New Kind of Christmas

They are wearing matching Christmas suits! Silvio, eleven, is so loving with his twin brother and sister.

It was a different kind of Christmas for us, not being at home.

We flew a thousand miles to be with our son's family. We had six of our eight grand kids there. The twins had a wonderful time eating the wrapping paper and tumbling around from arms to arms, crawling like mad from room to room and cruising along on the furniture. They are that delicious age of nine months, plump and cute, just starting to speak, so curious and accepting of everything.

The twins' three brothers were there, amazing young adults and Silvio the eleven year old. Their cousin Quincy, eight, rounded out the grandchild contingent.

What really delighted me was observing how my son and his wife took so naturally to the noisy hubub of managing this family of five kids ranging in age from nine months to nineteen years old, and a huge number of family and friends who came on Christmas.

Our son has the wonderful capacity of being able to work full bore in a very responsible position in state government, and then, when he is off, he's Dad. He makes his life for his family fun and warm. He cooked a huge Christmas dinner for thirty and seemed to love every minute of it. When the babies needed anything, he was there for changing or feeding or reading them a story.

I loved how he and his wife have such a natural rhythm for getting stuff done, paying attention to each other and to the kids. My daughter-in-law is just the best! I love how she is easy and accepting. And I love her style of making sure those twins eat only organic and home made food, no fake stuff in their environment. But she's not shrill about this. She just does it. She clearly loves this part of life when she's majorly on duty as the Mom. And anyone can clearly see that these twins, who were quite premature, are thriving like crazy.

Someday, probably soon, this woman will go back to working full time at an outside job, and I know she'll have a huge array of help to do it.

It was a wonderful Christmas, very interesting. And I am still enjoying the chocolates!

The House on the Side of the Road

Many years ago when we first lived here so far out in the boondocks we found a cross stitched sampler in an antique store that said " Let me live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man." We bought it and installed it in front of the toilet in the powder room, where it has been ever since throughout many new themes and coats of paint. I thought about this old beloved piece today. Out of the corner of my eye I saw from my studio window an unusual sight. Here came a young man on a loaded bicycle, pedaling like mad from the farm track to the north. He stopped at the cattle gap and went across it. I went out to greet him as he threw the bike down near our front door. Clearly, he was in trouble. Reminded me of the many lost hunting dogs that find their way here, knowing we will return them to where they are supposed to be. It turned out that this young man had been lost in the woods for four days, and somehow found his way to our doorstep. We stuck out our hands (Tracy and Molly). "Come in for breakfast" was the first thing I said. It never occurred to me then to be suspicious. Obviously, he was not packing an assault rifle. O.K. The bathroom is that way, and then come and sit down and I will feed you. I stirred up four eggs, ten sausages, four English muffins, strong hot coffee, orange juice, no questions asked. (Are you vegan,vegetarian, gluten free?) This guy would have eaten the wallpaper, and a traditional huge breakfast was just right. I asked him if he had celebrated Christmas and he was somewhat noncommittal. His mother had dropped him off with his canoe and bike at the state park up the road. As he ate everything on the plate he politely told us of his adventure on the river. There was some weird stuff, such as was why did he not have a better grip on the geography of where he was, how could he have gone out on a four day trip without any food? Or a compass? How could he have portaged his canoe and the bike? (This would have killed me!) But, still, here was this friend to man, needing sustenance, and here we were by the side of the road, extending friendship. We learned little about him as he ate steadily. I could see that his arms were very strong and he told us that he took no food on his trip because he expected to forage for food. He was not a hunter, but he wanted to fish for food. He did eat some fungus from trees but was sickened by it because he had not boiled it. The recent frost killed so many green plants he was unable to find much to eat. I wanted to ask him botany questions about food foraging, but he was clearly focusing on the breakfast. We did find out that he was unemployed, laid off as a tech trouble shooter, went to college, lives with his mom, has a girl friend,not a hunter, loves nature. He was very polite and I could see that he was exhausted from the four days he spent lost in the Green Swamp.I wondered what his back story is.. He only told us about adopting a baby fox and how great it was. I guess I should have been more cautious, more suspicious. I should have examined his voluminous bike packs for assault weapons or hand guns. But, trusting person as I am, I did not. I invited him in. (And I do this with the lost dogs, too!) After breakfast and many thanks, we hoisted his bike into the truck and dropped him off in town. We exchanged phone numbers and expect he'll be back to collect his canoe on the bank of the river. When he said, "How can I repay you?", we only told him to pay it forward to the next time. He got it. These funny and strange encounters with our fellow man give me hope to think that we all Americans, weird as we all are, can welcome each other and still trust. Tears still spring from my eyes when I think about the carnage in Newtown. Those survivor kids will have a long way to go before they trust again. But it can happen. We must make it happen. Wishing you all a New Year of peace and love.

Families Happen

 Like everyone else, mostly, I have this vast family connected to me by DNA. Of course, I love and treasure them, and connect with them over thousands of miles whenever we can. We visit back and forth and it is so important to me to be in contact with all my eight grandchildren.

Because we live so far from most of our family we have our "family" here as well. Here is Maria, the sister I adopted many years ago in Italy. She is wearing the robe I gave her for her trip up north where it will be cold.

 We both needed a sister (I already had one, she had none). You can't have too many sisters! In case you're thinking this beautiful woman is some kind of desperate orphan - NOT! She's a famous and published anthropologist, and we happened to do the adoption in Italy because we were both there having an amazing holiday and it seemed the right thing to do.

In this photo she's wearing the new robe I gave her for the family Hannuka celebration last week. In our mutual adoption, I got a new brother-in-law, my grandson got a wonderful uncle, all of us got new family we treasure.

This weekend another part of our "family" is here. This is a family of four- Peter, Anne. Stephan and Phil. This family has been visiting our ranch for years and we have watched their two boys grow up. Together we have explored the woods and swamps and fields. We have shared so many meals, talks and walks and heavy work cutting downed trees and mowing the fields. More than any 'real' relation, this family truly gets it why we love this place.

We are hoping that they will be able to buy some of the acreage next to ours.. So much to think about that.

Their boys do not have any living grandparents, and I think they may regard us as some kind of surrogate. This family is our family forever.

And, so important under my heart as an outlier part of my family is Warren, the cowboy we inherited when we bought this land more than twenty years ago. Warren owns and takes care of the cattle on our place. He is a suspicious guy who takes his time figuring out anyone. But, now, he and I are thick as thieves, we hug a lot, have conversations about cows and vegetables and the weather. He is so different from me politically, but I know he is not ever mean spirited (the deer he kills is butchered and sent to the local food banks) Warren would do anything for me and I would do the same for him. He's family to me.

Last Friday as the massacre was happening in Newtown, I was in a public school first grade making latkes with the kids.

Terrible week, thinking about this. What I do know is that the IRA is totally on the wrong track!

Families happen in the most serendipitous ways. My little family of those first graders grating the potatoes and onions, asking questions, trusting.

Family happens!

Festival of Lights

 Here is my grandson Quincy last night lighting the last candle for Hannukah. There is my brother-in-law supervising.

I love this part of our family tradition when we all sit down to the usual knishes and latkes and everything else and we exchange all those wonderful and wacky gifts. My sister Maria listened when many months ago I said I really wanted a statue of St. Francis for my garden. So there it was- tasteful and the perfect size to guard my water garden.

We are certainly diverse; our family includes all colors, ethnicities and religions. And we celebrate like mad! This night we were especially tender as we thought about the tragedy in Connecticut but never spoke about it in front of Quincy. None of us could bear what those parents who lost their children have to do. So we hold him tighter and laugh as he releases the big slinky down the back stairs and we hear the clanks going down. We laugh as he manoeuvers his new robotic spider under the table and over our feet, and we scream.

Next week we'll be going to visit five of our other grandchildren in Connecticut. We'll celebrate Christmas with all the decorations and twin babies crawling around eating the wrapping paper and bigger ones eager to tell us what they have been doing since we last saw them. We won't be eating latkes. We'll be feasting on traditional Puertorican food, and probably a dab of some traditional English fare.

We'll rush in on Christmas Eve morning on a blast of cold air, so eager to see everyone and hugs and kisses and how you've grown and is there any time left to run out to the CVS for more stocking stuffers.

I do love the holidays! I am glad we do not have to have our own Christmas tree here, but I am looking forward to the one I'll see soon. (And I am looking forward to chocolates!)

