the chickies' new home, and other updates

Yes, that's right, the chickies have a new home!  It is no longer a conglomeration of cardboard and screens in our study, but an actual chicken coop and henhouse in our backyard!  *gasp*

Two weekends ago we decided it was Time.  We lucked out, as Home Resource had a good supply of cedar shingles (!), which we bought and promptly used to side the henhouse.  Greg then put asphalt shingles on the roof, and TADA!  Hen house:  finished.

Here's a peek at the inside--the nesting boxes are at the far end (top of the picture), with ramps leading up to them, and the roost is on the near end (and a ramp leading up to it).  Isn't it cute?  We removed the tools and put pine shavings in instead, which we thought the chickens might appreciate.

We used deer fencing to stretch over the top of the coop, both to keep the chickens in and other animals out, and then spread a bale of straw on the ground, which was basically a patch of dirt, as not much grass had been growing there, anyway.

Then we brought the chickens out one by one (they weren't too keen on being picked up and carried through the house, but oh, well), and, once they were all in the coop, they settled in quite enthusiastically (i.e., they found their food!).

 The finished product:

Not bad, eh?

Other bits of happiness in the past few weeks:

Swinging AND fresh laundry blowing in the breeze!

 Spending time with Rachel: yay!

Ambles along sunlit pathways through spring-green forests:

Masses upon masses of fairy-slipper orchids, one of our local treasures, as well as one of the 52 species of flowers we saw and identified on this particular hike (!):

Outdoor explorations with my sweetie!

CHERRIES!!!  (if the bugs and birds don't get them all . . . fingers crossed)

A day hike up to Morrell Falls, through deep patches of snow and beautiful stands of Ponderosa and western larch and Douglas fir, with this glorious and majestic tumble of water as a reward:

A weekend spent birding with a lovely group of people . . . and I think I may even remember how to identify a handful of the 50-some birds we saw!

It has been a busy few weeks, but there have been a number of delightful things intermixed with the busyness.  Work looks to be mellowing out for me a little bit at least in the next little while, and I'm looking forward to more outdoor explorations.  Mom and Dad are visiting this weekend, and we're planning on going on a flower walk or two to see the vivid blues and purples of the penstemon and camas and lupine.  More pictures to come!

Can you tell my brain is just a little bit tired?  If it weren't, there would be more words and fewer pictures.  Ah, well, next time.

los nombres de las gallinitas

As of this evening, all of our ladies have been named!

We have Henrietta the Fierce (the golden one in back), Isabelle (our dark lady), Princess Buttercup (the golden one in front) and Saxifrage (the lighter Araucana).

They all have names!  At last!

sunshine on my shoulders

Not that the sun is exactly shining right now, but it has been for most of the month of May.  Overnight, it seems, our yard has turned green and leaves have burst out on the trees.  There is leaf shade out our western windows and dappled light dancing on our walls, and the purple smell of lilacs in the air.  Ahhh.

Sometimes I like to go away for holiday weekends.  Over President's Day weekend we headed west to visit Andrea and Philip in Bellingham.  It was a lovely ski-to-sea weekend.  Cross-country skiing in glorious feet of snow near Mt. Baker?  Check!  Ferry ride to Lummi Island?  Check!  Donuts from Rocket Donuts?  Check!  A hike in the fern-draped forests of Lummi?  Check!

This weekend, however, we decided to stay put, and there is something so delightfully delicious about a "staycation."  We've slept in every day, puttered around in the garden, read books, taken long ambling hikes in the wildflower-laden hills.  Several friends have visited from out of town, and it's been good to reconnect and enjoy their company.

Last weekend Greg led a botany field weekend for the Montana Natural History Center, a slightly more advanced course created for Master Naturalist students.  I chose to attend as well, and we (along with seven other Master Naturalists, including Greg's parents) had an intense but lovely weekend learning about plant families and how to key out wildflowers.  We would arrive at a trailhead, walk seven steps, see a flower, then hunker down, pulling out our Vascular Plants of Montana books, then counting petals, stamens, pistils, peering through our hand lenses, and carefully dissecting the flowers with our forceps in an attempt to gather all the crucial information.

