Dirt, Glorious Dirt!

The greenhouses and garden sections of stores are buzzing these days. Customers are roaming the aisles, admiring and selecting their choices of vegetables or flowers. The air is filled with excitement, as well as the bees and butterflies flitting among the blossoms.

Every May it is the same. Eager humans and hungry insects are enthused about the new life emerging with the season.

What is it that energizes us? When we were children we played in the dirt and sand, constructing roads, castles, dams and forts. We sloshed through mud, never missing a tempting puddle. We may even have helped our parents with planting the spring garden, digging the holes and patting the moist soil firmly around each plant, longing for the juicy tomatoes or sweet peas that would arrive in too long a wait for an impatient child.

There is still something rejuvenating about digging in the fresh earth, planting our chosen plants, packing the dirt over the roots and watering the earth to secure the growth of the fledglings into colorful flowers or tasty berries or vegies. There is nothing as flavorful as the strawberries, tomatoes or corn from our own garden. There is nothing as beautiful as the flowers that flow out of our planters, bringing color into our lives each year from our childhood and into adulthood.

The plants and the dirt bring calm and order into a sometimes confusing and noisy world. Roots reach into the earth, restoring familiar roots into our lives. Late in the winter we lingered over the seed catalogs, longing for the season of the rich, dark earth and twisting, root-bound potted plants, finally upon us in this renewing month of May.

Racism Revisited Again and Again

One of my all-time favorite books is Harper Lee's "To Kill a Mockingbird." I frequently re-read books I loved, but this is the only one that I finished one night about ten o'clock, laid it on my bookstand for a few minutes, picked it back up, and re-read it from cover to cover during the rest of that night.

I read it to my eighth grade English class one semester. One by one the books appeared on the desks of my students until almost the entire class had purchased their own copy. I knew then that I was not the only one to learn and be captivated by this masterpiece.

The message, "You never understand another until you climb into his skin and walk around in it" was embedded in my consciousness. During my years of discovering my own racism emerging I recalled that message.

I broaden the word racism to include all forms of prejudice. I acknowledge it when I am biased against the opposite sex. How often have I misunderstood my own husband, realizing in time that some of my frustration involved the fact that he is male and I am not? How many parents are confused and confounded by their teenager, who is certainly from another planet at times? It can start when the rebellious two year old discovers the power of the word "no". Age, sex, political, religious, race and any other "differences" between two or more people can cause anger, misunderstanding and separations.

Color and cultural differences are at the root of many clashes in our world, just as problems erupt between parents, parents and children, and neighbors and friends, greater disparities often occur between groups with a larger physical separation.

What lessens the divide among people is dialogue and very active listening. Even then can we ever totally understand another person, even those close to us? It can take a lifetime of togetherness and listening to close the gap between a couple. If both work at it, the closeness increases.

If there is physical and cultural separation, the struggle for understanding is more difficult, but it is often through this struggle that we come to understand ourselves more fully.

In reflection, I know that even living inside of my skin for a lifetime I do not always understand myself, but I do know this, the more I uncover who I am with my hopes and fears, strengths and weaknesses, the clearer is my understanding of others. Close and empathetic friends and paid listeners such as psychotherapists, can speed up our understanding of ourselves and others. In the end, we are, after all, more alike than different, no matter our color, background, family or culture.

We can choose to disagree while still accepting others for who they are, and who they are attempting to become. Life is all about becoming, after all is said and done. To me the greatest adventure is discovering myself and a tiny part of the others who share my world.

Grackle Wars

Every Spring since living in town we have been invaded by noisy, pushy grackles. At first two arrive. I can live with that, but soon they are joined by many others, intimidating my usual smaller birds that dine at my feeders. They have been known to eat smaller birds and steal their food.

Because of their aggressive behavior, and because I can no longer enjoy my regular chickadees, colorful red and yellow finches and other smaller birds, I have declared war on these intruders. The only birds remaining in their territory (our yard) are the morning doves and robins, although both of them tend to shy away when a flock of grackles appear.

Last year I removed two of their nests before the eggs arrived. They simply moved to the taller trees in the area. In fact, this year they made their nests out of range from the start. They have long memories.

I asked my husband to hit one with a pellet gone to warn off the others. He refused to help. This year I purchased a Stinger type of pellet gun that I could load and shoot. In my first shooting attempt, I missed and they flew off, close enough to taunt me with their arrogant attitude. From then on I could not get close enough to shoot. They recognize me at once and fly out of my range. They are smart birds, I give them that.

For now I have given up. I know that I will stop filling the feeders. They manage to feed from them in spite of the fact that these feeders are specially made for smaller birds. The blue jays and doves feed from the ground, but these clever birds somehow juggle themselves onto the feeder, spilling seed on the ground for all to feast.

I hate to say it, but so far the grackles are winning, and when their babies arrive, our yard will be teeming with these annoying pests. Looking at the positive, I do appreciate their consumption of the more destructive grasshoppers.

For now I am saying goodbye to my colorful regulars. I will offer them feed again when these menacing meddlers depart for the season.

Welcoming Bees

In March the last of our bees died. It was a painful time. When you tend to your first batch and they make it through the winter and then disappear, it leaves a void. They continued to leave the hive on sunny days and I enjoyed watching them until that day in March when there was no sound, no activity. There was only the lonesome silence.

"These things happen", we were told. "It is not unusual". Small comfort to us first time beekeepers.
Tonight we pick up another nook; that is, a box of bees with a queen. Tomorrow morning we start tending a new crop of these marvelous pollinating workers and their reigning queen. I think I will name her Hope. We can only hope for a better season of keeping bees.

