Lie in August’s Welcome Corn!

     “Join in black December’s sadness, lie in August’s welcome corn, stir the cup that’s ever blending with the blood of all that’s born . . .”

-- Jethro Tull,  Cup of Wonder, from Songs from the Wood

                         

Pesach took me by surprise and then there was a long silence on this blog. So many things happened in April and May and then summer was upon us, and now the Monsoon and the first hints of autumn are already showing themselves here in the high country. Elul is also upon us, early this year just as Pesach was. But in order to begin looking to the year ahead, I need to look back at least a bit to see what brought me from there to here.

 

April, Come She Will:

The post-Pesach Spring Term was divided between Freedom Ridge Ranch and the house in Sedillo. Both the Cowboy and I were taking classes, he at CNM and me at UNM. In April, we drove up to Albuquerque every Monday morning and returned late Thursday night. It was a hectic busy time, make more do-able by the increasing light and warmth, although it was a cool spring in New Mexico.

In April, I:

•   Edited a dissertation for my Ruby Slipper friend, doing both APA Style formatting, grammar and spelling, and helping with writing style.
• Worked on a literature review for a class I was taking, as well as a research proposal and presentation.
•   Enjoyed down time hanging out at Barnes and Noble in Albuquerque, and began planning the summer work at the ranch.

May Days:

The term ended for the Cowboy and I at the end of April,  and he returned to the ranch and stayed. However, I was still back and forth there, and on up to Aurora, Colorado, mostly on Libertarian Business.

In May, I:

•   Helped plan and attended the LPNM annual convention, where I was termed out as Vice Chair and began a term as Secretary. There was a lot of politicking involved this time as we had a take-over threat and I really wanted our current Chair to remain Chair, although he wasn’t so sure.
•   Continued final editing on the Ruby Slipper’s dissertation, which reported a kick-ass study he did.
•   Drove up to Aurora one weekend for the Libertarian State Leadership Alliance meeting, held in conjunction with the Colorado State Convention. This was great—more relaxed than the bi-annual National Convention—there was plenty of time to talk to Libertarians. It always feels like coming home!
•    With the pressures of committee and comps preparation over for the semester, I had a chance to spend time with Excel Manufacturing friends after a long hiatus.
•   At the ranch, we welcomed our only baby calf of the spring (we had shipped some of the older cows and the bull earlier in the year). We also had water-pipe problems and had to work on the system, and install a new French drain in the irrigation system as well. We got the fencing complete for the greenhouse/garden area.

June is the Hottest Month:

June is hot and dry in New Mexico. Every living thing begins to long for water, and people slow down. We had several weeks of very hot weather, and late in June, temperatures climbed to a record 106 degrees. During late May and June, we had a number of serious wildfires in New Mexico and Arizona, and we saw some smoke at the ranch and in Albuquerque.

In June:

• I picked up my nephew, the Illinois Boy, at the airport as his parents moved to Texas and he came to try out life at the ranch. Once he adjusted to the altitude, he took to it very well.
• The day I picked up the IB, I had a long talk with my realtor, and we brought the price down for the Sedillo house, my beautiful Hobbit Hole. It was a painful decision, but important. We knew we needed to sell the house.
• On the second Friday in June, I thought I saw lightning as I was setting the Shabbat table. Dry lightning is common in June, so I thought nothing of it. The next morning, I woke up with a floater in my eye. I called Eye-Doc Randi that afternoon, and the short of it is that I had a vitreous detachment, requiring numerous trips to Albuquerque and UNM Eye Clinic for monitoring.
• We started fencing for a new horse pasture, and the Cowboy was really happy to have the IB’s help. The IB also learned to ride a horse, drive cattle and drive the tractor. We will make a cowboy of him yet!
• I went riding every week with a friend, JL, another Jew in the Republic of Catron. She was a wrangler for years in Arizona, and passed on some of her riding expertise to me.
• The Cowboy broke his hand while driving cows, and spent five weeks in a cast. Or he was supposed to, anyway!

