Category Archives: Plants

Asia, Family, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Judaism, Korea, Memories, Paganism, Plants, Sport, Tarot

Variables

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Sunday gratefuls: Morning darkness. Cool. Shadow and her toys. The flight to Incheon. 9:30 am, MT today. Korea. The Jangs. My son. The Giants. Baseball. A six year old and the World Series. 1987. Kirby Puckett. Randy Johnson. Bert Blyleven. Kent Hrbek. Fathers and sons. Memories, the scaffolding of identity.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The Metrodome

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Hakarat Hatov. Recognizing the good.

Tarot: The Three of Arrows, Jealousy

One brief shining: Stubble darkened his golden brown face as he listened, focused, a commander, a lieutenant colonel, yes, but here with me, my son hearing my doctor, Sue Bradshaw, discuss my health.

 

The Jangs: The Giants lost. 4-2. Beaten by the Nationals. Jung Hoo Lee got one hit. Root, root, root for the home team. If they don’t win, it’s a shame. Not in this case. Seeing Lee play center field, bat. That was the ball game for the Korean cheering section.

Their plane leaves this continent today at 10:30 am Pacific time, arriving in Incheon on Monday, the 11th, at 3 pm. The international dateline.

My son returns to work on Tuesday after a “vacation” spent as chauffeur and main problem solver for this Rocky Mountain Korean holiday. He’s confident, decisive, steady, kind.

His work phone kept him busy, too. The oddest problem? A geomagnetic storm, space weather, that could harm the instruments used in his job. Talk about force majeure.

 

The Tarot: Not often do the cards perplex me, but this one, the Three of Arrows, jealousy? Wha…? I left envy and jealousy behind, at least I think I did, years ago. Each night I touch the mezuzah on my bedroom door and say, “I’m comfortable with who I am. I’m comfortable with what I have.” I mean it, too. And feel it in my lev. So, jealousy?

Perhaps it comes to remind me of those days when I read many authors and wanted to write like them? Marion Zimmer Bradley. Herman Hesse. Ovid. Many others. I found my own voice.

Or. Perhaps it comes to remind me of the spiritual journey I’ve taken since those days of ambition. Toward acceptance of the Great Wheel as a model of life. Toward the Jewish insistence on constant questioning. Toward Yamantaka’s wisdom on death. Toward knowledge, intimate knowledge, of the One.

Or, perhaps it’s a random card with no particular resonance at all.

 

Artemis: Kale, Spinach, Beets, Tomatoes thrive. Arugula, Lettuce, Chard not so much. The east facing bed challenges me to learn how to plant it, water it. What unique gift does it have that I can’t quite see right now?

While I wait on the other vegetables to mature, I plan to try different things, see what might turn it from fallow to abundance. First, I plan to replant the Arugula, Lettuce, and Chard. Perhaps today. Then I plan to supplement the drip irrigation with my pretty green watering can. It has a flat copper spout with holes and produces a gentle Rain.

My goal is not so much a harvest at this point, but experimenting with variables to see what makes this bed a comfortable home for Seeds.

 

Asia, Dogs, Family, Friends, Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Korea, Paganism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Shadow Mountain, Tarot

Renewing my lease

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Shabbat gratefuls: United flight 806. An hour out of San Francisco. United flight 1702 to Denver. Cool night. Rain. The Monsoons. Shadow out at 3 am. Now inside and hungry. Family. Friends. Alan and his Hawaiian shirt. The Bread Lounge. Artemis and her beds. Shadow Mountain high.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah here tonight.

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot:  The Pole Star. #17*  What do the cards have to say to me today?

One brief shining: According to Flight Tracker United 806 has crossed the wide Pacific to within 46 minutes of San Francisco and the continental U.S., bearing within itself loved ones from far away Korea, all seated near each other some old, some young, all on an adventure of a lifetime for the Jang family of Okgwa.

 

Artemis: Had to rig a twine support for another fast growing Tomato Stalk. Will have to do more once Fruiting starts, heavy. I’m ready. I have Tomato metal and plastic supports, more twine.

