inhale/exhale

Have you ever read Walt Whitman's Specimen Days? I've been visiting those words lately and feel compelled to share about this experience that coalesced with the reading (of a particular part of Specimen Days), the doing (a particular thing was done), and the dying (a particular person has died).

A few weeks back Waddles, my once favorite chicken, had to be killed. She was heavy with vent gleet which is an incredibly nasty chicken yeast infection. She had flies laying eggs in her behind and I tried to cure her but with no success. We were getting ready to leave for our mini vacay and kk was gone to pick up our friend M from the airport. I was home tidying up the "farm" with our friend R. I went to change the bedding in Waddle's isolation pen-I had separated her out from the rest of the flock cause she was so ill-and she fell over when I pulled her out. Her comb was turning purple; her eyes were not opening all the way; she was simply suffering and I could not leave her with my intern and her girlfriend for the weekend cause that would have been mean for all involved.

I dug a hole under the great oak in our yard. R said she would hold Waddles for me and I could hatchet her neck, but I said no I cannot put you through it when you don't even believe in eating animals, really. So, we waited for kk and M to arrive. K was going to hold Waddles and I was going to hatchet her, but M said she wanted to do it and so she had jumped off a plane from Brooklyn made her way to Ypsi by car and now stood in our backyard ready to help in this mercy killing.

M held Waddles, R burned sage, K readied the newspaper lined bucket, I readied my sharp hatchet. In the end I could not cut her neck. I tried and tried, but M graciously offered to switch spots with me and our vegetarian friend walloped Waddles on her main vein and ended her suffering. I placed her in the bucket and dumped her in the deep hole I had dug. And then I covered her and this peace filled my whole, physical body. It was this almost other-worldly experience; I felt a calm that I can only dream of replicating.

And what does this have to do with Specimen Days. Well, I was reading a section shortly thereafter where Whitman describes the deaths of three young men he had witnessed some years before his writing of them (and actually one of the deaths was witnessed by a dear friend of Whitman and then the friend relayed the dying to Whitman cause the friend thought Whitman would appreciate the death of the man who had died). The piece is called Three Young Men's Deaths--surprise, surprise. And these deaths were immortalized in Whitman's text. The details of each man's gentle parting are simple yet plentiful. They had left and in their leaving also left behind a significant hunk of life due to the remembering of this wise poet transcribed onto the page. Whitman's comfortableness with the transitioning from this world to something different is so full of value and lessons. His words ring true for this present moment and they ring true for tomorrow and the day after that. He witnessed the deaths and sufferings of many young men and some women in the civil war hospitals and the dying/battle fields. He captured the inhumanity of war and also the peace that came too early to so many who had been blown apart by the violence. Specimen Days is spattered with the tattered lives of people long gone. People most likely turned all the way into dust and earth, maybe some chunks of bones here and there.

Anyhow, it seemed timely for me to read about these three particular deaths represented in Specimen Days. I had this sort of great affinity for the simple emotion that he captured through the very act of writing a small snippet about each man's character and likes and then a small snippet about his demise--that one man thought enough of each to capture the essence of the last breath; the fact of it--the inhale where there seems to be no exhale or maybe the exhale looks remarkably like an eternal inhale, the struggle, the no-struggle, the eyes forever open to nothing or closed forever to all.

"He was one of these persons that while his associates never thought of attributing any particular talent or grace to him, yet all insensibly, really, liked Billy Alcott. I, too, loved him. At last, after being with him for quite a food deal--after hours and days of panting for breath, much of the time unconscious, (for the consumption that had been lurking in his system, once thoroughly started, made rapid progress, there was still vitality in him, and indeed for four or five days he lay dying, before the close,) late on Wednesday night, Nov. 4th, where we surrounded his bed in silence, there came a lull--a longer drawn breath, a pause, a faint sigh--another--a weaker breath, another sigh--a pause again and just a tremble--and the face of the poor wasted young man (he was just 26), fell gently over, in death, on my hand, on the pillow" (Whitman, Specimen Days 836).