Happy Holidays, friends. Hold tight to your family, hug your kids. Pray for peace and love.

Food, Glorious Food!

The New York Times says that dinner parties are dead. The Tampa Bay Times says, not really. From my perspective, I'd say that dinner parties are alive and thriving. We have always given dinner parties, but not the Manhattan kind where everything is exquisite. What we do is invite folks, mostly close to the last minute. "Hey, we have some great fish, come on over!" Or, more formally, a week or two in advance. At the ranch where we mostly live, we often invite local people to round out the weekend guests we frequently have. Our local friends usually bring eggs from their own chickens, or whatever interesting produce they have. We send them home with our garden produce, maybe some good books or puzzles. More often than not we have many dogs flopping around in the dining room and kids taking their places at the table. My husband who does all the cooking takes into consideration all the dietary needs (gluten free, vegan, vegetarian etc.) and comes up with wonderful menus everyone likes. The vegetables and salad come from our garden out back. I set the farm style table with colorful and casual stuff (Martha Stewart would be proud), and my eight year old grandson places and lights the candles. I am not concerned with how people dress! Just be clean, no bare torsos, no ball caps inside. The conversation will be great. And the food, the glorious food is stellar! Some of our friends are truly great cooks, and I think that it invigorates my husband to do the little extra when they come. Of course, in these dinner parties, we all eat the same things. Sometimes people who are staying in the guest house contribute dessert or something else. What truly interests me is that we all have to eat and we must eat the stuff we grow and cook from scratch. We must realize that eating is a social thing that is fun to do together. In doing this we'll all be slim and fit (even after scraping the last bits out of the lemon souffle pan!) Dinner parties give me courage to set forth again and again in this community where I labor so hard at growing a garden for all and find it uphill work where I daily encounter people who never cook from scratch, never have the wonderful experience of eating good food together and consume calories mostly from fast food and the Dollar General.

Grandma's Favorites

Dispirited with the Public Schools

I have stopped comparing the public schools where I volunteer to the one private school I once ran. Now, five years into my volunteer experiences, I am still appalled. There is a reason why Obama sends his kids to Sidwell Friends School. There is a reason why I send my grandson to private school. If a family can afford it you opt for a school that isn't the deadening and lackluster place where FCAT is paramount. The bottom line is that every child is worthy, some are very bright, most are average, and a few need more help. Here is my view of a public elementary school. In this particular one, a "D" school for the last couple of years, the sense of fear is palpable. Most of the teachers this year are new. They take seriously all the meetings and visits from THE STATE. If the rating cannot go up to at least a C, they will be toast. And so, this involves lots of nonsense about reading 100 minutes a day, no recess, no fun, no reading out loud. I have never gotten as much as a sniff to indicate that any of the teachers or administrators actually read anything! What about the kids? These high poverty kids need experiences! They need to do hands on stuff, play, talk, go outside to run and tumble. They need to have the experiences of growing things, cooking, sewing, measuring, building, playing games, talking! They need mulch for their minds! Teachers do not have any autonomy. I stroll through the classrooms and see in these bleak windowless rooms only neat canned and commercial things and directives on the walls. No art, no science nooks full of interesting things, no creative toys,no live pets to care for, no inviting reading spaces. It shrivels my heart. No joy. Several of us from our local town garden club got a grant to install a school/community vegetable garden. And now, this garden is incredibly bountiful, bursting with all kinds of vegetables. We are eager to cook with the kids who have grown this. When the classes come to the garden,water and weed, pick the produce, and prepare and eat it, it's wonderful! But, so often, we find that most of the teachers really have no idea that there is this great garden out back. They are so hunkered down doing their so many minutes of FCAT prep, there is no time to look up. To say the least, it is uphill work introducing these kids and families and teachers who live in a food desert, to good eating and nutrition. We certainly do not feel valued at all. Except by the kids! One of the faceless and gray people from "THE STATE" accidentally crashed our worm farm to the floor the other day. No apology, just a terse directive to get the custodian to clean up the dirt. I wonder how this school could be if it had a real sense of community? I wonder how it would be if those humorless and gray folks from "THE STATE" would just go away and the teachers could really talk about how education in their school could be, take on the challenge together? I wonder how it would be if everyone was not fearful? I wonder how it would feel to a first year teacher to be able to actually run their ideas by their peers,and be challenged by the best profession, teaching? Who cares what grade this school gets? The point is to educate kids. I notice as I roam around that these kids are sorely lacking in writing skills, math, and of course, no one actually reads for pleasure, and NO ONE READS ALOUD ON A REGULAR BASIS to kids! This total devotion to upping the school grade is devastating to any real meaning of education. Kids do not work this way. To have kids really be good readers they have to have a lot of experiences to hang up there in their minds. If you are reading about geese, for example, you need to have your kids actually see a goose! You can't make sense of sea life if you don't have those kids go to the seashore with a seine net. You can't make sense of history unless you take the kids to the local history museum and let them touch old stuff. It is nothing useful for reading and anything else to just make kids hunker down with commercial materials that are foreign to them. The commercial education companies, which are the drivers of all this,are in it for the money. They have made us all afraid. I believe that every kid is pretty much above average, every kid is valuable, and we owe it to them to make their childhood joyful,interesting, safe, and provide them with the skills they need for life. I want our principals, superintendent, lead teachers to lead the way and not be afraid to really really TEACH our kids.

What was I Thinking? Twenty for Thanksgiving!

Feels like I have just finished a cruise! We are just putting away the last of the laundry and six dishwasher loads of stuff from this feast.

On the day, we began by amassing all the stuff- the turkey, the salmon, all the vegetables from the garden,the cranberries, the potatoes, the ingredients for the gluten free, the vegetarians,and all the rest. We have our plan of attack affixed to the fridge. Our daughter has set up the tables for twenty in the hall, corralled enough chairs, made the table look beautiful and bountiful, set up the table for the wonderful hors d'oeuvres my sister will bring. Grandson Quincy is on board to light the many candles (and he looks splendid in fresh clothes and very large black shoes!) As sou chef I spend the morning washing and chopping vegetables, cleaning as we go, and the chef works on preparing the stuffing, marinating the turkey, knowing all. At some point it seems that everything is ready to go. Broccoli, beans and collards are washed, chopped, ready in their steamers. Potatoes are peeled and ready to be mashed and the butter and garlic is at the ready. The stuffing is in the oven with the turkey. An amazing green and red salad from the garden is washed and spun and ready to be dressed. My sister comes and lays out her appetizers on the porch table (and immediately we all dig in! She makes an incredible spinach pesto loaf, olives, tapenade..) Now folks are arriving, the table is set, drinks are set out. We have been on our feet since dawn (and we are not Martha Stewart!). The best part of the day is when people begin to gather - friends and family we have not seen in a long time, and others we have not yet met. There are hugs and inquiries, people bringing pies and orchids and bottles of wine. In this last part of a Florida afternoon the light is lovely and warm so our guests wander about and enjoy the place. Of course, there is always way too much food! We toast our happiness and good fortune, and dig in to the bounty of food. After the pies and the coffee we repair to the fireplace room (and several of us take turns loading the dishwasher over and over!) No one here turns on the T.V. to watch football. What we did was to do some stargazing with the help of my brother-in-law's i-pad. And, of course, there was the usual clot of folks who talked politics. So, it was a wonderful traditional American Thanksgiving. We gave thanks for the outcome of the election, for not having any Hurricanes here,for our health and happiness, for friends and family, for frogs. Lots of folks spent the night so there were the arrangements of sheets, blankets, where to brush your teeth, do they have enough covers, etc. Brother-in-law Jay prepared breakfast the next morning for everyone: local eggs, bagels, lox, tomatoes and the works. Grandma Molly was k.p. and laundry queen, then captain of the walk through the fields and woods - and then, after all guests left, one could see her lying on the floor of her studio, maybe meditating, maybe thinking that... I love doing this! It does take a toll on us, but it's worth it! We are eternally thankful for all our blessings, our friends and family, our energy to be helpful in our community.

Football frenzies

O.K., people, you know who I am. Watching 60 minutes tonight about the huge driving force that football is in our universities, I was sickened. Here is this huge amount of money spent on the football programs, five million paid to the coach of Michigan (or was it Alabama?).

I know that many folks love their teams. My co in-laws go to every alumni game and bleat their brains out supporting it. I wonder how they would feel if our grandson was beating his head and body on the field as a regular practice?