Nathan comes today to finish work on Artemis. He’ll be tidying up electrical cords, adding cold frames, lapping the Cedar shakes. If he thinks it will work, he may also drill holes in the hail protection overlap from the greenhouse roof. My idea. Let some rain through while still blocking hail.

Together we’ll have to come up with some solution for irrigation on the east facing raised bed. All in the process of learning how to make Artemis function best. This is a shake-down season. Though. I’d say the greenhouse has already proved its mettle. Go Tomatoes!

 

Exercise: Once again up to 150 minutes of moderate exercise. Feels so good. Improves my mood and, as a new study shows, also fights cancer.

A combination of cardio on the treadmill, p.t. exercises aimed at my aching back and legs, plus upper body workouts designed with the help of Chatgpt.

Moving my treadmill, mats, weight bench, weights and kettle bells down to Kate’s old sewing room has helped. In fact, I got in 30 minutes of cardio yesterday in 10 minute increments. I set my timer for an hour. When it goes off, I get up and go to the treadmill, walk for 10 minutes. Easy peasy.

 

Tarot: The Pole Star, one of the major arcana marking the wanderer’s journey through the Wildwood. Offering guidance toward the end of the pilgrimage.

Could be, probably will be, the start of a new phase of my life. Shadow and I have made great strides. Artemis has already got my full gardener’s attention. I know what’s next for my back and leg pain. These all represent a strong move into a more co-creative life.

With my son, Seoah, and her family here for a week starting tonight I can see the outlines of a new relationship to the Jangs. Closer than before.

I also plan to talk to my son and Seoah about family matters, discuss what might happen if I go into a decline (not planning on it, but then do we ever?), remind them of the estate, the living wills, the medical power of attorney.

 

 

*Spiritual Guidance:
It signifies a connection to universal wisdom and the power of your intuition. The card encourages you to listen to your inner voice and trust the guidance it offers. 

  • Healing and Integration:
    This card represents a period of healing and integration, where you can…embrace wholeness. It’s a time to let your guard down and allow yourself to be nurtured by the holistic energy of the universe. 

  • New Beginnings:
    The Pole Star can also indicate the start of a new phase in your life, a time to step forward with renewed optimism and a sense of purpose.  Gemini

 

 

 

 

Great Wheel, Great Work, Greenhouse, Plants, Seed Keepers, Shadow Mountain

Hallelujah. And, amen.

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Lughnasa and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: At 8:30 pm tonight, MT, the visit of the Jangs leaves Incheon. 11:30 am tomorrow, KT. Alan. Bread Lounge. Shadow. Artemis. Morning Darkness. Lughnasa. Christmas in July, Melbourne. Mary settling in. Mark in Al Kharj. Family, far far away. Loved. The Sprouts, Seeds making good on their implicit promise.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: My son and Seoah here tomorrow night.

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Yirah. Awe.

Tarot: The Seer, #2 in the major arcana. What do the cards have to say?

One brief shining: Forgot the excitement of watching Plants emerge from Seeds, checking each day to see the progress they’re making, often a Seed Husk hangs on a bit, discarded after protecting the vitality of the green Emergent, like a body left behind after death.

 

Artemis: I suppose you could call it a hobby. Growing things. But, it doesn’t feel that way to me. Each day is a small Christmas with yellow Tomato Blossoms fattening out into green bulbous beginnings of Fruit. With Sprouts reaching further above the Soil, their new chartreuse already shading toward a darker hue. Their Leaves, at first only two, then a stalk, then more Leaves. Artemis pregnant with so many children.

I love these early days of Plant growth, coming out of hard shelled Seed with vigor, piercing the dark, reaching toward the nutrition of Great Sol, light eaters hungry for their first meal.

The miracle of photosynthesis. Eat Great Sol’s rays, produce carbohydrates, give off O2. Grow more. Grow more. Until a red Tomato lies in hand. Or, a Leaf of Chard, of Spinach, a blood red Beet.

