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    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Beltane                                     Waning Flower Moon

    There is here the action:  taking the hive tool and wrenching loose the propolis, moving the frame, all the while bees buzzing and whirring, digging into the soil, placing the leeks in a shallow trench, the sugar snap peas in their row, inoculant on top of them, around them.  The plants move from pot to earth home, their one and true place where they will root, work their miracle with light and air.  The dogs run, chase each other.  Vega plops herself down in the water, curling herself inside it, displacing the water, getting wet.

    There is, too, this other thing, the mating of person and place, the creation of memories, of food, of homes for insects and dogs and grandchildren, for our lives, we two, on this strange, this awesome, this grandeur, life.  This happens, this connection, as a light breeze stirs a flower.  It happens when a bee stings, or a dog jumps up or leans in, when Kate and I hug after a day of making room for  more life here.

    In a deep way it is unintended, that is, it happens not because it is willed, but because becoming native to a place is like falling in love, a surprise, a wonder, yet also a relationship that requires nurture, give and take.  In a deep way, too, it is intended, that is, we want to grow vegetables, flowers, fruit, have room for our dogs and for our family, for our friends.  The intention creates the space, the opening where the unintended occurs.

    Sixteen years Kate and I have lived here.  A long time for us.  Now though, we belong here.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Bees Dogs Faith and Spirituality Family Friends Garden Great Work Humanities Our Land and Home permaculture 📎and tagged

  • Living and Dying

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                    Full Flower Moon

    Death comes calling whenever it wants,  not worrying about the season or the weather or the inclinations of the living.  Kate’s colleague, Dick, suffering from multiple myeloma has gone on hospice care after two years of often brutal treatment regimens.  Bill Schmidt’s brother, who has prostate cancer, also chose hospice care recently to ease the pain of complications.

    Tonight I was on my first Political Committee call of the year, a Sierra Club committee that deals in endorsements and retail politics.  The dogs were making noise so I quick ran upstairs to shoo them inside.  Emma didn’t come inside.  She lay under the cedar tree.  I’ve watched a lot of dogs die over the last 20 years and when I went to her side, she looked up at me, but had the stare that looks beyond, out a thousand yards, or is it infinity?  Her body was cold and she did not rise.

    Vega, the big puppy, came outside and poked at Emma with her paw, sat down and nuzzled her.  Vega loves Emma, has since she was a little puppy.  I called Kate to let her know I thought Emma was dying.  Emma’s fourteen, our oldest dog right now, and our oldest dog ever with the possible exception of Iris.  At fourteen her time is near, perhaps it will come yet tonight.  Right now she’s on the couch, wrapped in a blue blanket, her head on her favorite pillow.

    She seems a bit more alert now and Kate says her heartbeat is regular.  She may have had an arrhythmia and converted it, that is, brought herself back into normal rhythm.  Hard to say.  As Kate said, she appears to have the dwindles.

    When I compared the call, about politics, and Emma lying outside, I realized Emma was more important to me than the call, so I stayed with her awhile, brought her inside and made her comfortable on the couch.  Then I returned to the call.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Faith and Spirituality Friends Health Politics 📎and tagged

  • Gotta Hive Those Bees

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                               Waxing Flower Moon

    Kate’s off for Denver, excited as a small girl at Christmas.  Seeing her grandkids makes this lady levitate.  Even her dinged up right hip seems a bit better this morning, partly from anticipation and partly from the steroid injection she had on jen-kate-ruth-gabe300Tuesday.   (Pic:  Leadville, Co Halloween 2009)

    It will be a busy time for me while she’s away.  I have two tours later this morning.  Then it’s over to Mother Garden to pick up a few things I need for this year’s garden:  bush bean seeds, leek transplants, coriander, dill, cosmos, marigolds.

    Back at home I’ll have to have a long nap to make up for getting up this morning at 5:45.  After that I have to buy more sugar and a spray bottle for the new bees, put foundations on the frames for their hive box and level up a spot for their hive.  Later, after 4:30 pm, I’ll drive out to Stillwater and pick them up, bring them home and hive them.

    Hiving a new package involves spreading the 2 pound package of worker bees over the floor of the hive box, then gently releasing the queen, replacing the four frames withdrawn, carefully (to avoid killing the queen which is bad) and putting a bit of pollen patty and a feeder on top.  That’s where the sugar comes in.  The spray bottle is for the trip home and the time lapse between then and when I get them in the hive.  It helps them stay nourished and calm.

    On Saturday I have to figure out why Rigel and Vega dug a large plastic pipe out of the ground, what, if any, function it serves, repair it, cover it over, this time with a board or something that will resist further digging and hope they don’t go all round the yard  digging up irrigation pipes.  I think they dig when they hear the sound of the water running through the pipes.  Oh, boy! Oh, boy!  Something’s there.  Something’s there.  Gotta get it.  Right now.

    With that work done I have to get back to amending the soil in the raised beds and planting seed.  If I have time, I’ll get in some weeding, too.


