Solstice Shelter

   

             The week before Yule (AKA Winter Break) is often a scramble. Juniors are madly rewriting papers and demanding help on the thesi—help that was due the week before, quite often—while the younger students are finishing up projects they stalled a bit on, and admin is trying to hold one more staff meeting. Add three council sessions, one work session before the final meeting of the term, and trying to find time to set up and decorate the tree, and it was a busy week or so. And then the first day of Break was Solstice, without a great deal of prep time.

                Friday night, we finally decorated the tree. It had been in the stand since Tuesday evening, but, because it is a big tree with a crooked base, it took us three times as long as usual to set it up, and we were starving by the time it was braced in the living room, so we left it dark. On Wednesday morning, I draped the lights over the branches while eating toast and perched the angel on the top. The rest had to wait. Friday evening, I rolled out pizza dough to rise and we went to work with the ornaments. It was covered in time for dinner; afterwards, I packed up the box, heaved it into the attic, and cleared out the ladder from the cosy room. Before we went to bed, I started a pot of local black beans for soup.

                Saturday was Solstice. It started with tea and watching the little birds—juncos and finches, mostly, with one towhee and a couple of jays—descend on the ladder feeder outside the living room window.  They were already lined up on the plum tree when I went out with the seed. After breakfast, I prepped our dinner, set up the fire, and found the new candles and old holders. Mark filled the lanterns and washed dishes. We watched the clouds break and flashes of sunlight across the bay tree while we worked. When I went to bring in a couple of clay pots from the greenhouse, I realized that the chairs stored inside were the perfect place to sit and read, so we did.

                After lunch, we went for our traditional walk around the wildlife refuge—clouds were heavy, backed up against the foothills of the coast range. Hail and rain drenched us for about 15 minutes, but the air was warm, so we kept on going. Being outside on the short, cloudy grey days keeps us sane, if damp. After our walk, we changed clothes and headed downtown to the ceremony in remembrance of those who have died on our streets this year—at least sixteen names, just in our town, from being unsheltered.  

We came home, lit the fire, ate our dinner, moved the elderly cat from lap to lap, and dried out our clothes from the day. In our yard, the rabbit burrowed down into his pile of straw, looking for the last bits of apple and the chickens climbed up on their safe perch for the night. Even in the busyness of the world, we are sheltered.

Advent

 

               Even though I am no longer catholic—or any sort of organized religion—this time between Thanksgiving and Solstice remains a sacred part of the year. Advent. The days are still growing shorter and colder; I find myself starting dinner at four thirty, rather than six PM, as I do in summer.  The chickens are down late and up early, but still chowing to stay warm. Their feathers are all back from the fall molt. Mr Beezhold stays in the hutch in the morning, waiting for the ground to warm up. We sleep later, buried under piles of blankets, jump up to turn on the heat, and return to bed while the house warms on weekend mornings. On clear afternoons, the bare branches reach for the sky, stark against the dying light.  When it is cloudy or foggy, everything is hidden. Living so far north, the darkness feels longer and deeper than it did when I was a child.

                We spend  afternoons, when it is dry enough, on long walks in the woods. I gather green branches for the mantel. We consider the wide range of fungi that are sprouting up on logs, on trees, in the pathway itself, and how the ice storm last year opened up sections of the preserve for more light. Rushes are now growing by the trail in standing water. Where did that come from? A few catkins are beginning to stretch out but there are no blooms. And it is quiet. So quiet.  

                What have we learned in the past year? What did we do right? What would we like to change, if we could? These three weeks have become an accounting of the year.  We wait, in hope, in peace, for the return of the sun on Solstice night.

Seasonal Records

 

                As we move towards the end of the year, further and further into the dark last days, I reach for rituals, daily, weekly, monthly.  I have two books and one box that help ground me in the circles of the years.

