"my tree" at autumn equinox

 

I went looking at my tree,

 summer is over, fall has been here a few days now, but the tree ain't showing it. The trembling aspen that i follow, looks very much the same as last month. Considering it hasn't grown much over 20 years, i suspect only to see the seasonal changes. but no yellow in the leaves is showing yet. The middle of August, sometime the middle of August does start showing yellow leaves, i do often think that it has more to do with drought then with fall time weather. Morning temperatures are plus 5, no frost yet. But we had a ton of rain lately, that might account for leaves still green, as green as can be with the silver-grey from the miners.

It makes me look close at the tree, i see the folds in the bark,  droplets of the red sap, the dusty bark, but i all expect to see that, . I see spiderwebs and  dead insect bits. those look plausible.

and then suddenly i see her! later on @inaturalist i find out it is probably a running crab spider. She totally blends in with the bark, i wonder if she is dead too and touch her legs lightly, ha not knowing her apt name yet, she does run away, and  scrutinizing the tree on the other side i find her again or is it another one. 

 
https://squirrelbasket.wordpress.com/

Aspen Serpentine Leafminer (Phyllocnistis populiella)

 Hello there! I haven't been here for too long a time,  but all is well. 

This afternoon i walked up to my neighbours to tell them i am a grandma now:) yes it is a healthy baby boy. I walked to them by the way of the tree i am following, and realized it is already past the middle of the month.

  My tree is doing as well as can be expected, the crown looks lovely. it has been rather dry this summer, but we have had some rain and a spitter spatter even fell this afternoon, although it never reached the ground

The tree is affected by the leafminer, but so are all poplars that i know off, i could find out for you how far and wide it's reaches are now. I did read that the first leaf miner along the Alaska highway was spotted in the 1950-ish. So i have not known otherwise. For  many years  now we always say, "oh the leafminers are really bad this year."

https://squirrelbasket.wordpress.com/

wáxwaoz̓

 

Lewis' Mock Orange

Philadelphus lewisii

This beautiful  fragrant shrub was blooming along seven o'clock drive,  June 13 2023

I have more of the plants growing there posted in oct. nov. dec. 2021.

It is Idaho's state flower.

It is said to be good for bank stabilization.

The wood is very hard and used for making tools.

Also the leaves and flowers  are slightly soapy, so nice to wash your hands in a creek with.

the tree looks older

https://squirrelbasket.wordpress.com/

Tree following project

The tree 20+ years ago. The tree i follow is on the left, the one on the right is it's twin, that has died long time ago, and has been removed. The twin might have been used for fort building, less likely for a campfire. And not likely for firewood. ( The people are Tilly and Merel, my sister and her oldest daughter)

The tree on May 14  2023

 You see it has lost  a big branch. And certainly above the broken off branch, it has grown in diameter.

Also the trees in the back ground have grown considerably

And the tree two days ago.

sustainable living

 To me, that we have to live with less is clear,  and i like to say;   when we live with less, we get  more,   more living to do.

Today i biked over to the AGM in our neighbourhood,  (biked with a peddle bike.)

I brought a cloth napkin, to receive the food that would be offered. 

 But the group of neighbours that  I sat close to, and socialized with before and after the meeting, they all impressed me with their travel habits.  It show me again that  we neighbours are kindred spirits, we all live here in this faraway neighbourhood, because we have  at least some similar values.

 I was telling them i was travelling next week for a few days to Pemberton BC, we laughed at the horrendousness of what one neighbour called; using an airplane as a taxi service. We all got it. People here in the Yukon are in general, if i may say  quite rich, and do  seem to use airplanes as a taxi service. But not so some of my neighbours as it turned out. K had not been flying for a long time, his grandchildren are far away but driving  to see them is possible. H has his parents in Europe and will go down there this year first time in 6 years. and E did recently take a plane ride to go to a meeting for work but had not travelled by plane since 2018 or so.

 Still we here in the Yukon, this might be much more air travel we do then people in your neck of the woods. I at least was impressed.

And that  is it, we all have to do what we can. But i do hope we all make a change, because to keep living the way we do up till now is not sustainable.

And what about the living more you might ask; as i biked back i came upon an elk, i took my bike  home and ventured in the woods where i had seen it. I  heard them call and grunt, and found the area where they have frequented lately by their prints in the moss, and from there i let them be. I always wanting to see the wildlife but not wanting to disturb them too much. Don and i had seen their prints on the dusty drive way for several days now, so it was nice to finally meet them, all for free, no airplane needed.

blessed rain

 Yesterday we had the first drop of the year. And this morning while I was collecting wild greens for today's lunch, the sky turned dark and sure enough we had a bit of a shower, 5 minutes worth. So it normally is for the Yukon, in my experience,  But i will say the few previous summers we did have a bit of more rain.

Did i say i was planning on more gardening, I know now for me I will need a bit more rain to help me along, I am happy to water a bit, but not extensively.

I am trying to harvest more of the wild, then what  we can eat daily, but that is not happening yet. And today i have friends visiting for lunch  so i want to pick 6 cups of wild green instead of the normal two.

And an update here about the deleting; I  am  still distressed how much i put on the Internet over the years. And am  still slowly chugging away deleting what is not relevant anymore. How many months has it been now?

And about the chewing; Yes i am still chewing away, eating my food more mindfully. Impressed with myself on this front. And in this case not worried that I ate rushed for 60 plus years. Haha luckily i do not have to clean up my computer for what has been collected for 60 years, but just 20. I fear for young people.

One more thing, I am still reading Walden Pond. I can't believe how much i like that Thoreau, what did i read yesterday; About walking in the dark! Something i like too. He was suggesting, let your body walk you do not look with your eyes, when walking home through pitch black. 

And OMG that about that the government trying to protect us,  will hurt us more, he calls it molest :), then if we would just leave it be....

