Time Off

Okay, I just looked at the calendar and counted the days. It's been 113 days since my last post. Yup, written Wednesday, July 19th. It sounds like I've got some catching up to do.

I'll start with the pics I took on Sunday at 7:13 am (though some clocks still read 8:13 am).

No matter, it was a "Wow" moment to witness.

 

 

 

"The time would not pass. Somebody was playing with the clocks, and not only the electronic clocks but the wind-up kind too. The second hand on my watch would twitch once, and a year would pass, and then it would twitch again. There was nothing I could do about it. As an Earthling I had to believe whatever clocks said - and calendars."

Kurt Vonnegut

Slaughterhouse Five 1969

 

Road Trip

 

 

 The Way It Is

William Stafford

(1914 - 1993)

There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.

 

Appendix A: Zen Moments

 "The Zen nun Jiko Yasutani once told me in a dream that you can't understand what it means to be alive on this earth until you understand the time being, and in order to understand the time being, she said, you have to understand what a moment is.

In my dream, I asked her, What on earth is a moment?

A moment is a very small particle of time. It is so small that one day is made of 6,400,099,980 moments.

When I looked it up afterward, I discovered that this was the exact number cited by Zen Master Dōgen in his masterwork, the Shōbōgenzō (The Treasury of the True Dharma Eye).

Numerals resist the eye, so let me spell it out in words: six billion, four hundred million, ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and eighty. That's how many moments Zen Master Dōgen posited are in one day, and after she rattled off the number, old Jiko snapped her fingers. Her fingers were crazily bent and twisted with arthritis, so she wasn't very good at snapping, but somehow she got her point across.

Please try it, she said. Did you snap? Because if you did, that snap equals sixty-five moments.

The granularity of the Zen view of time becomes clear if you do the math, or you can just take Jiko's word for it. She leaned forward, adjusting her black-framed glasses on her nose and peering through the thick, murky lenses, and then she spoke once more.

If you start snapping your fingers now and continue snapping 98,463,077 times without stopping, the sun will rise and the sun will set, and the sky will grow dark and the night will deepen, and everyone will sleep while you are still snapping, until finally, sometime after daybreak, when you finish up your 98,463,077th snap, you will experience the truly intimate awareness of knowing exactly how you spent every single moment of a single day of your life.

She sat back on her heels and nodded. The thought experiment she proposed was certainly odd, but her point was simple. Everything in the universe is constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives.

That's what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again.

And just like that, you die."

 A Tale for the Time Being, Ruth Ozeki, 2013

 ~  ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

January 26, 2023 Today's Moments

The Man on another ladder, on the other side of the house,

 

 

and two weeks ago,

 

and here's the first egg of 2023 (courtesy of Sage).

 

Passing Time

Time spent with a cat is never wasted. Colette

 

Happy New Year, 2019.

Rewards of the Simple Life

The first day of summer is still a month away but we've already had temperatures in the 90's. Hot buggy weather. Then the very next day we drop back down into the chilly 60's. Up, down, up, and down.

Spring - a time of transition, renewal, rebirth, and retirement.

What? Retirement?

After much hand-wringing, teeth-gnashing, and sleepless nights I decided to retire from 35 years of nursing and on Wednesday, April 12th, I happily hung up my stethoscope.

I requested a Luau-theme party at work because I wanted to share my Hawaiian-kine cooking: kalua pig, lomi lomi salmon, and hapa rice. The party was fun and delicious.

My last day of work was a perfect work day with happy smiling people - staff, doctors, and patients  - it made me feel uneasy. So why was I leaving such a fun work environment and enjoyable group of friends?

Over the next two weeks I was filled with indecision, sadness, and regret. I missed my co-workers, my patients, my usual routine. (Psst, here's a secret: I'm not good with change even if it is change "for the better".)

I took the advice of several people who said to give it time.

Now, many weeks later, I find I don't miss going to work. I don't think about it at all. I've been too busy.

John Burroughs, Leaf and Tendril, 1908

Back Roads Idaho: Something Else

In the middle of August, The Man headed out of town for a two-week motorcycle adventure. On an early Saturday morning, three motorcycles were loaded up, gear was stored, and after a hearty breakfast the four riders were on their way.

A few hours after they left, a bald eagle flew over the barn. An astounding sight, it was a very good omen for the four riders.

Three riders were planning to traverse the Idaho Backcountry Discovery Route (IDBDR). "The IDBDR is a south-to-north route across the state of Idaho covering over 1,250 miles of mostly non-paved track".  It begins in Jarbidge, Nevada, across the Idaho Rocky Mountains, and ends at the Canadian Border. The DVD and maps purchased from the BDR organization cited the businesses servicing the route for lodging, food, and fuel.

 

Backcountry Discovery Route

The fourth rider, The Man, had a different adventure in mind. His plan was to have no plans; a day-by-day journey along the scenic back country roads of Idaho.

The Man dropped off the three riders in Jarbidge, Nevada, then headed to Boise, Idaho. He had made arrangements (Park & Fly) to keep his truck and the U-Haul trailer at the Extended Stay Hotel for 14 days. (On the last day, Arrin, one of the riders would meet him in Boise for the return trip home. The other two riders, J. and X. (husband and wife) - would continue on their travels for another two weeks.)

