Gardens grow

This past Saturday, a group of us gathered at the local elementary schools for our first ever school garden work party. SEED - Stewarding an Edible Estacada District - formed this past February after a few local folks (a parent and school board member, the school cafeteria manager, and me) started talking last fall about how to increase nutrition in school lunches and support the local food economy by sourcing fresh fruit and produce from local farmers. We've done a lot of work in a short time and, on Saturday, with donations from local businesses and labor from school and community volunteers, we added over 500 square feet of new garden beds in Estacada, on school property.

After a week of cold rain, sleet and snow, the day dawned bright and clear. Hats and sunscreen were brought out and kids and adults worked hard side-by-side. It was truly inspirational. Teachers were there with their life partners, older kids came on their own, principals brought their young ones, parents whose kids went to other local schools and even community members who don't have children were all there pitching in.

Next, classrooms will decide what to plant and name their gardens.

Meanwhile, I got a job. I am excited to be joining the county on May 4th as Outreach Coordinator/Program Planner for mental health services. This will mean some big changes in the weeks ahead for my family. While the full-time county work week is 37.5 hours, it is presently condensed into 4 days. In theory, I love this idea. In practice, however, it makes for some long days for kids in childcare - in a local market that is not flush with childcare options. Our goal is to find a workable plan between my start date and mid-June when Andrew is done for the summer. After that, we will have a little more time to find stable, long-term before and after-school care for the kids. It's a little tricky as Elia is heading into kindergarten next year, which in our local district is "half" day. Do we keep her in her pre-school which she loves and which has a K program (with a longer day)? Does she go to our local district and then to aftercare there so she and Asher can be in the same place? Do we pull them both and head to some private school option (there goes the salary!)? The application and interview process went so smoothly, I am leaping with hope that this next challenge will as well.

Eulogy for two rabbits

Today we buried Wooly Sparkle and Blanca Nieve. Our two angora rabbits, which we have had for 4 years succumbed overnight to some unknown malady. Wooly Sparkle had been on the decline for the last month so her death was somewhat expected. We had been working with cages and wool/poop build-up on her for the last month, but seemed to only keep falling farther behind and never really solving the problem. Two days ago, I went out for the daily duties to find her unable to use her backend. Blanca was straddling her. When I lifted Blanca off, she jumped right back on. With enough force that I have to wonder whether she broke Wooly's back with such a manuever. I separated them right away and began to scour for solutions. Blanca, seemingly healthy, though not necessarily happy in her new home, was upright and eating when last I saw her.

Andrew went out in the morning and came in to report that they had both died in the night. More experienced rabbit keepers from my spinning group are suggesting a rabbit disease called "snuffles". It sounds like something you would name a rabbit- not something they would die from, but it is apparently quite deadly. Had I thought to mention it earlier during spinning, perhaps I would have had some experience to help guide me toward a different outcome. I didn't even know until mentioning the deaths that anyone there kept rabbits. Mostly the talk revolves around sheep and goats. Probably I should have separated them sooner. The disease is quite contagious and can wipe out an entire rabbitry overnight, according to my fellow spinners. Wooly and Blanca were sisters and have always shared a cage. It seemed mean to separate them, but it may have aggravated all of our problems according to these more experienced rabbit farmers.

It was a quintessential burial day. The mourners stood on the muddy hillside in a driving sleet, murmuring a few words of good-bye and shedding a few tears. We put them under a new blueberry. We will remember them with fondness in future summers as we enjoy the plump, sweet fruit.

The evidence mounts

Just for the record, my tax guy says I'm no farmer either!

Who am I kidding?!

I am no farmer. I am losing all hope of EVER being a farmer.

First there is the body problem. I have no back - well, more accurately, I have a painful-takes-me-an-hour-in-the-morning-to-even-walk-upright back. I have post-cancer surgery lymphedema on my left side arm/hand/neck. I have a bum right knee. I do not feel strong.

Second, I have no brain - lost my gloves and FAVORITE pair of pruners somewhere out there in that five acres and can't find them to save my life, as they say.

Third, I have killer dogs. For the first time in the past five (six?) years, I have no chickens. Certainly there were coyotes or owls, raccoons or skunks as contributing factors, but it must be admitted that my dogs were witnessed with (more than one) tender, young chicken hanging gleefully from their slobbery chops.

Fourth, I have no mechanical ability. I cannot even get the rototiller started without Andrew's help. And, guess what, he's away at work all day. CONTRIBUTING to the family's bottom-line.

Fifth, I have no help. How did those prairie families do it?! Let me just tell you, my kids are not out there following me along with their little pea seeds. Sure, they are oh-so-happy to be on the receiving end of fresh, vine-picked peas, but therein lies pretty much the extent of their helping.

