Joy in the Classroom

When I drive up to Lacoochee Elementary School on my afternoons of volunteering in a second grade classroom, I never fail to feel those delicious small hands reaching out for me. "Miss Molly! Miss Molly!" Many of these children are known to me from years past and from the summer camp I have had at my house. I know them, and their parents. We are always happy to see each other.

Today, as on many days, I have tons of stuff needing to be delivered to Rachel's class. The kids are returning from lunch and they hold open the classroom door so I can bring in the large pumpkin, 25 pounds of clay, and a bag of apples and peanut butter for our snack.

Seth always runs to me for the first of many hugs, Xavier with the amazing dreadlocks hangs back, confident he has a big place in my heart. Sky is full of dimples and smiles. Daniel, who has some kind of language disability regards me with such an inviting expression. He knows that clay is his Thing and just for this afternoon, all will be right with the world. Today there is a new student, Cassie. She is a petite child with that pale country visage and haunted eyes of a child in turmoil. What I think of as the Mexican girl posse, those extremely cute and competent little girls with the bouncing pony tails, sit tight in their seats, just knowing that they are so good they'll get the very first pieces of fresh moist clay. Which of course they do.

After we hollow out and carve the pumpkin and install a flashlight inside and turn off the classroom lights to admire the effect, we get on to the clay project. This is the second time we have made and glazed clay. They are old hands and now know a few techniques. They get right to work. The challenge is to fashion some kind of reptile using all the clay they are issued. I give huge hunks to some kids and smaller amounts to the children who work on a smaller scale. I show them pictures from my Florida reptiles book and we talk about lizards, snakes and turtles.

By now, no one at all asks can they make a heart or a cross or an I love Mom piece. They are really into the reptiles and I see giant lizards and turtles and snakes happening. There is a lot of checking of the photographs in the reptile book. How do those alligator legs come out of the body? How can you make a snapping turtle have those things on it's shell? They know how to attach the smaller pieces so they won't fall off in the firing process. And they are thinking about what colors they will use in the glazes. At one point they sing to me a song about fireflies, something they are practicing for a forthcoming school musical. I could die at the sweetness of their voices. And all the while we are discussing reptiles and facts about them.

This is NOT FCAT prep. This is just life with kids (who are sponges) who take in everything, especially hands-on everything. And there is joy in this room that buzzes. Rachel, their teacher, is busy fashioning a salamander like the ones she caught as a child in a creek up north.

Everyone helps in the clean-up and then we are ready to end the day with a snack of peanut butter and apples. We talk about what is going to happen at the end of "Charlotte's Web" that we are reading to the kids. They know that I absolutely cannot read that last chapter, Rachel will have to do it. Seth sidles up to me and says, "You would cry, right?"

"Yeah, Seth. You're right." And I have promised them that at the end of the book we'll have a video afternoon to watch the movie and eat popcorn. Next week, for sure.

Earlier in the day I attended the usual monthly community organization meeting. I was struck with how many local initiatives have received grants for library services, community food, help for people needing computer services, sports, scouts, child centered stuff. These grants come from our state and national government, much of it from the Obama stimulus program. This money is our safety net for poor folks. When you are on the ground seeing this funding help folks who need it, it seems so mean spirited to vote for the tea party philosophy candidates who want to rein in this spending. Makes one wonder what they are thinking.. (or if they think at all)

There are many of us all across America who give our time and money to help the less fortunate. For example, I think of our school Officer Friendly who gives and gives of his time because he believes in kids now and in the future. The projects he promotes must be funded somehow, as do those of Mike Brittingham who runs the Girls and Boys Club. There are so many other projects in our communities all of which need state and federal grants to survive. Think of how impoverished we would all be if this went down the drain with Rick Scott.

In the Garden

Here is the patch of broccoli raab, stretching toward the sun. We have many lettuces of all kinds for dinner every evening. We'll have broccoli this week, and there are peppers as well. The swiss chard is over the attack from the grasshoppers, and soldiers on. The collards are huge and we eat a lot of them. The tomatoes are coloring up and the peas and beans are in the offing. I even see the butternut squash so tiny yet, and all potential.

The vegetable garden gives us daily food, and it is beautiful to see this bounty with the butterflies zooming into the zinnias and red sage that grow amidst the vegetables.

