The View From Here/Up For This Week; Confession #1

The View From Here

The weather broke yesterday, but today, unexpectedly, we have a blazing, gorgeous blue sky day! As cold as it is now nights and early mornings, and as dark as it is by 10pm, there's definitely a taste of fall in the air, and it's hard to make myself be indoors much today - I'm wanting to make the most of the warmth and beauty.

Our guests are here until Wednesday morning and in all truth and honesty, I'm ready for some quiet time. I feel guilty, since Phil has really taken the vast brunt of it, and I've really had quite a bit of alone time in and amongst, but I guess I'm just not big enough a person to have enough expanse in my open arms to have people staying with us 24-7 for such an expanse of time (we've had guests for almost three weeks solid now). Phil is definitely ready for some space too, but he is so much better than I am at being unstintingly open-armed no matter what the duration of demand. 

A quotation from an email forwarded from my mom: "Being happy doesn't mean everything is perfect. It means you've decided to see beyond the imperfections." Phil is stellar at doing just that. As for me, I suck! Well, to be fair, in certain situations I can be utterly joyful with all kinds of imperfections and it feels easy. But when I'm feeling overwhelmed, I can't quite seem to get to that sweet spot. I just feel fortunate that there are people out there who love me in spite of that - as I confess it, I have some fear that people reading will conclude that I'm really not a very nice or good person. 

But there's a start for actualizing that very quotation! Other people, like my mom and my husband, still love me even though I'm not delightful and magnanimous all day every day - they're seeing beyond my imperfections! And heck, I'm living with no running water in a cabin you can barely turn around in, in a cold climate - I must be successfully looking past some imperfections too! Plus, I've been 'crashed' and feeling sick the past few days, energy generally so much better but still plenty of physical adversity, and it's harder to be magnanimous when you're just not feeling well.

The boys turned 15 yesterday - we took them to the State Fair - I'd never been before and it was fun and gentle and small town-ish. One of the boys raises rabbits and enjoyed seeing the ones on show. 

There were some amusing turkeys…

and some silly hokey with trying to raise bets on the piglet races! 

And I didn't manage to get a picture of it, but Obama the baby llama reached out and started nursing on my thumb, with no encouragement or invitation whatsoever! The camera was in my pocket as my thumb got sucked on… I guess this is the llama whose mom died, for whom they got a goat as a wet-nurse, so he must be pretty confused all round.

Up For This Week

This post contained the first in a weekly series of 'confessions' I've decided I'll make in here. There's nothing earth-shattering - that one just now about failing to allow myself to be happy by seeing beyond imperfections is probably representative. But I've been realizing that there's so much that I feel shame about, that may just be part of the human condition, and that talking about it here may be an opportunity for me and for people reading to think about shame, love, being our best and all of those things crucial to living a harmonious and happy life.

I've been messing around some more with no-sugar cookie-type things and will post some more on that. And I need to write some more about words too. Again, schedule is up in the air. I'm still deciding on my optimal blog rhythm, how many posts per week, etc. But will write more soon - blessings and sunshine for all.

On the beach today - another piece of whale?

SHOUTOUT for Wild Foods; Giveaways

Two giveaways by fellow bloggers that I'm interested in and want to share:

Bittofraw is giving away a Zuvo water filter! Deadline: Friday, August 27th Noon PDT. That's going to be an amazing score for somebody!

and

Loveveggiesandyoga is giving away a care package of Tempt hemp products! Deadline: Tuesday, Ausut 24th. Sounds great to me also.

Awesome bloggies both, and I love that one of the (?side)-effects of all the communications and social networking that happens nowadays is that people share the love and share the goodies. I'm looking forward to hosting my own giveaway here someday soon, and have gradually been teaching myself that this is something that you need to really put yourself out there in order to get to do. I'm not ever going to be the person who spends her whole time blogging and networking back and forth, but I do want to support sustainable living, healthy products, beautiful people and participate in that whole exchange.

Speaking of giveaways, I just wanted to give a shootout to WILD FOODS! Anyone who even glances at this blog will know that I love my little garden, love growing veggies, miss living in a place with a year-round growing climate but grew sprouts through the winter here… But I probably love wild food even more. These watermelon berries are growing right on the edge of the bluff outside our cabin, erosive soil, high wind exposure, and they're just gorgeous and come back up year after year. In the spring time, their stalks and young leaves are delicious - a light, cucumber-ish taste.

Another favorite is chickweed. Anathema to my husband because it gets everywhere and goes to seed so quickly, but it's so full of good minerals, is a natural skin healer, and many other good things besides. I put some in my salads but am looking forward to that vita-mix arriving so that I can blend up bunches. Again, even in this harsh climate, it grows early, late and everything in between, in any medium in can get into. Wouldn't you like to have some of that vitality?