It has been sunny and warm for the past few days. On Tuesday of this week, I held the first meeting of the Estacada School & Community Garden Steering Committee. There were many in attendance and an exciting mix of school district folk, parents and interested community members. We formed a Visioning Committee of six people (me included), which will meet over the next few weeks to put ideas, goals, and objectives down on paper. At that meeting, one person mentioned that his family plants their peas every year on one daughter's birthday - February 8th. Well, it got me to thinking.

Yesterday, I dug out my seeds. I put two kinds of peas in to soak. Today I went out to the garden with my shovel and turning fork and a borrowed pair of Andrew's gloves.

An hour later, I am back in. The gloves are too stiff. The garden fence is not done so our 8-month old puppy romps and bites at every spade of soil turned, leaving me not much hope for those pea seeds. Our unfinished chicken house haunts me from the top of the orchard - abandoned after the wholesale slaughter of 14 new chicks in two-days time last spring. And the soil is still really too wet here. I tried to make soap. It's bubbly, is drying with a skin and smells funny. My son has been home sick from school all week. He's better today and is trying to play with his sister, but there is lots of foot-stomping and every little frustration sends him to tears. You know how it is - you're better enough to WANT to be back in the real world, but not really better enough to cope with it.

Hmmmm. Come to think of it, that last sentence is a painfully accurate description of the way I've been acting ever since last week's appointment with the Lung Guy about that darn lung nodule. Or, maybe even since finishing treatment. I just don't know what to do with myself.

A new pair of gloves will help. Those lost ones were wearing out anyway. I'm off to the hardware store - sick kid and all. I'm holding onto my hope for those pruners.

Unexpected night guests

Last night I woke briefly to find a cat in my face. Although this is not unheard of in our house, there was something just not quite right about this one. He looked like Captain Whizbang, he even acted a litttle like Captain Whizbang. But when I went to pet his ears, something was off. His head was too small and bony, for one thing. When I ran my hand down his side, he was just too darn skinny for another. Our cats are so well fed, that they have the glow and feel of well-sated seal blubber. This cat was a bit "scritchier".

There is a neighborhood cat that looks uncannily like our Captain Whizbang. Except that,well, he's smaller and scritchier. N-cat (we'll call him that - short for Neighborhood cat) has been hanging around our kitchen door for about a week now. There have even been a few nose-pressed-to-the-glass moments. He really is so cute , but we are FAR from the market for another cat. We had just been thinking of an outdoor place to feed our cats to get them out of the house before N-cat started hanging out here and Andrew and I both remarked upon our good fortune that we had not yet done it.

But, now he's in the bed. And it's dark and cold out there, yet so cozy in the flannel sheets. I hope someone showed him where the litter box is.

Mice

There is a mouse in my car...... again. It leaves its little "wild rice kernels" everywhere so you can follow its path around the spice route. The back seats, of course, where, the kids sit are a veritable county fair with all the detritus of snacks and meals and drinks on the run. When you live in the boonies, there is a lot more driving. We drive Elia 30 minutes to her school in Oregon City. We drive to synagogue. We drive the kids to Nashira (Jewish Sunday School) every two weeks. We drive to the doctor. All that driving requires snacking. We have been saying for weeks that we need to vacuum out the car, but we just weren't quick enough for those mice. There is the chance that this is a "foreign" mouse. Andrew and I went to Breitenbush this past weekend to celebrate his 40th birthday. Our car sat in the parking lot there for over 24 hours emitting its delicious smells to rodents in the vicinity. It must have been similar to how we feel when we walk into a Thai restaurant after living for three years in this town which has only greasy bar food and bad chinese food to offer.

I thought I saw mouse "sign" when I got into the car on Tuesday morning. Elia needed pennies for a mosaic project at school and I was gamely digging them out of the drink receptacle where they were glued in and turning green from contact with who-knows-what sticky substance - most likely spilled coffee or tea. There were a couple of black specks. I love how the mind tries to make them innocuous. First the hand freezes and then the brain, "could be lint..." It was only later when my freezing cold hand reached for the heater fan that the evidence became incontrovertible. Right there, vertical. On the heater fan dial. Oh yeah. Time to clean the car.

Hard week to be a Jew

I went to grown-up shabbat services last night. I felt so grown-up. For many years now - especially since moving to a place 40 minutes (on a good traffic day) away from our congregational meeting place, we have gone almost exclusively to services that have a kid-specific component. Tot Shabbat, Nashira (Hebrew school Sundays), and congregational celebrations for high holy days, Hannukah, Purim. But my friend, Mira - a jew in an interfaith family and until 2 years ago, living in "exile" in small town Alaska, wanted to go. And, let's be honest, it's been a hard week to be a Jew.