Here's a proposal: Separate the football from the academic! Those football players should just play football with all the violence and danger and money. Make it a sort of sub professional league. Those young folks who wish to participate in this blood sport could do it without also having to do the charade of also being students. Perhaps they could also have some support about how to make it into professional teams and get on with a meaningful life.

What has football got to do with acquiring an education? Think of it- that brilliant girl or boy, starting out to save the world by studying environmental science has no interest in damaging his/her brain with the violence of football.

Let's put football in the same realm as casino gambling. Just go for it as the violent sport it is (kind of like dog fighting, maybe). Let it be totally profit driven, a business people can support or not.

But, this violent sport of football has no place in academia that I can see. Young people who are about getting an education need to do just that. If all college football programs went into another league, not connected to their college or  university we would actually see how much alumni support there is. Maybe not pretty, but realistic.

Sports have an important place in any academic program, but to have football with all its violence and entitlement be the driver of money acquisition seems to me to be callous and unethical. I am proud to be an Ivy League alumna with a crappy football team. I only wish they would dispense with it entirely!

The Problems of Powerful Men

During the Viet Nam war, my husband was drafted. Basically a pacifist, he could not see any alternative to going. Many of our friends got psychological and other waivers, but he believed in doing this thing that all American young men did. As a Harvard graduate, he had the chance to go to Officer Training School, and the perks and pay would be better. But he chose to be a PFC and see where that led.

He was not about to do any possible thing that led to killing people. He stayed stateside in boring jobs, dispensing dental floss and teaching English to new recruits. At one period he was fingered to be some kind of bomb demolition expert, but he did not pass security clearance (Our parents were Lefties). And this guy who could have been an amazing four star general, except for that inconvenient fact of his pacifism, went on to be a powerful person in journalism.

I remember dreaming about what would happen if he decided to be a military man, and thinking that that fact would lose him from me entirely.

Then our lives tumbled into great careers, the raising of a family, and by increments our financial position improved from the relative poverty when we were students. There were times, later on when we dined at the White House, danced at soirees given by the President of Argentina and Chili, toured Russia, ate incredible buffets put on by the King of Norway. But at home we painted our own house, went to soccer games, and our entertainments were largely just friends we cooked for.

We were beguiled by the opulence of many of the entertainments we attended, but, no way was this something we wanted to do. We were much more interested in the common folks we met, and any excess money was given away to causes we believe in.

I think that this Petraeus thing is having power gone wrong. I kind of have the French take on this: public is public, and don't lift up that private page. But I do wonder about this Jill Kelly person. She and her husband and sister seem to embody the worst sort of greed. She ensnares.

My husband would never be ensnared by the baubles of surface beauty and the entree to opulent living. Neither would our current president.

But still, we have lost an excellent public servant and it makes me sad.

Houseboat Trip/ Climate Change

We and four friends made our annual pilgrimage up the Suwanee River this week. We rented a houseboat and slowly wended our way up river, stopping at some of the springs that feed this magnificent waterway, a jewel of America.

Here you see the dawn just coming to the cypress trees, and as soon as the sun reaches the shoreline many turtles come out to bask on any available log.

All of us have slept on our cramped bunks, easily wakened to see the full moon on the water and hear the slapping of the tide on the bottom of the boat.

We rejoice in knowing that we are privileged to be a part of seeing this last pristine part of rural America. Three of us are scientists who work daily trying to understand how climate change will decimate this amazing place. We scan the banks with our binoculars and see such huge variety of critters as the tide rises and falls. We speak endlessly about what this place will be in twenty-five years, a century, more..

How could anyone just say they do not 'believe' in climate change? We know that the hurricane Sandy is going to hit the Northeast. And we are here on the vast river, no contact with the big world. (I am itchy to hear about how my northeast family is faring!)

The amazing panorama of river banks goes by, bird by bird, turtle by turtle, so many clots of flowers, and we revel in all of this. For four days we slowly travel up the river, stopping at some of the springs that feed it. We swim and hike.

And we have such a good time cooking for each other every night and talking our heads off (not about our kids: we have many.) We touch each other and cuddle like puppies. This time, the weather was cold and gusty and it was hard to make that houseboat behave in the wind and current, so it was kind of adventurous. Our captain was stellar! Everyone did anchors and lines
and it worked out.

In the cold windy weather we hunkered down inside and did a couple of jigsaw puzzles with the sun on our backs, lizards in the sun. And thought about the next meal! Every minute or two someone would alert us to something interesting out there on the river.

This annual expedition is a time out of time. Very little connectivity to the larger world. A cocoon of great friends you feel comfortable with (even with that horrid bathroom, and no privacy.) is the best.

I have a great need for physical activity, and on a houseboat, how to do it? Well, I went on up top of the boat at night when everyone else was settled down under the covers, took my i phone and ear buds, and danced at night by the light of the moon for the length of an album. No one below complained.

It was a wonderful trip, and as usual, I couldn't believe that five days had passed- and I never looked at my watch!

What would this amazing place be when the sea rises? We think of our children and grandchildren and beyond..

Blue Curls!

Finally, there is the merest vapor of a new season about to happen. I have opened the studio door and I feel the breeze, so welcome after the heat of the day.
This morning when the dew was still upon the land I walked up the lane behind the barn and saw the blue curls that I have been looking for all summer. These flowers are small, about the size of a fingernail, blazing blue, curled over. I had thought that they were to bloom in summer - but here they are, a presage of autumn.

The chimney swifts have flown away and we no longer hear their loud chatter. We swapped out the hummingbird feeders for songbird feeders. The last of the hummingbird feeders are full of butterflies, mostly zebra long wings. There are so many tree frogs one cannot open a door without being covered with them.

I am resting for the weekend after an obsessive week of starting the Lacoochee school community garden. Most of the planting is done and it was like herding cats to get the teachers on board and get the watering system up and running and get the kids to plant their beds. But I still have this vision of an overflowing garden of vegetables and flowers, many parents and kids and teachers owning it. I think we are on the way!

Many volunteers have stepped up to help! Those lovely shy Mexican parents come by (Ms. Molly, Ms.Molly!) and take home pots of extra collard and broccoli plants. Others from the summer camp I run come by to be supportive. Officer Friendly waves, Mr. Lopey, the janitor, is the main man who will monitor the watering.

In the mornings when I walk from the office to the garden and see lines of beautiful kids going to their classes I am surrounded by hugs (Ms Molly!) I have known so many of them since kindergarten!

The core volunteer group is equally beguiled.
It has been a wonderful and hard week but well worth it.

And I have discovered this season's blue curls!

September Promise

On Labor Day we begin to sniff the air for any possible hint of cooler weather or even the idea of drier air. And we are always disappointed. So we entertain ourselves with watching the river rise, bringing with it lots of small fish and frogs that attract jubilees of ibis in the growing swamp. The deer and other critters have been leaping out of their flooded habitats and come closer than usual to our house. Even the wild pigs spent a night of it, rooting up the dirt just outside the fence.

The hummingbirds have left right on schedule. One day they were there in force at our five feeders, and the next day they were gone to Mexico. The dregs of the nectar now attracts zebra long wing butterflies and ants.

Days are getting shorter and soon we'll not have to mow the lawn. The beds for the fall garden are ready and just today Quincy, the seven year old grandson who lives here part time, planted a row of sugar snap peas in the planter next to where I have already put in broccoli seedlings. I know it's early, but so far, in many years, I know that judicious planting after Labor Day pays off (despite what the books and the Master Gardeners say).

Months ago, several of us from our local garden club applied for a grant from Whole Foods to make a school garden. We got the grant and began to plan for this garden next to probably the poorest elementary school in the state of Florida. (96% of the kids are on reduced or free school lunches) This area is definitely a 'Food Desert'. The school administration was enthusiastic.

We bought planter beds and garden soil and spent several sweaty days constructing everything and heaving the dirt. We bought the hoses and timers and tools and seeds.

The staff at school seemed positive about the idea of having this garden.

Yesterday, earlier than we had thought, the seedlings of broccoli and collards came on the market. So tomorrow is planting day! I have one second grade on board. And then I think that teacher by teacher, we'll have every child participating in this interesting hands-on project. I imagine huge collards, tons of broccoli, peppers, tomatoes, beans, carrots! I imagine evenings with families when we cook those veggies. I imagine parents taking home pots of vegetable seedlings they can care for at home.

