Criticism

“The only way to speak the truth is to speak lovingly"~~ Henry David Thoreau


I have a 14 year old daughter who loudly, strongly, and frequently speaks her mind. She criticises everything I do. I have to remind myself that I am an adult and I can take it. I also have to remind myself that she is not an adult. How often are our interactions with teens of a critical nature? It is so easy to point out all the mistake and things that need to be done or things that are done incorrectly. All our emotions are contagious. Speak with love in the hopes that one day that love will be reciprocated.

Geese and Planting

"The wild goose is more of a cosmopolite than we; he breaks his fast in Canada, takes a luncheon in the Ohio, and plumes himself for the night in a southern bayou"~~ Henry David Thoreau from Walden

There is a major goose migration pattern over our house. We can sit in our sun room and watch the giant V's shift through the sky like a compass guiding us to Spring. The Geese head north from the Great Salt Lake with their honks a song calling all us gardeners to gather our tools. A couple of sunny days and the dirt in our raised beds is dry enough to dig all the leaves I placed on top into the soil. We added our ashes from the wood burning stove to the carrot box. We'll see how that works. I plant lettuce and spinach in the box with the garlic sets from the fall, and will plant peppers here in late May as the bed thins out. Another box I plant full of peas and will plant a second crop of lettuce and spinach here in August. The fourth box will be full of onions; we didn't plant enough last year. Greg builds two more boxes for tomatoes and potatoes. He also makes an additional garden bed with rocks hauled in from surrounding farmer's fields. This will be a flower/squash bed flowing from our green roof. Working in the sun, turning our dirt into gardens, makes me so happy. It is a process slow by the limit of time and energy to labor and money. It is a process that builds gradually with the imagination and gives me something to think about and look forward to during the darkness and cold of winter.

Love

“There is no remedy for love but to love more.”~~ Henry David Thoreau

Love-- the most basic and eternal human quest. We seek in in many forms: romantic, platonic, occupational, and internal.

Nowhere do you see this more than with teenagers. As a mother of teens and a High School Educator I witness how it is the daily focus that motivates and emotivates.

The very intelligent boy or girl who acts like an idiot over a girl or boy.
The seeking out of friendships and belonging.
The need to find a niche, the place where success can be achieved.
The development of a positive self image, respect, and confidence.

All these forms of love create our world. What we discover as teens will carry on into our adult life. We teach math, English, history, and science in concrete standardized ways. We demonstrate love with our actions and relationships with others and the environment we work in. A little bit of love and empathy can make a huge difference with our human interactions. We all need to find continual fulfillment in all four areas of love, that is why it is an eternal quest and why giving out more love is often the remedy to achieving our own love needs.

Finally Winter

"Why do you flee so soon, sir, to the theaters, lecture-rooms, and museums of the city? If you will stay here awhile I will promise you strange sights. You shall walk on water; all these brooks and rivers and ponds shall be your highway. You shall see the whole earth covered a foot or more deep with purest white crystals . . . and all the trees and stubble glittering in icy armor." ~~Henry David Thoreau

It finally snows, the irony of a snow-less winter after purchasing a snowplow. I am glad for the color that snow adds to a landscape of gloominess that seemed bleached of all vitality. For snow holds within that whiteness the rainbow of all color. It makes the sky bluer and the browns stronger. Winter is not winter without snow. We have had suffocating haze and rain that freezes at night into sheets of ice covering all the fields around us so we seem to float, our house, on a little island in a sea of ice.

Our Corolla dies, a sad death on the highway into town. Transportation is where all our money goes. You pay for those miles in more than gasoline. It makes me think about urban sprawl and suburbs, about how there use to be small independent cities. We found out we are living on land that use to be a town called Square Town. Greg has been spending time researching this town that no longer exists and by the strangest of serendipity found that his great-great-great Grandpa Abbot settled in Square Town. Talk about unknowingly returning to your roots! He can't find much information and nothing about why the town disappeared. We need to break out of our introversion and talk to the old locals before they die and take all that knowledge with them.

Solitude

I have a great deal of company in the house, especially in the morning when nobody calls. ~~Henry David Thoreau
I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. ~~Henry David Thoreau, "Solitude," Walden, 1854

If you are going to live out in the middle of nowhere you must be an introvert who is good at planning ahead. You forget one item in the recipe you planned for dinner, it is not easy to run to the store. You get lonely without the sound of humans or people passing by, you are out of luck.