 

 

Glorious July: 

July was truly a wonderful month, because the Monsoon  came right on the Glorious Fourth and stayed through the month. We got 3.53 inches of precipitation for the month, several of them in cloudbursts that re-arranged the landscape.

In July:

• We celebrated the Glorious 4th small-town style, with a parade and BBQ. Yours truly was honored to read the Declaration of Independence right after the choral presentation of patriotic music.
• The IB settled in, helping me dig retention basins around the trees, and we started a garden.
• The Cowboy spend several weeks working cattle at the York Ranch, but that ended in mid-July because the Monsoon had not yet hit the Continental Divide Country, and they shipped their cattle to a ranch in Texas for better grass.
• I qualified for my Concealed Carry Weapon license, shooting the EG’s Glock .40!
• The Cowboy removed his cast prematurely at the York Ranch, cutting it off himself, because it was getting gnarly. He’s definitely a Cowboy.
• The IB had to return to Illinois to take care of some business late in July and we weren’t sure if he was coming back.
• In the same week, Eye-Doc Randi found a small tear in the retina of my right eye—the one with the vitreous detachment—and I had a week in Albuquerque, playing appointment tag with an over-worked retina specialist.
• In the same week, the IB decided to come back—with resome gentle pushing and bribery from his mother and grandparents, and I arranged the flight.
• In the same week, we had a real gully-washer and frog-strangler, that washed away half the county. We have a new micro-topography here at the Ranch.

 

Lie in August’s Welcome Corn: 

And here we are at the end of the first full week of August. Time speeds when there is so much to accomplish and so many things happening.

The country looks like spring does elsewhere, all green and gold with water falling from the sky, running, trickling and making mud for the dogs to play in and trucks to get stuck in. The IB, gone barely two weeks, did not recognize the place.

And the day I picked him up at the airport, we got an offer on the house. Monday, that was. We dickered Monday evening to Tuesday afternoon. We came to agreement just after I had a good interview for a part-time staff position at CNM, a position I applied for in the Disability Center.

Whoo-hoo! The house is under contract. And, sniffle, we must now say good-bye to that era in our lives.

And just in time for Elul—the season of our turning . . .

But that’s another blog.

Technorati Tags: Meanwhile Back at the Ranch,Summertime,Times and Seasons,Family Life

In Which We Acquire a Horse and I Learn the Contemplative Art of Mucking

On Shabbat afternoon, I loaded up the CR-V, and with Umbrae riding shotgun, I headed out on the open road down to Ragamuffin Ranch. The Engineering Geek had returned to Ragamuffin House for Shabbat on Friday, and now it was my week to be at the ranch and his week to work on the house.

I had come down with a cold, and was not at all sure that I wanted to go down. But once I left the freeway and was driving down through the Malpais, and then across the high plain of the Continental Divide, I decided that all was most well. In our part of the world, the car commercials are true to life, and being the only car on the road is a frequent experience.


This week at Ragamuffin Ranch, besides the work of moving more boxes and taking care of details, I was arriving check in hand, to purchase Reeds Shiny Eyes, a five-year old registered Quarter horse, better known as Badger. (We also purchased a bull, a ranch truck complete with generator and winch, and a few other sundry items, but I am mainly here to talk about the important purchase).

Badger is a gentle, well-trained gelding. He comes when he is called, stands patiently so that the rider can open a gate without dismounting, stands when the rider dismounts to take care of a cow, and takes care of his rider. A few weeks ago, when Cowboy J.'s wife Nurse A., was mounting, the saddle slipped, and he stood through that, too. This is the kind of horse that will actually help teach the CIT to do cowboy work.

Yesterday, as part of moving out, Nurse A. has stepped out on the porch, tested the wind and checked the temperature (both mild), and decided that it was the day to muck out the entire barn and back pasture. The CIT and I decided to participate as an educational project called Learning by Doing. It has been years since I participated in mucking, and I am older now, so I came armed with an ergonomic mucking rake, a garden rake, a gravel shovel and two mucking buckets. Cowboy J. and Nurse A., however, have been housing four equines and have had little time to keep up with mucking--what with the move and all--and so it was not quite the Augean stables, but we estimated four cart-loads of muck would need to be hauled away to the compost. But the day sunny, the snowmelt was proceeding apace, and a warm breeze was blowing up from southern Arizona. And so we started to work.