These were planted by humans, but our raspberries really get little extra care besides the nitrogenous benefit of our 'household liquid' (i.e. pee)! It's continually amazing to me to have delicious, sweet, antioxidant rich fruit ripening up here in this climate! It seems like the best kind of free gift.

Wishing you all a fruitful and relaxing weekend!

Quiet Commitments: What it Means to Do our Best, 30 Days & 5 Tibetans, Blue Sky Day

Happy Friday everyone! It's our third consecutive gorgeous, blue-sky day - I hope the sun is smiling where you are too. I'm working at the bookshop today, and Phil and our guests should be back from their adventure this evening - they took a float-plane over the glacier to spend a couple days in true, pristine wilderness. I'm so glad they got such a break with the weather, although no guarantees over on that side of the bay!

Remember our hike on July 5th? We went there again (one of Phil's favorite winter ski trails) two days ago -  it's a whole different season barely six weeks later.

Fireweed is in full bloom - so pretty, but poignant for some, clear harbinger of winter that it is! These pictures were taken from outside the ruined homestead pictured in that other post. We explored the ruins in a little more detail this time, and funnily enough, one of the outbuildings turned out to be a very nicely-designed (if currently decrepit) sauna!

Yesterday's sauna/sweat experience was a good reminder for me to take care of myself, including doing extra things that cost money, to accept that that is part of doing my best here, living in this climate. I'm very tired today but my mental energy and clarity is still so much better, as is my appetite. What is it that is helping me to feel better? I'm ready to talk a bit about 'quiet commitments.' There's a famously quoted poem, said to be by Goethe, although that is much disputed, that says that before there is commitment, there is hesitancy, always uncertainty, always obstacles, but when you commit, Providence moves with you - the universe comes into synch with your goals.

Whoever it was that wrote this, it is something I have always believed in intellectually but have struggled to actualize in my life. It feels like I am finally experiencing it! It's a movement from believing that the universe wants all of us to be our best, because that's its best too, but having a limiting belief that I didn't deserve to be my best, to finding that I do deserve that too and letting go of the limit! This was accompanied by the recognition that doing one's best doesn't always come automatically, that sometimes I don't feel like it and have to (apparently) work against that current self! Coming into a deeper engagement with poetry writing, working deeply and fully on my physical healing, finding other meaningful work, are all a part of this, with a loving relationship and a secure place to live as the bedrock.

In addition to commitment to my poetry writing, I've been making some more 'quiet commitments.' The one that I think has had a noticeable effect on my energy levels is that for almost two weeks now, I've been doing the Five Tibetan Rites of Rejuvenation on a daily basis! You are supposed to work up to doing each of the five exercises 21 times: I started out doing them just 5 times each, and this week I've been managing 6. I didn't want to push myself too hard at the start and crash.

The link I provided has very clear instructions and diagrams for how to do each of these five movements, how to breathe through them, as well as some discussion of their benefits. In brief, they work all the chakras as well as stretching and toning the areas of the body that need it most. I like their diversity - I don't tend to feel bored or wishing that it was over. I like how they entice me to breathe deeply. I feel fine about resting for several breaths between repetitions. It intrigues me that there is so much focus on head movement back and forth - but I guess the head is proportionately the heaviest and densest part of the body. And many testimonials mention vanishing double chins.

And the energetic effect should definitely be considered. I started to feel a small but definite increase in energy after about five days, a kind of 'unblocking' - and before now, I've always been the person who wanted to believe in that kind of thing but didn't experience it. Obviously, I've still had gut cramps and lousy days, but I think I've been more poised mentally and emotionally.

And that's what I want!  I don't want to be prey to being cranky and miserable - that's not who I want to be, nor who I want to be known as. And especially, that's not the kind of wife I want to be for Phil!

So today, I announce that I'm taking on another 'quiet commitment,' to join Tina and many others in 30 days of reflection on Self-Love for the month of September. Thank you so much to Tina for putting such a beautiful movement out there - I'm honored to be on board! (Look out for the button on my sidebar.)

A few more plant moments: this photo of false hellebore was taken on our July 5th hike - it is adolescent, a furtive, secretive spiral unfolding on the world -

But now - or two days ago - it's fully open and shooting seeds to scatter to the winds!

Life takes on so many amazing forms, as seen last week in the intertide zone, but what do you make of these funny little fuzzy pinkies on a rose leaf?

