I Didn't Mean To Say It

"Mom was saying 'sh#*!" a lot when we checked the bees yesterday," Trinidad told Sam as we ate lunch together. Sam giggled and looked at me disbelieving. He and I have been discussing the potential consequences of swearing.

"Yeah," said Trinidad, who had been suited up and manning the smoker beside me the day before. "We took apart the boxes and she said 'Sh$*! Baby bees!' [these, white and undeveloped, exposed to the sun above the frame] then we looked some more and she said, 'Sh&$! There's the queen. Sh%^! Sh@#! We can't squish the queen!'"

Sam rolled his eyes at me and giggled again.

"I guess," I said (humbly, mind you) "that there is a secret place in your Mama where the sh%* is stored, and in certain extreme situations, the door just flies open and it all comes out."

Trinidad's broad grin showed his half-chewed lunch. Sam fell off the picnic table bench laughing.

"Now, Mom," Trinidad reasoned,"the time you almost skidded our car off the icy road and you were saying 'Da^%!' and 'Sh*^!' I could understand, because it was a life-or-death situation."

"I did say the Lords Prayer afterward and forgave my father [the earthly one] for all that I held against him. I did do that."

"Well, yes," said Trinidad, "But the beehive wasn't that bad, was it?"

"30,000 bees lost and 25 pounds of surplus honey, all gone with us responsible. I'd call that bad."

He thought a moment. "Sh&#," he said.

What's It Worth?

"Sam, would you like to help me with the weeding?"

"Well...would you pay me?"

"Mmmm -- yes. Even though I don't get paid."

"That's alright, Mama. You can pay me, and I'll give you half."

Offloading Surplus

Here's a follow-up to the "Don't Like My Peaches" post.

I'm thinking about surplus. In particular, I'm thinking about trees dropping apples by the pound onto hard concrete, seniors who have time and no money, kale plants lushly bolting into seed while their gardeners show up nine-to-five at their paid workplaces. All this care, these resources, the synergistic kindness of Gaia in our stewardship, dissipating into the environment without meeting needs.

A request, in NVC, is the point at which an action is begged. It is where the rubber meets the road and food hard won is placed in the hands of the hungry. Expression without it is a chorus of feelings and needs, authentic and courageous, but spoken without the effect of meeting needs.

We all have our peaches. On my tree, there is time to spend. Time for laundry, dishes, cooking, reading to children, weeding and planting. Those who are nourished by my efforts land here. And I have needs unmet as well. Wouldn't I like more time to really focus and play with my children, time to nurture myself? How will I find it?

Surplus. I have enough peaches to share, but I need some beans. When my peaches are ripe and easy to collect, I pick and I eat, I can and I freeze, I jam and I bake. After this effort has been made, a hole in the fabric can become apparent.

Too many peaches. The way our culture is currently set up, we operate in isolation. Each of us goes to the grocery store to support our little islands of family with the food we need. Sometimes we don't even look out the back door at what Gaia has to offer. At a potluck last week, I noticed we were low on greens and offered to go pick some wild cress and dandelion. Spring is bountiful in so many ways.

What do we do with our excess peaches? If we habitually stumble into our cars, go to work and shop with eyes to our own needs alone, the peaches will go to the bugs. It ain't a bad thing to feed the worms, but given the amount of damage we do to our natural world in order to feed ourselves out of grocery bags, I'll say we could be more efficient.

Here is a request, a call to action. You consider your surplus, and I'll consider mine. Those resources we stockpile without using are a liability to ourselves as energetic clutter and to the world as we pay cash to consume new materials. I propose that we learn to see our lettuces before they bolt and share them, care for the children that show up and work themselves into the fray, feed the neighboring elderly when we cook too much for ourselves. I propose that we even assert ourselves in helping each other to recognize our talents, abilities, and resources to share. I invite you to educate me!