If there’s a category above miracle, and there must be, it would include this oh so ordinary magic that most ignore. Celebration of life its very self. We can train our eye to see it. Our hands to pick it. Our nose to smell it. Our tongue to taste it.

The Midwest, the Central Valley. Vast lands devoted to farming. Yet most of the farming now done by mechanization, fertilization, irrigation. No celebration of the miracle until it produces the other green, profit. Measuring the worth of photosynthesis against its value to the bottom line may be the ur-evil afoot in the World. That metric drains Aquifers, strips away Top Soil, erodes whole Landscapes.

Maybe I am. Maybe. A broken record on this point. Only because my joy in growing things is so great, my closeness to the Plant Kingdom one of delight, not monetized as the tech bros like to say.

Yes. Growing things, eating from the bounty of Mother Earth’s vast collection of foodstuffs, can harmonize with the needs of Soils, of available Water, of sustainable harvesting. It can be the basis of human life, a human way of being that lives long and prospers. But it sure isn’t right now.

Those Beets pushing down roots that will develop into a tasty salad fixing, the Spinach ready to spread its wide Leaves, the peppery Arugula tentative in its early growth testify. They preach in the oldest language of all, the language of life sustained by life, of life sustained by the heat of Great Sol, the much recycled Water, the nutrients in the Soil. Hallelujah. And, amen.

 

Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Plants, Tarot

Energize

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Tuesday gratefuls: Hernia ultrasound. Scrotal ultrasound. Prolia shot. Colorado Pain tomorrow. All Drs., all the time. Western medicine. Ruby. Her air conditioning. 101 degrees in Lakewood yesterday. Drip irrigation. Artemis’ heater and exhaust fan. Those Tomato Plants. Healthy. Some Chard sprouting. Morning darkness. The Great Bear. Stars in the morning Sky.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: The deaf ultrasound tech

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Yirah. Awe.

Tarot: The Great Bear, #20.  How can I energize my creativity?

One brief shining: On a gurney, again, Deanna holding the ultrasound wand, giving me directions like bear down, cough in her deaf inflected voice, asking me a question like when did you have your hernia repair then turning to see my lips move, when watching the ultrasound image, she leaned back in an attitude of stiff concentration.

 

Imaging: MRIs. P.E.T. Scan. X-ray. Now ultrasound. A tour of the look inside crew. Completed in three months. Like winning all the majors on the golf circuit. Sort of.

Charlie Petersen, my old Internist who moved to Steamboat many years ago, often said, “Each of us is a black box.” Imaging techniques try to peer inside the black box, take away some of the mystery. But they’re only as good as the interpreter. AI has proven to be very skilled at this particular task. Radiologists plus AI yield better understanding than we had before.

Glad we have these technologies, not so glad I have to make use of so many of them, so often.

 

Tarot: The Great Bear, #20 of the major arcana, out of 21. The major arcana represent the fool’s journey, or, in the Wildwood Tarot’s instance, the wanderer’s. The Great Bear appears as the next to last step on the journey before #21, the World Tree.

The card shows a passage tomb between two great Oaks, a Polar Bear guarding the entrance. Inside the tomb the wanderer lies, experiencing death as a passage way from one life to another, a transformation, a rebirth.

The Great Bear’s position on the Great Wheel of the Year corresponds to the Winter Solstice. That annual opportunity to die to one’s old self on the longest night and be reborn in a world illuminated by the burning of the Yule log.

As I thought about my question, how can I energize my creativity, I realized the Great Bear called me to see. See that I laid in the tomb for much of this year, changing again into a Dog companion with Shadow, into a gardener with Artemis, connecting again with Mother Earth in a co-creative way, linking my life again to a Dog’s.

They have, each in their own way, opened my lev, my heart-mind. Through them I see myself as an intimate with the world of growing, changing lives. Both energizing my creativity and mutual expressions of it. The long struggle with Shadow, learning her ways and helping her adapt to mine. Artemis teaching me about raised beds, about drip irrigation, about a greenhouse where I can regulate the temperature, make the Tomato Plants happy.

The left Reverend Doctor Israel Herme Harari.