I am not very good as repeating his exact words. I would have to read the whole chapter again, I think it was 'The Village' chapter. And as i most often read in bed I do not underline things, so i would be able to find them and tell you properly.

Love you all, respect you for your ways. Thank you for reading this.

Summer

 After a very long tentative spring we are suddenly blasted into summer.

Monday sitting in the garden I could see the trees getting green

And yes i have been swimming for 3 days now. 

yesterday with my friend Cindy

Cindy managed about 9 strokes in one dip. I dipped in more often but i think i only got to 7 strokes.

 Swimming for now is in the Takhini river. Monday i forded the river to an island, where i know there is a pool, the pool still had floating ice, so i just jumped in and out.

I have an interest in the Wim Hoff method, and Tuesday i managed four strokes while a kept breathing. Don and i drove  up mud road, which still had quite a bit of ice, to go to an island closer to the shore. so the fording was easier, and i did those four strokes in that stretch, and on the island i found a shallow pool where i could actually lay in and be quite comfortable.

Yesterday see photo, spectacular i say. plus Mergansers floating by

.I am following a tree. Are you?

 Thanks to the https://squirrelbasket.wordpress.com/

 Earlier this morning i had breakfast at the tree i am following.

And I am sure through  the tree, squirrelbasket, Hollis and the power of mind, there were 8 crocuses blooming at the foot of the tree. I have never seen so much on that side of the erratic rock, ha, there was none on the east side of the rock, where i usually see more crocuses.

The goose berry bush shows green leaves, and the rose has leave buds. Also in this 2 photo you see how the two trees, were actually one tree, still a twin of sorts, like i wrote before. The one died and this one very much alive.  As you see i measured the tree, to see next year if it actually does grow.

No photo, but a few strong big Poplars in the yard do  have catkins

But here is ours! green buds at at the top of the tree!

wandering the wild places.

 Sunday i realized again how i appreciate living in the wild, to wander endlessly.

Yesterday i went on a long walk-about, into a forest that i actually had not set foot in. When you know me, you might know how i have lived here for almost 30 years, but  I always like  to explore. For me the greatest joy is finding a new 'special ' place, in my old surroundings.

But why i realized this again; Sunday afternoon i climbed up 'my' crocus hill half a kilometer from here. The first 20 years i must have climbed that hill weekly, if not once a month for sure. But as a neighbour moved into the lot in between me and the hill, i had to get there round about, not that they do not want me on their property (lucky i have only one neighbour like that), most people here have lots of wild space and no fences, so wandering the neighbourhood is... kind of ok. But with more and more people living here.. it has changed for me. First i climb up the hill, 2 k from here and sure enough  i run into the neighbour who lives there ( we have 10 to 20 acre parcels.) Nice enough to see him, but he says, don't scare my wife, she is laying in the hammock. So I take a wide berth around that house.  A public path would be nice, i think, at least neighbours will expect people and not just bears. But i do not want public paths, the national parks here are bad enough (haha not as bad as down south). Yes yes i am very egocentric, wish the world for myself. It is a bind I am sure Thoreau talked about it.

And i like to say; fences maybe make good neighbours, but they keep me imprisoned.

Anyways i just have to walk farther for a crocus. Or just wait,  because they will bloom here around the house, eventually.

So yesterday I planned a 4 hour  walk, I forgot my camera and my husband now dreads being left home alone, (I feel he is quite capable) but I did it in 3.

 Tadada,  I explored a  kind of plateau, mainly small poplars grow there, climbing up to it and on the edge it was snow free, and low and behold i do find myself on a kind of path. Yes some of us, me incl. we do make paths here. It is kind of frowned upon close to the parcels, like i do not make a path around the neighbours lot, but have many going from my lot, that I appreciate being used by others. Again a path gives an unspoken ok.

But here today now an hours walk away from any house, I am delighted to find a path ,I think it is Jay's, I will ask him, from way back in the days. And sure enough when in ends I see tiny pieces of tape. 

As the terrain start to go down, I walk a bit in the snow covered forest away from the edge of the plateau, towards the middle  so to speak. And amazingly quite a centre it has, like a navel on a flat belly.

First i don't see it is a navel, I just see through the still bare small poplars a giant Pine, the only one. A pine is always special here, because the forest is Spruce/Poplar with Willows.  So i brave the half a foot deep snow.

And a special place it is, a little moose meadow,  a depression in the ground with well browsed  willows. lined with big Poplar and a giant Pine! As i have my snack there and lay down on a needle strewn bare spot, in bright sunshine. And guess who joins me, with it's loud song? The Yellow-rumped Warbler. A bird that makes me think of city parks, by it is bright colors. a city slicker!

And my husband, i brought him  home some crocuses from along the way, he had been totally fine and even had managed some chores.

Spring

 Spring has sprung

And things are changing fast everyday now, 

birds and flowers that is.

 The whole winter we had bird song, but now many others have joined the orchestra.

And just yesterday, the ducks are not so much resting anymore from their long journey, but in a frenzy of feeding and courtship displays.

The Draba  and the Mossberry i am sure they are blooming today, and crocuses slow to appear, will be there in abundance today

As it  is  Saturday  today and i will walk with friends from town, we meet in the middle as usual, i hope to get a glimpse of  a  feral foal, that has been born in the recent days. And who know what else we will seen.

This is such an exciting time.

I did do a bit of raking in the garden,  taking the mulch of, the stinging nettles  wild  chives and rhubarb is coming up. And! i tapped the birch tree, and we had a small glass of birch elixir with breakfast today.

tiny things these two

and the glory of the crocus, which is actually an Anemone

20/80 rule

 To me there is something about 20/80. And when i googled it, i read there is  the Pareto Principle. Cool!

The other day walking through the forest on snow,  the 80 percent thing came to me as in; if i stay on top for 8 steps and fall through the snow  two steps, i can still have an enjoyable walk.  But really i think the Pareto Principal doesn't apply here.

