Building the last nest

Today we moved, I hope for the last time. (I will not be moving to a retirement home or some such place any time in my life!) Our small apartment, aka the garage, has been transformed into an elegant, 1000 sq. ft. living space. We are several steps away from our daughter's house. The movers brought dozens of boxes and large pieces of furniture from the storage unit where they were awaiting this move. We hadn't seen this stuff for eight months, and never missed it.

After lots of going back and forth with our truck and the movers, dropping off large pieces to friends, the rugs to the cleaners, we settled in to unpacking and figuring out where to put everything and thinking about what to discard. We couldn't believe how much stuff we had that we didn't want or need. We are paring down, going light. Break down those cartons, take the old t.v.s out to the alley, trade tables and lamps and couches with our daughter. I start to unpack the kitchen and put everything away and wonder what I was thinking when this stuff was packed up months ago.

What still astonishes me is the beauty of the place, especially the stairs to the top floor. The stairs are of the same soft cork flooring we have throughout and they are wrapped with bamboo edgings. The ground floor has a fairly low ceiling (this was once a grotty garage!) but oh, how lovely it is now with the compact kitchen and the wonderful lighting. We kept on unpacking so that we could see the entirety of the living room and the dining room. And why do we have so many tables? The top floor with its high ceiling under the rafters looks great and spare.

After a full day of this, we were dog tired and had to go home to the ranch to regroup. Tomorrow we'll go back and finish unpacking all the cartons of dishes and books. Lola, our little dog, was pleased to find her old couch and her passel of toys.

Still nest building, even as seniors! But the best thing is that Quincy, our grandson, lives so close and will be here on a regular basis.

We worked all day, and at the end of it there are still six large cartons to unpack.

The Best Christmas

He's just six, and sits in the back seat of our car crammed with leftovers from the Christmas celebrations and the dog kennel and a very few of the many gifts he received yesterday at his mother's house. I wanted more than anything to take him home with us to our ranch, and he was eager to go despite having a cold. For his Christmas gift we gave him an outfit to wear to be "Ox-cart man" (his favorite book): tan pants, white shirt and black string tie, green vest, black hat and boots. We had made him a real ox cart out of an old canoe carrier that was too big to bring to his house, but we brought some photos. Packing the car, Quincy checks to make sure that the deer skull he received from the Meylans, being fragile, is packed correctly. It's going to be part of the museum.

Coming home we drive slowly past the barn where the ox cart is. "I have been thinking about this the whole way," says Quincy. I am looking at the incredibly stormy sky spitting droplets of the impending cold front. "And, also, I am thinking about my museum. My mind goes back and forth."

" It's so cold and raw," I observe. "Not a good day for being outside." I am envisioning a hot cup of coffee and reading the Sunday papers before the fire. "First we have to unload everything."

After many bags brought into the house, Quincy immediately puts on his jacket and boots and ox-cart man hat and sets out to investigate the ox-cart. This is light enough to haul around and when I next look out he is picking oranges and arranging them in the back of the cart. Soon he is knocking at the door with his load of fruit to sell to us. "It's for free!" he says. But my husband trades him the oranges for a fine wooden box. This goes on all day with acorns, Spanish moss, hickory nuts. All the while there is much conversation about why these products are needed, and by the minute the temperature is dropping and the wind is picking up. Quincy is not cold, but invigorated by the elements.

I finally get him to come in for lunch. (He eats to live) And then he's wanting to get a remote helicopter working. His grandpa helps with this and periodically we have a large dragonfly-like thing buzzing around the living room, dive bombing the dog, crashing into the plants while I am still trying to read the paper. But he's really interested in the ox cart. And his museum. And being outdoors.

This museum. The Quincy Museum of Natural History at Woodhills Ranch. We have been talking about the possibility of it for several months. We have a derelict cabin on our place, far from everything. We call it The Dentist Cabin. (Another blog.) Wild critters have pretty much ruined the place, crashing through the screening and soiling the floor. But I have long wished for having it restored for some purpose. Quincy is the guiding force for this and it is never far from his mind. (This is his second home and he knows just about every place on this 300 acres.) The Meylans have given me the wonderful gift of labor to make the museum happen.

Quincy loves collecting things- feathers from wild birds, and especially bones! Our dear friends, the Meylans, scientists, who are the ones who 'get it' about living on the edge of the Green Swamp, and are the principal inhabitants of our guest house, gave Quincy an incredible deer skull for a Christmas gift, and with it official tags. This skull had uneven antlers! So! The beginning of a museum has begun. In the cold windy afternoon we went out in the truck to assess the cabin where the museum will be. Quincy was clutching another bunch of bones (from an armadillo). We discuss how we can make the screening stronger, where we'll put some shelving, where we'll put the sign that says "Quincy's Museum of Natural History". And when we returned he insisted on tagging this new skull with the official tag.

Later, after supper and his bath, Quincy and I lie on his bed and read three books. By the time we have finished Knufflebunny free, Ox-Cart Man (for the hundredth time), the book Obama wrote for his kids and we have discussed how the Obama family took their dog to Hawaii, Quincy's eyes are at half mast, and I am done for the night.

