Author Archive
Update On A Backyard Fox
Posted by: | CommentsSometime ago I wrote about the foxes I have been seeing and my delight at the direct example of wildlife adaptation to an urban setting. Back then foxes were jumping up on the fence under my kitchen window and easily leaping onto the roof next door. As I may also have mentioned the squirrels in this part of North Denver had been having a field day with anything I grew: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and plums. What really pissed me off was the waste. I don’t mind sharing my bounty with the four legged, the winged ones, and other two legged as well. I just get mad when one bite is taken, the veggie or fruit is thrown down, and then another is taken with the same outcome. Waste not; want not. So in a fit of desperation, I called on a fox to come stay in my yard and help me keep these marauding squirrels under control!
When I looked out the window a few days later and saw a fox sleeping in the backyard, I was both surprised and elated. “Oh my Gosh! It worked!” I said under my breath to keep from disturbing his slumber. As the days went by, this fox grew accustomed to me and I to he. Even when sleeping right across from the back door, he would just raise his head when I came in or out, see that it was me, then go back to sleep. The other favorite sleeping spots were on the top of the straw bales I have for mulching, and on top of the sheet compost project in the NW corner of the yard. However, I was still seeing the squirrels running all around and wondered if Foxy was just using the yard as a rest stop.
Soon after having this thought I was at home, spending the day working around the house getting ready for winter. There was Foxy sleeping in the sun as usual. I continued on my own schedule and a short time later glanced out the back windows once more. This time Foxy was sitting in the middle of the back yard munching on a squirrel! I got the point! Unlike cats, foxes do not leave any remains behind, by the way!
As the winter moves along, so is the relationship between the fox and I and the fox and my grandchildren. One morning I was bringing my four year old grandson in through the back gate and the fox simply looked at him, sniffed, and went back to sleep. Foxy was directly opposite the back door and only five feet away at the most. Then a week later my two and a half year old granddaughter saw the fox sleeping on the straw bales when she came home with me. Being curious, she walked slowly over toward Foxy, who got up and stretched lazily as she approached. I told her to just stand there and go no closer (again about five feet) or Mr Foxy would run away. She stopped, chattered away at him, then turned to come back to the porch. Immediately Foxy stepped forward and sniffed the air and the ground where she had been standing a few moments ago then turned and jumped back up on the bales.
I think we have been adopted!
Sacred Women
Posted by: | CommentsLast week I spent 4 days in ceremony with 33 other women. I have never before had the privilege, never had the pleasure, of women coming together for sacred play. We laughed and drummed, cried and comforted, danced a new vision, dreamed a new dream, and deeply reconnected to Honua, PachaMama, Turtle Island, Mother Earth. We were called to the Grandmother’s Summit celebrating Turtle Island during the new moon, the Turtle Moon. Each one of us was called to come even though there was no program, no schedule of events, no description of the time to be spent together. We just knew.
We ranged in age from the 20’s to the 80’s; we covered a broad spectrum of races, cultures, and practices. And we were ONE. There was enough trust, enough acceptance, enough appreciation, and enough safety to be who I truly am without ‘toning it down’. All of us are teachers, healers, channels of the Divine, and dedicated to focusing our energy towards a new dream of the world.
We women, in many other groups like this one, are gathering to support each other, to support ourselves, and to support the world shift to a new consciousness. As we become more and more aware of the role we play in this shift, women are standing hand in hand, heart to heart, in communities bound by love, integrity, joy, sacredness of all that is, and allow the Great Female to emerge anew. With hearts wide open, we are united in our dedication to passing this beautiful Earth on to the next seven generations.
This is the eleventh hour; this is the call; this is what all of you have been waiting for. The Grandmothers are calling and when Grandmother says something in that tone of voice, it brooks no compromise. It is just so.
All of you women who have stood with your feet planted, arms folded or fists on your hips and said: “Not in my home! This will not happen in my home, ever again!” are now joining and in one voice and a million voices simply saying: “No more.”
It is time to roll up your sleeves and do what women do best: Pray for strength, pray for inspiration, join each other, sing the work songs, and just plain clean up this mess! This can be done from wherever you are – in tiny ways and in big ways. Do one thing at a time: stop buying plastic bags; use cloth napkins; buy fair trade and local stuff. Don’t know how? Read some of my other columns and ask me to come teach a class in all sorts of easy ways to slow down buying and throwing away. (Where is ‘away’?)
There is an astonishing array of ways to connect and become part of a new way of being. Find one. You are my family, and I am yours. We can do this if we all stand together. You are needed and you are unique. No one else can do what you do. Come join the the biggest change in the history of humankind! It’ll be a gas!
The Fruits of August
Posted by: | CommentsI’m establishing myself as an urban locavor (urban forager, frugal ecologist) and now I remember the joys and fatigue of August. It’s about putting food by for the winter and early spring months when there is almost no local fresh food available. I’m fondly gazing at pints of freshly canned peaches, apricot salsa, jam and jelly of several varieties and feeling both proud and somewhat overwhelmed. Tired also comes to mind since this activity starts when my day normally ends.
I’ve frozen broccoli and green beans – though I’m not finished by any means – and want to find more time to can tomatoes, beets, and make sour kraut. The full branches of the plum tree out front is calling to me and I’ve got permission to pick the wonderful heirloom peaches a couple of blocks from here. I am waiting somewhat patiently for the elderberries to ripen as well.
This is the month when the garden overflows with all the good things at once. Of course there has been a steady flow of produce since early greens and peas in April. However August is the time of almost overwhelming abundance of tomatoes, peppers, beans, greens, and corn demanding to be put by for the months of fallow, empty gardens.
Now, that last part is not entirely true since with good planning there will be the second crop of carrots and beets left in the ground with rows of parsnips, turnips, and rutabagas. Kale and Brussels sprouts taste sweetest and best after the first frost touches them and with a nice heap of straw covering the rows, all can be picked or dug well into December, maybe longer depending on the depth of the frost.
I think back to my childhood when we put enough food by for a family of five to last until the garden produced again in the spring. I’m definitely small potatoes compared to that. Just for starters we canned 150 quarts of tomatoes, and 150 quarts of various fruits (peaches, pears, plums, cherries, applesauce, etc). We rented freezer lockers for all the veggies and meats since our chest freezer couldn’t hold it all. It was a constant daily and nightly ‘meditation’ of picking, shucking, shelling, blanching, pickling and cooking. We used the porch, the summer kitchen and the winter kitchen to maximum capacity for several months, filling every shelf in the cellar with canned goods and making weekly trips to the freezer lockers down the road.
The smells were amazing, ranging from mouth watering to eye stinging depending on what was cooking! Vinegar and cloves vied with fruit syrups; sour kraut warred with applesauce. In the end the astounding bounty of the harvest surrounded us with such visible abundance that it mitigated the bone-weariness of endless activity. When the first hoar frost crisped and sweetened the kale, the end of the season was finally in sight. With a satisfied sigh of relief, we settled in for the winter.
Now, here in Denver, I want to work my way back to canning, freezing, preserving, drying, and pickling Summer for the Winter. I want to use the local abundance of fruit trees lining the streets, summer farms and small ranches to supply myself so that I again know where my meals come from. I figure it will take a year to get this up and running, so I might as well start now. That’s why I’m staring at my 16 pints of pink and golden peaches with affection and glee. I’m back in the saddle again!
