The Last Veggies

Improbable, but the vegetable garden is still producing at least

Fun Stuff

Here is Berenice's painting from art camp this week. One of the activities was to start a line with a permanent marker and not pick up that pen until the drawing was done; then use water colors to complete it. Adults who came had such a hard time! And Berenice just came in and sat down and immediately took a piece of the "good" watercolor paper and produced this. I love it when the grown-ups and kids just really have fun together, learn from each other, and are on a par as persons.

We are several weeks into this art camp, and by now we have a steady and somewhat shifting group of two dozen parents and kids. They appear on the dot of nine a.m., ready to go. The first thing is opening the kiln from the past week's firing. They loved seeing the colorful newly glazed pieces, and by now they are all helping hands to unload and put away the kiln stilts and posts and shelves.

Then I explain what the art activities are today: the line drawings and water colors and clay glazing and making new pieces, and the ever popular construction room where they can put anything togethert they can imagine with glue guns. I have for today a bunch of toilet paper tubes, pieces of wood, pipe cleaners, old wires and hardware- junk!

I have not yet seen any kid or parent at loose ends. By now everyone knows where everything is, and if they don't see it in the bins, they ask to look in the drawers where I stash other craft items. I feel comfortable with these kids!

I have two amazing helpers. I never required it or expected it, but my husband has been an incredible help. He sees how these kids respond to an interesting day, and he's on duty as a lifeguard at the swimming pool and the primary provider of the lunch we serve to everyone at the end of the morning. He chats with the parents, and one time, I hope he'll try his hand at clay or painting.

The other steady helper is a wonderful college student from St. Leo's I discovered when I was judging a local art gallery show. She was tending the desk. I suppose I have a lot of crust but I immediately asked her if she would be willing to help me out. This Lindsie Dougherty gave me her phone number, and rest is history. She appears and is wonderfully capable and I think she'll be a fixture in our lives for the forseeable future.

Most of the families are Hispanic- Mexican and Cuban.

Next time all of them are going to bring the food for a Hispanic lunch. All I have to do is produce the promised VOLVCANO CAKE!

I love doing this. I get the chance to practice my Spanish and provide a loving climate for people to be creative. These are folks who are trying their best for themselves and their kids. I have made some unexpected good friends here, and I have made some good friends with their children, some of whom will be in my life for a long time.

This is such a great antidote to the hours I spend worrying about the wrong direction our country is in. These folks are not the mean spirited Tea Partiers who are not concerned about others less fortunate. (I've got mine!) Of course we do not talk politics or religion here, but these families see what our values are. And I see what their values are.

Lots to be learned and one is never too old to learn.

I've got mine!

He's huge, maybe almost as old as I am (almost 71!). These gopher tortoises are iconic in my life. I see them out in the fields and in the yard between eleven and five o'clock most days. They are eating the grass and just moseying along enjoying a peaceful life in Central Florida where it rains all summer and it's not hotter than usual. He doesn't worry about his pension or social security in old age. He doesn't vote.


It might be better not to read the papers or connect with the news. Drought, fires, tornadoes, starvation, floods, extreme heat, economic distress, people drowning in the Volga River, people shooting and torturing each other. So, I've got mine: an amazing and beautiful life surrounded by green and growing things, considerate family, good friends, and enough prosperity. So far, we don't worry about not having enough to eat or how to pay the bills.

I see a bleak future for our country if we continue on this road of "I've got mine, and the rest of you be damned."

I heard Paul Farmer talking about his latest book, "Haiti, After the Earthquake" on Fresh Air today. So much terrible stuff happening there, such abysmal poverty, so little hope. And we see such tragic photos of the drought and starvation in Africa, and the ongoing violence in Afghanistan and Iraq. No doubt people are starving elsewhere and doing unspeakable violence to each other. In the U.S. there is not a day when we do not hear about folks who torture and abuse their children and each other.

I am frequently asked on surveys if I think this country is headed in the wrong direction. I think the whole globe is headed in the wrong direction!

So we do the little things we do to help out and we know it is never enough. Probably even Warren Buffet or Zucherman or Gates with all their billions cannot do enough.

What I can do is put my energy into good works for kids and community, support for my grandchildren, affirmation for the natural world. I've got mine. And I bear the guilt of the survivor.

Art Camp 2

Twelve kids appeared yesterday for Saturday kids' and parents' art camp. I never know who will be there. This is not a group of 'helicopter' parents who are tethered to their family calendars and plans. There were five parents, all mothers this time. Only two kids were left off without a parent.  My husband and a volunteer from St. Leo College were on hand for the duration.

This art camp is free, nothing required except that you come. (or not!) Lunch and snack provided.

Early, before the kids arrived, we made the lunch of mac and cheese, fruits and vegetables, melon and homemade cookies. I believe that kids (and all people) should eat wholesome, tasty, and organic food, so nothing we serve is not fresh and local.

The first thing I had on hand was a bunch of owl pellets (not for lunch!) donated by our favorite geeky friends who know how much I love such things. The kids got right to work with pin tools to pick apart the pellets and figure out what these owls had eaten. Some of the middle school kids already knew about owl pellets but they had not been able to poke at them in person. " Mom! Owl vomit!" They identified lots of tiny creatures from the bones, and a couple of the kids wanted to reconstruct a fantastical creature. I directed them to the glue gun center.

But what is great about this "art camp" is that there are many centers of activity, some overlapping. The kids now know where everything is. Together we opened the kiln with their fired clay from last week. Everything came out well- no explosions, so we went to work glazing these pieces, but kids were flying around between the barn and the studio, still working on the owl pellets, and beginning to work on glueing shells together for sculptures. Some kids and parents still wanted to work with clay. Several kids wanted to make constructions out of the junk I keep around. I could see that all of them felt comfortable in this space and they seem responsible. I am expansive so I invite them to explore and find what they need.