We have one neighbor in a two mile radius. They were worried when we started to build. In the last year I took them a treat at Christmas and waved a couple of times. They think we are the best imaginable neighbors and we think the same in return. If they ever needed help we would never hesitate, and I know they would do the same for us. Beyond that, I don't want a neighbor for anything else.

I go to town to socialize; I go home to recharge. Home to me is a sanctuary where only the invited should tread. It is the place where I am safe from judgement or expectations where I can do and be without the worry of "what would the neighbors think". A place were I can escape from comparisons and mistakes.

We all must find the balance of social and solitude that creates a positive well being for our individual soul. Each and every person is different, but I believe we all need moments of quiet and reflection. That we all need to find companionship with ourselves.

Gratitude

"As a single footstep will not make a path on the earth, so a single thought will not make a pathway in the mind. To make a deep physical path, we walk again and again. To make a deep mental path, we must think over and over the kind of thoughts we wish to dominate our lives." ~~ Henry David Thoreau

I have been thinking a lot about gratitude and happiness and it seems to me that they go hand-in-hand. Those who are most happy are those with the most gratitude. There are studies that show the process of controlled thought changes the synapses of the brain.... that thinking happy thoughts continuously builds deep pathways where the feel good hormones flow. This is the scientific evidence for the power of meditation or prayer or the simple practice of turning every self-pitying thought around to a thought of gratitude. I am working on teaching my children this idea with varying degrees of success.... at 13 especially, the world can seem to be out to get you personally. I will keep trying, for it has taken me decades to truly believe this and still I am not always successful. For the moment I am grateful for a roof over my head and food on my table. For the beautiful views out my windows, the fruits from my gardens, and the silence at night. I am grateful for family, for children who are full of hope and kindness, and for a husband who loves and helps me. I am grateful for a job that most days I love and feel like I am making a difference. I am grateful for the sun, flowers, thoughtful words, books, art, and music all these warm and brighten me. I am grateful for health and peace within myself and all my loved ones. I am grateful for each new day when the sun rises and I again have a chance to do better than I did yesterday, to have another day of gratitude.

October

"October is the month for painted leaves. Their rich glow now flashes round the world.

We love to see any redness in the vegetation of the temperate zone. It is the color of colors. This plant speaks to our blood. It asks a bright sun on it to make it show to best advantage, and it must be seen at this season of the year"" ~~Henry David Thoreau

It has been a perfect October with just the right portion of rain and sun. The one makes you appreciate the other. October to me is associated with home. After a long summer of being outdoors, you begin to spend more time inside. You process your harvest and engulf your house with smells of baking. The earlier darkness brings everyone together, in a cozy bond of communication.

Harvest

“The true harvest of my life is intangible - a little star dust caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched” ~~Henry David Thoreau
















It is harvest time, the tangible reward for all the many reasons I love gardening. We have more tomatoes than I have ever grown before and make and bottle enough salsa and tomatoes to use for stew and chili to last all the non-ripe-off-the-vine months of the year.

I never feel so alive as when I am in the process of a harvest. I do not know if it is some sort of deep down DNA survival trait from all the farmer ancestors and ancient humans who would not survive without the drive for finding and preserving food or because I have such fond memories of gardening and preserving food with my parents.

My father is the gardener to set your match to. He always has the first ripe tomato, the tallest corn, and the most abundant beans. He keeps records like a scientist and is always trying new varieties and different ideas for the best crop. As a teacher gardener he was at his best--- the most patient, the most kind, the most happy. Some of my fondest childhood memories are of planting the garden with my dad, watching the first green shoots appear, and excitedly eating the first ripe food. The stress relieving process of digging in the dirt and killing a few weeds after a day at a desk having to fill all the forms of government red tape and to be polite to people who don't necessarily deserve polite-- is both of our way to relax after a work day. I have taken what my dad taught me and made it my own. My garden might be on the wild side, not as tall or abundant, but that same love of earth is there. Greg also adds the artistic to our garden. There is always some visual point of interest... Curves and flowers, stone and wood, all make our edible landscape more than just a harvesting ground bare in the winter season of the year.

Preserving the produce of my dad's garden was my mom's domain. It was my marker to adulthood. To work side by side.... my one tomato to her five, gradually year by year closing the gap. It is time to talk, to think, to hear stories of her youth, to be together in a positive and productive activity. I am so thankful to have a daughter who loves this process. At 13 she can already match my ability with a paring knife, in ways she has already surpassed me. She has an intuitive precision and artisticness to her food preparation that I will never have.

