small things

Sometime a few months ago I was taking a shower, soaping down, and it occurred to me that I was probably polluting the ground water (let alone my body) with chemicals. Some communities recycle “gray water” – what comes from household and commercial drains. I wish we did.

I decided then and there to at least use body wash and laundry soap without chemicals. It may seem like a small thing for one house, but I think with each small step, expectations get lifted for the whole community and society. If I demand small measures of myself, I’ll start demanding bigger measures of my culture.

So here’s some free advertising.

Tom's of Maine Moisturizing Body Wash is available at our local drug stores and big grocery chain. The bottle says:

"Products & ingredients tested without the use of animals. No artificial fragrances, colors or preservatives. No synthetic detergents. Biodegradable. No animal fats."

What I love is that it smells like lavender – heavenly!

Ecos laundry detergent, which we buy more cheaply at Whole Foods (half the price, believe it or not!) than Meijer. The label reads:

"Plant-based surfactants, soap bark, chamomile, horsetail plant, lavender, rosemary, based softener (soy), essential oil of lemon grass, purified water, no SLS."

What else I love about it is a) it cleans very well, and b) you don’t have to use fabric softener.

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Water purification project

I’m always interested to hear about how folks are dealing with environmental problems. I especially am gratified when students from my own University are involved.

Four graduate students from MSU are part of a project that has received funding from the National Science Foundation to develop membrane water purifying systems around the world.

They’ll be working with Duke University in the US, and universities in Russia, Ukraine and France on technology that develops membranes for purifying water.

“Membrane-based technologies selectively remove things such as chemicals and particles from water,” said [Tom] Voice, professor of civil and environmental engineering. “They are analogous to filters except they remove things that are smaller and separate on the basis of chemistry and size. Our project is looking at developing new types of membranes and membrane systems that perform better in water treatment applications.”

The MSU students will work on membranes that remove larger molecules in the water.

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Memorial Day parade 2007

Thankfully, it was 20˚ cooler at this year's Memorial Day parade than last year's. Today it was a perfect 70˚F.


The director of the parade told the kids lining up, "This parade is not about you, it's about our veterans." This little guy saw me and my camera across the street and gave me a photo op smile every time I lifted the camera to my eye.




I got choked up when these WWII veterans walked by.




But when these loved ones of a soldier who died in Iraq came, I really lost it. All their t-shirts have a photo of him as well.

When I saw this man's t-shirt, I thought, oh brother! He's a real party-er. But later, after we got home, it dawned on me that his shirt may have been about the US war in Iraq.

Here are Little Mr. Dansville and Little Miss Dansville.

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honeybees: colony collapse disorder

Viruses, fungal infections, suppressed immune systems, pesticides, herbicides, parasites – have they caused honeybees to lose their sense of direction? Why have they disappeared in such alarming numbers?

Some bee farmers have lost 90% of their hives. And usually there are no dead bees around the hives. They’re just gone.

I never knew before this crisis that farmers and orchard owners bring in truckloads of bees to fertilize their crops. I should have known, but I just never thought about how all our crops are fertilized.

Many of those bees are GONE! The effect on our food supply should be drastic! It is very alarming, and the scientists are only guessing what the cause is. They don’t know.


Yesterday I read this great column by Mark Morford in the San Francisco Gate, titled “Apocalypse Of The Honeybees: How poetically appropriate that the End of Humanity should come from such a tiny, sweet source.”

He writes, “. . . here's the bottom line: Regardless of whether or not we figure it out, Colony Collapse Disorder is merely one more of those charming warning signs, one of those increasingly frequent messages from the gods writ large across the sky of humanity's arrogance and merciless abuse of nature's integrity. Hell, it's an abuse we've engaged in for so long we don't even really think about it anymore. And therein lies our likely demise.”



On our little farm, we have our own honeybee hive in the hollow of a tree (drat I deleted those photos last year, they were bad, but they would have shown you!), so we’re hoping our own fruit trees will be fertilized.

Rauf tells me there are no bees in India. Women (small fingers) fertilize the crops. Did the same thing happen there? (Thank you, rauf, for the correction.) I miswrote that there are no bees in India. He was talking about "Vanilla, which was not grown in India until recently, and the bees to pollinate the flowers are not found here, it is manually done by farm hands specially ladies, as it is a delicate process."