This wonderful experience of the fall garden this year is such an antidote to the rest of life- politics and the crappy issues of health.

We went to the debate between Sink and Scott the other night. Oy Vey! All political discourse is now down to tiny sound bites; it would be great if any one of them could have the arena to really trade their thoughts on policy and philosophy! I fear for our state! Total weirdness is happening here.

So I am glad that we have our conservation easement on our hundreds of acres in the Green Swamp, no guns, our paradise with many birds and wildlife. Our near neighbors will never come here for a social occasion because they know that we harbor such friends as blacks, Hispanics, lesbians, gays, children, and maybe even transgendered, and certainly Obama Democrats. Folks, this is the American electorate. It depresses me.

The moon is waning but bright and the bats are out. I love this place.

Really cranky about medicine

Seems to me that medicine is so much about the blind man and the elephant. One goes to a specialist and they immediately recommend invasive tests for whatever their specialty is. I am wary of this and I ask, so uncomfortably, what might be found, and if it is, what's next and do I want to deal with it? Why should we have radiation ( a great risk)? Why should we sign on to be perpetual patients?

I am a seventy year old woman, weighing the same as I did at twenty, seemingly in good health. No lumps anywhere, I poop on schedule, I have all my parts, and I have more energy than lots of people far younger than I. My years outdoors have begotten some low level skin cancers and I deal with those. And I am not about to unearth marginal ailments that will make me a chronic invalid until I die!

But in the last two years my husband and I have had some major issues with sinus infections. We have taken antibiotics for pneumonia and ear infections. But the sinus problems persist. He coughs and deals with asthma, I blow my nose. For three months one of my ears was plugged up, so horrible. At times my husband's cough is so loud, all conversation stops. I am particularly concerned that no doctor considered that we both had the same problems! What does this mean? (Do we have whooping cough? Are we allergic to the same thing?) I have asked and gotten a blank stare. Might a sympathetic doctor help my husband control the volume of his cough? So many unanswered questions!

We have seen specialists who don't really have a clue. My husband has had everything x-rayed and cultured in his lungs and sinuses and all that can be said is that nothing vile was found (so more invasive procedures must be done!)

I wander along the aisles of any drug store and see how many nostrums there are for sinus and allergy. Seems that lots of other folks are in our boat.

Here is what I would wish for. I want a doctor (or equivalent) who would be interested and attentive to the whole person! This person needs to ask such questions as the regular things about smoking and exercise and life style and diet (none of our doctors have ever asked this!) It is probably key in the diagnosis about why we cough, that maybe this is an environmental concern? How long have you slept with your dog? Do you use A/C? Do you change your filters often? Do you spend much time outdoors? What do you eat?

Consider an allergist. I could go on and on. Our doctors are so time stressed they cannot ask or listen to answers and think about all possibilities. They cannot diagnose anything. They just rely on the blood work and the radiation and the recommendation that we do another invasive thing.

No thanks, we'll have to go it alone for now. We need Obamacare as it plays out over the years when our doctors can be free of the healthcare for profit and we can get real sensible answers to our health needs. This will take time and meanwhile we have to pay attention and suffer no fools.

Taking Stock

Today we said our good byes to the last guests (and the porta potty) who were here for what we thought of as "the Big Bash" of our fiftieth wedding anniversary. Our three children really wanted this. Initially we thought that this anniversary would be perfectly fine if the primary players just had a really nice dinner together. But this celebration took on a life of its own and we all got interested in having it happen. Our daughter and two sons and all their kids and all our relatives came and we had many out of town folks staying in the local motels and here at the ranch; every bed was warmed.

It was a really great gathering of all the people we love, old and new. Of course there were aspects of the event that I would have changed. The band was too loud and the guy who manned the photo booth was such a snark. And there were too many weeds in the flower beds, and too many armadillos digging holes in the lawn. I didn't get to talk to enough of those wonderful friends. But still, it was amazingly great, way better than the frugal backyard wedding we had those fifty years ago when we were just kids, recently turned twenty.

So here we are, the mainstays of an enormous family. How did that happen? We have been prosperous and generous over the years and we enjoy the tumbling of love we have from our children and grandchildren and all the other kids who have been in our lives. We have had just as much sadness and disaster as the next couple. And we have been lucky! No skeletons in our closet, but an intense interest in each other and in the other world. We have been able to change with the times, and we were fortunately oblivious of some of the issues that others in our generation struggled with.

