Divorcing the car, dating the bike

Bike gear needed! Yes, I am definitely going to need some more gear for the bike. I've got lights built in, a helmet, and bike poncho for rain. (If you think that you see the Great Pumpkin on a bicycle this winter, it may be me, my gear on my back, and the ORANGE bike poncho over all of it). I need to get some other things. A few are safety additions, some are to make life on a bike more functional. I am currently limited to carrying what will fit in my knapsack, on my back. I need the capacity to carry MUCH more stuff, and keep it dry. I need saddlebags. If anyone wants to help out, my wish list is both here, and at Oly Bikes. If you are able to call or visit them, and make any sort of a contribution towards equiping me, I would greatly apppreciate it.

Bicycling has been going very, very well for me. I find that my mind is calmer, and more able to deal with things, when I can bicycle frequently. I no longer have to maintain the hyper-vigilance of a safe car driver, as I am mostly on dedicated bike trails. My blood pressure is down to 147/72, at which my doctor and I did a happy dance. (Weight is dropping, also, which just means I need to figure out how to make my jeans fit better!)

My daughter and grand-daughter have moved to Florida, where there is a job for H at Disney World Resorts, in the costuming department. Onsite living quarters, onsite daycare for E, flexible work schedule for H. Just missing them dreadfully, is all.

Two Wheeled Freedom

I am VERY happy with my bike. Limiting myself to bike trails at the moment. Have comfortably done about 3 miles at a time. Took my granddaughter out in the trailer, and she really liked it. Trailer hardly seems to be there, trails really nicely. Returning to a bicycle has also sent me back to the feelings of freedom that I first had as a child/teen, when I realized that I could get wherever I needed to go. Very empowering, very relaxing, all is good.

The year is ending

I discarded Christmas some years ago, not being interested in either the religious or the commercial basis of the holiday. I have not yet put in place any rituals for celebrating the winter solstice, and I may not need to. This year, I walked around all day, cherishing the knowledge that it was mid-winter, and that the light WOULD begin to return. That was all I really needed.

A friend has a link to this on her blog, and I greatly appreciated it.The Christians and the Pagans, by Dar Williams.

As the seasons cycle, the year is over. I survived, with my mind more-or-less intact, through midwinter, and can now look towards the future more easily. At home, life is a little easier for having created adaptations to some of the things that broke/malfunctioned in our home this year. I cherish the donation of time and labor, for the fixing of my partner's bicycle, which is his means of transport and independence.  I have done further research on nuts I want to plant, nitrogen-fixing shrubs I want, and economical sources of Black Hawthorne to begin creation of a perimeter hedge around my property. Cob construction looks like an interesting building technique. I can make mud pies! I am having thoughts about designing and building a small mud-pie bath-house on my property. Water to be solar/Rocket Stove heated. The ideas abound.

Black Hawthorne

Bubbling brain

My brain is bubbling over with researches related to: Straw Bale Construction, a home built round house, Celtic Round Houses, willows that I would like to grow, and nut trees to buy and plant. I also sewed up some heat pads from flannel, about 8" x 15", and filled their pockets with beans, and stitched them shut. Microwaved, or heated in the oven while baking, and they make WONDERFUL foot warmers, hand warmers, or backwarmers.

The sidewalk garden needs some attention, but the kale, chives, comfrey, and Rose Campion all made it through the cold (as did I).

Gotta love youtube. Fix-it videos gave me what I needed for myself and my daughter to fix my clothes dryer together. When you've never seen it's guts, it is rather scary to contemplate surgery.

I am glad I no longer live where snow comes and stays, and melts a little bit and freezes, and MORE comes. Here, I can enjoy the snow on the evergreen trees and covering the browned grasses. I can watch my silly dog roll in it, shake it off, and roll in it again. My granddaughter learned to throw snowballs yesterday. But I can still go out and pick Swiss Chard and Kale, and there are still hardy crops, such as the Brussels Sprouts, coming out of the ground at the farm to nourish us. I love this region that I inhabit.

Cope, and cope some more.

I keep surviving. Will be trying to fix the clothes drier today, as it is now too cool to dry things hanging up anywhere. But that hasn't stopped D. So all the dishtowels, his clothes, etc., now smell of mildew, as he washed them and hung them in the living room to dry. Which took about 3 days.

The first guerrilla garden is doing all right. The kale and chives are doing wonderfully.

Reading about tree bogs, humanure, and have spotted a wonderful house.


I could build something like this, I bet! Harvest trees from the property. I have done a little bit of chiseling joints in wood. Happiness!

Heart Home

Can we have more than one heart-home? A place that lives in our heart and cells? I love this place that I live in. I come over the hill, and see my city below, and I am filled with richness. The tapestry of greens. But, browsing the location that one of my dog sitting client is visiting, I recall other riches. I remember the richness of distance, being able to look and look , over the hillsides, into folds in the hills. A richness of  beige  and ochre and buff, old gold and olive and goldenrod. Golden-red velvet draped over the folds of the hills, changing tones in the winds. Winds that whistle, and bring dust and tumbleweeds (Russian Thistle, usually). Texture, that of the velvet hillsides, the carved channels, sandy, crunchy, silky. Plants spaced at arms reach, so that each can get some water.