This morning i wondered if it applied to life in general.  In my morning meditation felt kind of down, because I had a whole list of beings and people that  I felt needed a little extra. So i devoted my whole meditation to that.

I did come out at a difficult spot, a time in  my childhood when i just was not happy. That one never gets easy. I try to apply the 20/80 rule. Now in my life i can happily say i am probably 80 % of the time happy. Or i have a good life, but of course there still might be 20% problematic things. But in that time  in childhood i feel i was 80% unhappy, but  still had many moments of happiness, probably also 80%.

Haha i realize i am dividing again, judging maybe.  Why? Yesterday was such a beautiful day, looking at the mountains they look 100 % gorgeous. Yet  I always feel pain looking at the mountains, because i want to be on top of them. I will recognize that feeling, but then realize i am on top of the mountain! I am right here, and quite literally so. I grew up below sea level, now i live at 725 meters above sea level. That is a mountain!

My meditation went well,  I came away with that feeling of just happy to be alive, thanks to sending love to a friend who .... is really crawling out of a what is considered very bad situation. She is just happy to wake up alive, nothing else is needed.

Ha! and here my pitiful account of being thrown back into 'my' pitiful bad spot ( sure related to that childhood . For today i had a date to go walking, a bioblitz event. Yes maybe you are part of it, it is the -city challenge- today! To see what is alive in your city, all over the world. I had planned to go to what i call a good friend, who lives  in the area included for Whitehorse. They cancelled, with some kind of lame story. With my dear husband we do discuss this and always will come out ok. But let me say it, i am pissed of, because their excuse for cancelling just doesn't add up, even if it is 80% true

haha my dear husband calls me for my walk, if he only is the instigator for 20% of the time i am happy! And he is.

Do check out the city challenge https://inaturalist.ca/projects/city-nature-challenge-canada-2023-defi-nature-urbaine

even if one of you reading this participates, i am very happy:) even if you don't,  still happy.

How is your happiness quotient? 

What a glorious day

 It started when i was busy deleting again. I came upon an old blogpost, and saw that in 2016 someone had asked to have copies of the photos i posted. I had never seen that request before, because yes for me blogger does not notify me when there is a comment (i can probably change the settings?)

Now the timing was perfect, I contacted the woman that requested the photos and now have cut out the pages concerning from a scrapbook, photos from her dad 1986. I will give them all to her. I love it!

In the afternoon we went to get water from Stony Creek, just 3 jugs, but it might be the last for a bit, in springtime there is a lot of run-off in the creek and the water gets murky, not too good for drinking. On the way back we stopped at Mendenhall Landing, and as a joke Don said shall we bet if the river is open, I tell you that man has a well developed sixth sense. I did not even take it serious. But sure enough the Takhini is open at the Landing. The glory was all the migratory birds. Often we watch the migratory water birds from a-far, open water often in the distance. But here the road  being right beside the river. We stayed for an hour or two, just looking at the spectacles taking place.

                                                                 July 1986 Taku River

How am i doing.

 The deleting thing, for the good of  forests staying forests and meadows staying meadows, not having to expand or build more server farms to store all that stuff i have on the Internet. 

I am stuck at 400 emails in my inbox, trying hard almost daily to keep it under 400. This week i will make a start looking at those 400, opening them, i am sure i can delete most of them, it is just  i kept them on the first round of deleting.

 Daily having to delete, i will also figure out how nothing can enter my promotion and spam box in the first place. Does anyone know how to do that?

For mindful eating that  i started a week  or two ago after reading a book by Geneen Roth. I am actually doing surprisingly well ( my own standards are not very high, i am a permissioner (Geneen's word) after all. My coffee is sitting here beside me, but i do hardly ever anymore take a mindless sip, and if i do i seem to notice.  I eat much slower now, always, my heartrate stays at 84 (which is low for me, doctors never suggested why it was high, the specialist, after many tests, only said that all was fine.)

I also do stare my craving into the face, i still have it, mainly for crunchy salty things ( you might know the kind:) when i stare it in the face, it mostly blows over. 

Yesterday we bought an ice cream and one  can of coke to share. We never finished the coke, i just have no interest.  And with all left overs; always, my whole life, i would be the one to lick the pot clean. I will still not throw anything out, but something leftover can wait now for a day or so.

I sometimes do the meditations she suggested, the exploring the feeling. I did encounter an awful one that i do remember having as a child. scissors in my throat, isn't that horrible? All i can think is that it is a past life thing, not that i per say (how do you spell that again?) believe in that, but i am sure there is more going on that way then i know. but for sure i do not come out by a childhood memory. fortunately  so.

 What is still very hard is not doing other things when i eat. It is hard both ways; i do live with another person, and we talk during meals (a good thing yes?) but also he likes the radio on. But even on my own i am used to multi task when it comes to eating.

Spring Log 2023

 I will continue to work on this post. Spring is slow and now late.

Febr 12  pussy willows

March 18  chipmunk came out for a peek

March 16 to 24  we had days above zero Celsius

March 26  an Eagle high in the sky above the yard

March 21  Snow buntings on the highway

April 14  6 chipmunks racing around the yard

April 15  Northern Harrier on the highway

April 16  we heard swans flying over

April 16 - We saw 3 Caribou on the Kusawa road.

               - 5 swans at the mouth of the river

April 17  driving we broke through the ice on the driveway at one spot.

April 18  13 cm of  fresh snow

April  19  high plus 7 C. it did not melt too much really, but the ditch in the yard is running as it was a week earlier. Don cleaned the driveway with his atv and the government plow truck  driver was kind enough to do our entrance. I cleared the path in front of the house.

April 21  a few crocus buds sticking out through the snow (close to rocks and small open patches) on the Aishihik road 5km in.

 April 22  3 Mourning Cloaks  on the first  south facing ridge turning into the Kusawa road 

Bruce found blooming crocuses at Ear Lake Whitehorse             

 April 24  Again this morning we woke up to 10 cm of fresh snow

April 25  -for a few days already, flocks of Snow Buntings swooping through the yard.

