Bits of the Past

 

                My friend Maureen hunts down old Fine Gardening magazines, reads them over afternoon tea, and then sends them my way. (I send her our New Yorkers.) I got a bunch on Friday afternoon and was poking through one from about 2000. There, in the Northwest section, was an article on Cracked Pots, an arts fair full of garden objects made from recycled materials. One photo caught my eye. The two pieces looked…familiar. Like I had just seen one and helped move the other, back in the day. I looked closer. It was a stool and an insect, both made by my friend Anne Hart. The insect did not sell that day and it now sits on my front steps. Her name was not in the article; I wonder if her work would have sold better if it was.

 

                When I was in grad school in Boston, I had a job at a Jewish bakery in Newton, Massachusetts, where we lived. It was a small place—served coffee to commuters in the morning, bagels and cream cheese to the high school students from down the street at lunch, and loaves of rye and challah to the Jewish mothers who came in during the day. I started in September, right before Rosh Hashanah. Women called all day, ordering bread for the holidays.  “I want three round challies,” they would say, “two plain and one raisin.”  “Challie?” I asked one of the people I worked with. “Challah,” they explained.  All righty, I thought. Challie.

                When I moved to Portland, I called the loaf “challie.” “Challah,” my west coast Jewish roommate corrected me. No pet names here.  Last night, I made a rather huge braided challah with fig paste rolled in for a potluck. My friend Leah, from Brookline—right next door to Newton—reached for a piece. “I want some of the challie,” she smiled.  

 

Equinox Earth

 

Every six weeks, I pull on Tarot Card, asking for guidance in the coming time.

 Last night, it was the Equinox, the day and night when light balances and the world pauses before shifting into the dark time of the year. We had gone for a walk out at the wildlife refuge, stopping to look at the hazy sunlight in the dusty ferns and oak trees and gathering acorns.  When we came home, I made pesto from our basil plants and cooked corn from the market. After dinner, while Mark did the dishes, I started  a small fire in the back garden and held the cards.

For these moments, I use an old deck. It was once Mary Jane’s—the older woman all of the Ceres bakers consulted for readings. She introduced us to the Mother Peace deck, round, with images of women in power for her readings, preferring the ambiguity of a circle to the clarity of upright and reversed. This was an old deck she handed  on to my friend Cheryl, who gave it to me when I drove across country for three months. It lived in the Ark for years coming inside when we bought the house. I have put it down to rest once or twice, but I keep coming back. The edges are frayed, the colors subdued, the silk wrapping cloth in tatters.  

It was just twilight. The kittens were still out, stalking each other around the garden beds, rustling in the leaves. The chickens chatted for a bit as they settled in. In the distance, muted traffic and college students shouting at one another.  But, close at home, wind in trees and creatures settling down. The fire shot sparks into the sky and swirled around the chimney pot. The light from the kitchen reached as far as the outdoor table, but not to the back.  Sitting cross legged on the ground, I held the cards: what will help me in the coming weeks?

The Ace of Pentacles replied, “How is your spiritual treasure dispensing wisdom?”  Is it? I wondered.  Pentacles are about material abundance—maybe all of the fruit we have brought in for the winter? Maybe a successful grapefruit sale?  It didn’t seem like good response, so I waited and looked further in my two books.  Sitting in front of the fire, watching it swirl, feeling the warmth on my face and stomach, the ground beneath me, the answer came. Pentacles are also Earth cards. Return to the Earth.  Return to the earth again, I thought. I can do that.

Cycles of Life

 

                                We moved the bed inside this afternoon, after spending one thunderstorm under Mark’s plastic sheeting—it was loud! We stayed dry and it was very cool, but the season is changing and we have to move in reluctantly. I am already dreaming of how to build an outdoor bed platform that would protect us further into the season. This evening, we will move the chicken coop onto the garden beds. One of the young chickens I indicating a desire to lay an egg and I don’t want to play hide and seek the egg with another flock of hens.  And I spent four hours yesterday roasting tomatoes for the winter and then running the half pint jars through the steam canner.  Seasonal cycles.

