that,  you can see them.   The conversation here on the Hill  is ongoing.  How do we  reduce the suseptability to Fire and still honor the soul of this land.   That meadow that is depicted in the Map,  the one next to Alyssia's Place,  covered with grasses that have dried and are what a Fire eats first.  and fast.   It's so beautiful in late winter, early spring when it's a  brilliant green.  now,  no less beauty FULL  in it's amber waves.  But it's Food for any Fire Dragon.   Mowing it..Jenny has it half way mowed,  allows less cover for any hidden snake.  But also,  this time of year,  the snakes have left that meadow and moved up,  into the forested places.  So,  ok,  hmmmm.  The Goats eat brush and ground foliage.  They do not graze grass.  I suppose they might if they weren't fed at all.  But that's not an option.  So we will just ask them to work the underbrush.

so a possibility is sheep.  None of us really embraces  the thought of more  Souls to partner with.  But….  I really like how these sheep appear…goatlike.    And they are Hair Sheep…no need to shear. So,  the thought is floated among us.

There is a TRUTH.  A FACT.  that when responding to Fire,  the response is always  evaluated, moment to moment  .  There is NO TIME to sit and wonder.  And the fact is,  that when faced with choice of where to direct their energy,  it will always be toward the places that show that the people have made the effort.  

a new lizard in the Wall Garden tonight.  That brings us to 6 different kinds.  

and the Cloth is ongoing,  the Cloth of Stand and Face.  But for now,  just Kantha.  

 

  

 

 

 

i hope this is better.  It's not exact…how it is,  the perspective is non existent,  but…pretty much it's correct.  Except the fact that it's a Hill.    I'll keep looking at it for a while,  see if i can imagine it's Hillness.

before Alyssia left  she set the hose to drip,  to seep  for the trees.   On just one,  but when i went down to do the Water for the Wall Garden,  the tree watering was already ongoing.  All i needed to do is to move that hose to the second tree,  let it seep while i gave water to the wall garden.   Which i did.

i then watered the as yet unplanted grape vine and moved over to the large Rock.  I give that Rock water….for whatever reason  maybe because it gives me a sense of something?   But i give the Rock water and as i did there was a shrarp stinging sensation and i kicked my foot….there are sharp spines on some of the "weeds"  there now… but something of the reptilian brain said, look….and i did and it was not at all a weed,  but this.   I have been stung before by wasps,  back in the Other Place,  the last time on my lip.   This time i think 5 stings on the right ankle.   As i write this there are hot sensations rising from that ankle,  like hot sting things.  There was Benedryl in the medicine cabinet.  I took two.

Alyssia and i had spent the late afternoon talking about the State of Affairs of the World.  We shared what we had learned,  we shared how we need to learn more…daily.  To be AWARE.  To recognize reason to worry.  In a way,  to recognize the sting from a plant,  from the sting of an aggressor.   How to interpret that.  

trying to draw a map.   I make some marks.  Close my eyes.  See inside  my mind how it is.  Make some more marks.  Erase.  Repeat.   It gets closer.  But still……

a sale.  ?  on summer stuff at Rite Aid.  Jenny buys two hammocks.  Here's the first,  just up the hill from Campsite B.    I hung it yesterday afternoon.   

Today, so many things..each small,  but adding up to large things.  Third day for the doe Goats Mission in the Original Buck World.   They get no breakfast,  no morning alfalfa in their tubs.   Rather,  i undo the gate and call them,  they hear, a distance away and after moments of hesitation,  Come.  Today i poured the pellets into  a small feed bowl,  in hopes of making it easier for them to make their decision  to come through the gate.  Although all the plants/small trees  are the same as when they came in December,  They are all at a different moment of growth in their cycle.  So,  really,  different plants.   To the Goats,  not as mesmerizing.   I watch this.  I pay attention.  Understand how these plants at this point in their yearly cycle provide satisfying  feed…..or not.   How much is it the plants themselves,  how much is it the habit of Alfalfa.  Learn.

