• The Great Work

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Tuesday gratefuls: Paul. Findlay. Sarah. Max. Claire. Kate. Michael. SPRINT referral. P.T. Halle. Shadow, outside again last night. World Allergy Day today. Morning darkness. Ukraine. Iran. Israel. Palestinians. Artemis. Planting. The fan. The heater. A full Moon in two days.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Clouds

    Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. the watercourse way

    Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

    One brief shining: That first bitter taste as coffee hits the tongue, the body remembering, starting to unveil itself from the gauze of sleep, knowing from experience though not yet this day, the effect of caffeine on the eyes and ears, the mind as it changes attention from the realm of dreams to the realm of ever becoming apparent reality.

     

    Artemis: Awaiting a couple of garden tools before I plant my midsummer seeds. Probably fussing too much but I want to do it my way.

    Planting seeds during the hottest month of the year is new to me. I’ve discovered a guide to planting a fall garden which might involve cold frames over my outside raised beds. Perhaps new seeds.

    I did order two bulbs of Music Garlic. I have to reserve space for them when I plant because they go in the ground in late September/early October. Love Garlic’s against the grain ways.

    Artemis must live, mostly, according to the rhythms of seasonal change. And I love that. I say mostly though because the greenhouse part of Artemis allows me to push the outer limits of first and last frost.

    Starting seeds early in Spring inside the Greenhouse will allow for transplanting as soon as a particular plant can tolerate Spring temperatures outside. Keeping the greenhouse warm and within a fairly tight temperature regime will give my Tomatoes the full growing season that they need to produce fruit. That means extending the growing season beyond the likely date of the first frost.

    When living in short growing season climates, certain vegetables are unobtainable without a greenhouse. Now I have one and will able, in a very limited manner, to grow things year round.

    This is as far as I want to go with juking soil and seeds. The only unnatural aspect lies in controlling, to the extent possible, temperature. Hence, the heater and the exhaust fan. I could work with humidity, too, but I choose not to. At least right now.

     

    Great Work: Thomas Berry’s little book, The Great Work, identifies our era’s Great Work as developing a sustainable presence for human beings on Mother Earth.

    On a trip to Denver from Minneapolis several years ago, I went north to Cody, Wyoming to visit the Buffalo Bill Center of the West. I finished the Great Work at night in the Holiday Lodge. Berry convinced me that rather than focusing on economic justice work as I had done most of my life that I needed to shift my energy, right then, to the Great Work.

    A climate change conference put on by PSR, Physicians for Social Responsibility, at the University of Iowa, gave me even more reason. That conference inspired Kate and me in our Andover years, growing vegetables, fruit, nuts, and flowers. Taking care of bees.

    Now the clown car that is MAGA and Trumpeting not only ignores climate change, but actively denies it. Right in the time period when drastic and difficult action must happen. Very. Bad. Timing.


    📂This entry was posted in Garden Greenhouse Memories Minnesota

  • Hearing on the Side of Merit

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Monday gratefuls: Relationship building. Shadow. Learning curve for us both. Still steep. Shadow the hugger. Morning darkness. Staying longer. Artemis. Kate, always. Natalie. Ruth and Gabe. The duvet. Ruth’s skills. Gabe’s skills. Each Tomato Plant. Each Squash. Syntropy. Entropy. Science and the Ancient Brothers. Indiana Fever. Those Twins.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Ruth’s sewing. Gabe’s bedmaking.

    Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the flow. Go with it.

    Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

    One brief shining: Ruth took on a difficult task, sewing patches by hand on my duvet where Shadow the render of cloth had worked to release many sneeze producing Goose Feathers; so good to see a woman sewing in the house again.

     

    Ruth after sewing a heart on Gabe’s baboon.

    Grandkids: Ruth and Gabe came up yesterday. I’d told them I needed help with some things. Patching the duvet was one. Shadow had torn it open in several spots a while ago and each time I used it more Goose Feathers would float up, up, up and away. Some tickling my nose. Achoo.

    Ruth has the dexterity of her father and her grandmother. She sewed for two or three hours, also sneezing. When she finished, every hole had been patched. Some with sewing. Some with cloth tape. What a relief.