              -Mendenhall landing, open water on the Takhini river, the Mendenhall still frozen;

             -10 Swans, 1 Northern Harrier, 1 Lapland Longspur and 34 ducks: American Wigeons, Northern  Pintails, Common Mergansers, Mallards

              - seemingly more Northern Harriers then ever coming through,

              -1 Goshawk

               - 1 Robin, on the first overlook, Kusawa road at Takhini river.

April 26 -snowing

               - Junco in the yard

April 29  -driveway and yard wet but snow free.

                - snow depth 33 cm on the garden

May 2 -lots to report, but just now our resident gopher came out ( arctic ground squirrel) He had a little bit of a stand off with the resident squirrel, they were both rather shy, but surely  both wanting to make a statement about property rights. The gopher we chased it off, because it was eating my sweet williams.

             -snow disappearing fast!

May 3 -a few crocuses on the Aishihik bluff. Katanne says they are blooming on her hill in this neighbourhood, i will have to go look, here the snow just left 2 days ago....

           - a Comma on the Aishihik bluff

            -for many nights now  ( over a week) i hear the boreal owl, but have not seen it

The Joys of Snow

 When temperatures here are around zero Celsius, Don and i every morning sit in our outdoor porch after our walk. This morning we had fun watching and listening to  the snow sliding of the roof. plop, plop, plop. 10 cm of snow had fallen last night and of and on it is still snowing, not adding  too much because it is very wet snow. The snow sliding of the roof, now a big pile all along the front of the house where i walk to the outhouse,  it is  now full of snow.  Lately I had spend two weeks clearing the ice that forms there. I fear this pile might turn ice too. The weather forecast is not very promising.

We only walked the  length of the driveway, making a trench as we went. After lunch I went our normal distance. Nobody had travelled the road yet for the first half km. We have only one neighbour past us, them being at the end of the road. The neighbour down from us, I saw he had left with a vehicle. On 511 there is a road advisory from here on to Haines jct. and a ways  beyond there.

With my friend Cindy i planned to look for crocuses  today, coming up on a hill along the Kusawa road, Don and i had driven down that road on Sunday, and with the jeep the road was driveable, this is a minimally maintained road. It had lots of puddles and mud a week earlier. I can not imagine how it will look after this snowfall. People do live there and they do most of the maintenance 25 km of it.

I will leave a picture here  of a good spot on the road from Sunday.  I will leave that picture because! we saw 3 caribou, this is the first time we actually saw caribou on that road, we have know  that for several years now  they do cross that road, so it was exciting finally seeing them.

And after  writing this post I am happy to not do an afternoon outing just for today, but spend it on all my projects for the expected baby. I am painting old baby stuff, that i salvaged 30+ years ago for my son, it is getting a new life again. I do wonder about the paint.  Many questions, but one logistic;  what do people do with the water you wash your brushes in? I am horrified to throw in the forest and will not! flush it through the drain.

tree following

 The tree I started following last month, still appears to be in winter sleep. 

I think that is normal, May is really the month it will start showing any green. Normal is a big word these days. The  snow people here in the Yukon measure snow every month, they take measurement on the end of each month. Now they were saying for the end of the month of march this year 2023. snow depth was average. What ever that means. I think yesterday on the day i photographed my poplar ( trembling aspen). snow at that location is more then i have ever seen it for the middle of April!

I think it is  somewhat important to take measurements of things, but to take any conclusions is very sketchy. More important to me is that we always take care of Nature. Always make sure that what we do is kind in every possible  way.

craving

 There is a snow bunting in the yard, one, it  must have lost its flock, but it is a sure sign of spring.

And spring is a good time for dieting. Because no matter what this Geneen says, her approach feels like any other diet. 

note; being the permitter i have only dieted/fasted twice or three times in my life, and  I did not like it.

So yes yesterday the start of this spring diet, was awesome. Now i just want to take a handful of nuts or two slices of whole wheat raison bread with butter. I do not want to feel if i am full or hungry. I want to give in to my cravings. coffee and breakfast went well, i think the guideline; to sit quiet and only eat, helps me a lot too.

Now, this very moment. i just procrastinate, doing other things instead of  the work she suggests.

I think i can get away with it for today, because after i shut the computer off , it will be time for a walk, and when we come back it will be time for lunch, hurray for lunch.

But i already know it will be hard to make a true break through.

Interestingly enough my heartbeat already slowed down,  which is a good thing for me, i have this fast heart beat but the specialist have tested me thoroughly many years ago. Now imagine if this fast heartbeat related to my eating habits. that will be great.

I happened  also be on 21 day dream journal thing with the intentions of happiness for the both of us. ( my husband has a hard time with aging, and me with looking after him.)

I am not dreaming of food yet, which i did on my previous diets.

My relationship with food

I am the only skinny one from a family of six. I do wonder what went on. How did i get so, i call it, lucky?

I am reading a book by Geneen Roth. I found it in our neighbourhood's free store. Our free store is, a floor, three walls and a roof. At the moment it is better then any bookstore or library can be, such is the quality of reading material.

Geneen writes about food in a way that helps me a lot. I am familiar with her meditation/inquiry suggestions. But again it was surprising how her suggestions let me to see something i had never realized.

First i am  mostly a permitter!  Geneen suggest we are either a permitter or a restrictor .  My inquire brought me to the fact that i was raised to NOT listen to my body when it came to food. Hungry was not a thing because we had not lived through a famine, we had no right to be hungry. And my mom quite gently really always made me wait to eat, i was always ravenous, she let me cheat, but really the big rule was to wait for the others.

And hence with my permitter tendency i  eat whatever i like whenever. And yes for some reason i like to eat wild stuff and healthy food. lucky again? who knows. And i realize now that really i can go without food quite easily and NOW that makes sense i have never listened to my body when it comes to food.

