Fern's Fronds

With Apologies to Kelis

2013-06-17T16:56:00.001-04:00

My clover brings all the bees to the yard
And they're like, it's not poisoned like yours
Damn right it's not poisoned like yours.
I'd teach you, and not even charge.

Blessings Darlings!

I'm finally seeing a goodly number of bees in the clover. Still mostly bumble bees, but the number of honey bees is up.

This will all change on Friday, of course, when the guy mows the lawn. And he often scalps the lawn, on top of mowing all the wildflowers.

But we persevere.

What *I* ask him to do doesn't much matter, since I don't pay him, the land lord does.

Frondly, Fern

I want a Witches Garden

2013-06-10T06:30:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

If I EVER get my veggie/herb garden to the point I'm happy with it ... and it's no where NEAR that point now ... I want to put in a Witches' Garden.

This wouldn't be a happy healing/culinary herb garden. This would be a nice traditional baneful garden. It would feature poisons and other oddities - deadly hemlock, deadly nightshade, maybe poison ivy (tho usually that's easy enough to find growing around here!), pokeweed, mugwort, wormwood, foxglove, lily of the valley, yews, may apples .... I might even grow abortifacients like pennyroyal in that garden.

Yes, some of them can be used medically. But they can also harm folks.

Just ... because.

Frondly, Fern

Hard Won Gifts

2013-06-03T06:30:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

As I noted a few days ago, we have a bit of a heat wave here. Today will be another hot humid day, and we MAY have air pollution warnings - DC has warnings, but I don't know about the Blue Ridge. But I digress ...

As a result of the heat wave, I was out working in the garden very early today, while the temperature was in the lower 70's. Oh my goodness, it was sweet outside then. The birds were chirping, no tractors were running yet (either mowing lawns of my neighbors or cutting hay), the breeze was NOT from the cattle barns, etc.

I, of course, was sweating exactly the way a pig doesn't. This is because to be more intimate with my immediate land base I work my garden by hand. I worked the bean bed again today, with the days work being taking a spade (and not a shovel) and turning what would be topsoil (if I was still in Illinois). Here in my little corner of Appalachia it is NOT topsoil - it is clay. Heavy red clay. I need to do another round with that now broken bed, and work compost into it so it is ready for the seeds.

Heavy Red Clay. I looked at those first spadefuls, and a soft voice said, "You know those runes you want to make? They can be made of clay." I went back to the garage and got a bucket. And a lid. By the time I had the bed turned I had 4 gallons of great red clay, 13 pieces of quartz .... and a blister.

Because the real gifts of the Gods are their quiet voices. Not in them doing the work for us.

Frondly, Fern

Calling a Spade a Spade.

2013-05-30T08:42:00.002-04:00

Blessings Darling!

Let us all say this in unison - Fern is not everyone's cuppa. Did I hear all my Mountain Sisters (and I don't just mean Owl Mt, I mean all the Delicate Flowers of Appalachian Womanhood) snickering?

I am an opinionated, wordy, judgmental, and precise bitch. The same in person as I am online. Did I just hear an "AMEN" and "Preach it, sister" from Asheville?

I'm not the person who uses a lot of exclamation points, even tho' I have strong opinions. Instead, as you may have noticed in the previous two paragraphs, I ask a lot of questions. I am not just interested in your conclusions, the 'what' you do, I am also interested in the 'why you do it part'.

Some people seem to think that the 'why' part is an attack. I find that view odd, to say the least (see, I CAN be diplomatic). I assume that you have good reasons, even if I can't see them, and want to know what they are. Because magical and life-skills THEORY matters and informs what we all do.

Yes, I think that what words you use matter, too. If you make up your own definitions to words rather than using the meanings used in normative English and in the dictionary - then you are NOT actually seeking to communicate but to hide things or sound like you know more than you do.

Did you notice above that I did NOT say that I was "not everyone's cup of tea", even tho' that is a commonly used phrase? I'll tell you why - tea is a precise word, referring to a precise family of shrubs.

I'm not everyone's tisane, either, which is what you get when you made an infusion of other herbs.

So if you are easily offended, this is not the blog you should follow. You probably shouldn't follow me on Twitter, or friend me on Facebook, either.

Because I'm going to continue to call a spade a spade. And not a shovel.

