I am...

I am this.

I am a shirtless paperback,
thumb thickness of well thumbed pages,
no title, no smiling author.
Just smoked stained shimmers,
and slivers,
of stranger's lives.
I am the glued binding showing it's teeth,
capitalistic illegitimacy,
whose words read the same.

I am a 200 calorie cliff bar,
snagged at 12:47 pm,
swallowed quickly,
not quite a meal,
but enough to settle stomach lining shudders.
I am never enough to sit satiated,
Harlequinn happy tryptophan.
But enough to tide a hungry man over.

I am the four shots in my five chamber 38 special.
Steady swagger chin up,
unsure enough in this concrete maze,
to leave trigger tug,
of noncommittal shrug.
I am bullets in the gun,
but gun tucked out of sight.
Smiling politely,
shoulders back,
while hands shake in hoodie pockets.

I am this.
Inverse educated idiot.
Knowledge without a publishers mark.
A feast without five stars.
Four fifths committed to tomorrow.
I am never all in, but always in.
Naked fractured commitment.
I am this.

Today

Today has been a day of:

soaking up hot showers, my bones are still not use to this cold.

frying up bacon with brussel sprouts. Dash of minced garlic, and I am in heaven.

fixing couscous. Specifically whole wheat couscous with pomegranate and shrimp. My supper tonight, both our lunches tomorrow. (His with pretzels on the side, mine with more brussel sprouts, because bacon is delicious.)

drinking a jelly jar of white zin. Again, my bones are still not use to this cold.

anticipating a mailbox full of goodness. 

contemplating good things to come. I am just around the bend from great big changes. The sort of changes that require lots of before and after pictures, and lots of hours of peeling and painting and scrubbing.

I hope all your worlds are as gloriously delicious as mine, but with a few degrees tacked on the thermometer.

Frosty Mornings...

The chickens are tractored right out near the brassicas right now. When I went out to feed the ladies this morning I realized that there was a real solid frost last night. Beautiful, but a little scary.

Luckily, it looks like they survived this round. Plus, as a bonus the cold killed some of the cabbage-pillers. Hopefully we will have broccoli and brussel sprouts, if they can survive just a little longer. 

Farmers Market of the Ozarks

Farmer's Market of the Ozarks meets every Saturday out on the southeast corner of town. They have delicious goodies year round. They are also pet friendly, so I often take Baggins when the work schedule allows. It is amazing how affordable local healthy produce is when you take out the middle-grocer.

This week's haul:

Kabocha - 2.00 - Echigo Farm

Brussel Sprouts - 2.50

Smoked Gouda - Springhill Dairy

Pork Cutlets - 7.00 - Real Farm Foods

Overall, great additions to my table this week. The brussel sprouts have already made it onto two plates, and the cheese is going to disappear in no time.

Even Baggins managed to get himself a treat, a big ol' smoked cow ribcage from Real Farm Foods. Happy doggy.

Can't wait to see what we get next week.

Martinmas

Today is Martinmas, a traditional harvest festival that has traditionally occurred across Europe.

You can read up on Wikipedia about all the details, the short version is that it is a Catholic holiday that combines a harvest feast with a Saints Day.

The main features of the celebration are massive harvests and slaughters as well as walks where small children go door to door seeking treats while carrying lanterns. (Picture is Wikipedia Commons
Bild 194-0273-38.)

I love the lantern projects you can find. Frontier Dreams has a precious tutorial for a bright paper lantern they made this year.

I have a soft spot for harvest festivals, yet Thanksgiving in the United States feels tainted by the sins of my forefathers. Martinmas is a holiday that I will keep in mind as years pass and traditions need created.

Autumn Hand Pies

Lately I have been taking Sam lunches at the glass shop and at the flower shop where he works, so I am always on the lookout for easy meals that aren't too messy. Hand pies are such an basic meal that won't drip everywhere, and fit nicely in a lunch bag.

I tend to make hand pies with whatever goodies I have on hand. All the summer veggies are gone, but lots of yummy autumn crops still exist, and meat never goes out of season.

Autumn Hand Pies - Makes Two Servings

Ingredients:

1 Cup - Chopped cabbage. (I got this particular head from Echigo Farm.)
1/4 Cup - Cranberries. Fresh.
1/2 Cup - Ham, precooked and chopped up into small pieces. I freeze up small batches of ham in advance for this sort of project.
1 1/2 Tbs - Butter.
1 Pie Crust, uncooked. You can make your own, use one you froze in advance, or  use a store bought roll out one.

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

Melt the butter in a skillet over medium heat. Toss in the cranberries, wait a couple minutes and then throw in the cabbage and chopped ham. Wait until the cabbage is cooked down and the cranberries have popped.

Set out the pie crust and cut it in half. Each half becomes one pie, aka one serving.

Place half of the cabbage-cranberry-ham goodness on half of each pie crust piece.

Fold the crust over, and use a fork to press the two pieces together.

Bake in an oven until the top is toasty and brown. Usually about 12 - 15 minutes. I would show you a picture of the finished product, but it was just too delicious and got gobbled down.

Three Minute Poems

The messy results of a timed writing prompt response circle. The basic idea is that you are given both a title and a series of words that you are forced to incorporate. The words that I know I was forced to include are highlighted here. For your giggles and enjoyment.

[A dream about] [my work life] 

The wet morning whispers,
good morning!
Serene mist.
Pull on devoted muck boots in the mudroom,
and slip out into the air.

