cold, colder, coldest

It is January. It is past the middle of January. Everything is cold in Michigan. There are a few inches of snow covering the grass, gravel, and all things that grow and then sleep.

We have a 47 day old child living in our 107 (nearly 108) year old house with us. She is mighty and beautiful.

She is sitting with her mama in her mama's mama's rocker nursing. The rocker is resting in the same place where her mama's mama's mama died one and a half years ago.

Did I mention it is cold outside and that I have been reading Aldo Leopold (every winter I read A Sand County Almanac)? It is especially wonderful to start at the beginning of the book when it is still January. I reread January Thaw the other day with deep reverence for the cycles Leopold writes about--the cycles of seasons and living charging in dynamic force all around us all of the time. I marveled, again, at his subtle glorification of simplicity and the sacred readings he captured in the quick, quiet, momentary voyage of a skunk still heady from hibernation.

I suggest giving him a read if you never have and a reread if you have and liked it.

His call to observe our moments alive with the rest of our community (the land community/animal,animal community/animal, human community) is a a good one.

This winter many of my days have bled into streams of light upon my nights and my nights have rode dark waves on my mornings and afternoons. Time is strange in the world of baby human. But still there is the difference in temperature of a day versus a night--the chicken's water demonstrates the patterns of change in concrete (or icy) ways.

Even though we have been mesmerized by sleep deprivation and sleeping differently all together, I think my senses have been heightened to the subtle shifts of temperature throughout a January day, evening, and night. The cold of a crisp 11:00pm as I feed and water the chickens (yet again) before bed pierces a different, more alive, kind of frigid over my cheeks than the wetter cold of morning.

And my senses pay attention to all around me as I walk or ride in a more expansive way than I have felt before. This little animal being that has filled our house with her cries, poop, urine, and vomit, and soft face and hands and thighs--she has added another layer of sensitivity to my existing need to observe and witness and then act.

Leopold articulates:
"The months of the year, from January up to June, are a geometric progression in the abundance of distractions. In January one may follow a skunk track, or search for bands on the chickadees, or see what young pines the deer have browsed, or what muskrat houses the mink have dug, with only an occasional and mild digression into other doings. January observation can be almost as simple and peaceful as snow, and almost continuous as cold. There is time not only to see who has done what, but to speculate why."

She has added one more stripe of peace to my observations. She makes me speculate more than ever. She makes me pay more attention to the cycles of living, surviving, and dying, and re-birthing all around us. And, then she makes me want to work harder to make sure that we build a stronger land ethic in our community. She drives me out to the cold January mornings and nights and causes me to savor the expanse of sky peeking out to us from behind the light pollution in the darkness. She makes me glad to know the seasons, to witness them, to have them etched into my skin. (seriously, riding and footing it regularly in 15-25 degree weather--colder with windchill--is doing some mighty fine skin "damage" characterizing to my face). Of course, I cared about all of this before her, but there are no words to describe the deeper animal she has brought out in me. I like the cold (and yearn for the spring) even more than I did before.

another quickie in photographs

Here are some more pictures from our unwedding. We had a sweet, young man do these photos. You can view more of them and a little video at http://matthew.pro/Other/KristenNatalie/11398069_mfUZk#801142002_nb9z8

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.

unwedding

I know, I've been a blogging slacker. I swear I will have some things to rant and rave about soon. But, I am in the process of a search for a new employee at work (well the person will be the only other employee besides me in our office) and it seems to take up all of my time.

In the meantime, I just wanted to let you all in on a not-so-little-secret. K and I are having an UNWEDDING.




After 10 long years we decided it was time to make a public display of our love and possibly our affection (ya, a little ass grabbing and booby brushing might take place).

Below are the words in our invite:

We decided 10 years (that is 3,650 days) was a long time. A longer time than many folks stay in relationships at all and a way longer time than what most people, who are able to get married (in the legal sense of the word), wait before tying the knot. Every one of those thousands of days has passed without a day of formal or public recognition—every day has been our unwedding.

We thought it was time to demonstrate in a public kind of way our love, our commitment, and our gratitude for the last ten years we have spent together.

