I come from a long line of strong women. In fact my Minnesota heritage has a story of the Strong family name associated with Atwater Minnesota where my great grandmother Grace lived. Supposedly her step brother (Sidney Strong) stole the family farm....lots of history in all the land stolen from us. Tracing our lineage back to Ireland.
Thinking about family I've had and friends I've known...women have come out the strongest. I'm amazed by the ability of these people to live lives, hunker down over dreams, come to grips with other people's realities and submerge themselves for survival.
I sat with a girl I met over the weekend. Her first question to me was - how old are you? I said 35 she said "I'm 22." Then she ranted on about a man she broke up with 4 months ago who she'd dated for 6 years. In as few words as possible, since it was a frustrating conversation, I told her she'd find herself but probably not for another few years. It was hard to not project how I thought her life was going, until I took a step back and thought - she'll get there. The development of another strong woman. Sisters, cousins, nieces, mothers, aunts and friends.
They say 97% of literary fiction books are purchased by women. It sounds startling until I think, each of these women I've know, could write their own story. Not only would it be a struggle for each of them to find their true glory - it would be interesting.
To do exactly what one needs to - to survive, may leave people hurt, may leave people doubting, may leave people not trusting who you are. This is all only a projection of who they think you are in opposition to their own lives. Everyone wants to put you in a perspective, one they can admire or justify. Staying true to your path - doing what you want - may never gain understanding or friends, in the long run - only you can create your own joy.
Dan just said - "are you writing some feminist propaganda over there". I smirked and said "yep".
And so it goes....
Monday, April 30, 2012
Friday, April 27, 2012
Baby talk
I spend my entire day, talking in a low manly voice. This is to ensure the idea that I am in control and dominant. That my voice is actually heard in a roomful of men.
When I get home, I wander into simple womanly baby talk.
"ooooh can't you get me a drink of water?"
I find it interesting this duplicate life women must lead.... professional versus home. On the one hand I dominate a conversation on the other baby talk.
I look at the crinkles around my eyes.... telling tales of sunlight beaming and laughter bringing.
I live these two lives so I can be to you the observer, interesting and alluring.
and so it goes....
When I get home, I wander into simple womanly baby talk.
"ooooh can't you get me a drink of water?"
I find it interesting this duplicate life women must lead.... professional versus home. On the one hand I dominate a conversation on the other baby talk.
I look at the crinkles around my eyes.... telling tales of sunlight beaming and laughter bringing.
I live these two lives so I can be to you the observer, interesting and alluring.
and so it goes....
Sunday, April 22, 2012
Fire
Tall pine reduced to ash. Not without a final grand gesture. The teepee of material we used to capture the right amount of oxygen and heat sits atop a small bed of needles and birch bark kindling. Long ago before I become this good at making a fire, I'd use paper to start the fire. In fact, often I'd have to keep shoving paper into the bottom of the fire to keep it burning. I was a novice fire starter. No more, I'm part of this forest.
The flames reach a crescendo of dancing, blazing higher higher and higher. The bark of one of the logs has separated ever so slightly, the gap keeps widening. Heat pushes it further and further up in the air, threatening it to leave the log. Small flames lick up and under the bark. I imagine the flames rising underneath it, lifting and floating it into the sky. It would hover above me like a lantern, floating until it melded with the stars - who are always worshiping the moon.
My knees are burning, my back is cold. I want to rotate, but I'm stuck here looking deeper. It's mesmerizing. As a child, we almost always had a fireplace. The years past and a TV was brought into the house, now when I return for the holidays, a blazing fire is played on the screen. It's not the same, and it makes me laugh - in a childlike manner - for fire, is still a delight.
There is a fundamental draw of men to fire. Ancient cave drawings show men killing deer, antelope and buffalo. The stick figures slowly raise their spears and plunge them deep into the animals, providing sustenance for their families through the winter. Those drawings flicker in the fire light on the cave walls as the first motion pictures. I burn the rubber off the soles of my boots, being as close to the fire as possible without falling in.
The smoke burns my eyes. "I hate white rabbits" I choke out - in a strange statement that is suppose to ward off the smoke from my direction. I get up and hang the kettle for coffee over the flames. Tonight I write by this light, barely able to visualize the straggling sentence of redemption scrawling across the page in a downward slope.
Ash, coals, branches and logs layer upon layer make this fire burn. Many years of fires have been burned here, each providing a return of the pines to the ground. I just found out my sister-in-law has cancer. It swirls and smokes the conversation tonight. It makes me choke on the intensity. She's too young. It's bullshit. A person is suppose to live a happy full life - somewhere in the unforeseeable future have to deal with concepts of pain, age, death. No now. Not with a beautiful child, who's just learning what it means to live. I wish she was one of these towering pines. I wish you all were. Your grand gestures would continue on forever. I'd use you to warm me. You all look so beautiful with the dancing light on your faces.