                The first is my paired set of the Book of Days. Back when I worked at Ceres Bakery and lived in Portsmouth, I stepped back from the established holiday rituals, especially around Christmas, and considered what was more important to me and my need for connection and reduced material consumption. I learned about the old pagan ways of Northern Europe, considered some Jewish holidays, and did some historical research. While I worked, I made notes in two big blank books—one runs from March until August, the other from September to February.  I made little sketches and borders and wrote everything down, along with when I first heard peepers and some seasonal recipes. These books still rest on my desk and I pull them out to record significant events, usually in the natural world, even now.

                The second book is a white binder, which has a page for every week of the year. This is the Garden notebook. I track planting dates, weather events, and harvests week by week, all year long. I can tell you that, this week, has been a traditional time to move the coop from one bed to the next, has had several years of big rain, and others of dank fog. Lots of mulching is finishing up during week 47. I also keep the garden maps and the seed orders from past years as well as a page of notes for the coming season.   It has resolved several arguments and helped track sowing schedules!

                Finally, I have a recipe box that is divided into eight sections—one for each cross quarter day. Each small season has recipes specific to what is ripe then, making seasonal, local veg recipe planning much easier. Sometimes I move a recipe from one section to another; sometimes a recipe spans several seasons; sometimes one is misfiled for a year and I have to hunt for it. But, overall, it works. It helps us revel in what is available and fresh now and not miss what we cannot have.  I have also spread some cookie recipes out through the year so that they are more special.

                Each book allows me—actually requires me—to focus on what is happening in the world right now and consider what I can and cannot control. I am able, in the words of Thoreau, to Live Deliberately and to suck out all of the marrow of life and not, when it comes time to die, to find that I have not lived.

 

 

 

Spartan Garden

 

                This fall, Green Club has take on the school garden in a big way. It had fallen deep into weedy disrepair in the last year or so; there was no time to work in it with last year’s schedule. This year, I changed mine to eliminate an advisor class and now, on Fridays, about a dozen students and I head out cross the football field to the school garden patch.  It is amazing what twelve people can get done in 40 minutes—more work than I can do in six or seven hours. We go out in the grey drizzle, feeling powerful in the face of bad weather, and walk back to school laughing when we are done, damp.

·         We’ve pulled all of the big weeds (the small ones are still there).

·         We have filled the yard debris barrel over and over again.  We could use another.

·         We have hacked back the blackberries that reach through the fence because they are rooted between a fence and a garage.

·         We have broken down the ancient non-functional  compost bins and replaced them with hoops.

·         We have pulled most of the grapevines out of the arbor vita—the rest is waiting for a ladder and a day without anyone else around.

·         We have laid a thick layer of leaf mulch over most of the garden beds in two large swaths.

·         We have rescued strawberries that were in the path and they are now in the back of my classroom waiting for a new bed.

·         We have planted two fava beds.

·         We wrote a grant for six raised beds and six benches which would have a huge impact upon the space.

·         We have transplanted all of the native plants that were along the chain link fence line into the area around Dixon Creek with all of the other natives.

It looks a LOT better. But, there is still:

·       

  Greenhouse needs to be repaired and bricks laid down as a floor.

·         The trellis over the entrance needs to be rebuilt.

·         More mulching and weeding.

·         The fridge in the shed needs to go away—it works, if you want to haul it!

·         Weed trees need to come down.

·         Plant the line between the garden and the football field with pollinator plants so that it is clear that the neglected patch by the cross country shed is not our problem.

·         Blueberry bushes! Raspberry vines!

·         Glow up the scarecrow! Fix the stained glass garden art! Make pretty signs!

 

November Weather Forcasts

 

On Thursday evening, I looked at NOAA weather so that I could plan the weekend. Fog. Showers and clouds. Rain. From here until eternity. It’s November. Then I looked out the window at the half moon in the mist. Something did not quite line up, but I figured the rains were coming.

Friday morning, there was heavy fog. One of my most avid gardeners stopped into my classroom before school to ask if we were still going out to tackle blackberries. “Yes!” I assured him. At nine thirty, the clouds broke and we had a glorious 45 minutes planting favas, pulling blackberry, weaving leaf crowns, and mulching. The sun stayed out the rest of the day. Rain tomorrow, I thought.

