Bathroom White

I don't know how you handle stress, but I paint things.
Not paintings, but things--under the stairs, the insides of closets, basement walls, bathrooms--things that rarely get painted and usually need it.

This is my recessive Romanian side (the more dominant Irish side just makes jokes and drinks when stressed).

All year long, the Romanian Aunties scrubbed the paint off of everything so that they could repaint in the Spring. Often with those little Slavic patterns of dots and dashes. I tried dots and dashes, but leaning toward instant gratification I am more of a stamp-it, sticker freak instead of the more traditional Romanian Morse code for I hate my life today.

In the past, to lift my spirits, I purchased inappropriate colors that look fabulous on a 2X2 swatch and not so fabulous on an entire wall. That was how painting inside closets and under stairways got started. I'm over that. Now I buy Dutch Boy soft white because I like the little Dutch Boy and really good brushes so that I can paint anywhere anytime and perk myself up with my sticker accessories.

Today I painted the tired old vinyl bathroom floor. Yes, of course you can, and even if you can't just keep painting it if it wears. It lasts a good year and by then I need to paint something again anyway.

Have you been sticker shopping lately? A product of the 10 small red stars equal 1 big gold star generation, a sticker is the ultimate reward for the child in me and stickers are wonderful these days.

To my now soft white vinyl floor with the 1986 2x2 embossed faux tile pattern I have centered golden opalescent translucent geckos and red dragonflies in an alternating pattern. I also have pastel elephants and ladybugs and frogs but haven't decided how these will fit into my motif.

Fortunately, I am rarely motif constrained and will stick them wherever I please. After I have the whole design thing established and stickered down I will fast-dry urethane over the top and life will be good, or at least the kids can use the bathroom again.

Trust me on this one, nothing smothers trouble like a nice coat of white paint...and a shimmering opalescent gecko.

No Particular Thing at All

One of the writing strategies I've learned is that when you can't think of anything to write just start typing.
However, don't use this as a conversational tool.

I wrote a  "My Children's Story" for a class in indigenous agriculture that worked out pretty well. My kids love it anyway. I'm considering writing more of these as a way to share our family history before they are too old and cool to care.

The point of the exercise was to emphasize that most ancient knowledge was passed down in story form and that most modern humans can't tell much of their personal history because many of us don't even know our own story. That is the disturbing commentary of our time, we've stopped sharing the instruction manual.

From the class I've gained a healthy respect for indigenous people. The annihilated tribes and the few that remain were/are not ignorant barbarians, but very complicated societies that function in harmony with nature, not in opposition to it. I'm just learning about the coastal Salish tribes that managed resources in the Pacific North West for more than 15,000 years. Unlike the tribes of the vast American prairies, that were few and far between so of course they left a small footprint, Salish tribes were numerous, lived in close proximity and managed to live sustainably long before it became the buzz word.

I was surprised to learn that indigenous tribes manage their territory. My idea of a hunter/gatherer society was like a browsing animal "pick stuff up and eat it, no stuff, no eat." Forgive me lord for I am a product of my biased grade school text books.

Far from being savage, these people had brilliant ideas. Way too many to condense here. One little example to facilitate basketry is that they selectively burned small portions of riparian areas so that the willow would grow back in abundance, straight, and of uniform length. They didn't need an industrialized technology because fire is a more elegant solution to meet the need.

Sheesh, and then they had time to tell stories to their children.

http://baynature.org/articles/jan-mar-2006/wild-gardens

Life isn't fair, but I can be.

Let Me Tell You ‘bout the Birds and the Bees

Today a friend sent me a link to a new documentary Queen of the Sun. I think I will buy it for our county library just so that I can see it sooner than later. It's about what is happening to the bees and ultimately...us.

http://www.queenofthesun.com/

My interest in natural science began as childhood curiosity about how and why living things work, especially the birds and the bees. Indeed, biology played a major role in the path that my life has taken.

I had planned on a romantic self-indulgent career in marine biology but the instinctive desire to preserve my DNA put that dream on hold.  Well, that and how ridiculous I thought I looked strapped into a wet suit.

Most of my middle life was spent on the Great Plains raising cattle and children. This fed my need to know how things grow and kept me busy enough to almost stop wondering. Almost.

Early on I began to question the need for all of the agricultural chemicals and antibiotics we used on our ranch. As it often happens my concerns were dismissed with the addition of “everything we use is safe enough to drink.”

Once when they sprayed “safe enough to drink” I woke to what sounded like soft hail on my tin roof. This turned out to be hundreds of birds. Even the little Rocky Mountain Bluebirds that I love so well were dead all about me. I kept my children inside for a week.