The coffee fills my brain with a love buzz. My tears don't quench the coals. They sizzle and pop telling me be happy for this warm moment. Have faith that pain is only the fire, breaking our metal down to liquid so we can be reformed into a stronger metal.
The colors of the rainbow can be seen as I look hypnotized by this fire. Black. White. Red. Orange. Yellow. Purple. Blue. Green sparks shoot away, threatening to light my papers on fire, I lean away and stare at the cool night sky. The fire reaches out to capture bits of fuel outside the ring I've bound it to. I've spent a long night arguing why we make fires in ring. Why not squares? Why not triangles?
My skin, hair and clothes take on this smokey nature perfume. The wind shifts, pulling the fire from its vertical flow to a horizontal slant. The sound is hollow and full. At the edge of one of the logs, a bit of sap drips down like lava.
Fire is not required for life. For centuries it has allowed us to consume more than we need. Cooking food, washing clothes, brewing beer, sterilizing the tools that will cut away this disease that threatens to take from us what it does not deserve to have. I'm angry and scared.
Close to the fire I feel safe. I slip into the edge of the woods for relief - gazing back at its warmth. I want to get back to the safe glow as soon as possible. It's an obsession that we have had as a human race, since the well documented dark ages, extending the day, warding of the spirits that threaten to pick us off one by one - when no one is looking. I howl at the moon. The wolves howl back. I love to hear them, as long as I know, they're at a comfortable distance and I have my fire.
And so it goes...
The flames reach a crescendo of dancing, blazing higher higher and higher. The bark of one of the logs has separated ever so slightly, the gap keeps widening. Heat pushes it further and further up in the air, threatening it to leave the log. Small flames lick up and under the bark. I imagine the flames rising underneath it, lifting and floating it into the sky. It would hover above me like a lantern, floating until it melded with the stars - who are always worshiping the moon.
My knees are burning, my back is cold. I want to rotate, but I'm stuck here looking deeper. It's mesmerizing. As a child, we almost always had a fireplace. The years past and a TV was brought into the house, now when I return for the holidays, a blazing fire is played on the screen. It's not the same, and it makes me laugh - in a childlike manner - for fire, is still a delight.
There is a fundamental draw of men to fire. Ancient cave drawings show men killing deer, antelope and buffalo. The stick figures slowly raise their spears and plunge them deep into the animals, providing sustenance for their families through the winter. Those drawings flicker in the fire light on the cave walls as the first motion pictures. I burn the rubber off the soles of my boots, being as close to the fire as possible without falling in.
The smoke burns my eyes. "I hate white rabbits" I choke out - in a strange statement that is suppose to ward off the smoke from my direction. I get up and hang the kettle for coffee over the flames. Tonight I write by this light, barely able to visualize the straggling sentence of redemption scrawling across the page in a downward slope.
Ash, coals, branches and logs layer upon layer make this fire burn. Many years of fires have been burned here, each providing a return of the pines to the ground. I just found out my sister-in-law has cancer. It swirls and smokes the conversation tonight. It makes me choke on the intensity. She's too young. It's bullshit. A person is suppose to live a happy full life - somewhere in the unforeseeable future have to deal with concepts of pain, age, death. No now. Not with a beautiful child, who's just learning what it means to live. I wish she was one of these towering pines. I wish you all were. Your grand gestures would continue on forever. I'd use you to warm me. You all look so beautiful with the dancing light on your faces.
The coffee fills my brain with a love buzz. My tears don't quench the coals. They sizzle and pop telling me be happy for this warm moment. Have faith that pain is only the fire, breaking our metal down to liquid so we can be reformed into a stronger metal.
The colors of the rainbow can be seen as I look hypnotized by this fire. Black. White. Red. Orange. Yellow. Purple. Blue. Green sparks shoot away, threatening to light my papers on fire, I lean away and stare at the cool night sky. The fire reaches out to capture bits of fuel outside the ring I've bound it to. I've spent a long night arguing why we make fires in ring. Why not squares? Why not triangles?
My skin, hair and clothes take on this smokey nature perfume. The wind shifts, pulling the fire from its vertical flow to a horizontal slant. The sound is hollow and full. At the edge of one of the logs, a bit of sap drips down like lava.