And then I cried for these long dead men and then I cried for the peace that surrounded me when I put Waddles in the ground and then I cried for the knowledge of kk's grandma c on her own deathbed awaiting that final inhale/exhale. And grandma c did die. She passed on Thursday. KK was able to make it up north on her own intuition she dropped everything and drove up on Wednesday morning. Her father and hospice had been saying she was ready to die at any moment for 6 days. But, like the young man above, her vitality was immense and she kept on keeping on for days and days. And then she drew her last breath a little more than half way through her 89th year after kk came once more to say goodbye.

So, it has been a dying time here in this August month. Last year in this same but very different month and season, kk's grandma s took her last breath and unfolded her limbs and skin toward becoming dust. We are now down to two grandmas between the two of us--both of mine are still inhaling and exhaling fully.

Back to Specimen Days and what any of this means. K and I have been gifted to be in the presence of midwifing some of our loved ones out of this world or perhaps deeper into this very world. Though it may be the most difficult of all human emotions, there is something deeply peaceful about witnessing the end of suffering. And while it is impossible to compare a chicken's death to a human's death, the peace that seeped through my ribs after laying Waddles to rest in the tangle of roots and worms and fungi and leaves and decay was profound enough to translate to the following observation about myself and my own coming demise: Through all of this I came to the grim and lovely conclusion that being buried in a box or gauze/ or basket makes perfectly good sense for me.

A strange place to leave it all, but I am working on my exhale.

quick letter to you

Dear Readers,
I've been really swamped. I've been to Kalamazoo, Lansing, Chicago, and Detroit (numerous times--Detroit) that is in the last 3 weeks.

The US Social Forum is in full swing and we've (as in AFSC-MI) have been participating. Did a workshop on prisoner advocacy on Wed, participated, but only half of it, in the prison justice PMA yesterday. And, today--well today is our big Retur.ning Cit.izens Family Reunion picnic down at the USSF on the Detroit river. We've been organizing it with a bunch of other organizations. It should be beautiful.

With all of this happening, my kk is still with child. She is getting to near half-way through. I cannot believe that soon and very soon we will be parenting a new little life. After the 20 week mark, I will have more detailed updates on what we are planning and doing regarding the preparation for birth.

And I have been gardening like mad.

Yesterday I got home from work around 6:45 and then worked compost and my gardens until 9:00. I cannot even begin to explain the joy that I feel in the physical exhaustion that accompanies laboring in the earth. And for those of you have not figured it out yet, I am really, really into all of this mass compost creation. So much so that I hand picked 3 large bags of clover and other greens from my yard to layer a new active compost pile the other day. Can you imagine having the opposite dilemma of the most common city compost problem which is not enough access to brown material? I have more than enough access to the browns--I need me some greens:)

Well, readers, I am soon to leave for Detroit to hopefully help kick off a super delightful picnic with the people.

Pics later and I do have another little comic to upload, just need to have the 10 minutes to scan it and post.

Be well,
the injector

compost and other updates on urban farm and kk

me and some of our compost (not all of the compost I've been shoveling is from our batch, but some of it is including this)

long week.
long, long week.

busy at work.
busy at home.

just so you all know, k has not bled for about 5 days. I hate to put it out there; it is like needing to knock on an all wooden ship from 1776, but here's to hoping the bright red liquid has eased off for good.

I took a half day thursday and a full day yesterday in order to get the garden beds a little more prepared. I rearranged my compost heap for maximum heat and space utilization. It was some back breaking work, but well worth it. I am attempting this eliot coleman, straw bale style compost. The back bin is for brown (on the left) and green (on the right) and the front right is my active pile. The front left is where I will layer the new pile. I am hoping the front right will be ready by July. It is tarped and I keep it nice and moist and turn it when I feel inclined. This pile contains a whole micro-world of goodness. I cannot express how much i love compost!


We adopted another chicken yesterday. Her name is Buffy (she is a Buff Orpington). Her sisters (10 of them) were all killed by a mink on the farm she lived at, so now she is trying to adapt to our flock of bitches. picture of buffy to come.