Our family loves to celebrate! The night before the Big Bash we had an incredible Puerto Rican dinner ending with an exploding volcano cake in honor of the birthdays of two grandsons. (My signature offering!) Those puffs of steam from the center of the cake and the red lava flow were so awesome. Those little boys had wide eyes. I am the fun Grandma for sure.

I am so weary. I am thinking of how much I loved having my three children together, talking their heads off, loving each other, plotting for the next time they'll meet. At my age I can now sit back and enjoy them, not even feeling I have to know everything about them.

Yesterday, we saw an eagle on our place. And just after that I found a newborn calf all alone. We rescued him, reunited him with his mother, and today he is well, not fodder for vultures. This evening we had collards out of our garden for supper.

Could life be better than this?

Time to regroup

I spent the afternoon at a second grade at Lacoochee Elementary School where I returned the twice fired and glazed lumps of clay the kids had lovingly made. They were excited to see how shiny and wonderful their pieces now were. This was their first foray into ceramics. The kids who settled down and actually produced things and carefully glazed them had many finished pieces. The kids who weren't there or had been yanked out to do special tutoring, or just couldn't get down to the task, had little to show for it. Natural consequences.

Each week we have been studying insects, capturing them, looking at them. When I get there to the class they always have something interesting to tell me or show me. Today it was a praying mantis eating a small grasshopper. "Gross!" This is a lively class of about sixteen kids, very doable. Sky, the tiny seven year old has captured a dead rhinoceros beetle. She can identify it and is pleased about this.

We play several rounds of Hangman and I am appalled at the lack of word skills these kids have! Maybe this is partly because I have always taught somewhat older kids, but shouldn't second graders at least know that every word has a vowel? (Forget rhythm) And consonants? I give the kids hints, discuss vowels and consonants. So we go on. Next guess? "Z", says Miguel. I explain that if you see an NG at the end of the word, it's a good bet that you need an I before to make ing.

After a while I see that four of the kids are actually focusing and can make pretty good guesses. One kid, Xavier, has a pretty good overview and tries and succeeds in predicting the word from the clues. In this activity every child was on task and interested.

I often browse around this classroom and see the lovely and unconscionably expensive reading materials from FCAT. The words and directives these things use are of no interest and use to non readers such as these kids. I also see magically interesting big drawings on paper their teacher has them do for literacy and math. These things and the attention to the bugs in the science are what grabs these children.

The rest of this post, the political part was stolen by Hughes Internet.

Kids!

Nothing makes me happier than knowing my favorite youngest grandson, five years old, is sleeping upstairs. We read four chapters of "My Father's Dragon" and giggled about the wonderful images and then discussed plans for tomorrow. We will have a breakfast of french toast with maple syrup, made by Grandpa, then we'll go to a garden gig, and we'll have plenty of time for him to grind up various things in the old fashioned coffee grinder he's found somewhere in our house. I'm thinking we should try acorns. Kisses and suddenly he's asleep, cuddled up under the quilt, his red hair peeping out from the covers.

My head is full of children. I am so looking forward to next weekend when all my children and grandchildren come to celebrate our fiftieth anniversary. But day in and day out my children are the ones I know from volunteering in a local public school. Now in October I can easily identify each child by the shape of their hands, and the whorls of their dark hair. Jesus and Xavier and Abigail and all the others are becoming so dear to me as they become better and better at observing the natural world we explore each week. I come into their class and they excitedly show me the insects they have collected, how their books are coming along. This is such a joy to me. Their parents work in the school garden and are harvesting many peppers and planting a new fall garden.

This week I have been involved in the politics of public school. To our dismay, our Lacoochee principal was summarily removed, and at the end of the second week we have heard nothing! Parents and community members organized to write petitions and send messages to the school board, demonstrate daily. Attending the first ad hoc meeting of people of all ages, colors, walks of life just blew my mind! This principal, Karen Marler, has been a leader of the community action to renew this small and impoverished community. She is a beloved principal and knows every child and their family histories, and is plugged into state and national sources of help. She is a steel magnolia and brooks no fools. What she cares about most is her kids at the school. We want her back!

