Loose Leaf Notes

1. The finches are at the feeders sunning their feathered coats that have not turned yellow yet.

2. I can’t walk past a stick without sizing up it up and resisting the urge to pick it up for woodstove kindling.

3. I took THIS shot by sticking my camera out the open window of my car while driving and call it a “come as you are” shot.

4. Last week my grandsons went on an adventure walk with Hopa Joe. When they came across a dead rabbit that looked like it had been chewed up by another animal, Bryce (6) responded right away by saying, “That’s sad.” Liam, who is four, said, “I’m not allowed to look at that.”

5. You know you live in the country when you see a message on the Floyd Group Facebook page that says: If anyone sees Barry Rorer, tell him his pigs are loose.

6. I can almost hear the squeak in the word tweak.

7. It wasn’t long before I was wishing I hadn’t sold all my and gypsy shawls and flowing Indian-print skirts at our moving yard sale in Texas. But this was the MTV ‘80s and I was a Mother Earth News wanna-be homesteader in need of some LL Bean work boots and jeans. I read or heard a rumor once that the hippies that came to Floyd in the ‘70s and ‘80s were trust fund beneficiaries, but the majority of people I knew lived at or below-the-poverty-line. That was the trade-off we were willing to make to be home raising our kids, pursuing healthy natural lifestyles, living simply (sometimes off the grid) with land stewardship in mind. – From my contribution to Randall Well’s e-book Floydiana, titled Hippies are from California HERE.

8. Recent google searches: What ring finger do you wear your wedding ring on? When are the Grammys? When can I deposit money to an IRA Roth account? How many have died from vaccines?

9. The recent rhetoric from those pushing measles vaccine compliance has been so divisive and condescending that it reminds me of the Iraq War propaganda, when George Bush said ‘you’re either with us or against us.’ Confusing the measles with diseases like polio is like lumping marijuana with heroin.  HERE is something I wrote about the link between vaccines and autism in 2011, after the rate of autism, which was practically unheard of when I was growing up, rose 57% in four years, from one in every 150 child being diagnosed to one in every 110. Now it’s one in 68.

10. Last night I dreamt that Joe and I were home together when we heard someone on the porch near the front door. We both looked at each other, surprised and confused. Did we forget we were expecting someone? Who could it be? A robber perhaps? We opened the door and discovered it was my 89 year old mother (who is currently in a rehab/nursing home). We were shocked! She was thin and frail but was somehow walking and somehow she got from Massachusetts to Virginia. The dream is particularly interesting because she has been telling me she was going to visit again, even though I knew in reality (because she is physically disabled and can’t walk on her own) that it wasn’t going to happen. The dream, which I had after writing THIS poem, made me think about an elder person’s ability to exist in between worlds at a certain point in their life.

11. We went to the gym over the weekend weekend, in other words, to Dogtown Roadhouse. – See HERE.

12. Sign seen on Facebook: It’s a shame that Brian Williams will probably be the only person ever punished for lying about Iraq.

13. THIS really turns me around.

____________Thirteen Thursday