Yes, our chickens are mean little buggers. they have been pecking the hell out of buffy. Alas, yesterday night, we kept her separate in the mobile run i made last summer.

Hopefully, she will acclimate. She is beautiful and bigger than the bitches.

I dug up two new side beds where we took down three trees this spring in order for more sun to shine on our very shady space. I am loading them with compost.

i lied and at least there were baby bees

k is bleeding now. now she is bleeding. it is bright red blood. it sucks. no cramping, but bleeding.

I am so fucking over all of this I can barely handle it.

What really sucks is today after work I had one of the most amazing experiences of my whole life, and k was there and she video taped it all and then we came home and had friends and neighbors on the porch and then k went to the bathroom and blood--bright red blood was all over the mini pad and a clot hung heavy on the top of the toilet water.

and i got mad and kind of turned my back.

and i am still mad.

but today, today after work we--that is my friends t and l plus me--we collected the most beautiful and enormous wild bee hive from an outbuilding one half block away from my house. It was such good work.



K taped us in action (hopefully, video cuts will one day be up on this blog).

The three of us worked so efficiently and well together. T cut the comb with wire from the eaves of the house one luscious piece at a time. L and I carried it to a tarp and cut the excess off into empty frames and then made sure the comb was held in place with rubber bands. The forefront of the wild hive was empty comb. The center of the hive was brood with edges of honey. Unfortunately we had to slice through larvae in order to cut the comb to frame size; it was a creamy white, pollen infested massacre.

But, but. oh my god, but...
We saw baby bees being born.

It was really the most amazing thing I've ever witnessed. The sweet wiggling heads of these finely formed insects busted with precision and grace out of their individual hexagonal larvae comb right before our eyes.

I witnessed three new lives surface from the mysterious depths of one of the most fascinating substances on earth--bee comb.

Their small bodies were pale yellow. Their legs were weak and clumsy--like new born goats trying to find footing.

We placed brood comb into the frames and then brushed hundreds of bees off of piece after piece of the large, undulating comb into the hive we were creating for them in place of their wild hive. There are more pictures to come, but later.

Did you know that a wild hive looks a bit like human female genita.lia?



It is lush and sensual and so full of life.



After the whole collection process, we came home and some of us drank beer and pizza was eaten. Then we went back to the hive spot and saw that the ladies were festering over the place where their other home had been so (without our strange, white, alienesque bee suits) t held a bucket up and scooped the remainder and I pulled the top off the super and he dumped them in and I closed the lid. We did this twice. We think the queen is in the new hive.

There are so many bees and the colony is so strong that even if we crushed her or she did not make it in, they would feed and build another...

At least there are bees being born amidst the bloody mess of stuff that keeps coming out of kk into our toilet.
at least.

the simple death of raggedty ass

The unwedding keeps getting planned.
I keep being swamped at work.
my mind is so full that I am almost paralyzed. I can't think too straight. Of course, I never really think straight, but you know what I mean...

This week marked our bloody, but not too bloody, baptism into urban farming. We slaughtered raggedty ass on Monday night. I called her raggedty (with a t for the teeee)

A, K and me are a great team.

We set up a log with a relatively flat surface in the back yard. K pulled my hatchet out from our camping supplies. We turned on the mag light, pulled on some warm clothes poured shots of buillet, took sips off those shots, and headed out to the coop.

It was around 8:30 in the evening so the ladies were getting ready for bed. A scooped up raggedty and brought her to the chopping log. She pinned her down with her hands and I grabbed her neck and then I swung.

One chop.
She fluttered.
Regripping of the wings and her neck.
Swing two.
Fluttering subsiding.
Chop three.
It is finished.

We placed her in the a bucket lined with a trash bag and she twitched and twitched some more.

K checked her to make sure she was no longer breathing, cause I could not have handled a prolonged death due to my poor chopping skills.

Raggedty was still.