 

 

Asia, Family, Feelings, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Judaism, Memories, Paganism, Plants

Not Even Past

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Summer and the Korea Moon

Friday gratefuls: Ruth and Gabe. Nathan. Tarot. Morning Darkness. Cool morning. Shadow the mover of toys and socks. The sleeper. Alan and Joanne. Dandelion. RTD. Japanese lanterns. Red tie guy. His allies and facilitators. The rest of us. The most. Our long, slow slide into a third-rate country.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Japanese Lanterns for Artemis

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Ahavah. Love.

Tarot: The eight of Vessels-rebirth. How can I enhance my joy in the Tarot.

One brief shining: Ruth drives her pale green Subaru up the hill to Conifer, to Shadow Mountain Black Mountain Drive and she brings Gabe, Jon, Kate, Merton, Rebecca, BJ, Sarah, Annie with her, the living and the dead who occupy our memories and still shape our lives. Family.

 

Family: Its many branches planted here and in the here after. Jon and Kate. Tanya. Leisa. Rebecca and Merton. Of recent and sometimes blessed memory.

Not gone. Not at all. Haunting or supporting. Often both in the same moment. A remembered moment of hearts spread out on a restaurant table. A father watching movies with his son. A hostile mother demeaning her children. A hand held gently. A smile and a hug just when needed. Those quiet, small moments when love flashed between the two. Or among the three.

Mothers and fathers. Daughters and sons. Brothers and sisters. Grandfathers and grandmothers. Cousins. Kin.

Mark works in the desert of the Arabian Peninsula. Mary starting a new expat life as a permanent resident of Australia. Melbourne. Guru in K.L. My son in Osan along with Seoah and Murdoch.

Mom and dad. Long dead now. Yet not absent. No. Following Faulkner: “The past is not ever dead; it’s not even past.”

The stories. Of Charlie Keaton. Of Mabel. Of Aunt Mary and Aunt Mame. Aunt Nell. Uncle Riley. Aunt Virginia. All ghosts now, all hidden from earthly view yet still alive, still shaping us in ways we sometimes know and in ways we often do not.

How will we dance in the minds of our family after our deaths? Will it be a slow, graceful gavotte. A passion fueled tango. An elegant waltz. Perhaps a rock and roll moment, abandon and energy. Something we cannot predict, nor ever know.

 

Artemis: Nathan brought by two Japanese lanterns yesterday. Adding to the koi already on the door and his wooden accessories. Artemis has a distinct Asian inflection, appropriate for this guy whose family long ago fled west across the Pacific to Korea, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Australia.

Artemis is, in that way, a family shrine as well as a temple to my mixed pagan and Jewish spirituality. Her Tomatoes have many spiky yellow blooms, her Squash Plants have begun to throw vines over the raised beds, while the seeds of her fall salad garden right now take in moisture and heat, have located Great Sol’s path above them and will soon emerge above ground.

Still to plant: Herbs, flowers. And, later, in October, garlic.

Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Plants

Bonus Post: A Fall Garden

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Planted my late summer garden this a.m. Nathan has cold frames under construction so I can extend the growing season for the outdoor raised beds well into September.

Adding this bonus post because it felt so good to have my hands in the Soil. Judging depths and distances for optimal Seed maturation and thinning. Watering. Writing small signs for each Vegetable.

Shadow wandered around below the raised beds wondering what had so much of Dad’s attention.

The fall garden has Swiss Chard Rainbow, Spinach Bloomsdale, and Beets Chioggia in one bed and Arugula, Lettuce Lolla Rossa, and Chard Silverbeet in the other.

A bit of organic fertilizer went in over the weekend and has gotten watered in. After I planted the seeds, I’ve gone back over them with a watering can. This gives them moisture and helps prevent air pockets which can cause rot while a young plant grows.

This small bit of gardening, done at chest level, wore me out. Had to do it in shifts. Wow. Illustrated the wisdom of the raised high raised beds.

The only thing I have left to do today involves twine for tomato plant support. When I get rested again, I’ll finish that.