New definition of nerd:  one who actually enjoys having a plant in one hand and a dry, nearly picture-less book in the other, trying to determine whether the plant in hand has "involucral bracts with pectinately arranged processes about 1mm long toward tip" or "involucral bracts not as above."  Yes, this process does involve frequently referencing the glossary . . . which often involves referencing the glossary.  For example:  I flip to the glossary to look up "involucral."  I find that "involucre" is defined as a "whorl of bracts or small leaves subtending a flower or flower cluster."  I then look up "bract," which is a "reduced or modified leaf often in the inflorescence." I then look up "inflorescence," which is the "flowering part of a plant."  By this time I've forgotten what I was looking up in the first place . . . and I still have to look up "pectinate" and "process."  My other option, last weekend, was to call, "GREG??  Help!" which often resulted in reaching the answer much more quickly.  :)

Despite a forecast of rain for both last Saturday and Sunday (70% on Saturday and 60% on Sunday), we were blessed with two utterly glorious warm, sunny days, and the rain only came in the last half hour of the class on Sunday, just as we arrived back at MNHC for a debrief of the weekend.  Excellent timing.

We spent some time drawing some of the flowers we'd seen over the weekend, and put all our drawings together in a lovely little booklet.  Here's a sampling (this is very like the kinds of entries I make in my field journal.  Sketching is just one of the many reasons I love field journaling!):

I drew Disporum trachycarpum, rough-fruited fairybells, in the lily family:

Greg drew some bright blue forget-me-nots (borage family),

and Bill drew arrowleaf balsamroot (aster family), which are blooming in profusion all over the hillsides of Mt. Jumbo.

All in all, it was a delightful weekend.

As I mentioned earlier, we've also had some good friends in town over the past couple of weeks.  My dear friend Rachel is here for a few weeks, on her summer break from her job with the Uganda Studies Program in Mukono, Uganda.  It's been wonderful to have her here, and to share tea, dinner, ice cream, and ambles in the hills.  Greg's friend Bill visited for a few days as well, and we went for a beautiful hike on the Mt. Jumbo saddle with both him and Rachel.  A few pictures from our hike:

The hillside awash in arrowleaf balsamroot.

Arrowleaf balsamroot up close.  Fun fact:  this "flower" is made up of myriad flowers--two different types, disk flowers and ray flowers.  The ray flowers are the tiny yellow cups in the middle, and the disk flowers are the yellow "petals" on the outside.  Cool, eh?

A silly moment.

Me and Rachel in the wildflowers.

Looking down the hill into the Missoula valley.  I so love living in this place!

My friend and former co-worker Jessie was in town just for the Memorial Day weekend, and we took yet another hike up Jumbo, on a loop that I've never been on before.  It was stunningly beautiful.  Our hike was sandwiched by rain showers, and the grey clouds and damp air brought out the deep green of the ponderosa pines and douglas firs and the leaves of the flowers.

We saw not only balsamroot and larkspur and prairie stars, but shooting stars and even two buttercups that were just starting to bloom--buttercups, the first flower of spring, ones that are rare to see in early May much less almost June.  We also saw lupine and bluebells, Indian paintbrush and heart-leafed arnica, kittentails and pussytoes.  The diversity of wildflowers was a gift.

Rain showers washing over the Missoula valley, bringing out (and on) the green.

Today we planted our corn seeds (!), as well as beans and squash, and Greg has also been working on the chicken coop.  The chickies are seven weeks old today, and we'll be able to put them outside soon!  Only a few more months until we get our own eggs . . . I can't wait.

My stomach tells me it is lunchtime, so off I go.  A happy Memorial Day to all!

May flowers, among other things

Somehow it's the middle of May, and I'm not quite sure how that happened.  Mentally, I'm still back at the end of April.  I guess two weeks behind isn't too bad . . .

I'm sitting here on the living room couch while Greg makes dinner.  The evening sunlight is streaming through the window, and the new leaves of the maples are backlit and glowing.  In just the past week everything has leafed out--maples, cherry, apricot, kiwi, lilacs, and even our oak tree.  Pale spring green leaves arch over the streets; all the trees are misted in myriad shades of green.  On the solo hike station for our 4th grade field trips at work, there's a card that asks, "How many shades of green can you see?"  This time of year, the spectrum is vast.  Deep green ponderosa pines.  Pale greeny-yellow cottonwoods.  Bright green larches.  Yellow-green maple flowers and slightly deeper green leaves . . .

