One of my blog buddies is a gentleman named Mal.  Mal is a poet, photographer and painter.  What follows is his first poem written this year. I must say, the imagry blew me away.  You will find it via http://helmal.spaces.live.com    Once you get to his site, go to his second site at Mal's Factory.  His work is a joy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A beautiful morning here.  The sun is out, the skies are blue and it is wind still. In the twenties but comfortable for this time of year. An artic front will descend on us by the end of the week but I have the wood stove cranked up behind me.

 

I just started "If You Lived Here I'd Know Your Name."  Life in Haines, Alaska from the view of the obit writer. An absolute delight but life can be so frightening in the wild. Your resource sometime is just plain luck.  In the midst of a blizzard the author's son gets appendicitis.  The hospital is 5 and a half hours away and the only thing guiding them is the reflective tape on the tops of the eight-foot-tall snow plow guide poles, spaced every fifty feet on either side of the road. Life becomes a very fine line. It takes a warrior mentality to survive and then only by the grace of God.  And yet, there is a beauty that is indescribable and few of us will ever experience.

 

Well the last of my young orchids has arrived.  So now I am tending 8 little ones and very interested in seeing what happens to them in the next two years. That is the challenge.  At the moment I have to visit the orchid forum and see the pros and cons of mixing the potting mediums for orchids.  I usually mix the medium bark mix with spagnum moss and that might be a no-no.  So I'll quiz the experts.

 

I am off. A little more paper work, a few notes etc., etc. And oh....I do have several poems fermenting in my brain!  Have a good day everyone.  Bittersweet on-the-hill.

I just finished reading "Still Life with chickens," the story of a recently divorced woman who has to sell her "big house on the hill" for a cottage near a salt pond and the ocean. She has an eleven year old daughter who decides she wants some baby chicks and knows how to manipulate her mother's guilt by deciding she wants these chicks while Mom is in the process of trying to close on one house and buy another.  The care and raising of these chicks is actually what helps the mother get through this emotionally draining period. It takes her 11 months to make the cottage habitable but she sees great beauty living on the salt pond and having a view of the ocean. The raising of these chicks brought back a lot of childhood memories of when I raised chickens. The brooder to keep the baby chicks warm, finding appropriate space for when they are just big enough to fly out of there pen, having to concoct and build something bigger and more substantial every few weeks, watching then loose their baby down and grow new feathers, keeping an eye on the listless ones, making sure they don't peck each other, warm mash on cold nights etc., etc.

The homestead here has three out-buildings excluding the barn, garden house and garage. And if you can believe it, my favorite out building is a chicken coup that is painted red, as are all the outbuildings and barn, has a tin roof and six windows most facing the morning sun. So what am I leeding to?  Well, I'm reading "Still Life" and thinking.....I want some chickens.  Highly impracticable but oh such an appealing idea.  So I'll let that pass and find something less time consuming, and something I don't have to worry about day and night. I had chickens 25 years ago when I first moved up here and I guess I'll just have to satisfy myself with recalling those memories.

I'm pulling out another book called - "If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name," by Heather Lende. The setting for this book is Tiny Haines, Alaska, ninety miles north of Juneau. Heather Lende is both the obituary writer and social columnist for the local community and hence, the title. So I get to do a little light reading before I tackle some more daunting literary work!

I'm laughing at Jorge's comment about how nice it is to read all the books you want.  Yes, a luxury indeed. As it is with you and many others, I spent 30 years reading professional books and writing, writing reports etc.  And I vowed that one day I would read only what I want to read and never pick up a text book, or journal or be a conference presenter. So now I read some out of the way esoteric work and enjoy every minute of it.

This morning we got a dusting to an inch of snow and the snow plows are out diligently plowing nothing and trying to use up some of their mountains of salt. Go figure that one.

Anyway....enjoy the beauty of the day ....Bittersweet on-the-hill.

I just finished listening to "Sunday Morning" with Charles Osgood.  I haven't listened to him in ages and it is still as good as ever.  They had a wonderful piece on Judi Dench and that alone is worth the price of admission!

My day has started out with watering my orchids and later I might mist some of them.  Seven of them are babies and three of them are in the "reclaimation" program so i am watching them closely. I think I am beginning to get a handle on them and am beginning to understand their likes and needs.  The past 3 or 4 months has been a real learning process but despite several loses, I am the better for it.

 

Today will be dedicated to more of the paper-chase and hopefully a little more reading.  Another story in Fisher's "Sister Age." Having finished "Leaving Microsoft," I can now bring as second book into the kitchen. I think I know my choice but will elaborate tomorrow since I don't remember the title. It is about an impoverished single parent who takes her daughter to live in Canada on the coast and starts raising chickens. Kind of interesting.....something i know I would do!  Survival with the least is a challenge I would undertake especially since I believe you can live from the land. A garden, some chickens and a wood stove and off you go!

 

Anyway, have a good day, enjoy some football and let's remember the importance of tomorrow. Martin Leuther King Day.  Keep in mind the equity and social gains that were gained for some are gains that we all can benefit from. We are all better for the equality that has been gained.