April Rain

All night it came down - that wonderful, wonderful rain! Our winter lacked moisture and, up until now, our Spring was taking us down the path of drought. My thoughts immediately go to the lack of hay for our ranchers, and, especially, to the potential for those dreaded wildfires.

It has been five years since our fire of 7-7-7 that I wrote about in "Cascade of Flames". The past four months I have been writing about the PTSD suffered by many of our veterans. From WWII up to the recent wars, our young men and women return to civilian life with varying degrees of scars they procured during their time of service. I believe that some of the fears they faced will never be totally erased. The WWII veterans, after all of these years, hate to be reminded of "bad memories". Their faces grew dark when recounting some of their experiences. It seems to me that traces of PTSD will remain forever within the recesses of any who have experienced death, killing or destruction in any form. That is one reason why the VA must keep the rural VA hospitals open to assist all veterans from all wars for as long as they need that help.

My experiences in that horrific fire remain with me after five years. I guess that is a form of PTSD. The alarm that automatically emerges from within when I smell smoke, hear the fire alarms, notice the dried grass on our land, or experience the occasional smoke-filled nightmares, may not be as painful as what our veterans have experienced, but at those times of sudden panic and "bad memories", I believe that I have an inkling of what they go through with reminders of their "first kill", the death of a comrade, the tension of constant alert, and the uncertainty and unknown about when, where, or if, they will be deployed.

The death of those close to me will always carry some pain. Through those experiences and other jolts that have occurred in my life, I am grateful for the connection that flows from deep inside to any who weep over their past; the past which may never be completely erased. I am grateful for the rain and for those connections that link us one to the other.

Back to Work

Our first morning after our return from our short vacation the phone rang...too early for us weary travelers. Bob leapt out of bed with "Welcome back"!

I am back to my interviews and writing. I can't believe how much I learn from each of the veterans who share a part of their life with me. I am a stranger to them, and not a veteran, but they offer a story of their work, struggles and hopes for the VA. Some of them have a difficult time sharing stories that they have not shared with anyone else, except, perhaps with the counseling program at the VA. I am humbled by their willingness to try to save our hospital in Hot Springs.

I know one thing for sure...no matter how all of this turns out, my life has been enriched by spending time with our veterans. Their accounts touch me deeply and I know that I will, and am, viewing many things in life with a greater understanding and empathy.

I am grateful to be a part of the campaign to save and grow our VA in Hot Springs. I am grateful to become a small part of the lives of the men and women who have served our country. I am grateful to live in this country, with all of its flaws. I am grateful to be at home again.

Goodbye to Granada

There are those periods during a person's lifetime when he/she needs time out from everything....cell phones, radio, TV, computer and the daily routine. I reached that point a couple of weeks ago. My life was consumed by my work of interviewing and recording the stories of our veterans. When it began to affect my physical health, I finally admitted it was time to retreat. So, my husband and I retreated to what I thought were the jungles of Nicaragua. Well, we did see the jungle and volcanos, but our cozy B&B was located in the heart of the quaint, third world city of Granada. We did take a few tours, but my goal was to back off from the noise of the politicians, the doom predictors, the problems of our society and take in the problems of a people struggling to acquire the basics of life, let alone some of the luxuries that we have come to take for granted in our materialistic culture.

It was a curious blend of the old and the new. The horses were faithfully pulling the wagons through out the town, loaded down with wood, sand, trash, etc. Horses and carriages, decked out with ribbons and bows, transported tourists seeking some romance. The taxis were whizzing in and out of the narrow streets, dodging the horses, carriages, pedestrians, and bikers who often carried a child or two, or maybe the grandma of the family sitting adroitly on the front of the bike.

Peddlers roamed the streets, calling out, carrying cheese, fruit, nuts...some balancing large baskets on top of their heads. Artisans were hawking beautiful local pottery of all shapes and designs. We strolled through the markets, avoiding the peddlers pushing their carts of produce through the narrow, crowded cobblestone streets.

We enjoyed the local city transportation of a carriage pulled by two high trotting horses.  One evening we saw a beautiful bride, dressed in traditional white, sitting in a white carriage pulled by two white horses, I suppose on her way to her wedding. We had to squeeze against the wall to avoid being brushed by this taxi that was hugging our side of the street in order to pass the motorized taxi coming down the opposite side of the street.

The people of Nicaragua are very friendly, quick to smile and respond to questions. The teen-agers are as most teens everywhere. They are self conscious, self centered and, for the most part, ignored us adults. We saw them everywhere, dressed in uniforms of white and blue, lugging backpacks, walking in twos or threes. They laugh easily. I wonder how aware they are of the changes flooding into their country. They now live with the old, but the new is steadily arriving. Tourists were glued to their I Pads or cell phones, comfortably connected to what is familiar to them. I saw no Nicaragua teens  texting or tweeting or shutting out the sounds of the streets by I Pods. They were talking to each other, side by side, walking into a world that will be forever changed by the time they struggle to find a job in a country beginning to fill with computers, cell phones and a less leisurely pace.

It was refreshing to turn back the clock for a time, without our computer or phone, and soak in the warmth of a people who enjoy their families, one another, and, on occasion, the strange wanderers from another land who touch their lives for a brief moment.

We said hello to Granada for too brief a time, but that time had a healing effect on two stressed-out Americans from the "unheard of" state of South Dakota. Olla and adios to all we met. Thank you for the few days we shared with you.