Being Grandma

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

Christmas is coming

We were walking in the woods this late afternoon, through dry cypress. Since the good rain on the weekend, the ferns are plump and the palmettos shiny. Little Lola, the miniature dachshund was doing her utmost to plow through smilax and keep up the pace.

Just after dawn the pastures and open places were rimed with the first frost of the winter, but now as we scoot under fences and step over fallen logs we shed layers of clothing. I love this Florida winter with its little bites of cold. At bedtime you find those old slippers and flannel pajamas and pile on the quilts. And of course, you still keep all the windows open so you can hear the owls and coyotes and the first bird songs celebrating the new day.

Christmas is coming. No one will be here for it. There is no Christmas tree nor decorations except for a wonderfully fragrant wreath on the front door. Our far-flung children will be celebrating the holiday with their own traditions. Our local child and grandchild will be celebrating with us in her own house. Tomorrow, we'll go out with little Quincy, who's three, and get a small tree to decorate for his house. We'll take our bags of gifts and the giant present of a new bed for Quincy made especially for him by his grandpa. We'll have a wonderful Christmas Eve supper of all the traditional things. We'll spend some time stuffing the stockings, all alike, except for the individual names and hand-knitted by an old friend, with practical and fanciful items.

Somehow, all the old traditions need to be respected, whatever the circumstances. I remember one Christmas when my brother and I, both college students, could not afford to go home across the country to spend Christmas with our parents. We decided to celebrate anyway. My brother's Jewish roommates had long decamped. We went out at the last minute and bought the last tired tiny Charley Brown tree and installed it in my brother's funky New York apartment. We decorated it somehow with the tiny colorful boxes (full of folded $5 bills) our mom had sent. We cooked ourselves a Christmas dinner and then slept soundly on the smelly student beds.

Another Christmas, many decades later, we were in London in a flat with our three children and my husband's mother. The boys were in college, and our daughter was ten years old. We did get the required Christmas tree - again, the last tree on the lot. We made decorations out of newspapers. We decided that each person in the family could spend five pounds on presents for everyone, and we all went in a team to Harrod's to shop. I have no memory of the gifts (they were small!), but they were totally satisfactory. That was a wonderful Christmas.

And there have been far too many Christmases with incredible numbers of family members coming to the ranch from far places and presents spreading grotesquely in every direction from beneath the giant tree groaning from the freight of the ornaments.

Neither Andy or I have much investment in the religious or secular aspect of Christmas; I have done the requisite shopping and sending. (I am not a grinch!)

But, this year, our Christmas will be low key. We are still reeling from family problems of the sort many families have. We are raw, but we prevail, always optimistic and glad to have our friends and family. This is the best gift of all.

Walmart Christmas

It was 84 degrees today, so when I pulled up into the parking lot of my neighborhood Walmart superstore, everyone was wearing shorts that revealed their liver spots on the shins and tight jersey across their paunches. There was a clot of of old and middle aged people clogging the door with their carts. They seemed to be homing into some sort of free medical information- maybe it was flu shots? I grabbed a shopping cart and bustled my way through the crowd.

I took two deep breaths and breached the doorway. My mission was to get a few DVD's for a Christmas gift, some wrapping paper, and seed packets for my 4-H students. There is so much stuff here! I found a special on kiwi fruits and I wanted them for my students who will welcome me back from New Zealand. I picked up twenty of them, imagining how I would artfully cut them into servings for the snack I will bring to school next week.

The wrapping paper was the first for us in two years. (We have finally used up the Kwanzaa paper with the black Santas) This time I had the choice between the sponge bob square pants motif and Barney. I chose Barney.

Triumphant, I pushed my cart out to the gardening section. I asked, only to find that there were no seeds. (What's the matter lady? You want seeds this time of the year? We're on New Jersey time. No way can you find seeds here even though it is the best time to grow lettuces!)

So, I trundle my shopping cart to the checkout manned by a sad and surly woman who tells me that I can't pay for the kiwi fruit here. So, dispirited, I give my bag of kiwifruit back and lay it on the checkout counter. "O.K, take it back." ( I am not about to go back into the maw of the huge store, stand in line, and pay for the kiwis.)

So, this is Christmas shopping American style.

I am not grumpy about this holiday. Really, I' m not. I have a long Christian tradition in my mind. I love the music. I love the smell of Christmas trees and the sounds of bells and the traditions of stockings and burning candle odors in the midnight mass. I love the anticipation of Christmas morning and the gifts.

But, now I am not Christian in any traditional sense. In our house we have no Christmas tree, no ornaments, and no regrets. We keep Christmas with our grandchildren and we celebrate like crazy!

We are off (in a snow storm) to visit one segment of our grandchildren. We are taking bags full of gifts to celebrate the season. We are so blessed.

Happy holidays to everyone.

Walmart Christmas

We are not the center of the universe

I've been in New Zealand for the past month with no chance to update this blog. But I'm back and looking at my country and situation with new eyes. We are not the center of the universe, we from the United States of America. I had been prepared to be apologetic about the sorry state we are in. But no one asked, there was no news on t.v. or in the daily papers about the richest and most influential country in the world. No one wanted to engage us in debates or discussion about American policies.

New Zealanders, Kiwi, as they call themselves, have a lovely and friendly society. To us they seem quite delightfully naive where we are jaded. The national newspapers have headlines about crimes that would not get a mention here. New Zealand is tiny by any standard (smaller in size than California) and has only 4 million population, and way more than that in sheep. The social contract is strong and respected. One always feel safe wherever you go. Teenagers and kids greet you everywhere.

I was so impressed with the policies of treasuring the young. The schools are wonderful and creative places, spilling out creative products in art and science and music and physical education (Many elementary schools have swimming pools!) and without such things as the NOCHILDLEFTBEHIND, they manage to produce kids who can read and write and wonder on a level far ahead of ours. These schools are pretty small compared to ours. They reflect neighborhood needs.

If a child has any developmental problems there are very good options for help for anyone. We visited a family whose child had a language problem at an early age. They were able to get, in a timely fashion, the help this kid needed. The speech therapist came to their home, no stress, to help not only the child but the parents. The child is now prospering and on target.

The people I met and envisioned through the local papers, are cheerfully willing to tax themselves to make this all happen. I never read about whining for tax cuts.

Going anyplace and wanting to understand the culture is always like the blind men and the elephant: you only see a little piece of it. Hard to extrapolate intelligently from it. I need to go back repeatedly!

Of course, this place is the most beautiful in the world, so varied and intriguing in all its aspects
of alps, fiords, glaciers, rain forests, amazing birds and penguins, and millions of sheep!

Travel is indeed the power of experience.

Mr. Darcey is no more

Mr. Darcey, AKA Curley, was put down today. For the last several years he was the bull on our ranch. He was a gentle stupid guy and he created wonderful calves. Curley had a mop of blonde curls on the top of his huge head, and he kept his ladies in shape (mostly pregnant). As his feet hurt more and more we often saw him up to his neck in the pond where it seemed he got a little relief from his pain.

This morning I observed Curley behind the barn, alone, limping pitifully and barely able to stand. For a long time we have all noticed that he had major foot issues and it became increasingly apparent that he was unable to mount the cows (however much he wanted to.) You might think that we could just get a vet. Not so easy. How do you get a three ton lame animal into the pen, and then up into a trailer? Not quite possible. Curley lay down behind the barn at the edge of the woods. I called Warren, the ranch manager and the owner of Curley. "I think Curley is in trouble," I began. "He doesn't seem to be able to get up. What do you think?"

Warren came over and we looked at Curley who was obviously down and couldn't get up. Warren is the most decent person I know. He loves these animals. But he took a look and couldn't stand to see Curley in such pain. He had hoped that Curley would heal on his own. Warren went home to get his gun.

Half an hour later I heard the gun shots - it took five. Soon, we got a call. "Is it O.K. to leave the carcass back behind the Dentist Cabin field (our furthest)? Soon, we heard the craziness of the herd of cows stampeding behind their fallen leader as he was dragged to his final resting place, (many dinners for the vultures). I wonder, are those cows all out there now, circled around the dead Curley?

