I saw an ad for a rechargeable electronic crochet hook.  It counts your stitches, and your rows.  It has a visual display, a recharging cord, and changeable hook sizes.  And its pink!

Everything about that is wrong.  Handwork is for hands, not electronic devices.  I am a crocheter.  I regularly lose count of rows and stitches, but that is part of the art and skill and frustration.  You aren’t really crocheting unless you have counted your stitches, lost count, and started over again.  That is part of the meditation technique… carefully counting and focusing, looking down and thinking only of the stitch, the yarn, and how godawful long this simple scarf is taking. 

Crocheting also tests your visual and spatial skills.  Is the scarf getting narrower as I go?  Better count again.  Must I skip the first stitch in the row, or put a stich there?  Is it getting wider as I go? Crochet also tests your English language and instruction reading skills.   What did that woman mean by that last sentence in the instructions?  What does the acronym hdc mean anyways?  And once I figure out it means half-double-crochet, how do I do that again?  Focus, meditation, feeling the yarn, moving the fingers, frowning at instructions. That is crochet.  Making mistakes is also crochet.   A wise woman told me that a piece without a mistake is unlucky.  Let’s just say I have a lot of luck coming my direction.  There is no place for an electronic gizmo to check my work, that would mess up my luck! 

Now I could see buying a beautiful hand-carved crochet hook.  Or a thick ergonomic crochet hook that nicely fits my hand.  Maybe even a lovely, organized kit with each size hook in a separate pocket.  But wait, I could crochet that myself!  In my spare time with the right set of instructions during the winter when I don’t want to be outside.  But I won’t be buying any electronic tools that supposedly make things easier and instead drive me crazy when I misplace the charger.  Yarn and hooks do not require batteries.  Leave well enough alone.     

Earth is my favorite planet.  I love everything about this planet we call home.  I love when the purple camas blooms in the spring and the fuzzy native bumble bees buzz from flower to flower.  I love when the wild phlox blooms amidst the balsam root (sunflowers) in our pine forests.  I love hearing the redwing black birds trilling in the wetlands and seeing moose and coyotes in my neighborhood. 

I worry about our earth and all her plants and animals as the climate changes.  I worry as the climate warms that wildflower bloom timing and hummingbird migrations will be mis-matched, and the hummingbirds will decline.  I worry that our river’s spring flow timing will be changed due to less snowpack, and the high flows will not match the return of the salmon or will blow out the redds (salmon eggs in the gravel).  I worry about the robins and other birds suffering in our long strings of 100 plus degree days.  I worry about us and the wildlife losing our habitat and homes to increased and prolonged wildfire seasons.

I try to change my worry to solutions, even if they are small solutions. 

I try to use less stuff, especially unsustainable plastics.  I try to remember my shopping bags, or to leave a store without bags when I forget.  If I end up with plastic bags despite my best intentions, I reuse them.  I rarely buy plastic garbage bags for the house; I use what I have for kitchen garbage liners. 

We keep recyclables and take them to the transfer station.  However, I have learned that much of what is called recyclable, isn’t actually recycled.  So again, I try to reduce.  Corrugated cardboard and aluminum cans are quite recyclable, however.  So I often drink wine out of a can instead of a bottle.  Hot to trot wine in a can is perfectly decent, plus there is a horse on the label!  Well, there used to be a horse on the can.  Furthermore, the can is the perfect size to stop me from drinking more than I should. Reducing consumption of wine can’t hurt; good for the earth and good for me.

In my garden I am planting flowers for the pollinators and the bumble bees.  I am also slowly changing one part of the vegetable garden to permaculture and edible landscaping, with herbs, berries, and bushes that are not tilled up each spring.  Even if I don’t eat all the berries, the birds will.    I am letting the dandelions thrive in my lawn.  I love the bright burst of yellow against the green, and I love the perfection of the round feathery seedheads. So do the goldfinches. 

In my house I conserve energy by turning down the heat, especially when a room isn’t being used.   I have replaced our water heater with a more efficient on-demand heater, and I bought a more efficient pellet stove last year. 

I try to carpool to events with friends when feasible, and not only do I save gas, I get to chat with my friends.  I own a fuel-efficient car.  I admit I also drive a fuel hungry (maybe I should call it ravenous) truck to haul my horse, but even there I minimize trips or double up with a friend’s horse or horse trailer when possible.  Should I call this trailer-pooling? Ride sharing for Riders?

Earth day is a time to reflect on how I can better reduce, reuse, recycle… but mostly reduce.  In short, I try to buy less stuff, and will often buy used stuff instead of new stuff.  I can support the birds and the bees with flowers, native plants, and edible landscaping.  I can reduce my carbon footprint in many more ways than I have listed here; heck, one could write a book about it.  I try to be purposeful and consider my choices and the impacts of those choices.  My goal is to do what I can to keep some of the resources of this beautiful earth for my children and grandchildren to enjoy.   Plus, it’s for the birds.

Mark Twain said, “The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.”

This saying needs to be revised to: “The coldest winter I ever spent was April in Eastern Washington.”

I write this on April 14 as once again little white flakes are drifting down from the sky. The wind chill in the past two weeks has been, well, frigid.  This would normally be the time to start getting miles on my horse, and putting the garden in.  Instead, I am hunkering inside. At least I can catch up on my writing.  As I write this, the sound of the heater fan is hard to separate from the sound of the wind howling outside.

