The Art of Mindful Neglect

People are stressed out, they say. So much to do, so little time, no time for themselves, no time for leisure, running here, running there, never catching up. We do what we must do and what we are taught to do, by our mothers, by our associates, by our society, our religion, our family traditions - there’s lots of influencing factors. But if we are truly so busy we barely have time to turn around, maybe we need to learn the art of mindful neglect.

Some people wash dishes before they put them in the dishwasher. Some choose to ferry their children to a myriad of extra curricular activities (and put in extra hours of work to pay for them). Some keep their floors so clean you could sit down on them and use them for a plate! Some work incessantly to keep up appearances.  I know women who think they need to iron sheets - really, no joke! I stopped ironing 48 years ago when my cat decided my basket of ironing was a good place to have her kittens.  Everything in that basket was ruined but that cat sure simplified my life!

This Christmas we had no Christmas tree, other than a 2 foot pre-decorated one. Our grandgirls did wonder, for a moment, why we didn’t put up our usual big tree, but the fact that it was missing was soon forgotten in a whirl of festivities and good food. Just this wee decision contributed, in a small way, to a more relaxed Christmas holiday for me, from the Solstice to the New Year. 

I am retired, sort of - anyhow I no longer work off farm and my husband does most of the outside chores, so I am in a good position to pick and choose what I do. But retired, unless you are lucky enough to do so prior to 65, could be redefined as tired again. Somehow it takes longer to accomplish the basics of domestic engineering than it once did. Younger people frequently have more to accomplish in a day than a retiree. Fortunately they have more energy, but there are limits! Pushing these limits too far, adding even one more responsibility when you are already overwhelmed, can tip you over the edge, effecting not only you but your family as well.

There’s many things we cannot avoid, many demands on our time, but there’s some things we could simply choose to ignore and our world won’t fall apart, it will just readjust itself to a new normal and continue on. This is the art of  mindful neglect. Look at what you’re doing. What does it accomplish, is it necessary or frivolous, would life be much better if you do it, or worse if you don’t? Are you doing it for yourself, for others, for another’s perception of you? Much of the time we complicate our own lives, little added activities/chores compound into one big time grab. Mindful neglect does not add up to careless disregard. It’s simply a way of decluttering what, on careful inspection, might be an overloaded to-do list.

Doc

 Rest In Peace, Doc

Grow Old with Dogs

When I am old....

I will wear soft grey sweatshirts,

and a bandanna over my silver hair,

and I will spend my social security checks on wine and my dogs.

I will sit in my house on my well-worn chair and listen to my dogs breathing.

I will sneak out in the middle of a warm summer night

and take my dogs for a run,

if my old bones will allow.

When people come to call......

I will smile and nod as I show them my dogs......

and talk of them and about them;

the ones so beloved of the past

and the ones so beloved today.

I will still work hard cleaning after them, mopping and feeding them 

and whispering their names in a soft loving way.

I will wear the gleaming sweat on my throat, like a jewel

and I will be an embarrassment to all...especially my family....

who have not yet found the peace in being free to have dogs as your very best friends.

These friends who will always wait at any hour,

for your footfall....

and eagerly jump to their feet out of a sound sleep,

to greet you as if you are a God.

With warm eyes full of adoring love

and hope that you will always stay,

I'll hug their big strong necks.....

I'll kiss their dear sweet heads......

and whisper in their very special company.

I look in the Mirror...... ..And see I am getting old.

This is the kind of person I am and have always been.

Loving dogs is easy, they are part of me.

Please accept me for who I am.

My dogs appreciate my presence in their lives...

they love my presence in their lives.

When I am old, this will be important to me.

You will understand when you grow old......

if you have dogs to love too.

Thank you, Viv Billingham, for sharing this beautiful poem.

Don Cherry - What’s the Fuss?

Don Cherry - What’s the Fuss?

You people that come here … whatever it is, you love our way of life, you love our milk and honey. At least you could pay a couple of bucks for a poppy.” He then began pointing his finger at the camera, “These guys paid for your way of life, the life you enjoy in Canada. These guys paid the biggest price.” 

The moment I heard this on the TV news my first thought was “This man should be fired!” I was not alone. So many people complained to the Canadian Broadcasting Standards Council about Cherry, that it exceeded 'the CBSC’s technical processing capacities'. 

Don Cherry is thought of by many as a Canadian icon, but not all agree. Listening further to the news broadcast I was treated to many other misogynistic, racist, divisive, and heralded as perfectly acceptable statements of Cherry’s opinion aired on Hockey Night in Canada over the years. His views are supposedly harmless, just in fun, painting life as he sees it. But Canada is growing up and is, at least in the public eye, leaving people like Don Cherry behind.

Or are we? Does Don Cherry simply say out loud what many say and feel privately? There’s a swell of support out there, on Facebook, Twitter. Cherry, people are saying, is just an actor with an amusing commentary, almost a clown in his signature attire, shouldn’t be taken seriously. “What in the world is all the fuss about?” they say. “He’s harmless!” 