They are actually insect galls, will hatch into little wasps. But why are they exactly the same color as the flowers of the rose bushes? Another kind of wasp makes something that really looks like a rose on the end of willow branches - I'll have to get a picture of that too.

What special efforts do you have to make to ensure you do your best?

Returning Energy, Steam Shower, Sun

Please check out my yesterday's post: I've added a few more important 'recipe revisits.'

Something really cool happened this afternoon. After writers' group, I chose to do my errands on foot and make a little loop around town! Not just because it was glorious and sunny for the second day in a row (hallelujah after this rainy summer!), and not because I'd fallen back into my old ways of finding every excuse to push myself harder, from burning calories to saving gas and more, although those both had their say also. No - I chose to do my errands on foot because I felt like I'd enjoy the walk! It's the first time in months that I've felt good enough to have that be a conscious choice! An amazing thing to be able to say. Of course, my post-chelation tummy icks kicked in mid-walk, but when I got home, I squeezed some lemon into water, added a good scoop of MSM and a sprinkle of stevia, and it really helped. And of course, I'm really tired this evening, but so worth it. Given that, and having added a bunch to yesterday's post, I'll keep this one shorter than I'd planned to.

Part of my loop was through an empty block in the middle of town, wilderness within a hundred yards of the main road!

Last time I walked through here, it was all covered in snow. This time of year, it's boggy, and the grasses were over my head. I lost the path several times and had to wade through the vegetation, avoiding devil's club. But one can also tread the grasses down to stay relatively dry getting through the swampy areas. 

Earlier in the day, I ended up back at the laundromat, pictured yesterday, for an important piece of self-care! 

Huh?

Yes, that's right! This morning, when I went for my Vitamin C IV that happens at the end of each 'chelation' week, I told the naturopath about the icky gut and general bloating/water retention/appetite loss issues I've been having, and he said that it all sounded like lymphatic congestion. He strongly recommended getting a sauna or other similar, and said that I should do so every other day during chelation weeks, make sure I sweat a lot, and then rinse in cold water and repeat several times. The closest thing available, he said, was the steam-sauna at the laundromat! 

Do you always take advice the first time you're given it, even from a trusted source? I'm afraid I don't always! I was frightened off by the $6.75 a time tag on that thing, and had avoided it, thinking I could manage without. Well, I'm so glad I took myself straight over there after seeing him today!

It took me a while to figure the thing out - 

- but eventually I realized that you could have the steam independently of the shower, and that the vent at the bottom left in the shower (pictured) was for the steam. I love sweating in steam or saunas, so I really enjoyed this, but this time I did take his advice and did the cold rinses also. He explained that if I didn't, I'd lose all my body heat when I came out because of my pores being dilated. The cold was a shock that made me pant and gasp, but it felt needed too.

I came out of that thing looking like something out of a zombie movie (no self-portrait this time!) and felt sick to my stomach briefly, but seem to have been feeling better for it. Definitely worth the $6.75 - just wish I didn't need to spend it! But oh my, in the winter time when it's really cold, this will be a godsend. In fact, the ND recommended doing this back in April when I first saw him and it was still winter! Take-home lesson - listen to him!

Strange Blogging Locations 1, Recipe Revisits and No-Sugar Mesquite-Flax Cookies

We have a gorgeous blue-sky day here! In fact, after pouring rain all day yesterday, it brightened up in the evening too. Blue sky usually means lots of wind here too, so no boating today! I'm hoping to get a little hike in this afternoon. Our friend John is such a trooper - he's not letting three broken ribs keep him back at all (doctors make their own worst patients!) so we are all keeping an eye out. He's still hoping to go on the short plane ride over the glacier, and maybe dayhiking out there.

Now that I can write my blog at home, it's time to start a little catalogue of the weird and wonderful places I've blogged when that wasn't an option. Stop 1: the laundromat!

I went there yesterday and did five loads of laundry, which was an ordeal - was glad not to be trying to fit my whole day's internet in at the same time! They have laundry, public showers (that cost an arm and a leg but we sometimes indulge in), wi-fi, and a little coffee shop - they must make a killing. We dry our clothes back at home and there is simply not room in our cabin for five loads-worth of laundry! Note to self - do it sooner next time! Everyone and their uncle was in the laundromat yesterday! It was sheeting down rain and I guess all the RV-visitors were there, as well as several of the many Homer-ites like us who have no running water. To add to the chaos, there were about 7 machines out of order, so we were like a pack of vultures in there!