During the drive in, I listened to public radio (another rare, grown-up activity - so much bad news I don't want the kids to hear. Because if they hear, they will ask questions. Questions demand answers. Perhaps I am too cowardly to attempt explanations to what often seems so unexplainable). During the entire drive last night, NPR programming covered this past week's activities in the Gaza Strip. It's a hard week to be a humanitarian Jew. The conflict and escalation and refusal to back down on both sides is just sickening. The loss of life and destruction of nature and property are staggering. And, yet, the roots of the conflict seem so simple. On a smaller scale (and with less dire consequences), they are the conflicts that I see my kids play out every day. I am right. You are wrong. I will not give in, forgive, speak to you, be your friend until YOU apologize. In the absence of your apology, I will not give in, forgive, speak to you, be your friend until some higher power (mom, or, the UN) acknowledges the rightness of ME and gets you in trouble, slaps your hand, expresses their disappointment. YOU STARTED IT.

All of this hearing and thinking was only made more poignant by the fact that I was driving to Shabbat services. How is it that a country- in which I would not be accepted as a Jew by much of the population, in which I would not be driving to shabbat, in which there are ramifications for work of any kind from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday- how is it that a country and a people observant to the covenants of god justifies such relentless bombing with significant loss of human life - ever, let alone on shabbat? How is this scale of attack not an act of genocide? I don't ask these questions for inflammatory purposes. I ask because I cannot understand. How do I hold up my head as a Jew? How do I ask for fairer, non-biased treatment for my children in our rural community's school district against this backdrop?

It was good to be at services. I feel so blessed to have found a congregational home that is not afraid to acknowledge and tackle these tough questions. I feel encouraged by the love and respect and care shown by all who are struggling with, if not these same questions, similiar ones. I feel proud of our Rabbi who is a strong advocate for critical thinking and human rights and is so gifted at addressing the completeness of a situation with compassion for all involved. And, in times of trouble, it is good to gather. It is good to sing. It is good to remark upon blessings.

Dead Mom Walking

I've been in my little hidey-hole for the past couple of days. It all goes back to that darn lung. nodule. The comparison CT came in and was, well, compared. Unfortunately, that darn nodule was not on my CT at diagnosis in 2006. When the oncology office called me about it, the nurse started in with the "good news" and then stopped. Apparently her mouth was off and running before her brain caught up with what she was reading. And, in my experience with oncologists (this IS my third, after all), the nurses don't give the bad news. So we had these moments of fluster where she is trying to figure out how to get off the phone with me without spilling the "bad" news, she's apologizing - for the situation, the policy, and her flubbing, I presume. I finally say something encouraging like, "well, that cat's out of the bag now!" so she takes a deep breath and tells me and then tells me that she is going to go and put this on the doc's desk as it's not clear on her end whether the doc has even seen it yet.

I get a call back later in the day from the P.A. (Physician's Assistant), Erin. Now, this is the woman who chased me down the hall after an interview appointment way back at diagnosis to give me a scrip for a supercalifragilistic anti-nausea med because it's expensive and docs don't go there first usually (as in, they make you prove you're going to SUFFER before they'll give it to you???), but she was worried about my "nausea history". Well. Who'd a thunk? My nausea has a history. So, I like her. I find her to be truthful, conscientious, caring, and all those other things you'd want from someone treating you through a bad time. We have this big talk about how it's small (I SWEAR she says 3mm - that's what I write down), the doc thinks it's most likely to be scar tissue -from what?? And why not there 3 years ago?? These are questions with no answers. The doc thinks it is small enough to have been there, in fact, three years ago but not seen because it could have been on the cusp of the slice - CT lingo for you! So, the advice is repeat the CT in 3 months. I ask lots of questions like, remember agressive cancer.... isn't small better - in terms of surgery, in terms of containment, etc. Essentially, the response is that it doesn't really matter. Now this is part of a treatment philosophy, I think, that I have never really been able to wrap my head around. We've talked about it before in terms of routine scanning for follow-up in the absence of symptoms. Because I've never really "got" it, I can't be sure I'm doing it justice here, but it goes something like this. Early detection only counts the first time. Once it's back, you can treat it (but not cure it). I'm pretty sure the doc said once that early detection of a recurrence made NO DIFFERENCE in survival. Which, of course, begs the question. Why do anything? Why all this follow-up at all? Why scan even WITH symptoms? Obviously, I need to explore this a bit further with the practice. And, are there other philosophies out there? What are they?

So, in the background of all this, my copies of the reports come in the mail. I recovered enough in that very first conversation with the nurse to ask her to send them to me. They say the nodule is 6 mm (double what I thought I heard) and, ho by the way, there is a spot on my ribs. That was never mentioned in any of the phone calls.