Rake a mixture of hay, manure and sawdust into a pile, switch garden implements, and shovel the pile into the cart hooked up to the ATV. Muscles happy to move, and the sweet scent of humus rising in the warm air, the sunshine warm on my back. Do it again. Stop every now and again to watch a hawk rising lazily on thermals above the mesas, take a deep breath and give thanks for being alive on such a day. Rake. Shovel. Pause. Let the CIT handle heavy buckets, and every now and again, give Tommy the Ranch Dog a pat. Soon, in the drowsy warmth (nearly 60 degrees at 7500 feet, don't let the snow on the north-facing hills fool you), I caught the rhythm of the work, and that sense of pondering that accompanies certain kinds of work transformed me. And for the day, it didn't matter to me if governments were falling, oil prices rising, and mayhem ensuing: I am mucking. All other thoughts were merely passing clouds, almost unnoticed, outside of me.

My mind and body slow down every time I cross the Catron County line. People are comfortably solid here. Sales are made on a handshake, and opening an account at the propane company comes with a 40 minute conversation aimed at repairing the world country-style, by telling stories and beginning a cautious relationship that has potential far beyond the sale and delivery of propane. The manager of the propane office is a neighbor; the school-bus driver who picks the CIT up every morning over McKinley Ranch Road is also the school librarian and the owner of the local gas station and convenience store. Among the Big Men in Trucks (a la Jon Katz) who gather around the woodstove and Y and A Auto is a 90 year-old Navy Vet who can tell you the whole history of the county, and who has lived about half of it.

Ninety. Good clean living, I suppose. Out in the air and the sunshine. It is not that there isn't stress here, but when you move more slowly and stop to watch the hawk, time telescopes and stretches out. And in such space-time, it really does one well to slow down in telling one's own story, to become circumspect. There is lots of time for people to learn who you are. No need to create a rushed first impression. So I listened as the Big Men in Trucks solved the worlds problems as they drank cups of coffee and welcomed the CIT into their midst while I bought a chain saw. I was quiet while they gave the CIT a demonstration on how to use the Stihl saw. And while Nurse A. was instructing him on the finer points of grooming Badger--who loves a good brushing on the rump--I stopped and took in January sun on my face, the warm wind from the southwest, the coyotes crossing Cemetery Hill, and the hawk, stooping to catch lunch on the mesa.

Who need an afterlife? This is the life we are living right here and right now. This is G-d's country. And so, like cleaning for Pesach, mucking becomes another time for pondering, for getting into flow.

The "Perfect Storm" Blogging Break

This week was one of those weeks!

It was life getting in the way of blogging; events have enforced a mini-blogging break.

To wit:

1) The week before the UNM spring break meant extra busy days at the Writing Center. And for my classes.

2) We had a dog trainer out to help me deal with Shy Shayna and Rowdy Lily on Monday.

It also snowed on Monday.

3) Tuesday Shayna had her teeth cleaned.

4)My ancient laptop (5 years old is practically antique in computer years) combined with DSL problems means slow connections and a lot of down time, and I cannot blog much from work. (I will be ordering a new laptop this year--Dell has a Deal. I am anticipating problems when I beg to remain with XP. I am such a Luddite!).

5) I am tutoring a young man at EMHS for Algebra II. I have suddenly gotten very interested in factoring equations and simple radical equations after all these years! I am finding Algebra II a whole lot more interesting now than I did in 1976-77 when I was taking the course.

6) Yesterday I went to a conference to hear Temple Grandin speak. This was an awesome presentation, and worthy of a blog entry unto itself.

7) Yesterday afternoon, the EG and I gathered with 18 like-minded people for the We Surround Them broadcast and the unveiling of the 9/12 Project. This also deserves a blog unto itself.

