Samhain Waxing Wolf Moon Thanksgiving
Joseph and Mary are here. Mary came in to the train station in Anoka. It was a very East Coast scene with folks waiting for others in the parking lot, a mist shrouding the street lights. Joseph’s flight experienced a delay at Milwaukee and didn’t get in until 9:35 p.m.
Let the cooking begin.
Samhain Waxing Wolf Moon
Let the scramble for the unfinished and the not yet purchased begin. Thanksgiving day is tomorrow. We decided to purchase a turkey from Williams-Sonoma since we didn’t see ourselves doing the whole meal. They gave us a call last night to tell us that the turkey will be delivered today. Reassuring.
We go this morning to Kate’s physical medicine and rehab doc, Dr. Bewin. He’s her medical home for the issues related to her back. He’ll evaluate her pain management regimen and discuss the surgical results so far. He’ll also weigh in on rehab, physical therapy.
Lois, our housecleaner is here today, doing that before holiday buffing up, though frankly with five dogs we don’t maintain an Architectural Digest home under the very best of circumstances, this even though Kate spends many happy hours watching HGTV.
The latest Wired has an article that gives a very gloomy outlook for global warming, using phrases like “we’re toast.” It goes on to imagine the techno-geek fixes that we’ll come up with to save the day.
Ooohhh…the turkey has come, I think!
Samhain Waning Dark Moon
Welcome to another sunny, warm November day. These are days I’ve come to expect from October, but, as Paul Douglas often says, nature tries to balance, so here we are close to Armistice Day with a 60 degree and bright day about to unfold. That means time to finish what I hope will be the last Rigel barrier of the season, extending a wire across the top of our wooden orchard fencing to make it really, really hard for her to get a purchase.
Kate’s lying low for the next few days, taking care of that not yet healed back. A wise decision on her part. She’s most at risk just as she begins to feel better, chasing down dogs, picking up the mail down our sloped driveway, loading and unloading the dishwasher, making Danish pancakes. These are all part of the routine of a normal life, not important, perhaps even a bit annoying on a daily basis, until you cannot do them at all, then they loom large as important, even critical parts of identity.
A shout out here to Vicki Nowicki. I met Vicki at the annual Seed Saver’s Exchange conference in July. I ate dinner with Vicki and her husband. We talked about permaculture, Celtic holidays, the odditys of American landscape preferences and the importance of becoming native to a place. Vicki told me she’d won a Garden Crusader award from Gardener’s Supply Company. The notice came today in a e-mail from them. I’ve excerpted a bit from the interview with her.
When we spoke, and as I read this, I found myself speaking when she talked. We were in synch. She also has a Liberty Garden project that I admire.
2009 Garden Crusader Vicki Nowicki
Vicki’s life work has been to help people slow down, learn about the land they live on and take better care of it. “What I’ve been trying to do for 30 years is to glorify the place where you live,” she said. “I want to use food gardens to nail people down to their place. A garden helps to reveal the nature of your site and bonds you to the land,” she said. “When you have a garden instead of a lawn, you are now producing something, not just consuming at the maw.”
Liberty Gardens
Her newest project pulls together everything she knows and believes about gardening. It is a website called libertygardens.com. The site will include tutorials and garden journals and will be a resource for anyone interested in gardening.
Here is how she describes it:
“It’s for the 21st century and it’s about growing food at home in order to make it a home. Our lives will change and our world will change when we start to plant food gardens at home. It’s a simple act that each person can choose to do at any time without a new law being passed, or a feasibility study being run or a stimulus package being doled out. But talk about a shovel-ready project! If our land is worth caring about and if our families are worth caring about, we can each choose to create the food supply that we have been asking for. We have the liberty to choose what to grow and how to grow it. People have always done it.”
And with Vicki Nowicki’s help, more and more people will be joining in, and doing it too.
Samhain Full Dark Moon
Kate’s recovery has, as she expected, plateaued. That means she’ll have time without the rapid gains she made over the last two weeks. According to her, the physical gains will not be lost, but the hope engendered in the immediate post-op will erode, since the body does not, at least for awhile, continue to send positive signs. Psychologically the matter may be more problematic. Without care the slowed or even apparently stopped healing can make the long time since getting ready for the procedure, the blur of the first couple of days on the morphine drip and the joy of increased mobility afterward add up to disappointment, fear of a failed outcome, or a weariness with the whole no longer countered by good signs.
Out for errands.
Fall Waxing Dark Moon
A word about litter mates. Kate and I buy litter mates when we get puppies. Once in a while we’ve gotten adult dogs given to us by a breeder and we did buy one solitary wolfhound, but otherwise litter mates. Of our current pack all of the dogs were litter mates. Hilo and Kona were born 8 years ago from a champion whippet bitch. Emma and Bridgit (now deceased) we bought 14 years ago from a woman who was line breeding for really fast whippets. They were both crazy, but they loved each other.
Rigel and Vega don’t look like litter mates. Rigel looks like a miniature Irish Wolfhound (miniature at 100 pounds, of 
course) and Vega looks like, well, Vega. She’s a giant coon hound with a huge head and a lot of muscle. Appearances in this case deceive. These girls have been together since last December when they were born.
Litter mates have mutual space. They lie on each other, eat each other’s food, play together. They retain the bond you might expect from animals who shared a womb, then a mother’s breasts. The intimacy and trust they display toward each other is so sweet, so innocent and enduring. We buy them just for this reason, so they will have a partner through life, one they can count on, one their own size in the case of Rigel and Vega.