It is a beautiful thing to watch both my children run out to the garden and pick a bunch of produce to bring into the kitchen and prepare for dinner. Both have developed a love of fresh fruits and vegetables and find creative and delicious ways to present them.

I hope they will take what we have taught them and make their own unique harvest.

August

"Sometimes, in a summer morning, having taken my accustomed bath, I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise til noon, rapt in revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs, in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sang around or flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in my west window, or the noise of some traveller's wagon on the distant highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons like corn in the night, and they were far better than the work of the hands would have been. They were not time subtracted from my life, but so much over and above my usual allowance. I realized what the Orientals mean by contemplation and the forsaking of works."

~~ Henry David Thoreau

Summer passes quickly. Greg works on finishing the rock on the South Wall. I water and weed and mark my garden's growth.... finding contemplation in work during the early and evening hours. Soaking in the heat, enjoying the cool breeze, watching the storms that have performed for us more often this year.

Nine Mile Canyon

“We can never have enough of nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and titanic features, the sea-coast with its wrecks, the wilderness with its living and its decaying trees, the thunder-cloud, and the rain.” ~~ Henry David Thoreau





I go as a chaperon with 9 InTech students and my daughter to a week long archeology camp in Nine Mile Canyon. We have flat tires, rain, and flooding campgrounds. The students are always cheerful, ready to learn, to help cook and clean up, and to have fun. Anyone who complains about teens these days needs to spend more time with this age group. The teens I know are intelligent, caring, fun, and thoughtful. They care about the earth and all the inhabitants and think beyond the realm of their everyday.

Summer Defined

"I have a room all to myself; it is nature." ~~Henry David Thoreau




Summer is the cool mornings when all is clear and fresh with endless possibilities... when my flowers wake thirsty for water and sunshine. The hot sluggish afternoons when all of nature takes a nap with the sleep inducing air saturated with the scents of roses, hay, and tomatoes. The evenings, when the the world has another burst of energy and the weeds call out to be picked and the sky demonstrates to catch my attention, the time for bike rides, Frisbee, and badminton. The time when the outdoors are more embracing than the indoors.... when only mosquitoes manage to drive me inside to sleep and prepare for another day.

One Year

"Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never saddening, reminiscences of our sanest hours. The voice of nature is always encouraging."


~~Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862)

We have lived the life of Walden with Wife and kids for one year. It has been a great year. Each one of us is happier and more content. Living in a peaceful, spacious, beautiful atmosphere creates a reflection that has parallel effects on the inner well-being.

There are still many finishing touches to complete on the inside of the house. Stone veneer, patios, and the always increasing of landscaping on the outside of the house. Just as our minds and souls should always be a work-in-progress, so is our home. Now we begin a year-a-new, with all the waiting journeys of growth and joy.

Mentors

"I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by conscious endeavor."

~~ Henry David Thoreau


For the past couple of months I have seen many examples of the importance of having a mentor and in return being a mentor. Except in the upper levels of academia, our society has lost its structure of mentorship. Lucky students have parents to guide them in an overly complex world of entering into adulthood. Even better are students who have close grandparents, a teacher, community member, church member, or older friend to advise and walk them through the steps. Without someone to support, cajole, sometimes push it can be hard to find the motivation to continue on a difficult path. Without someone to interpret, explain, advise on approaching obstacles and ways around them I don't know how a student could find success. We all need someone to believe in us. We all need someone to kindly show us an easier way. We all need someone to walk beside us on our journey. And we all need to remember to continue to be both a student and a teacher.

20,000 miles

"We need only travel
enough to give our
intellects an airing." ~~ Henry David Thoreau

The one bad thing about living in the country is the number of miles it takes to get anywhere. A few years ago, I maybe drove 2,000 miles a year. Living in a city let me bike and walk to work. Now that just isn't possible. I try to be conservative with my miles, the price of gas and wear-and-tear on the vehicle and environment. So it is amazing to me that in less than a year I have put this many miles on my car (though 3500 of them were on a road trip to Indiana to visit my sister and her adorable family). Luckily, I love my RAV4 and have a beautiful, not too congested, commute. This time of year it is particularly stunning. The contrast of the blue sky, white mountains, and green fields. Fields full of hundreds of goslings, dozens of Ibis and Snowy Egrets, and a few Pelican, Herons, and Cranes. We also get the migrating flocks of bluebirds and Oriels to add flitting color. With the surroundings the drive is either a meditative exercise or a chance to converse with my kids and both, to me, justify the time and expense.