We think that love and commitment is much more than vows and convention. We actually believe in many of the points raised in the Beyond Marriage (www.beyondmarriage.org) statement that was originally released in 2006. Some of the points from the executive summary are listed below:

Marriage is not the only worthy form of family or relationship, and it should not be legally and economically privileged above all others. A majority of people – whatever their sexual and gender identities – do not live in traditional nuclear families. They stand to gain from alternative forms of household recognition beyond one-size-fits-all marriage. For example:

· Single parent households
· Senior citizens living together and serving as each other’s caregivers (think Golden Girls)
· Blended and extended families
· Children being raised in multiple households or by unmarried parents
· Adult children living with and caring for their parents
· Senior citizens who are the primary caregivers to their grandchildren or other relatives
· Close friends or siblings living in non-conjugal relationships and serving as each other’s primary support and caregivers
· Care-giving relationships that provide support to those living with extended illness such as HIV/AIDS.

With all of that being said, we love to throw a good party and after ten strong, lovely, hard, and amazing years, we woke up one morning, not too many days ago, and thought we should throw a big she-bang. A big, fat UNWEDDING.

Cause still while we can rant on about how things should be, in reality things are still messed up, and we cannot jointly adopt and if one of us ended up hurt and incapable of making decisions for herself in some ass-backwards conservative county in Michigan or Florida, the unhurt one could be kept from the bedside (perhaps the deathbed) of the hurt one. And when one of us dies all that we have paid into social security our whole working lives will not be able to be designated to the other.

So, a party with a purpose. Before all of you we would like to state that the other is our life-long companion, beloved, mate, best friend—we desire to be together always and when one of us is having trouble walking the other will be there to carry her.

Legally or not.

cold fingers; cold toes; cold ass

there is something to waking up to a cold house and then layering your clothes to get ready for a cold bicycle ride and then venturing out the door in the morning to a brisk wind and the chill that it brings and then being in that cold for a good 50 minutes.

a cup of tea, and then another and another and another and another--maybe ten in total throughout the day--once at work--helps to warm the ass and fingers and toes. Because those are the extremities that get cold. Your core, this is your chest and upper and lower abdomen stay hot and toasty and even sweaty while riding in the winter in michigan. This is, of course, dependent on proper layering. Which I am quite a pro at now.

Anyhow, our boiler busted last Friday. It up and quit on us; the old thing had no life left in it. It had rusted through so badly on the bottom grate that burn marks had started to develop up the sides of the metal box inside. All in all, it is a good thing it died, cause we didn't burn up in our ancient wooden house.

See one time this wrinkled, old man who drove a beat up mini van with George Bush Senior Stickers coating the rear of it--like 25 identical stickers--came to our house to give us some advice on how we might convert our coal burner (no longer functioning) to a wood stove and also how much it would cost to re-line the chimney. His estimate was way high--like $3,000, but he did offer us a warning. He said, "you girls should have safety ladders in the bedrooms upstairs cause if your house ever catches on fire you will not escape using the stairway. the flames will draw up the stairs and you will be trapped up there."

I stood wide jawed and thanked him for his advice. I already have a chain linked ladder in our bedroom, but damn that was some scary advice.

Thus far, we have avoided death by boiler fire and have frozen our fannies off for a total of 6 days. After forking over $3,850, we will soon have heat via a new boiler system. I can no longer type this post cause my fingers are too cold...

My meditation

Taking care of our chickens is my daily (or every other day) meditation time.

The meditation goes like this:
While still inside in the semi-warmth of our kitchen, fill three or two containers with warmish water.
Set outside on back porch.
Dress in large winter jacket and warm hat (usually forget to wear gloves, because I like my hands to be nimble not clumsy)
Make sure my feet have socks on them.
If I am missing socks, go put a pair of socks on cold feet. (kk constantly gets on me about going barefoot in the middle of winter. I’ve lost count of how many times she has placed a pair of slippers in front of me and given me the finger wag and look).

Slip into boots (usually k’s green mucks are perfectly placed on the back porch).

Walk down treacherous steps and through backyard to coop/run.
Greet our ladies with a, “hi lovely girls. How are you this morning?”

