It's Been Over a Year

Last post was over a year ago.  Right before the previously coveted event of becoming a grandmother became a reality.  Be careful what you wish for.

I feel blessed to be part of this unplanned for life.  The 14 month old busy toddler is becoming a friend of unmatched quality.  There is no other like it.  He gets the benefit of my life experiences, but I win.  In the benefits department  I get to experience the world through his untarnished eyes, fresh, "outside of the box", curious, and frequently hilarious.

Lots of other changes since June of 2012.  Sean has been maturing, is off drugs and making some clear forward progress in his life.  Slow going, but going.  I still find myself in complete jaw-dropping AWE at the workings (non-workings?) of his brain sometimes.  If he weren't so similar in many ways to his father and I wasn't present at the birth, there is not much present to convince me that he is indeed of my genetic posterity.  He is currently living with me, which offers an interesting internal conflict within, one I'm NOT going to spend any time exploring, but will simply acknowledge here;  when Sean is here, it drives my sort of crazy, but when he is not I miss him.  If I were to use a simple logic equation, that would mean that I miss crazy.

An author I've been enjoying, and has become one of the leaders on my "favorites" list is Neil Gaiman.  "American Gods", "The Ocean at the End of the Lane", "Neverwhere", which I've just finished.  His imagination and ideas are astounding, coupled with the gift of superb storytelling makes reading his work feel like putting on new glasses and discovering your world may hold surprises you didn't previously notice.

I have set a long term, sort of ambiguous goal for myself:  become as self sustaining as possible before I am in the position of being unable to "earn a living", or chase the coveted dollar.  Much to my snobbish (but not unlikable) neighbors, I have acquired ten chickens and housed them in the unused dog kennel.  I let them out daily, to wander and fertilize the yard and eat the bugs.  They do a good job and I like them.  My ladies recognize my voice, which can make yard work tricky since the minute I walk out the door they come running, (for food, of course.  it's not that they love me, tho since I don't have a rooster it's quite possible I fit the billet in their chicken world).  It takes a little getting used to having a herd of chickens suddenly appear, charging in their cretaceous way, in my direction.  Their eggs are delicious and I am grateful for them. 

This is the first year I have kept a vegetable garden.  This is also the first year I've seen groundhogs in my yard.  Three trips Paul had to take to the state forest with the live trap containing the cutest little (relatively speaking) rodents since guinea pigs.  So I lost my lettuce, cabbage, spinach and kale.  Fortunately my yellow squash recovered and they don't like peppers or tomatoes.  Since I wasn't expecting my first garden to be a Victory Garden, I am not at all disappointed with my produce.  Next year will be better.

We're trying honey bees, too.  In late spring, a colony of a Russian cross honey bees, and a queen arrived.  I spent the summer making sugar water to help sustain this new colony, and Paul fed them and did most of the checking in on them.  Mid-summer I donned the moon suit with Paul and manned the smoker while Paul pulled out the combs to check on the health of the hive.  It was an amazing sight!  Like science fiction!  There were thousands and thousands of bees within this box, so much more than originally started.  Because they are a new hive, we didn't take any of their honey this year and are hoping that they are healthy enough and have produced enough honey (they need 50 to 80lbs) to survive the winter.  Right now that looks like a probability, and if they make it through, we're really looking forward to having lots of honey and wax next year.  And I am looking forward to my gardens thriving.

It is important to mention that my "self-sustainability" goal is not exactly shared with my husband.  His long term, sort of ambiguous goal is to for freedom.  Once he is in a position to not have to chase the coveted dollar, he wants to travel.  My wonderful companion of close to 17 years, Nikko, died this summer.  It was sad and I miss her.  There are no plans to get another dog, and in fact we are sort of just biding our time for the remaining companions to sort of pass on.  Um, there is really no gracious way of saying that.  I did try.  The reason being, Paul would like the ability to not have to be tied to the responsibility of caring for things like pets once we are retired.  Which is in opposition of my desire to be as self-sustaining as possible, with a vision of an orchard, grapes and Dwarf Nigerian Milking Goats, along with the veggie garden, chickens and bees we currently care for.

We'll see.  Maybe my cherished grandson will be old enough to step in and care for my goats while Paul and I traipse through Machu Pichu.  Or maybe I will be hit by a bus where my vision will have to follow me into the next world...

Paul has been immeasurably supportive during the last 4 years or so since I have not been contributing monetarily to our household support, including helping with our grandson who lives with us 4 days out of the week, and sharing his space with Sean.  I know, however, that the financial stress is difficult for him on top of some unbelievable expectations around his own work, which although is not for the government, is closely bound with the government, and we all know how crazy that can be.  So I was facing quite a dilemma - give up the care for my grandchild (to some clearly less competent day care provider) and find a job to help alleviate our financial situation, or....um, I don't think there is an "or".  So I have been trying to find something that is not too physically demanding, but diverse enough to accommodate my true passion, which is the care of my grandson.  I finally decided to take the bull by the horns, I signed up and started attending a program in my local Community College to prepare me to become a licensed Pharmacy Technician.  The field is growing, and is certainly diverse enough where I could work full time/ part time, for a chain, or hospital, or other organization that dispenses medications or medical devices, and, I think, won't be overly demanding on this late model middle aged woman.

So I'm off on a new adventure.  I like new adventures.

Yay.