Is he?

In private conversations I have heard misogynistic, racist, and derogatory ethnic comments expressed by people I respect. If called to their attention they laugh, say “Lighten up, I was just joking!” But such conversation has the effect of reinforcing and perpetuating a culture of “us and them”. We might have a better chance of establishing amenable relations with people from different backgrounds if we are not armed with stereotypes in advance.

Immigrants come to this country for many reasons, to escape war, to better their economic position, to reunite with family already here. It takes time to adapt to a different way of looking at the world. We have very little understanding of how confusing and difficult it may be for an immigrant to question or alter his or her past learning, traditions, cultural and religious indoctrination, especially a first generation immigrant. Immigrants have good reasons to come to Canada, but it’s not necessarily an easy transition and they all leave a piece of themselves behind.  

The Canadian identity, which would be hard to define, is already quite diversified and it is changing. Twenty years ago not one word would have been said about Don Cherry’s “You people...” statement. Had it been said in private it wouldn’t have caused even a tiny ripple, especially coming from an old man. But Canada is made of slowly melding races, religions, and ethnicities, creating a rich tapestry. We differ in many respects, but we are all Canadians.

A friend commented on Facebook, “All old men say inappropriate things. It’s their right. It’s our right to ignore them.” True, we can roll our eyes and forgive grandpa, but maybe old men whose attitudes belong in the archives should no longer be given a public forum.

A Winter Wine Makers Dilemma

It has been decided in our household that my husband, since he is the bee keeper, should be the mead maker. He made one batch in the summer but it was too good, and it has been difficult to save even two bottles to see how the wine will improve with age. Finally, last week he started another batch. When I checked the specific gravity 5 days later it had not changed at all! It wasn’t working. Had we killed the yeast somehow? We decided, after popping a thermometer into the primary fermenter, that it was just too cold. So we brought it out to the kitchen and set it by the stove. After a couple of days it began to work and the SG is slowly going down. Hopefully it’ll ready for the carboy in a few days.

In the meantime it appears like my raspberry wine is doing okay in our usual wine room (ie our small first floor once upon a time bedroom that has become our catch all space for anything we can’t find a place for). It’s still working - slowly. We are in a quandary as to wether the mead will continue to work if we put it in a carboy in that same room. On the other hand putting a glass carboy next to the kitchen heater could be a bit concerning as it’s a busy high traffic area - not just people, 4 dogs too! 

I have enough raspberries to make 2 more batches of raspberry wine, enough honey to make one more batch of mead. But, should I wait till spring???? If I don’t wait, will I have to fill my kitchen with wine jugs?

We do not have central heating. We have a propane space heater in our living/dining room and a wood stove in the kitchen, so the spare room is always a few degrees cooler. We could, for about $150, get an electric carboy heater and thermostat, but it obviously uses power and we try to avoid buying stuff that increases our electrical use. And we would need more than one! In winter the sun shines less making solar power less efficient and necessitating more diesel generator battery charging. So I’d rather solve this chilly air problem some other way. So far I’ve given my wine a blanket. Does this keep heat in or insulate it from the heat? Maybe I should heat up bricks in the fire (or a bean bag in the microwave) and place them inside the blanket?

Hopefully we can solve this winter wine makers dilemma... 

Apple Cider

If you have an apple tree you will be familiar with the problem of having too many apples. In my cellar I have plenty of jars of whole crab apples, crab apple jelly, applesauce, apple butter, apples with raspberries..... No need to make more.  

But we wanted to do something with this year’s apples. So, with the help of our neighbor who has an apple press, we had the pleasure of making pure apple cider (i.e. apple juice, not the alcoholic cider). We picked 4-5 gallon pails of apples, leaving the ones out of reach for the birds.

What an incredible, machine the apple press is! I’ve made juice by cooking apples down and squeezing through a jelly bag, but this was so easy, and made more enjoyable because it was done with the help of our friend and celebrated by a few drinks of apple juice and rum, a mighty tasty newly discovered beverage. 

Since the apples were small there was no need to cut them up. They did not need to be cored or stemmed. Just popped them into the grinder and then into the press. 

I could hardly believe how much juice we got! Our yield was one full pail of juice to the 4 pails of apples! And the juice (even without the rum) is delicious. I canned the juice (water bath - 20 minutes) as there was too much to consume fresh. 

Wow, thanks neighbor!

Earth’s Lament

Amidst all the climate hullabaloo flying around during this election time, 

Amidst all the promises waiting to be broken, 

Amidst all the apocalyptic prophisizing contrasted by all the denying,

Amidst all the bright answers,

Amidst all the individual and corporate greed, 

Amidst all the hope and all the despair and everything in between - 

Here’s an old poem of mine. If I looked back in my blog I’d likely find it there. I wrote it while looking out at a Parking Lot Sea, while waiting for my husband to reappear from shopping for something or other. It has been somewhat modified from the original...

