Growing Food

What I am really interested in these days is growing food for us to eat. I am interested in this, of course, in a political and ethical way. I want to eat locally and diminish our carbon footprint. I want to eat foods that are organically grown and are environmentally correct and taste great. And right now we are harvesting from our small garden all the vegetables we need. We never have to buy anything from the supermarket except meat and toilet paper and detergents and milk. We get eggs from a local person (four years old).
Every day I go out and tweak the vegetable garden. I nip off the suckers from the tomatoes, peel off the leaves from the brussel sprouts, and water the lettuces I want to keep on producing into the hot weather and check the beets. I cut many broccoli sprouts and heads, pick the beans and swiss chard, examine the collard leaves for the dreaded caterpillars and squash them into the ground. I marvel at the many gourds climbing the fence and already fruiting. I look up to enjoy the morning glory blossoms in all colors threading through the cucumber vines and the hummingbirds at the feeder and I look down to pull a few weeds and throw them into my weed bucket. And the tomatoes! I have at least thirty plants, mostly heirlooms I grew from seed. They are all potential right now but they are robust and have no bugs or blight. There are several interesting holes in the earth- not armadillos, thank god. These small holes belong to the black racers and the toads and those interesting bees who help pollinate the squash and gourds and tomatoes.I know this because when you have time to be quietly weeding and tweaking in the garden you are not alone and can see and enjoy these creatures as they emerge. Heaven!
I love to grow flowers as well, but vegetables are king to me, always an interesting challenge. I think that an abundance of home grown organic vegetables are so tasty! I love to bring a basket of this day's produce to my husband, the cook, and he uses what's there today. Admittedly, we have to eat a LOT of broccoli right now, and then a LOT of green beans, and then I see beets and brussels sprouts on the horizon. I can hardly wait until the tomatoes kick in. They are in blossom.

It appalls me to think that environmental science would be "controversial" in our public schools. Probably not in Oregon, but here in Florida, where we are still debating whether creationism should be taught in science class, educators must step softly. (or not at all) There are always the rules and procedures and rubrics and limited time for everything. The FCAT tests drive everything. Does no one have passion or ideas? Does no one love these amazing kids who will inherit the earth?
I am a volunteer in two public schools, and sure, I am not there every day and I do not know everything.. But I observe.
These public schools were built twenty years ago when no one thought anything about carbon footprints. They are dismal buildings in glorious settings of rural Florida. There are no windows and few walls. In warm weather the air conditioning is blasting away so that everyone can wear a sweater. In the few days of the cold season, the rooms are too warm. Everyone whispers.
I would love to be alive when one of these principals calls in her fifth graders and presents to them the challenge of how they can make this school energy efficient. The kids will come up with goofy ideas, and some good ones. Whack out some of the walls and put in windows that open. Put solar panels on the roof. Install a wind turbine. At the very least, turn down the a/c several degrees. Have outdoor classes, plant trees, install a pond, grow a vegetable garden for the whole community. And the kids will be learning science all the while because it's real and because their very lives depend on it.
The science fairs are generally crap. Kids do poor science about what hair spray or diaper is best. It would be a whole lot more effective if these good kids could be involved in the life ahead and start out doing real things and thinking critically about what their world will be. For openers I would love to see kids outside lying in the grass observing bugs with magnifying glasses, getting used to the sense of wonder in the natural world.
Last week when my grandchildren were here we walked out in the night woods and saw the thousands of fireflies in the palmettos, and echoing them, the stars in the sky. We held hands and were amazed at the beauty of this world we inhabit. It's a step.

Earth Day

I feel kind of like Andy Rooney with my curmudgeonly objections to so much packaging that comes with everything we buy. But here's a suggestion for everyone to try on Earth Day. I do it all the time. At the check out counter, remove unnecessary packaging and give it back to the clerk. You don't need those plastic hangers that come with cheap clothing we all wear. You don't need shoe boxes with the crumpled tissue paper and toe fillers. You don't need the boxes containing the toothpaste or the ibuprofen. Toiletries are the worst. You certainly don't need that dangerous clamshell rig on the batteries you buy. You don't need all that ingenious Chinese packing foam that comes when you buy a small lamp or electronics. Be real now, you'll never have to return it, and if you did you could never figure out how to get it back in the box (if you could find it).
Food items are harder. You don't want to go out of the store with breakfast cereal stuffed in your pockets or bald fried chicken in your purse, but you can eschew the plastic or paper bags for those nifty ones sold everywhere for under a dollar. Each one can contain what would be placed in FOUR plastic bags! So much easier.
I know you are thinking about the loss of jobs if we reduced packaging. There's no end to political correctness, is there? But even from a selfish view of closets, we know that less packaging means more room for what we already have. Not to mention the dreaded carbon footprint.
Today I went to a website www.catalogchoice.org , and canceled with ease all those catalogs that clog my mailbox. It's easy, it's free. You know you don't need that catalog about cattle insemination products, or the fifteenth one about 'window treatments', especially if you don't have any curtains and prefer it that way. Lighten the load to the recycling center (You DO recycle?)
And, last but not unimportant, try growing some of your own food. Fill containers with herbs and salad greens. For us tonight we have enough fresh broccoli, green beans and swiss chard to stagger sextillions of infidels, not to mention the guests.