Pull snow tarp back and open door.
If we will be home, keep door ajar
If we will be gone, shut myself into the run with the hens

Monitor feed bucket
If feed refill is needed, unclip feed bucket
If no feed is needed, leave feed bucket in place
unclip rubber, water bucket from chain

exit run
with bucket/s in hand

Beat on rubber bucket until ice water releases
Depending on the temperature, sometimes must run hot water over bucket then kick it/ throw it until ice releases

Take bucket/s on back porch.
Fill emptied water bucket with warmish water
Fill feed bucket with feed and oyster shell mix

Walk back down treacherous steps and through backyard to coop
Re-enter run
Hang up the water and feed

exit run

If we have special scraps, retrieve them from porch or kitchen

Back to run.
Feed the ladies the scraps.

Check hen house for extra amounts of chicken shit.
Remove with small rake and throw into compost heap.
On some days, refill pine and straw in hen house.

Check for eggs in nesting box.
Lately, only 1 or 2 are there.

Collect eggs.

Walk back to house.
Slip out of boots.
Go inside the house.
Put away eggs.
Wash hands with warm water and soap.

Meditation ends.
20-30 minutes of good chicken work and quiet, cold emptying of mind and preparing for another day

to a longer day--to not knowing what tomorrow has in store

time ticks away. the days fall flat or robust or somewhere in between like a deflating sausage casing. night is long. and now it is getting brighter. or at least the seasons teach us and promise us that after today the days will get longer and light will be our helpmate, our sustenance, our teacher, our guide.

This time has been heavy for k and me. Always it is. Always the months of October, November, and December hold the traces of people who have passed on from us. k's mom was born in october she faded through november; she became vapor like in december; she vanished in January. all of this happened years ago, but still her fingerprints leave smudges over the lead glass windows of our house and the liquid surfaces of our eyeballs.

I could go on and on about the dead ones and the dead almost ones (like what happened last year at this time to my body and then came out all bloody and lifeless in the toilet) but i'll spare us all the memory traveling and reexamining of emotions and emptiness left on the concave ridge of kk's collarbone and i will tune in to where we are now.

we are waiting for the days to get longer. we are learning that chickens do not appreciate the wet piles of snow accumulating all over the yard. we are thankful to still have this deep love, like a tunnel to the other side of the world that seems to go on and on forever, between us. we are happy with one another's softness--the soft parts of our skins, the pillow world of cheek and the bone hard security of shoulder.

we spend time together as though time might soon slip away from us and fall out of line with the tale that seasons have told for so many winters and summers and springs and autumns. like it might just end, be gone, flit away in the particles of dust shining in the sun shards coming through the window of a dark, deep basement.

we wonder what it will be like to be old and childless. we wonder what it will be like to be old and parents. we wonder if we will even make it to old, or if cement or bumper or disease will have its way with us before the silver and white coat our skulls. we wonder a lot about the future and work. and we think about where we want to be in this world and how we want to be in it. we think too much.

on this solstice--this night that is long in the veil of dark, navy sky creased by the shy light of a sliver of moon--we tried again to make something of a life in kk. who knows what tomorrow holds, but for now we will cheer the promise of a longer day and taste the star shaped snowflakes of december on our tongues.

dead chicken/enormous hair

Winter wind has met us--cold and breaking the dusk and night sky with the knotted knuckle hand of a fierce whip cracker.

In the bust of cold that has draped itself over this fair Midwest state, one of our chickens took her last breath. K found her dead in the corner of the run yesterday evening. She picked up the lifeless hen and placed her in a plastic bag. Now, I need to dig a hole and bury her.

The ground is semi frozen—not deeply frozen yet, but for sure tougher to work than earth in August or September or October. I need some daylight hours to crack the shovel into a tuft of grass and turn it and lay the wee dead bird down in the soil.

In Savage Beauty—a bio of Edna St. Vincent Millay—the author tells the story of when Edna’s mother passed away in the depths of a frigid winter and they had to blast the side of the hill open with dynamite to get her body into the earth.

If only I had some dynamite to blow a hole in the backyard under the sleeping red bud and then rest our feathered friend in the December dirt.

However, I always arrive home from work when the light is fast fading from the sky, and I leave when the light has just arrived. So for now the chicken is in a bag in the red wheel barrel in the garage.