Suddenly it was a short time before I wanted to take all the kids to the pool, so we decided to put them all in the back of the truck and go out to the far end of our property to "Quincy's Museum", the small cabin where our grandson has collected bones and fossils and such he has found on the property. "Just drop everything you are working on," I said. "We'll be back." The kids wanted to take their fantastical creature hot glued together from the owl pellets to be in the museum, so we packed them into the back of the pick up and drove very slowly the two miles.

This place, a small ranch in the scheme of such things, is absolutely lovely as we drive under the canopy of oaks covered with resurrection fern, cypress heads, pine forests, round pastures and into the far field where we find nestled on the edge of it the cabin, Quincy's Museum. The kids leap out and investigate the things in the museum- the bones and feathers. They all sign in to the guest book. They place their new aquisition in a prominent place.

Then, after a different route back, we are ready for swimming.
The kids are at very different levels of aquatic ability, but with a lot of others, they are fearless in the water.

I notice that many kids who have been here before are many notches better in the water. Berenice, who is eight, and struggled last week to swim across the pool, is confident, and even is diving into the deep end! Hiaritzini does not cling to the shallow end, but I watch her constantly. She's on the upswing of learning to swim. I move around the pool, always watchful. I give kids tips on diving and strokes, offer them paddle boards and diving rings. My husband is watching from the other side. The moms are constantly checking their cell phones but have an eye on their kids.

When everything is done, the projects completed, the wet clothes changed, the lunch eaten, these wonderful parents and kids pitch in and clean everything up! They help load the kiln (before sponging off the bottoms of the glazed pieces), they sweep out the studio, they return everything to where it was.

They are so excited by the wonderful time their kids are having they decide to arrange a fantastic Mexican meal for our last art camp three weeks hence. I see the Hispanic and "other" parents getting together to arrange this menu that will happen on the last day of camp.

Of course, I have gotten a lot out of this project! I am determined to share the bounty of this place and my life with these kids. For so many of them this is the best thing they have going for the summer. I would bet that this is far better than a theme park amongst the millions. This is such a corrective. I find the moments to share with these parents how important I think it is to read with their kids, prepare good food, take care of their teeth, explore nature.

Carlos, getting ready to go home says, " Save this stuff. I am going to work on it when I come back." And he hugs me goodbye.

Living in the Green Swamp: some people get it

After a wonderful several days of the beginning of the rainy season we have visitors  who are staying in the guest house, our dear friends who truly "get it" about how magical this place is. They look at the swallow tailed kites, the lush grass in the pastures, and appreciate the local sandhill cranes, walk in the woods, fish in the pond. With them we can discuss the nesting habits of the chimney swifts who inhabit our chimney from May to October. They are interested in the alligator with the big head that came to visit the studio yesterday.

We are so inclusive and welcoming to people who come here. We want to show them the wonders of wild Florida. We want them to love this place we call Florida. A couple of years ago we placed this land, our 300 acres or so in a conservation easement. This means that this land and place can never be developed and must stay as it is. No gated community, no shopping mall, no dump can ever be here. Of course, this reduces its value, but who knows? After we're dead a wealthy and eccentric person will take it on or maybe it could be a wonderful environmental camp. (So valuable after our current governor strips out every available environmental gem and there is little left of natural Florida.)

I so passionately believe that our souls depend on being outside in the natural landscape! People who don't get this have never had the experience!

Many of our friends wonder why we stubbornly keep on living here in the Green Swamp. They constantly ask us when are you ever coming to the symphony? Why don't you spend more time in St. Pete? They think we live a thousand miles away. What are we doing there? We are making a life in this community, bird by bird, and person by person. Our fancy credentials are not important here - just our skills and devotion to making better lives for the folks as we find them.

Our friends could come if they wanted to, but 65 miles is so far, and then there are bugs and the possibility of spiders and ticks and other icky things.

Occasionally I wistfully think of the urban experience, and we are inclined to visit New York or Paris or Rome. But not for long! I have to get back to this place on the edge of the Green Swamp.

The Need to be Needed

Here are some kids who attended my first of the summer art camps.  Hiarintzi, so fearless is beginning to swim. Clearly, she has no idea that she could sink like a stone and she wants to jump into the deep end. We encourage her to cling to the side of the pool and we watch her like a hawk. In the next five weeks, we know she'll be swimming like a fish. Her father dropped her off this morning, confident that we'd take good care of this precious child.

Because of the possibility of rain we decided to have the swimming first and when the kids were tired and cold we moved to the barn and studio for the art.

In the next photo here is Manuel who is making a clay piece of which he'll be proud. His mom is by his side and the two of them are harmoniously working together.You could hear Spanish and English equally important, the kids easily going back and forth in both languages.

 All the two dozen or so kids and parents are totally engaged in making art from fifty pounds of red clay. We spread out from the studio into the pole barn. The kids run back and forth in search of just the right tool or more clay. The drying rack in the barn next to the kiln begins to fill up with finished works. Parents become intrigued and ask for more sophisticated answers. The whole group is so focused and calm, I feel I can expand and relax my tight control. I bring them interesting things to extend their work: some molds and patterns, more tools.

These kids range in age from 6-13. They all helped each other, laughed a lot. Before we knew it, it was time for lunch. There were lots of unfinished pieces but we all stopped for tuna salad and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, veggies and dip, cheese cubes and watermelon. One could get cold water from an Igloo.

They finished up, all pieces secure in the drying shelves. And then everyone, kids, moms and dads cleaned everything up. It was amazing! Kids sweeping, washing bats, taking the left over food up to the main house, collecting wet towels.

Reminded me of the school I worked in for so many years before retirement, when it was just normal to clean up your space! And the whole day reminded me of how natural and wonderful it is to have multi-age groups of kids, working together, teaching each other, respecting each other.

So, in my retirement from a wonderful teaching career, I threw up my arms in rejoice at leaving it. No more staff meetings, no more belly punches from stuff coming out of left field, no more strict schedules. And I passionately believe that one should leave to make room for the younger generation, whatever that might be. I wanted to make room for me and the stuff I never had time to do. I am doing this. I always have something going on- a book, a quilt, painting, pottery.