"We go home now"

When we took Quincy on the historical trolley ride in our small town yesterday, he was enthralled by it all. He sat in the window seat next to Grandpa, taking in everything the guide said. I enjoyed watching him from the seat behind, his chubby cheeks pink and his red hair flying in the sun. It was a ninety minute tour of historical homes and landmarks and even I, the grown-up, was getting antsy, wishing I could put the pedal to the metal and get on with it. Quincy, however, was the dignified and polite three year old, occasionally commenting on cats or trucks he saw. He very much liked when the guide reached up to pull the trolley bell. He knew when that would happen and he reached up in imitation. He leaned over to Grandpa and said, "We go home now! Time for lunch!"
Yes! Time to go home. And what a home we have! This evening, the three teenagers and Quincy have gone to their real homes and I have a few hours all alone except for the small dog. The moon is almost full and the fireflies are out in full force. Coyotes are singing.
I am working on the last quilt of my project of four. I knew this last one would be the most challenging. For all these years my husband has dragged a large woodcut I made when I was very young from place to place as we moved. And now, I want to print it again on this quilt. It is the first stanza of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, and I was in love with it at the time. It is perfect, I think, for the young person who is to receive this quilt. The large wood block is old and dried up (as am I!), cantankerous and not wanting to receive the ink as I want it to. I am wetting it down constantly and pulling trial prints. I am not discouraged that the ink won't adhere as it should in my mind's eye. I am thinking of changing the fabric, maybe dyeing muslin and using that instead of the fabric I had originally planned. And there is plan B, and C, probably D too.
What is fun is to have the time to do this. Also fun is having a collaborator quilter nearby who will actually quilt the three pieces of the sandwich together on her long arm quilting machine. We spend hours deciding on the thread colors, the design of the quilting as it embraces my quilt tops.
I never thought I would be this happy as a retired person. I loved my work as a teacher and school director. But the time came when I knew I needed to get out of the way and let others do it. I was tired of telling kids what to do, and I still don't want to do this anymore.
Kids are still a large part of my life. I am loving the role of being the wildly idiosyncratic grandma person to many kids. I think of last night with my teenage grandson when we put in hours processing the amazing photos he made while he was here. It was just so easy and companionable being with this creative young person I was teaching in a low key way. No agenda beyond the task at hand. Fifty three years difference in age we are, but no matter! The students in the school where I volunteered today were the same: we had a project to do and we got right down to business. (After hugs, of course.)
The nagging little dog is warming my bed, waiting for me.

My Space

My space has been invaded by my grandsons, especially the fourteen year old, who love having a building (my studio) where they can make art, use their computer, and just hang out all day. I can easily take this for a couple of days, and we are compatible in my space. Diego is making collages (to die for), and I am completing a project of four quilts. Everything hums with activity, and we are even fairly o.k. with the music we listen to.

But I find that I cannot really do my best thinking and creating with another person at my elbow. Tonight I have one hour alone in the studio, and then I have promised my appearance at the evening card game in fifteen minutes.

'My Space': do kids today really know anything about having their own space? Are we all to become Japanese type persons having to share tiny spaces, never being alone? Is 'My Space' only to be something online? For me, my space is in my studio, alone with my thoughts and art, or outdoors walking in the woods and fields. I appreciate that my wonderful grandsons truly love the freedom they have here, the space to create, think, and just be themselves. What a gift for us all.

