O Christmas Tree, How Scary It Is to Chop You!

A severed foot is the ultimate stocking stuffer.

~ Mitch Hedberg

In December, I am continuing to participate in the Two Pages-a-Day writing challenge.  And STILL trying desperately to get into the holiday mood.

C

hainsaws scare the sap out of me.

Here I am, working on building my organic hobby farm and I can’t handle using a chainsaw.

Drills. Sanders.  Weed whackers.  Mowers.  Nail guns.  Wood chippers.  I love them all.

But chainsaws freak me out.

Visions of limbs (not from a tree) dance in my head and away from my body, where they flop in a pool of blood.

I like my arms.  And my hands.  I like them where they are right now.  I would not like them on the ground, apart from me. 

Image credit: Funny Christmas Trees

However, if I want to have a real Christmas tree this year, that means once I get it home, I’ll have to cut off the bottom of the trunk to

a) get the sap flowing again and feed the tree, and

b) fit the tree into the tree stand.

Just using a hand saw last year cost me a nick in my thumb.  Granted, I kept my thumb, but still.  What’s a single girl to do?  Ask her friendly neighborhood Garden center guys to chop it for her!

Or just get a fake tree and forgo the severed foot.  Or hand.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

Do you fake tree it or go for the real tree?

The Haunted Hearth: Farmgirl Meditations on the Love of the Land

Home is a name, a word, it is a strong one; stronger than magician ever spoke, or spirit ever answered to, in the strongest conjuration. 
~ Charles Dickens

In August, I’m participating in BlogHer’s Blogging Challenge.  The theme this month is: Hot.

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his land is haunted.

Over thirty years of memories linger here.  Childhood’s tears soak the earth; ghostly laughter dances with the summer wind; ripening apples, pears, and peaches of years past scent the air, and you shiver as a phantom cat brushes up against your bare leg.

This land is haunted.  And those are just my memories. 

With a house as old as this one, there are decades of memories living in its very bone structure.  Someone died alone in this room, this room had only a dirt floor. Union and Confederate feet alike marched through the trees, and through the cornfields.  Lovers loved, fought, cried, and made up.  Families grew, fought, moved away and left the imprint of their emotions on every inch of board, bone, and speck of dirt that we now call home.

This land is haunted.  And it has claimed me.

Some days I embrace it as the perfect home.  Just enough land to live on, but not enough to kill me with the upkeep.  Not in the city or in town, but not an impossible distance away.  Living here, both my introvert side and my extrovert side are happy.

But on other days, I long for more seclusion, more acreage.  Wish my support system of close friends all lived fifteen to twenty minutes away instead of an hour or more.  On those days, no one is happy: neither the introvert nor the extrovert.  On those days, I read. 

I walk. 

I garden.

I breathe.

And smell the apples and the pears.  Hear the laughter of the trees.  Watch dragonflies play tag among the tomatoes and the zinnias.  Feel the dew and the soft grass beneath my bare feet.  And remember where my soul belongs.

And the claim this haunted patch of earth has on me.

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

One’s childhood home can have an incredible pull on the psyche ~ for good or ill.  What claim does your childhood home have over you?  If you’re a military brat, was there a specific place you lived as a child that holds more nostalgia for you?

 

La Belle's Hobby Farm: Savoring the Silence After a Storm

Despite the gardener's best intentions, Nature will improvise. 
~ Michael P. Garafalo

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iving off the grid is a tough choice to make.  We have been seduced into thinking we can control our lives with technology and can’t live without it, and have literally become addicted to it ~ myself included!

But those who were in the path of last weekend’s derecho know that it is foolish to put your trust in technology and that despite its best efforts, there is at least one thing over which we have no control: Mother Nature.



photo, June 2012, M. D'Eigh



Millions lost power as soon as the 80 mile winds roared into town, tearing up everything not nailed down, and several things that were.  Roads were impassable, cars crushed under trees and power lines.  Even cell service was disrupted, so besides being unable to contact loved ones, there was no tweeting on the smarty-pants phone either.  Friends who texted me on Saturday didn’t reach me until Monday.