I wanted to revisit a couple recipes I've blogged about here. First up, the No-Sugar Superfood Cookies. The dehydration worked just fine, but I badly need to revise this recipe! I'm eating them, because I hate throwing stuff out, but may not be able to eat them all - there is something very strange about the taste, soapy, almost. My first thought is that I put in way too much orange zest and overpowered it. I'm also thinking that I might have thrown some almond extract into the chia-sweet before having all that orange zest and deciding to make it orange-flavored. Orange and almond flavor are not the best combination! But I'm going to go back and taste those superfood powders too, and see if any one of them has the kind of flavor that would react intensely like that with orange zest. One other thought is that it wasn't an organic orange - not sure what I was thinking, I never usually use the zest off of those… 

Here's a rough-and-ready recipe for the previous batch of no-sugar cookies I made, to make up for it.  I 'winged' it, so quantities are approximate. I mixed together:

1/3 cup coconut oil melted, with 1 teaspoon white stevia

~2 cups shredded coconut

~2 cups flaxseed meal

1/4 cup mesquite meal

cinnamon, ginger, cardamom galore

And then added as much more flaxseed meal as necessary to get them cookie-dough texture. 

These are a little more crumbly than the others, but they are so good - no weird tastes here!

The other 'revisit' is 'bark' (or whatever I should call it). I did a post a little while back with a lot of variations on the theme. Lately, I've been leaving the cacao nibs out always, regretfully (a post on that coming up very soon), but have been tending to add more reishi powder, and will be adding fo-ti and rhodiola now also. And now that I'm chelating, I've also added zeolites (just about a tablespoon per batch) to my latest two batches - mint/algae flavored (pictured left) and almond-sesame-maca (pictured right). 

This is my absolute favorite food that I eat every day - so much so that I'm afraid of them, afraid I'll eat too much! When I was in Fairbanks and ran out, I was so much hungrier, so I must get a fair proportion of my calories from them. Well, they contain little-to-no sugar (depending on whether I've used carob/mesquite/maca at all) and are packed with protein powder, algae, superfoods, coconut oil, so it can't be too bad, right? 

Oh, and another thing I've been adding to some of my 'bark' recipes lately is 'nooch,' aka Nutritional Yeast - it's not 'natural,' it's not raw, but it's really high in protein, fiber, B-vitamins and I happen to love the taste. I'd been avoiding it for months because of the 'yeast' issue - it didn't really make sense to me why inactive nutritional yeast would feed candida, but my philosophy was 'when in doubt, leave it out.' But I spoke with my ND about it and he encouraged me to eat it again, and said that in his opinion, the folks who assert that eating that kind of yeast is detrimental when you have a yeast problem don't have their facts straight.

Speaking of which - yet another revisit! My dressing for marinaded broccoli and cauliflower - I made another last night - about three tablespoons each of tahini and nooch, a shake of smoked paprika, a tablespoon of flax seeds, 1/2c water, a shake of oregano, and a bunch of parsley, cilantro and chives from the garden. This dressing was so delicious to me, it helped me to think of food as something to enjoy and savor, as opposed to a torturous obligation that gives me body-image anxiety!

The final revisit is not a recipe, but a vegetable. 

I've always thought I wasn't much of a fan of peas - we grew a lot of them the last two summers but I really thought they were for Phil and some of our friends. Well, this year I seem to have changed! I've been loving picking a couple peas off as I go past and munching on them! Here's one of our pea tangles - so beautiful…

This photo was taken around 9.30 last night from outside the cabin. Do you see the half moon in the clear sky? It shows you how low the celestial bodies are in our skies.

Much Love.

The View From Here/Up For This Week

The View From Here

A day late, I know… It's been a very strange and eventful couple of days. Our latest batch of guests are two very special almost-fifteen-year olds and their dad, and they are camping with us. So it's more of a full-time deal than the previous batch, who were staying with our dear friends 'up the hill.'

I've had 'work' things to do, so haven't participated in the fishing trips and beach hikes yet, but have been cooking and baking a great deal. Here they are proud with their first two silver salmon on Sunday, and we built a fire-pit on the edge of the bluff to cook the salmon for them.

But yesterday evening, their dad fell through the hatch in our bunker and broke three ribs. Obviously this is a deal-changer - last night he slept in a real bed at our friends' place up the hill, and Phil slept in the tent with the boys. That's why I didn't write yesterday! I don't believe that accidents are just 'accidents:' every accident I've ever had has been 'for a reason.' And yesterday I was running around with my head cut off, which is often an accident-prone situation for me, so I almost felt like I had caused it - but more so, I felt a pang of realization of how little I'd realized the stress he is under, trying to make the best possible trip for his boys. 

It's socked in and pouring right now, and we're up the hill with our friends, reevaluating how to make the next eight or nine days work.