Still hoping for public schools

They were doing the FCAT in the public school where I volunteer. It took two weeks and they did not want volunteers there for the duration. I took a trip up north and worked in the garden and thought about those good and patient children who were filling in the circles with their number two pencils.
I reappeared today to cries of welcome, and "What are we going to do today?" They are eying my satchel for clues of what art materials and what food goody I have brought this day. I have brought a big bag of greens from my garden for the teacher and two large bags of peanuts in the shell for the kids. After the 'pancake' fiasco I have vowed never to cook in that classroom again.
As usual, the teacher is hunkered down at her laptop and her database of kids' scores and attendance and what else I have never been able to figure out. What I know is that these tasks take up all her time. She is a shy woman and I have gradually warmed to her and now appreciate her shards of humor. After all, she did ask me to be a classroom volunteer and she knew right from the beginning that I would not be Ms. Plastic who put up bulletin boards (all canned). She weathered the pancake incident, after all, and she pretty much gives me free reign to do what I want with the kids.
She told me today that she had an encounter with the principal, who wanted to know why in the world she would let a volunteer-me (!) do clay with the kids when the FCATS were pending?? My projects are messy and fun and noisy and the fired and glazed products are wonderful to my mind.
Earlier this week I went back to my old school to visit for a few hours. As I walked into the school my eyeballs popped at the riot of colorful paintings lining the halls. In the background I heard choruses of recorders playing in the distance. Little kids pulled me along to look at the small cottages they were making out of craft sticks. There was so much STUFF there! Other kids showed me their writing. Five minutes before the end of the day everyone, kids and adults, went into action to clean everything up. They are responsible for their everyday environment and they take doing their jobs seriously. In the public school the janitor does all this.
In my old school the kids also take standardized tests. They do not spend every school hour preparing. What they do is produce a Shakespearean play or go on a trip to study marine science in the Keys. And on the tests they do very well indeed.
Today I wanted to start a small group of ten students writing their own books that we'll compose, illustrate, edit, and bind. They seemed excited about it, though there is never enough time. These kids seem starved for adult interaction. They wanted to tell me so many things! They wanted to talk to me about the books they are reading, and what they used to read. I am thinking about the many years when I read to ten year-olds "To Kill a Mockingbird", and how this book was the most important thing they addressed. A few kids sidle up to me and ask, "Have you read the second book of "A Land Remembered"? This is the book they are required to read (Sunshine Standards), a fictional history of Florida. I read it months ago and was appalled by the expurgated edition and promptly got the original. The kids wanted me to somehow get them the real edition. I hedge.. I am already in trouble with this school.
I think that I may just begin reading them TKAM. It could be the best thing they learn.

Making Decisions

You would think that a person of my age would have a better handle on living the life I have. But, two years into retirement from compelling work, I am still flopping around trying to be grounded in a purposeful schedule. When I was working, teaching and administrating, life was full of that bulge of close to ten hours each day being on the job. I squeezed in exercising before the first light of dawn, and social life was relegated to the margins of the weekends. At that time, family was remote, and we visited back and forth on carefully calculated dates.
In the last couple of months I have had to deal with complex and hard family problems and my free time has been taken up with the truly gritty stuff of being a hands-on grandma. I love that little guy, but it's intense.
I am glad to be retired, no question. It has been important to me to leave my work life to younger people and I am glad every day not to have to be telling people what to do, glad to be through with staff meetings, and the everyday details. I am loving having time to do some of the things that have always lapped at my artistic soul. Wallowing in dilettantism. Volunteering.
My husband and I still struggle with having two homes. More and more, the town house in the city fades away in our interest. It's a lovely thing to have that place for one or two nights a week when we want to see friends there, attend board meetings, or go to the theater. We have finally really finished that place that needed so much renovation. Now it's pristine, hermetically sealed in perfect air conditioning, and quite lovely and stylish.
But, after the brutal commute back from town, we sigh a deep breath of joy as we drive the mile from our mailbox to the farmhouse. I look at the resurrection ferns on the oaks to see how much rain there has been. I see a flock of turkeys running crazily in front of the car at seventeen mph. Home! First thing, I check the vegetable garden, then the flower beds and the orchids under the pool screen. Then I open my studio after checking the container gardens of lettuces. I have to walk around and look at everything, even if it has only been twenty-four hours since I was last here. While the computer gets going (321 messages), I walk out behind the barn and look at the footprints of deer, hogs, coyotes, turkeys, and hear the rustling of armadillos. I check for new wren nests, and I rejoice at my good fortune.
The main house is to us such a wonderful place. Sometimes I just twirl in the central hall and look in all directions. One way you see out front to the porch and the vines full of hummingbirds, and beyond that the beauty of rural Florida with deer, sand hill cranes, hawks on the ghost tree and maybe a gopher tortoise lumbering across the pasture. In back there is the spacious screen porch where everyone gathers and where dogs lie in the sun rays. There is the fragrant farm kitchen on another arm of the house looking out to the vegetable garden. And, opposite, there is the public space: on one side, the study and fireplace room (chimney swifts nest in the chimney there from March through October, kindly leaving us time to have a few fires in the cold season). On the other side is the music room with the piano and instruments and t.v. In every room there are the dogs and I try mightily to vacuum up their hair and scrub down the surfaces of the couches. We have several bedrooms upstairs and a playroom in the hall there with lots of toys left over from our kids and grandkids.
I think I am describing a home? It's where we live.
I guess what I am describing is our real home and maybe we should be perfectly content. But there is still that niggling at us (our mothers' voices? Our friends in the city who chastise us ever so gently about rusticating here?).
I am also trying to make the decision about this blog. Shall I just let it die? I began it because I wanted to try something different and public- a real departure for a shy person. I have learned a lot from doing it, no doubt. But it may be the time to get a grip on my real life.

Old and new stuff, Obama!