This shift requires awareness first and then a willingness to share. If it is truly surplus that we witness on our shelves, then it can be parted with painlessly, particularly if cumulative losses are greater if it is not used. Consider: if I pull the flowering kale from my garden and feed you effortlessly, then you may do the same, catching me by surprise to meet my needs later. At times, we are asked to give what is not surplus, and we want to be generous (integrity) and to see others' needs met. A graceful decline is all the easier (and often better received) in view of what we routinely give with ease! My offering is a bank deposit with no strings attached.

I do not give in this way with the expectation of a gift in return. I do give in this way as a strategy to meet my needs for sustainability. To give and to give and to give... the natural cycle of life cannot be broken. I will receive.

But I am in choice about what I will give. I give my best to those who want it, and it will be my surplus. Will you join me?

Best Kid Stuff For Creation and Play

I just ran across a list I composed a couple of years ago and decided to post it. What follows is my own "Best of" list regarding what children most enjoy occupying themselves with. Early on, it became apparent that most toys go obsolete within minutes or hours, and still we (as a society) throw our money at them, stare at them gathering dust, and then send them to the landfills. We don't need much to fully enjoy our development, and this list happily serves ages 1-100.

Here it is:
boxes (add tape for hours more fun)
balls
natural fiber scarves
blocks
marbles and marble mazes
dolls
paper, pens, crayons, colored pencils, paints and brushes
clay (as in the kind that dries -- I run from modeling clay)
bird seed in a large flat bucket (my favorite gift for the 3 and under crowd)
vehicles

Short list, huh? Countless variations, but my experience has pointed to keeping it simple. Please post a comment to add your own favorites. Hope it's helpful for an upcoming birthday party!

What They Said....

No names named, here are some gems from kids in my world this week:

Advertising spy services,
"I'm a Spy. You can tell because of my [cowboy] boots and... all this stuff [sunglasses]. My shirt says 'Sketchers,' but it's really a spy shirt -- see? It says 'S.' Spy."

Describing a younger sibling,
"He was excited about 'dickers' which was his word for 'stickers,' and then he came over with respiratory napkins stuck all over him...."
(That is what those napkins are about, isn't it? A reminder to breathe deeply?)


My six-year old told me after babysitting a four-year old (mother's helper):
"I told him I could read him a book and he said, 'What? No, you can't read books. Only adults can do that.' [Me: What did you tell him?] I said, 'Well, actually, anyone can read if they practice.'"

The Insurance Agent

Seda and I sit looking across a broad wooden desk at our insurance agent who keeps her eyes on the form she is filling out in our stead as a request for a new life insurance policy. Every frank question she poses requires an answer of inscrutable honesty.

"Have you, in the last six years, seen a doctor or psychologist?" she asks Seda.

"Well, yes, both," Seda answers.

"For...?"

"Yes, Seda, what's it on the books for?" I ask.

"Depression, I think. Yes, that was it. Then the doctor for hormone therapy," she says.

The agent scribbles this jargon quickly, looking relieved.

"Will they take you off the 'preferred' rates for having gender dysphoria?" I ask.

"I don't think so. I don't know," she says. The agent declines comment. "It was never an official diagnosis, and the gender psych I see in Portland is on a cash-only basis -- no paper trail."

"They probably won't even notice," I tell her. "Unless they look at that little box that's now checked 'female.' Then they'll probably wonder. The name change, you know. But, hey, no formal diagnosis. It's an at-home transition. Something in your Wheaties."

Our agent cannot suppress a giggle, but keeps her eyes on the paperwork, unsure about our relationship and her role in supporting us.

"Come to think of it," I add, "it must have been the Fruit Loops. I thought I warned you about those." Seda and I laugh out loud.

"Have you been advised to have an operation?" comes the question from behind the desk.

"Yes," says Seda demurely. Then she turns to me. "Is that the right answer?"

"NO," I tell her.

