Here’s my boy, back from getting his scary apparatus removed. He has a slick little lightweight cast and he’s stumping around like a champ. Poor guy, I didn’t realize those pins went all the way through his leg bones! The vet wanted to give me the pins as a souvenir but I passed — he was pretty sore that first night after they took the apparatus off, but he bounced right back. Yesterday my local vet cut it off to change the bandages underneath and as we were lying on the couch watching dopey TV, I realized that the cotton…
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I keep hearing the headline in my head to the tune of “The First Noel” — but here they are, the first morels of the season. It got hot here this weekend — into the eighties — and after our long cold wet spring, I just knew there must be mushrooms out there. These “yellow” ones show up in woodsy copses along the river, then later, the black ones emerge in the mountains. I didn’t find very many yesterday — this is maybe a pound or a pound and a half — but I only hit one spot. Ray and…
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Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva, doing deep prajna paramita, Clearly saw emptiness of all five skandhas, Ray! What are you doing? Get over here! Thus completely relieving misfortune and pain. O Shariputra, form is no other than emptiness, Emptiness no other than form; Form is exactly emptiness, emptiness exactly form. Sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness, Are likewise like this. Whoa! What are you doing? You’re not allowed in the street. O Shariputra, all dharmas are forms of emptiness, Not born, not destroyed, Not stained, not pure, Without loss, without gain. So, in emptiness there is no form, No sensation, conception, discrimination, awareness, No eye,…
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So, ever since my ancient calico cat, Patsy, went off to the great beyond I’ve been plagued by neighborhood cats who think my nicely turned and raked raised beds are big litter boxes. Ugh. Last year I tried cayenne sprinkled on the beds, and finally resorted to draping them all in tree netting. Which was fine, but as the plants grew up through it, it became a pain in the neck. So this year, I went for more drastic measures. I ordered this fabulous sprinkler scarecrow from Amazon. You hook it up to the hose, and set the sensitivity level,…
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I just had a terrific little visit with Barb Marshall of CrazyWoman Farm. She brought me 18 pounds of lamb — about half a lamb — a nice big bag that included a whole leg, a whole shoulder, a bunch of chops, some kebab meat and some ground lamb. She delivered even, all for six bucks a pound. And she’s really cool — we had a nice little chat about my urban farming — turns out she used to live on the next block over. It’s one of the things I really love about living in this particular rural place.…
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The weather is still sort of strange and blustery here — intermittent rain, yesterday was windy, and while it’s been warm, its really only been warm-ish. So while I put in some turnips and beets and more onions over the weekend, it wasn’t really a gardening weekend. But spring is here and I’ve been feeling that I don’t have anything to wear, so yesterday afternoon I made a couple of skirts. I fixed/finished one that I’d sort of botched — I wasn’t using a pattern but had cut it out using instructions from Sew What! Skirts! One of my projects…
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My Milk Lady has returned! The cows calved and had a nice rest, and once again I’m getting my recycled gallon jar of milk every week. She had to raise her prices because the price of hay and fuel have gone up so much, and although I assured her it was fine, I understood, I still found a surprise present of a dozen duck eggs in my box last week. I don’t know if all the health claims for raw milk are true, but I do know that it’s worth what I pay for a real food product, produced and…
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They finally came yesterday and finished my new fence. Every time I’ve gotten a fence put in, it’s the hardest part — living through the three or four days when the posts are in, but the fence isn’t in — last weekend was like that. I could see how the fence was going to be, but it wasn’t a fence yet — until yesterday. Now both sides of my backyard match, and it’s peaceful and private out there. After yesterday’s funeral, which was as lovely as a funeral for someone who died too soon and too suddenly can be, it…
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A big weekend of gardening — I dug the crabgrass and feral mint (I love my mint, but it was taking over everything) from the perennial beds. It was hard. There was digging, and pulling, and tugging, and sprays of dirt. I have an entire trash receptacle full of roots out there on the parkway waiting for the first yard waste pickup of the year. My perennial beds have moments of gorgeousness, followed by long periods of bedragglement, caused in part by the weeds. My lawn too, is plagued by weeds — not dandelions so much, I don’t mind dandelions,…
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So, it’s snowing again this morning — and although I’m quite tired of snow, it’s a lovely soft morning — bit fat snowflakes, no wind, not too cold. So off for our morning dog walk I went — I’m babysitting the MH’s dog while he’s gone to Arizona for a couple of days and it was good to have 2 dogs with me again. So we get to the dog park and we’re coming around the edge of the bluff and there’s another couple coming toward us. She’s on the phone, and he barely nods hello. I don’t recognize them,…