Maybe this is needless to say, but I have been in the deer-in-the-headlights mode. I have not had an easy time of it with medical practices during this cancer journey. And, I'm sorry to say that cancer has NOT made me a nicer person. And, don't you kind of have to go to that place when something keeps happening again and again, where you have to turn inward and explore your own culpability in the whole thing. Do I expect too much? Maybe it's the swearing. I mean, for god's sake! Rene gives her surgeon sweet Alaska books for her children (she was pregnant when Rene first met her) and emails her oncologist (with quick and friendly responses) somewhat regularly. I took flowers once.....

It's hard not to feel like it's all my fault somehow. And that is all before thinking of the kids. Cancer, I'm sorry to say, has not made me a nicer mommy either. More like uptight, control freak. All of our best qualities come out during times of stress, don't they? Yesterday, the first day back to the routine after 3 weeks out of school and away from normal life, things were going along swimmingly - despite the 2-hour delay for Asher's school (requiring me to drive Elia to school 30 minutes away, drive back to take Asher to school and then repeat). Until we tried to get out the door. Elia was diligently carrying all her own things, the puppy (smelling LUNCH) jumped on her, knocking her off balance into her brother who drops the door which smashes into me and causes me to drop my bagel. All the while, Elia's lunch box opens spilling it all onto the porch. And there she is. Tourette's mommy.

You see, the less publicized version of the whole "cherish the moments" theory of cancer as self-improvement is that there are less moments. And you know it. So they all become imbued with this significance that can be rather microscopic. On the one hand, this is how you are exhorted to "let go of the little things". On the other, what are you supposed to do with the Tourette's moments? And, meanwhile, guess what? I haven't written that meaningful letter to each of my children that will communicate my love and carry them into their adult years without fear of loss, inability to form attachments, etc. You know, make it all better for the fact they lost their mom when they were youngsters. Nor have I made them, with my own hands, the family heirloom that they will always have as a symbol of my love and undying devotion, around which they can tell sweet mom stories to their friends, partners, and loved ones. And, because I'm the one taking the pictures around here, they don't even have many loving, fun pictures of themselves with me. Poor Elia doesn't even have her birth pictures in a book yet! So, I ask you. What's to stop them from primarily remembering Tourette's mommy?

Meanwhile, life has to go on. Regardless of what it all means (or doesn't!), the kids are up. Breakfast must be obtained and lunches made. There are drives to be made. And, maybe. Just maybe, I can get Elia's birth pictures into a little book before her birthday at the end of this month.

Ode to the Crown Jewel of Estacada

Yesterday morning we awoke to the surprise of new snow on the ground. At some point in the night, those monsoon rains turned to monsoon snows and we had 5 new inches up here on the ground. I would have like to see the moment when the switch occurred. It had to have been some snow. Then the sun came out and everything was blue skies and sparkles.

It wasn't until afternoon when Andrew headed out to play rehearsal that we realized what was happening in our fair town. Probably about the same time all that rain turned to snow, the hillsides and the creeks running through Estacada had enough and spilled their banks. Many (already struggling) shops in the main retail section of Estacada flooded. Uptown, Wade Creek was unrecognizable as it screamed past toward its destination. Wade Creek House, where I currently am a co-op member and show my rugs flooded. Those who were called out into the night had awe-inspiring stories to tell of this little creek which often appears little more than a drainage ditch. That little creek, however, feeds the pond at the back of the Estacada Public Library. The beautiful and new and built by the hardwork of community members library. At its' height, 12 inches of mud and water seeped into the library building and creeped all throughout. Every item on the bottom shelf is ruined and many, many hours of work lie ahead to catalog and assess the damaged. As our librarian said, "the forces of nature are truly awe-inspiring".

For more on the library and photos, go to:
http://www.oregonlive.com/news/index.ssf/2009/01/estacada_library_floods_house.html

The library is a huge part of my family's Estacada life. When we first moved to town, the library was housed in a teeny-tiny section of the historic city hall building. Heavy library users, it is where we first met people when we moved here. The kids and I relied heavily on the library for our social entertainment in those pre-school days. The campaign to build the current library was already underway upon our arrival to this community. It was impressive. It was more impressive once the new library started to be built and we realized the scale. For any town, of any size, the Estacada Public Library would be a crown jewel. It is not only stunningly beautiful inside and out, it incorporates the work of many local artists and its community room hosts untold number of classes, meetings, movies, story-times, concerts. It is where I go for yoga. But beside all that, we helped build it. We raised the money, we checked out as many books as we could carry from the old library and then hung on to them until the new library opened so it would be easier to move, we built the shelves, we unloaded storage containers full of materials that there simply wasn't room for in the old library space and shelved those materials. We fed the ducks in the pond and planted the plants. It is a place of pride for this community. And well it should be. And so we will work again.