Before he left home The Man had carefully packed his KLR motorcycle with everything he thought he would need for camping in the Idaho back country: water, backpacking food (just add boiling water and eat right out of the bag!), a small cook stove, and as much tools as he could carry. In addition, he carried bear deterrent spray and a small PLB (Personal Locator Beacon) - just in case.

 

As suspected cellphone coverage was spotty or nonexistent. When he could The Man called home and reported his current location, where he might camp for the night, and what direction he was heading.

Thataway I would know his last known whereabouts, you know, just in case.

It was a memorable trip, along the way he . . .  to be continued. . . . 

~ ~ ~

NPR Fresh Air Interview with Terry Gross and Tom Hanks 8/29/16

Gross: What were your favorite TV shows that made a lasting impression on you?
Hanks: "Then Came Bronson." It was on for one year. It starred Michael Parks as a iconoclastic reporter who gives up everything and rides across the country on a motorcycle. It was like a one-man version of "Route 66." It was...
Gross: (Laughter).
Hanks: ... It was a very odd television show that was on for one season on NBC, and I just thought it was the hippest thing in the world because sometimes there'd be no dialogue in one of the shows. It was not like an episode of "Mannix" or "Medical Center" or "Gunsmoke." It was something else.

Taking a trip?

Yeah.

Where to?

Oh, I don't know. Wherever I end up, I guess. 

Jim Bronson

Then Came Bronson 9/17/69

Tread Softly

The Man has been hard at work trimming weeds that have flourished from the winter and spring rains. We've got nearly seven acres - that's a whole lot of weed whacking.

Several times over the past few weeks he's had a quail explode out of the tall grass directly in front of him. Upon closer inspection he's come to realize that it's a defensive maneuver by Mama Quail.

iPhone Pic, The Man

As a safeguard The Man has marked each found nest with a little orange flag.

Tread softly
because you tread on my dreams.
W. B. Yeats

Slow Foods: It Ain't Instant

So, there I was making orange juice.

On this unseasonably warm winter day (80°) I was finally getting around to putting the squeeze on the box of oranges that Jerry had shared with us. From the kitchen sink window I could see The Man - and his entourage of dogs and goats - walking back and forth as he went about his chores.

We've been fortunate that Jerry has been keeping us in fresh Vitamin C these past few months by bringing us boxes and bags of oranges, lemons, and kiwis grown in his neighborhood.

It seemed wasteful to turn the oranges into juice, all that lovely fiber, but The Man thought it was a tad too sour for eating, so it went untouched for a few weeks. It would be even more wasteful to have the oranges go bad, so juice it is. Besides the goats eat the peels so no waste - really. But it also means I have to cut the peels up into bite-sized pieces; a choking, coughing goat spewing a mouthful of food is not a pretty sight.

Last month we canned albacore tuna.

It was a week of planning: Two frozen fish to thaw slowly in the refrigerator - just like a turkey, one day to clean the fish by my personal fishmonger, aka The Man, and then the next day - Canning Day. The Man's commercial fisherman skills kicked in and he did an excellent job of cleaning the fish. Maybe too good of a job - I ran short of jars. The Man had to make a run to Ace Hardware to pick up more jars and lids for an unplanned second batch in the pressure canner.

This was our second go-around of canning our own tuna; let's just say the process went a lot smoother compared to the first time. Our two fish yielded 39 half-pint jars.

Oh, and while I was getting my jars and canning stuff ready for the tuna, I thought, what the heck, I think I'll make some orange marmalade with Jerry's oranges and preserve with the water bath canner. Easy-peasy, it shouldn't take too long, right?

Wrong.

Note to self: Spur of the moment marmalade-making and canning is not a great idea.

This week: Apple sauce (I used the last of Jerry's apples from last fall's harvest).

I don't know, maybe part of it's the fact that you're in a hurry. You've grown up on instant orange juice. Flip a dial - instant entertainment. Dial seven digits - instant communication. Turn a key - push a pedal - instant transportation. Flash a card - instant money. Shove in a problem - push a few buttons - instant answers.    Sergeant Joe Friday, Dragnet, 1968.

Botanical Wonder

When you have seen one ant, one bird, one tree, you have not seen them all.  E. O. Wilson

Lone Old Oak Tree

Atascadero 

Cork Oak Tree

SLO Botanical Garden

Winter Bloom

SLO Museum of Art

Majestic Eucalyptus Tree

SLO Mission Plaza

Yarn(bombed)* Tree

Yarns at the Adobe LYS, SLO Downtown  

(*Yarn bombing is a type of graffiti or street art that employs colorful displays of knitted or crocheted yarn or fiber.)

A tree is a tree. How many more do you need to look at?  Ronald Reagan

Critter Cam

September 10, 2015 - November 13, 2015

I don't know about you

but I'm thinking

maybe
just maybe

it's better

not to know

what's going

bump in the night.

 

  

A little learning is a dangerous thing.  Alexander Pope

 (Trail Camera: Bushnell Trophy Cam HD Aggressor.)