Summer Sunday

Do you know how to work?

I never really thought about it until recently, but there really are very few people of my age and whatnot that know how to put in a full day's labor. And I do mean labor. It's a very strange thought to me.

I was just sitting here, gulping down some ice water and putting yet more sunblock on my shoulders, and feeling guilty because it's 7 pm and I should still be outside working. Dad is mowing hay, a hot and weary job, and who knows where Alex and Allie are. Working somewhere, I know. I'm going to go find them.

But it suddenly occured to me to wonder, what are all of my friends doing today? If they're in summer classes, it's just another day of sitting somewhere and studying. If they aren't, well, what do regular people do on summer Sundays? I really don't know.

We work from the time we get up to the time dark falls, or thereabouts. Dropping, tetting, and baling hay always means sore backs and aching muscles, but it has to be done. There are gardens to plow, horses to train, plants to seed, raise, transplant, water, and weed. There is fence to build, which is what we were doing today, and a barn to finish building. Sheds to paint, ducks to raise (they hatch next week!), and wood to load. There was also a tractor to tame and a skid-steer to learn to use. I mowed our estwhile yard with the tractor at first, trying to wrest it back from the woods that had claimed it for so long, and then today I smoothed it with the zero-turn mower. The rocks almost won. There are also people to feed, three times a day, groceries to get, laundry to do, and a house to keep clean when the sweaty people come in every night and fall into bed exhausted. Tomorrow, being a holiday, will be more of the same.

And that's not the half of it. My point is, does anybody else work? What do people do during a summer weekend at home? Does it look anything like mine? Does anybody want to come and help me? Haha...

Herbs Galore

AMAZING.

There's probably a bit of blasphemy in this statement somewhere--but truly, I believe that if there's any real magic in the world, it's in the kitchen. Pure witchcraft. Oxymoron, maybe, but true nontheless.

We built some raised beds tonight, for the plethora of herbs that I picked out yesterday. My aunt Carol runs a greenhouse, and she always plants more than she can use or sell. It's a good thing. Yesterday, she told me to run wild and take anything I wanted. I was SO EXCITED.

I ended up with multiple packs of wild rosemary, california rosemary, large-leaf basil, sweet oregano, spicy basil, sweet marjorum, two different types of thyme, dillweed plants, cilantro/coriander, red sage, blue african basil, three types of peppers  (jalepeno, habanero, and green), wild spearmint, lavender, and two tomato plants--cherry and grape. All for my raised herb beds.

Wild. When I said I was excited, I meant it.

In retrospect, if I wasn't so set on getting my M.D., I would love to do nothing more than travel the world, finding new spices and learning new recipes and new styles of cooking, and then come home to feed people. And then go out and do it again. I wouldn't set up a restaurant, because that type of cooking gets old, but still...I love it.

I would kill to get my hands on those.

In a second retrospectionishness thought, I'd probably get fat. So maybe it's a good thing I only have one life.

(Last February, an acquaintance was asking what to get his girlfriend for Valentine's Day. I said, get her a pretty red pot and stick a nice rosemary plant in it. You want some color, add some african basil and a thyme plant. Can't lose with that, right?  More useful than a potted flower and doesn't die like a bunch of roses. Unless you really are a plant-killer. I don't know if he ever did it--but he should've.)

Cooking is great. You might not even think about it being something special, but it is magic, just a little. You throw a bunch of random things into a wok, and you get something totally unique and amazing out of it. That's all magic is supposed to be, right? Changing one thing into another? Getting more out of something than the sum of the whole? Creating?

Whatever it is, it makes me happy.

Also, because I like you so much, I'm going to give you a really reaaallllly simple recipe that a child could make; but it tastes better than anything you'll get at a restaurant.

This is not actually the recipe, but it looks close.

1 bunch asparagus, cut into 1-inch pieces. (the way you get the tough part off, before you cut them, is to hold the end and the middle, and bend until it breaks itself. Throw the end away. Some people actually don't already know this.)

1 1/2 cups cherry/grape tomatoes, sliced in half
1 good-sized clove of garlic. Don't be a shrinking violet, it makes it much better.
3-4 TB balsalmic vinegar
2 TB olive oil
dash of lemon juice (use a lemon.)
salt and pepper

fresh basil cut into strips
sundried tomato and basil feta

Put the asparagus in a skillet with about an inch of water. I usually add McKay's chicken seasoning to it, and some salt. Let it go until it's tender but not mushy, around 3 minutes of boiling, give or take. Drain it and put it in your serving dish.