And, I am still up to similar shenanigans. Riding my bicycle, working, cooking, traveling around the usa when my toes get the tickle.

I’ve also been sporting some enormous hair lately. And while I know that the big hair has nothing to do with the dead chicken or how I pass time on a daily basis, it has something to do with hilarity. Hilarity is that dose of jolliness that I need sometimes to make it through these dark, winter days. How perfect that I simply have to look in the mirror at my own curly mess of hair to ignite that tin can echo laughter in the flabby parts of my belly.

I’m not really sad about the dead chicken; she lived a good, good life. We will go through less feed, now. I’m just a little nervous that she may have had some disease that will spread through the rest of the flock. I think this is not the case, but I have this tendency to make everything into something more convoluted than it really is.

But then I turn to my own head of hair and it shakes me back to a place with steady ground and more realness than those imagination disasters in the gray parts under my skull. Night scatters cold wind through the decaying leaves and frozen ground and a dead chicken stays put in the shelter of the garage and my heart leaps at the thought that tomorrow the sun will soar behind cloudy skies and I will trace the pattern of the days with the tips of my fingers and the prints of my hands will leave solid sections of stars across this time, this now. Each winter day will teach that lesson of patience to be, just be, and sour lipped laughter will abound at the reflection in the mirror.

yearning without devotion

lately, ambivalence has struck a chord in the sinewy parts of my muscles. it is that in between place--the not too deep in the dark but not quite above water place.

michigan winter always casts a fervent deep blue over my days. sometimes the blue appears gray and other times it is trying for azure and little specks of sunlight on the horizon shift over the silhouettes of barren trees and dried stalks of sunflowers.

i'm not apathetic. i'm just yearning without devotion. without devotion to act on the yearning that has singled itself out on the deep red threads of my heart. and i do act in small ways, but i do not jump into my dreams with fierce confidence.

when it comes to that which i am not ambivalent about, i become animated with delight and willing to sweat and sweat and work and work on the little projects around my small homestead. cause it is the keeping of bees and the raising and tending to of chickens and the planting of trees and the preservation of food and the cooking of things we have grown or that have been grown close to where we make our home, these things make my throat tense up with a tightness close to joy.

i do not necessarily think it is bad or wrong to not act right away on making the big changes in my life--the changes that would lead to eradicating the ambivalence.

the small steps i have taken lately to move closer to working with the land and the creatures who live around my family are outlined below in some pictures with words. also, i will be attending the young farmer's conference this week in new york and i am not ambivalent about that at all. i am super happy about it.



did i tell you that i am in love with honeybees. they are miraculous and beautiful beings that rush forth sweetness from their bodies and create such useful and intricate comb.

the above picture is me going into the hive for a late fall harvest. i did it on my own and things went very well. the girls are so mild and mostly just not interested in humans unless of course i stay in their space a little too long.



more bees



comb and honey in a bucket. i cut the comb into the bucket and used a paint scraper knife on the end of a long pole and crushed and crushed the comb and honey. i crushed it till it was a liquid mess that i could drag the knife through more easily. then i strained it through painters' sieve cloth and let the weight of it press out the liquid honey in two batches for 24 hours each.

then i jarred it.

and i also made labels. someday, i'll show them to you.

And, I love my chickens very much. They are so funny. Kk says she cannot help but smile when she watches them run around the yard and i agree. They are like our little, Pomeranian dog friend, Lilo, she always makes me smile and so do my chickens. Except the chickens' tongues have never entered my ear with wet, slobbery, stanky kisses and they never will.



and someday sooner than later i want to get some goats. The picture above is me milking a goat at the ann arbor reskilling festival. i would probably get Nigerian Dwarf goats (not pictured above--Nubian above). But k says no for now.



oh, and I also like to cook stew over fire.



and walk through the old cemetery in this town i love...

i'm not ambivalent about those things.

Making it through the days of winter

It is cold and snowy here in Michigan. So far this year, we have been hit with many downpours of snow. Beautiful and slushy; thick and slippery; cold and miracle-like how it bends to the curves of the landscape and holds its place among us like a new skin.