After too many weeks of chill, clouds, and rain, we've been getting the warmer side of spring weather.  Temps in the 60s, sunshine, spring breezes, poofy white clouds.  AT LAST.  I've been able to wear my flip-flops (!) and skirts without leggings underneath.  The Farmer's Market has started up, and we've bought local cheese and asparagus and native plant starts.  So many delightful signs of spring!

And our garden is finally starting to take off.  The garlic, of course, is doing marvelously, as is the spinach (from last fall), but now this year's spinach is leafing out, as well as our kale and onions and broccoli.  Despite the slow start, I have high hopes of a good harvest this year.  Our chickies are growing rapidly, too--then again, they have a heat lamp, which our plants do not have.  They're now five weeks old, and this past weekend we expanded their home.  They're supposed to stay indoors until all their feathers have come in, so we have a few weeks to go, and the box they've been living in has become far too small.  Thank goodness for $1 screens from Home Resource and vast quantities of duct tape!  Here are their new digs:

(Their original home was the cardboard box on the left side.  Yah, it was definitely time to enlarge their space!)

We have now named two of them, and are still waiting for inspiration on the last two.  In the picture below, the dark Araucana (the one standing next to the water dish and looking at the camera) is Isabelle, and the larger of the Buff Orpingtons, just left of the thermometer, is Henrietta the Fierce.  Henrietta's been named since day 2, but the other three we've been calling Peeper, Cheeper, and Fuzzbucket (guess who picked those names?  Hint: it was NOT me!) while we wait for their personalities to be revealed.  However, if you have name suggestions, feel free to share!

Other exciting happenings:  our tulips are blooming!  They are so beautiful!  Pictures are most certainly worth a thousand words in this case, so enjoy:

YEAH, tulips!

In February, I finished the field journal I began last year in the Montana Master Naturalist Class, which was an exciting accomplishment.  Even more exciting, however, was beginning a brand new journal.  I love new journals.  All those empty pages with nothing written on them yet, clean and white and fresh-smelling.  Since February 14th, I've been writing and sketching in my field journal several times a week, often during my 15-minute "sanity breaks" at work.  MNHC is located right on the river trail, one block from a huge city park, and two blocks from the Clark Fork River.  In the afternoons, I try to make a point of spending 15 minutes outside, breathing the fresh air and experiencing the weather instead of staring at a computer screen.  I find a place to sit, note the time, weather, and temperature, and then simply look, listen, smell, breathe.  I draw swelling cottonwood buds and snowflakes, the curves of the mountains, the shapes of the clouds, and birds that sit still long enough.

I am so grateful to be taking note of the world around me.  Sometimes I come home, open up our Sibley's Guide to Birds, and sketch a new bird that I've seen that day or week, trying to get to know it better.  Or I'll sit and draw a flower, pick one to press and tape into my journal, and then, at home, I'll look it up in our field guide and learn a little more about it.  I love having this gorgeous, intricate, achingly lovely world around me to explore.  The more I learn about it, the more I love it, and the more I want to get out into it and learn more.

Today I went out to Council Grove, a state park a few miles west of Missoula, to help lead our 4th grade field trips.  One of the stations is a wildlife hike, which MNHC's top volunteer, Valerie, led, but as we walked along looking for birds and animal sign, I was amazed at how much I knew.  I can identify a Lewis' woodpecker and a rufous hummingbird.  I know the calls of the northern flicker, the western meadowlark, and the red-winged blackbird, of the osprey and the cedar waxwing.  There is still so much that I don't know, but I know so much more about the natural history of western Montana now than I did six--or even two--years ago.

This may be my plug for getting to know your place.  So many states have Master Naturalist courses, and even if you've lived in your place for years or decades, there's always more to learn.  It may be one of the most important things you can learn:  the natural history of your place.  Even if there is no MN course available, you can buy yourself a bird guide, a plant guide, an insect guide, and teach yourself.  That may be one of the things I love most about this discipline.  I am grateful for a husband who knows the intricacies of Montana's plant world, and for friends and co-workers who are passionate and knowledgeable about birds and insects and mammals, but even if I didn't have these people in my life, I could teach myself simply by going outside, being curious, and looking closely at the world around me.

If we don't know what's in our world, we'll have little motivation to protect it.  But the more we learn about our place--its seasons, its rhythms, its intricacies, its balances--the more we will want to preserve it in its entirety.  When it comes down to it, we can't afford not to learn about our place, because we can't afford not to care about it.

