Doing, Doing, Doing, Done!

We had a great spot on our kitchen wall, a little too big for most, actually any, of our artwork, and we both love the Ananda Farm logo, so we decided we'd paint the logo up on the wall.

Dambara got a projector for our Macs, and the plan was to project a high resolution image of the logo onto the wall, and then we'd just trace it with the left over coral paint from when we painted the interior of the pantry. Zach and Hailey sent us the high res image, and project it we did.

However, the projector held nothing but disdain for high resolution. It was quite content with low resolution, visible pixels, blurry blurs.

Low resolution projector

The dent

So, the projected image shifted from template to merely a place holder, and the project switched from tracing to free-hand . . . detailed copying. After the first session, with help from the renowned Parkle Lee and ever-enthusiastic Dambara, we made a dent.

The second, third, and fourth sessions got us a bit further. 

 

It was a long process.

Years ago, years and years ago, I made two stained glass windows for a house that my brother was building. It took him two years to build his house. It took me, coincidentally, two years to make the first stained glass window.

They were big windows; 117 pieces of cut glass went into each window. They were designed to flank his front door, so were about six feet tall and two feet wide. They were a big undertaking for my budding talent as a stained-glass artist, but still . . . two years?

The second window came along, and I felt a greater sense of urgency to get it made. So, I tricked myself. I set a goal to go out to the garage every night and cut five pieces of glass. That was an extraordinarily reachable goal.

The second window took one month to build.

So, when it came to painting the farm logo on the wall and having it turn into a much bigger project than anticipated, I tricked myself again. I always fall for these tricks, no matter how many times I play them on myself. Instead of telling myself to get the logo painted, I casually suggested to myself that I do a little painting, only a few minutes. Inevitably, the few minutes would stretch into an hour or so, and low and behold, the logo got painted.

Doing, doing, doing, done.

Doing, doing, doing, 

Done!

Hurray!!!

Once a Sparky. . .

It used to be that TVs came in their own cabinet, you lugged it into the house, and plugged it in. Then TVs got bigger and bulkier. You had to buy a cabinet to house the thing. Then they got skinnier and wider. Now, you hang them on the wall or from the ceiling, which we have done, but this one is going on the wall.

Luckily, I married a sparky.

With our first flat-screen TV, Dambara stuffed all of cables and wires and connectors from the outlet, DVD player, and speaker into a channel that ran up the wall to the TV itself. That was pretty cool. Nice and tidy.

At the next house, we paid a guy to hang the TV from the ceiling, and the cables et al sardined into their channel up the wall and across the ceiling. The channel was nicely concealed behind some beaded curtains, so everything was nice and tidy.

This time 'round, we've spent a few months immersed in extensive wall reconfiguration, with drywall coming out, going in, getting holes, getting patched, so Dambara has entered a whole new realm of cable control. This time 'round, the cables went inside the wall.

Homeowner 101

Once a sparky, always a sparky

A plethora of cables. A constellation of drywall holes. Everything's tucked and pulled, patched and spackled, tidy and nice. Together with Vihaan, they hung the TV, connected speakers and computer, vacuumed drywall dust, shifted couches, plumped pillows, and voila! We were ready for our first movie night.

And that's a story for another time.

Friend Tracks

Dambara delivered another batch of moving boxes a couple of days ago, and we've been going through them, finding new homes for our old stuff in our new home.

Stuff

It's been a long process, when you realize that these boxes were packed mid-April, and here we are, almost mid-December. But, we had to buy a house and rebuild it between April and December, so there are defensible reasons for the long, unpacking process.

More stuff

Pretties

It's nice to uncover things that we've done without for six months, like slippers and warm sweaters, bathroom pretties and teapots, but the thread that winds through it all, is friendship.

We're uncovering the tracks of our friends.

Because Dambara and I didn't pack these boxes. We left Oregon in a rush, and so we had a moving party. About a dozen friends descended one sunny Wednesday and packed our kitchen, office, library, closets, and moved boxes and shelving down to the garage, hoisted the TV down from the ceiling, coiled cables, and wrapped artwork.

Now, as we unpack each box, our friends essences are there, in the careful wrapping, the informative labeling, the secure taping, their kindness and support, their love and missing-you-already, drifts up out of each box, unfurls with each sheet of packing paper, glimmers as each cup goes into its new cupboard.

De-stuffed boxes

De-stuffed paper

I miss you all, and can't wait to see you again!

Love, Love, Love!

Vegan AND Gluten-free

I used to silently scoff at people who had food allergies, who couldn't eat this or that. "Get over it," I'd silently judge. "Just eat the food." So of course, I developed health challenges that resulted in all kinds of limitations on what I can and cannot eat.

Somewhat instant karma.

First, I went dairy-free, and felt immensely better. After a few years I went gluten-free and felt better. Then I started eating gluten again and felt pretty good. Then I went vegan and started avoiding nightshades. . . There've been so many permutations that I've definitely lost track of most of them.

Many of the diet-based strategies for improving health have made a difference, so I keep monkeying with it. It's easy to follow specific guidelines when cooking at home, but restaurants or dinners at friends' houses are always a compromise with crossed fingers and optimistic cheerfulness as standard strategies.

