Author: Alex Fletcher (Page 2 of 3)

Well, forgive my lapse, but I’m back.

Things I’ve heard from locals: (during the Caldor and Mosquito Fires, 2021-2022: “this is the worst fire season I’ve ever lived through, and I’ve lived here 30 years!” In the garden: “We’ve never seen a gopher infestation like this! It’s terrible!” And now, in 2023: “There hasn’t been rain like this, ever. We need it, but this is ridiculous.” So I guess I arrived in time for some record-breaking nature events.

I’m hoping things will calm down; I’m hoping for a few boring years. But with the unraveling of social civility, public trust in government, and extreme weather brought on by climate changes…these hopes are likely naive.

My sister and I argued a little last night because the perfectly legitimate fears she holds about the future evoke a kind of helpless anxiety right in my solar plexus, and all the hope and happiness I feel about scientific breakthroughs in fungus research (for example), and public conversations we are having about genocide, slavery, misogyny, xenophobia — as painful as they are — I cling to them as a promise of better days. 

But a sucking fear creeps into my body, and before I’m even conscious about what is happening — well, I become a rude sister; I need to apologize today.

To be sure, there are things to worry about that are close-up and personal, worries that are local. Recently when Maddy was up for a visit and was filling up her truck, an unseen guy at the opposite pump (bemoaning gas prices, evidently) said, “If I ever meet anyone who voted for Biden, I’m going to slit their throat!” A mountain lion (who lost habitat in the Caldor Fire) killed two of my neighbor’s goats last year, right on our peaceful road. And plenty of folks here will vote for Trump in 2024 if they can, and even seem to think that, secretly, he still IS the president.

The great big nightmares of our time are loud and insistent; many have dogged us forever; some nightmares are getting worse — police violence against Black people and random mass shootings spring to mind.  Countless children die before they learn to bounce a ball; resource pressures are closing in on 8 billion of us. Illiterate children growing up now face stunted futures, millions in our own country… frankly, the nightmares are overwhelming.  

These nightmares situate the sucking fear lodged in my solar plexus into a broader context, and I realize (again, again, again) that my suffering is a piece of global suffering.  The pressure I feel in my human body is a pressure that blankets the world, a nightmare that stretches back into time, farther than recorded language. 

All of this sends me to the cushion. I’ve renewed a lifelong meditation practice that brings me into silence several times a day, where I face my life, its flow, its purpose and meaning. I am grateful to have the time and inclination to stop and look closely. I’ve been able to slow down, swim past all of those internal voices that ask, “shouldn’t you be doing something else…you know, something actually real?” and when I was a mother, a teacher, a communications worker, an activist, an adult student — a fast-moving woman fulfilling multiple roles — the answer was always, Yes. Yes, get up. There are 100 things to do. You can sit later.

Well, it is later; I don’t recommend that anyone wait until they retire for this inner work, (a little can go a long way; we can find vast silent spaces to inform us, in 15-second increments; Buddhists call this “small glimpses, many times a day). 

Eternity is not sitting out there on a timeline somewhere. It’s now. It is always right here, present and shimmering.

Living on a country road helps. Retirement helps. My advanced age helps.

When I sit down to practice open awareness, or to engage in somatic practices that lead me into my own wise body, practices that show me who I actually am (nobody), and what I am (star stuff), and experience, quite literally, Whitman’s words, that every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you…it’s a little miracle, right out here on a country road.

Surrounded by these loving trees, and the clamoring fungi, (who thrive, who have thrived on this planet long, long before we arrived on the scene with our big fat brains and a tragic tendency toward amnesia), I am called back to simple, open awareness.

We constantly forget who we are, but silence, and the natural world can call us back. And from that silent space, I stand in my time, in this beautiful, suffering world. 

The Sierra Nevada foothills are gorgeous green in the spring, and wildflowers are bursting out everywhere. Here on the Las Flechas property, I’ve been able to find (besides the aforementioned Henbit Deadnettle), Baby Blue Eyes, Fivespot, Western Buttercup, Miniature Lupine, Redstem Storkbill, Hairy Vetch, Desert Rockpurslane, Spring Madia, Yarrow, Common Daisy, Garden Sorrel, and the unfortunately named Blue Dick, which despite its stupid name, is quite beautiful, with a tall, elegant stem and three or four purple-blue blossoms clustered together at the top.