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Bees Dogs Garden 📎and tagged

  • Doing Stuff

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                                      Flowering Moon

    The netaphim ruined last year by dogs Rigel and Vega has repairs.  The repairs sit safely inside fences that Rigel has shown either no interest or no capability to penetrate.  They should last.

    The bees will wait until a less breezy tomorrow.  Wind blows the smoke around and I have to perform a reversal, hive check and clean off the bottom board.  The reversal of the top 2 hive boxes encourages the queen to move into the top box and lay eggs there to create an ovoid shape of larva outside of which the nursery bees will complete a ring of pollen and a ring of honey.  This makes the planned colony split on May 15th assured of one hive box full of larva, hopefully the top one with new larvae and therefore newly born nursery bees.  Nursery bees take more kindly to moving around than the older worker bees.

    Irrigation folks have scheduled Tuesday to come out and turn on the irrigation system.  A good thing.  They usually wait until the second week of May since our average last frost date is around May 15th.  I imagine that’s moved up closer to the first week of May on average, but a frost outside the average is still a frost so most planning still accommodates the old date.

    Tomorrow the bees and soil amending, that is, putting in composted manure and humus on the raised beds and adding some sphagnum moss (some more) to the blueberry beds.  The outdoor season with sun.  The great wheel turns.  Again.


    📂This entry was posted in Bees Garden Great Wheel Great Work 📎and tagged

  • Buried

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                      Awakening Moon

    Business meeting mornings always kick up stuff to do.  Sometimes it’s an odd collection.  This morning is a good example.  I saw an article about VO2 testing and decided to make an appointment. I go on April 20th at 2pm.  We agreed to at least register for cremation services so I printed out two forms.  In tandem with that I decided to look at columbariums in the interest of having a place for descendants to visit.  Yikes!  They’re expensive.  Real expensive.  In the 5,000 to 11,000 range.  Much more than a grave.  Then there was the person who might be able to help us think through our medicare options.  Out until April 19th.  Kate wanted me to look up information about the Segway so I did that.  I needed to see if the guy from whom I ordered bees cashed our check.  He did.  That means I’ll get some bees on April 24th.  Ordering the insect shapes bundt pan from Solutions, Inc. and getting a frittata recipe from Williams-Sonoma.  That sort of stuff.

    We also discussed Kate’s possible hip replacement, as in when to do it if the minimally invasive guy says it would work for her.  We had a moment of silence for the money we thought had and now know we don’t, then moved on past it.

    After the nap I worked out in the garden, repairing damage created by Rigel and Vega last fall.  I found residual anger, sadness, frustration not far below the surface as I tried to recreate the beautiful work Ecological Gardens had done just a month or so before all the digging.  It’s not hard work physically, but I’m finding it hard emotionally.  I love the dogs and I love the garden.  When the two conflict, it leaves me in a very unpleasant place.  We did put up the fence that should preclude any further damage.

    At the moment I have Wheelock open on my desk, blank file cards ready and a yellow pad for the translation work that will follow.  Last week I found a notebook to contain my translation of Ovid and notes I make as I go along.  It’s ready, too.  Valete!


    📂This entry was posted in Aging Dogs Family Garden 📎and tagged

  • Dogs and the Night

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                    Awakening Moon

    Some nights.  First, Kona had to get out of her crate about 10:30 pm.  She never gets up until morning.  She ran outside, ran around the shed, came back inside and went back in her crate.  Then, around 1am Vega starts whining.  Won’t let up.  So, I get up, let her out. Again, this is very unusual.  She also sleeps until morning.  When I let Vega out, Rigel wanted to go, too.  They ran around a bit.  Vega came back and laid down in front of the door.  But. Rigel wanted to stay outside.

    15 minutes or so later, we’re at around 2am now, I decided enough.  So, I got out the flashlight and proceeded into the woods.  This is not easy at 2 am with no moon light.  Overcast.  The best route around the woods is the path running alongside the fence all round our property.  Only.  I put up an electric fence and the path runs uncomfortably close to it.  One trip over a root or fallen branch and I’m a cow that needs to go anywhere but close to the fence,

    Anyhow.  I gave up after 10 minutes of wandering and stumbling, the flashlight a poor substitute for clear light.  As I headed back toward the house having decided to let Rigel sleep outside, she came up behind me and to my right.  Suddenly.  Scared the bejesus out of me.  So, around 2:15 or so all dogs in bed and me, too.  Of course, getting to sleep after all that putzing around is not so straightforward, at least for me.  One of those nights.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs 📎and tagged

  • And then, another escape!

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                    Full Awakening Moon

    I spent a good part of today carrying former split rails from their storage place to positions along the bottom of our chain link fence facing north.  After I placed them one by one, end to end, I took out a roll of baling wire–it really is an all elecfence09purpose fix it tool, like duct tape–snipped off 12-18 inches pieces and wired the rails to the fence line.  At some point while I had this task underway, Vega came out and sat down on my feet, not at them, between me and the fence.  She just wanted to help.

