Category Archives: Family

Family

Kate

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Lughnasa                                                                      Honey Moon

Tomorrow is Kate’s 69th birthday.  We’ve known each other since 1989 and have IMAG0808celebrated many significant birthdays.  50.  60.  65.  All milestone birthdays.  This one is not a milestone in that way, the next one is three score and ten, the birthday after which, according to Jewish custom, all the years are a gift.

(Kate discovering the wonders of the Fabric Outlet store)

Kate treats herself like a thoroughbred, that is she changes her age at New Years, so by her reckoning she’s been 69 since January.

Age is funny.  It’s meaning changes as you age.  To me, with her, this is just another birthday, or, said differently, this is a birthday!

What I mean is that 69 is the same as 50 as 60 as 65 as 70, a day to celebrate the unique and wonderful woman I married on March 10, 1990.  In the last century, hell, the last millennia. Yes, we’ve been married through two different centuries and two different millennia, not many throughout history who can say that, well, not that many considering the grand total.

We have the privilege of meeting many people over the course of a lifetime and of becoming close to only a few.  I’m grateful my life and hers intersected, thanks to classical music.  And turning 69 doesn’t seem old at all anymore.  Not at all.

Family, Retirement, Third Phase

Visiting Our Money

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Lughnasa                                                                   Honey Moon

Our financial planner has an office across 169 from General Mills.  When we go see him, we call it visiting our money.  The reason for going today resulted from thinking about retirement money in a somewhat new way.  It involves recalibrating expectations currently set by an “abundance of caution” approach, an approach that understandably conservative advisors use.

According to the best projections our money can buy, under current conditions (not guaranteed to continue) our assets should last well past my 100th birthday with a sizable nut still available.  In fact, a nut larger than our current assets.  Now this is good news of course, but I view these projections as a speedometer and this one tells me we’re going too slow.  That is, we’re leaving money on the table that we could be using to see the grandkids more often, do more work on our lawn, take a trip, whatever.

So we went into negotiate some ground rules with RJ about withdrawals.  By making certain conservative moves years ago, at the advice of yet another financial counselor, Ruth, we have put together a fairly large savings account which we hold in a low volatility mutual fund outside of the IRA and under our immediate control.  This account allows us to self-fund any shortfalls from our IRA withdrawal in case of a correction and, even, a crash.  This is necessary because we have set our withdrawal rate at a steady 4%, no matter what, the 4% number arrived at in order to preserve capital over the long term.

With this safety mechanism in place it then becomes possible to identify an asset floor, if you will, above which we do not need to retain the money in investments.  Which we did today.  When our assets move above this floor, we’ll make occasional withdrawals that exceed our monthly draw.  Below it we won’t.

Feels good.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Garden, General, Great Work, Our Land and Home

Dancing in the Garden

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Lughnasa                                                         Moon of the First Harvests

We’ve settled into a rhythm that will continue until the last substantial harvest.  I go out in the mornings and harvest.  Kate then pickles, cans or freezes.  I helped with the garlic drying, but otherwise she’s done all the work.  We’ve had to clear the detritus out of the food storage room, gathered there over the winter and spring, because now trips down there for empty canning jars or to deliver full ones have become frequent.

Kate said she needed a calico dress and a gingham (Gangham?) apron.   I suggested a bonnet.  This work for her, right now, is primary in her life and she reports getting energy from doing it.  She must because she stands long hours in the kitchen.  Of course, she’s one tuckered out gal at the end, but the pantry has more stores and she feels good.

This whole garden is a dance with each of us playing different roles over the course of the season.  I have overall responsibility for the gardens and their health.  I do most, but not all, of the planting, all of the international ag labs supplementing and survey the various beds for plant health over the course of the growing season.  If there’s corrective action to be taken, that’s my job.  I bag the apples and take care of the fruit trees, also harvesting. (but not pruning.)

Kate weeds and that is one huge job.  One I don’t like.  She says it brings her satisfaction. I can’t get no satisfaction there so I’m glad she can.  At harvest time Kate takes the lead and chooses what kind of recipes to use and what methods of preservation to employ.  Near the end, when the leeks come in, I’ll make pot pies for freezing.  We both do fall clean-up and I plant bulbs.  Then the garden takes its long late fall and winter nap.

Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Feelings, Friends, Our Land and Home

Kona

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Summer                                                                  Moon of the First Harvests

Kona died this morning.  Both Kate and I spent time with her just before she died.  She was alert and responsive to the end.  She died knowing we loved her and in the crate she knew as her safe place.

(Kona)

We cried, both of us.  Yes, in spite of an end obvious long ago, the actual loss still opens a chasm between the living dog and the dead one.  That chasm represents the never will agains.  And those made me cry.  I would never again feel her nuzzle into my hand.  Never again see her smile.  Never again see her run the trails in our woods.