Farm life goes on. A few years ago we had a calf whose mother died in childbirth. Warren saved this tiny creature, we all bottle fed her and then Warren gave her to a neighbor up the road. This was Peggy Sue. She prospered and was bred to Wilber. Their bull calf was called New Jean (sp? no one knows.) This bull went to someone in the neighborhood known as "Pap". Now Pap will sell us this bull who is known as a most gentle bull who loves to have his back rubbed. He comes with two cows.

I cannot still believe that I am embedded here where these things happen! But there I was, shedding a tear or two for this bull who actually had no more personality than a turnip.

So we are going away for close to a month and I am already missing the place. I have made peace with the fact that the gardens will die, get eaten by insects and worms, or grow wild. The vines will send large tendrils onto the porch, and the orchids will have to survive (or not) without me.

When we are on our trip to New Zealand, I will hardly think about this place (my paradise) while I am gone. I will stare up at the stars of the Southern Hemisphere and wonder. I will look carefully at birds and flora I never see here and rejoice. And, predictably, on day eleven of the trip, I will have a momentary funk. Then, I will get myself together and realize that the trip is only halfway over and there is still so much to see and do.

Look for my blog in early December.

Catching Up

Here is a little guy I will be visiting on our upcoming trip to New Zealand. He is the son of a woman I have known since she was this exact age. Kristie made the decision to live in New Zealand as a young woman. She works in the film industry as a 'creature' editor. She has worked for Peter Jackson and has been involved in the Hobbit films and King Kong and others.

A few years ago, we went to New Zealand to attend her wedding. It was , a marvelous event, set in the rolling hills of the South Island where much of 'Lord of the Rings' was filmed.

We loved the trip from Christchurch to Clyde. There was not another vehicle on the road and the scenery changed dramatically from mile to mile. Sheep, lots of sheep, green hills, steep canyons, rain forests and beaches with penguins were all there. The small towns were friendly and so doable. I felt that we had gone back thirty years in time. Our anxieties melted away in this friendly land. I could well understand how my friend could have adopted this country as her own and decided that this was the place to raise children and make her way.

Every year we have taken a long trip with my brother and his wife, always to Europe. But this year we are making the long trek across the Pacific to Auckland and we'll travel from the North Island all the way to the tip of the South Island and on to Stewart Island, the farthest south I have ever been. Along the way, we'll make a grand American Thanksgiving celebration with the expats. (They are worried about the availability of cranberries, and how to find a suitable turkey?) We'll make do, no doubt.

I cannot wait to begin the journey. I will not think about the dreadful state of the world, the war, the embarrassment I feel because of our current occupant in the White House, and the environmental problems.

For the last several days we have been completing tasks, tying up affairs, getting things in order. Our conservation easement went through this week. Now, our land is perpetually not to be developed. We are thrilled. And so are the critters, turkeys, cranes, and deer who stroll by. Unexpectedly, we were paid a bunch of money by the state for this. These last couple of days it has been fun to write checks to pay for grand children's education, a large gift to marine science at USF, and other philanthropies, and of course a good bit to Uncle Sam. (We were not tempted to buy a Lexus! The old Honda still serves.)

We need to start packing for our trip. Hopefully the weather will be cooler than it has been here in Florida. In New Zealand it will be early spring, a cool maritime spring.

We'll be gone for the month, but I will write again when we return.

Two Schools

This Friday at San Antonio Elementary School the kids were eager to see me and find out what I had for them on this day. They were waiting to help me unload my satchels and boxes. The air is a little cooler in the mornings and I noticed it as I drove that very pretty fifteen minute trip over the horse dotted hills and valleys and parked in the school lot. I also noticed that mid fall response that teachers have: Now, it's time to take stock, pull together, and make that push to have this group really function well. Marissa, the teacher I volunteer for is not one of those "don't smile until after Thanksgiving" teachers. In fact, she has a wonderfully impish smile and the kids clearly see she knows them and cares for them. But lately there have been some attitude issues and a lot of late homework. Time to rectify this.

She told them that they would not be able to participate in Miss Molly's activity if they had not done their work or shown responsible behavior. They didn't quite believe it until I arrived with a load of fresh clay. I took the group of kids who had finished everything and we had a lovely morning of making clay pieces. One by one, the other kids joined us as they finished their work. They worked with quiet intensity and when we were done several hours later, there were trays of pots of all kinds. We talked about the clay and we considered how to make the things strong and stand up to the heat of the kiln. They are eager to see the fired results and they are thinking about the glazing process. They said, "I wish you were our art teacher!"

Marissa, their teacher, is welcoming to me and opens every aspect of her organized classroom to me. I know where everything can be found. It is a comfortable place. When I go into the storage closets, I see the large amounts of supplies sent in by parents. This class of kids looks very modern American. The kids are of all races and economic backgrounds. The predominate feeling here is that all these kids are well cared for. This is not a Title One school, nor is it particularly affluent.

One would think that schools in the same district would be pretty similar. In my limited experience as a volunteer they are definitely different. At Lacoochee, a Title One school, where I volunteer on Tuesday afternoons, there is a subtly different feel. To begin with, the trip, as one gets within a mile or two of the school, is a little bit frightening. I drive through public housing tracts, derelict convenience stores, and I see lots of young men lounging about on the fringes and not doing much. I see pregnant young hispanic women pushing strollers full of tiny kids and other tiny kids trailing along behind.

Inside the school, there is a slight dishelvement of the place. In the classroom where I volunteer, the teacher seems disheartened and lacks the energetic spark. As I arrived with sacks of potting soil and all the paraphenalia one needs to garden, she did not offer to help me unload. She sort of faded off. She never has any plans for what to do. She did finally rummage around and find a catalog that had raised beds kits and she said she would like those. O.K. It is mid October. Who will construct these? Who will pay for them? If it can be done, will there be time to put in plants and have a harvest before frost?

The kids who came to the gardening group were great. Now I know all their names and I joke with them. I had decided that we would make a big container garden so we filled the pots I brought with soil and compost and planted the seeds of their choosing. The teacher had not thought ahead about a water source, so I made the decision about where to place the containers (close to a spiggot) and gave them new watering cans so they could keep their containers watered. The kids were well satisfied with their efforts. I am sure they will water their containers during the week. There were a few cabbage and collard seedlings left over so I gave them to the kids who had gardens at home. They were thrilled. Each child left with a fresh apple. I told them to bring back the cores for the worm farm. (I had looked at it and seen nothing added recently.) Just before the buses left several kids dashed in to put their apple cores into the worm bin.

As I was collecting the garden tools and packing up to leave, I heard the music teacher playing tunes on his saxophone at the bus loop. So lovely. And several parents and kids I know from last year called out to me to stop! (Miss Molly, when can we come and visit you?)

Such a lot to think about for this old and experienced teacher.

Teach a man to Fish

Yesterday, the two visiting fifteen year old boys were digging in the compost pile for worms. They wanted to fish in the pond. Peter, the dad, had been down to the barn with them to find the fishing equipment. They had oiled the reels and checked out the gear. They were ready to go. They had no luck with the live worms but there were purple plastic worms to be used. From the upstairs window I watched these two almost-men out in the pond on the boat casting their lines.

This was a weekend when we had sixteen guests, all with different agendas. Peter and Anne and the boys were in the guest house. Our daughter and her toddler son, Quincy were here in the main house with Tory, also fifteen, and her grandmother, June. The others came only for the day on Sunday.

I see these very different people modeling behavior for their children. Anne and Peter patiently show their kids what to do and how to do it. June shows Tory by example how to be a grown-up.

Anne's and Peter's kids have been in our life since they were very small. The oldest is now in college. They are all interested in the natural world and love our place. The whole family gets out to help clean up our woodland trails, brings wheelbarrows full of mulch and cow pies to the asparagus bed, and Peter loves to help in the ever needing mowing of the pastures.

This weekend the boys were determined to catch a fish. When I went out this morning to empty the compost, I saw that there was Big Activity at the guest house. Peter was taking photos of the large mouth bass the boys caught. He was gently directing them in a plan for where and how to clean and fillet the fish that they would eat for breakfast.