    Gabe lifted my heavy (to me) foam mattress and put on new sheets and pillow cases. “These look like you, Grandpop,” he said of the blue Flower printed design. He also carried down a bag of dogfood for me. Also a relief.

    We had pizza together. And talked.

    We talk about books, about relationships, about grief, about school, about the future. We laugh and get teary. To have this sort of relationship with two I’ve known since infancy continues to be one of the jewels of my life.

    They left around four.

     

    Dog journal: The saga continues. Once again Shadow refused to come in to stay in the evening. Even though I’ve moved her second feeding to seven p.m. She came in to eat, but bolted again when I tried to touch her collar.

    When I went outside, she came up and hugged me, as she likes to do, jumping up softly and putting her left front paw around my waist. After we did this several times, I picked her up and brought her inside. I don’t know, right now, any other way to keep her safe at night.

     

    Mussar: Hearing on the side of merit. Judaism teaches judging others on the side of merit. Assuming good intent, thoughtfulness when encountering difficult interactions.

    Rich Levine offered a twist on that: Hearing on the side of merit. As a lawyer and as a college professor, listening is a significant, major part of his work life. Hearing on the side of merit entails stopping, perhaps, when encountering a divisive or contrary idea, going to first principles and finding an area of agreement before answering or responding.

    Easier to write about than do. Mussar suggests small, incremental changes in outer behavior, intentional changes that then reshape the inner self. Hearing on the side of merit is a good practice for this week.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Family Feelings Fourth Phase Mussar

  • Learn From It

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Sunday gratefuls: The Second Law. Entropy. Shadow and her wiggly, huggy ways. Happy Squash and Tomato Plants. Greenhouse in the Tomato zone. CBE Men’s group. Suffering. Jamie. Joe. Jim. Bill. Irv. Bailey and Babe, Bill’s Pugs. Floods. Wildfires. The Way of the Natural World.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Shadow crosses the Threshold

    Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

    Week Kavannah: Hear on the side of merit.

    One brief shining: Went out to Artemis to retrieve my watering can-which I use to fill Shadow’s water bowl-and went inside, feeling as I did the warmth of the heater Nathan hung over the door.

     

    Artemis: My temperature sensor showed no more than 90 degrees during the heat of the day and no less that 61 degrees late yesterday evening and this morning. A bit outside Tomato temperature preferences of 85 to 65 degrees so I’ll have to adjust them. (OK. I admit I just checked. I remembered them incorrectly.)

    The good news. Between the exhaust fan during the day and the heater at night I’ll be able to maintain optimum temperatures.

    Nathan gave me six Tomato Plants, all doing well. He also gave me two Squash Plants which I planted in the outside raised beds yesterday. They are much happier in Soil. They needed to be outside because, well, they are Squash and throwing out Vines is their thing.

    Artemis lives.

     

    Dog journal: We’re inching toward leash acceptance. Shadow is less reactive, but she still won’t let me easily touch her collar, clip on the leash. Slowly, slowly.

    Yesterday afternoon she was outside. I was about to leave for the CBE men’s group and wanted her inside. Calling to her from inside. She came in! The first time she had crossed the threshold when I called her. Slowly, slowly.

    She’s sitting right in front of me watching me type, seeing if she can will me into feeding her early. With those eyes? Almost. But no. Dog’s prefer regular feeding times. I’ve been fussing with her second feeding, moving it later in the day so she may think anytime is the right time. That will fade.

    She gave up and went to chewing on one of my old socks. She likes to throw them in the air.

     

    CBE Men’s group: I led an evening on the theme of suffering. Based on a chapter from David Brook’s book: How To Know A Person. My aim was to take the conversation out of the head and into the lev, the heart/mind.

    I opened with this Brooks observation that he cited as the subtext of the book. Experience, Brooks says, is not what happens to you; it’s what you do with what happens to you. This is a big idea.

    It fits with suffering. Rabbi Jamie offered this Buddhist thought. Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. I don’t agree. Yes, pain is inevitable. But. Grief is suffering. Anguish and despair during and after a divorce. Suffering. Rejecting suffering pushes away an opportunity to grow, to change.