8) I am sick--again! This winter has been the pits for illness. Between lupus flares, the arthritis being worse than ever, the flu in November, food poisoning in January, and now a chest cold that feels like bronchitis, I am beginning to feel like I am aging rapidly. Spring cannot come soon enough for me.

Fortunately, it snowed again yesterday and last night, and so between that and a cough that sounds extremely contagious, I have found an excuse to STAY HOME today. And the internet connection is cooperating, and the ancient computer is no slower than it's age would predict.

Even In Australia: Multiple Choice, Hitting the Wall, and Henry Huggins

Yes, the things listed after the colon in the title really are connected, but only in a way that makes sense among the sleep deprived.
And I am soooo there!

Last week and weekend I spent my time feverishly finishing papers and studying for a multiple choice test in Child Psychopathology.
Generally, I do not like multiple choice tests.
I overthink the questions almost every time.
For example, consider this question:

"Down's Syndrome occurs more often with older mothers than younger mothers because:
a. chromosomal nondisjunction increases with maternal age
b. women's ova generally become less healthy with age
c. older women are generally less healthy than younger women
d. none of these"

Here's how I tend to think:
Me to myself: "Hmmm. Well, the book is an undergraduate text, so it probably says "a". However, that's not exactly right. It's not that nondisjunction--and isn't that spelled wrong?--occurs more often in older women, it's that older women are more likely to carry a fetus with a trisomy for small chromosomes--21 and 22--to term. So the real correct answer would have to be "d". But of course, she wouldn't expect the undergrads to know that, sooo...."

In my vast experience as someone who is addicted to taking courses, er, I mean a lifelong learner, I have learned to ignore the overanalytical part of my brain, (If I am not sleep deprived) and just go with the simplest answer. And I did that on Thursday and did well on the test.

But I hate multiple choice tests.

And I am now officially sleep deprived. This week, in order to keep up with the 8-9 hours of (paid) training for my summer job, as well as completing the semester's work, and educating N., I have been getting up before the sun and going to bed well after it sets.
I used to be able to do this kind of thing twice a semester--when I was in my 20's and 30's.
Now...well, ah, let's just say it's worse than 'Mommy Brain.' It is more like 'Mommy Brain' and 'PMS Brain' put together.

So today, I was cruising along in my training, and unwisely decided to take a MULTIPLE CHOICE QUIZ while sleep-deprived and before eating lunch.
"It's only a few more minutes," I rationalized (to myself--I'm not quite talking to the walls--yet). "Then we'll take a nice break."

Famous. Last. Words.
The information was somewhat complicated. The assessment system I was using had gotten a step more complex, and so I dithered over the answers for half-an-hour. That, as Bronowski says of Galileo, was my first mistake.
Then, just as I was about to submit the Quiz, I changed my answers.

Those of you who know the conventional wisdom about changing uncertain answers on a multiple-choice quiz are now groaning and throwing popcorn at the screen.

"How could you!" I hear you yelling. "WIth all of your experience being a student! "
Never. Never. Ever. Ever. Change. Your. Answers. When. You. Are. Uncertain.
The first response is most likely to be right.

Of course I did very, very poorly
.
I have an excuse. The training video, with its emphasis on "opening doors" for kids, and moving kids at this level along if there is the slightest reason to do so, misled me.
But, if I am completely honest, there was not the slightest reason to do so. And there were some other clues in the video.
The real problem? I made the right decisions the first time.
And then I changed my answers out of sheer, sleep-deprived paranoia. How could I be so certain? Was I not willing to give these (thankfully fictitious) children a chance? Etc. Etc.

Judith Viorst said there'd be days like this. Even in Australia.

The only sensible thing to do is take a break. Read Henry Huggins, and go get my hair done.

And speaking of Henry Huggins, have any of you read it recently?
As I do, I get the sense that times have really changed.
In this day and age Henry would probably have been detained by the TSA for attempting to bring a large, wriggling box onto a mode of public transportation.
His parents would have been charged with child abuse for letting him gather night-crawlers after dark in a public park.

Oh, and as for actually selling them? That would probably be doing business without a license.