When I was four years old, my new friend, Juliet, came over to our house. (In those days no one called this a 'play date') In the course of that first day, we were to take a nap together on my parents' big bed. I noticed that my new friend was not wearing an undershirt! This was my first experience in knowing that people are different and it didn't actually matter if you wore an undershirt or not. As the years passed and Juliet and I became best friends forever and we grew up; the things that mattered were what books we read, where we would go in the woods, what imaginary games we would play, and later on, the boys we loved. And still, the books we read.
Today, the differences are far different from what undergarments a kid wears. Our public schools are full of colorful children, the differences mostly about class, not color.
In my elder life, in my retirement from a lifetime of teaching in a private school, I realize that the most compelling issue of my adult life has been about race in America. I have struggled to make my private school welcoming to blacks and I have tried and been lacking.
This is why I will vote for Obama. I will readily play the race card. I believe that Obama is a brilliant person, no doubt. I think that Obama will be the hope for change that African-Americans can support. Perhaps I am putting too much responsibility on him, to think that he can (hopefully!) bring that quarter of our American population into the mainstream of America.
I want to see our prisons free of having a majority of black men incarcerated there. I want to see black children have two parents who care about them. And I want to see the day when the sun shines on all our colorful people and we all rejoice together and go forward to address our needs and desires. I believe Obama has this best chance.

Our Children are not our Children

I love my family and I want to encircle them all in my arms and have everyone be here together. I felt this most intensely after 9/11, but none of them were here, and we wept alone. Our three children have been given wings to fly, and they now live their own lives..
Today, we anticipated the wonderful birthday party for two of our grandchildren who were arriving from thousands of miles away. We hadn't seen them for six months. Our oldest grandchild was also here for his spring vacation. And we had our youngest grandson and his mom here as well. My sister and her husband were coming, and our nephew and a couple of friends-a full house.
Before the gang from far places arrived, we had all the beds made up, the dog hairs vacuumed from the carpets, and the major volcano cake constructed and decorated. (It erupts with steam from dry ice and spews out red lava.)
It was a long day. We cannot do anything very purposeful that is a part of our regular lives. We wait for arrivals and empty the dishwasher many times, do lots of laundry loads, and prepare meals for the multitudes. In bits and pieces we connect with each family member.. I spend time at the barn with my two small grandsons, hugely enjoying a ball game. They are three and four, so different from each other, a white blonde and a redhead, but they are interested in each other and quickly find a common interest in little cars and vehicles. I see a physical commonality in the cheeks, the toes. The youngest grandchild, Caroline, joins the group. She is a very beautiful child, so delicate and petite at two, very self-contained. She doesn't know me and is wary. She takes her cue from her trusted brother and allows me to woo her.
In this family visit I think I am better than I have ever been. I have no particular expectations and take the visit hour by hour. I hear our daughter inviting her brother and family to come down to her place nearby and for one nano second I think "Oh, no! These precious people can't leave for a day!" But, then, I do a self-correct, and recognize that this is what the visit is all about.
Our oldest grandson, now fourteen, is here by himself. What a magnificent young person he is! He particularly wanted to meet his youngest cousin and he is so great with the toddlers and the three dogs. He is eager and willing to help out with whatever needs doing and he is amazingly forthcoming about his life and interests. He loves to go out in the truck with his grandfather who lets him drive. This is a really gifted boy who is very connected to family.

The weirdness of time

As I put the leftovers I will have for lunch into the microwave I think that these sixteen seconds will never be mine again. Another period of time, however short, is gone. Bing! At my age, I think of these things sometimes. Maybe I have another thirty years to go.
All my life I have thought about time. When I was five I couldn't tell time on our living room clock and it was a frustration to me that it didn't have proper numbers, just modernistic dots that other people could decipher, but not me. I couldn't wait to get a watch, and for all my life, a watch has been indispensable to me. I need to have a clock I can see in the dark on my bedside table. For trips where the clock is problematic, I always take my 'moonglow' watch so I can know even in the dark what time it is. For many years we have had a functioning cuckoo clock and that little bird belts out the hours and half hours faithfully. When sleepless, I hear it in the kitchen. I feel the time passing.
Sometimes I wonder what happened to all that time. There were so many stops in time. In elementary school I looked at the classroom clock at noon on Wednesdays and thought that this week was halfway over, only two and a half days until the weekend when I could read for hours or go out into the woods for adventures.
Each summer I spent a week or so with my friend,Juliet, and her family in a cottage on Lake Ontario. The rule was that no one had a watch or a clock. This was heavenly! We got up with the dawn and spent all day messing about in our canoe and came back to the cottage when it felt like time. We read Shakespeare out loud until the light failed.
There are discreet lumps of time we all have- middle school, high school, college, graduate school- and we remember the events and people and some of the ideas we had then. The years of young marriage, new careers and having young children pass in a blur. I look back (with the help of photo albums) and wish I could have enjoyed it more. But time was passing, and where did it go?
I can't believe I am an elderly person now. I look at the cheeks of my best friend, my age, and see her lined and beautiful face. I am sure I look the same, though in my bones I feel I am the same ten year old I have always been, lithe, skinny and smooth skinned. But now, with all that time passed, I am wiser, fatter, experienced, and more open to new adventures!
Right now, I want to enjoy every moment. But that is as elusive as ever. Sometimes I now forget to put on my watch after my morning shower. But not for long. Soon I must retrieve it so I can start the day and monitor my productivity.

