Brains Baked, Simmered, Fried And Flaked.

I am trying to figure out what is going on with me and why I am feeling that paralysis, that peculiar flatness and niggling anxiety which overcame me last summer so fiercely.
I am trying to figure out if any of this means anything or if it's all the dream of an unborn god or the illusion of a buddha or the slideshow of an alien race, this life on earth, this particular life of mine.

It's so hot. That I know. I go for a walk and am not cool again all day long, no matter what. I feel like a brute animal, pushing myself to walk in this heat, to go out into the garden and dig up weeds, pulling with the twisting motion that is sure to make my hand go numb all night long, which makes it numb right now. That is the only thing I feel capable of these days- these dumb animal tasks of walking and weeding and sweeping the floors of the dust and the dog hair, the fine, greasy black dirt that finds its way into my house every minute of every day.

Anything else feels like too much.

I think there is still poetry in me, but it's hiding, it's dug down deep and I don't have the energy to pull it out and up, I've spent it all on Johnson grass, on my knees in the dirt.

Even my new chickens don't delight me the way they should. Ah yes, the peep-peeps. There was another little one I was worried about. The sister (it looked to me) of Precious, who died. She was not doing well either, and I separated her from the others, gave her sugar water and put her in her own light-heated box. She cried so piteously and beat her little wings and took such amazingly strong hop-flights that I put her back with the others who were traumatized themselves by her cries, huddled up in a corner of their bigger cage.
She seems fine now, active and growing, perhaps scared into life by her perceived peril.
I do not know.

It took all my strength to call the dog groomer today but I did it. The dogs are nasty and dirty and their hair is falling off in dreads which I sweep up. I know they're hot.

Yesterday the assistant post-mistress came by with another woman to witness to me. I was just leaving the house, dressed in black and silver to go to lunch with my birthday boy and I did not invite them in. Her grandchildren were hanging out of the windows of the van and I waved to them. I've already told this sweet, sweet woman (and she is-oh, she really is) that I have my own very strong opinions about religion and yet, here she comes again as if she can, with the power of her belief and her Jehovah, show me how to get to heaven. I am so tired of these people who want me to come to Jesus. I wanted to say to her, "Miss Martha, how about this? You can come in with your Watch Tower, your Bible and we shall sit down and we shall talk about this. You go first."
And then, and then...oh what?
I'll pulverize her arguments with my logic, my disbelief, her very own Bible? I could, but then what? She would say what they all say, that it is a matter of faith.
Faith.
A waste of time.
But better yet, I could walk over to her house and knock on her door and say, "Miss Martha, I would like to share with you the grace and glory of what I believe, which is that I have no belief, except in the spark of whatever it is, the oak tree, the water, the sun and the moon, the dirt and the holy womb."

Again. A waste of time.

I don't care what she believes. Why does she care what I believe? Why do these people think I need to know Jesus? As if I'd never heard of him before in my life and if they present him to me in the right way, I will fall down on my knees and beg forgiveness for my blindness, all of my sins, and the sins of Adam and Eve, oh yes, especially Eve because believe me, I have been tempted before and I have tempted before and that is the evil Eve in me and so yes, I must believe in our lord Jesus Christ in order to go to heaven when I die.
Does that make sense to you?
It's all such a tangle of myth and fear.
What isn't?

While I was walking this morning, I was thinking of how we have developed these clever brains, probably to help us hunt and gather successfully, to figure out how to get enough calories in our bodies to sustain us long enough to breed, to raise those babies up to be healthy enough so that they can hunt and gather and breed. And then when food became easier to procure with cultivation and the domestication of animals, figured out by these smart brains, the brains had to find other things to do. And so they did. The invented speech so they could communicate about something more than danger or contentment. They invented art and drew the stories of their hunts and wove the magic to make them work on the walls of caves. They told stories around their fires of heroic feats, of besting the enemy, of how their gods had protected them, and then religion was born, too. They had to invent counting to keep track of their cows, they had to invent writing to keep track of their stories and the rules they had decided their gods had given them to live by. They had to invent music because their bodies wanted to dance and they had to invent singing because their throats poured out praise for bountiful crops, poured out dirges for death and destruction.

And then wheels to get grain from one place to another and then roads so the wheels would work and markets so the people could come together and sell what they had to each other and they tamed and changed the dog to watch the flocks and to keep us company and here we are now- our iPods, our iPhones, our poodles, our airplanes, our guns, our religions, our rockets and bombs, our Watch Towers and our Bibles, Korans, Tibetian Books of The Dead, make-up and fashion, our cars and energy bars, and our computers where we still write out our stories and tell them to each other around this strange fire we call the internet.

So I'm thinking of all of this while I do the brute work of an animal, thinking, yes, this how it got so perverted, all of it. These clever brains that were developed to help us hunt because we had no claws or slashing teeth or legs that could outrun an enemy with four swift legs and now we don't need to do that and here we are.

Is it any wonder we feel that no matter what we have, what we do, where we go, there is something missing, something we should be doing and what is it?
Maybe it's just that. The moving of our bodies like animals a certain part of every day. I don't know.

I don't know shit today.

I keep thinking about my friend telling me last November that it was okay, I could be as crazy and sad as I needed to be but I don't want to be crazy or sad. I don't want to need to feel those things. I don't want to feel so crazy I can't do my hunting and gathering at the grocery store. I don't want to feel like I can't dress like a girl and go out to hear music and talk to friends.
I don't want that. I don't want that at all.

It's hot. I know that. I like to feel strong in my body. I know that. I like to push it in this heat until I can't push it any more and then I like to lay down and rest it.

Maybe that's all I need to do right now.

That, and obviously, to write about it. To try and pull a little of that poetry out of my soul.
Which is no more or less important than keeping chickens alive, pulling weeds from the garden.
Which is far more important to me than trying to push my beliefs on people who have their own.
No. Please. If I had a prayer it would go like this:

Bless me Mother, for I have not sinned. And if I have, it didn't mean much. And I have done your bidding and grown things And I have been amazed at the bounty around me. And sometimes I am sad. But bless me, Mother For I keep trying.

And then I go on and sweep the floor, sweep the floor, sweep the holy boards of my floor.

A Joyful Shout-out

I just have to do this.

Xbox4NappyRash is the blog of an Irish guy who lives in the Netherlands who has been writing for several years about the difficulties he and his wife have had in trying to conceive a baby. With great humor (often dark) and with only the subject matter of the pieces which must all come together to create life (no pun intended here), he has written honestly and painfully and beautifully about all of the months and years of high hopes and dashed dreams.

And the amazing thing to me is how deeply he has made me care about these struggles.

I've lit candles for these two people whom I've never met.

And yesterday he announced that the Intra-Uterine Insemination procedure which they did two or so weeks ago has worked.
The blog-world is so happy for them.
I am so happy for them.

Like I said, I do not know these people but I have the most powerful feeling that they are going to be World Class Parents and their baby is going to be one of the most loved and welcomed children on earth.

If you've never checked him out, do yourself a favor and go visit his world.
And tell him congratulations if you want to. Hell, he's already reeling, I'm sure. Let's just kick his daddy-to-be-ass out into the stratosphere.