I like the snow. I like taking evening walks with kk and breathing in the crisp, cold air and the life that comes with it. Instead of crashing at 8:00 a winter walk gives me the energy to make it till almost 10:00. Then I head to bed with an overwhelming fatigue that is a kind of tired I have never experienced.

While the winter keeps us bound to our home quite a bit more than warmer weather, it also gives me a space to reflect on all of this newness in our life. I am still befuddled at the fact that I am pregnant and worry / nervousness tends to come barreling at my thoughts even though I am trying to stay positive.

Still, not seeing the midwife for another three and half more weeks is a struggle for me. I want to know about this little critter sucking all of the energy out of my flesh and blood and bones. I want to hear its little heart beat, so I can confirm it is really there. It is almost like that yearning to know that god is really living. I want to know that this life inside me is really just that and that it is alive and okay for the time being.

Facing unknown territory is difficult for me. Going toward the blankness—the blanket of not knowing—the gray with no objects, is a challenge that I both am willing and wanting to venture on and at the same fear is potently striding beside me. And I know some of it is so unfounded and ludicrous, but…I tend to paint my own stories onto the blankness; hence, my urge to make up fantastic stories about what is happening to my body.

For instance, on Saturday, k and I snowshoed a good long while. I kind of overdid it, but it felt good. However, I sort of bunked my right shoulder out. It hurt me all night and then it hurt the next two days. And instead of attributing it to the snowshoeing, I started attributing it to an ectopic pregnancy (cause shoulder pain is one of the 10 or more symptoms) and then any little pull on my lower abdomen started spiraling me into researching it more… and well… you get the picture.

I know that no matter what the future holds in these coming months k and I will plunge through it and she will hold me and I will hold her and all of the good, gracious people in our lives will stand with us. I just need to tame my thoughts a bit more and then accept my peaceful moments as gifts.

Winter provides so much pondering time. Maybe too much; maybe not.
I look forward to another winter walk this evening before an arctic cold front comes crashing in on these parts and leaves us more tied to the indoors (9 degrees F not factoring wind chill into the mix is way cold). Tonight I will focus on the good, the positive, the beauty hanging all over my life.

will i catch a pregnancy

We just arrived home from kk's dad's house. We watched jaws 2 with him and ate cupcakes for his 62nd birthday. our drive home was very, very slickery. Winter is here in good old Michigan. It is about 30 degrees and icy.


Icy drive home

On our way out to her pop's, I noticed that all the strip clubs on Michigan avenue were thumping--packed out parking lots--and this was at 5:30 on a Monday evening. It is strange that the economy is down real, real bad here in the previously motor ruled--now motor dying state and still horny men are spending cash on liquor and titty views. Oh, I guess it really is not all that strange. When you are down and out, what's better than some booze and boobs?

Anyhow, this post is not supposed to be about ladies' parts or a dying economy or automobiles. It really is supposed to be all about me and what's been up in our super busy, but then all quiet lives.

We had turkey day here at our queer pad again. I deep cleaned the house for many days. Then I cooked a hell of a lot. Then our family and friends arrived. Then we ate a lot of the food that was cooked. Then everybody left. Then K and I slept for hours and hours each night that we had left of our vacation/weekend. Then we did nothing at all. Then I chopped a huge chunk of skin out of my left index finger and it bled for 1.5 hours and hurt like hell for about 13 hours and is still swollen [in the last two months or so, I have wounded my hands by either slicing or burning multiple times; universe what message are you sending me?]. Then kk yelled at me to be more careful with knives. Then we relaxed.


me relaxing in the small dose of sun we have had in the last many, many weeks

Monday we went back to work.

Today, I am waiting patiently to see if the mother of all miracles is taking place inside my body. yes, my body. yes, many days back we shot some living fluid up into my body. It was done on a whim. I think nothing will come of it. Kk thought I was ripe so we injected me with some semen (but I pretended it was something else like special lubricant or something, because I have never had sperm in my body before--not ever).

See,I woke up and said, "I think I have fertile mucus." Then we went to work. Then kk called me at work and said, "baby, I think we should try on you tonight." Then potential bio-dad said cool. So, come nighttime, we did it.

