Category Archives: Family

Family, Garden, Great Work

A Pleasant and Substantial Path

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70  bar steady 30.13  0mpn SSE dew-point 62  sunrise 6:16 sunset 8:17  Lughnasa

Full Corn Moon  moonrise 2014    moonset  0554

“Mistakes are at the very base of human thought … feeding the structure like root nodules. If we were not provided with the knack of being wrong, we could never get anything useful done.” – Lewis Thomas

Had to call the generator guys yesterday.  Our Kohler should exercise itself every two weeks, Tuesdays at 11:00 AM.  It has not done that since installation.  It works, we know that because it turned on during a power outage in June.  The exercise cycle, however, is how we know it works in between storms.   A fail safe.  They had a reason this time, like they had the last time.  This time use during an outage kicks it off the exercise cycle, “A problem Kohler refuses to recognize.”  The first time it was air in the gas line.  Maybe so both times, but I want it to do what we paid a hefty sum to do and that includes letting us know it works, all the time.  Otherwise, come an outage we may have no power and an expensive lump of metal and wires to help us enjoy the darkness and the heat.

Today and tomorrow and Monday are prep days for the herds migration out to our place.  Groceries.  Garden spruce up.  Hydroponics restart.  Decluttering the living room and kitchen.  That sort of thing.

Kate’s last two years of medicine are not the gentle glide down to a soft landing and out I wish they could be.  Her style of practice and the newer, corporate style do not mesh; the gears grind and jump.  It means she’s under pressure to see more patients, see more adults and smile doing it.  She needs a union, at best she will get out with her dignity intact.

We have, however, set ourselves on a pleasant and substantial path here at home.  We have expanded food production here this year and will expand again next year and possibly the year after that.  There are energy capture projects I have in mind and much more to learn from the disciplines of permaculture and horticulture.  She has her sewing and quilting; I have writing and politics.  Together, too, we have the kids, the grandkids and the dogs.  She will be here longer than she will be at work.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Literature

Colma, California City of the Dead

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69  bar falls 29.80 1mh SSE dew-point 53  sunrise 6:11 sunset 8:25  Lughnasa

Waxing Gibbous Corn Moon    moonrise 1816  moonset  0130

Finished Alive in Necropolis. A fascinating book, part ghost story, part coming of age story, part police procedural set in Colma, California.  Colma, California is not just anywhere; it is where San Francisco chose to bury its dead.  There are way more dead people in Colma’s 17 cemeteries, 1.5 million, than citizens, 1, 280.   This one I read almost straight through.  It kept what John Gardner calls the fictive dream alive.

Feels good to have read the last two nights rather than watch TV.  I might let it become a habit.  I love fiction, write fiction.  That’s not to say I don’t pick up non-fiction, in fact, I do.  Quite a bit.  Some folks I know rarely read fiction.  I rarely read non-fiction books through in the same way I do novels.  I tend to treat them as resources, reading them more in the manner of college reading.  I seek the big ideas, the general arc of the argument.  Sometimes, I’ll finish them, but rarely.

Kate is home, the night is pleasant.  The kids are healthy, the grandkids, too.  And the dogs.  The gardens productive and the flowers are beautiful.  A good now.

Family, Garden

Bubil Plucking

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74  bar falls 29.85  0mph NNW dew-point 56  sunrise 6:11  sunset 8:25  Lughnasa

Waxing Gibbous Corn Moon

The punk hairdos of our Country Gentlemen corn now resemble pubic hair, albiet a dark purple.  Sex and the country gentlemen.  Though I’ve seen corn grown all my life, I’ve never done it myself.  The simple, elegant sexuality of these green giants intrigues me.  The tassel pops out of the top, spreads its stamens.  The developing ears–seed pods–push out this delicate female part, the silk, to receive the pollen which falls down as wind rustles the tassel.  Each seed on the ear has a silk that runs straight to it.  A gravity based system.  One of the tiny miracles in a garden of major miracles.

There is nothing on the planet so miraculous as the photosynthetic driven production of carbohydrates.  Without this marvel the food chain has no beginning link.  No beginning link, no chain at all.  It would not be out of place to stop by a plant tonight or tomorrow, put your hands together, bow a bit and say Namaste.  A gracias, too, perhaps.

Kate’s home.  She had fun with the grandkids.  She’s really become a grandma and a good one.  A pleasure to see.  She cooked tonight.  Spaghetti squash, tomato cucumber and onion salad, fish.  All but the fish from our place.

This evening I plucked bubils from the leaf junctions of three of my lilium.  After dipping them in some root  hormone, I took a pair of pick-ups and slotted them into soil pellets.  The pellets went into small plastic six packs.  The whole went out to the garden to receive water and sun.  After they’ve grown a bit, I’ll transplant them to the second tier bed down by the patio.  I’ve never tried propagating lilies this way before, but it was common in the 19th century according to my lily culture book.

