“Full moon in Scorpio!” my darling daughter advises me Saturday afternoon. “Can you feel it?” Uh, not really. Maybe tonight? “3:25AM.” Okey dokey.

Sure enough, 3:25AM I find myself wide awake. The doggies stir and I decide to let them out to pee. Why not? Immediately the moon sears through the back yard onto my face. Yep. I’m feelin’ it now. OK, back to sleep, doggies, back to sleep. We tumble back into the warm bed.

Somewhere in this general timeframe, under the lunar influence, no doubt, (the ever-talented) David Perry posts about his illustrious encounter with not one, but three rats. If you haven’t read about that, do. Not to be missed. Not at all. Shortcut: he kills three siblings in a single whack and leaves them on the fence lined up as dinner for the local crows. Mmm-huh. Would I kid you? And what do I leave as a comment? “I would have expected turkey vultures.”

OK, I’m getting the picture. Intense energies. Death. Rats. What’s next?

Like clockwork, next morning I see a cop car out front, slowing down. Now what? I open the front door for a wider view and smile. Small town charm. He’s slowed down for a dead animal on the street. “Cat?” I call. “Nope. Possum.” Strangely, I’ve never actually seen a possum even though I’ve known for decades they were around in all the neighborhoods I’ve ever lived in the Bay Area. I go out and pay my respects. Interesting critter. Kinda cute in a toothy sort of way.

Within the hour I look out and there is a turkey vulture also paying his respects. Sort of. I fleetingly think back to my recent comment on David’s post but shrug it off and go about the day’s business and I don’t think much about this again until I happen to glance out the window late in the afternoon and there is a second turkey vulture, landed on the fence across the street with his wings fully outstretched. A twenty-five pound bird with a full four and a half feet wide wingspan? Now they have my attention. I am in total awe and run for my camera. By the time I’m at the door this one is gone and I’m left as my focus the one on the street delving into the possum dinner. I step outside and begin snapping, taking baby steps closer, knowing the inevitable will occur, and, of course, within steps the vulture flies up into a large cedar and observes me safely from above. Fine. I’m standing here until you come back down. The standoff goes on for a goodly five minutes, until he resigns himself that I’m not leaving. He unexpectedly soars down the block and then back again over my head. OK, I can go with this. Snap. Snap. Two seconds later I notice a second vulture joining this activity and can you imagine my surprise when a third suddenly shows up, seemingly out of nowhere and I am now the triangular focus of three huge vultures swooping overhead in wide block-long circles, each flying closely and deliberately over my head as part of their path. I am elated. Clearly they have engaged me in this activity and for several long group of seconds I am no longer Earth bound, but part of a vulture dance, only sky-focused as they repeatedly, blessedly fly into my camera’s range. I am keenly aware of their surfing air currents in the process, and I have to think they are having fun! Who knew?

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth,
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, –and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of –Wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark or even eagle flew —
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.

John Gillespie Magee, Jr.

One. Two. Three. And then they are gone, as suddenly as they appeared.

Wow.

I am laughing out loud, overjoyed to have participated in these unusual moments.

Within seconds one returns, most likely the one that started it all, and he resumes his interest in the possum. And I am left to ponder the turkey vulture and my brief wonderful exchange and to contemplate his place on the planet Earth, which I have now been doing for two days. For, indeed, the turkey vulture has made a survival art out of recognizing what has lost its usefulness on the planet, and he proceeds to clean it up. He rolls up his proverbial sleeves and sets to work upon what we would find the daunting work of the unthinkable. Yes, he impassively confronts what we would find most distasteful, not fun at all, and makes it his business to make short work of it, and be nourished in the process. What a metaphor for the Greening of the planet. If we were to take it upon ourselves as the turkey vulture to set about facing the uncomfortable mess we find ourselves in and make it our business to not only set to the task of cleaning it up, but also to be nourished in the process, what might we accomplish?

Love and Earth Day blessings,
Kathryn

Little note: I promised Ewa in the Garden to join her in an Earth Day post, after she posted this fascinating photo from South Korea from folks there trying to help this beautiful planet we all share.