I am not long on lecturing and talking about nutrition and good eating. Little kids just need to do it! We have every hope that parents will help out and make this their hang-out place after school. A good friend has volunteered to do all the translating so that the bulletin board and all the signs will be both in Spanish and English.

This project is about making a whole curriculum and dragging people into it. I believe so ardently that growing good food to eat is the key to health, that all the work is worth it.

Tomorrow I will go early to the school garden to set up the hoses and watering system. We have the hoses and timers and garbage cans of weak fertilizer solution, tools, gloves, signs, watering cans. When you work with a group of kids you need to have everything ready to go, no fumbling and waiting.

This period of planting the garden and educating the teachers and arranging everything is the hardest. Many folks have said they would help, and I am sure they will. (If only I would call or email each of them individually multiple times.)

But this grandma doesn't have all the energy I used to have. I worry about this first month when we have to get every class on board.

I think of this month when I must fly to various places to visit two sets of twins - family business! Will I have those someones who can coordinate this school garden?

The vision of many children growing food, having fun digging in the dirt and finding who knows what, and learning much more than is in the FCAT curriculum keeps me going and loading the truck with garden supplies for tomorrow.

News Junkie: Befuddled

In past times I loved these conventions! Think of seeing those outrageous delegations from various states and territories and you were tallying up the number of votes. Exciting!

No more. Everything is scripted, made for T.V., lies, slick, and nothing an ordinary person could really think about and consider. So, no wonder folks just want to tune into some reality show (that is more real than this convention.)

Does anyone really and truly look at the platform? Do people in America really want to be so noninclusive (as this Rebublican platform lays out?) Actually, I do not think we even think about these issues anymore. What's important is how "Loveable" our candidates are. So, Obama is really likeable with his great family and the dog (who never was strapped to the roof of the car). Romney is stiff and rich. Who should care if he has good ideas?

And folks do not really attend to the substantive issues! Can you stand a candidate who signs onto total abortion? Can you stand a candidate who has little investment in environmental issues? Can you stand a candidate who stands for a restrictive and noninclusive immigration program?

Are the economic issues paramount? Do folks really think that it is right and just for the enormously rich to continue to inflate their coffers?

But, what I really think is that this election is about race.

This election can be bought, and maybe it will be. We, in Florida, now see what happened when the governor's election was bought.

The next convention will probably be as t.v.oriented, scripted, over the top, and filled with lies. And, again, no real person could get a grip on what is true and what issues are up there for consideration.

So, I am thinking how magnificent it is to see the gentle rise of our river, the new fawn, and the hundreds of butterflies on the red sage. And I am looking forward to having my grandson, Quincy, here for the long weekend.

After the Rain

We kind of thought there would be a hurricane but we didn't do anything to prepare since the Cone Of Uncertainty was so uncertain. I thought about taking in my favorite orchid which is about to bloom. I thought about taking in the porch furniture.

But what I did was complete the quilt for Quincy. I hunkered down in my studio, watched the rain, and sewed like crazy. This is not one of my all-time favorites. It's a strong quilt for a kid- vibrant colors, simple construction. The top is complete and now I must take it and the batting and backing to the long arm sewing machine lady and she and I will decide what design we'll have.

Amazing stuff during this wild, windy and uncertain weather! The river is rising and rafts of duckweed tumble under the bridge. I have never seen so may deer and turkeys grazing in the pastures. I have noticed that cows lie down in inclement weather.(Yes, they do have a plan!)

I must say that my soul and heart is so filled with the vision of life here in the swamp, it presses eternity.

Tomorrow, if the rains abate, I'll be out in the vegetable garden topping off the planters and maybe planting a few rows of arugula.

So, is Charlie Crist the new Bill Young: what ever party you are from, Bill will help you!

The NYT in the lead editorial today probably said it all (though they missed the iniquities of emigration.) I believe that if any one of these Rebublicans could have the chance to speak with a pregnant fourteen year old girl from a gritty background, or a gifted Mexican illegal boy whose chances at a shot to get educated are nil, or a middle class high school graduate who faces such extreme debt to go to college, or a woman with five kids already who seeks abortion, or a person who doesn't have enough food to feed the family, or a veteran who can't get a job, they might change their minds. It goes on and on.

How mean spirited can they be? So, I finish the quilt for this beloved grandson, and I am thinking all the while that this next generation will be inclusive, generous and thoughtful about making an America that works for everybody.

Getting Old- But Then What?

This evening when Andy and I were finishing dinner, on the eve of our fifty-second wedding anniversary, and we were eating the ends of a wonderful plain supper he cooked, we looked in each other's eyes and spoke of some of the things that have made our marriage successful, and also of some of those things we regret.

There will not be anniversary gifts for each other. We have every thing we want. We appreciate that each of us has been willing to change with the times. We appreciate the necessity of facing the reality of growing old together.

Thankfully, we are healthy and still full of energy. But there are moments when we rage, rage against the coming of the night..

One of the things I know of is this rage against getting old. For some, it is  non-specific anger, lashing out at loved ones. For others it is despair, knowing that you are invisible when once you were king or queen.

In the newspaper today there was a story about a woman my age who made crocheted pillows for the Bucs - and has done this for thirty years! She is to be pitied, in a wheel chair, and never had the chance to actually SEE a Bucs game because she could not afford a ticket!

I know that getting old is such a bitch: even those new buff muscles of mine are covered by the wrinkled skin. You have to figure out just how cantankerous and weird you want to be!

So important to have friends of many ages - even the little kids who pluck your elbow skin because they are interested in everything!

Fifty-two years into a marriage with a guy who is so interesting it takes my breath away!

Happy Anniversary to us!

The Wedding

Here are the members of the wedding: Quincy, Carissa and Elizabeth. Elizabeth and Carissa were married in a lovely Vermont setting (Quincy was bestest man) last weekend, attended by immediate family.

The hills were decorated with goldenrod and purple loostrife and queen anne's lace. And the immediate scene was decorated with our eight grandchildren and their parents. And now we have another wonderful daughter-in-law!

We are so blessed with this enormous family! We spent a lot of quality time in an old ski lodge just lying about with the twins and the other kids who played outside in the cool Vermont evening catching caterpillars and running around with sparklers and wading in the stream. I loved it.

It was a wonderful family reunion, the first time we had been together with all our children, their spouses, and their kids, and Maria and Jay, everyone's adopted kin. We stayed in a big ski lodge, kind of funky but a lot of fun with many feasts and lots of skin, so many children, including the new twins.

We took Quincy, son of the bride, for a road trip to Maine to see my oldest best friend in Belfast and it was wonderful! Seven years old is a great age to be. Quincy fell in love with Juliet, my friend, and says he is going to live there.

While in Maine my email got hacked and his moms took the trouble to fix everything on my computer. (No, we are not in trouble in London!)

Now, we are all back home. And life tumbles on. Ten girl scouts are at this moment swimming in the pool and then they will go up to the little house to do girl scout things and spend the night. And I will have to think about the one girl scout who is missing because she is homeless and her mother is dying of ovarian cancer in St. Petersburg. And I can't think of what I can do! Where is our safety net?

In my studio, alone for the first time in many days, I begin the lovely process of laying out the fabrics for a new quilt for Quincy.

Rainy Season - still!

You have to imagine how deep and dark the edge of the woods seem now in the over lush days of early August. Looks like jungle here in the Green Swamp of central Florida. Often, pasted on this scene, are several deer feeding at the margin between pasture and forest. Underfoot are thousands of spade foot toads who have not made an appearance in four years. But this year we have truly had a great rainy season and all those toads procreated and are now underfoot everywhere.

At the end of the afternoon there is the tumult of thunder and lightning and several inches of hard rain falls.

Mornings before seven I drive the mile or so up to our mailbox to pick up the morning papers, and this is such a good part of the day! Driving very slowly I often see deer, bobcats, so many birds. The Withlacoochee River overflows and sends black waters into the swamp, and then, after a few days, everything reverses and the water flows out of the swamp.

So, I stop at the bridge and note the direction of the flow by how fast the duckweed is floating and I hope to see an otter or an alligator. So many ibises flock to the newly directed waters. Hawks scream above and the pileated woodpeckers are working on the snags. By now I know where certain birds hang out and I listen for them. Yes!

Here come the sand hill cranes getting ready for their day. And in a certain place in the lane I can always see the fox squirrel, and further up, the gopher tortoise burrow with evidence that he (or she) has been up already.

Some days I must stop and shoo away my neighbor's chickens who have congregated in the lane next to the mailbox.