Family, Garden

Home Alone

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62  bar steep rise 29.98 3mph NEE dew-point 47  sunrise 6:08  sunset 8:28  Lughnasa

First Quarter of the Corn Moon  moonrise 1533  moonset 2334

Kate’s been gone since Thursday morning.  I miss her.   There’s always a certain frisson being home alone, for a bit, but it fades and then missing her kicks in.  We talk things out, watch each others backs, fill in each others life.  Happily married, I’m happy to say, 18+ years and counting.

Bumped the irrigation system up to 150%.  The rain has been scarce to none.  We’re in a severely dry period.  The grass has begun to turn brown, even with regular watering.  The crops need water now because many of them come to maturation in the month of August and early September.  Having our own well is a blessing when it comes to irrigation, it means we don’t have to worry about drawing down the city wells or abiding by their sprinkler rules.  Even so, I wonder about the water table and if our use of the sprinklers and our neighbors affects the city as a whole.  Don’t know enough about hydrology to know.

A few of the Olympic events were on TV, but women’s soccer, the early rounds, and volleyball do not draw me.  The sports I enjoy are the track and field events. Even there, the participants are, for the most part, unknown and will not become visible again until the next Olympics.  I suspect I’m not the only one who does not enjoy sports where the narrative line has no visibility most of the time.  One of the things I enjoy about football is the back story I know from years of paying attention.  Almost none with the Olympics.

Up too late. Again.

Family

The Pre-Season

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66  bar falls 29.87  0mph S dew-point 59  sunrise 6:07  sunset 8:30  Lughnasa

First Quarter of the Corn Moon  moonrise 1326 moonset 2226

The Vikings.  Tavaris Jackson looked improved, just as the pre-season hype has it.  The first string defense failed to impress, though Jaren Allen showed his quickness.  Pat Williams did not play tonight, so that made the run defense a lot weaker.  Berrian, Wade and Rice showed some promise as receivers and Maurice Hicks as a running back.  It’s true.  I can’t hide it.  I enjoy watching football.  There, I said it.

Talked to Kate.  She had Gabe and he cooed over the phone.  Ruthie was asleep.  Humphrey, as Ruth calls her, had a lump, had it biopsied and it came back cancerous.  That meant oncologists and surgeons today, so Kate got to watch Gabe and Ruth while the daycare lady went to the hospital.  Kate was ready.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, GeekWorld, Great Work, Writing

Just When I Discovered the Meaning of Life, They Changed It.

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64  bar rises 30.00  0mph NNW dew-point 60 sunrise 6:05  sunset 8:32  Lughasa

Waxing Crescent of the Corn Moon

Just when I discovered the meaning of life, they changed it.  George Carlin, RIP

Kate takes off tomorrow for Grandparent land.  In our world that means Pontiac Avenue in Denver, just across Quebec Avenue from the old Stapleton Airport now enjoying a rebirth as Yuppieville.  She will visit with Gabe whom she hasn’t seen since his birth and Ruthie.  Ruthie runs up to her and says, “Grandma!”  Enough to make a grandparent keep coming back for more.

An electronic distress signal has sounded three times since I came down to make this post.  It finally dawned on me that it might be my cell phone.  Yep.  It needs juice and has used some of its last to tell me so.  Good boy!  Since I have a computer, a UPS, a router, two printers, a weather station and a modem all close by, it took a bit to sort out.

Writing has occupied me three days in a row full time.  That’s draining, at least for me.  I’m about 3/4’s done, perhaps a bit less.  As always, I have learned far more than I can compress, in this case even into two presentations.  There is a tendency to use all of it, or at least try, but that makes the piece turgid, reportorial.  It needs to have drama and depth, not breadth and length.

There is a cosmology kicking around, a soteriology, an anthropology, an ethic, a tradition with an American twist and the energy to work on it.  This is the stuff I tried to get at when I took the Paul Tillich course a couple of years ago.  Not yet finished.

And, to finish this post, an alien reaches for the sky.  (our wisteria)

wisteriareach500.jpg

Family, Garden, Weather +Climate

Integrated Pest Management

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78  bar falls 29.68  2mpn NW dew-point 65  sunrise5:57  sunset8:40  Summer

New Moon (Corn Moon or State Fair Moon)

NOAA awakened me with its trademark ululation, alerting me to the thunder storm watch declared for Anoka County.  Such notices are rare in the morning, mostly coming in the late afternoon as the heat of the day punches up cumulus clouds into congestus, then into the anvil shape of the thunderhead, sometimes 5 or 6 miles high.