Frondly, Fern

Can't Escape Classical Greece

2013-05-30T06:30:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

Today the remarkable Suz and I went to the coffee shop to write. As it happened, we were both writing about Hellenic Paganism. Which isn't TOTALLY unusual for us, her being Hellenic and me being ... all over the board when it comes to blogging.

The coffee shop features art for sale. Some weeks we like the art more than other weeks, of course. This week, the art was okay, nothing we'd buy if we had the money. Until .... after writing a while I got up to stretch and looked at the inexpensive monographs by Susan Carney. Lovely work, in general, and one got us all tingly. We both took pictures of it to show others. A monograph entitled "Minotaur", featuring a woman, and bull, a man ... some amount of overlapping. Figuring out especially when the man and bull began and ended was not clear.

I may come back and buy it, but I'll need a frame for it.

The picture alone got us talking about an aspect of Ariadne we hadn't much considered before - that she is sister to the Minotaur that she helped Theseus kill. In a sense, she helped him kill a part of herself. What part of herself lay dead in the labyrinth when Theseus followed the thread back to her?

Gotta love it when you go out into the world and blog "Hellenic" - you're always going to find references and start you thinking!

Frondly, Fern

Addenum - after I got home the Chubby Hubby and I DID go back and buy the Minotaur monograph. I will need to find a frame for it, of course, but at least we both agreed on a piece of artwork. I want to put it up in the dining room.

Heat Wave Eve

2013-05-29T06:30:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

An early heat wave is going to be starting here tomorrow. Temperatures will be in the 90's and the humidity will be high for 5 days. Therefore, I did some preparations to help reduce my electricity use during that time.

That means that today I totally caught up on the ironing, so I won't iron at all during the heat wave (the Spawn will, since he didn't iron his work clothes. His choice). The Spawn made blueberry muffins, and pizza for dinner tonight - we won't bake desserts during the heat wave, and will grill and/or pressure cook dinners. Bread and rolls are about to go into the oven, so we won't bake those during the hot days. We don't need the loaf bread at the moment, so that will go into the freezer for a few days.

Late spring allows me to do this. The hot weather isn't unrelenting ... nor is the cold weather. A little preparation, a little care to work with, not against, nature goes a long way right now.

Frondly, Fern

Nature Unaided Fails

2013-05-27T06:30:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

I want a stang. Y'all who are Pagans have seen stangs before - they are the 'staff with two or three points on the top'. Here's a grand article about them http://witchofforestgrove.com/2011/02/27/how-to-use-a-stang/. I have heard it can be used as a magical gateway, and want to try that out. I have to admit I don't quite get how that would work, or why it would be different than using a 'regular' staff, or my staff with the antler on top.

Today, a cold day with a seriously sharp wind, I moved from inertia into active on getting one. Or co-creating one.

We have a whole lot of Tree Of Heaven (Ailanthus altissima) growing around here. It and I have decided that my stang will be of that wood. While a import (and, let's face it, an invasive one at that) in the US it already has a mythos here. Not only does it resist city pollution, but it's the tree that was the central image in the book/movie "A Tree Grows In Brooklyn". And it grows fast, which is part of why it and I are working together on this.

Because while I WANT a stang out of this wood, that doesn't mean that the trees here have the formation I want ready. Or at least ready somewhere that isn't 40 feet in the air. So today nature and I started working together.

I went out to the smaller of the two copses - the one my main altar and the huge holey stone is in - and started evaluating and conversing and building a relationship with the smaller trees. I removed the side branch buds forming under 6 feet high on their stems. Once they get to be about 8 feet tall, I'm going to be pruning the main stem back about 2 feet, and letting two or three branches form and grow up, competing to be the main trunk. Once those get to be a couple of feet tall, I will fell the tree and make the specialized staff.

You might have noticed that this is not an instant-gratification version of getting a magical tool. No, this is a form a relationship, grow together, work together, THEN work to turn out a tool (and working to a freshly cut tree whose fresh sap can cause blisters). This is taking time to build the right long-term relationship. This is not 'shopping for a tool'.

It is the tree working on my nature, as much as me modifying nature.

This, my darlings, is the Great Work.

Frondly, Fern

The Witching Hour

2013-05-24T19:00:00.001-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

There's a lot of references to "The Witching Hour" in popular culture. Mundanely, it can refer to the time of day when things are at their worst - the rush time a job, the time of day when the newborn is ALWAYS cranky (that was 5:30 pm for the Spawn), that type of thing. Sort of the inverse of Happy Hour, both in tenor and in the ability to have a drink during it.