I keep pretending I am a queer virgin mary (or a 17 year old girl who can get pregnant from leg crawling sperms) and this one time this special dose of jiz (god breathed into me through the saint like fingers of my loving kk and the plastic cavity of a syringe--yes like the kind you feed medicine to cats with--) will get me prego.

A shot in the dark for fucking real, and kind of fun all at once.

p.s. more to come soon about what's up with kk's repro office experience and our thoughts regarding the use of my womb for potentially carrying a wee critter into the world of the living.

i'll be damned

well, i'll be damned...
once again, there is a snow storm blowing around out my window.
once again, i had a super long day at work.
once again, fever and cough is visiting our house.

right when the potential sperm/egg combo could/would be implanting on the wall of kk's uterus, she came down with full on illness with a high ass fever. She has had a fever since last night and at this moment her temperature is raging at 102.6 F.

she is being good and only taking tylenol for her achy bones every 6-8 hours. but i want her to take something for her wicked cough.

i guess stress is really the biggest immune killer on the planet. cause really our sweet, little family is a healthy one. we eat good; we usually get good rest; we exercise diligently; we love relentlessly. however, this winter has been full up loaded with stress on both the home front and work front, so maybe it is spiking through my darling girl's body and leaving little holes in her immune system.

i'm so looking forward to the healing energy of more sun. i long for the disappearance of the cold, dark days and the hollow holes of hospitals and close quarters of being kept up inside for too many hours during the day even if my house is comfy and cozy and my work-place quaint and tolerable.

i want to sit by the river and feel a warm wind on my face. i want calmness to surround us for hours on end. i want to watch the sunset on lake michigan--the pink orange sprays of light fading from the day into the vast, dark, eternal lake--and the certain lines of the horizon to hold me and tell me that it is all going to be okay.

February Injections

a snow kiss on lake huron


We’ve been injecting like mad since Sunday night. KK thinks she only really has one toilet paper wipe of fertile mucus, and she believes that wipe happened on Saturday while we were up in Cheboygan Memorial Hospital.

But we know the surge happened yesterday morning and was still continuing this morning. We injected Sunday night, Monday night, and Tuesday morning. This may seem like overkill, but we want one of the thousands to stick.

Bio-dad seems to have virile loads every time. He is still averaging 3CCs on a regular basis. This morning was almost 2CCs and that was after a full 3CCs 12 hours earlier.

So, in spite of the pancreatic cancer diagnosis that grandma c received yesterday—yes it is for sure cancer—we came home from up north and tried, tried yet again to get pregnant. We need a little life giving energy amidst the illness happening around us.

Update on Grandma C: she was doing quite well on Sunday morning after a rough Saturday of vomit and nausea. She was able to eat some ice cream and heftier soup for lunch before we left. She will most likely be released from the hospital in the next few days and then she will need to see a cancer doctor to talk about what’s up with treatment/end-of-life decisions…

Update on Northern MI in winter: lots of snow, lots of snowmobiles, lots of frozen water, lots of fishing shanties on bodies of frozen water, and for us this past weekend lots of sun (which was a glorious gift).

standing on snow shoes on lake huron












fishing in winter on burt lake

















snowmobile parked next to our car in hospital parking lot

passing the cold, cold days with warming fun

It has been really cold these past few weeks. Today, is warmer, but the winter is starting to wear on my nerves. Last week we injected multiple times and keeping the sperm warm on the drive from bio-dad’s house to our house was tricky.

It required multiple dives down the shirt into warm cleavage directly after hand-offs. I’ve been wearing lots of layers and my big, thick green coat with the teddy bear fur hood. It’s been so cold I rarely feel like removing my coat. I want to bundle up in warm, warm blankets and sleeping bags and cushiony things and disappear until this freezing, winter subsides.

oh so romantic in my big furry coat

Over the last week, we dosed up a bunch and we think the timing was right on, so maybe, just maybe the 6th time with this donor and 8th try all together will work. The wait is on…

This weekend was fun (but cold). We left work a bit early on Friday and went to workout at our new favorite gym—washtenaw community college’s fitness center. I love it cause I can spin on a spinning bike there for as long as I want, do some weights and then go be all extravagant in the posh locker room—It is equipped with a steam room, a dry sauna, and a whirlpool—those warming devices are the only things making this frigid winter tolerable. I never participate in the spinning classes, cause I am super picky (and snotty) about music, and I detest a lot of the loud, not very good, techno they turn while pump, pump, pumping it up. Plus, too many slippery, sweaty bodies in one room make me nervous. So, I make my own mixes and spin when classes are not happening.