For years i have been saying, that i don't like it that i snack so much, stuff my self during a meal and still snack right after. I have always said it is a miracle i am skinny.

So yes Geneen! Now i am scared that i will get skinnier, because reading your guide lines, to wait with eating till i feel hungry is very scary. I might not eat. Because i have learned at an early age that whatever i feel it is not hunger, so how do i know what that feels like.

I have always noticed that my eating habits are fuelled by trying to fill a gap. That is what Geneen is suggesting to find also through inquiry; what is the gap i am trying to fill? I suspect it has something to do with boredom...

 I don't know yet.

But what i do know that by  just feeling my body, before i eat,  has stopped me, form eating too fast and too much and it stopped me from snacking. Like now, at this moment, my gut still seems to be full up to my heart level. 

For coffee, i only drank one cup this morning, i just did not want another one after following Geneen's guidelines.

I am also scared, that when i listen to my body will i eat more junk food? Will i start wanting sugar again? This morning i did put butter on my porridge....

I am willing to try it out, i already feel i am going into the right direction, without  any sweat, no will power needed.

My husband we figured, is a restrictor. Yes he can stop cold turkey, he has proven that. He is skinny too.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out for him. depending how far he wants to go trying this out.

no title yet, because ...

 It is always such a scramble in my mind, that list i started making of ideas for posts here, i am not even looking for it. anyway,  This morning I was pointed out again by life, how my husband is much more observant. It always makes me realize that is why I am big into meditation, wishing i had such life skills.

So what happened; Tuesday we got water from the creek, 5, 5 gallon blue jugs. In winter we put them inside ( it is still winter here) Yesterday i put on my boots which stand beside the water jugs and the laces were soaking wet. All i think ; oh snow much have been carried in on the bottom of the jug a melted. Which really seems unlikely, they were soaking wet these laces... This morning my husband is looking at the floor, we have black outdoor carpet in this indoor porch area, he says. Is the carpet wet? I right away being my usual self, of being annoyed by him always pointing out problems, that in my eyes are often not there. 

Some 3 gallons of water had leaked onto the floor!  I moped it up as good as i could and put newspapers down. We do not have forced heat, so it might take a bit of time to dry it out good. 

To me it does tie into something else i have been wanting to write about.  How hard it is to be your better self? I do have one example and like to share it here, not because i am so good, but more  that there is hope even for me.

What also came up today, my dental hygienist cancelled on me, and the next available slot is in June! Now i was just doing an experiment in looking after my teeth better. and where my hygienist recommends for my teeth to be cleaned every 4 months, i just happen to try out 8 months and  brushing better. those 8 months are now 10. scary stuff, on i brush 

This is my method; I brush only once a day ( i know), in the evening. I brush with those tablets , i brush with a bamboo brush . I brush into my gums, on a angle you know what i mean? I go over it all, All surfaces, 3 times at least. brush down a bit and extra in the gaps. I floss, regular floss at the moment, but i like the silk floss, it seems to take more stuff out (plaque and food remains) . I will reuse my floss for a few days, because i do not have gingivitis. If i found a lot of food that way i will brush again. Then!  only by asking the hygenist! i am using a syringe , to push water under my receded gums. I do not need an electric water pic. ( I asked her for an alternative, as i do not use much electricity) 

The government recently increased our dental coverage, that is all good i suppose, but i feel taking care of my teeth is first and foremost my own responsibility.

 How come i only had my wake up call at age 47? At 47 i started taking care of my own teeth very seriously, afer a wake-up call in the form of terribly receded gums. I never did the treatment but started caring for my teeth and with good results i have to say,  Now 25 years later, my gums have somewhat grow back, and i maybe had two or three cavities over the years. As i never brushed till age 13, my teeth are not poster perfect, but hey i am 63 now, and  i still have 25 teeth,  3 or 4 are crowns. Some teeth have not much left to them, but i can bite and chew very well.

After brushing i only have water and a chunk of fatty cheese, before sleep.

Maybe i brush again now, after lunch... 2 extra months... wish me luck, or better yet tell me what worked for you.

2 happy sequels

 On the trail just a while ago,  I happen to run into the neighbour and her dog. Or should i say the dog and my neighbour. We even walked together a bit. "Good doggie", amazing.

So all is well in the world. The 3 dogs I had problems with over the winter, all is resolved quite miraculously. And I would say, by just seeing one of the 3 dogs, the dogs  are probably happier for it too. It can 't be nice to be a growling,  barking, chasing cars kind of dog.

 How did it resolve you might ask. I kept pretty polite all through the ordeal, but  I was clear and out spoken, that the behavior of two of the 3 dogs was unacceptable. 

Our problems with the dogs had worsened when the owner of the neighbouring property had gone on a holiday.  Leaving his dogs home in the care of other people. When he came back after 3 weeks dog no 3 did not recognize him and  the dog did his spiel of running around his car (driving on the public road, approaching the property). My dear neighbour,  obviously, now saw the outrageousness of it. And even apologized. But problem solved; all dogs behave now in a more neighbourly fashion. One has an electric collar.

Maybe I even try to climb the hill behind the neighbours property again, I  haven't gone there  this winter, as i do not like to be chased and barked and growled at  by dogs.

meditation and love, wink wink, i try.

And the second sequel on the harvesting of cambium, i feel i found a happy way, not  feeling destructive. using branches and bringing home the top of a small tree from  far in the forest.

And listening to a talk, Bruce Bennett on  'the Galapagos of the North.' Our Boreal forest  here in the Yukon are expanding, at the cost of a type of grassland. So maybe i do something for the  endangered grassland species by eating a lot of Pine and Spruce.

sun sun sun and white snow, below zero  days again, but glory never the less.

trauma to the tree

  Harvesting Spruce Cambium/ Inner Bark.

