Posts from the ‘Front Porch Musings’ category

Being mindful

It is Thanksgiving Day here in the United States.

We celebrate the day with food and family and friends…food!

We speak of all we are thankful for and most of us have much to be thankful for.

Recently, I read an article about being mindful of the food we eat. The writer talked of her own thoughts while stirring honey into her tea… of being mindful of the bees who made the honey, the people who gathered it and the entire chain of distribution that brought that honey to her home.

It is a bit Zen, a bit 60’s…, but I tried it. As I sat to eat, I thought about the plants and animals that contributed to my food. I thought of all of the people who contributed to getting the food to the store. I brought to mind all the things I know about what it takes to get the simplest of food to my table. It is an interesting exercise and for me, it was calming and peaceful and ultimately filled me with gratitude and compassion.

The thoughts brought to mind the scene from Avatar when she blesses the animal that is killed, thanks the animal for its life and praises the animal and its creator.

A common mealtime blessing is to ask for the food to do good to the bodies that eat it, to bless those who prepared it and I now add a thanks to the animal and plants and people who provided the food to be prepared…being mindful of all it took to get food to my table.

Being mindful.

I sat this morning with Bob and Bear – my time of quiet contemplation and prayer. I listened to the rain falling. I enjoyed the companionship of my beloved boys.

I have much to be thankful for this Thanksgiving Day, but topping the list is the reminder to be mindful: to be mindful of the joy in the moment, to be mindful of all who have a part in the things that bring me joy and sustenance and to be mindful of the Creator who gave me and all those I love, abundant life.

So much pumpkin…so little time.

This time last year I was making preparations to head to my folks with Bear in Wild Thing. Today, I received a TDay email from Patty and her family…Bear and I enjoyed a night before and Thanksgiving Day morning with them in Missoula last year.

It was a wonderful trip and as I perused my blog posts from that trip I got to wishing we were on the road again! If not for Bear’s leg and surgery, we WOULD be off :)!

However. We will all still enjoy.

Yesterday my computer locked up and required a total reboot.

While that was happening I made a pumpkin pie! This was my first from fresh pumpkin…pumpkin from my CSA, roasted in my own oven….

…and topped with cashew whipped cream and a drizzle of cashew cream vanilla bean caramel sauce.

I jumped the gun you say ???? I say NOT!

I promised my neighbors pumpkin pie and so I had to make it before the day AND because it was my first from fresh pumpkin, I REALLY needed to make sure that it was edible!!!

Well, it was edible.

BUT.

I emailed my mother that I’d made the pie and that I’d used the Betty Crocker/Libby Pumpkin Can recipe and it was ok but I’d do a thing or so different next time.

She emailed me back that she didn’t realize I didn’t have Grandma’s recipe…actually Great, Great Grandma…a Scot from Aberdeen. My mother wrote the recipe as she sat and watched my Great Grandmother make pie. My own Grandmother Ruthie did not have the written recipe and was not a big fan of measuring and sometimes the pie was outstanding and one year it had a greenish tinge from a bit much of cloves. Anyway. The original recipe… which my mother wrote down and has been making all of her adult life – and finally – I also have it.

Another pie is in the works. Maybe my computer will lock up this evening…or tomorrow.

I have plenty of pumpkin.

Kodachrome, part deux: you give us those nice bright colors

I had some phenomenal teachers in high school and am forever grateful for them as well as for the influence of my parents on reading, problem solving, learning, loving to learn…AND learning that failure is something to be learned from, laughed about and absolutely not feared.

And I have a Canon camera… although my first camera was a Minolta, rescued from a pawn shop bin by my father and given to me on my 16th birthday.

I was made to first learn in black and white, NOT Kodachrome :) !!

And I have no idea why sometimes these songs come to mind. Music, as in the “current” music was not and is still not of great importance to me. I guess I had the car radio on when I was young but I didn’t buy much music…ever. And now: I prefer listening to the wind in the trees and chatter of the animals or the sound of my car or motorhome engine…so HOW do I know and/or remember these songs?

A mystery.

But yesterday, walking through the woods with Bear as the sun was setting and lighting up the wood grasses and dead thistles…I wanted to capture the moment and the feeling.

I love to take a photograph.

And the song came to mind, unbidden, out of the ether.

Kodachrome by Paul Simon

When I think back
On all the crap I learned in high school
It’s a wonder
I can think at all
And though my lack of education
Hasn’t hurt me none
I can read the writing on the wall

Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away

If you took all the girls I knew
When I was single
And brought them all together for one night
I know they’d never match
My sweet imagination
And everything looks worse in black and white

Kodachrome
You give us those nice bright colors
You give us the greens of summers
Makes you think all the world’s a sunny day, oh yeah!
I got a Nikon camera
I love to take a photograph
So Mama, don’t take my Kodachrome away

Moonlight tortillas

I am a morning person.

With the exception of the few times – as in I don’t need all 10 fingers to count – I’ve needed to catch the dark-o-clock flight out of Glacier Park International Airport, I haven’t used an alarm for morning wake up in over 18 years.

I am up with the chickens and neighborhood rooster in the morning and typically in bed and asleep before 9:30 at night.

But tonight, I was making tortillas at 8:00.

The last tortilla went in the skillet at 8:20.

There are a dozen tortillas in those towells. Eleven will make it into the frig and freezer. I always eat one hot tortilla, fresh from the skillet. Tonight it was wrapped around Black Forest Ham and enjoyed as I prepared this post and remembered the making.

I rolled tortillas, watching the one in the skillet, flipping/removing to the warm towells…with the kitchen windows open and the cool night air wafting in. Such an unusual time for me and such an unusual experience of light, of dark, of air and sound.

When that last tortilla was done, I took the rolling cloth outside for a shake-off…

…and saw the moon.

This chair

For the last maybe two to three years, I’ve sat it in more than on the front porch. Both Karl and Bear liked/like the spot I now call Beardog Point…not too far, but not too close – a spot that allows an eye on the game trail below and also the road.

For me, to be close to my dog – not so close as to be intrusive, but near enough – to be in the shade of the pines, to have a bit of view to the east and to the west – it is a good spot.

I spent hours in this chair near Karl when he was well and then when he was not. I sat in this chair in the morning, in the evening and a number of times in the middle of the night. I count every moment in this chair, with my dog near, as moments dear to me. There are times when I feel like I can remember every one of those moments.

I remember praying for Karl – for healing, for his comfort, for peace and for wisdom. I remember just sitting and being with him.

Now, with Bear, I have the joy of seeing him become comfortable at this place and with me and with Bob. It is endearing that he lies in nearly the exact same spot that Karl did. I feel sure that Karl speaks to him in some way. I have certainly asked Karl to do so…particulary in regards to Bob :) !

This chair.