Saturday, we slept in. I got cranky and then got over it and then we had some friends over for an all veg southernesque dinner (greens, soup beans, fried potatoes, cornbread, veggie fried steak and gravy and black tea custard to top it off). We drank a growler of yummy dark beer from the local brewery and talked a lot.

A,you are a master with the food torch

Sunday, we went with two of our friends to a coffee roasting class at roos roast. It was a real fun time and the fellow who roasts the coffee, John Roos, is very, very hilarious (it was like attending a stand up comedy show and learning all about coffee at once). We drank a shit-load of extra-strong, delicious coffee, ate yummy muffins, and some smoky salmon, and got zippity, zippy on too much caffeine.

We all looked on in awe, in the cold of winter, at the homemade contraption that roasts up the best coffee around town

When we got back home from the roasting class, we watched an episode of the wire and then headed to the gym for some more exercise and a quick hot tub soak.

Then the ladies came over for some l word and popcorn and steamed pudding (that shit is delicious and i wish so bad i had a picture to share cause it was beautiful. T, sure knows how to do it up. We poured bourbon on it and yummy whip and powdered sugar and indulged)!

Nothing like friends, food, coffee, sweat, whirlpools, and warm, warm sperms to make the long winter days more tolerable--more doable--more liveable!

a party, 2008, the cervix, and some sperm!

What a start to the New Year... Kk and I were real sick all weekend; we had some kind of bug that knocked us on our backs and made our bellies hurt. I slept 26 hours from Friday to Monday and watched ten movies. We were really supposed to be preparing for our annual New Year's Eve Party, but we pretty much got everything in order for the festivities on Monday, the day of.


party, party, party







Quite a few folks piled into our house last night. We had a good spread of food and a sweet bounty of beer, wine and liquor. The evening was warm and cozy. Around 11:00 Est. it started snowing hard--big, beautiful flakes--I'm talking the size of a fifty cent piece. Many of us at the party rang in the New Year on the front porch and in the front yard, swallowing snow flakes and spinning dazedly in the splendor of it.


50 cent piece snow flakes









Who knew the very first day of 2008 would also include the first sperm injection of the new year? Over the last few days, I've been checking kk's cervix. I lube up the speculum and very carefully slide it on up into her. The speculum is a cheap, crooked plastic thing that concerns me every time I use it cause I'm terrified it might rip a chunk of kk's sweetness out as a pull it back into the air. So far, so good...

Anyhow, back to the story of her cervix. The last three times that I checked the little donut it was emitting creamy fluid and lowly positioned (not high and back). On Sunday night I investigated and the same situation was in process. I could tell the fluid was getting a little less creamy white, but not that much.

Then our crazy, hectic New Year's Eve Monday came. After a piss, kk told me she thought she was super slippery and perhaps the egg white fluid was starting to surface. I was like how could it shift that quickly and plus according to your chart you are not even supposed to begin the ovulation phase until Wednesday (the earliest potential date for ovulating). But, I also let on that we should call the bio-dad and ask if he could provide a little something, something. We did not.

Then this morning after a late night (3:30 a.m. bed time). Kk peed on the ovulation predictor stick and a smiley developed. We texted bd and let him know we needed some fluid. He texted back and sprang some for us a bit over 2 hours later. No, it did not take him two hours to get it off; he had family obligations:)

Then kk got all cozied up and I injected the first, fresh sperm pool of 2008 up into my love's hole.

How appropriate that New Year's day should be a day for injecting. Last night, during the party, I was sitting around with two of my straight, boy friends shooting the shit about kk's cervix and a Nova special they had both seen that shows the cervix dipping into a fresh sperm pool. They said it was really cool and I should watch it. Well, today I hope that bd, me, and my kk created a fresh sperm pool for the cervix to bend into and lap up whole heartedly some sperms for procreation.