All right, stepping down from my soap box now . . .

I'll end this by posting some other signs of spring:

Ice cream at the Big Dipper!!

Snow melting from the low mountain areas, leaving behind green landscapes and pools of water:

Transplanting tomatoes into bigger pots as they grow:

Kitty cuteness in the OPEN window!

Two words:  Future.  Cherries.

(Last year, we got four blossoms and no cherries, due to a late May frost.  This year, we have dozens upon dozens of blossoms and we are hoping for no more severe frosts . . . )

The Dude (i.e., Basil) in his happy spot, viewing his domain.

The Shmub (i.e., Nutmeg) looking cute and deceptively dignified.

Gorgeous sunsets, with the sun setting much farther north:

Naps for Greg, who is done with classes for the semester and has a week-long break before the summer session starts, and for Nutmeg, whose life is basically one long nap interrupted only by eating and pooping.

Greg and the kitten have a very special relationship.  One of massive cuteness, among other things.

Happy spring!

Easter and beyond

Happy May!

May came in with sunshine and cloud, wind, and a little bit of warmth.  Enough wind and sunshine to do laundry, enough warmth to sit outside at the Big Dipper and savor our first ice cream cones of spring, and enough cloud to make lovely dappled shadows across the valley.

As you may have noticed, gentle reader, my Facebook hiatus is over.  It has been good to catch up with the Facebook world, particularly when it comes to pictures of babies and yard projects and friends who are far away, but so much of what is there seems trivial--more obviously so than before.  Not that trivialities are negative, but I am finding that they are not necessarily worth turning on my computer for on the weekend or in the evening.  I feel that I have more control over my Facebook usage, which was one of the results for which I was hoping.  Success!  I hope it lasts.

I also successfully spent time each day (mostly in the morning) doing yoga, for the 47 days from Fat Tuesday to Easter.  Unlike my Facebook hiatus, yoga is something I hope to continue to do even though Lent is over.  On Easter Sunday, we went to the early service at 8:00, so I chose to do yoga after church.  Last Saturday and Sunday were the first truly golden-green-and-blue days we've had all spring, so I took advantage of the warmth and sunshine to do yoga in the backyard, which was glorious.  It was good to feel the unevenness of the earth beneath my mat, to hold up my arms to the sunshine, to have blue sky dazzle my eyes when I opened them after meditating.  Insha'allah there will be more bluebird days and more outside yoga this spring and summer.

There are many things I've been pondering lately--Earth Day and earth care, use of non-renewable resources and the life changes that would make a difference, natural history lessons and experiences, work challenges--but I think I will save them for another post.  I have more to say than I have time to write at the moment.

Instead, a brief listing of recent delights:

shooting stars & douglasia & phlox & yellowbells on Waterworks Hill

the first uncurling of the first tulip bud in our yard

buds swelling on blueberry bushes and kiwi vines, cherry tree and maples
holding a wild saw-whet owl in my hands in the hours just after midnight
the perfectly level line of snow on the mountains
buttercups. blue-eyed Marys. desert parsley.  biscuitroot.
a flock of cedar waxwings trilling to each other in an ancient cottonwood tree
rows and rows and rows of glorious garlic

the promise of onions and broccoli, cabbage and kale, carrots and beets, tomatoes and cucumbers . . .

growing baby chicks
cuddly kitties
the fun of new recipes
eating bounty from last year: garlic and rhubarb and cherries and tomatoes
a new appreciation for sunshine
new life exploding around me despite a cloudy, cool, and rainy spring

April . . . showers?

I'm sitting cross-legged on the living room floor, with my computer on the coffee table, listening to Seth Martin & the Menders and smelling the delectable wafting scent of the double chocolate layer cake that I'm baking for two of my co-workers' birthdays, which happen to be only a day apart.  I may have to exercise some particularly deliberate self-control to keep from sampling this cake before tomorrow . . .

I don't know about the rest of the country, but Missoula has had a particularly grey and chilly spring.  I know that warm weather will come, but I am ready for it NOW.  To be perfectly honest, I don't mind the chilly weather so much as the grey.  It is sunshine that I am craving, so when I woke up this morning to a clear blue sky and dazzling sunshine, I was thrilled.  Of course, by mid-afternoon the clouds had blown back in, along with some whirling snow flakes, making my bike ride home rather brisk, but the sun did have a final say this evening, and argued quite convincingly for the beauty of both snow/rain (look close; you can see the precipitation!) and sunshine:

Two weeks ago we woke up to this:

One week ago we hiked on the north side of Mt. Jumbo, looking for wildflowers.  We found numerous patches of snow:

And--success!  Buttercups!  Of course, buttercups usually arrive in March, and by April there should be yellowbells and bluebells and blue-eyed Marys . . . but this year, thus far, we are content with these bright little harbingers of spring.