Yesterday, after 3 days of above zero Celsius temperatures, i suspected the spruce sap to be flowing.

And it was, as i sliced of some bark, beautiful  bright green sap appeared, the colour exquisite, i had never seen it like that, because i used to do most my harvesting  in other seasons often after the tree had been blown down by a big wind.

But yes peeling the tree like that , on this beautiful day, felt very wrong.

In the photos i added, you will  also see last year's scar, it did not kill the tree, but a little scrape like that is not much of a harvest.

What to do, this tree is on my property, i am not breaking laws, but still i am the care taker here, the keeper of my wild place.  

For Fire Smart around the house, this tree eventually should be cut down for firewood.

I  do believe we could eat much more food straight from the wild.

 Buying in the grocery store does not feel painful, or growing vegetables in our garden even feels satisfying at the least.

But when  harvesting wild it does feel invasive.   Yet a tree probably did grow where your shopping came from originally  and  that tree was killed for you.

The dilemma that we all  have to eat.

Maybe if you live in a neighbourhood were they are planning to cut life trees for what ever reason, and you can't or do not want to stop the killing, maybe yes we could at least eat from those trees before they go.

This morning i chewed and eventually swallowed  some of the fresh inner bark. I like it.  It takes a bit of getting used to, like i have said before, it tastes like wood!

( i have written previously about the many uses of inner bark) 

And today i will try harvesting from branches. Way less invasive! yes?

letting go

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jozien/

Ha! I was able to delete 2 accounts so far. I am working on  the 3th, my flickr account. I just received a lovely email from their support team. I do have  to email something to prove that i am actually the owner of that account. 

So what i am saying, this deleting is a bit of work alright, but i am going steady.

I left you the link, because i think there are actually some nice photos on it, and it does pain me to delete the whole account, I   toss with the idea of leaving a handful of photos on it, just for my self for later. haha to me that is the big joke, somewhat of a sad one. Like my mom hanging on to her stuff, and now she gone,  it seems only one of her offspring did a take a real  interested in keeping her stuff. Yes many photobooks.

And yes my sister having gone to a family reunion last week, send me a lovely picture of  my grandparent, opa in a housecoat i still have, see one of my photos on my rose garden blog, i am swinging it by the river there in 2010.  I see now that i already deleted the picture she send me last week ( i am proud of myself, for getting the hang of it, this deleting) The photo she send me was my grandparents in their housecoats in  1961. Did  i write about this housecoat just recently, it is a heirloom i have from one of my grandmother's brothers who died in early adulthood.

Last month Tilly here, we exchanged more of this story and such stories of the past.

What i am trying to say, yes there is value in keeping some of our past, for our self and for future generations.

But how do we pick and choose? How do you pick and choose?

working hard

 I am  still working hard to delete delete delete.

I feel before i focus on the bigger problems of the world i should always first look at the things i still need to do for mother earth.

And is it bigger? Which one is smaller. Is it about size? or like, that I like to say; you are either totally content with something or not, a little friction felt is still negativity..

Recently  with a few friend we tackled the idea of  being invasive or even killing for the sake of science.

 What is the use of having a baseline when we have to cause harm  so we know it? or so popular these days to see the trend.

My view is that everything in nature is in need of protecting, NOW.  and not after we knew what we did.

Today i try my bit again by deleting.  eventually my blogs have to be under scrutiny too. argggh it is going to be painful, but i have lots other stuff before i get there. Today it is accounts that i no longer use and are only there for maybe sentimental value.

What do you today, that might save an ant somewhere?

Trees surrounding the chosen tree

 

Picea glauca  2 White Spruce, a young one and an older one

and

Populus tremloides 2 trembling aspen a very old one and a very young one

Tree following project

 

It is the poplar  on the right of the erratic in the first photo, and the one on the left of the erratic in the second photo.

It is a trembling aspen. Populus tremuloides.

It is an old one, despite it 's size. It used to have a partner, but that one died many years ago, and i took it away. I have been sitting on this boulder, an erratic, many times for 25 years. This poplar has always been part of  me sitting there, a trusted companion if you like.

This morning 9 am to be exact i waded through knee deep snow to get to it, a month from now crocuses could be blooming beside it.

For myself i will make another post of the surrounding trees later.

the common cold

To go or not to go?

Yesterday i had a young visitor who clearly had a bad cold. Having worked with children most my life, i was like; no i am not concerned about his germs. I shared an orange with him and with children it does not happen like with adults, there is snot, there are fingers, there is back and forths haha hopefully you get the picture. I always feel in impromptu meetings like this ( and i could name other situations) loving is more important then teaching habits.

So if i get this cold, but feel otherwise good, do i go to yoga?

Do i ask the others?

I am not concerned about others germs, but want to be cautious to share mine, even when i think that to protect you that way is not beneficial for you, i still believe exposure makes our immune system stronger.

visitor from far away

 My sister was here for a week.

And that was most wonderful, we are very close but live far apart, and we had not been together in person since 2019. She had not been here for 9 years,. You might know how such years in between just melt away the instant you hug each other.

 I  do not know how it is going to be grandma of a far away grandchild. Yes!  I am hoping to become a grandma in July! My son and his girlfriend live in Pemberton BC a 2500 km  from here.

I as a young adult moved away from my family in  Holland and my son never came back for good after college. In the pandemic i felt strongly, that people should consider when moving far away from loved ones. Like do not come crying when it suddenly turns out the distance is too great to overcome.

But also i always felt, that not much is needed to keep a loving relationship/ a strong bond. Back in the days i did keep in close contact with family, which for me back then meant letter writing, probably a few letters a week to various people on airmail  thin rice paper, those blue sheets that also served as the envelope. I think i phoned once a month with my parents.

I never was one for missing people much, no hard feelings sis, i am happy when you are here, but  I do not miss you.

My son a bit maybe, the upcoming grand child, we will have to see, how much i long to be close. I already experienced emotion of joy that i did not know i had in me, just for the fact that they are pregnant.