See what I mean? Definitely sleep deprived.

So, it's off to town soon. I've got to get my hair done.
And turn in another paper for Child Psychopathology.

Did I mention that the printer is out of black ink?
Does that ever happen on days like this? Even in Australia?

Tomorrow is another day.

The Attack of the Grammar Yekke

I received a comment on my last blog entry, Yikes! It's Adar II! from a grammar Yekke* (who uses the handle Muffin) that annoyed me.
The entry itself was quite long, and I realize that the nature of the discussion was probably not of interest to a lot of people, although I wanted to post it for reasons of my own. However, there were many ideas in the piece that could well be discussed and argued that would have been interesting and enlightening. However, this comment was a priggish little poem about a specific English usage that must have offended the commentor.

*Yekke: What the Israeli Sabra calls the German Jew. They are so concerned with 'properness' that they wear a jacket even when it's 100 degrees in the shade. You know the type.


I suppose that sooner or later it was bound to happen. What I wonder is this: Do these people go trolling the blogosphere looking for what they consider to be "incorrect usage" with their copies of Eats, Shoots, and Leaves in hand? What is really interesting about this particular objection is that the usage in question is correct or not depending upon whether the writer is using standard American expression or the Queen's English.

I wrote a reply to the comment, but did not end up posting it in those comments. I thought rather to blog it as a separate entry, because I think it would be useful for all of the grammar prigs out there to think about.

The comment was about the correct use of "who" and "whom," and since the commentor did not actually quote the offending phrase, I am making an assumption--always a dangerous proposition--about what that phrase might be.

The piece I posted was actually the written format of a talk I gave in an informal setting. At several places in the talk, I used the phrase, "Who do they think they're kidding?!" I am guessing that this bothered the Grammar Yekke so much that she was unable to actually digest the content and the meaning of the talk. At least, I choose to believe this more charitable interpretation above other less charitable ones.

Here is my response:

Dear Muffin,

Perhaps you are from England, in which case, you can ignore everything I write below, and go on believing that you are correct. I am assuming that you object to my use of the word "who" in the question "Who do they think they're kidding?" For standard American usage in the 21st century, the writer may choose to use either "who" or "whom" even though in English usage, "whom" is considered to be correct.

In the case to which you refer, I made my choices based primarily on the 'voice' I wanted to convey to my listeners--that's right, listeners--because my purpose for this piece was first that it be spoken in an informal setting. In this setting I wanted to project a colloquial and unaffected voice, as well as draw my listeners in to the rhythm of that phrase interspersed with the other content of the piece. Additionally, I knew my audience and thus was aware that the phrase would likely bring to their minds a line from a Simon and Garfunkel song. Yeah, we are that old!

And, yes, I am aware that 'yeah' is another one of those improper colloquialisms.

When considering how to phrase a piece of writing, I generally consider both the purpose of the writing and the audience for whom it is intended.

Digression: You should note here that I do know the correct usage of the word "whom." You should further note that the usage for the word "whom" is a remnant of the 'objective' or 'predicate' case, and I also know that cases are no longer normative in modern English. Rather, we use word order to convey the meaning that used to be expressed with cases. Cases are important in Latin and in Russian, and probably other languages, too.

Beyond the issue of voice, you may have noticed that the piece of writing to which you had this objection was also not very elegant in phrasing and had quite a few parenthetical statements. These would all sound better than they look, because eye contact, spoken phrasing, and tone of voice were used to convey meanings. Of course, when relying on the written word alone to communicate meaning, it is a good idea to minimize parenthetical statements, and to clean up the phrasing, so to make the writing more elegant. But, as I said, this was a talk and much meaning was communicated in other ways.

And now, I would like to go beyond your objection to my usage in order to provide you with some food for thought, if you choose to take a bite.