The politics of hope

Back then, when we could first cast our votes, we voted for JFK. We were excited to think we could do our part to elect a president, a young man, who asked us what we could do for our country.
Those were heady times and we young people were ready to join the Peace Corps or do whatever it took to make our country great. We started many non-profits, lived in communes, participated in Earth Day. Our hair grew long. The charisma of this young president gave so many of us hope for a future we couldn't even imagine. We trusted him.
When the Cuban Missile Crisis happened, my new young husband and I drove to Vermont from Providence where we were students. On that weekend, we took our savings of two thousand dollars and bought fifty acres of wilderness. We grabbed the brass ring. We were scared that tomorrow would never come and we would be blasted away by Soviet warheads. We stayed that weekend in some sort of hostelry nearby. I recall walking in the snow, hoping against hope that our young president would pull us through.
After the weekend we returned to our classes at Brown and Harvard, intact. Diplomacy had prevailed. Those hours and the aftermath of relief are still indelible in my mind. I look back and think how magnificent our young president was. This young president had wisdom.

Now, almost fifty years later, I have the visceral memory of wanting change so badly it hurt. In fifty years the world has changed into something we could not have imagined then. There are now some delicious possibilities out there. In the last election I worked so hard, as did so many others, to get the current occupant OUT. But it seemed that so many people had one issue (guns, gays, abortion) and those prevailed.

This time, we know that we are getting the current occupant out. His time is over. Now it is about change and hope and going on. This election is so much more full of hope than any others of recent past. I will not vote for an old white guy, especially an old white guy who will continue to protect the rich, and bend to the religious right in their fears of change of the status quo.
I will vote for the candidate who envisions a USA of possibilities, who sees this magnificent country as a place where every child can get the health care needed, who sees that we need to mend our fences in a global economy, who sees the need to protect our planet. I will vote for a candidate who knows the importance of safeguarding civil rights. I will vote for a candidate who includes all of us Americans of every color and class into the valuable fabric of our communal culture.
We have some good candidates, none of them republican, as far as I can see now. It is your responsibility to choose.

Personal Quilts

This is one of the personal quilts I have made for friends. This one was for my friend, Anne, the quintessential turtle expert in the entire world. I think it now hangs behind her bed.
I must have made more than a hundred quilts, always for other people. When I make these I think intensely of the person for whom I am making the quilt. This means that I think about my subjects for hours and hours. Lots of quilts are for young people who were once my students. I do not make quilts for anyone. It takes a long time to conceive the design, and much longer to make that design into a workable quilt. Making quilts is also expensive. I make quilts for young friends who care to connect with me.
I love to make graduation quilts for young people going off to college, or graduate school or getting doctorates. I like making marriage quilts. These quilts are full of love (and dog hairs!).
My quilts are not traditional ones. I am self-taught, idiosyncratic and a bit crazy. My quilts are strange collages, mostly machine sewed but with lots of hand-sewed attachments.
This evening I have placed on the floor of my studio the quilt for Maddy, who is soon to graduate from high school. This one is almost finished, and I am happy with the colors and the content. I have yet to pick the color of the backing.
I have three other quilts to complete before spring! Alex, Katie, and Sarah need quilts as well. These are all kids who were my students and who have continued to make connections with me. I love them so much and I will make the quilts for them to take to college, thinking all the while about them.

Chilly!

We've had some chilly mornings with frost on the ground. I go out and hear the crunch underfoot as I make my rounds of the gardens. The days are getting a bit longer and I see new buds and signs of life on the shrubs and trees. The plum tree is in bloom and the pastures have the glow of spring green. The wrens are in full cry, calling their mates and getting busy with the nesting. Bob and Emily, our resident sandhill cranes, are renewing their vows very noisily and with dance steps worthy of a TV show. The cardinals are picking off the last of the beauty berries, and the buds of the azaleas promise to amaze us soon. I have lots of lettuces, broccoli and collards that survived the frosts. At the weekend, my grandson, Quincy, will help plant the seed potatoes that are now sprouting and turning bronze on the porch. We'll put in a couple of rows of onions as well.

This little guy is such a determined gardener! He gets out his trowel and applies the compost very faithfully to each plant. Like his mom at that age, he sticks out his tongue in concentration, thoroughly involved at the task at hand.
I am totally happy here! I love the change of seasons and how different the landscape is from month to month. We have been walking in the afternoons these brilliant days. We crisscross our land on trails, never making the same walk. There is always something new to see. Lola, our small wiener dog loves these walks, the sniffs of the fields, and being with her people.

Still thinking about keeping chickens!