    The question I believe is what you do with your suffering. Do you let it overwhelm you, diminish you, or do you learn from it? Hear what it has to say. Allow yourself to change, become a new person in light of what you’ve learned?

    Suffering teaches us; offers an opportunity for change. Neither fear it nor get stuck in it. Pay attention. Learn.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Feelings Greenhouse Judaism Plants Science

  • She Also Kills

    Posted on by Charles 1 Comment

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Shabbat gratefuls: Nathan. The heater. The fan. The drip irrigation. Tomato plants thriving. Squash and seeds. The Fourth of July. Shadow, chewer of leashes. Render of sheets. My sweet girl. Kate, always. Death. Life. The time between a sleep and a sleep. Rock and Roll. Give me the beat, boys. Tara and Eleanor. Choosing Granite. Kitchens.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Photosynthesis

    Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Feel the One moving in and through my life. Flow with it.

    Week Kavannah: Hear on the side of merit

    One brief shining: Nathan hung the heater from a greenhouse rafter, cut a hole in the Cedar siding for the fan, ran an extension cord from my outdoor plug and threaded it into the greenhouse interior, set the fan to come on at 90 degrees to exhaust air and the heater at 60 degrees to warm it on cool nights. 65 degrees inside the greenhouse on this 48 degree morning.

     

    The Greenhouse: Yes, Nathan came on the afternoon of the Fourth to work. He’s a man of his word and I appreciate it.

    The exhaust fan will draw air through the windows and into the greenhouse when the temperature inside it goes above 90 degrees. It hit 104 this week. The heater will come on now in the night if the greenhouse dips below 60 degrees as it did a week ago, going down into the low forties.

    This is all to make the Tomato plants glad. As my good friend Rich said, “A six hundred dollar salad.” Even so.

    Having another living organism here makes me so happy. The greenhouse fills my heart in the same way Shadow does. I guess that’s my little family now: Shadow, the Plants in Artemis, and me.

    Again. Live until I die.

     

    Dog journal: The leash saga. I bought a yellow neoprene leash. 10 feet long. Attached it to Shadow’s collar. Not easy. She went into an immediate sulk.

    The first night I unclipped it, remembering her chewing up her leash from the Granby shelter. The next day near evening I got it on her again. Left it on that night and, wow, she did not chew it off. We went outside. She peed. Wrapped me in the leash. We came inside over the devil’s threshold.

    Left it on her that night, too, as Natalie suggested. Oh. Well. One neoprene leash severed from its clip. I had also purchased a pull tab leash. About 9 inches long they clip to the collar and make putting on a leash easier. Pick up the tab, clip the leash onto its ring.

    Never got a chance to use it because I got the original leash I bought for her clipped on using turkey hot dog treats. High value treats.

    Left the pull tab on her last night. She chewed it off. I’m not sure, but I think we got past the leash jitters yesterday, so it might not be necessary. Useless now anyhow.

    Just a moment: Mother Nature feeds us, keeps us warm, provides material for our homes and the things we put in them.

    She also kills people. By Flood and Fire, Tornado and Hurricane, Volcanic Eruption and Earthquake. By extreme Heat and Cold. By Tsunami and Drought. By poisonous Snakes and disease bearing Insects. By Grizzly Bears and Mountain Lions.

     

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Greenhouse Plants Seed Keepers Weather +Climate Wild Neighbors

  • 249 Years

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    4th of July gratefuls: Cousin Donald. Hyper Masculinity. The Commander’s Cup. Seoah. Murdoch. Songtan. The United (?) States of America. Oklahoma. Indiana. Wisconsin. Minnesota. Colorado. Judy. Raeone. Kate, always. Shadow. Her chewed leash. Work yet to do. Planting. Seat cushion for Ruby. CBE Men’s group. Suffering. Luke. Rebecca. Leo. Tara. Eleanor.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Long time friends

    Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the flow of life’s force, follow it

    Week Kavannah: Savlanut. Patience.

    One brief shining: Walked up the slight rise past the wonderful Ponderosa and the jagged Granite Boulder, pre-schooler rendered chalk drawings on the sidewalk, and pressed the doorbell necessitated by the oldest hatred to join my friends discussing the mussar virtue of self-confidence.