it was 106 degrees give or take.   Alyssia and i came up with a fence configuration for working with the Dog Thing….she and Emrie  in Emrie's  "play yard"  in the middle corridor between the old buck yards where the doe Goats now are and the closed off for the day Doe Forest.   Just on the otherside of the fence is  me and Tay.   I've brought  the Cloth.  The spool of thread.  Scissors.    Here we spend the afternoon,  in shade.  In small breeze.  We talk.  Emrie plays.  Dogs lie,  panting  but twice exchange their smell…nose to nose through the fence.  This is half the day.  There is the rest,  but i don't have the energy to write it except for we cooked and ate the Papoosas that Alyssia had brought frozen from Texas.  From Emrie's grandmother there.  Alyssia had gone to the Grandma's to create them.  And that we saw that in the Goat water tubs there were nymphs of some sort,  so we emptied them and scrubbed them with vinegar.  Filled again.  And at the very end,  went down and Gave Water to the Wall Garden at A.  To the two trees planted there, where  4  tree toads waited for us.   And i can add that although i have tried not to,  that last chicken,  Talkie.  She has talked and i squat.  She comes close and i stroke her feathers against my good sense,  but she makes her chicken sounds,  and i respond.   It's   DARK now.  There are a zillion stars over head and i think how if i could,  i would give Every Single Person on this Planet  this day…this very day i had.  I would give each adult crossing borders this day.  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

this is that experimental first garden.  A small oval on the rim of the Campsite B.   I wanted to know what would happen if i just put seeds there.   i didn't understand much at all about that Pile of earth there.   I thought it was the natural rim.  But it was, rather,  earth that had been excavated and piled there when Campsite B was created.  It has become known as the Failure To Thrive Garden.  OR  the Garden for the Spirits.  Stuff  DID come up.  I planted some mixed salad greens.  Arugula and Cilantro.  There are a couple of tufts  of lettuces.  Arugula  never appeared.  Cilantro,  YES,  but nothing over an inch or so tall.  A garden of  Tiny.  But….BUT….as i am working  with the  California Lilac there,  at its edge,  I saw them.   

the failure to thrive cilantro made

SEEDS

i have no idea what you see on your Whatevers.  On this lap top thing,  the pic can only be magnified once.   If i view the pic  on the phone,  magnification is exponential.  So maybe you can see the  little green orbs of Cilantro seed?….Coriander……

and if you pick one off  and bite it….there is a GRAND EXPLOSION of taste….

choosing where.   days of that.    then….digging.   Putting  water,  waiting.   Digging more.   More water.  See how it runs off or seeps  in.   today…still not sure.  And do i?  or do i not?  put  any compost in?   Online.  reading.  Yes.  No.   ???????

.We added a panel of Goat fencing to the original farm fencing.  3 new  T posts.  Cut  the original fencing at the far end and opened the Gate to the Original First Buck Forest.   Which has become overgrown.   or,  Original Grown.  Filled the bucket with pellets and shook it…clink clink, tinkle clink and calling Come Come!!!!  They came.  Wondering what was happening but being up for it,  and going Through into  NEW territory.  Where over the next few days they will clear the underbrush.  Will EAT it.  Happily.   Thereby reducing fuel for Fire.  At some point we will need to go in there with a chipper and chip all the fallen wood.  Hopefully there will be enough time.

while Alyssia was gone,  daughter Jenny and i had a conversation about needing to do the above.  I said OK,  when Alyssia comes back.   The conversation was  clear at that time.  Today…in reality…it was going differently and did go differently and i had some Crunchy exchanges  about that.  Which at the end,  remained  Unclear and Alyssia,  who remains silent "during", said ….."she was  being………………..about that and it's funny,  because in this moment i can NOT for the life of me come up with the word….i had it a minute ago,  but Can Not Come UP With It….she was being………………………….

and at the same time we were working out how to deal with Alyssia's dog Zoey…..her interaction with Tay,  both of them feeling Alpha and it not working out

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

what to say.   I would have never imagined.   Babies have always been babies.  

Emrie is back.  

At first she had a filter between us.   She looked,  but kept her own Space.   It took half a day and on into the evening.  Until we went to feed the Goats.  It's been two weeks.  The world she went to,  that i saw on her mother's phone pics was a different planet.  She's been gone.  She's not yet ONE YEAR OLD.  Eleven months.  We fed the Goats.  We went down to campsite A and gave water to the Garden there.  Crawling has become walking.  Two weeks.  Walking.  We gave water.

Back in front of the door,  on the great but horrible plastic mat thing from the dollar store,  as the FULL MOON came near,  she played the metal drum with a stick.   

the rattlesnake grass on the right side of the drivewayroad,  here,  on the hill that rises up to campsite B.   Profusion.  This particular grass appears in other places.  But in OTHER places,  there is none,  but some other native grass.  Eitherway,  it is what was such an Amazing and Surprising GREEN this spring,  just a couple of months ago.  Everywhere here now,  there is some kind of native grass that has completed its cycle to seed.   Not just on this Hill,  but all around.  So i understand now,  how it is with the fires here.  It's an Of Course thing.  

We are working on the plan for the Doe Goats to be freed to bring down the browse.   I'm not sure if they will eat these grasses?   We'll find out.