This past Saturday, we got wind and rain and sun all mixed together, making for a wild and beautiful wedding ceremony for my friends Ann and Nathan.  I have no pictures of the ceremony, but here's the nearby sky and landscape just a few minutes before the wedding:

And then another glorious mix of rain and wind and sunshine and snow this evening:

I'm so grateful for these moments of sunshine--looking at my pictures, I realize they have been present this spring, but I am looking forward to full days of sunshine.  Yet these moments when the sun radiates through, in long golden shafts of light between earth and clouds, bring me hope and remind me of the beauty in all types of weather on all types of days.

Before the wedding last Saturday, I spent the morning with a group of volunteers, clipping the seed pods off invasive species in a local natural area.  It was overcast and grey, and had I been home I would have been lamenting yet another dark day, but being outside, smelling the freshness of the earth and the creek and hearing the singing of dozens of birds (and realizing, once again, that I have a long ways to go along the path of bird identification)--I was just so very content to be outside and part of all that life and springtime energy.  Note to self:  spend more time outside on grey days!

Since this is a bit of a rambly post, I'm also going to mention something interesting I've noticed lately in my yoga practice.  In just the past week or so, I've found myself processing noisy thoughts and strong feelings during yoga.  Whatever I might be worrying about at the moment becomes more present and persistent when I begin my yoga poses, and this forces me to notice that worry, to really look at it, and then, as I breathe in and out, go from forward bends to bridge to upward dog, to work through it.  And, no matter what the issue, whether work or friends or politics, I come to a more peaceful place by the time I begin my meditation.  Perhaps it's not a place of complete peacefulness, but I always feel as though I've  reached some sort of resolution, an inner quiet space.  Inhale.  Pause.  Exhale.

Six days till Facebook!

some days are more exciting than others

Today was one of the exciting ones.

This morning, I got up early, around 6:30.  I did a shortened version of yoga, got dressed, and drove across town to Quality Supply--the Montana version of Bomgaars (for you midwesterners reading this), which has everything from horse and cattle feed to Carhartts to garden tools to baby chickens.  As you may have guessed, it was the latter category that held my interest this morning.  Greg and I have been meaning to get chickens for over a year.  Last spring just got too busy.  Last fall, Greg began building a henhouse, and had it nearly finished when the weather turned bitterly cold and snowy in November.  It is still nearly finished.

Two weeks ago we took care of the chickens of Meg and Emily, our neighbors-across-the-alley.  Taking care of the chickens=eating fresh, local eggs.  Lots of them.  That did it for us--we decided it was time to get chickens of our own.  So on Saturday we stopped by Quality Supply to pick some up.  Though they had gotten in 700 chicks on Thursday morning, by Saturday all that remained were meat chickens, bantams (the miniature version of chickens) and ducks.  We were told a new order was coming in this Thursday, so we prepared ourselves:  I brought home a big cardboard box from work, we purchased pine shavings and a heat lamp and waterers and feeders, and I made a list of the types of chicks arriving, did some research, and decided on two Buff Orpingtons (a very friendly and personable breed, as well as cold-hardy) and two Aruacanas (which lay blue and green eggs!!).  If, that is, I could get to QS in time.  Thus the early morning.  I parked my car in the lot at 7:35, paced in front of the doors for ten minutes, and the kind employees took pity on me and the one other person waiting and opened the store at 7:45--fifteen minutes early.  Another kind employee helped me box up my chicks, waiting patiently while I picked them out, and then carried a 50-lb bag of chick feed to my car since my hands were full of baby chickens.  SUCCESS!

They are now happily cheeping, sleeping, and pooping away in the box, which we have put in our study, with the door FIRMLY closed against our very interested kitties.  And they are just the cutest darned things ever.  Wouldn't you agree?