This allowed plenty of time for Kate and me to conduct our family business meeting.  This included Kate’s announcement of the fourth large quarterly adjustment in a row.  She works hard and gets compensated accordingly.  She’s off right now having lunch with Penny Bond at the Istanbul Bistro.

Last night while checking the crops I found an infestation of aphids in one corn stalk’s tassel.  After checking others and only finding the one, I ripped that one of the ground and moved it far away.  This morning I found another tassel with a few aphids, this one I squeezed between fingers and thumb instead of discarding.  I’ll check it again, but I imagine that fixed it.

Watching for disease and pests is an important part of gardening.  Another important part is not overreacting. I used to overreact, head straight for the pesticide or fungicide.  Since then, I’ve learned that plants can sustain damage with no harm to their overall purpose.  The trick is to know when the balance shifts from the plant’s natural defenses to the invaders.  Even when I react, I almost never resort to pesticides (I use cygon on Iris Borers in the spring.).  Instead I look for hand removal, plant elimination or measures such as squirting with high pressure water.  That approach has served me well for the last four to five years.

Integrated pest management (IPM) encourages this kind of response.  Good cleanup in the fall, creating a soil and growing condition favorable to healthy plants and either starting or purchasing strong plants also goes a long ways toward a manageable pest and disease environment.  These are also part of an IPM strategy.

Family, Memories, Travel

Scene of the Crash Bar-B-Q

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78  bar steady 29.79  1mph SE dew-point 65  Sunrise 5:53 Sunset 8:44pm  Summer

Waning Crescent of the Thunder Moon
This is a few of the 50+ Ellis clan who attended the 2008 reunion at rest on the back porch of the Baker’s Texas sized house and property.

ellis727500.jpg

The reunion entailed a good deal of eating and the usual amount of what have you been up to.  A few of the more memorable updates for me follow.

Jean Cate’s son Jeff and his Brazilian wife, Danielle, move to Brazil in two weeks for at least ten years.  They’ve lived in the states for some time, but after the birth of their beautiful son decided he needed immersion in Brazilian culture.  Jeff doesn’t speak Portugese, but said he’s gonna right to work on it.  The impact of the line of demarcation effects our family.

Many people had retired including Dan McGregor who, this September, will watch from the side lines as school starts without him in any of his many coaching assignments:  basketball, football, tennis, golf, and several others.  We were all a good bit grayer than the last time I attended the reunion in 2000.

Jane (Stephens) ran a family meeting in which Aunt Dorothy and her husband Harley Brown were remembered.  They both died over the year since the last reunion.  Aunt Dorothy had a phenomenal memory, all agreed, recalling family facts long after others had forgotten them.  She died at 100+ intellectually sharp up till the end.  “She proved you’re never to old to learn.  Yeah, And never to old to get married!”  She and Harley married when she was 90 or so.  Harley was a world recognized expert on riffle beetles.  Riffle beetles capture oxygen and work with it below water.  He was a fun and funny guy.

We agreed to have the meeting next year the third week in July, place undecided.

I became interested in Ellis history.  We all know a good bit about the Spitler side of the family, but not much about Elmo Ellis and his family.  Apparently Lloyd Ellis, son on Henry Ellis, Elmo’s brother, has come the last few reunions and has some considerable history.

A few stories reveal a good bit.  At one point Elmo and Jenny gathered their children on a train from somewhere in Oklahoma where Elmo had work as a farm hand.  Their destination was Mustang, Oklahoma, sort of the family seat of the Ellis and Spitler families.  In Ada, Oklahoma Grandpa Elmo got off the train and none of his children saw him again save for Uncle Charles.  He had a glass eye, losing one eye while fighting a grass fire.

Those who knew him a bit said he was charismatic, charming, but “never got down the working thing.”  He was a rich kid who ran through a sizable inheritance.  Family.

Mike Simpson, a former petroleum engineer and owner of an oil and gas services company he recently sold, gave me some tips on looking up information about our land in Pecos County.  He thought the fact the guy wanted to buy the land meant he knew something, too.  The oddity is that the best website is the Texas Rail Road Commission which handles all oil related permits for the state.  They apparently also control all matters related to trucking. Go figure.

Before I sign off today I wanted to mention a couple of other interesting sights along the way to Mineola.  There were 2 Beer Barns.  At the Beer Barn there are two truck sized drive through bays, somewhat like a coin operated car wash.  The trick here is that you can drive in, buy your beer by the case, or, as the sign said, Get Kegs To Go and they load it in your vehicle.  You don’t have to get out.

At a major intersection on Highway 80 there was a vendor wagon with a sign that read:  Scene of the Crash Bar-B-Q.

Family, Memories, Travel

“If it’s not at Brookshires or Walmart, we can get it in Tyler.”