This Boy

My friend Lynn used to tell a story about my firstborn, Hank. She loved that boy so much and she was a big part of his life from the time he was born. Lynn was the kind of person who paid attention. No small detail of goodness or interest went unnoticed by her. But one day, Hank showed her a whole new level of awareness and she was always so charmed and grateful for that experience.
She and Hank were outside of the old Food Coop, waiting for me to finish up shopping and Hank said, "Aunt Lynn, do you want to take a journey?"
Yes. He talked like that, even when he was three, which is about how old he was at the time.
"Sure," she said.
"Okay, let's cross this puddle."
So they did.
"What did you see?" my serious boy asked her.
"Uh. Some water?"
"No. Let's do it again."
And he took her hand and showed her all the colors in the water from the oil runoff in the cement and he showed her other things too, like how you could see the reflection of the sky and the clouds and the trees right there in that puddle. An entire small universe in a puddle of water in a parking lot.
She never forgot that. She never grew tired of telling the story.
And Hank is still like that. There is nothing which escapes his attention. As Miss Maybelle pointed out in her beautiful post from the other day, Hank is an extremely wise and also smart person. He finds the quirk and the beauty and the humor and the depth of each and every situation he finds himself in. The beauty of the puddle, the mystery of the rainbow in the water.

I never wanted to be the sort of mother who made little companions of her children. I did not want them to ever feel that they were responsible for my happiness. I wanted them to be able to be children, to be able to go through childhood without the worries and cares and responsibilities which I'd had to experience in my childhood.
Well, of course life got in the way of that plan, but still- despite the fact that their father and I got divorced, I tried hard to shield them from my unhappiness, my sadnesses and depressions. My grown-up worries. I don't think I did a very good job of that. I was probably too young myself, and too wrapped up in my own problems and my own struggles. But I tried. Especially not to lean on them, to make them feel as if my problems were their problems. I remembered how the problems of childhood were big enough and often too big, for children. That they didn't need grown-up ones on their little shoulders.

But Hank- he so very often surprised me with his unasked for perceptions, his unbelievable wisdom and incredibly ingrained sensitivity. I mean, that boy took me to school and taught me half of what I know. He was always three steps ahead of me, always knew exactly who he was, never afraid to be that person. Never. He made me feel as if no matter what a botch I'd made of my life that it was ALL going to be okay. He was going to be fine and so were we all. I swear, he did.

I remember once when he was, again, about three. He wanted to learn to read because he wanted a magic kit and I'd told him that he couldn't have one until he could read the instructions because if someone else had to read them to him, it wouldn't be magic when he did the tricks.
"Okay. Teach me."
We got out the little Fischer Price reading desk with its letters and chalkboard and I showed him out if you put a "c" in front of "at" it made "cat" and if you put an "h" in front instead of "c" it made hat, and so forth.
"I know that," he said. And proceeded to show me that indeed he did and he could read not only hat and cat and fat and rat, but a lot of other words too. Words not of the "at" family. I got out a yellow legal tablet and started writing down simple words. He knew them all.
And th-at was that.
He could read.
All those books I'd read to him, all those hours watching Sesame Street, had resulted in him actually knowing how to read before he knew he could. Or, more likely, before I knew he could.
He got that magic kit soon thereafter and he did magic shows for us and he and his sister May put on other shows for us- Pay the rent! I cahn't pay the rent! and I'll never forget the Christmas I couldn't find the book for the ritual reading of The Night Before Christmas so little Hank sat up on the back of the sofa in his footie-pajamas and recited the whole damn thing from memory.
Whenever there was a group of children together, a common occurrence back in those hippie-take-your-kids-with-you-everywhere-days, Hank was always the one who organized the play. He was the director, the ringleader, the Hey! Why don't we try this? kid.
And all these years later, he still is.

You know, when your children are born, you look forward to all the things you're going to teach them. The alphabet, about how stars are not tiny things but huge things, as big as the whole earth or bigger, so far out into the night sky that their light is sometimes tens of thousands of years old. You can't wait to see your children grow-up and learn to tie their shoelaces, scramble eggs and write their name. You can't wait to see who they are going to be.

And then you realize- they are exactly who they are from the moment of birth. And they already know so very much more than you could ever imagine and then, they are teaching you. They are teaching you how to see out of a child's eyes, which are by far the most perceptive eyes. They are teaching you how to think with their child brains, unsullied by prejudiced ideas about how things should look, work, and be. They teach you the power of words, of patience, of the sheer, pure wonder and joy of learning.

When Hank was about one, he realized that everything had a name and that he had to learn them all. He would go around from the moment he woke up to the moment he went to sleep, pointing his pudgy little finger at everything and asking the same question, each time.
"Dat?" he would ask. And I would tell him the names. "Bird, cat, dog, tree, man, woman, butterfly, water, sandwich...." and on and on and on. And then one day he stopped. He knew everything.
But in a way, he has never stopped. Hank is still pointing his finger at everything and asking, "What is that?" He is still leading people through the puddles, saying, "What did you see?" He is still teaching me how to be who I am by being exactly who he is.

He is a pirate, he is a writer, he is a questioner, he is a partier, he is a friend, he is fiercely loyal, he is beloved. He is sly, he is open, he is honest, he is the go-to-guy for any arcane fact or figure than any of us need, and he is unquestionably who he is.

He is my teacher, my friend, my first child, my joy.

He makes me laugh so hard I cry. He makes me so proud to be his mama.
He is my Hank and there is no other like him on this earth.

"What did you see?" he asks and I always know that whatever it was that I saw, it was nothing compared to what he saw.

"Do you want to take a journey?" he might as well have asked the moment I first took him to my breast.

I do, son, I do. Always with you, I want to take a journey.
Show me what I should see. You're still teaching me.
You are like no other and I love you like no other and I am in awe that I am your mother.

Happy birthday, my boy.
I love you.

Life

It's June 9th, which means that thirty-three years ago I was in labor with my first child. It being my first child, I had no idea what was before me. None. Not in any sense of the word. I had a doctor's appointment and I went and he examined me and agreed that I was in early labor and told me he'd see me at the hospital later on. He didn't know, because I hadn't told him, that I was planning on a home birth. In those days, you could get thrown in jail for such foolishness but oh well.

I went home and called my midwives and because I was young and stupid, I pretty much went to bed. I don't have the slightest idea why. I should have mopped the floor and started walking but I didn't figure out that walking thing until the second child.

And then it happened- the education of Ms. Moon began.

I had read approximately one hundred books about labor and delivery and I had listened to my friends' stories of their births and I had taken Lamaze and my friend Jena, who had just had a baby at home with a granny midwife had told me, her eyes averted, that "the amazing thing is that god will get you through it."

That was not comforting and I knew it was going to be hard, but this- well, the force of the pain that overtook me as my uterus contracted and my cervix began to dilate was like nothing I'd ever experienced. I vomited continuously, I went into the bathroom and shut the door because I wanted to scream that I needed drugs, I needed help, I needed to not have one more contraction because really, I was going to die.

And I was not going to do that because my mother had told me that labor was really hard and that having a baby at home was not a good idea and so of course I had to prove her wrong and besides, I knew other women who'd had babies at home and if they could do it, so the hell could I.

And I labored through the day and I labored through the endless night and I did it one contraction at a time. One. Contraction. At. A. Time.

I was twenty-one years old.

I thought I knew, if not everything, then a lot. At least.

My universe was my uterus and it was an entire universe made of red exploding galaxies, hot waves of roaring lava pouring forth to form a mountain, and where was a baby in that?
And where was god and why did women have to go through this to give birth and really? this is how it was supposed to feel? Why did anyone ever have sex? All the orgasms in all the history of all the world could not balance out what I was feeling every two minutes.

The next day, after I had been pushing for about four hours, I told everyone that I needed to go to the hospital and so I went. It was only about four blocks away and believe me, the doctor was not so happy to see me at that point. I was a mad woman, squatting on the floor to push and the nurse was laughing at me, saying, "You better get up in this bed or you're going to have that baby on the floor."