Normally, that would be a pretty exciting and delightful day right there.  Baby chicks--who needs anything more than that to be happy?  And yet there was another happy surprise in store for me.  Arnie, my boss, asked to talk to me this afternoon at work.  I wasn't sure what to expect, but I certainly wasn't prepared for what he actually said!  MNHC has a lovely magazine, the Montana Naturalist, which we publish three times a year.  Caroline Kurtz has been the editor for as long as the magazine has existed--Caroline's a wonderful woman who has made our magazine a beautiful thing.  However, she has decided she'd like to phase herself out of MNHC, and everyone agreed that I would be the best person to  be the new magazine editor!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't think I can express here how excited I am about this.  I love the Montana Natural History Center, love its mission, love the people who work there, love the work that I do.  But I have been feeling lately that I want to do more with my talents--more with my favorite talents, that is.  And this promotion will give me the scope for that.  I'll still be coordinating volunteers, helping with the auction, doing many of my current duties, etc.  But now I get to add Montana Naturalist production to that list, and that puts a huge smile on my face.  I'll get to write . . . edit . . . brainstorm . . . be creative . . . contact local writers and photographers . . . and much, much more.

***HAPPY DANCE!!!!!!***

So . . . we'll see how it all goes!  Wishing delightful surprises to all of you lovely people out there, too.  Much love!

to build a fire

On Thursday evening we built a fire in our backyard, our first fire of the season. We have piles of wood from pruning our trees this spring, and we'd just been waiting for the right day to have our first fire.  We haven’t yet dug a new fire pit since planting a cherry tree in the first fire pit, so we set a metal bucket atop a large concrete bird bath bowl (to keep from singeing the grass) and built a little fire in that. The bucket had a centimeter of water in the bottom, but we tossed in small sticks and newspaper anyway, figuring the water would steam off.

Though I'm a pyromaniac at heart (aren't we all?), I’ve never been the best fire builder. I can get them started, eventually, but I rarely take the time to set them up properly. If I have a book or box of matches, or a lighter, I know that I don’t have to get the sticks to catch on the first try. When I do take the time to create a nest of soft material and a small teepee of sticks, and getting the fire to catch takes only two or three matches, I feel a deep contentment. But that doesn’t happen very often.

Last Thursday, I crumpled up some newspaper to put in the bottom of the bucket, and layered small twigs on top of it. The newspaper burned quickly, of course, but the sticks refused to catch. And refused to catch. One match became two, and two became seven.  It didn’t help that the wood we were using wasn’t cured, that it is early spring and right now even small twigs still have moisture in them. After twenty minutes the fire still wasn’t going and Greg, Britta, and I were getting frustrated. Finally Greg tore up strips of newspaper and brown paper bag and just kept tossing them in, and the small sticks finally caught, and then larger sticks caught, and then our oak logs burned, too, and we sat around the flickering orange and yellow warmth, eating our soup and drinking beer, breathing in the comforting smell of wood smoke in the evening air.

The very next day, Friday, I spent at the Native Plant Garden at Fort Missoula participating in a full-day workshop for some of the MNHC staff and long-term volunteers. Brett Holmquist from Ravenwood Outdoor Learning Center was the facilitator, and we spent the day learning new ways to be teachers and mentors for children in the natural world.

After sharing each of our backgrounds, telling each other about where we came from and why we were participating in the workshop, we walked outside along the rock-lined path to the middle of a small field of native plants. A miniscule teepee of sticks and twigs was set up in a circle of bare ground, with a ball of bark and plant fibers resting in front of it. Brett knelt on the ground while we circled around and watched. He took a long, peeled stick, tapered at one end, and fit the tapered end into a small flat piece of wood with several holes drilled into it. Placing his hands near the top of the stick, he rolled it rapidly back and forth between his palms while moving his hands downward. He did this a second time, and a third. After the third time, a thin wisp of smoke rose up from the piece of wood and wafted away in the chill April breeze. Smoke rose up again the fourth time, and the fifth time, and the sixth time. I thought of Tom Hanks in Castaway, crying out triumphantly, “I have created FIRE!”

Brett then set the stick down, and lifted up the flat piece of wood. A tiny cone of ash lay on the rock below. Brett picked up the rock, and carefully tipped the ash into the ball of bark, then cupped the bark in his hands, brought it up to his mouth, and blew gently. A thin curl of smoke rose from the bark, then more. “Let us all add our breath to the fire,” Brett said, and walked around the circle, holding the bark bundle, while we each took a turn blowing our breath into the infant fire.

