A large machine

Well drilling on May Day! Exciting to see the huge derrick backed up in between the shop and the studio, jacked up and ready for tomorrow morning. Mr. Lee has had a good time peeing on all the tires. 
Today I followed Alma home after qigong and we loaded fence posts (t-bars) and wire cages into the truck for the garden; we now have the most sturdy pea trellis in the history of the garden.The wet spring has been good for the early crops, potatoes are beginning to break ground, lettuces, greens, onions - all look good. Great to garden with a master gardener!

I

 

that face

Thinking that you won't live "that long" is a bad bad idea. Of course, no way to convince most teenagers or people like me who had scant relatives who lived into their nineties (one!). Besides the fact that my "Irish" skin fell outside my easily tanned mother's cognizance. It is very difficult to get out of the sun on a sailboat; and I spent a fair amount of time sailing. So I wasn't surprised today at my "every 3 months" check up at the dermatologist to find that they want to biopsy a spot on my face. Just sad. 

 

Well, well...

I'm having to get a well. My strong, dynamic spring has been flooded since February; I have been boiling water. I have slowly diffused my resistance, bolstered by estimates for digging out the silted in spring/creek area. There are no local people who work with springs anymore. The county health department engineer came out yesterday to set a location for the well; when I get the paperwork I must choose a drilling company. The perks will be that I can have a washing machine that I don't have to fill with water by hose to avoid constantly cleaning the silt from the filter. I plan to work by hand on ditching out the spring this hot summer - on removing some of the flag irises that have almost blocked the exit to spring over flow.

a poem

Sun Package

for Patty

You ask me to pray for your friend

and her daughter, both dying

of cancer. I send you this sun package

here on my body

lying in a hammock

by the river.

Honking geese fly the water course,

the taste of wild violets on my tongue

the ephemeral warmth

coaxing the red bud blush behind me,

love.

4/14/2013

Mary North

68

Sixty-eight yesterday morning at 5:58 AM. An inch and 3/4 inch of rain, wind and skies tumultuous. A fine April day, clearing until the view from the ridge took the eyes to West Virginia. And last night the new moon holding a grey sphere of itself. 
Sixty-eight, one year older than my mother lived which had been a nagging history in my mind. But I'm in uncharted territory now. Loose upon the world and angry at the insane politicians trying to pad the pockets of the rich and the white and the men and the corporations at the expense of the working poor and middle class and the women and the children and the environment. 
Sixty-eight and on my birthday a shooting at the local mall, two women hospitalized and an 18 year old male shooter arrested. I'm not unfamiliar with guns and of their danger. Without guns in the home there would be A LOT more people alive; people who might have survived suicide or family arguments or drive by shootings. Oh, but there is so much that we need to work towards; I have so much that urges me to get up out of the bed in the morning. This incredibly beautiful world that needs our respect and love.
Sixty-eight and most exciting of all is that I am a grandmother for the third time! There is a precious baby boy in Ethiopia waiting to come home. I am so looking forward to holding him. He's in my heart, in the heart of here, we wish him home soon with every walk.

bipolar April

Yesterday temperatures rising into the 80's. This morning's red skies promising rain from a cold front moving in from the west that brought and is bringing snow - fortunately not forecast for us. Here the garden ground dry enough that my son tilled the garden and I can begin planting with my neighbor, Alma, who is sharing my garden until she has one of her own in a new house. Just a week ago we had snow and enjoyed sledding - tho not the cold!
Grand-daughter and I had a wonderful morning hosting a New York artist who has been commissioned to create a large landscape inspired by the New River Valley for Virginia Tech's new Center for the Arts. Adam Cvijanovic and Margo, the new curator at Tech's Art Center, hiked with us to the swimming hole talking about the land and of New Orleans!They walked the new bridge, huge downed tree, across the small back bay at the swimming hole - I still haven't had the courage or balance.