Well, that would have been fine with me.

They finally got me up on the delivery table and into the stirrups and the doctor said that he'd thought I was going to have to have a Cesarean but I had indeed moved that baby down and also, that if I couldn't control my hands, they were going to have to tie them down.

And then I had my baby.

I had my baby.

And the pain was gone and the universe was formed and it was perfect and the mountain was still and I was a mother and there he was, so amazingly worth it all that I was astounded.


Tomorrow is that baby's birthday and he'll be thirty-three and I still remember that nurse laughing at me, but not in an ugly way. I think she was delighted to see a woman in the hospital, squatting on the floor, roaring like a lion, overcome by the force of her nature.
"Come on, honey. Get up in this bed."

Now I raise chickens. I grow potatoes. I nurture begonias and I remember when I was someone who created life through a universe of pain and power.

I am glad those days are over but I am far more glad I was part of that. That I experienced that pain and power and I have to remember that when my Lily is giving birth this September. That as much as I'd like to take that pain away from her, if I do something like suggesting she go to the hospital for an epidural, I'll be taking away her power.
And what kind of mother would I be?

She has no idea what's in front of her. She has no idea that she is about to learn more about herself and her power and life than she can even imagine.

And I can't imagine what is in front of me- this journey of becoming a link once removed from the chain of the life force but I have a feeling it's going to be ecstatic.

Until then, I'll be raising my chickens. I'll be content right here, waiting for the baby to come. And although I often feel inept and ridiculous and as if life is speeding by and what have I done, what have I accomplished and what is my purpose here on this planet? I'll remember that my purpose, if you get right down to it, was to create life.

Which I have done. Which is leading to more life.
The power of that thought shakes me to my core and my head swims with the enormity of it all and I can feel my heart within me, fixing to break open and expand again, and I know I have no idea what that's going to feel like.

I am fifty-four years old and I have no idea.

But here I am, waiting for the universe to unfold again and again and again.

And my arms ache with the wanting to hold babies. My own baby as she holds her baby.
As I held my first baby, so will Lily.

And then I will know more. I will be fifty-five by then and I will know more then than I know now. I'm old enough to know that.

And so it begins. Again.

Old And In The Way

Well, here I am basking in the glow of yesterday's trip and Miss Maybelle's incredible report, so much better than pictures because yes, that waitress had a violent slash of a mouth and that is exactly that.

And also, I am tending to things around the house that haven't gotten done in the past few days because I've been gone and it occurs to me that I have created a life where everything needs tending, just as it did when the children were little. The dogs and chickens have to be fed and taken care of, of course, and the dishes and the laundry (and how can two people create so much laundry? I think it has a lot to do with working outside so much) and the garden needs care. Unlike babies, gardens can wait but the longer you wait to get out there and work, the more work there is so you don't want it to get too far ahead of you.
I am a little OCD about the laundry and the kitchen. There is no possible way on earth I can start cooking a meal when there are dirty dishes. And I don't have a dishwasher so I can't just tuck them away and shut a door on them. No. They must be done.
And yet, I did this. I am the one who decided to have chickens and well, the dogs weren't exactly my fault but I have neither killed them or let them die yet so they are my responsibility for the most part. And the garden- who NEEDS a garden? I do, for my soul, far more than for my body. When anyone comes over to visit I insist that they need to see the garden and the chickens and whatever is blooming in the yard.
"Isn't that interesting?" I'll say, pointing at the sago cone.
"Oh yes," my polite visitors agree, wondering what stage of dotage I am in.
I hate to think that I'll be one of those grandmothers who goes around forcing pictures of her grandchildren onto everyone she comes in contact with. I don't WANT to be one. I swear. And yet, the way I go on about my CHICKENS makes me think there will be no escape.
Age is so weird. You do things you never thought you'd do. You start loving birds, you say things like, "You call this music? Hell. This isn't music! Now WE had music. Oh yeah."
Oh course, I don't really say that. I don't dis anyone's tribal music. I may scratch my head and wonder but I don't say it out loud.
But honestly- we had the Beatles. We had the Rolling Stones. We had Jimi Hendrix, Joni Mitchen and Janis Joplin. We had fucking MUSIC, MOTHERFUCKERS!
Okay.
Sorry.
And my body and my skin. Oh my. I have written about these things before- how your body begins to sag and stretch and get all marked up in ways you never imagined they would, because your own personal physic powers will NEVER ALLOW TO HAPPEN, ever, ever, ever. And then it does. I dreamed last night that I caught myself in the mirror by accident in an unflattering pose- you know, the way you sometimes do, and the skin of my neck and chin were like...Shar Pei-ish in the most extreme manner. This is probably how they really look, but so far, I have been able to deny that. And in my dream I thought to myself, "How can my husband look at me and still see the girl he fell in love with?"
I have been a bit depressed about that all morning. As much as I try to convince myself that it doesn't matter, that I'm over all of that, that I'm happy to look just as I look, my body wracked with the ravages of the life I've led, the work I've done, the babies, I've had, the smiles I've smiled, the tears I've cried- part of me still wants to look like Gwyneth Paltrow or Uma Thurman. Or at least Susan Serandon, that bitch. She's older than me!

And here's another thing- I am so old that people are mistaking me for WISE! Oh lord, what a mistake that is. Somehow I have managed to get myself into this practically perfect life (for me, anyway) with this practically perfect husband and children and a grandchild on the way and friends who are so special and so smart and loving and funny. And I've got these chickens and the garden and this blog where I can just paint my nipples until you think they're pink, and honey, believe me, I am so far from practically perfect. I am so far from wise. Mostly what I am is tolerant and not only tolerant, but attracted to people who dare to be who they are and tell the world to go take a flying fuck if they don't like it.
Anyone can be in a club. Garden, church, book, sewing, knitting. Anyone can pay the dues those sorts of clubs require. I am in love with the people who pay dues so steep we can't even imagine but who do it because that's the only way they can live with themselves, their true selves, to be in the club of I-Am-Who-I-Am. Those are the people I respect, I love, and want to hang out with.
So that makes me seem wise for some damn reason or it would appear that people think it makes me seem wise.
I don't have answers. I am only beginning to figure out a few of the answers for myself. My very own self. Sure, I have some recipes to pass on and I have some knowledge about childbirth and breastfeeding but so what? A lot of people do.
Well. There you go. That's what I'm thinking about today.
I should be hanging the clothes on the line or mucking out the chicken coop and I'm about to go do that.
But for some reason, I always feel like I have to tend my blog, too.
Because the secret of having this life that I constantly have to tend here in my old-middle age is that I love every bit of it. If it wasn't a joy, would I really be doing it?
Nah.
So I guess the bottom line is that despite the skin thing and the aching body thing and the incipient dotage thing, I am the luckiest woman I could ever imagine.
And I don't take it for granted and I write about it and here you are- I've done it again. Oops! As Britney would say. Did I spell that right this time?

I do not have super powers. I do not have ways of divining the future. I'm just someone who likes to talk out loud.
And paint her nipples pink.
Metaphorically, anyway. Not really.

But I did have another dream last night...
Wait. That would be way too much information.

Rambling. Another sign of old age.
Check, check, and check.

Got to go. That straw in the coop with all the poop in it isn't going to pick itself up and transfer itself out to the garden. Nope.
Guess I have to do it myself. My own old self.

Lucky me! (And you know I'm serious.)

And To Read About The River Trip

Go here.
She got it just right.

The River

The ladies on the bow, taking pictures of the giant barge. Miss Maybelle, HoneyLuna, Ms. Tay-Tay.