What school should be

"Miss Molly!, Miss Molly!" Those small hands reach out and they are so glad to see me. I am trying as hard as I can to be a good volunteer in our local public schools. It is always an adventure when I come with my bags loaded with good stuff to eat and some new activities and games. One kid tells me, cuddling up close, "Fridays are my favorite days! We get to do such fun stuff!" The Tuesday group runs out to greet me and they always ask me what I have brought for them to eat.
The Friday group has been doing clay for a number of weeks. They have learned a lot about how to fashion their pieces, and then glaze them. They are so pleased with the wonderful colorful results. This class is mostly 'gifted' ten year olds. There are twenty-three of them. This is the 'best' school in the area. These kids generally come from affluent homes. I have never met their parents, but I know they care about their kids, take them to soccer and work on their science fair projects, and instill in them some politenesses which go far. They rely on the public school to attend to the education.
I was planning what I would do this Friday. I knew the kids had been reading the Patrick Smith book, 'A Land Remembered'. They were to read it by themselves, thirty minutes a day, no adult to read it to them, no one to be cuddled next to them as they read aloud and comment on the interesting things.
But they were excited about this book, a narrative about a family in early Florida. I found it fascinating too. This Friday I wanted to go into the class with my old fashioned dutch oven and make corn pone with cane syrup. I have twenty-four quilt squares ready to make into an entire quilt. I have checked out many books from the library with pictures of life in settler Florida.
Mid day I have an e-mail from their teacher, who clearly does not want me to come this week, but she is distantly polite. The kids have 'a lot to do- some chapter tests for the FCAT.' I say that I am coming anyway because I have promised the kids I will bring their completed clay pieces. I will do a short activity with them.
This teacher runs a spiffy classroom. I have rarely seen her doing anything but being hunkered down at her computer. I must say she welcomes having another warm body to deal with the kids. She has never had any curiosity at all about me. Perhaps she dismisses me as as an old person and not worthy of attention. I don't know. I think she regrets having me as a volunteer because I create chaos, questions, mess, and affection. But she is polite and she'll endure her commitment until the end of the year.
This school is built on the old model of having four classrooms in a pod, no windows, and a central space with the bathrooms. There are no doors between classrooms so the students have to be unnaturally silent all the time. You don't ever hear the hum of children being children. The silence is eerie. When I come with my activities and noise, it is obviously a bit too much. I see the other pod teachers slamming shut their folding doors. Mostly they are having TESTS!
Kids have an entirely different agenda. They are not interested in constant tests. They want the power of experience. They want to do stuff, think about things, pay attention to what interests them. They want to talk to me. And they want to talk to each other!
I know from long years of experience that kids will not remember the tests and the dreary work sheets. They'll remember the hands-on stuff and the experiences they had. I do not think that all these tests, pretests, post tests, final tests mean anything at all. Nor do the kids! What does a kid learn from taking all these tests? Maybe he/she learns not to fear tests.
I would wish that each child would have the time to wonder and find his/her way to explore the world and think critically about it. To do this, a kid must have the time to explore a world with all the time needed. To meet the Florida science standards, for example, it is much more important to send kids out to the seashore with a seine net and an enthusiastic teacher, or into the woods, than it is to learn how to fill in the dreary multiple test answers. What are we thinking??

What school should be

Technology Grandma

Simple living! Slow times! Hah! You can't do it in these times. I have a new cell phone and the manual is an inch thick. I feel like Andy Rooney, making all these things work.

In the last few months I have felt totally incompetent trying to use an amazing array of such things as laundry equipment (in New Zealand), microwave ovens in other peoples' houses, t.v.'s with five different remotes, international cell phones, digital ovens, air conditioning that is 'smart' and can figure out when you are home and when you aren't, garage door openers that you must 'teach' to let you open the fucking door, and of course, the quirks of one's own computer.

I used to smirk at the incompetencies of people I knew who couldn't manage e-mail. Or whatever. I am now humbled. I think that there are gremlins out there who delight in bringing me to my knees. I am totally reliant on my computer, and when it slowed down to a very slow crawl, I thought it was some horrid virus. In the heebeejeebies of the middle of the night, I imagined that I would throw this computer into the pond and buy a Mac. I thought I would humble myself and ask my wonderful friend Jeff to help. For two days I struggled with this, and then, miraculously, it healed!

But, mostly, I am faced daily with sorts of technology I must learn. The other day I took my old Honda in for service at a state of the arts dealership. They put it on the computer to diagnose every little thing. Seven hundred dollars later (and four hours plus a fresh baked cookie ), I have a perfect car. Does this computer diagnosis thing really work? I wish one did not have to learn everything new for every new product. I don't want to read another manual for each thing I buy.

At the farmers feed store, where we went last weekend with Quincy, our three year old grandson, we looked at the baby chickens for sale ($2.49 each for Andalusian hen chicks). Nothing digital here. I am still thinking of getting chickens.

I wish I could be alive at the time when there was some kind of standard for how things work. In the meantime, I am thinking of what words to have on my main cell phone interface. Maybe it will be 'throw a bad tool in the bushes'.

