Thinking: How about a short series of photos from the last month?? Of course there was Halloween last week. We kicked off with our tiny community’s hayride event, which Forest went dressed as a dinosaur! I tested out my feeble face painting skills and T-Rex got 2nd place! Well, we actually kicked off the night before at a fall festival at his school where there were games, food, and friends. Then there was a Halloween party at school and Halloween night trick-or-treating as well. For both of those he wanted to dig out his almost-too-tight costume from last year and be Spider Man again. *shrugs* Chris started working on the…

We’ve been friends for 21 years now. As we sat around the picnic tables at Fort Boggy State Park, we reminisced about the past and how we met up on the T/S Texas Clipper II during the summer of 1998, trying to piece together the other friendships and acquaintances that led us all together. While our friend group is a bit broader than the three of us, over the last several years only three of us have gotten together to spend a weekend together. First we included all of the kids, five between us, and then we moved to an adults only weekend since at least two of us aren’t…

Sabine National Forest, October 2010 Thinking: My friend Patrice posted her monthly “Currently” post and I remembered I hadn’t done one since August, so here I am! What am I thinking? I don’t really know. Gardening: Mustering up the energy and interest to garden once again. All of the work in the edible garden this summer really took a lot out of me and I really needed September to not do anything. I did do some minor cleanup in the flower garden and have done some light weeding in the edible beds but mostly it has been hands off. I managed to sow some fall edible seeds earlier this week…

Me and my niece Zoe a few weeks ago. Thinking: About our upcoming vacation! It’s a good one with a lot of moving parts involved so I’m hoping it all goes smoothly! And generally having an existential crisis on the creeping fascism growing in the world and the rapid state of climate change. Gardening: I spent most of the summer heavily working in the edible garden on the soil solarization of the paths. So much was involved in this process: -from first removing the weeds in the path -then scraping up several inches of years of decomposed mulch that had turned into dirt and transporting it to the backyard in…

Instead of my usual ‘Life Lately’ posts I thought I’d go through and share photos I’ve taken, mostly from my phone, the last few months. I may not have been writing much here but there’s been quite a bit going on. If you can’t view, click here If you can’t view, click here Back in May I started working on removing several inches of dirt, mulch, debris, and weeds from the garden path in preparation for soil solarization. I had been out there working one afternoon on my lunch break and as I was about to leave I remembered I wanted to snap a photo of my work. After I…

Loquats from our friend’s tree that I turned into jelly/thick syrup. The evening sun is blaring into the office while Forest whoooshes dinosaurs and blocks around the living room. He’s supposed to be picking up his blocks so that he can watch a cartoon or three but as always playing is greater than putting up the mess you create. I imagine in about thirty minutes when he tires of playing once again I’ll be getting onto him to put his blocks up. The refrain will be “But there’s so much! I can’t do it!” to which I’ll reply “Don’t get it all out if you can’t put it up!” The…

Thinking: Two pretty big controversial things: The First: Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds @rareseeds is hosting Clive Bundy, the racist, violent, militia, anti-government, anti-public lands, anti-environmental activist to speak at its gathering of 10,000 gardners in May. Disgusting. Everyone should boycott Baker Creek immediately. RETWEET pic.twitter.com/svn6wnlQgx — Kierán Suckling (@KieranSuckling) April 26, 2019 You can click through and read the entire thread including background on Baker Creek’s previous interactions with Bundy and just exactly what knowledge they already had about him and his involvement in the Bundy standoff in 2014 as well as his familial association with the Malheur NWR standoff in 2016. Apparently Bundy is also an heirloom seed saver…

I haven’t meant to go radio silent these last nearly two weeks. It’s just been hectic and I’ve lost all energy for writing and sharing here. Things started trending frenetic about two weeks ago when a coworker moved on to another position. We’d just lost a more recent hire a few weeks prior to that and losing this person who had been here for 16 years was rough. We’re very busy at work right now and now we’re down to just a few main office staff. Already that felt heavy. The same day our friend/coworker left we found out Baloo, the pup above, crossed the Rainbow Bridge. For those unfamiliar,…

Thinking: About politics of course. I think after the first six months of the Mueller investigation I knew that it was not going to be the linchpin to get us out of the course we’re heading in. From time to time I’d be swayed into positivity by someone about the report, or even when we’d see arrests and indictments, but I would keep tabs on what Sarah Kendzior and others who are scholars on authoritarian regimes said—and she’s always been pragmatic that the Mueller investigation would not be saving us. I highly recommend Gaslit Nation podcast. On a lighter note, I am now a super fan of Mayor Pete. That…