Sparks glowed, and a yellow tongue of flame flickered briefly. At last Brett set the bundle beneath the twig teepee, knelt down, and blew the sparks into flame, which eagerly consumed the bark, then ignited the twigs. The morning breeze rushed through in gusts, blowing the smoke in whirls and sending the flames to the top of the teepee. Heat radiated out, and we leaned in to feel the warmth on our hands and faces. All this had taken, perhaps, five minutes.

When most of the sticks had been consumed, Brett had us fan out to create our own fire nests—bundles of bark and twigs—so we could transfer the fire to the big fire pit. My friend Ann and I formed a handful of stringy bark into a ball, and she used a stick and a rock to transfer some hot coals into the bark while I held it. We both blew into it carefully, and watched the sparks glow and smoke. As I carried the bark to the fire pit, I felt the heat of the tiny fire warm my hands. I thought, “I am carrying fire.” The smoke rose into my face and disappeared into the air as I added my fire to the other fires in the pit, and they all burned together.

Two days, two fires, two stories. Thursday night, I made sure to put a box of matches in my bag so that we’d be able to have a fire during the workshop the next day. Wouldn’t it be awful, I said to Greg and Britta, if I forgot the matches, and we had no way to start a fire? But they never made it out of my bag on Friday.  They were completely unnecessary.

How many things, I wonder, do we see as necessary because we have forgotten (or, perhaps, never learned) that there is a simpler way of doing things? How much does some of our modern technology, whether matches or hot water heaters or cell phones, keep us from being thoughtful and responsible with our resources? I lost track of how many matches we used trying to start our fire on Thursday evening. What if we’d only had one match? We would have dumped the water out of the bottom of the bucket. We would have made a nest of shredded paper, bark, and leaves for our fire. We would have found the smallest, driest twigs. We would have searched out dry wood chips and slivers of wood. We would have set up our fire bed completely differently if we had had but the one match.

I can’t even put words to all of the thoughts that come to mind when I ponder these two fire experiences of the past week. It’s not only about not needing technology to survive. When we can go to the grocery story and have five thousand food choices, what does it matter if an orange gets moldy or our children pull up their noses at some dish we prepare for them? We can just throw the food out and get more. What does it matter that we know that our oil and natural gas and coal resources are finite when we can still go to the gas station and fill up our cars, still turn up the thermostat and have instant heat? We have so much available at our fingertips—so much excess—that we have forgotten, if we even ever knew, what it is like to have no choices, what it is like to be in want, how little we actually need to survive.

How long will it be, I wonder, until we start feeling the tightness of resources that many people around the world already feel? How long until food and gas prices become prohibitive? How long until clean water is something we no longer have the luxury of taking for granted? How long until a 2,000-square-foot home for a family of four is seen as an unnecessary extravagance?

I want not only to learn to start a fire without matches or a lighter, but to stop buying garlic and potatoes and onions because Greg and I can grow all we need ourselves. I want to stop taking gasoline for granted, and clean water, and exotic foods like bananas and off-season tomatoes and avocados (whimper). I want to be content in our 1,180-square-foot home and know that we can raise a child or two, and various plants and kitties, in this space: it is ample. As G.K. Chesterton wrote, “There are two ways to get enough. One is to accumulate more. The other is to need less.” I want to learn to need less.

Needing less doesn’t mean we have to throw out the matches. We simply need to learn the proper way to build a fire.

Fourth Week of Lent: Reflections

Four weeks ago today was Fat Tuesday.  I am working my way through Lent--just a few more weeks. This time has gone quickly; 40 days isn’t really that long, not in our busy world of work and friends and house projects.

I have . . .

• done yoga every day for the past 28 days (!). 
• not been on Facebook in 28 days (!). 
• made attempts to pray to the divine feminine. 
• tried to eat a little more healthily--I’ve certainly enjoyed several delectable mango lassis, and I’ve tried to cut back on things like salt and chips and crackers and ice cream and alcohol.  I have not made a complete change in this area, but I’ve made a few small differences. 
• kept up with my blog--remarkably well, wouldn't you say? It helps that I’m not spending time on Facebook. It helps that my blog is suddenly my only online connection to the wider world (save email, that is). I’m spending less time online, though, since it doesn’t seem worth booting up my computer just to see if someone has commented on my blog.
• had more time for other types of connections--or perhaps I’ve just made more time for such connections. I've spent some good time with friends (taking walks, eating good food, playing games), writing to friends, talking to friends.  
• knitted three pairs of fingerless gloves/wrist warmers. 
• spent several days a week writing and sketching in my nature journal. 
• done a LOT of crosswords from the little Christmas book from Becky. 
• spent a little more time housecleaning and doing yard work. 
• spent a little more time cooking and baking.
• spent a little less time watching movies (I’ve done pretty well at sticking to one/week, except while I was working on the knitting projects. Movies and knitting just go so well together!).

