hello, it's me...

It's been a long week and we didn't finish this job. In fact we are having to redo a section because the first time didn't come out that great. It's an unpredictable technique. I'll have to come back next week for several days to finish it. But that's OK. I'll just make sure one of those days is Thursday. That would be 'yoga with the girls' day.

It's been nice, having the grandkids hang out in the afternoons/early evenings but I am almost out of clean underwear. Plus it's like living in a Korean dormitory here...stuff works, sort of. And more than once we've had to make do without something that isn't here, but at home.

Along with all the stuff I had to do on this job, I also got together with our friend Gene who does fused glass to work out a sample. He has already done two very simple renditions that we decided to fuse together for a very cool effect and then we did another. It needs work. There are several things I would change if I was going to re-do it (not use that dark red glass for one, use more frit or powder for shading for another). Instead we are going to try a different flower from the proposed panel next week.

And we're casting a bunch of little egg shells. The first time we ran through the kiln program, I picked one of eight at random and demolded it to see if it had cast and it had not. So now the kiln is going through the program again with a longer period at casting temperature. I hope they cast this time. I hope we haven't slipped out of the groove and are now going to be faced with a bunch of failures til we get warmed up again.

All in all, I'll be glad to get home for a few days.

river vignette 9 - Lower Canyons of the Rio Grande

In the city this week fabricating the small job we have and taking care of some other business.

Our first cool front of the year has finally made it here and given us a break from the heat and humidity. Fall is some of our best weather; warm days, cool nights, low humidity and a clear blue sky.

Makes me want to be on the river.

The desert and canyons are very green, remarkably so. Ocotilla and lechugia are blooming. Also several types of yellow and purple flowers. All signs of recent rains. There are dragonflies, damselflies, and butterflies of all sizes and types everywhere. Swallowtails, monarchs, fritillaries, checkerspots, sulfurs, whites, and brushfoots. The yellow and orange sulphurs cluster together and rest on the ground or in the low growing plants, rising like a cloud when disturbed. Swallowtails, monarchs, and fritillaries fly around unconcerned with our presence, sometimes even landing on us. After we make camp a huge beautiful black, white and gray butterfly (moth?) comes to rest on my arm while I am eating and stays for about 15 minutes.

another one down

and another one bites the dust...

My mother-in-law called last Thursday to let us know that Rosane was dying. Her health had been deteriorating for several years. She was in the hospital for a bleeding ulcer that was not responding to treatment and with her family at her side she decided to have them stop the transfusions and let nature take it's course. She was 84.

Friday we got the call that Rosane had passed.

My husband comes from an enormous family with lots of siblings and aunts and uncles and cousins out the wazoo and they all like each other. Rosane was my mother-in-law's first cousin. When I married into this family it was a little overwhelming, the more so because I come from a very small family. Life cycle events were/are celebrated by inviting everybody and everybody comes. It was not unusual to find myself abandoned in the midst while Marc hung out outside with the rest of the smokers BS-ing with the cousins. I learned to make my way and place and eventually, the names and the intricacies of relatedness. I still have trouble calling up some of the names of the younger generation but I know which cousin they belong to.

So at these gatherings that usually involve food and music along with whatever ritual is being observed I would seek out certain individuals of the previous generation, the current reigning elders, make sure I greeted them, provide whatever service. One of those was the flamboyant Aunt Florence. She left us 2 years ago. Some of them are Aunt Anna and Uncle Sid and I will be sad when they are done here. And one of them was Rosane. Rosane is, in the relatedness of it all, a first cousin once removed. Her son, David who is of our generation, is a second cousin. I would always go visit with Rosane and then take David away with me, David having remained single.

I would spirit David away with me to dance. I like to dance. I like the music, I like the beat, I like moving to it. Marc doesn't dance, doesn't really like it, doesn't really get it and though he will go out on the dance floor with me it's hard to drag him out there when he is outside. So unless David had a date we would hang out together. David isn't the only reason I would go sit with Rosane though. She was always warm and welcoming to me and interested in what I was up to.

Back when David's dad started to fail, he quit his job at an architectural firm to work freelance and moved home to help his mom care for him. Charles died 5 years ago and David stayed with his mom. And has cared for her as she began to fail.

For jews, usually, the funeral is set for the next day but maybe since Saturday is the sabbath, it was not scheduled til today, Sunday.

Many of the family had gathered for Rosane including some from Dallas. The casket was already in the pit when we arrived. The graveside service was short and to the point. People spoke, the prayers were said, the eulogy given, the dirt thrown.

The dirt thrown. This is probably my favorite part, aside from the being short part, of jewish funerals and I always take part. It just seems right to me.

At the end, after all is said, it is considered a mitzvah a good thing to help spread the blanket of dirt, putting the dear one to bed for the last time. Family and friends each take the shovel and throw a spade or two of dirt on the casket in the hole. I liked Rosane a lot but I didn't expect to get teary at her funeral. This part, though, is always the most poignant to me and I shed a few tears for her passing.