I called the state and forced an investigation, which served only to label me a hippy in my small community. My celebrity caused me to keep a low profile, but I continued to wonder and converted 175 acres to organic hay and lamb production.

Organic farming is wonderfully all consuming and it worked well for a time…until I got the bees. I really loved my bees, as much as I love those tiny Rocky Mountain Bluebirds.

Early January 2006 I checked my hives. All were full of healthy looking, active, winter bees and plenty of honey left them for the winter. When I checked in February the hives were still full of honey, pollen, and brood cells, but empty of bees.

Oh, there were a few deads, maybe a hundred in each hive, but nothing like the 20,000 workers and their queen that should have been there. They weren’t dead they were just…gone. In the frigid desolation of a prairie winter bees do not naturally swarm or even leave the hive very often. I didn’t know it, but I had been devastated by Colony Collapse Disorder.

The birds and the bees caught my interest as a child and they sent me back to school as a woman in an attempt to understand what is happening in our world and how it can possibly be “safe enough to drink.”

I am working on my Masters with a more feasible eye toward soil science and food security instead of marine biology, but frankly I just can’t see myself in a wet suit anymore.

Life isn't fair, but I can be.

Going Coastal

Today is stormy and amazing. We haven't had rain for a week and I was getting a little tired of the nice weather. Nice weather demands cheerfulness and cheerfulness can be such a burden.

On the other hand, a majestic storm limits possibilities and forces us to sit back. Unless you are in the Coast Guard, there's nothing you can do in the face of a really good storm except read, drink coffee and catch up on sleep.

Storms charge my soul like sunshine never could, and they give me perspective. In the great scheme of global weather I am an insignificant speck. Does it really matter if I miss a deadline? Not if there is a storm.

Here's wishing you stormy weather, good books, plenty of coffee, and food for thought...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQERicjyc4o 

Aughhh! Coffee

Day three and I am painfully behind here.
However, this is not a bipolar issue of following a shiny object. I had a story deadline and finishing that puts me way beyond my 1000WC today. Yay me!

I could just sleep in tomorrow except that I have another deadline and that pesky forestry quiz.
Gack

Kimchi and Coffee

I have some kimchi fermenting in a crock on the kitchen counter. Kimchi is a Korean staple of fermented Napa cabbage, onions, carrots, garlic, diakon radish (and whatever else is in the frig) with enough ginger, fish sauce and red pepper to knock you off the chair.

I love it even though it produces breath that necessitates increased personal space by a factor of ten. Fermented foods, that are not pasteurized or heat preserved, are full of beneficial microorganisms. The recipe is very easy and pretty loosely based on personal preference. If you are interested in trying it, Google video.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeBR91ypxk4

Gosh, how did we pass information before the internet?

I'm still figuring out this blog thing, but will try and insert a picture of it in the recycled Costco Animal Cracker jug that stores it in the refrigerator. Fermented veggies can keep for a year, but mine never last more than a week or so.  I might be addicted to microbes as well as coffee and we sure know I am addicted to fermented barley beverages.

HaHa! I did it. Please note the forced hyacinth in the background. The fragrance of hyacinth combined with fermenting vegetables is beyond description. Fermenting, just a gentler way to say rot. Yummy.

More later, I have a forestry quiz and I am ill prepared. I simply cannot keep my conifers in order. That's a taxonomic joke in case you missed it.

AM Coffee PM Corona BiPolar Anyone?

I prefer the term manic and to a certain degree depressive although, I tend toward the mania and I hope that you do too. This is a 365 day account of what goes on in the mind of a madmam. Mad as in Hatter not as in angry.

On any given day I am a parent, work full-time on my Masters in soil science, employed part-time, remodeling a giant old house, rehabilitating 2 acres of degraded soils for food production, and trying to keep physically fit.
Sometimes some of these things actually work out, just not all on the same day.

I like my disorder, I get a lot done. So then, there is order in disorder and function in dysfunction.

Today started at 5AM. Not a morning person, I get up early so that by the time I need to be alive...I am. I lit the home fires brewed a pot of coffee, of course, and here I am.

I should be on the treadmill, but instead am typing away for no particular reason at all. I try to keep to my goal of 1000 words a day to improve my writing skills. I want all of this word writing profundity to account for something even if it is just a misuse of bandwith.

To get you started with a laugh follow the link. My personal favorite, bird number one playing the nighttime/daytime game. I am that bird.

Not made my WC goal yet, but this is a start and starting is half the journey.

On to the T-mill...yuk, I hate it so, but I can watch a soil lecture while I go walkies. Does anyone but me remember that British lady dog trainer from the '70s PBS Show? Ahh a voice like Julia Childs on helium.

http://www.wimp.com/animalvoiceovers/