But I have learned that what is most important to my heart is to be needed in wherever I am so I reach out in the ways I know best- to kids.

Full Summer



The view from the front porch is perfect with the crape myrtle just beginning to bloom and promising a wonderful fucsia profusion of flowers for all of July. The hummingbirds are still feeding their nestlings there. I must fill the feeders almost every day.
I am preparing for the first day of Art Camp on Saturday. I reorganized the bins of materials, now neatly labeled and inviting. For the first session we will be making clay artifacts (aka lumps), and set them to dry and then to be fired before the next session. So I have cut the pristine bars of earthenware clay into manageable hunks and prepared bins of tools and spray bottles of water. I have also prepared another activity of making stickers. The balls for net games have been inflated, bug repellant is at the ready, and tables have been set out. I have engaged some volunteers to help and I am ready!
My spouse will be a lifeguard at the pool, and I am hoping to engage some of the moms to help with the lunch.
Ye gads! The lunch! I am going to have tuna salad (full of vegetables), whole wheat sandwich rolls, organic no sugar peanut butter, all fruit jam, cheese cubes, carrot sticks and tomatoes and peppers from the garden. Watermelon and bananas and water to drink.
So, with this in mind I went to our local super Walmart to stock up.
I rarely go there, but since I needed some containers of glue, tape, glue gun supplies etc., in addition to the food, it seemed a good choice.
I found everything I wanted except for the marbles. When looking for the marbles I came across a couple of kids in the toy department. (No Walmart employees are in evidence) They were spinning hula hoops and lobbing basketballs wherever they wanted. They were awful and awesome. So I engaged them in my hunt for marbles. We looked everywhere, hooting to each other.
"Look in the games place!" "Try the lego place!" We couldn't find them anywhere and decided that some kind of strange ping pong ball might do. I love these chance encounters.
Then I had everything I came for and I headed toward the checkout, wending my way between the scooters and carts of extremely fat people. Three times people in scooters asked me to hand them something they couldn't reach and I was happy to do it. The store should issue grabbers with the scooters.
I see a check out line but it says 'twenty items!' so I proceed to the next line.
Turns out that this line has a new checker with an experienced checker behind her. For some reason I always seem to get in the line of novice checkers. My karma. So, I start unloading all the stuff - the glue guns, the two enormous watermelons, the adhesive googly eyes, the masking tape, and all the lunch stuff and a bale of toilet paper.
And then I notice the dead silence.
In back of me are about fifteen people to check out. They are regarding me with such reptilian loathing and I don't know why. Finally, the woman in back of me says, "This is a quick check out line. Right there it says 'Twenty items or less'."
I hate Walmart, especially the Super Walmart. I don't know the protocol, I am not fat enough or savvy enough.
"What?", I say. "I thought this line was fine! I moved over from the other line."
All those good people patiently standing in line behind me with their fewer than twenty items regard me with distaste. The super checker is friendly and assures me that everything is o.k. (but please look at the twenty item or fewer rule next time. Please look at the overhead cone that designates what check out aisle you should enter.)
Meanwhile the very new checker is struggling with my $200 order and my desire to pack it into the weird grocery bags I have brought.
I am swiveling my head to note these cones for future reference. As the new checker slowly moves all the stuff over the console, I feel I must say something, make a statement, do a dance, whatever, to mollify these stony faced folks who are waiting in line.
I have swiped my card, and I proceed back down the line of waiting customers to tell them thanks, I didn't mean ill, I was ignorant, forgive me. I offer the woman behind me a banana. No dice. Finally I play the Pity card and tell them that a) I am not familiar with this store, and b) I am buying all this stuff for a free camp for Mexican migrant kids. No one took me up on the free bananas.
As I take off fast with my cart overfilled with stuff in strange bags, I call out my thanks.
They still look like snakes.

Paying Attention to Michelle

Here are some of my favorite people serving themselves to a sumptious celebration dinner. We all pitched in and made the food from scratch. We have grains, salad, chicken, fish, mashed potatoes, fruit! Of course, this is a special occasion and there are many dishes to be sampled. We are proud that most of the food has been harvested from our garden. For this special meal we'll have a dessert of pumpkin pie with whipped cream on top. (No Cool Whip!)

I am not about to write a book on the diet subject, but here's what I know. We are seventy years old, now slim and fit (well, mostly!). It feels great to be healthy and energetic, and I believe that most of this comes from paying attention to the foods we eat. I care about this. So here goes.

Some basic rules about eating:
1.
Never eat out or grab take-out. Bad mistake. Always make your own food from scratch. This way you have to be mindful about what you eat. You go to the grocery store and the green market and select what appeals to you. Then you have the ingredients for a creative and nurturing experience for your family (or even for just yourself). Try different recipes! Just experiment! Throw out that nasty gelatinous salad dressing you buy in the bottle. (Have you noticed what's in it?) Make your own by throwing on some good olive oil, vinegar, salt and pepper. So much tastier, so less expensive. Throw out those ultra packaged convenience foods that you stick into the microwave.  You can do better in your very own kitchen with your very own natural ingredients. Even after a tiring work day, you can do this, and it is kind of a restful meditation to make food for your loved ones.

If you rely on take out and fast food and the neighborhood restaurants, you are ingesting stuff you do not want. Pesticides, fat, too much salt, dirt, excess calories and the compression of time. Eat at home and you control this. Besides, if you cook you are expending calories in the process as you chop and stir, set the table and bend down to find that elusive pan. And it's a LOT less expensive! Save the restaurant experience for that special occasion.