Happy 2008!

Reminders of Spring

Little Birds...






It's Winter Solstice! After today, the days will stay light a little longer and Spring will be a little closer to erupting in life and loveliness.

As a reminder of the coming spring, I've been listening to an album made for and with children, You are My Little Bird by Elizabeth Mitchell She is able to revive the sweetest gems of songs and make my heart ache with happiness and longing.

Years ago, K and I stumbled upon Mitchell's You are My Flower (with a beautiful cover of A.P. Carter's You are My Flower--Carter Family Fold) and spread the love to many friends with kids, but adult me found it to be so uplifting and good.

And now You are My Little Bird is feeling me up with gleefulness. Birds always bring
out memories of spring--the time of life unfolding in waves of bounty before our eyes. But Winter has little tid-bits of life lingering on the edges. Even the snow is full of new energy falling onto the frozen, semi-inert earth. Problem is when the snow stays put and no new snow falls; the old snow gets all hard and dirtied (from too many cars and too many factories and too many people) and out-right unsightly. When this happens, my yearning for Spring gets bigger.

For now, I will listen to this sweet music and celebrate the coming longer days and today's longest night of the year.

she started bleeding

ahh fuck.

k's cycle was super long this time around and she went to a 15 day lunar phase; plus she ovulated super late so her whole cycle was like 38 fucking long-ass days.

Why all the sudden is her shit getting very whack?

She spotted on Sunday and Monday (very tiny amounts of pink) and then nothing yesterday. We thought--maybe just maybe...But then this morning she started her period.

So no prego. And now I can go back to the dull drudge of rolling in my winter blues. I am exceedingly depressed and overworked and stressed.

A michigan winter night--strange and beautiful

We had a big old snow storm here on Sunday. It was lovely. I shoveled for hours and went on a snowshoeing adventure through my neighborhood. That's the best thing that has happened in days.

clearing a path during the storm.



Yesterday, I thought I might crack...

Today, I am leaving behind the work I am supposed to be completing while I am technically on my goddamn vacation. For all of the times I try to lift my heart into places of hope, there are the equivalent times of despair. I guess that is where I am floating now--in this hazy despair.

Don't get me wrong--I love so much about my life. But when I seriously start to think about the work that I do day in and day out and the state of the world on top of it, suffocation surfaces. While I do not want to lean on the creation of another being to relieve me of this not being able to breathe, I do believe concentrating on a wee semi-innocent creature would help mend some of the cracks that my work (often fruitless, or at least I am not fortunate enough to see the fruits of it)leave on the surface of my insides.

That said there is no wee creature implanted this time around...We will keep on keeping on and hopefully something will take someday and help lift my heart up out of the thick haze.

the stuff of winter blues

Rain, with intermittent spits of ice, is falling here in southeastern Michigan. It is the kind of day I would love to spend in bed. I have not been able to cycle to work since November 30th. The weather has been wet and cold. I can ride in wet or cold, but the two together make for unwieldy roads and I would rather not slip into traffic.

So, this gray, cold weather makes for downer kinds of days. When I slap on the fact that I am absolutely overwhelmed at work, well then the days sink even more.

However, waiting for the outcome of our latest injection efforts has added a bit of hopefulness and thankfulness to the winter blues mix that has been reeling through my head. It is not that I totally expect kk to be all knocked up (cause i do not) that draws a little smiley face on the inside of my otherwise frowning eyelids; rather, it is this time of waiting with kk that makes things in life a bit more hopeful.

Our mutual desire to have a kid has become super solidified over the last few months and this time of waiting amplifies our shared desires and dreams in a very real way. I am touched daily by the blessing of being able to share my life with this amazing woman. She is the kindest person I know. While I often think that people are mal-intentioned or mean-spirited by default, kk thinks the best of folks until they prove themselves assholes.

These things I know about my girl come surfacing into the forefront of my brain and then I think yes we are on the right track—to build our family/community with friends and neighbors and a homemade, biological experiment!

Now back to the rigmarole of work accompanied by the freezing cold, rain drenched air that is circulating outside and leaving the inside of places damp and cold—the stuff of winter blues.