Later, as we were taking the latest batch of guests on a truck ride around the property, I saw one of the boys working on a fish with his knife. They had caught another one! This one was to be taken home to Mom (nicely filleted). Both of them had learned how to persevere, how to deal with a live fish, just caught. No doubt, they learned how to cook it too!

These parents have taken their kids everywhere with them as they pursue their scientific lives. They patiently teach and explain and model an ethical, joyous, and responsible life. They teach their kids how to do stuff! I see the magnificence of the transmission of culture from one generation to another. This family has had more than its share of trouble. Anne lost one arm and a lung to cancer. Yet they are so whole! This is a family that teaches their kids to fish.

June, Tory's grandmother, is also teaching her granddaughter to fish. Tory, a lovely fifteen year old black girl, has dreadlocks like her grandmother. She is here in Florida (from Maryland) to explore the possibility of living here and going to school. She has been home schooled this year because of really bad bullying problems at her high school. Tory is smart, academically at the top and needing a change. My daughter loves Tory's mom and suggested that Tory might come down to Florida for a change in her educational life and live with her. So Tory is thinking about this. June came down for a few days to check everything out. She left Florida this morning.

I watched June and Tory as they were here on the ranch. It must have been as strange to them as being in Afghanistan. Here they were in WASP land, pretty prosperous, everything different from their lives back home. We had a dinner with all the current guests . June was lovely with me and with Tory. I could see she was taking everything in. June and Tory spent a morning in my studio making clay art. June knows that Tory is contemplating making a tremendous leap into the unknown. She wants Tory to know she has her support. Here was another model of one generation to another. In some ways, this model is more scary and iffy, because, unlike that of Peter and Anne, there is no comfortable underpinning.

Seeing these incredible people with their progeny and how they patiently and wisely transmit their best values, humbles me and makes me hopeful.

The thirty thousand dollar couch

Today, I read in the New York Times about a couple of people in Manhattan who were buying a $30,000 couch. This was to go into their multi-million dollar apartment. Here is a photo of a couch (in the background) that is worth uncountable dollars. This particular couch, located in a small town in northern California, is humble at first notice. It wasn't made by Italian artisans, but it is comfortable with pillows and throws made by real people that I know. The love in those petit point pillows took time and love and is worth millions of dollars. You can't see it here, but there are dog hairs embedded in the couch fabric. That dog, Stella, was worth maybe several million dollars in the love she gave her people. The coffee stains on the upholstery from many lovely family mornings, the history of babies, and the scratch marks from the cat are all here -the leavings of lives well lived on this very valuable couch. Worth a lot.

The person sitting in front of the very valuable couch is trying to repack a backpack after having spent the night on the couch. No doubt, during the night, she pulled her child onto the couch with her for food and comfort. All worth millions.

What in the world can we be thinking? Is it somewhere o.k. to spend such extravagant sums on decorating? Was the NYT doing a spoof? $30,000! This could fund a year in a private college, thirty field trips for a title one public school, thirty grants to people who need childcare so they can get going on their lives. $30,000! You could buy a nice trailer for a homeless family, you could buy a car that would make a difference for a family. You could fund a chair in a university, you could rescue a public library in a small town, you could, you could, you could..

These newly very rich people have no imagination. And why would they? (They are stuck in that children's game of MASH where one gets to live in a mansion and drive a Masserati.) In our times, we have never been asked to think about sacrifice or the good of others or the planet, thanks to Our Current Occupant in the Whitehouse. When you have people leaping from humble beginnings to great wealth, it seems they mostly gravitate to the swarmy tastelessness of showing off their wealth. We see the sports stars and celebrities building mansions and living in magnificent style.

I have a lovely life and I worry that our footprint is too large. I cannot be too judgemental. BUT! I do not have a $30,000 couch! Mine is worth way more than that as I cuddle my grandchild and read him a story, little dog warm between us.

Lacoochee, again

No photos today, but many kids in my head. My mission this fall as a volunteer at Lacoochee Elementary School is to mastermind a "science challenge" group of eighteen fifth graders who will be doing a 4-H project of a vegetable garden. This needs to be accomplished in 45 minutes a week. Yikes!

I started out with a name game so we could be acquainted with each other (their names are daunting to me, such ones as Brasheeka and Image, and ordinary ones spelled funny), and then we went on to eat broccoli and dip. I asked them what part of the broccoli they were eating. The leaves? The roots? The stem? Finally, one little girl said, "the blossoms?" Oh, yes!

After many "eeuows! and Icks", they pronounced the raw broccoli very good. They liked the yogurt dip. Then we went out to inspect the place of the proposed garden. We checked the water supply. It was working.

I had small pots for them to use to plant kale and zinnia seeds. They carefully carried the pots back to a place outside the science room and they promised to water their seeds every day. It was obvious that these kids have had no experience at all with caring for plants. When I return next week, we'll see what has grown-or not.

There is only 45 minutes for this activity! How can we create a garden in only this amount of time every week? The science teacher seems very laid back, easy in her job. I would love to organize her room and install an interesting aquarium, cages full of hamsters and guinea pigs and mice, butterfly chrysalises waiting to hatch. I would love to see paper cups full of experiments, crystal things dripping, the mess of science. Today I saw adult disorganization and very little that was inviting to a child. I did see a lot of expensive scales and science tools. I wish that schools could get rid of those horrid "canned" bulletin board things that no one ever looks at anyway.

But, so, I have hope for this project. I am connected already to several of the kids. Of course I will continue to be critical because I believe that these good and patient children deserve the best we have to give them.

Lacoochee Elementary School in rural Pasco County of Florida is not faintly related to Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C. or the Chapin School in Manhattan. The vast socio-economic gulf is so deep and wide it is beyond imagining. And yet, I believe that from time to time a Lacoochee kid will rise like yeast and make it big in this world. Many others who do not make it big will be solid citizens and good and caring Americans of all colors.

I am on the forward edge of those boomers. We are going to make a difference as we get out there in critical mass as volunteers who act, speak up and care for our neighbors, our country, and our planet.

Birthday Gift

For my birthday a couple of months ago, my daughter gave me a certificate good for a couple of hours of computer help. I am not exactly computer illiterate, but I have many questions about how to manage files, how to accomplish tasks more easily. What I really pined for was a kind of ' handy man' who would make my computer clean and lean and answer my dumb questions. My daughter does not have a lot of time. She runs a business, works in other jobs part time, tutors, and is the mother of a toddler.

But this weekend she came with her son who loves the ranch and has spent many weekends alone with us. Having the two of them together here was certainly a gift, but when Quincy went down for a nap we went to my studio and the computer there.

"Now, Mom, I know this is a lot like reorganizing your underwear drawer," she says as she is swiftly deleting unwanted files. "Says here you haven't used this since '06. It's gone." She carefully shows me through a few new ways of doing things. But she is really appalled at my lack of organization. "Why haven't you put all these similar things in one file?" We make a lot of new files and fill them with similar things. I cringe (she is in my underwear drawer) and wonder what horrid dogeared thing she'll find next. I have always been such a private person, though there are no skeletons that I know of.

She insisted on taking my whole photo file of thousands of pictures, loaded onto a flash drive. She'll organize these. I am uncomfortable with the enormity of this task, asking anyone to do it. But she says she loves doing this. She is the family anthropologist, nosey since birth, and I know she'll enjoy going through years of my photos. She'll put all my arts photos where they belong, she'll arrange all those photos of wildflowers, and she'll put all the family events in some kind of order. Because she's my daughter and so close, she'll delete the terrible pictures. This is a gift beyond all imagining.

The worm turns. I remember the actual act of helping her (making her!) get some organization into her physical space. "Clean your room today!" But mostly, I was respectful of her space, and when I could not stand the mess, I would quietly close the door.

I remember when she was as young as Quincy and I catered to her every need. I had no idea then that she would one day be a fan tastically competent and organized adult who could or would want to teach me things. I see her son, Quincy, now- today by turns wonderful and horrid. I remember his mother at this point. Could I have believed that this baby woman would one day be this wonderful young woman, so generous and curious and able? And so she has turned out. I am priviledged to have this daughter I love so much.