2.
Get rid of those unnecessary sugary, fatty and salty things . Throw out the candy bars, cans of Mr. Peanut spanish peanuts (my nemesis!), sodas that have nothing but empty calories, and don't have a drawer full of chocolates or a bowl of candies! I always heard that you should have a fridge full of carrot sticks and fruit. But we all know that no one has time to prepare these things, and then, when you are hungry, these things just don't appeal. So, just buy a few things that DO appeal. A container of blueberries? A plate of melon carved into bite sized pieces one can eat while cooking the dinner? Our grandson stands on his kitchen stool and freely samples all the vegetables that will go into the salad. My greatest snack is fresh raspberries, washed and ready on the counter.

3.
Exercise! You've heard it all before. Just keep moving. Don't sit too long. Get up and do the laundry, water the garden, walk whenever you can, take the dog out. Try to make it a practice to work out for half an hour each day (videos, walking, exercise equipment,Yoga, the gym, whatever). I find it helpful to wear a pedometer and set a goal of 10,000 steps a day. Some people ride their bikes to work or swim after work. You just need to build in whatever physical exercise works for you.

That's it! Do this and you'll be thinner, fitter, and a better cook! If you cook your own food 95% of the time, I promise you that you'll be thinner and happier. You might even be moved to grow some of your own food. Maybe a container garden of herbs or peppers?

Domestic Tranquility

The flowers along the ramp need watering several times each day in this period of such dry, hot weather. Each morning and evening we are out positioning the sprinklers for the flower gardens. The vegetables are on a watering timer and get a drink morning and evening. We were away for three days earlier in the week and lost several plants to the heat and drought.

After a lovely family weekend with Quincy and his Mom we spent today dealing with the two major problems on our scope: the internet and the water, both critical to our life here in the Green Swamp.

We spent hours and hours and lots of emotional energy redoing our internet access. A lovely technician, Al, showed up this morning. (I had steeled myself to the fact that these folks never show up when promised without multiple bleating calls.) But this one did, and like Santa, went right to his work, ripped out the old receiver, a dinosaur, he said. He made sure everything was on line and perfect. I was so glad to see him I scurried around fetching glasses of ice water and was my most perky affirmative self. While he worked, we weeded and pruned in the exhausting heat that is now upon us.

My spouse has a wonderful way of being a perpetual presence when people come to fix things and install things. So, eventually, it was all done, and now we have lightning speed internet on all computers in the vicinity. So we went to our computers to deal with the hundreds of messages, mostly drek, to delete.

Later, just as dinner was fifteen minutes away and I was just out of the pool and washing my hair under the shower out there, the pump and water guy arrived. So I hastily grabbed a towel, shampoo plastered to my head, and sped into the house to finish my ablutions on the back porch where the shower curtain is green grape vines.

Our water from a deep well is afflicted with organic iron. This clogs everything from toilets to washing machines, makes the water stink, and everything in our lives is tinged with yellowish orange. We have been in a period of changing the technology of our water system and this has been a slow process. We have spent too much time studying the water in the toilets and wondering if it is safe to drink the water out of the taps.

The pump and water guy spent a couple of hours adding a new bunch of filters to an already expensive system. We hope it will work. After supper we spent some more quality/quantity time examining the water in the toilets. Instead of being orange, the water is now a gray blue. Keep on flushing!

But all this is worth it. Tomorrow we will be able to brush our teeth in clear water, and maybe pee in toilets that aren't alarming. We will be able to access the internet and our world apart from this magical place we love so much. Maybe some day we'll actually have cell phone reliability from here.

The chimney swifts who live in the chimney above the fireplace in the office have hatched their chicks, and every fifteen minutes when the parents appear with many tasty regurgitated bugs, there is a loud cacaphony. Domestic tranquility indeed.



Lady Gaga's Shoes

Not! No way could I walk in those, and no way would I want to. Seems we are playing out the dregs of the bubble life of our early century.

Today we finished up the sanding and painting of six wooden porch rocking chairs we have had for twenty years. It was time. For less than $15, they all look new again. I will recover the chair cushions that have faded in the sun over time. We could have just thrown them out and gotten new ones.

One of my most recurring and vivid nightmares is the one in which I have to clean out the space for a school. The smells of mold and roach fear are palpable, and I hate to have to move all that old and musty stuff to dumpsters. The dream always ends before the place is pristine.

The Lacoochee Boys and Girls Club, as it sits right now, could be the opening credits for my nightmare. But it is real and actual. I am thinking that if all the parents of the kids who go there, and all the community activists and neighbors could give a long weekend to the project, we could make this place really inviting. It would take a few  dollars and some energy and organizational skills to get new miniblinds, new tables, new paint, outside beautification, the floors cleaned, and whatever Michael Brittingham and crew think is needed. Anyone can clean windows! Really, all it takes is community will.

On Friday, I took five kids from the Boys and Girls Club on a field trip to visit St. Leo's University. Everything there was so spiffy! There were no sagging blinds and no junkyard dogs hanging around outside the admissions office. Everything was clean and pretty, no litter anywhere. The classrooms and physical education venues were awesome. Every single kid was charmed by it all and ready to sign up right then to be a student!

Afterward when we went to lunch at Pancho's Villa, the local Mexican restaurant, they couldn't stop talking about it. They all want to go to college!

We don't have to send our kids to such a grim place as our local B and G Club. We can make it inviting. We can do this with energy and a little money. We are not buying Lady Gaga's shoes!