    The 4th of July. On the 249th birthday of this country I sit on Shadow Mountain, in purple Mountain majesty above the fruited plains. Somewhere below amber waves of Grain ripple in a morning Breeze.

    Meanwhile, faraway in the land of broken toys a mean-spirited tyrant and his too loyal minions prepare concentration camps for immigrants who came here seeking a better life: ICE prepares detention blitz with historic $45 billion in funding.

    The Elk Cow and her Calf that crossed the road in front of me Wednesday night do not know this. Their world continues, following a thread of ongoing life rooted millions of years in the past, honed to the ways of Mountain life, to seasonal change, to knowing the ways of predators.

    Nor does Shadow know. As we work out our life together, a struggle and a joy for both of us, she too follows a path begun thousands of years ago when friendly Wolves joined human encampments for shelter, food, and joint protection.

    How I wish I could be a non-human animal, wild or domesticated. I could live according to the ancient rules of nature. Eat. Reproduce. Play. Rest. Die. Not live according to the cruel rules of human society, the unnatural ways of my often thoughtful, loving, compassionate species.

    The Elk do not shun their own, round them up and move them out. Sure, animals may contend over territory for survival, but we humans contend over territory for power and for purposes driven by fear and hatred.

    This fourth of July I join many Americans who no longer find great pride in their country. National Pride in the U.S. Sees Dramatic Decline. Or maybe not quite.

    The Mountains and the Plains. The fertile fields of the Midwest. The great Boreal Forests. The Atlantic Coast and the Pacific Coast. Redwoods. Sequoias. Bristle Cone Pine. Wolves and Grizzlies. Wolverines and Lynx. Squirrels and Marmots. Fishers and Pine Martens. Rabbits and Chipmunks. All the Wild Neighbors. I take great joy and, yes, pride in living among and with all of these. America the Beautiful.

    I also stand with all the humans, all of them, who live here with love, justice, and compassion in their hearts. Who know that the word neighbor has no color, no gender, no religion, no national origin. Who know that the warm and beating heart of this historic experiment in self-governance cannot be stilled by the cold dead hands of those without mercy.


    📂This entry was posted in Colorado Memories Minnesota Mountains

  • Learned Enough?

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Thursday gratefuls: Shadow. The leash. The last big hurdle. Tomato plants wilting in the heat, then restored by water. Rich. Susan. Tara. Marilyn. Joanne. MVP last night. The quarter Moon. The Elk Cow and her Calf crossing the road. Wild Neighbors. The second law of thermodynamics. Science. The Humanities. Colleges and universities. Learning is life. Loving is life.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Hearing on the side of merit

    Week Kavannah: Wu Wei. Flow.

    One brief shining: Shadow lies behind my chair, the yellow leash still attached, now in the third day of desensitization; when I take her outside for a walk, part of the process, she jumps up, paws on my chest, then her left one slipping around my waist in a clingy hug.

     

    Dog journal: My empathy has often been close to exhaustion, not with Shadow, but because of her struggles. And mine. This relationship has not been easy. Climb one Mountain only to realize the next peak is higher and right next to the one just summited.

    Natalie says the leash is the last big hurdle. God, I hope so. I’d like to settle in to a doggy rhythm with Shadow by my side. I know it’s going to happen. Not when.

     

    Mental health: No doubt, dear reader, you caught the melancholy tones in my posts over the last six months. As so often happens for me, I only notice them much later than others.

    The pain. Also exhausts my empathy, especially my empathy for myself. Avoidance comes to dominate movement. Move less. Hurt less. Though because, as Halle said, we’re meant to move, this tactic has self-defeat built in. Move less, hurt longer eventually more.

    With those two drains on my empathy, Shadow’s struggles and the pain, I’ve had little left over to do what needs to be done. That is, manage all this in a healthy way.

    Not to say life has been awful. No. But it has been stretched taut, leaving little room for dreams. Though.

    The Greenhouse: Was a dream that is now a reality. I forgot, though Shadow should have more than alerted me to this, realizing dreams has its own cost.

    This works. That doesn’t. The heat in the greenhouse, the point after all, reached 104 yesterday. I put a remote thermo sensor in it with a readout station in the house.