Mutant cosmos, Frogs in the Shower, and Lovebugs

In the spring when the raised flower beds were flowering in lovely abundance, I planted cosmos seeds here and there so that they would be blooming just when the petunias and pansies and zinnias would be dead with the heat. I imagined their delicate lacy foliage with purple and orange blooms, not needing much attention, but keeping the flower beds in focus. I began to notice the cosmos growing up through the red sage and the Mexican Petunias.

As the heat and wet of summer went on (and on), the cosmos grew taller and taller but there was not a suggestion of anything blooming on them. Occasionally some of the heavy stalks would keel over with their own weight, but not daunted they would spring up again. In August the cosmos plants were at least six feet tall. By early September they were approaching ten feet. I was intrigued enough to let them stay until I could see what would happen. No blooms. The stems of these plants by now had the diameters of small redwood trees and it would require a chain saw to remove them. We were beginning to think that these were not cosmos at all, but some horrible mutant invasive species that should be chopped down and burned asap.

Yesterday they began to bloom. They are actually the most unpleasant plant I have ever let live. At about twelve feet tall, dwarfing everything else in the yard, they have very small unattractive orange blossoms waving crazily about at the tops. I purchased the seeds at Walmart.

As the giant mutant cosmos bloomed the green frogs appeared. I hear Andy whimpering from the bathroom where he is preparing to shower. We all have our roles and mine is to catch the wildlife inside the house. The shower is full of frogs. I am pretty good at catching them and putting them outside. I let the gecko stay because I have always liked knowing that my home is guarded by these funny creatures. I go back to the kitchen where I am sweeping the palmetto bugs out the door. This is like some really strange sport (water bug polo?)

Later, as the day heats up, I realize that we are in love bug season again. Love bug season is kind of like the fall NPR fundraisers; you hate that period but you know you can last it out if you keep your legs crossed and think of the Queen. No one I have ever known of has ever discovered anything good about love bugs or what their niche is in the ecology of Florida.

But this night there is a full moon and the sky is clear. As is our habit, we walk the fields with our dog and rejoice that we have a place in the natural world, however strange.

Kids' Nation

Grandma Molly is whining tonight. I have just watched the reality t.v. show about forty kids in a cold desert, making their way for six weeks without adults. Yeah, I've read "Lord of the Flies", and as a teacher with more than forty years experience, I have often fantasized about what would happen to any group of kids I know if they had to make it on their own. It wouldn't be pretty.

I have several problems with this show's concept. First, I wonder WHAT were their parents thinking? Are we Americans so mesmerized with having our kids in the spotlight and out there as objects that we have lost our senses? Do these parents think that putting their kids in a competitive situation on national t.v. for $20,000 is what it's all about? What happened to family values? Maybe these are the same parents who put their little girls up to be Miss Sunshine in a beauty pageant, or got them into modeling. One child was described as being a spelling bee finalist, not so different.

It is ridiculous to think that these kids were really out there all alone and making life decisions. They were surrounded with camera booms and a huge trailer city of t.v. folks. The M.C. periodically appeared to pull things together. (and hand out gold stars and $2o,000 checks.) There was a helicopter pad. The kids were obviously chosen for their cuteness. There were no mean girls or aggressive boys. And, really, would you like to see your neighborhood bully or gang member on t.v.? The kids are all ethnicities, all adorable, just like in the commercials we see all the time on t.v.

This show was charming in a way; the kids were so appealing with their shiny hair and Gap clothes and straight teeth and articulate speech. This was not reality. (Real kids of this age do not bathe, their feet stink, and their hair is lank.)

What reality is in the best possible middle class world is a family going camping together. The kids help catch the fish and cook it, with the help and direction from Mom and Dad. Everyone sleeps in tents on the ground, and if it rains torrentially, it is an adventure for all. The youngest child who might be eight years old, (or eleven or twelve!), scared, and takes comfort from his folks who cuddle him in the dark and reassure him about this world. These parents know that this is a little guy (or girl) who needs to embedded in a family. This small creature does not need to be a t.v. star prematurely. On Kids' Nation, even those precocious, parent propelled kids, were worried about the opportunity they had to take a crap. What are we thinking?

So I am whining tonight. I am thinking about Quincy, our almost three year old grandson. He's cute enough and social enough to be a model on t.v. But what really interests him is looking at lizards, pretending to drive the tractor, and dipping into the reality of being with Grandpa and Grandma on the ranch. Someday he might want to go to sleep-away summer camp, as his mother happily did for many summers. But there will be no helicopters there, no t.v cameras. He'll just learn from friendly adults about wildlife, cooking, fire building, horses, or whatever.

If you watched this program, what do you think?

The Diddle Factor

When Andy and I were working full time and the sprawling house was full of children, friends and dogs and schedules and things to
be done I fantasized about having a place to live that was pure white, no kids, no dog hair, no maintenance issues, I could be an orphan stripped of family. I would eat only exquisite pale green vegetables, ordered in when I wanted. There would be nothing needing attention and I could read, lying supine on the white sofa as long as I wanted. When I wanted to leave I could just go out and lock the door behind me. Pure fantasy.

Actually, we do now own a townhouse in the city, and it is almost white. It requires very little energy, maybe a half hour a month to vacuum and clean the bathrooms. It is stylish and well-equipped. We can close the front door and be gone for weeks at a time knowing it will be exactly the same when we return. The automatic watering system comes on a couple of times a week to irrigate the tiny garden. The air conditioning system keeps the whole place at 82 degrees when no one is at home. Since it is totally hermetically sealed, very little dust accumulates. This place is not home, and, for me, just a place to be occasionally, and a little bit better than a hotel. But we can't give it up!

The diddle factor is something one might not think about when you are so exhausted by the details of life. But you retire from your daily work. What do you do now everyday? You are not required to drive kids to soccer or to the orthodondist. You don't have to get up before the first light to get in your run or swim before work. You don't have to slump over your computer late into every night preparing lesson plans or responding to e-mails from clients. FREEDOM!

There you could be in your stylish condo with very little to do. You can water the plants. You could go out to lunch every day with friends. You could attend concerts and plays in the evenings.. You could volunteer as a symphony greeter. You could shop, though not many of us who are retired and prosperous have any need for things. We've got everything we need. You could travel constantly as many retirees do. I think that this is just postponing the hard work of figuring out what we want our last best years to hold for us.

We have been flopping around being retirees for this last year. It isn't pretty. We are addressing a deficit of creative energy. Andy has made many exquisite pieces of furniture in his shop. In the last year he has made chests of drawers, tables, benches, stools, toys and shelves. I have made quilts, clothes for my granddaughter, paintings, rugs and pottery. Our creations are not yet professional quality. We are learning.

We are enjoying our grandchildren, though toddlers are incredible time consumers!

And we have the needs of our various volunteer activities seeping into our lives, sometimes for many hours a week. These activities are the most meaningful to us. We can use our honed expertise to advance the causes we believe in.

In our real home at the ranch, not at the pristine white place in town, there is always something to be done. The pastures need to be mowed, the fences mended, the fruit trees pruned, the vegetable and flower beds weeded and watered, the cattle culled. There is so much pure space to be explored! Our work clothes have to be laundered and meals must be prepared for us and the many guests we have.

This is the diddle factor. We need to have things to do that are hard and take time, creativity and concentration. There was this huge thing before we retired that was paid work for hours and hours every week. We squeezed in the extra stuff: maintaining our houses, cooking meals, scheduling family and friends and community. When we retire we have to address the deficit of all the rest of stuff we wanted to do but never had the time for.

Living in the pristine white house that needs nothing is a bad choice for retirees. There is no diddle factor.

Remembering 9/11 in 2007

I have no picture today, but I look at the sky this evening as the day wanes and it is very like that Tuesday: rain and heavy clouds. But back then I was walking in the pastures, weeping for the future.

Tonight I have just watched the general and the ambassador and the senators, the 'suits', trying to make sense out of all this mess. How can anyone?