I love living here! There is so much to be discovered: a patch of iron weed, a stretch of passion flowers on a fence, green fly orchids on a tree full of resurrection fern.

And there is the comical. Those hummingbirds who endlessly chase each other around the feeders. There was the armadillo a few mornings ago who appeared next to the screen porch where we were reading the paper. This particular armadillo was wearing a jacket around his middle (so astonishing that I thought I was actually losing my mind!) We looked and the jacket said, "Hot pepper." Seems that this armadillo had gotten into a peat pot surround - and everything fit perfectly. Our little dog went out to bark and chase and eventually nipped that jacket and it tore off.

So, rainy season, heat and all, is just what Florida is the best at. No complaints here. We see the rainbows and take a vacation from politics.
Seventy-two years old and I still feel like I am ten!

The New Housing Bubble?

Fifty years ago I graduated from an Ivy League college, then went on for a master's degree. As I began this education I had no resources except for generous scholarships and the work I did on campus. I was always worried about money - and who had the extra to pay for dentistry?

But, still, when the master's degree was in hand I owed ten thousand dollars. In a federal program I could pay off the loan by working in education, ten percent a year. So, after ten years my loan was paid off and I was free and clear to do what I wanted.

I am very afraid that students now have not nearly this option. They believe they are entitled to attend fancy institutions of higher education that attract them with state of the art fitness centers, world class chefs in the cafeteria, dorm rooms worthy of a high end Marriott. They know that it costs a LOT to go to college and they may as well go full throttle (because everyone knows that having a college degree is the ticket to ride.)

And then the price must be paid, and such a great price! Of course this cohort has been used to the debt scene all their lives. Plastic now, pay later.

What will happen to this new generation of young adults who owe so much they cannot pay attention? Will there be a tipping point at which these supremely prepared people cannot possibly get the jobs that will enable them to pay off their education loans? Seems likely.
Perhaps the culture of hippies will return, "hey, Man.."

Or perhaps we'll try reality in higher education. Pay as you go, think about what you really want to learn from professors, and if you really want to climb rock walls, is college the place for this?

Just asking.

Embarrassed

From everywhere on the polls I seem to hear that my age and ethnicity is incredibly selfish and no-nothing! Hey, we have social security and medicare! And these have made an incredible difference to the security of our lives. And most of us are going to vote conservative. So, why are you opposed to the Affordable Care Act?
I am embarrassed to be a part of my generation that now seems to be so mean and uninclusive. Where is the American spirit of taking care of one another? Where is the generosity? Where is the thirst to be informed?

No taxes! Come on! How do you think the services you need, the libraries, the fire department, the police, roads, the parks you love, and so much more are funded??
If our country is just going to be the "me first" place, I will be so disappointed.
I am very much afraid that this country in ten years will be a country of the very rich and the poor, no middle class to speak of. I see such greed and power among the bankers, big pharma, oil companies and you name it. They can (and have) bought elections.

Pay no attention to these awful destructive political ads. They are mostly lies and so you'll actually have to pay attention. Read the NYTimes and listen to NPR (though this one voice of really balanced news is endangered of having their funding cut).

Enough of that! Tonight it is thick with twilight in the forest, deer shrieking at the margins, hummingbirds bumping each other at the feeders, and bats flying around. We have been busy in our studios. Andy finished a quilt  hanger and I am about to finish a new quilt (having sewed my fingers to the bone!) A load of potting soil arrived in the rain and we hope that tomorrow will be clear in the morning so we can distribute some of it where it needs to be.

Remains..

Here are the remains of the vegetable garden. All the beds have been taken over by huge wildly blooming zinnias, red sage, milkweed, and lots of rank weeds. The butterflies love it. We worked for a couple of hours this morning in the fierce heat and mosquitoes, taking out the unproductive tomato vines and withered broccoli. What's left are the pepper plants and a few eggplants, still producing. Andy broke apart the oldest raised bed that was rotten so now there is space for a new bed for the fall garden. We pulled up most of the weeds and tomorrow we'll put down some newspaper and cover everything with hay mulch. All ready for the fall planting.

This place still amazes and delights me! With rainy season well begun, we don't have to water. We have to quell the biomass, prune and weed. Each day we attack the needs of various garden spots, and having made the rounds of all the gardens, we start again. Coffee cup in hand, I walk around the yard (Ms. Inspector) every morning. I notice that the deer have been helpful in pruning the roses and nipping back the Mexican petunias. New buds in the fish pond that will in a few days be magnificent lily blooms. Squirrels, so far, have not been able to attack the hummingbird feeders with the new baffle we installed to thwart them. Tree frogs are everywhere - so loud!

I am so tired of the nasty political climate. I only listen to classical music while I work on my fabric art. And I think and plan..

Tomorrow is my birthday! And I am not anticipating anything at all to celebrate, which is very good because I have everything I could ever want, especially the love of a good man and life partner, and a wonderful and beautiful life.

On the eve of my birthday (72), here are my watchwords for success: Have good work. Eat good local food. Exercise hard every single day. Love your friends and family. Be generous to your community of friends and family and everyone else. Take care of your teeth. Read stuff. Try new things. Wonder. Create. Love one another.

Happy Bastille Day!

Annals of a fun granny- reading to the kids

For this week we have had three boys, seven, eleven and twelve, visiting us. There have been moments when I wondered where I left my senses. But mostly, it has been wonderful zany fun, and really, no one has had a bad moment. We are not those grandparents who easily go to theme parks and fast food places. So they swam many times a day in our pool, played and played outside, drove the golf cart out to explore the fields and ponds and look for the cattle, explored and dug up many ant lions and fossils, made many lovely clay art works. They found our life here interesting and pitched in with the chores of meals, emptying the compost, filling the hummingbird feeders, feeding the dog. Yes, I have had to do some direction. (Did you hang up your towels and swimsuits? Maybe tonight you should all take showers and wash your hair.)

But I think the most special thing is the reading. Yes, of course all kids come with their digital devices, but while here they left them languishing. No one has been at all interested in turning on the TV. They'd much rather play cards after dinner, and everyone knows that G'ma Molly will read to them. I spent some time selecting what books I would read out loud. For the seven year-old I chose "Danny, the Champion of the World", by Roald Dahl, one of my all time favorites. For the older boys I chose "The Pigman" by Paul Zindel.

This evening, after the card game and copious amounts of chocolate ice cream, I began the nightly ritual of reading out loud to them. Of course, all these kids are excellent readers. Reading to kids is the best! They get a free ride for their brains to imagine every single thing and they get to lie close to a favorite adult who is paying attention only to them.

My little seven year old grandson is very tired after his active day and he is glad to cuddle up and hear this book he loves. When beginning a new book, for whatever age, it is crucial to read enough to get the child really hooked, and for the reader (me!) to read fluently and with expression, maybe even changes in tone and accent. The older boys are just as intrigued and love the flow of the story.

My parents read to me and we read out loud to our own kids way into high school. And these children who are now parents read to their kids every day.

Makes me wonder why most folks won't do this simple and tender thing for their kids and students.

Honestly, What I really Want for my Birthday

Actually, I have everything I would ever need in life. I have the gift of discovering such a magnificent wild flower as this may pop on my way to retrieving the morning paper today, and the view of the rising water under the bridge, and the cacophony of frantic frog calls and an owl flying silently through the swamp trees heavy with rain. I have the love of a good man and the incredible beauty of the place where I live and children and family and grandchildren I love and the wonderful friends who decorate my life.

So, what could I ever want? I certainly have no needs for anything material. (We are always trying to divest ourselves of extra stuff!)

This is what I want: I need some service for my digital life! I want some one or some ones to help me down load, off load, up load sidewise load stuff, get rid of pop-ups, find out how to actually get the fancy HD radio I have to play classical music without cutting out every ten seconds, and a ton of other issues. I want someone (or a robot!) to help me on a lot of tech issues I have. I want (in the best of all possible worlds!) not to have to hold back, just ask.

For some reason this blog entry went haywire and it took me three minutes to recover it. Why does this happen?? Maybe no one knows why these gremlins spring up.  I have friends and family who just have opted out of all these issues, My sister doesn't  have a smart phone!

But I am not willing to give up on this. I love being connected, I love Facebook and all the rest. I just want to be more able!

So, for my birthday, don't give me fragrant gifts, candles, soap, baskets of fruit. Hold the cards. I want tech service!