The next set of ingrediants all go into another pan. Cook them about five minutes, until soft and yummy. Don't let them burn! Layer them over your asparagus.

Sprinkle the feta and basil on top. It's really pretty, and super tasty. I...think I may go hunt up some asparagus now. Enjoy!

Sand Song

This was supposed to be two paragraphs. Well, the best laid plans...

A long time ago, farther back than the living memory of the oldest trees that stand above the rocky cliffs, and after the birth of the great boulders that now form the smallest grains of sand, there was no music in the sea.

The shores were silent. The waters rose and fell, following the pull of the moon, but they did so quietly, barely stirring the shells on the tide lines. The gulls fished, but they did not have the heart to cry out. The breeze thought it a sad place, and left the sand lying where it had been for countless years.

Poseidon did not know what music was, and so the ocean lay quietly. There was no joy in the sea because there was no joy in his cold heart, in the shifting shadows where he stayed deep under the waves. He might have discovered it had he ventured to the shore, for there were people who possessed the gift of song there, but he did not. Instead, he brooded deep in his weedy palace, and ignored the edges of his kingdom.

A young man lived within sight of the great expanse of blue water, and his greatest joy was to spin music from his violin. In the evenings, when the day's work was over, he would go sit by the sea, in a secluded cove, and play to it.

As he did so, he noticed that the water would often begin to hiss over the sand, echoing the rhythm he set with his songs. A gull or two, flying in to listen, would give a racous cry in time to the music. Once, finally, as he threw his heart and soul into his music, a wave crashed onto the shore in counterpoint, rushing up the beach and drenching him where he sat, before receding. He thought it was glorious.

The man loved bringing life and movement into the ocean he knew so well, and year after year, he grew increasingly skilled, able to coax more and more from the waves, which now swept in and out of his cove rhythmically, regularly, to the cry of gulls and the sigh of the wind as it stirred the sand, accompanying the beautiful sounds he drew out of the wood of his worn instrument. Soon was added to this the melody of laughter, as first his children, and then his grandchildren, came to race along the beach and chase the waves up and down the cove.

But the man was growing old, and he know that when he died, this gift would be lost. And so he made up his mind that he would take the gift of music, and present it to Poseidon.

Bidding goodbye to his family, he tucked the violin under his arm one last time and began to row out to sea. The waves lapped around him, the only movement on that vast smooth surface, as he made his way out beyond sight of land. He stopped rowing and looked around, alone.

The old man knew that Poseidon would not hear a voice as small as his. It was an impossible task he had set for himself, and yet he felt that his gift was worth any cost. And so he lifted up his old violin and began to play as if it were the last time. He threw his entire soul into the song, and such was his skill that soon the waves began to build into mountains around him, foam flying off of them and spray filling the air, driven by the tempest that strove to match the voice of the instrument in his hands. The breakers echoed the slowing beat of his heart as they began to surge in rhythm, and so when the violin finally dropped from the old man's lifeless hands, it was if his heart and the song continued, blended into one melody carried by the storm.

What the old man's one small voice could not do, the sea did for him. The ocean found its voice in the storm he raised with his music, and it carried even to the darkness where Poseidon rested. And he roused himself, and rose to hear this strange thing that had come about by another hand than his. He heard the wild music and felt the power in the dance of the waves, and he was moved by them. He looked at the ocean as he had never done before, and he saw the beauty of a world where the sea moved and sang with a never-ceasing rhythm.

But it was still a mystery to him, how to make this music, and so he dove deep, questing for the thing that had brought this about. He found the violin resting in a bed of sand and seaweed, its polished wooden surface reflecting the shadowing play of light on the moving waters far above, and it was beautiful.

With one finger, Poseidon plucked a string. The note pleased him in its watery resonance, and so he plucked it again and again, matching the surge of the waves that still echoed to the beat of the old man's heart; and as he did so, the water along all the shores began to ebb and flow in concert with the sound. This pleased him even more, and so he ran his webbed fingers along two string. The sound was discordant, but it fell into place with the first, and the gulls heard it and rejoiced, screaming their approval  over the rocky coastline. And Poseidon heard the beginnings of music that he had created, and he was joyful.

He is not a man as we know men, but it was in him to feel gratitude for this gift. And so he took the barest tip of a finger and brushed it along the highest and smallest strings, and the wind along the shore began to play in the dunes. It is so faint that you cannot always hear it, but if you listen closely, the melody that the old man was most fond of still echoes along the shore. It is wild and gentle, with the promise of a storm to come, backed by the wash and ebb of the pounding surf and the cry of gulls. When it stirs the dunes, the sands whisper the Prayer for the Dead and the waves still crash in the rhythm of the old man's heart.