    When I went out to check all of my Tomato Plants had shriveled, looked dead. I hit the manual button for the irrigation. It ran for twelve minutes and the Leaves filled back up. This means I will need a fan to help modulate the heat.

    On the other end the temperature went into the low forties two nights ago. Tomatoes prefer night time temperatures in the sixties. Need that heater which I agreed Nathan could install later.

    Learning and growth come when we move outside our comfort zones. Yeah. So I’ve heard. Well, I’ve spent plenty of time over the last six months way outside of my comfort zone. I must be learned enough by now.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Feelings Fourth Phase Garden Greenhouse Reimagine. Reconstruct. Reenchant.

  • It’s a Pain

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Wednesday gratefuls: Greenhouse. Tomato Plants. Plant labels. Garden twine. Morning darkness. Shadow and the leash. Her anxiety. Her comfort seeking. Death of a beloved. Seeds. Seed Keeper’s Exchange. Heirloom Seeds. The Bird of Morning. Who makes firm a person’s steps. Tanya. Carla. Kenya. Kathy. Leisa. The Steffey women. Harder physical therapy. The Fourth of July.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Patriotism

    Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Follow the chi.

    Week Kavannah: Savlanut. Patience.

    One brief shining: The yellow neoprene leash disappeared underneath the bed last night and has not yet reappeared this morning though I’ve been up since five and six lies only ten minutes away, meaning my Shadow’s anxiety has not abated overnight.

     

    Dog journal: Oh, the not so subtle agony of Shadow and the leash. I got it on her again near the end of the day. When I clipped it on her collar, she froze, then burrowed in between my legs, looking up at me with a familiar doggy expression: “Help me, please.”

    Desensitization. I imagine that’s what Natalie has in mind. A phobia treatment where graduated exposure lessens the fear associated with the phobic situation. Natalie loves animals, that’s clear in her demeanor and practice. Not sure whether Shadow’s reaction to the leash fits.

    Might be I forced Shadow too much when putting on the leash. Didn’t seem so to me, but Shadow is a delicate, reactive, and smart Dog. She sees bad intentions where none are meant.

    This Shadow journey has proved fraught for both of us. Worth it when she finally let herself give and receive affection. Yet the journey has more than one temporary off ramp. Just hit another one.

    We will both need savlanut to find the path forward again.

     

    The rest of it:

    When I wrote this paragraph yesterday, I stopped too soon:

    “Or, and I didn’t say this with her, an end to all of it. No, not suicide, not that. Rather successful pain relief in my hip and back. Wanting it. Needing it. Not sure I’ll get it.”

    There are times, not often, but more often than I want or desire, when chronic pain crosses paths with a sad or bad mood for other reasons. Sometimes thoughts then go like this. Oh, to hell with eating well, a heart attack would be better than a slow death by cancer. Or. Why do I even go to p.t.? Why not sit, read, watch television, wait for it to be over. Or, I’ll be glad when this life finishes.

    This is not active suicidal ideation. No. But it does have in it the seeds of those thoughts. Note this is not about cancer, rather it’s about the slow degradation of life’s quality by either constant pain or knowing that any movement will produce pain.

    Pernicious. Unwanted. Undesirable. Yet they occur to me, these thoughts. They disappear when the pain eases. When I right myself with patience, acceptance, persistence and grit. Time with friends and family. Not always easy to do.

    Experiencing Shadow and her travails. Yes. Can create this sort of toxic nexus. Why, I think, they’ve been more common since she came. Not because of her, but due to that axis of frustration and resignation.

     


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Feelings Fourth Phase Health

  • Shadow and the Psyche

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Tuesday gratefuls: Shadow. Her leash and harness. Natalie. Maddie. Dark thoughts. Greenhouse. Greenhouse thermometer. Happy Tomato Plants. Garden tools. Organic fertilizer. Seed markers. Twine. Gathering the tools. Learning how to use Artemis, a living part of my property. Living with pain. Thinking of Tanya and her sisters: Cathy, Carla, Kenya.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tomato Plants growing

    Week Kavannah:  Wu Wei.  Seek the way.