There are still fire flies

As I walked out behind the barn tonight just as true dark was settling over the pastures, I could see in the margins of the woods those magical pinpoints of intermittent light, the last of the fire flies. In the palmettos I could hear the scuffling of the many small nocturnal animals who make their living in the forest litter: mice, armadillos, palm rats, deer, opposums, raccoons, night jars, bats and owls. In the early morning I see their tracks in the soft damp sand. Sometimes I find owl pellets full of tiny rabbit bones, and always there are the holes made by armadillo snouts, and soft wing feathers left by the barred owls.
Thursday! And I had no volunteering agenda with kids, something I have done all year. I am not sure just what I shall be doing next year in the volunteer realm, but I cannot imagine it will not include kids.
Tomorrow morning I am meeting four of the middle school kids I worked with in math at the Boys and Girls Club. We'll get together at the Pizza Hut parking lot, pile into my tiny car, and go to take a tour of the local college. I dare not ask, but I believe that some of these kids may be the children of illegal immigrants, and I know that with the defeat of the Dream Act, these kids can not attend our state colleges and universities. So, we are going to St. Leo University, near by, where illegals are welcome if they can pay. Also, it looks like a real collegiate place, furniture for the mind so these kids can dream.
After the tour we'll all go to Pancho's Villa, the local Mexican restaurant we all love. My treat.
It was hard getting these kids to let me know if they were coming, make the arrangements, and speak in my halting Spanish (on the phone!) to parents who had no idea that I wasn't the dreaded "authority" speaking. Finally, I got the director of the Boys and Girls Club to make sure that all communications were Go.
So, tomorrow, I shall be outside the Pizza Hut, hoping to welcome this motley crew for the promised field trip. I wonder if the boys will be neatly dressed with slicked back hair? Will Javelin, the only girl in the group, be decked out like she was going to church? I'll take my camera. Will they be there?
It is a leap of faith to think that these kids have actually been faithful attendees in my algebra class since December, and now will spend a few hours celebrating with someone old enough to be their grandmother! Even if none of the kids show up tomorrow, I think it has been worth it. I want those kids to have the education that makes it possible to examine their lives and find joy in what they can do. Tomorrow will be a small step.

Obese Nation

Yesterday I dug up all these lettuces that had become rank and tough and bolted in the heat of late spring. Now we are harvesting those thick succulent black krim tomatoes and all those tiny yellow pear tomatoes and those small orange ones, so tasty. The cucumbers on our table every night are so sweet with the taste of the sun. And we pick the last florets of the broccoli and add some onions that still poke through the tangle of tomato vines. We are still harboring the giant collards, now four feet tall! We are beginning to pick several types of peppers. Our dinner table is a bounty of the earth.

Visiting our local superWalmart, it seems that the shoppers are even more immense than usual, bad health outcomes waiting to happen. So many of the obese shoppers are in the motorized carts they can pick up at the front doors. Very fat kids with small seeming heads walk behind. Their attached carts are full of big loaves of soft white sliced bread, chips in plastic bags, "Great Value" soft white hamburger buns, frozen fried chicken and pizza, frozen hamburger patties all from the same cookie cutter, cheetos, cartons of soda pop, and pet food. Not a fruit or vegetable in sight along the checkout conveyor belt.

This kind of food consumption is a major problem! People do not want to be so fat! People want good health. It is fine for me to wax euphoric about our family garden from which we eat daily. But, how many folks can have the space and the knowledge and the ability to plan ahead for good family nutrition?

One of my first memories was working with my dad in his 'Victory Garden' everyone had after WWII. And ever after, our family grew a large part of our diet, canned and froze a lot.

We have forgotten how to do this. Now, families who have little money for food buy most of their calories in the dollar stores. (sodas, cheetos, slim jims etc.)

Two years ago I organized a school garden in our neighborhood school, and now it is bursting with collards, tomatoes, carrots and peppers. The people who tend this garden (I installed an automatic watering system) really do harvest the vegetables, but they are still somewhat tentative.

I am thinking that in the next garden cycle I could put my best energy to making a really huge community garden! We could have meetings to explain how these vegetables can be cooked, how important it is, and so much cheaper than buying the calories at the dollar store.

Eating well, taking care of your teeth-these are the keys to health. Throw out the candy, never eat anything with more than three ingredients or that your grandmother wouldn't understand. Grow something to eat. And get out of those Walmart carts! Just walk some.

And,of course, we need to have schools be in the forefront! Couldn't we just serve natural vegetables and fruit at schools? Kids are beginning to think that nothing is good if it does not come packaged in cellophane or plastic!

Remember Memorial Day. Our troops endure unimaginable hardships, and one day soon, I hope, they will all be home, and we will need to mark their sacrifice. We'll need to welcome them back, vote for the huge amount of money it will take to rehabilitate the wounded and reintegrate them into our lives. Never forget.