Flowers

If the day and night are such that you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal, ... That is your success.~~ Henry David Thoreau



Flowers are my weakness. Living on a limited budget I have learned to pass by that beautiful pair of shoes and perfect outfit, learned to love to eat simple home cooked meals more than restaurant ones, learned to enjoy cuddling in front of a rented DVD instead of watching movies at the theater, but I haven't mastered the ability to pass by on flowers. My thousands of spring bulbs planted over 15 years is what I nostalgically miss about our now gone house. It will take time to get our current and larger yard to the point of floral beauty I imagine. Flowers are a tangible symbol of joy harboring visual, textural, and aromatic links as well as representative philosophical ones. Spring bulbs are especially symbolic to me. There are times when I feel so unappreciated in my roles of mother, wife, and educator. Times when I feel that I am failing in these roles. Times when I think I made poor decisions about life choices. Then I think of my favorite flower the daffodil. Planted in the fall there is no immediate gratification for the work done. Long cold dark months pass. Months long enough to forget all the places the bulbs were buried. And though a constant and predictable cycle from dormancy to full bloom, they surprise with their arrival of green emerging from the frozen ground, to stretch and reach and arrive with their full brilliance. Once properly planted they can take a lot of neglect and with just a little tendering of water and nutrient they increase their blooms with each passing year resulting in years of anticipated joy. Flowers are a simple joy. My life decisions bring me many simple joys. I am grateful for the abundance of love and happiness that blooms in my life and in this I am successful.

Garden

Gardening is civil and social, but it wants the vigor and freedom of the forest and the outlaw.~~ Henry David Thoreau



In the wilds a garden is more of a battle as your orderly plants want to break free to the chaos of nature. Poor soil, water pumped fresh from the earth, and weed seeds blown in from all around make raised beds the only method of gardening for us, who want to grow organically. In between rain bursts we build these redwood raised beds. This is as far as our $500 budget got us; eventually I would like three times as many. For now, I will be satisfied with a salsa garden. The process of growing and harvesting fresh fruits and vegetables makes me feel like I am truly living. Connection to the earth or the basic survival instinct built into humans, whatever it is the dirt, water, and sun is a magic that makes my heart soar.

Spring

The first sparrow of spring! The year beginning with younger hope than ever! The faint silvery warblings heard over the partially bare and moist fields from the bluebird, the song sparrow, and the red-wing, as if the last flakes of winter tinkled as they fell!~~Henry David Thoreau

Three quarters of a year we have lived the life of Walden with Wife and Kids. We have fallen into a rhythm of chores where they are no longer difficult. We have weathered the harshest weather without damage. We have enjoyed the leisure that bad weather provides maybe a little too much. The inside of the house is not yet finished, and I did expect it to be. I guess it is just a little later than expected like the heralds of spring this year. The crocuses are barely blooming and the geese are just beginning to nest. They are an enjoyable part of the commute, watching them nest and raise their goslings. March is the bird month. Every evening this month, around 9-10 pm, a little later as it gets lighter, we have a chorus of owls. We have at least a few different owls, some small and some large. On one of our walks through the hillside we explored a ravine that seems unusual in the landscape and scared up a parliament (a few dozen) of owls burrowed in the earthen banks of the ravine. It was something unexpected and delightful. This month we have also had the addition of a number of Red Tailed hawks to our yearly companion of the Swainson's hawk. They are busy catching the emerging mice. Our cat, who I feared too pampered to be useful, has also started catching mice. She somehow ingrained herself into the hearts of the household and ended up with the softest warmest seat all winter. I had to be the mean one to put her out each day. Now, luckily, she prefers to spend her time out of doors. She will mew at the window by the door when she wants to go out. And proudly hunts and frolics. Though the first day of spring brought us drizzly snow, I see the signs that sun and green are right around the corner.