Posted on April 22nd, 2008 by Kathryn
Filed under: Planet Earth | 20 Comments »

While I had over the years experimented with various herbs in my garden it took having dinner with Bill Greaves, book artist extraordinaire, and his wonderful wife, Amy, in Cave Creek, Arizona to change my views on growing herbs by stepping up my knowledge and commitment to doing it right. Amy took growing herbs very seriously. In fact, when they first moved to the desert from Hawaii, it was the very first garden project she undertook–get in her herbs. Shortly after I arrived she took me out onto an outer patio that ran across the back of their lovely desert home, and sure enough, she had pots and pots of herbs–all handy to the kitchen. I think this proximity to the house was one of the things that really impressed me. As if the visual were not enough to bring this point home, Amy served these potatoes with dinner, which, if you are handy in the kitchen perhaps you’ve tried, but just in case, I offer her very simple recipe here, as they are now a favorite and delicious.

Rosemary Potatoes

Ingredients:
As many potatoes as you want to eat
Fresh rosemary
Course salt
Extra virgin olive oil

What you do:

Peel the potatoes and cut them as if you were making big french fries.
Place the potatoes in a large pyrex baking dish.
Pour olive oil over them.
Chop the leaves of a couple of fresh cut sprigs of rosemary. Sprinkle over potatoes.
Sprinkle all with a bit of course salt, to taste.
Toss lightly with a spatula or large metal spoon.
Bake at 350 degrees for an hour, peeking in and rearranging the potatoes once or twice within that hour to assure even browning.
Remove and enjoy! You will now make these a hundred times and people will love you for it.

Note Amy made us this same recipe during Thanksgiving, using parsnips and those were scrumptious.

So when I moved back up to Mendocino, I straightaway put in a rosemary, which is now very large. But it took finding a very large clay pot at Home Depot to really establish my herb garden and I highly recommend this idea–put the majority of your herbs in one big pot, as near as possible to your kitchen.

Here is mine.

Don’t you just love it? I do! It’s one of my very favorite things. Mind you, it is only two or three steps from the back patio, in the frontmost corner of my vegetable garden. So, very handy, and this makes all the difference, I do believe.

Starting at midnight, and moving clockwise, if you look closely you will find a new addition, which is sage. You have to look closely, or you will think the little sage is part of that next largest group, the Greek oregano. The oregano is now getting so big it’s creeping out onto the other side of the next herb, the curled parsley. Both survived winter perfectly fine, freezing temps at all, to my great surprise and delight. Maybe that would not be true where you live. We had only one brief snowfall.

Between 9:00 o’clock and 10:00 you will see my reliable thyme, now two years old. And the little yellow/green one is lemon thyme, which my dearest friend Conny just gifted to me as part of a larger assorted birthday pot, from which I transplanted it in with these guys, and then we are back to the teeny new sage. I’ve given the sage and lemon thyme room to fill out, as you can see.

Last year I had cilantro in here, but it did not get employed quite as much, so I’ve eliminated. Also I tried a Thai plant which so eluded me I can’t even remember what it was for. So there’s some experimentation going on here, but these are probably the staples now, as I will use each and every one. I cannot begin to tell you how much I appreciate that these herbs, which tend to be smaller and more vulnerable to, say, wild doggies herding balls, are now up off the ground and protected and together. There is something just right about their being together. Maybe it’s an extension of a Place for Everything and Everything in Its Place. But I think it goes beyond that. I’m just going to say it feels Right, and I do recommend it. The pot itself was a bit pricey, and it’s quite heavy, but it truly is one of my most treasured things right now, a kind of institution in and of itself, and I’m so glad I made the investment.

Now, to underscore the protection of this lovely group of herbs, which grace my cooking immeasureably, and upon which I so rely, I have added something new this year, done especially for a certain Mr. Conner B.C. This new addition I believe spells out in very explicit terms: No Balls in My Herb Pot, a phrase he heard, oh, about a hundred times, as it is always his habit to put a ball, upon which he has been chewing incessantly, into whatever container is most convenient, as I garden, in hopes I will pick it up and throw it. No savory among the savories. You know? So here’s what he now encounters. I think it does the job, don’t you?

In case you are curious, that is my arugula in the background, gone to seed for the second time this spring already, and due for a major cropping, any day now. I’m finding it so difficult as those white blossoms in the moonlight are as unexpectedly a magical place as you would want to be.

Love and spring blessings,
Kathryn xoxo

Posted on April 9th, 2008 by Kathryn
Filed under: Plants | 20 Comments »