End of School, End of Spring

When I arrived in the school office today it was clogged with young mothers who were anticipating the "awards" ceremony for the kindergarten through third grade. Many of these sweet and beautiful women had babies on their hips and toddlers stuck to their sides, uneasy in the forest of legs.
I was there, not for the awards, but to attend the monthly Community Action Team meeting in the multi purpose room. It was the shortest meeting ever, few in attendance. Most of the regulars now only attend the community development meetings that happen outside of the school and are chaired by the former school principal who is so gifted in community affairs. CAT is probably moribund. I only went today because I had thought we'd get some information about the layoffs of so many staff members.
But this did not happen. Rules! Directives from god (the superintendant of the county schools.) Maybe people will know by Friday, maybe not. Lots of folks twisting in the educational wind.
People in the public schools have no respect at all for our governor, to put it mildly. They are more tolerant of some of the ridiculous directives that come down from "the office". In no way, never, does common sense prevail. The god in the Office of the Superintendant has decreed that henceforth no real food will be served in any circumstance in these public schools. No dad could come in and make pizza with kids, no teacher can make smoothies in the classroom, no popcorn in the microwave, no watermelon freshly cut and dripping off kids' chins. Of course, no magical mornings of so many moms cooking and serving a Cinco de Mayo lunch. No aroma of garlic. Cellophane rules!
The CAT meeting got my blood up just in time to then proceed into the last time I'd be in this second grade class I have loved so much since the beginning of school.
This class is quite typical of public schools. Certainly there are the usual 20% of those kids who are loud, hyperactive or needy in some way. It takes far too long even at this late date to marshall everyone to do the simplest task.
 The teacher, so exhausted at this time of the year, is clearly happy to have someone else take charge of this popcorn of kids. While I am there she hunkers down at the needed tasks to end the year. She knows her classroom needs a lot of work and organizing to end the year well. She also knows, that as a teacher in the public schools, she is not respected. She doesn't yet know, really and truly, where she'll be teaching next year, and what grade. She doesn't yet have the data from the FCAT tests to do the report cards!
Who is to blame for this? I don't know- the testing companies? NCLB? Our society? The lack of common sense?
But the kids, as usual, were great. We made self portraits, and all of them were so wonderful! I had brought in a couple of kids' works for inspiration and these kids worked on them for much of the afternoon. They included such detail! They were so careful in the coloring in and the outlining in permanent marker. Any parent would love to have this self portrait, framed and hanging in their house. But, of course, it will never happen. Maybe I can get some of them into the school office!
We went outside to run around and eat the popsicles (all natural) I had brought. Some of the kids showed me the awards they had been given earlier in the day. The goodest little girl had a medal on a green ribbon and the baddest little boy had received nothing. (Why do we keep on doing this??)
So, full of this, I went on to the Girls and Boys Club for my last appearance. This gig has remained very hard for me. I have gotten used to the marginal neighborhood, the institutional smell, the trash and the kids wandering aimlessly. I do love the sense there that common sense prevails, but it is still hard to find a place where kids can have a chance to focus. Six kids have stayed with me to do math!
Today it was hard to pay attention to what we are about. Lots of kids were tromping and yelling through the space in the hall we now have. Furniture inadequate, incredible discrepencies in abilities, so I am flying between groups of kids, hoping to engage them.
Towards the beginning, another boy, not a part of the math group, comes up to me and says, "Can I speak to you privately?"  He asks me when I will be done with the math group. This is a boy that I have driven upon occasion to soccer practice in Dade City on my way home. The first thing that hit my mind was that he wanted to find out when I was leaving so that, on this last day of my volunteering might in some way say "Thank you". He just wanted a ride to soccer.
The math group really tried to focus. David and Javier and Javelin are making such progress! After forty-five minutes in the din, I called it a day and we went outside to carve the watermelon I had brought. We shared it with the football players and everyone had a good time. The kids will be coming to my summer art camp and the boys who have been there every week will be going on a field trip to a local college and out to lunch with me!
So, after the class, Raoul finds me and we get into the car. He has no athletic bag, nothing. I am assuming that I should drop him off in Dade City at the soccer field. But then, he says I should drive him to Zyphryhills, ten miles down the road. I say that I cannot do this, I am not his chauffeur, it is far out of my way and I have other stuff to do. I can drop him off at his house in Dade City. He doesn't seem to know the address of his own home. I pull over in the middle of town and say that I'll leave him off here, he can walk. Then he says I should drop him off at his aunt's house 'straight ahead'. He doesn't seem to know this address either. He keeps shifting on the specifics.  By now I am pretty sure that this large fourteen year old kid with a mustach does NOT belong in my car. He is begging me to drive him to Zyphyrhills to god knows where. He asks to use my phone, but I tell him my phone is out of juice (true). I should drop him off at the Taco Bell, he tells me. So I drive him there, stop the car. He says he has no money so I give him $3. "Call whoever you want", I say.
I feel guilty having abandoned this fourteen year old child at Taco Bell. But I think he'll be O.K. For now. I really think that he is in the initial stages of being lost to this society and there is not anything I can do about it.
My last day volunteering in the Lacoochee community has come to an end. In my bag of leftovers from the day I find one pencil drawing on lined paper from a student. It's a castle with crenelations and in the middle is a very small queen. "Thank you, miss Moly"(sic). I will treasure this.

Graduations, Moving On

This week is the last one of the year for my volunteering in this classroom at Lacoochee School. Bernice, Kimberly and Elissa are showing you strawberries they are about to pop into their mouths. Going there week after week has been such fun, such affirmation for me. I think I have brought some joy and adventure to their classroom (and also many fruits and vegetables!). We have made clay objects and painted and constructed and made unimaginable messes we all loved. We have collected bugs and watched flowers. I have given away books, rocks, trinkets. I have looked at the scars on small backs that tell of abuse. I have held many small grimy hands. We have read a lot of books and played a lot of games. When I come there is no mention of FCAT.
So they are moving on, and so am I. I will see some of them at my summer art camp; others I will hug in the corridors next year and they will tell me what they are doing.
And, too, my own family is moving on. My daughter graduated from Law School last weekend, and my oldest grandchild will soon be graduating from high school. Quincy, now six, is graduating from years of speech therapy.( Now he talks all the time!) These are events to make us proud.
And so we keep on keeping on, worrying about the family things, always alert to what's happening in the world and trying to make sense of it. The Rapture didn't happen as expected by some this week but still, my own rapture is every single day in this place in the Green Swamp where the swallow tail kites soar and the purple passion flowers are in full bloom and friends are just around the corner.

About my Blog

I recently read a profile in The New Yorker of a blogger (Pioneer Woman) who has taken her blog to the stratosphere. So, I am mildly envious, but really, I write this blog because I enjoy saying what is on my mind. I have no particular theme: environment, politics, education, family.. I write on no particular schedule, probably when the internet is up.
Several years ago, just after I retired, I was casting about to see what I could do that interested me. Spent some time flopping about and then wrote a memoir in six weeks. That was a fun project but after it was done I had no interest in book tours, publicity, making money on it.
I thought doing a blog would be interesting, and it has been. I have found a number of people on line I would never have dreamed of! People from far parts of the world, people who knew me from the past. So fun. More interesting than Facebook.
I have learned a lot about privacy issues. You have to walk a fine line between divulging too much or too little. You have to figure out what you want.
A week ago I sent off my hard drive to my daughter who graciously offered to clean up the files I have neglected. And then it occurs to me that this hard drive has all my-?

I think I have been careful to not save sometimes. It's a new age.
Here's a photo of the flowers lining the walk into the back door, what I look at many times each day, a joy.