I remember driving across the middle east with my father when I was a seventeen year old. There were four of us; my dad, my two brothers, one a bit older and one a bit younger, and me. We drove on dirt roads through the back of Turkey, then into Syria and on into Lebanon where we were going to live for more than a year. This was not your cruise ship tour.

Going through the small villages we saw many cafes with men sitting outside playing some kind of board game (backgammon? dominoes?). These men often had shaved heads. The children, (never girls) who might be there too, also had shaved heads. We saw this scene over and over- men doing nothing. My siblings and I began to refer to them as "drones". I wondered where all the women and girls were. These people were not at all interested in us or at all welcoming though probably few Americans had ever been to their villages. These people were the most foreign people I have ever seen. There was absolutely no point of contact. When we wanted to buy some bottled water and pointed to a likely looking container, they sold us ice cold ouzo ( a highly alcoholic brew). Try drinking that when you have been eating the dust on the road for a few hours!

We didn't expect much. My father expounded (as he often did) on the differences in cultures. It sounded like blah blah to us. We were too young, too embedded in being Americans.

Living in Beirut was a wonderful cornucopia of senses. The city was building, as it always is, and the smells of fresh concrete, flowering trees and kibbi, the platters of spicy ground meat coming from communal ovens, the leathery smells from the shoemakers were my world. I loved going to school with Arabs. I loved spending time with Lebanese families. But these Arabs were from Dubai, Saudi Arabia, and other places where parents were progressive and wanted to have their children prepared for going to universities in Europe and the United States. I had never heard of girls wearing burkas, or even head scarves.

My older brother soon left to go and study at the Sorbonne. So I was the oldest now.

My dad wanted me to travel with him on his occasional trips to Jordan, Syria, and Iraq. He was on a fellowship to study archaeology. We'd go to small cities and towns and he'd give a lecture on the local archaeology and I would do the slide show. These trips were always interesting, sometimes alarming. It is hard to imagine now, that someone in our State Department at one time thought that having a prominent classicist give lectures in small middle east cities was a good idea. I do remember that the lecture hall was always packed and that there were many more questions than my dad had time to answer.

The people who came to the lectures were not drones.

It was an easier time then. I was in awe of Mesopotamia. I grew up thinking about the Cradle of Civilization. There were so many incredible ideas, artifacts and tracks of the first best civilization. In those lecture halls the Iraqis were lovely and responsive and proud. It was slow with the translator.

But as soon as we began to drive across the unremittingly hot desert, through the small settlements, I saw the "drones". I do not understand these people, the Iraqis, the Sunnis, Shias.

Tonight I watch the "suits", the senators and generals, talk about what to do about Iraq. I do not think they have a clue about the culture they are dealing with. Sometimes it looks like us, but this is a mirage. Islam is opaque to us. They need to find their own solutions. I cannot imagine what we were thinking in going to war in Iraq. We have wrecked the infrastructure, the society, the natural life, and the irreplaceable historical artifacts of a whole country. And we have let thousands be killed.

I hope you are reading "A Thousand Splendid Suns". Makes you think, you and I, self-satisfied Americans.

Ranch Life

The cowboys and dogs came today to work the cows. The horses arrived in a trailer with the dogs who were on their toes and excited to be able to run around and herd the beasts from the pasture into the chute. We went in the truck to the cattle pens to see the action. It was raining lightly and there was a magnificent rainbow in the late afternoon sun.

Half the herd of forty, the calves, were going into trailers to tomorrow's cattle auction. The breeding cows were treated for the various pests cows get. Tonight, the calves will stay in a pen at the auction center with water and feed. Those calves are now really big and buff, and I am ready to see them go. Their mammas are now bellowing in the long pasture, missing their offspring. Curly, the bull, looks relieved. Beef prices are up.

All the late summer during the rainy season, the pastures have beeen mowed and groomed. The grass is thick. Warren, the ranch manager, is proud of his herd and the work he has done to revamp the cattle pens and the fences. He loves this place!

So do I! It still seems so magical and unbelievable that I live here. It often seems to me that the big adventure of the day is being able to watch that huge golden orb weaver spider quickly wrapping up a yellow sulpher butterfly that unfortunately blundered into her web. Or checking out that fence lizard that lives under the tractor. Or finally being able to put a name to that cobalt blue wildflower I see on my daily forays. (Curley top sage) By our entrance gate I love (and hate) to see the red shouldered hawk zoom down for a rabbit.

This is the first entire summer we have actually lived here full time. It has been as hot as the inside of a dragon's mouth, though at night we do not use the a/c because it does cool down. Despite the heat, I have loved beginning to know the rhythms of country life. I have learned a lot about butterflies and caterpillars, birds, reptiles. I am constantly checking my guide books, doing a unit on Florida ecology.

A couple of days ago I went to the feed store to see if they had collard plants yet and met up with a couple of local families I know from Lacoochee School. They were buying rabbit and pig feed and were also looking for collards. "Miss Molly! Are you coming back to school? When can we come to visit at the ranch again?" I am beginning to feel embedded here.

The salad garden is up, the tomatoes are looking good, and as far as I know, there is no hurricane on the horizon.

I hear foxes barking and the intimate ululations of the screech owls. The night sky, unpoluted with man's lights, is limitless.

Gardening Time

I am thinking about great vegetables. Right now in central Florida pickings are slim. Our vegetables come from California and Peru. This pains me.

There is nothing in our garden right now except for basil. The tomato horn worms decimated the peppers and the egg plants that were holdovers from spring. I sprayed them with thuricide. After the armadillo wars in the spring, (they won!) Andy built a raised salad bed that has now been planted with many lettuce varieties, spinach, chard, and kale. He planted a Japanese tomato ring. Soon, the small broccoli plants and collards will be for sale in the farmer's feed store. I will put in several rows of beans, hoping that the armadillos will not uproot them. Vegetables here are still all potential.

I am Lucy with the football. Always hoping for the best, I plant many things, imagining as I drop in the seeds, a great meal from all my fantasies. I have learned through hard experience that those wonderful heirloom tomatoes will not flourish in our short day and extremely hot climate. I have learned that English peas will not produce much, and I have learned that gardening in this semi-tropical climate is a wonderful challenge. I keep trying new things.

My sister-in-law, Nancy tells me that in her area of north Connecticut, the farm stands are overflowing with corn, tomatoes, and everything one could imagine vegetable-wise. Sigh..

So here we plant the fall garden, knowing full well that terrible storms or hurricanes not yet named could ruin everything. And I will always replant, and I will always be rewarded, maybe with something unexpected like a bumper crop of cucumbers or peppers, luffa gourds or carrots.

Our time of triumph is around Thanksgiving when the rest of the country is hunkering down to the beginning of sere winter. We have a bountiful harvest: huge turnips, amazing salad, tomatoes (not heirlooms) to knock your socks off, and the prospect of many lettuces to come.

The photo above is a very large painting I made for Gina's kitchen. She loves vegetables as much as I do. But I grow them and she cooks them!

Death of a Faithful Friend

Dot died a couple of days ago. My son and his wife got the news as they returned home from a visit here. She was fourteen years old, an old age for a large dog. When Chris, and Nat came for the summer visit, they were worried about Dot who had been left with the vet after having several teeth pulled. It seemed that Dot was doing well after the surgery. They called often.

Dot was mostly pit bull, maybe a little bit Dalmation. She had a big brown dot on her sweet face. They got her as a tiny puppy early in their marriage. Dot grew up on Vashon, an island in Puget Sound. Everyone on the Island knew Dot. She went on errands with Chris and sat proudly in the passenger seat, the dowager queen. Dot was always a well-behaved dog, never a leaper or a crotch sniffer. Her people loved her and trained her well. She had extreme dignity. And she took up a lot of space.

Chris bought one dog bone each day to give Dot. It was a ritual. Dot spent her days in Chris's shop, mostly in her bed under the work table, or outside taking in rays when there were any. When Chris went into the main house, Dot followed. As a young dog Dot chased frisbees and took long walks with the family. Even though huge, Dot slept with her people in their bed every night.
She made room in the family bed for those interlopers, the two little kids.

This dog was truly embedded in the family and one could see that in her quiet way (I have never heard her bark) she loved this family beyond all imagining, forgave them their foibles, overlooked their human crap, and gave them everything she had.