Poseidon keeps the violin always by his side, playing upon it the melodies that became the music of the sea. Most of the time it is a gentle song, but sometimes he sits for too long in the darkness of the deepest seas, and then he plays the same wild song that he heard when he first knew that there was music in the world. And the waves crash and pound, and the wind shrieks along with him, until he grows calm again, and the sea grows calm with him.

Stolen Love Song

How do you fight the lie that you've been leading
When the shame of giving in feels as natural as breathing?
You can't remember how it feels to say no
To the dark thing that grips you--can't seem to
Let it go

So if I give in, I trust that I'll be covered
With the strength of my father and the courage of my mother
Save me from the darkness, with dawn--
Send me back to war on the wings of a love song

We watch the rain fall, washing all the colors
From standards that I took up when we lost sight of each other
The storm shows the way this battle has to go
But how do you win when defeat is the
Only thing you know?

So if I give in, Lord help me recover
Lift me up on the stormclouds where you hover
Banish all the darkness--at dawn,
Send me to war wielding the steel of a love song

So it's back on my feet now, and I'll go again...
This battle isn't nearly done.

So if I give in, you'll be my shield and cover
I trust you'll pull me up, and we'll fight shoulder to shoulder
Piercing through the darkness--with dawn,
Set the world on fire with the truth
Of a love song.

Aggravatarianationismalist

So this page decided that it was going to take some of the interesting things people said about the tornado story, and delete them. Consequently, we're not talking. I was upset.

In other news, Ronny shot off his cannon again. This time, we loaded it with a softball. It was fun.

What wasn't quite as fun was that, the next morning, the neighbor found the softball in his yard. Which doesn't seem like a big deal until you realize that he lives two ridges, one field, and over a mile away from where we shot the cannon. Which wasn't pointed at optimum range height, and was only loaded with a cup of black powder, instead of the 2 pounds it can handle. Oh, cripes. I would have been really angry if I'd've been that neighbor.

We also hatched 9 baby chicks about the time I got home from florida. They were adorable, as small fluffy things generally are, but they were getting noisy and smelly and taking up too much room. Interestingly enough, we had a hen also hatch babies at the same time, and we're keeping her in an old playhouse that's now a chicken nursery. Someone got the bright idea of putting ours in with hers.

I'll admit, I wasn't too thrilled about it. I thought she'd peck them to death.

We hauled them out there anyway and tossed a couple chicks into the building. She fluffed up in her corner, but all of her babies ran out in front of her to get a good look at us. They're passing curious, for wild critters. Anyway, ours looked at her, and then one of them took off, straight across the hay, and burrowed in with her babies, right under her. I don't normally say this, but it was absolutely precious. She craned her neck and looked very confused and uncertain, but she didn't object too much. So we turned them all loose, and...with a little coaxing, the mama has 17 babies she calls her own.

It's sort of funny at night, though, because there isn't room enough under her for all of them. They sort of go in and out of her feathers, like penguins fighting to be at the center of the huddle in the Arctic. But they look safe and happy. Success!

Tornado

It was a bit of an extraordinary day.

First, I was up before the sun even thought about rising, studying with all my remaining energy for the hardest final of my college life--incidentally, also the last final of my undergraduate career. I was so busy cramming I missed breakfast, which always makes for a grumpy girl at ten in the morning. And I was even late (and wet) for the final, because my trash can fell over by the road and I had to pick it up. But the test went well.

It was a beautiful day, at first. Lots of fast-moving clouds, sun breaking through. My kind of gloriously windy day. The unusual thing about it was that we had five tornado sirens in the next two hours, with sheets of rain coming and going. We went into school for one or two of them, and stayed put until almost five--but that got old.

I finished my last paper and went home. Tina Kyle was sleeping on our couch, Mandy was watching a movie, and I started cleaning. Big weekend, this one is--can't have a smelly trash can when family comes! Nothing extraordinary there!

My little brother called me about half past six. Said there was a bad bit of storm showing up on the radar, coming our way, and we should go into school. I (frankly) scoffed and said we were wasting time, running from phantasms. It was a little stormy, but nothing terribly threatening. So we stayed.

Ten minutes later, we get a frantic call from Ryan, Tina's boyfriend. I can even hear him over the speaker--"Where are you? How do I get there? There's a tornado forming over the duckpond, and it's coming your way!"