Earth’s Lament

I am the earth and I need to breathe,

Feel the wind through my grasses and the leaves of my trees,

Wake fresh in the morning with dew on my chest,

Wrinkle, roll and stretch from the east to the west, 

Bathe in the rain and bask in the sun,

Shine in the moonlight when my workday is done.

I am the earth and I must see the sky,

Deprive me of this, I’ll get sick, I could die!

You paint me in black with asphalt on roads,

Reshape my body for diamonds and gold,

Draw fluid up from the depths of my bowels,

Dump sewage in water making it foul,

You harvest my lungs, pollute all my veins,

Smoke fills my air, acidifies my rain.

You’ve put me in danger, I cannot forgive,

For I am the earth and I want to live!

I am the earth, please let me breathe,

Feel the wind through my grasses and the leaves of my trees,

Wake fresh in the morning with dew on my chest,

Wrinkle, roll and stretch from the east to the west, 

Bathe in the rain and bask in the sun,

Shine in the moonlight when my workday is done.

I am the earth, you live in my home,

Treat me with kindness, I won’t die alone.

Thinking About Greta Thunberg

Another cold rainy day. Nursing a summer cold, tired of being chilled to the bone and buried in blankets, I broke down and acknowledged the elements this morning by putting a fire on in the kitchen wood stove. I spent my early morning as usual, checking email, surfing Facebook, and playing Spider Solitaire on my iPad before making breakfast. But such a day is a day to write, and while washing dishes my mind was thinking about Greta Thunberg, the 16 year old climate change activist we are hearing much about. She is heading out now, on the Malizia II, a racing yacht that uses solar panels to power underwater turbines, to go to climate conferences in the US and Chile. Why is she taking the time to travel by “sailboat”? She believes air traffic is a huge contributor to climate change and the casual attitude we all, including myself, have of hopping a plane to get quickly from here to there should be reconsidered. But, but, but... (I can almost hear people’s minds rejecting this premise) Canada is such a huge country! It takes days to get across it! And we really need to escape the north sometimes, go to a sunny tropical paradise and soak up copious quantities of vitamin D. What about vehicle emissions! And the time! How could we get places in a reasonable amount of time without air travel? How could I go to my cousin's wedding back east? ...

A meme I saw on Facebook today. Not sure of it’s accuracy but I can see the point. 

I often wonder if  our global economy was a huge error in judgement. 

Hmmm. If you think that this climate change chatter is all a lot of BS, that the science behind the idea is skewed, that climate has always changed (which is quite true), that human activity has nothing to do with weather or excess carbon dioxide in our atmosphere, or that this excess is no problem, well, that’s a comfortable place to be, and a good excuse to do business as usual.

Climate change is such a contentious issue, and I know thinking people on both sides of the fence, so I tend to talk about global pollution instead. Pollution is something we can see, smell, feel, something we can all recognize as out of control, something we can agree on. Addressing the causes of pollution and finding solutions to clean up our environment are bound to be a good for planet earth. So I try to find positive news to forward on Facebook, breakthroughs in science and industry that may address pollution and still enable us to maintain our current lifestyle, with some modifications.

In those parts of the world where we live the “good life” we have no political or personal will to make changes that will lower our living standard. No one wants to live without electricity, cars, central heating (or air conditioning), washing machines, running water, indoor plumbing, supermarkets, internet, TV... I could go on and on with this list. If you have it you don’t want to give it up. We’re even quite willing to turn a blind eye to our exploitation of third world countries so we can obtain all these things, things which are desired but not always necessary. 

Most of us live in cities. Cities pollute. The industries located out in the hinterlands are producing products to keep the cities chugging along as usual. Farms are keeping cities fed. City people seem to find all sorts of ways to criticize those of us who are out in the country serving their needs, while conveniently ignoring their collusion in the whole scheme of things. Campaigns about cow farts and burps, dirty oil and pipelines, clear cutting the forest, keeping dogs in warm houses, etc. seem, on the surface, to be noble and sensible. But trucks are still lining the highways bringing products to the cities, planes are still delivering fresh lobster to our table, container ships still chug across the oceans filled with plastic junk to gift at Christmas time. Very few people are changing the way they live in any discernible way.

I understand this attitude. When I came to our bush farm 45 years ago with a baby on my back, almost no money, no power, no outhouse, no water, a tiny shack to live in and an outdoor kitchen with a wood cookstove, I had a dream and a desire to improve. And we did improve, slowly. Now I’d fight tooth and nail to keep the improvements we made. If something breaks down we don’t throw up our hands and say, oh well, we’ve done it before, we know we can do without. No, we fix it! So let’s do some sensible things we are able to do as individuals, and let’s encourage our governments to tackle the big things, support science and innovation to clean up the mess we never realized we were getting ourselves into. For this we need to light the fires of political will. This is accomplished through activism.

Greta Thunberg, child activist - GOOD for YOU!