 

Be well.     Bittersweet on-the hill.

Now that is a combination! How did I make that connection.  I'll blame the boxes on Jorge......and his shoe boxes full of receipts.  What is funny is that everytime a a box comes in from somewhere, I look at it and determine if it makes a good box for bank statements etc. And I mean every box. It wouldn't take me five minutes to find the last 10 or 12 years of income tax returns.  I save everything. And if you think that generates paperwork, think of all the paperwork generated from taking on-line courses.  Every idea, impression, draft of a poem is kept somewhere so that I have piles for my writing and poetry.  And it gets even funnier. I was reading an article in my January "Orchid" issue and it talked about keeping a log; when you purchased them, when they flowered, how many blooms, etc. etc. What is most important to an orchid enthusiast is to make sure you keep the names of orchids.  You can't believe how easy it is to loose labels and when people trade off-shoots or divisions, they want to know - not just the fact that it is a dendrobium or phal, but the name.  So.....more paperwork! I have 27 orchids, 7 of which are little guys that I'm nurturing and I can see how this could runs away from you.

 

So now to the herbs.  And this really is a funny story.  And the flashback came as a result of seeing Marie's article on the 7 herbs of spring. Anyway, when I first bought my little house on the outskirts of the desert in Tucson, I was so excited about the warm weather in October. I had just driven from NY where the weather was changing and I was so delighted to see so much still in bloom and the bees still busily working in the blooms.  The house had a number of outdoor planters about 20 inches deep and 4 feet long. Of course the first thing I did was go to a nursey and get all kinds of plants and herbs and plant them.  One of the planters was in a corner recess at the back of the house not easily visible unless you walked around the entire house.  Anyway, Tucson does have some frost killing nights in January and February where there can even be ice in the bird baths in the early morning.  Well, most of my plants and herbs died two- three months later.  At least everything I was able to see from the back patio and from the windows.  It was about late February/March when I decided to walk around the house and check what flowers I'd grow in the planters. I stepped around the corner and stopped short at the tree that was growing in the planter.  This thing was better than five feet tall. My little dill plant was now this very ambitious dill tree with a stalk about 2/3 of an inch thick! It had the protection and sun from the wall of the house, was tucked in a jag in the back of the house and had the benefit of a sprinkling system that came on once a week. I just caught it right. The weather hadn't burned the young shoots and the plant hadn't turned to seed as yet.  I grabbed a shears cut the branches and layed it on the dining room table and began to trim all the stems and dry the young shoots.  This took me three days!

 

Same house now.  I hadn't really met my neighbors yet and one day a woman from across the street came over and asked if she could cut a sprig of rosemary from my plant.  I said....sure, but I don't have a rosemary plant. I had lots of cacti and what looked like a juniper or hue tree but no rosemary.  "Out in the front you have a gorgeous rosemary bush!"  "This you are going to have to show me," and out I walked with her.  Now I inherited the gardener that the previous owner had and he came once a month and I figured I could probably handle that knowing I wasn't exactly the "hire a gardner kind." When he did come he'd use his power shears to trim this evergreen bush on the walk. The fragrance was magnificent. It was about three feet high and about four feet wide with unwieldy spikes that always needed to be trimmed. "Here, here's your rosemary bush."  For years in the northeast I've been trying to winterover my little rosemary plants, repotting them and bringing them into the house and always with no success.  So here I'm standing and staring at  what I thought was a hue or juniper.  So this beauty is my rosemary plant. I was in awe.  I never saw one that resembled a bush. "Sure, help yourself!"  Each of those 6 inch unwieldy spikes, was a full sprig of rosemary. So my stories of herbs in the southwest.

 

Well, I am off.  But keep in mind, my Arizona Wildcats had a victory over the Oregon State Beavers last night. Go Wildcats!   Bittersweet on-the-hill.

 

The things one does in the name of family. I graciously was a silent partner in a house building project which took about a year to build. It was a replication of a New England home and was a somewhat ambitious project.  Well, now it's collecting receipts and tabulating more receipts, more bills, contracted for items and labor breakdown!  And I'm am sitting here vowing.....never again!  But it was fun to watch and to realize the cost of little mistakes. The housing market is somewhat soft....did I say somewhat......but fortunately they found a buyer shortly after it went on the market.  The closing was last Wednesday and I think we are all breathing a sigh of relief. So....I am calculating and calculating and hopefully everything gets settled by the weekend.

 

Well the weather in the northeast still continues to be warm. Today we hit a high of 40 and I must say, the ground never froze. (As evidenced by the caked mud on peoples threaded work shoes!)  I went outside and was horrified when I saw my iris bed. The irises were up by almost 6 inches!  Not good. That iris bed is 10 years of labor and I'm just fearful of what could happen when we do get our winter.  And as has occured on occassion, winter can last into April and or May! That's when our worst storms have happened.  I'm thinking maybe if I'm lucky I can find some straw and perhaps cut the branches from the Christmas tree and cover them up a bit from the wind and ice. Well, things to work on.