We all just stop, for a moment--I'm thinking, no, it's so unlikely--but he says that he's just ahead of it, and it's following him. I know there's no way out of our valley (just Talent Road), and I can't see leaving it. I thought he was crazy and shouldn't come, but there's no rational involved when you're afraid for someone you love, is there? Not unless you're a certain kind of person. But I digress.

We're watching out the front door of our mobile home, which faces the valley. The clouds are whipping past, really low, and I know that if there's something coming, it'll be from the left and ahead of us. The wind is rising so fast, in the moment that it takes for Amanda to try and explain where in Grindstone we live. I'm just making aimless movements, not sure of what we can do, watching, watching...

All of a sudden, as Mandy peers out the front door, she suddenly says, "Oh God, the clouds are moving the other way!" I dash over next to her, and it's true--the sky is suddenly, sickly green--I remember thinking, I always thought they made that part up--and the clouds on our left are headed right, but the clouds on the right are being sucked into ragged long lines as they race left, right in front of us--not like they're being driven by the wind, but compelled by it. I was so bewildered because it just looked wrong, like nothing I'd ever seen.

All of those storm clouds racing right and the dark tendrils being sucked to the left converged, in those few seconds, into one black tangle that just felt evil. I know that it's not, that the wind is dispassionate and has no anger or hatred, but it was purely menace, and I was suddenly and completely aware of where I was, and how flimsy it was, and how stupid I was and that if anything happened to the girls with me, I would never forgive myself because I had chosen to stay.

 I stared straight ahead, out of the door, and suddenly, it was right there, in the dark in front of us, perhaps a quarter mile away. Dark, rotating mass that was like nothing I'd ever seen. At first I couldn't make myself believe it was there, but it got bigger so fast I can't even describe it. One moment it wasn't, and the next it was.

We ran for the bedroom, for the far side of Alex's bed. Al and I had made this plan, in the unlikely event we were ever in trouble--crouch between the desk and bed, pull the top mattress over. Not that that would help much, us being in a mobile home, but as futile as it was, we knew exactly what to do.

Tina was freaking out, as much for Ryan as for us. We shoved her against the bed, with Mandy and me on either side. The wind started howling, and the noise just kept doubling. I heard things hitting the trailer, and things cracking all around us.

I've been hyperaware of certain sounds, during all these storms we've had this spring. You know, always wondering if that long, low peal of thunder is something else. You remember. But when I heard this--there's no mistaking that noise. And it doesn't sound like a "freight train"--that's entirely too wussy of a description. It's more like...like all the sound in the world is being ripped from its source and sucked into one place, like into a vacuum, and spit out at once--or if a giant groaned in pain and never stopped.

Actually, the closest noise I can think of is in the end of Zorro, when they slow the sound of the explosion down--it just sounds like a vortex pulling huge amounts of wind into it. Which, I guess, is exactly what it is. I had Alex on the phone at this point, and I was trying to tell him what was going on. I don't think he understood--or maybe he did, because one minute he's asking what's going on, and then the next he's all loud and cheerful, like "It's probably nothing, you'll be fine." I told him, "Al. I can see it. I can hear it. It's here." And he got quiet. I told him I'd call him back, and I hung up.

It got louder. The only thing I could think was to wonder if I'd blown out the candles in the living room, and if all of my plants were knocked off the porch. I was also hyperaware of the trailer floor under my hands, expecting it to start shaking--when it did, I was just like, Crap. We're really in trouble now.

The entire house started shaking, and I thought, There is literally nothing I can do. I should have listened to Alex. I had one hand on Amanda, and one on Tina...and then, you just stop thinking, because thinking doesn't do any good. You simply wait, and react.

It came closer and got louder--and then it didn't. It's like a pressure on your ears, when you think it will always be there, but suddenly, your ears pop and you realize it's gone. Just like that. I was so surprised that it was gone, all that noise, gradual until you wondered if you had dreamed it. The house quieted down and stopped moving, and I remembered to breathe again. I looked down and was surprised that my hands were shaking, along with my voice. I was a little ashamed of that, later. We looked out the front door, and trees were down everywhere. But the sky was clear and the rain was the only sound.

You guys have seen pictures by now, I'm sure. The tornado that ripped through our valley, just below our park didn't take any lives, although the one that passed behind a little over an hour later did, and devastated Apison. We left and by the time it hit, were safely hidden across the highway, in a sturdy house in a valley where we should have been in the first place.

I heard someone got a picture of the tornado over us. If I find it, I'll share. There were seven in the Chattanooga area altogether; this is the one that hit Apison.