Birthday boy and Ms. Leila (did I spell that right?). Also, Mr. Moon.


Tarzan or dinosaurs could come roaring out of this jungle and I would not be surprised.



Mr. Moon, picking a sweet bay magnolia blossom. You have no idea how tricky this maneuver was.

The blossom. It is like the grandiflora in scent and color, but the size is one fifth, if that. The river was lined with them and I have never noticed them before. How can this be?


Mr. Honey. Captain Papa. Picker of magnolias, keeper of my heart.

It was a glorious day.

A Floating Life

Little Miss Precious Daffodil didn't make it through the day yesterday. Mr. Moon buried her out back and I'm so sorry. He got home before I did from the great moving adventure and I'm grateful. I don't think I could have handled seeing her little cold body. This is my first chicken death and I know it was only a chicken and I'm not crying or anything but it's sad. And I feel guilty because I probably stressed her out by picking her up and making her pose for a picture.
So we're back to fifteen chickens and that's really okay, although I'm sorry she died. She was so tiny and I guess I just didn't know what to do with such a tiny little peep or maybe see was ill. The rest of them seem to be fine, eating chick food with a furious intent, pecking insanely at what they perceive to be bugs in the walls of their little cage, then settling down in a heap for naps.

It was a long day yesterday. The moving went fast and furious and it was actually pretty fun. Miss Maybelle and I stood in the truck and took the boxes and stowed them away and then the boys moved the big things in. Then they all took the truck over to the new house and Miss Maybelle and I stayed behind and swept and Fabulosoed.
I saw the new house earlier in the day and I sure am happy for Billy and Shayla. They have a dishwasher! And a refrigerator which makes ice! And Billy has a den of his own! And there's a guest room for Maw-Maw and Paw-Paw AND a nursery room. And two bathrooms! Plus a big fenced back yard for Mini Pearl and Axel, their two dog-beasts.
They deserve it and have worked long hard hours for it and I can't wait to see it all fixed up and with a new baby in it.
Lord, children, time flies.

Ms. Lily had a pregnant-lady breakdown yesterday. She called me and cried so hard I couldn't tell what she was saying and I was scared at first- what if something was wrong with the baby or with her? She was just sad. She wants a house so much. I understand. I do. You want everything to be perfect when the baby comes. I keep telling her that if they still live in their apartment it'll be okay. Babies don't take up much room if you don't buy all that plastic crap. Not at first, anyway. All the room they need is in your heart. But still, I understand. And when May and I finished up cleaning we went to see her and we made her laugh and we hugged her and May offered to go to the grocery store. "I don't know what I want to eat," she sobbed. "How about some hummus?" I asked her. "That would be good," she said. "And some cut up fruit?" "Uh-huh." And there you go- she just needed her mama to tell her what to eat. It made me feel so needed.

Then I went to the grocery store myself and bought snacks for the trip we're going to take today down the St. Marks River in the boat to celebrate DownTown Guy's birthday which is coming up on Wednesday. I was so tired that I just kept wandering around the store in a daze. And then came home to Lloyd to hear about Miss Precious and heat up some dinner from last night and check the big chicks who are fine and fancy and went to bed.

And today we'll go out on the river- something we used to do on Sundays a lot when the children were young. It's a winding, cold river with beautiful North Florida jungles on each side. Once when my husband and his dad were out fishing there they saw dolphin, herding mullet up onto the shore and then half-beaching themselves to eating them. Once they saw a deer swimming across the river. Now I've never seen such fanciness, but I've seen rednecks whooping and hollering and quiet people fishing. They wave their hand when you pass by and we wave our hand back. "Catching anything?" Mr. Moon will ask and they will either smile and nod or shake their heads. It's all okay. It's a day on the river. Once we got into a huge mess of mullet and Mr. Moon netted as fast as he could and the fish jumped all over the boat and we took them home and I fried them up and that was as sweet a meal as you could want.

That's us for today. Off again and the weeds are growing waist high and the chickens will have to take care of themselves but that's okay. I love it when my babies still want to do the things they did as children. It shows they had some good times as kids and that makes me happier than anything.

Sunscreen, mosquito repellent. Corn chips and salsa. Sodas and maybe beer. I don't know. Big hats and do I have a damn bathing suit? Shit. I hate bathing suits.

But I love my family and it'll be fine to get out on the river and watch for amazing sights and the most amazing to me is watching them, all grown up, smiling, Mr. Moon at the helm of the boat, me laying back, making metaphors in my mind about flowing rivers, overhanging ancient cypress trees, gray hair and travels through a life.

Movin' Along

So last night, it being Friday, Mr. Moon and I attended to our weekly ritual of having a martini and strolling the estate. Haha! Here are the dogs, watching us from the fence. Except for Dolly.
Dolly the Dog, not Dolly the chicken.

And here's Mr. Moon, leaning on his chicken coop. Suzie is trying to peck his feet through the fence. I sort of hope Suzie's not a rooster because if she is, she's going to be a feet-pecking terrorizer. See how straight all those lines are? That's the way Mr. Moon builds things. The right way.



I gave Mr. Moon the camera and he took pictures of the flowers. Here's the lace cap hydrangea:


Fancy, huh?

Now here's my favorite picture of the evening:

From the left that's Bob, Dolly Parton, Red, Suzie, Mabel and Betty. They're peering intently into my compost bowl which I had put maggots in for their dining pleasure. With my very own hands! I touched maggots. For my chickens.
I love my chickens.
Anyway, there they were, trying to figure out what to do with the maggots. They wouldn't eat them out of the bowl so we dumped them on the ground and they still seemed a bit confused about it all.
All that work. You'd have thought those chickens would say thanks Mom! or something, but no, they just lined up and peered but we did get this great picture.

And then I made biscuits. Don't worry. I washed my hands first. I would have taken pictures of the biscuits but we were too hungry to wait for such folderol as that. Biscuits and a venison roast and carrots and potatoes and red cabbage with dried cherries and golden raisins.
We watched some TV, mostly a show about life in the White House with our president and can I just say right now that I am in love with our president? You know what I love about him the most? The fact that he just says what needs to be said. He does not ignore the elephant in the room. He says, "Look. Here's an elephant. Let's study it, touch it, learn about it. That will make it not so scary. Okay? See how clever his trunk is? See how sturdy his legs, how smart his brain? Can we agree on these things? Okay, good. Now let's go from here."
I love his wife, too. She has a garden. She hugs kids. I can imagine her keeping her husband reminded of the fact that although he may be the powerful man in the world, their daughter has a soccer game on Friday. And he better be there. Okay?

We had to keep checking on the baby chicks, of course. One was worrying me a lot. Her feathers looked funky and she seemed to wobble on her tiny legs. There is no way we are going to name all of these chickens. Yet. But this one needed a name. "Daffodil," I suggested. "Precious," Mr. Moon suggested. "Precious Daffodil. Precious for short," I said.
She was eating. She was drinking. But she's so tiny.
She's still here this morning. Still eating, still drinking. She doesn't weigh as much as a postage stamp. Here she is this morning:


I think she'll be fine.

And now I'm off! Billy and Shayla are moving today into their new house and I am going to help because I am so happy for them. They've worked so hard to make their dreams come true. If you are late to this party, read about them here.
Billy and Shayla have helped everyone in the world move. Me included. And today's the day we're all going to get together to help them do the same. Into their own house. A house they are buying. Where they're going to have a baby in November.
I talked to Billy yesterday and said, "Billy, why haven't you asked me to help you move?"
And he said, "Because it's not polite to ask ladies to move heavy stuff."
That's Billy for you.
I informed him I was strong and that I wanted nothing more than to help him and Shayla move and I'm going to and that's that!
"Okay, okay," he said. "We'll let you help us move."
"It'll be a celebration!" I said.
And it will be.

