Changes

So, my dear Molly has moved out. She's taken a 6-month internship at Earthaven Ecovillage in North Carolina. She's blogging about it at On the Wing. Sounds delightful--I can understand why she doesn't ever want to come back to the Midwest. :/

So now it's gonna be just me and my part-time kid at the Little House. When my daughter's not around, I'll be living by myself, with no roommate, family, or "domestic partner" (not a very romantic term), for the first time EVER. I'm tempted to change it to Little Hermitage in the Ghetto!

HERMIT is a name now given to men who live alone in remote places, because they do not like to be around other people. Sometimes they become hermits because they do not like to work. Hermits seldom are neat. They usually have long hair and beards.

There have been also, from very early times, men who left their towns to give their time to God in solitude. Elijah and John the Baptist are examples.

The solitary worshiper, or hermit, is a feature of many religions. In the East, especially in India, devout men go off into the wilderness, where they sit and think or pray for days at a time. Usually they are thin and gaunt, for they eat little.

World Book Encyclopedia, 1965

Sounds kinda like me--except for the thin and gaunt part! Thought, famous hermits have been known to survive on graveyard weeds (Otman Baba) and nettle soup (Milarepa), and there's enough dandelion greens, garlic mustard, and lamb's quarters to feed me for a while.


Anyway, recent activities at the Little House include getting the mushroom logs situated in places where the mycelia will be comfortable. Reishi logs go into large clay flowerpots, upright, nestled into wet sand. Saralin suggested keeping a paper bag over the exposed top of the log. Hmm, I should probably check the moisture level in the sand sometime.


I've been harvesting lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) to dry for tea; and plenty of lamb's quarters (Chenopodium album) to eat as greens in eggs, salad, stir fry, and to dry for later use. Also, between bouts of Spring thunderstorms, uprooting asters to keep them from spreading even more. I'm seriously considering sheet-mulching huge portions of the yard, just to keep the asters down, and then I can at least sow desirable no-mow groundcovers in the sheet mulch.


I planted seed potatoes that Molly had prepped before she left, and mulched 'em with mower clippings and weeds from around the tater beds. I LOVE the free, nutrient-rich, mulch-at-hand!


Saralin, Julian, and their acquaintance Drew (whom I've not met yet) have dropped off small piles of firewood, starting to fill up the woodshed again before I've even cleaned it out from last year's wood. I'm ever so pleased to have free firewood delivered for free!!!


My temp job, which was JUST RIGHT for me, has dried up after a year and a half. I still work as a simulated patient at SIU School of Medicine, but that's not gonna be nearly enough to pay the mortgage. :( So I'm trying to decide between cube work and cloud work.


Also, thanks to Ran Prieur, I've been reading a lot of posts from Steve Pavlina. At minimum, it's encouraging and inspiring material for me to soak up in this time of transition. At best, maybe I'll actually discover my true life purpose, cultivate burning desire, develop the courage to live consciously, and become an early riser.