The basic premise behind 'the witching hour' is that witches, ogres, demons, and all sorts of 'nasties' come out and play when all the adults circadian rhythms say 'sleep'. And by 'adult', I really mean adult. As in 27 or older, when the brain is fully developed.

Here's what the adult body circadian rhythms are doing during the day

http://publications.nigms.nih.gov/insidelifescience/images/biological_clock_human.jpg

But, as you might guess, this post is going to look at that from the perspective of an adult Pagan/witch. And when most folks talk about the witching hour for witches, they most often mean midnight (with a small number of people saying 3 am) being the 'best time' to do magic/rituals/whatever.

That's a nice theory. It fits in very well with the lives of teens, who don't have the same circadian rhythms as adults, and usually feel the need to hide their witchcraft from their parents.

But the times that matter to most witchcraft are liminal times. Liminal times are the 'times between'. The best known liminal time for most witches and pagans is Samhain - the Celtic 'New Year' that is celebrated on a day after the end of the old year and before the beginning of the new year. Lliminal times go together with the liminal spaces we make when we cast a circle, as in the line so often used as part of circle casting "A place that is not a place, a time that is not a time, between the worlds and beyond". A three-fold liminality!

What does liminality bring to the table?
What do you want it to bring to the table? For me, in my worldview, it is a time when it is easier to manipulate energy. Energy in these times is more fluid, not yet one thing or the next.

These are the times I like to play.

Everyday liminality
Every person has their liminal times. Your personal ones are the times each day when you are falling asleep and when you are waking up - you are in two worlds, and neither, at once. We've all been there, probably within the past 12 - 24 hours.

Every day has it's liminal times. Midnight is a modern version of a liminal time - until there were clocks, no one knew when it was midnight (at least without referencing the Big Dipper, humor me here). More traditionally, the liminal times were and are the grey time before dawn and twilight. Not yet the one state of night, nor the other state of day. These are the times when traditional Witching was done.

Every month liminality

The month, okay the LUNAR month has it's own liminality. That occurs on the Dark Moon, the time after the moon has waned all the way, and before that first thin crescent of the Waxing/New Moon. Just like Samhain is a day between the years, the Dark Moon is a few hours between the months. For me, I use the 13 hours (one hour for the 13 lunar months of the year) before the astronomical New Moon.

Don't get me wrong
I don't limit my magic/ritual to liminal times. For example, I cook at all times of day - I'm going to do my food magic every time I cook and not try to only cook at liminal times. And as noted earlier, I create my own liminal time and space when I cast a circle. But Ii don't blow off the every day or every month liminal times when I have some workings that I can do that don't have a set time frame. Because I'm one of them Practical Pagans.

Frondly, Fern

Charmed, I'm sure.

2013-05-23T22:32:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

A recent question, not asked to me exactly, but posted online: "This is going to sound silly, but I love to have all my pieces with me, particularly the ones that function as jewelry, so my question is how do you pick which to wear? My stones help me regulate my emotions and I can't forsee [sic] what I'll need thoughtout [sic] the day. Any tips?"

Amulets probably go back almost as far as jewelry does. Maybe farther, but my observations of children's brain development tells me that 'pretty' comes before 'symbolic' in their use of items, so that may be true of general human development as well. And most humans being hoarders, the idea of 'the more the merrier' probably goes way back, too. So humans have had to find ways to handle carrying around lots of amulets at once.

So humans made special necklaces and bracelets and sachets.

The idea of bracelets being used to hold special items is still common today. They are called 'charm bracelets' - remember them? Now the charms tend to be symbols of life events, like a charm representing each child born, or getting married. But charging and then adding a wire-wrapped crystal or stone or tooth or whatever for a magical purpose is a natural way for a magic-user to move a charm bracelet back to, well, a bracelet of CHARMS. Of course, a this can be worn either as a wrist bracelet or an ankle bracelet and serve the same purpose.

Creating your own necklace as a multi-purpose amulet is also a great option. From delicate looking ones, using beads from a craft store (different sizes/colors of beads charge for different purposes) to the more old-school rustic ones, using, say, animal teeth with holes drilled into them for protection, along with (again) wire-wrapped stones and crystals (hard to drill holes in them yourself!) or plant seeds you've carefully made holes in and lacquered, or whatever materials, each type charged for its purpose. Strung on nylon, leather, cotton, or your own hair.