So I'm off. I think what I'm mainly going to be doing is helping Miss Maybelle clean their old house so Shayla won't have to. I need to remember to pack my Fabuloso.

And so it goes.

Have a fabulous weekend. Do it for me.
Thanks.

I Lied

There are not nine baby chicks. There are ten.
Here they are, home in the nursery.

HoneyLuna came out and she grabbed some up to pose for a few pictures. Here they are:



I know. Cute overload.
And I am savoring the hell out of it.

Happy Friday.

Friday Morning, Fresh Green

Sometimes I call Mr. Moon Mr. Moon and sometimes I call him Mr. Honey.
He was Mr. Moon yesterday when he hurt my fragile early-morning feelings and he was Mr. Moon when I went in to do data entry for him. I am sure he was calling me Ms. Bitch at that point.

"Do you want to do the checkbook first?" he asked me.

"I don't want to do it at all," I said, sighing and taking the dreaded thing from his hand.

I hate doing data entry. Filling in those little spaces with numbers and dates and sorting through all the receipts and trying to figure out whether this is filed under "parts" or under "services."
But I did it and it wasn't so bad. I sort of like being in the office (but two hours is my limit, okay?) and getting everything put into the QuickBooks and then put in their real files. Real as in manila folders.

When he came home last night, Mr. Honey was holding three beautiful magnolia blossoms in his hand and he gave them to me and kissed me. I made him a good dinner with his grouper and potatoes and squash and greens and tomatoes out of the garden and he kissed me again while we were eating.
Then he washed the dishes. Then he shared his dark chocolate M&M's with me.
Definitely Mr. Honey.

We have this thing here called Resurrection Fern. It grows on the limbs of the oak trees and during times of drought you don't see it because it's so far up in the tree and it's a dry and gray thing. But then, it rains, and the stuff springs to life- Resurrection!- and sometimes a part of the branch it's on crashes down and there it is in the yard at your feet and I found a piece of it today. I use those pieces of branches as borders for some of my fern beds and ginger beds.
I'm not going to get all metaphorical here- the metaphor is way too obvious for that- but I will say that it's good to be reminded that given the right conditions, life can spring forth anew, surprising you every time.


I was going to try and write something about how much easier it was to perceive the rightness and wrongness of things when I was young because I didn't have the life experience to give me the knowledge and compassion to view things from a lot of different sides. I feel like all that experience I've had has served to cushion me and inform me and I am grateful for that.
This is the way life is- when you're young and the world revolves around you, it's so easy to see things as black or white. Not to get all Bob Dylanish here but it's true. You lose a few friends, you raise a few kids, and you aren't quite as sure about how every damn thing in the world should be run or the way you should be treated. Oh. Some things I am more sure of than ever.
I'm more sure of the power of love than I ever was. I'll tell you that.
But I have a whole new definition of what it is.

It's doing data entry and it's remembering that although we've been married for almost twenty-five years, we're still very different people and that's as it should be. He likes things to be straight and true, I don't care if things do get a little blurry at the edges and tip a bit, this way or that. My eyesight never was any damn good anyway.

But it's 20-20 when I look at him.
And all it takes is a handful of magnolia blossoms and a few kisses and he's Mr. Honey to me again.
That love I have for him is never gone. It gets curled up and not as apparent sometimes but then all of a sudden, it springs forth, unfurling and green again, given the right circumstances.

There will be more later here today, I feel sure.
We're getting NINE new baby chicks and here we go again with the nursery box on the porch and the tiny peep-peeps and wonder at the growing. I am pretty darn excited.

It's drizzling again and the Resurrection Fern is green and new babies are coming and the frogs are croaking.

I'm happy.

There Are No Answers Here Today

As a reader pointed out the other day, the posts I do which get the most response are the ones that deal with popular culture.
In that spirit, let me just say:
Jon and Kate
Angelina Jolie
Rachel Meadows
Amy Winehouse
Cher, Cher, Cher
Oprah, Oprah, Oprah

Okay. That's all I got. Sorry.
But really- who ARE these Jon and Kate people? And why can't they behave themselves?

It's drippy gray here and there's so much I should be doing. The walk. Blackberries which are swelling and bursting off the bushes. Weeding. Oh, weeding. Never-ending weeding.
My drawers and closets. I give up. I admit defeat. I wear approximately ten garments. They are overalls, men's cargo shorts, tank-tops. Why are my closets and drawers bursting with pants and skirts and shirts and dresses I never, never wear? Why is my bathroom filled with make-up I never apply, bath salts I never soak in, candles I never light?
Do women do that really? Light candles and pour bath salts in their tubs and soak away their troubles?

Perhaps I should try it. I have a few things I'd like to soak away this morning. I'm feeling completely inadequate to even basic human function. I showed Mr. Moon the pictures I hung up and of course he told me I'd done it wrong. Of course. I always do it wrong. And then I showed him the picture I took last night from the back yard of the house which I love. "It's blurry," he said.
You see? He's not perfect.
Oh well, maybe he is (when he hangs pictures, a level and tape measure are involved) and it's me that is so far from perfect with my picture-taking and picture-hanging skills that even a saint could not be expected not to remark on such faults.
And he's right, of course. I hang things (aprons, christmas decorations, hula girls, old picture frames, old rose bouquets, mermaids, madonnas, mirrors, hats, handkerchiefs, seashells, plates, dolls- to name a few) all over the house with push pins and tiny nails. The pictures I take are blurry. My garden is filled with weeds and volunteers of things I don't even recognize. Is this a zucchini or some sort of bizarre cucumber? How did its seeds make their way into our compost? Why does zucchini have two c's?

It's one of those days.
I don't know a damn thing.
Which of the dogs is throwing up? Did he or she eat some sago palm? Honestly, I did not give them chocolate.

Why is Rush Limbaugh allowed to exist? How can anyone claim that Sonia Sotomayor will rule in favor of minorities if she gets a seat on the Supreme Court without having to admit that perhaps old white men will rule in favor of old white men and their interests? Where does Clarence Thomas fit into this equation? How can a pro-life person kill a human being? In church? Why do men care so damn much about what goes on in a woman's womb? What gives them the right? If we have separation of church and state, on what basis do we have to rule that gay people cannot marry?

Why am I so imperfect? Why can't I clean out my drawers and closets? Why do I have a male sago cone and no female flower to recieve its pollen? Why do the chickens love collard greens but don't care a thing for red cabbage? Do I have any roosters at all or just six hens, some of them fairly aggressive and butchy? What happened to Mr. Pineapples? How do men who happen to be fathers who are married to women and who have nannies get book deals for books about how hard it is to be a parent? Why don't I allow myself to write more fiction when it is what I love? Why do I read the cozumelmycozumel website everyday, even the parts about where to find bicycle parts on the island? Why don't I get my sewing machine fixed? Why is my left eye so blurry today? Did I sleep on it all night or do I have a brain tumor? How can I be old enough to have a child who is about to turn thirty-three?

And what am I doing here right this second?

Who knows? Quien sabe?

All I know is that soybeans practically leap out of the ground when you plant them.

And that I have crazy dreams. And that butternut squash grows nicely in North Florida.
And that I love my blurry picture of the house at twilight.
And that I better get busy.

What do you know? What are you sure of?
Are you sure?

