We spent the day at Charlie’s house, just up the road from us.
His grand-daughter Bailey was with us for a little while, it’s always a joy to see her and watch her grow up.
A very relaxed day of cooking and eating, with Penny & Charlie, and Tim arriving with a delish apple pie.
A small gathering of chosen family, just the way I like it.
Charlie, Bailey, & Penny
Mateel Aikido celebrated 25 years of training on November 20-21, with Frank Doran Shihan. Black belts arrived from as far away as Alaksa, Oregon, and all over California. There were 49 people on the mat training at the Beginning’s Octagon in Briceland!
Mateel Aikido 25th Anniversary Gathering
Some of the Sensei’s relaxing a bit!
Michael Friedl, Frank Doran, and Russel Wisby
The potluck was fabulous, and also a birthday party for Frank Doran. What a great bunch of people and what an honor to Russel and Forrest Kan and the rest of the Mateel Aikido dojo to be honored with such a full house. A great weekend!
More photos online at Mateel Aikido’s Facebook page.
I missed spring, summer and most of the fall. It is now winter, with rain and gray days, running the generator way too much as there isn’t enough solar to keep our small system going.
I haven’t been off the land to town in over 44 days now! Thank the goddess for internet as it seems to be my main social contact. I try to phone someone every few days, but talking on the phone is just not my thing. And my throat / voice has been stressed and strained and talking just makes me cough more.
I am now on day 3 of antibiotics (AGAIN) for the tickle – wake – me – up all night cough – all day cough, that developed as I was finally getting rid of the ‘end of summer colds’. I obviously have something going on that is causing this, (bacterial infection?) but no diagnosis.
I want to wax eloquently about how great a garden we had this year, we actually made tomato sauce to can last week end. I picked off 4 large flats of green and pink tomatoes to ripen off the vine. We dug some red potatoes a couple days ago that were just sooo goood. (carrots too) and peppers. I have 10 good sized butternut squash to store for the winter, and several acorns to eat up. I love being able to go into the garden to determine what’s for dinner, but those days are over for this season.
November is just around the corner. Russel’s Aikido school, Mateel Aikido will be celebrating 25 years this month. There is a big retreat planned for the weekend of Nov 19 – 21, with Sensei Frank Doran headlining. There is a Mateel Aikido facebook page that one of the students put up, that you can check out.
I have been dreaming of a warm sunny relaxing massage filled sauna taking swimming several times a day eating only good food retreat with mountain views. Just a few days (maybe more!) to detox, relax, and rejuvenate. Maybe southern California, as I need to get my passport redone before I can go to Mexico. But this is just a dream at this point.
Election in few days.. will be interesting to see where the ‘collective we’ end up with regards to Prop 19, CA governor, and some local issues.
Russel started working back at the schools on last week, by Wednesday (Sept 13) he came home with fever and chills which launched into a full on sinus & head cold.
I managed to keep feeling good until Sunday, the 18th, when a cough started and by Monday I was full on into a head cold as well.. and still today. All the usual aliments, stuffy nose, running like a faucet, sinus head ache, coughing, sneezing and feeling miserable.
This is just a bit much to take on heels of just getting over by 70 day bout with coughing. We also had a brief weather change in there a few days of gray cloudy weather and rain on Monday.
Today if was foggy all morning and now the sun has appeared, seems we are in the middle of Indian Summer .. with the full Harvest Moon just yesterday along with the Fall Equinox… changes coming. I just wish I felt better as there is soooo much to do.
OH and by the way Facebook is down today! My connection to the world, at least I can keep talking here, but really don’t know how many of my friends actually check this site out?? So if you do come by, please drop me a note, ok?
My birthday was September 11, hard to believe I just turned 58! I really never thought I would get to be this old.
After many years of not much ‘fun’ for birthdays, this year I really wanted to have some out-of-the-ordinary fun..for me at least. Thankfully I felt good and much of my energy had returned after the months long cough issues.
We started the day going out to Ferndale, coastal farming town for the town-wide yard sale. It was a sunny pleasant day and we wandered, didn’t really find any ‘great flea market finds’ but had a nice time looking.
We did stroll into Abraxas, and a pair of leather boots caught my eye. Ok so your thinking, ‘Oh she likes shoes’, well only in that having ones that fit and are comfortable are hard for me to find. I am a hard foot to fit, always have been and I have been looking for years (yes years) for a pair of flat, leather, booties that are comfortable..and ta da!
I wore these shoes a week later to town for an all day shopping errand day, and felt like I was walking on a cloud. I just love them! And it is a big deal to me, as my other booties are 15 years old and worn out, and the only other shoes that I can even wear are SAS, which are really ugly.
Then we had great pancakes at the Main Street Cafe and then headed to Eureka for a few errands. We drove home through the redwoods along the Avenue of the Giants and stopped for awhile in Founders Grove communing with some big trees.
Then it was on to the Briceland Volunteer Fire Department BBQ & Boogie at Beginnings.
This was an event to raise money for our watersheds local fire department, these are the friends and neighbors who will show up at your place if you have a fire, and it’s all volunteer. So many generations of friends and neighbors were there, good music, good food and more than anything boogie-ing with our neighbors. It was really fun.
So all in all that was one of the best birthdays I have had in a long time. And it was also especially nice in that it was the only ‘summer fun’ I had since I felt better from the ‘cough’.
The garden is in full harvest mode, so what energy I have is going there.
Haven’t had time to work this site theme or any other Word Press projects right now.
We did harvest many of our tomatoes:
And we canned up 7 pints. We used the cold pack – 60 min water bath method.
Russel also made some fresh tomato sauce, which was so good, I am tempted to harvest and or buy more tomatos and can up some pints of that.
We have also eaten corn (so sweet and fresh), we have eggplant almost ready, and the peppers are really turning red. Cukes and squash are still producing, as is the salad bed. I love eating fresh organic food.. makes all the work worth it!
Doesn’t seem to have any problems that I have found yet.
I will need to do some major reconfiguring of content and php templates to use the new Twenty-10 theme, so that will be the next push.
Testing a upload photo now: Michael Franti
Today I went out to pick some dill head and leaf.. and found a least seven black swallowtail caterpillars on my dill plant! Guess they love dill, and I am mostly done with it so they can eat it. I hope they form their chrysalis close by so I can watch that transformation.
Next year I will plant more dill and some fennel to bring them into the garden.
Here’s another site with some good butterfly info: butterflies
I was picking the dill for another round of squash pickles, because we have just too much squash! I canned up 7 pints this time.
I have been making Pesto every couple of days, and freezing about 2 cups with each run. I figure I have at least 7 runs (6 cups packed leaf) left to do. And we figure we can eat pesto every week all winter and until harvest next year starts! What a treat that is.
Our tomato plants are 6 feet tall! Lots of just now starting to ripen toms. We will also be canning tomatoes, quartered & cold pack way I think. Russel will be helping me with that!
Blueberries started coming into the Farmers Market in the middle of July, I have been buying lots to eat as this is the only time of year we get them and I like to buy local. I also found a great new recipe for blueberry -zucchini bread that I like way better than the one I used to use with raisins. It’s been quite a hit with everyone.
Our garden is doing really great. We have watermelons (not harvested yet), and tons of winter squash on the vine. The lettuce is still producing and I just put in more starts. We have enough summer squash and cucumbers to eat all we want, the peppers are big and still green, I am waiting for them to turn red to pick. Lots of work, but worth it to eat good organic food that you grew.