What a week!

Olivia and Xavier, eight years old, were not even a twinkle in their parents eyes on September 11, 2001. This world, since that awful day, has been what they know. They have been brought up to be careful. They know about lock downs at school when there is the faintest hint of danger, and no doubt they know how their parents may suddenly clutch them close because we all fear for our kids. They have begun their journey through a childhood of strict parameters and helicopter parents and taking your shoes off at airport security. Lots of rules guide their lives.
Here, these kids are doing what kids do in the moment. They have mixed cornstarch and water and they are exploring that strange delicious sensation of dry and wet. They have made a real mess all over everything and they are having a grand time at it! Seems we can't entirely kill childhood, but over the last ten years we have certainly tried.
The week's news was amazing. Beginning with a royal wedding of rather dim but attractive participants, and then the startling assassination of Bin Laden, we went from fancy tea cakes to a grizzly murder of an entirely evil person.
So many of us did not go into the streets to celebrate Osama's death. But we are glad he's gone from this earth.
Personally, I do not need to see photos of Osama's bloody body. Eventually those photos will surface. We live in our era after all. I feel somewhat hollow after this week. The Royal wedding was such fluff. I am still exhausted by terrorists and the way they changed our lives. We were certainly cheated out of a decade, and maybe more to come. We have spent our money and the lives of so many in battling this evil.
This decade changed our country. I think the political polarization we now see comes from a large component of fear. What I think of as the mean spirits and solipsism of the extreme right may come from a profound fear. We were attacked! I need to protect my own! Get guns! Keep the women in back (men dictating women's options), be suspicious of anyone different from you- liberals, especially elite blacks, muslims, gays, anyone brown and speaking another language but English. Man the barriers! Get rid of threats, including those nasty bugs, snakes, threatened wildlife of all kinds. Need to protect our own, the American way of life. Drill, baby, drill! Too scary to think about changing one's ideas about how we use energy, too scary to think about the facts of climate change.
Nine Eleven was indeed scary! Such a horror was bound to change us.
I just hope that we can move on. I want us to get out of the middle east and address the humanitarian problems of this earth, and even of this country.

Why We Volunteer

This is why we volunteer. Here are my second graders in full size along the wall to the cafeteria. Today I brought in many rolls of craft paper, petrmanent markers and paints. The kids lay down on the paper and their teacher and I drew around them with markers. They were incredibly still as we tenderly went around their bodies and paid such attention to each child. Then they began to fill in the details and paint in the large color blocks.

We had to mix colors. What is flesh color, actually? So we are comparing our arms. Xavier, who is Jamaican, is the same color as I am. Who would think? Elissa, in those red stripes, is really fair and she is involved in painting in all her freckles. So we mix up a number of shades of brown and everyone is satisfied. Those kids worked for a full two hours on this project.

As we finished each one we toted them to the wall outside the cafeteria where we hung them to everyone's satisfaction. We had to traipse through several classrooms on the way. (This is one of those horrid 'no-walls' schools), and the kids in the other rooms always looked up longingly wishing they could do this too.

I come into this particular class of second graders for a long afternoon once a week. I bring everything I need (art materials, science stuff, paper goods, a watermelon and a knife.) I am constantly amazed that there are no materials whatsoever that kids need here. (except FCAT booklets). One could not find a roll of paper towels, and there is no soap in the dispenser and the paper towel dispenser is empty. The so-called supply closet is a jumble of discards from FCAT. The tape dispenser is empty, no staplers, no scissors etc. So I bring everything I might need.

I must say that this gig is very affirming to me. I love those kids and they love me. We always have a great time and produce amazing artifacts. Time flies and before we know it it is time to clean up and get ready for dismissal.

A couple of weeks ago I told the kids that I was going to have an 'art camp' for five Saturdays during the summer at my house-for free! Swimming and art projects. Here's the form, sign up, first come first served. All you do is get there. I had envisioned only having fifteen kids at most. The entire girl scout troop signed up, six second graders, and all the middle school boys from my math group at the boys and girls club have signed on the be 'counsellors'. Plus some others who heard on the grapevine. Suddenly, moms have called to say they will be glad to provide transportation, help cook lunch, be the phone tree, etc. My husband is on board to mastermind lunch of p and j sandwiches and monitor the pool.

I think that partly this is because the kids have such a great time on my volunteer gig, and partly because I am inviting in Spanish

I don't quite know how to handle this! Certainly I have an excess of art/craft/science ideas. How many kids can we handle? The sign up list grows, and apparently it is the thing to do!

Catching Up

Here is my math class at the Boys and Girls Club in Lacoochee this week. Angel, on the right, has just turned in his dollar winning one hundred points word. (Sweetbay). These kids are middle schoolers, and in this photo they look so determined and sweet. Even the room looks good! But none of that is the true thing. What you can't see are the kids who are juning around and flipping the math materials on the floor. One kid said a "bad" word (that I did not actually hear, but someone in the room did!) He's gone! What you don't see is the dreariness of that space and the other stuff going on there- the loud MTV, the pool games, etc. We tune it out. However, I did return after my car wreck and they were glad to see me.
Javier and David you can see working in the background are the stalwarts. They always come and they are certainly motivated, working quietly and consulting each other about the algebra. I do not know much of anything about them yet, so that day I brought a watermelon to cut up and serve after the class to the kids on the picnic table outside. As we devoured the sweetness of it they told me about what they read for pleasure. (They read!)
Then, later in the week I went to the used book store and picked up some paperbacks I thought they'd like.
After being with the little kids at the elementary school in the afternoon, I approach the middle school math gig with some dread. I turn into Patti Lane, dodging the dogs and kids, try not to see the detritus of lives gone bad, take a deep breath and get the stuff out of the car. But, then, I am there and it is all worth it.
I am thinking about the upcoming summer. I know that Javier is about to join the football team for high school and he tells me he'll be practicing every day. I don't know what David has in mind. I am thinking of ways I can get these two talented boys to be engaged.
So, I do these things with kids, and my great reward is the expression in their dear faces. I am planning to have a summer arts camp, parents and kids making art together and ending the day with swimming in our large pool.
I love this kind of volunteer activity, but also I need the time to work on my own stuff (painting, clay, quilts).
I have a new car! A Honda Fit- very economical and basic, but it gets from point A to point B.
Our harvest from the garden is bountiful right now. Cucumbers! Beans! Collards! Those wonderful new potatoes! Herbs! Multicolored carrots! Onions! Squash, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants are coming along. Lettuce is just about gone in the heat, but so far we have eked out a salad every night. The armadillos have discovered ways into the garden but mostly they have been foiled by the containers they cannot reach.
Since the wreck I have been here in the country-almost two weeks! In that time the hickory trees have leafed out and the wrens in the barn have hatched their eggs. A black racer has become my constant companion outside the studio. He stretches his length outside the back door, and then curls up in the leaves at the corner of the building by night. He doesn't mind my coming and going as I tend to the kiln and water the plants. If I get too close he pretends he's a rattle snake and shakes his tail. Red shouldered hawks are nesting in a tall tree back of the barn. Their young constantly call for food.
Back to the city tomorrow in my new car, renewed.