Rumors and tid bits of information are all we have at present. Reading the comments to the blog from the St. Pete Times reporter, I am thinking that the person bringing the grievance is an evangelical religious nutcase. But none of us knows anything.

Been a pretty interesting week. Today was REALLY the first day of fall as we Floridians know. Everyone is energized by the cooler weather and lower humidity and somehow everything seems possible. Maybe those tomatoes will produce before frost. Maybe we can even manage to elect some folks who are ethical and pass some initiatives that will help our society. Maybe, in the next few months, I can get a reliable internet connection. Sally Sunshine speaking.

News from the Green Swamp

I have been in a funk for the last couple of days since I heard that our beloved Lacoochee Elementary School principal, Karen Marler, was summarily jerked from her post. Officially the superintendent of schools here in Pasco County, Heather Fiorentino, says nothing. The official word is that Karen will be gone for a short time.

When I went to the school today, the mood was black bunting, though no one can say, no one knows Lips are sealed.Certainly not Sunshine! Felt more like a Chinese scene to me.

Of course we all speculate about what has happened and we think of possible causes for this sudden recall. Political? Karen is an independent thinker, her bottom line is the kids and the community that is pulling itself up by the bootstraps. She has been out in front in the energy required to get it happening. She has also been a vocal critic of the relentless FCATs, though on her watch the school consistently made good grades - until this year when the school rating plummeted from an A to a C. Some teachers tell me that the reason for this is an influx of non English speakers.

Whatever, no one ever examines what, if anything, this means.

I am profoundly unhappy with all this. Here is one of America's extremely poor communities and the real leader is the elementary school principal who truly cares about the kids and their families. Amazingly, Karen and many other community citizens have begun to fashion a renaissance. This has attracted state and national attention!

I know nothing about what happened this week. In this case I cannot imagine that there were the usual anomalous sins people get caught up in.

But, despite the general depression in the school today, I had a wonderful time with "my second grade group". After several weeks of examining insects and spiders, the kids really know how to observe. The classroom bristles with cages , of dead and live bugs, shoe boxes punched with holes, and full of grasshoppers and katydids.

We went on an official treasure hunt in the woods behind the school, looking for critters, and almost every team came up with every item. They know the parts of insects. (Ms. Molly, how you spell abdomenthorax?)

We passed the parents who are working on the community garden and the kids asked if they have seen any caterpillars?

And then, as we were making our books about the stuff we had collected, one kid announced that there were apples in the boys' bathroom toilet.

An uproar, of course. Seven year olds do not have front teeth! Silly me. They do not want me to think ill of them, so throw it down the john.. So, we can use the net we have for butterfly catching, and viola! no apples in the john.

I love those kids and their wonderful teacher. Something in me will curl up in a frizzle if that amazing principal is ground into dust by the "system".

My sister, the Pilgrim

My youngest sister took off a couple of months from life this summer to walk the Santiago Pilgrimage trail across northern Spain. It was a life dream. She went with her daughter, Grace, who is a student at Evergreen College, and who got credit for her experience! Tomorrow, she'll be heading back to her life as a tile artist in the northwest. And Grace will be heading off to adventures in Egypt!

When she gets home she will, no doubt, be punished for doing this amazing and selfish thing. It's part of the territory for those of us who take off from time to time.

I have been so interested in their travels as I have heard from emails along the way. Irene is soon to be sixty three, a master swimmer and up for anything. What an adventure!

My littlest sister has done an awesome thing and her grandchildren will love the tales about it. I have had a teeniest bit of envy I won't deny. But I have had many adventures as well, and I am not at all sure I could have walked 800 miles in two months as they did. I loved hearing the answers to my questions about the trail, the people she met, the conditions, the food .. The religious part of it is hard for me to understand, but the artistic part is so real.

Just think about this. Irene, a tiny, fit woman, walks all this distance wearing a handmade dress every day that has emblazoned on it a large virgin Mary on the front and on the back. Early on in the trek she shaved her head in front and made dreadlocks in back. And so, she was known along the trail.

I salute this! I think of the treks I made with my best friend through the Amazon forests at night, pawing through the vines, looking for snakes,dressed in jungle gear,(not thinking about hair-dos) and never encountering so much as a smidgen of Catholicism. We were pikers!