Even using charm bracelets and necklaces, you will still have times when you may want to use a sachet. Sachets (which Byron Ballard, writer of "Staubs and Ditchwater" on Appalachian Rootworking assures me is to be pronounced 'sa-chet' here in the Appalachians, not "Sa-shay") are little cloth bags that you fill with 'stuff'. The 'Stuff' can be herbs, roots, bits of stones/clay/crystals, whatever. Sachets tend to be one-purpose items, the way I use them, and somewhat time-limited. After the one, two, or four-week period I keep it with me, I will usually bury the entire bag, to return it to the earth.

Do y'all need me to go into how to magically charge things? My online group reading is making me think that a lot of folks haven't been taught that yet. Please - let me know.

Frondly, Fern

Dream Worlds

2013-05-17T16:01:00.000-04:00

Blessings, Darlings!

The more you track you dreams, the more you are likely to see familiar and repeating layouts and figures in your dream world.

I 'know' a person online who has been writing about her dream worlds for year. While it can make starting to read her blog difficult (in most places deep knowledge of what she's posted before really helps), there are times when story arcs begin and those places are where her blog is most accessible.

So, to enter a coherent and pretty well-mapped dream world of one individual, I give you Three Different Ways: http://threedifferentways.katalytis.com/2012/05/the-gathering/ at a place where the first three posts can stand alone, but the story arc comes back in a big way over the rest of the year.

Frondly, Fern

When the Spawn's Away...

2013-05-13T06:30:00.000-04:00

Blessings, Darlings!

Since the Spawn hasn't been getting many hours at work (they aren't getting many customers for day shift, so they call and tell him not to come in), he's covering not one but TWO other folks' shifts at work today. So he's not home for dinner. Which means ... the Chubby Hubby and I can have food he doesn't like without a care in the world!

Don't get me wrong - the Spawn likes most foods. But like all of us, there are a few he just doesn't care for. Corned Beef, what we had tonight, is one of them. And I bought 3 corned beef briskets at REALLY good prices around St. Patrick's day. We had one of them last month, and I cooked the last two today.

And now that I've eaten dinner, I'm especially happy that I did. Damn, they're good.

Frondly, Fern

Casting a Quarter-Cast Circle

2013-05-02T21:36:00.001-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

I'm going to steal my own writings here. I explained circle casting in a Facebook group today, and I'm cutting and pasteing that here now. Enjoy!

A circle is one way of creating sacred space for magic or ritual or healing or whatever purpose. The 'typical' circle is a quarter-cast one, using either the 4 directions or the 4 elements as part of the structure. Details, as always, will depend on the magical group or tradition one trains in. Generically - you can start in the East. Using your finger, or an athame, or a wand, you ask for the power of that direction or element to ward the circle and add it's power to your working, then visualize a blue (usually) etheric flame pouring from it. You visualize that line of flame going from that quarter to the next, as you walk to the South. Repeat, asking that direction or element. Repeat for the next two quarters, and after you invite the North or Earth, continue the line of blue flame to the east again, completing the circle. At that point, change the visualization of the blue flame from a circle around you in one dimension to an orb around you in three dimensions.

You can get fancier. You can have altars at each of the directions. You can draw pentagrams at each direction and open a gate for the power of that direction to enter thru'. Etc.

After you do the hoodoo you do in the circle, you take the circle down by thanking the powers you invited and bidding them farewell. Some do this in the reverse order that the powers were called in, some don't. Use the same tool you used to cast to 'suck up' the energy of the blue flame as you dismiss. And ground that tool afterwards (ground yourself if you used your hand/finger, put the top of the tool to the earth if you used a tool).

Here are the words to two sung quarter-castings by Isaac Bonewits http://www.neopagan.net/IB_Songs_WiccanRitual.html

The Calling, with the blue flame visualization, really is it for a simple circle casting.

The only tool needed is Knife/athame, or wand, or pointed finger.

Again, you can get fancier. And you're going to get better results the more intimate you are with the elements/elementals and the directions.

Any questions?