A and K made it clear that I was not allowed to save her corpse for burial or burning. I've been saving our other dead chicken (Number 6. she fell over dead in early winter, but the ground was already frozen and I could not dig her a grave.) for burial. But, instead, I will soon burn her along with many pieces of paper containing private information of all of the candidates for the new hire at work.

So, poor raggedty ass went out in the trash...

Raggedty had been plenty ill--her ass had frozen chunks of shit and soft egg and dirt and snow hanging from it and her thirst was unquenchable. The rest of the flock ostracized her. She had to be killed and because we did not know what was ailing her we could not eat her...

We came in from the slaughter, and I lit sage and said a blessing for the dear chicken who may or may not have been giving us eggs. We finished the bourbon and went on with our business.

Any which way, she is dead now. I killed her with my own two hands and the help of A's. It went smoothly and I felt so much better knowing she was no longer suffering from enormous ice ass.

our year in pictures--part 1

not that a year can belong to any human, but here are some of the things we did and loved while doing it...


I did not write about it here, but after the miscarriage, etc. k and i held a special ritual to say goodbye to that which could have been and the pain of trying to conceive for so long then having it happen so quickly then losing it all at once. our friend drew our blood and then we froze it and then we mixed it with soil from our yard and lavender from my garden and we burned flames and read poems and threw it all in the river that i love--huron.


herb and corn garden with bees--sweet lovely creatures that create life giving liquid. ever thankful is my heart for their existence.


and then we had chickens.


the front of the house where we make our lives. someday, i hope to build a bike rack with a thyme bed beneath it, so that when we lock our bicycles the deep green scent of thyme comes alive.


the community garden that i am steward of--we had a lot of gardeners.


that's my mama with me. we rode to the top of a hill in northern michigan. me and k whipped my ma into agonizing leg pain. but she loved it. and so did we.


at k's dad's place up north with my wee boy nephews and girl niece. my sis and her husband and ma and dad all came on vacay with us and we had a lovely time! I am so proud of my little sister; she is a very, very good mama (and her man a very good daddy) and their children become more amazing human beings every single day.


discovering karaoke with dear friends at this strange joint and the house dog a poodle with pink and purple dyed fur.


a mantis in northern michigan. how i love this part of the planet and all the creatures that roam here.


we dug a swale during my permaculture course with mid.west permaculture. it was sweaty and delightful.


our baby, bike ypsi, kept on cyling along. we held another spring ride and another fall ride and hosted all kinds of fun rides and participated in advocacy efforts. how i love to bicycle and how i love the community cycling creates.


a thatch roof we saw during my permaculture course field trip.


threw a big thanksgiving with k and a and had all our families over!


my love; my darling; my lifemate; my best friend in the whole damn world with the big lake behind her--the lake we both love the lake that feels ancient and cold and bigger than this little living we are doing here beneath the stars.

dirty hands in 2010

every day slips by a little faster. the sun falling and then rising and the moon cracking white lines over blue black sky so many nights. then all darkness--sometimes. pink lines bend through the eastern horizon in mornings when the sun peeks out to reach us.

and by noon the ball of fire beams sends volts of light beyond measure into the trees and soil and over the tails of animals.

and we just keep going around and around on this ball of life and decay.

last year at this time i was sick with a life inside of me. this year at this time i look back on that time and think it was only a minute ago or it was so long ago or did that really happen at all?

it is like a vivid blur. too real to be hazy for always; too surreal to be entirely clear.

my body for 10 weeks was held captive by a brief curious sort of experience. many cells congregated in my womb and grew all liquidy and blood-filled and then the growing stopped and the cells busted through that supple place between my legs. i was flabbergasted throughout the life growing, then dying, then birthing the death, then bleeding a lot to eradicate the fleshy parts that had built up in my womb, and then this grieving surrounded by a cloud of panic and depression and questions.

and through all of it what i have learned is that the calling i have felt since i was fifteen needs to be gradually more realized in my life. while i do farm on my little urban plot, one day i want nothing more than to grow vegetables, nuts, fruits, animals, and bees and to do it well and do it surrounded by good community--good created family--good friends.