All these two months Irene has been on her pilgrimage, I have followed her progress on my map. I dream about her, I think about where she is now, she is in my thoughts. I know she has put one foot in front of the other for so many miles it must have put her soul at ease.

I am hoping that Irene will make a tile composite about the pilgrimage.

Back here in the Green Swamp we are preparing for the party of a lifetime and Irene will be there! I shall make time to hear in detail about the pilgrimage.

Not to be too smug, but everyone ought to have sisters. My two are so amazing in their special ways.

Alone at the edge of the Green Swamp

I tried to write a few minutes ago and the internet crashed due to a rain squall. The flip side of paradise.
There was a barred owl on the fencepost, quietly watching for the mice and rabbits scurrying around the yard. It is gently raining and I think of the vegetables I planted in the last few days, now drinking in the rain water that is so much better than anything we mortals can provide.
I love being here so far away from anything commercial, plastic or noisy. I do hear the trains in the distance when the vapors are right, and sometimes planes overhead.
In the suburban and urban places I have lived I loved the sound of church bells in the morning and the clinks and clanks of people getting up and moving here and there and tending to their lives.
But I love this more! I love the silence which isn't silence at all. I listen to the thousands of frogs calling at night from the ponds and the swamp. I hear the deer with their sharp whistles, the bark of the fox, the whir of the hummingbirds, the funny snorts of the wild pigs and the grunts of the armadillos. In the barn there is the tinny music of the mud daubers arguing in their shoots they have attached to the siding. I love hearing the turkeys emerging from their night roosts, and the ibis squawking in the dawn.
This is so much better than hearing the "Four Square" garbage truck that trundled its way through our suburban street.
I love the darkness at night. Depending on the phase of the moon it is sometimes so bright I can walk for miles without a flashlight. Other nights when there is cloud cover I don't even have to close my eyes for total darkness. When I turn on my flashlight I sometimes see banks of bright cow eyes low to the ground.
Though I love to be here in the Green Swamp, I do have to get my urban "fixes" from time to time so we travel every year, sometimes just to New York for a weekend, and sometimes to somewhere more ambitious such as Asia or Europe, maybe this next time to Australia.
I couldn't live here without the internet and phone, my lifeline to friends. But I am mostly accepting that these links often do go down and then I just go out and listen to the frogs and take a deep breath, so happy to be here.

Whatever happened to facts?

It alarms me that people pay no attention to facts right now. Politically, people have made up their minds with no regard to facts! Is this because that they think that facts are fluid and schmoozy, no need to pay attention to them? Just, whatever..
Maybe it is because facts are second to the feelings about life as it is lived right now. Lots of folks can't stand people of another color or ethnicity or religion because in these times they are scared. They want to have theirs. To me this seems mean spirited.
I am trying to understand. I know that Glen Beck and his ilk are saying that we need to renew our values as Americans. I would certainly agree with that, but I cannot help knowing that what he is really thinking and promoting is the message of fear and racism. And this always resonates with the disaffected. Bowing to the crazy bloggers who keep saying that Obama is a Muslim, not an American Citizen is just nuts!

These events are always couched in piety (god), but I wonder how many of the folks there at the Beck event, are truly invested in the message that all religions promote-that the almighty cares for all humans and wants good will for al
Sorry, but I continue to think that organized religion is detrimental to the good will that can happen with us humans. I believe in the soaring spirit of Americans and I devoutly hope we really can get back on track as the inclusive

Anniversary

This week we celebrated our fiftieth wedding anniversary, and also the birthday of our eldest child, born exactly five years later. We are looking forward to having a huge bash of a party, what our frugal wedding wasn't, and we wanted to wait until the weather was cooler than this mid August soup that passes for summer here.

We shall have good food, dancing and music and other fun stuff. No one will have to obsess about what to wear and they will bring nothing but themselves. Guests will not have to look up a special website with directives about what to order for gifts. There will be no expensive flowers, just what the meadows have on tap. And there will be no ceremony, just good fellowship among the folks who have supported us over the years. I will NOT be wearing my old wedding dress (that, in fact, was long lost to a dramatic performance of ten year olds.)

Our three children have sparked this event. At first when it was presented as an idea, we recoiled in horror. (Oh, pshaw, all we're going to do is give each other new gardening tools. Not a big deal.)