Fire is not required for life. For centuries it has allowed us to consume more than we need. Cooking food, washing clothes, brewing beer, sterilizing the tools that will cut away this disease that threatens to take from us what it does not deserve to have. I'm angry and scared.
Close to the fire I feel safe. I slip into the edge of the woods for relief - gazing back at its warmth. I want to get back to the safe glow as soon as possible. It's an obsession that we have had as a human race, since the well documented dark ages, extending the day, warding of the spirits that threaten to pick us off one by one - when no one is looking. I howl at the moon. The wolves howl back. I love to hear them, as long as I know, they're at a comfortable distance and I have my fire.
And so it goes...
Trees
The golden leaves
fall
on my face.
I'm lying in a puddle of leaves. I raked them together just for my pleasure of jumping in, falling backwards and scattering the pile across the yard, again. The leaves on my face rush upwards away from me. They rise back to the trees reattaching themselves.
They turn from brilliant reds and oranges - back to green. The tree branches stretch and groan beneath their weight. Each leaf feeds the tree with a mixture of chloroplast, converting the sunshine into sugar - the building blocks of carbon. When a tree is cut, the remaining nutrients rush from their veins, just like blood from ours - and surge into a neighboring tree. Many people don't know the trees intertwine and graft their roots together, sharing in the bounty of other trees.
We've all been told, you can tell how old a tree is by the rings inside. Each ring has a width, some wide some thin. The thin rings tell a history of the year, very little water and nutrients. The larger rings when the tree had exponential growth. You can count back to a specific drought or a bountiful year of rain.
I close my eyes and gently caress the bark like a blind girl reading braille. I can hear and feel the history as I push my fingers into a wound. A family of ants run over my hand, wondering where I've come from, this alien form on their path home. Their antennas wiggle as they pause on top.
If I could stand still here, silent, I'd be absorbed. The tree would hold my hand and we'd grow old together. I imagine the surprise of a random person's face when they crossed this path and see a skeleton in an embrace with this tree.
The leaves are turning lighter shades of iridescent green. They are growing smaller, rolling back into their buds. The stretching limbs recede. The trunk grows thinner. The giant tree I love is just a small fragile sapling. I caress the top of it. It feels like soft grass. It disappears into the ground, just a random seed that fell from its mother. How it found its way into this soil, in this place, where a small sparrow had fallen from its nest providing a bed of fertilizer, is the mystery I am confounded by.
The giant elms line the drive leading up the white farm house with the red barn and the giant grain silo. The kids have strung a pulley inside the silo, across the top, beneath the arching dome. They jump on and swing from side to side. I'm scared of drowning in the barely. I hold on tightly, until I'm on the other side. Everyone is cheering.
The street trees wait patiently for the rain to trickle through the grate. Their stunted growth makes them into bonsai for us to drive our bicycles under. I'm a bit tipsy as I weave down the sidewalk ringing my bell with an open bottle of wine in my basket.
The trees on my property are aspen. They grow together as one giant organism, like a field of very tall, strong grass. I feel guilty when one of them is cut. I hope its like a haircut and they feel no pain, but simply strut around feeling sharp, knowing room has opened for one more of them to grow.
The giant firs tower on the mountain side. They grow up the slope until the ridge line stops them saying: "No further. Our peaks must rise in grandeur to greet the sun. We beg you to retreat, there are no nutrients here for you to take." A big horned sheep jumps past the trees and looks back as if to say "join me as I play and cavort in my surefooted ways".
The size of the trees in the Olympic National Forest off the coast of Washington State are hard for anyone to fathom, unless you've stood beneath their glory. The pacific temperate rain forest allow these trees years of moisture and constant nutrients. Stretching wide, their branches hang with moss, dripping with the beauty of age.
Together each ecosystem takes our human pollutants and transforms it into new clean oxygen, as the lungs to our planet.
I hold my tree with baited breath...just to hear it whisper and sigh. And so it goes...
fall
on my face.
I'm lying in a puddle of leaves. I raked them together just for my pleasure of jumping in, falling backwards and scattering the pile across the yard, again. The leaves on my face rush upwards away from me. They rise back to the trees reattaching themselves.
They turn from brilliant reds and oranges - back to green. The tree branches stretch and groan beneath their weight. Each leaf feeds the tree with a mixture of chloroplast, converting the sunshine into sugar - the building blocks of carbon. When a tree is cut, the remaining nutrients rush from their veins, just like blood from ours - and surge into a neighboring tree. Many people don't know the trees intertwine and graft their roots together, sharing in the bounty of other trees.
We've all been told, you can tell how old a tree is by the rings inside. Each ring has a width, some wide some thin. The thin rings tell a history of the year, very little water and nutrients. The larger rings when the tree had exponential growth. You can count back to a specific drought or a bountiful year of rain.