Frondly, Fern

End Of Month Eats

2013-04-26T11:51:00.001-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

In a recent discussion in a Facebook group, the issue of getting thru' the end of the month on pasta or ramen came up. And how boring living on those noodles are.

Well.

First of all, you KNOW my view of pasta vs ramen, right? That pasta costs WAY less per serving, so go for that if you can? But, onward to making noodles flavorful (and more nutritious) when broke!

First, of course, your herb/spice rack is your friend. A shot of Sriracha sauce will kick up noodles. So will garlic and onion - use the powdered form if that's what you have.

Canned or frozen veggies can be added. Don't have any? Well, now that it's well into spring you can harvest what's growing wild. Today, for instance, I'm adding the greens from wild garlic, for vitamins C, A, fiber, and flavor. Here's a shot of wild garlic:

I'm also adding wild yellow dock. This is more of a problem to add - it can be bitter, and the Chubby Hubby is a supertaster of bitter and HATES HATES HATES it. So after I harvested it I chopped it, threw it in a bowl, and poured boiling water over it to blanch it. I drained it after it soaked for a few minutes and had CH taste it - it met his approval. For your viewing pleasure, a shot of yellow/curly dock:

There are plenty of other plants growing right now that you can add. Dandelions (again, bitter - you may have to soak/drain several times), plantain is coming up, creeping Charlie (nice peppery flavor), Corn creeper (boring flavor, but very nutritious), chickweed, etc. Even the young leaves of clover can be used.

And let's not forget to use those pasta, as well as ramen, in soup. Just add cheap cubes of boullion, and more wild greens (or canned veggies if you have them). Leftovers, in broth, with noodles, is a grand meal.

So - eat well!

Frondly, Fern

Spring Snow Day

2013-03-25T13:22:00.001-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

We have about 6 inches of snow, and it's still falling. Spawn got an 8:00 call from work, telling him not to bother coming in, they wouldn't be getting enough business to justify paying him.

Therefore, it's an official day of Spring Cleaning in our household. I'm mostly just doing the kitchen and breakfast nook myself. Spawn is doing bathrooms, and since HIS knees work he's scrubbing the sides of the cabinets and outside of the fridge/oven/dishwasher. Vacuuming and shampooing carpets is well under way. Chubby Hubby is going thru' his accumulated papers, and cleaning the laboratory. I'll clean many of the cobwebs, but one of those taller people will have to deal with some of them.

By the end of the day I expect we'll all be tired, but we will have a nice clean ready-for-summer-and-having-people-over house.

Frondly, Fern

Magick for Beginners, by J.H. Brennan

2013-03-21T06:30:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings - it's time for a Book Review!

I must have bought J. H. Brennan's "Magick for Beginners" a decade ago. I don't recall WHY I bought it, I suppose it's because I know that Brennan did at least one book with Dolores Ashcroft-Nowicki and I like her classes and books. Earlier this month I decided it was long past time for me to read the book.

I did not enjoy the book. I do not think it is a particularly good book for beginners at magick. I THINK he intended it as an intro to Ceremonial magick, but it's too disjointed to be that, and it has so little 'how to do' magick in it that a simple spellbook would be more practically useful.

The author says that he's starting readers off with 'low magick'. However .... he actually starts readers off with the Lesser Banishing Ritual of the Pentagram - pure theurgy, not practical, low-magical thaumaturgy. Then he moves into chapter after chapter on the 'clairs' - clairvoyance and such. Those, in my world view, are not magical skills, rather they are psychic skills. The one 'practical magical' working is to bring in $100 ... but he drags the reader thru' 'inadequate explanation and knowledge of the Kabala" to do it.

Then it's off to how magic isn't really magic, it's psychology, and we head to theurgy for the rest of the book. But not just any theurgy - it's Intro to Enochian, where one is supposed to do invocations in a language you don't know (and he doesn't always include translations). Then ... off to assumption of Godforms, the Rose Cross ritual (with no explanation of any of the Divinities the reader is calling!), etc.

Nothing practical in it's thaumaturgy. Nothing beginner in its theurgy. I simply cannot recommend the book.

Oh, let me look at how long it would take to 'work' the book, given it's exercises. Two weeks of doing the LBRP. Tatvva work - no clear idea how long that is supposed to take. Several weeks of the color version of the Middle Pillar. Then add the 'fountain of light' for an unmentioned amount of time. So - two months, THEN you spend a month on getting that $100. Total - over three months on what he calls 'low magick', only one of which is actually doing low magick.