So now I am definitely up for this celebratory event. Much less expensive than a wedding and a lot more than a sure thing. Much less stress for all..

I have loved this husband of mine for fifty years, in sickness and health, for better or for worse, we are in it for the long haul, so why not celebrate?

Life in the Slow Lane

Many times a day I am frustrated by the internet access we have here in the boondocks. We have satellite, our only option, and daily the bandwidth slims down. So we can do business in the mid morning, and then it is iffy the rest of the day into the evening. If I wait to download a photo, mostly everything goes up to god or wherever and never returns.

A couple of evenings ago when I really wanted to connect on my blog, and the internet was down, I wrote to our president, basically asking if we rural folks were chopped liver and did not deserve to have access to the world out there. We are too far from a cell phone tower to connect on any reliable basis.

Anyway, this is the flip side of paradise, and I am trying to be more tolerant. The vegetable garden is being prepared for the fall planting. It is so hot I can only work for a couple of hours between seven and nine a.m. We have removed the weeds of summer and put down the old funky jute mats no longer presentable on our porches. These are great mulch and weed suppressors and we just cover them with mulch. Then when it is time to plant, we cut holes and apply some of the wonderful compost that has been percolating all summer, and stick in the seeds or seedlings I have been cultivating in coir containers. It is all potential!

Speaking of potential, our garage apartment in St. Pete is progressing. The demolition is awesome! Now I can get a faint glimmer of what this small place (not quite 1100 sq. ft.) will be. I rescued an old claw foot bathtub from the previous apartment and as it sat by the dumpster, lots of people came by wanting it. No way! This is going to be a planter for salad greens.

It's a wonderful life here. So much to share.

Being Connected

Another fraud?

Today I volunteered at my local public school, helping a young teacher set up her second grade classroom. Basically, she had everything in mind and just needed a pair of hands to move shelves and cabinets where she wanted.

But there were enormous amounts of slick thin books, many FCAT materials, empty binders, and kits from various text book publishers, and she had no interest in them, though she told me that they might be full of interesting little things. She has reams of the same kind of stuff, now updated and fine in new plastic.

All this STUFF is overwhelming! Most of it is from the text book publishers, and now out of date. There is little in the way of inviting art materials, no aquarium waiting for a gerbil or some fish, no blocks or Legos.

We placed the current reading materials in the teacher shelf and sorted through the books, filling three boxes with books she didn't want and will give away to the kids (which is probably the best pedagogical thing she can do this year!) The rest of the books we placed in attractive bins for the kids to grab and read. She has a vision of a reading corner here with pillows and an area rug. I have promised some brightly covered pillows.

We are in most states so strapped for money we are laying off teachers and hunkering down THEY SAY. But I cannot help thinking that there is some kind of fraud going on here, not unlike in the medical world, not unlike in the insurance world. Someone is selling all that excess educational stuff: Houghton Mifflen, Harcourt Brace, etc. I think that the textbook companies are feathering their nests, people are being paid off to unload all this unnecessary stuff to school systems that don't need it! And, basically. they can't afford it.

Why in the world, for example, would a school system pay $50 for a classroom 'calendar kit' when a teacher could easily make a classroom calendar on his own? Why would a very poor school have an entire store room filled with math gadgets that few teachers need or know the purpose of?

I think that we could save millions of dollars by looking into the amazing largess of the suppliers of school supplies. Someone is being paid off to provide this stuff! Just look at how the purveyors of the FCAT test results fell short! The actual teachers and principals have little or no say in what they get in the way of supplies and textbooks.

School supplies and books need to be lean. Kids love to go the library and select books and they treasure that special 'one' book they can take home at night. Teachers and kids can make almost everything they need in the classroom. Anything is more important and treasured if you make it yourself!

I imagine the time when our wonderful public school teachers and principals can be more autonomous and call the shots, unfettered by the greedy textbook companies that now dictate even when they can take a breath.

Wouldn't it be great if every school was just issued the funds from the state and could do with it what they wanted? I guarantee that we'd see a lot of creative uses of the money, and there wouldn't be the vast excess that no one wants or needs. (And maybe the powers that be at the textbook companies would not be flying around on corporate jets.)

In the words of our man, Hooper, that's all I'm saying.