Right now I'm concentrating on being vegan and gluten-free. And, I love bread. It's hard to combine those two facts and end up successful. And yet! Success has been achieved!

I grew tired of the crumbly, stale, gluten-free breads I was able to find at grocery stores, and never found a brand that was also vegan. So I ordered a bread maker, a gluten-free cookbook, and probably 20 various ingredients to be able to use the bread-maker and the cookbook.

Adapting the recipes to also be vegan remained a challenge. I tried several egg and dairy substitutes, and the loaves consistently came out dense and gummy. Good flavor, though, which was encouraging. And then I found this recipe online that unlocked the door to success.

Fluffy, soft, vegan, gluten-free, delicious, homemade bread.

The secret, egg-substituting ingredient? Garbanzo bean brine. You know; that thick, unappealing liquid that spills out when you open a can of garbanzo beans. Well. Turns out, it's a great protein for helping gluten-free flours rise into a fluffy, soft bread. Plus, it adds a nice yet subtle flavor to the bread.

So, the world has become even more wonderful, with yummy bread in the morning or for lunch; for avocado toast, or sandwiches, or bread pudding, or all of those other things that are delicious and comforting.

It's another slice of heaven on earth.

Chickens Are My Favorite Dinosaurs

I've been listening to an audiobook, A Grown-up Guide to Dinosaurs, and it's quite delightful. It appeals to my logical mind, a throw back to my years as a practicing scientist, and I'm learning a lot about things that I didn't understand before.

One of my favorite lines so far is from a series of build-up statements. The book starts by asking children to name their favorite dinosaur, and the variety of answers is impressive. Then as the book continues, the author asks each interviewed scientist to name his or her favorite dinosaur. The answers remain varied, and the reasons given, by children and adults, are soundly logical and sweetly entertaining.

And then we get to the guy who states that his favorite dinosaur is a chicken. It's the launch pad to the presentation of all we've learned (I use the non-royal we here, denoting all of the paleologists around the world, with absolutely no help from me, who have unraveled the jigsaw puzzle, a pleasing mixture of metaphors) that link the world of birds with the world of dinosaurs.

I am not surprised by this revelation.

Farm tour, complete with dinosaurs

When Dambara and I lived on the Llamas and Niyamas Farm outside of Gaston, OR, we had a small flock of chickens. The chickens were a delightful component to the farm, as they wandered around in small bunches, visiting their favorite scratching spots or coming over to see what we were up to. Their little bodies are feathery half-moons that tip forward to peck, then backward to trot, then forward to peck, little pitchers of delight, pouring their cheer onto every nook and cranny of the farm.

They also had a choir. In the morning, the full choir would gather in the stable to take turns in the nesting boxes, waiting for their turn, sometimes impatiently, because out of four nesting boxes, there was one favorite box that everyone preferred to use, and those broody slow pokes could drive the wanna-be-in-that-box-ers to operatic crescendos.

The choir had some notable soloists as well. Most of the ladies were murmurers, chuckling and clucking softly amongst themselves, telling stories and jokes as they sauntered around, but occasionally a soloist would hold forth from somewhere out on the hillside pasture. There was the jungle lady, who parroted and macawed her way through the morning and even into the afternoon.  And then there was the Pterodactyl.

One might wonder how one would recognize the call of a Pterodactyl, recording equipment being rare in the jurassic period. But when that chicken sang out across the valley, it conjured visions of T. rexes salivating, or the odd Stegosaurus lumbering along, brushing aside giant ferns and conifers, and a Pterodactyl (which is actually not a dinosaur, which did surprise me) gliding overhead, its pointy head swiveling this way and that, singing its morning song.

The single artifact that brought the world's paleologists to the surprising connection between birds and dinosaurs was, quite simply, feathers. Feathers don't preserve easily over the eons, so they are a rare find. But found they are, and you can hear all about it in A Grown-up Guide to Dinosaurs, which, I fear, may be an audible.com original, available only there. But it is a delightful listen, and you might learn a lot of thought-provoking ideas.

And your favorite dinosaur might turn out to be a chicken.

Farm Logo

I've always loved our farm logo. Zach's dad designed it, and it's on all of our product labels, we have tee shirts, and it's scattered around the farm in various renditions. Zach's dad took the concept of an exploding seed ball. You make seed balls by taking all of your left over seeds and mixing them together with some clay and other stuff (I've not made any myself; thus the vagueness), then rolling the mess into marble-sized balls, and letting them dry thoroughly.

The thing about seed balls is that they contain the entire universe inside them. The mixture of seeds promises abundant, varied life, which gives shelter and sustenance to animals on the ground, in the air, and in the soil. Seed balls can change the planet or your back yard, whichever you happen to be working on.

Once you have a stash, you can throw them, scatter them, drop them from airplanes, spread them around. Since they're in a tight ball, no one will eat them over the winter, and come spring, all of those packed-together seeds will be ready to sprout and grow up together, an instant community of life.

So our farm logo shows that exploding energy, liberated from a seed ball. I find it enchanting.