Saturday morning. Heavy fog. We better go out now before it rains, we decided, and walked down to the market. The fog lifted as we bought our veggies and shopped for Thanksgiving presents (I found an excellent pair of blackberry loppers for the school garden). It was lovely. After scanning the sky, I spent the entire afternoon in the front yard, harvesting persimmons, trimming grape vines, and raking leaves. It has to rain on Sunday, I thought as we came inside for the night.

Sunday morning was cloudy and humid but dry. We spent an hour on the paper and headed out for a hike before the weather changed. We climbed to Dimple Hill from Oak Creek, admiring the deep golden leaves of the Big Leaf Maple and the greeny gold on the alders. The deciduous trees really stand out against the firs in November. At the top, we looked out over waves of puffy grey clouds and blue green hills and listened to people pose with their dogs for a photo and headed down for lunch. No rain.

It is Sunday evening. We have to go grocery shopping and it looks like the rain will hold off until we come home.  We may even big good through Monday.

 

 

Tom McCall

         I may have a new hero.

For the last three weeks, I have been working my way through Fire at Heaven’s Gate,  a biography of Tom McCall, Oregon governor from 1967-1975. I am not done, but it is a compelling read.  Living in Oregon I  see his legacy every day. It’s not a “cradle to the grave” biography, with no narrative peaks—it focused on his political life and there’s lots of drama. It may be fair to say the subject drew drama to himself, but it was also the era. As I read through his list of accomplishments, I find myself muttering “this man was a republican” over and over and wondering how we have shifted so far away from these values.

 While in office (and I am not done) the man supported:

·         Protecting Oregon beaches and public access

·         Cleaning up the Willamette river by regulating pulp mills

·         Keeping poison gas from being stored in the state (and transported by rail through the state)

·         The Bottle Bill

·         DEQ

·         Air and Water pollution restrictions on industry, even if it meant that the industry might locate in another state.

·         A Land Use process that put citizen involvement as Goal One and focused on protecting farmland from suburban sprawl.

·         Publicly speaking about his son’s struggles with drug addiction.

On Earth Day, he said “It’s obvious that a change in attitude is vital, and the first desirable change would be the realization that the problem of environment and pollution is not the other fellow’s, but the responsibility of everyone.”

 

 

Winter is coming

     It is raining. The house smells like cookies and granola, oat bread and yeast bread, as I work my way through food prep for the week. Solas plays on in the living room, drowning out the sounds of the rain. Outside, the cat is sleeping in the greenhouse—a golden ball of fur on the plant shelf, beside the geranium I moved in a few days ago. The rabbit is in his hutch with an apple; the chickens in the coop resting on a garden bed. Leaves cover the ground. Mark hung the storm windows last night while I made dinner and we sat by the first fire inside of the season. We are moving, a little reluctantly, into winter this year.

 

While I worked, I tried to focus on the task at hand—measuring oatmeal and baking powder, doubling a recipe in my head. But the news fills my mind….and it is not good. I read, last week, a section of Alexi Navalny’s diary from prison that was in the New Yorker. He came back to his country, knowing he would be arrested and probably die and he said, “I have my country and my convictions. If your convictions mean something, you must be prepared to stand up for them and make sacrifices if necessary.” (p 45, 10/21/24) And that idea melded with the end of The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien.  He did not step up to protect a friend from a bully and regretted the action for ever. Later, he observed:

For me, though, it did matter. It still does. I should've stepped in; fourth grade is no excuse. Besides, it doesn't get easier with time, and twelve years later, when Vietnam presented much harder choices, some practice at being brave might've helped a little. (P. 150)

We will be facing some difficult times ahead no matter who wins this election.  Climate change is with us. Challenges to our rule of law, our democracy will continue.  Are we practicing standing up for our convictions, now, when things are little less fraught? How we will behave in the coming years, if we are not?