My friend Michele learned that the Miwok Indians, who have lived on this land for thousands of years, call the plant Oocow. I prefer that. I planted California Poppies, but have not seen them sprout yet, though they are blooming everywhere along the roadside. I’ve scattered thousands of wildflower seeds, and am waiting to see them take hold and flourish. The native varieties are dominant of course, and Hairy Vetch is downright aggressive, taking over flower beds and covering over anything in its path. Beautiful though.

Rattlesnake Aversion Training

Our beloved dog Pete dives headfirst into every bush or gopher hole he sees, so in addition to the recommended series of rattlesnake vaccines — which buy us time in the case of a bite — I got a guy to come out with a bucket of poisonous snakes.

This guy shows up in a Members Only jacket and flip flops, and a Prius full of rattlesnakes. Not at all what I was expecting. The whole process was both terrifying and fascinating. Even with the snake’s mouth taped shut, it’s unnerving to see rattlesnakes hanging around on the property. These fuckers are hard to see, and I pray we never encounter one. But they are native here, and although they say that at our altitude of 2100 feet it is less likely that we will see a rattler, it’s certainly not impossible, so we opted for training, which involved a snakeskin to smell, several live snakes, and an electric shock collar.

Pete moved in to check out this fat bastard below, and the trainer deployed the shock. He told me that Pete didn’t require much juice; he’s worked with chihuahuas who required the full monty. After a series of such exercises, the trainer positioned the snake between Pete and me, and told me to call Pete. Pete took a W-I-D-E path around the snake to come and sit on my foot. Then he went to hide in the juniper bush until the mean man with the 80’s jacket and the shocky collar packed up his snakes in a bucket, tossed them into the back of his Prius, and went home.

Let’s pray Pete remembers.

The garden is in

Vince built the fence twice as tall as last year, so hopefully this year the deer won’t jump into my garden in the middle of the night to chow down on the fruits and vegetables that have take months to cultivate and nurse along to maturity.

For detailed gardening news, check out my new link, “Garden Journal.” It’s a work in progress.

The Mantle

Have I told you about the mantle?

When I bought this place, the living room was two colors. blue and tan; the grout between the fireplace rock was dark grey, and the mantle was made of the same crown molding that ran around the perimeter of the room at a variety of heights.

Well, my woodworking daughter Maddy, and my woodworking neighbor Karen, collaborated on choosing a log from a collection Karen had built after clearing some land for her garden; they took a half-log, cut and milled it, and began to prepare it to become the mantle. It’s a live-edge beam, mounted to a dovetail box that Maddy built with her uncanny attention to detail; then the unfinished mantle piece sat in Karen’s shop, waiting for another span of time when Maddy could come up and finish it.

The time is now! It is June 2022, and the mantle is in our fledgling workshop.

I wish you could see the front — it’s irregular and beautiful, just like a tree — and in an upcoming post, you will see it installed in its spot above the wood burning stove. That mantle, made by my daughter with help from my friend, and made from a tree that lived on her property, will now be seated in a place of honor in my home, into perpetuity.

Peace and goodwill.

How to Retire Happily: start multiple projects that you have no real expertise in, and learn on the go. And naps. Take plenty of naps. I live Siesta Culture.

Spring is busting out everywhere here, and I lost a night’s sleep and an entire day to allergy suffering. I went through two boxes of tissue yesterday, and sneezed so often and so hard that today, my back hurts. Vicki watches the local news, and she tells me it’s time to put the mask back on, and to shut the windows and doors. But I can’t do that. Spring is so seductive; I cannot resist, plus there’s lots of work to do outside. I went around the property recently, taking photos of all the wildflowers popping up — I have enrolled in a botanical drawing class, and I’m aiming to document what grows native here. This is one of the first things Maddy recommended that I do, and I remember looking at her at the time, thinking, “WTF? How am I going to do that?” Turns out that she’s smarter than I am. And really, how can you live in a place and not know what is growing under your feet?

I have lots to do today, so I’m going to keep this short, dear Reader. I just wanted you to know that you live in my imagination, and I am thinking of you.

This weekend, I hope to burn a pile of branches and plant detritus from winter, and paint the bee hives. Vince put the electric fence up to deter bears (more on this later!); Maddy built the hive stand and built the bee boxes; her dad assembled the frames. It’s getting close to the time to pick up the bees!

What an adventure! We’re definitely living country now: no water sometimes, no power sometimes, and fires? Yes, every so often. But it’s fun, right? Right Vicki?