    One brief shining: Shadow had an hour of leash training, walked with me in the front, stressed at first, calmer later but when back inside and Natalie had gone home, she crawled up in my lap-which she has never done-and would not get down, the leash still attached to her collar as Natalie suggested.

     

    Dog journal: The leash. Natalie, whose own dogs had gotten in a tussle, came back after a three week absence. After a lengthy session with little apparent progress we moved inside and she slipped the leash onto Shadow with ease.

    We went out the front door, Shadow on her yellow leash with me , and Doc, Natalie’s Border Collie, on his purple one. Terra incognita to Shadow. Cars passing on Black Mountain Drive. New smells, new visits.

    Shadow spent time wrapping me in the leash. Circling me until her little body and mine meshed together, Dog and human, with a yellow neoprene bond. This went on for a bit until she got more comfortable, walking, sniffing. Going on what Natalie calls a sniffary. A word from dog training circles.

    Natalie wanted me to leave the leash on Shadow 24/7. While inside on her collar, while outside attached to her harness and to me. I agreed.

    But. When Shadow slid under the bed for the night yellow neoprene following her, I remembered her first leash. Which she chewed up while under the bed. Oh.

    I unclipped the leash. She came up on the bed to greet me this morning as usual. I’ll have to get the leash back on her over the course of the day. Not easy. Gonna have to communicate with Natalie.

     

    Maddie, the palliative care nurse: She’s a sweetheart, enjoying the drive up here from her base in faraway Westminster. Not sure how she’ll like that drive come winter.

    We talked medical. My recent MRI. My trip to Panorama Orthopedics. She suggested a seat cushion for the car. Will try that. She pressed me about other symptoms.

    I admitted to weariness. Chronic pain. Handling medical and domestic logistics. Cancer always hanging there, sometimes foreground, usually background but never gone. Wanting simpler, easier.

    Or, and I didn’t say this with her, an end to all of it. No, not suicide, not that. Rather successful pain relief in my hip and back. Wanting it. Needing it. Not sure I’ll get it.

    “I guess I’m feeling down, Maddie.” We discussed what to do. Up my sertraline dose? Counseling? Agreed to talk to Susan. Who prescribed a new anti-depressant. I don’t recall its name. We’ll see. A trial until I see Susan again on August 6th.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Feelings Fourth Phase

  • A Family Tragedy

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Monday gratefuls: Keaton Cousins. Tanya. Kenya. Carla. Lisa. Cathy. Diane. Richard. Kristen. Ikie. Melinda. Annette. Sibs. Mary and Mark. Joe and Seoah. Ruth and Gabe. Shadow. Fire. Water. Earth. Air. The Greenhouse. Tomatoes. Squash. Planting today. Seeds. Beets. Radish. Lettuce. Kale. Chard. Salmon for fertilizer for the Tomatoes.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tiny irrigation system

    Week Kavannah: Wu Wei. Work with the chi.

    One brief: She was my age, Tanya, one of the five Steffey girls who lived in Arlington when I was young, slender and delicate, pretty in a country girl way, married to David, a farmer, and she died two nights ago trapped in the garage during a house fire.

     

    Family: Got an email from Diane yesterday with the news that Tanya, a first cousin also born in 1947 like me, had not escaped a house fire in her home in Rush County, Indiana.

    We are close, we Keaton cousins. My mom convinced my dad to move back to Indiana from Oklahoma so she could be closer to her family, the Keaton side.

    While I’ve not seen most of them in a while, except for Diane, all those Thanksgivings, summer family reunions, overnight visits, we knew each other well. And care about each other.

    We lost Lisa, the youngest Steffey, a while back to a stroke. Ikie to complications from a spinal problem and Annette to the end of a tough life. Now Tanya in a house fire. A large extended family withering away, one by one, as the seasons come and go.

    Sadness, loss, disbelief. Faraway from the Rockies, yet so close in my memory. My heart.

    Since moving to the Mountains, I’ve not made it home much. The last time September of 2015, my 50th high school class reunion. Not long after my prostatectomy. Don’t remember if I saw Tanya on that trip or not. Mary saw her this summer while visiting.

    I’ll miss her.