Great Wheel, Greenhouse, Health, Judaism, Kabbalah, Paganism, Plants, Tarot, Wild Neighbors

Intuitive Connection to the One

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Friday gratefuls: Joanne. Alan. Gabe. Ruth. Marilyn and Irv. New trowel and cultivator. Planting the fall garden. Cold frame. Nathan. Mandela Day. Monsoons. Ginny. Janice. The Wildwood Deck. Shadow coming in. Halle, leaving on Aug. 8th. The Jang’s. Arriving Aug. 2nd. P.T. Ultrasound.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Life, well lived.

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei

Week Kavannah: Patience. Savlanut

Tarot:  The Page of Arrows, Wren.

 

One brief shining: In the mail, a new trowel and cultivator, Tomato cages, ready for the planting of a fall garden that will make use of the cold frames Nathan has devised for Artemis’ outside raised bed and for the Tomato plants in the greenhouse that have bloomed and gotten so big.

 

Artemis: Blooms! It’s one thing to grow Tomato Plants, another to grow Tomatoes. A balance struck between Plant and Fruit. So far it looks like a good balance. The Plants need support, growing tall. Got some modular Tomato cages in the mail yesterday.

Working on the fall garden today and tomorrow. Nathan has designed cold frames for the two raised beds which should be enough to get this mid-summer planting past the first frosts in September.

All an experiment this year. Next year in the Spring I’ll start my own plants in the greenhouse well before the last frosts in late May. I would say this year and next will be about learning how best to utilize Artemis. She and the seasons will teach me.

 

Dog journal: A late evening feeding. Shadow has begun to come in for the night. I think, I hope, this will last. She associates coming in around 6 with her evening meals. I close the door and she’s inside until morning. Morning comes around 4-5 a.m.

Slowly, slowly.

 

Organ recital: Oh, hell. I get so tired of this. No ultrasound scheduled yet. Halle at P.T. gave me pointers on how to avoid aggravating a possible hernia.

Next week Wednesday I go to Colorado Pain for a consultation and possible scheduling of the SPRINT device. The steroid injection seems to have had no effect on my hip.

Nothing new with the cancer. Which is good news.

 

Tarot: The Page of Arrows-Wren*. Today’s question: How can I celebrate Mother Earth here on Shadow Mountain? The Druid’s considered the Wren a sacred bird, know for its wisdom and cunning.

In Kabbalah all of the court cards: Ace, King, Queen, Knight, and Page relate to Chochma, the divine attribute of wisdom on the Tree of Life.

The suit of Arrows in the Wildwood deck corresponds to the Spirit realm, to the element of Fire, and to the level of soul that transcends thought and represents a direct intuitive connection to the One.

I read all of this to mean that Artemis, the Lodgepoles, the Aspens, the Swallowtails, the Pentstemons, Grasses, Bear Paw, Ants, Squirrels, Chipmunks, Rabbits, Canadian and Blue Jays, Magpies, Robins, Mule Deer and Elk, Moose, Mountain Lions, Foxes, and Bears speak to my intuition, to my direct connection to the One through careful observation and care for them all.

I’ll close today with this Celtic lore:

Bards told of a contest to see which Bird could fly the highest. Many Birds competed, but the Eagle felt confident. He did not notice the Wren that rode up on his back, then flew above Eagle’s highest reach to win.

Cunning, yes. Fair? Not really. Still the Wren, one of the tiniest Birds in all of Great Britain defeated much more capable competitors.

 

*Shifting Energy:

The Page of Arrows, or Wren, marks a transition from the active, sometimes impulsive energy of the Arrows (akin to Wands in traditional tarot) to a more grounded, observant, and introspective phase.

    • Wisdom and Cunning:
      The Wren is a symbol of wisdom, cunning, and a deep understanding of the natural world. It suggests that you can achieve your goals through a combination of intelligence, observation, and strategic thinking. 
      Youthful Curiosity:
      The card encourages you to embrace your inner child’s curiosity and approach new situations with an open mind and a willingness to learn. 