Dear Reader:

We’re all hoping for a little more rain around here this winter. It rained four days in February last year, and three days in March, but we haven’t seen one drop since January. It’s pretty warm already, and the earth is starting to firm up. This patch of earth is covered in wildflowers in spring; the first flower is out already, and I’m scattering more seeds now. Dear friend Gregorio Taniguchi sent our farmstead a half-pound of Mountain Meadow and Butterfly wildflower mix, enough to cover the big wild field to the south. I’m weak in math, so I’m not exactly sure, but a half-pound is A LOT of seeds. While I’m pretty sure we won’t see another freezing night, a good rain would sure help establish these wildflower babies before we mow them all down in late spring.

Speaking of the big wild field to the south, there’s a pair of mating geese who have taken up residence there. Actually, the geese are probably thinking, “who is this lady who thinks this is her field? We’ve lived here for years.” My neighbor named them “Harold and Marge,” which seems like a strange mash-up of the 1971 rom-com Harold and Maude starring Bud Cort and Ruth Gordon, and The Simpsons. And my dad. My dad is a Harold too. Anyway, I need a real camera with a zoom lens so I can get a good photo of them for you. They’re quite elegant, and loud, and they are owning that field. (If you’re reading this on February 11, you can catch a blurry pic of them on the @las.flechas.farmstead Instagram story.)

It’s February, and suddenly so busy. This morning, I incorporated a load of Sasha-the-Beautiful pony poop (pure garden gold) into my garden compost, and as I was using my shovel, rake, and pitchfork, I realized I had better ease into garden season the same way I used to ease back into the gym. I climb up and down stairs, walk around this hilly property, walk up and down the road with Pete, and continue my gentle yoga practice — but my body is not in “garden-shape” right now, and I can feel it. I’ve got to start easy, or risk injury.

(PS: I also had to use my stern voice with Pete — he is obsessed with eating Sasha’s poop. That’s how good it is.)

Speaking of injury…it was right about this time last year that Pete broke his toe. His puppy convalescence slowed the whole garden process down, so I am very conscious of the risks as I negotiate all of the lumpy bumpy parts of the property, avoid the gopher holes, and the holes Pete digs trying to catch those gophers.

We have a new Meyer Lemon tree in a pot in the sunroom. It’s a beauty, fragrant and unfolding from its USPS packaging, opening up to the light.

Let me tell you the main things that are in the works this weekend: finish scattering wildflower seeds; start more vegetable seedlings in the sunroom; speed-read Beekeeping for Dummies and attend Beekeeping for Beginners class with the El Dorado Beekeepers; finish machine quilting the MHS tshirt quilt, and bind; learn to use my Speedweve darning loom; work on this website (adding two poems after this); and, I want to keep my Wordle winning streak going!

Finally, let me leave you with a little information about Henbit Deadnettle, the pretty purple flower and delightful edible herb with medicinal properties, popping up everywhere around here. Here’s a brief blurb from the linked website:

Henbit leaves are especially versatile. You can eat them raw, cook them as a potherb, or boil them to make herbal tea. Younger leaves taste especially delicious in salads while older ones taste better cooked as a potherb. The flavor of henbit leaves compliment egg and pasta dishes really well. Other ingredients that will taste amazing with this edible include spinach, soft cheeses, mushrooms, nuts, poultry, pork, and wild game meats.

Eattheplanet.org

Currently reading:

• How Proust Can Save Your Life, Alain de Botton (Audible)
• Dreyer’s English, Benjamin Dreyer (Audible)
• Circe, Madeline Miller (Audible)
• Prayers for the Stolen, Jennifer Clement
• Beekeeping for Dummies, Howard Blackiston
• Last Night at the Telegraph Club, Malinda Lo

Little by little, I’m settling in here. I have friends. I have a doctor. I have a dentist. My doctor is a little scary — she dresses to the nines, does not care to exchange pleasantries, and poses questions the way a lawyer would if the patient were on the witness stand. On the other hand, I feel like given half the chance, my dentist would have hugged me. She is a warm, lovely person. Every patient chair in the dental practice faces a big window, and outside every window is big bird feeder (that one of their patients built for them), and as you’re having teeth cleaned and examined, or getting xrays, you can watch cute little birds during breaks in the action. Love my new dentist, her friendly staff, and those bird feeders.