Garden Club!

Last weekend I attended a ceramics workshop- two full days about glaze techniques. Everyone there, all experienced potters, learned some new techniques, and to all of us, it was a stop time experience. While eating lunch next to the grand kilns, I met two women who were from my small town in East Pasco. One of them, invited me to her garden club meeting (about orchids).
So, today, I went. I have been resisting these events for many years, but I am really interested in orchids and have many of them that bloom magnificently on schedule. My new friend, Kay, welcomed me and introduced me to the twenty or so women who were there. These women were between forty and one hundred years old (all of us sharp as tacks!) There was a huge spread for brunch. None of this new age stuff to eat; it was southern hospitality all the way with quiches, sweet stuff, fruit and strong coffee with real cream on the side. I dug in, hugely appreciative of all these calories after my lean breakfast at home of a piece of toast and a soy sausage. Hey!
I am bad at names and I am still trying to fix in my mind Marilyn, Beebee, Natalie, Betty, and so many others.
After the pledge to the flag and a definitely Christian prayer, we settled our ample bottoms on the folding chairs and prepared for the orchid demo. I was enthralled. Beebee, the presenter had plump healthy plants and some that were close to giving up. We learned ways of reviving them. We learned how to root prune and repot, what medium to use, and how to propagate the plants. I never got the chance to boast of my greatest horticultural event- the giant mutant cosmos that grew to twelve feet and bloomed incessantly from July through December. (see photo..)
This garden club is only a small part of the greater garden club, and each 'circle' (this one was the Hollyhock circle') has a special area of interest. This one mainly does fund-raising such as auctions and raffles and teas. Another circle does certain kinds of flowers, wild flowers, and there are circles that do vegetables, I was told.
Though I loved the orchid lady who spoke with authority and wicked humor, I was a bit of a fish out of water. I am not interested in fund-raising, I made the vow years ago that I would never cook like my proper Alabama mom who cooked everything white. I'm no good with teas and brunches, and I don't dress up.
Whatever circle I decide to join, it will be an adventure getting to know these good small town people who do what they can, give back what they got, and feel pleased they can do it. One of the Hollyhock gals who was at least 85, spends a morning a week cooking lunch at the local Hospice. These are the thousand points of light, and they are not dim bulbs. This small town is buzzing with volunteers; they are at Habitat for Humanity, Hospice, the Library, the local history museum, the schools, and of course, the churches.
I am working on accepting people right where they are, no need to go into politics, religion, sartorial issues or the trading of ancient recipes. I don't have to jump up with my latest neat idea about transforming anything. It's about finding common ground and sharing the enjoyment of plants. The giant cosmos has now produced hundreds of volunteer seedlings. I'll definitely share those.

Thinking of Chickens

I went to visit a flock of chickens today, probably more than thirty of them, all colors and sizes. They were gently pecking away at the bugs in the grass as they quietly cackle-purred the way chickens do, perhaps celebrating their good fortune at being truly free range birds under large oaks and citrus trees. Several of them were truly beautiful like magnificent parrots. Their owner showed me their night time coop, and some of the lovely multi-colored eggs they laid. I was entranced.
This idea of keeping chickens came to me in the midst of a time when I have been distraught about my child's crumbling marriage. There is really no connection, except that I am searching for some new direction, something physical I must attend to beyond the garden and my art work. Keeping chickens would require me to be here in this place I love so much! "Oh, I can't possibly go here or there or attend the dinner, but I have to tend to the flock, thank you very much!"
I think, romantically, about having my three year old grandson help with this project. We now see a lot more of him, and he is often here on weekends.
Keeping chickens is a really bad idea for me, I know this, I would hate to kill them, I would have to get people to feed and water them when I am away.
What this is about is the 'away' part. I am struggling with having two homes. My real home is here in the country and I yearn to be able to really live here full-time. But, for now, we can't. At least once a week, usually more than that, both of us or one of us must do that horrid high speed (or stuck in traffic) commute of an hour and a half to go to our other 'home', an urban launching point for our civic responsibilities, and the chance to see friends and family we care about. We spend way too much time closing and opening houses.
Our house there, spare and stylish, has been fraught with problems for two years. It is never easy being there. The place is quite new, looks perfect and pristine, but there is always some problem with windows, plumbing, termites, leaks, a/c or whatever. I dread going there, and count the minutes until I can go home to our place in the remote Green Swamp where the owls call , the vegetables are ready from the garden, and the wildness envelopes me.
Something's got to give. So I think impractically of keeping chickens. Just maybe, it could keep me sane.

My Sister, Maria

Here is my adopted sister, Maria, laughing with her niece, my daughter, Elizabeth. Elizabeth has just presented really ridiculous matching pajamas to Maria and her husband, Jay. This was one of those wonderful holiday evenings families enjoy.

Maria has been a good friend for decades. I met her through her daughter who was one of my students. Then, Maria took on a job at the newspaper where my husband worked. Through the years Maria was a close friend to both of us. Our history goes way back.