Snow

"We sleep, and at length awake to the still reality of a winter morning. The snow lies warm as cotton or down upon the window-sill; the broadened sash and frosted panes admit a dim and private light, which enhances the snug cheer within. The stillness of the morning is impressive... From the eaves and fences hang stalactites of snow, and in the yard stand stalagmites covering some concealed core. The trees and shrubs rear white arms to the sky on every side; and where were walls and fences we see fantastic forms stretching in the frolic gambols across the dusky landscape, as if nature had strewn her fresh designs over the fields by night as models for man's art." ~~Henry David Thoreau



After a tease of spring, with melted snow and 50 degree sun, winter has announced himself king with a vengeance.

We have been lucky and our two snowed-in days this winter have been on days off with no destination or obligation. Until we have money to buy a tractor, we are shoveling this drive by hand. It is great exercise. The two miles of dirt road are almost always plowed. I have only driven once through the clean drifted white as if sailing on an albino sea.

Setting our 16 year old licensed driver upon these roads is a test of parenthood and my overprotective nature. For the past eight months he has driven these roads at least twice a week, once with the mother and once with the father, absorbing or tolerating our varied advice and driving styles. I know he is a careful and observant driver. I also know that once that passenger seat is empty he will turn up his music, drive a little faster, and take the snowy corners a little sharper... just because he can. Even though he is aware of impaired drivers and animals that emerge from nowhere, I worry about all these unknowns... the fog of nature and the fog of the mind... but know that he has to gain these experiences sometime. We give him an old but dependable car. One that doesn't matter if it takes the few expected dents of experience. He tells us his destination, calls before he starts the return drive, has a cell phone and various family and friends he can call upon if stuck. I want him to have these experiences while we are still right here, if need be, to pull him out. And that is my theory of parenthood.

Adventuring Spirit

We should come home from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day with new experience and character.
Henry David Thoreau


Years ago I watched the movie "Into the Wild" and quickly dismissed reading the book thinking Christopher McCandless to be crazy. I only read the book by Jon Krakauer after much convincing of a friend (is this book recommended because I am seen as crazy?). The book is more than the story of one man lost in his adventure, it is a story anaylizing the adventuring spirit. The thing that made Chrisopher McCandless seem crazy is that his adventure ended in death, while sometimes those that live after an adventure are deemed as heroes. And these stories are important because they make us think and remind us about what is important.

Life today is so easy. Yet we must have adventuring programmed into our DNA. Years past we needed to have a desire for adventure in order to survive. Life was an adventure. The need for food and shelter, for finding and protecting a family all involved adventure. Today we call dominoes and find mates at match.com. Yet we still have the desire for adventure. Adventuring today is found in sports, in entrepreneurship, and in travel... are not people who climb the tallest mountains, risk financial ruin, or travel to remote and dangerous locals crazy? Or are the crazy ones those we find adventuring in darker places such as crime and drugs.

What struck me most in this book is when Kraukauer talked about how youth think they have a God given right to accomplish whatever it is they want to accomplish. I see this every day with the teens I work with. Every teen is invincible, every teen has the world at their feet. They do not see the perils, they do not see the consequences, they do not imagine the pain they might cause others, they do not doubt for a moment that they will not come home from their adventure. Let us all have adventures, but let them be adventures that build character, that let us become our own heroes.

Winter

A truly good book teaches me better than to read it. I must soon lay it down, and commence living on its hint. What I began by reading, I must finish by acting. ~~Henry David Thoreau




(The South Western View from our Dinning Room)








January has always been my least favorite month of the year, but this year it is feeling all magical. The solar system has well exceeded my expectations. We are working out the kinks and developing a rhythm of work and play. The house is the perfect size. Room to move and create our own worlds, yet connected enough that we all end up together. Box Elder County doesn't have the depressing inversions of Cache County. We have sun streaming through our windows chasing off the fog of night. Gradually, the light lasts a little longer each day. The world is a glittery sparkle of white with the frame of pink and yellow hues of clouds and mountains in the distance. The drive, now at the awakening of morning, is so glorious. I feel like I travel in the landscape of Emily Dickinson's poetry.

I have time to walk in that cold cold coldness when you feel the ice forming on your lungs and all the sorrows melting with your movement of warmth. Then I return to sit by a fire, drink a hot beverage, embrace my beloved, and read books of all variety. We are all avid readers of various genres. My kids love to share their favorites with me. It gives us conversation and a chance for me to see their logic and ability to evaluate and reason and to marvel at their intelligence and good sense. In this travel of thought I realize the wonders that are right around me and I know that it is time for me to start giving more to the world the embraces me.