Rocket Dog

Life feels like it is on 'full-speed ahead' these days. It is hard to say why I feel overwhelmed, swamped, underwater, hanging onto a rocket, except my 'project list' just keeps growing. :) I have listed everything on a sheet of paper, which only makes me realize I AM way 'over-committed'. What to give the old heave-ho? I don't know. I enjoy every single thing on my list!

Maybe I'm feeling overwhelmed and even grouchy because March is officially the 'month of mud' in the Upper Midwest (even tho' the entire winter seems to have been muddy this year), and having a dog with muddy paws means that the house is never clean, no matter how many towels are by the front and back door, no matter how many rugs there are by those doors for all of us to 'land on' while we get our muddy boots and paws off. I try not to be grouchy about that........

I am eager to get outside, except being outside anywhere and everywhere is mud, mud, mud! It is funny to see that our new dog does not like muddy feet (she actually springs 10-15 feet through the air to launch herself over muddy spots) but is happy to lie in a puddle of any size! Of course it is not warm outside yet, so now I have a wet, muddy dog, who has so little fur on her tummy that when wet, her outside tolerance in the cold is lower than mine! And her tail! Her long feather with trailing muddy fur - I had my first experience today where she whipped around while I was leaning over to wipe her belly and got a face-wipe with her long, wet, furry, feathery, muddy cold tail! Woohoo! That was a wake-up call, even though I was already wide awake!

Here is a photo I took. Our rocket dog was running flat-out at full speed from one end of the farm to the other back to my husband who takes her out first thing in the morning, but then she saw me, she did a quick left turn and never slowed down. I was outside taking photos of the moon setting at sunrise so, even though I was surprised to suddenly see our dog racing toward me from the side, I had just enough time to turn to get an 'action shot'. I was pretty steady even though I had a furry rocket barreling right at me, so this is actually what I saw, and you can see her in full motion, too!

(Photo: Furry Rocket Dog!)

My objective while attending the MOSES Organic Farming Conference last week was to finalize thoughts about organizing our farm's new Garlic CSA (CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture), which is essentially a 'garlic club' where the members pay a yearly membership amount at the beginning of the growing season and will be guaranteed the biggest and best of a wide variety of our harvested garlic. I'm sorry to tell all my readers that our CSA is for local buyers only, so if you want some, you'll need to find a friend in the Ann Arbor area besides us (we only ship to our sons and our siblings), have them buy our garlic, and then they can ship our garlic to you. I finally got our Garlic CSA brochure put together, an email list gathered from our customers who indicated interest in the CSA, and Emailed that out tonight. (Writing this blog post tonight is my 'reward' for getting that big step done.)

Now to get the brochure actually printed up and ready to take to our Local Food Summit on April 2, step, step, step!!

Here are a few more recent farm photos:

(Photo: Cooper's Hawk who first just sat in a hidden sunny spot in the evergreens early in the morning and then spent about 10 minutes trying to slowly, slowly sneak its way along the edge of the driveway to the bird feeders, although was unsuccessful catching breakfast while I watched. Our dog saw the hawk first and began barking "Mom, come, come, look, look". I love that! I actually first thought she had seen a rabbit in the bushes. A hawk is a great sighting! I definitely love our dog!)

(Photo: Male Downy woodpecker - see the red spot on the back of its head, which the female lacks -  right outside the window. Our dog does not bark at this bird!)

(Photo: Moonset at sunrise on my birthday - a beautiful way to start the day and another year of cancer survivorship!)

(Photo: Valentine's Day Dessert - brownies made by a friend from Michigan-grown chestnut flour, local organic strawberries frozen by us last summer, date pinwheel cookies baked from the last remaining frozen dough made during the holidays. Our other big Valentine's Day treat was fresh artichokes to serve at our home-cooked dinner - yum, yum - we ate better than most! I hope my niece CG recognizes the tablecloth she brought us from France. The glass plate was a wedding present, made at the West Virginia Glass Factory where my husband's large extended family on his mother's side worked if they were lucky enough to get a job there instead of the coal mines of West Virginia.)

(Photo: Bamboo to remind me to 'bend, not break', even if my dining room table is now filled with piles of paperwork for my 'too many' projects.)

I posted some of my thoughts about bamboo earlier this year, particularly as I feel it relates to the journey of cancer survivorship, the importance of bending but not breaking with the multiple, on-going, and both uncertain and difficult challenges.  I did finally get my act together to buy some bamboo for myself this year, 3 stems in fact. When I look at them, I remind myself of the challenges I have overcome, the support I have had from my long-term friends and family, and the support I have from my newer friends including my blog readers, thus the importance of three stems and seeing the three of them interwoven. No one gets this far alone. At least I cannot imagine the feeling of being so alone that doing so without help would feel triumphant and not just plain sad and lonely. 

What do I know and enjoy about March and mud? Spring is now truly just around the corner, and all these projects will get done somehow if they are actually important and meant to happen. Truly, these challenges are 'small potatoes' compared to getting through my multiple cancer therapies .......... :)

Cultivate your life - you are what you grow - inch by inch, row by row - I am starting another year!

Diana Dyer, MS, RD