Language is arbitrary. This means that words, phrases, colloquialisms, and rules of grammar are in constant flux as people use language in everyday life to communicate with each other. As language is carried by people through space and time it evolves in order to remain useful to the people who are doing the communicating. Language in use is thus called 'living.' If it was not, it would not be very useful. One can only worship at the altar of perfect and unchanging usage for languages that are 'dead.' For example, the French Academy of Language has a bone to pick with Anglicisms and Americanisms coming into usage in French. One such is the Americanism "le weekend." But if the Academy is honest with itself, its members would have to say that they have not been terribly successful at getting rid of "le weekend'. "Le weekend" simply conveys a precise meaning that would require a more convoluted phrase to convey in "proper French." So ordinary French people continue to use it because they want to quickly convey meaning, and they really don't give a damn about keeping French frozen to some arbitrary level of 'purity' approved by the French 'language police.'
For American English it is even more so. That is because the language is so very polyglot, as Americans have adopted words and phrases from many different languages--and has even invented neologisms to convey meanings important to us in the here and now. Think about the following words: bayou, moccasin, patio, chaps, byte, blog. The first is Cajun (French-Canadian-Indian), the second is Indian, the third and fourth are from Spanish, and Spanish Indian, and the last two are computer-neologisms.

Finally, a confession and a warning.

First, the confession. I am a reasonable typist, but not a great one. When typing fast, I miss letters and sometimes mispell words due to "typos" (another neologism from the American Century. For shame! I am sure that Shakespeare never used that word). I am not a great proof-reader, especially when I am reading on a computer. I know this about myself: I am much more interested in the ideas I am trying to convey, and although I do strive to convey them clearly, I am not fussy about the use of perfect grammar. I will generally bow to local acceptable use and I do not get priggish about the fact that this often differs from the Queen's English. This is why I got a "pro" (another neologism--shame on me!) to type and edit my thesis. I will do the same for my dissertation.

Now the warning: Muffin, if the way I write bothers you so much that you cannot pay attention to the content, you might want to consider taking this blog off of your list. I would hate to raise your blood pressure on a daily basis. But if you are trolling for errors to demonstrate how superior you are with respect to grammar, then please, please do not come back here. I am simply not interested.

As the ubiquitous "they" say: "Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wears you out and annoys the pig!"

And for those whose blogs I read regularly, I may notice spelling errors and such, but I do not get huffy about them. It would be, to use an old colloquialism, "the pot calling the kettle black."

Walking through the Meadow Early in the Morning

I could sleep late this week.

But the sun is up early of a summer morn.
And the cool of the night is still over the meadow. And in the meadow, the flora is burgeoning and blooming.

Staying in bed is just not an option with beauty like this just out of the door.
So I rise with the sun and walk with the dogs in the meadow--early in the morning.




The wildflowers look new and fresh--and very tall--in early morning.

Here is yellow sweet clover and purple "pinks" abloom where the road meets the meadow path.

The wet spring has given us an abundance of tall grasses and wildflowers, early summer blossoms.









And now at mid-summer, the grasses are flower in the meadow.

The morning sun slanting on the grass flowers makes them pale gold against the green of the grass stalks.








Here are yellow asters blooming in the rocky soil just where the meadow path intersects the forest trail.

They are in the sun, but the path is still in the long shadow of the ridge behind.

Although these asters are now in the bloom, the New Mexico sunflowers are not yet in bud. The stalks are growing, but they flower later in the summer.

Coming 'round to the house by the forest path, we get to pass by the Mexican Lilacs blooming in the dooryard.

Growing up in Illiniois, I loved the lilacs that bloomed in April and May next to my window. They had a wonderful, strong lilac scent that lasted only a few weeks.

The Mexican Lilacs bloom from mid-summer until fall. They have a more delicate lilac scent that lasts all summer. As the day progresses, the dooryard will hum with the activity of bees coming for lilac nectar. But in the early morning, the dooryard is quiet, waiting.

After our early morning meadow walk, the rest of the day is almost an anticlimax.

I can't imagine sleeping late and missing the cool freshness of the meadow in early morning.

On these summer morns, I come to breakfast with a heart full of wonder and graditude. I am so fortunate to be alive one more day to see the great sights of life around me, to feel the cool morning breeze off the mountain, and to hear the morning greetings of the birds.