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68  bar rises 29.75  0mpn ENE dew-point 63  Sunrise 5:53  Sunset 8:45pm  Summer

Last Quarter of the Thunder Moon

As you can tell by the lawn mower postings, I’m back from Texas.  No handy computer down there.

Confession:  We had no problems with the airline.  I loved the plane, a small Embraer with a single aisle and two rows, 2 seats to a row and plenty of legroom.  Left and landed on time.  Since we didn’t check anything, no extra fees.  Carrying no electronics and all the liquid stuff in the handy quart bag so security was as painless as possible.  The rental car was cheaper than advertised and we got a PT Cruiser which was at least an interesting compact.  This experience was enough, given my basically positive experience on the flights to Hawai’i, to make me rethink my “never fly unless absolutely necessary” pledge.

With two of us along things always go smoother because we can divide traveling chores, so that’s part of it, but, in the end, it was ok.  Not pleasant.  Barely worth the cash.  But OK.

We spent the weekend encased in East Texas heat and humidity.  97-99 during the day, cooling down to around 80 at night.  Since we were not hiking or picking peaches, it was ok, but both Kate and I find the heat enervating, unpleasant at best.  The Bakers, Carol and Charyn, have a huge home on considerable acreage outside Mineola, Texas.  A former executive for Bell Helicopter, Carol exudes a charming, Texas style hospitality.

Once, long ago, I took a train through east Texas on my way to visit Uncle Charles, Aunt Berta and their daughter, Charyn.  This was at least 50 years ago, but my memory of it is fresh because the pine trees and the hills surprised me then, just as they did this trip.  When you leave Dallas and head out toward Mineola, the road takes you through flat, reddish tan countryside.  Somewhere around Grand Saline (yes, a big salt deposit there.  I asked.  Morton has a big mine.) the flat begins to roll and the reddish tan countryside has forests of pine and oak.

The drive on Highway 80 runs through Forney, Terrell, Willis Point, Grand Saline, Elmo, Fruitvale and Mineola.  On beyond Mineola 80 hits Big Sandy.  I love the names of these towns.  There are fruit orchards along the way, peaches, apricots and others I could not identify.  Even with the salt and the fruit and truck farming, these towns all look worn and tired, as if the promise of the past had not quite come to life.

Mineola is different.   It has antique stores and quaint restaurants, Mineola Mercantile, for example, which is a restaurant and stuff store.  This is a small town like Long Lake, Stillwater, even Anoka surrounded in the countryside by large properties protected with iron gates protected by keyed locks.  Horses are everywhere which helps explain the iron gates.  This is the good life far enough from what they call the metroplex, Dallas/Ft. Worth, that the people who live here can feel rural with many of the comforts of upper class life.  This includes a Brookshire grocery which is equivalent to a Minnesota Bylery’s.

Carol and Charyn said, “Anything that’s not at Bylery’s or Walmart we can get in Tyler.”

I’ll report some more on the reunion tomorrow.

Faith and Spirituality, Family, Our Land and Home, Travel

A Certain Inner Doldrum

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68  bar steady 29.98 0mph SE  dew-point 56  Sunrise 5:48  Sunset 8:50PM  Summer

Waning Gibbous Thunder Moon

Thump.  Thump.  Pause.  Thump.  Thump.  Thrudda Thrudda Thump.  Bang.  Thump.  Thump.  Most of the time it is quiet here.  At night the quiet becomes complete, with the exception of tonight.  One of the neighbors must have had left overs from the 4th.  Strange sounds at night make you wanna know what’s going on.  Kate went out back and I went out front.  Saw nothing.  Either of us.  Both of us concluded fireworks.  A suburban July nighttime mystery.

The tone of my last few posts has trended down.  My inner barometer falls, not steeply, but it does fall.  Why?  Midsummer blahs.  The whole weight thing.  A certain inner doldrum.  Maybe a change in my spiritual life.  This is the realm of melancholy, not depression, and it usually precedes a creative period.  As I fall deeper into my interior, it is as if my gifts and energy fall with me, not in a negative sense, but as preliminary to a harvest.  When I pull inward, my outer affect often declines, but the interior feeling is that of gathering my resources, marshaling them into a coherent whole.

The weather in Minneola, Texas has 97 and sunny as a theme for the three days we will be there.  97 is cooler than past reunions.  The last time I headed to Oklahoma for an Ellis reunion it was 107 the whole time I was there.  That’s hot.  We’ve gotten notes about what to bring to help defray the cost of food for 36 adults and a gaggle of kids.  Charles Paul, that’s me, gets a pass, but Kate and I will pick up something once we get there.

It just dawned on me yesterday why my name was Charles Paul or CP on both sides of the family.  My dad’s brother was my Uncle Charles and my grandfather Keaton was Charles Keaton.  A diplomatic choice of names by mom and dad, but it left each side with a need to differentiate between two of us.