Further observations:
1) When doing yoga, I'm amazed at how quickly an hour passes. I tell myself I’ll just do half an hour or so of yoga—not force myself to do more—and then find that an hour has passed and I need to get ready to go to work. That’s been an enjoyable surprise!

2) How difficult some of the poses are! I’m used to Yoga for Your Life—most of the poses are quite simple, ones I’ve done before, and I don’t find them too strenuous. They’re good stretches, good poses, but wholly doable. But some of the ones in my Yoga for Women book are kicking my butt! Bow pose—“hold for 1-2 minutes”—HA! There’s no way I could do that right off the bat! But I’m giving myself the time to practice it, to understand it, and bit by bit I’m getting better.

3) Some days the meditation bit is incredibly easy. I settle in, focus on the breathing, and snap! Seven minutes is up. I like those days.

4) Some days the meditation is tough. I guess that’s not a complete surprise, but it did surprise me when it got tough again after a few of the easy days.

5) I've really enjoyed the Sa Ta Na Ma meditation, so I decided to try one of the others, the women power one. I found it more difficult and unsettling than I had expected to pray to and honor the divine feminine spirit . . . my conservative Christian upbringing is definitely still influencing me. I want to try it again, though—perhaps it will be easier. Perhaps I will learn something unexpected.

6) I love the energizing workout from Yoga for Women! Chanting "Har" while doing the poses felt a little strange at first, but as I worked my way through the poses, it felt increasingly natural, and I felt amazingly energized by the end of the series.

7) I have a lot to learn.

8) My kitties like to “help” me with yoga. I may have to get Greg to take a picture I can post, because it's pretty darned cute, if not entirely helpful.

9) I don’t really miss Facebook that much. Hmm . . .

10) Making one or two changes in my life has a domino effect—it’s making it easier to make other changes.

11) Making changes is still hard. Some days I just want to don my pajamas and curl up with a movie . . . and eat salty food. Not that this is completely bad. But old habits are hard to break.

12) I have felt more motivated to bake. I’m not sure exactly why, but it does feel (and taste!) good.

13) Without FB, I’m finding other ways to be mindless. I’ve been diving into this little book of crosswords, which isn’t all bad, but sometimes I feel like I’m just using it as an escape.

14) I find myself more conscious of my posture. I am trying to stand and sit with a straight spine, shoulders back, chin tucked down—all the things I have to keep in mind when doing yoga poses.

15) I’m getting more flexible and aware of my body.

16) I like doing spine warm-ups. AHHHH.

17) I love the kneeling sun salutation sequence. LOVE it.

18) I’ve been a little more content in my work. I don’t know if this has to do with yoga and my other spiritual practices, but it’s something I’ve noticed lately.

19) I notice the state of cleanliness of the carpet more when I’m doing yoga on it every day.  (e.g., "I just vacuumed!  How can there be THAT MUCH cat hair in just three days?!")

20) I feel more motivated in the mornings to get things done. It’s harder for me to do housework, etc., after work, but in the mornings I whip through it efficiently.

21) I wish I were more of a morning person. Could I become one? I certainly have been getting enough sleep lately. Why is it that I find it so very difficult to get up before 7am?

22)  I'm glad that I'm doing all this.  No regrets.

I could probably go on, but I'll spare you.  This past month has been an interesting learning experience, and I feel more balanced, more aware of my body and my emotions, more aware of what I need--and what others need, too.

It was a sunny, blustery April day today.  Blue sky, whirling wind, piles of gorgeous clouds, and radiant sunlight--beautiful.  Spring is coming, bit by bit, and I am grateful.  And now, some wind-down time before bed.  I'll leave you with an image from another blustery day, this past Saturday, when Greg and I walked with our friend Jen and her son Isaiah up Waterworks Hill: glorious.