Onward to High Magick - several exercises of self-awareness given, no time frame for how long they will take. Then a ritual to charge a Talisman, which requires the reader to prepare for two months (but anyone the reader gets to join in .... doesn't have to prepare that long? Because it's really only about the reader? very odd....), etc. No preparatory times given for these rituals, nor any word on how long to take between them or if you should/could do them all in one day. So, let's say another over three month period for theurgy.

Bah. And Humbug.

Frondly, Fern

Inducing Sleep

2013-03-20T12:34:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

Among the many and varied things I've taken on lately, I'm finally getting around to something I should have done decades ago - programming myself to fall asleep on cue. I often have issues with insomnia (both type - delay in falling asleep and waking in the middle of the night and being unable to fall asleep again easily). Thus, the need to program myself.

The plan is to put in place a two-part program. One part is a specific physical relaxation technique (and I've had to pick one I don't use for other purposes, like for astral projection preparations or other things); the other part is to pick/create a mantra to repeat just for falling asleep.

I'm still working on the mantra part. I DID hit one of the 'quotations' websites to select a bunch of quotes that might work (some with some adjustment) as the mantra. The quotes I'll be selecting from are:

So, next time you see someone sleeping, make believe you're in a science fiction movie. And whisper, 'The creature is regenerating itself.” George Carlin, Brain Droppings

“Sleep is my lover now, my forgetting, my opiate, my oblivion.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

“Sleep my little baby-oh
Sleep until you waken
When you wake you'll see the world
If I'm not mistaken...

Neil Gaiman, The Graveyard Book

“Man is a genius when he is dreaming.”
― Akira Kurosawa

“There is a time for many words, and there is also a time for sleep.”
― Homer, The Odyssey

“I crave the sweet surrender of sleep and my dreams' uncensored communication: no tiresome small talk, sucking up to impress, or tiptoeing around charged topics. Dreams are the naked truth; get ready for it.”
― Judith Orloff

“Eat healthily, sleep well, breathe deeply, move harmoniously.”
― Jean-Pierre Barral

The message of the lullaby is that it’s okay to dim the eyes for a time, to lose sight of yourself as you sleep and as you grow: if you drift, it says, you’ll drift ashore: if you fall, you will fall into place.”
― Kevin Brockmeier

“I breathe slowly and deeply. I make my eyes still under eyelids, I make my mind still, and soon, Sleep, seeing a perfect reproduction of himself, comes to be united with his facsimile.”
― Audrey Niffenegger, The Time Traveler's Wife

‘Do not let your hearts be troubled,’ she said. ‘Tonight you shall sleep in peace.’
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“We sleep, allowing gravity to hold us, allowing Earth- our larger body- to recalibrate our neurons, composting the keen encounters of our waking hours (the tensions and terrors of our individual days), stirring them back, as dreams, into the sleeping substance of our muscles. We give ourselves over to the influence of the breathing earth. Sleep is the shadow of the earth as it seeps into our skin and spreads throughout our limbs, dissolving our individual will into the thousand and one selves that compose it- cells, tissues, and organs taking their prime directives now from gravity and the wind- as residual bits of sunlight, caught in the long tangle of nerves, wander the drifting landscape of our earth-borne bodies like deer moving across the forested valleys.”
― David Abram, Becoming Animal: An Earthly Cosmology

“And then, despite all these concerns, Arnette felt her mind begin to loosen, the images of the day unwinding inside her like a spool of thread, pulling her down into sleep.”
― Justin Cronin, The Passage

“Sleep is closing your eyes and trusting you will heal.”
― Danielle Barone, Releasing A Toxic Person

“Whatever it may bring, I will live by my own policies, I will sleep with a clear conscience, I will sleep in peace.”
― Sinead O'Conner

She falls asleep like someone yielding to the gentle tug of a warm tide, and floats with confidence till morning.
― Julian Barnes, A History of the World in 10½ Chapters

He was sleepy. He felt sleep coming. He curled up under the blanket and went to sleep.”
― Ernest Hemingway, The Nick Adams Stories

I like so many of the quotes! But, by the end of the day, I shall decide on one and start programming myself tonight.

Frondly, Fern

Cycles....

