Thoughts

Life Lately | Mid-September

+ One of my complaints about living a ‘normal’ life is that time speeds up too fast. While backpacking time slows down and it feels like life is mellow and enjoyable. You can stop and relish the way the light lands on different things throughout the day. The rhythm of hiking is simple: wake, eat, walk, eat, walk, eat, walk, eat, walk, eat, relax, sleep. And while I don’t really have a very complicated life (let’s keep it that way!) life sure does speed up through getting up and working, coming home doing chores and somehow finding time to relax and wind down.

+ While we still have a long way to go in getting the house organized and furnished, it feels like we are getting closer. Particularly with the yard. Having cut down or having a company cut down somewhere around 10 dead trees, mostly pines, we’ve been trying to clean up the mess associated with that. Not only that the yard was quite unkempt as the previous owners weren’t keen on yard work. Finally though we are seeing a vision and making things look better. We still have a lot of work cut out for us, but I am looking forward to getting things in the ground and growing.

+ After being tipped off by our neighbor that she thought some of the feral cats had moved on to her other neighbor, I went down to visit them last Friday. Yep, they were all there, including the really mean male that was in one of the first rounds of trapping, neutering and releasing. I was glad to see they were being taken care of and also to meet the neighbors who were very friendly as well. I trapped the remaining calico kitten, she was fixed over the weekend, and then I released her this morning.

+ After all of that we finally decided to name the cats that have hung around. For now there are five that have stayed as regulars. A black cat is around as well, but I haven’t seen him since I broke up a fight between him and the grey cat, and then sometimes Momma is transient and comes over from the neighbors two doors down. I’ll have to do a little photo series with their new names but we settled on Tom for the grey male, Fred for the male red tabby, Mr. Stripey for the regular tabby (I was going to go with Happy Cat after a cat I had in my childhood but decided Mr. Stripey just sounded funnier and more accurate), Ruby for the female red tabby kitten, and finally Isis for the muted tortoiseshell female.

And now for some things I’ve recently enjoyed:
+ Pastured Broiler Chickens on Butcher Day at Provenance Farm via Wayward Spark. If you are squeamish don’t read….but it isn’t that grotesque. Thinking about reading up again on chicken raising, though I probably won’t be butchering the ones I raise, but still interesting to know about all aspects of chicken farming.

+ Worlds First Ever Color Film Unveiled via Shelly at Demiurgiclust.

+ How Kid Culture Tells Our Children Lies and Destroys the Future of Science via The Last Word On Nothing…ok, so probably only picky science/nerdy types would ever get upset about these things, but I will say I do find myself correcting things I hear on t.v. or read.

+ Stop Throwing Away Free Tomato Sauce via NW Edible Life. If I ever feel like delving into more tomato sauce madness after the first round of tomato sauce madness, I may just attempt this.

+ The Travel Bug via The Familiar Wilderness…no this doesn’t relate to geocaching or to traveling, of humans at least, but let’s just say monarch butterflies—-this is a must click to see! Visiting the mountains of Mexico is on my list of places to visit to see them.

+ Ink and Paper

Planning to return to writing about our trip to Washington soon….

One Comment

  • chel

    I know what you mean about life speeding up. A while back I read a book about a Jewish community, and one thing that I LOVED about their traditions is the way they celebrate and reflect on every week by taking a day every week to do that. That really made me want to do more celebrations on just *regular* time to take the opportunity to sit back and reflect on the day to day. I am trying to do more of that in my art journal, I guess…. making a space for marking time instead of letting it sort of fly by. But it’s always a struggle… I am so determined to be PRESENT for this fall, this season.

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