Magic, Magic Everywhere

It's that magical moment when it's dark but not night. Or is it night but not dark? When there is still enough light to provide shadows but when the hawk flies from the oak tree to the Bradford Pear, he is undefined, a Neil Gaiman story with edges blurred and a message sharp as talons.
The owls are doing that hoot-pant thing and the crickets are tuning up but the frogs have not started playing their concert for the night.

I just went out and checked on the chickens. They've put themselves to bed, roosting not on the roosts that Mr. Moon has built, but on the two-by-fours helping to hold up the walls. They seemed contented. I filled up their water and turned on their classical music station and bid them good-night, wishing that all babies were so easy to tuck in bed.



Kathleen and Herb were just here. They came bearing olives and feta cheese and vodka and promises of more chickens coming tomorrow.
Well.
With friends like that, who needs to leave the property?
We took the yard tour and visited the chickens. Since Herb and Kathleen have the siblings of my chickens and they love them as much as I love mine, it was so gratifying. None of this, "Oh yeah, those chickens are...really neat," stuff. We discussed leg feathers and combs and personalities and sizes and they know all my chickens by name. And then we looked at the plants and the garden and they oohed and awed over the butternut squash, the tomatoes.
It was glorious.
Now they're gone and Mr. Moon is in town playing cards with the boys and I'm here alone and it's so calm.
It's cool because it rained today and the house is open, doors and windows. and I'm not sweating. I went out back and took a picture of the house from the back with the strings of lights on because I wanted to show the magic.
The magic.
I live in the magic.
When Herb and Kathleen were leaving, I told Herb, "You know this woman saved my life last summer?"
And he said, "Yeah, I do."
And she said, "That's what friends do."
I said, "But I couldn't ask. She just did it."
He nodded because what more is there to say than that? He's in love. And damn. He should be.
The frog just started up.
He starts slowly, like a guy sitting down at the bar and ordering his first drink of the evening, lighting a cigarette and looking around.
Pretty soon the lady frog will answer, lowering her mascared eyed-lashes.

This is my life.
How can this be?
This is my life.

Children, Chickens, Epiphanies in Target

It's Wednesday, still morning, and I've already had my walk and gone to yoga. I knew after yesterday's walk that I had to start getting up earlier and get out before the temperature got into the nineties because let's face it- I'm old and it's a bit contradictory to have a stroke while trying to do something good for my health.
And the chickens are fed and the dogs and feral cats, too. We have two of those. Well, I think we actually feed at least four cats but only two hang around. They like to laze together, not touching of course, but in proximity. The chickens do this too, only they do touch. When it starts to get really hot, around noon, I notice I no longer see them in their pen and I go out to check on them and find them back in the coop, lying all next to each other, wallowed down into the dirt and actually panting. Yes. Chickens pant. Or maybe they're just doing yoga breathing, aligning their chicken chakras, meditating on the Tao of the Chicken.

I don't have to go to town today. I went yesterday and part of it was wonderful. I went to the birth center with Lily and Jason to listen to the baby's heart beat. Last week the midwife had worried that there was skipping in the heart beat so she wanted to check again and I went because whenever I go, that baby BEHAVES! And again, she/he did yesterday, too. The heart beat sounded like a marching band, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh in a rhythm I immediately made up a song to, and sang, right there in the midwife's office, such a steady strong beat. The heart of my grand baby.
Can you believe that?
And we were all happy and relieved although in my deepest bones I truly think that everything is perfect with that child. On the way back to Lily and Jason's house we talked about what the baby is going to call me. I've always said that the first grandchild gets to name the grandparents and this is true, but as Lily pointed out, you have to give them something to shoot for. I can't be Granny because that's my mother. I sort of like the Greek grandmother name which is Ya-Ya and I suggested that. Lily pointed out that Ya-Ya is another name for vagina and I said, "Well, what's wrong with that? The vagina is a holy thing. Plus, I think Woo-Woo is a better name for vagina anyway."
Here in the south, grandmothers are frequently known as Me-Maw or Maw-Maw, which are sort of good but also bring to mind an old woman with short gray hair in a shapeless faded house dress endlessly making gravy and watching daytime TV.
I have known two grandmothers whose grandchildren call them Ma. That would make me feel a little bit like the mother in Lassie, though, I think.
It would be fun to have little children call me Grandmotha, spoken in an English accent with the grand stretched out and emphasized but that's a little much to ask, don't you think?
Big Mama? Hmmm. Not really. But maybe. Then Mr. Moon could be Big Daddy and it could be all Cat On A Hot Tin roof around here.
Well, we'll see. The child is yet to be born and probably won't be talking for quite some time, although I am certain he or she will be verbal at an indecently early age.

After I left Lily and Jason I went to Target. And it was there that I had an epiphany in the aisle where they sell face creams. There was almost an entire aisle of pots and tubes of creams all screaming promises to make our wrinkles appear less obvious, to prevent the wrinkles from happening in the first place, to even out skin tones, to hydrate, regenerate, protect, clear up acne, to nourish, to lift, to firm. There were store brands and fancy-sounding brands and brands that promised to be organic and all natural and some had vitamins and some had sea minerals and some had face food and some had scent and others did not.
I stood there, and wondered what would happen if I just slapped some Vaseline on my face before bed every night and put some sunscreen on it in the morning.
Really. What recession? If women can still put out eighteen dollars for an ounce of promises (and this is the cheap stuff) then we're still doing okay.

I had a moment there. A moment where I was thinking about all we have here in this country. I was thinking about an article I'd just read in the New Yorker about how in areas where the most money is spent per capita on health care they do not have the best medical outcomes. More surgeries, tests and treatments do not mean better health. Take childbirth for instance....
And then I thought about what it would be like to live in a third world country where I had to walk to a market to get what I needed. To see meat hung from a wooden frame, the way I have seen it in Mexico, a leg, a chunk of side, a head, flies everywhere on it. To buy my meat from that sort of seller. To select a handful of herbs, a liter of oil, whatever sorts of vegetables and fruits I couldn't grow myself, stacked neatly on the ground or on a wooden table. To have to search to find things like peanut butter or white flour or sugar.
Could I do that? Would I be satisfied with that sort of choice or what I reach a point where I started screaming, "I want to go to Publix! I want organic trail mix! I want to go to Target! I want to buy some picture frames!"?
I don't know.
But I stood there, completely overwhelmed by my choices and I think we're all confronted with that daily. It seems like every time I go to the grocery store there are new choices in everything. Yogurt now comes in so many forms and flavors that I don't know what to do. Fruit on the bottom. Sugarless, Light, Fatfree, Greek, organic, plain. Yogurt with probiotics. Yogurt that claims to lower your cholesterol.
I'm overwhelmed.
And you have to consider not only taste and whether your cholesterol needs lowering but how much things cost. Where did they come from? What is the carbon footprint of each and every purchase?
Hell. I have no idea.
All I know is that the next meal I cook here in Lloyd is going to consist of squash and potatoes and salad from the garden and grouper from the freezer. Do you know how happy that makes me? I would rather spend three hours working in the garden in the sweltering heat than go to town and face the yogurt selection.
I ended up buying the brand of face cream that if I got two products, I could get a five dollar Target gift card. Then I went over to the Starbucks and got a two-dollar cup of coffee. And there you go. I seriously doubt this face stuff is going to do anything to stave off the ravages of what I do to my face. And part of me really is disdainful of myself for spending good money on false hope. Hope that I don't even really care about. I am who I am. I look like what I look like. I've beat my body up by giving birth and raising kids and digging ditches and pulling weeds and mopping floors and hauling things that are too heavy my entire life. So what?
Maybe I am a Me Maw or a Maw Maw. Maybe I am a Big Mama. Or maybe I'm a Ya-Ya. I have a ya-ya. Or a woo-woo. I know I can get my ya-yas out a lot easier than I used to be able to. A walk in this heat and an hour in the garden and I don't have a ya-ya left in me. It used to take a lot of liquor and hours of dancing to achieve that.