    (pic:  this electric fence is still working.)

    After moving and wiring, I let the dogs out for the afternoon because I have a meeting tonight in the city.  So, I’m reading my e-mail, I look up and there going past the patio door is Kona.  Uh-oh.  If Kona’s out, where are the big dogs?  I moved upstairs,  fast, got to the deck, only to see Vega and Rigel  both standing there, looking around.  In this instance Kona had removed the board I used to block the gate from the fence to the lower perennial garden, the one right outside where I work on matters like e-mail, etc.

    So, on the first nice day of spring, both of my inmates who tend toward escape have tested the system and found it wanting.  Geez.  What will next week bring?


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs 📎and tagged

  • A Rite of Spring

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Spring                                    Full Awakening Moon

    Liberal II:  The Present is now on the website.  Executive summary:  We live in a world dominated by liberal tendencies and that are, therefore, best understood and managed by a self-consciously liberal politics and faith.

    Let the games begin.  The rite of spring has struck 7 Oaks.  We have received the breathless call:  One of your dogs is out!  Rigel.  Again.  Her more substantial sister, Vega did not follow her.  Kate went out in the truck to hunt her down while I walked the perimeter.  Again.

    A circumstance I have hoped to avoid has come to  pass.  Rigel had dug herself out underneath the fence.  Denied the opportunity to belly over the chain link she has now decided to burrow out under the bottom.  This presents its own problems.  Electric fencing is more difficult close to the ground because weeds will grow up and short it out.  I guess the only answer this time is wiring boards to the bottom of the chain link, something I’ve done around much of the other 1/4 mile of fence, but not the part that Rigel chose for her daring, WWII attempt.

    I know she loves us, but like many star-crossed tails, she has the wander lust.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs 📎and tagged

  • The Grand Tour

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Imbolc                                      Waxing Wild Moon

    Met the Grout Doctor today.  Turns out he wears a yellow weatherproof  jacket, very new jeans and rubber duckies.  Allan came by to give us an estimate on what it would take to rehabilitate some aching tiles and bring that new installation gleam back to the steam bath.  More than I’d imagined, but less than we were willing to pay, so Allan will return on Thursday to get started.  Gonna give the whole shebang an acid bath.  Sounds very Hannibal Lecter to me.

    Fiddled with the new Panasonic camera we got today, too.  The number of things it can do amaze me.  It can focus on an object and then retain focus on that object as it moves.  How can it do that?  If you turn a little switch, it will shoot HD quality video using any of the settings it has for still photography.  How can do it that?  The twelve megapixels it shoots my buddy Jim Johnson tells me is just at the minimal range of what magazines expect in photos.  Well, at least the camera’s good enough for the pro mags.  I haven’t shot any images with it yet.  I want to devote a day or so to using all the various gadgets, learn how it performs.

    Also put together an 8 object tour for next Friday, the public tour  Highlights:  Art from 1600-1850.  My theme is the Grand Tour, which was popular in that time frame.  In my Grand Tour though we will visit all but the Australian continent, while retaining the traditional focus on European art of France, Italy and the Low Countries.  I’ve begun to use the new Grove Dictionary of Art.  It has depth and breadth.  It taught me today about the Grand Tour and the various phases through which it passed before finally dying out as the middle-class began to travel more.  Just wasn’t the same with all those shopkeepers in the Uffizi.

    Put in more words to the Unmaking.  I’m close to the middle, maybe a bit passed it.  We’ll see how it is after I finish and it sits on the shelf for a while.  Then I’ll have a better view of it.  Right now it’s so close to me, I can’t tell anything.

    And Vega came inside limping tonight.  Limping makes us take deep breaths, because it can mean the onset of cancer, has meant the onset of cancer in at least three of our dogs.  On the other hand it might be an injury.  We hope.


    📂This entry was posted in Art and Culture Dogs GeekWorld 📎and tagged

  • Busy Day

    Posted on by Charles Comment

    Winter                                Waning Moon of Long Nights

    Final travel arrangements for Denver finished.  Car.  Shuttle reservation.

    Business meeting this morning.  Money fine.  Next week for Kate planned. Looks good.

    Slept badly last night, so a long and hard nap this afternoon.  Got up, wrote for two hours.  Worked out, watched a bit of TV.  Read.

    Vega and Rigel killed a rabbit and a squirrel this morning.  Doggy pride in a kill matures them.  Vega guarded both critters with careful attentiveness.  Sitting in the path that led to the rabbit.  She needed no barking or growling.  Her presence was confident and brooked no intervention.  This from the dog who usually occupies low spot on the canine totem pole here.

    Both Vega and Rigel went round with their tails held high, a bit of a swagger.  I’m a dog, yes I am, and I can’t help but being a dog.  Yup Yup.

    When I come upstairs after exercise, Vega rolls over and thumps her tail.  She puts her paws around my neck, licks my hand and thumps her tail some more.


    📂This entry was posted in Dogs Travel 📎and tagged