I know this won't happen, actually. It is just a fantasy of mine that tech issues will magically be resolved. And I will thank everyone for the doilies and candles, and I will continue to make quilts and hand-made stuff for the ones I love.

Rain is still happening and life is green.

Food in Pouches! Yikes!

I read in the style section of the New York Times today that many 'up scale families' love those food pouches they can give to their kids on the fly. Lots of these pouches are organic and "fun". The kids suck up the pureed veggies, fruits, and so much else. (potato chips?) No fuss, no mess, no need to have a sit down family meal. Just feed the kids when they are hungry. They don't even have to chew those gristly bits we always used to secretly hide in our napkins. And their parents can tweet and text and drive while their kids get good nutrition.

Ah, I am getting so old! We still love those magical dinners when we all sit down at the long table, youngsters and oldsters, loving the stuff some grandchild has picked from the garden and another one may have cooked with the help of Grandpa. The only leftovers are the bones that go into the soup pot and the vegetable parings that go to the compost pile. No plastic pouches to go into recycling, nothing toxic from the insides of pouches comes from our meals. We love the talk from young and old.

The art camp was very successful, especially the food the kids made from scratch under the tutelage of Mr. Andy. On the last day everyone brought food to share and it was one of the best meals of my life! Hand made corn tortillas, all the fixings for fajitas, flan, guacamole, salsa, and the gringo things too.  Each day, all of us sat down together on the screen porch to eat lunch. (No pouches!) The end of camp was the triple exploding volcano cakes. So satisfying..

Real America, Unhinged

I am exhausted tonight, but in a good way. The second day of our annual summer Art Camp is over and I have been in the barn making sure the clay pieces are more than leather hard and ready for a firing tomorrow. I have put out two more 25lb hunks of red and white clay for tomorrow and located the whiffle ball bats and balls for the pool activities required for the next day. The paint brushes are clean and I have set out the materials for making flubber and various other interesting miscible solutions. We have checked out all the food stuffs we need and thought about what groups will do what, where and when tomorrow.

This week is a gift to our community from us, but mostly it is a gift to us. Each day we have had about twenty people, kids and parents, sometimes more. In this poorest of Florida communities, most folks do not know they should sign up, call, or tell us they can't come that day, or that they will come with many extras. Some parents just want to drop off their kids, and maybe or maybe not pick them up.

 These are not your Manhattan helicopter parents. They are druggies whose kids nag them into going to Ms Molly's camp and finally call an hour before the session begins.

But, yet, they help each other on car pooling, take home those kids whose parents have somehow 'forgotten' them. And they do not make judgments.

And then there are illegal Mexicans who have everything together and if only they had green cards..but still they have visions of college for their kids.
And they are the BEST! They would certainly give those NYC parents a run for their money (if only).

We have learned so much! Our family that hosts this- my husband and I and our seven year old grandson, have everything the American Dream could boast. We are Ivy league wasps, grandson named after a direct ancestor and an early American president. We are fairly prosperous, better off than our parents. We love to share our property and large swimming pool and art facilities and kitchen.

So, I hunker down in the clay studio, comfortable with the give and take of Spanish and English. These kids and parents are making some of the most beautiful clay pieces I have ever seen in a class. The kids get comfortable and range out to paint and build things from the many materials I have. We walk in the woods and collect moss and discarded owl feathers, wonder at turtle burrows.

 A group of kids cook the healthful lunches and prepare snacks. I hear my husband and his cooking group of little kids discussing how to hold a really sharp knife and why cooking from scratch is the best. Kids are swarming the vegetable garden to pick peppers and tomatoes.

Swimming is the best! The kids love Coach Joy who directs the pool. These kids do not have much opportunity to swim and they love every minute.

One child, fourteen years old, painfully shy, whom I'd met on a community clean up some weeks back, contacted me to say she'd like to come and help out. She was one of those people who are powerful in her silence (and made me feel anxious about what I perceived to be her neediness). I made every effort to include her. She was a non swimmer and had hair issues and she did not reach out to any of the other campers. Day two she asked me to teach her how to knit!
I am a terrible knitter, actually, and have only knit three things in my life (one of them an abysmal calamity). But I soldiered on, and this child, after one row, began to knit like a house on fire, row after row. Then she went up to the pool with the swimmers, put on an amazing swim cap to protect her about to be, used to be, might be, nappy hair, and proceeded to dive under water and swim! I held her up and said encouraging words. This kid will be swimming by the end of the week!

But the most astonishing thing to me was hearing some of the back stories of the Mexican parents who are still illegal. Before this I never actually knew anyone who had walked across the border from Mexico, enduring ten days of thirst and hunger and fear. I had never personally heard about the fears these people have on a daily basis, and the raw anxiety they have about their gifted kids who may not be able to go to college. I heard about these parents' quest to get a GED, and being turned down.

Also, there are the parents who are legally citizens, and they are golden!

So, here we are with our bilingual community camp, every socioeconomic class, gender, age, and color. We are the global community and we have more in common than not. On the last day we will have a pot-luck lunch for all the families and we will wear our camp tee shirts and produce an exploding volcano cake.

Maybe Romney should be here. Politicians don't get it.

Crazy in the rain

The weather forecast was for 90% rain today. I was worried about Bob, our yard bird sand hill crane who spent twelve hours yesterday tediously bugling alone outside the vegetable garden. And today he was back,  bugling for who knows what? Where's my family?

The morning began spitting rain and I knew that a troop of Girl Scouts was due to arrive to spend the day in my studio sewing merit badges onto their uniform sashes. I also knew that my husband and I had several important errands to do in town. I knew that the girl scouts were intent on having a swim in the pool between thunder and lightning. And I knew that the state Audubon director was due to arrive at 3.

But I kept an eye on Bob, the crane, who was still making that wild wonderful cry. Usually, Bob is in the company of his mate, Emily. I have wondered whether they raised a chick this year, but as far as I could tell, their nest was not on our nearby pond. Just as it was about time for the scouts to arrive, Bob looked to the skies and saw Emily approaching. He shouted and danced! And, then Emily glided down with their teenager chick!

By now, it was really a frog drowner. The kids had a brief swim in between thunder storms and ate lunch at tables in the barn. They spent hours sewing on the badges and doing girl scout stuff. I am worried that they will be mired on their way out in the four inches of rain that has  already fallen (and they will have to SPEND THE NIGHT!)

The girl scouts leave and we await the Audubon guy who, as everyone coming to this faraway place does, calls repeatedly to get directions. He is 2 hours late, and since we have been up since 6 a.m. we are really looking forward to supper. He arrives in a pounding rain and grins! Passes my first two tests (no suit and tie, no portfolio of glossy materials about how you can donate to Audubon.) I really liked this guy! He was observant and friendly and we had lots of mutual friends. We invited him to stay for supper, but he could not. I gave him some heirloom tomatoes, and I hope we'll see him again. For all I know, he is struggling in a muddy rain swelled ditch up the road, but I think not.

We are getting ready for our week long summer art camp, beginning next Monday. This is our gift to the community, and we expect up to 40 people to come- kids and parents. I have many pounds of fresh clay, paints, paper, materials for sculpture and constructions. I have awesome nature activities. My partner, Andy, will be the master chef, who with kid helpers, will prepare local organic meals from scratch.

Many wonderful community volunteers will help out. I know we'll be tired each evening - and so will the kids. This Audubon guy asked when we told him that we were doing this camp, "Who knows about this? It could be an inspiration to others." I don't know about that. This is just what we do.

The American Dream

Cautious and disbelieving that I am about the direction our country is heading, it affirms my optimism about life here to meet so many young people who still believe that they are on the right track.

Here is Jomesha Isles at a banquet honoring folks who have served on the board of the local community college. Jomesha's story makes the film "Precious" seem tame. Here is this absolutely beautiful young woman, a Lucy Morgan scholarship recipient, head of all honor societies, academically top of her class.  Jomesha has four kids (one of whom was there at the dinner and has already graduated with her AA degree and will go on to bigger things.) Jomesha had such a terrible childhood and adolescence - her mom died of an overdose of drugs, leaving her and her sister at a young age to make their way to a new home with grandparents. Then, there were horrible  and abusive and homeless times, having her first child at 17, working at fast food, and trying to make a life for herself and her kids. Who knows  what epiphany she had?  In  any case, she decided to get on with education, get that high school diploma and begin the long journey toward having the kind of life and work that will provide for her family.

So, here she is, about to be launched as a health care administrator. When she told her story to the group there was not a dry eye in the room! The American Dream.

