Here’s hoping you get a visit from the Krispy Kreme fairy!
This is dedicated to my Dad and his Christmas Shop:
Merry
No one’s hangin’ stockin’s up,
No one’s bakin’ pie,
No one’s lookin’ up to see
A new star in the sky.
No one’s talkin’ brotherhood,
No one’s givin’ gifts,
And no one loves a Christmas tree
On March the twenty-fifth.
—Shel Silverstein
A few weeks ago, the price of oil ratcheted above fifty-five dollars a barrel, which is about twenty dollars a barrel more than a year ago. The next day, the oil story was buried on page six of the New York Times business section. Apparently, the price of oil is not considered significant news, even when it goes up five bucks a barrel in the span of ten days. That same day, the stock market shot up more than a hundred points because, CNN said, government data showed no signs of inflation. Note to clueless nation: Call planet Earth.
Carl Jung, one of the fathers of psychology, famously remarked that “people cannot stand too much reality.” What you’re about to read may challenge your assumptions about the kind of world we live in, and especially the kind of world into which events are propelling us. We are in for a rough ride through uncharted territory.
It has been very hard for Americans — lost in dark raptures of nonstop infotainment, recreational shopping and compulsive motoring — to make sense of the gathering forces that will fundamentally alter the terms of everyday life in our technological society. Even after the terrorist attacks of 9/11, America is still sleepwalking into the future. I call this coming time the Long Emergency.
Most immediately we face the end of the cheap-fossil-fuel era. It is no exaggeration to state that reliable supplies of cheap oil and natural gas underlie everything we identify as the necessities of modern life — not to mention all of its comforts and luxuries: central heating, air conditioning, cars, airplanes, electric lights, inexpensive clothing, recorded music, movies, hip-replacement surgery, national defense — you name it.
The rest of the story
Well, I’m not sure what the point of buying that high-magnesium salt block was; the cows won’t come down off the mountain to lick it, now that the grass is greening up for real. Hmmm…
Sounds like it’s mainly cows in calf or in milk that are at risk, so now that I know that, I’ll just quit worrying about it, I guess.
The weather has been wonderful the last couple of days: 60′s and mostly sunny with some thunderstorms yesterday. That’s why I haven’t been posting so much lately—-it’s so lovely outside, it’s hard to make myself come inside!
And now, I must go clean up the kitchen so that DH has no reason to suspect that I wasn’t hard at work the whole time he was gone!
DH maxed out on stress yesterday. It’s funny how that works: you just deal with the stress load day after day, and then one day you can’t think about anything without freaking out. That was him yesterday—everything was too much to deal with.
We went and looked at a house for rent Sunday, but didn’t get a good feeling from it at all. It was in a fishbowl: surrounded on all sides by roads and neighbors and beef cattle and hound dogs. Plus we’d have to spend a fortune fencing it for our animals. I’m finally experienced enough to know that if it feels wrong, it is. No matter how badly I want it to work out. Bummer—I had sort of convinced myself that this was the answer to our immediate problems. Oh well.
This weekend we go to my dad’s for Easter. I’m looking forward to that very much. Most of the sibs and all of the cousins will be there, and it will be nice to see everybody. We’re a damn weird family, but I love it.
Here’s something I’m very proud of: all my amaryllises from last year are blooming again this year. I’ve never been able to get them to rebloom before! This is very exciting. Here’s the secret, as far as I can tell: after the last frost, put them outside for the summer. Ignore them. Bring them back in before the first fall frost, don’t water them, and let them die back. Then in February put them in a warmish place and start watering them (lightly) again. That’s it! What a perfect plant for me, the queen of benign neglect!
A couple of friends came over this morning for brunch. Appropriately enough, eggs were featured: F* brought deviled eggs, and I made my mini-deviled eggs from two dozen bantam eggs, topped with smoked salmon. There were spinach quiche, cheese grits, salad, a pork roast with a dry rub that DH got up early to cook on the grill, and green tea. Very mellow, very nice.
The day is a perfect March day: 60′s, breezy, and sunny.
We may look into renting another farm, since we need to get out of here, and we’re not finding the farm we want to buy. I am not thrilled at the thought of renting again: moving this operation is going to be huge, and I’d rather only do it once!
Once a year, around this time, I get a driving desire to burn things. Fortunately the urge is limited to dead plant material in the yard and garden, and is therefore a kind of constructive destructiveness. Well, yesterday was the day. I took my long lighter thingy out and started by lighting the ornamental miscanthus grass at the corner of the house. That was so hugely satisfying that I headed for the garden next: old tomato stalks, tons and tons of crispy morning glory vines, bermuda grass (that was the best!), eight-foot-tall jerusalem artichoke stalks, poke bushes the size of small trees, johnson grass, some kind of horrid, sharp little burr things that came in with last year’s hay. The garden is looking so much cleaner this morning, and the burning urge has gone. I’m back to ordinary little can’t-stand-the-smell-of-smoke me.
Portrait by a Neighbor
Before she has her floor swept
Or her dishes done,
Any day you’ll find her
A-sunning in the sun!
It’s long after midnight
Her key’s in the lock,
And you never see her chimney smoke
Till past ten o’clock!
She digs in her garden
With a shovel and a spoon,
She weeds her lazy lettuce
By the light of the moon,
She walks up the walk
Like a woman in a dream,
She forgets she borrowed butter
And pays you back cream!
Her lawn looks like a meadow,
And if she mows the place
She leaves the clover standing
And the Queen Anne’s Lace!
—Edna St Vincent Millay