These relationships have been part of the magic for Kate and me over the years, an addition to the joy of knowing animals as friends and companions, we also know them as sisters.
Fall Waxing Dark Moon
The Vikings took the pressure off themselves today by losing to Pittsburgh. A lot of things could be said about the game, but in the end they lost. It was a great game, one I enjoyed watching anyhow. OK, I will say one thing. That tripping penalty that called the touchdown back in the 4th quarter stank. It was a game changer in a bad way for us.
Kate’s recovery, slow, but regular, gains strength each day. She went downstairs and up again tonight. The incentive was big, seeing Ruth and Gabe on Skype, but the trip had a confidence building aspect, too.
Rigel and Vega have calmed down with the cooler weather. Calmed down in a relative sense. They still clang and bang, heavy with tooth and claw, but escaping seems to have become less a priority since the electric fence.
Fall Waxing DArk Moon
Kate said this morning, “I have the zombie walk down.” She referred to her walker and its clump, clump rhythm. I suggested we have her greet trick or treaters. We could hang a sign on the walker that said, “Caution: Old Person!” Talk 
about scary. (pic: Halloween 2008, Leadville, Co.)
Yesterday she altered the periodicity of her drugs and had a great improvement in her overall attitude. Instead of taking 2 percocet every 4 hours, she now takes one every 2 hours. I can tell advances in her movement and attitude each day, sometimes hour to hour. She’s tough and stubborn, a good combination for recovery.
“I just thank Jesus for this fine Norwegian.” A line I read in a newspaper article a couple of years ago. Me, too.
On a more Y chromosome note. Vikings vs. Steelers. The line gives the Steelers the edge with three points. Maybe. Antoine Winfield is out with a bad ankle. Rothelisberger has great stats this year in the passing game and Winfield out will put someone inexperienced out there. Even so, my idea is that the Viking’s d-line will keep Ben on his heels enough to neutralize the Winfield problem. If they can do that, Favre can score points with screens and mid-level passes since the Pittsburgh d will concentrate on All Day Peterson. Let’s call it more like even. Whichever team has the better day.
Fall Waxing Dark Moon
Hospitals are not homes. Neither are they more than medically outfitted hotels. Abbott-Northwestern is a good hospital, but the gap between a good hospital and a healing environment is vast. Kate is now home, a healing place where her body will continue the work assisted by the surgeon.
She’s tired, but mobile, walking unassisted, though at times she may use a cane or a walker. I’m surprised at how able she is considering the the surgery was done Monday afternoon.
Home feels more substantial now. More after we both get a nap in, much needed.
Fall Waxing Dark Moon
The leaves have finally changed color in our yard. It happened almost over night. Many went dry before they turned, but more have become red, gold, yellow. The colors of fall are as much a part of our landscape as the snowdrops and daffodils are of spring. Fall’s color gives us one last Times Square moment from the vegetal world before the emphasis moves to the monochromatic grace and elegance of winter.
Sounds like Dr. Mary Ellis may visit over Thanksgiving. The Singapore government nixed an earlier visit due to the H1N1 virus. Mary’s had a lot going on over the last four years. Working and finishing a dissertation has never been easy; it consumed extra time and holidays. This would be the first Thanksgiving I can recall in a long time that she would be here. It’s always good to have family around during holiseason.
Kate comes home today. Her primary exercise for the next bit of time will be walking. Yes, she’s up and about. No 100 yard dashes in the near term, but moving is good, real good. She cannot twist, so no Chubby Checker’s music on the CD player. She also has to bend at the waist, no flexing of the back. She will need percocet for a few weeks.
Fortunately hand work is how Kate spends time while listening to lectures at continuing medical education so she has projects to keep her busy.
As soon as she’s able (maybe right now), she can also start using the treadmill. 5 minutes at first, then more as she heals.
Fall New (Dark) Moon
The house that Harvey built ( Harvey Kadlec) as a model house for Kadlec Estates–3122 153rd Ave. NW, Andover, Minnesota–became a home long ago. The kids have contributed memories and projects. The land around the house has had many iterations of plants and vegetables. Kate has sewing materials and tools scattered here and there. I have books and computers.
With Kate off in the hospital this home reverts part way to house. Without her here part of the spirit of the home dwells elsewhere.
Houses are inanimate, things of wood and metal, pipes and plastic. The house, or the apartment, at least in America, will have serial occupants. Except for those folks who work with architects, their construction and siting decided by someone else, often a construction company, these sophisticated shells provide shelter from the elements and changing seasons. Various ports of entry connect a house to electrical service providers, a gas company, a cable or satellite service for TV and broadband internet, water and sewage removal. Often a patch of earth surrounds the house, a buffer between the house and the outside world.
A home, now that’s another matter. A home is a house (or apartment) that has been made real in the Velveteen Rabbit way. It may have a step or two that jiggle when walked upon. Maybe one or two windows have their weatherstripping coming loose. The floors probably have scuff marks and once pristine walls have chips showing the wall board beneath. At any time there is probably a light bulb out somewhere. The gas fireplace stopped working two or three years ago. The water pressure is not what it once was.
That brand new furniture that looked so good in the show room? A dog is asleep there now with a young boy. The cat scratched the chair and though long dead her mark remains. The beds in the home have bred dreams, consoled sadness and rocked with anticipation on holiday mornings. Showers have cleansed little boys before t-ball games, girls before prom, mom and dad before anniversary dinners or after funerals.
Cars have been dissected across the dining room table. Gardens planned. Weddings, too. Thanksgiving dinners and birthday parties. The oven still has the remnants from a first cake.