     

    The Greenhouse: Planted the Tomato Plants yesterday. In the Greenhouse because they like/need heat. Had a large Salmon fillet I had cut into portions and frozen too long ago. Unthawed them and put Salmon beneath each Tomato Plant.

    Nathan came later in the day and topped off the outside raised beds with compost, installed a nifty irrigation system, picked up his trash. We shook hands, wished each other well.

    He’ll be back because he has to install the black mesh fencing to keep out the Deer and Elk, the heater for the winter, and Cedar lap boards to seal the bottom of the greenhouse. I enjoyed working with him, getting to know him.

    This morning I plan to Plant seeds in the outside raised beds. More salad fixings. Radish. Beets. Lettuce. Arugula. Kale. Chard. Nasturtiums. A few Marigolds for companion planting.

    The Greenhouse has come to life.

     

    Dog journal: My Shadow spent her fifth night in a row outside. Protecting us from marauding Mule Deer who would eat our Grass during the night. She protected us all. Damn. Night.

     

     


    📂This entry was posted in Family Feelings Fourth Phase Greenhouse Memories Plants Seed Keepers

  • The Seven Mountain Mandate

    Posted on by Charles 2 Comments

    Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

    Sunday gratefuls: Ginny and Janice. Annie and Luna. Tomato Plants. Squash Plants. Compost. Planting again. Today. Greenhouse 90% done. Indoor bed ready to go. Shadow. Outside again. Wu wei. Back and leg pain. Labrum tear. Potential fixes. Nathan and Dakota. Dakota’s recovery. Vince and Preston. Mowing.

    Sparks of Joy and Awe: Tomato Plants in Artemis

    Week Kavannah:  Wu Wei. Work with the chi.

    One brief shining: Yesterday I laid my dibble, ruler, and hori hori knife on the shelf inside Artemis, touched the green Leaves of the Tomato Plants and the Squash plants, began the transition from Nathan’s construction project to my greenhouse and I felt an odd, but familiar calm settle over me.

     

    Artemis: Nathan took a couple of hours from watching Dakota, who returned home from the vets without surgery needed, and put compost in the greenhouse bed. He also brought six Tomato Plants and two Squash Plants grown in the greenhouse he finished before mine. I’m excited about planting them today after the Ancient Brothers.

    We also discussed the Deer and Elk protection, which he had forgotten. He will use black mesh fencing material and build a wide door on each raised bed. The outside beds need this protection. They also have a roof extension over them for hail protection. One hail storm can destroy a garden up here.

    Artemis has begun to feel alive, a place for growth and love. I’ve missed having my hands in the Soil, taking care of Plants, eating produce fresh from the garden.

    Shadow also has an interest in Artemis. She’s dug a bit in the Cedar chips that cover the floor. Likes the smell I imagine.

     

    Dog journal: Shadow continues her outdoor ways. Sleeping near my bedroom window right on the ground. Last night, as other nights of late, she found things to warn off her property. Meaning she was the one breaking the silence of  Shadow Mountain. Embarrassing.

    Natalie and I have two objectives: the leash and Shadow inside when it’s dark outside.

     

    New Apostolic Reformation: You’ve probably not heard of the Seven Mountain Mandate. Yet in tandem with Cindy Jacob’s new interpretation of “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations…” it provides a deep rationale for Christian Nationalism.

    The idea popularized by Lance Wallnau says to conquer and rule nations Christians (read: charismatic Christians of the New Apostolic Reformation) must rise to the top of the seven mountains of culture:

    Only the religion mountain requires a spiritual leader. Wallnau explains this idea with the government mountain. From an Isaiah passage about the anointing of Cyrus-a Persian ruler who freed the Jews from their Babylonian captivity-Wallnau proposed that Donald Trump had received a Cyrus Anointing. That is, though not a Christian or even a moral man, as Cyrus was neither a Jew nor a righteous man according to Jewish law, Trump could/would free Christians from their captivity to the forces of Satan.

    The Jacobs’ idea of discipling nations and the need for Christians to rise to the top of the seven mountains of culture in each nation makes for a politicization of all the mountains. The Cyrus Anointing brought most New Apostolic Reformation types quickly into the 2016 campaign on Trump’s side.

    This is a quick summary. More on this later.

     


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