I close my eyes and gently caress the bark like a blind girl reading braille. I can hear and feel the history as I push my fingers into a wound. A family of ants run over my hand, wondering where I've come from, this alien form on their path home. Their antennas wiggle as they pause on top.
If I could stand still here, silent, I'd be absorbed. The tree would hold my hand and we'd grow old together. I imagine the surprise of a random person's face when they crossed this path and see a skeleton in an embrace with this tree.
The leaves are turning lighter shades of iridescent green. They are growing smaller, rolling back into their buds. The stretching limbs recede. The trunk grows thinner. The giant tree I love is just a small fragile sapling. I caress the top of it. It feels like soft grass. It disappears into the ground, just a random seed that fell from its mother. How it found its way into this soil, in this place, where a small sparrow had fallen from its nest providing a bed of fertilizer, is the mystery I am confounded by.
The giant elms line the drive leading up the white farm house with the red barn and the giant grain silo. The kids have strung a pulley inside the silo, across the top, beneath the arching dome. They jump on and swing from side to side. I'm scared of drowning in the barely. I hold on tightly, until I'm on the other side. Everyone is cheering.
The street trees wait patiently for the rain to trickle through the grate. Their stunted growth makes them into bonsai for us to drive our bicycles under. I'm a bit tipsy as I weave down the sidewalk ringing my bell with an open bottle of wine in my basket.
The trees on my property are aspen. They grow together as one giant organism, like a field of very tall, strong grass. I feel guilty when one of them is cut. I hope its like a haircut and they feel no pain, but simply strut around feeling sharp, knowing room has opened for one more of them to grow.
The giant firs tower on the mountain side. They grow up the slope until the ridge line stops them saying: "No further. Our peaks must rise in grandeur to greet the sun. We beg you to retreat, there are no nutrients here for you to take." A big horned sheep jumps past the trees and looks back as if to say "join me as I play and cavort in my surefooted ways".
The size of the trees in the Olympic National Forest off the coast of Washington State are hard for anyone to fathom, unless you've stood beneath their glory. The pacific temperate rain forest allow these trees years of moisture and constant nutrients. Stretching wide, their branches hang with moss, dripping with the beauty of age.
Together each ecosystem takes our human pollutants and transforms it into new clean oxygen, as the lungs to our planet.
I hold my tree with baited breath...just to hear it whisper and sigh. And so it goes...
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
U Pick Farms
So...I'm setting up my calendar for the upcoming year. Not based on birthdays. Not based on trips and adventures. Based on U Pick Farms!
Fruit/ vegetable Normal picking dates
Fruit/ vegetable Normal picking dates
- Apples Mid-August through November - see specific varieties, further down this page
- Asparagus May and June
- Beans July through September
- Blueberries July through mid August
- Carrots August through mid November
- Cucumbers Mid July through September
- Garlic August through November
- Grapes Mid August through September
- Greens May through October
- Melons August and September
- Onions Mid September through mid November
- Peppers Mid July to mid September
- Potatoes August through mid November
- Raspberries Mid June through October
- Rhubarb May through September
- Strawberries June and July
- Squash July through mid November
- Sweet Corn Mid July through September
- Tomatoes Mid July through September
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
Small town
I took a quiz the other day to see if I truly "understand America" - are you part of the 1%? Not California or Portland or NYC - but the real place where people live below the poverty line, don't eat sushi because it doesn't exist, don't buy coffee at starbucks and like to listen to country music.
After answering a long list of personal questions - it came out: I must live in a lower class community but have a wealthy person's "tastes". One of the key questions that made me chuckle: Have you ever attended a Rotary meeting or other local community organization? I checked YES. Today - it was voted unanimously that I become an official member. It's a sunrise meeting at 7am! I'm the only woman - which is never unsual in this line of work.
Why you say? Because I want to find a way to help people without being a regulator. Sure "I" think of my job as helping people. I'm protecting property rights, I'm making sure our water stays pristine, I'm growing the economy by being an out of the box thinker when it comes to high quality development, and I love seeing a building go up that I approved. In the end though - I regulate other people. With Rotary - I'm going to be able to give back and simply help.
The other reason? I get to listen to amazing "other programs" that I may never have enough time to help with - but just maybe instead of being an elitist - I can still love great cinema and good coffee - but also help my community.
Today's meeting was about the future of a community health center. Out of 87 counties in Minnesota - Beltrami ranks 87 for providing health services to the impoverished. A group is trying to get a community health program to be placed in this community.