Yesterday, a young woman and her husband and four year old daughter came by our house for a visit. This young woman is the daughter of Mexican tomato pickers. Somehow, this family began to believe that they should stop moving all the time. They had three daughters and a son and these kids needed to be in one place. So they stayed here in Dade City and began a stable life so their kids could attend school. I came to know this family through a wonderful community activist in the Hispanic community here.(" Here are these three extraordinary girls, all valedictorians - they need sponsors!") So we embarked on a long term financial and friendly contact with them. They went to college and we helped her older sisters get good jobs. There were times when we were in constant contact. They were always such wonderful friends! 

So, I am most interested to find out how everything has turned out, though we know this is always a work in progress. The youngest, Vicky, who came to visit yesterday, is not at all the shy one she used to be. She is the primary breadwinner for her family, office manager in a law firm, but wishes to get her law degree, an opportunity that was denied her (probably) for reasons of ethnicity. But she is optimistic! She and her husband are leapfrogging ahead, have a vision of excellence for their child. 

Who could not believe in the American Dream?

And, so, I keep on trying to give kids a sense of vision, a life they can have if they work hard. Seeing these young people who have succeeded against all odds makes me exceedingly humble.

RAIN

The ghost tree, an ancient dead giant of an oak in our front pasture, is the huge queen, dark with saturation this evening. Like everything else, it has soaked up the heavy rains and day long moisture. The forest beyond is fat and dense. The resurrection ferns make all the oak limbs look plumped out in vivid green.

 We have had a very dry season this spring, crunchy grass underfoot and the cars covered in dust. Every day watering is the norm if we want to keep anything growing in the gardens. So we are all celebrating; frogs are in full throat and we sit out on the front porch before supper watching the hummingbirds come out from their nests to the feeders. Neighbors are on their way to fish in the pond. We can almost see everything growing. Rain is magical to growth. In this rural enclave we always talk about our tomatoes and when will it rain?

We love the beginning of rainy season. It is so crucial to our lives. And yet, for us who are so heliotropic, a rainy day has its challenges. Today I hunkered down in my studio with grandson Quincy,7, and friend Abby, 10. They had many projects in mind. I am trying to finish up the binding on my latest quilt and the kids are working on various projects. I ask them to help me sort out the various bins of art materials (markers here, glue stuff there, make a bin for the paints, etc.) Two hours later, we have everything in order, ready for the summer art camp. Quincy is in love with the finger puppets he has made in the last couple of days, and I must say, they really are very cute! Abby has made a number of wonderful stickers.

Later, after Abby and Quincy have gone home, I relish the quiet and the chance to attend to my own tasks and look at the edge of the woods shrouded in mist from the intermittent rain. There are so many things to worry about, and I do, but here there are so many parts of the natural world that just make me draw in a long breath of happiness.

The Generative Age

For a few weeks I have been consumed with family and community, no time to write. This evening, however, I am happy with having my grandson, Quincy, happily in bed after a choose your own adventure story about the Amazon we read together. He takes it entirely in stride to have a grandmother who has actually been to the Amazon a number of times. We discuss the pink toed tarantulas and the howler monkeys I encountered. A seven year old is such a great audience! Most others are not at all interested.

Yesterday we went to a graduation party for three of my all time favorite people who were graduating from college, all of them the brightest and best. I have known these young women since they were very young, my posse, as we call them. For many years after I was their elementary school teacher they visited us every summer, some years more often. Before they were drivers their parents brought them. Then they came on their own. But, whatever age they were, I respected them, loved them, made quilts for each of them and had a wonderful time in lazy days full of talk, good books, games, great food and ranging in the fields and swamps that we have.

They hosted a wonderful graduation pot luck party; everyone who had been important in their lives were there- ancient grandparents, parents, siblings, family friends, boyfriends, the best college adviser (my sister!). I have found myself thinking a lot about these amazing young women and where they'll go.

The young people I saw yesterday at their graduation are the stars of our national education system. They will go on to huge success.

Other kids in our community are not tasked with such responsibility, nor have they had that brass ring to strive for.

It is my mission to  mulch the minds of the community kids I work with. They need information, experience, good books, far ranging math, questioning. (NOT FCAT)

So, I am thinking everyday about the week long camp (thirty kids!) we will have here after school ends. Our gift to the community, everything free, these kids will have the chance to learn cooking, eat wonderful food, learn swimming skills, and spend as much time as they want with clay, painting, sculpture, nature studies. Parents who come will learn far more. I think this camp week will be hard for me as the energy generator. But we want to do it!

As I have discovered, there is more talk than action. I am disappointed with our politicians and community activists who can't keep their zippers up, can't keep their hands out of the till etc.

But still, I am a believer in the good that the good folks can do. All I have to do to affirm this for me is to know the teachers and staff at our local elementary school and see one kid, my grandchild, focus on learning what I am teaching.

Hey Mom!

When I call my oldest son, he always responds with "Hey Mom!". He's the only one of our three kids who calls me mom. And, in a tiny way, I find that quite wonderful. Yes, I know the others know I am their mom, and from birth it happened that our kids called us by our first names.

So, who's mom on this Mothers Day? I am proud of my three kids and eight grandkids. Being a mom has been one of my life's four great pleasures. (Spouse, mom, good work, friends- in that order)

My parents and my husband's parents were so effete and above it they eschewed mothers day as being a commercial Hallmark occasion so we never celebrated it. Times change. I think that mothers day is charming and a great time to celebrate our families!

My mom is dead so I do not have to think of flowers or cards ; I just think of her as I do every day, sometimes wondering what she would do or think or remembering her amazing literary knowledge she so generously shared with her kids until she died at 92.

I think of our newest Mom, the mother of twins, my beautiful daughter-in-law who this year wears the crown of our Mom-of-the-Year!

My daughter, single mom, has raised an amazing kid. Her partner (who could not call her Mom also?) has had great input.

So, tomorrow, our local family will celebrate Mothers Day together. Americans all, we are of different colors, religions, origins, gay or straight. We'll have a potluck by the pool, lots of kids will be there.

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

Gay Marriage!

It's about time! Having our president affirm the rights for gays and lesbians to marry is just what he should do. These things are not just about politics; it is the right thing to do moving our society forward to have equal rights for all.
Lots of us have gays and lesbians in our circle of family and friends and we know they are just regular folks, working, raising families, loving each other. They should be able to have the same rights as heterosexual folks. We also have heterosexual folks in our families who are not married but are partners who often are raising kids together. All of these people, married or not, are worthy of respect and rights.
We need to be an inclusive society. So many of our families today include people of all colors and ethnicity. And now, we can get those loved ones who are gay or lesbian or transgender out of the closet.
We are all human!
We all have a fear of the unknown, and we have fears about our darkest secrets. Sexuality is a continuum and in every one of us there is doubt about how we measure up as masculine, feminine or maybe something else. It is a comfort to have a minister or politician or shaman tell us what to think and how to behave.
With Obama's sanction of gay marriage, the dialog can begin.

Bounty of the Garden

This is just one corner of this fenced vegetable garden. All you can see here are beans and cukes (with zinnias for the feng shway). Each evening we have the choice from ten or more tasty vegetables: eggplants, beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, collards, kale, chard, mitzuma, salad greens, onions, peapods and broccoli.

My best crop is the tomatoes! This year I planted all ten tomato plants in large containers with the bottoms cut out. This way, the cut worms don't invade, and so far, there are no tomato horn worms. Each morning when I visit this incredible place there are ripe tomatoes- all heirlooms, and huge! The black krims are dark Harvard crimson, so juicy and sweet there is no comparison to what you get in the markets. There are striped tomatoes, yellows, tiny ones, funny looking ones - all wonderful!

I search under the leaves for ripe cucumbers and find dozens! I think about making pickles. The green beans are way ahead of me though I pick daily. Pickled beans? There must be fifty eggplants waiting to be picked. How many recipes are there for eggplant? Peppers are yet to come.

Growing your own food is just the best! It compares to growing kids when you go from all potential to maybe a great harvest. But growing a garden is much less fraught. You can dig down those unfortunate vegetables that never did anything; not something you could do with a kid.

All the critters here are celebrating the spring harvest. Bob and Emily, the resident sand hill cranes spend most of every day in the yard looking for grubs and worms, purring and hoping I will leave the garden gate open. The deer are enjoying the tips of the rose bushes, the new citrus and the camellias. The squirrels are enjoying digging up the seeds I plant. Raccoons are eyeing the grape arbor and marking their calendar to attack just at the point the grapes will be ripe enough to make jelly.