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Cottage work day

Saturday was the the spring cleaning day at Hukilau, our family cottage. We raked, washed, cleaned, put up screens, put the dock in, drank coffee, ate barbecue pork (thanks, Wilma), talked, dreamed, planned and enjoyed one another -- and the cottage and lake.

Paul and his son Eli raking

Lydia, Eli and Don scrubbing screens for the porch

Ha! These are the screw brackets for the screens/windows. Anyone who has put these up or taken them down can feel the burn from the screws on their fingers and thumbs. Ouch!

Aden and Asher helped by being happy boys who entertained us with their cuteness.

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Sunset at Holland State Park

Last Thursday, after spending the day at Tulip Time in Holland (you can see this week's photos from that day at flying), I left my brothers and their families on 8th Street for the beach.

I wanted to get to the beach to see the sun set, and I barely made it. I pulled into the parking lot, and the chin had already dipped below the horizon.

When I got to the entry booth at Holland State Park, I thought "Drat! Another 5 minutes and he would have been gone, and I wouldn't have to pay." But I bought a parking pass for the season.

I looked in my rear view mirror, and there was a stream of cars behind me! All heading to the beach at the end of the day! Not a stream of cars leaving, they were arriving, like me, to watch the sun set.

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self

My friend rauf and I were chatting about the luxury of getting a portrait taken. He does portraits that are amazing.

Well, just because I was thinking about it, and because I'm a little strange, but mostly because I've never had my portrait taken, I went to the local photobooth and had some shots taken of myself.

~

Have you ever had this done? It's peculiar to say the least, because you're sitting there by yourself, posing and making faces. Unless you're there with someone else, which would be more fun. Don and I had one taken in Paris at a photobooth after seeing "Amelie."

~

I think it would be a fun blog idea to have everyone post their own self portrait taken at a photobooth on the same day. What do you think?

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Opening the door to happiness

Ok, that last post was nice, and happy.

But this one, this is . . . well, it’s just CRAZY!

It’s Friday, coming close to the end of my week off at home. I’m sitting on the couch with my laptop, working on the photos from my spontaneous trip to Holland yesterday. Through the deck screen door I’m listening to the sounds of birds singing, chirping, hollering, and the blue jays scampering across the deck to the cat food.

Then I realize, some of the scratching and scraping I hear is NOT the blue jays on the deck. It’s closer than that. And I start remembering the story Peter told of being here alone once and hearing a noise in the wood stove. He opened it, and a bird flew out right in his face! Scared the living daylights out of him (Peter, and the bird too, I'm sure).

So, I’m wiser! I know there must be a bird in the wood stove. I grab my camera (ha!), slide open the screen door to the deck so the bird can get out when I release him, step over to the side of the wood stove so I’m not in front of the door and turn open the handle.

Out fly – FLY – not one bird, but TWO! And as they flutter around the room to every window except the open screen door, I begin to understand that these are not just wrens or finches or grackles. These are BLUEBIRDS!

Bluebirds. BLUEBIRDS! Not blue jays. Bluebirds.

This illustration is a blue jay, not a bluebird.

I had never in my life seen a bluebird until we bought the farm in 2003. We saw our first pair in the juniper tree that November, and I knew what a treat it was. They are shy and rarely seen, and they are such a beautiful blue, they quickly became my favorite birds. The female is dusty blue, the male bright royal blue.

You must understand the significance of birds for me. From the time I was young, I have not been comfortable around animals. We did not have pets in our home. Birds have been the only animals I have related to in any personal sense, and over the years, they have come into my poetry in titles such as “Bird Song,” “Migrating,” and “Flying to Uncle Jimmie’s Funeral.” Even my photoblog I named “flying.”

Soon after spotting my first bluebirds at the farm, their meaning deepened for me. Visitations by bluebirds and associations with Krishnamurti, my throat chakra, and speaking the truth were apparent through some experiences I can only call metaphysical. I have left religion behind. But I have had such synchronicities that I can’t help but feel we are multi-dimensional beings. I don’t know what to make of them, and I don’t try to overanalyze them. I just accept them appreciatively, because I feel I have been touched by Life in a way that shows we are all special, along with all of nature. And we are connected with everyone and everything.

So, ok, a male and a female bluebird fly into the chimney of our thankfully-not-burning wood stove. They peck around in there until I pay attention. They fly into our house. They sit on our window sills.