About one in five people in Beltrami live in poverty — nearly a quarter of all children. The poverty rate in Beltrami County is nearly 21 percent and need is increasing, but resources are shrinking. Since the recession, the number of people getting some type of public assistance has climbed to approximately 6,000, up from around 5,000. 32 percent adults smoking, 29 percent adults obese, 22 percent excessive drinking and 44 percent having easy access to healthy foods. - MNPR News
If I could go back and do my life over again - I'd become a psychologist. I strongly feel that breaking the cycle of any health or poverty issues - is an understanding of who we are - what we're truly capable of and how to make the resources work. Extrodinary things have come from underated humans...
Oh and on being lower than the 1percent - my birthday presents included: A book on 1/4 acre farming. A camping knife. A kettle to brew coffee over the fire. A grill to set up over the fire. A gift card to Gander Mountain (thanks to my mother in law). A gift card to a local plant nursery.
I consider myself an eclectic redneck!
And so it goes...
After answering a long list of personal questions - it came out: I must live in a lower class community but have a wealthy person's "tastes". One of the key questions that made me chuckle: Have you ever attended a Rotary meeting or other local community organization? I checked YES. Today - it was voted unanimously that I become an official member. It's a sunrise meeting at 7am! I'm the only woman - which is never unsual in this line of work.
Why you say? Because I want to find a way to help people without being a regulator. Sure "I" think of my job as helping people. I'm protecting property rights, I'm making sure our water stays pristine, I'm growing the economy by being an out of the box thinker when it comes to high quality development, and I love seeing a building go up that I approved. In the end though - I regulate other people. With Rotary - I'm going to be able to give back and simply help.
The other reason? I get to listen to amazing "other programs" that I may never have enough time to help with - but just maybe instead of being an elitist - I can still love great cinema and good coffee - but also help my community.
Today's meeting was about the future of a community health center. Out of 87 counties in Minnesota - Beltrami ranks 87 for providing health services to the impoverished. A group is trying to get a community health program to be placed in this community.
About one in five people in Beltrami live in poverty — nearly a quarter of all children. The poverty rate in Beltrami County is nearly 21 percent and need is increasing, but resources are shrinking. Since the recession, the number of people getting some type of public assistance has climbed to approximately 6,000, up from around 5,000. 32 percent adults smoking, 29 percent adults obese, 22 percent excessive drinking and 44 percent having easy access to healthy foods. - MNPR News
If I could go back and do my life over again - I'd become a psychologist. I strongly feel that breaking the cycle of any health or poverty issues - is an understanding of who we are - what we're truly capable of and how to make the resources work. Extrodinary things have come from underated humans...
Oh and on being lower than the 1percent - my birthday presents included: A book on 1/4 acre farming. A camping knife. A kettle to brew coffee over the fire. A grill to set up over the fire. A gift card to Gander Mountain (thanks to my mother in law). A gift card to a local plant nursery.
I consider myself an eclectic redneck!
And so it goes...
Monday, April 9, 2012
Turning 35
Last week - I took a break from the blog. I was at a training to learn to install and design septic tanks. Now before you think of me slopping around in sewage....I look at it as saving the pristine water that is Minnesota's lakes. Oh and ya, using my soil and water science degree. The science behind septic systems is fascinating. Soil is titillating if you're a soil scientist. The ability for water full of pathogens to be cleaned by filtering through 3 feet of soil and come out the other side - ready to meet back with the hydrologic cycle is amazing! Most people when they think of building a home or a cabin retreat just want to know - everything is going to work - and what's the dollar amount. Really, you're figuring out how to preserve the natural systems so you can fish, drink fresh water and relax on a summer's day. Brilliant.
To truly enjoy the adventure - instead of staying in a stuffy hotel - we rented a cabin. But not any cabin! This one was at the top of Spirit Mountain. It had an overlook to Duluth. A beautiful city on the shores of Lake Superior. We could see for miles all around us (when we weren't fogged in). A great experience leading up to a momentous birthday.
Then we ventured home to our wonderful house in Bemidji. Where I graciously welcomed another year... With some dancing! If you must get older - stay light on your feet... and so it goes.
To truly enjoy the adventure - instead of staying in a stuffy hotel - we rented a cabin. But not any cabin! This one was at the top of Spirit Mountain. It had an overlook to Duluth. A beautiful city on the shores of Lake Superior. We could see for miles all around us (when we weren't fogged in). A great experience leading up to a momentous birthday.
Then we ventured home to our wonderful house in Bemidji. Where I graciously welcomed another year... With some dancing! If you must get older - stay light on your feet... and so it goes.
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