I do remember experiencing snows in April before, especially in the Cascade Mountains, but also down lower in the Columbia Basin.  I remember when we first moved to Spokane from western Washington, and I experienced “thunder snow” for the first time. I love thunderstorms, and thunder with snow was very cool.  Literally. I wouldn’t mind a little thunder snow now since those storms roll through quickly and then are gone. Instead, the cold fronts this spring are just hanging on, taunting us, keeping us inside.

I used to ride in frigid weather, but I find myself wimping out more these days.  I rode yesterday, but it was a short ride on the property.  My horse Vali and I are going stir crazy.  As we rode in the paddock, he kept looking through our fence line trees to the neighbor’s yard. Vali was looking for the neighbor dog to come running up, so he would have an excuse to shy and bolt a few strides.  It’s an ongoing game that I am tiring of, but at least it gave me something to work on, keeping his focus on me, instead of simply riding never ending trot circles in the dirt. We need to get out on the trail.

My horse doesn’t sweat much under the saddle like other horses do, I don’t know why, maybe it is his thick strong draft horse skin.  I’ve also never seen him shiver like many thin-skinned horses, not even in the coldest windy wet weather.  Fjord horses are built fjord tough.  Cold does not bother them.  Why do other horses shiver?  It warms them up by making the hair stand on end to better insulate them.  If your horse is shivering, feed them grass hay.  The digestion of the fibrous hay warms them up.  If they continue to look miserable move them to a barn or put a blanket on.  My fjord horses meanwhile will be happily standing out in the weather with snow piling on their backs and ice crystals forming on their whiskers. 

I do carry a light horse blanket in my trailer for use after lessons, when my horse is sweaty (only on his chest and neck) and the air is cold.  I blanket him just to haul him home and keep the wind chill under control in my open trailer.  I carry a big orange slicker in my trailer, too, in case I misjudge the weather at a trailhead or forget my lighter raincoat.  I have a space blanket in my emergency kit in my saddle bags, along with matches and a candle.  Like a horse, if I am cold, I need to eat so I carry a bag of emergency peppermints.  I don’t like being cold, and it can be dangerous if you are too cold for too long. So on the trail I am prepared for an emergency overnight in the woods with supplies for food and warmth.  Hopefully I won’t need to use them.  Hopefully spring will emerge out of our winter chill, and bloom like sunflowers under the pines.   

[Photo of the Chinese Wall, Bob Marshall Wilderness, by Natalie Griffith]

My old friend Kevin called them power spots.  They are places in nature that just feel good, sacred, powerful.   One power spot was up Wright Canyon, near Leavenworth, Washington.  Kevin and I sat up high on a big rolling granite ridge.  At least I think it was granite.  I think all big slabs of rock are granite, except when they are basalt.    I was only in Wright Canyon once, but the views of wave-like ridges and steep valleys were stunning.   This reminds me of the ridges in the Teanaway, awesome rounded hills of rock (sandstone I learned, after calling them granite).  Most of my power spots are big dramatic rocks with a view. 

Power spots.  You know them when you feel them.  One of my power spots is a ledge overlooking the Spokane River, not too far from my house.  It is the top of a basalt cliff where we ride, you turn off the trail to get to the edge.  Don’t get too close, because, you know, edges.  The spot is open, bright, and has some small sage brush, rare in this area.  You can see forever, the river glistens far away, and you can sniff a twig of crumpled sage.  You feel people have stopped and looked there before, for millennia.

Rivers and creeks with deep dark pools, spots of calmness between the rushing water are also power spots for me.  Especially where they run through narrow tall canyons and cliffs.  It’s the rocks again.    Lake Creek has one of those spots.    You have to find the spot; it’s not on the trail.   That may be part of the pleasure of power spots, the journey of finding them for yourself. 

My friend recently traveled to Sedona and visited a vortex.  I was in Sedona once and loved the red rocks and the pools of Oak Creek.  In Sedona, the vortexes are supposed to be places of spiraling energy.  Is it real?  Is that what I feel at my own power spots?  I don’t know.  One scientist thinks that the vortexes are meditative spaces.  There are no unusual electric or magnetic waves at the sites.   However, the scientist believes mountains and mesa tops with a grand view give us perspective, making our problems seem smaller.  While other sites down low in valleys, canyons, and caves help with introspection by limiting our focus on the immediate surroundings. 

I like this idea that the broad vistas help us see the metaphorical big picture, and the smaller closed places like river pools in a canyon help us turn inward.  All I know is my power spots calm me, they help me breathe deeply, and they feel good.  I feel closer to nature, and closer to the people who have walked those trails and climbed those rocks long before me. 

Source:  http://www.redrocknews.com/2015/11/27/sanders-scientifically-explains-sedona-vortex-sites/

In keeping with the previous invertebrate post, here is a poem about moths.  This poem was published in Earthspeak, an online magazine, in March of 2012.  Unfortunately, the magazine website is dead.  Much like the moth in the poem.


Other Moths I have Killed

Moth magic:
lint with wings,
a flying up of downed dust, 
a re-ordering of disorder,
entropy reversed.

Flutter under my shirt, 
brush of fuzzy air, 
I squish the irritation, 
my touch breaks the spell.
Wings dissolve
to gray shimmer 
on my fingertips, 
moth powder drifts 
back to unswept corners.