I have such a visual memory of Chris lying on the floor cuddling Dot.

We can cry over the loss of a favorite pet. These creatures give us such uncomplicated direct love and affection.

Dot, rest in peace.

At Grandma's

Here is Joseph, three, who has discovered that he fits perfectly into the most expensive piece of art we have on the place. He knows nothing of the Navaho artist who wove this large basket. What he knows is that he is a funny jack-in-the box, entertaining us all with his antics. We applaud. Our whole family is here for the summer week to celebrate birthdays and our 47th wedding anniversary.

We have put away the guitar, pulled up the cuckoo clock weights and flipped the chains over the top. We have put the numerous remotes and clocks up high or in drawers and we have wedged the low books in tight. I have hidden the brooms and fly swatters. Cameras, keys, glasses and binoculars now live on a high kitchen shelf. The toddlers are here! Which is why I haven't posted in a long time.

There have been the usual disasters; the dishwasher quit in the midst of meals for sixteen, somehow one of the gates was left open and the cows couldn't be corralled for the August round-up, a pool hose broke. All was resolved and we are thankful the septic tank didn't back up (yet!). The carpets are thick with dog hairs and squashed raisins and cupcakes. The public spaces have Thomas the Tank running on tracks under your feet, and countless tiny (Chinese lead infested?) cars lie in wait for hapless barefooted adults.

All of our children and their spouses are incredibly competent so the cooking and cleanup is not an issue. Tolstoy was wrong. Happy families are not all alike. There are nuances, agendas, wishes and judgements happening all the time. Our children spend time together without us every evening in the guest house, and we hope they are communicating with each other over miles and time. They'll need to have this contact so that they can go forth into a world without us.

There were sixteen of us for the celebratory cake a couple of nights ago at our daughter's home in St. Petersburg. We were weary from so much sociability and family information. And there were many more days to go. Andy and I left the celebration, eager to return home and have a moment of quiet before everyone returned to the ranch.

Our new daughter-in-law came for this celebration. Before this, we didn't really know her (but her press was great!). I have got to say that the family was still playing those old tapes of her predecessor, my son's former wife. (We'll always love that 'ex') This was the best thing about the family reunion for me, my son's new wife, the beautiful and competent woman who has stepped into being a stepmother of three. Of all the 'kids' she was the one who really asked about us, the older generation.

These family reunions always have their surprises. I had been worried that our local grandson, huge for his age and not yet much of a talker, would be eclipsed by his eloquent cousin from Seattle. I worried that the six year old would not be able to relate to kids, one, two and three years old. Was I wrong! The little guys had a great time in the pool and playing with all those transportation toys. The only whining I heard was from the youngest, the only girl, the princess and so pretty! (She wanted blueberries!)

I find that I am tired of "young mom talk". I am tired of hearing about airline experiences (all bad,) At this point I just want to go to my studio and finish my painting..

To continue to know one's kids, you have to put in the time and make it all possible. I love them all so much!

Praise for the young

This is a posting for all you young people who read this blog, or maybe don't. It is for all of you who over the years have e-mailed me, written me, come to visit, called, sent actual letters, sent me greetings via others. I love this affirmation and I am always interested in what you are doing with your lives. I know that each of you really knows that, even distantly, I care about you and will spring into action if you need anything. I will always be ready to teach you things and protect you. By now you know that I will always keep confidences and that I am not judgmental (and always oblivious!)

This summer we have had many of you visiting. We love to feed you, make you happy, play games. One of my old students, Stephan, now a Sophomore at Brown, came to visit and made a spectacular meal for us. I was worried at first that he was going to grill beef (I don't eat red meat.) and I had prepared a scenario of shoving the beef onto Andy's plate. But- not to worry! There was grilled chicken for me! He and his brother spent the morning chain-sawing to clear out a downed tree or two.

Julie, whom I have known since birth, spent the summer in St. Petersburg, where her family lives. Julie is a stellar and brilliant person, right now a human rights lawyer, studying for a post-law degree in Sweden. I always invite Julie to use our townhouse when she's in town. Her familial home is infested with cats and she's allergic to them. I also think that a young adult could use a free place to be, not under any old parental tapes. She mostly lives with Adam in Oxford, a British 'rocket scientist'. They came to visit us when we were on vacation in Paris last autumn. We are connected. We love Adam! We were happy when we found that Adam would be coming to Florida this summer.

I have written about the girls who visit us every summer. They are the best! I feel so comfortable with these bright girls who require very little and can speak about pretty complicated issues. They made lovely art when they were here.

The Lacoochee kids, who are younger and harder to imagine have been here on Fridays this summer. Last Friday we did a lot of hands-on stuff, including a volcano cake that erupted with steam and lava. The kids were mesmerized. One boy, Raymond, who will be going to sixth grade tomorrow, was so interested in the geology- and the recipe! I gave him the recipe and the web links to volcanoes.

I am a generous person in many ways. I give away money, but that is never what is really all that is needed. Right now I am thinking about what volunteer work I could do that would be important to kids in the community we live in. One kid, last Friday, said to me as were looking at the spiders on the eaves of my studio, "Remember when you told us about tarantulas in Peru?"
She referred to a morning in which I had been in her classroom as a volunteer talking about the rain forests of South America. We had hunkered down under a blanket, pretending to search for tarantulas. I told the kids about looking at tarantulas in Peru. This kid remembered.

In some ways, I am not generous. I truly need my own space with no one else in it. I don't want to have people popping into my studio, striding by, or wanting me to provide stuff. But I really can get into the mindset for a few days at a time of showing people how to do this or that. This is especially true as I deal with young people. For me, I have always thought that the greatest gift is for someone to teach me something.

I love all you young people, from those of you are at Harvard and Brown and in Hawaii and Sweden and England and Florida, of course, and struggling in public middle school and in high school working hard to figure out what's next.

You'll get there! It's an adventure and you are at the forefront of an amazing life. Thanks for including this old lady in.

The Girls

Every summer, several girls , who were my old students, come to visit us for a few days at the ranch. The deal is that their most important thing to do here is nothing. These girls are rising seniors in high school. I have known them since they were five years old. Now, I only see them once a year on their visit. Having them come is a highlight of summer for us.

They are very low maintenance guests. Because they have been here often they know where everything is and we all feel comfortable. They forage for breakfast and lunch, and for supper everyone pitches in. These young women are forthcoming, bright and interesting. They are world travelers, thoughtful and considerate. They give us an inside view of today's youth.

These kids are upper middle class, blessed with parents who love them, started out reading to them, then went on to taking them to lessons, private school, and orthodontia. Naturally, I feel easy with them. They could be my own kids.

So, we are easy with each other. As a NOT parent, I can ask them things, or listen to things or pay attention to stuff their parents can't. Kind of like a grandma- an old teacher. They must know I care enormously and see each of them as an individual. I love them.

It takes awhile to get into the groove. By this third day there have been many creative things going. I was blown away by the paintings, sewing projects, books read, essays written today. I do not feel with these kids that I have to be the camp councilor, sparking every activity. They are special, no doubt. They can hold their own in adult conversation, they are incredibly competent and thoughtful. (Their parents have raised them well!)

As something going into cyberspace I cannot name or post a photo of these wonderful and beautiful children who are not my own, not my grandchildren, but none the less are under my heart.

These kids, like most, seem incurious about us. But we tell them and show them what we are doing with our lives. They do not roll their eyes, but seem interested in what we are doing. I know it is too large a leap to go from seventeen to sixty- seven to think what their world will be like in similar circumstances. But we press them (and in the context say we are sorry for the mess our generation leaves to them.)

I have promised a movie night for all of us. Before this happens there will be a night swim in the pool. I must go and make popcorn.

My head is full of wonderful children. I am so blessed.

Spider Summer

It is the summer of the spiders. This golden orb weaver, as big as your fist, tidies up her double web every night. This particular spider lives under the roof overhang of my studio. This is a tropical spider and this is the northernmost habitat for her. Her friends inhabit the eaves of every place on the ranch. In the light of early morning her web glows in a golden haze. The strands are so strong I have read that they can be used for fishing nets. Sometimes I tentatively pull on a strand, marvelling at the strength of it, stronger than the threads I use in my sewing. We have a communality, these spiders and I. They are far better than I in their fabric weaving and so I watch them, humbled by their confident expertise.