Can't get it up? (new rant)

Tonight there was an article on Sixty Minutes about gang rapes by basketball players on a college campus. Far as I am concerned, rape is rape, no excuses. This article was tastelessly followed by a commercial for some erectile dysfunction drug, so I was out of there, speeding out of the t.v. room, my pants on fire.
I can't stand the pharmaceutical crap that clogs commercial t.v. And I especially can't stand those ads for what to do about nether parts, burping, gas, feminine products etc.
And what do we really think about the way we deal with athletes who seem to have a free ride? We conveniently look the other way as they rape, shoot, fight dogs, threaten and steal. (Coby Bryant for one)
Perhaps the excessive male hormones are a part of the athletic expertise? But, does that give our athletes carte blanche to rape and pillage?
I know of several athletes who are truly philanthropic
and caring. These are the ones who are on site for the dedication of a Habitat for Humanity house. They have provided all the furniture and they get the kudos and their photo in the paper. But I am wary. Even these wonderful guys may be discredited. You have to wonder about folks who toot their own horn.
Greg Mortenson, the guru and author of "Three Cups of Tea", the guy who was supposedly saved after a climbing trip in the Himalayas went wrong and then got religion and started many schools in Pakistan seems to have been fudging the facts and the financials. I have read these books and was moved by his words and work. I know that our troops in Afghanistan are required to read his books. Seems to me that Mortenson, like so many others, is a victim of his own fame. You begin something amazing that works, then you get others on board who can raise money for the cause, then you write a book about it, and maybe tweak the truth a bit (because you really really need the money to go forth) And then, suddenly you are a rock star! No need now to hunker down in the gritty villages; you can get others to go out there because now you have a staff.
And all the time you think you are still following your dream. It happened so seamlessly.
So, everyone has the potential to be co-opted by circumstance. It takes major energy to remain humble (and ethical).
A corrective is to bike a few miles on the Withlacoochee trail as we did today in the glorious spring weather. So many birds and so many colorful wildflowers to be seen. No trash! Yesterday we joined some other concerned citizens to spend a couple of hours picking up trash along the road between the school and the RR track. We filled ten large bags, and anthropologists we are, we noticed that there were many tiny plastic bags, thousands of beer bottles, millions of snack bags.
When I exit my studio on the yard side I must jump over the black racers who are heavy into snake sex. Two of them are out there now, and when I go out they shake and pretend they are rattlers. Who knew? They seem not to have erectile dysfunction, and actually, the males have two penises. I carefully step over them and go out to watch the bats flying against the full moon.

Wreck!

Yesterday we were in a wreck. We started out the day on our way to a fine time at Selby Gardens in Sarasota. Before that we needed to let off the dog at our St. Pete apartment.
As we left the interstate my beloved old Honda Accord was smashed into oblivion by a huge Suburban. My husband and I and my brother and his wife and our dog were spared by about six inches from certain death. The suburban ran a red light and then there was that horrible crashing sound we have all known. There was smoke coming from the engine and we all leapt out, grabbing the dog kennel. You all know the scene: cars stopped, people getting out of cars and asking if anyone was hurt, witnesses coming up to give their addresses and phone numbers, cell phones ringing and responding, waiting for the police to record everything. And of course, we were all shaking to think of what a close shave this was for us. The dog, who had been safe in her kennel, thought we had come to a picnic and wanted to be a part of it.
Within minutes my daughter and her partner arrived from different points, full of hugs and practical directives. And then, you all know the scene, we waited for all the taking of Information, and we kept asking each other if they were really o.k. The woman in the vehicle that ran the red light was so distraught! She was not the driver. She told me that she had just completed two surgeries for breast cancer and was now on the way to chemo. Her head was wrapped in a scarf, she was thin and scared. By the time the waiting for the police to get all the details was over, I was hugging this woman and telling her not to be afraid, accidents happen etc. A bad day for all.
The rest of the day is taken up with phone calls to insurance companies on our cell phones that we can't actually hear well on and are so complicated because we, being frugal, have the minimum.. And later, we have a family supper under magnificent oak trees. We are spent and love the care we receive from our daughter and her family and my sister and brother-in-law.
Of course, if I had to do all this myself in a strange place, I could have done it. But, having this amazing family helping us was wonderful.
Today, having lunch with my best friend, who had her own family emergency this week, we spoke about the importance of our wonderful daughters.
When we returned home this evening, the power was out! Aargh!
You just keep on stepping one foot behind the other, pick the salad from the garden and eventually sit down to eat, and rejoice that you are all here, the bats are flying in front of the moon and soon you'll be in bed with the man of your life and the small smooth dog plastered to your leg. I thank my lucky stars for all this.