Well. I'm going to be a grandmother soon and I will be renamed. One day my first grandchild, the grandchild whose heart I made a song to yesterday will come running towards me, reach up her arms (or his) and say....
What?
I don't know.
A mystery for now.
But whatever that child says, that's who I'll be.
And I will grab that child up and hold him (or her) and that child will love me, wrinkles, sags, aching hips, and non-regenerated skin and all.
"Can we go feed the chickens?" that child will say.
"Certainly," I will answer.
And out we'll go to the chicken coop that Big Daddy or Grampa or Paw-Paw has built and we'll fling corn to the chickens and we'll laugh together.
We'll do the simplest things, me and that child. I imagine we'll even go to town sometimes and go buy groceries or even go to the mall and see Santa. But that's not what I'm looking forward to. I'm looking forward to being right here, showing that child how to plant beans and how to cook them. How to feed chickens and how to tell pines from oaks. How to listen to frogs and how to watch lizards catch flies.
Real stuff. And that child will probably ask me what those ugly brown spots on my skin are and how I got them.
"Those are my age spots," I will tell the child. "And I got them from life."
"Will I get them too?" the child will ask, big-eyed.
"If you're lucky," I will say. "You sure will."

ShiteLight

Wait. Do I have the right version of this book? Because everyone I know who has picked it up has fallen into an immediate trance-like addiction. I'm on page 110 and with every page I am more and more mystified at how any one in the world would give a flying fuck about any of these characters.
Flat and one-dimensional hardly begins to cover them. The writing is what I'd expect from a not-very talented twelve-year old.
Okay. I opened the book at random for this sampling:


"Don't be afraid," he murmured, his velvet voice unintentionally seductive. "I promise..." He hesitated. "I swear not to hurt you." He seemed more concerned with convincing himself than me.
"Don't be afraid," he whispered again as he stepped closer, with exaggerated slowness. He sat sinuously, with deliberately unhurried movements, till our faces were on the same level, just a foot apart.
"Please forgive me," he said formally. "I can control myself. You caught me off guard. But I'm on my best behavior now."
He waited but I still couldn't speak.
"I'm not thirsty today, honestly." He winked.


So first off he's unintentionally seductive. How would the other character know he was being unintentionally seductive? And then he's more concerned with his own feelings than hers. Again, how would she know?
And then he's speaking "formally." What is that?
And then he winks.
And how do you sit sinuously? I thought sinuously had to do with a sort of movement. Not with sitting.

I keep thinking about Stephen King's advice to writers (and no, Stephen King is hardly the world's best but compared to this author, he's freaking Leo Tolstoy) about adverbs. "They are not your friend," he says. If you took out every adverb in Ms. Meyer's book, there would be about ten pages to it.
And every bit of writing advice I have ever seen has said, "SHOW, don't tell." She tells. Over and over again. Frequently changing the mood, the voice, the EVERYTHING every different paragraph.

Really? Some one from a publishing house read enough pages of this tripe to get to the good part? How far do I have to wade into the brown, muddy waters to get to the good part? Is there a good part? Because I'm about to toss this aside and get on with my life.

Part of my perfect weekend was listening to the Poisonwood Bible on tape. Now I have read this beautiful book by Barbara Kingsolver before and it has been a complete and utter joy to listen to it. Now THAT is a good book. It was written by someone who knows how to use language, how to tell a story, how to use voice and setting and who has powerful things to say and the resources with which to say them. Barbara Kingsolver makes me want to strive to use words the way she does. She makes me sit up and pay attention. She makes me completely envious of her abilities, her talents, and the way she can create a world and gently slip me into it, seeing the Congo through her characters' eyes.

Ms. Meyer?
She sort of makes me want to laugh.
But I just don't care enough.

Okay. Let me have it. Tell me why I should give this book another ten pages, much less go on to the end and then read the next three books in the series. Because right now my eyes start to boil in my head every time I open it up.

"She opened the book and found her place in its thick, white pages. As her eyes traveled down the sinuously arranged type of the words, she began to wonder, the velvet voice of her mind speaking to her slowly and forcefully, WHAT THE FUCKING FUCK?"

A Recipe! Just Like Pioneer Woman Without The Very Cool Pictures! And The Guilt Which Comes From Knowing How Darling Chickens Are!

So Mr. Moon is out of town and the chickens are tucked up and really, I have nothing I need to do. The frogs are tuning up for the evening concert and I feel certain that Two And A Half Men is a rerun.

SJ has asked me to give a recipe for chicken enchiladas and why not? But please understand that my "recipes" come as I cook, which means the measurements are, oh- how you say? Imprecise at best.
And as I have said, these are far from authentic Mexican enchiladas.
But they are good.

Once a girlfriend was here for the weekend and on the second day she'd been here she discovered some leftover enchiladas in the refrigerator.

"What are these?" she asked, folding the foil back on something which looked very much like the picture above and I said, "Oh, just some leftover enchiladas."
"Can I have some?" she asked.
"Well of course," I said.
She got a serving out and nuked it and tried a bite. She looked at me with a sort of pained, disbelieving expression.
"And these have been here all weekend?"

She liked them. You might too. They are great for a family and make terrific leftovers. I like them cold with hot sauce on them. I have been eating them for three days now and am not tired of them yet.

Chicken Enchiladas (AKA Mexican Lasagna)

Boil two boneless, skinless chicken breasts in enough water to cover. Add some garlic salt to the water. About a tablespoon.
When the chicken is tender, take it out of the water and allow to cool.
Save the liquid for soup if you wish.

In a medium-sized iron saucepan (if you have one, and I am sorry for you if you do not), heat about a tablespoon of olive oil and spray liberally with some sort of cooking spray. When hot, add a chopped onion, two (at least) pressed garlic cloves, and whatever peppers you desire. Right now I have cubanelles in my garden and I used those. Also I believe I used a can of chopped chilies. But whatever.
When the onion is almost translucent, add a pint of sliced fresh mushrooms. White. Baby portobellos, whatever is on sale.
Let the mixture continue to cook, stirring occasionally until the mushrooms are softened and then add (I almost shudder with embarrassment but still- tell the truth and fear no man) about 3/4 of a can of enchilada sauce. I use El Paso. Spice with chili powder and hot sauce to your taste. Add chicken, shredded by hand. Let cook down until almost all the liquid has either disappeared or soaked into the chicken and mushrooms. Take the pot off the stove and allow it to cool a bit.
Spray your favorite casserole dish with cooking spray. Get out a plate and a package of corn tortillas. I like corn tortillas. I think they are better for us than flour tortillas, plus they are cheaper and I like the way they taste. They remind me of Mexico.
Now here's where it gets a bit tricky. Some people claim you need to dip the tortillas in enchilada sauce or else heat them up until they are flexible. I say fine if you want to do that. Me? I just use them as they come and if they split, well, so be it.
Take one tortilla at a time and on the plate, place some of the chicken mixture (about three tablespoons?) in the middle of the tortilla and roll it up. Place the rolled-up tortilla in the casserole dish, seam down. Repeat, laying the tortillas next to each other like wrapped up babies needing to cuddle each other. Sprinkle with cheese. You may use whatever kind of cheese you like. I used that reduced fat Mexican blend in my last batch. Use whatever amount you feel good about. This is your cholesterol, not mine.
Repeat with another layer of tortillas rolled with the chicken mixture on top. Sprinkle with more cheese.

