Sap moon

Sorry to be not writing. I am both profoundly lonely and profoundly uncommunicative. Not a good combination. My friends are all starting to call to ask if I'm okay. Thanks!

Its been almost six months since my mother died. Its been almost two months since Natalie died. This has been a wicked cold winter in more ways than one.

Physically, I'm getting better. I have a little more stamina and my slow measured movements become a little faster. I'm wondering when I can start going on calls again. I'm planning my garden.

My female goat is close to kidding and I took my male goat to be made into meat last week. I need a new cordless drill for sugaring.

Signs of life going on.

Happy Imbolc

It's the pagan holiday Imbolc today. The day falling exactly between the Solstice and the Equinox. The Native Americans used to refer to the next full moon as the Sap Moon because maple trees can be tapped soon. Chickens start laying and the four footed livestock are getting close to kidding, lambing or calfing. Carnival is this week and the long fast of Lent begins soon.

Happy Early Spring

Feeling frustrated

I'm at that place where my head wants to push my body to do more than it really should. I'd like to finish drywalling my upstairs, but that means I have to clean, which means I have to move things downstairs and the very idea makes me tired.

*sigh*

Rest in Peace Natalie Jacobs

Our dear friend Natalie Jacobs died suddenly on January 2 after a brief illness. This is what I know right now: she was ill with a respiratory infection. She went to the emergency room, was given medication and released. She was found by friends the next morning dead in her bed.

She was present at both my childrens births. She helped cut my daughters umbilical cord and was the first person other than myself to hold my son. She was just finishing her education as a midwife.

I spoke with her last two weeks ago.

Natalie, we'll miss you.

Happy New Year

I'm still feeling uncommunicative. I'm okay most days, but the holidays have been tough. We stayed in Vermont for the first time in a long time, so that made it a little easier.

I'm wondering if I'll be well enough to resume hiking this summer. I'm hopeful. The sun sensitivity is way down and I've been slowly building up my stamina. We (my husband, my son and I) did a short snowshoe to our beaver pond yesterday. It was glorious! I'll just have to take it as it comes. I'm in the phase of this protocol that feels like I'm convalescing

Interesting thought--My husband just blogged a story about leaded gasoline. I find it pertinent because although they phased out the stuff, there's an awful lot of us who were conceived and grew up when we could have been developmentally damaged. There's been a lot of controversy about why Lyme disease should seemingly come out of nowhere in the 1970's as a disease,when the actual spirochete has been around forever. Just a thought.

Made it through Thanksgiving

I cried from Monday to Saturday. Some friends invited us over for dinner so that was nice. I've only had a couple of complete meltdowns which is good.

Mourning Moon

I read recently that some Native American tribes referred to the full moon in November as the "Mourning Moon". I'm not sure of the truth of that, but it surely is for me.

Sorry I haven't posted of late. I haven't had the heart for it. What I have been doing is a lot of physical labor. Working on my husband's home office and working with my animals. Two weeks ago we (my family and a neighbor's family) slaughtered 6 roosters for the freezer and there's some more that can go. I made a cold frame for the garden and a wood rack for the basement. It helps. The work is slow because I get tired so quickly, but it feels good to turn on a CD and lose myself in the work. Then I'm so tired I just crash.

The holidays are going to be tough this year. Halloween couldn't even cheer me up and its my favorite holiday. I found myself ranting to My Friend The Nurse the other day about how much I hate this season. I hate the holiday's usually, but this year its especially bad 'cause my mom used to make it her business to cheer me up. She loved the holidays--the music, the lights and everything. She would never turn anyone away from her holiday table so we had some surreal moments with some very unexpected guests (including her ex-husband and his wife). We even had a memorable one where I brought a bunch of my friends to dinner and we called it the "Religous Joke Dinner". As in "Two Jews, a Pagan, and a Taoist go to a Welshwoman's house for dinner..."

My mother could never understand why I was such a grinch, but her experences as a child were just so different to mine. She came from a background of deprivation, so Christmass was a welcome time of abundance. Now we live in a world of abundance. The excesses and the expectations just make me crazy. I'm reminded of the orange she used to put in our stockings. When you can have an orange anytime you want, it just doesn't have the same impact.

Because she grew up in Cardiff in WWII, she never saw the streets lit up at night until she was 9 or 10. She told me of the revelation she felt at that moment and her face took on the delight I see in my own children.

We are not Christian so the holiday doesn't have that religious significance. We have a tree and do the gift thing as a celebration of the Winter Solstice, but that's all. And really that's all. Last year we sang carols with my daughter's singing group, but more out of the love of singing.

I think I'll see if the rest of the family wants to see a movie Christmas Day.