We had decided, weeks and weeks ago, that we would paint the farm logo on the big, empty wall of our kitchen. We've been inching toward tackling the project, and even set up the projector to splash the logo up onto the wall, deciding where, how big, how high, getting it centered and level. But then my strained neck muscles took me out of the game, and the fact that we could only work on it at night, when the projected image was most visible, has delayed us for an entire week.

Last night, as the sun went down, I wondered whether my neck would allow me to start painting the logo. I decided that I wanted to give it another day of rest, and hopefully then I would be up to starting. But Dambara Tom Sawyered me. He set up the projector, busied himself with centering and leveling, and I got sucked in. I found the paint brushes, shook the paint can, and poured out a little container of bright coral paint.

Then we began. About ten minutes into the project, Parkle dropped by. He was out walking Barley and stopped to say hi. So we Tom Sawyered him. He happily picked up a brush, poured himself a little container of coral, and joined in our shadow game.

Transferring the logo

We talked about this and that, family news, travel plans, all the while dabbling away at the logo. Then it was time for Parkle to retrieve Barley and wander back home. Dambara and I dabbled a bit longer, and then called it a day.

There's plenty more to do, but we've started. Activation energy has been achieved, and we are on our way. What fun to add the explosion of a seed ball to our wall, with its immense potential for life and abundance. And what fun to invite others in, sharing creative time and telling stories together.

A beginning

What a wonderful world.

A blessing

Gentle Succor

I spent the morning in a dentist's chair. It was an extended visit, affixing a temporary crown, and in two weeks, she'll affix the permanent crown.

Dental visits can be unpleasant, painful, or, at the very least, anxiety-ridden. At this office, I felt cared for as soon as I walked in the door. A heater was on in the cozy waiting room, an eclectic spread of magazines for early birds to browse, an offer of coffee, tea, or hot apple cider. But more than that, Donna greeted me warmly, by name, and we chatted about Thanksgiving and families and how had we both been since the last visit.

Then Colleen came out and ushered me back to the private room with all of the instruments and dental products and anxiety potential. I told her about the muscle spasms in my shoulder and neck, and she went and heated a lavender pillow for me. Jessica came in and took some notes, and we chatted a different Thanksgiving chat. The heated pillow arrived, Jessica lowered the chair, which had the healing side effect of elevating my feet. Colleen bibbed my neck with terry cloth, Jessica sunglassed my eyes against the bright lights, and they set about their work.

Cheese!

They checked in with me continuously, watched my face, patted my shoulder, and most of all, their gentle murmurings in their dental language, their four hands dancing an orchestrated ballet, wielding tools, ointments, and goo, their professional craftsmanship kept me soothed and safe for two solid hours. After the final biting down, they sat me up, gave me a warm, wet cloth for my perhaps-sprayed face, patted my back, and waved me, smilingly, on my way.

Probably no one enjoys trips to the dentist, but if you have to spend time with one, it's glorious when it's a gentle, soothing, professional, gifted group of caring people, whose main goal is to help you through it the best they can.

And my pearly whites are pearlier and happier than they've been in years.

We All Do the Best We Can

A feral cat lives on and around our farm. He looks like he's nine or ten months old. We refer to him as "he", even though we don't know if he's male or female, only because it's clumsy to stumble over gender every time we talk about or to him, and he needs a lot of strength and male energy to face the winter weather that will be part of his life for the next several months.

I'm grateful for the sunny days, knowing he can sleep in the sun and feel warm. On rainy days, I'm grateful to see his coat dry, reassurance that he has shelter somewhere. We feed him whenever he drops by, usually daily, and he accepts the food eagerly, always at a safe distance, and he methodically watches his perimeter while he eats.

I'm hoping that in the spring and summer, when we're outside more, he might get more accustomed to our presence. I'm hoping that we can introduce him to the shop, so he'll have a warmer, safer shelter than whatever he might be using now.

His ear is clipped, indicating that he's been neutered. I gave him some flea medicine in his food a few weeks back, and I'll do that again when we re-enter flea season. We keep a bowl of water on our deck for him, and swap the frozen bowl for a warm bowl each morning.

Bliss and Serena wonder about Sadhu

Our indoor cats are fascinated by him and are growing accustomed to his presence outside their windows; they no longer growl and hiss. He seems indifferent to them. I wonder about their conversations together. What information do they exchange?

The thought of trapping him and taking him to the shelter seems cruel. Switching his freedom and immersion in nature for warmth, steady food, and water, but abject boredom and inescapable fear, seems unjustified and self-serving. We do all that we can for him, and still I worry about him. Has he ever purred? Has he ever been pet? Has he ever felt safe?

What karma abandoned him here? What karma led him to our deck? What karma led me to this sore-hearted yearning to protect, help, and nurture every animal that wanders into my world? We never understand the deep complexities of karma. Our only job is to do the best we can, given who we are and the circumstances in which we find ourselves. Our only other job is to find peace in that.

Sometimes that's easy; sometimes it's hard. But we do what we can, whenever we can. We are not the only agents of the divine. Others help; others learn; others work with their karma. We all do the best we can. It's what we do. And we find peace.