Her corpse no longer retained her; it was a symbol now, not a reality.  This is a wonder to me.  When I spoke with her about a half hour before she died, she looked at me, put her nose in my palm, caressed me with her muzzle.  Kona was 100% there.  Then, she was gone.  The light left her eyes and her body no longer moved.

The wonder is this, that life has a magic about it, seen most clearly after it is lost.  That which was Kona was there, then not.  Yes, her memories live on, that’s true.  But Kona does not.  The personality, the somewhat aloof I’m living life as I intend to personality of the sighthound, has vanished.  Just like that.

(Rigel, Gertie, Kona)

Life is a miracle, ordinary in its profusion and ordinary as long it exists, yet when it has gone, then we know.  So, each death gives us a moment to reflect on the precious gift we have.  The one carrying us forward into tomorrow.  A gift others give to us, too.  Each death is an opportunity to affirm and celebrate life and living.

Kona’s father was a whippet champion named Drum.  When we picked up Hilo and Kona from the breeder, the puppies and the parents were watching Animal Planet.  We brought them home and they began a series of escapes from the property, going under the chain link fence in pursuit of prey or delight, often both.

We held them on our laps when they were young.  Hilo would squirm, sit up, stretch, jump down.  Kona, the much larger of the two, would lie quietly, happy to be there.  

In her early days Kona was a predator.  I remember one day Kona came up on the deck, dropped something there, then ran back out into the woods.  The something was the still warm and clear eyed head of an adult rabbit.  Why she brought it to the deck I don’t know.   Over a long period Kona would kill rabbits and we would pick up the dead rabbits, put them in a plastic bag and dispose of them.  This never deterred Kona.  She just kept at it.

Hilo died three years ago of kidney failure and was never much of a hunter.  She liked to be with her people.  Kona kept to her self, finding places to sit nearby, sometimes with us, often not.  She kept her own counsel and determined what her day would be like, pretty much independent of us.

After her death this morning, I went out into the garden and sat on one of the raised beds.  Gardens heal.  Surrounded by life and life producing food, the cycle of life was concrete.  Kona fit into this cycle.   It helped me remember that at some point the light in my eyes will go out, too.  And, more.  That will be fine, it will fit into this cycle.

(Vega and Kona)

Kona had privileges the other dogs didn’t.  She would go with me into the garden, mainly because we could count on her not to dig holes in the garden beds.  She would also be outside on our brick patio with us because we could count on her to stay around the house.

She has been part of our lives for 12 plus years, as real and regular a part of our lives as we are to each other.  True she was a dog, but as a companion and fellow traveler on this pilgrimage she was with us, part of our pack as we were part of hers.

We travel on now with one less pilgrim immediately in our presence, yet at the same time, the whole pack with us, all 17 dogs, two parents and two sons.  Amen.

 

 

Dogs, Family, Writing

Sew What

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Summer                                                          Moon of the First Harvests

Kate’s in Anoka at an all day quilting retreat, sewing and talking.  She took along fat quarters with Halloween themes, so she’s feeling her way into the fall season, too.  Her sewing day friends come to these retreats as have a few people she knows from the now defunct Fat Quarter Quilting.  There’s skill building and a chance to get focused and make progress on a project.

The revision is on the last lap.  I’ll finish either this afternoon or tomorrow.  Then all those putzy things I mentioned a while back and I’ll be ready to move on for the time being.

Kona’s in serious decline now, most of what she eats feeds her tumor and she is listless.  This is when the vet advises euthanasia but I discovered with Buck, well over a decade ago, that euthanasia violates some primal norm in me.  So we keep our dogs comfortable, as comfortable as we can, hospice care or as near as we can replicate that, and wait with them as death comes.

Kona’s illness and decline has come when third phase issues are very present to me and at some point after her death, I plan to reflect on what she has taught me.  And all the others, too.

Family

Grandpop Files

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Summer                                                                   Moon of the First Harvest

Our youngest grandchild, Gabe, has hemophilia.  Hemophilia puts a lot of demands on his parents and on his older sister Ruth, but they all handle it with the same kind of grace that Gabe displays.  The goal of course is for Gabe to have a normal childhood, as normal as possible, and to that end Jen and Jon inject him with factor three times a week to prevent bleeds.  He takes this with a kind of stoicism not normally found in five year olds.

There is a regional branch of a national hemophilia center in Denver not far from Jon and Jen’s home and they do a lot of education and outreach in addition to clinical management.  Each year the center and their volunteer support group has a camp in the Rockies for kids with hemophilia and their siblings.  Ruth went for the first time this year.  Gabe’s not old enough yet.

 

 

Family, Friends, Our Land and Home, Woolly Mammoths

Home Olympics

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Summer                                                        Moon of the First Harvests

Noticed as I did my second round of foliar spray today, vegetative and reproductive plants separately, that we have tomatillos, eggplant, many tomatoes and green peppers.  None ready for harvest, but they’re on the way and it’s only mid-July.