Sex and War

Dog days of Summer

We took a few days off of all electronics to make a fleeting visit to the mountains of North Carolina where we very much appreciated the cool weather and the company of old friends and the joy of being with our daughter and grandson.

The moment we returned our niece and her partner and baby arrived from Australia to stay for a week. We had been awaiting this visit since we do not see them very often, and we were so eager to hear about her life now that she has a child. In Australia, way more child friendly than the U.S., the mom takes an entire year off with full pay, and the dad takes three months off with pay. No charge for delivering the baby, and no charge for all medical things. When my niece left the hospital, she received $5000 for the child! This is "socialized" medicine! So, they pay more taxes than we do in the U.S., but not a lot more. (WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH US?) No wonder that this baby, little Seattle, is so secure and loving with his family.

But, with us, the beat goes on. Little by little, small things happen, and they pile up. My community, Dade City merging into Lacoochee and Trilby had a Day To Remember today. It was the day of Visioning when three bus loads of federal, state and local folks took a tour of the Lacoochee area and saw the needs. We had put together a proposal for the redevelopment of this area that may rival Haiti in human needs. These folks looked and took notes and then they came back to the conference room at the local power company that has been so instrumental in making this happen. They looked at a full room of hundreds, many locals (identifying themselves with their green shirts) and told us of all the money that could be ours if we could identify the needs and apply for the money that is there.

I think that eventually this could all work. An amazing photographer and gadfly, Richard Riley, has documented the landscape of Lacoochee in all its grittiness and beauty, and this has been a key factor; his photographs lined the conference room, reminding everyone of the importance of this convocation.There are so many other locals who relentlessly volunteer and make their stands.

It is really hard to think about what may work in getting the funding for this major project. We heard today that the money is there but we must identify the individual projects and make application for the grants and loans. Some of the speakers seemed to drone on to put everyone to sleep as they explained every program that could be funded. I think, who can do this?

All will be revealed! The day was an incredible affirmation of what a small segment of America can do! I imagine the day when this small town will have work for the adults, good places to live, and a healthy life for kids and everyone.

I felt so connected to mankind as I sat in the 'green shirt' section of the convocation. There was the great grandma next to me and the dad who came back for this occasion because he was born in Lacoochee and his folks still lived here. There were teachers there and retirees and parents, and just good folks of all ages and colors.

And now we have to get down to the hard work of making all these dreams happen.

Getting Ready for the Big Seven O

Next week will be my seventieth birthday, but I am still really at heart and soul a ten year old kid, but with a lot of baggage dragged along through an amazing life.

When my husband asked me what I wanted as a birthday gift I could not think of anything I do not already have that I want, so I muttered into my hand, not even thinking, "If you love me you would know." But several days later as I was on line, I heard about an amazing trip to Ruanda. I said to him, "What I would really love would be a trip to Ruanda. I could visit Paul Farmer". Deafening silence.

Of course, this is not a good idea in any way, so by the next day I had put the idea aside. I have made many outrageous and dangerous and fascinating trips to South America and the memory of them is such furniture for my mind. The idea of setting out by myself to see stuff I have only read about, maybe doing some good, is powerful to me.

On this birthday, though the years say 'OLD!', I am still vital and energetic and healthy but I don't know how much longer this will hold. I am not tethered to "meds" and I have all my parts (so far!). I am not scooting around Walmart in a wheelchair with my fat hanging down.

My youngest sister, divorced, well into her sixties, is making a two month hiking trek through Spain this summer. She's doing a trail for a saint, 800 kilometers, maybe even a hair shirt. I envy her this. But she is single and her children are grown..

My kids are also grown up. Among them we have six grandchildren for whom we have a certain amount of financial responsibility. You can't have it all! The mutual responsibility my husband and I have for each other sometimes limits our wild desires to be ten years old and free to explore anything. But we have every morning to read the papers on the porch on the edge of the swamp in this interesting and beautiful place we have made, with the loud birds and frogs calling, enveloped with wild flowers and the long shadows of early morning. And we talk our heads off about politics and everything else.. And we have the nights in our high bed with the dog! These are the rewards of a long and interesting marriage.

But it still is spice to travel yonder to swim with pink dolphins in the Amazon River or dance on top of the world in Peru, or walk for miles in Bologna. I'm not done yet!

Damn chickens!

Here is Quincy with the chickens!