Love for those inside,
but also energetic motivation for the girls,
in the warm clucking coop,
and the putrid yet productive goat pin.
Love and scraps for the bunnies,
and last night's leftovers,
for the ground turning pigs.

 [A vision for] [my family]

If his nerves can ever be settled, 

we can have our hands devotedly clasped, 

never glancing at his apprehensive "what ifs", 

instead resting our backs, 

trusting, 

against the gnarled surface of the trunk, 

of the old tree in our yard. 

Watching our happy children play, 

my daughter, or son, 

heling their sister climb up the branches, 

of the gnarled but peaceful family tree. 

 [Padlock] 

No fence, 

     no gate,

           no lock. 

My home is a safe, 

     a box. 

           locked tight. 

     locks.

            tightly checked. 

But my garden has no fence. 

No locks. 

Come eat from it. 

Consume handfuls of lettuce. 

Mouthfuls of scrambled eggs with fresh chard. 

He should kneel here. 

She should eat here. 

No war. A garden. 

No bounderies - no locks. 

We should eat here. 

This garden

[Eyeball] 

Look down upon the angsty, 

dilemma ridden mess, 

we have begat ourselves. 

Civilization. 

Do not rock me gentle across your cradle. 

This mess we stand in is appalling, 

choking our live, 

every future impossible. 

Shelters, 

the paranoid hopes of those able bodies watching this, 

mess, 

unfold from the shady sidelines. 

Daily oil-feasting grocery store trips from those,

unnoticing of the impending drama. 

[Cellphone]

A decade ago, 

I craved the phone. 

Electronic communication with cute boys, 

the whole internet lighting up an exciting world, 

into my daily moments, 

of livingroom. 

What now I crave, with anticipation, 

is dark silence. 

No screen. No blue glow. 

Just the world and a single cute boy, 

shivering in the water. 

Dancing on the dark ridge behind the tent,
escaping what,
static noise we can.

[A desire][for my future]

As fall winds blow,
desolate loneliness,
in with the season,
logical contentedness in the present,
is lost.

Wishes for the future,
press so deep into my daily moments,
terrified my fertility is flying by.
Making my own,
fears of abandonment,
the villan.

Sippin' and craftin'.

I have been craving some arts and crafts time lately. For a while I was working the desk shift at work, which involves a lot of sitting and waiting for people to decide to come in. There was a good deal of crochet happening, feeling good on my fingers. But recently I have been having another woman work that job, while I bop around being busy.

I am starting to notice little prompts in my environment, begging me to set up a studio space at my new house.

Today these sort of lame t-shirts caught my eye while I was out. They are clearly inspired by old linoleum block prints, and it made my fingers itch to carve into the soft medium.

But one project at a time. This evenings project involves a glass of Rex-Goliath merlot and a lot of slip knots.

I can't show you the big pictures of my newest project, since it is going to a friend that may read this. But I can tell you you that it involves  3, 300 slip knots. I am 1,977 knots in. Over half way there!

Rex-Goliath and slip knots, here I come.

Syn.

I am struggling with a heavy load of cognitive discomfort this evening.  I am seeking balance between what I believe is the best path for myself and what choices I believe other have to (and need) to make for themselves.

I live and work very near a pawn shop in Springfield that has begun selling "Syn". Syn is one the the K2-like synthetic cannabinoids that has popped up recently. They are legal, for periods of time, but their long-term impacts on the mind and body are unclear. Check out this article for a quick (mainstream media) view of what is going on with these drugs.

My main concern with Syn, compared to marijuana, is that it seems to attract a different group of people. I know pot heads, and the people smoking this drug look less like pot heads and more like junkies. I have also, in the context of my job, seen several people suffering from psychotic breaks or paranoid episodes who recently smoked Syn. Syn worries me, as it seems to bring out the worst in the shufflers of the city streets.

As soon as the neighborhood pawn shop started selling this drug the character of the neighborhood changed dramatically. Cars are lined up to purchase this drug before the shop even opens, and pedestrians loiter near the shop after it is closed. There are always five or ten different people outside the shop, openly smoking this drug (as you would weed, rolled up in cigars or papers) in their cars.

I am responsible for an older warehouse that is across the street from the pawn shop. I have asked dozens, if not hundreds, of people to move when they are parked in our parking spots. I have run off homeless people smoking Syn against our loading dock. I pick up dozens of pieces of trash (Syn wrappers, cigar wrappers, and food wrappers) each day. Our garage doors have been tampered with. The warehouse has been peed on, since the pawn shop does not have a public restroom.

Today the first piece of graffiti showed up on our building.

I painted over the graffiti as soon as it appeared, Broken Window Theory up in this bitch. 

Still, I am at my wits end with this parade of degradation. I have always preached tolerance and legalization, but lately I find myself wishing that the City of Springfield would just hurry up and criminalize this junk. 

No simple answers, no plans. Just an imbalance, an excess of cognitive dissonance. 

Bacon, Blue Cheese, and 'Bama.

Just coming off the mend of a crazy flu. What better to way to spend the evening than gulping down good ol' fashioned comfort food with your baby, and watching two potential Presidents duke it out on Youtube?

I made a blue cheese and bacon casserole. It was mainly potatoes, but tasted wicked good. Served up with green beans and an apple and poppy seed salad it was relatively healthy, too.

Okay, not *that* healthy.

The debates were, well, the debates. Heartlessly depressing because you know ONE of those two men are going to hold all the power of the free world in their claws for the next four years. Slightly reinforcing because Obama is clearly the better choice, and seemed to come out swinging this time around.

At least we had bacon.