And then there are the zipper spiders, almost as large. They make a brilliant zipper stitch in the middle of their webs. Zipper spiders almost always have a male spider hanging out in the perifery of their webs. Sooner or later the females eat them!

Inside my studio there are small house spiders. They make night webs from the computer printer to the windowsill, across the screen doors, under the sewing machine. Mostly, I gently sweep them away and I know they will again set up housekeeping overnight.

Occasionally, a bad spider will appear. Today, my friend Bruce was working in my studio installing a timer on the water heater. Bruce is embedded in the natural world and knows a lot about these things. He looks at a rather smallish spider with an egg sac, everything stuck to the side of a door. "This is a brown recluse spider," he says. He shows me the identifying markings on the abdomen. No one wants to be bitten by such a spider: you don't die, but the bite can be pretty bad. We get paper towels and remove the spider to the outdoors.

It is the summer of the spiders and it is so hot and humid we could die of it. But still, we go to bed without air conditioning and sleep well in total heavy darkness, hearing the owls calling, tree frogs chirping, katydids sawing their leggy music, and everything segues to the gradual dawn chorus of birds to awaken us. I am not truly an urban person. I hate sleeping in the summer city, hermetically sealed in the air conditioned pristine atmosphere where we hear the sirens and the traffic and see the lights of the city through the shades and curtains.

Very few of our friends get it about why we love it here. And that's O.K. I told a friend that I had seen a bobcat in the driveway. I thought that this was a notable and wonderful event. I stopped for a few minutes to watch this cat slowly meandering from one side of the lane to the other. It was just past dawn and this cat looked quite dark. It moved with that feline grace and I could see the curled up short tail. I had seen cat skat on the bridge and just before I saw the bobcat I smelled cat. I wished I had my camera with me. My friend responded that this must have been a scary event. No, just amazing, an affirmation to me that our place is a wildlife traffic corridor.

Spider summer, full of surprises and respect for the natural world. Soon it will be vegetable planting time!

Conservation Easement

We live in paradise, also known as Central Florida, Green Swamp West, Woodhills Ranch. More than twenty years ago we felt the need to have some rural property. We have a great need to be in the country, not in spitting distance from anyone. And so, as we were looking for some rural place, perhaps on a river, we heard of land north of Tampa and a bit north of Dade City, that was part of the huge Cummer lumber tract, and they wanted to sell out. We looked at this land and it was the prettiest woods and fields we had ever seen. Immediately, we plotted our way to owning a portion of it. At that time we were not rich, but frugal, and beginning to put kids through college. But we used 'creative financing' to buy this land- 250 acres. It was the best gamble of our lives.

At first we camped out on the property. Gradually, as we came to know it, and we had more income, we staked out a future barn site we built, then a house, a guest house, a pool, and now two workshops. Flocks of friends came, our grandchildren, and kids from my school have come every single year for their week at the ranch, the best activity they said. Our daughter grew up here and we have so many memories of nights we had to care for new calves, or plastering ourselves dressed only in nightgowns, against the fence, as a cow stampede went by.

I remember a time when middle school kids were here and we went out in the truck and observed the birth of a calf. This was an amazing event to them. They were totally quiet, watching the whole thing for almost an hour. When the tiny calf stood up, finally, they all cheered.

This place has history for our family and for so many others. We do not want to see little mansions dotted around the gentle hills. We want to keep this ranch pristine, no development. Our neighbors on one side, the Blanchards, have put their 1200 acres into a conservation easement. On the other side is Swiftmud all the way to the Withlacoochee River. With all these properties together, it makes a strong corridor for wildlife to flow for a long distance through the Green Swamp. The birds and owls, turkeys, Florida jays, foxes, all kinds of reptiles, have a place to go and to be. We had the opportunity to add sixty acres to our land, and we did.

A long way around describing a conservation easement. First of all, we want to keep this place as a wild Florida place for future generations. Second, we could not imagine how any of our children would have the resources to keep this place up (even if they wanted ).
By putting this place in a conservaton easement, it lowers the value of the land. No one, not us, not anyone in the future can develop this land. What's here now is all that there can be.

There are several ways one can do this: you can pay to get your land into a land trust, or, if your land is in a critically environmental situation, the state will pay you for the conservation rights. We explored all options, excluding The Nature Conservancy because Andy is involved with that. Swiftmud, our neighbor to the south and to the north was a natural.

Today, we heard that, after all these months of negotiation, SWIFTMUD has granted us the easement. Two newspapers have called for interviews about it. It makes me nervous! All I want to be is an anonymous wildlife conservator. This is a win-win situation. SWIFTMUD has allocated from Florida Forever funds a million dollars for the development rights to our land. Many weeks from now I assume we will get a check. We will pay off the realtor (5%), the surveyors, and the people who made core samples in the cow pens to check for old arsenic, and we will pay a huge 25% capital gains tax. We will fund a 529 for our six grandchildren to go to college, and we will pay down a chair we have funded at USF. Whew! Maybe enough left for a new tractor? Probably not!

But it is still fun to win the lottery!

Grateful Dead Revisited

The Lacoochee gang came for another day at the ranch. I had prepared the dye baths and the pristine damp tee shirts for a morning of creating wild projects. First, we all assembled in my studio to view the clay projects from the last time. They had been glazed and fired and looked so bright and lovely as they were arrayed on the table. The kids, twelve of them, chose their own pieces and wrapped them in newspaper and lots of tape to take home.

Then, we moved out to the barn (it was gently raining), and got started with applying the rubber bands tightly to the shirts. We had four vats of dye. Considering that this is a complicated and very messy project, the kids did well and were pleased with the results. One by one, those shirts began to hang out on the fence to dry. There was no complaining, just utter concentration. I had gloves for the kids, but I noticed that all of us had purple hands.

The rain kept on dripping but there was no thunder or lightning so we spent the next hour in the pool. These kids have so few opportunities to swim and they love it. Now they know the rules (no running), and you can use anything you want - goggles, floats, toys, flippers, snorkels, arm floats- you just have to put everything back. I love watching these kids in the water. They invent games, involve each other. These kids do not have that 'entitled' feeling I have often felt from the prosperous middle class families I know. (As was mine, I might add.)

Dade City! I keep finding nuggets of interest. The Lacochee kids are not those children I keep track of in the New York Times. Today we had a birthday party for two kids. The grandmother, Pam, had made a splendid cake in the fashion of an American Flag. Pam, who might be in her late fifties, came today. She was limping from a bad knee. She is one of those women who raise kids, and then raise kids some more. She and her husband are building a log home by hand. They will give their present home to her daughter and her kids.

For this birthday party there were no gifts, none expected. One of the birthday girls brought to show me her best gift from her mom, a music box with a dancing ballerina and with a drawer below for treasures. The kind of thing my own daughter would have killed for at seven. At this birthday party guests did not have to contribute to the Heifer Foundation. The celebration consisted of a lovely lunch of white bread p and j sandwiches cut into hearts, four kinds of chips, and juice boxes. One of the children was asked to say a blessing for the lunch. I was amazed to hear a very long and articulate prayer. I provided vegetable sticks and a dip made of atheist organic yogurt and ketchup, and some slices of watermelon. Then, we lit the candles, presented the cake and everyone sang 'HAPPY BIRTHDAY'.

I am learning so much from these gentle people. Next to coming to the ranch, their best thing is going to something called "The Christian Edge", a kind of road house up on #301, where whole familes go for lots of activities. Virginia and I are going to make a visit. Maybe we'll take some grandkids. Stay tuned.

After we made the tie dye tee shirts, the kids told me they would wear their shirts for an up-coming seventies night at the Christian Edge (and they would be awesome!)

Even as an oldster, one has to be open to new ideas, even in Dade City.