After all those who wanted to participate had, the two workers took over and proceeded to fill the hole. They were done before half the crowd had left. So now Rosane has passed and David is a caring soul with no charge.

Later, at the wake, I asked him.

“So David, what are you going to do now?”

He kind of shook his head, “I don't know” he replied, “everybody's asking me that.”

duets

It continues to surprise me how the seasons turn on a day, not a gentle gradual coming or going, but a noticeable...next! 
As if summer is being hustled off the stage with the hook.

The oaks have heard the chant and have started releasing their acorns. 
I don't know why this surprises me but every year, surprise me it does.

There is no looking up one day and realizing that, oh, it's fall, whenever did that happen? 
For me it's opening the door in the morning to summer one day and opening it to fall the next.

I realize the big old tallow in the little back yard has been losing leaves for weeks now and the ginkgo and pecan joined it last week. 
But now, in the second day past the equinox, they have definitely received some signal.

The angle of the light and the movement of the sun across the span from spring to fall has shifted and a breeze was stirring from the east.
We had rain of a different sort as leaves gently showered down.

balance

image via: http://paintedprayerbook.files.wordpress.com/2009/03/blog2008-autumnal-equinox.jpg

OK, I'm over my little snit. When I first saw the link at agairupdate.com I filled out the comment form on the website. I did get a reply and it was no less than I expected and I'm paraphrasing here: All that stuff is perfectly safe, humans are more important than bugs, you are spreading mis-information. Then he quoted our governor Rick Perry (a man I have voted against every single time) at me and told me that I needed to continue my education and that nobody would like the results if they quit using all that stuff. The tone was condescending.

I could, if I cared enough to waste the time, marshall all the facts and statistics I wanted to support my position. So could he, which is why it's an exercise in futility. He and I will never come to see the other's point of view. The differences are many and rooted in our belief systems. So live and let live. Surround yourself with chemicals and poison, dude. Infuse your house. Slather it on, take a bath in it, consume it. Just don't inflict it on me. Don't dump it into the atmosphere or water. Don't spread it on the earth. Just sayin'.

So. Did I mention that today, the day after the autumnal equinox I felt fall in the air for the first real time? There have been a few mornings when there was a hint but today it was all day. Something different about the air and the breeze. Still hot in the sun, it got up to 91˚, but the feeling lingered all day.

After abandoning the garden towards the end of July, we finally went out to clean it out and start getting it ready for a fall planting. We have some tomato plants and some brussells sprouts. I want to put in some kohlrabi but I think I should have started the seeds already. I pulled out grass and weeds while Marc uprooted all the old tomato plants. The banana peppers and bell peppers are still trying valiantly to produce. The regular rains have helped since I stopped watering. The strawberry plants reproduced and I need to move them to a dedicated bed.

I'm looking forward to the weekend.

we interrupt our regularly scheduled programming...

I was thinking about doing a post on the equinox, about how some signal has been received by the trees in the last several days re the amount of leaves that are being shed or about the slow creep to the longest night that is beginning, but I got sidetracked.

I was checking my stats today and saw I had (the total is now) 55 referrals from www.agairupdate.com. Agairupdate is a website and on-line newsletter for crop dusters. It took me a little while to find the link he posted to my blog. But find it I did...This is the mentality and mindset aerial applicators face as urbanites move to the country...as if I'm leading the pitchfork armed mob storming the pilot in his plane.

He seems to take issue with my opinion concerning poisons in the environment. Never mind that my post only had one little sentence at the very end about the local crop duster. Never mind that my post was not about 'aerial applications' or how conscientious (or not) the people who do it are. Never mind that I did not lambaste agribusiness specifically or farmers in general. Never mind that he doesn't know anything about me. Never mind that the bit about the crop duster was about the irony in my life and not about the crop duster, who was btw just doing his job.

The ever supportive partner, when I showed him the rudely worded link, said, “He's right.”

“No, he is not right!” I replied indignantly.

I'm not some urbanite getting away from it all on my little ranchette on the weekends or complaining about the noise of the plane and the smell of whatever chemical from my gated community big city suburb recently carved out of ranch or farmland. Yes, I would prefer if the farmers engaged in a more sustainable form of agriculture and stopped pumping chemicals into the air and ground. Yes, I think that people and other living things would be better off without all the poison that is used everyday without thought. But if I was going to engage in any kind of protest I would start with my neighbors and try to get them to reduce the amount of household and garden toxins they use.

I guess he needed a bogeyman and thought I fit the bill. Apparently he's not aware of all the country people (as opposed to us transplanted urbanites) who think aerial application is at the root of a lot of serious illness in their families.

In the meantime, I will just take care of my little half acre making it the healthiest ecosystem I can without poisons.

pie

This was my dinner last night.

Chicken pot pie or peach pie?

Hee hee. If you guessed chicken pot pie then you don't know me very well.