All that to say  i do not want to travel too much too far. I think we could help Mother Nature a lot by staying closer to home; walk over to the neighbours, to have physical contacts.   

So yes the discussion i had with my sister. She feels because she flies IPB she does not affect the environment in a negative way, because that seat would be empty. (she works for an airline and flies for cheap taking a stand-by seat) I disagree with her.

To me to fly is an assault on the environment. Any airplane spews a lot of CO2 in the air. Airports take up space, which used to be  maybe beautiful meadows.  And on and on.  And to be in the airplane to me you are equally responsible no matter what seat you take/ what price you pay. I took her to the airport and we bought coffee in a paper cup, she a frequent flyer; Tilly where was your travel mug!?

One more note, due to the stand-by reality she spend 35 hours extra travelling. I should have let her walk to and from the airport, that would have taken a very fit person 35 hours.

predicament

 

I will keep this post short.

I did do four drawings this week.

Now where to keep them, that i can find them again?

3 of those  4 lichen are very common, hard to put a number to it as in how pounds per acre, maybe one pound each per acre in my woods. And hey we do not know their names for certain. 

But i wasn't going to write much. This afternoon i will try again to delete a few hundreds of emails.

I am ashamed to say that my presence on the Internet is too much.

A few years ago i was pointed out a server farm, i do not understand it all,  but if they put one such farm here in front of my house, no ounce of lichen be left.

And yes everything we post on the Internet has to be stored somewhere.

Happy deleting!

What do you keep and what  do you delete and when, do you have a system?

If you want to torture me

 Have me stand up in front of my computer.

No worries i have learned meditation, so i am sure with that i will manage. But lucky for me nobody is suggesting to me to stand in front of my screen.

And many people might like it, i have always observed when I am with people, standing, talking, i will squat or find a stump to sit on, most  people it seems to me remain standing. I do not know why  i always find that hard.

But that is not my point here today. I was doing a few google searches on how much activity our body ideally needs.

And as with google these days, the first  some 30.000 searches are what 'they' (whoever they are) want us to hear.  Still i was surprised that nobody seemingly touches the 8 hour day in the office. Well i did read  that one should alternate sitting with standing up.  To me that is a cruel joke. For older people and children activity is preferred, but adults can be healthy and certainly wealthy behind the computer 10 hours a day. I read limit your free time use to 2 hours behind the screen. (after the 8 hours that is)

Sorry, i do not buy it.

And yes i have fallen for computer too. ( i don't have a cellphone, but to me that is included, same same)

 When we raised our son i do believe that the skype call with my parents once a month made him love his grandparents and all the relatives that came with it. But i realize now he also loves his English relatives ( my husband's side) Once in his young life i took him to his English relatives, and he loves these  lovely people equally so. He even visited  the relatives in Darlington, something I never did. ( my husband does not travel that far, period) So out the door goes that bonding happened through skype.

And then there is my story with my wildflowers. OMG i learned  soooo much through this computer. It all axellerated big time when inaturalist.ca started working for me.(2018, i tried back in 2015 but no one looked at the Yukon yet) thank thank you inaturalist people i am forever grateful)

But even that i do wonder now.  I have been studying widflowers for a long time,  before, in summers in the hills in winters in books . I did feel probably in 2017 i had come to a plateau. So i invited my big hero Bruce Bennett to come on a hike with me, so i could point my finger and he would know the name. It was a big deal for me, Bruce is way up there, a professional, i just a hobbyist. But it worked. and still does, although now we both  also have a big presence on inaturalist. In person we see each other still maybe twice a year.

But really if from my first hike with Bruce, if no computer had taken it's place in my learning. I might have started an herbarium. Bruce's is B.A.B.Y. if you are interested. 

I did a little bit of flower pressing before 2015, but it was more for art. Now i do not want to start a herbarium, but i do want  develop my skills as an artist drawing plants, the way the Jepson University in California still does.

And i could start today,  i doubt if i find a wildflower but i will find a lichen, or a moss. I think i will pick a lichen, lichens tend to show their one authentic self all the time summer and winter, mosses more like plants having multiply personalities.

where to go?

 Ha! I still have not found my groove here how to write about life, what to write and how to write it.

Where to go? With my walks it is easy, i always know where to go and when i don't know, i love wandering. That is the afternoon.  In the morning my husband is in charge and it is always the same walk. Yesterday afternoon i went to the mountain, and i reached it, and climbed up it a bit. I had planned this for a few days,  the weather was finally right. Glorious snow and sunshine, and the pussy willows are blooming up there.

See, and now i have trouble here, well you do not see it, but i am typing away, deleting typing deleting.

I am somewhat lost i suppose.  It is the general idea i get from the state of the world.  Yesterday we watched  you tube videos recommended by the writer of the  Interim blog ( thanks Sabine)

The video we watched was very artfully done, gave an interesting view. And i would say, his view. What i did agree with is that it seems many of us are a bit lost. We do not know where to go.

So many things come to mind, health care, technology, climate change, wars. I don't know about you but  nowhere do i see a real ideology.

I do have many pet peeves related to life in general.  I think.

I will try to make a list sometime on paper, i am old school many ways, list work better for me with pen and paper.

One of my pet peeves is: too many people have jobs mainly working on computers maybe i mentioned it before, please forgive me if i repeat myself, i will make that list so i can work with that list, cross things out that i did blabber about.

When I work on  the computer here now. To me when i type here, it is only about ideas, but nothing is really done, the house is not cleaned, i am not staying physically fit, my husband is not cared for, no socks are being darned, who does the oil change on the car? whatever. In society if most people work on computers is the work being done to maintain this beautiful society? And what do we teach our kids? As all we do is with technology,  what do they learn?