They are terrified and can’t find the open door and window out. They bang against the closed windows, shocking themselves even more than I have already done.

I find each of them huddled in different corners of the house. They can't get out on their own. Carefully, tenderly, I take the male into into my hand, he doesn't even resist, he is so shocked, and let him out the front window. When I locate the female, I try to do the same, but she resists. I finally take her gently in my hand and set her free off the side porch.

The female flies away immediately. But the male sits on the porch as if he is wounded. That terrifies me. What have I done . . . to a bluebird? All the time the words are repeating in my head “You have injured the bluebird of happiness. What have you done!”



As I approach him one last time, he flies to the wire! Happy day!

I hope he is uninjured.

I wonder what this encounter means, to me, to the birds. Will they be more cautious and shy than ever? Or are we more connected than before?

My animal spirit guide book, on the bluebird page, says of seeing a bluebird, “This is a very rare and precious moment, so open up all your senses and simply enjoy this time.”

I have touched a bluebird, held it in my hand. Two of them. I don’t even know how to hold this in my heart.

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If they can do it

I've just nicked the surface in studying the history of Ireland, which I began when I started traveling there in 2005 for work. I know hardly anything. There is a pretty good novel that covers the whole history called Ireland: A Novel, by Frank Delaney, if you're like me and don't know where to begin.

But there are moments in history that I live through, see with my own eyes, that I know send a wave of relief and hope into all the dimensions of life. After 4 1/2 years of the Northern Ireland Assembly not meeting, then coming to an agreement, and then reassembling, I got chills watching Ian Paisley, Martin McGuinness, Gerrie Adams, and others meet, smile, shake hands and move forward together this week.

Ian Paisley, First Minister, and Martin McGuinness, Deputy First Minister, of the Northern Ireland Assembly (photo from the Irish Times)

I'm old enough to have seen events that shatter peace like this in Ireland, in Israel, Kashmir, South Africa, Zimbabwe, wherever. You almost hate to let the sliver of hope in. Where people are, there are not only love and desire for peace. There are also belief and opinion, closed ears, anger, distrust, jealousy, pain, memory, torture, violence. Strange to think about, but even I am capable of these traits, because I am human.

I just want to mark the moment, note the laughter, feel the warm handshakes, hold the hope, for at least this moment and gather it all, fold it up and send it out like a paper airplane to whomever will catch it.

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Old Apple Tree

The spot on our 5 acres where we have found the most Morel Mushrooms this year and last, is by this Old Apple Tree, mostly on the sunny/south side, hidden among the fallen leaves and weeds.

There are many theories on where best to find Morels, and one of them is in an old apple orchard.

When I search the ground around this Tree, she creaks and groans. She is half dead, poor thing, and this crack gets a wee bit bigger every breezy day. In fact, I sometimes fear I might die with her when she creaks especially loudly and I'm on her leaning side.

There have been Racoon babies nesting in the hole at the top of the running crack.

You can see below that she still leafs and flowers in her old age, but only in part.

I wonder what this chicken wire was for. Back in our farm's working days, the area around Old Apple Tree seems to have been a pasture. Maybe this was part of a fence.

Thank you, Dear Old Sister, for the fruit you gave before our time, for the Morels we have found at your feet, for your shade, for sheltering Racoon mama's young ones. And when you fall, I hope I am nearby to hear you, but please, don't take me with you!

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The Band

Aren't they wonderful?

This is my son's band. He's the one on the far right, the guitarist.

They are in the final stages of recording their second CD. And when they release it, they also want to announce their new band name, which they haven't chosen yet!

When they recorded their first CD, it was just Peter and Brian, and their band name is their two last names. Brian is second from the right, in front of Pete, and is the singer.

But then Mark and Mike joined them for a full band. Mark is behind, he's the drummer. Then on the left is Mike, the bass player. They rock!

Soooo, they need a new name. Any suggestions?

A couple they've been throwing around are:

* The Breakup Club - I like this one, because a lot of their songs are heartbreak songs.
* Fisher King - This is cool too.

You can listen to them here, and then come up with suggestions! If you want to leave a comment on my blog here, or on their web site, go for it! :)

Keep in mind that this is their older stuff, with just the two guys. Their new CD is more rock and roll.

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