Last evening we sat on the front porch after the rain watching the rainbow emerge. At the end of it were Bob and Emily, oblivious to their good fortune of living in paradise.

Super Mom

We returned today from a week's visit to see our youngest grandchildren, the twins! On the plane there were a number of babies, no twins, and I thought what a piece of cake it is to have only one.

 Our luggage was full of sweaters still fragrant with baby smells, and already we miss them so much!

What a week! These little guys have not even yet met their formal due date, but they are plump and gaining weight before our eyes, and each day we were there there were new milestones of development.

What we did was to be the competent old couple who did support duty. The dad, our son, was in the busiest period of his work life, negotiating the budget late into the nights for the state of Connecticut, so we were needed. Of course the most important thing was the feeding of these two greedy little physical beings. Super mom is breastfeeding!

One baby takes over the house. Two of them! Yikes! The living room is feeding central with a crib, changing station, and piles of tiny garments, diapers, and small cloths and blankets. Rarely are they ever sleeping at the same time: they are squirming and making constant small rooting noises, farting and belching.

And they are so appealing! A girl and a boy, they look quite different from each other, extremely cute. I spent hours just gazing at them.

But then, there was the laundry and the regular household stuff to do. Shopping, cooking for the lactating super mom, and best of all, just holding them, my heart full of babies and their fragrant milky smell. I have always known that children are the enemies of concentration, twins even more so.

Their mom is amazing! Right off the bat, she's confident and competent and accepts our help so graciously. Somehow, she finds time to read to each baby every day and find good humor in such homely things as bath time.

We are tired after being on such duty for a week. I would not trade that experience for anything. (What will these kids think of us when we are ninety?)

Too old to be a Mudder!

Here is my daughter in the middle of a 'mud' run. She has just slid down a huge slide into a large puddle of mud. Her team of six ran and slithered and jumped and scrambled the hurdles for more than three miles. They all helped each other, as did all the other teams out there in the hot sunshine of a Florida spring. Many of them were in 'costume' with tutus or colorful headgear.

I love this sport where everyone helps each other out, everyone is laughing and having fun playing. We all need to do this! As I watched this happen, something new for me, I thought "I could do this!". And I thought that it would be so much fun to have an abbreviated course for kids.

We had the team and their clack over for showers and lunch after the race. Twenty minutes after they got home there were YouTube videos complete with captions and music sent out to everyone.

And I had taken some photos of the event and wanted to share these and some other photos with family and friends. The photo sharing site had completely changed since the last time I used it a few days ago. Like detergent, this is a new and better! Hard to navigate for a person of my generation! Who knows where those photos are going?? Into the ether? To Mars? And how would I apply a musical score to them (as if I knew anything but Mozart and Bach?) And are they important in any way, does anyone care beyond the moment?  But we all want to do it.

I read an article by Anna Quindlen in the paper today (Yes, I still read stuff on actual paper!). It was about getting rid of stuff in your life, but hanging on to memories. So, why do I think that my wonderful happiness in seeing those young people having so much fun is only true if it can be photographed and digitized, captioned and set to music? During the week I know that all of them work hard in great jobs.

 My husband is happy to go and observe and remember. He does not own a camera now, though he once was an excellent photographer of people and events. He has traveled the world, reads widely. We talk all the time, face to face, trying to make some sense of this interesting world we find ourselves in. We have interesting conversational evenings with friends speaking of issues and ideas, books we've read and places we've been. We rarely discuss our smart phones and other new technology.

So, just another blog from this old curmudgeon. I could do a (short) mud run!

Where is this all going?

What If?

What if we hadn't had any grandchildren? We were not the sort who ever counted grandkids or even thought about it especially. But, then, our children began having their own families and we were really delighted. Of course, there is something pretty affirmative about having one fourth of your DNA passing on to the next generation, but that's not really it. Our kids could have adopted several Haitian children apiece, and they would still be ours and part of our tribe.

With the birth of our latest grand children, twins, we now have eight! Who could have thunk?

What really matters in the relationship of grandparents and grandchildren is the connection. It boils down to quantity time. Most of our grandchildren live far away but we pay serious attention to our visits with each other. Summers we have grandkids visit, they come for vacations and hang out in my studio. The little ones come with their parents. And, also, we go to visit them where they live. The older ones come and hang out during vacations and our whole fun place is completely given over to them.

Now, on day eleven of his visit, our Florida grandson, Quincy, is still a peach! He's seven now. We have had his visits since he was weaned. We survived toddlerhood, toilet training, bad backs (ours!), teaching him to ride a bike, swim, drive the golf cart, and all the rest.

And now, here we have a long term small visitor who comes here so often he has his own room and a playroom with an incredible amount of stuff (Legos, trains, cars and any art material he can think of). This little guy knows our property better than his mom ever did and now that his tether is long, he can go anywhere he wants. He has his chores (emptying the compost, clearing the table) and he is part of the family. We have lovely long dinners, often with friends, and Quincy fits in, eats everything available and compliments the chef every time. We talk about everything!

When this child first began to visit it was hard for us because we had to be on duty every single second. Even at night we were tethered to the intercom. But now, here is this easy focused kid who has an incredible agenda.

And on this visit to us he was here when his two west coast cousins came for part of the time. He was the spark of activities and the three kids had a lot of fun together outdoors. An only child, he was sometimes worried by the sibling rivalry of his cousins he loves.

After the cousins left he has made a forest of paper constructions and origami, written a journal about pets, read innumerable books, constructed an amazing train set-up, practiced long addition and subtraction.. I am so amazed! He's been fascinated with the long chapter book we have read for the entire time he's been here. We finished it today.

Quincy knows that his grandparents really have his back. It helps that he has charm and already the best rudiments of manners. Goes a long way for a seven year old to always say please and thank you - and be presentable enough to take absolutely anywhere.

Tomorrow, his mom will come and take him home. It will feel empty here.

Never worked a day in her life

Sisters, let's not get our panties in a bunch about this latest campaign ridiculousness. As all of us who are moms know that staying at home with those kids is no easy deal. No question it's work. And, yeah, most of us have to work outside the home too.

I am seventy-one, a member of the "sandwich" generation. We were among the first women who were educated the same as our brothers. If we chose, we could compete on the same level (but not quite!).

Since I was fourteen years old, working summers picking cherries, being a camp counselor or a nanny, working in libraries, running a language lab, sexing mice and so many other things, there has never been a year when my paltry earnings were not recorded by Social Security.

We married young, had two children by the time we were twenty-seven. We were scrambling and frugal. My young husband, in the social milieu of the sixties, set out to be the principal breadwinner for the family. It wasn't that he allowed me to work outside the home. It just was the way our family worked.

And yet, looking back, I realize that we were creatures of our culture that was America. I had the kids, breastfed them, tended to their every need, kept the house together, cooked, paid the bills, attended sports events, drove everyone to swim meets etc. and went to work everyday. I remember going to the supermarket around midnight after my husband came home from work. I loved this time without toddlers!

The weird thing is, neither of us thought that there was anything peculiar about this arrangement! He came home from work after eleven p.m. and we had a lovely dinner I cooked together, the kids were long ago in bed, smelling sweet after their bath.

I never felt like a martyr. As time went on he made enormously more money than I did. Of course I had the kids (balls and chains to my ankles) But I always had the bottom line that if he fell off a cliff I would be able to financially manage keeping life going for the kids.

Also, I truly loved my work of teaching and being a school director. It was so involving of the whole family.

My husband and I, probably not at all typical for the time, really appreciated each other's work. When I quit cooking ("O.K., everyone. Today I quit cooking!") my husband took up the slack and now is a stellar chef and does all the cooking and shopping.

The most wonderful affirmation I have ever had is my husband telling me that he didn't really have a clue about all the stuff I was doing. And neither did I. Back then this was just the way things were.

Our sons are truly invested in what their kids need. Their wives work, and to make the families flourish, they pitch in equally. Biology is still a gate-keeper and always will be. My daughter-in-law, now breastfeeding twins, will return to a high-powered job. They will have to decide among what care-giving options are available. And, now in this time, they will make these decisions together.

Women have made steady gains to claim their rights. It is ridiculous to go backwards and erase contraceptive and abortion options. Sisters, we need to think about the global issues of work and fertility, and how we stand.