Earthly Page Energy:

The Wren is often depicted as a small bird that stays close to the ground, symbolizing the earthy Page energy of the Wildwood Tarot. This suggests that you should ground your ambitions and focus on practical application of your skills. 
Gemini
Dogs, Fourth Phase, Greenhouse, Health, Judaism, Paganism, Plants, Seed Keepers, Tarot, Torah

Artemis Blends My Pilgrimage

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Summer and the Greenhouse Moon II

Wednesday: Mezuzahs. Rabbi Jamie. For the greenhouse. For Artemis. Shadow coming in last night. Steroid injection. Ruth bringing my credit card. Cards We Were Dealt. New tarot class, taught by my friend, Luke. Halle, limiting my exercises yesterday. Trumpeter of his own doom. Tomatoes. Squash.

Sparks of Joy and Awe: Mezuzah hanging

Year Kavannah: Wu Wei. Find the chi, the creative advance into novelty. Work with it.

Week Kavannah: Hearing on the side of merit

One brief shining: Sarah, the orthopedic p.a., had a sonagram wand in her hand as she asked me, “What fills your cup?” before she checked out my arthritic, labrum torn right hip, sprayed it with a cold numbing liquid and injected yet more steroids into my body. Ah.

 

Yesterday was an eventful day in the neighborhood. It began the night before…

Dog journal: Natalie offered to come over around five with her dog to help me get Shadow in. Monday evening. I tried turkey hot dogs. Shadow ate them eagerly outside, but when I put them on the floor inside, she turned away. I decided I’d need Natalie so I went upstairs.

When I turned around, there was Shadow. In the house. I closed the door downstairs, texted Natalie.

Before all this I had heard her barking her intruder bark. I went to check, thinking another Mule Deer might have been in the yard. Nope. Beautiful yellow Swallowtails dining on bright blue Penstemon, a front range Wildflower. As one left, another fluttered down while Shadow chased the one leaving. Barking.

 

Hip, leg, back pain: Drove over to Panorama Orthopedics in the morning. Ruth met me there to return my credit card. She and Gabe had gone to pick up pizzas for us and she forgot it in her purse. I told her I’d gotten under my patched duvet (her work) without a blizzard of Goose feathers. She smiled. We hugged and went our separate ways.

The injection took all of ten minutes. Same caveats as the spinal injections. Sometimes works. Sometimes doesn’t. Wait 7-10 days. No immersion in water for thirty-six hours. Why? Dunno.

 

Tarot: Restarting my Tarot practice by taking a class originally offered by Rabbi Jamie and Luke, now taught by Luke alone. I took the first one, got heavily into Tarot and Astrology for a beat. Figured a class would help me get back to regular readings.

A big class. Maybe eight at the Kabbalah Experience classroom, seven (like me) on zoom.

 

Artemis: Scheduled Rabbi Jamie to hang a mezuzah on Artemis this Friday at 2:30. Invited a few friends.

A mezuzah contains a tiny scroll with the full Shema written on it. If it’s on vellum and done by a sofer, a scribe, it’s considered kosher.

I want one on Artemis because it will blend my major sacred paths: paganism, Taoism, Judaism. The pagan path follows the seasons, the changes in Plants, Animals, and Climate that repeat in the cycle known as the Great Wheel.

Taoism encourages working with those changes, leaning into their subtle power, knowing the changes as the here and now expression of the sacred (or we might call it chi).

Judaism and its mystical path, Kabbalah, sees the movement of the sacred as a constant flow of divine energy that begins in the ayn sof, the great emptiness, proceeds outward toward the malkhut, this world of appearances, then travels back up again. Here in malkhut, the Shekinah, or the feminine expression of the sacred has her clearest presence. A process I see in miniature each time a Seed sprouts, a Plant grows, and I am fed by this true miracle.

Artemis blends my pilgrimage into one small building, especially when I’m accompanied by my Shadow.

 

 

 

Dogs, Feelings, Greenhouse, Judaism, Plants, Science

Learn From It

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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.

 

Dogs, Greenhouse, Plants, Seed Keepers, Weather +Climate, Wild Neighbors

She Also Kills

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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.