This is the time of year in El Dorado and Amador counties where the world greens up. (El Dorado County has an Instagram tourism account @visiteldorado, and Amador County has accounts for wineries, a craft distillery, gardens, and makers like @madeinamador.) If you look at the El Dorado account, you can see that every hill is turning green; my own space is getting green, and even the rocky dirt path that bisects the property is filled up with little green growing things. Miner’s Lettuce and baby lupines are popping up everywhere, and in a few months the whole world will be covered with flowers. I’ll be sowing more wildflower seeds this weekend, preparing for our future bees. My head is full of plans — too full, maybe. Though the trees remain winter-bare, the landscape is slowly waking up, I have to remind myself to slow down, that it is still morning-frost-on-the-ground winter. It’s winter, dammit. Spring is weeks away.

Good lord, it’s only January.

Update: good news

I met this lovely couple at Lowe’s this week while we were waiting for a nice lady buying some doors to finish her business with the door guy. It turned out that they live close by; in fact, we know some of the same neighbors. They have lived here since the 1970s. When I confessed my weak garden season in 2021, they groaned and said that last season was the WORST they’d seen in years and years.

So while it was probably the best garden I’ve ever put together, we did struggle (we=the plants and me). It was an extra dry year, with threat of the nearby Caldor fire in the air for weeks and weeks. The 6-foot fences around 3 acres of the property did not really deter the deer when they got good and hungry in late summer. I experienced the heartbreak of nurturing a little squash seed into maturity, watching it bask in the sun, just to have some sneaky deer wait until sundown to hop the fence and bite it clean down to the base.

So what am I going to do differently this year?

Seed Starting: I started late last year because — oh, yes, remember this? — my new puppy Pete broke a toe and was in a cast for eight long weeks, right in the sweet, busy part of spring — (long story — I’ll eventually tell it on the First Year in Review page).

This year, we’re starting seeds NOW — lettuces are starting in the sunroom, and I’m going through the current seed supply and ordering new.

I’m replacing the 4-foot fence around the garden with a 6-foot fence. I have enough 6-foot t-posts laying around to do this without much expense.

To extend the growing season and deter deer, I’m getting ready to install a small (14×20) hoop house from Karmen Garden and Landscaping in Grass Valley. So excited!

Finally, this is Year Two, and it’s always been my plan to start keeping bees in the second year of retirement. So…I’m a member of El Dorado Beekeepers, and enrolled in a beginner beekeepers class this February and April. I’m looking forward to starting with 1-2 hives this year, growing into beekeeping slowly and keeping it modest.

I’m retired. I don’t want any of this to ever feel like work. And so far, it doesn’t (except when things fail or break, which has been often).

Mostly, it’s intellectually engrossing with so much to learn all of the time, and there is always, always something that needs to be done outside. Gotta go.

All I had to do was change my WordPress theme, and suddenly the backside of WordPress is making some kind of sense. Don’t get me wrong: I’m still floundering. But I’m able to post, add pages, and I’m working on adding/configuring Widgets.

Dear Reader:

Vicki is driving in to Jackson to visit the dentist today, and do the grocery shopping at Safeway, so Pete and I will stay home to baby-sit little Otto. Super easy. He settles down in his crate to hang out once his initial freakout is over. He just needs kind words and a little cuddle now and then, like everybody else.

Pete and I were at Mazda of Elk Grove ALL DAY yesterday getting a 40,000 mile service. The whole thing took longer and cost more than I anticipated; we needed stuff that cars typically need after time and wear: new battery, new tires, clean brake fluid, etc. The Mazda is a solid car, but one day, I should get a truck…I need one sometimes. Too infrequently to rush into it. I looked at trucks yesterday as Pete and I walked the perimeter of the automall (three times) to pass the time. And we learned that trucks are hella expensive.

All that sidewalk walkin’ got to my shins and hips, so I’m taking it easy today.

Taking it easy means mostly inside work:

• I’ll go outside a few times to throw the ball for Pete, and tend to the chickens.
• More work in the sunroom today, getting that room ready for this year’s seed-starting operation…my friend, Karen is already into it, with new seeds well underway, but the Farmers Alamanac assures me that I am on track.
• I have three different quilt projects that need my attention.
• I’m in the middle of making Sister Pie’s Apple Cheddar Rye Hand Pie — made the crust on Sunday, so it’s ready to roll out and fill today. I might post the pie project on Instagram later, after I’ve completed and documented all of the steps.
• I want to play with my watercolor paints later, part of the Happy Birthday Project 2022.
• When I am sick to death of sitting, I’ll fill a tarp of the leaves that Vicki raked into piles yesterday, and drag them down to a burn pile.

Have a good day, Reader.

I have lots to tell you, so many plans to write this blog properly, but right now I can’t seem to get to it. Busy every day. Please check back. I’m dedicated to this project, but I’m behind…bookmark my site, and check back soon!