The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

There is more green here every day: soon the new grass will have outstripped all the tired old brown grass buried in the darkness of snow all those months.

The sandhill cranes arrived last week and fly through the dawn and dusktime skies emitting their ineffably haunting calls. There are more gulls every day, so elegant as they ride the air currents. The eagles are mating - our haughty, imperious grandees billing and cooing and chasing. This morning, we saw a lone trumpeter swan flying north. Very rare to see a lone swan, we wondered what befell its fellow.

The view from inside of me: it's as though I'm being forced, age 33, to learn the lessons of old age and acceptance of loss of faculties. I am still exhausted from the journey/sleepless night/accident, and weak. Everything I take on is too much. This morning, I set out to make two kinds of energy bars each for myself and Phil, as well as bread for Phil, and was completely exhausted by about two-thirds through. But that is how I ordinarily cook! If I'm going to make stuff, I might as well multitask and make a bunch, get into my groove, dance around the kitchen… I don't even know how to do it differently! And my memory is suddenly less good too. 

Up For This Week

Watch out for the May edition of Eighty Percent Raw Magazine coming out May 1st! I have an article in there on how to enjoy peanuts responsibly. I've also just sent in the second part of a two-part blog post on the 80-10-10 diet.

Phil is heading off tomorrow for the first camping trip of the year, bearhunting, clamming, etc, and I'm not going with him. Even if I didn't have bees to take care of and mercury removals, I simply don't have the energy to go for three days boating/hiking/camping frozen nights. Sobering and chastening just begin to get it.

Of course, I hope he'll have a wonderful time and look forward to hearing his tales of adventure.

I'm disappointed that I didn't write all the blog posts that  I had intended to write last week, but fully intend to make a better fist of things this week (and forgive myself: last week was hard enough without recriminations).

So, this week I will share my 'alternate fudge' recipe that I'd promised last week. They're really more 'bark' than fudge - I'm not even sure what the right name for them is. Melted coconut oil with stevia and spices and crunchy yummy things in it…

And surely a 'wordstalk' this week. I'd like to write some 'writing-oriented' things also, and, since I seem to be in a losing battle with the food demons currently, perhaps a little about that too.

The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

Happy Monday, everyone! The moon is waning and the tides are getting big again. They were insignificant enough last week that Phil was able to harvest several hundred pounds of seaweed to line our raised beds. I dragged out of the freezer some fish scraps that I'd saved last summer, and some freezer-burned fish, and the idea is that we put those in the bottom of the bed, then a layer of seaweed, then hopefully some composted manure and then some topsoil. Hopefully the bears will stay asleep a little longer!

I spent the weekend at a class on Greenhouse Gardening in Alaska. It was a _ton_ of very interesting information, and I've promised enough people that I'll share some of what I learned that I'll probably post a blog about it this week. So, having talked about greenhouse pests, etc, I got home last night (and it's light until almost 10pm now, so 7pm doesn't feel quite like 'night' anymore) and was looking at all our little seedlings all over the place… And then I looked at the window and saw the most enormous aphid either of us had ever seen crawling up! Phil looked around and spotted another, headed ominously for the basil seedlings. So we captured both of them and looked at them through the binoculars backwards to confirm that they were indeed monstrous aphids. I looked at the jar full of willow cuttings we'd taken from a willow that had landed on the beach in one of the winter storm landslides, that have been budding, rooting, leafing out and looking so cheerful, and they were infested with those aphids! Must have had eggs on them when we brought them in. Hmmm. We think the willows ought to go outside for a while! 

And this right after we'd talked in class about parthenogenesis and the rampant reproductive capabilities of aphids. 'Breed like rabbits' nothing! The expression should be 'breed like aphids!'

Up For This Week

It's going to be a busy week! I have some important decisions to make regarding work/writing/school, might take another class this week, have an article to finish, we have a friend coming to stay today, I'm having more mercury removals on Wednesday… And today I'm hoping for some downtime but clamoring for some writing time too! 

I have been feeling so tired, it's as if I'm too tired to breathe. It's an interesting way to look out at the world. There is still plenty of beauty to appreciate and so much to be glad of!

I will write a blog about the whole greenhouse question: I think that it's interesting whether or not you live in Alaska - what I learned was by no means solely Alaska-specific. 

This week, I'm also planning to do a couple of product reviews for items that I appreciate owning in my life. I have some uneasiness about owning 'stuff,' but have also come to recognize that it can be a valid part of abundance, that there are certain things that can make life not just easier but also 'better' all round. I am paying attention to my thoughts around abundance at this time, in the knowledge that there is such a constant risk of falling into scarcity mentality that I need to build the feeling of abundance in my heart and mind to guard against that. I wrote a blog for 'Eighty Percent Raw' on this very subject - take a look if you like!

Appropriate Reconsideration - Why I _Won't_ Be Liver Flushing Next Week

This is going to be very brief - I only have a few minutes. Energy Bar recipe post coming up tomorrow.

This morning (written Friday, posted Sat), I was planning out my liver flush and getting all ready, and then the naturopath whom I was waiting to see called with a cancellation. I took my test results, etc, over to his office and ended up spending most of the morning there, together with sweet supportive Phil - and he talked me out of it!

A vane blown with all winds again? Well, I hope that I was listening to good sense. To be in integrity, I had to mention this change of plan. My mind is still reeling from all the information and implications that he shared with me about my test results concerning heavy metals and yeast and hypothyroid and I'd love to share more.

Update Saturday: I've just written a detailed post about this over on my Eighty Percent Raw blog, in which I explain how he talked me out of doing it and why it made sense to me. Please take a look!

Coming Up This Week - Photos and more!

Last night I finally made the connection between camera and computer - there, not so hard, was it?!

Turns out that we had many photos from various seasons up here in Alaska, and sometime this week I am going to share a whole bunch of them on here. I have had so much resistance to this, and now we're off and running!

I still intend to make this mainly a word-based blog, partly because I know the frustrations of waiting for pictures to load on a slow connection. It can take forever.

Other promises to be fulfilled this week: right after I post this, I'm going to post the final installment of the discussion of Catching Fire. This week I'm also going to continue the series of posts about 'making do' that I started on Saturday. Two other promises that I'll fulfill: I will post the recipe for my raw birthday pie with no sugar and yeast-fighters in every layer, and I will start my series of posts about my experiments to create no-sugar treats and energy bars. I also feel like it's high, high time for another 'wordstalk!'

It was snowing this morning, but when I hiked down to the library to use the internet, it was 40 degrees, sun glaring off panoramic snow, the roads running with torrents of snow-melt; I frequently had to scrape myself against the very edge of the sidewalk to avoid being drenched by spray from passing vehicles... I'm looking forward to sharing photos of this spectacular place.

Love to all...