Up For This Week

I'm so happy to be harvesting all these greens! Too bad I've been feeling so sick from chelating, I can barely eat anything… I'm looking forward to having my Vita-mix arrive - maybe blending up greens will work better than munching salads every meal.

Turnips and carrots - including our first decent carrot - they've all been funny and gnarly so far...

Yesterday, I harvested the most beautiful cauliflower - beautiful to look at and so delicious!

I am trying to keep up with my editing/translating work and more importantly (but harder to fit in when it's this crazy) my own creative writing. I know that if I don't do this for a few days in a row, I start to get loopy and cranky, like a cow that hasn't been milked! Yesterday, I did some typing work to help out a friend from Writers' Group here - I typed for six and a half hours! - And got up early to make piles of food, rushed home for lunch, then in the evening. I was glad to help out typing, and glad to make a little more money, but am not sure that typing all day was the best thing for me! I couldn't sleep last night, I was in so much pain in my shoulders and arms. Speaking of which, I'd better keep this post short! Back to the question - do you accept all kinds of work just to get some more money, or do you have stricter limits? For me, when it's also helping someone out, it's very hard to say 'no.'

I'm hoping to continue to post photos and stories here this week, but I really don't know what kind of posting schedule I can have. 

Beached Whale, Wilderness Family Naturals, No-Sugar Superfood Cookies

I hope everyone's having a great Saturday! It was sheeting down rain yesterday and forecast likewise for today, but in the event it seems our guests have brought up the good weather from Oregon, which makes their plans to camp outside our cabin look much pleasanter than I'd feared.

Are you conscious of all the technology you use? Do you have ambivalence about how it eases your life, not wanting to be overly 'dependent?' I was very pleased with the new vacuum cleaner we just bought, for about $70, and the ease of getting the space cleaned up, including all the corners! How funny, some months ago here I mentioned that I was ready for a decent vacuum and a vita-mix - now both in the same week.

Major sight of the day was the decomposing beached whale down on the beach. It is a smallish gray whale that probably died out at sea and was washed in this last series of big tides. It's been there several days now and is in full breakdown mode - read stinky. You can see Phil in background for scale.

Someone has tied it off so it doesn't wash back out to sea: we suspect one of the local organizations who preserve things for museums. 

And actually, although the smell is off-putting, there is something really - well - wholesome, maybe - holistic, a little magical - about seeing this enormous life being given back to other lives. We are all food for something. Here are its baleen sockets (plates washed out or taken) - isn't that awesome, how they brushed krill from the ocean for decades?

I got my order from Wilderness Family Naturals today - very quick time, I only placed it a few days ago. Their customer service is excellent and their products are high-integrity. I got to know them as a coconut products company - and I'll post a review later of a coconut product of theirs I particularly appreciate - but it turns out that they have lots of herbs and superfoods - at very good prices too! Amongst others,  I restocked on maca, and also got fo-ti, which is a wonderful superherb that happens to taste great, rhodiola root powder, which is an adrenal tonic, just what I need, and some wheatgrass juice powder to try, see how I do with it. I like the foil pouches too, for maintaining freshness. Thanks to technology, I have more superfood powders to put in my barks, smoothies, etc, now!

So, I made some no-sugar cookies to try some of them out. I made a cup of chia-sweet (strong chai-spicy herbal tea with enough chia added to make a thick gel,) and a teaspoon of pure white stevia. 

I melted approx 1/4 c virgin coconut oil, and added about a tablespoon of orange zest (I was making an orange cake for everyone else). Then, before adding the chia sweet, I mixed the superfood powders into the coconut oil: 2 tablespoons of maca (goes great with orange flavor) 1 tb reishi powder, 1 tb fo-ti powder, 1 tb rhodiola powder, 1/2 tb wheatgrass powder. 

Then, I mixed in the chia-sweet,

and added a recipe's worth of nut-milk pulp (so the pulp from a half cup of mixed hazelnuts and brazil nuts), and coconut flour (1/3 cup?) until it all started to hold together. Finally, had to have my flax - added maybe 1/4 cup golden flax meal. (And yes, that goofy football in the background is our thriftstore crockpot with the clam chowder I fixed for everyone else's dinner.)

I then formed it into cookies and put it under the fan to dehydrate (with my dehydrating setup shown yesterday). 

It's great to eat just as it is, like cookie dough or conventional raw treats made with dried fruit. I'm just drying it a bit so that it will keep and pack well. To me, it's delicious and very complex. But it's definitely 'strong' tasting: the folks I live with run heavily to sweet and salt and don't appreciate 'herbal' flavors. If I wanted to proselytize with these (which I don't, really), I'd have to tone them down a lot. And that's a whole other discussion!