One June shortly before 9/11 we decided to take a vacation in Italy together with my brother and sister and their spouses. We wanted Maria and Jay to come too. It was a fabulous time in Tuscany for all of us.. Maria and Jay, her husband, were enfolded seamlessly into our family, and the idea began in my mind. My biological sister and I live thousands of miles apart, but that is nothing to us. We call each other and visit each other when we can. Women need sisters! Maria needs a sister, (she is an only child) and I could do with more than one.

So, at some moment, we agreed that Maria and I would be sisters. This is an adoption from the heart and will last until I die. Maria has taken on the emotional burden of being in our family, and I care about her daughter and grandchildren. I never see Maria's grandchildren because they never visit, but I hear from them and love them in absentia. Maria sees our grandchildren who visit here from far-flung locales. But she is definitely on board for our local grandson, Quincy. Our holidays and family times always include Maria and Uncle Jay. Even when we are not there the local family gets together.

I have many friends, some who probably know me better that Maria does (or my biological sister,Irene, either). And, in many instances, I connect with close friends for that non-family reference. But, when it comes down to the low and dirty of family issues, I call upon my sisters. Irene would do anything for me.
Maria will always pick me up at the airport at 3 a.m. She'll spell me for a babysitting gig for Quincy. She knows just what to give me for a gift (that incredible butterfly book). I know she'll always be there when I need her!

Maria and Irene are the most intelligent persons I know. (Really!) Maria has rare insights about people and issues, books and ideas. She is so accomplished professionally, I am in awe. I cannot believe my good fortune in having two sisters, both so amazing!

As the New Year begins, I rejoice anew at having two sisters and two brothers. The last year had its hard times for us. Our siblings, Andy's and mine- Irene, Brooks, Maria, Nancy and Claire have been so supportive. Get more siblings! You can never have enough.

Happy New Year to all you who may read this blog! Stay tuned. This year, we may possibly see our country take a turn for the better.

Being Grandma

This is a grandma blog for sure. We have spent the last three days with Quincy who's a young three. We are tired grandparents tonight. We had three children of our own, and lots of other kids who came to live with us for months or years. Our house was always full and we were beyond busy. We kind of forget.
Our three oldest grandchildren lived in our area for a year and it was pure pleasure to see them every day and revel in the minutia of their growth. We were sad to see them move far away. The other two grandchildren live thousands of miles from us, and the travel is hard.
So we are inured to the idea that we probably won't really know most of our grandchildren
though we visit back and forth a few times each year.
So, Quincy, who is at hand, gets the benefits of doting grandparents. I have always wanted to have a grandchild who really really could love this ranch and the magnificent part of the world that is central Florida. It was so wonderful last night when Quincy and I took our first ever night hike together. We had our flashlights and his tiny hand was tightly curled into mine. This was an adventure! It was very dark and the stars were stunningly bright. I showed him the constellation of Orion and we looked at Venus. Then, we poked our flashlights down the gopher tortoise holes to see if anyone was there. "Turtles down there?" he asked. But there weren't any to be seen this night.
He's had a big day with incredible energy constantly expended and so he was ready for a story and bed. He's been on the go since seven this morning, ate a huge breakfast of pancake stacks, had to clean out the barn, fix the tractor, water the vegetables, and hook up his wagon to the trailer hitch on the truck. The minute breakfast is over, he's off to be "outside and go down to the barn". My kind of guy!
What all of us grandparents forget or have a certain amnesia about is how totally there you have to be for little kids. You can't really do any of your own routine because there is this small someone who either dawdles or runs way ahead. You spend some time thinking that you truly do NOT want to wait one more minute while your grandchild very laboriously picks three oranges or counts stones or whatever. You think you might be able to complete a small part of a project, check your e-mail, read the paper or a chapter of your book while you are awaiting toddler developments. No way! You look up and find (while you took only five seconds to check the e-mail) , that your grandchild has clambered up a dangerous ladder and is now in the high barn loft, doing god-knows-what with the crud you stored there, can't remember what it was, but you know it is riddled with poisonous spiders, wasp's nests and god knows what else. Quincy is a lot more agile than I am, but I do not want to return him to his parents, maimed. I supervise his descent.
"Quincy, it makes Grandma crazy when you do that! Don't go up that ladder anymore!"
I might have liked to spend a little time with the morning papers. No way! I am monitoring this amazing small person who is constantly and relentlessly doing all sorts of scientific and social experiments to check out the world he inhabits.
It's hard for us to have this charming little person completely ruin our routine. But there is nothing so satisfactory and so affirming as having this little visitor come often. Today in the late winter afternoon's long shadows, Quincy, and we and the dog, all went out in the golf cart to inspect the latest born calves. We all leaned into each other, just being in the moment. We watched hawks circling overhead and Quincy remarked on a snag of a pine tree that "all it's flowers have falled down."