 

The orchids that came in spike and bloom 2 or 3 weeks ago are doing well except that all the spikes and blooms got frost bite. The plants are aclimating well but every potential bloom died. But I have just now learned, no matter what they say, winter is not the time to buy orchids in spike or in bloom. Unfortunately when you buy them in spike/bloom you pay for the priviledge of having them in bloom.  I'll know better next time.

 

Well I am committed to working and culling out unnecessary papers on my desk. I save everything and 90 percent is stuff I'll never use or read again.  So I have hours of work there and that has noting to do with the receipts from the house that was built!  And I have to spend a little time on my cell phone. So be well.  Bittersweet

Saturday morning and while everyone is out, I am sitting at my computer drinking coffee.  The seed, flower and spring catalogues have started to come so I guess this catapults me into some different thinking.  My mother loved primeroses so I think I'll add a few to the remaining one that has survived in what was her garden.  I'm also thinking that this year it might be lots of red flowers to entice the hummingbirds back.  I think my neighbors stole them away from me so a concerted effort is required on my part. My gardens hold their interest in the spring but I usually loose their interest in summer. My neighbor, who I know stole all the hummingbirds offered me a honeysuckle vine to help me draw some back!  That's the least she could do! 

 

Well we had heavy rain early this morning and now it is clearing up quite nicely. But if you can believe.....a high of 62 and possibly higher today.  We started the morning at 55 very, very unseasonable.  It actually is frightening since things have started to bud. Upstate New York and 62 degrees! We will pay for this.

 

WE took down the Christmas tree yesterday and there was a sadness.  I didn't enjoy the holidays as much as usual. I think it's because we have certain childhood images of what the holidays are about and their was little to bring back those childhood memories. Christmas is snow, sleigh riding, the heavy overcoats, hot chocolate and the joy of slumbering in front of the indoor tree etc. The ambiance just wasn't there.  Granted there is more to Christmas than what our senses takes in but it sure does help.

 

I have a neighbor coming over and she wants to share some of her poetry with me. She writes a column for the local weekly on birds and her last piece was a poetry piece rather than her usual prose. It actually was quite well written and we're going to sit down and review some of our pieces. She has written for the paper for a number of years and I think she liked the idea of self-publishing several years of her work. Unless we do something to protect or preserve our work, in time it will end up as one big bon-fire. In some ways I'd like to encourage her to think along these lines of self-publishing.

 

So the weekend continues to be a time of reflection and to be thankful for the promise of the journey ahead.  Bittersweet.

The first realization is....that it is now 2007.  I like the ring of that especially since I am partial to odd numbers. In truth, we are experiencing the anti-winter!  New Year's Day - raining and 45 degrees.  The grass and fields are somewhat green and resembling late March more than early January. I suppose we should be somewhat thankful for the very mild temperatures but i want a wild and wooly nor'easter!  It will come!

 

Well my brother decided that I should have a cell phone.  So I am the proud owner of my first cell phone.  Since I've never had the need or interest in other people's cell phone numbers, I am calling my land phone. Both are in front of me; I call then answer the land phone, push a few more buttons and the land phone rings again. I think it will take me awhile to figure this out.  Last night it took me about 5 minutes to figure out how to get connected and make a call.  Some emergency tool this is.

 

Today I treat myself to something special. Someone gave us a basket of goodies and it included some hot chocolate powder.  So i am going to have a cup of hot chocolate with coffee icecream and a dallop of whipped cream.  I haven't had a cup of hot choclate in years and I think today is the day.  So Jorge......keep your coffee.....I'm having hot chocolate.  And then I'll read a little from MFK Fisher's "Sister Age." Now i know that she's not on everyones reading list! I was just reading the back cover....and quote, " But in her stories, it is the human strength in the unavoidable encounter with the end of life that Mrs. Fisher dramatizes so powerfully."  Now I know it is not for everyone! But she is a remarkable storyteller and an eloquent writer. And if she is too much, I will just finish "Leaving Microsoft to Change the World" by John Wood.

 

This afternoon I will have to take my Christmas tree down.  I haven't enjoyed it as long as I usually do but the tree is a fire hazzard. This was definitely not a "freshly cut tree," as my brother said.  I'll turn the lights on and then take off each ornament and recall its history while drinking my hot chocolate.  These are ornaments that my mother had and we've added to them over the years. I have lots of glass and hand blown glass ornaments that I truly cherish. If for some reason I were limited to taking only five items from this house, the ornaments would be one of them. They represent my childhood and many years of memory. The Dresden China would also be on that list as would my fountain pens and my books. The last item would be one of the following three; the family crest, a piece of furniture or my mother's picture. Gosh, what a tough choice.  I'd have to smuggle my mother's picture in there somehow. Things to think about.

 

So my friends.....Happy New Year.  A new year begins with new resolve.  Whatever that might be, be gentler and be kinder. Hugs from Bittersweet-on-the-hill.