In a perfect world I would have many such encounters with my other five grandchildren, but they live far away. I love them beyond imagining and think about them all the time. So, for now I feel blessed to have the day to day connection with Quincy. And I am blessed to have the community of friends who are nurturing this boy.

In a perfect world I would not have to think about the kids I know in this community who are cold tonight, maybe hungry after the Christmas blast of the holiday boxes of food are gone.. Our gigs of making food, funding jackets, providing gifts are never really enough. It humbles me.

Why I don't watch t.v. (mostly)

Most nights I clean up the kitchen after the wonderful dinner my husband cooks. Sunday nights, it is Sixty Minutes on t.v., a program I generally like, being the news hound I am. Tonight, at exactly seven p.m., there is no Sixty Minutes, only football (where they knock their heads silly for now, later for Alzheimer's) By the time I get the kitchen extra super clean, football is still on. As I say, "I am out of here.", my husband says that Sixty Minutes is about to start. I edge into the t.v. room and see that there is the beginning of multiple ads: Ciallis (don't need that!), cars ( my ancient Honda is just fine.) Health care opportunities (crap), and fast food (we eat everything from scratch and from our garden).

So, I am gone down to my studio, walking the several hundred yards in the moonlight to the warmth and squalor of my studio full of Christmas presents wrapping, ceramic glazing and finalizing the costume and sewing for Quincy's Christmas gift of the Ox-Cart Man extravaganza. (A whole costume and an actual kid sized ox cart) I wonder how we will transport this thing for him to see it on Christmas?

I am thinking about all the others, those dear others I know and care so much about in this holiday time. Have I included them in my thoughts and presents?

Nothing on t.v. is as interesting as the lives of you people I know; family and friends. This has been an incredible year.. I am still in love with this place where we live. I look up at the stars and and still weep for my friend Nidia who died before her time. I am amazed that our daughter and we sold our houses and found a home site we love. I am honored to be the grandma of so many wonderful children, especially Quincy who lives nearby and is constantly in our lives. Life tumbles on and we are so fortunate to have many friends and a huge family.

Who needs T.V.?

The Silence of a frosty night

This is the second night of this series of freezing weather. The moon, barely gibbous, illuminates the fields growing only frost, and the stars here in a place so far from any man made lights are awesome. I smell the smoke from a fire in the main house and I am cozy in my studio, happy to be finishing a quilt that I quite like.
There is a particular silence in very cold weather. I used to love the silence of new fallen snow when I lived in the north, and even here with frost brushing the land there is that silence of the land hunkering down and waiting, inviting me to think.
I think of the kids I know from volunteering in a local public school who are probably trying to keep warm this night in ramshackle trailers and shacks. Some of them do not have warm jackets. They are probably gathered around space heaters and the oven, if they have one. I think of the kids who actually have jackets but they need to have zippers fixed or a button replaced. I try to do this for them, but really, they need so much more.
I leave a check in the school office so that ten jackets can be bought. One cannot fix everything. It's just bird by bird trying to help.
And then I read about this disaster of a governor we now have who is putting on a multimillion dollar inaugural party, and wanting to dismantle our public schools. I just wish he would spend one cold night with Miguel and his seven siblings in a very small dwelling with little food and nothing comfortable where anxiety is the dominant emotion.

Winter Begins

The last couple of mornings there has been frost on the fields, and driving out to get the newspapers from the mailbox, I am glad for the heated car seat I set on "high". The thermometer says "38" this morning. There are brilliant reds of the grape leaves on the vines, chickens in the road, cows coming out of the swamp and hawks hunting. With my early cup of coffee I stop the car and get out to see what tracks are on the sandy road today. And I think about what needs to be done this day.
This is my life, my beloved routine in winter. Andy will have picked the oranges and squeezed the juice for breakfast. Lola, our little dog, will be nagging me to fix her food, no waiting! I put on the oatmeal and dispense the kibbles, start the laundry. I look out at the vegetable garden and I know that more frost damage is inevitable.
Later, I discover that the tomatoes are gone, as are the beans and the zinnias. But most of this fall garden are hardy collards, kale, cauliflower, broccoli, rutabagas, kohlrabi and peas. The lettuce looks fine too. Peppers are mostly gone. Later, as I walk out on the property, I notice what shrubs and plants have been bitten by the frost of last night. I do not mourn them. I know they will be back in February. Around the house and in the vegetable garden I can place covers over my favorites, bring in the orchids and tender things, but more and more, and not out of laziness, I let nature take it's course.
Working in my studio, I listen to NPR (all the pundits). Hearing yet another dissection of the "don't ask, don't tell" issue, I can't help thinking of the civil rights agony our country went through. I hear John McCain (who, by the way, has a lesbian daughter..go figure) saying that we can't let gays be human beings yet. They have to keep on lying about their sexuality. This kind of raw prejudice is so sad. My young friends have no problem, apparently the major ranks of the military have no problem. McCain is an old guy with who knows what issues, and he is out of step with the times.