A few last minute things for the Woollies.  Have to move more ash sections to serve as seats and go over the fire pit area one more time.  Kate began prepping for today over two weeks ago.  Between the Woollies and the kids plus Mark in June, we’ve done a lot of spiffing up and getting things ready, things that will last past the events that triggered them.

Sort of the home equivalent of the Olympics.  No bird’s nest auditorium, no fancy velodrome or natatorium, but the fire pit and the cleaned up orchard (which didn’t get scheduled until after the Woollies, but we planned it before), the hung chandelier, Kate’s familiarity with certain recipes and her finely-tuned entertainment acumen, the cut firewood, the lights in the fire pit, not to mention all the reflections on home I anticipate and the memories from June and tonight will vibrate here long after everyone goes to their home while we remain behind, here, in our own.

 

Aging, Dogs, Faith and Spirituality, Family, Memories, Our Land and Home, Third Phase

Home

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Summer                                                       Moon of the First Harvests

Home.  Back in the early 90’s when we lived on Edgcumbe Road in St. Paul, I felt a sense of homecoming when I crossed Ford Parkway.  I had crossed into home turf.  It’s taken a long while for a similar feeling to take hold here in Andover, but now, as I turn off Highway 10 onto Round Lake Boulevard, that sense of homecoming greets me.

Yes, it’s marked by Baker’s Square, Wendy’s, Conoco, Burger King and a Holiday station, but, they’re our franchises, there for our use.  The feeling gets even stronger going up Round Lake and begins to thicken at Round Lake itself where the water is on the left and the peat bog fields of Field’s Truck Farms are on the right.  Those fields are the remains of an old lake, eutrophied completely, a process that has advanced a good ways in Round Lake.

As I turn onto 153rd Ave NW, our property shows up about 1,000 feet in and I see the 6 foot chain link fence we had installed because Celt, our earliest Irish Wolfhound, climbed the four-foot fences to go greet passers-by on the street.  This particular fence was put in place after a derecho felled a large poplar and destroyed the one we had originally extended from four feet to six.  There is, too, the truck gate, 10 feet wide that we had installed because we wanted to get trucks from nurseries and our own trucks back onto our property.

The trees have grown up, grapevines have covered them, the prairie grass has morphed over time but has a pleasing current configuration.  On the six foot fence itself, the border of the prairie grass, grows our wild grapes.  Wild grapes that we pick in the fall for jams and jellies.

The driveway, the sloped driveway that creates its own stories in the winter, goes up to the three car garage that makes our house look as if we live as an adjunct to the garages.  On the right going up is a rusted and unused basketball hoop, an emblem, as at so many homes, of a boy, now gone.  In the garage itself we have a unique five stall dog feeding set up that we used when our pack was at its peak and we had five Irish Wolfhounds at once.

Do you see what I mean?  Home has an accretion of memories, memories attached to physical things like lakes and peat bogs, fences and basketball hoops.  This is not somebody else’s memories but our memories, our family’s memories.  It is those memories, those thick layers of past embraced constantly in the present, that make a home.

Inside the house are the same layers of memories, of guests and friends and immediate family, of dogs and workmen, nights and days, meals and passion.  It is the thickness, the particularity of it all, that makes this our home and not someone elses.  After 20 years, we have laid down many layers of smiles, tears, hard work and love.  That’s why this is home.

Family, Our Land and Home

Chainsaw

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Summer                                                                           First Harvest Moon

Tomorrow is chainsaw time.  Gotta get firewood cut for the big Woolly fire on Monday.  Weather says thunderstorms possible, but I’m going to proceed as if they were not.  Can’t hurt to have too much firewood.  There’s always Samain.

Got word from brother Mark that he is in Indianapolis, getting more and more work done on his visa.  Physicals, FBI check, that sort of thing.  He plans a trip to Alexandria (our hometown) soon.  It will be his first time back in a very long time.

Kate’s set aside the pots and pans today to work with needles and thread.  She finished one quilt for Sarah, our housecleaner’s daughter and has begun one for Margaret Levin, both of whom have due dates in the near future.  Margaret is the executive director of the Northstar Sierra Club.

 

Family, Memories

Home Again?

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Summer                                                         New (First Harvest) Moon

Brother Mark has been traveling the nostalgia trail of late.  He landed in Bloomington, Indiana last week, where both he and Mary went to college.  Now he’s in Indianapolis and I imagine his next stop is Alexandria, not far from Naptown, as Hoosiers refer to Indy. He visited Tom Wolfe’s grave outside Asheville, North Carolina a couple of weeks ago and You Can’t Go Home Again might be on his mind.

It is on mine every time I return to Indiana.  Alexandria was our home during our growing up years and it has that charged, magical valence that only the spot where childhood came alive can have.  Yet the heart has its own rules, its own inclinations and prejudices and for me Alexandria simply does not mean home for me as an adult.

I’m looking forward to the conversation with the Woollies about home.  At mine.