2013-03-15T11:33:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

So, I'm slowly getting better. But now the Chubby Hubby is ill. At least it got him after we made some progress on consulting projects in the business, and we have enough money to get thru' the the next month. I'm quite fond of being able to pay the rent and utilities and such you know. And our grocery spending will only be $100 below food stamp levels. Whoo hoo!

I even made it to the stores for the 'big monthly shopping trip' yesterday. I wasn't able to buy everything I'd have liked to (you can check my ideal monthly shopping list here) but I also hit the corned beef and beer on sale for St. Paddy's day and got wine to cook with, all for my $100. I'm really low on sugar, but, let's face it, until I'm better I'm not likely to bake. I've even been relying on store-bought cheap styrofoam bread since getting sick.

Being able to rely on the pantry while sick is of course making life easier. We rely on apple juice when sick - it's sort of a family tradition. When the Spawn started this round of illness I grabbed another bottle as insurance, even tho' we already had bottle here. We're opening that bottle today for the Chubby Hubby. The Spawn, who is working a 12-hour double shift today, won't have to drag his sorry butt to the grocery store after work to help his Dad out.

Frondly, Fern

Extra Meditation

2013-03-14T13:46:00.000-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

One of the things about being sick is that, having cut out as much physical activity as I could from my life (the better to rest and heal - being unable to breathe is exhausting!), I have more time to meditate. So my daily meditation has risen from once a day to 3 times a day. I increased the meditation as soon as I got sick, so by the middle of this week - when I had two regularly-scheduled workings to do (Commune With Divinity and a Coven Crystal Charging) I was in a particularly good space to do them. I may have gotten past my problems binding with the new crystal, and I got a moon cycle (at least!) worth of tasks from the Stag.

And goodness knows what the wind is blowing in and out today, and for the rest of the month of March!

Frondly, Fern

Exercise While Sick

2013-03-13T20:19:00.001-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

I'm not over the pneumonia yet, not by a long shot. But I'm breathing much more easily.

So I started back with light exercise today. Upper body weights, using the shoulder/arm muscles I keep getting tendonitis in. I did this because I really really need to keep those muscles in play now that they aren't hurting on a daily basis. I used the lightest weights I have, and not many reps, and only 3 sets.

Felt GREAT. But after a week on the couch ... it was absolutely all I could do without having to take breaks.

Maybe Friday I'll be able to do a moderate bike workout!

Frondly, Fern

Pnuemonia

2013-03-11T17:13:00.001-04:00

Blessings Darlings!

So, yeah, I have pneumonia. They gave me an impressive assortment of drugs for it on Saturday, and I'm getting closer to feeling functional now that there is more oxygen in my bloodstream.

Uh ... about those drugs ... They gave me three types of steroids and an antibiotic. The steroids - one long-acting/slower onset one by pill, one nasal spray for my sinus', one fast inhaler for my lungs - are aimed at opening my airways so I can breathe. And the fast ones HAVE worked fast. There was improvement within 6 hours. But HOW do steroids do it? Wait for it .... wait for it .... wait for it ....

They do it by inhibiting my body's ability to fight infection. So I'm breathing better, and the antibiotic is doing it's part about the infection, but my body is no longer as fully involved in the battle.

I'm seeing if I can stop the fast-acting ones today, as per the Dr. instructions, and take the pills two more days. The antibiotic I get to take for 7 more days. Oh, and remember, there's no alcohol allowed while on antibiotics, because the liver, in the face of both alcohol and antibiotics, quickly breaks down and excretes antibiotics. So I can't take my elder extract while on the antibiotic even after the steroid phase ends.

Tis a mad, mad world.

Frondly, Fern

Double yuck

2013-03-10T17:45:00.002-04:00

Pneumonia. I expect I'll be taking at least a few more days off.....

Yuck

2013-03-06T08:28:00.000-05:00

Sick. Crabby. Coughing. Whining.

Too Windy to be Green

2013-03-04T13:28:00.000-05:00

Blessings Darlings!

The wind is killing me today. I'm one of those traditional types who prefers to do laundry on Mondays ... and dry it on the line. But in winter/early spring, I can only get one load dry on the line on a GOOD day. So I end up doing laundry pretty much every available day of the week!