One could almost hear the caged-animal-like wails as wild-eyed people moaned, “But what will I do without the internet or my laptop!?”

Savor the silence?

The underlying hum of electricity is like a drug; once it’s taken away, you panic and go through withdrawal.  You fancy you can feel the silence.  The air hangs heavy and your thoughts run around like frightened mice.  Ever drop of rain sounds like a waterfall and every cricket’s chirp is deafening. You must tweet or text or go mad.

But once you’ve been off the electricity drug for awhile, your crazed neurons settle down again.  You welcome the silence.  And the freedom that comes from living at a slower pace.  You may even begin to appreciate the people around you.  Although to be brutally honest: most of us use technology to hide from relational problems and pain.  So once it’s taken away, your options are to either confront the issue head on, or leave town!

Another way to enjoy life without electricity ~ pick up one of those eco-friendly, non-fossil fuel powered versions of the e-reader: the book!  I had electricity and still managed to devour at least five. 

Or you can learn new things to do outside.  I added sawing tree limbs to my repertoire.  Without a chainsaw.  Oh. Yeah.   And I found out that a truck and a really big heavy chain make a great substitute for Paul Bunyan when you need to clear a fallen tree out of the driveway. 

Now if only I could figure out how to chop the trunk and mulch the limbs off the grid. 

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

My condolences to all those who lost loved ones to the storm.  My thoughts and prayers are with you.

You're Invited to Abbey's 54th Poetry Party!

Poetry is what gets lost in translation. 

~ Robert Frost

Christine over at Abbey of the Arts is hosting her 54th Poetry Party!  This party’s inspiration: the bare trees of winter. We are invited to write a poem and then post the image below (with a link back to Abbey of the Arts) and an invitation on our blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter.

Invite your friends to the party!

My contribution to the party:

The Naked Tree

Alone and forgotten

She stands straight.

Each gust of wind bends her back -

Bends but doesn’t break.

She stretches her limbs

Up, up

Toward the pale sun

And touches his warmth

In a fleeting embrace.

As the days wane

And the nights trace

Her outline by the moonglow,

She is transparent,

Vulnerable –

Stripped naked.

Still, none can see

The hope of spring

Hidden

Deep, deep

In her hibernating heart.

Oremus pro invicem,

Mikaela

Word Count Blogathon Day 26: The Abbey's 51st Poetry Party

A poem should create a momentary enchantment.

~ Dana Gioia

Don’t you just love parties!? I do ~ especially poetry parties!  And Christine Valters Painter over at Abbey of the Arts is hosting her 51^st Poetry Party!  Here’s how it works:



photo courtesy of Abbey of the Arts



Christine picks an image, suggests a theme and title and you write a poem or poetic reflection in response.  If you have a blog, post it on your blog and then post the link at the Poetry Party.  Then tomorrow, Christine will pick a random name and that lucky poet will win a space in one of her courses: Eyes of the Heart: Photography as Contemplative Practice and Water, Wind, Earth & Fire: Praying with the Elements .

My poem inspired by the tree image is below.  What poetry or poetic thoughts does the image bring to your mind?

Oremus pro invicem,

~ Mikaela

The Old Maple

© 26 May 2011, Mikaela D’Eigh

The tree stands tall

And old –

had already sunk its roots deep into the heart

when we arrived thirty odd years ago.

Who knows

how long

it stood watch over lilac, pine, barn and cow,

its trunk full of secrets and memories.

How it comforted

            brothers –

one blue, one gray, lying beneath its shade,

leaving only bullets and bones behind.

And the rain

            silent, sad

that mingled with mother’s tears

when Flanders’ fields kept back her sons.

Then, ah peace!

A child, small

there found Austen and Bilbo

among the wide and changing leaves.

And solved mysteries

            with Nancy

and the Twins and the Boxcar Children

while cradled in its strong and loving arms.

I stand now before it

            a woman grown –

my life thick with experience and history

my heart full of secrets and memories.

This tree, this land

            strong, solid --

brings the comfort as of old friends,

and keeps me grounded and alive.