                We are working our way through another cycle of life—the young pets. For seven years, the chicken flock has been stable. We brought on three chicks one spring—a Rhode Island Red, and Americana, and an Austrolorp.  It was a really pretty mix—red, black, and gold. They got along pretty well in general, but somewhere early in the game they all decided that the coop was not the place to lay their eggs. One hopped the fence every day, deposited her egg in a nest right on the other side, and wandered the back alley until someone tossed her back over. Another liked the old bee hive I tipped on its side and lined with straw, the other searched out spots all over and kept the eggs hiden until there were over a dozen. When we brought on our three new chicks, I worried about them picking up bad habits. But, before the two flocks mingled, two of our old ladies died and the last stopped laying—until today, when I found her egg in the bee hive nest box. First in four months! I am hoping to head this behavior off early but putting the coop on the garden beds and limiting their range before they learn about free range nesting.  We shall see.

                We also have kittens, about four months old. Our fluffy orange beastie, Kayli, died back in late March, after long and happy life in and out of the back yard. We took some time off and brought the kittens home a couple of weeks ago, before school started, so that we could have time to adjust to one another before I went back to work. For a couple of weeks, they rumpused about the house, ignoring us.  Then we opened the back door so that they could explore the backyard. Mark was worried—“How are we going to keep them on the farm once they have seen Gay Paris?” he asked. Whenever one crossed a boundary—climbed the tree and hopped on the roof, for example—he muttered “Gay Paris…” But it has gone pretty well. They prefer keeping each other in sight, sleeping on the couch in the sun, and eating far more kitten kibble than I thought possible. They do not come when I call yet but they do come to the rattle of the food jar.  They too, as slowly developing their spots, rituals, and personalities as well as acknowledging our existence beyond the hand that feeds them. It will take a long while for them to become fully part of the household, talking back and coming when called, sleeping on laps and, hopefully, bringing down the rodent population a bit in the backyard.

                The days are shorter. The rains are coming. The squirrels have hauled away every hazelnut from the tree and buried them all over the neighborhood.  School is back in session. Tonight, we will go watch the full moon rise. And, before we leave, I will chop up all of the cherry tomatoes in my basket into the crockpot to cook down for sauce for the winter.

End of a Season

 

 

A

h, when to the heart of man

   Was it ever less than a treason

To go with the drift of things,

   To yield with a grace to reason,

And bow and accept the end

   Of a love or a season?

 

            Robert Frost was thinking about November when he wrote this poem, but, really, it fits perfectly into the end of August as well. Going back to school, moving inside, losing the long light of July—it’s all hard on the psyche.  Monday was my last day without school work so I decide to embrace the day.  We woke up a little after six and spent a few minutes gazing at the light  and the clouds moving across the dawn sky. The blankets and ground were damp, but we were buried under the blankets. The chickens had just been let out by their automatic door and the rabbit was contemplating the sunrise from the hutch. Mark got up, opened his door, and Mr B hopped out to graze. I could hear my neighbor greeting his granddaughter and laughing. Inside, the kittens were thrilled to see us—ants had found their food. We cleaned that up, moated their dish, and ate breakfast.

            After I finished the house chores, I gathered my backpack and notebook and headed down to Finley. On the west, over the coast range, ocean mist was pushing through. On the East, there was haze from fires across the Cascades. The road felt like it was right in the middle of the two elemental forces—which would win in the valley? The refuge was empty—Monday morning, right before school starts? All of town is empty. I was not surprised. I climbed the hill to the new pavilion, looked out over the valley, and headed back into the woods. The pool that holds newts in spring was dry. The trails are dusty. But it is quiet, and still, and a beautiful walk. After the last ice storm, so many thin oaks came down that they opened up the forest floor. I looked at what was coming back in the understory (a lot of blackberry, native and not, and Indian Plum). I  stopped to admire the meadow where we heard a huge swarm of bees last spring, peered through the trees at the beaver dam, and took about two hours for the entire loop.  My mind cleared as I walked.

            I came home, had a good lunch, read from a while, wrote a brief bit of testimony for the state on transit funding, and met with people to discuss Ward Five issues in the park, talking until the bats came out. The sky was clear—neither smoky or foggy. Maybe things balanced out in the high sky.  

I love the rhythm of these summer days when I barely go inside.  I do love my work; I love cozy nights by our fireplace; eating winter squash and greens rather than zucchini for dinner every night.  But, right now, my heart clings to summer.