So I hung today's laundry - linens. Big top and bottom sheets, which catch the wind. And boy is there wind today! I had to come in to the house to put gloves on, because the wind chill while handling wet laundry was killing me. In the 2 hours since I hung the laundry I've been out there twice to recapture what has blown off the line (and I put a LOT of clothes pins on each piece) and re-hang them.

And the wind hasn't just been screwing around with me on that. The newspapers and cardboard I used last week to help smother grass in the area I plan to garden in have had their protective heavy mulch blown off - I've been chasing after them in my 3 acre yard (and I think I see some in my neighbor's yard as well).

The weather folks promise that the wind will die tonight ... if I make it that long. And if we get the promised snow storm on Wednesday, that will help settle the garden, but with rain starting on Tuesday and the storm on Wednesday, those are at least two more days I can't hang laundry.

I'm going to get a nice HOT cup of tea now.

Frondly, Fern

Tomato Talk

2013-03-01T06:30:00.000-05:00

Blessings Darlings!

I've been looking at my tomato planting options today. I'm not 100% happy with the variety of seeds I bought. Unless otherwise noted, all these tomatoes are open pollinated, tho' not all are considered 'heritage'.

I bought Beef Steak tomatoes - a GREAT large fresh-eating tomato. I will happily use them for that. But they aren't a great variety for canning and drying, as the seeds/goo are spread thru' the tomato and not in a few large, easy-to-emply cavities.

The selection of cheap seeds also had Mortgage Lifter tomatoes. I don't want those - they are way too large to can easily, and are low acid tomatoes so they can't be water-bath canned unless you add vinegar. These were developed in southern West Virginia, which has a pretty significantly different climate/growing season than we do here in northern West Virginia.

Often I grow Roma tomatoes, also known as Italian tomatoes. They are great for canning, drying, and sauces, with thick flesh and easy to remove seeds/goo. They are also a determinant variety, unlike the previously listed tomatoes, which means that all the fruit on the plant ripens at about the same time, rather than continuously producing over the season - this is one of the things that makes them great for canning. OTOH, their flesh is grainy and their taste peaks when cooked, so they aren't great for fresh use. These were developed close to where I used to live - at the Agricultural Research Station in Beltsville, Maryland (same place they developed modern big-breasted turkeys!).

Rutgers is another of my go-to tomatoes. Developed at, yes, Rutgers University in New Jersey, they were one of the first Wide Spread Industrial Farming tomatoes. Meaty without being grainy, thick-skinned for their time (thin skinned for our time!) for less problems when shipping, good flavor, easy to can, nice size for canning at about 8 ounces each, and determinant.

Juliet tomatoes are a variety I'm fond of - but, alas, are a hybid. They are a large grape tomato - I'd call them between grape tomatoes and Roma tomatoes in shape and features. Nice flavor. Great for drying.

Sun Gold Cherry tomatoes - what a great taste! But how easily they split! And another hybrid.

What I'm going to do is use the Beefsteaks, and also see if I can get my existing (but old) Rutgers seeds to sprout. If not, I'll see if I can get more of them or some Roma seeds, even if I have to pay Burpee prices for one packet.

What are your tomato considerations, and favorite types to grow?

Frondly, Fern

Great Depression Story

2013-02-27T11:00:00.001-05:00

Blessings Darlings!

Times were tough back in the Depression. They were especially tough if your father was an alcoholic who had been fired from his job as an insurance salesman and your mother was abusive, and you were still in high school.

This was the situation my Mother In Law was in.

As a result, they somehow ended up on some rural farmland during the Depression. I don't know if they owned the land, how much land there was, or where in Illinois the land was. It was not located 'in town', or walking distance from the high school.

They made it thru', obviously, or she'd not have married and had a son that I ended up marrying.

They grew stuff and had a farm stand. I suppose they grew all sorts of things - but what she says got them by were two main crops: Sorghum, which was pressed for sweetener; and Kentucky Wonder pole beans. Perhaps these were their 'cash crops', while most other things they grew they consumed and sold only extras.

But while what they raised 'got them by', they didn't provide enough for her to go to high school. She left home (moved out permanently? during the school year? During the school week only?) to live with the widow who ran the general store in town, working for her after school, to get thru' high school. That way she could get to school by walking and earned enough cash to pay for books/supplies and clothes and such.

This year, the first growing season after my Mother In Law has passed on, I'm going to grow my first Kentucky Wonder beans, in her honor.

Frondly, Fern