"Oh," she says, and folds her hands in her lap. "Well, the Association of -- but, then, 'No,' I've not been personally advised by a doctor to have an operation."

She'll have one, of course. And by the time that policy is up, the physical exam itself could not argue with that little box marked "female."

Not that it would matter if they did. She is who she is, though certainly not the man I married.

"Are you -- will you... stay married?" the agent asks uncertainly.

"It looks good on paper, doesn't it?" I say.

"That's about the extent of it," says Seda.

"For as long as we share children and a sense of humor, perhaps."

The ancient Chinese blessing-in-a-curse: May you live in interesting times.

For The Birds

If the blog has been quiet lately, the house has not.

Two weeks ago we purchased twenty-seven chicks in several breeds (New Hampshire Red, Rhode Island Red, Plymouth Barred Rock, Americauna, Jersey Black Giant, Golden Laced Wyandott, Buff Orpington) from a local feed store. If I planned to heat and tend to four chicks, a flock could not take many more resources, I reckoned. A half dozen will be our laying hens, a half-dozen hens we'll sell, and the roosters will go to pot.

Most of my friends said, "Oh, baby chicks! How fun." I wondered.

We brought said chicks home and quickly discovered that they needed more space than what we'd planned for. We collected refrigerator boxes, duct tape, masking tape, kitchen shears and a half dozen kids who appeared to have smelled our recent additions and then turned up "coincidentally."

Picture the building party that ensued while children cuddled stacked chicks and offered them a view from the living room windows. Imagine the Chick Hotel that emerged, two-story in parts complete with ladders and arched doorways. I can only imagine the effort myself. I think we adults were hiding in the kitchen where it was safe.

On the first nights, we kept the heat lamp on as instructed. Seda, who sleeps on the futon in the living room, found herself sleeping in the henhouse. The girls (okay, so it's hopeful) stayed up all night to party. Goodness knows what they found to talk about. Seda never slept.

On the third night, I switched beds with Seda, turned off the heat lamp, and stoked a fire in the wood stove until temperatures soared. I was up every couple of hours to check the babies and add wood. It's now two weeks later, our wood pile has much diminished, and I've given up chasing them all back onto the heating pad in their designated sleeping quarters.

For all that, they are cute. At the moment, awkward and partly feathered, the bulk of them sleep with necks laid long and faces flat against the newspaper. One young rooster already knows his place and never appears to sleep, but keeps vigil with a half-bald head and wary eye over the downy brood. I admit I am charmed. His work ethic surpasses my own.

What have I learned? I know now that I will not ever again set out to create an orphanage for chicks. They came into the world too early, and our sun cannot sustain them motherless. Determined, they peck at pictures of asparagus from the Safeway ads in their bedding and "dust bath" against smoothe cardboard. I cannot feed them a natural diet such as they would be offered in the chicken yard with a mother hen, and have instead substituted granular chick starter with some dried nettles. I've just started adding fresh greens.

I did not purchase medicated chick starter, because I did not want them to take in medicine for ailments they did not feel. And yet, this medication could mitigate the unnatural season and environment that I have contributed to. Their manure is on newspapers. Do I want this on my compost pile? Urban recycling with agri-waste -- garbage and gold. How can I integrate myself more gracefully into the cosmopolitan permaculture? What is fair to my babies now?

I pick up each, stroke and speak to them gently as I change their papers three times a day. I offer my attention as much as I can amidst the drumming, keyboards and wrestling of my own lively brood. I focus my care to their well-being and open my heart to the sadness that is mine in having perpetuated such an unnatural, though conventional, method of raising up chicks. "What can I do for you now?" I ask.

I can promise you this: next time, it will be different. Next year, I'm calling up Rent-a-Rooster and pollinating my homebound hens right here so they can lay, sit, and deliver what they are called to bring forth. I will let you, my then-grown flock, warm and feed them through the summer that they may be ready to lay the following spring.

My footprint is never small enough. What was I thinking? I am not a hen.