Starting up this blog again, I wanted ideas indeed, but ideas for action. Action to maintain this beautiful plateau we have reached. You and i we have reached a plateau; we do have warmth, clothing, shelter and food and love even. I do not want more stuff. I do not want more, more, more, more doctor appointments, live longer, more haircuts and this list can go on..

My vision is; to stop right here and maintain what we have and  than truly take care of people who don't have it as good as i do. Instead of  drinking coffee while a i type here. Coffee that people slave for,  is it possible for me to pay all involved as much as i would work for. To me fair wages ,another pet peeve of mine, is a farce. People from South America are still apparently trying to come in to the States and Canada looking for a better life. When they would get 30 dollars an hour would they still want to come here?

And if you make more then 30 dollars and hour, get out of here, you make way too much money, it is not sustainable . Is what i think.

 

blogging

  I am sorry for my connections here that are NOT blogspot.com, i will delete them. As in  an attempt to always keep things simple. It is not that i do not like the other platforms, or even want to promote blogspot, haha that feels like a joke. But It is just that  i happen to be on blogspot, and no need to change things. That simplicity i think that is a bit of a character trait of mine.

It is like; that i throw out some stuff, bring something to the freestore, before i take something home with me. The freestore the  only store i set foot in beside the grocery store and oh yes the refillery.

Let's not talking about my housekeeping, i make more mess then i clean up. Well i clean on the surface but not enough beyond that. That reminds me, i will get out the broom at yoga's next wednesday. People there keep it fairly clean, no one get's paid for that, -we use we clean-. So i noticed the stairs is getting quite dirty/dusty woodchips etc. So my turn to clean up.

Haha me always wondering who i am, you could also see that as a joke. I am sitting here typing, half dressed for the outdoors, because my husband 13 years my senior is slower.

I still a fast 62 year old.

Yesterday i developed a stomach ache. Last time i had a stomach ache was in the ten hour flight to Holland,  on my last time 2019. I don't like flying, especially not long distance . Maybe partly because i seem unable to hide how i feel. The stewardess on that flight noticed my discomfort, it must read clearly on my face, my teachers,  my mother always said, how when i was happy i was totally happy  and when i was not, i was totally not. 

The stewardess quietly brought me a hot water bottle, to hold against my stomach, It does puzzle me how she knew. That bottle was a heaven send and she and i had never exchanged more then  a few words.

Those kind of people make the world a good place to be!

But me this character thing of mine, whatever you call it, i don't even know if the two are the same.  What i was trying to tell. Yesterday i started to feel nauseated in the afternoon sometime. At six when the sun was still bright and shining happily . I thought i climb up the hill here, and let that sun nourish me, a 15 min walk.  When i cam back my best friend phoned and i told her; not feeling good. And after the call. I just drop to the floor. haha no nothing super bad, but it is this thing that i  am not able to pretend ( for better or worse) I crawl to the bathroom,  to slap some toothpaste through my mouth, drop my clothes along the way, crawl to bed, and go to sleep curled up in fetal position. There was some conversation with the husband. I assume it is hard to understand for the bystander to see someone in such a pathetical state.  After a bit of fussing on my part i fell asleep,

And woke up good as ever this morning at 7 am, no later, or earlier then normal. Nothing nothing wrong with me.

Happy as ever.

my father's grandmother

 I always find the male line in ancestry a bit useless, because  who knows who the father was. But that is not fair of me, because when  that man raised that kid, even when it was not biologically his, the raising of a child might still be  the biggest deal of the bargain. 

That i have become my mother probably has little to do with that fact that i was her biological  child, but more with the fact she was my primary role model.

Yet to look at biology so to speak is interesting too, to see a strong  resemblance in a child you birthed but never raised,

I did ask my sister, Anke, who does pa look like , the Zuiderends or the Romeins (his mother's side) or the Keijzers? My sister did not know. That i  physically look like my pa, no doubt about it. And i look  like my mother too for that matter. 

So Anke told  me an interesting story; recently people found a skull in the area where we grew up, This skull apparently was dated to the 1100 's. and the DNA confirmed it to be a Zuiderent.  Zuiderent the last name of my paternal grandmother's  mother. And Anke's say looking around town you could actually see who looked like the ...  ( what is the word)? they made from that skull.

Reading my sisters website in detail about this great grandmother of mine was revealing. It told me a lot about why my grandmother was the way she was. I always thought she came from more money then my mother's family, but now i doubt that. It might just have been that her character formed more royally then my mom's family, who in my minds view were not as arrogant. due to her life! 

Hear this!   

We have come a long way. Life is amazingly good now, All who read this i am sure have ample to be grateful for. I hope this story interests you, and not so much actually, that it  is my great grandmother, but more that  it is All of us, our story.

And thinking of the people in Turkey and Syria,  a  horrific story that is  happening now. Sending them my love.

My great grandmother, that i never even heard of before now;

Elisabeth Zuiderent.

She was, the story goes, born oct 4 1857 in Heerjansdam.

She married in Maasland May 18 1882 to Christiaan Romein

She gave birth to her first child in 1884  Pietertje, Pietertje lived 8 month

In 1888 she gave birth to her 4 th child, the first one that lived beyond infancy.

In all  according to what was recorded, Elisabeth gave birth to 13 children, only 5 lived to become an adult. and yes my dear grandma was the youngest and the only girl. And she the only one who reached 80, She died when she was 88.

No wonder she was a bit of a queen! 

I know somebody said this before me,  but i don't know who. We are the children of survivors!

I have lots of stories about my paternal grandparents, as they lived  right beside us on the farm.

But the surprising thing is, a thing i did not know till now. That i have stuff from her brother Jan, who was close in age to Sientje ( my grandmother)  He died young, and left behind his newly wed wife , Tante Jo,  who never remarried and also became quite old. I would also  spend time in her house, (more memories:)When she died, she left  a treasure of stuff from the turn of the century.

When i think of the beautiful stuff in that house, the beautiful  big garden, i do wonder  if we progressed at all.

What do you think?