Last week I took my grandson, Quincy over to my friend's place to see their chickens. He was quite delighted with it all; the chicken house that was safe from predators, the nesting boxes, the names of the hens, and most of all, the beautiful feathers he found on the ground for his "collection".

These chickens have been a source of envy to me! I have wanted to have chickens for ages. Once, years back, we had a few chickens that were given to our daughter and we had to take them back and forth between Dade City and St. Pete every weekend. Those chickens were a big drag, quite honestly, because in town they ran around our house and in my workplace, pooping everywhere with great abandon. One weekend in the country they were eaten by predators, probably a fox or a bobcat. Then, I was so frantic with everything else I had to do I had no time to concentrate on the needs of chickens, so it was a blessing, despite the tears, when they got et.

But, fast forward to the present. I love fresh eggs, and I love the physical presence of chickens with their beautiful and funny feathers and their amazing sounds. As a gardener, I know I would love having chickens eating bugs and depositing their droppings for fertilizer. I love the image of myself as a person Who Keeps Chickens. But we think of ourselves as the free spirits who come and go and it is hard enough to think about what to do with a small dog, let alone chickens. So, we are still chicken-free here on the ranch. (Cows take no particular day to day care.)

My spouse hates the idea of killing anything, especially a chicken. I tell him that we would have ALL HENS and they could provide us with the fresh eggs that are so much tastier than the ones we buy at the grocery store. We are still debating the issue.

Meanwhile, my friends who decided to keep chickens, ordered several batches of chicks and picked them up at the post office. Yes, that is how you do it. These tiny chicks were certified and promised that they would be all hens. I could hardly stand it not to go there every few days to see them growing up. And they are certainly beautiful! All glossy colors and breeds. They gave us delicious eggs when they had excess. During the day those chickens walk and strut around free and fly up into the trees and then go back into the chicken house into their little nests and lay double yolk blue eggs. Oh, how envious I have been!

Turns out that there were THREE roosters in the bunch and they were very abusive to the hens. Time for stewed chicken (roosters). So my friend's spouse said he'd do the dirty deed, leaving only one rooster. He got out the hatchet, and as the rooster rebelled, he accidentally hit his own hand with the blade. Lots of blood! He quickly bound up his hand with an old sock and carried on. My friend had the boiling water on to dunk those roosters and thus be able to pluck the feathers.

When it was all over, and the roosters plucked and in the freezer, it seemed that the injured hand needed major attention. So he went to his son, the veterinarian close by, and was stitched up in no time and bandaged with stuff dogs shouldn't chew.

I wonder if I should suggest that they go in for ostriches next? I hear that the meat is good.

Worries in the Green Swamp

A year ago I was obsessing about the resident sand hill cranes who were hatching eggs on their nest on the pond, their first clutch. Both of these two chicks died, one from unknown causes, and the other one was eaten by an alligator (in front of my eyes!) The parents, "Bob and Emily", just took off after this disaster and I thought I'd never see them again.

This year in early spring they returned, did their mating dance with much bugling and throwing of sticks. I carefully paid no attention (this is life in the wild). And then one day Bob and Emily appeared with one very cute reddish chick. All spring this family of three were to be seen in the pastures and in our yard. We named the baby Sidney. I found their nest in a different pond with no alligators and each night the family of cranes returned to their nest.

Three days ago I noticed that Bob was injured and limping! I was able to get close enough to see that his foot was intact and there did not seem to be anything broken. But he couldn't really get around very well. Emily and Sidney kept him in view at all times as he stood in the shade. When they got too far away, Bob bugled to them ("Get over here! I am still in charge!"), and they return to him.

So, I worry. Will Bob recover? Why are those buzzards hanging out in the trees overhead?

I always want to fix things. My beloved old dog ate something terrible and has been sick for two days. Seems she's better now, wanting to eat her food and greet friends.

There is always something to worry about! Of course there is the oil spill and unemployment and illegals I know and love..

But tonight there is a fullish moon and good friends to share dinner and the sides of the lane full of wildflowers. The blue curls are so elegant and tiny, and there are masses of small yellow daisies. The may pops on the fences have bloomed and are producing fruits. Iron weed is about to bloom, and our yard is full of all colors of crape myrtle. Despite the summer heat that we all complain about, this is truly the most beautiful place on earth.