Take what is left of your chicken mixture (and hopefully, there IS some left).
Put it back on the stove and add chopped or sliced black olives- again- however many you want- and some corn. I like to just use the kernels I cut from a cob but drained canned or frozen is fine with me. Also, a can of drained chili beans. And whatever left-over salsa you might have in your refrigerator. Green taco sauce is also good. If you have any tomatoes you're not planning on using for anything else, chop those up and add them too. And the rest of the can of enchilada sauce and then another whole can. Again, add hot sauce and chili powder to your taste. And chopped jalapenos if you would like! Yum! If you want to play a trick on your children, you may add some finely chopped yellow squash or zucchini to this mixture.
Let all of this simmer for awhile. Not too long.
Pour the whole thing over your rolled tortillas. Sprinkle a few sliced black olives over the top if you wish. Or chopped cilantro. Cover with foil and bake at 350 degrees until the whole thing is bubbling and the cheese is melted (it will be) and then uncover and let the top brown.

Serve with a salad made of bitter greens and fruit and a slightly sweet balsamic vinaigrette with sunflower seeds.

Enjoy yourself.
Ole!

Oh NO!

It has just been pointed out to me that sago palms are not the innocent little beauties we think they are. I have been directed to a web site explaining this and now all is clear, my eyes can see.

Please. Do not buy a sago palm. Instead, check this out:
http://mo-driver.com/sago-palm-plants-kill.htm

And if the robotic voice of the person giving the warning doesn't kill you, the cyanide of the the dreaded Sago will. Or at least it will kill your poor innocent puppies and kitties.

Frankly I don't know why there is any living life form left in Lloyd at all because you see all those "bushes" in front of my house? They are all sago palms. There must be twenty of them.
And yet- and yet! All of my pets are alive and relatively well.

Promises, promises.

I have to thank Ms. All This Trouble for the head's up on this dire sago situation. I am so grateful for eagle-eyed readers who are doing their best to keep me from being sued by unfortunate pet owners.

And now, excuse me, please. I need to go feed my dogs some chocolate. It's their favorite treat!

It Was The Perfect Weekend

If this wasn't the perfect weekend for me then I don't know what the perfect weekend would be.
And right here I feel I need to apologize to one of the world's most popular bloggers, Pioneer Wife, because I commented once on her blog saying that I just didn't get it. The woman posts pictures of her kids and her cows and her horses and her husband (whom she calls The Marlboro Man) and although her pictures are beautiful, I don't understand how she gets the traffic she does. I mean, each and every one of her posts gets like ten thousand comments.
I'm serious.
And boy, did I get jumped on. Not by Pioneer Wife. But by her faithful readers, some of whom checked out my blog and said things like, "Maybe if you'd quit drinking vodka, you'd understand."
Well. That could be true.

Anyway, here I am, so excited I could pee in my pants because my chickens, my six little mutt chickens, are finally in their big run.
And I'm posting pictures and I'm taking about it and let's face it- my pictures aren't nearly as beautiful as Pioneer Wife's and I don't even do recipes that often and she lives on a RANCH.
So- Pioneer Wife- I'm sorry.
(I still don't quite get it, but I'm sorry.)

All weekend Mr. Moon and I worked outside. He on the coop and me in the garden. I finished up my rows of beans (two of soy and two of green) and then my neighbor and I went blackberry picking while her husband and mine finished up the chicken's new palace. They built a door and got everything tidied up and ready and when we got back with our blackberries, Mr. Moon unscrewed the board he'd had in place to keep the chicks in their little hallway run.


"Are you going to take my picture," he asked?
Well, of course.
The chickens seemed to know what was about to happen. They were lined up, ready to proceed into The Big Space.

And then, the door was removed and here they came:


Suzie first, of course, shy little Betty back in the rear.
They were in wonderment. They flapped and flew and immediately started scratching and wallerin' and hunting and pecking.


Dolly (Yes, we have a dog named Dolly but now we have a chicken named that too for Dolly Parton because this chicken has huge breasts. I mean, she has chicken cleavage) found a frog and chaos ensued. All the rest of the chickens chased her all around the new space and back into the old and she was frantic to keep that frog in her mouth. Finally, they all got bored and let her eat her frog in piece.
Score, Dolly!

Yes. It was a moment of joy out here in Lloyd. I dumped all my weeds from the weekend's work into their pen and they're out there right now, scratching in it, finding bugs and tender greens.
My left hand is numb as I write this because I have some sort of neurological pinch, I suppose, and the ripping of weeds from the earth exacerbates the problem but I don't care. I pulled the weeds and I made the rows and I planted the beans and the chickens are playing in the weeds.

Last night I made us a supper of squash croquettes and new potatoes and black-eyed peas with venison sausage and peppers and onions and a blackberry cobbler.
The blackberries this year are the best I've seen in five seasons. Some of them are as big as the nipples on a big-tittied woman and it's addicting when you hit a good patch, carefully reaching in to delicately take the berries from their thorny nest.

And I don't know but it seems to me that every day I feel more at home here on this tiny patch of ground. Who knew that my heart's desire was to become an old Florida woman, sweating in the black dirt, thrilling at the squash blooms, married to a man who can build a chicken coop?
I used to think guitar players were the coolest. Uh-huh. The way they'd throw their heads back and close their eyes and sing of passion.
Well, that was fine for then. Now I'd rather have a man with a nail apron who constantly reminds me to please sew around the place where his overalls hook because it's coming loose.

When my neighbor and I were on our blackberry-picking trip, she said, "Mary, you're going to have the best grandmother's house in the world. They'll never be bored at your house."
And I agreed. I told her that if they were bored, I'd smack 'em and make 'em go play outside.
I was in that sort of rusty old character mode. I'd been practicing with Harley that afternoon already, the darling three-year old from next door. We'd checked out his butternut squash, transplanted from a pot where he and his mama started the seed and we'd fed the goats next door the invasive potato vine, ripped up and accepted gratefully by the critters.
"They're nibbling!" he kept saying, and then he'd run off to pull up more potato vine.

I think I live in a magical kingdom. And I hope my grandchildren think it is too. I'll let them feed the chickens and I'll take them to pick berries and I'll let them pick beans and then I'll cook for them. I'll read them stories and I'll tuck them into the spare bed and I'll tell them stories about when their mama was a child. Mr. Moon will take them down to the lake and show them how to fish and maybe he'll build them a playhouse. Or perhaps this place will be their play house.

I don't know.
All I know is that my heart is full with what all I have here.

Soon the chickens will decide which are roosters and which are hens. The roosters will begin to learn to crow, a scratchy adolescent crow at first, and then a full-blown cock-a-doodle-do when the sun comes up and I think I might learn to crow too.
The hens will learn to lay eggs and they'll make that triumphant clucking when they do and I'll go out and steal their eggs.
I'm not a pioneer woman but I am a woman who lives where pioneer women lived. I do some of the things they did. I have it a thousand times easier, but my sweat, like theirs, is part of this place now.

It was a perfect weekend.
I live a perfectly incredible life. For me.
And the miracle of it is that I have found it and I have realized it.

My life isn't a bowl of cherries. It's a bowl of blackberries, picked from thorny bushes and when I come back with my bounty, I am tattoed on my arms from those thorns, which only makes the berries sweeter to me. So sweet I have to add a little lemon peel and juice to them when I mix them up for cobbler.

I don't think there's much more to say than that.

Good-morning, y'all.
Good morning.