2009 started off with a miscarriage. it was a swooping bang of a wake up call; a kind of startling alarm orchestra blazing like a string section on speed. it told me that my body is very female. it is also very fertile and very connected to the rhythms of the moon and tides; the pulses of the seasons. I knew this already, but it raised it to a new level of realness in my heart. it made me ready to return to the soil and the roots and rhizomes that weave through her darkness. it made me more aware of the cycle of life and the deepness of decay and death connected to that life.

My desire to always be grounded to place and to establish deep roots seems to have multiplied tenfold since the miscarriage. Now, the question is where should these roots be put down. for so long i thought it would be here in ypsi. but now i keep questioning where we should be and k does too. we want to grow things together and growing on an urban lot in a city where people all too readily toss bloody bandages and burger k.ing cups and fry containers and homemade crack pipes and used condoms on the ground is a bit tougher than leasing or buying land somewhere more open and not as touched by the grimy, ill-intentioned/ignorant hands of humans.

cities need green spaces too and we have been doing it well here. chickens, bees, vegetables, trees, bicycling groups, friends--we've been growing it--many questions. few answers. we will see what 2010 brings.

i know i want my hands in the soil more hours of the day than not.

i know i want dirty hands in 2010.

flying time

Up north sunset--lake michigan

I know people say it all the time--you know those words about time--about time flying so fast. well, it is a common (overly common) expression for a reason; it is true. really, very hard-hitting, actually ever so true.

My sabbatical is wizzing by me. I've been doing lots. I went away for a week to a permaculture course. It was a blast. I camped at Tibbits Nature Sanctuary Tibbits Nature Sanctuary and lived through an intense night of rolling, strobe lightning thunderstorms. My tent rained in on me, and I tossed and turned even though earplugs were in my ears cause earplugs do not keep out the deep booms of thunder nor do they act as an eye patch for the lightning that beams pulses of blue and white through the thin sheen of tent fabric. You can read more about the LSC at : Qani's (the summer caretaker's) blog

I met great people at the course and really got a general overview of so much connected to permaculture--observation of the land, observation of patterns and plants and wind and sun, becoming more self sufficient and community sufficient while living in our own houses and on our own land (however big or small it may be), and on and on.

I also had the privilege to poop in a humanure all week. A humanure (well this one) was a bucket. We, 25 strangers or so, pooped on top of one another's poop and each time a person expelled feces into the bucket the person covered it with sawdust. As the bucket got full, it was dumped in a compost pit a bit beyond the lovely little house where the bucket lives and it was all covered with thick brush. It will have to compost for two years and then it will be used around trees not vegetables.


humanure outhouse

After the permaculture training, I came home and did homesteady and community things for a week. I made blueberry freezer jam from the 14 pounds of blueberries we picked a while back. I dried a bunch of romas from my garden, i made butter and then i made ghee with that butter; i made some corn chowder with the buttermilk from the butter-making run off. And one afternoon rode around with A from growing hope to plan out the GH Tour De Fresh coming up in september.


blueberry jam


golden ghee


romas

I extracted some honey from one of my frames I harvested a while back; this turned out to be quite a fiasco. I harvested the frames a few weeks ago and, little did I know, I should have frozen them for 48 hours to kill all the wax moth larvae. I did not; so when I opened the tub--yes wax moths and eggs and worms galore. My friend, R, was there with me when I took off the lid and I am so thankful she was. While I love bugs, worms that are not earthworms can make me squirm.

R shaved the sides of my hair out in the driveway cause my hair is growing bushy,bushy, bushy. The top is still all huge but the sides are down a bit now.

And then we packed for vacation and now I sit here typing from the great up north. We are here at all seasons resort-k's dad's place with my mom and dad and sister and brother-in-law and 2 nephews and niece, plus K's dad lives here and her grandma too. And family friends from way back are vacationing here right now also. So, it is a big group and we are having fun together. The kids make me laugh a hell of a lot. and time is flying by too fast but i am not holding my breath and taking it all in.


winning ayla a stuffed patriotic donkey on the claw machine at leggs inn