Homeness

So, I forage and write this blog for fun.  It's my diversion, my getaway from real life.

I love my life and wouldn't have it any other way...but it's sort of complicated.

I spent a long time in school.  A very long time.  I studied chemistry and biology and genetics and thankfully, a lot of botany.  I ended up with a bunch of degrees and a tittle that I used for awhile, but in the end, it was all sort of a waste.

I'd been living in Montana and had to come back to the 'ancestral home' to care for my mother, who suffers from Alzheimer's.  It's a tough disease, but she is a tougher woman and she has fought the good fight, now she gets to rest and I get to help her. 

I've watched a lot of things being born in my life.  I've watched a lot of things die as well.   Some deaths are hard and make you're heart swell with pain.  Others seem sort of clinical.  But there's always respect and a certain sanctity involved as someone bleeds their  very essence, out to join the rest of the energy of the Universe.

Oh, enough deep thoughts.

I'm fortunate, that even though this is California, I still live in the 'sticks'.  21 acres of pretty much nothing. No cable, still have dial-up, water comes from a well.  There's a bar in town and a post office.  I have to go to another town for groceries.

It's an oak woodland area, with large outcroppings of granite.  Occasionally you find the grinding holes the early people used to grind acorns on the rocks.

I live here with an assortment of animals.

Chickens, ducks and geeses, for meat and eggs:

I only have two dogs, but I care for the neighbors two dogs.  (The neighbors don't believe dogs need to come in at night, get fed on a regular basis, or go to the vet.)  Oh, let's face it.  I guess I have four dogs.


My 'lil sqeeze cheese' Veeta:

Wally, a rescued Catahoula:

And Zeena and Bella (the two freeloaders)

One cat, whose name is uh...'Cat'.

I lost a mare last year, 'Bouncing Betty' to moon-blindness.  That leaves me with two.
Chief the clown:

And 'Emma the Spoiled'

The occasional beef cow, goat or sheep comes through as well, but they are strictly transitory.

For a living, I raise medicinal herbs, but I don't make much money at it.  If you can consider it a job I shill things like laundry detergent and health insurance on television   Yep, I'm a sell-out.  A commercial actress.  Don't hold it against me, a girls' gotta make a living ;)  Yes, it's a long way from the halls of academia, but it works for now.

So that's it.  It's sort of the short hand for what goes on around here.  There's lots of shoveling poop, lots of chores, lot's of laughter, lots of heartache.  But it's a life.