Painters and Caterpillars

Strange and beautiful caterpillars are dripping from the hickory trees. For a couple of weeks we have noticed the copious caterpillar poop plopping on the driveway and onto the cars. I hear them dropping like rain on the tin roof of the barn, and now, having denuded the trees, the caterpillars are on the ground for about half an hour at which point they burrow into the earth and will be seen no more until a year or two. Then they will continue their cycle of eating leaves and.. The hickories are already leafing out anew.

Strange and beautiful painters live amongst us as well. Steve, and Jared, his son, are painting the house, the guest house, and the barn. The guest house has been painted, and the barn. The main house needs some interior work as well as the outside. They are always here. Our dog tells me that our regular nap/reading time has gone to hell. The painters are replacing rotten siding and they are prying and hammering.

We had just had an enormous number of guests before we left for a week's trip to North Carolina. Steve was to paint the kitchen while we were gone. I had left him a hurried note saying that since we had removed a large tree from the yard, the light in the dining room was different. Should we paint the dining room something different (from the usual off-white?)

When we returned we found that the kitchen and the hall were painted in wonderful vibrant Italianesque shades of yellow and orange. We gulped, then ogled, then loved it. Our decorator!

I love having painters, renovators, and handy people of all kinds helping us maintain our homes. We used to do everything ourselves, and now, though we still do a lot of maintenance on the ranch, we need the help of these wonderful folks.

This evening when I went up to the main house where Andy was making dinner, I asked, "Are we alone? Is anyone here?" They have all gone home for the day so we go for a swim in the pool, no suits, many laps, so cool.

We are so fortunate, here in paradise.

I need to share it, so this week twenty or more kids I know from Lacoochee Elementary School will be coming for a day of making tie-dye tee shirts, swimming, celebrating birthdays, having experiences, and leaving with a book to read and their own fired clay pieces carefully wrapped in newspaper.

We are so fortunate.

Ironweed Summer

Middle of July and the ironweed, my favorite wildflower, is in bloom. The individual blossoms are small but they have that intense purple color of kings. Hardly anyone but natives would want to be in Florida in the middle of summer. The rains, proceeded by wonderful clouds, and ending with double rainbows, are happening each day. The sensual heat envelops us in a humid batting. We give thanks for the air conditioning we have in our work spaces. In the main house we sleep without a/c and use only a fan. We love hearing the frogs and owls by night and the dawn chorus of birds backed up by the insect tympani. We read the morning papers in the cool of the morning on the screen porch. We watch the pileated woodpeckers and the hummingbirds feeding and the butterflies flitting among the flowers and tree trunks. We feel incredibly blessed.

Time to order the new tomato seeds to start for planting in the vegetable garden by the end of August. Andy has made a big new armadillo-proof planter for lettuces.(We have trapped four armadilloes lately!) We bought new mats for the porches so the old ones are going into the vegetable garden as mulch to smother the weeds. The compost pile is cooking away, getting ready to be the planting medium for salad greens. Tomorrow morning before it gets too hot I will turn it over.

We are deciding what trees to plant in the yard outside the dining room. Last week we had a huge hickory tree, rather rotten, and ready to fall on the house in a high wind, removed. The area now looks naked. We are thinking of having several native palms planted there. We are so aware of which trees will withstand hurricanes yet lower the profile of the house and give us some shade from the morning sun.

The pastures are so thick with grass that they laugh and sing. The cows are fat. Blackberries are over, but now we have figs, eggplants, and the grapes are coming on. We have to mow and keep the fences intact.

I wake up each day with a delicious plan. It's a lot of work to keep this farm going, but so worth it! In the heat of the day we are in our studio spaces, painting or making furniture, or whatever.

And all the while, we think, listen or read about the dreadful state of our country and world. We volunteer for environmental and political initiatives. We try to reduce our footprint. I find myself apologizing to my grandchildren!

Soon, we will have many more children visiting us. The Lacochee kids are coming this week for an art and swimming day, several old SunFlower graduates will come for a day or so. And both of us are so looking forward to the annual summer visit of The Girls, four of them who come every summer and just do nothing. Feels just right to me. And then, just on the heels of The Girls, we'll have all our grandchildren and their parents together here at the ranch. I hope there won't be any hurricanes!

We love this place!

On the Mountain

The morning the grandkids and all the others left, we stripped the kitchen for the painters. We wanted to be on the road for our trip to North Carolina to see old friends who have a house in the mountains. We hoped that our kitchen would be finished when we returned. About ten in the morning we left with our dog, Lola. She had packed herself in her kennel, not to be left behind!

We love road trips. Traveling through any part of America, this time the southeast, we reconnect with what this country is all about. Our trip was close to six hundred miles, through the rolling low hills of north Florida and into Georgia. We spent the night in Athens, a university town we have often been to on the way to taking our children to camp. We know that Holiday Inns take dogs. The one in Athens is pretty much bare bones accommodations but Lola loves going out and sniffing the scents of worlds beyond imagining for a dog. But then we can tell her to guard the room while we go out and explore this interesting college town, have dinner, and stroll back to our motel.

The next day is suddenly rising up into the Appalacian spine. It gets cooler by the minute. Within two hours we find ourselves in Highlands, North Carolina. We have been here before but I still recoil at the preciousness and perfection of this town full of antiques and expensive clothes and the reek of money. (No Wallmart or Target) Makes me want to go up to anyone and say, "Excuse me for being white and elderly with money to spend". But I don't see anyone to whom I'd adress this.

We drive on per instructions, up many gravel roads and arrive at our destination. Our friends live close to the top of a mountain in a wonderful situation overlooking layers of smoky blue mountains. They are in the midst of doubling the size of their modest house. They are adding a lovely screened porch, a new kitchen and great room. What they are doing seems so appropriate and perfect for them. We feel comfortable there because this home is right for the number of people there, and the footprint is right for a couple who live there and have children and grandchildren and friends visit.

We saw other homes in this development of homes on the mountain. Some of them were amazingly out of scale for our planet. I wonder why a couple of people would want to build an eight thousand square foot home, cantelivered out on a hill, with two functioning bars, swimming pool, etc. etc.?

A road trip is always interesting, fodder for the mind. Seeing the second homes of America's rich and prosperous was pretty intriguing. It's easy to be judgemental, but I have to come clean about my own situation. Our footprint is pretty large.

A Joyful Noise

My mother remarked that when her grown children came back to visit she felt like a cat with kittens. Mom, I know the feeling. We have a house full. Three of our kids, Elizabeth, Ben, and Dan are here. Their spouses, significant others (whatever..) are not with them, but they have the four boys. Diego is fourteen and the youngest, Quincy is two. Pablo is eleven and Silvio is six. They have not been together as a group for a year. This week has been deemed the week that Quincy will be toilet trained and his mother, Elizabeth, has put all seven males here on notice that they WILL be models on the responsible use of a penis. They are to model peeing on bushes and trees and toilets. Quincy will not be wearing diapers. He watched a video on the topic of wonderful underpants while the rest of us ate a lovely dinner of tuna steaks.

They arrived for lunch.( the kids, not the tuna steaks.) Later we spent a lot of time in the pool. It's lovely to see these little boys all swimming together, happily clumped together to dive off the edge or play with the pool toys. Even Diego, the oldest is not too cool to be above playing with the little kids. Silvio, the six year old must have told me five times how happy he is to be here. "Grandma, this is my most wonderfulest day!" He doesn't have opportunities to swim where he lives.

Just wait until tomorrow. We'll go and find the herd of cows, see if there are still any blackberries to be picked, do some art in my studio, paint the incredible dump truck that really dumps that Grandpa Andy made for grandsons of a certain age, swim many times during the day. We'll check the traps we set tonight for armadilloes and raccoons. We'll walk out to the pond and maybe decide to take one of the boats out. Maybe we'll fish. I hope one or two of the boys will help me in the vegetable garden. And at night I want to take all of these boys out to look for fireflies, spider eyes and alligator eyes in the pond.

As we were getting ready for dinner I heard one grandson relentlessly tooting a recorder. Another one was dabbling at the piano. A DVD about trucks was playing in the background. The adults were loudly discussing current American politics. Pots and pans were clanging as the dinner was coming to fruition.

Such a joyful noise!