Thekla McDaniels

Vetiver is very deep rooted and is used for erosion control.  It won’t survive freezing soil, but I was able to get it through a couple freezing soil western Colorado winters by mulching, using dark rocks to make heat sinks, and planting on south facing slopes… and all that microclimate stuff.  Another very deep rooted plant is big bluestem grass.  I don’t know if it would like your climate.  It does grow in heavy soils.

Your partner sharing your values is important when it comes to teaching children how to live.

Different perspectives and cultures come out different places.  If there’s no way to transfer the values you hold to your children, your abhorrence for the wastefulness you have described, letting it be a source of discord is probably not helpful.  If your partner just can’t see how important it is to you, is unwilling to negotiate, I feel for you.

I am divorced.  It is hard raising children!  It was so much easier once I was single.  After I considered a situation, and decided what I thought was a constructive and respectful response to my fellow (immature) human beings, I was always so glad, so relieved that I could simply proceed, didn’t have to try to convince anyone else, or worse have my partner openly undermine me.

Again, I feel for you.

Tough topic!

I have rules for myself in searching for what to say to a grieving person:

It has to be true, it has to be kind, it has to allow others to define their situation, not seek to sum it up or pass over it.  It must not tell the grieving one to “do” anything, predict anything for them, tell them it will pass.  And it is not to be used as an opportunity for me to tell of my experiences.  “Be here now” with the person as they live a difficult episode. That is my objective.

As a young woman working as a nurses aide in a catholic hospital, the nuns told me a newly bereft person is not going to remember exactly what I say.  They are going to remember if  I am kind.

I find I do better if I notice if my body has tightened up, if so, I release and relax, exhale and breathe deeply, and be with the feelings I have tightened up in order to deny or fight or whatever.  It’s easier to let the experience flow, and the tears if they want to come.

Often body language works better, a hug, a grasp of the hand.

Simple phrases:  I’m with you, I will be thinking of you, I am holding you in my heart, I am so sorry…. kind of thing.

A few times I have kept a person company while they died.  To pretend it’s not happening isn’t helpful.  Again I try to say what is true in the moment.  

For my hospice drugged unconscious swimmer friend, in addition to poetry:“You are standing on the threshold of the next great adventure”, “You are facing the great mystery, and I think you are going to find out before I do what comes next! Dive, …. dive”

To the fully conscious woman who said to me “I am afraid”, I said “everything will be alright”.  Just my spur of the moment true to my heart comment, because what else is there?  It might take us awhile to accept what is happening, but what is happening is all there is!  Because she died on the next exhale, I have believed it had meaning for her.

My brother died last spring.  How to be “right here, right now”  with him was a little more of a challenge.  He lived a despicable life, ending up alcoholic in a filthy hovel.  He lived his life believing in his superiority, disrespectful to me and all women…. adamant that rape was a woman’s fault and a man’s perogative.  More specific details need not be told.  I hadn’t talked with him for decades.  My sister went to see him and said he was as bad as ever, I took her word for it, and thanked her for her effort.

But death is a sacred passage and I wanted to be sure I would have no regrets about my behavior in this instance.

Hard to be here now with someone in complete denial and trying to be clever and superior!  I repeated to him what I had said before:  “we have nothing in the past to base a relationship on, but I am willing to share something with you in the present, and I have a few poems to  read”.  The night nurse held the phone.

I have no idea if these thoughts will be helpful or meaningful to anyone else.  It’s just my experience.  Not so much what has worked for me as describing how the process has moved through me.

How we grieve, how we offer comfort and compassion or empathy is deeply personal.  If I were to sum it up, I would offer this:  Be true to your own heart, and kind to yourself and others.

Thanks for the book recommendations.

Ah, here comes another book!

The reason I don’t bake much these days is that a woman moved to town and opened a sourdough bakery.  They buy local grain and mill it, it’s organic, and it’s really really good.  That’s an idea for one of your future bakers.  This bakery sells out.  If you go a couple hours before closing time there’s often a sign out that they are out of everything they baked for the day.

Used to be I baked all my bread.

As for the barriers to baking, I think you have covered it.  People are intimidated by the process and afraid to try.

Seems like they need encouragement and support, and the process needs demystification.  

I can’t wait to see what you do with this idea!  

PS, I’m baking your sourdough crackers
a lot these days, great Christmas presents.

The starter I have now, I started with kombucha.  I can’t remember if it was commercial (GT’s Synergy) or my own which I have kept going for ages.  

(I used the liquid I bought in a bottle.  Brew with honey, in a capped growler about 1/3 cup honey diluted with 3 pints filtered water.  Dissolved and at appropriate temperature, it goes into the growler with the remaining pint of starter.  No mother, no boiling, no sugar, no caffeine.  Since I cap the growler, it gets carbonated, and I think that is also what suppresses the formation of the mother.)

Just thought I would explain that to prevent confusion.  Anyway, the same organisms in the scoby are in the liquid.  I don’t think I could get my sourdough to make kombucha though, because populations drift, but the original kombucha as starter has worked for me.

My breakfast is an herb blend I make.  Coffee, black tea, chicory root, hawthorn are the backbone.  I add gingko, ashwaghanda, marshmallow, ginger, cocoa powder, brahmi, turmeric black pepper, cogotu kola, nettle.  Lots of other things too.

I soak it overnight in a pan of water. Then boil it in the morning, strain and add milk to the perfect temperature.  I end up drinking 2 quarts, which includes almost a pint of milk…. cow or goat.

Years ago it was a similar amount of tea and milk with honey added.  I used to have homemade granola with yogurt and fruit and nuts added, but I became a low carb enthusiast and cut out most carbs.

I need to eat something substantial about 1030 or 11, but can push it as late as 1ish, but sometimes when I do, it’s a mistake.  When I get that hungry, I can’t seem to satisfy my hunger and eat more than is reasonable, and am still hungry.

I have 2.5 gallon stainless steel milk cans that seal pretty tight.  Smaller than you’re looking for, but worth mentioning.  I have really liked mine, I use them for everything from milk to cheese making to dry herb storage.  I carry water in them too, when like now it isn’t getting higher than 25 degrees, wind is blowing, I carry hot to boiling water to add to the ice in their water tub.

Currently there are some on sale at Hamby Dairy Supply.

I’m posting a photo of one of mine, in use several years, and the sale page from Hamby Dairy Supply.

Thanks everyone!

I like it!

Knits are good because they stretch and spring back to former shape.

I used to knit mine with a double strand:  an eyelash type yarn I don’t know if they make anymore… but the eyelash camoflaged any mistakes or weirdness, in addition to another layer of insulation.  
The second strand was wool or wool mohair.  It was the one that gave the cozy its shape form and substance

I did make a couple out of Lopi, but those had to be knit to fit.  They looked quite tailored….

Hip hip hooray

And millions of thanks

And is there anything required from us?  Sign off and stay off?🤷🏻‍♀️

I don’t have the slightest idea.